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Invasion of the modern world by an evil fantasy empire


Thot

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1 hour ago, g33k said:

Where does the first gate (or gates) open?

Well, that of course will very much be decisive, won't it. Opening a gate in the middle of the Namib isn't going to do anything, much like gates that open over some Earth ocean.

Thinking about that, they will probably have some kind of "best practice" for attacking a new world - opening gates all across the globe, quickly abandoning those that aren't worth it, colonizing uninhabited but fertile areas, attacking any settlements to conquer them. A medieval world of Earth's size (which I would assume all the available worlds out there to be) should have a population of no more than 100 million, and by the usual 2%-rule-of-thumb, the whole world would then not have more than about 2 million warriors, scattered across the continents. Most worlds out there will have some kind of magic (including travel magic of various kinds), so we can safely assume that the invaders will have to face much of those 2 million warriors pretty quick, and will be used to it. The evil empire has the element of surprise, so they wouldn't need 3 times as many soldiers for an attack, but just to be on the safe side, an initial invasion force would need to be about 3 million strong, I would say. Unbeatable for a medieval world, but a big 21st century country like Russia or the US could take on that number of attackers on their own even at equal levels of technology.

The attackers would probably try to take the first thing they perceive as a major population center (so any town with more than 5000 inhabitants...) with all their might, to be quick and fortify their positions for holding their new bridgehead and garrison it with a fraction of their force, while the vast majority of their army marches on to conquer and occupy more. Native troops will be force-recruited along the way, either by extortion or magic (if anything fails, as undead).

In the case of Earth, there are many possible scenarios how this plays out. They could start at a midwestern US town, a small city in the middle of Africa, or a Chinese metropolis, or anything in between.

Their first contact with defenders of Earth will not be with military, but with police in riot gear, supported by water gun police cars, equipped with transparent shields, night sticks and possibly handguns. And one-on-one, those would probably already be more than a match, at least until the dragons, mages and undead move in, but the police will of course be hopelessly outnumbered and will probably have to retreat quickly. In some countries, the military will be available immediately, in others, further attempts to get rid of this plague with police forces will occur, costing valuable time during which the invaders try to figure out any captured firearms.

Regular citizens will probably flee, but should some of them decide o fight...

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Many places in the modern world will have a peaceable & disarmed populace.  Even a young/inexperienced leader will find it to be "easy pickings" until an organized military force can respond...  And isolated spots (small island nations, deep-mountain regions during winter, etc) might not get those responses for a fairly long time.  Initial reports back will be of "unusual wealth and remarkable technology, but no sign of effective military."

Honestly, that I don't believe. An angry man with a car will be an "effective military" to them, worth 10 mounted knights at least.

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Then there is the NorthKorea / SouthKorea DMZ, where the invading force gets wiped out within a few minutes of arrival!

Yeah, that would be boring, so it won't happen. :D

1 hour ago, g33k said:

***

Players learning magic... OK, and when does the Evil Empire learn to use tech?

To use it, I would guess pretty quickly, within hours. To build an maintain it might prove more difficult, unless they can capture enough natives that can be forced to do it for them... with all the negative side effects such an approach would have (sabotage, intentional neglect, escaping mechanics who are supposed to repair a car, but steal it instead...). A steady supply of ammunition would not be easy to come by, so any captured firearms will only have limited uses. They might even mistake firearms for magic item and wonder why they stop working after a few dozen shots.

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Sorry if I repeat what has already been said (I just read this thread diagonally) but, in my humble opinion, magic can perfectly be sufficient to face modern weapons. Just think about well used spells like Control, Dark, Invisibility, Lightning, Seal, Unseal, Teleport and so on. It could really surprise and disorganize a modern military squad. Especially if the monsters use these spells in a vile and treacherous manner.

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13 hours ago, Thot said:

Their first contact with defenders of Earth will not be with military, but with police in riot gear, supported by water gun police cars, equipped with transparent shields, night sticks and possibly handguns. And one-on-one, those would probably already be more than a match, at least until the dragons, mages and undead move in, but the police will of course be hopelessly outnumbered and will probably have to retreat quickly. In some countries, the military will be available immediately, in others, further attempts to get rid of this plague with police forces will occur, costing valuable time during which the invaders try to figure out any captured firearms.

Regular citizens will probably flee, but should some of them decide o fight...

