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.