Since I disliked a few things about the 4e results from last time, I was thinking - why not use the original values (damage and armour) from 3e, for which THS was written? Would that turn out better?

Exactly copying the scenario from last time, we’ll again have four soldiers in non-powered armour facing one battlesuit-armoured soldier.

The Equipment

The light infantry will be armoured with medium Nanoweave armour (DR20) plus a medium Clamshell Cuirass (DR35) for the torso. That’s a total of 22 lbs (11kg) of armour weight. Note that those also have PD (4 and 6 respectively), which were added to the defence roll in 3e with the explanation that the armour would “turn some blows aside”. I’ll be ignoring that. Note that the cuirass can in fact be worn over the nanoweave armour, since it’s flexible, which increases armour on the torso to DR55. Note also that I’ll be dealing with armour-as-dice, so that’s 16d torso and 6d everywhere else.

Their main armament is the Battle Rifle (5.6mm rifle plus a 30mm missile launcher). The latter is loaded with HEMP ammunition (6d(10) shaped charge, plus some other things). There’s not really a separate LMG available, but Gunther does have a 60mm recoilless rifle (loaded with a SEFOP warhead; 6dx20(5) plus some collateral). It’s also equipped with a HUD link (+1 to acc up to 300 metres, not cumulative) and a Compact Targeting Scope (4x magnification, therefore +2 acc when aiming).

The battlesuit is a Vosper-Babbage Centurion with DR70 on torso and head, DR50 everywhere else. That’s 20d and 14d respectively (note that it’s laminated, so shaped-charge warheads are only (5)). ST24 gives, in 3e parlance, no encumbrance at 48lbs, and 96lbs means light encumbrance. Since there’s not really a good weapon for the battlesuit in THS, Paula’s stole a Storm Chaingun from UT2. It does 7d+2pi, which is 7d+2(3) pi- with APS ammunition. It has 100 shots, and weighs in at 22 pounds. With its ammunition, it can actually penetrate the concrete barriers, but cannot penetrate torso armour after that. Oh, and we’ll throw in four micro-missile pods mounted on the armour. They’re less than three kilos total.

I’ll also note that 3e’s accuracy was far higher for both the battle rifle (9) and the missile pods (10). The battle rifle should be pi, reduced to pi- by the AP ammunition. Accuracy is probably 4 (might be 5 if it’s not a carbine but full-length rifle), and Bulk is -4. Rcl is 2.

Adapting Micromissiles

Micromissiles are more interesting, providing +3 to hit when aimed first plus the accuracy bonus. It also allows the accuracy bonus at more than 1/2D range. In comparison, homing micromissiles in the 4e conversion have an accuracy of 1 and roll against 10 plus its accuracy if you made the “lock-on roll”. It also doesn’t take any range penalties. It’s an interesting question: On the one hand, the 4e version allows firing without locking on first (which would be quite useful). On the other hand, the skill of the shooter never enters into the equation.

So, how do we treat the micromissiles, and homing attacks in general? As I see it, using micromissiles generally means that you take your rifle with a mounted missile pod (like an underbarrel grenade launcher) and either aim through the scope or through your HUD at an enemy. Ideally, the trajectory should be a straight line, requiring no guidance - but it probably isn’t. Once you fire the missile, it follows your aim while trying to correct for any deviations from the target.

Accordingly, that sounds as if for the first few metres, guidance is wholly irrelevant - the projectile will go to where you’re pointing it. Once it’s further out, guidance will take over, and will start to correct for any misses - and the further away a target is, the more it can correct. This essentially means that the distance it can correct for grows linearly with range.

Now, I can actually build a minimissile that’s close to THS’s minimissile using 3e’s Vehicles system: 30mm, 0.455lbs motor weight, normal warhead, and compact cheap optical homing guidance. With a speed of 500yds/s, it does 15d crushing damage and burns for almost exactly one second, which gives it a burn range of 500m.

How do those impact our rules? The only relevant factor, actually, turns out to be how many degrees the missile can correct for. It then becomes the only task for the gunner to fire the missile into the “hit cone” for the target. How big is that hit-cone? If we assume 10°, then that’s 10 metres lateral correction at 100 metres range. That seems sensible, and gives us a malus of -6. This essentially means the following rule:

Homing ammunition rule: Normal homing ammunition caps range malus at -6.

Suddenly, we have a very simple rule which makes shooter skill relevant, allows different-quality guidance systems, and makes guidance useless at under 20 metres. Let’s give the minimissile pods Acc 3 (like a good pistol), and it profits from the optics from the battle rifle. The micromissile pods have acc 2.

Playtest

As with last time, we’re on an Earth-like world. Both the power-armoured Paula and the four light infantry see each other at 170 metres (-11 to hit). There’s concrete vehicle barriers scattered throughout the area (DR12d, light cover).

