Lancer:​ ​Battlegroup

Playtest 1
Playtest Document Prepared by Miguel Lopez and Kai Tave for Massif Press
2020
Lancer:​ ​Battlegroup​ brings new, semi-narrative space combat to ​Lancer​. Set in 5020u,
Battlegroup​ takes place in the ​Dawnline Shore​, where two factions — the ​Concordant
Administration​ and the ​Perfect Ministeriat​ — upon one world, ​New Creighton​, have fired the
first shots of a conflict that will draw the entire region into war — and threaten the very stability
of Union. The engagements you fight in ​Battlegroup​ are the largest naval engagements the
galaxy has seen in centuries: though the weapons used to fight them are new, the tactics are
not. Casualties are inevitable.

Lancer: Battlegroup​ is a new, standalone rules system for the ​Lancer​ setting, designed for use
at your tabletop and in digital, non-grid or hex-based play. Blending ​Lancer​’s deep unit
customization and imbued story with tactical narrative action, ​Battlegroup​ casts the players as
pilots and officers in a battlegroup deployed to the front line. Their missions may vary, but their
main objective remains the same: survive, and return home.

Features:
● Split-action play between two scales of fleet combat: the dogfight and the battlegroup.
● Light, action-forward fleet management at the battlegroup tier of play, and single-ship
command at the dogfight tier of play.
● The ability to import your Core ​Lancer​ pilot — though to be warned, they will have far
less ability to impact battles waged between opposed fleets than combat on the
ground!
● Boarding actions, along with a number of different ways to engage, progress, and
conclude them.
● Fleet and ship customization — from hull to systems, weapons and escorts, the way
you build your ships determines how you play.

As a heads up, you may see some traits, weapons, maneuvers, etc, that reference tiers or
features of play not yet included in PT1 — consider those hints at what is to come in PT2 and
PT3!

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Hi there, Pilots,

During our testing and development process (roughly a 9 month cycle), we plan to release at
least two major Playtest updates, titled PT2 and PT3, which will add the following features to
Battlegroup​:

PT2: The Dogfight tier of play, NPC Aces and their escorts, Boarding Actions, a first stab at a
character sheet, general rules updates, additional lore, and more.

PT3: will add Downtime, narrative character and ship advancement, ​Battlegroup​ Missions,
rules tweaks, lore, and more (Maybe even art by this one, as well).

Feedback on PT1 can go in the #rules-and-feedback channel of Pilot.Net. General chatter can
go in #lancer-battlegroup, and lore specific chats can go in #lore-and-spoilers.

Thanks, and see you in the stars,

Miguel and Kai, Massif Press, 2020

(PS while not ​strictly​ confidential, we do ask that you don’t share this document outside of
Pilot.NET or your table, as it represents early, ​early​ playtest material, and likely will not be
recognizable once development is complete. Honor system on this one, folks.

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H​ow to Play Battlegroup 6
WHAT YOU NEED 6
WHAT YOU ROLL 7
THE GOLDEN RULE(S) 8
All Vessels Engaged 9
SITREP 10
1: REPORT 10
2: OBJECTIVE 10
3: LEGIONCAST 11
4: PREPARATION 12
Uptime 13
Detail of a Round 15
First, the Fleet Phase 15
Then, the Dogfight Phase 18
Quick Reference Turn Order 19
Attack 20
To Attack as Part of a Maneuver at the Fleet and Dogfight Phases: 21
The Gyre 22
Range Bands of the Gyre 24
Posture 26
Make an Entrance 27
Damage and Destruction 28
Kill Table 28
Keywords and Definitions 29
Game Terms 29
Weapon Types 30
Weapon and System Tags 31

Characters In Battlegroup 35
New, Non-Lancer Characters 37
Backgrounds 38

The Battlegroup 52
Building Your Battlegroup 53
Example: UDoJ/HR Liberator Battlegroup Pullman 54
Capital Ship Classifications 55
Frigate Hulls 56
Carrier Hulls 62
Battleship Hulls 65
Battlegroup Weapons 69
Battlegroup Systems 75
Squadrons and Wings 80
Capital Ship Summary 85

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How to GM Battlegroup 87
Inevitability, Fatalism, and Hope: Getting Through It 87

The Field of Battle 90

When Fighting Near Terrestrial Bodies and Crowded Airspace 90
When Fighting Near Natural Stellar Bodies 92

Building NPCs 94
Fleet Tier 94
NPC Flagship Archetypes 96
NPC Escort Archetypes 109

The Dawnline Shore 115

Places, Everyone 115
The Road 115
Down The Shore 116
Worlds of the Dawnline Shore 118
Port of Call: Dawnline Shore 119
Key Armory Ports 119
Key Baronic Ports 120
Key Union Ports 121

Galactic Powers Active in the Dawnline Shore 123

Union Navy 123
Union Naval Patrol 124
Union Naval Battlegroup 125
Union Ring Fleet 125
Karrakin Trade Barons 126
Baronic Unified Command — Naval Group 126
House Company (Leased Ships) 127
Free Company Expeditionary Group 127
Harrison Armory 128
Armory Battlegroup 128

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How to Play ​Battlegroup
Fleet Commander Conrad Schuyler paced his private deck on the ​Colossal Promise​, his battleship and
the flagship of the Armory’s 5th Dawnline fleet. He wore his battlesuit, but held his helm behind his back.
Under thrust, he could walk without the aid of mag boots. The marble surface wouldn’t have accepted
them anyways. Alone, he paced the walk, a solitary figure against the stark black of a starless void.

Out there the Counters’ ships no doubt matched his battlegroup’s trajectory and burn, their torpedo
tubes open, their long guns fixed on where they thought he was going to be. They were likely correct —
not much room to maneuver in this empty space above New Creighton — and that was the essence of
naval combat anyways: one could not hide when one is the only thing in a void.

If Schuyler wanted, he could open a line to the C

​ olossal Promise​’s CIC and have the enemy fleet’s
course cast to the panorama wall. He could stand before the Counters’ fleet-in-wireframe-miniature and
hold them in his hand. Schuyler did not want that; he was not interested in paper boats. He wanted a
Baron, and Invictus had quietly informed him that there were none in the Counters’ fleet.

Schuyler reached the end of his walk, turned, and paced back. The Preludes and their minor keys echoed
over his footfalls. He was nervous, to be sure — as any sane person was before an engagement — but
confidence and the piano tempered his nerves. This was not his first duel; god willing and with proper
planning, it would not be his last.

The final three notes of the final Prelude boomed across Schulyer’s deck. Time, then.

“Invictus,” Schuyler’s voice echoed in the otherwise empty space.​ ​He did not wait for an
acknowledgement: he knew the legion listened to its commander. “Ready my post in the CIC.” Schuyler
pulled on his helm, securing it to his suit. All indicators save for heart rate showed well within nominal.
“Let us begin.”

WHAT YOU NEED

This game uses two sorts of dice: twenty-sided dice (d20) and six-sided dice (d6). You’ll roll
these dice to determine the outcome of uncertain situations, such as firing weapons, engaging
in electronic warfare, or undertaking critical maneuvers. When the rules call for you to make a
roll, it will also tell you how many dice to roll. For example, 1d20 means you need to roll a
single d20, whereas 2d6 means you need to roll two d6s.

Sometimes the rules may call for you to roll 1d3. That’s just a shorthand way of saying you
should roll 1d6 and halve the results (rounded up). When you’re called on to roll 1d3, a result of
1 or 2 on a d6 equals 1, 3 or 4 equals 2, and 5 or 6 equals 3.

Lancer: Battlegroup​ is best played with 3-6 players, but can be played with as little as two or
as many as you feel comfortable with. Each player needs at least one d20, a number of d6s,
and some paper or a character sheet to write down information.

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Unlike Lancer, this game does ​not​ use grid-based tactical combat. ​Battlegroup​ instead uses a
ranging system called the ​Gyre​ to track the relative positions of fleets as they engage in
combat with the enemy. As such, square or hex maps aren’t necessary to play the game and
neither are miniatures, but you may wish to use a Gyre map and some way to track fleets such
as tokens in order to make combat easier to visualize.

WHAT YOU ROLL

In fleet combat, ​attacks​ are any offensive actions made against other ships or fleets, like firing
a weapon or directing your fleet legion to disrupt an opponent’s systems. When you make an
attack roll, you roll 1d20 and add any relevant bonuses. For an attack to be successful it needs
to equal or exceed the target’s Defense value. Successful attacks are described as “hits” - so if
the rules tell you that an effect happens “on hit”, that means it takes place when you make a
successful attack. Some attacks also result in critical hits. On a roll of 20+ you perform a
critical hit, which allows you to deal more damage or sometimes trigger extra effects.

Another type of roll that may be called for is a ​check.​ Checks are handled the same as attacks,
rolling 1d20 and adding bonuses, but the target you’re attempting to equal or exceed will be a
different value than a target’s Defense. The target number will typically be stated in the
description of the check itself.

There are several ways rolls may be modified. One way is with a static modifier that simply
adds a flat amount to the roll, represented as a + followed by a number. For example, if
something adds +2 to a roll then after making the roll you’ll add 2 to the result to get the total
value. Another common modifier is ​Accuracy​ and ​Difficulty,​ which represent momentary
advantages or disadvantages gained and lost in rapid, chaotic moments of action.

● Each point of ​Accuracy​ adds 1d6 to a d20 roll.

● Each point of ​Difficulty​ subtracts 1d6 from a d20 roll.
● Accuracy​ and ​Difficulty​ cancel each other out on a 1:1 basis.

If you are lucky enough to be rolling several of the same bonus dice, whether Accuracy or
Difficulty, you don’t add them together to determine the result. Instead, find the highest number
rolled and apply it to the final roll. Because of this, no roll can ever receive more than –6 or +6
from either Accuracy or Difficulty.

Weapons, attacks, and other abilities will deal damage when they hit their target. Damage
values are given as a flat number, a dice roll, or a dice roll plus a modifier. In cases where an
attack does damage to multiple targets at once, such as a powerful area attack, you ​roll
damage only once​ and apply the result to all affected targets.

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Sometimes, special systems or effects will call for something to be halved, such as damage.
Halving does not stack, even from multiple sources. If something causes a ship to deal half
damage, then halving its damage again won’t make it deal one-quarter damage.

THE GOLDEN RULE(S)

There are two golden rules to remember when playing ​Lancer: Battlegroup.

I. Specific rules override general statements and rules.

For example, normally certain attacks may not be avoidable; however, certain abilities or
systems may give you the ability to attempt to avoid those attacks. Because these
abilities are specific rules, they supersede the general rules concerning those attacks.

II. Always round up (to the nearest whole number).

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All Vessels Engaged
“Orientation. Orientation is going to kill you or save your life, depending on ​how fast you understand it​,”
Fleetmaster Lecuyer-Orion said. He paced the lecture floor, addressing the assembled cadets.
“Combat and navigation in a three-dimensional environment is antithetical to our primate brain;
we’re not fish. Our natural impulse is to orient visually, to seek an immutable horizon and draw our
orientation from that. ‘Up’, ‘down’ — these are empirical things to us, a species that evolved with its feet
on the ground. In space, this primate desire to ​see​ your horizon will get you killed.”
Mayura Song took notes — she drew spheres, shading with cross-hatching. Fleetmaster Orion
continued.
“As pilots and officers in command of ships, remember this — especially you born down a well
— for you, there is no horizon. Do not attempt to orient by static visual reference — ‘up’ and ‘down’
changes constantly. So how do you orient? Which way is ‘up’ and which way is ‘down’?” Orion crossed
his arms and dropped his lecture voice. ‘Not a rhetorical question, cadets, I’ll need an answer before we
move along.’
Song finished shading. It was an easy question — Baronic decorum lead the others to hesitation,
which is why there was still silence. She didn’t bother to raise her hand. “Fleetmaster,” Song’s voice cut
the silence. “You can orient by your gut. ‘Down’ is always paired to thrust: ‘Down’ is always behind you.”
Fleetmaster Orion smiled. “Good. Correct, Cadet Song, and well said. The rest of you, remember
this: ‘down’ is always behind. When you are in space, you only ever head one direction: up. Orient
yourselves accordingly.”
Orion nodded, and the slide behind him changed, and Song started in on a new sphere.
*

Battlegroup​ is all about the engagement. Pre-battle positioning, acceleration and deceleration,
chasing down enemy fleets, navigation from one’s deployment zone to the battle line — all of
that is assumed to have already happened by the time the first dice are rolled. ​Battlegroup​ is
about the moments where the unpredictability gap is about to close — and the climax when it
does. It is best to assume the following opening scaffolding for your players, and then let them
place their ships in context as they would prefer:

The enemy is out there, somewhere. Your instruments place them around a hundred thousand
kilometers distant — give or take a few hundred, as their sensor bafflers fight your own — not yet
visible on optics, but certainly within range. Radiation and comms interceptors light up, and long-range
suites highlight their ships in wireframe. Their hulls, stark unnatural crimson boxes against the starless
black.

The chase is done. The enemy, sighted. The battle is engaged.

Assume the following about the beginning of each combat session of ​Battlegroup:​

● The field of battle is set, and the enemy fleet will not continue to flee — or, if you are
defending, you either cannot outrun their ships ​or​ cannot abandon the objective —

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 unless they attempt to retreat rapidly from combat. In any case, your orders are clear:
engage the enemy and defeat them.

● Any movement is — on balance — going to be blueshift movement: your overall

movement will take you closer to the enemy or towards the objective of the battle. As a
commander you of course have the leeway to determine the best approach to the
enemy — one that leans in to advantage and balances aggression with defense —
though, again, you have your orders: advance and defeat the enemy.

● Positioning along the X, Y, and Z axis of space is important narratively, but unless
movement takes a battlegroup between range bands, it will not impact mechanics.

SITREP
"Good morning Commander,” the ship’s NHP says crisply, “I trust you slept well. Shipboard
time is 0800 Cradle. I've taken the liberty of compiling a strategic overview for your perusal, it's
waiting for you on your personal terminal. Estimated time to terminal contact is 36 hours. Crew
reactivation is at 43% and proceeding on schedule, weapons systems are undergoing
pre-combat diagnostics, and I've had coffee sent to your quarters. Do you need anything else?"

However! Before the actual fighting begins, one must plan. Cycled up from stasis, you join your
fellow officers in Legionspace or on the flight deck and discuss your objectives in the battle
that has already begun.

1: REPORT
First, the GM (or a player) fills in the party on any and all relevant information that the player
characters will know going into the fight. Enemy force strength, composition, and direction.
Environments, complications, and allied forces. The length and detail of this moment may vary:
as long as the parameters of the mission before them are clearly laid out (for the players, not
necessarily their characters!) then the SITREP is complete.

2: OBJECTIVE
As part of the pre-engagement in (or out!) of character briefing, the GM must inform the players
— or work with the players to define — the success condition of the looming engagement. Is it
to utterly eliminate the enemy fleet? Or is it to escort a VIP through a blockade? Is it to board
and capture a certain number of ships? Or is it to defend a station from attack? To defeat a
network of planetary defenses? Or repel an invasion fleet?

As long as the parameters of the mission have been clearly laid out (SITREP) and the win
conditions of the engagement explained and agreed upon (OBJ CONFIRM), then you’ve

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established the plan before the action. Next, you’ll need to establish or agree upon the stakes
of the engagement.

d20 Morning, GROUPCOM. Briefing Is On Your Desk.

1-2 [Enemy faction battlegroup] is inbound on a HIGH CONFIDENCE intercept trajectory. Has
not responded with CLEAR/OK to our hails and is HOSTILE. Looks to be a stand up fight,
just waiting for your go.

3-4 [Allied faction ship] has issued a coalition-wide call for assistance, and reports [enemy
faction battlegroup] bearing and blue on their coordinates. Our task is to intervene and
rescue the allied ship.

5-6 FLEETCOM has pushed an immediate NL-STOP order to your battlegroup: [enemy
faction] in local bubble have diverted assets to bomb [allied ground forces] from orbit.
Re-orient and proceed to break the orbital forces.

7-8 Nearing SAFELAND; as predicted, [enemy faction] has dispatched a number of ships to
attempt an intercept. This was a fight you expected: now it’s time to square up.

9-10 VIP ship reports multiple hostile actors aboard their vessel and requests aid; complicating
things, [enemy faction] ships have just realigned and launched torpedoes, targeting your
ships — It’s going to be a brawl over the VIP.

11-12 You’ll be realigning to realspace within two light seconds of [DLS World]; [Enemy Faction]
has ships in orbit preparing to bombard. Remove them.

13-14 BREAK BREAK BREAK CONTACTS <1​ls​ DISPERSE AND REALIGN — TOO MANY ON
SCOPE — JUMP WHEN ABLE TO ​COBALT-ELM-GREEN​ — ORIENT ON MY RADIAN
AND PUNCH THROUGH THIS LINE!

15-16 At 0900 hours our long-range monitoring stations detected HOSTILE INTENT ACTORS on
a HIGH CONFIDENCE intercept trajectory towards [Friendly Station]; multiple heavyweight
contacts bearing dead on, multiple lightweight contact indicate low-choke k-clouds
inbound. Fire interdiction and prepare to defend the station. .

17-18 Reports of a [known enemy ship or group] have been confirmed by system-local
monitoring stations. Proceed with caution and intent: [known ship or group] is hostile,
dangerous, and appears to be moving with a specific objective in mind.

19-20 This will be a stand up fight: [enemy faction]’s fleet is traveling well within predicted
trajectories along a known radian — engage and eliminate. Win the day, captain.

3: LEGIONCAST
What happens if the engagement goes well? What happens if it goes poorly? Before any action
begins, be sure to take time to establish, as a party, clear consequences for the positive,
negative, or neutral outcomes of what is about to happen. If the players fail to protect the VIP
ship against the enemy fleet — what happens? If the players fail to board and capture the
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target ship — what happens? If the players cannot buy enough time for civilian ships to
evacuate a world ahead of an enemy invasion fleet — what happens?

In ​Battlegroup​, the stakes can be appreciably large — larger, even, than in Core ​Lancer.​ You
and your players are engaging with the strength of states and corpros; they are not simply a
single squad of powerful mechs, but a battlegroup of ships that could, if their weapons were
turned towards terrible ends, destroy worlds. The consequences of failure may mount, or they
may be isolated to the sector of space that they occupy, but in most cases they should always
be known and agreed upon by the party (out of character) before heading forward. Once the
players are informed on the engagement to come, have clear knowledge of their objective, and
know what could happen as a consequence — i.e. know the strategic big picture — they can
begin to plan their tactical approach.

4: PREPARATION
Captains confer and plan in legionspace, matching their ship’s tunings to their compatriots’,
sharing information on hardcopy munitions, printing schedules, and the specifics of their group
comps. Pilots on flight decks bid farewell to friends, with promises of drinks and downtime
after the fight — if they make it back — and then hurry to their ships for pre-flight checks.

At this point of the pre-engagement, players at both the Fleet and Dogfight tiers of play may, if
they like, make in-hull modifications to their ship(s)1 — modifications like swapping weapons,
systems, and ordinance, along with any “narrative” considerations they so choose (ordering
onboard marines to certain modules of their ship, describing the general orientation or
formation of their ships, describing where their character is and what they are doing, and so
on). They may, as well, select any optional Maneuvers and or Tactics to employ during the
upcoming battle.

Generally speaking, you’ll likely not skip any of four steps outlined so far. However, in some
special circumstances — say, a surprise attack that catches the players off-guard, or the
introduction of some esoteric/unknown weapon that yanks them from cruising speed, and so
on — you will jump directly to ​Uptime​. Even in that case, you’ll likely want to do a little out of
character run through of steps 1-4, just so that everyone is on board ​as a player​ and can start
to figure out how their characters will respond to such a sudden engagement.

1
Generally, players would not be able to wholly change the hulls they already have equipped. However,
as a GM, you have fiat to allow them to do so — perhaps they are a division of a much larger fleet, with
moving printers or a nearby shipyard.
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Uptime
Uptime in ​Battlegroup​ is active play, which begins after the ​SITREP ​phase of a session.
Uptime, like SITREP, occurs across a number of phases: the Logistics, Fleet, Dogfight, and
End of Round (or Boarding Action) phases. Taken together, each set of these four phases
represents a round.

The ​Fleet​ phase is when players and NPCs in command of Battlegroups respond to attacks
and take their own actions.

The ​Dogfight​ phase is when players and NPCs in command of singular ships respond to
attacks and take their own action.

The ​End of Round ​or ​Boarding Action​ phase is when certain attacks are totaled, certain
events are progressed or resolved, and so on.

After the End of Round phase, the round ends, and the next round begins at the first step of
the Fleet phase.

Optional 0 Step: Posture

Choose the Posture of your battlegroup as the fleet heads towards combat. See the ​Posture​ section
for more information.

Optional 0 Step: Make an Entrance

Roll on the Make an Entrance table to see where your battlegroup drops out of nearlight. See the ​Gyre
section for more.

A Round of Play

1. Fleet Phase
a. Logistics Step
b. Impact Step
c. Action Step
2. Dogfight Phase
a. Logistics Step
b. Impact Step
c. Action Step
3. End of round
a. Boarding Actions

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As with the core ​Lancer​ game, players decide their own turn order and act first, followed by
NPCs, alternating between player character and non-player character. Each player may take
their turn only once per round in the phase that they are acting on.

Players individually control battlegroups (groups of ships and subline wings) or an individual
ship (a small, single-seat fighter, or a mech mounted on a rocket-assisted flight system, or a
multi-crew bomber, or a small sub-line ship). Together, a party of player characters composes
a fleet2.

Players in command of a battlegroup act during the Fleet phase; Players in command of an
individual ship act during the Dogfight phase. The Fleet phase of combat is characterized by
necessary planning, the inevitability of incoming fire, and last-second attempts to deflect or
avoid certain death. The Dogfight phase of combat is characterized by an immediacy of action,
fighting between clashing giants, and personal battles against recognizable enemy aces.

If no players or NPCs would act during the Fleet Phase, that phase of combat is ignored; by
the same token, if no players or NPCs would act during the Dogfight Phase, that phase of
combat is ignored. Otherwise, alternating initiative works as normal in each phase of play.

Initiative Example: Players Acting at Different Phases

Your party is composed of four players. Three of those players have chosen to pilot only a single
fighter each, while the remaining player has chosen to command a battlegroup. This means that the
player who chose to command a battlegroup will act first each round, as the first phase (or step, or
stage) of each round is the Fleet Phase; since they are the only player in command of a battlegroup,
and since players always act before NPCs, they’ll take the first action in the first phase of the round —
the Fleet phase — followed by any NPCs operating at the Fleet phase.

The remaining three player characters each pilot their own individual fighter; they act during the
Dogfight Phase, in an order that they choose, alternating with any NPCs at that tier.

Once all players have taken their turns in the phase they are allowed to take them, the round moves to
the End of Round phase. Upkeep and Status effects are resolved, and the next turn begins.

2
Assuming there is at least one capital ship represented in the player party. If not, then if there is at least
one subline vessel (a cruiser or destroyer) then the player party is a Patrol or a Sortie. If the player party
is composed entirely of fighters, bombers, or mounted mech chassis, then it is called a Wing — and
hopefully they have a friendly ship, station, or world nearby!
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Detail of a Round
Uptime Play begins in the Fleet phase. ​Note: in this document (PT1), we have only included the
Fleet phase of combat. The Dogfight phase of combat will be included in PT2, to be released
later this year.

First, the Fleet Phase

The Fleet phase of play is intended to be slower and more “bird’s-eye” than the Dogfight
phase. Where the Dogfight is intended to capture the immediacy and chaos of what is
essentially melee combat in space, the Fleet phase is intended to capture the sense of
planning and inevitability of a capital ship engagement — we’ll zoom into the dogfight action
immediately following this first phase of play.

Thus, beginning in the first round of play, targeting and maneuvering precedes action; in all
other rounds, the choices of the ​previous​ round find their resolution — lances and torpedoes
crash into the flanks of opposed frigates, kill-clouds blow through wings of fighters, boarding
actions slowly crawl up the spinal corridors of carriers and battleships, and so on.

First, the ​Logistics Step​:

1. All Charge counters tick up by 1. All Payload flight times tick down by 1. If a Reloading
weapon or system has been used, its cooldown ticks down by 1.
2. Any other systems, maneuvers, etc, that would trigger during the Logistics step do so
now.
3. Use this step to make sure everyone is on the same page — there is plenty of narrative
“free time” for in-character communications, movement inside one’s ship, and other
non-tactical character moments. Players can ask questions of the GM and other players
here — feel free to narratively abstract those questions and answers as the characters
consulting with their NHP and other officers in the fleet legion.

Then (or, on the first round), the ​Impact Step

1. Any Charge attacks that have completed their charge may fire now, rolling to hit, or
hold their charge for later. Payload attacks whose travel times have reached 0
automatically hit now.
2. Roll damage for any incoming attacks that need damage rolls, add any already
determined damage, and assign the total incoming damage to the correct ships and/or
battlegroups.
3. Then, if the incoming attacks can be Interdicted, do so now. For any incoming damage
applied, roll for (or apply) Interdiction and reduce that damage by the Interdiction
amount.

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Then, the ​Action Step​. Players choose their order, and then act, alternating with NPCs.
Battlegroups may perform one ​Maneuver​ (a primary action) and one ​Tactic ​(a quick action). If
you like, you may forego your Maneuver in order to use ​two Tactics​ instead.

The basic Maneuvers available to all Battlegroups are:

All Ahead Full! (Maneuver)

Battlegroup Maneuver
Your Battlegroup may advance one range band forward. You may fire one Primary weapon
before or after advancing.

Open Fire! (Maneuver)

Battlegroup Maneuver
Your Battlegroup remains in its current range band, devoting all extra power to its weapons.
You may fire one Superheavy weapon, or up to two Primary weapons.

Retrograde Burn! (Maneuver)

Battlegroup Maneuver
Your Battlegroup may fall back one range band. If they do, gain d6 Interdiction ​or​ +2 to the
Defense scores of all ships until the start of your next turn.

Ramming Speed! (Maneuver)

Battlegroup Maneuver
Ramming is not considered a standard combat doctrine by any major naval power, and
capital ships aren’t designed with such actions in mind, but desperate times may call for
desperate measures. You may only use this Maneuver at ​Close​ or ​Point Blank​ range.
Advance your Battlegroup to Point Blank range, then choose one of your ships and an
enemy capital ship; both ships take 2d6 damage that cannot be reduced in any way.

Attacks​ are performed as a part of a Maneuver (and can be modified by Tactics). Attacks are
either ​Single Target​, and made against a specific ship’s defense by rolling ​Aim v. Evasion​, or
they are ​Area Target​, and require no roll to hit, but simply apply their damage on their target(s)
next Impact step.

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The basic Tactics available to all Battlegroups are:

Lock Firing Solution (Tactic)

Battlegroup Tactic
You route legion processing power towards lining up a perfect shot or tracking an especially
wiley target, and share the revised telemetry with the rest of the fleet. Nominate an enemy
capital ship: that target gains the ​Lock On​ condition. Any battlegroup making a Single Target
attack against a ship with the locked on condition may choose to gain +1 Advantage on their
attack roll, and then clear the Lock On condition after the attack resolves (hit or miss). This is
called consuming Lock On.

Lock On lasts until it is consumed ​or​ until the end of the next Impact Step, at which point
ships are assumed to have maneuvered enough to render the targeting data obsolete. Lock
On does not stack; a target ship is either Locked On or not.

Careful Shot (Tactic)

Battlegroup Tactic
By ordering your gunnery crews to carefully place their fire or by adjusting weapon power
outputs you can attempt to deliver an attack that aims to destroy an enemy without
completely annihilating it outright. After giving this command, your battlegroup's attacks deal
half damage on hit until the start of your next turn and cannot critically hit. This effect does
not apply to Charge or Payload weapons, as those are simply too powerful to effectively
reduce or precisely aim in any meaningful capacity; even a glancing blow with a long-spool
weapon is enough to cause catastrophic damage on impact.