Honestly, that I don't believe. An angry man with a car will be an "effective military" to them, worth 10 mounted knights at least.

To use it, I would guess pretty quickly, within hours. To build an maintain it might prove more difficult, unless they can capture enough natives that can be forced to do it for them... with all the negative side effects such an approach would have (sabotage, intentional neglect, escaping mechanics who are supposed to repair a car, but steal it instead...). A steady supply of ammunition would not be easy to come by, so any captured firearms will only have limited uses. They might even mistake firearms for magic item and wonder why they stop working after a few dozen shots.

In the USA, note that many (though not all) police/sheriff/etc departments have a rarely-deployed suite of MUCH higher-grade gear.

An "angry man with a car" can be taken relatively easily, e.g. with a "Befuddle" spell or "Charm Person" -- or just a heavy bow!  Our cars keep us safe from weather, from the buffeting winds of our swift journeys, we crank the stereo to mask unpleasant sounds, and to be safe-drivers we always need to remember that they ARE deadly weapons... but our "castle on wheels" really is far from impregnable if actual combat occurs.

First experience of guns... first question:  is it really their first?  Have they not previously met gunpowder tech (muskets and the like)?  That could give them a huge advance in understanding what they face.

If we presume maximum ignorance, I expect the first experience would be cops' handguns:  "they have these BANG-wands, stubby little metal things but very deadly when they hit; but often they seem to BANG and hit nothing..."  They may have observed a reload-cycle (and recognize it from the similar "cannot fire while fiddling with the weapon" as a crossbow).

BUT I also presume their SOP is to capture locals and extract info, so they'd quickly learn that these are some form of machine; if it's SOP, even a young and inexperienced leader is liable to do all this as a matter of course...

Once they understand these to be mechanical weapons needing ammo, capturing ammo (to keep the captured weapons supplied) would be one of the top tactical priorities (I assume; a stupid "we R teh BeSTEst" leader might de-prioritize adopting local weapons).  Taking a big sporting-goods store, and getting all the info from all the employees, will give them hunting rifles, too; and likely a lead to specialty gun-shops and hunting-supply shops; employees THERE will tell them where to find distributors and manufacturers (and may well have leads to gear that runs damned close to military-grade); with cops -- the first line of public defense -- likely among the mentally-enslaved, the odds are VERY high that they will swiftly leverage into multiple law-enforcement agencies AND into the National Guard & Army Reserve...

The Bad Guys will arm-up pretty damned fast, IMHO!

Lest we foolishly look only at force, we have a C&C issue -- our law enforcement friends will let us know of key phone lines, cell towers, radio repeaters, and the like. Also, they probably know of all the local HAM & shortwave radio operators.

Here's a likely (imho) scenario...  Invader POV, & assuming a SOP that favors quick/efficient conquest:

===

Of ~500 initial Gates, we kept ~5 for further exploitation.  At one of these sites, we captured a sheriff's deputy.  Mentally dominating him, we leaned where his (former) allies were headquartered; of course he helped us capture most of them (we had to kill the rest (there were no escapes)).  These sheriffs in turn informed us of some much-better-equipped "police-departments" in the area; but as usual, having local mind-slaves let us easily capture these other locations.  KEY ADVANTAGE:  it appears these people have little or no magic!  Most of this world actively disbelieves in magic!

In contrast, we face two KEY DISADVANTAGES:  their mundane / non-magical weapons & tools are VASTLY more powerful than ours!  With several of these "law enforcement" stations in hand, we began the standard review of captured resources, and a demonstration of the capabilities and use of unfamiliar weapons.  We were shown "assault rifles" and other "guns" -- one soldier with this weapon has a rate-of-fire and range comparable to an entire platoon of bowmen; a platoon with assault rifles can probably take an entire battalion of our warriors, suffering NO CASUALTIES. 

The second disadvantage is the general case of the first:  without magic, their machines have advanced to an incredible degree.  They have machines that fly, carrying guns that are like 10 assault-rifles in a single weapon.  They have "rockets" that can carry a castle-destroying attack from miles away.  They have "nuclear" weapons (we are still trying to understand them) which are reliably reported as "1 weapon = 1 city gone" in effect.  They have steel carriages that can drive on their own faster than a horse can run, travelling hundreds of leagues in a single day, and of such thick steel that they can crush through any of our existing battle-lines without even slowing down.  Last but not least, they have devices called "radios" and "phones" which allow widespread instant communication; these are available to all, from the highest commander to the lowliest street-beggar.

