Fellow forumite Thorvidar and I have wanted to see more Alpha Strike in our local gaming scene and put some metal where our mouths are and got out and played a game. We're both fairly new to the format.. we've both read the books and threads on this forum but have had precious little actual playing experience. I proposed a 350 point game, thinking it would be big enough for a company each but few enough points to make us work at it. We would be using the variable damage and lance construction optional rules.
My force is a hypothetical 1st Robinson Military District Regulars detachment. Yeah, I have high hopes for Kurita's prospects in the coming years after 3145. I admit it... Anyway my force broke down as:
Command Lance: Shiro-1V (upgraded to 3 skill), Wolf Trap-2x "Bear Trap", Rokurokubi-4K, Wight-3SC
Pilot SPAs: Tactical Genius (Shiro), Combat Intuition (Wolf Trap), Antagonizer (Rokurokubi)
Fire Lance: Dragon II-4K, Capatpult-K2, Mauler-1R, Panther-10KA
Pilot SPAs: The Catapult and Mauler always got Sniper. When I remembered to assign it.
Recon Lance: Owens-1A, Hitman-1, Rokurokubi-4T, Jenner-K
Pilot SPAs: Owens, Hitman, Rokurokubi all got Maneuver Ace. Whole lance got Forward Observer.
Thorvidar’s Mercenary Company also included a Command Lance and Recon Lance, but his unit was rounded out by a Pursuit Lance. To the best of my memory his breakdown was:
Command Lance: Hauptmann, Daishi, Axeman, Mad Cat (I boggled at this lance.. I was shocked he got so much meat in his 350 point force) SPAs: His Assaults both got Multi-tasker.
Recon Lance: Cicada, Spider, Panther, something else (a Clint maybe?)
Pursuit Lance: Jenner, Cougar, Assassin (skill 3), Commando?
The Battlefield:
Thorvidar brought some of those spiffy print-n-paste buildings he got online. A symmetrical campus of 6 buildings was in the center of the board, with some sparse woods on each of our home sides and an available pool of water for overheating in off on the edge of the board.
Deployment:
My Fire Lance and Recon Lance ended up on my right flank, and my Command Lance on my center with an exposed left flank. His Command Lance was opposite my right flank, and his Recon and Pursuit lances were spread out over his center and my open left side.
Round 1:
My right flank was set up early to be decisive in the endgame.. his
assault command lance wants push towards my firing line through a bottleneck.
However in the early game the skirmishing in the center and on my left flank saw the most action. Round one saw the forces closing in and using buildings to block most LOS. Unfortunately my Shiro was too tall to hide behind the building and he caught some damage. On the upside my Dragon II’s artillery was spot on and landed directly amidst his huddling light mechs of his Pursuit Lance. Thanks, Forward Observer SPA!
Round 2: (unfortunately my picture taking ability went down proportionately to my rising excitement with the game)
A game of cat and mouse began to develop on my right flank: My speedy recon mechs wanted to get out and take back shots on his Command Lance, but he won initiative this round. Despite using my Dragon II as an initiative sink, I couldn’t bring my Roku, Hitman, and Owens out to play with his Hauptmann, Daishi, Axeman, and Mad Cat. They sensibly hid, leaving my sniper Fire Lance to blaze away at those mechs instead. I provided additional heat with more artillery. The Hauptmann and Daishi both ate an Arrow IV missile, but the damage was more psychological than anything.
I flowed my center towards the left to provide a welcome for his wave of speedy lights coming in to play me with a pincer. Unfortunately the engagement would take place in open ground that featured a cone of death that provided his assaults with open LOS from the far side of the engagement.. I had to stay out of that!
I evened up the dogfight a bit by triggering my Wolf Trap’s Combat Intuition: he moved around behind a blitzing Cicada and one-shotted the guy with a surprise backstab during the movement phase. His super fast spider got clear behind my center, but I ran my Command Lance Roku over to him and threatened him.. he failed his Antagonizer check and I felt his future movements would be suitably controlled.
