Tactical Challenge #8: Capture the Flagg

[evilauthor]

Greetings, Mech Commander!

It is the year 3020. You are the leader of a mercenary mech company hired to kidnap a young nobleman, one Rett Flagg, for purposes your employer didn't specify. He did however specify that he needs Flagg ALIVE and that he won't pay for a corpse (slightly beaten up is implied to be okay).

Sound easy? Well as it so happens, Rett Flagg is a mechwarrior, and fancies himself a good one (he isn't); while Flagg's gunnery skills are pretty good, his mech handling skills leave alot to be desired. He also has the tactical sense of cow; if he sees a target, he will immediately rush at it and unload as much firepower as he can on it until it's dead or another more threatening target makes itself known.

His lancemates are his effective body guards, which you've heard are veterans (they are). And they all have had time to get in their mechs as you were arriving. They'll do their best to protect the young snot.

The Battlefield:

3x3 standard BT field maps. Rolling maps are allowed if needed. Your forces start on the right side of the battlefield. Flagg's forces start on the left.

Your forces:
8 medium mechs, 4 light mechs. Canon designs that were available in 3020 only. You cannot have more than 2 of exact same variant of mech. For example, you can only have a max of two Locust 1Vs,and  having 3 Locust 1Vs is not permissible, but having 2 Locust 1Vs and a Locust 1M is allowed.
Your pilots are all gunnery 4, piloting 5.

The Opfor:
CP-10Z Cyclops piloted by Rett Flagg who has Gunnery 2, Piloting 6. Autoeject has been disabled.
Bodyguards are all Gunnery 3, Piloting 3. Their mechs are:
AWS-8Q Awesome
BLR-1G Battlemaster
STK-9F Stalker

Victory Conditions:
Render Flagg's mech incapable of combat without killing him. Once that's done, a mech with two functional hands needs to spend three consecutive and uninterupted rounds in an adjacent hex extracting Flagg from his mech. Taking hits from one of the body guard mechs would count as an interruption. The body guards will surrender if you manage a successful extraction.

If Flagg dies for any reason, you lose and don't get paid. No, the guards won't try to frag Flagg to prevent his capture.

...

So how do you go about winning this one?

[Scotty]

Not even close, unless you take out all three other 'Mechs first.  It's too easy to pop off a shot from halfway across the field with an LRM and interrupt the capture, especially since the capture is going to take three uninterrupted turns of not having all of your units able to shoot back, and the bodyguards do know what they're doing.

Not to mention you can't really load up on large numbers of big hole punchers or you risk killing the little jerk, and loading up on critseekers is even worse because he'll be unable to do anything but fall on himself until he dies if you knock him over.

With that in mind, even if I got to pick the size and composition of all of my 'Mechs, the objective is sensitive enough that I'd say there's a better than even chance of failing just in the course of the battle.

[evilauthor]

Not even close, unless you take out all three other 'Mechs first.  It's too easy to pop off a shot from halfway across the field with an LRM and interrupt the capture, especially since the capture is going to take three uninterrupted turns of not having all of your units able to shoot back, and the bodyguards do know what they're doing.

You don't need ALL your units to extract him from his mech. Just one. The other 11 can take actions as normal.

[Nikas_Zekeval]

In general, keep the fight at range.  A Griffin or two would be good for goading him from range.  The Awesome and Stalker could be left behind if the fight gets draw out enough.  LRMs are good for the primary weapon on Flagg's mech, damage with less chance of a penetrating hit that will kill the target.

Knocking him down, even a 20+ hit has about a 50/50 chances of knocking him on his butt, and from there it is a PSR seatbelt check.  Also would Flagg charge over rubbled terrain if that was the most direct route to his target?

[evilauthor]

Also would Flagg charge over rubbled terrain if that was the most direct route to his target?

Yes. Can you find some?

[Belisarius]

What about ramming with your 4x vehicles. Get something like a Savannah Master etc... the faster the better... line up a shot and ram the piss out of each of them. A tank ramming can only hit on the kick table, right? Then sanders ought to do a pretty good job finding the crits at the knees, knock all the machines down. Hopefully, Flagg's not stupid enough to kill himself with falls / ammo explosions.

