"Leader" units

[Whiteagle]

Eh, I'd just have a "Glorious" object give bonuses to everyone within a certain range, with the idea that the guy with it should have plenty of cannon fodder in front of him and any enemy worthy enough to make it within range of the holder have earned the right to bask in its Glory.

You know what, that's what I'm going to do!
Instead of the Astromek's themselves giving the bonuses, like any good video game the source of their radiant awesomeness is their Nice Hats.
So if someone steals the Awesome Hat, they can then put it on and bask in its Glory... until someone else kills them for it!

[IVhorseman]

Between the underlines and italics, I have literally no idea what you're talking about.

[Whiteagle]

Between the underlines and italics, I have literally no idea what you're talking about.

Basically, the Briktoid leaders will have Awesome Hats that grant bonuses to anything within a certain range.

[pkbrennan]

Heroic and Professional minifigs are unburdened by the politikal red tape, but most common minifigs with 1d6 skill suffer negatively from the bureaucratic blunders.

There are so many funny things to do with Diplomats and Politicians and Rules Lawyers and the like, but most of them have the effect of slowing down the action or decreasing the level of violence somehow and I need to remind myself that I definitely want to avoid throwing any weight behind those kinds of mechanics. If there was a way to turn Popular Opinion into an offensive mechanic it could be funny though.

I do not know why, with all the Warhammer 40,000 fans here, no one has thought up of porting Kommisar type characters. "You're not causing enough bloodshed or mayhem!" Bang!

Also, for the more genocidal amongst you, their political role could be to make sure all peaches or yellows are dealt with, depending on the faction.

This would offend the Germanic AFOLs no end, so it is worth considering just for that alone...

[IVhorseman]

Hah. Offending people.

You are not the first to refer to the Komissar: with the rules for Thralls, this is totally doable already. It's just a special kind of Officer.

[pkbrennan]

I wasn't really thinking about having them assigned to a particular unit, but being free to move on their own independently. They can move between units all the time throughout the battle, or just ignore the units entirely and go off on peach/yellow killing sprees, as the fancy takes them.

The rule is, if the Komissar is a yellow, it has a psychopathic hatred of peaches, and vise versa. And in mixed peach and yellow armies and alliances, this can be very problematic...

Maybe a maximum of three (3) Kommisars in any army to keep things from taking over the general purpose of the game, which is sheer bloody mayhem.

Oh yes, if they do join a unit, that unit is re-purposed to the Komissar's own whim (any officers that object soon get shot, so they tend not to object).

[stubby]

We were talking for a while about giving Officers the Drill Sergeant ability, meaning that they carried a power drill that they would employ on the heads of subordinates to grant a motivation bonus to other subordinates.

It does make me think that a proper Leader unit would get his bonuses by blaming other units for his strategic failures and throwing them under buses.

[Falk]

It does make me think that a proper Leader unit would get his bonuses by blaming other units for his strategic failures and throwing them under buses.

You should do this.

[Arkbrik]

How about this. The Leader gives a mission to a squad (eg. kill those guys, get to that place, hold the line) and a corresponding bonus (either to Skill, Move or Armor). That bonus remains with them until they have succeeded, failed, or been wiped out. Until then, the Leader cannot give any more missions.

Success occurs when the squad completes its mission (they kill all the guys, they get to the place). They lose their bonus, and the Leader can give a new mission next turn. Some missions (hold the line) have no obvious way of being completed, so they can only end when the mission fails or the squad is wiped out.

Failure can occur at the end of any turn in which the squad did not complete its mission (as in, they did not kill all the guys, they did not get to the place, someone died). The controlling player can choose to voluntarily declare the mission failed, or any one opponent can try to win a What I Say Goes roll to have the mission fail. If the mission fails, the Leader blames one squad member, who is executed/thrown under a bus. The squad loses its bonus and the Leader can give a new mission next turn.

If the whole squad is wiped out before they succeed or fail, they have died gloriously for the cause. The Leader is a tactical genius and can give a new mission next turn.

Missions must be well defined; the success and failure conditions should be known to all players. They should also be specific; "kill those guys" isn't just a mission to kill any enemies, it's a mission to kill a specific squad or unit type. With "Get to that place" the place shouldn't be any spot on the table, it should be a particular terrain feature.

[stubby]

What do you think of this:

A Leader can ScapeGoat any subordinate unit that hasn't taken its turn yet, blaming them for failures real or imagined and motivating the troops with his decisive leadership. The unit's CP cost is immediately converted into Instant Benny bonus points which can be divided up and spent during that turn by the Leader and/or any other subordinate units.

The Leader picks an enemy player to control the ScapeGoat unit from that point forward, so it's in his own best interest to neutralize the victim quickly. The ScapeGoat now acts on the enemy's turn, so he won't be able to respond immediately, but he will have a Response Action to spend (since he hasn't taken his turn yet). When a Hero is ScapeGoated, he can make a one-time 1d6" roll for loyal RedShirts to join him in exile, although the RedShirt's CP costs will increase the number of bonus points for the Leader as well.

In a pinch, the player may also have any subordinate unit ScapeGoat the Leader instead.

[Quantumsurfer]

Clever. And it fits in with similar BW themes, like sabotage dice. Creates a tactical minigame where a player has to decide how much he's willing to risk. Also opens up tactical options for the opposing player they likely didn't account for in the beginning of the game. Creates a fair bit of chaos, but that's probably a good thing.

[IVhorseman]

Too focused on CP costs. For those of us who don't play with CP and just get out all the legos ( ), we'd be more likely to just never scapegoat than ass ourselves to check how many points it's worth.

[Quantumsurfer]

Valid point. But if you aren't using CP, why care too much about the exact mechanical benefit Leaders provide. Throw a minifig under the bus, scatter some red transparent around, give your guys some arbitrary boost, and enjoy the lulz.

[IVhorseman]

Balanced CP and Balanced rulesets are completely different things. I don't care if the armies are fair - I just want the physics to be.

The mechanic I'd probably use is to convert the sacrificed unit's skill into a Benny. I wanted to avoid "leader gets X, Hero gets Y, everyone else is Z" rules just because they're a bit long-winded, but I think a skill die might be appropriate. It starts falling apart once you get into units with a bunch of paid-for abilities or units with weird house-ruled skill levels, but in the absence of CP, it's

[Quantumsurfer]

Interesting.