If this attack would reduce its target to 0 HP or lower, you may have the target of this attack
be rendered combat-ineffective instead of destroyed; it is dead in the water, unable to flee or
present a threat. This tactic is mostly useful for attempting to avoid the more destructive
results on the Kill Table on page XX, should the players wish to capture an enemy ship intact
(more or less) for narrative reasons.

Escort Screen (Tactic)

Battlegroup Tactic
During fleet engagements, a common strategy is to task smaller ships with providing a
defensive screen for larger vessels such as carriers or battleships, protecting them while they
coordinate fighter-tier activities or bring devastating weapons to bear. This Tactic can only
be used by a battlegroup that contains at least one Frigate-type vessel; carriers and
battleships are too ponderous to provide effective screening. Choose a Frigate under your

16
 command and assign it to escort another ship in your battlegroup ​or​ assign it to escort a
ship in an allied battlegroup within the same range band.

Until the start of your next turn, whenever a Single Target attack is rolled against the
escorted ship it has a 50 percent chance of being screened, and the attacker must either
abort their attack, wasting their action, or attack the screening Frigate instead. Roll a die or
flip a coin to determine this.

Frigates on escort duty cannot make attacks as they are concentrating on intercepting
incoming threats, and if the screening Frigate is destroyed, this ability can no longer be used.
Only a single Frigate can escort another ship at a time, and Frigates cannot screen for
Frigates that are also screening.

After all Battlegroups — player and NPC — have taken their actions, the Fleet phase
concludes, and play moves on to the Dogfight phase.

Note: if a player acting at the Fleet phase has suffered enough damage to be reduced to a
single ship, wing, or squadron, they continue to act at the Fleet phase.

Then, the ​Dogfight Phase [TBD]

As with the Fleet phase, begin the Dogfight phase with the ​Impact Step​. ​Unlike​ the Fleet
phase, the Dogfight phase ​can​ begin with an Impact step during the first round of the
engagement — if any player or NPC fired at a player operating on the Dogfight tier, they’ll have
to attempt to interdict or avoid that damage now.

If no one operating at the Fleet phase fired at anyone operating at the Dogfight phase — or if
there are no players or NPCs acting at the Fleet phase — then the first Dogfight phase does
not​ begin with an Impact Step3. Instead, proceed directly to the ​Action Step​.

1. First, resolve any incoming fire from the Fleet Phase in the ​Impact Step​.
a. If PCs are able to Avoid or Interdict incoming fire, they do so now. If any damage
is not wholly interdicted or avoided, apply that damage before moving on to the
next step of play.

2. Then, the ​Action Step​. Players choose their order, and act, alternating with NPCs.
Players acting at the Dogfight phase may perform one of two actions:

3
If you’re using the “Posture” system outlined in the Fleet section, players operating at the Dogfight tier
do not set a posture; the fluid nature of combat at this tier of play
17
 a. Maneuver. As with the Battlegroup tier, Dogfight tier actors can use one of the
following default Maneuvers: ​All Ahead Full​, ​Open Fire​, or ​Retrograde Burn​.
b. Tactics: as with the Battlegroup tier, actors at the Dogfight tier may use one of
the following default Tactics: ​Lock Firing Solution​, ​Careful Shot​, or ​Escort
Screen​. These Tactics only apply to actors at the Dogfight tier.

Quick Reference Turn Order

Fleet
1. Logistics — Accrue Charge counters, reduce Payload and Recharge/Reload counters.
Get everyone on the same page.
2. Impact — Attempt to Interdict or Avoid incoming attacks, and then resolve any
incoming damage.
3. Action

Dogfight
1. Logistics — Accrue Charge counters, reduce Payload and Recharge/Reload counters.
Get everyone on the same page.
2. Impact — resolve any incoming damage from the Fleet phase.
3. Action — Attack enemies, or Maneuver your ship.

Boarding Action/End of Round

1. Boarding Actions — if using ​Battlegroup​ to resolve boarding actions, manage them
now.

18
Attack
Battery Three on the FKS S ​ anspeur​ was locked down for combat. As of ship-morning, the battlegroup
was engaged; now, the enemy was in scope range, and Battery Three’s shift was about to begin.
Dim red safelight illuminated the soft corners and padded walls of the battery, blunting the grain
and grit of every surface. Under thrust, Battery Three had gravity; combat speed pushed the weight of
Lance Gunner Fisher’s hardsuit onto himself. Even with the structural and internal aids, in order to stay
conscious Fisher had to force air in and out, tensing his legs and gut to keep the blood in his head.
“How long till we engage?” Gunner Parson’s voice hissed in Fisher’s ear, deformed by the
intense gees.
Fisher could only move his eyes — enough to see the subtext chatter flying across the
Sanspeur​’s open channels. “Thirty minutes. You ready?”
Parson hissed an affirmative around the gees.
“Good, load Starkill — CO wants us on fly-swatting duty.”
“A-firm.”
Fisher did the same, queueing up belts of prox-burst. “I got, uh, ten racks before we hit feed —
you?”
“Twelve.”
Fisher grimaced. “Let’s hope it’s a short fight.” He settled into his control seat, and counted
down the clock. Thirty minutes before engage, and the helm still had this boat burning hard for the
assumed horizon.
“Hey Fish —”
“Yeah?”
Parson hissed again. “I hit more Purv flies than you, you’re buying my coffee for the rest of the
week. Deal?”
Fisher would’ve laughed, but for the gees. Instead, he chirped a-firm, and keyed his cannons into
pre-cycle warmup.
Thirty minutes to go.
*

Combat and attacks at the Fleet and Dogfight phases might play out in largely similar ways
mechanically, though narratively they are quite different when it comes to scale of time,
movement, and impact. While attacks at the Fleet phase of combat might represent great ships
lining up long spool guns and launching flights of missiles in relatively stable movement
patterns, attacks at the Dogfight phase might describe — in one roll — the outcome of a
frenetic, desperate bombing run. At the Fleet phase, a player may describe one of their capital
ships firing a flight of torpedoes, while at the Dogfight phase, a player may lay out the comms
chatter of a wing on approach to their target, the terrifying opening moments of a dive through
the PDC screen of an enemy capital ship, and then the mad scramble to disengage after
releasing their payloads.

Both approaches are valid: your players are likely operating on different scales, and while their
mechanics are similar, their characters’ experiences are going to be different and, by necessity,
Battlegroup’​ s turns might expand and contract in scope and time.

19
To Attack as Part of a Maneuver at the Fleet and Dogfight
Phases:
○ First, choose a valid weapon or weapons as dictated by your Maneuver.
○ Then, declare your target:
○ For Area attacks, you target either an enemy battlegroup (at the Fleet tier) or
wing (at the Dogfight tier).
○ For Single Target attacks, players at the Fleet tier choose a specific enemy
Flagship, Escort, or Escort Group operating at the Fleet tier, while players at the
Dogfight tier choose a specific Ace, Escort, or Escort group operating at the
Dogfight tier.
○ Targets must be within range of the nominated weapon to be a valid target;
otherwise, the attack has no effect whatsoever (effects “on miss” dissipate as
well). Unless specified by a system, weapon, or ability, player-controlled and
NPC battlegroups acting in the Fleet phase may only target ships or squadrons
operating in the Fleet phase. Likewise, player ships and NPC ships at the
Dogfight tier — unless specified otherwise — may only target NPCs operating at
the Dogfight tier.
● Then, if necessary, roll a d20 to attack. If the total of your attack roll equals or beats
your target’s Defense, your attack is successful: you predicted your enemy’s path, and
your weapon — barring interdiction or avoidance — will likely impact. Roll for damage.
■ Your attack roll is positively modified by systems, weapons, and tactics. It can
be modified by Accuracy or Difficulty die as well.
● If the weapon you’re using has the ​Payload​ or ​Charge​ tag, then when you declare your
target, either note or roll to determine how many rounds must pass before the weapon
resolves.
○ Weapons with the Payload tag will always hit their targets unless they are
interdicted or avoided.
○ Weapons with the Charge tag make their attack roll to hit on the turn they fire,
instead of the round that their target is chosen; you roll to hit when the last
Charge counter is added, not when you declare your target.
○ Note: an attack that hits with a total of 20 or higher is a critical hit, and deals double
damage.

20
The Gyre
Using the Gyre, the battle space is best visualized (in a two dimensional space) as a series of
six concentric range bands, like so4:

Under the default assumed engagement, every player operating at the Fleet Phase begins the
battle at the outermost range band (“Extreme Range”) of the Gyre.

Every range band save for Scope Range confers bonuses and conditions to reflect the
changing proximities of the engaged fleets. Range bands only affect player characters — NPC
positions are not tracked on the Gyre, their spatial relationship to the players’ battlegroups is
measured entirely by the position of the players and the range of their weapons. Each player
notes their own range band for the purposes of attacking NPCs, and can move independently
of their fellow party members.

In ​Battlegroup​ — unless one’s Admiral calls for their ships to disengage and flee — you will
always move towards the enemy: you may have command over the tactics of the battle to
come, but there ​will be a fight,​ and movement in B
​ attlegroup​ takes this as a core assumption.

4
Assume these are spherical as well, and that as your ships move and position along the X-axis, they
can move along an assumed Y and Z axes as well (i.e. moving up and down, side to side, and forward
and back is all normalized into moving between the concentric range bands). Also, excuse the rough
draft layout.
21
As the engagement continues, engaged ships slowly begin to draw nearer to each other,
working to close the unpredictability gap in a way that gives them the most advantageous
position possible to fire their most devastating weapons and hit their targets. To that end, there
is a point of no return that engaged fleets push up against as the battle draws on - seasoned
veterans and experienced commanders refer to this as the​ Tipping Point.

At the 6th round of play, every player needs to determine whether or not they plan to continue
the current engagement — by this point, their nearlight drives have cooled down and charged
back up, their crew and characters are well prepared and ready to make the necessary call,
and the likely tactical outcome of the engagement should be pretty easy to infer: each player
must choose whether to jump or to stay engaged.

If a player jumps, their battlegroup retreats from the combat, punching out via nearlight
ejection. Any payload weapons targeting them are outstripped by their acceleration and will not
be able to catch them. Battlegroups ejecting from an engagement are no longer threats worth
targeting anyways, and all weapons targeting them either fly into the darkness (in the case of
Payload weapons) or must be vented and re-targeted (in the case of Charge or Reload
weapons).

Those who choose to stay remain engaged. From then on, every round they’ll make the same
check — retreat, or remain engaged. If they choose to remain engaged, they’ll move closer,
like so:

Round 7​: all ships further than Long Range collapse to the Long Range band. You can no
longer fall back further than this range.

Round 8​: all ships further than Collapsing Range move to the Collapsing Range band. You can
no longer fall back further than this range.

Round 9 and up​: all ships collapse to Point Blank range. From here on, no one can disengage:
they can only survive, surrender, win, or die.

Ships and battlegroups in the Point Blank range band at round 6 and beyond ​cannot​ choose to
disengage; they are far too close to the enemy, and the processes of preparing for a nearlight
ejection would conflict with the main objective of ​staying alive.​ Instead of moving closer with
each round of combat beyond the 6th, they remain in Point Blank range. If a battlegroup
wishes to disengage from combat at this point, they will first need to fall back to a more distant
range band while they still have time to do so.

Any ships at this stage of the battle can, however, also choose to surrender: if so, they are
boarded, their characters captured, and their ships either scuttled or salvaged at the end of the
combat (assuming their side loses, disengages, or some combination therein). Surrender
effectively removes that fleet for the remainder of the fight.

22
Range Bands of the Gyre
The Gyre’s range bands and their conditions are outlined below. Moving between range bands
is accomplished via the use of certain maneuvers and tactics, outlined immediately after this
section.

Extreme Range (Band 6)

At extreme range, ships engage via long-flight payloads and optimistic shots with their main
cannons. At this range, ships and their commanders must work with their aspect of the fleet’s
Legion to track and predict target locations, flinging shots and directing missiles towards
trajectory-derived, middle-confidence locations a cradle-standard day to days away.

At Extreme Range:
● Only battlegroups can engage targets
● You may only fire Payload and Charge weapons, and use Legionspace systems and
attacks.
○ Attack rolls for Charge weapons at Extreme Range are made with +1 Difficulty.
○ Attack rolls for Legionspace attacks at Extreme Range are made with +1
Difficulty.
○ Payloads launched from Extreme Range have a base flight time of 5.
○ Area Attacks made from and against Extreme Range only deal half damage,
before Interdiction.

Long Range (5)

At Long Range, ships continue to engage with large caliber and wattage weapons, tracking
targets with marginally more confidence than when they are engaged at Extreme Range. Here,
commanders can see their enemy via long range sensor suites and modeling, and can identify
with high confidence the capabilities and equipment they may face as the gyre tightens and the
unpredictability gap closes. With mere hours to a Cradle-standard day at most of flight time
between fleets, subline pilots begin their pre-flight checks, briefings, and assembly.

At Long Range:
● All weapons systems can be used, but:
○ Charge attacks are performed as normal
○ Single Target attacks are performed with +1 Difficulty
○ Payloads launched from Long Range have a base flight time of 4.
○ Area Attacks made from and against Long Range deal 3 less damage, before
Interdiction.

Scope Range (4)

The “normal” range for engagements between fleets, Scope Range is the preferred distance for
most all commanders. All weapons systems and legionspace abilities are calibrated for scope
distance, the enemy is identifiable, and their trajectories are well within nominal predictive

23
cones. Travel time between fleets is less than half a Cradle-standard day at most; subline
squadrons and fighter/bomber wings deploy and begin their first sorties.

At Scope Range:
● Payloads launched from Scope Range have a base flight time of 3.
● There are no additional modifiers, all weapons and systems can be used.

Collapsing Range (3)

Driving towards the heart of the enemy fleet, Collapsing Range is when the pressure of an
engagement begins to turn up. Time between firing and impact reduces to mere hours. Friendly
and enemy subline squadrons and wings begin their attack runs on their counterparts or, if
they have broken through, on enemy capital ships. Area denial weapons — kinetic kill-clouds,
most commonly — become more difficult to avoid, as single-target weapons become easier to
target. Flak or PDC screens are visible to the naked eye via optical scopes, as are the enemy
vessels they cover.

At Collapsing Range:
● Payload attacks launched from Collapsing Range have a base flight time of 2.
● Area Attacks made from and against Collapsing Range deal +1 damage.

Close Range (2)

At Close Range, the distance between fleets is reduced to an hour of travel time at most for
payloads. Light-based weapons impact essentially instantaneously, and there is little room for
captains to maneuver to avoid being hit by kinetic or particle-based energy weapons. Flight
decks are roiling, busy platforms, with subline wings landing, loading, and clearing constantly.
Marines hurry to their posts. Landing shuttles and limpets launch for their grim deployments.
The enemy can be seen without the aid of scopes — star-bright drive signatures and PDC
screens to the naked eye — as can subline squadrons and wings.

At Close Range:
● All Single Target attacks are made with +1 Accuracy.
● Payload attacks launched from Close Range have a base flight time of 1.
● Area Attacks made from and against Close Range deal +2 damage.

Point Blank (1)

At Point Blank range, capital ships are in a rare and deadly engagement. Few battlegroup
commanders push their captains and vessels to this point, as casualties — even among the
victors — are sure to be terrible. At point blank range, capital ships are in danger of colliding
with each other, subline wings and squadrons slip under PDC screens to attack ships without
fear of reprisal, and boarding actions fight bloody corridor-to-corridor brawls. Here, there is
little chance to miss, as one could nearly fire without targeting and score a devastating hit on
their target.

24
At Point Blank range:
● All Single Target attacks are made with +1 Accuracy
● Area Attacks made from and against Point Blank range is increased by +3.
● Payload weapons reduce their flight time to 0, hitting instantly, but they deal half
damage to their user.
● Attacks cannot be Interdicted.

Posture
There ​is​ some consideration that commanders can take at the outset of an engagement to
navigate within the strategic bounds of the battle. Choosing your battlegroup’s ​Posture​ is an
important decision that battlegroup commanders must make in order to best approach the
enemy.

Battlegroup​ assumes your table will use this system, but if you don’t wish to add more
detail/crunch to your play, it is not necessary.

At the beginning of an engagement, just before the first round, players must ​Set a Posture​.
This affects the starting deployment of the ships under their command. Postures are outlined
below:

Defensive Posture
“CIC to Helm: drop our burn by twenty percent and push corresponding velocities to all escorts.
Reroute our power to forward shielding, and keep our wings spread — we’re going in slow for this
one.”

Your ships spread out and adopt a defensive posture for this battle, tempering their speed
and directing the saved power to forward shielding, layering systemic redundancies, and
giving your Legion more slack to play with. Your ships deploy at ​Extreme Range.

Aggressive Posture
“Engineering, narrow our shielding and dump all excess power to our drives! Gunnery, hot-cycle your
batteries! Legion, find us a way through that flack, we’re ending this now!”

You command your ships to adopt an aggressive posture. With wings and escorts screaming
ahead at maximum speed and your batteries hammering away, your battlegroup punches
straight for the core of the enemy fleet, seeking to strike a death-blow in defiance of
accepted doctrine and old strategy. Your ships deploy at ​Scope Range.

Nominal Posture

25
 “Helm, steady on. By the books and as the Admiral orders for this one, crew — we engage as
planned.”​

The tactical situation matches the strategic parameters as outlined in your briefing. You order
your ships to their nominal trajectories and prepare to engage. Your ships deploy at ​Long
Range.

Make an Entrance
Battle plans rarely survive contact with the enemy. Sabotage, wideband sensor interference,
faulty intel, or simply a mistimed nearlight realignment can throw a fleet’s tactical approach into
disarray, forcing commanders to act quickly to make the best of a bad situation.

If the context of your narrative suggests a “messier” approach might be more appropriate, you
may have each player on the Battlegroup level roll on the following table to determine where
their group enters the engagement instead of having each player set their ​Posture​ in advance.

This is an optional system, and may be used if the GM and players find it adds to their play
experience.

D6 Engagement Range

1 Disaster! You realign ​directly​ into the enemy line, your battlegroup colliding with an enemy
element. As warning klaxons howl and automated systems struggle to balance damage
control protocols with life support mandates, you take stock of the situation. This fight is
going to be a mess.

Begin the engagement in Point Blank range. Your battlegroup and one enemy battlegroup
suffer an immediate, unavoidable 4d6+4 damage as they collide, distributed among your
ships as you wish (the GM, likewise, distributes the NPC’s damage as they see fit).

In the wake of such sudden and immediate destruction, the battle begins awash in
confusion and casualties: you act first in the initiative order on the first round of play.

2-5 The bolt was well-plotted, and your battlegroup realigns in their ordered position, all
systems nominal.

Begin the engagement in Scope Range; primed and ready, you act first in the initiative
order on the first round of play.

6 Navigation just won themselves a round in the ship’s mess — your battlegroup realigns
exactly where they plotted.

You may choose the starting range band for your battlegroup; you may not begin in Point
Blank range.

26
Damage and Destruction
Ships that are damaged by incoming fire but not reduced to 0 HP or lower are still operational
— even with 1 hit point remaining, the officers, crew, and automated systems continue to
manage to keep the ship operational. At 0 hit points, a ship is considered destroyed — any
lower, and you begin to see more and more catastrophic levels of destruction. Use the
following chart to determine the degree to which a ship has been removed from the fight, and
how many — if any — crew managed to escape.

A note about player safety: while ​Battlegroup​ assumes that characters’ lives are fragile in the
context of space combat, we never want players to be placed in situations that they find
unsafe. To that extent, clear it with your players whether or not they are comfortable with the
(very likely) chance that their character could die in a session. If they are, play on as written. If
not, make sure to leave some wiggle room for their character to live.

Kill Table
Status Outcome

At 0 HP The ship is mission killed: its drive is holed, life support systems and reservoirs
ruptured, navcomm and weapons systems rendered ineffective, and it drifts
uncontrolled, and so on. However, the ship’s personnel have time to escape via
conventional systems (escape pods and lifeboats) if they so choose, and are able
to grab personal effects, supplies, critical hardcopy intelligence, and so on as
necessary.

At -1 to -4 HP The ship suffers a sudden and catastrophic blow, shattering its hull and causing it
irreconcilable damage to its superstructure. The point of damage likely shears a
section of the ship off, boiling all proximal modules to slag in a catastrophic
rupture. Crew are killed outright or, if not, are spaced. Some of the lucky ones
manage to escape via lifeboat, but they are few.

At -5 to -9 HP The ship is immediately destroyed by the impacting weapon. The brief,

catastrophic explosion or series of explosions as critical systems rupture
immediately kills nearly everyone on board the ship. Survivors are limited to the
single digits — of these, few live longer than a handful of moments after the initial
explosion. The ship is not salvageable, having been reduced both by the weapon
impact and drive rupture to a glittering plume of slag and debris.

At -10 HP or The ship is immediately destroyed as its nearlight drive, magazine, or longspool
lower capacitors suffer a direct, penetrating hit. The resultant explosion is so massive
that it blanks nearby ships’ sensors for a moment, possibly even destroying other
subline ships and projectiles caught in its radius. All hands are lost; no one can
survive an explosion like that.

27
Keywords and Definitions
Game Terms

Attack
Attacking in ​Battlegroup​ can take one of a few different forms: either as a direct, hostile
engagement of an enemy target with a weapon or weapon system, or as a time-and-space
dilated engagement via launching self-propelled and guided weapons. An attack is any action
or effect that calls for an attack roll.

Attacks most commonly are part of ​Maneuvers​.

Battlegroup(s)
A Battlegroup is the name used to represent each group of ships commanded by each player
acting at the Fleet phase of combat.

Condition
Certain environments offer optional conditions which are states that affect all tiers of play and
outcomes of battle.

Fleet
An organized force of trade or military spaceships, composed of a mix of ships of the line,
sub-line squadrons, and wings of fighters, bombers, and/or mounted mechanized chassis.

In ​Battlegroup​, as long as one player in the player party commands a battlegroup, then the
entire player party is considered to be a fleet. Conventional fleets typically give a single capital
ship the honor of being the fleet’s flagship, though other structures are, of course, acceptable.

Escort
Usually represents subline units attached to NPC Flagships — in-setting, escort ships tend to
be destroyers, cruisers, corvettes, and so on.

Flagship
The standard, Fleet-tier NPC unit. Typically represents one capital ship (a “ship of the line”).

Fleet Legion/Legionspace
The Fleet Legion is the name for the networked minds of capital ship-based Diemosian NHPs.
This networking only occurs during the preamble and course of battle to allow for the
Diemosian NHPs to fully form their Legion — itself a gestalt, unique entity. Legions typically
only exist for before, during, and in the immediate aftermath of a battle; if the fleet they serve is
deployed on a long campaign, then the same legion gestalt tends to reappear each time a fleet
calls it forth to assist in the battle.

28
Fleet legions allow for rapid, essential-simultaneous communication between the Legion,
comp/cons, and organics onboard the ships of a given fleet. Additionally, Legions have the
capability to reach out and strike opposing Legions, tearing at their systems with terrifying,
anti-causal powers little understood by their constituent Diemosian minds, much less humans
and other organics.

Hit Points (HP)

Hit Points (HP) represent the health, cohesion, and morale of a battlegroup; for individual
fighters, HP represents the structural and corporeal integrity of the pilot and their ship. When a
ship’s HP is reduced to 0, that ship is destroyed.

Maneuver
In ​Battlegroup​, a Maneuver is one of the types of actions that players can take. Maneuvers are
typically actions that involve the entire fleet under their control, ordering them to attack or
reposition, or actions that require a significant investment of time and attention. A player may
make one Maneuver during their turn.

NHP
Non-Human Person. Artificial Intelligence-adjacent noncorporeal entities confined to digital
containment systems (“Caskets”) in order to interface with human technological systems. Each
ship in a fleet has its own individual NHP whose personalities vary as much as any other
person, though during engagements they network together with each other to form a gestalt
Fleet Legion for enhanced tactical capabilities.

Weapon Types
Auxiliary Weapon
Auxiliary weapons are smaller, non-primary weapon systems that can be fired alongside other
weapons at no additional action cost. These weapons often serve to enhance or augment the
capabilities of other weapons or provide additional firepower against subline/fighter-tier
targets. When you attack with a Primary weapon you may fire an Auxiliary weapon alongside it.
These weapons do not have to be equipped on the same ship.

Primary Weapon
Primary weapons are larger main-battery weapon systems that form the backbone of a fleet’s
armament. Primary weapons fired from units at the Fleet tier make all attack rolls against Aces
and Wings with ​+1 Difficulty.

29
Superheavy Weapon
The most powerful and devastating weapons mounted on capital ships, drawing enormous
power or launching volleys of powerful munitions. Superheavy weapons can only be used as
part of the ​Open Fire!​ Maneuver.

Superheavy weapons cannot be used to directly target Aces and Wings, as those ships are far
too small and nimble for them to effectively track. They make all attack rolls against Squadrons
with ​+1 Difficulty.

Single Target
Single Target attacks must be rolled to hit against a single target; if they hit their target, then
they apply all their damage to that target. If they miss, then they deal no damage. Generally
speaking, Single Target attacks cannot be Interdicted unless they are Payload weapons.

Area Target
Area Target attacks do not need to roll to hit. Instead, they are applied to a battlegroup and
their damage may be reduced by Interdiction.

When an Area Target attack is used against a battlegroup, the attack’s damage is rolled, then
the defender’s total Interdiction value for that battlegroup is rolled and subtracted from the
damage. Whatever damage remains is then applied to ​all​ ships in this battlegroup ​except​ for
Aces and Wings who are small and nimble enough to evade them automatically.

For example:​ An Area Attack torpedo salvo strikes a battlegroup dealing 2d6 damage, rolling an
8. The target battlegroup’s overall Interdiction value is 1d6 and they roll a 3, subtracting that
from the 8 damage to leave 5 damage remaining. Every capital ship and every Squadron in that
battlegroup then takes 5 damage.

Weapon and System Tags

Accurate
Attacks with an Accurate weapon are made with +1 Accuracy.

Anti-Capital
Found at the dogfight tier, weapons tagged with Anti-Capital can deal damage to capital ships
and squadrons at the Battlegroup tier. Anti-Capital weapons are typically single-target
weapons, and will list the damage they do to capital ships next to the tag (i.e. “Anti-Capital 1”
means, on a successful hit, this attack will deal 1 damage to capital ships).

Boarding
Units with the Boarding tag can participate in boarding actions.

30
Charge X
A weapon with the Charge tag requires a completed charge in order to fire. The length of a
Charge weapon’s charging time is listed in its description (i.e. “Charge 2” indicates it will take 2
round to charge before it can be fired).

Charge weapons cannot be Interdicted.

Inaccurate
Attacks with an Inaccurate weapon are made with +1 Difficulty.

Interdiction
Interdiction typically represents the efforts of electronic, kinetic projectile, or directed-energy
countermeasures to shoot down or neutralize incoming attacks. Interdiction is an abstract
value that comprises numerous defensive systems all working in concert, and can just as easily
represent point-defense guns as it can a fleet legion’s anti-incursion protocols.

Weapons and systems with the Interdiction tag may be used during the Impact Step to reduce
incoming damage from Payload weapons, and can be used to reduce the overall damage of
Area Attack weapons. A battlegroup’s Interdiction stat is a collective value taken from all all
equipped weapons and systems and added together, applied to any and all ships in that
battlegroup.

