Twas seein' another thread where my fellow travellers were discussing some of their favorite adventures and it got me to rememberin' a rather enjoyable campaign that my old group worked up based on the "Hammer's Slammers" series. (Mr. Devlin might enjoy such.)
We, of course, renamed our Regiment (Murphy's Mauraders or some such, if I recall correctly). But we endevoured to stay as true to the HS series as possible, going so far as to design the hovertanks and tri-gun toting hovercars.
Twas a "lower level" universe as compared to what most Traveller players experience but it made it all the more interesting having to use landing craft to get the tanks grounded and such (also the terrain limitations that impacted hovertanks more than it did grav tanks - since grav tanks could handle combat anywhere up to orbital alts).
To keep the game interesting we "tiered" multiple characters on various levels. That is to say, we all had 3 characters each (some 4) on a strategic, large tactical and small tactical level. Our strategic characters were the HQ - command staff characters that made the big decisions (or had input) ... everything from what contracts to accept or reject to what equipment to purchase to even the "mundane" stuff as logistics and replenishment and .. occasionally ... reparations.
This group also came up with the overall battle strategies employed against the enemy npc forces.
The "High Tactical" group consisted of company level armored units, each commanded by one of the players. They would carry out the battle plan with each paying attention to their specific company's part ... somtimes assisting each other, sometimes deployed in such a manner as to accomplish goals on opposite ends of the planet.
The "Low Tactical" group consisted of a squad of ground pounders that often found themselves in the middle of things that went wrong and had to (as the Marines say) adapt and overcome to turn their situations around and ... every once in awhile, save the day (but more often have the cavalry save their bacon).
As I've said, the mercenary outfit was organized on the regimental level ... but it also had it's own ships, ships boats and support craft to transport and occasionally provide orbital support. This gave us one additional dimension to our campaign from time to time and that was "fleet tactical" engagements (wasn't my favorite of the lot but it served to provide some more depth).
Obviously .. with the amount of equipment and the cost involved in just having the regiment stay operational without being involved in combat, contracts were usually only affordable to large governments with deep pockets but little foresight to handle a political situation that got out of hand. Lets say something along the lines of Kuwait hiring mercs if the US had of decided to stay out of things (just an example).
Quite often, the regiment got rented to do the dirtiest assignments just to spare the local government from suffering bad losses in a specific battle and once the battle was won (possibly the turning point of a war - possibly the war itself - if handled right) the regiment was paid it's fee .. maybe a bonus (if negotiated right) and it went on it's way.
But woe be to the client who held back some vital information that cost us ... or tried to shortchange us. That'll get the tip of the spear pointed back at them.
The campaign lasted a year and a half ... some characters were promoted up from one level to another (company COs getting HQ slots, mostly - but once one of our ground pounders was bumped up to Command Sgt Major and went directly from the trenches to HQ - it was a rather impressive effort on his part that was noticed and appreciated by the "old man" himself .. and the old CSM was due to retire).
It was a blast and having the players control HQ helped take the onus of "having to follow orders all the time" off of it for players who didn't usually care for that.
Sigh ... memories.
We, of course, renamed our Regiment (Murphy's Mauraders or some such, if I recall correctly). But we endevoured to stay as true to the HS series as possible, going so far as to design the hovertanks and tri-gun toting hovercars.
Twas a "lower level" universe as compared to what most Traveller players experience but it made it all the more interesting having to use landing craft to get the tanks grounded and such (also the terrain limitations that impacted hovertanks more than it did grav tanks - since grav tanks could handle combat anywhere up to orbital alts).
To keep the game interesting we "tiered" multiple characters on various levels. That is to say, we all had 3 characters each (some 4) on a strategic, large tactical and small tactical level. Our strategic characters were the HQ - command staff characters that made the big decisions (or had input) ... everything from what contracts to accept or reject to what equipment to purchase to even the "mundane" stuff as logistics and replenishment and .. occasionally ... reparations.
This group also came up with the overall battle strategies employed against the enemy npc forces.
The "High Tactical" group consisted of company level armored units, each commanded by one of the players. They would carry out the battle plan with each paying attention to their specific company's part ... somtimes assisting each other, sometimes deployed in such a manner as to accomplish goals on opposite ends of the planet.
The "Low Tactical" group consisted of a squad of ground pounders that often found themselves in the middle of things that went wrong and had to (as the Marines say) adapt and overcome to turn their situations around and ... every once in awhile, save the day (but more often have the cavalry save their bacon).
As I've said, the mercenary outfit was organized on the regimental level ... but it also had it's own ships, ships boats and support craft to transport and occasionally provide orbital support. This gave us one additional dimension to our campaign from time to time and that was "fleet tactical" engagements (wasn't my favorite of the lot but it served to provide some more depth).
Obviously .. with the amount of equipment and the cost involved in just having the regiment stay operational without being involved in combat, contracts were usually only affordable to large governments with deep pockets but little foresight to handle a political situation that got out of hand. Lets say something along the lines of Kuwait hiring mercs if the US had of decided to stay out of things (just an example).
Quite often, the regiment got rented to do the dirtiest assignments just to spare the local government from suffering bad losses in a specific battle and once the battle was won (possibly the turning point of a war - possibly the war itself - if handled right) the regiment was paid it's fee .. maybe a bonus (if negotiated right) and it went on it's way.
But woe be to the client who held back some vital information that cost us ... or tried to shortchange us. That'll get the tip of the spear pointed back at them.
The campaign lasted a year and a half ... some characters were promoted up from one level to another (company COs getting HQ slots, mostly - but once one of our ground pounders was bumped up to Command Sgt Major and went directly from the trenches to HQ - it was a rather impressive effort on his part that was noticed and appreciated by the "old man" himself .. and the old CSM was due to retire).
It was a blast and having the players control HQ helped take the onus of "having to follow orders all the time" off of it for players who didn't usually care for that.
Sigh ... memories.