[SCC]

Flagg should really be in the awesome
You want a kicky 'Mech, good way to disable Flagg without running the risk of killing him, once his 'Mech has lost a leg it will be easy to extract him

[Nikas_Zekeval]

Flagg should really be in the awesome
You want a kicky 'Mech, good way to disable Flagg without running the risk of killing him, once his 'Mech has lost a leg it will be easy to extract him

Being in the Awesome would break this, too much reach for a gunner that good you are trying to take alive.

The Cyclops has a LRM-10, if you can dance around the reach of the AC/20 till he gets knocked down (and fails enough seat belt checks) to be out for a while you can try to get him then.

Also any kind of terrain that forces PSRs is good too, which really depends on the maps you have.

I'd suggest playing a very mobile fight, which is why the Griffin is high on my list, deep LRM bins for knocking him around while trying to not dig too deep into the Cyclops, plus a PPC for trying to wear down the Battlemaster.  Slap Flagg, and try to drag the fight away from his slower bodyguards.

[Sir Chaos]

Get some fast mechs, as heavy as possible, to get into Flagg´s back and kick him. His Cyclops is too poorly armored to take very much of that. Preferably use jump-capable models - Griffin, Wolverine, Shadow Hawk, Dervish, Phoenix Hawk, the JJ-equipped Trebuchet variant, you know what I mean.

Generally, I´d concentrate on the bodyguards first, taking them out one by one - although, for "taking out", knocking out the gyro or or giving them a hip crit should be more than enough. Then, use Flagg´s impulsive nature to lure him out of the field of fire (or out of range) of his now near-stationary bodyguards. Once he is there, kick him, preferably from behind, until the Cyclops goes down. Not shooting at him presumably means that there is little torso damage, and very little chance that fall damage sets off any ammo.

All the falls and failed attempts to get up should give Flagg pilot hits, meaning he´ll black out sooner or later. One Mech now starts extracting Flagg, the others - in case he isn´t knocked out long enough - use aimed fire to (carefully, to avoid torso damage) shoot off his legs and arms. With no arms and legs he can´t stand and can´t prop up to fire, so even if he regains consciousness, he´s incapable of defending himself.

My TOE:
2x GRF-1N
2x DV-6M
2x PXH-1
2x PXH-1D
2x JVN-10N
2x FS9-A

[KingMagnusV]

I am late to this discussion, but I think you can use Firestarters and inferno ammo to attempt to overheat the Flagg's mech and shut it down with heat. Little damage is done. This only works if the mech has no ammo because you risk an explosion.

[Daryk]

Definitely string them out with rolling map boards... with his impulsive nature, you should be able to whittle down his bodyguards to just the Battlemaster with limited risk.  You'll need to off the Battlemaster quickly once you shift to engaging closely, so you're going to want WVR-6Ms and a couple of Hunchbacks that you deploy well back from your main force (several map boards).  Your long range harassers need deep ammo bins, so Griffins are in.  Dervishes are preferred over Trebuchets.  Your light 'mechs need to be fast and have hands.  Sir Chaos has it right with Fire Javelins, though I'd probably go with Mirages over stock Firestarters (mostly for the hands).

[Force of Nature]

In general, keep the fight at range.

The Opfor all have better gunnery and piloting. All of the players mechs are 4/5 gunnery/piloting. Staying at range is NOT the way to win this fight. This is a fight where the player has the numbers to swarm the Opfor and get in their face. Furthermore, the player has to get close to the target mech to extract the pilot.

That being said, here are my mech selections:

2x Hunchback 4P 4/6 move
2x Hunchback 4G 4/6 move
2x Trebuchet 5S  5/8 move Keep these as secondary threats to the Hunchbacks due to their light armor, but heavy firepower.
2x Wolverine 6M 5/8 move
2x Wolfhound 1B 6/9 move My personal Fav light mech with the 4th Med. Las. moved forward.
2x Jenner 7D 7/11 move

[Daryk]

7D Jenners?  Why not 7Fs?  Or Mirages for the hands?

[Force of Nature]

2x Jenner 7Fs would work for me also. Good point.