Coalition States
Posted: Fri May 25, 2018 6:18 am
THE COALITION STATES:
-The "Big Bad" of a lot of Rifts is meant to be the Coalition- a group (well, coalition) or city-states that banded together around Illinois and leading down to Texas in a kind of diagonal line. Here, law was able to reign, and mankind's weaponry allowed them a measure of resistance against invaders. What formed by the Coalition (with its capital in Chi-Town- the city that sprang from the ashes of Chicago) was a military dictatorship run by Emperor Karl Prosek, an ardent admirer of generals and leaders such as Napoleon, Genghis Khan, and Hitler. Picking and choosing what he liked from each (he found Hitler a genius, but hopelessly mad and arrogant), he built a cult of personality, took power, and formed a great nation.
The Coalition are bad because they're "Human Supremacists", executing aliens, otherdimensional beings, wizards, psychics and anything else non-human they find. They also outlaw Glitter Boys, Juicers and more. As expected, this puts them against many Player Classes, especially Dragons, Wizards, Juicers and Glitter Boys. They're basically the perfect adversaries for your players.
Funnily enough, Rifts fans are actually pretty big fans of them. Despite being, well, NAZIS, more or less, they are more sympathetic when you consider they live in a world which has "People-Eating Monsters" AS A REGULAR FEATURE. Their enemies are often just as evil as they are, and they're one of the best shots against threats like the Splugorth or Vampire Armies or Xiticix Invasions as well. I mean, who are YOU, a HUMAN, gonna side with? Lord Splynncryth the Eldritch Abomination, or a bunch of humans who want what's best for humanity? Never mind that they look INCREDIBLY COOL, combining Nazi Fashion Sense with Skull Helmets, stark black & white gear, and awesome robots with airplane wings. The only reason they're even the "bad guys" is, well, all of the evil. Intense propaganda, vicious execution squads, gunning down innocents, leaving the "dregs" in shitty little 'Burbs communities, etc. But aside from the evil, they're pretty awesome.
Coalition Troops as a whole are no joke, though. Albeit they're more or less "First-Level" foes with low Skills (many are illiterate) and baseline armor, their gear is the best in North America, meaning that REGULAR MOOKS get "80 MDC" armor (about +11 Toughness in my translations)! This means that they can easily hold their own in a firefight- four CS Grunts can hold off an entire party for a good amount of time, and even a Dragon needs a few rounds to whittle even one soldier down. Most of the extreme Combat Classes (Dragons, Juicers, Glitter Boys, Borgs) have the advantage in either armor and/or number of attacks, but it's as real bit of trouble.
The Coalition have the best gear of any human army in North America. The New German Republic is there superior, and Northern Gun is a decade or two behind them. Certain enclaves have more- the Naruni aliens, Splugorth, and ARCHIE (a sentient AI) all have better gear as well. But in terms of numbers and organization, the Coalition is where it's at.
Coalition Armies:
-The baseline troops are "Grunts" colloquially called "Dead Boys" for the skull-head armor they used in the first six years of Rifts (they switched to mostly plain black faceplates, because Vince Martin LOVES drawing blank faceplates). There's a few variations of that type, plus scads of new Coalition O.C.C.s in Coalition War Campaign, most of which are perfunctory and I'll probably leave out until I feel like it.
Troops are often backed up by flying SAMAS Robot Pilots. Later editions added more gear as well. I'll lay out some of the basics at first, before going on to the different classes.
-The "Big Bad" of a lot of Rifts is meant to be the Coalition- a group (well, coalition) or city-states that banded together around Illinois and leading down to Texas in a kind of diagonal line. Here, law was able to reign, and mankind's weaponry allowed them a measure of resistance against invaders. What formed by the Coalition (with its capital in Chi-Town- the city that sprang from the ashes of Chicago) was a military dictatorship run by Emperor Karl Prosek, an ardent admirer of generals and leaders such as Napoleon, Genghis Khan, and Hitler. Picking and choosing what he liked from each (he found Hitler a genius, but hopelessly mad and arrogant), he built a cult of personality, took power, and formed a great nation.
The Coalition are bad because they're "Human Supremacists", executing aliens, otherdimensional beings, wizards, psychics and anything else non-human they find. They also outlaw Glitter Boys, Juicers and more. As expected, this puts them against many Player Classes, especially Dragons, Wizards, Juicers and Glitter Boys. They're basically the perfect adversaries for your players.
Funnily enough, Rifts fans are actually pretty big fans of them. Despite being, well, NAZIS, more or less, they are more sympathetic when you consider they live in a world which has "People-Eating Monsters" AS A REGULAR FEATURE. Their enemies are often just as evil as they are, and they're one of the best shots against threats like the Splugorth or Vampire Armies or Xiticix Invasions as well. I mean, who are YOU, a HUMAN, gonna side with? Lord Splynncryth the Eldritch Abomination, or a bunch of humans who want what's best for humanity? Never mind that they look INCREDIBLY COOL, combining Nazi Fashion Sense with Skull Helmets, stark black & white gear, and awesome robots with airplane wings. The only reason they're even the "bad guys" is, well, all of the evil. Intense propaganda, vicious execution squads, gunning down innocents, leaving the "dregs" in shitty little 'Burbs communities, etc. But aside from the evil, they're pretty awesome.
Coalition Troops as a whole are no joke, though. Albeit they're more or less "First-Level" foes with low Skills (many are illiterate) and baseline armor, their gear is the best in North America, meaning that REGULAR MOOKS get "80 MDC" armor (about +11 Toughness in my translations)! This means that they can easily hold their own in a firefight- four CS Grunts can hold off an entire party for a good amount of time, and even a Dragon needs a few rounds to whittle even one soldier down. Most of the extreme Combat Classes (Dragons, Juicers, Glitter Boys, Borgs) have the advantage in either armor and/or number of attacks, but it's as real bit of trouble.
The Coalition have the best gear of any human army in North America. The New German Republic is there superior, and Northern Gun is a decade or two behind them. Certain enclaves have more- the Naruni aliens, Splugorth, and ARCHIE (a sentient AI) all have better gear as well. But in terms of numbers and organization, the Coalition is where it's at.
Coalition Armies:
-The baseline troops are "Grunts" colloquially called "Dead Boys" for the skull-head armor they used in the first six years of Rifts (they switched to mostly plain black faceplates, because Vince Martin LOVES drawing blank faceplates). There's a few variations of that type, plus scads of new Coalition O.C.C.s in Coalition War Campaign, most of which are perfunctory and I'll probably leave out until I feel like it.
Troops are often backed up by flying SAMAS Robot Pilots. Later editions added more gear as well. I'll lay out some of the basics at first, before going on to the different classes.