Have the rules for small unit tactics skill checks to increase a group's initiative been officially updated for SR4?

The active skill no longer exists. I don't know if that means it's coming up in future releases.

Small Unit Tactics is now a Specialization for the Leadership skill. I was hoping the rules had been folded into it but couldn't find anything.

Honestly, given that the revisions deliberately vanished any non-enhanced chance of an IP greater than 1, I think they would also have seen the uses of this skill as a hole to be plugged. (I used it too.)

Yeah, they appear to have nixxed it. They probably consider the "Professionalism rating" AKA Edge to be adequate for things like that. A sudden burst of inspiration leading to a devious tactic could certainly fall under Edge use, after all.

it might still be used, just not for increasing IPs. that really never made much sense anyway.

Well, I allow players in my group to roll leadership as assistance. I.e. hits add to led runner's dice pool in next action if following lead. Of course, the leadership roll is a skill use so takes up an action. -"Run for the exit, Cross! Blackhand, take out those drones! " Roleplaying the queue adds a lot to the game too. It is not much, but at least it has a place in the rules-crunch.

Just my 0,2

Cheers,
Max

It seems to me that it would be pretty easy to come up with a mechanic for this within the current system.

Something that encorporates the mods for AR (BBB p.208) would be cool, like maybe roll your SUT Skill + Intuition modified by AR and each hit adds +1 to your initiative total. This is kind of how I envisioned Battletac in SR3 anyway.

I agree with the two above posters. The simple solution would be to have the tactics skill be allowed as a teamwork test for the next round of initiative. It would of course require a complex action (Use Skill). The trick is to define a set of bonuses and penalties. Even for that there are some simple things that can already be borrowed such as the AR mods mentioned above, and things like visibility modifiers. Something for communication should be included also...

I agree too, but we stick to RAW whenever possible. If they happen to reprint the rules I'll pick up a skillsoft for the base skill if I don't have it already.

I would say that what I suggested is RAW. RAW was designed to be flexible. It indicates how teamwork tests go, that tactics exists as a specialty, and all you have to do is fill in the holes. Consider it like running the Matrix.

Just to clarify something - strategy and tactics are both specializations of the leadership skill, and were in SR3, too. Small unit tactics was originally a knowledge skill (the SR3 street samurai archetype had it), until Cannon Companion introduced it as a special active skill.

Probably worth noting: the rules for AR modifers (inset box on page 208) explicitly state:

Thanks, I hadn't noticed that. I'll see about setting up something like that for my teammates. It could be especially useful in the even of a surprise attack, since my 19 perception dice are unlikely to be snuck up on, but nobody else has near that level of awareness.