Tactics is something that is often enough mentioned by dumpshockers.

What exactly are effective tactics in Shadowrun? Most of what I have seen as described as tactics by dumpshockers have involved neat ideas which the GM has allowed to go ahead.

I don't see how any of the neat doo-hickeys in the book actually assist in retaining a tactical advantage or better enacting squad level tactics.

What about group tactics? Can I have someone pin him in a full nelson while I stab him with a stiletto half a dozen times? Can I rig a 105mm artillery shell to detonate using a grenade fuse? How do I cause vehicular manslaughter? What about using a truck to drive a car off the road? What about cover? What about blow through on weapons?

First of all the importance of tactics in SR4 are way down from SR2 and SR3 at least. The reason being that even a minmaxed street sammy cares a lot when their target number jumps up by 6. In SR4 that amounts to their dice pool dropping from the twenties into the high teens and they just don't care much.

Although tactics for the NPCs still make a huge difference. When you have a dice pool of seven losing six dice is pretty brutal. And I suppose by extension if you're up against large numbers of goons getting those penalties set up would be important.

On that note standard wimpy corp guard tactics should be roughly
1. Shoot around corners with smartlinks.
2. Have guys hide in firing positions along where the runners seem to be headed in order to get surprise shots off that the runners can't use dodge against.
3. Geek the mage first

That said tactics is still important when not fighting goons. While ensuring good positions isn't so important, SR4 is still deadly so tactics become more like in real life where it's about getting the first shots off. Sadly doing this well can slow down gameplay.

You can do all the things you asked about though.

A basic example of applying tactics with the SR4 ruleset: wolfpack tactics.

Sam the sammie, with Agility: 7 (and Reaction: 7), and Unarmed Combat: 6 with martial arts specialization and a reflex recorder, for 16 dice all told, faces off against 5 security guards - they are slightly tougher than the usual security guard, with Agility/Reaction: 3 and Unarmed Combat: 3. They also get 4 more dice from the friends in melee bonus. But rolling 10 dice versus Sam's 16 dice, the odds are heavily on them all getting beaten up by Sam.

So they use wolfpack tactics. Whichever guard Sam attacks will use full defense, for a dice pool of 13, while the others will hit and run from the back and sides, getting the +2 charging bonus and the +2 superior position bonus, for a dice pool of 12 - 14 (assuming only one or two can get off a charge, and the rest have to settle for just the superior position bonus). The odds may still be in Sam's favor, but look how much more dangerous the guards became by working together.

One common and effective tactic is to pin down your enemies with one or two people using suppressive fire and have the rest of your group move to a flanking position to catch their enemies out of cover and pinned down.

Using grenades to flush enemies out of cover works well to.

Also keep in mind that your corp sec guards might use teamwork if they are unable to hit their target reliably.

Perhaps the most important thing to consider though is that any profession team will fight on three fronts, matrix, astral, and physical. Keeping the magician and hacker busy greatly reduces a running teams fighting ability, and if the running team doesn't have a magician or a hacker, well then good luck.

Also, one or two guys using stick-n-shock makes all the difference. Even if it doesn't knock the runners out i provides a nasty penalty. Just remember, most corps aren't going to the spend the extra money to have all their guards shooting off half a dozen stick-n-shock every round.

Who needs tactics when you've got grenades?

More seriously, tactics have always been and will stay very important as soon as the combat last longer than 1 combat turn (if not, it's the quick and the dead). It's not just about dice pools: even a sammy with 28 dice won't roll any when trying to shoot someone who's just hidden. I don't think it's possible to list all possible tactics, with magic, ware and various gear the possibilities are nearly endless.

But to list a few that are or should be commonplace:
* First thing to do in battle: get a cover (or jump to the ground if none is available)
* For defenders (guards for example): if the opposition is obviously too much for you (shadowrunners for example), just start the alert and retreat or hide. If you can't, surrender. Now that everyone is alerted they can activate security measures (turrets, deploying stun gas, locking doors and drones) that should take care of the intruders without endangering anyone. If this doesn't work, the guards will set up ambushes rather than go forth to fights the intruders. It's much easier to defend, and if the guards can surprise the runner, the runners won't be able to react faster than them and won't be able to dodge the shots.
* Always send drones to do the job: most of the time they will be at least as efficient, better protected and losing one is far better than losing your life.
* Shooting from a cover with a smartgun, with nearly no negative modifier
* Use of camouflage vests/invisibility spells to be nearly invisible (GiTS style)
* Use of grenades (to each problem its grenade)
* Use of various sensors, drones or spells to see through walls
* Shooting through walls
* SWAT entry methods: breach the door, flashbang the room and clear it (slicing the pie for maximum effectiveness)

Then you've got ugly metagaming tactics, such as the story of the 2 streetsams and the door (don't do this at home kids!):
Sammy and Sammy, two streetsams with 3 initiative passes (works as well with just 1 initiative pass, but it's funnier this way) and a high initiative rating are in front of a door. They know there are some enemies behind the door. Those enemies don't have any initiative/reaction enhancers, but they are sharpshooters with big guns. So here is what they do:
- Combat Turn 1: Sammy opens the door (simple action) and shoots (simple action). Sammy shoots (simple action) and closes the door (simple action). The remaining enemies decide to delay their actions: they want to shoot when one of the Sammy will open the door again. Both Sammy take beers and wait for the next combat turn.
- Combat Turn 2: The delayed actions are lost. Sammy opens the door and shoots, Sammy shoots and closes the door.
Rinse and repeat.