Turn 1

Alfred and Bruce run towards the next cover and get behind it.

Paula does the same, except for one difference: Since she’s loaded with a total of 16 micromissiles, she’s doing a move-and-attack, targeting Alfred. Her skill is 14 - 6 (range, capped at -6) + 1 (HUD link) - 2 (bulk) = 7. She rolls a 12, missing.

Martin and Gunther take cover, too.

Turn 2

Since their main weapons would be unable to hurt Paula, Alfred and Bruce have to fire their minimissiles. They only have three available before reloading, so they’ll want to maximize their hit chances. Accordingly, they aim, exposing their head, both arms, and half torso/vitals.

Paula also aims, with her storm chaingun. She aims at Alfred. Martin also aims. Gunther, though, unholsters his recoilless rifle.

Turn 3

Alfred fires his minimissile. To-hit is 14 - 6 (range, capped at -6) + 3 (acc) + 2 (scope) - 2 (aiming at torso behind cover) + 1 (SM) = 12. He rolls a 15, missing. Bruce takes a random hit location: He rolls a 13, hitting. But his hit location is the left leg, which is protected by cover the shaped charge loses cohesion to penetrate.

Paula fires at Alfred with her full RoF, at a random hit location. Her to-hit-roll is 14 - 11 (range) + 6 (acc) + 2 (scope) + 4 (RoF) + 1(bracing) = 16. With a roll of 7 and its recoil of 3, three bullets are marked for Alfred, who cannot dodge. Hit location rolls are 13 (left leg), 5 (face), 10 (exposed part of the torso). The left leg is attacked through cover; its effective DR is 18d, reduced to 6d by armour piercing, for 1d+2 pi- penetrating damage. A high roll of 7 damage results in 3 injury. The attack on the face penetrates through 12d helmet armour with a damage roll of 3d+2 pi-. Damage roll is 11, for 5 injury. Lastly, the torso hit penetrates through 16d armour with 2d remaining; and results in 3 injury. A total of 11 injury; I’ll rule him out of the fight.

Martin fires. He has the same modifiers as Alfred and Bruce; he rolls a 12 and just manages to hit. His attack does 6d(5), which is reduced to 2d by the armour. 8 damage gets through, significantly wounding Paula.

Gunther aims at her cover.

Turn 4

Bruce aims at Paula’s hiding place.

Paula waits behind cover for her shock penalties to abate. She just manages to avoid the penalties for reeling.

Martin aims again, and Gunther waits for her to appear.

Turn 5

Bruce continues waiting.

Having noticed the corner-shoot option from Pyramid 3/55:8 (similar to the treatment in Tactical Shooting), Paula opts to only expose her hands and make an aim manoeuvre using her HUD-linked smartgun camera. Bruce fires at her hands, the only visible part of Paula. That’s a -4 modifier, for a target of 10. With a 13, he misses. So does Martin.

Gunther fires, too. His to-hit roll is also 10, and he misses with an 11.

Turn 6

Bruce is forced to aim. He also does so from behind cover.

Paula fires at Gunther. The -2 penalty to guns (and -1 to acc) means she ends at 13 effective skill. At 10, she hits once (remember, recoil is increased by 1). Gunther cannot dodge, and the random hit location is 9, the torso. This is behind cover, and therefore sufficiently protected not to suffer damage.

Martin also aims. Gunther begins reloading, this time with a HE rocket to destroy cover. Turn 1/3.

Turn 7

Bruce fires. Target is Paula’s hands, again, and the target is 10. Rolling a 12, he misses.

Paula aims, this time at Martin. Gunther is still behind cover while reloading.

Martin fires, for a target of 10. He rolls 11. Those are some unlucky soldiers!

Gunther’s reload is at 2/3 turns.

Turn 8

Bruce aims.

Paula fires at Martin. She rolls a 13, hitting once to a random hit location; the left leg. Damage is reduced to 1d+2, for 5 penetration and 2 injury. A wound, but a survivable one. Paula has 40 shots left.

Martin aims. Gunther has finished reloading.

Turn 9

Bruce fires at Paula. And misses again with a 14. He’s now out of minimissiles, and needs three seconds to reload - per missile!

Paula aims at Martin. Martin fires - and finally manages to hit. This only does 3 injury, but is equivalent to a major wound. Her (roll - 1) right hand is crippled.

Gunther aims, and will fire next turn, in which his hit against the concrete barrier disintegrates it, exposing Paula to fire. I’ll call this fight now.

Summary

All in all, it looked quite interesting. Paula got very lucky, but the minimissiles really worked extremely well - while they can easily hit exposed hands, it really is well-defeated by cover. It did show the advantages of powered armour, though (primarily allowing her to survive one shot from a missile). And the storm chaingun is really nice, negating much of the cover advantage.