Full Thrust : Honor Harrington Conversion Rules.

by Darryl Adams

The Honor Harrington series (hence HH) by David Weber has been described as "Hornblower is Spaaaace", with good reason. The tactics of the Napoleonic wars , with limitation of weapons and hull designs, have been faithfully transported into Interstellar war, with a high tech twist (Electronic warfare, and missiles).

This is a alpha set of rules to allow Full Thrust players enjoy the rich background of Weber's work. Any feedback is welcome, and should be sent to dadams@tig.com.au.

1. Design Systems.

1.1 Hulls

Hulls are unchanged as per normal FT rules. There are however no fighters in the HH books, so any reference to fighters and Carriers are ignored. (There are ship boats, pinnaces and the like, treat them as MASS 1 ships, with bays taking MASS 2, and the cost of the bay is 5 (design the pinnaces as per normal ships)

1.2 Engines

In the HH books, manoeuvre and FTL drives are one and the same, they change configuration (see below : shielding). However for FT, treat them as normal (this represents the mechanics of converting the drive fields to FTL sails).

On the ship display, Place 1 manoeuvre box for non military ships (and Q Ships) and two boxes for military ships. This represent the Alpha and Beta nodes of the drive system.

In normal space, treat these boxes as normal (ie if a drive hit occurs, reduce the thrust rating by 1/2, with both hit, the ship is immobile). In FTL, a node hit is considered an instant kill as both nodes are needed to manoeuvre in FTL space safely, so a ship with a node hits continues original vector and speed, making, and con not safely exit FTL space in a battle situation).

1.3 Fire control

Fire control is slightly different in HH, as electronic warfare and technology difference is prevalent. So , drawing on DSII , the modification is made.

Fire control comes in 4 type, basic, standard , enhance and superior. Each takes 3 MASS in the ship (with the first one free) with the following cost (if you wish to upgrade the free system, use the upgrade cost, else for extra systems, use the Full System cost):

Class                                   Upgrade                 Full System             Dice

Basic                                     -3                                   7                         d4
Standard                               0                                  10                         d6
Enhance                               +3                                13                         d8
Superior                                +6                               16                        d10

The symbol for the fire control is a box with the dice value inside (ie 4,6,8,10). See below for combat rules for FC.

1.4 Fire Arcs and Shielding.

In HH, the drive system does not block the rear quarter of a ships arc. It is slightly worse.
Drive fields project in normal 2 grav bands, one "above" and one "below" the ship. This grav band is impervious to ALL Fire. However the grav bands do not cover the sides, the bow and stern of the ship. Sidewall shielding can be used to protect the sides (these are normal screens, as per FT rules), but the bow and stern can not be protected whatsoever!!! Any hit in the bow and stern is tripled!!! (to offset this disadvantage, bow and stern shots are determined to be any weapon that fires a shot in a strait line from the bow/stern line of the target ship).

Since the drive field is impervious to fire, many ship captains will spin the ship to allow full firing of weapons and some protection against return fire. This is represented as a dice bonus based on ship size

Escorts                 d8
Cruisers                d6
Capital                 d4

a +1 dice shift up is also given if the ship presents the drive field towards enemy ships (flip the model onto its side to show which arc has the protection). A ship doing this may not fire beam weapons, and has a -1 dice shift down on missile systems (see below) to represent the difficulty of attacking in this mode. THIS DOES NOT PROTECT BOW/STERN SHOTS

If a drive node is hit, reduce the dice roll by 1 dice shift (ie escorts roll d6, cruisers d4 and capital ships can not roll, but may present his drive field for a d4 dice)

This manoeuvre is optional , but a desired survivability trait.

1.5 Weapons

The following weapons are used in HH combat. Most will be the same as FT, but some will be changed (like missiles). Note that FC controls are as per normal FT rules (including missiles).

1.5.1 Beam weapons

Beam weapons are the almost the same as FT, with a couple of exceptions.

Beam weapons can fire on the port and starboard sides, but only C batteries can be mounted on the bow and stern (thus c batteries can mount on all 4 arcs)

1.5.2 Missiles

Missiles are treated differently than in More Thrust. A missile battery is a launcher system fed from a magazine, thus have greater shots than n MT.

Missile batteries are like Beam batteries, with Class 3 (equivalent to a A battery), Class 2 (B Battery) and 1 (C battery). The battery number shows the number of missiles launched in a salvo. A missile battery can only bear in 1 direction, and only class 1 can be mounted on the bow and stern (depending on the size of the ship , Escorts can mount 1 bow and stern, Cruisers 2, and Capital ships 3).

