Our group will soon be running into these babies (Bug City approaches, and we're in Chicago. Yeah.), and I was looking for any and all advice on taking them on as a street sam.

I was also wondering about Willpower attacks - when CHA is used for attack power, does anything reduce it, the way armor would for a normal attack? And, if you are making a Willpower attack with a melee weapon, do you get to use the weapon's reach modifiers?

nope, yep.

I'd say that you'd get the reach bonus for taking them on in hand to hand but for a street sam, I'd concentrate on any minions they use and let the mages deal with the spirits.

One of the things you could do is harass the damn things while the spell slingers take them down you know, give them more than one target etc.

Do bugs have thermos in the physical? If not then try smoke to increase there vision penalties just make sure your mages arn't as affected.

Just for the hell of it you could soak everything with insecticides. It probably won't do much good, but you'll might make it angry enough to make mistakes.
Using weapons that bypass the immunity to normal weapons could also be a decent idea, flamethrowers, incendiary and white phosporous grenades, magnesium rounds.
Flash and superflash grenades could also be used to some effect if you're going for a planned assault, but they're a bit difficult to coordinate in the heat of things, so unless you have an SOP for Flash they'll probably harm your friends as much as your enemies.

Just wanted to mention that the date of Bug City is in about twelve hours, so we've got from twelve to thirty-six hours to prepare, including about ten hours to get back to the city.

Edit: keeping in mind that we're getting back from a long run and will probably be relaxing until we find something's up.

~J

Don't go into melee with them, period. Even if you can soak mad damage, they will use their power to reduce quickness(name escapes me), even if they do no dmg it still works on you. Smoke them from a distance, even if you just eat up combat pool from them.

Actually, insecticide is a good idea, because bugs spirits have a vulnerabilty too it. I'd also advice going to your closest talismonger and getting a weapon focus: rolled up newspaper.

Yeah, but even with the vulnerability they'd only have to soak light damage or so, wich I why I said it'd probably just make them angry. But then again, angering your enemy is a good thing isn't it?

Now, with that weapon focus you can't go wrong.
Where did I leave my Orichalcum fly swatter.

1. We don't really have magicians. Technically, there's one, but he's a complete amnesiac we just saved from some bizzare magical cult, and we don't know what he can do. (Aside from turn invisible and cast a translation spell of some sort, since he only speaks Spanish, and the rest of the team doesn't... By the way, having a sam try to explain to a mage that he should be able to astrally project works rather poorly for some reason.)

2. He's got a Willpower of 8 and he does well against magical creatures. Usually.

3. It's a small group, he might not have a choice about going into melee.

And another question... What power range should I expect their attacks to have? (wondering whether to bother emphasizing impact armor or not)

If you're fighting fleshform or manifest spirits, impact armor IS your friend. Bugs are nasty fraggers, but a lot of them (watch out for good merges) are restricted to melee. Keep your distance, and fill them with lead until they drop. Try and avoid fighting pure spirits whenever possible. Without good magic support, they are going to tear you up.

Saw the thread title and thought it was about Chi-town's new urban brawl team. Never mind...

Range attack (emphasis on magical attack) and Impact Armor have already been mentioned, but should be stressed again. Also, keep cover in mind when battling bugs.

I've used bugs against my team before and a proper use of the right weapons and attacks with the right terrain/cover kept things manageable for them. If you have a small team, I'd get real coordinated with everyone real fast as bugs tend to swarm... and that's no fun for runners.

We've got a good setup with transduced radio communications with everyone but the new Mage.

~J

Against flesh-forms, I've found that shotguns are the best. Close range turns them into chunky salsa, while longer ranges usually damage multiple ones in a single shot.

Shotguns with rocksalt. A Defiance T250 with rocksalt will blow through spirits very nicely, and is easy enough to get.

Reach 2 weapons will keep them at bay, at least, and let you tank... and a chain is pretty darn cheap.

JaronK

What about wards? I'd imagine it'd suck the ass if you were taking a nap and woke up to see a manifested beetle spirit chewing on your toes.

