Worldwide Event? Oh Yeah!

[GreyWolfActual]

When will the next world wide event be?

As Paul stated, we have not announced next year's event. The exacts are yet to be decided but will likely be next summer.

Also, who do I need to talk to about a Demo Agent application that stalled out over a year ago?

As stated, OrangeWoman is the person you'll want to follow up with. If there are any parts of your application that were missing you can find them and complete them here.

[GreyWolfActual]

With Labor Day behind us the 2017 Worldwide Event has wrapped up. My thanks go to all the Agents who ran the events and the players who participated in them! It’s for you all that the event was planned. Hopefully, everyone had a fun time. We’re looking forward to the 2018 Worldwide Event for you all.

I am now in the process of tabulating and summarizing all the results that were submitted. Once I have that done I’ll share the global results and then release the WWE file publicly. Please stay tuned for that.

[CDAT]

My local demo agent hosted the WWE today and the scenario was really fun.

Were you able to take the objective? With the slow speed of our (I was Clan Wolf side) IS mechs we only got to the objective by the end of the four hour time limit (that we did not know about or would have adjusted tactics some).

[Sartris]

Were you able to take the objective? With the slow speed of our (I was Clan Wolf side) IS mechs we only got to the objective by the end of the four hour time limit (that we did not know about or would have adjusted tactics some).

not sure how big your game was, but we were running 16 IS (8 mech / 8 vee) vs a binary and the majority of the game was spent on or around the objective. all of the rules were announced at the beginning of the game so we spent most of our time in a tight shootout.

[CDAT]

not sure how big your game was, but we were running 16 IS (8 mech / 8 vee) vs a binary and the majority of the game was spent on or around the objective. all of the rules were announced at the beginning of the game so we spent most of our time in a tight shootout.

I was on the clan side and we had seven IS Mechs (Most were 4/6), one 2nd line (3/5), and two Omni (one 5/8 other 4/6), plus star of Elementals. We were facing a reinforced company of mechs, and about a company of tanks, they also had a battalion of infantry (hidden and never reveled in game). All the rules were announced except the four hour time limit before the game started. We moved towards the objective but tried to stay under cover as much as possible as almost all of there units had LRM's and out ranged us for the most part, the turn our first mech got to the objective (Elementals were still at least three turns away, except the one dropped of by one omnit) the Demo Agent said that we had reached the time limit and game was over, taking both sides by surprise, and making the entire game kind of point less, as nothing was really lost on either side.

Pro's that came from the game.
We have three active BattleTech groups in the area, two of them showed up and played this, so they got to meet each other. Also had at least one rep from the third group and two of the groups that are playing ongoing campaigns are talking about the possibility of having a combined game or two in the future.

Con's that came from the game.
From those that I talked with no one was happy with the game, and felt that the event was kind of stupid as there was no chance for the clans to win being so out matched by the IS and on average only the same Gunnery/Pilot skill when weather was factored in (Clans averaged 4/5, IS averaged 4.5/5.5), and why were the clans using IS mechs not even 2nd line. The defenders were supposed to be a militia unit but had more units with advanced tech than the clans. The Time limit that we were not told about felt lit the demo agent just was board and called the game, and has made several of the ones I talked with less inclined to do anything official in the future.

[GreyWolfActual]

CDAT, I’ve read your report of the game and I’m sorry that you had a bad experience. However, I do wish to clear up some things that seem to have gone wrong with your game. For future WWEs we are looking to make them even easier for Agents to run so perhaps many of these issues can be prevented from happening again.

I was on the clan side and we had seven IS Mechs (Most were 4/6), one 2nd line (3/5), and two Omni (one 5/8 other 4/6)
No clan force should have had that few clan mechs given the speeds you mentioned. Also, only have ten mechs and having the 4/6 omni makes it clear that the force guidelines presented to the Agent were not followed.

All the rules were announced except the four hour time limit before the game started.

The time limit was six hours, if your Agent did in fact only follow a four hour guideline then, again, I’m sorry that the scenario instructions were not followed.

and felt that the event was kind of stupid as there was no chance for the clans to win being so out matched by the IS

I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “out matched” but again, there should have been more clan tech and the clan team should have had had a 25% advantage by BV over the IS (5:4 ratio).

and why were the clans using IS mechs not even 2nd line.

