Hide and seek - Did I miss something?

[Phobos101]

So today I played a game using the Hide and Seek scenario (chosen by the dice) with my regular gaming partner, which neither of us had tried before. Although we followed the rules laid down in Total Warfare, it seemed like the scenario is a bit of a cakewalk for the attacking force.

- The defender picked a 10000BV force, 255T, 4 mechs, 3055 availability.
- I (the attacker) ran with those numbers, and came up with a force just over 19000BV, 485T, with eight mechs, all pre-3055 (Per TW, P259-260).
- I picked two mechs with Beagle active probes, two missile boats, and most others were JJ equipped medium to heavy fast responders.
- The defender took a lance of clan Omnimechs (Yep).
- The maps were "Battleforce" from map set 6 (https://www.sarna.net/wiki/File:MapBattleForce2.jpg) and "Desert 2" from AGoAC (https://www.sarna.net/wiki/File:BTAGoAC-Maps_PBs.jpg top left)

So once the game started, the beagles dominated for the first two mechs. The defender never got to use his point blank fire from the scenario rules, and I was able to mob his mechs individually with my eight, being careful not to break any new ground, thus bringing in more opposition.
The third mech managed to take out both my Beagle equipped mechs (they had been the focus of his fire the whole game), and from there, the game devolved into grid-pattern searches, and we ran out of time before the inevitable outcome of his last mech (a Timberwolf-S) being ganked by my remaining six.

So these are my questions:
- Is the scenario normally this unbalanced?
- Did we miss something?
- Did I cheese it too hard by taking two beagles?
- What should we have done better?

[Fat Guy]

Did I cheese it too hard by taking two beagles?

This.

[Simon Landmine]

Yeah, I'm not sure the recommended force balance had Beagles in mind, to be honest. And almost certainly not two!

[Phobos101]

This.

Haha! They seemed like the right piece of kit for the job, clearly I was a bit too right lol.

So if I was to play the same game again with 3025 tech, how would you normally rein in the game length. turn limits? victory points? or is the point blank shooting rule effective enough to make things interesting by itself?

[Colt Ward]

Your other problem is Clan vs IS . . . BV balanced is horrible when forcing the Clan player to short ranges.  Clan weapons have higher BVs b/c they can reach longer than their IS counterparts which is useless BV at 0-3 hexes.  When choosing mechs, where you using TRO 3055 & earlier, or the MUL for things built . . . well, it goes by era so it would have been 3061, Clan Invasion era or earlier?  The reason I say this is that TRO3058 has some excellent secondliners and you start seeing Homeworlds Omnis . . . some of which have lower BV, more survivable or a lower speed to give more focus to the armor/guns part of the design triangle.  Also, did he choose any mechs that had ECM?  ECM would have whacked your BAPs . . . and just like hunters would want BAP, ambushing units would want ECM.

The Timber Wolf S is not a bad choice, but if I was running a Wolf Clan frontline force (aka, Omnis only) that was initiating the ambush . . .

Gargoyle C (3/5)-  2924
Nova Prime (3/5)-  3196
Kit Fox G (4/5)-  1368
Stormcrow C (4/5)-  1881
Elemental L (3/4)-  616
     9985 BV total

Threw in Elementals b/c I like to operate full stars . . . the Kit Fox G has the ECM, and I would put the Garg C & Nova Prime inside the edge of its 6 hex bubble.  The Elementals and Stormcrow would be futher in, but the point would be that the Kit Fox is sheltered to keep that ECM from being found until the very end.  Aside from the Kit Fox, b/c I have little to no choice in finding a frontline Omni with ECM, they have a lot fewer long range weapons than I normally operate with . . . but its a close range ambush.  Find the Nova Prime or Garg C and its going to hurt a mech pretty badly even if it does not get the point blank advantage . . . the Nova Prime is actually in the best position, fire as many ERMLs as you can before making a hard heat shutdown roll and then jump away.  Hitting a mech with 42 or more damage and its going to know it was touched- and more importantly the mech by jumping has a chance to survive the chase . . . especially if you can lead a enemy mech into springing the Garg C.

To cut game length, I would perhaps say 'By turn X, the ambush is blown and the hiding mechs go active during the movement phase.  Their hidden location is only revealed when they move.'  Gives the hunted/ambusher the last bit of their advantage if they move the hidden mechs last.

[Inxentas]

Sorry for necro-ing this post, but I have had the exact same experience yesterday without Beagles, just using Introductory/Standard units, and went to the forums to see if other people had a similar issue with this scenario. The defender got tabled hard within less then 8 turns.

My take is that few scenario's are well balanced for competative play, and that the game itself is better suited to narrative/campain play then anything competative. I appreciate the ruleset being what it is, but also recognize some balancing issues with it. I have always felt that BattleTech had a blasé attitude towards balance in the first place, with randomization being the original "core rules" way of picking forces. I wouldn't pick this scenario for a pickup game, but it's a great coat rack to expand upon for campaign play.

