Fractal combat resolution in GURPS

s to define, as a first draft, a way to smooth the transition from personal to mass combat such that a PC at the head of 7 dwarves will be presented with interesting challenges.

Key Principle

The cohesion of a unit is a matter of the tactical skill of a unit's direct commander. The abstraction here is that the higher the tactics skill of a commander is, the more predictable and sound the squad will behave. 

This is assuming that the commander has trained the squad. If not, a penalty should be applied on the tactics skill. 

Key Mechanics

Who does what?

Each turn, a passive tactics check is made to determine whether subordinates are going to act according to doctrine (In practice, moved by the commander). If the Tactics check is failed, the NPCs are going to act on impulses that are randomly determined (using a Roll20 table).

The maximum movement is limited by the tactics' MoS and the Adjusted Move of the subordinates.

Tactical Tilt 

The tactics is affected by the Tactical Tilt (TT). In the chaos of battle, the TT constantly decrease and thus must be maintained by the commander using one or more strategy.

• Decrease of TT:
• -1 per turn due to battle chaos
• -MoF of Tactical check
• Evaluate(Leadership)'s MoF
• Increase of TT:
• Evaluate(Perception)'s MoS cancel negative TT
• Observation Free Action MoS cancel negative TT
• Evaluate(Leadership)'s MoS
• Successful heroic actions

Combat Options

Evaluate ( Perception )

Take a turn increasing your situational awareness and negate negative TT up to 0. If Observation is used instead, you may select any combat option except All-out Attack/Defense. 

Evaluate ( Leadership )

Roll for leadership to achieve one of the following result:

1. Change the unit's order (Attack, Defense, retreat, etc.)
2. Standard effect on Morale/Fright checks.

The MoS is applied to TT regardless of the outcome. This is an effective way to increase TT into the positive. 

Any Attack ( Heroic )

Any penalty voluntarily taken into an attack can be converted into TT if the attack is successful. This is an abstraction where a commander divert some of his/her skills and into theatricals to lead by example. 

One cool way to spend TT

Once a commander has setup his/her units, a commander can spend TT into bonus to any action for one or more subordinate. This means that a great control of a squad means that at some point, one subordinate can perform some great deed. For example: Gror hold a TT of +5 after careful leadership. He decides to grant Dagan +4 on a key attack, which takes Dagan's Axe-13 to Axe-17. This means that Dagan will have a critical success on a 7!