They gave stats to Great Dragons? Don't they know better? "If you stat it, they will kill it"? Is that what happened to Big D? Oh the humanity! Or more likely: Oh the draconity!

Well, that was me with the force 1 demo team. I was convinced that not only was it insane (I didn't argue that point) but that it was not what the rules said.

Not exactly. They said "great dragon = normal, non-great dragon, +10 to all stats." and also "They should always be major power brokers, and more powerful than any runner by far." Which, at 25 bod and 18 magic, they are.

Think about how a dragon would tactically fight a military. Lots of high power spirits, obviously. While those are being dealt with by the army, the dragon is taking out the threats to himself, personally, that is - the heavy artillery like vehicle mounted lasers, etc. You don't need wonky plot devices for it to make sense. Unless you're overpowering the military, or placing the dragon in situations the dragon would be far too smart to let happen, like having 5 heavy autocannons pointed at him.

Yea, but Body 25 is a number. People will find a way! I bet in the next ten or so posts, we see three ways to kill something with that Body.

I'll cheat and add the first one: Drop Bear. Fragger'd never see it coming. Probably what killed Dunkey.

I mean, how hard is it to get something that flies in range of a handful of long range vehicle weapons? You can't just invoke the Batman clause. I say, set all their stats equal to 'More'.

Yeah, then think about its natural armor and all the the anchored deflection, armor, etc spells.

Yes, a great dragon is killable with those stats. Killable, until you think of its super-beyond-human intelligence. You literally cannot conceive of the ways in which it would act to outsmart anyone it went up against. It would have traps within traps within traps for 60 layers before you even saw it. And that's just its traps. It would have every contingency plan imaginable + more in place, all in its head at the same time. Unfortunately, a GM really can't think of all those things the way that a hyper-intelligent being can. So the GM is left with cheap tricks like "you just walked into an undetectable misted form of a drug that causes you to astrally project instantly and now all of your bodies are possessed by ally spirits of the Dragon."

The point is, just getting the Dragon in a position to be shot at by anything that can hurt it is hard.

Hint: use lasers.

::Ducks in a feeble attempt to avoid the unavoidably forthcoming Ghostwalker rant::

Hey, maybe we can squeeze in some Horizon hatred, too?

Or, I can desperately try to wrestle this thread back on track: What about Sader Krupp's corp-military forces? If they bought H&K they should have some pretty serious toys to play with.

The top of my Christmas list is made by HK. Anyone that's had to maintain an M16A2 in field conditions can attest to the value of a weapon like this.

So, how about Sader Krupp? Shadorunner tail kickers? How come we never hear about their spec ops? What kind of military units would a dragon-owned corp deploy?

Of course, they did. If they didn't want you to kill it, they would not have given you the stats.

they don't want the therapy bills being sent to them

SK spec ops? They own H&K and BMW? I'm guessing they would have painfully expensive but fantastic weapons and gear. Betaware standard, to show the true German craftsmanship, and to make everyone else jealous.

One thing that people - including likely the people who wrote that article - forget is that the Marine Corps is able to get away with that because they've outsourced almost all of their logistics support to the Navy. The Marines are transported by Navy ships, healed by Navy doctors, and often enough fed by Navy cooks. Now, that's not to say that the Marines aren't effective - just that they're more expensive than they look. What percent of the Navy's operating costs can be laid at the feet of the Marine Corps?

HK. Because you suck. And we hate you.

Actually, last I read the strongest compliment of ANY Corp was around the 2 batallion mark and that spot was held in tandem by Ares and S-K.
I haven't read Corp Guide, so my info might be outdated.

Because they never leave anyone alive to talk about them?


And I've certainly enjoyed reading this thread as well. I'm a serving Army NCO (deployed to Iraq, no less), so while I have to scoff at the Marine pride being tossed around as a matter of course, I will say that they're hitting the nail on the head at least. I was a 19K (Abrams crewman) and now I'm a 35F (Intelligence Analyst). I work in one of those Tactical Operations Centers mentioned earlier, and let me explain to you -- in generalities -- what it looks like.

