INFANTRY Heavy Infantry As part of the total combat team, a well positioned infantry platoon can wreck havoc amongst the enemy’s forces, spotting units and painting shields or launching surprise attacks against lead columns, rearward artillery and supply reserves. Unfortunately, dismounted infantry continues to be the most susceptible assets on the modern battlefield. While mobility, size, dispersion and first-strike capabilities reduce their vulnerability, they are still very soft targets, especially with the proliferation of anti-personnel weapons carried by vehicles today. Though REMOTEs, heavier mortars and better equipment has begun to improve their survival chances (a harder hit and a faster retreat) much was still needed to be done. Major General Edward Smythe continued to push for new funding into Infantry based projects. Due to the high cost and time involved in manufacturing Grav Tanks, the Commonwealth and Renegade forces possess a lot of infantry units, and count on them heavily. It would be criminal, Smythe argued, not to invest in this vital combat asset, not to mention in the people of one’s own realm. Thus began the Commonwealth Institute for the Research into Infantry Tactics and Technologies, or CIRITT (pronounced ‘sih-rit’). The institute’s mandate was to look into all aspects of the infantry’s operations, devising new assault strategies and, of course, new weapons and equipment. The institute proved a marked success, with their REMOTE design emerging just 8 months after its conception. The institute’s second technological breakthrough came 20 months later, with the development of what they dubbed Heavy Infantry Combat Armour. XLVIII The team working on the new armour suits were looking for a way to fully augment the power and protection available to the individual soldier, without sacrificing the mobility they already possessed. Their solution was to take an already widely used technology and apply it in an unusual and novel fashion. Borrowing the idea inherent in boosters, the team created what amounts to a powered exoskeleton; essentially, a large, full-body booster wrapped in armour. Of course, the new suit doesn’t allow for amazing feats of strength like throwing tanks around with one hand or anything, but the power-assisting servos do allow for much heavier weights to be carried, negating and reducing the added load to manageable levels. With this extra capacity, infantry members with the new HICA suits are able to carry more protection and heavier weapons than they ever could before. In combat, Heavy Infantry units have many advantages. Foremost, their heavier armour makes them far more resilient to damage. It takes two points of damage (as indicated on the Infantry Damage Table) to kill a trouper in Heavy Infantry Armour. For each point of damage that strikes the platoon, roll 1d10 to determine which infantry member was hit (re-rolling 9s or 0s). The first point of damage is marked as a slash ( \ ) in the infantry member’s status box, while the second point kills him. (Blacken in their box) For purposes of determining the strength of the platoon, wounded soldiers perform their duties without hindrance. The power-assisted nature of their armour also allows the unit to carry heavier weapons. IWF factors are higher for heavy infantry--see the Heavy Infantry IWF table below. Each member of a heavy infantry platoon also carries a TVLG with them. If the platoon is a mortar unit, it carries 2 mortar tubes and two TVLGs. A REMOTE-carrying platoon carries one REMOTE, fitted with 6 TVLGs or three SMLMs, and two standard infantry TVLGs. HICA equipped Engineering Platoon carries 8 charges and 6 ABSs with them, and it takes but two members to set a charge. A Medium Mortar Heavy Infantry platoon still only carries one mortar, but gains more ammo, one TVLG, and it suffers no movement penalties. All heavy infantry units have 3 bounce MPs. There are some disadvantages, however. While the armour suits carry a larger energy reserve, as a whole a heavy infantry unit has less endurance. This could come into play during long operations or in campaign games. As well, the powered nature of their suits make heavy infantry impossible to conceal, unless they shut down. If a unit is concealed like so, they must spend one turn powering up before they can move or attack. During this turn, all units get a free chance to detect them, and do so on a 7 or less on a d10. Lastly, no TVLG reloads can be stored on an APC carrying a heavy infantry platoon. Testing of the new suits was intensive, but proceeded very smoothly. Within months of its unveiling, the HICA was being mass produced and shipped to units across the Alaric theatre for integration. Heavy Infantry Platoons have already seen action, and by all reports, have been nothing but terrifyingly effective on the battlefield. Furthermore, it appears as though TOG has yet to realize just what they are facing, giving Renegade and Commonwealth commanders a golden opportunity to launch surprise offensives with their new ‘super-infantry’ teams spearheading the assault.
INFANTRY Game Notes: Heavy Infantry costs 5 scenario points, and follow all other standard rules for infantry. COMMONWEALTH HEAVY ARMOUR CONCEPT HEAVY INFANTRY EFFECTIVENESS TABLE SQUAD STRENGTH 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 WEAPONS DAMAGE 12 9 9 7 7 5 4 2 DEAD TEMPLATE USED MDC12 IWF9 IWF9 IWF7 IWF7 IWF5 NPC4 2xIWF1 TVLGs AVAILABLE 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 MORTARS AVAILABLE 2 2 2 1 1 1 - - XLIX
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