Then again, they could likely just go through the metaplanes to chew on your toes.

At least it'd keep out the fleshforms, right? Wards keep out dual-natured thingers?

No clue whether or not they can do that. But shotguns rule. As for immunity, I dunno if chemical weapons and tasers work. Taser good.

Well. Taser expensive if you're in Chicago. Hell. I don't think you really CAN get any of the really fun bug killing stuff when you're.. well. You know. Restrained in the middle of a walled off warzone.

Flesh forms can't, but I think true forms can. They at least are able to do the astral walk like "typical" spirits.

Fleshforms are difficult but not totally insane as long as they are relatively low force. Based on my sketchy rememberances I'd say that a hive will likely have a good number of low force merges as the worker types (gathering victims doing bug stuff building hives) with the higher force ones used as warriors for defense. Good Merges will likely be trying to infiltrate the resistance groups and scouting KE response teams etc. Trueforms should probably be localized to inner hive defense and responses to big KE/UCAS incursions.

Assuming you don't have access to Milspec equipment (LMG on up) most of your heavy hitting will rely on shotguns, hunting rifles and possibly assault rifles. Pistols and SMGs are pretty much backup weapons in these scenarios. The main thing is keep moving, conserve ammo and use ambush/retreat strategies. The only real way to defeat the bugs is to not face them on thier terms but yours.

Other than that demolitions and homemade traps will help with keeping you safe when you rest.

I still remeber the first time I fought bug spirits. (My team was caught in the containment zone, just as the magical wall was going up. We had transport out through the bay area, just had to get there)

Anywho, it was quite a surprise to my Sam / Decker (Yeah, odd combo I know) when I shot a Roach spirit (manifested right in front of us) with a Heavy pistol, and it shrugged it off like nothing.

We quickly learned that the more personal the weapon the easier it is to kill a bug spirit. So I picked up a bow and went to learning how to use it. It made for longer battles, but I was able to actually hurt them.

But that's the thing. The true forms should be something that is a rare encounter. You should see the good merges and "bad merges" often. Both of which should be a decent challenge for any group; but should be able to defeat them.

We encounted 3 tur form roach spirits just before escaping; that is a battle I will never forget. Running for cover, trying to draw their attention away from the mage, and trying to keep from getting killed . . . it was great, difficult but a lot of fun.

I have run other groups through this a couple times. Getting them to understand the spirits is the hard part. The first encounter is always the most difficult. So I try to make sure they live through it at all cost. It only makes the horrified looks on their faces at the second encounter all the more funny. (I have an interesting since of humor) Just make sure they survive the first couple encounters, and they will have a good plan for dealing with bug spiits the next time they encounter them.

I am a bit biased, but from what I have seen the two best ways to beat bugs, are lasers and Loa.

You know, up to a point, you can just shoot the spirits with a high caliber.

For a mundane, if the spirit level is less than half his highest caliber, just shoot the bug. If you are using a shotgun with explosive bullets, you can be shooting at bugs up to level 5. If you are a good shot, it can be pretty effective. The samurai can let the adept and mage deal with the biggest spirits kill of the rest without risking melee. Even a decker with a heavy pistol can do his share against the weaker spirits.

Of course, flesh form can be shot anyway. The nice thing about an 'against the hive' scenario is that you are knee deep into weird SR magic and yet the mundanes skill are still vital to success.

I'm going to make some assumption based upon my style of GMing

Resupply is a bitch in the CZ basically once you run out of ammo you need to get a hold of caches left by lone star and corp security forces. My general assumption is that if it's not something someone can basically expect to find a local weapons world supplies are extremely limited and quite likely to be fiercely contested by other normals and bug sympathizers.

Second being able to transport all your gear from doss to doss is pretty important. If you can't carry it by yourself it's going to have to be abandoned sooner or later. Depending on how badly the gridlink is trashed vehicles are going to be rapidly immobile so you'll likely rely on pushing stuff on maybe drones.

Personally I'd secure my heavy equipment in a remote location nobody visits and only pull it out when I've discovered a small hive. Other than that i'd make sure I only had what I can carry myself.