These will use the SW Showdown combat rules (see files are) or the simpler SW Mass Combat rules.
Boarding Action: to undertake a boarding action the ships must be in the same square. Once they are then a Boarding Action can occur where boarding troops (equipped correctly) eject from the parent ship, jump across space, and hopefully land on the target ship. They then cut it open and enter. A Boarding Action is an AGILITY test with the following mods:
Where a ship that is "dead in the water" ( no active manoeuvre capacity) a boarder ignores any negative modifiers
Players roll individually. Teams each roll, based on which combat system is being used. A failed roll means they are 'in space' and must roll again next action (but if the target moves away they move to 'lost in space'). A roll of a 1 on any of the dice will indicate 'lost in space', they are no longer involved, but can be recovered after the battle. A critical fail (both 1's) means they are dead.
Once contact is made the teams must cut their way into the enemy ship, this can be a ST roll, possibly with equipment mods. If no equipment then it is at -2. Ship armour can be used as a negative mod. Anti-boarding systems can also play a roll. This roll can be a TASK, requiring a number of successes before success, armour could be used to represent this rather than as a mod, eg number of successes required equals Armour/2.
The number of cutting and combat rounds that occur during a ship action round should probably be 5:1 or some such ratio, (ship rounds are roughly 15 mins).
Once the teams are inside they begin fighting as per the rules system we are using.
Step One: Setup
This is the hardest part, but once it’s done, the rest of the battle goes by like blitzkrieg.
• Give the larger army 10 tokens.
• Divide the troops in the army by 10 to figure out how many troops each token is worth.
• Now give the opposing force a proportionate number of tokens (round up).
If one group has 1000 men and another has 600, for example, the larger army has 10 tokens and the smaller one has 6.
• The side with more tokens gets to add the difference to his Battle Rolls (see Step Two).
Adjustments
The example above is very simplistic. Very rarely are you able to just look at two opposing forces and instantly realize their ratio. Most armies have a mix of troops of different qualities with different weapons and armor. If you want a really accurate value of an army, you’ll have to use the Savage Worlds Troop Builder, available from our website at WWW.PEGINC.COM. If you’re willing to fudge it, you can guesstimate a bit. Maybe each knight in a medieval army is worth two archers or three peasants. Or in a World War II battle, a Sherman tank is worth a squad of 10 grunts, or two bazooka teams.
Step Two: Modifiers
The GM now adds up any situational modifiers. The most common modifiers are listed on the table below. These are cumulative, so attacking foxholes on hills is a penalty of -2 (-1 for the foxholes, -1 for hills).
Characters in Mass Battles
The heroes of your campaign aren’t likely to sit idly by while war rages around them. Those who want to get involved can dramatically affect the results of the battle. Have each character make a Fighting, Shooting, or arcane skill roll (their choice) each round. Add or subtract the number of
tokens difference between their side and their opponent’s as well (if the enemy has 8 tokens and the allies have 5, the heroes must subtract -3). Also add +1 to the roll for each Rank a hero has above Novice to account for his various abilities.
Results table is in the book
Suggestions
The use of a Know(Battle) contest between the two commanders will allow the winner to ignore one counter per success of the other side; ie one counter is left out of the battle round as it is neutralised in some way. It returns again next round. This allows a smaller force to counter a larger one by using tactics.