PMC 2670 - Mercenary forces
As you can predict, in PMC 2670, the merc forces are some kind of stars of the show. The army has a lot of minor changes comparing to PMC 2640, but as mentioned in one of the previous articles, our goal was to do not mess with the existing miniatures collections, so if you had Merc army it should be playable in 2670 as it was in 2640. We listened to the players and made the merc army not as conventional as it was before. It's still hard sci-fi style, but some future toys were added and new unit categories was created.Note that this text is more useful for players who know PMC 2640 and is focused mostly on the changes between editions.
Like in PMC 2640 mercenary armies starts from the Tier 1 Basic troops. There are one new units:
Enforcers. They are stereotypical, dystopian brutal security/crowd suppression units, slow and armed with shotguns or similar short range weapons. Shoot first, ask questions later. They haven't told that these civilians to pacify should be dead or alive, have they?
Rifle troops are, exactly like before, backbone to the army. The line consists of T2-T5 units with only little changes. They are not the hard-hitters, but thanks to good defence and nice mobility they are effective in holding the objectives, delaying actions and long-lasting firefights. In summary they are the most balanced infantry troops in the army.
Assault troops - the sister line of Rifle troops got some boost. In PMC 2640, with exception to T4 Shock Troopers with Determined rule, they weren't used often as Rifle troops were usually most reasonable choice. After long discussion we decided to merge them with Combat engineers line and now, new Assault troopers are really badasses! Especially if you have to kill the enemies in good defence positions. Engineers were removed as separate category, as they were used really rarely and if you made their unit you just need to add 2 miniatures (Assault troopes unit are 8-men-strong, Sappers units were 6-men-strong) - it is the only one required change in the miniatures collection, sorry!
Next there are the first new troops type - Heavy Infantry. Yes, as requested, we made the units in powerarmours! They are slow and they are always counted as being in cover, which provides they defensive boost. But they Achilles' hell are enemies with AT or Gauss weapons, which are able to negate this bonus. This simple game mechanic works fine - they are still hard to kill, but do not dominate the battlefields.
There is the Heavy infantry, so there should be the Light infatry. This line was made by merging Recon troops with Sharpshooper and Sniper groups from PMC 2640. Now you have fast moving, 4-men-strong skirmishing units with deadly Gauss weapons (from Tier 3), with ability of marking the targets for other units. But they are not the line troops and can be eliminated or forced to flee easily, so you need to use them wisely.
The Light support troops had no revolution. The only change was simplify the unit selection, so there is no "doubled" HMG on Tier 4. Instead HMG teams were a little boosted and went of Tier 4, so the category has: Light MG section, Light MG team, Heavy MG team and Gauss cannon.
The Heavy support troops were extended by Light anti-tank teams on Tier 2. The other units are very similar to previous version.
Mercenary remote mortars were changed. Now they have Firepower reduced, but thanks to Suppressive fire special rule they are nice anti-infantry unit. They are not as universal as they were before. They are fragile, so keeping them save from fast vehicles or aircraft is crucial.
Command units were changed little. In this group the Field medics were added (on Tier 3, like EW teams). They are one of this type of specialist units, which show the potencial in bigger battles, but in smaller ones are rather not a good choice (but it's typical for all command units in this army).
The standard Merc infantry lines are finished by Drones category, which are a little more effective, to be interesting choice comparing to "flesh" infantry units. There is only one new unit in this group - Medical Drones.After quick review of infantry units it's high time to write a little about ground vehicles. Like in PMC 2640, they are a valuable asset of the army, mostly by bringing superior firepower where it's needed. The low-tiers vehicles survibility do not allows them to act as linebreakers, especially when they face AT specialist unit. General game rules changes make them slightly more resistant to AT fire, but they self-repair capability is reduced, which affect mostly most powerful units with large Structure points pool.
Combat vehicles haven't changed a lot - still this group consists the most common machines well balanced in terms of firepower and ability of soaking some hits. Only Recon vehicle (previosly rather underpowered) was boosted to be attractive choice.
Destroyer vehicles group was expanded and now it's "Hunter and destroyer vehicles". Hunter vehicles were added to Tier II and Tier III and are extemally fast, short ranged combat units dedicated to flank and destroy enemy vehicles. Honestly their were inspired both by WW2-era Hellcat tank destroyers and modern, missile-armed Toyotas very popular in Africa. Quite tricky units, hard to use, but can be really deadly if used correctly. Destroyer vehicles (Tier IV and V) are more-or-less similar as previously - they are huge, long range powerfull guns put on light chassis capable to knock down any enemy vehicle with single shot.
Transport vehicles group received are lot of changes in PMC 2670. We are focused on changing positions and maneuvres even more and making them more attrative choice was one of the priorities. First of all, the group starts from Tier I, with very fragile transports (e.g. jeep-style, flatbeds and similar). On Tier III and IV there are both APC and IVF on the same Tier. APCs has low firepower, buy are able to transport 2 of 4 infantry units at once, while IVF can transport only 1 or 2, but are able to provide significant fire support. The choice is up to players as both options are atractive and interesting alternative to transport aircraft.In
Support vehicles group we have 3 new units entries: Converted support vehicle (based on Improvised support vehicle from Hell on Echidna), EW vehicles and Medical vehicles. The rest of the units in this group are unchanged, but redone rules of Indirect Fire made them less useful as sector blockers.
Engineer vehicles form small, new group made by only two vehicles. Both are slow, tought and has extremally high hirepower on short distances. The light engineer vehicle is typical flame/chem tank (or flame walker etc.), while Heavy engineer vehicle is grinding monster with ability of smashing any obstacles or building which are within the range. Because of low mobility they cannot be used alone and require infantry support, but you will not find better units to breaking fortified positions.
Unclassified troops group includes 3 exotic units, which do not fits to any other category. There are Nomads from 'Echidna", which can also represent any low-grade local troops hired by PMC. Chem-warriors are inspired by classic RTS unit and are interesting short, range specialists and support units. Due to low numbers, below average Defence and composition limits they will not win the battle alone, but can be worthly addition to the army if you have the idea how to compose them into your forces. The last unit are Rapid insertion platforms, (drop-pods!) allowing to deploy infantry from reserve.
Transport aircraft got only one new unit - Adapted transport craft (Tier II). This light and fragile flyer cannot take a lot of punishment and can be shot down easily even by non-specialist troops, but does its job - can relocate single infatry unit quickly. The rest of transport craft are very similar to 2640 variants.
The last but not the least group are Strike aircraft. There are no major changes and new units in this group, but a few were slightly rebalanced to suit better to the rule changes. As previously this group starts from Tier 3 and consists the same units as before.That's all about mercenaries at this moment. Next in line are Rebel forces, which are true revolution ;)