DropShip Down!

Things had been going so smoothly, too, the Leftenant thought to himself. In a daring raiding action, two lances of Federated Suns MechWarriors had captured an unguarded Clan Ghost Bear Overlord-class DropShip as the Bears were occupied fighting forces from Clan Wolf. Not the original target of the raid, the thought of taking such a prize was in and of itself worth the risk, but that worth increased exponentially when the Leftenant's team found the encrypted Clan Watch files. Whilst none of the members had the cryptology skills to crack the files, Davion MIIO would do so in time.

Unfortunately, neither the Bears nor the Wolves were willing to let the DropShip go so easily. As they began to lift off, both forces launched attacks to bring the Overlord down.

"Incoming!" The Leftenant's second in command called in, but with only enough time for five of the eight MechWarriors to button back up in their cockpits.

As the ship headed towards the rocky coast of one of the planet's many archipelago formations, the Leftenant prepared himself for a tough fight. If we can just hold on, he mused, our extraction team will tip the scales too far in our favor for the Clans to stop us.

So, Saturday night BattleTech was a bit of a hit & miss for us this past weekend. We had five potential players, but it ended up just being the three of us in the mood to go for a game. Because BTech isn't really written for uneven numbers of players, or honestly for more than two sides, we had to do some quick winging of it. We decided to do an extraction scenario, where one force would have to retrieve an object and then retreat off of their map edge. Which then turned into, what if a crashed DropShip contained some valuable intel, and one of the three forces had to protect it from the other two, which are also competing against one another? As usual, we diced off for who would be the DropShip/s protectors. That role fell to Sean, who once again was using the Khaos Chevaliers as a stand in Federated Suns forces. That left Jesse and the Ghost Bears & me with the Wolves to oppose him. We came up with the Feddies fielding 150% of each individual Clan, or roughly 75% of the total opposing force. Jesse and I went with 300 tons, though he selected a total of four at 290 - a Behemoth/Stone Rhino, Gladiator/Executioner, Grizzly, and Solitaire. My 300 consisted of a Tomahawk, Masakari/Warhawk, Rifleman IIC, and an Uratha. That gave Sean 450 tons, for his five 'Mech team - Fafnir, Mad Cat Mk II, Zeus, BattleMaster, and an Imp. We set up a series of island mapsheets. Sorry to the GBs, as most the photos are from the Wolves' side of the field.

The mission was to reach the DropShip (represented by the Pinkie Pie My Little Pony on the map) and retrieve a memory core. Then, the core needed to be escorted off the map. As an added bonus, on the tenth turn, Sean had to roll for reinforcements. On a six, they came in and wiped the floor with the Clans. Turn eleven, it would have been a five or six. Turn twelve, four, five, or six etc. A partial victory would go to Sean if his forces survived, total if he destroyed everyone or his reinforcements made it in. Partial victory to any force that retrieved the core, total victory if they made it off the field with it. Total defeat in any other case.

Turn 0, Jesse and I rolled for map edge. I deployed north through the islands, he deployed south through the peninsula. (South end contained the beach house the Wolves won in a Trial of Possession against the 4th Skye Rangers a few years ago, fun fact) Sean did some impromptu scatter rolls (1 or 4 north, 2 or 5 east, 3 or 6 south) for each 'Mech (1-6 for which hex away from the DropShip it started in) to begin set up. Then Jesse and I alternated entering the field after Sean completed. I led in with my Warhawk and planned on using my 7/11/7 Uratha for the recovery. Jesse had his Solitaire but the lack of jump jets on it looked like a problem to me.

Turn 1 went terrible for Jesse. Whilst we were really just moving up to approach, Sean had positioned himself for line of sight. One really lucky 10 pt ER PPC hit, a snake eyes (2) on location, two crits rolled, both hit the gyro = Gladiator/Executioner on the ground.

Turns 2, 3, 4 were mostly movement and opportunity shots. You can see the lines of advancement as we were closing in on the target. My Uratha was bold, counting on a highish TN to protect his lack of substantial armor.

Turn 5 is where it went down. The Uratha made it to the DropShip. We had to pull Pinkie Pie out of the way and use a rubble tile from the hard board city map set to lay out the size the Overlord occupied. The silver Lyran Alliance die represents the core. The Wolves were well on their way to at least a partial victory, provided the Uratha survived...

Turn 6, which it did, long enough to high dive into the deep end of the pool! The Bears needed to reevaluate their Feddie targets, moving onto the Wolf position to steal the core. The Wolves, meanwhile, used their heavier firepower to push the Feddies back. The Fafnir, untouched, engages the Rifleman IIC. With pure luck, firing only two Heavy Large Lasers scores one hit... To the head! 16 pts and the MechWarrior is killed in action. It basically swung wide here. My Tomahawk kills the Feddie Zeus as well, but loses a leg in the process.