Butting against the wall of the building (made of wood inside of an armored hangar) is a large U-shaped desk area called The Pit. On one side is the S-2 (my job), with three computers outputting data on a total of seven screens and a secure phone. The far side is where the RTOs (that's Radio/Telephone Operators for the uninitiated) sit, beside which are two more computers and a four foot-tall stack of SINCGARS radios, a TACSAT satellite radio, a secure phone, and not one but two Blue Force Tracker (BFT) kits (run a search for FBCB2 and you can learn all about it). The middle section of the U has a further three computers (six screens total) and two secure phones for the Battle Captain -- sometimes a lieutenant, the one who actually controls combat operations since battalion commanders can't be micromanaging 24/7) and the Battle NCO (aka the BCPT's bitch). At the "top" of the U, bolted to the aforementioned wall, are a total of six wide-screen flat-panel displays (I like they're all LCDs, but I'm not sure). At any given time, two are displaying the master BFT map feeds, one has a a rolling SIGACT (that's Significant Activities) summary for the past 24 hours, one has map data from the Battle Captain's computer, and my two are showing live feeds from various and sundry UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems). And that's not counting the three workstations behind the U, the S2 OIC (Officer In Charge)'s side office, and the S3 (Operations Officer)'s side office.

We are quite literally inundated with information on the modern battlefield, and I cannot imagine that the Sixth World would be any different. My unit (an aviation cavalry squadron) can watch its UH-60s deliver ground troops via air assault while the OH-58s fly top cover on our choice of two different full motion video UAV feeds, track the aircraft's position on the BFT, talk to them on the radio, send text messages to them (and receive replies, of course) via BFT, all the while talking to our next higher and adjacent headquarters on our choice of secure phone, radio, or encrypted chat programs. Hell, we even use Ventrilo here in Iraq for conducting meetings that don't require face-to-face interactions. So while ECM may be able to shut some parts of the network, I doubt that it could shut down ALL parts of the network. The military maintains entirely too many redundancies especially when it comes to communications. We even have an acronym describing the tiers for comms: PACE (Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency) so that each unit knows exactly which comms systems it has available and which ones to use first.

That sound weird, because in SOX there are batallion sized groups fighting the Radwars...

I think Corpo strength should be at last one or two divisionnals units.

If you have newer info, please share. My info is still from a 2nd Ed Sourcebook. I think one of the first Corp Guides. Maybe they increased their military force dramatically since then. I still don't see Corps, even the Megas with larger armies than Nations. It makes no sense from a Business perspective. Maybe with the sole exception of Aztechnology, as the line between Aztlan Military and Aztechnology Military is rather blurry.

I agree. National defense is provided in a state of market failure, something the corps would abhor.

That didn't actually work, canon points out. Absolutely fraggin' neat as it was.

only because they did not use enough and stopped shooting too soon . .

This blog sure made me laugh. I wonder; if the Germans are so tough, how did they lose WW2?

"Many" modern SWAT teams, but I believe that the ratio is still in favor of the average SWAT team member having more training time and probably more "action" time, as well, than the average soldier.


Except that we aren't talking about the average Delta Forces guy, we are talking about the average soldier - which the Delta Force most assuredly is not. The book has examples of specops (Red Samurai, Tir Ghosts...) and they are PR 5+ not what the average soldier would be at PR 3, with some at 4 (at best).

Of course, in the Dystopian future, who knows. (The writers know, thats who! )

As for all the "cool" gear: the military buys the stuff from the guys who came in with the lowest bid. That should tell you something about the gear.

Poor strategic decision making and suboptimal equipment logistics (many different panzer-versions etc., poor exchangeability of spare parts etc.). Their MG42 still rocks in various modern incarnations today.

The hard russian Winter and the high Gas-Price . .

Trust me Azetech has much more but it is a national army not a corporate one however they are the same enity. Ares and S-K are likely in that area in the millitary units. Arse has a lot more combat assets that just that though. Knight Errarnt is a PMC in effect. So I think Knight Erranrnt isn't coun't as Arse's millitay arm though it is. Imagen it as wnageling words and fileings likely due to a corporate court ruling on max army size.

I thought Ares had more than 2 battallions stationed in Silicon Valley during the 60's alone.

Stupidity. They end up adding another front voluntarily. Where as they could have moped up one then the other.

On prevalence of high-rating software in the military:

IRL, anything that the DoD pays to develop they have an unlimited license to the technology, generally speaking. Contracting Regulations 101. So, if they pay Microsoft ¥50M to develop a Firewall app at whatever obscene rating they want, then they can copy it willy-nilly. Sure, they buy individual copies of Windows, but they didn't pay for that R&D.

On augmentation.