It cannot be overstressed:  we are facing an opponent unlike any before in Imperial History.

===

It is ENTIRELY possible that all this can happen quickly & without much external notice.  Rumors get quashed with "plausible" explanations, and the turned officials keep up the "all is normal" facade, possibly faking some telco / cell-tower damage.  I think they could have a 500-1000 square mile "beachhead" within 36 hours of the gate opening, and little if any suspicion on the outside.
 

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5 hours ago, g33k said:

[...]

It is ENTIRELY possible that all this can happen quickly & without much external notice.  Rumors get quashed with "plausible" explanations, and the turned officials keep up the "all is normal" facade, possibly faking some telco / cell-tower damage.  I think they could have a 500-1000 square mile "beachhead" within 36 hours of the gate opening, and little if any suspicion on the outside.
 

Hm. A smartphone video or ten or a hundred, uploaded to the Net during the initial attack might draw some attention from the country's authorities rather quickly if contact to the local authorities is lost.

If we assume the government in question not to be the US, the availability of firearms will be much more limited. But the biggest issue for the invaders, I believe, would be to wrap their minds around all the things they see, from 50-story buildings, cars, smartphones, and airplanes to tanks that crush them from three kilometers distance, and let us not forget howitzers and self-propelled guns... a PzH 2000 has a range of 50-60 km, after all. So the battles will begin without the invaders even seeing any opponents. Even some people who grew up in today's first world have trouble wrapping their minds around that kind of situation.

That is just something not even seasoned enemy commanders will be used to, and when they get used to it, it may be too late for the initial invasion force.  Some survivors will, of course, escape and report back... but the next wave will have to be much more careful, maybe even resort to infiltration.

 

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52 minutes ago, Thot said:

Hm. A smartphone video or ten or a hundred, uploaded to the Net during the initial attack might draw some attention from the country's authorities rather quickly if contact to the local authorities is lost.

If we assume the government in question not to be the US, the availability of firearms will be much more limited. But the biggest issue for the invaders, I believe, would be to wrap their minds around all the things they see, from 50-story buildings, cars, smartphones, and airplanes to tanks that crush them from three kilometers distance, and let us not forget howitzers and self-propelled guns... a PzH 2000 has a range of 50-60 km, after all. So the battles will begin without the invaders even seeing any opponents. Even some people who grew up in today's first world have trouble wrapping their minds around that kind of situation.

That is just something not even seasoned enemy commanders will be used to, and when they get used to it, it may be too late for the initial invasion force.  Some survivors will, of course, escape and report back... but the next wave will have to be much more careful, maybe even resort to infiltration.

Absolutely.

The thing is: there are a HUGE number of initial imponderables or luck-of-the-draw issues; those can result in huge early gains for the invaders, or a complete loss for them.

Video from phones MIGHT pull down a huge amount of attention, but then again rural areas -- particularly hilly ones -- can have terrible cellphone service (where I live, for example, only Verizon is even marginally reliable, with most other carriers having FAR less than 50% coverage).

Magic that allows a complete change-of-loyalty -- but leaves memory & personality intact -- might be an asset too small to make a difference, if they capture&turn an ordinary citizen, but could allow them to quickly leverage their way to major inroads, if they get an "official" personage and/or one with combat experience.  Just one turncoat can inform them of cellphones & radios & internet &c... can show them modern military capabilities via YouTube/etc.  Commanders and strategy-teams will quickly begin adjusting tactics.

The fact that any dumb grunt with a Steel Carriage of equipment can launch these attacks will be SHOCKING, no doubt.  But presumably they already know of things like combat-magi (or dragons) who are flying & invisible, ranged magic (including out-of-sight ranges, via laws of Sympathy & Contagion).  From the mundane troops' perspective, this is much like incoming fire from over the horizon... so I expect troops and commanders (even if not pre-informed by a turncoat) will not be utterly shocked by the occurrence.

Thinking about what would be their "normal" approach, I have to presume the initial force will be heavy to magic, to intelligence-gathering, to mental-takeover, etc; even if the Imperial Conquest "vast army" is hot on their heels, getting that initial intel so they know WHERE to send the army will make the conquest go that much more quickly & efficiently.  They have this down to a science by now, and I expect they prefer a smooth and orderly conquest...