The clan force list was based off of the TO&E created in the Clan Wolf Sourcebook for this fight. There were IS mechs on that list and so those IS mechs were transferred over. Additionally, it has long been established in the various Field Manuals that Inner Sphere mechs are still found throughout second-line clusters of clan forces.

The defenders were supposed to be a militia unit but had more units with advanced tech than the clans.

The Inner Sphere force was very strictly limited to Introductory technology. There’s no reason that the defenders were supposed to have any advanced tech.

[Firesprocket]

GWA,

There seems to be some distinct difference from what I encountered in my game vs. what others did in their own.  Some of this is probably due to incorrectly remembering certain items and events that occurred.  While I know the event results itself may take time to tabulate, when can we expect to see a release of the actual scenario itself?

I’ve read your report of the game and I’m sorry that you had a bad experience. However, I do wish to clear up some things that seem to have gone wrong with your game. For future WWEs we are looking to make them even easier for Agents to run so perhaps many of these issues can be prevented from happening again.

To that end have you considered putting together a survey similar to what HBS has been doing for their beta to identify what might or might not have transpired efficiently or correctly after the exact specifics of the scenario is released?

The time limit was six hours, if your Agent did in fact only follow a four hour guideline then, again, I’m sorry that the scenario instructions were not followed.

I don't honestly know if that was disclosed to us.  Our normal game time consists of roughly 5.5 to 5.25 hours when you factor in the time BSing and/or late arrivals.  I'd say that by half way through the game though the outcome was a known IS victory as they had a company plus of their tanks or hidden units surrounding the factory and even if we wanted to, we couldn't kill them fast enough, more on that later.

I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “out matched” but again, there should have been more clan tech and the clan team should have had had a 25% advantage by BV over the IS (5:4 ratio).
The clan force list was based off of the TO&E created in the Clan Wolf Sourcebook for this fight. There were IS mechs on that list and so those IS mechs were transferred over. Additionally, it has long been established in the various Field Manuals that Inner Sphere mechs are still found throughout second-line clusters of clan forces.

I have the Clan Wolf source book and while it may have had it's inspiration from that book there were units that I recall during the game that aren't in the Dorbeng Garrison cluster.  At the very least they weren't organized in such a fashion as to present the force the Clans had.  For this scenario we only had 4 omni mechs to start the game and 5 elemental points.  That made for a next to worthless elemental point.

6 other mechs were also available to us, but jumping was a premium and we only had 1 Active Probe.  The environmental conditions also ate into the Clan's advantage as the IS force didn't suffer from it.  BV doesn't take account for that and proceeded to nullify some of the advantage the Clan would have.  The IS hover tanks, from what we were told, also didn't have to roll for skid checks, something BV doesn't take into account for.  IS had minefields, which as a player of 20+ years, I've come to expect in certain situations.  Other players who played the Clans obviously didn't expect that.  While the GM prepared ahead and had rolls prepared for the minefield and the gent running the minefields as they went off were prepared, it is an element that bogged down the game.  BV again isn't counting for the IS here.

The appropriate response, had we the time to do it, would have been just to level the buildings in the city from the outset of the game (we did do this starting after turn 3).  After all who is going to stick mine fields in their own buildings  ;D.  Unaware to me, at the start of the game at least, we did get some reinforcements of a second line star on the next to least turn of the game.  The units were all slow though which while capable would make no impact in the game because it would have taken them 3 to 4 turns to get to the outskirts of the city/complex.

The Inner Sphere force was very strictly limited to Introductory technology. There’s no reason that the defenders were supposed to have any advanced tech.

I didn't feel there was a tech advantage.  There was certainly a numbers advantage and one which was going to be difficult to counter.  I'd asked for infernos for my launchers to deal with the tanks, but was declined.  Presumably because of the fire that would have spread would have been a pain to deal with.  Still that would have been a good measure of improvement and ability to kill tanks with my Gargoyle Prime.