Legionspace
Attacks with the Legionspace tag are systemic, paracausal attacks unleashed upon opposed
fleet legions or realspace. Attacks with the Legionspace tag cannot be interdicted or avoided
unless specified in the weapon/system description, or by other systems. Other systems may
have the Legionspace tag as well, representing their connection to the fleet legion, and various
systems or abilities may bolster or hinder their performance.

Limited X
This weapon or system can only be used X times before it is fully expended. Some Limited
systems describe these uses as “charges”. To use the system, the user expends a charge.
Limited weapons expend charges when used to attack.

Overshield
If a weapon, system, or maneuver grants you Overshield, you gain a number of indicated,
temporary hit points on top of your current base of HP. These hit points cannot be regained by
things which restore HP, but benefit normally from anything that would affect HP or damage
(such as damage reduction). Overshield can put a ship above its normal HP total.

Damage is dealt to Overshield first, then HP. The user only retains the highest value of
Overshield applied; it does not stack.

31
Payload
Payload-tagged weapons do not require an attack roll to hit their targets. Instead, they have a
flight time based on the range band they’re fired from; longer distances result in a longer flight
time. Payload counters are removed in the Logistics Step of each fleet phase; when the final
Payload counter is removed, the weapon hits its target on their Impact step.

Some Payload weapons may have a slower or faster flight time, and if so they will indicate this
in the tag. A weapon with Payload -1, for example, will reduce its overall flight time by 1 to a
minimum of 0. Generally speaking, weapons with the Payload tag can be avoided or
interdicted. Payload weapons cannot be fired again until any attacks in flight have impacted.

Reliable X
Reliable weapons are those that always deal some amount of unavoidable damage, whether
due to sheer volume of fire, collateral thermal bleed, or exceptional course-correction
capabilities. Weapons with this tag will always deal X damage even if it rolls less damage, is
interdicted, avoided, or otherwise misses the target.

Reloading X
Weapons and systems with the Reloading tag may not literally require reloading ​per se​, but
they have to refresh, recharge, or cool down between uses. When a Reloading weapon or
system is used, it will begin refreshing during the Logistics step. You may track this with a die
or tokens. When the last counter is removed, then the weapon or system is ready to be used
again.

Squadron
Squadrons, in naval parlance, refer to groups of subline ships that occupy a middle ground
between massive capital vessels and smaller fighter-tier craft. Corvettes, destroyers, cruisers,
and other specialized ships fall under this category. Certain ships are outfitted with the
necessary support systems to command one of these subline groups, and upgrades marked
with the Squadron tag can be equipped to ships with the appropriate slots to take them.

System
Specialized equipment and upgrades can only be installed on ships that have the appropriate
command structure, electronics architecture, power surplus, or extra cargo space to effectively
utilize them. These are marked with the System tag, and may only be equipped on ships with
System installation slots. Each System slot on a hull can hold a single upgrade with the System
tag. Systems grant a variety of powerful abilities to the ships and fleets they’re equipped to,
and both when and how they can be used will be listed in each System’s description.

Unique
This rare or unconventional weapon or system cannot be assigned casually – each player may
only have a single one of these weapons or systems equipped to their battlegroup.

32
Wing
Wings represent flights of fighters, bombers, drones, or mounted chassis. Individually these
craft may pose little threat to a capital ship, but in numbers they can punch well above their
weight with a combination of tactical flexibility and salvos of anti-capital ordnance. Certain
ships, most notably carriers but other types as well, are outfitted with the landing bays required
to house and launch these strike craft as noted by the appropriate slots listed in their
descriptions.

33
Characters In ​Battlegroup
Naval combat in ​Battlegroup​ is a different beast than the mixed-theater combat found in Core
Lancer.​ Battling in the void of space takes coordination and discipline — you are often firing at
targets a great distance from you, visible only by the waste heat, radiation, outbound fire, and
comms signatures they throw off; rarely are capital ships in organic visual range of one
another. Unlike combat found in Core ​Lancer​, there is rarely ever hard cover or concealment to
put between your character(s) and their enemy; naval combat is, generally, won by those who
land the first hit.

This kind of battle requires intense discipline. For officers and crew aboard a capital ship, your
foes are only glowing indicators on a terminal screen, and the blow that strikes you down may
only be telegraphed by a handful of seconds — if at all. Pilots of fighters and other subliners,
tangling with each other in the killbox between mighty ships of the line, might flash within visual
range of the enemy, but this requires only a different kind of discipline: to see the enemy and
kill them, rather than hope you are not killed by an enemy you cannot see.

Boarding actions, bombing runs, battery fire — even legionspace engagements — often instills
in the people who engage in this warfare a rigidity unfamiliar to ground soldiers. A sailor (or
“spacer”, “cosmonaut”, “astronaut”, “suit”, “crew”, and so on) has an immediate relationship to
death that ground-pounders do not: the very environment they operate in, if they were ever to
be exposed to it, would kill them; likewise the vessel that they crew — even in the course of
normal maneuvering! — may turn them into paste if they are not careful. Even the otherwise
“normal” systems required for interstellar travel — stasis-holds for long burns between worlds
and gates — might be a venture from which they do not return. Death is close for the sailor and
officer: discipline, regular order, triple-checking systems, and routine gets them through a
deployment5.

Crashing against this regular-order impulse are the new weapons of naval warfare and
engagements in which they are employed. After the Deimos event introduced Deimosian NHP,
and after the Interest War re-wrote the facts — if not the rules just yet — of naval combat,
states and empires have not fully caught up to the changing natures of combat. This is
precisely where ​Battlegroup​ sits: in the conflict between old strategies and new technologies,
the struggle between established doctrine and tactical adaptability, and the experience of line
officers, pilots, and crew against the demands of rear-echelon brass.

As players in ​Battlegroup​, your points of view into this world will sit in this tension. You may
choose to play as a single character, say, a pilot in the cockpit of her fighter, storming through
clouds of flack and k-kill point defense to drop a torpedo inside your target’s defenses. Your

5
​Of course, this is not to say that ​every s​ hip, commander, and crew are strict disciplinarians, only that the dominant
naval culture is.
34
experience of naval warfare is immediate, raw, and personal — the wingmen you lose to
incoming fire were your friends and rivals, and their deaths flare bright across the darkness of
space. If you want a larger view of the battle, you may instead choose to play as a line officer
aboard the lead ship of a battlegroup. Aboard your vessel’s CIC, you act in command of not
only your own ship, but the other ships in your section, distributing orders to one or more
capital ships in order to win the day, rather than the moment — you may not pull the trigger
yourself, but your orders have the same effect.

Battlegroup​ is a module for Core ​Lancer​ meant to expand the scope of the universe and scale
of play. It is a standalone ruleset, whose characters (mechanically, at least) don’t translate 1:1
to characters one would make in ​Lancer​. By the nature of ​Battlegroup’​ s setting and conceits,
the characters you make in ​Battlegroup​ are likely not as free in their mission portfolios as your
characters in ​Lancer.​ The order of discipline these sailors, pilots, and officers are subject to is
much more present, the field of battle much more conventional, and their commanding officers
more used to — and expectant of — established doctrine. Your characters should interact with
this, push against it or accept it, reject or accept this paradigm. Most all characters in
Battlegroup​ will wrestle with these dual truths: that their strategies and defenses do not match
the weapons they wield and face, but in order to win and survive they ​must​ defeat the enemy.

A character in ​Battlegroup​ is not like a character from Core ​Lancer​ for the reasons listed above.
Additionally, they likely do not have the same amount of investment and specialized training as
a chassis pilot. This is not to say that they are untrained or bad at their job — to the contrary,
they are ​very good a​ t what they do —only that piloting a chassis and crewing a space ship are
two very different beasts (this, too, for ​Battlegroup​ characters that pilot mounted chassis —
they are good pilots, but not Lancers).

Characters from ​Battlegroup​ would range in their reaction to having a Lancer aboard their ship
or flying on their wing: some would welcome having a hotshot pilot watching their back, while
others might bristle at what they see to be an intrusion by an arrogant toy soldier. How you
play your character is up to you, though somewhere along this spectrum is likely the best
“canon” fit.

35
New, Non-Lancer Characters
If you’re coming to ​Battlegroup​ already a fan of Core ​Lancer,​ you should know that the two
games are intended (via mechanics and scope) to depict very different windows into ​Lancer’​ s
setting. Unlike Core ​Lancer​, the character you make in B​ attlegroup​ is likely a member of an
established fighting force in regular order and supply; the structure that they are a part of — be
it private or state — is assumed to be stable enough to at least manage and support a fleet of
ships, to direct them across the Orion Arm, and to keep the cosmonauts and officers aboard
healthy, motivated, and competent6.

Your character in ​Battlegroup​ is assumed to be an actor with some agency in this context,
despite their constrained actions. Likely a commissioned officer or person of equivalent rank,
your character volunteered or chose this profession, and begins their visible-character life
motivated (despite their own fears or misgivings) to participate in the battles depicted here.
You know that your work is dangerous, but see it as necessary. Whether your character throws
that perspective aside or clings to it as their career progresses will only out in play.

Your character in ​Battlegroup​ is under threat in a way that your character in Core ​Lancer​ is not:
Lancers in their mechs are fearsome, singular warriors, with many systems and strategies to
survive extended, costly fights. Your character in ​Battlegroup​ can be killed in a single shot.
While there are systems that might give characters in ​Battlegroup​ a bare chance at survival
should their ship not be destroyed, a sudden death is never far away. Be aware of this if you
intend to import your Core ​Lancer​ character into ​Battlegroup,​ and be sure that your table is
okay with this danger — if not, systems are outlined later in this module to mechanically
address this (if you’d like a mechanical solution, that is).

Beyond their sudden and evident mortality, characters in ​Battlegroup​ must deal with time7. In
Lancer,​ space travel and maneuvering — save for moments where your character transits the
Blink — occurs at varying degrees of relativity, across shifting horizons, with multiple observers
and local experiences of time. This temporal mess culminates in one of two ways: as the
unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of interstellar travel, or as tragic acceleration. Your
character — whether awake and on duty or held in stasis — will be out of sync with the
“normal” progression of time on their home world.

Traveling through space at varying degrees approaching lightspeed, one begins to slip ​forward
in time, from the perspective of those they left behind; this means that, should your character
return to their homeworld (or station), they will have only aged a fraction of the time everyone
else back home aged (assuming any of their loved ones back home have not yet passed on
6
At the very least, the managing entity of the players’ fleet was competent enough to ​launch​ those
ships. Supporting them for the duration of the campaign is negotiable if it produces a more generative,
rewarding, or appropriate narrative for the story you’re all trying to tell.
7
“Must” is just a suggestion if time is not important to your table. As always, the narrative/canon
“Musts” in a Massif book are only suggestions — change what you wish!
36
from old age). For some on shorter deployments or having to travel shorter distances, this
could be negligible — a matter of minutes or hours, if their deployment takes them to the edge
of their local space — or a matter of decades, if their deployments take them to distant stars.

Characters in ​Battlegroup​ exist in this context: in combat, they face sudden death aboard their
ships. In peacetime and transit, they face what amounts to a social/temporal death, as those
friends and family that remain behind may have died of old age by the time they return. This
immutable fact haunts characters in ​Battlegroup​, either as tragedy, as a harsh fact, or as relief.

The mechanics of creating characters in ​Battlegroup​ — as well as importing existing characters

from Core ​Lancer​ — can be found in the sections titled ​The Battlegroup​ and ​The Dogfight​.
What follows in this section is a window into some of the narrative backgrounds you can use to
define your character in ​Battlegroup​, along with further questions you might wish to consider
when roleplaying these far-flung cosmonauts.

Backgrounds
Any background presented in Core ​Lancer​ is likely an acceptable background for characters in
Battlegroup​, though they may take some narrative massaging​. B​ elow are some new options,
which can be carried over to Core ​Lancer​ as well.

Naval Family
Born into the tradition, you are the child of a family with a long history of naval service. Your parents may
both have been or are currently in the same (or different!) naval force as yourself, as were their parents,
and their parents, and so on down the line. From when you were a child, you knew you would one day
pin the silver bars of an officer on your collar, and step to the stars...

This background can be taken along with any other background.

Orbital Defense Force

Your world asked, and you answered: for years you have served in the orbital defense force of your state
or world, arcing high above the land you call home in small shuttles and modest subline ships, spending
years aboard orbital cannons and missile batteries. You have always known the purpose of your work:
defend the world below from threats above. Now, posted to an interstellar ship, you keep that feeling
close — the world you defend might be farther away, but it is always there, just below your heart, your
home to defend.

Veterans of planetary defense forces run the gamut in training, experience, and competency; they can be
graduates of any of the premier naval schools, or locally-trained and experienced cosmonauts. Owing to
the rigors of training and breadth of necessary information, ODF personnel trend a little bit older than
most finishing school graduates — their experience is lived and learned the hard way, not schooled and
drilled into them.
*

37
Your character fought (or currently fights) in their homeworld’s (or home station’s) orbital
defense force. They are likely well versed in the operation of ships, as even officers in ODF
units are called to square away their vessels before, during, and after flights.

Gain one or two of the following background notes, or develop your own using these as
inspiration:

D6 Background Note

1 Your world received its first orbital defense vessels, training, and initial officer corps via its
interaction with Union. You were one of the first of your world to crew these ships, possibly
among the first people to have left your world and seen it from above; how did you get from
your ODF to where you are now?

2 Your world developed its own orbital defense force, stringing its own geosynchronous orbital
platforms and developing its own training system. Did it help when the invaders came?

3 During battle against orbital pirates (or during a training mishap) your ODF vessel was split
open above your world. Many of your comrades died either instantly or in the moments
following as you were scattered out across the high orbit sky. You were rescued; what did
you see of your world as you flew? Why did you join up again? Who did you lose during that
engagement, and who saved you?

4 You loved to fly. You grew up working the pads at your world’s uplift station, doing every job
that needed doing. You hauled luggage from arriving travellers, loaded fuel cores on
outbound shuttles, sprayed down antifreeze on dimpled booster tanks, even flew as a porter
on orbital cruises. Joining the ODF when you were of age was a no-brainer; how high did you
want to fly? Did you join to leave your world, or serve it? What of your family that you left
behind?

5 You remember the fear, and how heavy the dread sat in your belly as you burned for the firing
line. You were a gunner aboard one of your world’s few ODF capital ships — an old vessel,
but serviced well and plenty spaceworthy — who saw action during the last years of the last
war that gripped your world. You fired your ship’s main gun, scoring a killing blow on the
enemy’s flagship, effectively ending the war to resist unification. How do people receive you
back home? Are you a celebrated hero? Anonymous? Or was your action unnecessary? Why
did you choose to take to the stars once more?

6 Your world’s ODF is quite active, though not against conventional targets: for the past
decade, your world has been bombarded by potentially catastrophic shards of a
once-in-a-million-years comet that passed ​far​ too close. Now, on-world scientists have
confirmed that your homeworld will likely be under threat of collision for a century at least —
the ODF, once a sleepy post for high-flyers, has been forced to shape up into ready and agile
pilots and gunners: their task — yours, at one time — is to shoot down or deflect any
projectiles large enough to threaten your home with death. How long were you posted to “sky
shield” duty? Did you ever slip up and let a rock through? What took you from ODF Sky
Shield to where you are now?

38
Karrakin Naval Academy
As a child or young adult, you were granted (or your parents paid for) admittance to one of the famed
Karrakin Naval Academies. Founded in the wake of their terrible twin defeats at the hands of Union and
Harrison Armory, the Karrakins have gone on to adopt, hone, and expand upon the strategies that once
left them defeated and exposed; in the modern day they have redefined the modern doctrines of space
combat, producing some of the finest officers and crew in the known galaxy — you included. Graduated
and posted to your command, your words carry weight: you’re from The Academy, and are likely younger
than the other officers you serve with who didn’t attend. The simple bronze globe-and-crown pinned to
your lapel sets you apart, for good or for ill. Long an Ignoble tradition to serve in the Federal Karrakin
Navy, most of your peers in the KNA were Ignobles, and the class divisions both in The Academy and out
are clear: though you all wear the Bronze, some have a bit more polish to their pin than the rest.

All graduates of the Karrakin Naval Academy, noble or ignoble, are entitled to wear the bronze
globe-and-crown pin that indicates they are a graduate. Graduates may further particularize their pin to
indicate which campus they graduated from, whether they graduated with distinction, and — one of the
finest honors — if they won the inter-Academy Wargame, a ceremonial final test that pits the best officers
from each school against each other to determine who is the greatest commander of that year’s
graduating class.

Graduates of the KNA tend to be Baronic, with roughly a sixty-forty split leaning ignoble. Included in this
ignoble category are non-Baronic students, sent to the Academy on exchange from worlds in the
Interest, as well as via a diplomatic exchange program with the Union Navy.

*
Your character is a graduate of the Karrakin Naval Academy, recent or many years removed.
There is a high likelihood that they are Karrakin, either noble or ignoble, though Union does
have an officer candidate exchange program that sees a small number of high-scoring Union
Navy cadets assigned to the KNA’s main campus on Karrakis for education, accreditation, and
diplomatic cooperation. Every world in the Baronic Concern has a satellite campus of this main
facility on Karrakis, and they all fight — sometimes literally during intra-Academy exercises —
for prestige rankings.

Gain one or two of the following background notes, or develop your own using these as
inspiration:

D6 Background Note

1 The child of an Ignoble family, your admittance by lottery into the KNA was celebrated by the
whole village. You were not the first in your village to win the lottery, but you were the first to
win in many decades -- overnight, you became the pride and the hope of your village. You left
determined to make them proud — have you? Did you ever return to your mother and farther,
your siblings and cousins? How high have you climbed since you left your little village — and
have you fallen? How did your school fare in the Wargame? Were you a part of it, or did you
watch from the observation decks?

2 A noble child far from your House’s throne, your dream to attend the KNA was never in doubt;

39
 the only question was how high you would climb. You may have made it into the Academy off
of your own merits, but you’ll never know: your parents’ healthy donation to the Academy on
your world will always be a chip on your shoulder. How do you carry that chip now that you’re
deployed? Does it make you hesitant when you should be decisive, or is it not a big deal at all
— just how it works in the Concern? How does being a noble in an integrated fighting force
sit with you? How did your school fare in the Wargame? Were you a part of it, or did you
watch from the observation decks?

3 The flight to Karrakis was uneventful — most of it was spent in stasis anyways — and only
added a year and change to your temporal slip by the time it was done. A Metropolitan from a
Union Core world, Karrakis confirmed some of the things you feared, and surprised you in
many other ways. How was it to train alongside Karrakin nobility and Ignobles? Did you make
friends, or were you a loner? Do you choose to wear the Bronze, or have you hidden it
(placed it in storage, or thrown it away)? How did your school fare in the Wargame? Were you
a part of it, or did you watch from the observation decks?

4 The hard part wasn’t getting accepted to the KNA, since their noncom school takes any
ignoble that can pass a background check and marks the “enlist” box on the intake form. The
hard part wasn’t even proving yourself on your quals and being promoted to the ​far​ more
exclusive and demanding Officer Course. The hard part was getting off Sanjak with a clean
ID. The hard part was passing on every shred of information you could to your handlers
without getting caught. What are you after, and how deep is your cover willing to go? Now
that you’ve graduated and posted to a ship, what are you waiting for? What are you seeking
in your work to aid Free Sanjak, and how do you balance that mission with your cover story?
How did your school fare in the Wargame? Were you a part of it, or did you watch from the
observation decks?

5 The heir to your House’s Barony, you shocked the family by eloping with an endowment to
join the navy and be schooled in the KNA. Your family may have disowned you, publicly
shamed you in an attempt to get you to drop out and come home, cut off your allowance, or
sent assassins and hired mercenaries to come and forcibly take you back — have they? How
have you resisted the pull to head home, and why? What is it that draws you to the naval life?
How did your school fare in the Wargame? Were you a part of it, or did you watch from the
observation decks?

6 Always a hard worker, you were promoted from the enlisted course at your local KNA outpost
to the main campus on your homeworld. There, in mixed noble/ignoble company for the first
time, you found it difficult and exciting — when the walls of social class crack even a little bit,
it’s like seeing light for the first time after a life of darkness. Who are the friends you’ve made
at the KNA — regardless of class or nationality? Have you encountered them while deployed?
Despite your rank in the navy, outside of it (and when dealing with House Companies) you are
still seen as ignoble — how does this sit with you? How have you been changed by the
integrated force structure of the Navy? How did your school fare in the Wargame? Were you
a part of it, or did you watch from the observation decks?

40
Union Naval Corps
The workhorse departments of Union’s armed forces and logistics projection, the Union Naval Corps
manages the single largest school and training program for sailors and officers in the galaxy. From its
core campuses in Cradle to its most distant satellite facilities in the Dawnline Shore, the Union Naval
Corps can train even the most downwell ground pounder into a competent cosmonaut. You are one
shining example of this institution. A volunteer from a Core or Diasporan world known to Union, you
joined the Naval Corps and have trained for years, reorienting your perspective from woefully
two-dimensional to the Z-Ax that separates naval personnel from the soldiers they transport. Your world
may be where you were born, but the stars are your home; under Union’s banner, you head out to make
the galaxy safe and whole.

Graduates of the UNC can be Regulars or Auxiliary, and are well aware of Union’s mission, goals, and
generally in favor of them. UNC graduates typically go on to serve for five years (subjective) in the Union
Navy before being given the option of rotating off the line into a reserve unit near or on their homeworld,
or extending their service in their branch. Personnel who serve on ships in the Union Navy, whether
Auxiliary or Regular, all do a basic course of training at the most proximal UNC campus to them; most
will train for a year or two depending on their specialization and need.

*
Union’s naval corps is a massive organization that draws its personnel from nearly every world
known to Union, Core and Diasporan both. Most cosmonauts and officers serve for a period of
about ten years — five active, and five on reserve — though many decide to join up for life; as
a pilot, cosmonaut, or officer in the Union Navy, you may be a lifer or someone on a limited
tour. In your time on the ‘lists, you’ve met people from every type of world, of every culture,
and of every background.

Gain one or two of the following background notes, or develop your own using these as
inspiration:

D6 Background Note

1 Your life was comfortable; the stories you heard of the Diaspora were not. Out there, billions
were doomed from birth to live under the boot of kings, or damned to suffer at the altar of the
market. Life in the Diaspora the Second Committee left behind was not meant for living, but
structured to extract as much labor and wealth from the many and funnel it to a powerful,
greedy few. Your whole life you thought that needed to change, and your heart ached for the
people of the Diaspora, your brothers and sisters but for time and distance. When you were of
age, you talked with your parents and aunties and uncles, and told them of your decision: they
wept, some sad, all proud, and one by one gave you their blessing. You would join the Navy,
you would train as an officer and be posted to a ship, and then you would say goodbye to your
family and your loves, your home and your world, and head out to the stars — others, you
learned, needed your action more than your sympathy. How long as it been (realtime) since you
left your Core world? Have you seen combat, where your ideals crash into reality? Have you
killed, or just ordered others to fire? Do you ever want to return home, and if so, how long until
you can? Who did you leave behind?

2 When Union liberated your world, you resolved to return a debt you felt you owed. For every

41
 friend lost before the red banner flew above the capitol, for every child who toiled in misery, for
every comrade whose backs could never stand straight, you decided to take the black and
enlist with Union’s navy. Ending centuries of injustice against your own people was only the
start: the galaxy roiled with cruel tyrants who emmiserated their people for want of gold, and
though it may never end, your struggle is that of the oppressed everywhere. The red flag flies
above your world now; this is but a start. The galaxy will be free. How long has it been since you
left your home, and do you ever receive communications from your family there? Are there any
others from your world in your unit? Have you engaged the enemy yet, or are you on just out of
training? When will you return, or is your fight not a deployment but a crusade?

3 Once an enlisted crew, you rose from the pack to become a commissioned officer in the Union
Navy. You’ve been on multiple interstellar cruises and seen combat once or twice. You know
your ship from stem to stern. Now, in command for the first time, you’ll have to learn not only
your crew, but the other ships under your command. How has that gone so far? Have you
endeared yourself to the other ships as you have your crew? Among the other captains, is there
one who you are particularly close with? If things get desperate, will you sacrifice other ships to
preserve your own?

4 Your education in the ways of life outside the Core was clarifying: though you grew up in
comfort, you recognized early on that it was a comfort that not everyone in the galaxy enjoyed.
After a tour in the Liberators — following in the footsteps of your parents — you transferred to
logistics, and from there to orbital/interstellar support. Now on the CIC of your frigate, you have
at your command some of the hardest power Union can bring to bear: ownership of the stars,
and a mandate to right the most terrible wrongs. What was the clarifying experience that sent
you to enlist in the Liberators? As a ground-pounder, well before your transfer, did you ever see
combat? Has your faith in Union’s mission ever been shaken? What of your ground experience
do you bring to naval combat?

5 Your name carries weight in the Navy — much to your chagrin. Your ancestors were some of
the last holdouts of the Second Committee, Naval personnel who defected or mutinied and
steered their ships to bolster Harrison Armory’s Cradle reclamation force. Interdicted and
destroyed by the Karrakin fleets in the Interest War, they never did strike Cradle, though their
initiating act was enough to earn your name a black mark. Now, you work to repair that
reputation. How does this desire manifest in your actions? Are you repentant, or rash? Do you
wear your name on your sleeve, or do you suppress your identity? How do others receive you,
and has this history gotten in the way of your progress in the Navy at all?

6 Joining the Navy was only ever meant to be a rung on the political ladder — a way to ingratiate
yourself to the system that could make you powerful. Union, you learned, spanned more than
just your world, but ​thousands​ of worlds. Theirs was a kingdom larger than a single mind could
comprehend, but not so large that a single mind couldn’t covet it. So you joined, you trained,
you pledged, you served — only, in that time, you found your priorities… changed. How?

42
Purview Interstellar Collage
A fresh face from an equally fresh institution, the first cadet corps out of the Purview Interstellar Collage
have much to prove — you included. With a history of iconoclastic, daring naval exploits in their past, the
naval forces of Harrison Armory never had a formal matriculation-to-finishing pipeline for naval officers;
their crew and officers trained together, with commissions granted through purchase or promotion. Now,
the Purview Interstellar Colleges have been established to formally integrate the makings of an Armory
combat doctrine, to set their officer corps apart from what their high command sees to be rival schools in
Union and the Baronies.

In line with much of the Armory’s other state managed institutions, PIC campuses are startlingly
cosmopolitan, with healthy representation from both Purview citizens and provisional, colonial citizenry.
Commissions and admittance to the PIC, whether purchased or earned, must be backed up in the navy;
space, unlike the legion’s atmospheric battlegrounds, is unforgiving. One must be competent enough at
least to properly seal their suit and affix their oxygen before graduating with an ensign’s mark — “Proven
On Ras Shamra” must mean s​ omething​ after all.

Graduates of the PIC can be Purview Citizens or, upon graduation, Provisional Citizens of the Colonies.
They have ​earned​ their commission via the two-year training program, and generally have a firm loyalty to
the Armory; indeed, the PIC is an internal naval school, meant to train personnel who are already
committed to serve in the Armory’s Navy or in an orbital/aero element of the legions.
*

Gain one or two of the following background notes, or develop your own using these as
inspiration:

D6 Background Note

1 Your commission assigned and your docket assured, you headed off to the PIC with the rest
of the boys. College was a grand time — the sport, the people, the ​air​ of the place — and
your early years in the Navy much the same. Your first command now awaits, and there is talk
of war in the Dawnline. Your chums make the bulk of the officer corps in this fleet, and back
together it feels like college all over again - invincible, assured, and with glory ahead. Do you
really​ believe this to be true? Of the old college gang, are there any who you have bad blood
with? Or those who you care deeply for? You’ve been in the navy for a while now, but have
you seen combat yet, or will this be your first taste?