So it's down to luck-of-the-draw as to whether the initial force is broadly-successful, quickly crushed, or anything in between.

In other words -- from the metagame perspective -- make it be however you WANT it when the PC's first encounter things (for More Gaming Fun) and then figure out the preconditions and pre-PC events that led up to that point...

 

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Considering just how easy it is to do CGI today, It's quite possible that most people might not believe any Invasion videos put on the net. Especially if they include things like magic and dragons. Trying to get help from the authorities could get the PCs threatened for pulling some sort of hoax. This could give the invaders more than enough time to gather good intel, and establish a "beach head" of sorts. 

I's amazing just how much information the invaders could these days, if they managed to capture just one person with a smartphone and internet access. If they were smart and patient, they could get quite a bit of the intel they needed just by surfing the net. They maybe gate into some third world country with a ton of gold and buy firearms and ammo from some arms dealer. 

Edited by Atgxtg

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On a related(?) note, a long time ago I had an idea for an Evil Low-Tech Alien Empire of psionic world jumpers.  The first infiltrators would jump, nearly "naked", into a new reality / alternate world / timeline / whatever.  They'd cobble together a human disguise out of indigenous materials -- at which they're extraordinarily good -- and use their mind control abilities to infiltrate the host society.  When they had enough people dancing on their strings, they'd call for more infiltrators, enslave the populace, extract any and all useful resources, and abandon the world for a new prospect, maybe calling in the truly terrible eldritch horrors to chow down as they left.

My initial inspiration was D&D's Mind Flayers and the Mi-Go (particularly their ability to wear human disguises).  I'm only halfway through The Nightmare Stacks, but it appears Stross had a similar idea: one agent makes the monkeys dance, then the rest come in for the kill.  (Except the "elves" of TNS are desperate and on the verge of extinction, while the Alien Empire have been doing this for centuries if not millennia, and will do it for millennia more ... or until there are no new worlds to conquer.)

With all the time in the world(s), media reactions aren't a problem, since people acting weird and against their best interests is practically Standard Operating Procedure, as this past year has shown.  The only potential problems in a modern society are 1) sudden revelations of the Alien Among Us, a la They Live, 2) possible failure of mind control due to different physical laws or an application of SCIENCE!, 3) some British physician in a police box, or 4) surprisingly competent armed resistance during later phases of the invasion.  The aliens are good at hiding and pick up technology pretty fast, but they are kind of squishy, so unless they can protect themselves with their own army the proverbial angry man in a car (or Humvee) can mow them down with a satisfying splat.

Frank

"Welcome to the hottest and fastest-growing hobby of, er, 1977." -- The Laundry RPG
 
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On 7.11.2016 at 6:43 AM, g33k said:

Absolutely.

The thing is: there are a HUGE number of initial imponderables or luck-of-the-draw issues; those can result in huge early gains for the invaders, or a complete loss for them.

Which is good, because we want the PC's to be able to make a difference.

On 7.11.2016 at 6:43 AM, g33k said:

Video from phones MIGHT pull down a huge amount of attention, but then again rural areas -- particularly hilly ones -- can have terrible cellphone service (where I live, for example, only Verizon is even marginally reliable, with most other carriers having FAR less than 50% coverage).

Again, this is extremely dependent on the country and area they attack first.

On 7.11.2016 at 6:43 AM, g33k said:

Magic that allows a complete change-of-loyalty -- but leaves memory & personality intact -- might be an asset too small to make a difference, if they capture&turn an ordinary citizen, but could allow them to quickly leverage their way to major inroads, if they get an "official" personage and/or one with combat experience.  Just one turncoat can inform them of cellphones & radios & internet &c... can show them modern military capabilities via YouTube/etc.  Commanders and strategy-teams will quickly begin adjusting tactics.

 

Hm, If such magic is part of the invaders' arsenal, I'd want the player characters to be able to be immune from it. Little is more frustrating than the GM taking over a PC. BRP's standard magic doesn't allow for such complete control.

Of course, there may be people who actually want to join the Evil Empire for selfish reasons, or out of fear for loved ones.

 

On 7.11.2016 at 6:43 AM, g33k said:

In other words -- from the metagame perspective -- make it be however you WANT it when the PC's first encounter things (for More Gaming Fun) and then figure out the preconditions and pre-PC events that led up to that point...

