The first ever solo/co-op campaign for BattleTech/Alpha Strike has finally dropped, and you bet your ass we ordered a copy the second our preferred vendor Aries Games & Miniatures had a stock notification sent out. And what a box it is. Might be the most popular box ever. Okay, I have no data to support that and I'm sure both the A Game of Armored Combat & Alpha Strike boxes (and probably Mercenaries) will be more long-term popular/profitable 'cause we've ordered multiples of each & will probably only order one Scouring Sands box (but then again, more Fulcrums & Thor IICs...) but I only exaggerate a little bit on how welcome an addition this is. Having spent a bunch of time playing solo/co-op Fallout Wasteland Warfare and appreciating their approach to an "AI" opponent via card responses to the current situation, I was eagerly awaiting this one from the moment it was announced.
The campaign is a clash between mercenaries (you) hired by the Alyina Mercantile League, a merchant-led splinter from the Clan Jade Falcons left when Malvina Hazen and the remains of CJF Epsilon Galaxy led by a Star Commander that doesn't understand the concept of "you ain't good enough, son." There are 22 scenarios total, though because it's a branching storyline depending on how each plays out, you won't run through all of these in one shot, adding to replayability. And, again, it's a solo/co-op experience so you can play it one way, then restart with one of your homies & have the campaign go entirely differently. Even if you have no homies (let me know, I'll come over, we got you), just switching up the composition of your forces can really change gameplay as well.
I won't belabor the contents or a full review of the box itself - there are a ton on YouTube already that go over everything in minute detail but I will say that everything in this box has been designed from the ground up to be a fantastic campaign experience. As far as the miniatures go, out of my 800+ metal IWMs, I didn't already own either of the aforementioned T'Bolt IIC or the Fulcrum, and them + all of the new versions of existing plastic minis are beautiful.
Because it's an "Alpha Strike Cooperative Campaign," you do need the Alpha Strike box set, as some of the scenarios do expect you to have the cardstock buildings, but if you have the AS: Commanders Edition rulebook and a bunch of Hex Tech terrain, you could probably get by. However, if you -don't- have the AS box set, you should probably get it. Two or three copies even. You need more Warhawk Cs and Wraiths in your life. Because ACES provides the enemy force, you'll want something to field against them and the AS box gives you two solid lances of Inner Sphere 'Mechs to be your merc force start, with a Clan Star that could also work great as OmniMech salvage. And then if you were to also order the Mercenaries box to cover your vehicle needs, plus another two lances of IS 'Mechs, and theeeeeen also order the A Game of Armored Combat box for two MORE lances of IS 'Mechs, then the Clan Invasion box for a good alt lance of Clan and THEN.... Okay, okay, you see where I'm going with this. Buy all the boxes, all the forcepacks, all the one offs like the Blood Asp, UrbanMech, and Savannah Masters that you can. Build battalions and clusters and regiments and galaxies. Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess.
Buy them allllll.
Going into this, I knew that I was planning on keeping the minis intact, both for the purpose of the campaign itself, and because I'm already rocking a Jade Falcon force in plastic that I love, so all of these were set to be painted in Omega Galaxy (interestingly, 2nd Falcon Dragoons of Omega Galaxy are the last force as of 3145 listed as being on Apostica) colors, instead of Epsilon per the cover art. And then once the Jade Falcon & Alyina Mercantile League forcepacks drop (predicated on the K-Kon list remaining valid, no indication it isn't), that'll round out to two full Trinaries w/one of the Stars slightly reinforced (the point of Fulcrums). Because the scenarios in ACES are designed around unit roles, and not necessarily the specific 'Mechs or vees, you do have some flexibility in changing up some of your pieces, like if you wanted to use that Clan Star from the Alpha Strike Box set alongside the forces in this box, hint hint nudge nudge.
There's a Highlander on the rulebook cover, for Kerensky's sake.
To oppose the Falcons in the first run through, I made sure my Northwind Highlanders were locked, cocked, and ready to rock. You start your campaign with 400pts of forces, have to take at least 8 units, and you absolutely want to cover all of your movement profiles & weight class bases. Who knows what the campaign will throw at you. Further, you can only have two copies of one chassis type, and they have to be different versions of said chassis, so I could take two Highlanders (the IIC doesn't count with them, Highlander name but Clantech versions are different chassis types) if I did the HGN-732 and HGN-733 but could not take two HGN-732s. I also wanted to test myself to just use the Alpha Strike cards that come with the boxes and force packs, so no running to the official Master Unit List to pick and choose "the best" assets. Three companies of 'Mechs and one company of vees gave me some really good choices to pick through, so here's where I started;
Highlander IIC (58)
GUN-3ERD Gunslinger (49)
KGC-0000 King Crab (44)
BL-7-KNT Black Knight (34)
PTR-6T Penetrator (39)
STY-4C Starslayer (36)
WTH-1S Whitworth (25)
JLP-BD Jackalope (37)
SPR-6F Spector (37)
H-7C Warrior AHC (20)
Total - 379 pts
21 pts leftover converted to 840 SP for my early campaign needs.
My force, and yes, I will get paint on those last four.
Note - it is a bit metagaming to know what I'll potentially be facing and attempt to go with choices that can counter this, like taking anti-missile systems in anticipation of dealing with the Bane, so if I were setting this up for co-op, I'd probably pick half of the opposing force and let me teammate(s) pick the other half so that we don't know exactly what might be coming, or slot in a few other 'Mechs of each role type and randomly roll for which to use when a scenario calls for that role. I'd also most likely let them pick half of our force composition so it's a lot more "fog of war." But to make this as in-universe as possible, I didn't necessarily try to build the most optimized force, just grabbed things that I felt like my interpretation of the Highlanders would use if sending close to a company to The Hinterlands w/o knowing what they're getting into. And I've wanted an excuse to field more vees, especially VTOLs.
Last step before finalizing the starting campaign force is "Named Pilots." Essentially these are going to be the warriors that you'll track improvements on. You need a minimum of two and can have up to six, but the recommendation is four. I thought that was an interesting thing 'cause why wouldn't you want the max? It's how the campaign flows though in that you -have- to give a portion of your SP earnings after each sortie to them so the more you have participating in each conflict, the less SP you'll have available for repairs and new unit purchases. This is balanced by them not being locked to a specific chassis, only a chassis type so your named MechWarriors can swap between any of those, any named vee pilot can move from tank to VTOL to hover no prob, etc.
Captain Lynn "Foxfire" Scarlett will be leading the company, most often deployed in the Highlander IIC.
Lieutenant Rodney "Claymore" MacGregor will default into the Black Knight.
Lieutenant Ezekiel "Deep Impact" Chavez is, obviously, crewing the Penetrator.
Lieutenant Chelle "Cryptid" Svensdottir hippity hopping across the way in the Jackalope.
Campaign kicks off with Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. Ope, that's Star Wars. Sortie 01: Meeting the Locals.
I'll follow up to let you know how it goes.
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