2 The Armory liberated your world decades ago, formalized your people in their Purview, and
built your towns and villages into glittering modern cities. Your grandparents may have
labored under a tyrant, and your parents in the fire of a war, but you have grown up in a
golden age for your world. The first generation to enjoy the fruits of the Armory’s efforts, your
parents and grandparents pushed you to give back: serve in the navy, see the homeworld of
the liberators, and send your pay home — this is the road to prosperity, and if it means
wearing their flag and learning their language, then so be it. You will climb as high as you can,
prove your peoples’ worth in the Purview, and never again knuckle under the crown of a
tyrant. How far have you traveled from your homeworld to the PIC? What of the time slip
between your parents, friends, and family back home — how many years behind are you
now? Are there others from your world in your class or on your ship? What was the
development level of your world? Did you know of Union, or learn of them after enlisting? Do
you plan to return home, or are you committed to the Naval life?

43
3 The Purview must be expanded, and it will take brave youths like yourself to expand it. Hailing
from deep in the Purview, you and your comrades come from families descended from some
of the first settlers on Ras Shamra — you bleed Armory aubergine, and have never known life
outside of the Purview. Trained in the PIC, you are now posted to a ship — are you eager for
combat? What do you know of Union and the Baronies? How far have you traveled in the
Purview? What do you hope to gain from naval service — an aventure? A title? Land? Glory?

4 After your home was attacked by the Barons and defended by the Armory, your world
formally recognized the Armory as an ally and integrated their armed forces. Though you
initially enlisted in your world’s ODF, you quickly found yourself operating in the Armory’s
naval forces. Now, you fight for the aubergine banner of the Armory — how do you feel about
this? Did you volunteer to extend your service, or are you still compelled to finish your current
tour before decommissioning? Do you find the Armory to be an ally, or just another distant
power? Did you lose anyone to the Baronies, or has your family made it through unscathed?

5 It simply made soc-fin since to join. Socially, you could use the prestige upgrades; financially,
well, it’s hard to argue with the debt wipe when you’re in so deep.

6 Father made sure your accounts were squared and debts paid before you purchased your
commission: lieutenant junior grade, as senior status could easily be won if you proved a
quick study in the College. With a suite rented in the famous Terminus House, your staff
moved in next door, and schedule set, your time in the College was quite invigorating.
Networking, sport, tactics and strategies — you were a good student, as this practical
knowledge would be employed in your eventual billet; perform admirably there, and you
would be sure to rise in the Social as well as the ranks. Are you excited for combat? Did you
remain aloof through College or did you make any friends? Did Father ​really​ square your
debts before school? Which is more important to you — the Armory, or your rank within it?

44
The ​Honest Truth
The H ​ onest Truth​, IPS-N’s free-flying premier naval college, orbits Argo Navis once every three
Cradle-standard years; their officer corps are said to be “born” after one revolution, the time it takes for
most candidates to begin and graduate Officer Training School. The H ​ onest Truth​ began, as most IPS-N
facilities did, as a merchant cosmonaut training school meant to better acquaint and equip IPS-N pilots
with the necessary skills for navigating the stars and three-dimensional movement. With the advent of
space piracy and IPS-N’s scaling up and centralizing of the interstellar freight and transportation sectors,
the ​Honest Truth​ was expanded into one of the largest free-flying, non-orbital, spin-gravity stations in the
galaxy in order to train and equip sufficient personnel.

Now, with a permanent population in the millions and a student body hailing from around the galaxy, the
Honest Truth​ is a buzzing hive of activity. Civilian students and military/security cadets learn side by side
the rigors of null-atmosphere maintenance, zero-gee movement, high-gee movement, Z-Ax combat —
every facet of naval and interstellar knowledge necessary to crew, pilot, and command ships in space.

From its lectures on Cosmopolitan culture and atemporal existence, to its studies in naval history, to its
sling-grav racing league to its ensign postings with Northstar’s GALCOMM Corps, the ​Honest Truth​ can
produces some of the finest all-round cosmonauts in the galaxy — civilian or military. Graduates from the
Honest Truth​ tend to be steadfast, dependable crewmembers and level-headed officers, with little time
for the pageantry of the Academy or nationalistic fervor of the PIC. Many go on to serve tours as pilots in
respected private security firms, in vital, long-haul freight companies, and among line ships in the Union
Navy. Most, though, decide to keep close to home, and join up with IPS-N’s Trunk Security or Northstar
GALCOMM.

*
Gain one or two of the following background notes, or develop your own using these as
inspiration:

D6 Background Note

1 The ​Honest Truth​ is many things. A trade school. A talent pool for freighters and private
security companies. A certificate program for crew from orbital/interstellar private escort
outfits. For you, it was the way offworld. On your home, there was nothing but dead ends.
You could toil in the factories or in the offices, or go an ​build​ a factory or and office, but none
of that was for you. You wanted the stars, and IPS-N offered them to you. The ​Honest Truth
was just that and more: via education there you earned yourself a posting — do you ever
want to go home? The ​Honest Truth​ collects all types — did you make friends or enemies
with someone who you’ll face on the opposite side? Was your time in the ​Honest Truth​ above
board, or did you mix it up with the spacers on the metro decks? Do you have debts left to
repay, or debts to collect?

2 You were born on the ​Honest Truth​, a spacer through and through. The downwell life has
never​ appealed to you, and from the time you learned to navigate null-gee you’ve dreamt
about crossing the stars. Space — all of its depth and breadth — holds far more wonder and
promise than any one world. A tour in the navy will get you the pay and certifications you
need — do you plan to stay for long? Will you return to the ​Honest Truth? ​ Did anyone from
your block or deck wind up going to the ​Truth’​ s flight school? Before your enlistment, did you
work private? When you finally muster out, where will you go?

45
3 You were born on the ​Honest Truth​, a spacer through and through — though yours was a
comfortable life compared to most who call the metrodecks their home. Raised in one of the
nicer spin grav sections, your parents were IPS-N officers, assigned to the ​Honest Truth​ from
fair Carina herself. They always told you of the gentle world — her arcipelagos and warm, still
seas, the white sand beaches and the skiffs that pole between islands, their home back on
that sapphire sphere — and since you could fly and bound you’ve always wanted to go. Only,
life and your calling have got in the way. Have your parents passed on, or have they retired to
Carina? Do you see a route to the world, or are you afraid it will always be a dream? You
grew up the child of well-positioned executive officers — did you engage at all with people
from the metrodecks? Was your education private, or did your parents send you to one of the
Honest Truth​’s metrodeck public education centers? IPS-N’s executive dynasty programs,
while largely bloodless, are deeply competitive — Do you have any rivals?

4 Your downwell life was a rough one. Raised in the Diaspora, you scrapped and worked for
what was yours. At fifteen you enlisted in a private mercenary company that hired any and all
who wanted a ticket offworld — all you needed to know how to do was sign your name and
state that you were of-age. You hit the stars after, slinging short-pattern guns as a marine in
your PMC’s naval security ops. In time, you lead your section, and then looked for more: the
Honest Truth​ was more. You earned an officer commission — what happened to your old
PMC? In your “old” life, did you make any friends? Did you lose any? Did any come with you
to the ​Honest Truth​? Does anything from your old life haunt you?

5 From Argo Navis straight to Trunk Security, you were born in the Company and will die for the
Company — and you wouldn’t have it any other way. Union was built by IPS-N, and you
mean to continue the tradition. Were you posted to the ​Honest Truth​ or born there? Has your
loyalty and/or belief in the Company ever been tested? Do you have a grand design in mind,
or are you happy to serve? As a Company Man/Woman/Person, what is your view of Union
and its project? Do you see yourself as part of it, or apart from it?

6 The ​Honest Truth​ taught you how to be more than just a cosmonaut on a long-haul freighter.
In its curved gravity halls and metrodecks you learned to walk, talk, and bound like a spacer.
In its vac-spheres and 1:1 simulation chambers, you learned to fly like you were born in the
void. When your charter company asked you back, you refused — your lot was not hauling
ice and chunks of rawmat, but with your new dream: to fly under your own banner. Will your
old company send people after you? What of your old crew — any entanglements there?
What dream do you hold most dear — stability, or exploration?

46
Senior Petrel
Each Albatross makteba trains their Petrels differently, following millenia of their own internal doctrine
coupled with shared records from the Albatross’s long history of interstellar travel and all-theater combat.
Petrels — cadet Loyal Wings in waiting — train in tight-knit groups of no more than a dozen, organized
under their senior Loyal Wing and a retinue of advisors. The Petrel’s course is set from the moment they
adopt their cadet garb: a shorn head, simple clothing, and unadorned hardsuits mark one as a Petrel, a
squire destined to be a Wing once their training is complete. In close teams these Petrels learn to crew
Albatross assault carriers or light cruisers, or how to pilot light and heavy strikeships. The bravest —
though the most likely to die in their service, most Albatross know — are schooled in the maintenance
and support of their Loyal Wing’s mechanized chassis, to one day pilot their own.

Albatross Petrels are young, ranging from early teens to early twenties, and are rarely found operating
outside of official Albatross missions. Petrel crew and officers do not have formal ranks like conventional
stellar navies — instead, they lean on deeply ingrained systems of cultural seniority and camaraderie,
where command roles not occupied by Loyal Wings are designated to the most qualified Petrel for the
job. Generally speaking only Petrels near the end of their training — around their early twenties — ever
serve on the line. These Senior Petrels command subline ships, act as executive officers for Loyal or
Honored Wings in command of capital ships, or fly spearships of their own in support of mounted Wings.

*
Gain one or two of the following background notes, or develop your own using these as
inspiration:

D6 Background Note

1 You trained with your Loyal Wing until they were killed in combat; nearly ready yourself, you
took up their command and completed a desperate objective successfully. This was proof
enough for your honored wings back home — they promoted you then, and you have served
with distinction ever sense.

2 Your Loyal Wing, after terrible injury and many years of recovery, now lends their skills to
Albatross theater command; you became their protege, and learned by their side

3 As a child you displayed a proclivity for 3-dimensional navigation, besting children many
years your senior in spheregames; you were fast-tracked for a command position, and
learned alongside Petrels and Wings the advanced techniques for space combat under the
Albatross doctrine. Your brilliance was never in question — only the height to which you
would rise.

4 The Albatross rescued you from a lost and otherwise derelict spaceship — the victim of
piracy. Your family dead and barely remembered anyways, you were raised in the makteba as
one of the Albatross. Given the choice to track down the ones who murdered your family, and
to seek out any who remain, you turned it down — the Albatross were your family. Baba who
took you in was the only father you ever knew, and Mama your only mother. In time you might
bring justice to those who killed your blood parents, but you are Albatross now you will never
want for time, or feel fear again.

5 You fought many years as a Petrel and a Loyal Wing, earning your own armor through
courage, loyalty, and sacrifice. Now you have your own clutch of young Petrels to guide, and

47
 it is with pride and comeradly love that you seek to teach them to be strong, swift, and brave.

6 They were standoffish at first, but your years of service in the Liberators coupled with your
dedication to the Albatross’ mission won you respect and, eventually, admission.

48
Cosmopolitan Security Cluster
Like planetary defense forces and the Albatross’ makteba system, many Cosmopolitans train in z-axis
navigation and null-grav maneuvering in a mixed formal/informal setting. From a young age,
Cosmopolitan children are schooled by their parents and teachers in all aspects of interstellar life, from
donning and doffing hardsuits, to starship maintenance, to nearlight calculations, and orbital dynamics.
Theirs is a life removed from the “normal” time of the rest of the galaxy, lonely to some but rich in parallel
histories, stories, and legends — Cosmopolitans know the void of space, the worlds that dot the stars,
and the families that trek across time.

Though they may seem mysterious or anachronistic to Diasporans and Metropolitans, Cosmopolitans on
occasion decide to apply their considerable skills and comfort with interstellar travel and spatial
navigation to the navies and security forces of non-Cosmopolitan states and entities. As “normal time”
humans make a great sacrifice in stepping out of synch with their families, so too do Cosmopolitan crew
and officers — only in the opposite direction. As they age in “normal” time, their families — should they
ever encounter them again — never seem to have aged beyond the time that they left them. This is a
comfort to some, and a great tragedy to others.

Cosmopolitans often must translate their “real” age to their subjective age, but few who step from their
families young have a reason other than tragedy. Most desynched Cosmopolitans would place
themselves in middle age — often old for their ranks, but with tremendously valuable experience and
competency.

*
Gain one or two of the following background notes, or develop your own using these as
inspiration:

D6 Background Note

1 How many years has it been? You stopped paying attention to time outside of your own
conical reference some time ago. When people ask, you just tell them you’re ​onanon​ — a
Cosmopolitan word that means outside of time, but subject to it. Yours is a life free from the
constraints of governance, material greed, and fear of a limited existence. Who were you
before you became a Cosmopolitan? What happened to the life and world you left behind?
Were you running from something? Was your time-slip an accident, or the consequence of a
necessary journey? What drives you to keep flying? Do you even remember your old home?
Do you have a desire to return to your old home?

2 You were born at nearlight, aboard a goodship as it burned at the edge of realspace on its
way to the next world that would host it. You grew up among the decks and holds of your
families’ ship, learning as a child would learn to walk downwell the proper way to fly in
null-gee. Your grace and lithe strength found you placement as one of your goodship’s
security officers, escorting your traders and decklords when they went downwell or docked
up on a station. You’ve seen scraps, and learned to pilot for yourself. What drew you away
from this comfortable, normal life? Does your home still fly the stars, or has a terrible fate
befallen it? Do you keep in contact with others from your goodship, or are you on your own?
Your goodship dealt in trade and travel — did you ever escort someone to a unique or
dangerous location? Did you ever encounter los Voladores, or other strange things in deep
space?

49
3 You have become Cosmopolitan by action, though still hold your homeworld dear. You joined
a long-haul ship as crew, eager for a new start offworld, and found that time-slip was a small
price to pay to see the worlds of humanity. How long have you been flying? You have fond
memories of your homeworld, so why did you leave? How did you come to work security, and
how did you learn to fly? Did you ever have your own ship, or is this your first posting?

4 You were taken by raiders, made Cosmopolitan by their abduction. Freed and returned home,
you found your life — your work, friends, family, even your home and familiar surroundings —
gone, paved over and developed in the time it took you to come home. Relativity is cruel in
this way: you expected to lose a year or so, nothing more, and instead you lost decades. For
a while you scraped out an existence on your homeworld, but even with a small group of
others who had been pulled from their time, it was lonely. You decide that your life is up
there, out among the stars — the you that was loved on this world died in space, and a new
“you” took their place. With this origin, do you fight for others or for yourself? Do you search
for the raiders or entity that took you? Do you have any physical reminders of your home and
family, or have you thrown those away (or never had them to begin with)? Do you keep the
customs of the time that once was yours, or are you able to adapt to the new temporality?

5 Out from the edge of known space, you have made your way into the core and back. There is
a galaxy of wonders and terrors, and you seek to see them all. Hailing from a long line of
Cosmopolitans, you don’t feel the same tension and unease as those who only dip their toe in
the time-slip. You’re a true ​onanon​, and your goodship time is your anchor; the ​onanon
fellows and families you meet again and again are your community; you may be few, on the
galactic scale, but you’re almost eternal. What drew you to the realtime struggle? Why fight
when you had found a kind of timeless, wandering peace — who or what threatened that, and
when will you feel safe enough to stop fighting?

6 There is a death out there, waiting for you. As long as you fly, you can run from it. Time is not
concrete — after all, how can there be a division between real and subjective? If you keep
flying, you’ll find a time in which you can divorce the mind from its container. How far are you
willing to go?

50
The Battlegroup
Battlegroups are composed of a number of capital ships supported by subline squadrons and
wings. Battlegroups act during the Fleet Phase of a combat. As a player whose character will
take part in the zoomed-out action at the Fleet Phase, you’ll build your battlegroup from a pool
of points determined by your GM. If you choose to build a battlegroup, your character can be
an officer on one of the ships, the Fleet Legion called to service only in battle, or a moving
perspective that touches on many different characters.

Battlegroup structures generally follow a common force organization chart: A flagship with the
fleet commander on board, a number of escort capital ships, and a larger number of subline
ships, corvettes, gunboats, and fighter/bomber wings. However you build your battlegroup,
though, is up to you.

Determine as a table which system you’ll all use to build your Battlegroup.

Per Player Points

Each player has a set number of points to spend on building their battlegroup, depending on
party size:

1-4 Players: 20 points

5+ Players: 15 points

Roll For Points

Each player rolls 3d20 for points and picks the highest roll, minimum 10.

License-Level Point Buy

If players want to import their ​Lancer​ character into ​Battlegroup​, then they may choose to tie
their points-buy to their character’s license level. A player’s naval rank is determined by their
pilot’s level, as shown by the following:
● Captain (LL 1-8): 12 points
● Wing Commander (LL 9): 14 points
● Line Commander (LL 10): 16 points
● Admiral (LL 11): 18 points
● Section Admiral (LL 12): 20 points.

For example: ​Pilot Babel is license level 10. Their rank, then, is that of a Line Commander, and
they have 16 points to spend either on a Battlegroup that acts during the Fleet Phase, or on an
individual ship that acts during the Dogfight Phase.

51
Building Your Battlegroup
In order to build your battlegroup, you’ll spend points from your pool on capital ship hulls,
weapons, systems, doctrines, and upgrades. Keep track of each capital ship that you build —
their weapons, systems, maneuvers, and individual hit points ​as well as​ the total hit points of
your battlegroup once it has been fully outfitted.

A battlegroup must have at least one ship of capital classification to act as a flagship. this is
the vessel that your character will command their battlegroup from, and the one that — should
it be destroyed — end in the death of your character (unless you’ve sprung for systems that
give them a chance to escape a dying ship).

Once you’ve selected the hulls you’d like in your battlegroup, you may spend your remaining
points on new weapons, systems, wings, and Legion powers. All ships, unless otherwise
specified, are considered to have sufficient life support systems, food and water supplies, crew
and quarters, nearlight and sublight drives, and systems (targeting control, a CIC, navigation,
etc) and so on.

Ship hulls have several important stats to note when selecting and outfitting them:

Points
A hull’s ​Points​ stat indicates how many points it costs to add it to your battlegroup. This cost
represents only the hull itself without any weapons or other upgrades.

HP (Hit Points)
This is the measure of a ship’s physical durability. When a ship’s HP reaches 0, it is destroyed.

Defense
This is an abstract representation of the ship’s structural integrity, defensive countermeasures,
and maneuverability. When an enemy targets a ship with a Single Target attack, they roll
against that ship’s Defense stat to see if they hit or not.

Weapons
This shows how many weapons of each size can be mounted onto that ship. Some highly
specialized ships may not have weapon mountings.

Systems
This shows how many upgrades with the System tag that ship can equip.

Squadrons/Wings
This shows how many upgrades with the Squadron or Wing tags that ship can equip.

52
Note that some ships may also have positive or negative traits which affect their performance
and how they can be equipped or upgraded. These will be detailed in each ship’s description.

Example: UDoJ/HR Liberator Battlegroup ​Pullman

Let’s try and build a battlegroup!

To start the example: let’s say you (the player) are a part of a party of 4. That means you’ve got
20 points to work with. Off the bat, you know you want to play a pack of bruisers — big ships
that can take hits and dish them out. Some of the other players in your group are building
lighter — quick carriers with plenty of wings and subline squadrons — and seeking to chip
away at your foes, but you want to hit them with the knock out punch.

So off the bat, you’re going to spend points on three capital ship hulls: two ​GMS ​Caspian Sea
Class Frigates​ (3 points apiece) and one ​GMS ​Thoreau ​Class Battleship ​(5 points) for a total
of 11 points. With your remaining 9 points, you’ll outfit your hulls with upgraded weapons and
systems; any slots you don’t fill with an upgrade, you can simply fill with a stock weapon or
system.

Your flagship is going to be the big damage-dealer of your battlegroup, so you’d like ​that​ ship
to be the one that really slings fire. For 2 points, you upgrade its superheavy slot from the stock
option to a ​Spinal Tachyon Lance​.

That’ll do for main cannon upgrades; you want to be sure to be versatile in your damage, after
all, and have 7 points left to spend. Both of your ​Caspian Sea ​class frigates have primary and
auxiliary weapons systems that you can outfit with upgrades. On the first ​Caspian Sea​ class,
you spend 3 points to install ​Dorsal ​Razorback​ Missiles​, and on the second ​Caspian Sea
class you spend 1 point on a​ Swarm Torpedo​ auxiliary weapon upgrade.

3 points remain. You decide you want to make sure your big gun hits when it needs to, so you
spend 2 points to install the system ​Take it Down!​ on your battleship. With your last point
remaining, you spend it on a ​Priority Interdiction Wave Projector​, so that one of your
Caspian Sea​ frigates can act as an escort for your ​Thoreau.​

With that set, you note on your battlegroup profile card the stock primary and auxiliary
weapons, stock systems, and so on that are in your battlegroup, note each ship’s HP, and go
about naming them accordingly. Your battlegroup is accompanied by your party members’
own battlegroups; together, the ships the four of you command compose a fleet.

53
Capital Ship Classifications
Frigate
Frigates are the backbone of any battlegroup worth its manna. A broad-tonnage class, frigates
are the jack-of-all trades ship that no admiral would want to be without; encompassing
everything from sturdy ships of the line to cutting-edge, deeply specific specialists, the frigate
class is the most common and varied ship of capital designation.

A battlegroup can have up to ​3 Frigates.

Carrier
Carriers sacrifice weaponry and specialized systems to increase command ability and the
potential portfolio of scenarios to which a given battlegroup can respond. Media often depicts
the “classic” flagship carrier: a large vessel crewed by thousands of enlisted and officers, its
hangars home to wings of fighters, bombers — and, in some cases — light subline ships. Most
carriers fielded throughout the Orion Arm, though, trend towards light and middle tonnage,
adopting frontline/gyre-proximal positions where they can better manage their wings in
aggressive midrange combat.

A battlegroup can have up to ​2 Carriers.

Battleship
A common wartime flagship, battleships are the pure realization of raw destructive power.
Most ships that fit the “Battleship” role are built around one or more massive spinal cannons —
kinetic accelerators or linear beam projectors (“lances”) — meant to deal a killing blow to
enemy capital ships in a single shot. Charging these titanic weapons takes time, however, and
during that time these great ships must be protected by their escorts; some battleships
sacrifice raw ordinance to carry wings of fighters with them, or robust defensive systems
meant to ensure they remain unmolested as they prepare to fire.

A battlegroup may only have ​1 Battleship.

54
Frigate Hulls
Frigates are workhorse ships of any battlegroup. With decent defenses and structural integrity,
their strength lies in their versatility. Frigates often occupy a support role in battlegroups,
enhancing a fleet’s tactical and strategic capabilities, escorting heavier vessels, and providing
additional firepower as needed.

Each Frigate, in addition to its unique stat profile, also brings to the table a ​Trait​. These are
passive modifiers, with triggers listed in the frigate’s profile, and do not need to be activated
unless stated so in their profile.

Only battlegroups with at least one Frigate can use the Escort Screen Tactic.

55
GMS ​Caspian Sea​ Class Frigate
GMS’s C ​ aspian Sea​ class is Union’s backbone frigate, a tough and flexible multi-role vessel
that functions just as well in a battle line as it does on lone patrol. Developed by GMS under the
Second Committee, the ​Caspian Sea​ class was one of the few hulls not to be scrapped by the
Third Committee’s ground-up redesign of the Union Naval Department. Now a common first
posting for Regular and Auxiliary navy personnel, ​Caspian Sea​ class frigates in standard Union
Naval doctrine are typically tasked as fire-coordination platforms.

3 Points 14 HP 1 Primary 1 Auxiliary 10 Defense

Weapon Weapon

Fire Control Networking (Trait)

1/round when an ally in your range band consumes Lock On as part of an attack they may
reroll that attack, but must keep the second result.

GMS ​Huron​ Class Frigate

The ​Huron​ class frigate is a dedicated weapons platform typically stationed on the perimeters
of friendly fleets. Tasked with anti-payload and anti-subline defense, H
​ uron​ class frigates are
stalwart defensive units generally never encountered outside of combat deployments; in the
Union Navy, there’s an old axiom: “If you can see Huron from the deck, prepare for a storm.”

3 Points 14 HP 2 Auxiliary Weapons 10 Defense

3 points, 14 HP, 2 Auxiliary Weapons, 10 Defense

Flak Screen (Trait)

Whenever an Ace, Squadron, or Wing deals damage to any ship in your battlegroup, roll
1d20. On a 10+, that Ace, Squadron, or Wing takes 1d3+1 damage

56
GMS ​Superior​ Class Frigate
One of the few new designs produced by GMS under the Third Committee, Union’s ​Superior
class frigates are built to equip the UN’s top of the line weapons and EWAR systems.
Assignment to a S ​ uperior​ is considered a prestigious posting for new officers. Standard naval
outfitting sees ​Superior​ class frigates equipped with bays of repair drones to supplement
fleetwide damage control, though other more offensive configurations — especially those tuned
to better effect fleetwide legionspace — are not uncommon.

3 Points 14 HP 1 Primary 1 System 10 Defense

Weapon

Repair Drones (Trait)

Gain the following Tactic:

Fleet Triage
Battlegroup Tactic, Limited 1
Choose one of your ships or an allied ship in your range band. That ship repairs
1d3+3 HP.

HA ​Schuyler​ Class Frigate

HA designs their Frigates to fulfill a wide portfolio of specialized roles, each one operating as
one component of a large and flexible fleet. ​Schuyler-​class frigates are EWAR platforms,
designed to enhance a fleet's systemic and logistical capabilities. Lightly armed, ​Schuyler​-class
frigates are nonetheless critical components of any long-deployment blacksky or orbital fleet.

4 Points 10 HP 2 Systems 10 Defense

Enhanced Logistics (Trait)

The ​Schuyler​ Class Frigate is equipped with a Limited 2 fleet logistics suite. 1/round you may
expend a charge from this system to remove one counter from any expended Reloading
weapon or system during the Logistics Step.

A weapon or system can only have a single counter removed this way each round.

57
HA ​Creighton​ Class Frigate
In true HA fashion, the ​Creighton​ is an experiment to see whether the Armory could mount one
of the biggest guns available on the smallest possible hull they could, it's less a ship carrying a
gun and more a gun with a ship wrapped around it, designed to be used at long distances as a
sniper-type platform, its target tracking systems aren't designed for close-range work.

4 Points 10 HP 1 Superheavy Weapon 10 Defense

Calibrated Targeting (Trait)

The ​Creighton​ Class Frigate makes attacks at Extreme and Long range with +1 Accuracy,
but attacks made at closer ranges are made with +1 Difficulty instead.

Purpose-Built (Trait)

The ​Creighton​ Class Frigate can only equip Superheavy weapons with the Charge tag.

HA ​Turenne​ Class Frigate

A ship designed for escort duty, made to screen for other vessels with a combination of
conventional point defense systems and HA's advances in shield technology.

4 Points 10 HP 1 Auxiliary 1 System 10 Defense

Weapon

Active Defense (Trait)

When the ​Turenne​ Class Frigate is assigned to Escort Duty, your battlegroup gains +3
Interdiction.

58
FKS ​Cirsium​ Class Frigate
A newer Baronic design, this is the frigate you get assigned to if you're of reasonably good
standing or someone likes you, the standard doctrine is for this ship to be accompanied by a
subline escort for which it has the tactical command-and-control infrastructure to effectively
coordinate; considered a "tactician's vessel," though a lot of captains are known to order their
escorts into dangerous or suicidal circumstances in an effort to reap glory.

4 Points 12 HP 1 Primary 1 Squadron 10 Defense

Weapon

Honor Guard (Trait)

When the Crisium Class Frigate takes damage from any source while it has an equipped
Squadron, it may reduce that damage to 0. The equipped Squadron then takes that much
damage.

