Re: Thrust Marines

I recently had an afflatus. That is, what in my not-so-humble opinion is
a scathingly brilliant idea. I haven't looked at the archive, but surely
somebody else must have had the same idea before.... anywway, here 'tis.

THRUST MARINES (TM)

A Full Thrust supplement for Skirmish Ground Combat

OBJECT

The object of this set of rules is to give a simple ground combat
module easily integrated into FT, with no need for learning any new
rules. It can be used in conjunction with a deck plan for boarding
actions, or more usually for small-scale ground combat in conjunction
with a FT game.

METHOD

The basic idea is to transfer the FT rules holus-bolus into a ground
environment.
All of the usual FT rules apply, for screens, beams, movement etc.

RULES

Differences from FT:
Fighters (infantry) move is halved.
Carriers can be of any size, ignore the Dreadnought-Fighter-launch rule.

That's it. No more changes to the rules. At all.

Infantry.
Infantry are Fighters, but move is halved. After 3 turns of combat
they run out of ammunition/energy, and must be resupplied from a vehicle
or
prepared position.

Note that you can have:
Heavy Weapons (Torpedo)
Jump-pack (Fast) Infantry
Power Armoured (Heavy) Infantry
Heavy (Assault) Infantry
Light (Interceptor) Infantry
Medium (Long Range) Infantry

Vehicles
Are (usually System defence) ships. Those with exo-atmospheric
capability are
Warp ships. When 'going into Warp' they exit the ground combat table
and become Fighter-like assault vehicles on the FT table. When landing,
they "drop out of Warp" onto the TM table as per FT, after first doing
an FT atmospheric reentry succesfully, and being removed from the FT
table.

Positions:
Are as per FT Bases.

Terrain
Can be given same effects as Dust Clouds, or similar. It is recommended
that there be a "speed limit" beyond which damage from minor nuisances
such as small hills, towns etc can occur when moving at excessive speed.

PSB

Vehicles are assumed to be Grav. All infantry and vehicles are
assumed to have incredible quantities of multi-spectrum sensors,
tricorders etc that make hiding difficult to say the least. But
targetting of Infantry at long ranges is impossible.

All infantry are assumed to have exoskeletons or personal force
fields. These require frequent recharging - so infantry have to
scurry back to base, or run out of oxygen/chlorine/methane and
energy.   

ADAFs are mortars or similar area effect weapons.
C Beams are gatling lasers or similar, which have some anti-
personnel ability.
PDAFs are short range anti-personnel weapons. 

Desert Storm proved that many solid terrain features such as Sand Berms
do not impede high-energy weapons much. It's assumed that Buildings,
vegetation etc will be at best a +1 shield and chance of failing to lock
on. And if a Gravtank hits a building, they may not even notice the
thump
as it falls into rubble around them, unless moving really fast.

Typical Grav APC:
1 Gauss Autocannon ( C beam ) 3-arc
1 automatic multiple grenade launcher ( PDAF )
1 Squad Infantry ( 1 Fighter Bays for LR Fighters )
Shield 1
Move 6
DP 7 (Escort)
Mass 14 Points 114 (including 1 squad medium infantry)

Typical Grav MBT:
1 Heavy Beamer ( A beam ) 3-arc
2 Anti-personnel scatterguns (PDAF)
Shield 3
Move 6
DP 9 (Escort)
Mass 18 Points 157

Typical BOLO / Mk III Ogre
1 2 MT Hellbore (2 Nova Cannon)
4 Secondaries ( 2-arc A-Beams )
12 Infinite Repeaters (PDAFs)
2 Missiles
Shield 3
Move 2
DP 46 (Capital)
Mass 92 Points 631

Well, what do you think?

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