Personally I've modified my combat rules to include tactics and leadership roll that determines how long the players can think about their actions, whether they act as a group and how easily they can adapt their actions to the situation. My players still haven't been in a situation where it could really matter, but I hope it'll lead to more tactical combat, and will truly reflect the character's tactical abilities.

Personally I don't like this sort of thing, as it tends to promote accountant run. Just like you don't make the characters describe the details of their money laundering schemes (unless your players are into that sort of thing) adding an extra dose of teh combat realism!1111 can just make your players frustrated.

If I wanted to bother with somethingl ike that, I'd pull some drills out of some tactical manuals, and say that if you can't think of anything better to do during combat, your PC does that. That way, the players who can't think well under the pressure can still be good at the fighting.

The problem is that most of the time my players are enough into combat tactics to spend a lot of times trying to come up with the best tactics at each combat turn which slows down combat and make it less interesting since the players will always act the best way. A simple solution is to cut down the time the players have to decide what their characters do, but most players will answer that their characters are combat veterans and would be able to decide quicker than them. So I've just made the rules so that they take the character's tactical abilities into consideration to decide how long the players can take to declare their action.

Another problem I had was that the characters were always overoptimizing their actions: "I shoot that guy. Is he dead? Ok, I shoot the second one then." Only once have I seen a player deciding to spend one simple action (or maybe even a whole combat turn) just to let his character catch his breath. Even in the most confusing and tense situation, the characters always kept their cool and kept optimizing each and every simple action. That's why I've made rules that leads to more "instinctive" combat, while letting the most tactical characters keep their cool and act tactically.

Of course, I'm not saying it's the best way to play the game. It's just more adapted to what I expect from combat situations (that's only a part of the rules, I also modified initiative to get a more narrative experience)

2 massive problems with that tactic. First, nowhere does it say that delayed actions are lost just because your starting up a new combat turn, second if the guns they are using are so impressive and the two sammies are both standing right on the other side of the door, they're going to simply shoot through the door (Sammies can't move at all without taking penalties to their shots)

I'm pretty sure it says somewhere that delayed actions are lost at the end of a combat turn because I remember checking if such a thing would work, but I don't have my book to check right now. I'll check when I get home.
Of course, they can still shoot through the door, but let's just say that the doors barrier rating are too high. The only reason why I've said the guns are powerful was to find an explanation to why the sammies would want to close the door.

Not to mention that you don't have to worry about not being able to see said Sammies if you're shooting though the door with suppressive fire.

I believe they lose their held action the next time their initiative comes up.

I think if someone is delaying an action, it does carry on until the char wishes to do something else. Yes, you do "lose" the actions while just waiting but if you were expecting that sammy to open the door to make him a new haircut with a shotgun, you are faster than the sammy. You can't do anything else but wait till the triggering event happens or you cancel the waiting but you can't sucker anyone like that. The combat, even though ruled in turns, does happen at the same time for all.

Yeah, I read that same line in the book, but you have to look at it closely to see what they mean.



So, delayed actions can be carried into different passes and combat turns, that is stated perfectly clearly. The thing that causes confusion is the 'lose any action' part. It isn't refering to the delayed action, but the actions you would have gotten in the pass. For example, if I delay on pass 1, and don't act till pass 2, I lose my actions I would have gotten for pass 2. This is basically a way to stop people getting two sets of actions in a single pass.

If you read the little example the book gives a line or two later, you'll see that is almost exactly what it says.

So, the two sammies with a door trick doesn't work because the people inside the room (or outside?) can hold their actions indefinitely. They can however get one set of pot-shots off by doing this, but then they've lost any chance at surprise and not getting blasted the second they open the door.

Depends on what you mean by tactics, I suppose. Does it count if you dose the employees of a bank with warp-laden cancerands on their way to work, and time your robbery to coincide with the onset?

Honestly, there's lots of room for tactics in SR4--my group uses them all the time, to great effect.

Oops, my bad for the 2 streetsams-and-door story. It's strange I remember checking the rules to make sure it was possible. Maybe it's a mistake in the French version, or maybe that was just my mistake.

Could very well be a mistake in translation because the wording in that area is very close to saying that you lose your action at the end of a combat turn if you don't read it carefully.