FKS ​Onopordum​ Class Frigate

One of the oldest ships still in service, underpowered and undergunned by contemporary
standards, outweighed by the fact that there are tons of them still in use and they're cheap to
field. Cramped, poor amenities, definitely not a glorious ship in the slightest, but those that
crew them tend to develop an inordinate, somewhat superstitious attachment to them, going as
far as to consider them lucky vessels...those that survive battle, anyway.

2 Points 12 HP 1 Primary Weapon 10 Defense

Stealing Luck From The Devil (Trait)

1/battle, you may add or subtract 1d3 from any dice roll after seeing the result.

A roll can only be modified in this way once.

59
IPS-N ​Bakunawa​ Class Frigate
A flexible multi-role frigate that makes use of its somewhat oversized hull to house a fully
functional flight deck and launch bay capable of housing and supporting fighter-tier craft
including mounted chassis, a common sight among anti-piracy forces and, somewhat ironically,
among the better equipped pirates themselves who value its combination of firepower and
boarding capabilities.

4 Points 16 HP 1 Primary 1 Wing 8 Defense

Weapon

Pocket Carrier (Trait)

During the Logistics Step, the ​Bakunawa​ Class Frigate can repair 2 HP on an equipped Wing
or​ may give an equipped Wing +1 to all damage effects until the next Logistics Step.

IPS-N ​Laho​ Class Frigate

A dedicated "torpedo boat" designed to launch long-flight munitions accurately and efficiently,
employed by a variety of navies as part of a combined arms doctrine, the Laho is vulnerable on
its own and often relies on other ships to defend it against close range threats.

4 Points 16 HP 1 Primary Weapon 8 Defense

Rotary Launch Tubes (Trait)

All Payload weapons equipped to the Laho Class Frigate reduce their travel time by 1 to a
minimum of 0

Torpedo Boat (Trait)

The Laho Class Frigate can only equip Primary weapons with the Payload tag

60
Carrier Hulls
Carriers are linchpins of a fleet; with light weapons and decent defenses, though only middling
structural integrity, their main strength lies in their ability to command frontline wings and
squadrons.

All Carriers have 3 free points that can only be spent on equipping Squadrons or Wings.

GMS ​Amazon​ Class Line Carrier

The standard carrier design used by dozens of stellar navies across Union space, a dedicated
example of conventional carrier doctrine, its flight decks utilize the latest advances in printer
technology to quickly return damaged strike craft to service

5 Points 12 HP 4 Wings 12 Defense

Rapid Printing (Trait)

The ​Amazon​ Class Line Carrier has enhanced flight decks with Limited 2 rapid printing
systems. 1/round, during the Logistics Step you may expend a charge to repair an equipped
Wing to full HP.

GMS ​Tongass​ Class Line Carrier

A carrier built to house, support, repair, and coordinate squadrons of low- to mid-tonnage
subline combat vessels, often tasked with fire support operations using attached squadrons to
rapidly move between battle lines as needed.

6 Points 12 HP 2 Auxiliary 2 Squadrons 12 Defense

Weapons

Close Support (Trait)

1/round, an ally in your range band may use one of your equipped Squadrons as if it was
their own.

61
HA ​Farragut​ Class Starfield Carrier
Unlike their more specialized frigates, HA's carrier design emphasizes modularity in order to
create a flexible command-and-control/support platform capable of performing well when part
of any battlegroup.

6 Points 14 HP 1 Primary 1 Modular 2 Wings 10 Defense

Weapon

Modular Design (Trait)

The ​Farragut​ Class Starfield Carrier has a special ​Modular​ slot that can be used to equip
either an Auxiliary Weapon, System, or Wing.

FKS ​Tagetes​ Class Agile Carrier

Fighter/bomber pilots are one of the few elements of Baronic naval doctrine that approaches
the glory of a chassis pilot and consequently competition for a spot on one of these carriers is
fierce, superior maneuverability and defensive systems help ensure that their pilots can get to
the fight in order to make a name for themselves.

7 Points 12 HP 1 System 3 Wings 14 Defense

Lead Dancer (Trait)

Whenever the ​Tagetes​ Class Agile Carrier’s equipped Wings deal damage, that damage is
increased by 1, and all damage dealt to them is reduced by 1d3 to a minimum of 1.

62
IPS-N ​Tawa​ Class Medium Carrier
One of the most commonly sold carriers in the IPS-N line, a favorite of smaller state navies that
appreciate its robust physical durability and simple layout.

6 Points 14 HP 1 Squadron 1 System 2 Wings 10 Defense

Away Teams (Trait)

[Something to do with boarding actions but whoops, that’s still being worked on. Hi hello,
how are you playtesters! Thanks for giving this a go :) ]

IPS-N ​Masauwu​ Class Heavy Carrier-Frame

An outsized design built to support mixed subline/bomber/chassis tactics, capable of carrying
even smaller subline ships within its cavernous launch bays.

7 Points 14 HP 2 Squadrons 2 Wings 10 Defense

Wolfpack Tactics (Trait)

Whenever you use a Tactic to command a Squadron equipped to the ​Masauwu​ Class Heavy
Carrier Frame, you may command another Squadron or Wing equipped to it at the same
time.

63
Battleship Hulls
Battleships are the heaviest ships commonly encountered in battle lines. With rare exception,
they are the only ships able to field superheavy “long-spool” weapons and capital-killer
torpedoes, capable of destroying lesser ships in a single blow. Battleships often serve as the
centerpiece for numerous battlegroups, and the legacies of specific battleships frequently
achieve a mythic status.

Battleships do not have any special rules unique to their hull type, but each one boasts
powerful abilities that can define how your battlegroup operates. It is not required to take
a battleship when building a fleet.

GMS ​Muir​ Class Battleship

The standard GMS battleship design, well rounded, suitably armed and outfitted to handle a
variety of scenarios in multiple theaters, has a storied history and a lot of famous names in its
pedigree, this is the iconic battleship associated with Union's navy and is prominently featured
in a lot of omninet dramas and games.

6 Points 25 HP 1 1 Primary 2 Auxiliary 1 System 12 Defense

Superheavy Weapon Weapons
Weapon

Paragon (Trait)

1/round, you may add +1 Accuracy to any roll you or an ally in the same range band makes.
1/battle, you may add +3 Accuracy instead.

GMS ​Thoreau​ Class Battleship

A heavier GMS battleship platform whose history can be traced back to late Second Committee
designs, though updated for the modern era, built to enhance a fleet's offensive capabilities
with a combination of advanced fire control systems, aggressive NHP deportment, and robust
power distribution, able to operate independently as well and occasionally a single Thoreau is
assigned to help defend a polity under Union's umbrella as a "fleet of one".

7 Points 25 HP 1 Superheavy 2 Primary 2 Auxiliary 12 Defense

Weapon Weapons Weapons

64
 Barrage Doctrine (Trait)

When you fire a Primary weapon as part of the ​All Ahead Full!​ Maneuver, you may use two
Auxiliary weapons alongside it instead of one. Gain the following Maneuver:

Unleash Hell!
Battlegroup Maneuver, Limited 1
You may fire one Superheavy weapon and up to two Primary Weapons, or up to four
Primary Weapons.

HA ​Louis XIV​ Class Dreadnought

An unusual design, the Louis XIV is comparatively fragile for a battleship-grade vessel but only
because it foregoes raw structural integrity for a novel system of advanced projected defense
systems and high-power shielding that can deflect or dissipate even naval-grade firepower, it
can also extend this protection to other nearby fleets.

7 Points 15 HP 1 Superheavy 2 Primary 1 System 15 Defense

Weapon Weapons

Pinpoint Aegis (Trait)

The Louis XIV begins each battle with 5 Overshield, and gains 5 Overshield during each
Logistics Step. Your battlegroup gains +1d6 Interdiction. Gain the following Tactic:

Projected Blackshield
Battlegroup Tactic, Limited 1
Choose an allied battlegroup. That battlegroup gains +3d6 Interdiction until the end of
their next turn.

65
HA ​Michel Ney​ Class Dreadnought
HA's venture into integrating allegedly-stolen Volador blinkspace technology into a capital ship
hull, this version of the Michel Ney is actually an augmented retrofit being used as a testbed
platform, capable of unusual hit-and-run maneuvers for a ship of its tonnage, with the conflicts
in the Dawnline Shore heating up HA is using this as an opportunity to gather live combat data.

7 Points 25 HP 1 Superheavy 1 Primary 2 Systems 12 Defense

Weapon Weapon

Blinkspace Carver (Trait)

When you use the ​Retrograde Burn!​ maneuver you may fire a Primary Weapon before or
after falling back. Your battlegroup gains the following Maneuver:

Tactical Blinktunneler
Battlegroup Maneuver, Limited 1
Your battlegroup may move to any range band of your choice, gaining +1d6
Interdiction ​or​ +2 to the Defense score of all ships until the end of your next turn, and
you may fire one Superheavy Weapon or up to two Primary Weapons after moving.

Federal Karrakin Shipyard ​Calendula​ Class Battlecruiser

Sometimes referred to as a "siege cruiser," an ostentatious design that makes numerous
sacrifices in order to mount overlapping superheavy weaponry, more a show of force than any
sort of practical consideration, nonetheless the ship is capable of shunting tremendous (and
unsafe) levels of power into its weapon systems on demand, pushing them far past standard
tolerances even as they unleash devastating firepower.

7 Points 23 HP 2 Superheavy 1 Primary 1 System 13 Defense

Weapons Weapon

Overcharge Capacitors (Trait)

The ​Calendula​ Class Battlecruiser may pour more power into its weapons than is strictly
advisable. When an equipped Superheavy weapon with the Charge tag is fully charged, you
may continue to add charge counters to it to a maximum of 4 additional counters. Each time
you add a charge counter beyond the weapon's maximum value the Battlecruiser takes 1
damage that cannot be prevented in any way, but when you fire an overcharged weapon it
deals an additional +1d3 damage for each additional charge counter on it. Gain the following
Tactic:

66
 Maximum Power!
Battlegroup Tactic, Limited 1
Choose a single weapon equipped to the Calendula Class Battlecruiser with the
Charge tag. That weapon immediately gains 4 charge counters and the next attack
made with this weapon gains Reliable 4, or adds +4 to its existing Reliable value.
After that weapon's next attack, it is destroyed and cannot be used again for the rest
of the battle.

IPS-N Greenland Class Battlecarrier

The "Battlecarrier" is an unusual hybrid ship classification that attempts to marry the firepower
of a battleship with the flexibility of a carrier, strategists regularly argue over the usefulness of
the design with no end in sight, it's generally agreed though that IPS-N manufactures the most
successful ships of this type and the Greenland is a prime example of such a vessel, projecting
fighter-tier superiority backed by superheavy ordnance.

7 Points 30 HP 1 Superheavy 1 Primary 3 Wings 10 Defense

Weapon Weapon

Hook-Jab (Trait)

1/round whenever any ship in your battlegroup consumes ​Lock On​ as part of a Single Target
attack, you may immediately use a Tactic to command a Wing equipped to the ​Greenland
Class Battlecarrier for free. [More to come probably, still a WIP]

67
Battlegroup Weapons
Weapons at the battlegroup stage have the following tags and notes in their profile:

Charge​ notes the number of rounds that the weapon must “charge” until it is ready to fire.
Charge weapons begin at 0 and gain 1 Charge counter during each round’s upkeep step.
When they reach their charge number, they fire: roll to hit and apply damage if successful.

Payload​ weapons have flight times before they reach their target. These flight times are based
on which range band they’re launched from, though some may travel faster or slower. Note the
number of rounds that the weapon must travel to reach its target. Payload weapons begin at
the number noted in their profile and remove 1 counter during the Logistics Step of each
round; when they reach 0, the weapon hits its target — barring any Interdiction.

Reloading​ weapons are ready to use from the start, and note the number of turns that must
pass before they are reloaded or recharged and ready to use again.

Range​ indicates both the maximum and minimum ranges in which a weapon effectively
operates, noted by counting the range bands it can be fired in starting at the outer bands and
working inward. For example, a weapon with a range of 5-2 can be used anywhere from Long
Range (5) to Close Range (2) but cannot be used at all in either Extreme Range or Point Blank
range.

Long-Cycle Primary Lance

The galactic standard for any ship of the line, LCPLs encompass a wide category of cannon
and particle beam which all effect the same end: the immediate and total destruction of the
enemy on a square hit. With balanced spool times and high output, an LCPL is a reliable main
gun for any ship that can field it.
0 Points
Superheavy
Single Target, Charge 3, Reliable 3
Range 5-1
10 Damage

Spinal LinAc CBC

An old workhorse, the linear accelerator coherent beam cannon once marked the pinnacle of
energy weapon development. Reliable at middle-confidence ranges and, with modern power
systems, capable of rapid cycling main battery fire, a LinAc CBC is nonetheless still a
formidable weapon favored by conservative captains.
2 points
68
Superheavy
Single Target, Charge 2
Range 5-2
12 Damage

Spinal Petajoule Kinetic

The PJK spinal cannon is a tremendous kinetic main gun typically only fielded by heavy,
long-range fire support platforms. PJKs hurl a single, shaped solid-state projectile at its target,
ensuring that a clean hit will knock any vessel out of commission.
2 points
Superheavy
Single Target, Charge 3
Range 6-3
15 Damage

Spinal Tachyon Lance

First developed by Harrison Armory, STL main guns were introduced to Union Navy and
Baronic Unified Command via GMS’s Systems Normalization department. Adapted from a now
stagnant branch of theoretical faster-than-light travel, the Tachyon lance is a devastating
weapon best used at extreme to long ranges, but suffers up close.
3 points
Superheavy
Single Target, Charge 4
Range 6-4
20 Damage

Nearlight Kill-Pack
An NKP is essentially just a bundle of nearlight drives packed behind a dome-shaped
micrometeorite shield. While larger ships can fit NKPs into existing torpedo tubes, frigates
(unless specially designed) must mount NKPs externally. NKPs are devastating — if
temperamental — weapons favored by states and navies with limited access to navspec
ordinance.
3 points
Superheavy
Single Target, Reloading 4
Range 5-4
4d6 Damage

Speartip​ Anti-Capital Torpedos

Using a scaled-up version of Union’s standard two-stage ACT system, ​Speartip​ torpedoes are
long-range anti-capital payload delivery systems typically carried by the heaviest missile ships in
any navy.
3 points

69
Superheavy
Single Target, Payload +1
Range 6-4
25 Damage

Co-Consciousness Lance
Your Fleet Legion shapes a shared thought into a lance, hurling it at the enemy’s gestalt. The
lance tears at the minds of the enemy Legion, destabilizing real-space systems, detonating
smart payloads in their launch bays, and triggering a cascading series of systemic failures​.
3 points
Superheavy
Area Target, Legionspace, Reloading 4
Range 4-1
2d6+2 Damage
This devastating systemic attack shatters an enemy fleet legion’s cohesion. After taking
damage from this weapon, the target battlegroup has a 50 percent chance of being sent into
disarray, rolling a die or flipping a coin to see as desired. If disrupted either they must take the
first NPC turn of the next round but all of their rolls are made with +1 Difficulty, or they must act
last in the next round after everyone else has taken their turn. If multiple battlegroups suffer
from this disruption at once, they choose a viable turn order as needed.

Primary Kinetic Batteries

0 points
Primary
Single Target, Reliable 1
Range 3-1
1d6+2 Kinetic Damage

Short-Cycle Lance Batteries

0 Points
Primary
Single Target, Accurate
Range 4-1
4 Energy Damage

Conical Kinetic Projector

Essentially a giant scattergun, Union CKP doctrine
0 Points
Primary
Single Target
Range 3-1
1d3+5 Damage
Attacks with this weapon made further than Close Range (2) gain Inaccurate.

70
Primary Single-Stage Torpedo
0 Points
Primary
Single Target, Payload
Range 5-2
1d6+6 Damage

Short-Cycle Mass Accelerator Turrets

2 points
Primary
Single Target, Reliable 1
Range 3-1
1d3+3 Damage
Instead of attacking with this weapon normally, you may instead target one or two Aces,
Squadrons, or Wings and automatically deal 1d3+1 damage to them.

Heavy Kinetic Batteries

Any ship of the line laid down since the advent of stellar combat will likely field at least one
kinetic weapon; naval ships generally are outfitted with batteries of kinetic turrets.
2 Points
Primary
Single Target, Reliable 1
Range 4-2
5 Damage

Darkstar​ Multiple-Warhead Torpedoes

2 points
Primary
Area Target, Payload
Range 4-1
2d6 Damage
If this weapon’s damage is not completely Interdicted, it deals +1d6 damage applied after
Interdiction.

Dorsal ​Razorback​ Missiles

HA’s R
​ azorback​ pattern missiles are typically dorsally mounted in 4x10 racks, designed to be
used by line vessels as broad-trajectory denial weapons, avoiding enemy point defense
weapons via target-neutral tracking, positioning, and overwhelming numbers.
2 points
Primary
Single Target, Payload -1
Range 4-1

71
1d6+4 Damage

Throughline Skip Drone

The skip drone hangs, still, drifting alongside the great bulk of the frigate. With a flash, it is
gone; moments later, three hundred thousand kilometers away, a new star erupts. A clean hit.
2 points
Primary
Single Target, Charge 2, Limited 1, Unique
Range 5-4
Skip Drones do not automatically gain Charge counters during the Logistics Step. When you
want to fire this weapon, target a capital ship and begin charging it. Unlike other Charge
weapons, a Skip Drone ​must​ immediately be fired when fully charged. Instead of attacking
normally, roll 1d20. On a 10+ the drone hits, dealing 3d6+6 damage to the target ship and
dealing 1d6 damage to all other ships, Squadrons, and Wings in that ship’s battlegroup. On a 9
or lower, or if your battlegroup is out of this weapon’s effective range when it finishes targeting,
the drone misses its optimal delivery window, dealing 2d6 damage to the target ship only. This
special attack roll cannot be modified in any way.

Secondary Kinetic Turrets

0 points
Auxiliary
Range 3-1
When fired alongside any Primary Single Target weapon, automatically deal 1 damage to that
weapon’s target.

Flyswatter​ Missiles
0 points
Auxiliary
Range 3-1
When fired alongside any Primary weapon, automatically deal 2 damage to all enemy Aces and
automatically deal 1 damage to all Wings in target battlegroup.

Messenger​ Lead Laser

0 Points
Auxiliary
Range 4-1
This weapon does not fire alongside other weapons. Instead, whenever your battlegroup is
within this weapon’s range all of your Payload attacks deal +1 damage for each Messenger
Lead Laser equipped to your battlegroup, to a maximum of +4 damage.

Harbinger​ Confidence Lasers

1 Point
Auxiliary

72
Range 6-4
This weapon does not fire alongside other weapons. Instead, 1/round whenever your
battlegroup is within this weapon’s range and one of more Superheavy weapons in your
battlegroup are charging, you may automatically deal 1 damage to a target ship of your choice
each time a Charge counter is added to that weapon.

Nearspace Directed Energy Perforators

1 point
Auxiliary, Interdiction
Range 3-1
This weapon does not fire alongside other weapons. Instead, whenever any Ace, Squadron, or
Wing attacks or deals damage to you they automatically take 1 damage each time they do so.
In addition, while in this weapon’s effective range your battlegroup gains +1 Interdiction.

Cloudkill​ Kinetics
2 points
Auxiliary, Limited 2
When fired alongside any Primary weapon you launch a kinetic kill-cloud of projectiles that
threatens enemies attempting to approach you along predicted routes. Choose your own
battlegroup or an allied battlegroup in the same range band; until the end of your next turn, any
Ace, Squadron, or Wing that attacks or deals damage to the selected battlegroup automatically
takes 1d6+1 damage each time they do so. A battlegroup can only benefit from one kill-cloud
at a time.

73
Battlegroup Systems
Aggressive Commanders
0 points
System
Limited 1, Unique
Your battlegroup’s combat doctrine emphasizes direct movement towards the enemy, closing
gaps that more timid commanders leave open. This impetus is not without sacrifice, often
trading defensive positioning and unpredictability for a chance to deal a single, deadly blow to
your enemies.
During the Logistics Step you may add 1 Charge counter to all Charge weapons in your
battlegroup, and remove one flight time counter from all of your active Payload attacks. Attack
rolls against ships in your battlegroup are made with +1 Accuracy until the end of your next
turn.

Veteran Crews
0 points
System
Limited 1
Veteran crews have been through the tense dance of interstellar combat, and are prepared to
handle the stress and chaos of the engagement.
This ship may reroll one of its attack rolls, but must keep the second result. This system may
be taken multiple times, but only once per ship.

Predict/Overlay Shield Projector

0 points
System, Limited 1, Unique
During the Impact Step, a ship in your battlegroup may reduce incoming damage from one
Superheavy weapon by 5.

Single-Plane Shield
0 points
System
Interdiction, Limited 1
During the Impact Step, add +3 to your battlegroup’s Interdiction.

Gestalt Baffler
The twisting, manifold layers of the Legion gestalt is not only a system created for
communication and attack vectors: it can be used as a defensive screen as well.
0 points
System
Legionspace, Limited 1, Unique

74
If any ships in your battlegroup, or any ships in an allied battlegroup in the same range band,
are hit by a Legionspace attack you may nullify that attack completely, causing it to have no
effect.

Take it Down!
0 points
System
Unique, Limited 1
Gain the following Maneuver:
● Take it Down!
Battlegroup Maneuver
You may nominate a specific enemy capital ship as a priority target. Until the next
Logistics Step, all Single Target attacks made against that ship are made with +1
Accuracy.

Fire for Effect!

0 points
System
Unique, Limited 1
Gain the following Maneuver:
● Fire for Effect!
Battlegroup Maneuver
Nominate an enemy battlegroup. Until the end of the next Impact Step, all Area Attacks
deal +2 damage to that battlegroup.

Steady...Now!
0 points
System
Unique, Limited 1
Gain the following Maneuver:
● Steady...Now!
Battlegroup Maneuver
Remove a Charge counter from a weapon in your battlegroup with the Charge tag. Your
next attack with this weapon gains +1 Accuracy.

Brace For Impact!

0 points
System
Unique, Limited 1
Gain the following Maneuver:
● Brace for Impact!
Battlegroup Maneuver

75
 Until the start of your next turn, all damage dealt to ships in your battlegroup is reduced
by half. Remove 1 charge counter from all weapons in your battlegroup with the Charge
tag.

Emergency Maneuvers!
1 point
System
Unique, Reloading 3
Gain the following Tactic:
● Emergency Maneuvers!
Advance or fall back one range band.

Bulwark Redundancies
1 point
System
Increase this ship’s HP by 3. This system may be taken multiple times, but only once per ship.

Power Distribution Systems

1 Point
System, Unique
Gain the following Tactic:
● Divert Power
1/round you may remove any number of Charge counters from a weapon with the
Charge tag in your battlegroup. That ship gains +1 Defense to a maximum of 20 and
your battlegroup gains +2 Interdiction until the end of your next turn for each counter
removed this way. Alternately you may shunt power from defenses straight into a ship’s
weapon systems. Doing this adds 1 Charge counter to any weapon with the Charge tag
but all attacks against that ship gain +1 Accuracy and Interdiction applied to that ship is
reduced by half until the end of your next turn

Smartscreen
1 point
System
This ship is orbited by a screen of baffler/interdiction drones. The first Single Target attack
made against this ship each round is made with +1 Difficulty.

Anticognition Hyperfractal
Your Fleet Legion pierces the enemy Legion’s layers of shielding, implanting a germ of
anticognative thought. It blooms, disrupting simul-neural pathways and creating excited
hyperfractal redundancy loops. With the right effort, the enemy NHPs will begin to cascade —
just as planned...
1 points
System

76
Legionspace, Reloading 4, Unique
During the Logistics Step, you may add 1 counter to all active enemy Payload flight times.

Impossible Dodge
1 points
System
Legionspace, Reloading 4
Gain the following maneuver:
● Impossible Dodge
Battlegroup Maneuver
Choose a ship in your battlegroup. Using sudden counterfactual positioning, this ship
may ignore all damage on the next Impact Step of the Fleet phase and it is then
temporarily “removed from play” until the end of your next turn. While removed from
play in this fashion it cannot be targeted by attacks or take damage, but none of its
weapons, systems, or traits can be used or benefitted from.

This maneuver does not clear Payload weapons inbound towards this vessel, nor does
it cancel any Charge weapons targeting this vessel: those resume targeting as normal
once this vessel re-enters play.

Subaltern Combat Crews

A significant portion of your fleet’s crew is comprised of combat subalterns, adding speed and
efficiency to combat operations.
1 point
System
Reloading 3, Unique
You may use an additional Tactic during the Action Step of your turn.

Legionspace ​Still
Your Fleet Legion prioritizes defense over attack.
1 point
System
Legionspace, Limited 2, Unique
1/round when an enemy targets any capital ship in your battlegroup with an attack that benefits
from Accuracy, you may expend a charge from this system to cancel 1 Accuracy die from their
roll.

Subjective Syzygy
Your Fleet Legion forces a subjective syzygy upon an enemy ship, momentarily projecting its
own consciousness into the enemy Fleet Legion, tearing at the mind(s) of the enemy NHPs.
2 points
System
Legionspace, Reloading 4, Unique

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When an enemy attacks a ship in your battlegroup with a Single Target attack, you may force
them to roll twice and take the worst result.

Legionspace Coordinator
2 points
System
Legionspace, Reloading 4, Unique
A Legionspace coordinator is an organic human officer that acts as a liaison between the Fleet
Legion and battlegroup commander, distributing the Legion’s recommendations to their
commanding officer as quickly as possible.
Gain the following Maneuver:
● Exploit Positioning
Battlegroup Maneuver
You may nominate an ally operating at the Fleet tier to take one Maneuver on their turn.

“Sandstorm” Vanguard
3 points
System, Unique
Your battlegroup releases a massive cloud of dust, rocks, and asteroids out in front of your
ships. This wall of rock and metal obscures your ships from system scans and absorbs fire —
some can act as projectiles in their own right.
Your battlegroup gains the following Maneuver and Tactic:
● Lithoscreen
Battlegroup Tactic, Limited 2
One ship in your battlegroup gains 5 Overshield.

● Rockshot
Battlegroup Maneuver, Limited 1
Area Attack, Payload
Range 3-1
This special Maneuver lobs asteroids and debris at an enemy battlegroup of your
choice, dealing 6 Damage on impact. You may also expend ​Lithoscreen​ charges when
you use this Maneuver, and each charge expended adds +2 to its damage.

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Squadrons and Wings
Sortie combat occurs in the no man’s land of the gyre, where small squadrons of subline ships and
fighter/bomber wings engage enemy torpedoes and sorties in an effort to win the midrange battle and
disrupt incoming fire. Sortie combat is the field of young officers and pilots eager to make a name for
themselves: Smaller ships, debris, and kill-clouds make for a crowded and deadly field, where survivors
become heroes and the dead are numerous...

Battlegroups are not composed of capital ships alone. Around the flanks of the great ships of
the line fly their escorts and fighter screens, wings of bombers and smaller, sub-line vessels
built to strike fast, hard, and often. These ships — cruisers, destroyers, and corvettes on the
large end, fighters, bombers, drones, and mounted mechanized chassis on the smaller end —
are critical components of a battelgroup’s tactical readiness.

Squadrons and Wings grant your battlegroup additional Tactics and capabilities to use during
your turn, which are listed in their corresponding descriptions. Squadrons and Wings are
always considered "deployed" during combat, you never have to manually launch them in
order to use them, they're simply always at your command. Narratively they may be moving
between battle lines before returning to their carrier or command ships for repairs and
resupply, but in gameplay terms they're always considered "on the board" so to speak.

