Post by Lord Harrab on Jun 27, 2015 12:57:47 GMT
Illuminated by Star shells and Searchlights, the Northampton class heavy cruiser, USS Houston and her crew buy time for a supply convoy to escape with their lives. From reports received before contact was lost, It took the enemy over two hours to bring her down despite outnumbering and outgunning her many times over.
"Ad victoriam
,Ex machina
, Non sibi sed patriae.
To victory, from the war machine, not for himself but for his country."
- Motto of the Revenant project.
it is 1942 and once more mankind struggles in the grip of a second world war.
And we are losing.
For it is no human enemy that we face, although we were perhaps spared defeat because of our preparing for it. Instead it is an alien race that spills our blood and burns our homes, they attacked without warning and without communicating with us at all, first in Germany, then down through Italy and across the Mediterranean into Africa they have spread unchecked. Everyone they find they kill and every structure we have built they tear down. They are more advanced than us, more numerous than us and they want nothing more than our total destruction.
The Soviet union has blunted their advance to the east, and on the french-German border, the British empire and French forces stand firm, but they are crumbling and we simply cannot afford the attrition the enemy is forcing upon us.
Then the aliens stuck Midway Island and attacked Pearl harbor. A second front was opened, drawing the US away from the main fight in Europe to protect itself and its allies in the far east. Imperial Japan is hard pressed defending its home islands and the Philippines, and cracks are forming in their lines, more islands fall, something must be done or we will be bled dry.
So in our darkest hour, we turn to our fallen heroes once more, begging them to save us from our enemy. We restore their beloved ships, tanks and planes, bind them together with captured alien machines we can hardly understand and sent them out to fight and die again.
They are the Revenants, and our last hope.
Based in the same world as my "canvas wings of death," fiction currently underway in the writer's block section, this RP will have players take the role of ships and their captain against an inhuman enemy using ww2 ships, weapons and tactics, with a little bit of X-com style capture and reverse engineering of alien tech, because humans are resourceful and desperate like that.
Assembling the fleet.
Alien tech is frustrating human science by refusing to integrate with living tissue, and it was only by the chance death of a test subject mid activation that humanity was able to make a crucial breakthrough, to use the technology, the user would have to be dead.
Horrifyingly, the technology also seemed to bring back the soul of the subject, and to the quiet satisfaction of sailors, the soul of his or her ship as well. Together Captain and ship can peform the actions of a crew two thousand strong, alien technology providing weapon reloading, damage control and an awareness of the world around the ship that cannot be explained by simply attaching a cable to the skull of the corpse at the heart of the machine.
These reborn captains are kept linked with their ship at all times, and often complain of hearing whispers of their crew or flashbacks to their deaths. Some even claim their crew crossed the veil of death with them to man their stations once more. They might be correct.
The USS Arizona was the first reborn, brought up from the waters of pearl to get vengeance for its death, but soon other heroes from other nations were brought to Pearl Harbor in honor, new ships were built and named in remembrance of those lost where the ship could not be directly recovered, and when a revenant joins a fleet, the human sailors salute and fight with greater vigor, for they have already made the ultimate sacrifice, how could their living brothers and sisters be expected to do anything less?
The Ship Classes
due to the nature of player characters, being eternally bound within the body of their ship, players will just as much be the ships they command as the person at the helm, and in fact it is the machine that will be taking most of the spotlight.
So for character creation, players will have to fire up google and search for a ship that was in military service or had entered service in 1942 and think of a heroic death for it and generate a captain who perished with her only to be brought back for vengeance.
Theses ships will then have stats dependent on their class, to save me the task of generating personalized stats for different nations and ships within the same classification and even ships within the same class
that differed from their sister ships historically.
Note: All ships gain the ability to regenerate up to half their HP over the course of a single sortie at a rate of 2 HP per round
. if a battle ends and they are still damaged, their health will automatically be tops up as much as possible with the remaining points.
If a ship suffers critical damage, such as destroyed engines, flooding, fire, or destroyed weapons, they can spend five of their points to instantly fix the damage or wait until it is brought under control natural.
