I saw the discussion on the Dealing With Low Body thread, and so I decided to make this.

I don't really know what to say, so I'll let you all start.

P.S.: Sorry for being unable to think of anything to say...

You mean "don't die for your country. Make your enemie die for his"? Or do you want Chalemagne tactics and Sun Tzu quotes?

Well, I had some interesting ideas for my sam/bike rigger.

Fun with grapple guns mounted on hardpoints:

1. Attach yourself to people's rear bumpers. Basically "skitch".
2. Grab pedestrians (or targets) and drive around slamming them into stuff.
3. Use monowire instead of grapple line and lariat them.

THOSE are what I call tactics.

Pretty much my stock answer for whenever this question comes up - hey if it works, why change it? - so I'll point you to these two articles, Small Unit Tactics Part 1 and Small Unit Tactics Part 2 since they have some good ideas and cover the basics. Enjoy.

here's a nugget of wisdom. if you're covered by invisibility, and your teammates are getting chewed up by the opposition, fire your goddamn gun at something.

Over-estimating my enemy means I won't go on a run today.

Death on the run or death by starvation. Your choice, omae.

It's pathetics that it has to even be brought up, but so many people just don't get it.

If you're not being paid to make a mess, don't make one.

The less signs of your passage you leave, the less the follow-up investigators have to go on. The fewer bodies you leave in your wake, the less public attention you draw, the less property you damage all mean less motivation for your victims to come after you.

Dead men do tell tales, it's called forensic science.

Good idea: Hiding behind cover.
Bad idea: Using fuel cans as cover.

Good idea: Reading the CLUE files.
Bad idea: Being in a CLUE file.

Good idea: Using the troll as a bullet shield.
Bad idea: Using the otaku as a bullet shield.

Good idea: Throwing grenades.
Bad idea: Throwing the pin.

Had a recent blast with the whole "Toy and gismo" department.

Get a decent SMG, HK series for preference.
Attach a grapple gun (Under).
Re-inact batman.

Or in the "Ouch, nasty" scheme of things -

Give modified gun to Troll. Use troll to open doors from 100 m away.
Then watch as the people behind the door realise that the modified gun is actually a grenade launcher.
Invoke "chunky salsa effect" and wade through after.

But that's becasue I'm a "Bastard DM" TM.


L;

Tactical Edge. If you can get your hands on this book it can change the way runs are forever ran in your game. My brother had an oppurtunity to acquire this and many of the other training manules the local law enforcement officers use for training.

This book covers everything the officer does from the second he gets the call to when he aprehneds a perp, to if the need swat is needed.

In another volume they cover SWAT tactics.

In the first book it also covers negotiations, which is a real eye opener to any one who thinks they one day get caught up in a situation like that.

It even shows the ways many perps have tried to take up police, so they know how to look for the attempts. Like when an officer has the perp with his hands on the hood of the car and the perp has hi legs spread out bacwards, the officer would stradle one of the perps legs and begin to frisk him. The perp would purposely outstrentch himself as far as he could so when the officer would frisk him, the perp could drop prone wrap his legs around one of the officers legs and roll over throwing the officer to the ground were the perp could then get on top of the police officer.

Also most people don't know that (a cop friend showe this to me) a police officers gun is held in a special holster, that if the person trying to pull the gun is not in the right angel the gun will not come out. SUre the gun will eventually come out with enough wrestling but it will be a lot harder then just yanking out of a cops holster, so I would not try that option as a runner if you want to take a cops gun.

And a little piece of advice I learned back in my youthful days, A cop is only doing his job, it is your ass that is on the line. Meaning if you are in suffiecent enough trouble that running is the only option do as much crazy stuff as you feel you can get away with. I have done some amazingly stupid stuff to avoid being caught, that no cop in his right mind would do just to catch some stupid kids that he will probably catch another day.

Oh and in a bad situation that involves you driving, if shots are fired or you feel you are about to fired upon remember this, Shut up and duck, let the parked cars guide your way. A good piece of advice that came in handy on a few occasions.

And grandma's house makes a great alibia if you have a drunk uncle who hates the "man" living in her basement.

Weapon retention holsters. Nifty things.

If you want to get a better feel for how you're kitting out your runner, surf military/police supply stores online.

I still love the thigh-medical kit rig.

-Siege

If anyone is interested, there are plenty of Army Field Manuals covering things like effective weapons tactics, room clearing scenarios, and urban combat at a squad level. They're pretty good for this sort of thing. Give me an hour, they'll be up.