Well, that is always true for all campaigns, isn't it. :) But discussing the ideas you guys have helps me not overlooking things that the players would possibly see and maybe even find annoying.

On 7.11.2016 at 6:43 AM, g33k said:

 

Has anyone figured out how to format these remnants of deleted quoted text?

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9 hours ago, Thot said:

Has anyone figured out how to format these remnants of deleted quoted text?

I launched a thread on this:  "Older quotation appearing in new post?" in the  Alastor's Skull Inn  sub-forum...  Some suggestions/solutions/workarounds have been accumulated there.

 

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For a good read on what this could look like, read Doomfarers of Coramonde by Brian Daley. An APC and crew in Vietnam is transported to a fantasy realm and they do fight a Dragon... these guys wreck havoc and take some lump themselves.

There's been good coverage on the military/police aspects so i'll touch on something else. The things the Necromancer can do with magic. I dont know if he's the only wizard or if there are others, but some magical things to consider:

*Fire, Air, Water, Wind Spells - cast on a tank, helicopter, etc can roast or damage the crew. If cast on weapons or ammo, these will explode in the users hand killing or hurting them. Lightning type spells would do the same. A fire elemental can enter a tank by going thru the main gun. Wind spells or wind elementals can bring down air craft. Rain can bog down armored vehicles. Freeze all their drinkable water.

*Charm/Teleport - a wizard can teleport into the HQ, wrap his arms around the commander, then teleport back, essentially kidnapping the brains of the opposition. Can be done with anyone of importance. Same concept with invisibility and charm... walk unseen into the camp, and charm the person in charge to make stupid mistakes and are conducive to you sides victory. Or at least eavesdrop and know what they're going to do. A recon if you will.

Magic can just do alot if applied in a spec op sort of manner. You attack the head and let the body die... something like that, you get the point.

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Magic can do a lot and a fantasy army would be OK in the short term. However, I can only see them conquering small countries and then stopping.

Anyone trying to conquer multiple countries would be met with the hellfire that is a modern coalition, with jets firing missiles and dropping area-destroying bombs. Put an army of orcs against an army of modern soldiers armed with automatic weapons and the orcs will not last long. Sure, they will arm themselves with modern weapons, in which case they become the equivalent of a modern army.

Looking at the sizes of armies in the past and modern armies, it is unlikely that a Fantasy army could mount enough warriors to really pose a threat.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

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18 hours ago, soltakss said:

Looking at the sizes of armies in the past and modern armies, it is unlikely that a Fantasy army could mount enough warriors to really pose a threat.

The OP has a premise wherein his "Evil Empire" has an arbitrarily-large number of conquered worlds  to draw resources & soldiers from... a hundred, a thousand, whatever. 

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On 11/11/2016 at 10:53 AM, g33k said:

The OP has a premise wherein his "Evil Empire" has an arbitrarily-large number of conquered worlds  to draw resources & soldiers from... a hundred, a thousand, whatever. 

Even if orcs outnumber human troops 10:1 or 100:1, there's still the problem that medieval weapons (bows, arbalests, catapults) are no match for modern weapons (autofire rifles, howitzers, drones).  WWI demonstrated how well an infantry charge works against machine guns.  Unless the invading army has Sufficiently Advanced Magic, or assaults key military targets simultaneously and unexpectedly using multiple portals, the best a fantasy army can do is establish a foothold on a small area (preferably one including a strategic military target) and drive outward in a long, slow, bloody slog.  The longer the invasion takes, the more time Earth nations have to coordinate a response.

Frank

"Welcome to the hottest and fastest-growing hobby of, er, 1977." -- The Laundry RPG
 
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1 hour ago, fmitchell said:

Even if orcs outnumber human troops 10:1 or 100:1, there's still the problem that medieval weapons (bows, arbalests, catapults) are no match for modern weapons (autofire rifles, howitzers, drones).  WWI demonstrated how well an infantry charge works against machine guns.

[...]

They didn't try to combine swords with teleporting in WW1, though.

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Teleporting an army is pretty much the same as dropping a battalion of paratroopers. You get the army there quickly, but then they have to fight. Unless, of course, all the soldiers have access to multiple teleports individually, which makes them more mobile but how much of a difference would that make?

