Escort the Spy

 o/

I need to get a Mobile HQ mini so my games don't need to keep using this god-awful 'Command brick truck' model. 

I played the next mission in the 3rd leg of our ongoing campaign this past Thursday. This one ran more or less on rails with limited set piece actions over the course of the first half dozen turns. We were told not to make a list until we were told of the scenario rules/situation once we got there. To save time, I showed up with 9 premade lists from my campaign company and chose what I thought would be the best one. 

I started off with a wedge 'pursuing' the truck, with my locust flanking out at long range. Unfortunatly, terrain and the multitude of AC2s and the indirect firing LRM carrier would make mince meat out of it!

Shadowstar was playing the OpFor, he suffered thru this mission the week prior.

This post is as much a rant as it is a bat rep. Basically my forces were 'pursing' the fugly command truck to a fortified building. In said truck was a mole whole would go in, collect the spy and then make a run for it back along said road (5 hexes movement, no bonus for pavement) hoping to survive where the OpFor would then target the truck over all else. 

The Catapult sat back and used the last of it's ammo (from the prior mision) up taking down AC-2s on the tower. Unfortunately, the cluster chart meant you had to more or less fire 2 LRM launchers or large lasers (from the Stalker) to guarantee a cannon kill. 

Just as the Bulldog goes up in flames, a pair of SRM turrets pop up and replace it. If the popup turrets brings to mind the Solaris debacle, yeah well, the same guys are runing this leg of the campaign.

Prior to the esceape, the OpFor would be defending what they thought was a friendly vehicle from my forces. I took my commander's STK-4N, my CPLT-C1 from the previous mission which was down to 3 volleys of LRM ammo per launcher My intent was to have it running & jumping with lasers so was fine with that given the map, a LCT-1Vb and an HBK-4J. 

Struggling to remain upright due to a gryro and foot hit, and a multitude of other damage from slogging thru hellish terrain and high angled enemy fire, the Royal Locust lasered the LRM carrier to death before fleeing the board with 1 point of remaining CT structure. 

Something like 2-3 turns were spent pounding on tanks and turrets (and vice versa) while waiting for the Mole to fill out the government-like release forms in triplicate. By this point my Stalker's side torsos were so thin that I had dumped all of it's almost 3 full tons of remaining ammo, turning it into a laser boat. 

I was facing a tower with 2 turrets armed with 4 AC-2s each, 10HP per gun to be targeted and destroyed individually (really?). On said tower was also a spotter, and all were high enough to not have to suffer any terrain penalties. Also a pair of std. Scorpion light tanks, a std. Bulldog medium tank (proxied with a goblin) and an LRM carrier. There where no bonuses for pavement on the road and the scenario required a PSR to leave the road at any speed. Additionally, there was a 3MP cost to enter/exit water (6 to cross!) no MP penalties to move in water aside from no running. and once the spy was on the run, a fresh, randomly rolled for OpFor lance would appear 1 mech at a time per turn to take out the spy's truck. 

My mission: destroy everything and make sure the spy & mole escape in the truck. A cakewalk right? If you haven't figured it out from the preceeding pics and captions, it was anything but. 

Once the truck left, the Hunchback and stalker dropped the building in 1 turn, taking its 2 remaining AC-2s with it. Oh an look, the first randomly rolled for OpFor mech arrives, a Guillotine with a 3/3 pilot. Yay, that shooting exclusively at a box with 40 HP sounds fair. 

Followed by a Crab the next turn, I think the truck was down tot 20ish HP by this point, while I was pounding the Guillotine.

Next a Whitworth arrives and the Stalker punishes it for doing so, unfortunately the reversed arms' medium lasers all missed the Crab and it's rear armor. Meanwhile the still in the water Hunchback alpha strikes hitting the whitworth with it's 1 remining LRM and the Gullotine with everything else. In return the Gillotine kicks it in the chest as it was 1 level higher. Technically Shadowstar rolled a headshot, but knowing it would kill my pilot (who had already taken a head hit) he insisted on rerolling it to prevent me from losing a pilot in what he felt was an unfair scenario.

1-turn from the board's edge with 2 remaining hit points...

What? It blew up? The hell you say! The spy & mole managed to clamber out of the wreck after I rolled for them. With the loss of the truck aside, I accomplished all objectives. The cost of victory however...

Okay, so all objectives accomplished basically, I took out all of the guns, tanks, the tower, and damaged the new lance of mechs somewhat. I haven't said to much on damage suffered in this meat grinder. It was extensive, behold:

If this mech does indeed used in part 2, I am dumping its ammo beforehand out of self preservation. Hell, it only has 1 functional LRM-10 anyways.

Were it not for the gyro hit, I would be fine with this one fighting on as is. 

1 point of CT internal structure holding it together and I am supposed to use this? Sure. I should have left it on the board to die.

The part 2 mission is supposed to be some sort of 'pursuit' mission by the OpFor lance. Thinking it will be a rearguard action, and as slow as a Stalker is on the best of days, my CO may try and sacrifice herself while the other mechs escape. 

Now, I have no issue with feeding mechs into the proverbial woodchipper on a weekly basis as you all know. What I take issue with is an overly complicated set up that (as Digger put it) 'railroads you into slogging thru a meatgrinder of a mission' (again, not really unhappy with this, but..). We now need to use the same surviving mechs (I didn't lose any, Digger lost 2), without any repairs for a part 2 pursuit mission (whatever the fuck that means) which follows this one. Sure, the enemy mechs will be in the same boat, but they came on late (and in my game, the Jackalpoe didn't even make it on the board), so their damage is minimal. Well, Guillotine aside, I did beat that one up pretty good. 

Now, at the beginning of this track of the campaign, all mechs were transported to the planet of this campaign after being stuck with the same 4 mechs which caused some discontent in the previous leg, especially if casualties were suffered. So rather than grab some of the 7 pristine mechs I have on site, I need to use these 4, where the Locust is held together with prayers, 3 of the 4 have gyro hits, and all have considerable damage? 

What the actual fuck? 

There has been a lot of grumbling and negative feedback. Funnily enough, I've played the current organizer, and he gets really pissed when his mechs take heavy damage, so I have to wonder if this is all out of some sort of spite. He's a generally nice guy, so don't want to think that, but it's hard to tell at this point.

Nobody who had played thru this scenario has anything good to say about it really for one reason or the other (and several of us won), and one player who is new to the game isn't sure he wants to continue playing if this is how it is always going to be. Seriously guys, what did you learn from the Solaris feedback? 

Notta fucking thing by the looks of it.