MOUT (Urban Combat) - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/lib...m/90-10/toc.htm
More MOUT (better one, IMO) - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/lib...0-1/default.htm
Riot tactics - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/lib...m/19-15/toc.htm
Camo, if you want to get all hardcore - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/lib...fm/20-3/toc.htm
Soldier Skills - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/lib...m/21-75/toc.htm

That's all for now folks, there are a lot more at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/lib...policy/army/fm/
.

Enjoy!

MOUT (Urban Combat) - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/lib...m/90-10/toc.htm
More MOUT (better one, IMO) - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/lib...0-1/default.htm
Riot tactics - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/lib...m/19-15/toc.htm
Camo, if you want to get all hardcore - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/lib...fm/20-3/toc.htm
Soldier Skills - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/lib...m/21-75/toc.htm

That's all for now folks, there are a lot more at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/lib...policy/army/fm/
.

Enjoy!

Wow I killed this one!

Nah. Thanks to my lack of how to make a good post, it was a short-lived thread to begin with.

We could start discussing the tactical blunders of tLotR.

-Siege

of course all this is only useful as long as both players and gms use it.

If it's only the gm the campaign will involve a lot of short lived characters.
If it's only the players there will be tons of crying gms asking for help in dealing with "munchkins".

More interesting than the actual real life tactics, would be how do you adapt them to SR rules . Also how useful are things like granades, delaied action , suppressive fire etc. in game?

In LotR II, the Uruk-Hai in front of Helm's Deep were supposedly blinded by the light, like Sigfried mentioned. In LotR III, the combined forces on the fields of Pelennor were supposedly unorganized and, just before the cavalry charged into them, scared shitless.

True enough, charging right into pike formations is an extremely bad idea. But, as stupid as it sounds, I must admit that I thought the rohirrim charge in Pelennor looked really damn cool, both times I saw the film.

As for the actual topic, well, I'm with Diesel on this one.

The flaw in all of that tactical advice is that principle characters in a movie like that are invincible unless dictated by the plot. Therefore a good general always puts his principle characters up front where they can take the greatest advantage of their invincibility. Especially when Superninja Elf Dude and Horse-Rigger Elephantslayerwoman are involved.

Besides, who needs tactics when the Scrubbing Bubbles ghost army hits the battlefield and cleanses it of the enemy like so much soap scum?

I'm not gonna cry foul on the ninja-elf just because I was laughing my fragging ass off the whole time during that exchange.

After the horse stunt in LotR 2, I wasn't sure how the hell they were gonna top it, but the elephant trick was neat.

Of course, I'll forgive all the missed snappy comebacks of Gimli's at Helm's Deep for his one line after the skateboarding trick.

-Siege

Need we add the bit about "if you have a shield on your saddlebow and archers are shooting at you, for frag's sake pull on the shield and block some of those incoming arrows!"

Warhorses are trained to be controlled with just the legs, after all. How else do you think knights went jousting with shield and lance?

Feh...

I'm pretty sure there was a hook for the reins somewhere on plate armours, I'm not sure if it was just to keep them out of the way or if it had some control purposes too.

This thread is hopelessly out of topic

While this is an extremely cheap tactic, if you're a rigger get a VCR 3, a Reaction Booster 6 (Need some alphaware for essence purposes here) and never ever learn any vehicle skills. You'll be rollin 18 die on every vehicle test when rigging and with a VCR 3 the TN penalty for defaulting to reaction is actually -1.

Then if you've got a magical friend along for the run get him to sustain "Improve Cybered Reaction" on you and get anywhere from 2 to 6 more die, not to mention the ungodly initiative you'll have.

But do get gunnery so you can use combat pool with weapons fire, all the reaction in the world doesn't help with firing weapons.

That's probably my biggest gripe with Shadowrun. Defaulting can frequently give you better odds of success than actually having a skill in some situations, particularly when your stats are high, such as Trolls with Athletics tests.

Unfortunately, your control pool is only modified by the VCR increases, and not from anything else. Nice try, though.

Defaulting has nothing to do with your Control Pool. It's Reaction (base 6 +6 from VCR +6 from Reaction Enhancers = 18). The only thing in question is whether or not the Reaction Enhancers work while piloting a vehicle via a VCR, and I don't think they do.

You want good LOTR tactics? Go play some Medieval Total War.

If you want to take down Pikeman, for God's sakes, use your swordsmen. If I tried to charge a Swiss Armoured Pikemen formation with calvary, I would have been laughed off the Ladder Matches. Until the time I charged those pesky SAPs with Spanish Lancers from the flank and wiped out half my opponents army. Then he got laughed off the Ladder after I posted the replay.