Whenever you use a Tactic that employs Squadrons or Wings, each Squadron or Wing can
only be used that way once in a given round before their payloads are exhausted and they
need to rearm. For example, if a Tactic allows you to use up to two Fighter Wings then you
cannot use the same Wing twice, and once both of those Wings have been used they cannot
be used again until the next turn. When using Squadrons or Wings you may wish to note which
ones have been used with a token or marker of some sort.

Squadrons and Wings also have their own HP separate from the rest of the battlegroup and
can be targeted or damaged by attacks. Some attacks target Squadrons and Wings
specifically, while other attacks may damage them as part of the battlegroup. Squadrons and
Wings do not have Defense scores, weapons and abilities will either damage them directly or
will call for specific attack rolls or checks as needed.

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Fighter Wing
Fighters are small, multi-purpose, single-pilot ships with a wide combat portfolio, ranging from
long range patrols, to subline escort, to ordinance interception. Fighter wings, though
outclassed by the raw power of larger ships, are integral units in any battlegroup for their
versatility alone.
1 point
Wing, 4 HP
Range 3-1
Gain the following Tactic:
Fighter Command
Battlegroup Tactic
Choose one or two Fighter Wings assigned to your battlegroup and give them each one of the
following commands. You may select the same or different commands for each:
● Strafing Run
Single Target
Deal 1 damage to target capital ship

● Engage and Eliminate

Deal 3 damage to target Ace, Squadron, or Wing

● Danger Close
Add 1 to your battlegroup’s Interdiction until the start of your next turn.

Bomber Wing
Bombers are larger vessels crewed by 2-4 crewmembers and loaded with ordinance that lets
them punch far above their weight class — if ignored, a wing of bombers can be as dangerous
as a ship of the line.
2 points
Wing, 6 HP
Range 3-1
Gain the following Tactic:
Bomber Command
Choose one Bomber Wing assigned to your battlegroup and give them one of the following
commands:
● Torpedoes Away
Deal 4 damage to target capital ship

● Guns Up
Deal 2 damage to target Squadron or Wing

Mounted Chassis Wing

Chassis Mounts are exterior-mounted frames that mechs can equip in order to allow them to
operate in deep space. With a CM installed, mechs rocket towards enemy capital ships,

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dogfight, and maneuver in space with far more ability than mech-tier EVA units would otherwise
allow.
2 points
Wing, 5 HP
Range 4-1
Gain the following Tactic:
Chassis Command
Choose one Mounted Chassis Wing assigned to your battlegroup and give them one of the
following commands:
● Giantkillers
Deal 1d3 damage to target capital ship

● Toe-to-Toe
Deal 1d3 damage to target Ace, Squadron, or Wing

● Breach and Clear

SOMETHING TO DO WITH BOARDING ACTIONS GOES HERE, IT’LL BE REAL NEAT

Corvette Squadron
Corvettes operate in small squadrons, filling a lighter-than/heavier-than role that some fleet
commanders prefer for versatility.
2 points
Squadron, 6 HP
Range 4-1
Gain the following Tactic:
Corvette Command
Choose one Corvette Squadron assigned to your battlegroup and give them one of the
following commands:
● Trade Blows
Deal 2 damage to target capital ship, or deal 4 damage to target capital ship and take 2
damage in return

● Defensive Formation
Add 2 to your battlegroup’s Interdiction until the start of your next turn

● Gun Run
Deal 1d3 damage to all Squadrons and Wings in target battlegroup

Destroyer Escort
Destroyers are fast and light, with powerful offensive systems. Destroyers fill a stopgap role in
most battlegroups: Agile and light, but able to mount hard-hitting weapons systems that can
threaten both capital ships and other subline vessels
3 points

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Squadron, 7 HP
Range 4-1
Gain the following Tactic:
Destroyer Command
Choose one Destroyer Escort Squadron assigned to your battlegroup and give them one of the
following commands:
● Cannonade
Deal 3 damage to target capital ship and 1 damage to all Squadrons and Wings in that
ship’s battlegroup

● Snapflight Torpedoes
Deal 4 damage to all Squadrons in target battlegroup

Cruiser Escort
Cruisers are fast and mount powerful defensive systems. The largest of the subline ships,
Cruisers can support squadrons and wings in the field. Typically serving as pickets or scouts,
cruisers seek to exploit gaps in the enemy line to wreak havoc on exposed flanks​.
3 points
Squadron, 8 HP
Range 5-1
Gain the following Tactic:
Cruiser Command
Choose one Cruiser Escort Squadron assigned to your battlegroup and give them one of the
following commands:
● Fire at Will
Command
Single Target
Deal 4 damage to target capital ship and 2 damage to all Squadrons in that ship’s
battlegroup, and take 2 damage in return

● Local Kill Screen

Deal 1d3+1 damage to all Wings in target battlegroup

● Defensive Gunnery
Add 3 to your battlegroup’s Interdiction until the start of your next turn.

Subline Pickets
Your subline picket ships scout the predicted battlefield days before your capital ships arrive,
running silent and cold to avoid enemy scanners. With the data they feed your captains on
enemy positioning, numbers, direction, and trajectory, the efficacy of your volleys will surely be
staggering.
3 points

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Squadron
This special Squadron has been tasked with scouting the battlefield and does not have stats as
normal. Instead 1/round you or an ally of your choice may gain +1 Accuracy to an attack ​or​ you
may reduce an enemy battlegroup’s Interdiction by 3.

This Squadron cannot be used for any effects that rely on or affect a Squadron’s damage or
HP.

Payload Escort Squadrons

3 Points
Squadron
Your subline wings are tasked with escorting your payloads across space, ensuring they are not
intercepted before they reach their targets.
This special Squadron has been tasked with providing your launched munitions with a
protective escort, clearing the way for them to strike their targets. When you or an allied
battlegroup in the same range band fire a weapon with the Payload tag, you may assign this
squadron to escort it. During the Impact Step, reduce the effect of enemy Interdiction by 1 for
each flight time counter removed from this attack before impact. However if the damage from
the attack is reduced to 0 from Interdiction then this Squadron is destroyed.

This Squadron cannot be used for any effects that rely on or affect a Squadron’s damage or
HP.

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 Capital Ship Summary
Hull Pts HP DEF Superheavy Primary Auxiliary Wings Systems Modular
Weapons Weapons Weapons and
Squad
rons

GMS 3 14 10 1 1
Caspian Sea
Class Frigate

GMS ​Huron 3 14 10 2
Class Frigate

GMS 3 14 10 1 1
Superior
Class Frigate

HA ​Schuyler 4 10 10 2
Class Frigate

HA 4 10 10 1
Creighton
Class Frigate

HA ​Turenne 4 10 10 1 1
Class Frigate

FKS ​Cirsium 4 12 10 1 1sq

Class Frigate

FKS 2 12 10 1
Onopordum
Class Frigate

IPS-N 4 16 8 1 1w
Bakunawa
Class Frigate

IPS-N ​Laho 4 16 8 1
Class Frigate

GMS 5 12 12 4w
Amazon
Class Carrier

GMS 6 12 12 2 2s
Tongass
Class Carrier

HA ​Farragut 6 14 10 1 2w 1

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Class
Starfield
Carrier

FKS ​Tagetes 7 12 14 3w 1
Class Agile
Carrier

IPS-N ​Tawa 6 14 10 2w 1
Class
Medium
Carrier

IPS-N 7 14 10 2s, 2w
Masauwu
Class Heavy
Carrier

GMS ​Muir 6 25 12 1 1 2 1
Class
Battleship

GMS 7 25 12 1 2 2
Thoreau
Class
Battleship

HA ​Louis XIV 7 15 15 1 2 1
Class
Dreadnought

HA ​Michel 7 25 12 1 1 2
Ney​ Class
Dreadnought

FKS 7 23 13 2 1 1
Calendula
Class
Battlecruiser

IPS-N 7 30 10 1 1 3
Greenland
Class
Battlecarrier

How to GM ​Battlegroup
This section will dive into greater detail on how to facilitate sessions of ​Lancer:​ ​Battlegroup.​

General rules to keep in mind: as the GM you, like your players, are a player in this game. Your
role is not to play a character, but to facilitate and describe the context in which your players’

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characters exist, and to give voice to multiple non-player characters. To dip into both sport and
analogy, it is best to consider yourself more a goalkeeper than a referee: like a goalkeeper on a
soccer team, you are an individual with a unique role and access to tools only you can use.
You’re there to ​help your team​ — the players at your table — not adjudicate their play. Yes,
you are the tie-breaking vote on rules questions, and yes you at least provide the framework of
a narrative for your players to interact with, but this does not make you the referee: unlike a ref,
you should be invested your players’ success — establish shared goals, make the game fun,
play as a team, and you’re sure to be a good GM.

Inevitability, Fatalism, and Hope: Getting Through It

Battlegroup,​ unlike core ​Lancer​, demands a certain acknowledgement: every character in
Battlegroup​ is about to be involved in a battle — whether they are ready for it or not — that
they may not survive. Whether Karrakin or Purview, from a DLS world, or Union, every
character in ​Battlegroup​ knows that there is a fight ahead; there is no avoiding it, and one must
do whatever they can to get through it.

Though there are things to do and roleplay to be had before and after an engagement,
Battlegroup​ makes the assumption that it is a tactical game first — your characters are going
to wind up in a fight, one that they may not win or survive. Outside of more involved downtime
actions, there are moments before, during, and after a battle that might prove good roleplay
material. As a GM, the following section (before we get into NPCs) might prove useful for
structuring narrative play.

What Happens Before

Before any planned battle, most fleet doctrines will see their personnel decanted from stasis
(“Downtime”) and engaged in training, maintenance, and pre-theater operations (navigation,
weapons checks, screening maneuvers, NHP interaction, and so on. This non-stasis-time is
generally called “Uptime” and is what most cosmonauts refer to when they talk about their time
debt, “subjective time”, and so on.

Most non-combat, non-prep time before a battle or engagement is spent in stasis, or

downtime, and is generally regarded by cosmonauts as a normal, mundane necessity of their
work.

Common uptime/pre-battle activities:

GUNNERY: Practice at your station or in a virtual environment, negotiating with your

battlegroup’s head munitions officer for certain types of ordinance, checking in on engineering
to see the progress they’ve made on in-flight upgrades and maintenance, consulting with your
ship’s NHP on their latest enemy counterfactual predictions, and so on.

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NAVIGATION: Maintaining relative speed and distance from the other ships in your battlegroup,
assigning patrol orbits, reviewing NHP updates on thrust control and ETAs relative to local
stations and worlds, and long range surveillance on known and predicted enemy movements.

OFFICERS’ MESS: Catching up with other officers who have been cycled out prior to you;
gossip on officers who have not yet been cycled. Get the latest on the various departments
and modules of your ship. Get the latest in rumors on other captains in the battlegroup — who
to look out for, who to trust, and so on. Bragging or comparing ship compositions, flight
tactics, and betting on kill numbers.

CREW RELATIONS: Take off your officer’s bars and go shoot the shit with the enlisted crew.
Meet with your petty officers and cosmonauts and settle disputes, route requests with your
endorsement, give counsel, and so on. Host or attend a boxing match, gambling parlor, big
pre-battle feast, and so on. Checking in on a side hustle you have running over in engineering,
gunnery, or on the flight deck.

UNCANNY/OUTSIDE OF REGULATIONS: have a private audience with your ship’s NHP — you
had strange dreams when you were under, and need to ask them some questions. Spacewalk
alone on the hull of your ship, not to be disturbed. Go and triple-check the provisions and
functionality of the CIC’s lifeboat, as you have a bad feeling about this one. Slip into the gestalt
and spend time in legionspace, enjoying being in an approximation of “home”. Racing during
patrol around your carrier, buzzing friendly rival ships, and so on.

In The Middle — Nothing but the Fight

The opening days of an engagement are difficult ones: hard maneuvering, pre-firing,
anticipation of initial interdictions, making sure your crew stays focused and ready, and
considerable gestalt time in the fleet legion are all taxing on a person.

You’ll likely spend a significant time acting as the final say in decisions presented to you by
officers and your ship’s NHP —between the sudden need to interdict or hard burn to avoid
low-confidence incoming fire, the stress never really lets up. To that end, you might spend
more time in legionspace, practice meditation, take anti-anxiety cocktails, or even spend some
time under stasis while delegating command to your executive officer.

During the battle proper — when there are only hours, minutes, or seconds between launching
weapons and impact — you will be fully engaged in commanding or piloting your ship. Your
main goal is to survive: you can deal with the aftermath of your actions once the enemy is
defeated.

After, and What Comes Next.

When FLEETCOM issues the all-clear and the Legion spins down, you’re left with the aftermath
of what happened. Damage control teams and medics hustle between the decks of your ship.

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Distress calls and positioning beacons flood the CIC. Your NHP, unflappable, informs you of
the engagement’s cost in lives, time, and capability.

The immediate questions that must be answered: Who did you lose? Who made it through?
How is the ship?

As the fleet regroups and heads on, how are you left — furious and seeking vengeance, or
broken but inexorable? In high spirits and eager for the next fight, or steady on, resolute to see
the mission done?

Did any of the enemy escape? Do you know who they are now? What did you learn of their
tactics, and how soon will you give chase?

Or, your fight could be done, and now you must prepare for downtime as you head back to
your nearest station. Who do you say goodbye to before you go under, and who do you hope
to see first when you come back up?

Or do you drift, the lone (or one of very few) survivors aboard the ruin of your ship, watching
the dial on your oxygen reserves dip ever lower, waiting for anyone to come and rescue you.
What do you do in the time you fear you have left?

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The Field of Battle
Battlegroup​ assumes that by the time play begins, both fleets have already made their initial
engagement maneuvers and fired their first volleys; there is no active hunting for enemy
signatures, no skillful concealment of one’s waste heat in the proximity of a neutral station, no
baiting an exposure attack via deft feint — the only thing left to do is fight.

However, that is not to say that there isn’t room for skillful maneuvering: though the field of
battle in ​Battlegroup​ is the cold void of space, combat in this setting is not always fought in
sterile environments — ships may engage above worlds under assault, or be caught as they try
to slip through an asteroid field, or hide their heat signatures in the long trail of a comet. While
commanders try to engage the enemy far from the worlds, stations, and strategic objectives
they seek to capture or defend, some engagements cannot be avoided; one must then take
into account the proximity of other bodies.

At the outset of the battle, one side will — via narrative context — is considered the
“Attacking” side, and the other the “Defending” side. Statuses, conditions, etc, that denote
Attacking or Defending sides will apply to their respective side.

These next two passages briefly describe suites of optional modifiers you and your players
may choose to implement in your engagements.

When Fighting Near Terrestrial Bodies and Crowded

Airspace
To a commander aware of the consequences of such an engagement, combat near populated
worlds, moons, stations, and other stellar bodies with crowded airspace (i.e. the orbital rings
and platforms of a developed world, a constellation of populated stations, a heavily trafficked
transit corridor, and so on) is a nightmare. Even a single missed shot has the potential to
shatter a station or critical infrastructure; a miss with a long or short spool gun could not only
devastate a city, but whole continents. To reflect this fact and the strategies conscious
commanders adopt to mitigate causing potentially catastrophic collateral damage, the GM may
make any of the following modifications to combat:

● All Single Target attacks add one difficulty. In addition, all Single Target attacks gain the
following profile:
○ Hold Fire, Dammit!
Trigger: when one rolls a Single Target attack and misses.
At the last moment, you call off your shot/you order your ships to hold fire:
trajectory shows this shot has a high likelihood to miss its target and impact on
the world/moon/station/etc behind, and you cannot risk collateral damage. If

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 this attack is a Limited attack, it is not expended. This profile does not apply to
Payload attacks.

● All weapons with the Charged tag add +1 to their activation/impact, to reflect
commanders holding fire until they are ​absolutely sure​ they will not miss. however, if
you do miss, your shot flies on into empty space. In addition, all Charge attacks gain
the following profile:
○ An Acceptable Risk
You may choose to forgo adding this +1 modifier to your Charged attacks. If so,
on a miss, roll a d20: on a 1-5 your attack hits the terrestrial body or plows
through the crowded airspace beyond your target, causing untold catastrophic
damage and killing tens to hundreds of thousands of civilians8.

● All Area Target attacks gain the following profile:

○ Unavoidable Consequences
All Area Attacks that target the Defending side of the combat may impact the
terrestrial body or populated airspace beyond their targets. Hundreds to
thousands of civilians and garrisoned soldiers may die; likewise there may be
minor, though widespread, damage to facilities, infrastructure, and the natural
environment. To avoid this collateral damage when launching Area Target
attacks against the defending side, you may reduce the damage they cause by 2
(to no lower than 0), to reflect gunners trimming the area of effect in order to
avoid causing collateral damage.

● When rolling a Nearlight Ejection, if you roll a 1, ignore the normal result and roll once
more: if you roll a 1-2, one of your ships makes a terrible error and ejects into the
terrestrial body or crowded airspace. That ship is utterly destroyed, along with
everything onboard, and the terrestrial body or crowded airspace suffers catastrophic,
region-affecting damage.

● All ships on the defending side able to Avoid gain the following Maneuver:
○ Better Them Than Me
Instead of rolling to Avoid incoming attacks during the next interdiction step, you
instead ignore all incoming damage; that damage is dealt to the terrestrial object
or crowded space beyond, dealing proportional narrative damage.

● The crews of all vessels that are scuttled, foundered, or destroyed, or otherwise taken
out of combat in a non-catastrophic manner have a much higher chance of being
rescued — or their bodies recovered — due to the proximity of emergency services,
civilian ships, terrestrial gravity, and rapid system-local search and rescue responses.

8
Of course, it is absolutely acceptable for you and your table to forgo this collateral damage effect
(along with the collateral damage effect described in Area Target attacks near terrestrial bodies); player
safety remains paramount.
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 ● The Defending side may add defensive installations to their fleet.

When Fighting Near Natural Stellar Bodies

In contrast to engagements near populated terrestrial bodies and crowded space, combat in
proximity to the natural features of unpopulated system space, void, and deep space is often
the preferred ground of canny commanders. Challenged to navigate not only dangerous
physical environments, but confusing and frustrating natural phenomena that play hell with
even the most hardened systems, commanders and pilots able to adapt can win themselves
powerful tactical advantages.

“Natural Stellar Bodies” in this context include the fantastic and mundane phenomena of
systemic and interstellar space: asteroid fields, nebulae, titanic comets and their long tails,
debris fields of old battles, the crowded rings of gas giants, the moonfields of colossal gas
giants, and so on. Some optional modifiers that your table may choose to adopt are listed
below.

● All Single Target attacks gain the following profile:

○ Peeker’s Advantage
Condition
If you are on the Attacking side of an engagement, any single target attack you
make that does ​not​ have the Charge or Payload tag may be performed with +1
Accuracy. However, adopting this condition often overexposes your ship(s): if
you choose to take advantage of this condition, then you may ​not​ attempt to
Interdict or Avoid incoming damage on your next turn.

● All Area Target attacks gain the following profile:

○ Shooting Into The Wind
Condition
Any Area Attack you perform deals -1 damage on account of the many
obstacles present in local space.

● Payload attacks gain the following profile:

○ Natural Chaff
Condition
While fighting in a crowded environment, attacks from Payload weapons have a
higher chance of impacting on targets that are ​not​ their intended target. When
you declare an attack with a payload target (and after determining how many
rounds until impact, if necessary), roll a d20: on a 1, that weapon hits a friendly
ship. On a 2-4 that weapon hits an obstacle and detonates, ineffective. On a 5+
that weapon will continue towards its intended target.

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● When rolling a Nearlight Ejection in a crowded environment, if you roll a 1, ignore the
normal result and roll once more: if you roll a 1-2, one of your ships makes a terrible
error and collides with an object while attempting to eject. That ship is utterly
destroyed, along with everything onboard. The object hit in this way suffers narratively
appropriate damage as well.

● All non-legionspace attacks gain the “Avoidable” tag.

● All ships gain the following Maneuver:

○ Natural Screen
Using the local environment, you may attempt to “hide” your ships from enemy
sensor suites. After the Interdiction step of your turn, you may choose to hide
from the enemy. If you do so, you skip your next turn; for the duration of that
turn, you are not a valid target of enemy attacks. Area attacks, however, can still
hit you as normal.

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Building NPCs
Fleet Tier
At the Fleet Tier, building NPCs is a three-choice process:
1. Decide on your ratio of NPCs to players (we recommend 1:1, or, one NPC per player for
an “even” match).
2. For each NPC choose a Flagship.
3. For each Flagship, choose their Escort.

NPC Battlegroups are composed of two parts: the Flagship, which should be considered the
“featured” or “face” enemy — i.e. the main thing you should be targeting, the vessel you’re
hunting (regardless of its escort), where named NPC characters are stationed, the boarding
target, and so on — and their Escort, which are the attendant ships under the Flagship’s
command.

NPCs have the same action economy as players: on their turn (following their Impact step) they
may make ​one Maneuver ​and use ​one Tactic​ or they may trade out their Maneuver to use a
second Tactic if they wish.​ ​NPCs do not have standardized Maneuvers and Tactics the way
players do, they use Maneuvers and Tactics that are unique to them which are listed on their
profiles.

Like a player party, multiple NPC battlegroups are considered a fleet. Individual NPC
battlegroups alternate with player battlegroups in the initiative order, following the first acting
player (unless otherwise stated, of course). ​NPCs do not have a position on the Gyre like
players do.​ They are considered to be within the sphere of the active battle, but their exact
positioning is abstracted. You won’t worry about whether an NPC is at Extreme Range or
Scope Range, ​as the player’s position determines whether the player is able to attack an
NPC and also whether the NPC is able to attack that player. ​To say it a different way: the
range bands of the Gyre indicate each players’ relative position to the NPC fleet.

When NPC rules refer to “enemies” or “allies,” it is from their perspective. Players are their
enemies and their fellow NPCs are their allies.

Some rules and tags work slightly differently for NPCs than they do for players:

Range:​ When an NPC weapon or system lists a range, that lists the range bands that weapon
or system can affect. For example, if an NPC weapon has a range of 3-1, it can attack any
player battlegroup within Collapsing Range (3) to Point Blank Range (1) but cannot attack any
battlegroups outside of those range bands. ​In other words, players attack ​from​ range
bands, while NPCs attack ​towards​ range bands.

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Payload:​ Because NPCs do not occupy specific range bands, their Payload weapons have a
flight time based on the range band their target is occupying at the time they’re launched. For
example, a Payload attack fired at a target in Scope Range (4) will have a base flight time of 3.

Charge​ and ​Reloading​ weapons and systems work the same as they do for players.

Traits​ are passive qualities or abilities that some NPCs possess based on their ship type or
role. These are always active and do not require activation.

Systems​ are abilities that require active use on the NPC’s part, and will tell you when they can
be used and what the costs are, if any.

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NPC Flagship Archetypes
Below is a list of enemy flagship archetypes, along with their stats.

Turtleback
A heavy frigate or light battleship, up-armored with additional plating across its dorsal and
ventral surfaces, as well as a hardened citadel guarding its core systems. On your scope, it
appears solid and imposing: not hard to hit, but hard to kill...
HP 30, Defense 6, Interdiction 2d6

Reinforced Hull (Trait)

Single Target attacks made against the Turtleback from range 6-5 deal half damage.

Heavy Kinetic Battery Fire (Maneuver)

Any captain worth their brass knows that space combat is won through trajectories: to defeat
your target, fill their flight path with fire.

Primary
Single Target
Range 4-1
6 Damage
You may attack one or two targets with this maneuver.

Swarm Missile Volley (Maneuver)

Those who say missiles have no place in space combat have never seen how hard they hit.

Primary
Area Target, Payload
Range 5-2
1d6+3 Damage

Inexorable Advance (Maneuver)

The feint, the parry, maneuver and deception, these are the strategies of the frail. There is
only one way to advance; straight towards the enemy.

The Turtleback gains 5 Overshield. Advance an enemy battlegroup one range band forward.

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Starkiller
Long and knife-edged, this supercapital ship’s slim profile elides its fearsome strength.
HP 20, Defense 12, Interdiction 1d6

Long-Range Targeting Array (Trait)

The Starkiller makes Single Target attacks against ships in range 6-5 with +1 Accuracy

Starkiller Cannon (Charge)

Starkiller ​Main Cannons are a popular class of large-bore/high-k spinal guns made by many
warship outfitters. While specific classifications, bore/joule size, and capabilities may differ,
the S
​ tarkiller​ designation is never applied without merit. Even the smallest spinal gun can deal
severe damage to its target, and are capable of scoring a kill-hit against ships of the line.

Superheavy
Single Target, Charge 3
Range 6-4
15 Damage

Kill-Point Targeting Laser (Maneuver)

KPT Lasers are common among vessels that mount spinal canons. Ship designers,
acknowledging the ordered and exposed nature of fleet combat, often order the installation of
“hot” targeting lasers; while normal (or “cold”) targeting lasers often score their targets with
superficial thermal damage, “hot” lasers simply run at higher powers. With extended time on
their target, they can deal more than superficial damage to painted ships prior to main gun
impact.

Auxiliary
Single Target
Range 6-2
Automatically deal 2 damage to target enemy capital ship and apply ​Lock On​ to it. The
Starkiller gains +1 Accuracy to attacks with the ​Starkiller Cannon​ against that target until
the end of its next turn.

Reroute Spinal Charge (System)

The energy load of a charging spinal long or short spool cannon is tremendous. Canny ship
captains can take advantage of this charge if necessary by shunting stored potential energy
into emergency shielding, energy PDCs, and reactive wave-armor systems. The tradeoff — a
longer charge time if utilized — is worth the benefit: survival, at all costs.

System

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 Reloading 3
During the Impact Step, if there is at least 1 charge counter on the ​Starkiller Cannon ​the
Starkiller may remove it to gain +1d6 Interdiction and +2 Defense until the end of its next
turn.

Needleship
Tapering to a thin point, Needleships are most commonly found among spacefaring Diasporan
states — which, it should be noted, are rare. Records of their construction were lost during the
FirstComm era of Union, though owing to their longevity and unique construction (outside of
their core superstructure silhouette) one can assume they were built from a shared pattern, if
not by a single, long gone manufacturer. Spacefaring Needleships have since been upgraded,
retrofitted, and refurbished for modern spaceflight and combat, though even with extensive
modernization, Needleships are examples of divergent capital ship design. Those that exist now
are marvels of longevity, with unique defensive and maneuvering systems little understood by
Union. Each ship is a discovery, and a pity to see destroyed...
HP 15, Defense 14, Interdiction 1d6

Ancient Star (Maneuver)

So-called “Ancient Star” torpedoes are unique to Needleships. Each weapon represents
millennia of potential energy, held in containment, waiting to meet its explosive, terrible end.
Firing even one A​ ncient Star​ means the end of a many-thousand-year-long journey.

Superheavy
Single Target, Payload +1
Range 5-3
1d6+10 Damage

Assess Reality (Maneuver)

Cogent Minds developed by the House of Water are the only systems capable of interacting
with the strange computers and cognizants that power Needleships. Utilizing a combination
of ancient coding libraries, modern user interfaces, and evolutionary codices, the partnership
between Cogent Minds and cognizant Needleship “Ghosts” chart strange, unpredictable
trajectories, forcing Fleet Legions to imagine alternate modes of approaching reality.

The Needleship’s cogent mind confounds your targeting systems, throwing its vessel into
staggering counterfactuals behind a howling screen of systemic noise. The Needleship gains
Overshield 5 and advances or pushes back an enemy battlegroup one range band.

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 Shattered Reflection (Maneuver)

For a moment, it’s your own fleet you see on the scopes looking back at you.