Battleship
(Note: Yamato class vessels are restricted)
The toughest, largest and most powerful direct combat vessels in the world, sadly fading from the limelight as carrier based air-power makes itself felt, but like Revenants, they will not go quietly beneath the waves, and will fight and bleed for their smaller brethren.
HP 70
Speed: Slow
Armour: 4+
Evasion: 5+
Firepower: 3d10
Anti-Aircraft: 1d6
Perk:
Defiant: regens an extra d3 hp per turn, this is not bound by the regen cap
but does not restore health outside of battle.
Heavy Cruiser
the workhorse of a fleet, carrying powerful guns, thick Armour and maintaining a high speed and operational range, Heavy cruisers make good flagships where battleships are unavailable, otherwise they make good escort ships for carriers and battleships in squadrons can challenge any surface threat.
HP 55
Speed: Slow
Armour: 5+
Evasion: 4+
Firepower 3d6
Anti-Aircraft: 2d10
Perk:
Taunt: Once every three turns, can divert an enemy's fire upon themselves. they gain increased Armour for a round
Anti-Aircraft Cruiser
The guardians of the fleet, Anti-Aircraft cruisers, as the name suggests, are designed to destroy hostile planes threatening the fleet. to this end, they carry smaller caliber guns than most cruisers, but in far greater numbers, able to pelt surface targets with a torrent of shellfire, and turn that fury skywards in an instant.
HP 30
Speed: Fast
Armour 6+
Evasion: 3+
Firepower: 2d6
Anti-aircraft: 3d10
Perk: Clear skies, one every three turns, can force hostile aircraft hit by their AA to reroll successful evasions.
Light Cruiser
Flagships of destroyer squadrons and excellent patrol and escort ships, light cruisers are have many simulates to their smaller cousins, being fast, agile and a deadly threat if ignored. for their guns may be small, but torpedoes can sink even battleships.
HP 30
Speed: Fast
Armour 6+
Evasion: 3+
Firepower: 2d6
Torpedoes: 3d6
Anti Aircraft: 2d6
Anti-Submarine Warfare: 3d5
Perk:
Pack Alpha: If in formation with destroyers or other light cruisers, all gain accuracy and evasion bonuses.
Destroyer
The smallest and fastest class of vessel, Destroyers are key to the survival of a fleet, being able to chase down other destroyers, torpedo battleships and detect and destroy lurking submarine threats, although lightly armored and armed, their torpedo tubes can fell any overconfident foe.
HP 20
Speed: Fast
Armour: 6+
Evasion: 2+
Firepower: 2d6
Torpedoes: 4d6
Anti-aircraft: d6
Anti-Submarine Warfare: 2d10
Perk:
Shroud: Carries 5 smoke charges per sortie, once deployed, friendly ships behind the smoke become harder to hit
U-Boat
the silent killers. Invisible to most and capable of dealing crippling blows without warning, from destroyer to Battleship, all are equal prey in the periscope of a u boat captain. a true master of the craft will kill his target with a whisper of O2 torps through the water, vanishing into the darkness before the echos of the detonation have faded from hearing.
HP: 15
Speed: Slow (submerged) Fast (surfaced)
Armour: 6+
Evasion: 5+
Firepower: d5
Torpedoes: 3d10
Anti-aircraft (only while surfaced): d5
Perk:
Stealth: Invisible to Enemies without ASW stat, will vanish from hostile sonar if undamaged or refrains from firing for two rounds.
Critical Damage states
Shellfire can cause fires and torpedo hits cause flooding. Uboats will have to be aware of depth charges, which cause flooding and critical system damage.
Fires cause additional HP damage and can inflict critical damage to systems
Flooding reduces a ships speed and ability to evade, if left unchecked can sink the sink entirely.
If a ship suffers a critical hit, they can declare their damage control to be handling it, it will be solved in d3 rounds. only one critical hit can be repaired at a time.
Systems that can be critically damaged are:
Main Gun turrets
Secondary Turrets
Torpedo tubes
Radar/sonar
Engines
Rudder
Magazine
Fuel tanks
More details to come. Questions and suggestions welcome.