How to Play
Before you post your bios, I first like to determine your preferred specialty. Please list your preferred specialty, ranking from most preferred to least.
Assault - The standard unit within every mercenary company. Riflemen make up the bulk of their force, along with sniper teams, medics and heavy support.
Special Ops - A unit specialized in stealth. Mostly comprised of riflemen with augmented gear and hacking capabilities and snipers. Though they excel at infiltration and ranged support, they fare poorly in open combat.
Mechanized - Well suited to heavy combat, the Mech unit is comprised of tanks, walkers, heavy support teams and riflemen. They excel in high risk open warfare and can suppress enemies that may threaten other units on the field.
Engineers - Drones, riflemen, hackers and combat engineers make up this unit. Able to deploy automated turrets, mines, holo decoys among a wide array of technological weapons upon the battlefield. Engineers excel at altering the battlefield to favour the company.
Unfortunately, in the interest of balanced gameplay, White Suns will be comprised of four Assault, 2 Spec Ops, 1 Mech and 1 Engineer. So add any IC reason if you are competing for a role. It might just sway my decision.
After roles are determined, players may post their bios. You begin the game as a company commander within the White Suns Mercenary Corps. Keep in mind that you are a mercenary, and if you sway to rigidly in favour of either the USG or Republic, then you will fall outside the framework of the game. Keep in mind that we will be preoccupied with fighting the Deathshead Legion, and can expect to be working for both the USG and the Republic depending on the situation.
Orders
At the beginning of every turn I will post an IC and a list of contracts our company will be completing in the coming turn. Companies may then opt for a suitable contract and commanders may form a strategy for the coming turn. Orders are written in bold in the thread along with an IC that details the deployed tactics through the narrative, with a brief outline written in the bold orders below.
This game is intended to be IC driven, so your ICs will change the shape of the story. If you want to IC your spec op team infiltrating an enemy bunker to take out an enemy rocket team, then write an IC and post an order and you will thus change the narrative of the battle. You wish to IC your Mech being disengaged by EMP blasts from an enemy engineer. Write up an IC of your fire teams moving in to save the pilot and include an order and shape the battle with your narrative.
Stats
As I said earlier, this game doesn’t have any stats. Well, that isn’t exactly true. There are a couple things that you can monitor but they mainly act as literary devices. Troop numbers will fall as you conduct operations and take on casualties, but this is meant to communicate desperate times your company may fall on and the need to replenish ranks. Unit’s with weakened troop numbers should be kept in reserve or adequately supported by other units.
Aside from troops, each unit has a frigate with a stocked hanger and armory consisting of heavy ordinance, APCs, Dropships, Tanks and mechs, depending on your class.
Each commander also has a trust fund that will grow with each successful contract. It is to give you a sense of the wealth you acquire through the course of the game and give you a measure of success.
Though you begin the game as Commander, there is potential to climb to the rank of Major and Colonel for those of you who take a leadership role through your ICs. Those who exhibit leadership qualities through IC may be promoted to Colonel, the Corps’ second-in-command, or Major, the third-in-command. Players can expect a larger trust fund and possibly a greater say in the counsel of the admiral.
That sums it up for stats. Remember that this isn’t a game about faction building and gaining and spending resources, but a collaborative fiction in a sci-fi setting. This is a game about storytelling.
Admiral Clement Baines
Baines is the commander-in-chief of the White Suns Mercenary Corps. In his youth he was a pupil of General Scythe, leader of the Deathshead Legion. Baines was an idealist and became appalled by the lengths Scythe and his officers would go to in order to incite conflict across the colonies.
Descent is not something tolerated among the ranks of the Legion and Baines was left for dead in the Uchre System in the Outer Rim. Baines narrowly escaped death and amassed a wealth over the decades in the private military sector before procuring his own carrier and forming his own mercenary company; the White Suns. Dubbing his ship the Vengeful Destiny, Baines has gathered highly motivated personnel to his cause with the overall goal of destroying the Deathshead Legion.
Vengeful Destiny
An aged carrier of over three decades old. Despite it’s age, the ship is well maintained and retrofitted with top of the line digital, offensive and defensive suites. The immense hanger of the ship can dock right frigate class ships at a time as well as accommodate a squadron of fighter ships.
Once belonging to the USG Navy, the Vengeful Destiny served many years in the Helix Campaign as a mobile fortress, able to bring entire inmate companies to serve against the insectoids. After a string of bug assaults the ship was decommissioned, Baines was able to acquire at a discount and complete repairs to made it space worthy once again.