Primary
Single Target, Legionspace
Range 3-1
5 damage
On hit the target must choose; take +3 damage or deal half damage with all attacks until the
end of their next turn.

Cogent Endpoint (Tactic)

The Needleship steers itself toward the enemy and opens comms…

Legionspace, Reloading 2
The Needleship’s Cogent Mind releases a tightbeam communications blast at an enemy
target, confounding the ship’s sensors and targeting suites. Make an attack against a target
enemy ship. On hit, that ship cannot benefit from Accuracy on its attack rolls until the end of
its next turn except to cancel out Difficulty.

Highline
An IPS-N stalwart line of frigates made available for fleet purchase, Highline ships bristle with
multi-band point defense systems and omnidirectional thrust points built directly into their
superstructure. Maneuverable and low-heat profile, Highline vessels are popular frigates among
modern interstellar fleets.
HP 15, Defense 10, Interdiction 1d6+3

Curtain Call​ Proactive Defense Screen (Trait)

Proactive defense systems like the ​Curtain Call​ multi-point defense network provide
unparalleled interdiction defense against tidal firing patterns; combined with a Fleet Legion’s
functionality and rapid processing, the C
​ urtain Call PDS​ is unparalleled in its defensive ability.

The Highline gains 5 Overshield during the start of the Logistics Step.

Flyswatter (Trait)

Woe to the creatures that fly through hell, for none escape with unburnt wings!

While the Highline has Overshield, any Squadron or Wing that damages any ship in its
battlegroup takes 1 damage.

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 Cloudkill​ Batteries (Maneuver)

“Kill-cloud at .4 conical density. Good choke, good density. Impact expected and assured.”

Primary
Single Target, Reliable 2
Range 4-1
7 Damage
Attacks with this weapon made against targets further than range 3 gain Inaccurate. On hit,
all Squadrons and Wings in the target ship’s battlegroup take 1 damage.

Aggression Wall (Maneuver)

Reloading 2
Advance an enemy battlegroup one range band forward, then deal 1d3 damage to all enemy
Squadrons or Wings in one range band within range 4-1.

Breakwater
Breakwater​ carriers were designed to be bastions around which middle-Gyre lines could form;
with their wide, three-tiered landing decks, multiple fuel and ammunition routing corridors, and
tiered PDC screens, they perform this task admirably.
HP 20, Defense 10, Interdiction 2d6

Launch Bays (Trait)

The Breakwater carries a complement of 4 Wings of heavy fighter/bombers into action along
with it (5/5/5/5 HP) with a range of 4-1. During the Logistics Step it may repair one of its
Wings to full HP.

Refuel and Rearm (Maneuver)

Fuel, ammunition, combat stims, coffee, and no-c smoked: wars are won during R&R.

Push one or two enemy battlegroups back one range band, then repair one of the
Breakwater’s Wings to full HP.

All Wings, Attack! (Tactic)

The Breakwater scrambles one or two of its Wings and gives them one of the following
commands. You may select the same or different commands for each:

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 Dogfight
Single Target
Deal 1 damage to target Wing, or deal 3 damage to target Wing and take 3 damage.

Bombing Run
Single Target
Deal 2 damage to target capital ship.

Fighter Screen
Interdiction
Add +1 to the Breakwater’s Interdiction until the end of its next turn.

Close Support (Tactic)

The Breakwater directs one of its Wings to provide close fire support to one of its allies,
disrupting and confounding their target’s defenses. Choose an allied Flagship and an enemy
battlegroup. That ally gains +1 Accuracy to all attacks against ships in that battlegroup until
the end of their next turn.

Triton MDP
More mobile defense platforms than proper capital ships, with proper modifications to protect
otherwise vulnerable spin sections Triton MDPs are common among Diasporan ODF fleets.
HP 20, Defense 6, Interdiction 3d6

Defensive Constellation (Trait)

Defensive Constellation systems are common counter missile, battery, and kinetic-projectile
weapons (C-MBKP) used by large-frame ships and stations to defend against hostile actors
and debris strikes.

1/round the Triton may reroll one of its Interdiction dice, but must keep the second result.

Swarm Missile Volley (Maneuver)

Those who say missiles have no place in space combat have never seen how hard they hit.

Primary
Area Target, Payload
Range 5-2
1d6+3 Damage

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 Chaperone​ Cloud Projector (Maneuver)

Chaperone​ Clouds are conventional K-Kill Clouds launched ahead of friendly ships. Flying
silent before deployment in long, simple rockets, upon activation they split open into broad,
quick-spread clouds of shaped flechettes and impact panels. These C ​ haperone​ Clouds shred
incoming solid-state projectiles and missiles, countering hostile kinetics with enough of their
own opposed energy that they render the debris ineffective against allied armor.

The Triton fires a ​Chaperone​ Cloud ahead of an allied Flagship at matching speed. It screens
the ship’s trajectory, adding +1d6 to that Flagship’s Interdiction until the end of its next turn.
Then push one enemy battlegroup back one range band.

Damage Control Teams (System)

If a ship survives its first hit, organic and automated damage control teams hurry to patch,
weld, and reinforce: one hit means another will follow.

System
Limited 2
During the Logistics Step, the Triton may repair 5 HP.

Phantasm
Phantasm vessels are equipped with a suite of anti-photon systems and armor. Coupled with
massive heat sinks surrounding core modules, rapid-coolant cycling systems, and microflaking
heat panels, Phantasm-type vessels hide themselves behind spiraling, blooming clouds of
waste heat. Their stealth is less a factor of “invisibility” than it is hyper-visibility: the thermal
“noise” they produce on purpose obscures their “signal”, confounding enemy targeting
systems via overwhelming input.
HP 14, Defense 14, Interdiction 1d6

Caloric Plume (Trait)

Heat. In space, that’s how you’re seen. You can’t hide in the cold, so the Phantasm doesn’t
try to hide in the cold: it vents a combination of waste and intentionally-generated heat to
wreathe itself in an obfuscating plume many orders of magnitude larger than its silhouette.
HIdden in this caloric plume, the Phantasm is incredibly difficult to target.

The Phantasm is wreathed in obfuscating clouds of waste heat, purposefully hiding its hull
from enemy scopes and weapon systems. Single Target attacks against the Phantom are
made with +1 Difficulty.

Killdart CNAL (Charge)

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 The K​ illdart​ Coherent, Nuclear-Actuated Laser is a hybrid weapon: a single-use laser
projector mounted atop a specialized torpedo that, after launching and accelerating to a safe
distance from its deployment vessel, detonates a nuclear charge. This eruption is directed
into a single-use lensing system, which, at proximal distance to its target, is a devastating
weapon.

Superheavy
Single Target, Charge 3
Range 5-2
15 Damage
The final attack roll for this Maneuver can never be affected by Difficulty.

Slip Away (Maneuver)

Phantasm ships maintain their flight patterns inside of their Caloric Plumes, stuttering through
microfracture nearlight bursts that make it even more difficult for enemy ships to land a clean
hit.

Reloading 4
Push one enemy battlegroup back two range bands. Whenever a Single Target attack
misses the Phantasm, remove a reload counter from this maneuver.

Signal to Noise (Tactic)

Shooting into a Phantasm’s caloric plume may as well be throwing your ordinance away;
even if you ​were​ to score a hit, you wouldn’t know a positive impact from the Phantasm’s
intentional off-gassing — all by design, as you can’t hit what you can’t see.

The Phantom clears ​Lock On​ and may then advance or push back an enemy battlegroup
one range band. This Tactic can only be used if the Phantom is ​Locked On.

Man O’War
Titans of the gyre, Man o’War vessels are massive ships with colossal weapons. Crewed by
hundreds to thousands (depending on their size, age, and automation) of cosmonauts and
officers, Man o’War vessels are rarely ever anything but the flagship of their fleet; a warship
above all others, the Man o’War dominates the battlefield.
HP 25, Defense 6, Interdiction 2d6

Demisolar Lance (Charge)

Demisolar lances, while not literally drawing half of a star’s energy, demand and output truly
staggering wattages. Even a Demisolar’s targeting laser can kill a ship: a square hit will take

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anything out of the sky.

Superheavy
Single Target, Charge 4
Range 6-3
20 Damage
Each time this weapon gains a charge counter, deal 1 damage to an enemy capital ship in
range 6-3.

Counter-Battery Fire (Maneuver)

Commanders on great ships know that they are unlikely to avoid incoming fire, so they adopt
strategies to adapt. Counter battery fire is one such aggressive defensive measure: by
destroying the guns that threaten your ship, you ensure you will not be hit by them.

Primary
Single Target, Reliable 1
Range 3-1
5 Damage
On hit, the target suffers +1 Difficulty to all Single Target attack rolls until the end of their next
turn.

Pulse-Pack Missiles (System)

Pulse-Pack Missiles detonate in stages after release from a single warhead, blanketing an
area of hundreds of kilometers in nuclear radiation. Ships without proper shielding (physical
or otherwise) face immediate lethal consequences for their personnel, and even those
hardened to radiation struggle to withstand proximal detonations.

System
Reloading 2
The Man O’War launches a massive volley of multi-warhead missiles that blanket an area in
devastating explosions and deadly radiation. During the Logistics step, choose one range
band from 5-3. Until the end of the Man O’War’s next turn, any enemy battlegroup that ends
their turn in the chosen range band takes 1d6+1 Area damage that cannot be reduced by
Interdiction

Inexorable Advance (Maneuver)

The feint, the parry, maneuver and deception, these are the strategies of the frail. There is
only one way to advance; straight towards the enemy.

The Man O’War gains 5 Overshield. Advance an enemy battlegroup one range band forward.

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104
Paladin
The modern ironclad built out of Ras Shamra’s Purview Starworks, Paladin vessels are the
svelte cousin of the Man o’War. With advanced systems and weapons, Paladins compose,
hold, and dominate the battle line.
HP 22, Defense 8, Interdiction 2d6, Avoid n/a

RED GIANT S
​ olar Lance (Charge)

The successor to the Demisolar Lance, the R ​ ED GIANT​ Solar Lance is a large-format pulsed
particle beam designed for modern ship-to-ship combat. Trading “paint” damage for impact
and ionization effects, the ​RED GIANT​ runs cooler than the Demisolar, though manages a
faster firing cycle on average than its older sibling.

Superheavy
Single Target, Charge 3, Reliable 3
Range 6-4
15 Damage
On hit, remove 1 charge counter from one of the target’s weapons with the Charge tag.

Supernova​ Multi-Stage Torpedo (Maneuver)

The latest in long-flight naval munitions, these advanced torpedoes employ a staggered
payload delivery sequence that unleashes multiple waves of warheads against targets,
overwhelming close-in defense screens through successive barrages.

Primary
Area Target, Payload
Range 4-1
2d6 Damage
After this attack impacts, if the target battlegroup remains in the same range band at the end
of their turn they take 1d6 Area damage that cannot be reduced by Interdiction.

Coordinated Advance (Tactic)

The Paladin’s advanced systems allow its fleet legion to coordinate multi-pronged offensive
advances across the entire theater.

Advance an enemy battlegroup one range band forward.

Low Albedo Plating (System)

Borrowing from Ras Shamra’s library of passive defensive systems, Paladin-type vessels are
outfitted with LAP anti-photon OVERPLATE sheathes designed to absorb direct and
background light, as well as confound conventional laser targeting systems.

105
 System
Reloading 3
At the start of the Logistics Step the Paladin may expose its Low Albedo Plating stripes,
confounding active targeting systems. Until the next Logistics Step, the Paladin gains +4
Defense.

Narcissus
Narcissus vessels are produced at limited order from SSC’s stock of decommissioned
Constellar Security cutters. Refurbished for fleet purchase, Narcissus are agile, fearsome attack
ships, notable for their low-crew requirement and effective heat dispersion systems for silent
running. In the Shore, Narcissus vessels are rare — few having made it into the region before
Union’s embargo on military ships — and typically only encountered among professional outfits.
HP 14, Defense 10, Interdiction 1d6

Lagoon Shielding (Trait)

SSC’s ​Lagoon​ Shielding system strings a reactive network of defensive rockets around the
Narcissus’ hull; if projectiles slip through, the Lagoon system triggers, firing waves of shaped,
proximity-detonation shells as a last defense, preventing incoming solid-state fire from
impacting.

Trait
The Narcissus begins battle with 6 Overshield and +2 Defense. When the Narcissus is
reduced to 0 Overshield, this Defense bonus is lost and this trait is permanently disabled.

Veil Cannon (Maneuver)

Utilizing upscaled VEIL-pattern weapons, Narcissus-type ships hurl coruscating bolts of

pulsed particle energy at their targets. The systemic and superstructural damage is
compounding: the uncanny signatures of VEIL weaponry throws off hostile targeting systems
as it damages their ships in realspace.

Primary
Single Target
Range 4-1
5 Damage
On hit, the Narcissus gains +1d6 Interdiction until the end of its next turn. You may advance
an enemy battlegroup one range band forward before or after making this attack.

106
 Outbound Inbound (Maneuver)

The Narcissus utilizes its powerful sensor suite to reach out and rapidly hack the flight control
systems of inbound missiles and guided weapons. By orienting its own targeting computer as
the projectile’s main unit, it can re-route some incoming missiles to targets of its own
choosing.

Primary
Single Target, Payload
Range 6-1
1d6+1 Damage
Choose an in-flight Payload attack targeting the Narcissus or its battlegroup and redirect it
towards an allied Flagship or battlegroup of your choice. If the Narcissus is not being
targeted by an in-flight Payload attack, this maneuver cannot be used.

Temperature Inversion (Tactic)

Utilizing systems similar to Phantasm-type ships, the Narcissus releases a plume of thermal
energy, momentarily overwhelming enemy weapons homing in on their heat signature.

Limited 1
The Narcissus may add 1 counter to the flight time of any active Payload attack targeting it
or its battlegroup, and it gains +1d6 Interdiction until the end of its next turn.

Cornicen
A solid-state flagship with no organic personnel, managed by a Cogent Mind, a new series of
dramatically more powerful comp/cons produced by the Janus Combine, a scientific foundation
devoted to the development of parasubjective strategic solutions. The Janus Combine is based
on the House of Water’s homeworld, Umara, and is one of Water’s many private/public
development ventures devoted towards the expansion of parallel-track “mind” systems.
HP 20, Defense 10, Interdiction 1d6

Cogent Mind (Trait)

The Janus Combine developed Cornicens as vehicles for their Cogent Mind warprocessors.
Distinct from Deimosian NHPs, Cogents are more conventional — though still incredibly
powerful — machine minds, akin to an end-state evolution of the comp/con, coupled with
some of the more unique interpretations of legacy machine minds. A window, then, into what
humanity could have become.

The Cornicen is a solid-state ship, and is immune to critical hits.

107
No-Repro Munitions (Maneuver)

No-Repro Munitions are as they sound: unit-directed projectiles packed with canisters of
no-reproduction “greywash” nanites. Inert until impact, NRM shells detonate inside their
target ships, releasing their nanite payloads to continue disruptive, malignant consumption of
inorganic vessel matter; the resultant “burn” damage ensures that a target continues to suffer
ongoing, widespread damage even if later fire misses its target.

Primary
Single Target
Range 4-1
On a hit, apply 3 greywash counters to the target ship. During the Impact Step that ship
takes damage equal to the number of greywash counters on it, and it then removes 1
greywash counter. These counters can stack. A ship can clear all greywash counters from it
as a Maneuver. You may advance an enemy battlegroup range band before or after making
this attack.

Achiral Abolition (Maneuver)

Chirality makes individuals from otherwise identical things: Cornicen cogents force
amphichiral alignment upon their targets, erasing them via the obliterating whole. Oneness
without equivocation, the cogent determines, is death.

Primary
Single Target, Legionspace, Reloading 4
Range 5-3
This Maneuver deals no damage on hit. Instead, if the attack succeeds the target is hit by
Achiral Abolition, a
​ potent systemic attack that disrupts a ship’s fleetmind connections.
Targets hit by this attack cannot use weapons and cannot use systems with the Legionspace
tag; charge weapons are “paused” while under the effects of this attack, though Payload
weapons proceed to count down as normal. This effect can be removed from a ship by
emergency cycling its NHP as a Maneuver. You may push an enemy battlegroup back one
range band before or after making this attack.

Excite (Tactic)

Reloading 3
The Cornicen may only use this order if at least one enemy has a greywash counter. Each
ship takes damage equal to the number of greywash counters on it.

108
NPC Escort Archetypes
To increase the difficulty of NPCs and flesh out their battlegroups, you may have them choose
between one to three escorts. Escorts have their own HP and Defense (outlined in their
profiles) and bring some mix of additional attacks, maneuvers, and systems to their flagship’s
profile. Escorts can also add to a Flagship’s overall Interdiction score.

Escorts do not act or attack independently, instead they add Maneuvers or Tactics that their
Flagship’s battlegroup can then make use of. Some Escort abilities may occur automatically
when the Flagship uses a Maneuver or Tactic, and if so it will say so in the description.

Escort profiles containing more than one ship are represented by split hit points, like so: HP
X/Y, indicating there are two ships in the group, or HP X/Y/Z, indicating there are three, and so
on. Area Target damage is assigned to all ships in an Escort group, Single Target damage is
assigned to a specific ship in the group.

When a Flagship is destroyed, destroy one of its remaining Escorts (the player who destroyed
the Flagship can choose) and then reassign the other Escorts to other Flagships as you see fit.
If a Flagship only has a single Escort, that escort takes 1d6 Damage assigned however you like
among the ships in its Escort group and then reassign it to another Flagship. If no Flagships
remain, all remaining Escorts surrender or flee.

Brothers In Arms
In a well-ordered line, a pair of destroyers slip along the starfield, occluding all light behind their
sturdy silhouettes.
HP 8/8, Defense 10, Interdiction +1

Short-Spool Spinal Guns (Charge)

Reliable as the sunrise and tuned for a quick charge, low maintenance, and decent punch,
GMS 3SG Cannons are the galactic standard for subline escorts and low-gross ships of the
line.

Superheavy
Single Target, Charge 2
Range 5-2
10 Damage

Tender Comrade (Trait)

Will you say that we were brave?

Trait
During the Impact Step, if this Escort’s Flagship is hit by a charge weapon you may have one

109
 of the destroyers intervene. Apply damage from the attack to the destroyer first. Any
remaining damage is then dealt to the Flagship.

Sisters of Battle
Your battlescape blooms with contacts and torch signatures. Confirmed a moment later: a pair
of escort carriers fly in formation with the flagship, disgorging dozens of wings of subline ships.
HP 10/10, Defense 8, Interdiction +2

Angels of Death (Trait)

Wings upon wings of fighters and bombers dive towards your ship. Some erupt, caught in
your PDC screen, but enough break through and begin their gun run...

When this Escort’s Flagship uses a Maneuver, deal 2 damage to an enemy ship of your
choice within range 3-1.

Bombs Away (Tactic)

The bombers got through.

Limited 1
Deal 2d6 damage to target capital ship in range 5-2. This damage may be Interdicted.

Wardogs
They bolt on to your battlescape from an uncharted trajectory, sending your escorts scrambling
to reorient. Two frigates, sleek and slim, their weapon ports open and charging. Your blood
runs cold — they have you flanked.
HP 10/10, Defense 10, Interdiction +1

Daggerwall Kinetics (Maneuver)

Primary
Single Target, Reliable 1
Range 3-1
4 Damage
You may attack one capital ship ​or o
​ ne or two Squadrons or Wings with this maneuver.

Relay Target Data (Tactic)

110
 This Escort may act as a relay for their Flagship’s targeting systems. ​Lock On​ to one or two
enemy capital ships.

Daggerflight
Breaking from the signature screen of their flagship, four low and fast corvettes flit towards your
line. Like daggers, they angle directly for the heart of your fleet.
HP 5/5/5/5, Defense 12, Interdiction +1

Battery Fire (Maneuver)

There is no replacement for the power of massed guns; only refinement upon sound
principle.

Deal 3 damage to a different target capital ship or Squadron within range 5-1 for each ship
remaining in this Escort group.

Draw Fire (Maneuver)

The dagger draws the eye; the killer strikes from elsewhere.

The Flagship may order these Escorts to draw away incoming fire. Until the end of their next
turn, all Single Target attacks against the Flagship’s battlegroup must target this Escort first.
If this Escort is destroyed, this effect immediately ends.

Giant
It is colossal, a ship that may as well be a world. You order all of your guns to target the giant —
there is nothing else to do but fire and hope.
Giant is not an Escort in the normal sense. Instead it is a suite of traits and systems that modify
its Flagship, granting it additional HP and capabilities beyond its normal loadout.
HP +10, Defense (Flagship -2, Minimum 6), Interdiction +3

Tyrant Cannon (Charge)

There is no beast more terrible than the Tyrant who knows their own power.

Superheavy
Single Target, Charge 4, Reliable 6
Range 6-5

111
 20 Damage

Impossible Power (System)

The Giant is a ship capable of powering continents — if only its great reactors and engines
could be used for such a peaceful endeavor.

Limited 2
1/round the Giant may use an additional Maneuver during its Action Step.

Diluvia
A seething, boiling mass spills across your CIC — your Legion hurries to particularize the
signatures; within moments, they return what was already clear. It is a flood, a diluvian wave of
drones heading towards your fleet.
HP 14, Defense 8, Interdiction +1

Accumulation (Trait)

Alone, they’re too small to be picked up by anything other than specialized sensors; together,
they can blot out the stars.

Whenever the Flagship hits with a Single Target attack, apply a greywash counter to that
ship. During the Impact Step that ship takes damage equal to the number of greywash
counters on it, and it then removes 1 greywash counter. These counters can stack. A ship
can clear all greywash counters from it as a Maneuver.

Diluvia escorts take half damage from Single Target attacks; they take full damage from Area
Target attacks.

Combine (Maneuver)

The Flagship may order this Escort to combine with it, repairing an amount of HP equal to
the Escort’s remaining HP. This Escort is then destroyed.

Battlethread
The Janus Combine’s B ​ attlethread​ Solid-State Frigates are “appendage” vessels, meant to pair
with their C
​ ornicen​ Flagship PSS to create a holistic strategic ecosystem — a group of ships
that function as a single inorganic mind.
HP 10/10, Defense 10, Interdiction +3

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 Local-Legion Gestalt (Tactic)

LLG systems allow for partitioned, sub-legion networks of NHP-commanded drones distinct
from their parent gestalt; though there is the addition of some command lag between the
main Legion and its partition, the distributed processing power allows for tactical
decision-making many steps ahead of conventional command structures.

Choose one; either ​Lock On​ to an enemy capital ship ​or​ choose to either advance or push
back an enemy battlegroup one range band. As long as neither ship in this Escort group is
destroyed, you may do both.

Terminal Process (Maneuver)

With the rest of its tactical options exhausted, this Escort dumps its onboard data to its
Flagship and sets itself on a collision course.

Superheavy
Single Target, Payload, Limited 2
Range 5-4 ​or​ Range 1
Choose one of this Escort’s ships and set it fly itself straight into an enemy capital ship. This
attack deals damage equal to the Escort ship’s remaining HP. Once this attack is started, the
chosen Escort ship is considered destroyed.

Loyal Guardian
Like a mirror in motion, the two ships arc across the edge of your scopes. Identical heat
signatures, identical silhouettes — the only differences between the two ships are superficial.
HP 15, Defense 8, Interdiction +2

Double Up (Tactic)

Reloading 2
The Flagship may use an additional Maneuver during this Action Step, including a Maneuver
it has already used.

Dorsal Pavise (Maneuver)

No shield more gallant than one’s own body.

Advance an enemy battlegroup one range band forward, then order this Escort into a pavise
formation. Until the end of the Flagship’s next turn, all Single Target damage that would be
dealt to the Flagship is dealt to this Escort instead. If an attack would deal more damage
than this Escort has remaining HP, that additional damage is lost.

113
114
UNKNOWN
The only designation your sensors can give you is a single word: UNKNOWN. Silhouette
analysis returns an 87% match but the broadcast blisters and unfamiliar weapons lining its hull
make its purpose, if not its exact capabilities, clear.

UNKNOWN is not an Escort in the normal sense. Instead it applies directly to the Flagship,
overriding its listed NPC name and granting it additional HP and capabilities beyond its normal
loadout.
HP +5, Defense (Flagship), Interdiction +2

Naophoros Omnigun (Charge)

The blackness of the sphere stands out even backdropped against the void, dark and hungry.
It coruscates, contracts, and with terrifying certainty a ship winks out of existence.

Superheavy
Single Target, Charge [ERROR]
Range 6-1
This ship-scale weapon is a piece of experimental hardware so advanced that it defies
physics. Instead of working like a normal Charge weapon, the Naophoros deals damage to a
capital ship or Squadron during the Impact Step equal to the number of Charge counters on
it to a maximum of 6. This doesn’t count as an attack, hits automatically, and its damage
can’t be reduced or ignored in any way. No rule in this book or any other supersedes this.

Metafold Breach (System)

Space lurches and twists around you, folding in upon itself. The impossible, however
improbable, is briefly made possible, and the lines of battle are suddenly redrawn.

Reloading 4
After the Impact Step, but before anyone begins their Action Step, you may advance or push
back an enemy battlegroup one or two range bands.

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The Dawnline Shore
A ​Battlegroup​ Campaign Setting

Places, Everyone
In 5020u, the Dawnline Shore goes hot, as a conflict between differently aligned factions in the
Shore spills over into a tense engagement between in-system Baronic and Armory naval
forces. Union responds quickly, shutting down the recently activated and not-yet-named
Dawnline Shore blink gate to all traffic save for Union-flagged naval ships. They, too, have a
number of battlegroups in-system, and a mandate to enforce the boundaries of the simmering
HA/KTB conflict.

However, even with Union in system and the DLS momentarily isolated from the wider blink
network, grim forecasts from GALSIM note that the momentum behind this conflict cannot be
stopped. What is happening in the Dawnline Shore will only grow — the outcome of which
GALSIM cannot yet predict. The Central Committee — save for a handful of Cradle-based
senior committee secretaries, forecasters in GALSIM, and the Voices themselves — does not
know that their predictive models have failed to produce a high-confidence path forward. The
variables are too complex to model at the rate inputs flow in: the Voices have fallen silent.

Union, for the first time in centuries, seems to be on its own. While the most experienced
forecasters at GALSIM work to pull any output from the Voices, the Central Committee waits
for guidance, and the bureaucracy of Union shudders — for a moment.

In this moment, the Armory and the Karrakin Trade Barons make their move in the Dawnline
Shore, tapping local factions and regular elements in-sector to execute long-planned
annexation campaigns.

Union, though, is not only GALSIM and the Central Committee. Elements in the Dawnline Shore
— naval groups, auxiliary ground forces, and their newly placed Administrator — know that
they must act fast in order to stabilize and cauterize what could grow to become a
galaxy-shattering conflict...

The Road
The seeds of this new iteration of an old conflict were planted well before the present day, in
the 4600’s ​u​ when the early Harrison Armory clashed with the expanding Karrakin Trade
Barons. This was the Interest War: a colonial expansion rush triggered by Union’s planned
blink network and engaged between the two powers in the early years of the Third
Committee’s administration. The war was quick and brutal, resulting in a settling of powers
negotiated by the Third Committee — negotiations the modern committee views as a misstep,

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a hurried series of concessions and mollifications made to end a war and enter a
peace-through-gritted-teeth, not a just end.

With the overt Interest War concluded and Union’s attention focused on the inner rings of their
administrative state, a second, longer, muddier war began: the Armory and the Baronies
carved up the Dawnline Shore, adopting whole worlds with little more than pledges and
assurances made to the Third Committee that they would be stewards, not colonial masters,
and comport to the standards of this new Union. While their representatives on Cradle
negotiated terms of surrender and matriculation under the Third Committee, both Harrison
Armory and the Baronies fought small-scale overt and proxy conflicts across the Shore. Their
diplomatic overtures did not match the on-the-ground reality: for these two powers, Union’s
revolutionary period — at least in the early years — proved a ripe time for these states to grab
whole worlds.