Missile batteries feed from magazines, which take up 2 MASS and Cost 2 points. Each magazine can carry 20 missiles (Costing 2 point each for Xray laser missiles, and 1 point for Nuclear missiles). Again, escorts can have 1 magazine, cruisers 2 and capital ships 3.

Missiles have a range of 50". and are affected by PDAF/ADAF , stealth and ECM.

1.5.3 PDAF/ADAF

These are treated as point defence weapons against missiles, but treat them as per normal FT rules (with the hot roles determining missile kills not fighter kills).

1.5.4 Submunition packs.

These cost the same as in FT, but their payload are taken out of magazines, and have the same range as normal missiles. Escorts can deploy 1 pack at a time, cruisers 2 and capital ships 3.

1.5.5 ECM

ECM can be bought to protect from missiles.

ECM Class               MASS                    Cost            Dice

Basic                                  1                       2               d4
Standard                            2                       4               d6
Enhance                             3                       6               d8
Superior                             4                       8               d10

1.5.6 Stealth

Stealth can be bought to spoof detection by hiding ship sizes. They can be bought as drones or mounted on the ship.

At Stealth level 0, you can change details of the ship to hide nationality and class , but not size. Stealth 0 can not be mounted on drones.

Stealth 1 can make a ship look larger or smaller by 1 class (make escorts and capital ships look like cruisers, and make drones look like escorts.)

Stealth 2 can make a drone look like any ship class (Stealth 2 are generally not mounted on ships due to the cost.

Stealth systems take levle+1 mass on a ship , no matter if it a drone or ship system.

On a drone, the drones thrust level is as following : escorts -6, cruiser-4, capital ships-2

SYSTEM                  COST - Drone            COST - SHIP
Lv 0                            NA                      10
Lv1                             10                      20
Lv2                             20                      40

1.7 Weapons not used

Needle beams, Pulse Torpedoes, Nova cannons.

1.8 Installations, Space stations.

Since these items dont have drive fields, they can only use 360 degree sidewall shields (normal FT shielding) which makes them vulnerable. They use normal installation rules as per FT.

2.0 Combat

2.1 Beam combat.

To fire a beam weapon against a ship that is not spinning or presenting a drive field to the attacker is as normal. If one of the above is being used, an extra step is needed.

2.1.1. Attacker rolls Fire control die (d4,d6,d8,d10)
2.1.2 Defender rolls his "spin" die as per 1.4 (with dice bonus if presenting drive field)
2.1.3 If defender rolls higher equal or more than attacker, then attack fails.
2.1.4 If attacker rolls higher than the defender, roll damage dice as per normal (including shield penalties)

2.2 Missile combat

Missile combat is resolved as per following

2.2.1 Attacker launches salvo, noting missile used (by counters or models), removing that number from a magazine.
2.2.2 Defender rolls any valid PDAF and ADAF (using normal PDAF/ADAF rules)
2.2.3 Surviving missiles now attempt to break through ECM. Attacker rolls FC rating for each salvo, and Defender rolls ECM rating (as per 1.5.5) and "spin" dice (as per 1.4).
2.3.4 If defender rolls equal or higher on any dice, the attack fails.
2.3.5 If the attacker rolls higher than the defender, roll 1 damage dice per missile (including shield penalties).

2.3 Missile types

There are two missile types in HH, Xray lasers and nuclear. Xray missiles are treated as any other attack.

Nuclear missiles are devistaing when they hit, but since they must get closer to the enemy ship, they can get shot down easier.

on a 1,2 : No hit. 3,4 : 1 hit, 5 : 2 hits. 6 : 3 hits.

If a nuclear missile hits however, roll 2 dice per surviving missile.

3. Tactics

In the HH books, the formal tactic was the "Wall of Battle" a massed line of capital ships presenting their sides to the enemy and protecting their vulnerable bow/stern by pointing perpendicular to the enemy. These tend to be inconclusive , a formalised slugging match as it were. There has been some startling victories, but these depend on surprise or ambushes, or overwhelming numerical superiority.

Most ship captains aim for a "shot down the T" where a broadside is aimed down the bow/stern line of the ship. As this area has no protection whatsoever, this tends to be quite devastating. So a HH battle is more dependant on manoeuvring than FT.

Missiles are the king of the HH universe. Better range than beams, a ship can fire a considerable "broadside"

Darryl Adams dadams@tig.com.au