My friend and I were left in charge of 4 out of the 5 elemental units on the board.  The 5th was in the hands of the commander which also had charge of the Executioner.  Given a turn or two more we could have done far more collateral damage with our Elementals.  We had managed to that point to kill a mech and 3 tanks with them.  Another mech, a Stalker, was on its way out when time was called (we destroyed one leg and the other had 1 point of structure left).  Our commander's choice of what to do with his Executioner was dubious as his aim was to keep units from going into our flank.  Had he been engaged more then we'd have seen an improvement, but not to such an extent that it would have changed the outcome of the game.  My complaint if we are using the historical context of what is in the CW:SB is there were no Archers or Panthers present and that would have been the expected opposition.  The mechs we fought against were a (Grand) Dragon, Stalker, Victor, and at least one other that I can't remember.

[GreyWolfActual]

when can we expect to see a release of the actual scenario itself?

I’m not entirely sure. One of the people who has been helping me with wrapping this up lives in Florida. As you might expect, he has had somewhat more pressing issues to deal with of late.

To that end have you considered putting together a survey similar to what HBS has been doing for their beta to identify what might or might not have transpired efficiently or correctly after the exact specifics of the scenario is released?

To be perfectly honest, yes and I’ve decided against it. The Agents who reported the event (44 events all told), had the option to include notes and most did. From my own experience with running the games myself I know that I received very different feedback from my own players and most of it was very biased based on which side the person played and which side won. Therefore, I would prefer to stick to as neutral of parties as I can.

I don't honestly know if that was disclosed to us.  Our normal game time consists of roughly 5.5 to 5.25 hours when you factor in the time BSing and/or late arrivals.

It very much should have been. The intention was not to abruptly cutoff games but to instill an urgency in both sides appropriate for the scne. I can see how a four hour game would be horribly abbreviated and, again, that was not how the scenario was designed nor should have been implemented.

I have the Clan Wolf source book and while it may have had it's inspiration from that book there were units that I recall during the game that aren't in the Dorbeng Garrison cluster.

Correct. That book predates TRO:3055, 3058, and very importantly 3060. Some of those designs were chosen to be inserted to allow for more diversity for GMs to use what they have and to utilize more clan tech. A second-line Wolf cluster with no IICs does not feel right.

The environmental conditions also ate into the Clan's advantage as the IS force didn't suffer from it.  BV doesn't take account for that and proceeded to nullify some of the advantage the Clan would have.

Correct. Again, that is part of why the clan BV was set to be higher than the IS BV.

The IS hover tanks, from what we were told, also didn't have to roll for skid checks, something BV doesn't take into account for.

The scenario that changed how hovers worked. A hover making a facing change and continuing movement should have had to make a sideslipping check, as per standard Total Warfare rules for hover movement. However, what you might be referring to was one of the special pilot abilities for the IS.

IS had minefields, which as a player of 20+ years, I've come to expect in certain situations.

This too was a special pilot ability for the IS. The scenario did note that both sides should received special pilots if they were in play. In other words, if only the IS got their special pilots, then that was an incorrect interpretation of the was the scenario was written.

I’m not going to sit here and say that all three games were designed perfectly, they weren’t. I made mistakes in writing my portions and given the feedback from Agents I know there were mistakes made in other areas. I know there are things we didn’t create that could have helped with consistency. But I would just hate for future events, which will take into account the lessons we learned from this year’s event to be judged based on erroneous implementations of the scenario.

[CDAT]

Went through and put thoughts/reply to yours, after doing so noticed that there is some bouncing around, sorry about that. I am sorry that it was not ran as it was supposed to, I do not want you to get discouraged some parts of it were great, others to me just need some adjustment either in how it was supposed to be done, or at least how it was done in my local game. My basic thoughts to fix what I saw wrong with it, give the clan player 2nd line units, or at least the IS/Clan retrofits, have the time limit stated up front so we know about it, maybe a count down timer or something to make it dramatic, and if the clans are going to lose a skill level then start them off one higher so that you end up with a skill difference between the IS and Clans, and lastly if we need to take the building with our infantry then they need some way to get to the fight, we started the full eight hexes in and with one exception (the one on one omni) the infantry were still at least three turns away from the building at full speed when time was called.

