1. Army Composition

The Shack has three simple rules rules for army composition: Stair Step, Commanders and maximum Artillery/VTOL/Aero.
Those rules are in effect unless stated otherwise in the event-, era-/announcements-section, where they may be disabled, tweaked or supplemented.

AeroTech operations follow no composition/commander rules at all.

By Support Units we mean Infantry, Infantry Carriers (like Trucks and Hover APCs), Artillery carrying units (Mobile Long Toms, Snipers, Shadow Hawk Sabik, Thor), Coolant Trucks, Mobile HQs, VTOL and Aerotech brought for ground battles.

Stair Step - Armies must have no weight gaps between units of the same type. i.e.: If you bring 1 Assault and 1 Light 'Mech, you must also have a Medium and Heavy. Support Units are exempt from this rule and don't count towards total number of units.

Commanders - Set up to one commander per four units in your army, not counting Support Units. Commanders are always the units in the heaviest weight classes, no matter whether they are mech or vehicle.
Support Units may not be selected as commanders.
Commanders may not stay deliberately hidden for more than 2 turns at a time. Using less commanders than you may is normally not to your disadvantage.


Maximum Onboard Artillery/VTOLS/Aero-on-Ground - A maximum of one onboard artillery equiped unit and/or VTOL and/or Aero per full four units may be fielded. There is no limitation to offboard deployed artillery, but they must be configured for a distace of 270 hexes (ca. 16 Mapsheets).

EXAMPLES

Units in Italics are legal to be chosen as commanders, if they are in block, they must be selected as commanders in the example.

Army #1 - AS7-D (A), TDR-5SS (H), 2 WHM-6R (H) mechs and four J. Edgars Hovertanks (L); legal army with eight units, so commanders, one of which must be the Atlas.

Army #2 - BNC-5S (A), MAD-3R (H), DV-6M (M) mechs and Partisan Tank (A), SRM Carrier (H), Goblin Medium Tank; legal army with less than 8 units, so only one commander, which can be either the Partisan or the Banshee

Army #3 - AS7-D (A), MAD-3R (H), WSP-1A (L), STG-3R (L) mechs and two Goblin Mediums tanks (M); this army is ILLEGAL, as it misses one medium mech.

Army #4 - Mobile Long Tom (A), Manticore (H), Goblin (M), Goblin (M) and a Coolant Truck; the army is legal but may have no commanders, making it impossible to field in operations. This is because two of its units (Long Tom and Coolant Truck) aer support units and so do not count toward unit quantity.

Army #5 - WSP-1A, WSP-1A, STG-3R, STG-3R, Mobile Long Tom (A), Sniper (M); the army is legal as long as one of the artillery tubes deploys off-board. It has only one commander which must be one of the non-support units.

Army #6 - ENF-4R, WSP-1A, STG-3R, STG-3R, Sniper (M), Warrior H7 Helicopter (L, VTOL); the army is legal and has one commander. It has four units, so it may have one VTOL and one Sniper. If the player wants one more VTOL, he or she needs to add additional four units.

2. Special Cases


a) Minefields

If the operation assigns you mines, they must be placed at least 6 hexes away from the mapborder of the opponent's deployment zone. This rule is not in effect for deep or edge/center deployment.

Unless otherwise stated on the Mission, mines may not have more than 10 density.


Enemy deploys north, so mines can be placed in hexes XX07 and south.


b) Assault Dropping

This risky option enables players to put units in strategic positions at the risk of a free round of shooting for the enemy upon the assault dropping units.
It may be used in any Core Operation unless otherwise stated.
Only mechs and infantry can use assault drop.
For infantry, there are no restrictions.

For mechs, you can choose:

Use the whole map as drop zone

Restriction: only 50% of your mechs may use assault drop.


DZ is North. Two mechs (50%) used Standard Deploy, the other two dropped where they wanted.


More than 50% of your mechs drop

Restriction: only your half of the map may be used.


DZ is north. 3 Mechs (75%) dropped and were therefore restricted to the northern half of the map.


c) Support Units

APCs, Trucks and J-27 Ammo Carriers enable players to put move their infantry around faster, do not forget to click "load" before deploying then on the map to be able to start with your infantry already inside them.

Coolant Trucks can be used to cool down units, you need to click MODE twice on the flamer to change it to cool. Remember to change on the lobby options "Friendly Fire" to ON, so that you can target your own mechs with the truck.

Mobile HQs give the right for a +1 Initiative Advantage, which is set by means of clicking on the truck, then on configure unit, then setting it to "Commander Initiative +1" on the megamek lobby before starting a battle.

Aerospace on Ground are a huge help to any army. Due to a bug in the code though, players using aero MUST TELL THE OTHER PLAYER WHICH UNIT THEY ARE ATTACKING DURING FIRE PHASE, so that the opponent can wait for the aero to make the attack and then counterattack accordinngly.

Remaining support units
If only support units stay alive for more than three turns on one side, the other can claim victory (declare) if the game hasn't done automatically so.

Update - The core rules of the Shack have been strongly simplified. Read them again carefully.

Update - Section B, on commanders: no more than 2 turns hidden at a time. Players are also allowed to bring LESS commanders than they could, but that is rarely to their advantage.

Update - Support Units definition: ary is ary, no matter what is carrying it, be it a Mech, a vehicle with other stuff, or an ary only unit. This means that Chaparrals, Thors, Arrow IV carrying mechs like the Catapult and Anvil variants all count as support units.

In canon all ary carrying units are considered support most of the time. Also this keeps the rule simple and clear without any more questions.

Update - Change from ary off board distance from 306 to 270 hexes.

Amendment for aero in orbital and atmospherical operations ("pure aero"): Aero can by default fly off the map and return a few turns later to be redeployed, this feature is meant for "Out of Control" or "Random" fighters and ships or when you accidentally come in "too hot".
It is not meant to be used to go fishing for ini, saving crippled craft while still keeping them around for their BV or just to get a shot at repositioning units to better come up behind your enemy. Be fair and use it as what it is, a means as to not entirely loose the unit (as it once used to be).

Repeated and/or obviously intentional abuse of this is considered dragging out a game and may be considered reason for a forced surrender.

Just to clarify enex´s post:
Every time a fighter is leaving the area without being forced by "out of control" or something like that, it was your intention to do so! Use your maneuvres wisely and you will not have a problem.

Update VTOLs are part of the Support Units list, but that was not clear on the full text. Now it is.