Mostly agree - I don't think they'd do a lot of anything that could be taken care of other ways. But the sheer utility of things like wired reflexes are serious force multipliers. Mind you, they might rather spend the money on combat drugs, but they'd be very concerned about long-term medical complications. The other major category to consider are those things that increase survivability/combat effectiveness: trauma dampers, bone lacing, pain editors...well, maybe not pain editors.


Considering that we take on lifetime medical care for all of our soldiers currently, I don't think it's that unrealistic. And there is plenty of motivation for things like Move By Wire or Wired Reflexes. Yes, them coming back into society is a concern, but so is having people with combat training running around, which societies have dealt with (more or less successfully) for centuries. And with the prevalence of security forces out there that would love to hire wired soldiers, there would be serious market demand for augmented retired soldiers. Of course, you could also just disable the augmentation when someone leaves. I think the obvious solution is that augmentation would be limited to career types. As in "if you get wired, your signing up for a 20 year stint."

And as another point, consider some of the military/security focused cybersuites in Augmentation. The SK Cyberlogician Deluxe Military Version argues strongly for significant modification - particularly of officers.

On use of spirits:

Fair point. I think it would depend on the tactical situation. If you anticipated opposing mages, I think you'd be seriously interested in Magical Guard for counterspelling...which I just realized only Guardian spirits can do. Good point. My guess is you'd use them for counter-spirit ops, and as a high-speed response/support force.

On using spirits to guard vehicles:

I think this is where how people play the game comes into play. In games I run, I pretty much assume that anything worth more than about ¥300k that could be under threat is going to have a spirit escorting it. And anything over a million is going to always have a spirit with it on protection. If companies have mages on staff, paying the costs to bind spirits is pretty trivial, and provide serious insurance. Particularly Guardian spirits.

On magical asset ratios.

True. It all depends on how you employ them too. Crickey. Think of how many spirits 100 mages could put out there...no wonder the Yucatan went nuts!

On artillery:

To be sure. Depends entirely on the circumstances that put runners up against combat troops. Considering the advances in precision guided munitions, and the prevalence of ultra-precision strike systems like lasers, calling for fire missions might be easier in 2070 in a lot of cases than it is now.

Really? I thought the germans lost the war because of Michael Jackson's death, or the iPad not supporting flash, or the vuvuzelas, or... you get the picture.

We get the picture alright

Vuvuzelas: You can pretty much blame anything on them

Ok a couple of things.

Considering the number of characters i've had over the years that want to justify their level of ware, skills, etc with "i'm former military" I have reasonably assumed in my head that the military is some very frightening stuff. I'm actua

Also just about to this point on magical assetts as well, because if PC's reflect the game world then a lot more magical support and in better quality needs to pop up.

/end rant


To the guy who presumes your average swat team is better trained then your average military and potentially sees a lot more action, your wrong on a number of points. First off one of the basic quick steps for law enforcement selection in many municipalities is prior military service. One of the basic selection criteria for swat officers (part time or full time) is prior infantry or "special" forces time. Now why would they do that if their guys are so amazingly trained? The answer is because their not. What swat does in the vast majority of situations can basically be summed up as RBS(Really boring shit) hostage negotiations, overwhelming firepower ops, etc etc. Their entire doctrine and tactics is based on them having more numbers and better gear and sniper support, not being elite superbadass. In other words they are paramilitary to be sure but acting like their training or ability is way above that of the military is false.

At any rate as others have said milspec forces have always been a bogeyman that has never been stated in the "stats will kill it" area but on the other hand a tiget that doesn't use it's teetth, and gets mauled by dragons to show how tough dragons are REPEATEDLY, isn't very scary. This is yet another reason to have the Azzie's roll through and kill Ghostwalker.

If you had heard that answer to that question in german, you could be really offended by my answer . .

Because our political leadership always sucks. That, and we never won a war again after fielding a navy ...

I don't know any german besides kaput and danke. Send me a pm with your answer and I'll tell you if I would be offended or not.

The Street Samurai Catalog says the M22A2 was a contender in the UCAS squad rifle trial in 2050. It has never been stated if it won, though Fields of Fire refers to the "highly successful M22A2".


I never seen any reference to HK owning S-K, and nobdy ever provided one (even in a German-only book). There is no reference I know of for Ares owning Steyr either.
There are HK and Steyr products on sales in the Ares Winter Catalog and Ares Security Catalog 2050 (the contents of the Street Samurai Catalog), but there are also Renraku-owned SCK and Monobe-owned FN Herstal.