In the center, his Jenner spearheaded a probe into my gap between my two flanks. That Jenner put his back to the building to deny me a back shot.. so I gave myself back the backshot by jumping up onto the building! I figured my Jenner would be lit up like a Christmas tree, but hoped I’d at least kill his Jenner too with a backshot he sought to deny me. My Jenner missed.. his Daishi didn’t. I’m down a Jenner to match his Cicada he lost.
The fire of round two was otherwise sporadic and light. My Wolf Trap ended up with less than 50% armor remaining, and his Panther was stripped down to structure. Nothing more serious than that.
Round 3-4: My pictures got so blurry I won’t even post them.
On the Left Flank: My Roku and Shiro combined to tear that Spider up with their melee weapons, and the rest of his thrust on the left was aborted to provide reinforcements to his probe at my center, upgrading it to a proper wedge. My Wolf Trap and Hitman then moved behind his wedge and touched off a dogfight.
My superior TNs to hit weren’t giving my Fire Lance an advantage on damage over his Assaults, but between the threat of my dice rolling improving and eating artillery he decided to bite the bullets and just trust in his superior Armor and charge my line. Since he kept winning initiative I couldn’t bring my Owens out behind his charge; it retreated towards my line to provide artillery spotting. I could get my Recon Roku behind his Mad Cat however.. he’d stay there for the rest of the game trying to get the Mad Cat to turn around and deal with him rather than helping rain withering death down on my Fire Lance.
The weight of his 4 mechs bearing down on my woodline brought my own Command lance back from chasing down his retreating thrust; I had to hit his wedge face on if I wanted to reinforce my Fire Lance.
We ran out of time and had to make round 4 the final go. It was a slug fest, and both of us missed far more often than we hit. I lost my Catapult and should have lost my Mauler too but Thorvidar had bad luck on his biggest hitters. For what it’s worth, I missed with my big guns, too. I stripped the Hauptmann down beyond forced withdrawal levels with a preponderance of backshots from my little guys, but my dice didn’t let me seal the deal and finish him off either from the front.
Had we played it out, my Mauler was on 3 points of overheat and his Hauptmann was a goner. Probably the Daishi too, being surrounded as it was, but they’d surely go down swinging and bring quite a few of mine with them. The game ended
just on the cusp of when the true killing was about to happen and it easily could have worked out going either way. We agreed that if we couldn’t play it out from there we were both happy with a declaring it a draw up to this point in the battle. If it went on weight of kills, he had a slight edge in killing my Jenner and Catapult to my killing his Cicada and Spider, at least.
Lessons learned:
2 hours just wasn't
quite enough time for a game this size. 2 and a half hours probably would have given us a clear victor, though.
I love me those Rokurokubis. Their annoyance factor outweighs their PV. Thorvidar very wisely had his Mad Cat just ignore the irritant stabbing him in the back, however. Still, for their size they're amazingly tough and if you don't deal with them, they're stabbing you for 3 points a go from behind.. which is a big deal when variable damage is in play. Speaking of...
Variable damage cuts down on the speedy killing. Especially the way we rolled. One and two point hits were the norm, even for the big guys. When they hit at all.
Artillery was fun, but it was hardly a game changer. Thorvidar said it probably hurt me actually.. it was the artillery that provoked him to just charge in rather than trade sniper fire with my sniper Fire Lance (which probably would have worked in my favor given the terrain). And that charge certainly could have ended up winning the battle if we had time to play it out.
edit: Oh yeah and Antagonizer. That probably needs errata.. if only to clear it up. Does it trigger only if the enemy willfully walks up to the unit? Can my unit run up to it and trigger? Does it keep working on EVERY unit that finds itself in range at some point? And the effect itself isn't very clear.. the antagonized unit must "close with and kill" but what does that mean specifically.. is it allowed to stand still for aiming bonus? Is it forced to use overheat? Is it allowed to move in directions other than directly towards the unit? (aka, is it allowed to run behind for a backshot or must it run directly toe to toe?) So many questions...