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

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4 hours ago, soltakss said:

Teleporting an army is pretty much the same as dropping a battalion of paratroopers. You get the army there quickly, but then they have to fight. Unless, of course, all the soldiers have access to multiple teleports individually, which makes them more mobile but how much of a difference would that make?

Depends on what intel, tactics and equipment they use. Porting behind the lines to get at gun emplacements, headquarters, and field hospitals could make quite a difference. As could porting onto aircraft in flight. Teleporting a dragon onot the deck of an aircraft carrier would pretty much take it out of the fight.  It really depends on how much the Empire people know, and how clever they are. If they do a head on, brute force approach, they should get slaughtered, but it they play it cagey, do hit & run stuff, stay hidden and, gather intel on our world and tech, and try to infiltrate our ranks, and steal our weaponry. Well, then they would probably be unstoppable.

 

I think  from a campaign standpoint, is that it's hard to find a point between the two extremes that makes the Empire a serious threat, but still beatable by conventional means. It would seem to me that for things to stabilize enough to last, it would either mean containing some sort of interdimesional beachhead, where the enemy keeps sending in troops - or something where out forces start to gain access to magic and use it to go to other worlds and fine allies. Perhaps even causing some sort of multiworld uprising within the Empire. 

Edited by Atgxtg

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I think the biggest problem  in running this is that its going to be extremely 'swingy':  in battles where the Evil Empire goes with brute force attacks, they're going be slaughtered (ever see the movie Zulu?), with the player characters rolling bucket-fulls of dice of damage  for their mini-guns, cluster-bombs,  artillery strikes, etc. . If the bad guys are cagey, using teleportation to make shock assaults , illusion and mind-control spells to befuddle the defenders, the Moderns are going to get quickly wiped out, as their  Command and Control gets shredded in the first few minutes.

 

Of course,  this could be exactly what the OP wants; a initial blood-bath to get the Player Characters over-confident before they get rolled over.

 

I'm currently reading Achtung Cthulhu! Elder Godlike,  which has meta-humans encountering the Mythos during the chaos of WWII, it does delve a little into how Talents can effect the outcome of set-piece battles; though I think the scale is much more limited than what  we're talking about; a few  Ubermenschen would still be be unable  to save the 6th Army at Stalingrad, though they might give the Soviets a few bad moments.

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3 minutes ago, 1d8+DB said:

Of course,  this could exactly what the OP wants; a initial blood-bath to get the Player Characters over-confident before they get rolled over.

And then the campaign could become focussed on the underground/resistance movement(s) against the invaders.  Opportunities arise for espionage and "spycraft" scenarios, resistance cells, out-and-out raid/sabotage actions, perhaps even a final confrontation between the PCs and the Evil Emperor (which I'm sure I've seen in a movie somewhere :-)

Colin

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I'm also  curious as to whether the  OP is going to hand-wave away some of the logistics questions  his  scenario raises.

Ok. The Evil Empire can  put an army of 100  million Orcs onto this planet.

How much food and water does an  Orc soldier need daily?

Forget raising the dead as undead foot-soldiers:  those corpses might be the Empire's troop's rations.

I almost see the  Evil Empire as a locust plague, overrunning worlds and stripping them bare (an  Ork Waagh perhaps?), expanding not because of any imperialistic imperative, but because it must continue to grow or risk devouring itself.

 

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So perhaps the Orcs have been 'engineered' so that they can only eat a  food-stuff magically conjured by the Empire's sorcerers ( a good way of ensuring loyalty).

This could be the Empire's vulnerability: take out the 'food-mages'  and the army begins to starve.

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I think I would advise the  OP to discard the idea that the Empire has near infinite resources: I think  that advantage, and their use of magic, will be insurmountable for the Moderns.

 

GM:  The Gateway opens, and out flies 5,000 ancient dragons, with each third one bearing a lich necromancer!

Players: How does the Empire's anthem go again?

 

Instead, they have limited resources, but good tacticians who know how to maximize their advantages. The campaign then becomes the Moderns fighting a desperate battle against time;  hoping to wear  down the invaders before their own ability to fight is broken. (I'm assuming that  the EE forces are retreating back through their gates after every engagement, to avoid being targeted by the Modern's nuclear weapons, or occupying urban centers and using their population as human shields).

 

I recommend that the OP use MOOK rules.

