Scenario playtesting

o/

The following is a sorta bat rep for a scenario game I came up with aways back. This was it's first run and predictably, we found several issues with it, but I'll get to those in a bit. Firstly here is the back story and scenario, with the bat rep to follow, and then thoughts/needed revisions at the end. Hope you enjoy!

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It’s 3028, the 4th Succession war is just ramping up into full swing, and the Dame Catherine Humphreys, leader of the Duchy of Andurien declares war on the treacherous Capellan Confederation due to an 'unprovoked' attack. The Buffet Assault Group, is deployed to assist the 4th Defenders of Andurien in their assault on Scarborough…

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It has been a long day of fire support duties. The TBAGers have spent the past 12 hours, perched atop a ridge, pounding the Capellan defenders back into the stone age. Their ceaseless LRM strikes only interrupted by the frequent need to reload. However after hours of firing, their ammo hoppers (and the accompanying train of Andurien ammo carriers) have all run dry. Wearily, the TBAGers pull back to the rear for a much needed night’s rest. Even their CO Catalina is exhausted, spending the day endlessly patrolling for flanking attacks and escorting the ammo carriers heading both to and from their position against attack. 

As the day draws to a close and the evening fog rolls in, the TBAGers finally have the space port in sight, their barracks lay just beyond. Their minds dulled with fatigue they let their guard down as the Anduriens have a 2nd line garrison lance protecting the town from danger. With the last few straggling ammo carriers in tow, the TBAGers only need to pass thru town before they can enjoy some warm food, hot showers and blessed sleep…

The Scenario:

Eight thousand points per side, 4th Succession War (tech level 1). 

The defender’s Andurien lance and infantry platoon as well as my opponent's forces deploy as per the norm, and my opponent has the initiative for the first two turns as the rookie Andurien lance is thrown into disarray by this ‘sudden ambush behind the lines’. 

At the beginning of turn 2 the TBAGer mechs arrive on their table edge and wearily join the fray. Exhausted from a long day, their P/G skills are awful and all of their LRM hoppers are empty. They may not run in the turn they arrive since the inexperienced Anduriens were taken by surprise and neglected to warn them. Likewise the din of distant battles and the foggy conditions masked this fight from the tired mercenaries. The ammo carriers arrive on turn 3 and also may not run in the turn they arrive. 

The dense evening fog adds a +1 to hit modifier for all shooting rolls at all ranges. Physical combat rolls are unaffected.

In order to win, more than half of the TBAGer mechs and ammo carriers (I only have 2 ammo carriers) need to escape off of the board via the enemy board edge within 6 turns. The Anduriens DO NOT need to escape the board, however the Andurien mechs will fall back and retreat off of their table edge if they start taking internal damage. If the infantry platoon falls to half strength, the remainder will scatter into buildings/cover and be removed from the board.

The Buffet Assault Group in back were all quite tired 5/6 pilots with the 2 ammo carriers having 5/5 crews. The Anduriens in front were all 4/5 pilots, with 3/- Frogmen infantry. The three Urbies were identified as Light Pole, Mini-Bus Shortbus, and Emoji.

The battlefield. Note Felis Gigantus lurking off to the side...

Yes, I will make several strolls thru the middle of your game, and yes I will plop down right in the middle of it too!

Turn one. Due to range, fog and movement, my Anduriens make no shots. Screech's Capellans fire a few times, but no hits are landed. 

Turn 2 and the Tbagers arrive, and note the lonnnnnnng road ahead of them....

Multiple modifiers or not, they can't hit me if there's a water tank in the way!

Turn 3 the ammo carriers arrive, and prepare for their high speed dash across the table. 

Here at the top of turn 3, we realized my assault mechs had no possible chance of making it off of the board. So we added 2 turns to the game. Catalina pulled out of line in her Stalker to provide covering fire to her troops whom she ordered to make a run for it! Meanwhile Emoji, the infantry, and the Capellan scouts start brawling at point blank range. The infantry managed a Commando head shot amidst their little blast of buckshot, much to Screech's annoyance.

My lone gunnery highlight of the game came when 'shortbus' put an AC-10 slug into the head of Screech's Awesome. Sadly there was no crit made. Truth be told, there were quite a few head shots in the game, though this was the only one to penetrate anybody's armor in that location.

An Awesome disobeys orders and peels off to stand and fight. Three 'big guys' running and forgoing all shooting (paltry as it was) is kinda boring to play. Speaking of, 3 of the 4 Tbager mechs would end the game with minimal damage, and near all of it to their rear armor. 

...aaaand its a free-for-all at this point. Damaged urbies were making fighting retreats (albeit slowly), Assaults were running (also but not quite as slowly), the longbow narrowly passed it's piloting check to not fall whilst turning at a run on pavement and in the back field, one of the APCs made an unsuccessful MG strafing run on an enemy Catapult. 

At the bottom of turn 6 we called the game due to the late hour. 

The Awesome that stayed behind took a pounding this last round and would end the game on it's back, the only mech to fail a piloting roll all game! My side's 'hero-mech' title ought to go to my Andurien SHD-1R. It took an absolute ponding, and never once fell despite losing almost all of it's armor from the waist up!

The final, parting shot.

Okay so, thoughts?

Well first of all, success was impossible as I'd handicapped my forces too much. Thus the game essentially ended as a draw when we called it due to time. Had we gone another turn, the APCs would have exited the board, though at the minimum the Longbow and the one Awesome would have needed another 2 turns to exit as well. No units on either side were lost, though mine were sporting heavier damage than his mechs.

I had thought that a straight run across the board would be too easy. Perhaps had we been using a standard mapsheet it would have been. However mine is a 36"x36" map, meaning there was literally no way my lumbering assault mechs could make it in 6 turns! We realized this early on and revised it to 8 turns, but even then 10 might be more realistic, that or use faster mechs. However this was kinda tailored to my Tbagers so the latter isn't much of an option. Placing the Şoarece in the middle of the intersection as a roadblock didn't help matters either. 

The fog needs to go! Exhausted 5/6 pilots, running, and shooting at moving targets (at range) are all but impossible to hit. Adding in a further +1 meant more often than not, I needed a 13 or 14 to-hit roll on 2D6! Yeah, not happening. Indeed, all game my lowest to-hit number was a 7, however the vast majority were 10+ rolls, and box cars were kinda the norm.

Movement: Screech suggested my units be allowed to run on the turns they arrived. Tired or not, mechwarriors still react quickly to the situation and those few extra hexes of movement were sorely needed!

Deployment: He also suggested deploying his force on a flank. It would have been too easy to overload one side or the other, namely on the road itself to all but eliminate any hopes of escape from the outset. It was a conscious decision on his part not to do so.

Still, it was a fun time and we'll give this another go (with revisions) in the future.