Turn 7, 8 saw the Wolves lose their Warhawk, but by that point, the Uratha was halfway down the map, with the Solitaire doing everything it could to stop it. Then, Jesse lost initiative and had to move first, resulting in a bad guess at the Uratha's next stopping point. With the Solitaire showing rear armor, and the Uratha having two Heavy Medium Lasers...

Endgame, the Solitaire falls and with it, the only chance of any 'Mech on the field stopping the core from being delivered into Wolf hands. Jesse's Stone Rhino shut itself down from massive overheating and was about to be made into swiss cheese by Sean's three 'Mech team. The Tomahawk and Gladiator/Executioner wouldn't be getting back up again any time soon. Only turn 9, but we let Sean roll for reinforcements anyway, and he didn't make it. The day belonged to the Wolves and it was glorious.

Great game for all three of us. Jesse is really getting all of the rules down hard and Sean proves once again that his knowledge of the game rivals my own. In the future, we'll probably end up doing more of these lopsided objective games because this was a hell of a lot of fun, until 330 am.

Couple from the Ghost Bear side.


~Fen

Waterly Memorial/Sixth of June 2015 Recap

Any BattleTech player who has kept up with the game post-Clan Invasion knows all about the Word of Blake, and most likely knows why the Sixth of June is an important date in the fictional universe. For those that don't;

Tukayyid. A backwater Rasalhague world that saw the initial end of the Clan's invasion of the Inner Sphere. ComStar spent its ComGuard forces in an all or nothing fight against the combined might of the invaders, winning a 15 year peace, in 3052. Seeking to capitalize on this, Primus Myndo Waterly ordered mercenary forces and ComGuard units across the Inner Sphere, military might sent to garrison HyperPulse Generator stations on countless worlds, into action to shut down communication and by default, make ComStar the de facto ruler of the Sphere. Unfortunately for her, most of the Guard disobeyed the order and the so-called Operation: Scorpion failed. Precentor-Martial Anastasius Focht and Precentor Dieron Sharilar Mori assassinated Waterly, on the Sixth of June, 3052. They then announced a Reformation based on the writings of Jerome Blake that Focht "miraculously" found on Terra. Waterly loyalists, including much of ComStar ROM (intelligence branch) fled Terra and other postings, meeting up on Gibson in the Free World's League, to form the Word of Blake. Later, the Word's Precentor-Martial, Trent Arian, was also assassinated on the Sixth of June, and replaced by Cameron St-Jamais, a member of the Word's subgroup... the Sixth of June.


See where we're going here?

(Prior to the BT, we played a bunch of games of Magic and all hung out. That part was cool but unrelated.)

So we set up a gaming night with the express goal to get in as many games as possible. Utilizing two tables, we set up four separate mapsheets for players to one on one each other with teams of three 'Mechs @ 200 tons, minus five tons per Clan 'Mech. We had eleven different three-'Mech teams to chose from, with a 12 (the Word of Blake force) being picked after people arrived. My initial goal was to let people match up as they wanted to and pick their forces and whatnot from the prebuilt group. Things got a little crazy because of the amount of people that arrived vs how many were playing and we ran into our first snag - only myself and Sean are versed in the game well enough that we don't need any (or much) rule double checking and stuff. Because we had an odd number of people, I planned on sitting out the first round. So we ended up with Sean teaching Brett - Khaos Chevaliers vs Blood Spirit Iota Galaxy; Rachel and Tiffy - Word's Light of Mankind vs Marik's 19th Marik Militia; Jesse and Jer - Ghost Bear Tau Galaxy vs 26th Royal Tyran Mechanized. I was bouncing around making sure everyone had their 'Mechs, printing out record sheets if need be, and taking care of the other guests.

Then Rachel needed me to take over for her. It was getting kind of loud and we had people that wanted to play video games, so she went over onto that stuff, and I squared off with Tiffy. There was frustration because I was focusing on that game, and answering questions from the other table, as well as from Jesse/Jer's game. But we got through them all, more or less. Tiffy conceded her game to me as the amount of background noise was getting to be too much. Jer and Jesse had a brutal slugfest that saw, in the end, two headshot deaths and one CT death on Jer's side vs no losses for Jesse. The short range brutality was epic. Over on table two, Sean finally took down Brett, proving that experience definitely makes up for technology.