CDAT, I’ve read your report of the game and I’m sorry that you had a bad experience. However, I do wish to clear up some things that seem to have gone wrong with your game. For future WWEs we are looking to make them even easier for Agents to run so perhaps many of these issues can be prevented from happening again.

I am not sure that I would say it was a bad experience, more that it was not a good experience if that makes sense. As for making it easier for the agent I do not know if it was so much that, but to me it was more that it looks like the agent did no prep before hand. He was still picking out units, printing sheets and borrowing mechs from players (including me, I have no issue with loaning them, but letting me know before hand so when I showed up I would have them ready, as it was known that I was going to be getting there just before start time) when I showed up from work, and that was right at the scheduled start time. And some of this may be from what I have heard he wanted to do the Alpha Strike game, but everyone local hates AS, and said that if he was going to host that we would not show up, so maybe he did all the prep for the AS game and none for the BattleTech one?

The time limit was six hours, if your Agent did in fact only follow a four hour guideline then, again, I’m sorry that the scenario instructions were not followed.

It would be nice if the basic rules at least were available for us to read before so that things like this would not happen. I understand that you do not want faction specific rules out for both sides to read, I liked the idea of the IS being used to the snow and such so it did not affect them, but with this making the skill level effectively the same and the IS still having the numbers may need some tweaking so please keep working on the ideas (the IS phantom Lance was a real shock to us Clan players, and most of the IS players I found out after the game, kudos for this. Very nicely done.) Thinking about it I am guessing that the time limit is based on from when it was supposed to start may have been six hours, from when we really stated it was about four hours as from when I showed up. I was last one there, and went right from work to there, and they were still setting up, it took him some time to finish setting up, and then had to brief the IS players and then the Clan players. So thinking about it some more those two hours could have been the difference between what we saw as four hours and what was supposed to be six hours, but either way this was never stated and would have affected how we played.

I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “out matched” but again, there should have been more clan tech and the clan team should have had had a 25% advantage by BV over the IS (5:4 ratio).

What I mean by out matched with most of our forces being basic tech (70% of our mechs), and the rest of them were clan tech. The IS had lots of LRM's that out ranged us, and when you factor in the weather our pilot gunnery skills were effectively the same. I can not say what the battle value was, but the effective BV looked to be in the Inner Sphere favor (sixteen mechs, with three IS advanced tech, tank company, and infantry battalion) against Clan (ten mechs, with only three Clan tech, and a star of Battle Armor). So the IS forces had more numbers, longer range weapons and basically the same gunnery/piloting skill, in addition to hidden units, mine fields and was on the defensive (the mine were kind of useless, but that was because the IS players gave it away by talking about it after the game started and effectively let us know were they were.) kind of set it up so that the Clans did not stand a chance. Now I do not have any issues with a fight that "can not be won" as long as the win/loss standard is do able. The clans just did not have the time to get there, or the fire power to punch through the defender and take the building. We were told that we could not destroy the building (I asked before we started), but had to take it with infantry.

The clan force list was based off of the TO&E created in the Clan Wolf Sourcebook for this fight. There were IS mechs on that list and so those IS mechs were transferred over. Additionally, it has long been established in the various Field Manuals that Inner Sphere mechs are still found throughout second-line clusters of clan forces.

I understand that the clans have captured IS mechs, but my understanding (maybe wrong) is that they swapped out the weapons for clan weapons leaving the mechs underweight. The extra range (and damage) would have been nice.

The Inner Sphere force was very strictly limited to Introductory technology. There’s no reason that the defenders were supposed to have any advanced tech.

They had at least three units (I did not look at the sheets so can not say for sure, just units that used advanced tech to attack) with IS advanced tech to our (the clan side) also having three units (now we had clan tech so more advanced) but same numbers of advanced units.

[Colt Ward]

The swapped out weapons are the Cs, like the WHM C . . . the Star League mechs you got should have been better than those designs.