Tactical errors of tLOTR. Backstabbing the elves. 'nuff said.

Stupid human's fault it had to go on longer.

well, when it comes to combat, most of the ones I have been in have been outdoors. Not necessarily in the wilderness, but the really good ones were in a junkyard, and at a dock at night.

In both of those situations were were pretty heavily outmatched, in the junkyard by the power of the opposition, and at the docks, we were outnumbered about 4:1. Both situations we came out without casualties because we had a reasonably solid engagement plan, and we were careful.

The biggest thing was preparation beforehand. In the situation at the junkyard, I was able to kill one of the most dangerous members of the enemy team to initiate the fight because we had scouted the junkyard prior, and I had planted like 2kgs of c-12 at the spot that I figured someone would hide, right under the crane. The crane falling occupied another member of that team for 2 full rounds, which allowed us to stumble through the rest of the fight, which ended with me, in a full out sprint away from a free earth elemental whose movement power reduced my speed to precisely the same speed at which he moved, allowing me to exactly retain my 5 meter or so lead on him.

The docks situation, we had the advantage of range, and our enemies being entirely unaware we were there, so we were able to initiate the fight by taking out 4-6 of the more dangerous goons by judicious use of the Simple Action:Aim to mitigate the darkness penalties.


So, this sort of derailed a touch into me yammering about old war stories, so I'll wrap it up with a couple principles of mine.

1: Avoid combat in close quarters

My number one rule, most of my characters involve at least some amount of range in whatever form they use to make the opfor less alive, close range mitigates alot of the advantage the cyber-dude has over the normal thug. Sure, you may only need 2s to hit him at close range, but he probably only needs 4s, 3s if you are standing still.

2: Know all of the combat rules, free, simple and complex actions, and especially know all of the modifiers, or make a little 3x5 with them on it.

Alot of the ranged combat modifiers never see the light of day, and while they can certainly hurt you, you can frequently put them to use. Need to make a getaway while being shot at? Don't forget when you become a running target, your opponents have a +2 to shoot at you. If your gm gets savvy to aiming, then dive behind cover. If you get behind full cover, their actions are wasted, and if you get behind partial cover, its at least another +2 to help mitigate that aiming. Also, don't forget that natural vision is superior to cybered, so remember that before you get a full cybereye package. In full darkness, admittedly rare, natural thermo is only a +2, cyber is +4, and anything else is +8. In the more common minimal light, its still 2 better than cybered. PhysAd gunbunnies especially take note, cause when you buy them as a power, they count as being natural, not cybered.

3: Combat Pool is your friend, conserve it when you have to, but toss it like birdseed when the opportunity presents itself.

My favorite character is the sharpshooter type, who, when given a sport rifle, generally rolls alot of dice against an opponent who is at a severe disadvantage of target numbers. Generally, I never engage unless i'm in partial cover, which means while I may need 4s, he needs 8s. This means that theres a reasonable chance he won't even hit me, which means all of my combat pool can go towards making him dead. I also tend to favor the combat pool stats, so I often have a little bit to spare after making a shot of doom, which helps if you get tagged with 1 or 2 successes

4: Keep it simple stupid!

Optional rules are the devil! Suppressive fire may be cool and handy in alot of situations, but remember, every option you have, npcs have too.

5: Keep it subtle stupid!

Don't blow every modifier and rule and whatnot every time you think of it. If you drag every combat into a multi-hour exercise in Small Unit Tactics, you are going to piss off your gm. He is either gonna start throwing tougher and tougher npcs at you, or he is going to dive headfirst into bogging the game down with you. Either way, its bad juju.

Thats all for now.

I stand corrected. Although I think it should be my way.

"Cat's Eyes" -- they're tiny little safety glow sticks. Snap them and they emit a tiny glow, just enough to trigger night goggles (or so I'm told).

And every runner should carry a trauma patch and a flashlight on general principles.

And two kilos of c-12?

Dude, that would have created such a massive explosion, the rest of the junkyard would have turned into shrapnel, never mind killing the crane.

-Siege

I usually carry duct tape, det-cord, some thermite and my trusty Narcoject pistol.

And on the catseyes thing. That might be a new product that I am unaware of, but I know for a fact they have a LED device that uses watch batteries. Either wat I like those ideas a lot better then a flash light that could get aimed back at me and blind me at a very inopperitune moment. Murphys law demands that it will also.