For that 6 percent, you also get 0 percent of the U.S.'s nuclear capacity and 0 percent of the U.S.'s communications, positionning and spy satellites. Even if the USMC is really more cost-effective than the Army (and I'm willing to agree they are), those maths are pretty unfair.


Corporate Shadowfiles says Ares and Aztechnology have a regiment, S-K a battalion, Fuchi and MCT a company. Shiawase and Yamatetsu don't have any, and Renraku classifies Red Samurai, tanks and air fighters as security troops. Those are permanent military units. If you count security units, Corporate Download says the Aztechnology Corporate Security number 150'000 worldwide (including a single battalion of jaguar guards). Year of the Comet suggests the 25000 soldiers fielded by Ares in San Fransisco area (described as "pretty large" for a corporat presence) are mostly KE regular personnel equipped by Ares Arms. That sort of "reserve" may also be used to compete in the Desert Wars and Radwars.


I still don't get how Bin Laden escaped the US armed forces so long. I mean, he has a Body of 4 at best, and he's not even wearing an armored vest

So first you say many of the SWAT are former spec ops and then you claim they aren't any better trained then your avarage military grunt, that a pretty big contradiction you know.

as you wish . .

You know how we could come up with a true, correct, and verifiable answer for how a military should be constructed? Build 'em and fight 'em on Dumpshock. Make a new thread called Desert Wars and have people duke it out with their military squads. We would have to decide on an amount of cash to build the squads with, and after squads are built and fought, we can move on to artillery support, then add in tanks, close air support, etc.

You know you want to make SR into a wargame. What's the worst that can happen? Heh.

Shout out some engagement rules ideas.

Numbers and a complete idiot as military leader.

People have been talking about organizational layout and equipment levels, but what about stats? Here's my take:

Baseline assumptions:

• PVTs, PV2s, SPCs, and ROTC candidates will be in their early to mid- twenties. Bod3, Str3, Agi3, Rea3, Log2, Int2, Wil2, Cha2, Athletics3, Perception 2, Job-specific skills (Unarmed, Rifle, Driving, Gunnery, etc)3.
  
• SGTs, SSGs, LTs, and CPTs will be in their late twenties to early thirties. Bod3, Str3, Agi3, Rea3, Log3, Int3 Wil3, Cha3. Athletics3, Perception 3, Job-specific skill (Unarmed, Rifle, Driving, Gunnery, etc)2.5, Leadership2.5, Tactics2.5, Navigation2.5, Logistics2.
  
• SFCs, 1SGTs, MAJs, and LTCs will be in their mid-to late thirties or early forties. Bod3, Str2.5, Agi2, Rea2, Log3.5, Int3.5 Wil3.5, Cha3. Athletics2, Perception 3, Job-specific skill (Unarmed, Rifle, Driving, Gunnery, etc)2, Leadership3.5, Tactics3.5, Navigation3, Logistics3.

[Edit] For more elite units like Special Forces add 1-2 points on physical stats, 1 point on mental stats, and 1-2 points on skills.

I dunno if those skill ratings all match up with SR4, p119, but they're close. Mostly too low.

Next thing you know Catalyst will be on here announcing a Desert Wars Table Top Strategic Miniatures Game...

Would you buy it?

Sounds kinda like battletech to me . .

Will it have cool minis or the cheap paper markers...

They did DMZ if you remember

I thought FASA did DMZ

Yeah for the moment let's assume they do it right and partner with someone who makes quality miniatures (I think they used Ral Partha before, not sure they still exist though)

Hmm...

I'm going to really enjoy war gaming if 3D plastic polymer printers ever get cheap enough to have at home. If I just had to pay a small license fee for a particular set of figures and then print it myself, I'd be all there.

As a Forum Housekeeping favor to the admins I'm going to kill my tangent line of discusssion here and start a new thread on it, there still seems to be plenty of momentum for the original topic so rather than Derail I'll start fresh

And this is why it won't happen.
It opens the gates for piracy!

Seriously. Corps have gotta find a better business model that lets them make money when people can make copies of information and goods. Fighting it and complaining about it are gigantic wastes of time and effort. Do you want to make money in a world where people can print off plastic figures? Stop trying to charge an arm and a leg for a model that someone whipped up in a CAD program in a couple of hours and start finding a way to make a community for people to use that model in, and a way to charge for that. Find a way to make money off of things that cannot be stolen.

I'm sure you were being funny (and it was), it just also smacked me square in the peeves.

In that vein, I really enjoyed the description of Desktop Manufacturing in Arsenal. It basically says 'the corps won...for a while.'