When I played the Clan side had . . . Ice Ferret Prime, Gargoyle Prime, Executioner Prime, Naga, Griffin IIC and a Marauder IIC . . . the Star League designs were a Black Knight 6, Exterminator, Flashman, Lancelot and Champion for the SL vintage star.  So 3 Omnis out of the Clan gear which could have carried the BA in closer . . . but the person who was running the BA did not really know how to use it- not a failing of the scenario but rather who took control.  They did start off on the Omnis which they should have for this type of objective.  Not being able to load infernos into SRM launchers was bad IMO b/c that is one of the classic counters to armor.  On my table top we could not collapse the buildings, which is a unClan like thing to do in the first place so I was fine with it.  The BK & Ice Ferret both had APs which where important but not recognized at the start of play.

Considering what was on the Clan side I am not sure how people can complain about range- Clan ERPPC on the Ferret, 2 ERLL & Gauss on the Executioner, 3 Clan ERPPC on the Marauder IIC, LB-5x on the Garg and the Griffin had another ERLL & 3 LRMs on its mobile frames.  The Star League star's slowest mech was the BK which had some range, had 2 heavies that were 6/9, and 2 that were 5/8- they were solid choices from among the old SLDF stuff.  Honestly, the Clan force was not played as aggressively as it should have- too spread out instead of focusing on the objective and the speed of most of the Clan gear was ignored!  The Gargoyle went most the game without using its 5/8 speed and that went for several other units.  The Naga rarely dropped the A4 rounds where they should have to affect the tanks & hit choke points.  Yes, the IS won but it was close and it was more a case of what the Clan side did wrong.

The IS had some 3050 upgraded designs IIRC and the dummy mechs were also interesting but the IS side did not use them all since when the first dropped to minor damage and never fired back we ignored them due to their position.  The mines were fine, but we had nothing on the Clan side that could clear them IIRC- no 20 point hitters for those hexes and with being unable to knock down buildings it made it harder to go around them.

[CDAT]

The swapped out weapons are the Cs, like the WHM C . . . the Star League mechs you got should have been better than those designs.

Star League? We had 3025 Tech for our non clan units, so the swapping of weapons would have been nice.

When I played the Clan side had . . . Ice Ferret Prime, Gargoyle Prime, Executioner Prime, Naga, Griffin IIC and a Marauder IIC . . . the Star League designs were a Black Knight 6, Exterminator, Flashman, Lancelot and Champion for the SL vintage star.  So 3 Omnis out of the Clan gear which could have carried the BA in closer . . . but the person who was running the BA did not really know how to use it- not a failing of the scenario but rather who took control.  They did start off on the Omnis which they should have for this type of objective.  Not being able to load infernos into SRM launchers was bad IMO b/c that is one of the classic counters to armor.  On my table top we could not collapse the buildings, which is a unClan like thing to do in the first place so I was fine with it.  The BK & Ice Ferret both had APs which where important but not recognized at the start of play.

We had a Man O' War that either only had or only used (may have been the operator) cluster rounds, and our only other Omni was an Executioner, the only other clan tech unit (advanced tech) was an Annihilator C. So doubling the number of clan tech units would have been a big help, also some with some speed would have been nice. So we had one battle armor ride the Executioner, but the rest were stuck jumping, and at the end they were nine hexes from the closest enemy (that was in front of the objective building).

Considering what was on the Clan side I am not sure how people can complain about range- Clan ERPPC on the Ferret, 2 ERLL & Gauss on the Executioner, 3 Clan ERPPC on the Marauder IIC, LB-5x on the Garg and the Griffin had another ERLL & 3 LRMs on its mobile frames.  The Star League star's slowest mech was the BK which had some range, had 2 heavies that were 6/9, and 2 that were 5/8- they were solid choices from among the old SLDF stuff.  Honestly, the Clan force was not played as aggressively as it should have- too spread out instead of focusing on the objective and the speed of most of the Clan gear was ignored!  The Gargoyle went most the game without using its 5/8 speed and that went for several other units.  The Naga rarely dropped the A4 rounds where they should have to affect the tanks & hit choke points.  Yes, the IS won but it was close and it was more a case of what the Clan side did wrong.

