DS2: Sauron Conversion

Ok, I've had time to come up with a few thoughts about
treating the Sauron (of the Sauron War period) in DS2:

Regular Sauron infantry units in the books use generic
assault rifles, rocket launchers, grenades, etc. and do
not wear powered armor.  So in terms of their equipment
and its effectiveness, Sauron infantry are just standard
line infantry elements in DS2 terms (as are their normal
human opponents).

The advantages of the Sauron's genetic engineering and
from-birth training/indoctrination in the military arts
might be represented in several ways:

(1) Morale.  The Soldiers are engineered and trained to
be completely rational in all situations, so they don't
suffer much from emotions like fear.  In game terms,
this should be represented by morale benefits - a simple
possibility would be to treat all Sauron units as Veteran.
Based on the books, it wouldn't be out of the question to
exempt Sauron units from Reaction tests entirely.

Also, toward the end of the war, the humans' hatred of the
Sauron becomes so intense that some human units pretty
much go "berserk" and become willing to sacrifice themselves
if it means that more Sauron die.  This could be represented
by throwing in a few new morale states/benefits for the
regular human troops.

(2) Since the Soldiers think like battle computers (faster
and more logically than humans) and they have
better speed, strength, and coordination than humans in
addition to lifelong training for war, consider giving them
a bonus for their small arms fire effectiveness rolls
and an additional chit draw in close combat.  Human units
facing a close assault by Sauron infantry might face a reaction
test penalty.  The books abound with impressive descriptions
of Sauron marksmanship, close combat prowess, and coolness
under fire.

(3)  Endurance.  Not only are the Soldiers stronger,
faster, and hardier than humans, they can also conciously
suppress pain, close off broken blood vessels (using special
muscles), etc.	thus making themselves quite hard to
kill.  This could be represented by increasing the number
of valid damage points required to kill a Sauron infantry
element, although I would lean away from this.	Their
endurance advantage is probably best represented in campaign
terms rather than in one-off combats.  You might give them
a higher rate of recovery for "destroyed" elements between
engagements and/or more rapid recovery from fatigue and
disorganization if you play with such things.

Let's see, what else?  Powered infantry formations do exist
but they are not common - they usually seem to serve as
ship's troops (love those Sauron EVA Commandos).
Again, their capabilities are fairly well represented by the
standard DS2 powered element and (1)-(3) above can be used to give the
Sauron an edge.  The Sauron also have Cyborgs (super-engineered
individuals who are to regular Soldiers what Soldiers are to
humans) who usually seem to fight in powered armor.  They're
rare though, so you don't necessarily need to worry about them -
the regular Soldiers are bad enough.

As with all of Pournelle's future history books, the emphasis
in ground combat is on infantry formations supported by artillery.
Armored fighting vehicles are fairly rare.  Those that do show up
generally seem to be tracked with shell-firing main guns.  In any
case, they seem to fit in pretty well with standard DS2 designs.

Well, that's it for now.  It's pretty general, but I hope you find it
helpful.

Robert Schirmer
schirmer@focus.msc.cornell.edu