He might consider using some kind of Mass Combat system (its OOP but Mongoose's  Hawkmoon supplement Granbretan  had a BRP derived Mass Combat system): unless he's going to arbitrarily decide the outcome of each battle, and just play out what happened in the Player Character's section of the front.

 

 

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On 11/13/2016 at 9:48 AM, 1d8+DB said:

I think the biggest problem  in running this is that its going to be extremely 'swingy'

This, this, a thousand times this!

Not just "swingy" (in the campaign-event sense) of course: if the PC's hit upon an "optimal" technique, they will experience dizzying degrees of success; if they try something badly-suboptimal, it may be VERY hard to avoid a TPK scenario.

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On 11/13/2016 at 4:08 AM, soltakss said:

Teleporting an army is pretty much the same as dropping a battalion of paratroopers.

Except it's not; or rather, sometimes it is but often it isn't!

Sure, an "insert behind the lines" mission will use Paratroops similarly to Teletroops.

But what about teleporting a squad of swordsmen into a machine-gun-nest (or onto a sniper's position)?  Since combat begins at arms-reach, guns turn from vastly-superior weapons to distinctly inferior; and of course NOBODY is operating the machine gun (or rifle) until the swordsmen are handled.  A charge across a 200-meter killing-field gets to the machine-gun in maybe 30 seconds... and that's that, even if the moderns' had somehow almost got things under control).

Paratroops have to be mission-briefed and dispatched via aircraft from the nearest safe airbase, a HUGE delay in a "live battle" situation or when the need/want for Paratroops is a surprise.  But a T'port wizard attached to a combat brigade can dispatch-and-retrieve instantly on-demand and per-incident; and the troops already know the situation-on-the-ground, so no briefing-time.

 

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On 11/13/2016 at 1:43 AM, fmitchell said:

Even if orcs outnumber human troops 10:1 or 100:1, there's still the problem that medieval weapons (bows, arbalests, catapults) are no match for modern weapons (autofire rifles, howitzers, drones).  WWI demonstrated how well an infantry charge works against machine guns.

Yeah, but what if it's 100000:1?  More?  What if the screaming charge lasts until the gun is out of ammo (or the muzzle overheats, which is also a thing) and despite thousands dead the screaming charge is STILL GOING when the gun stops shooting?  What if -- when the gun stops -- there's STILL literally no end in sight to the screaming horde charging them?  Well, they start using their rifles... then pistols... AND THERE'S STILL NO END IN SIGHT.

Presumably, they get off an emergency message by radio, so the next machine-gun nest has twice as much ammo... and it still doesn't matter.

Then the moderns set up multiple machine-gun nests that can mutually support one another, and each has 10X the "standard" load of ammo... and it still doesn't matter.

The screaming hordes just keep charging.  No modern soldier EVER sees the end of ANY EvilEmpire charge.  They just keep coming.

[Note, fwiw, that ammo isn't an unlimited resource even in a supply-dump... how long will it take to ramp-up production and get that ammo to the front?  And what about supplying MULTIPLE fronts???!?]

And THAT is just the "military front".

What happens when the Evil Empire opens a gate and drops 10K of Screaming Horde in the middle of the supply dump?  And another gate with 1K of Screaming Horde in each ammo/supply factory shipping material to that supply dump?  100 Screaming Horde in some random location within the Kremlin, the Pentagon, Northwood HQ, etc... And then again, and again:  every 30 seconds, another 100 in another random location of each major "ultimate behind-the-lines HQ" site?

Now -- just because we're the Evil Empire, and this is how we roll -- we deliver a daily 10K of Screaming Horde -- sometimes en masse, sometimes 100 groups of 100 each, sometimes something in between -- to somewhere between 5 and 20 cities with populations over half a million people; randomly, worldwide.  Sometimes we concentrate on downtown, sometimes we distribute through luxury exurbs, sometimes (just to F' with their minds) we drop them into a run-down and almost-abandoned industrial district.

What is the "modern military" doctrinal response to this sort of thing?

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On 12/13/2016 at 9:36 PM, g33k said:

What is the "modern military" doctrinal response to this sort of thing?

Cut off their supply lines and starve them to death. Carpet bomb them into submission. Let them run amok and kill some civilians then mop them up afterwards.

If the gate is two way, follow them through the gate and find out how the gates are being controlled, stop the gates from being opened, Better still, find out how the gates work and use them to gate into the Evil Empire.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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