As did not have the Ferret did not have the ERPPC, did not have the Marauder IIC so again did not have the ERPPC's, did not have the Griffin so missing the ERLL and LRM's, and did not have the Naga so no Arrow 4's. What we had for long range was the one Gauss, two ERLL, two LB-5X, one IS LRM-10, and if you want to count them as long range (I do not) four UAC/10's on the other side they had one Gauss and lots of LRM-20, LRM-15, and LRM-5's. So no we did not really have any range advantage over them, we had to play aggressively as not counting the above weapons we did not have anything with more range than a IS large laser. Most of our units were 4/6 or slower (had three that were 3/4). Now could we have done some things different yes, we had four players so broke our forces into three groups of three and one group of our commander and all the battle armor. Our one group that had any speed was sent on a right flank to try and pull of enemy troops (we did not know that they knew our objective), the Man O' War player did not want battle armor on his unit (did not know what to do with it, how it would work not really up on game). The rest of the units went for the objective and most taking a couple of turns of fire before they got in range to even fire back.  I would say that the IS had a total victory, they did not kill anything and lost one Rommel tank, with two more imobilzed and one more very damaged but still fighting. But they keep us from the objective and most forces on the clan side were down about 50% or so on armor, not a single IS mech had been shot yet.

The IS had some 3050 upgraded designs IIRC and the dummy mechs were also interesting but the IS side did not use them all since when the first dropped to minor damage and never fired back we ignored them due to their position.  The mines were fine, but we had nothing on the Clan side that could clear them IIRC- no 20 point hitters for those hexes and with being unable to knock down buildings it made it harder to go around them.

Just as we got in line of sight of the objective the OPFOR had four Awesome's walk out of it (the dummy mechs). The mines did not have any impact as they were easy to avoid and we knew where they were due to cross table talk from the other side.

[Paul]

To be perfectly honest, yes and I’ve decided against it. The Agents who reported the event (44 events all told), had the option to include notes and most did. From my own experience with running the games myself I know that I received very different feedback from my own players and most of it was very biased based on which side the person played and which side won. Therefore, I would prefer to stick to as neutral of parties as I can.

I think that approach makes sense. It was one of several reasons why I didn't play on either side in my event (Firesprocket's one of my players. Hi!)
CDAt's talking about a different game though.

It very much should have been. The intention was not to abruptly cutoff games but to instill an urgency in both sides appropriate for the scne. I can see how a four hour game would be horribly abbreviated and, again, that was not how the scenario was designed nor should have been implemented.

Ours ran 6ish hours, as FS said. I felt I hammered the point home on urgency with the Clan side, and they were hussling, I think. Few sub-optimal moves are going to happen.
The time it took them to get to the target building was largely a matter of MP vs map, and lack of JJs.

Correct. That book predates TRO:3055, 3058, and very importantly 3060. Some of those designs were chosen to be inserted to allow for more diversity for GMs to use what they have and to utilize more clan tech. A second-line Wolf cluster with no IICs does not feel right.

I liked what you guys did with the Cluster.
I don't think I overlooked a mobility option, plus the special characters tied my hands just a nudge.

Correct. Again, that is part of why the clan BV was set to be higher than the IS BV.

I prob gave the Clan side a little too much.

The scenario that changed how hovers worked. A hover making a facing change and continuing movement should have had to make a sideslipping check, as per standard Total Warfare rules for hover movement. However, what you might be referring to was one of the special pilot abilities for the IS.

Yep, as you surmised, Kapten Adolphus was running that lance of Condors, the fastest tanks the IS had.

This too was a special pilot ability for the IS. The scenario did note that both sides should received special pilots if they were in play. In other words, if only the IS got their special pilots, then that was an incorrect interpretation of the was the scenario was written.

The Clan got both of theirs, but their abilities just about never came up, nor made a difference. Not sure the GCmd ever got shot at all, and the Lancelot pilot never had any particularly interesting rolls to make.