I put an AC20 UrbanMech on the field and we cracked jokes about this guy being sold an Urbie at a discount, and being told it's a great ambusher. Trust me bro, just sit in this light woods and shoot them point-blank, it's gonna be awesome bro! And so the little Mech that could, did. The Bushwhacker stepped into the hex right in front of him and ate a pointblank shot. He did manage to strip the armor off a Bushwhackers torso before horribly dying to mass weapons fire.

I simply wouldn't play this scenario as a competative pickup game. I found it involves too much waiting around for the defender in a scenario that is already stacked hard against him, which makes for an unfun play experience for most players. As a GM I am a glutton for such punishment though, and would absolutely use this scenario for narrative campaign play.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

It’s been my experience that any scenario from Total Warfare that has a BV imbalance between the forces results in the side with the lower BV getting crushed.

[Hellraiser]

It’s been my experience that any scenario from Total Warfare that has a BV imbalance between the forces results in the side with the lower BV getting crushed.

THIS,  SOOOO THIS!

The Scenarios starts with the BV Imbalance & then doubles down on it by using Hidden Units.

For the Record.......... HIDDEN UNITS IS A TWAP!

Yes, that is what I said, using Hidden Units is a total trap, don't do it if you want to survive, LOL.

Why?  Because your not shooting/moving them. 
Every ambush type scenario I've ever played in nearly 40 years ends up having 1-2 "Hidden Units" appear each turn, and get alpha'd by the entire enemy force.

The only way to even start to balance out the BV disparity IMO is to play on a MUCH Larger than normal map area & then force the Attackers to spread out along the entire edge w/ a rule of something like "Each Mech must enter the map at least 5 hexes away from every other mech so that your 8 mechs are spread out over 40 hexes.

But really, the biggest thing is the defender needs to not just have hidden locations but be able to use full on Hidden Movement & "Rehide" when they break LOS.
Otherwise the 2-1 BV makes the scenario a joke from the start & "Hiding" and not using the full defense force just compounds the issue.

Finally as Colt mentioned, you had Clan units hiding, clan BV accounts for shooting at Long range, clan units should NEVER be hiding.
To get the most out of them they need LOTS of room to maneuver & fully use that Long Range bracket.

[General308]

My take is that few scenario's are well balanced for competative play, and that the game itself is better suited to narrative/campain play then anything competative. I appreciate the ruleset being what it is, but also recognize some balancing issues with it.

Your take is correct the game was built and designed with narrative/campaign/RPG play in mind from the get go.  Competitive play wasn't part of the thought process infact "balancing" systems came about a decade after the game came out.  Before that people just tried to go with tonage.  But you are 100% correct this game is not built with competative play as part of the thought process

[Inxentas]

I do want to stipulate that personally I'm fine with the existence of imbalanced scenarios as long as both players know beforehand what they are about to get into. Personally I am more interested in a this is the sitrep, now lets see what happens kind of game then one that has been balanced to a T to offer a competative, symmetrical experience.

However, I do know enough people that say they are fine with it, but most of those still mope a bit about the mission or the units they had after the crushing, but expected defeat. It kinda is what it is, people are gonna people I guess.

While I love the game Age of Sigmar I think the scenarios are quite bland affairs because they are balanced around tournament play. I enjoyed wargaming tournaments in the past, but ultimately I am not the audience for those. I do think the books could communicate a little better when a scenario is deliberately skewed to one side, but that's just me being a new player with little experience.

[Hellraiser]

The thing is, with Hide & Seek, you don't need a BV advantage of 2-1

All that scenario needs is a caveat that the hidden units will not reveal themselves till they are "found" or till X-Turn or when firing from ambush.

I forget the rule name, but, an incentive to stay hidden is "aimed/tracking fire" rule from TO IIRC.

Basically for every turn you have LOS to the enemy that you don't shoot, you get a -1 to hit for the next turn, compounding.

So if a unit stays hidden for 4 turns, on turn 5 it's fire is at a bonus of 4.

That one rule from TacOps along w/ even BV makes for an actual interesting game as units that do appear or are found are then ganged up on so the rest have to debate getting better #s for the ambush v/s appearing & joining in.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I believe that it's called Careful Aim, and that it caps out at -3.

[Hellraiser]

I believe that it's called Careful Aim, and that it caps out at -3.

Gracias, that's the one!

[VanVelding]

I've never had success with the scenarios using hidden units rules.

If I hid some units, I could hypothetically use my other forces to press/draw the enemy into them for a point-blank shot. But then I'd have very few forces on the field to press the enemy.

If hidden units could spot or act as part of a C3 network or use the Careful Aim rule like Hellraiser said, and I'm not 100% sure they can't, the enemy would have a time pressure to find the hidden unit instead of doing it in a methodical, optimal manner.