Once the initial games were done, almost everyone drifted to do something else. Sean and I matched up, however, Jade Falcons vs Wolves. It was a savage, three turn win for me, as I decapitated one 'Mech and blew through the CT of another (like three CT shots in a row) to push him into a concession. Then we started one more, Draconis Combine vs Kuroi Kaze that we "paused," took position pictures of, and will be finishing this weekend. It was into move-countermove by the time we stopped playing, at 3am.

All in all, it was a great night and a great time and I'm glad so many members of the 357th were there in one place. However, next time, rather than do individual games, we'll probably lower the total number of people over here to just the one's playing & match them into one or two team games. Seems like it would be easier for everyone to focus.

Nooooow, the pictures. These aren't in my normal turn to turn order but I also didn't take most of them. They give a good feel for what was up though.

Trial of Possession, of Revenge, and of High Stakes

Once again, I have to apologize for the lack of updates. Unfortunately, much of what we've been doing has been posted on Facebook or Instagram, so it hasn't made it over here in a bit. To sum up a couple of our past games, though.

We had some serious Clan ruckus to start. A "team" four way Trial of Possession for a world on Clan Wolf's Periphery border. Jesse had his Ghost Bears in full gear, with a Stone Rhino, Wyvern IIC, and Mad Dog. Sean also brought a Stone Rhino, as well as a Nova and Hunchback IIC. Guest player Jen had 'Mech selection help from Sean, and ended up with a Turkina, a Cauldron-Born, and...something small. I actually don't remember what her third 'Mech was, as it died quickly. I'll get to that in a moment. I, of course, represented Clan Wolf well, with a Dire Wolf, Blood Reaper, and Hellion.

The initial plan was to divide into two sides - Wolf/Bear vs Falcon/Spirit. What we actually decided on once 'Mechs hit the field is that the winner of the Bear vs Blood Spirit fight would match with the winner of the Wolf vs Jade Falcon scrap. Then, to make it even more interesting, we added a house rule - lose a 'Mech, take a Jagerbomb. Now, I'm sure I don't have to tell anyone out there how bad an idea it is to mix drinking with BattleTech, especially when we were all drinking a bit, but it's a bad idea. As in, several hours to play three turns bad.

So what happened here is that on the Spirit/Bear side, a super lucky shot from Jesse's Stone Rhino head capped Sean's Stone Rhino, and then later took down his Nova. Whilst not losing a 'Mech. Which put the Hunchback IIC at a disadvantage, especially with blowing through UAC/20 rounds like hot cakes.

On the Wolf/Falcon end, the smallest Falcon 'Mech died on turn one, the Cauldron-Born died on turn three, the Turkina couldn't hit the Hellion but did damage the Dire Wolf a lot.

Because we were all getting soused (Jesse and Sean especially), we called it with a Ghost Wolf win over the Blood Falcon forces.

However, to paraphrase a quote from Patlabor 2, in the aftermath of an unjust peace lay the seeds for the next war...

So then we came to the Trial of Freebirthasskicking, aka Sean is really upset that Jesse beat him so badly that he wanted a rematch. And no teams this time to blame it on. I called total weight. Unfortunately, we had an unforeseen complication - one of Jesse's friends from Minnesota planned on surprising him by being here waiting. In his excitement, he ended up selecting far underweight and as the defender, he also chose the maps (which gave Sean the choice of map edge), which also did not end up in his favor.

Ghost Bears rocked the Stone Rhino, the Mad Dog, Solitaire, and Bear Cub. Blood Spirits brought a Kodiak, Timber Wolf, and a pair of Crimson Langurs. You see the problem here already?

The banter between the guys and our guest made the game pretty light hearted, but the Bears faced a daunting uphill battle against a seasoned veteran of multiple campaigns and pick up games.

Then it went downhill fast...

At which point Jesse tried self immolation to gather his warrior spirit...

But it did not help..

Jesse's Mad Dog takes three shots from Sean's Kodiak - two slugs of LB 20X and a medium laser all in the CT. Lots of boom. Bears call it being basically down two 'Mechs ('Dog and Solitaire). Sean, being who he is, took no pleasure from the win and is willing to give Jesse a rematch when he can focus more on the game. And also at a point where I pick the mapsheets and ensure both sides are matching tonnage. Just in case.

Now, part of the reason that updates have been so slow is that we'd planned on also starting a D&D chronicle, which we're still building characters for, and then I got back into playing Magic with Rachel, and also with Tiffy and Jer at some point, in exchange for the two of them playing more BattleTech. And with my upcoming marriage & family time stuff, my gaming time has severely been curtailed for right now. Look for more updates to be coming in the near future doh!