These rules represent a collection of rules alternatives or extensions which apply to Close Combat in Stargrunt. They are collected here for layout reasons, rather than because they are necessarily mutually interdependent. Choose what you like (if any...) and omit what you don't. Caveat emptor.

In Stargrunt, one of the most jarring things that falls out of the close combat resolution (after you have run a few games), is the fact that a single defender with a good roll can annihilate a whole large group of attackers. If the roll is good enough, the attackers do not even need to bother rolling. Of course, this works in reverse in that an attacker can pulverize a large group of lower quality defenders. The problem with this method of resolution is that it makes relative odds almost irrelevant once actual fighting has begun.

Some will argue that Stargrunt close combat does not equate to hand-to-hand combat, but rather to a close range firefight and an exchange of grenades. It does seem likely that modern HTH will not lead to direct man-to-man fighting with knives and rifle butts very often (perhaps moreso in some SciFi genres such as WH40K^TM) but even so, numbers should have an accounting. If an elite commando is swarmed by ten submachinegun armed green troops, the odds of him getting killed (along with a bunch of the green troops) should still be respectable. Volume of fire will matter and at close range, troop quality differences are much less apparent. However, in the current system, if our ellite troop rolls 7-12 (a 50% chance on his d12), then the green soldiers just die. No need to roll. That is both less-than-fun and probably a little less-than-realistic. What can be done?

Hereafter you will find a small table that illustrates my suggested solution. It factors in odds by applying die shifts to the outnumbered side. In order to avoid the opposite end of the spectrum (where 10 green soldiers always kill our elite SF soldier and walk away laughing) and in order to avoid the dictatorship-of-the-masses this would spawn, I've intentionally capped the advantage you can receive from having figure advantage at two die shifts. This basically implies that numbers count to a certain point and beyond that troops tend to get in each others' way and that grenades and automatic weapons serve to limit the advantage of numbers. But they do matter.

After pairing off attackers and defenders, apply the effects of the chart below to the outnumbered side in each pairing. Then roll the modified close combat dice and resolve the results as normal for any close combat.