In the end, one free shot that ignores movement and terrain, made on no-one's terms, doesn't double the worth of the unit caught with its pants down facing off with the enemy, especially if that enemy is doing nothing but looking for hidden units.

And that's before we get to the BAP, a piece of equipment that's almost totally useless until it breaks a scenario.

If we're talking altering Hide & Seek, I'd give the side that can hide units 0-25% less BV than the other side. Then I'd dial the numbers in as playtesting suggests.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Hidden units can act as spotters for IDF weapons.  It's pretty brutal, honestly.

[Paul]

The H&S scenario is broken. It cannot be won by the defender under any circumstance shave sheer luck.

Specific to hiding: while hidden, a unit's BV is 0. It is not contributing in any meaningful way.
The key thing to do to maximize it is to station your units in a way that they can support each other. Ideal is if you can have a small force in 1 location, together.
What a lot of people don't realize is the mechanism to reveal units voluntarily at the start of a phase. Being smart about that is vital.

Example: a lance is hidden. 2 unit stand next to each other, and each pair is about 4 hexes apart.
One 'Mech is discovered and gets off a point blank shot in the Movement Phase. The rest of the hostile force converges to set up good shots.
At the start of the Weapons Phase, reveal the other 3 units. This gets their weapons in play (probably with decent to-hits) and also creates a chance that some of the enemy will target different 'Mechs, reducing the amount of firepower going towards the initially revealed unit.
Also, if you had more units hidden than the 4 in the above example, reveal those at the start of the next movement phase: they need to get in to the fight, and stop being 0 BV.

Hiding such that there's woods adjacent to you in the direction of the enemy force is also good policy, since it is more likely that this provides a little more cover. Not a lot of maps permit this; it's far more important to hide units close to each other.

LRM indirect and c3 can be powerful in combination with hidden unit rules.
Infantry, especially battle armor, can be extremely effective when hidden, and the downside is less severe.

[Daryk]

Wait... you can reveal at the beginning of the fire phase too?  It seems we've been doing it wrong!

[Paul]

Wait... you can reveal at the beginning of the fire phase too? 

Yep, and it goes a long way towards making it an effective ability if you station forces with correct overlapping fields of fire.
A lot of people don't know, so don't feel too bad.

p.259

However, if a player plans to move a hidden
unit, they must reveal it at the start of the Movement Phase.
If a player plans to attack with a hidden unit (not including a
pointblank shot; see below), they must reveal it at the start of
the Weapon Attack Phase.

Since PB shots happen in Movement, you'll always have a very good idea whether to 'pop' any other units right after.
Generally, once I reveal some, I tend to reveal all unit to get them involved.

[Daryk]

Thanks for the page ref!  We might have been actually doing it right, since the revealed units were being moved, but the way it was stated at the table meant even if you were just going to shoot, you had to reveal at the beginning of the movement phase.

[Hellraiser]

Generally, once I reveal some, I tend to reveal all unit to get them involved.

This ^^^
Doing partial reveals is just a bad idea from all the times we've used it.

[Firesprocket]

Thanks for the page ref!  We might have been actually doing it right, since the revealed units were being moved, but the way it was stated at the table meant even if you were just going to shoot, you had to reveal at the beginning of the movement phase.

Yeah our table read was wrong on that one.  I ended up revealing a turn earlier than I wanted to do so.  Not that the outcome was necessarily in doubt by that point given what was on the other side of the table and the terrain.  Could have made the zombie scenerio more interesting.

[Daryk]

Thanks for the confirmation, good sir! :)

[Calimehter]

We did this scenario a little while back and managed a good time with it, but we had a couple of things going for us:

- We did add a house rule where the defenders got bonus victory points the longer the scenario took, which was put in to encourage the attackers to spread out a bit and move at a reasonable clip.  It didn't actually trigger in our game, but it influenced the attacker movement.

- We also had some 'Concealed Info' type rules, where even the first turn you spotted a hidden unit you couldn't always ID the make/model immediately, so even an early reveal didn't always take away some of the attacker's uncertainty.

- We had Clans doing the seeking while the IS was doing the hiding, basically the opposite of the OP.  Armor points were . . . not exactly "even" but close, and the Clan range advantage was reduced by the need to go in and root the enemy out.

- The hidden defender didn't really try too hard for point-blank shots, but instead set their Mech's up to optimize an 'ambush' by moving from cover on their turn to support a unit or two that stayed hidden at the beginning of the movement phase (i.e. after the opponent had moved some Mechs already and had less time to react to it).

----------

Even with all that, the Attackers still won.    It was close enough to be a fun game though.

Its really a scenario that needs some thought and help to make work.

[idea weenie]

Can the defending/Hidden units try to leave the map, and get points for that?  This would give an incentive for the Attacker to push harder, to try and spot the defending units before they leave.

Of course if the Attacker pushes too hard, the defenders can exploit their out-stretched units.