Union, for its part, was not ignorant of the state of the galaxy for long: reports from forward
observation probes fired across the known spread of humanity flowed into the Central
Committee, documenting what corpropessimistic factions among the revolutionaries feared:
across the galaxy, their utopian revolution had failed. Like a king tide raging inland and then
receding, their revolution made only a utopia out of the Galactic Core. The Diaspora — the vast
majority of humanity — was not yet liberated, and worse, the Core enjoyed the fruits of their
labor and gave seemingly nothing back.

This had to change. The Core finally secured, this new Union began the long, attritional work of
reconnecting the galaxy — this time with the soft hand of diplomacy, rather than the hard
power of the old Second Committee.

Down The Shore

Harrison Armory and the Karrakin Trade Barons, following the Interest War, began their next
project with the full knowledge that Union’s eye would eventually turn to this sector of space.
Theirs was not a question of if they would be discovered, but when, and how much work they
could do to make legitimate claims to the worlds they so coveted.

In the Shore, local factions had been identified and cultivated by the Armory and Baronies via
common colonial manipulation tactics: the exploitation of local power divisions, massaging of
existing factional interests, cultural conditioning via patron favoritism, material rewards handed
out to collaborators and sympathetic factions and so on, for explicitly imperial purpose.

Once informed, Union concluded the inevitable: sometime, somewhere, the Dawnline Shore
would burst into conflict. Embroiled in their own internal civil struggle — in the early days, even
Core​ worlds burned with conflict — the early Third Committee pushed this inevitable
engagement down the list of priorities. In time, they would deal with the problem; that problem,

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of course, would only grow worse. Union, centuries after the end of the first Interest War, finally
turned its attention to the sector.

Union’s Administrative Department, prompted by orders from the Central Committee — itself
clued into the precarity of the situation via GALSIM forecasting — began a rapid infrastructure
and administrative integration plan, seeding the populated worlds of the Shore with overt Union
personnel (Administrative attaches, DoJ/HR mediators, Auxiliary trainers, and so on). Union’s
presence in-sector quickly cooled the Armory and Baronies’ overt imperial ambition, but the
stage had been set.

In late 5019u, On New Creighton, Barony-aligned monostatists under the banner of the
Concordant Administration mounted a surprise attack on a small alliance of polystatist
territories, the Perfect Ministeriat; this attack marked a dramatic escalation in hostilities
between the two factions, a total breakdown in the diplomatic process. The move drew sharp
condemnation from Harrison Armory, who had personnel present in the territories that the
Concordant Administration attacked, and an immediate rebuke in the form of a series of
surgical strikes on Concordant military targets. These strikes — likely unintentionally — killed
dozens of Karrakin personnel; the Baronies responded with their own retaliatory attacks, and
the world soon flared with war.

Union’s first priority is to secure other possible flashpoint worlds from their own outbreaks of
hostility; once complete, they can then begin to mitigate and control the
Concordant-Ministeriat conflict via pressure on four fronts: diplomatic in the context of the
Concordant and the Ministeriat, and harder in the context of the Harrison Armory and the
Karrakin Trade Barons. This hard side of Union’s strength is likely where your characters come
into play: for the first time since the revolutionary period of the 4500’s ​u​, Union guns will fire
upon Armory and Karrakin ships — and likewise the reciprocal.

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Worlds of the Dawnline Shore
Below is a list of the worlds in the Dawnline Shore; the rest of this section details major faction
ports, important logistics corridors, points of interest, and other considerations for ​Battlegroup
engagements set in the Dawnline Shore. Removed from their context, the features presented in
this section give a good idea of what naval forces take into account and consider important
when planning and executing campaigns.

Designation Armory Name Baronic Name Local/Union Major Affiliation

Name

DS1 Harrison’s World Rosegift Wali HA

DS2 Arkady II Underthrone Barr HA

DS3 Cruz’s Landing Stone Harbor Hadii HA

DS4 New Madrassa New Madrassa New Madrassa Local Gov’t

DS5 Emerald Harbor Viridian Verdevilla Baronic

DS6 Langley Longmont Lluvilla Baronic

DS7 Montcalhoun Crowngarden Jabal Baronic

DS8 Upper Laurent Upper Laurent Upper Laurent Baronic

DS9 San Simian San Simian San Simian Baronic

DS10 Dosantos Crossland Maseca Baronic

DS11 Legionrest Gloria Mesa Baronic

DS12 New Creighton Odeland Odeland HA/ Local Gov’t

O19 Solar 3 Solar 3 Terminal Local Gov’t

9
“Object 1”. Partial ring habitat built at New Madrassa L4 to provide power for New Madrassa;
constructed with heavy investment by KTB, though hosts its own independent government.
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Port of Call: Dawnline Shore
The Dawnline Shore has gone hot, and the next few months of maneuvering and engagements
will decide whether or not the conflict in the Shore spreads out to the rest of the Galaxy.

With the outbreak of fighting on and above New Creighton, Union has shuttered the DLS blink
gate, isolating the Shore from the rest of the galaxy10. Both the Armory and Baronies have
tasked a fleet each to the Shore; they will arrive in 5021u, unless called off. In the meantime,
ships already in transit through the Long Rim arrive daily — as the gridlock around DLS Blink
grows more and more desperate, Union struggles to contain the steady flow of ships. Both the
Armory and the Baronies have started to use this to their advantage: omninet comms are not
shut down, and both factions have tapped their contacts in the Rim — pirate groups and
Enterprises both — to smuggle equipment, personnel, and even ships into the Shore.

This flow of partisans, private security forces, and ordinance into the Shore is steady, but alone
it will not give either side the edge. For the Baronic, Armory, and — to a lesser degree, as they
hold the DLS Gate — Union forces already in-sector, their major lifelines are their home ports:
heavily defended worlds with established infrastructure and supply lines capable of supporting
naval groups.

Key Armory Ports

Harrison’s World (DS1)
DS1 was Harrison Armory’s first territory in the Dawnline Shore. Taken during the Interest War,
DS1 has been rebuilt from a failed, desolate colony to a bustling industrial center. DS1’s
population numbers around 1.2 billion souls; it is a common recruitment site for DS-local
colonial legions and naval groups, and features one of the only large-scale chassis-fabrication
facilities in the Shore. Harrison’s World is known as ​Rosegift​ to the Karrakin Trade Barons, and
Wali​ to Union.

Arkady II (DS2)
DS2 is another Armory-controlled world, considered to be fully in their Purview along with its
sister planets, DS1 and DS3 (a largely non-industrial center for commerce and diplomacy). A
cold, barren rock with a thin atmosphere, DS2 once hosted a colony site near its icy polar cap.
Long derelict by the time the Armory arrived, DS2 is now an important fuel and freshwater site
for the Armory’s vessels arriving from the Long Rim transit corridor, as well as naval groups
already in-sector. Arkady II is known as ​Underthrone​ to the Karrakin Trade Barons, and ​Barr​ to
Union.

10
Isolated, unless one is willing to slowboat across the Long Rim from Rao Co blink station, a journey
that will take two years at the quickest — blinking in near Rao Co at-speed, and continuing on via a
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Key Baronic Ports
Upper Laurent (DS8)
DS8 is the primary Shore-side campus of the House of Stone. Another Cradle-sized world, DS8
features a mix of biomes and a rich indigenous history stretching back to the First Expansion
period prior to the Baronies’ colonization. Now, centuries later, DS8 hosts the Shore-side
residence of House di Khayradi and the main garrison of their house company, the Boulder
Company. Upper Laurent’s population has surged in recent years owing to the significant
infrastructural (social, civic, and military) investment that the House of Stone has poured into the
world, and now tops out at a staggering 10 billion; the BUC’s main secondary campus is located
on Upper Laurent, as well as a number of shipyards.

DS8’s primary non-rawmat/industrial exports are foodstuffs, spices, textiles, inks, and precious
luxury minerals; the House of Stone views Upper Laurent’s prime export to be personnel and
cultural capital. Upper Laurent is known to all factions as Upper Laurent.

San Simian (DS9)

DS9 is the capital of the Baronies’ presence in the Shore, a core-status world currently in the
process of being formally enrolled in the KTB’s record of Major Houses. Its claimant structure,
the House of Promise, is composed primarily of minor houses founded in the Shore during the
KTB’s first expansion into the sector, along with a minority of recent immigrant houses. With a
population of around 6 billion souls on a world only .9 the diameter of Cradle, it is a densely
populated arcology, heavily trafficked by Baronic personnel of all Major Houses with business in
the Shore. The bulk of the KTB’s fleets mark San Simian as their home port, and its orbital
structures are heavily defended by layers of gun platforms, orbital defense ships, and BUC
naval groups on rear-line duty. San Simian is known to all factions as San Simian.

Gloria (DS10)
DS10 is the Shore-side capital of the House of Rememberance, a popular destination for minor
houses looking to curry favor with House Alexander, the current head of Remembrance back on
Arrudye. Once a burgeoning trade capital in proximity to the Shore-side edge of the Long Rim,
Gloria was bitterly contested during the first Interest War. The series of battles fought across
and above Gloria (at the time, ​Mesa)​ were one of the few campaigns that pit the early Armory
Legions against pre-chassis House Companies; the world was devastated by these battles, its
indigenous populations and rich biomes scoured by long, attritional ground warfare. In the wake
of the Interest War, Gloria has been rebuilt, but scars remain, and its history as a strategically
important source of fresh water and air only heightened by the BUC’s current militarization of
the world.

Gloria is home to the main base of House Rememberance’s house company, the Crimson
Memory, as well as Baronic Unified Command’s primary shipyard, central armory, and
Deimosian repository in the DLS. As such, it is heavily defended by the BUC, with many layers
of orbital defense platforms and planet-side hardened bunkers.

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Gloria has a local population of 1.2 billion souls, and is known to the Armory as ​Legionrest,​ and
to Union as ​Mesa​.

Key Union Ports

DLS Blink Gate
The newly finished DLS Blink Gate awaits a formal name: for now, it is informally called
Beachhead.​ The blink gate is a ThirdComm standard pattern: a stack of torid habitats built
around a blink gate realspace anchor, which is tethered to a stabilized dyson panel. The toroid
habitats are known collectively as “Beachhead Station” — the functional parts of the gate are
the realspace anchor and dyson panel. The panel provides necessary power to the station and
its blink infrastructure; Beachhead’s gate capacity allows it to transit thousands of ships per
day, if it were active. Likewise, its skyscraper-stack toroid habitat rings would allow for a local
population of roughly twenty million souls at capacity — currently its local population numbers
in the low millions (not counting military personnel), and only one active torus of the five in the
stack.

Beachhead and its immediate environs are Union’s zone of control in the Dawnline Shore. With
access to the gate limited only to Union vessels and the facility itself under Union command, it
is a constant, active terminal for all auxiliary and regular personnel in transit between their
gates of origin and the Shore; it is heavily defended by both dedicated patrols and whatever
battlegroups happen to be in local space.

Despite the gate’s isolation from the blink network, non-Union ships still arrive almost daily via
conventional travel; transit corridors through the Long Rim are not “closed” — as it is,
essentially, impossible to close space — but Union attempts to track and intercept all ships
inbound to the Shore. This steady accumulation of civilian and corpro vessels at Beachhead is
a logistical nightmare for Union, and some ships, inevitably, break through the blockade; HA
and the KTB both use this to their advantage, directing friendly elements in the Long Rim to
smuggle supplies, personnal, ordinance, and ships into the Shore.

New Madrassa (DS4)

DS4 is a fulcrum world in the Dawnline Shore and the closest world in proximity to DLS Gate/
Beachhead. DS4 is known to Union, Harrison Armory, and the Karrakin Trade Barons as New
Madrassa.

New Madrassa counts roughly three billion souls. Independent from both Harrison Armory and
the Karrakin Trade Barons, New Madrassa’s sovereign government is called New Madrassa
United, a meta-government that acts as a high legislative body for the various constituent states
across the globe. Union’s Administrator for New Madrassa and — for now — the entirety of the
Dawnline Shore is Administrator Park Jun-seo, who keeps his office on New Madrassa United’s
main campus near the Alhambra district of New Madrassa City.

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A world petitioning for Core status prior to the outbreak of hostilities around New Creighton,
New Madrassa hosts diplomatic and military elements of both Harrison Armory and the Karrakin
Trade Barons.

The Armory’s main presence on New Madrassa is ​Green Zone Alhambra​, an 8x8 block of New
Madrassa City’s oldtown centered around the Grand Stupa Royal Hotel, a luxury resort near the
city’s bay now owned by Harrison Armory. Though not legally supported by NMU, Harrison
Armory has established a green zone (the eponymous GZ Alhambra), blocking off the area
inside to anyone not cleared by their legionnaires and/ or internal security forces. Citing their
right to protect their people from attack, the Armory has begun to send counterterrorism patrols
out into New Madrassa — this has prompted widespread protests against the Armory and NMU
for not kicking them off the world.

GZ Alhambra’s ingress and egress points are constantly under pressure from permanent protest
camps set a few hundred meters back from the gates. The situation seems to be deteriorating
as the Ungratefuls and other local resistance groups have become more brazen in their attacks
on Armory personnel and the green zone itself; likewise, Armory patrols have become far more
aggressive, and there have been some instances of Armory legionnaires trading fire with
Boulder Company ground troopers. Union has yet to mount a ground campaign beyond visible
peacekeeping forces, but speculation assumes that some measure of intervention is imminent.

The primary KTB presence on New Madrassa is in ​Baron Hardy Plaza​, a quiet, broad plaza on
the opposite end of the city as GZ Alhambra. Baron Hardy Plaza is a public park in the wealthy
Khamseen neighborhood, overlooked by the historic Plaza House estate, which now serves as
the KTB’s embassy on New Madrassa. Quite opposite the embattled status of Green Zone
Alhambra, Baron Hardy Plaza and the Baronic embassy there are both heavily, peacefully
trafficked by Madrassans and Barony personnel both. ​Viceroy Hardy-Alto​ is the KTB’s
ambassador on New Madrassa; he keeps Plaza House as his ambassadorial residence.

Madrassa Uplift​ is New Madrassa’s main spaceport, located around 100km outside of New
Madrassa City. Madrassa Uplift also hosts ​Camp Crown​, the main BUC base on New
Madrassa. Camp Crown is a joint base, hosting NMU security forces, BUC soldiers, and
dragoons from the Boulder Company. Despite hosting Camp Crown, Madrassa Uplift is not a
military spaceport; NMU’s orbital defense force is currently being trained by Union naval
personnel.

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Galactic Powers Active in the
Dawnline Shore
In ​Lancer,​ space combat at the upper end of the scale described by this module is exceedingly
rare; even space combat at the lower end — a single battlegroup or patrol of subline ships
engaged with enemy elements of similar strength — is uncommon. The sheer scale of logistics
involved in maintaining a fleet of any size is difficult for pan-galactic powers; for Diasporan
powers that must worry about capital in addition to logistics, the cost is disqualifying even
assuming they have the capacity to manage multiple ships spread out across the void of
space.

These dual restrictions — logistics and capital — restrict large-scale fleet actions to a mere
handful of states and state-like entities inside and outside of Union’s hegemony; these actors,
however, are not isolated to the Dawnline Shore, and it is perfectly possible for other
flashpoints to crop up as news of the conflict spreads.

Union Navy
ISSUING: NAVCOMM (6.6.5020u 0600 CrST)
CODE: TOWER GOLD
DISTRIBUTION: TAG “DLS_FLEETGROUP”

>//ATTEND UNBG [ODYSSEY, INDLAMU]

>//​MORNING ALL. UPDATE ON THE CURRENT SITUATION TO FOLLOW:::
>//AT THIS TIME DLS_GATE IS OFFLINE AND CLOSED TO ALL NON-UN TRAFFIC.
DLS_GATE WILL BE THEATER COMM HQ AND PRIMARY UN PRESENCE. ORIENT
ACCORDINGLY.
>//KTB NAVAL GROUPS [ALPHA, BRAVO, TAU, ECHO] ON TRACK FOR ARRIVAL VIA NADIR
ROUTE+++TRAJECTORIES HAVE BEEN MAPPED AND ETAS ARE WITHIN HIGH (>95%)
CONFIDENCE. ROE ARE SENTINEL-PARAGON-PALADIN.
>//EXPECT BULK KTB FORCES IN-SYSTEM TO TAKE POINT. NAVAL GROUPS EN ROUTE
ARE REINFORCEMENTS+++UAD WILL CHAPERONE UNTIL A,B,T,E ARRIVE:::I AM TOLD
GOAL IS TO STAND DOWN KTB FORCES SO STEADY ON+++
>//IN-SECTOR:::MAINTAIN CURRENT POSTURE TOWARDS CONCORD ADMINISTRATION.
>//MOVING ON:::
>//HA NAVAL GROUPS [BLUE, GREEN] CURRENTLY ROUTING VIA RIM HABITAT
EXCLUSION ZONE+++INTERCESSION EFFORTS ARE UNDERWAY+++LOW CONFIDENCE
REPORTS OF GROUPS [RED, ORANGE, GOLD] INBOUND VIA APEX ROUTE+++WILL

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CONTINUE TO MONITOR VIA NMU FORECASTING STATIONS+++STAY TUNED FOR
UPDATES AND MAINTAIN CURRENT POSTURE
>//OUR ENDEAVOR IS JUST; STEADY ON
MESSAGE CONCLUDES

The Union Navy, even in its scaled-down state unde the Third Committee, is the largest and
most capable stellar navy by orders of magnitude. It has outposts, docks, installations,
battlegroups, and patrols in almost every sector of space — those that it does not have a
presence in, it can reach with priority access to the blink network. Short of a blink station being
destroyed, or a conflict occurring in a sector of space not yet connected via the blink, Union
naval forces can be present and ready to engage targets within days, and at full strength in a
target sector within months.

Union naval strength is best imagined as an inexorable accumulation rather than a limited
resource: they ​will​ have the strength to respond to a threat or provocation, the only constraint
on their application of force is the amount of time it takes for tasked battlegroups to arrive.

Union can field any classification of vessel from the largest, most unique dreadnoughts, to the
smallest fighter. The only limit on building a Union battlegroup for your narrative is your
narrative: what do you want Union’s strength to look like?

Union Naval capital and subline ships (not fighters, bombers or mounted chassis), whether
operating under the direct command of the Navy or in support of DoJ/HR missions, are marked
by the ship prefix UNS, which stands for Union Naval Ship, as so:
● Frigates are denoted by the prefix UNS-LS (Union Naval Ship — Line Ship).
● Carriers are denoted by the prefix UNS-CV (Union Naval Ship — Carrier Vessel).
● Battleships are denoted by the prefix UNS-BB (Union Naval Ship — Battleship).

For example, the frigate ​August​’s full designation is the UNS-LS ​August.​

Union Naval Patrol

Patrols are commanded by officers of the rank of Line Commander or higher, who make their
flagship a middle-tonnage carrier or frigate. These are the workhouse units of the Union Navy
and are the most common force strength on patrol, able to respond first to any distress call,
provocation, or flashpoint within the rings within a month.

The presence of a Union patrol generally indicates Union’s ability to rapidly transit forces to
that theater. Patrols, even on their own, are never ​really​ alone, as they are usually in constant
omninet communication with their parent battlegroup, which is in turn in communication with
their ring’s FLEETCOM; though the full strength of Union’s naval forces might never be brought
to bear in an engagement, each patrol represents a possible spearpoint of a mighty force
behind.

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Patrols — as with all Union naval ships — carry a blink codebook onboard their flagship, as
well as an NHP per flagship. Blink codebooks allow patrols to access and navigate the blink via
blink gates without entering the public queue.

Patrols are generally composed of two flagships and their escorts, with a few hundred
personnel capable of ground operations if necessary. They should be a stand up fight, but not
an overwhelming force for players to encounter.

Union Naval Battlegroup

Battlegroups are led by an officer of Commander rank or higher and are the most common
“fleet strength” force compositions. If Union is dispatching a peacekeeping force or a DoJ/HR
liberation team to address a critical issue on a world, they are dispatching a force of
battlegroup strength.

Battlegroups are what most people mean when they say “fleet”: between eight and twelve
ships of the line, their escorts, and their attendant ships. Battlegroups also tend to carry a large
amount of marines and mechs aboard their carriers, as they are more often than not tasked
with ground operations; otherwise, even those that are more purely naval in orientation still
have a decent complement of marines on board.

Like patrols, battlegroups have blink codebooks that allow them to bypass public queues at
blink gates and NHP onboard to assist with navigation, ship management, strategy, and tactics
— however, battlegroups also have the ability to allow their NHP to form a gestalt subjectivity,
a fleet legion. Legions allow for near-perfect information sharing between ships, coordination,
and power management, as well as predictive targeting and defense beyond what isolated
NHP can handle.

Battlegroups are composed of eight to twelve flagships and their escorts, and should be
challenging for players to face down.

Union Ring Fleet

Union fleets are typically only ever commanded by officers of Admiral rank or higher, and are
usually only ever assembled for large-scale combat deployments. Fleets call under their
organization the entire strength of a Union Ring — to wit, there has never been a fleet called to
action under the Third Committee, and it is more useful as an administrative designation than a
tactical force organization.

A fleet will likely never arrive all at once. It is more likely to stream into a combat zone at patrol
and battlegroup strengths, accumulating until the enemy is overwhelmed or surrenders. The
totality of Union naval ships — even under the Third Committee — in a given ring likely
numbers in the thousands, far ​far ​more than any diasporan state could hope to field. Thus, it is

126
best to represent a fleet in combat as a steadily advancing defeat condition represented by the
arrival of an increasing number of ships.

It is possible to defeat a Union fleet, though it would take an incredible amount of resources,
brilliant tactical and strategic command, and skillful supply line management. A Union admiral,
if they need to call upon the full strength of their Ring, would likely view the problem at hand as
a serious one — as would their superiors. One fleet never operates alone: if it is called into
battle, then CentComm itself is likely aware of the daily operations of that battle, the various
bureaus responsible for omninet communications and blink travel are tasked to assist the fleet,
and proximal Ring Fleets have been placed on high alert or ready status. Fighting an entire
Union fleet demands not just fighting the fleet, but fighting against the fundamental
infrastructure of what makes interstellar travel and communication possible in the galaxy.

Karrakin Trade Barons

The Karrakin Trade Barons’ combined strength is second only to Union in terms of potential
fleet size; however, as a uniquely structured group of federal states and noble dominions, their
total united strength is rarely ever — and not yet in recorded history — able to be brought to
the field. All the same, on their own and in temporary strategic structures, each of the Karrakin
worlds is able to field a tremendous amount of stellar strength.

Karrakin warships of all classification are, by Karrakin law, fabricated by the Federal Karrakin
government and organized under the control of Baronic Unified Command. The Federal
Karrakin armed forces crews and commands the Karrakin navy; the noble houses and their
House Companies typically only interact with the navy when in need of transport or while
engaged in a joint mission. Though technically illegal under Karrakin federal law for House and
Free Companies to hold naval strength, many do in the form of converted yachts, barges, and
other pleasurecraft.

Karrakin ships have the following designations:

● Frigates are designated as Federal Karrakin Ship — Rasée (FKS-RE).
● Carriers are designated as Federal Karrakin Ship — Carrier (FKS-CC).
● Battleships are designated as Federal Karrakin Ship — Battlecruiser (FKS-BC).

For example, the full designation for the Karrakin battlecruiser ​Invincible​ is FKS-BC ​Invincible​.

Baronic Unified Command — Naval Group

Naval groups under the command of the BUC are the most common naval force structures
found in the Concern and the Interest. Under Karrakin law, House Companies are not allowed
to field their own ships of naval strength and intent — thus, the responsibility for managing and
effecting the Baronies’ interstellar ambition falls to Unified Command, the forces of the Federal
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Karrakin Government. Baronic Unified Command manages both the Baronic navy and their
ground forces (outside of the House Company system). Their command purview covers the
entirely of the Baronic naval infrastructure, from logistics to force application.

A BUC naval group is usually outfitted for a wide possibility of encounters. As such, the term
can be applied to anything ranging from a handful of ships to many dozens, though most
commonly refers to a group of six to ten ships of the line and their escorts, commanded by a
Group Commander.

Naval groups typically field NHP, but do not have blink codebooks. As military vessels of a
recognized state in Union, they may enjoy some faster cycling through blink queues, though
certainly do not have unfettered access.

House Company (Leased Ships)

House Companies of the Baronic nobility must lease their ships from the Baronic Unified
Command if they mean to engage in naval warfare or interplanetary maneuvering. In this
context, lease means that the minor house(s) must submit detailed applications to the BUC
describing the extent of their mission, as well as pay the salaries of the personnel that will crew
and command the ships. The BUC enjoys total oversight of the House Company’s mission and,
for their part, works to ensure that all naval components — logistics, navigation, and
space/orbital engagements — are handled so that the House Company/Companies billeted
aboard their ships can perform the duties they are tasked with completing.

A House Company mission likely consists of eight to a dozen ships of the line and their
escorts. Unlike a given BUC naval group, the HC mission will typically field a number of carriers
laden with house company soldiers, chassis, and ground personnel. The commanding officer
of the naval element of an HC mission will still be a Group Commander, though they likely have
the command staff of the house company they are escorting breathing down their neck.

House Companies are considered to be private groups by Union; as such, they have no priority
access in blink gate queues.

Free Company Expeditionary Group

Unlike House Companies, Free Companies are wholly private entities — legally, that is. As
such, under Baronic law they are entitled to field their own naval ships and personnel, so long
as their full strength is registered with the BUC, maintained to BUC readiness standards, and
will comply with BUC calls to arms (once all other requirements are met) if ordered.

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Harrison Armory
Harrison Armory is a centralized, robust corpro-state with an incredible ability to punch above
its weight; proven in critical battles against the Karrakin Trade Barons, Harrison Armory enjoys
unparalleled logistic and strategic vision backed by powerful, cutting edge weapony. The
Armory is a corpro-state with broad territorial holdings directly administered by its central
government — centuries of imperial expansion have driven the Armory’s military development,
creating a martial culture that reproduces a disciplined officer corps and professional enlisted
ranks.

The Armory’s fleet is comparable in size to a single Karrakin world’s federal naval allotment,
but the Armory’s command over logistics, strategy, and center-point tactics makes them a
comparatively nimble, fearsome threat with the capability to win wars with a single, rapid strike.

Harrison Armory naval vessels have the following designations:

● Armory frigates are designated as Purview Command Vessel — Line (PCV-L)
● Carriers are designated as Purview Command Vessel — General Carrier (PCV-GC).
● Battleships are designated as Purview Command Vessel — Dreadnought (PCV-DN).

For example, the proper designation for the Armory frigate ​Hannable i​ s Purview Command
Vessel — Line ​Hannable​, or, PCV-L ​Hannable​.

Armory Battlegroups
Armory Battlegroups began first as primarily orbital support fleets; only recently has Ras
Shamra began to produce fleets organized for naval combat. As a a result, while their ships
and personnel are equipped with some of the finest technologies, systems, and weapons in the
galaxy, they are largely unproven in real, scale battle. This often leads to the adoption of
radical, unconventional strategies in naval combat — and, just as likely, disaster, as the Armory
perfects their own doctrine.

The Armory has two fleet doctrines: Planetwatch and Force Projection. Planetwatch fleets are
organized to support Armory ground legions and ensure total downwell-theater dominance.
Force Projection, meanwhile, is the Armory’s standard naval group meant to engage in
ship-to-ship actions.

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That’s it for now. More to come in Playtest 2 and 3 later this year!

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