I’m not going to sit here and say that all three games were designed perfectly, they weren’t. I made mistakes in writing my portions and given the feedback from Agents I know there were mistakes made in other areas. I know there are things we didn’t create that could have helped with consistency. But I would just hate for future events, which will take into account the lessons we learned from this year’s event to be judged based on erroneous implementations of the scenario.

It's a process. It's good to get feedback, and it's good to be cognizant of bias. Course, that does cut both ways: taken at face value, FS' comment on the minefields and Adolphus seems to suggest only the IS got their special pilots, which wasn't the case neither.


Stuff I liked about this year's event:

- The doc was good, and had a lot of detail about setup. I'm confident that made the prep job much easier for many Agents; certainly helped me.
- Using special stuff was great. Special abilities based on personalities, and the weirdness of the maps: all strong items I hope to see again. They helped make it notable, in my view.
- The Wolf TO&E was nice, but I'd prefer to have more generic guidelines, IE, how the IS side was done up. It had rules that'd force unit composition, and create a specific theme.
- I like that you weren't afraid of having high skills in the game.
- I'm overall impressed by how significant and fun you guys made a kind of throw-away moment in BT history. Truly excellent job there, great sign of things to come. Don't be afraid of taking on more pivotal moments, and taking a more what-if style approach. Yeah, in canon, the fight at the NAIS went Hanse' way, but maybe not at your table! Those kinds of moments.


Suggestions I'd make:
- Avoid setups where LOS (and shots) are unlikely for most of the force for the first 3 turns.
- The special map setup was cool, but deployment and objective location left 1 map completely unused, and the other had some hovertanks on it 1 turn, I think.
- Games with tons of players are slow; I got 8 turns in, I might be able to get 10 turns in if I was a bigger jerk. Seemed like the scoring mechanism expected 20 turns: just not plausible. Assuming 10 total turns of play seems like a good guideline for BT games. I can get 20+ in pretty much only in 1 on 1 games.
- The special pilot stuff could likely be balanced better.
- The special weather event was cool, though it was a bit weird to have to say that one side is affected by snow flakes, and the other isn't. Homefield advantage rules are cool though, prob just a matter of balance/tweaking.
- My players didn;t (to their credit) but power gamers might have used the Hidden Rules to plant forces next to the target building in turn 1 (using movement if need be) thus truly unbalancing scoring. As it was, the Clan side wasn't likely to score significant points until they managed to kill off the far more numerous IS side. (17 Mechs + 5 Elementals vs 8 Mechs and 24 tanks, most of the latter was making a parking lot around the building come turn 4 or so...)

Paul

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

In my game, the IS players didn't want to come out and meet the Clan mechs, so aside from their ambushes (which did result in a dead Shadow Hawk IIC and Marauder IIC) they didn't close up too much.  And their ambushers fell victim to focused fire since Clan honor rules weren't in effect.  The end result was a blowout victory for the Wolves.

[GreyWolfActual]

Just as we got in line of sight of the objective the OPFOR had four Awesome's walk out of it (the dummy mechs).

This is extremely disappointing to read. The special ability of that pilot could not be anymore clear: "Additionally, at the start of any turn and within six hexes of any map edge, except the Clan home edge, Anita can deploy a lance of heavy ’Mechs."

The objective building was not within six hexes of the map edge, Awesomes are not heavy mechs, and they most certainly could not move (deploy yes, but not move).

[GreyWolfActual]

Thanks Paul. Many of your suggestions have been echoed by other demo team agents which really emphasizes the points you've made.

[Firesprocket]

Course, that does cut both ways: taken at face value, FS' comment on the minefields and Adolphus seems to suggest only the IS got their special pilots, which wasn't the case neither.

I overlooked it because our commander was no where near the heat of the battle for us to potentially take advantage of the ability.  Even still, giving one side an active ability and another side a reactive ability isn't generally a good thing for balance.

[Colt Ward]

I think it would be interesting to note if the special abilities were announced to everyone or just quietly discussed with the side the advantage was with?  The thing about shooting at the Wolf CO in the Executioner could have kept it from being shot at . . . Mine was not, I put it up on a hill down the main road and I think it never drew attention though it was further back since cERLL means I can send light love a distance.