Author Topic: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia) - Alpha Strike  (Read 7125 times)

Son of Kerenski

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On Sunday the 1st of March we played an Alpha Strike game set on the planet of Brisbane and one thousand and seventy years set into the future. The game was played at in the suburb of Annerley at ACE Comics n Games in Brisbane, Australia.

Heres the rules:
Quote
FORCES
2 Sides – 6 players minimum/maximum – 3 per side. 2 for Aerospace.
Each ground force player will design a mech company and an Armoured Division.

Each side will be drawn randomly out of a hat on the day before the game.
1 player designated as Battalion Commander and will have extra responsibilities.

MECH Company – 500PV (any STND or INTRO 3085)
12 Inner Sphere mechs exactly. Lance leaders must have best skill (or equal best) of the 4.
No more than 2 mechs of the same kind – can be exact same variant.
5pts of Special Abilities that can be split between the 3 Lance Leaders of the mech company.

ARMORED Division - 100PV (any STND or INTRO 3085)
2 Inner Sphere Ground Vehicles – no VTOLS or WiGE or extra artillery.
2 Inner Sphere Battle Armour.

AEROSPACE Force - 150PV (any STND or INTRO 3085)
4-6 Inner Sphere Aerospace fighters.
3pts of Special Abilities that can be given to 1 ACE pilot

SPECIAL RULES
Swinging initiative.
Phased Movement - 4 phases.
**3 mechs (1 from each lance) per phase for each player until losses suffered (see diagram).
**1 vehicle or 1 BA per turn for each player until losses suffered (see diagram).

Units destroyed will be worth their PV in VP.
Killing the Battalion Commander is worth an extra 50VP. B.C. is automatically the Command Lance leader of your company if you are designated as your sides B.C.

3 Zones of Control (Left & Right Flank and Centre) - objectives worth 50VP/turn of control
Objectives require 4 full points of “assets” to be considered "Controlled" or double the oppositions amount of assets if both have at least 4 points (eg one player has 4 assets and the other has at least 8 or more). Battalion Commander automatically takes the Centre.
If a player has eliminated his opponent in his designated area (Left Flank for example) and he spends the next turn with any 2 assets in an objective zone he gets to control the area permanently, 100VP bonus for Capture. Both assets must remain in the objective zone.

Point Value of Assets/Controlling Units
1/2 point for BA
1 for Light Vehicles
1 for Medium Vehicles
2 for Heavy Vehicles
3 for Assault Vehicles
1 for Light Mechs
2 for Medium Mechs
3 for Heavy Mechs
4 for Assault Mechs

ARTILLERY Assets
Each Battalion Commander will have 5 Long Tom artillery strikes to call in during the game.
Only one Long Tom strike is allowed per turn/per side.
Only one intentional strike per side is allowed within an objective zone. No other strike may be called within one hex of the edge of an objective zone.
An artillery strike will damage an entire Hexon hex and all units within it will automatically suffer 2 pts of damage. No adjacent hexes will be affected.
If a unit has any part of its base touching the line between hexes, roll 2 dice. On an 8 or more it will be struck.
Artillery strikes will fall the round after they are called. They can be called in the same turn with a penalty.
Artillery will scatter in a D6 direction by the MoF (margin of failure) divided by 2 rounded down. So if you fail the roll by three, it scatters only one hex.

10 or more on 2 dice to hit a hex you can see.
12 if required in same turn.
Reduce the number by 1 for a spotting unit that has a skill level of 2.
Reduce the number by another 1 if it has a skill level of 0.

Aerospace Battle
The Aerospace battle will take place above the battlefield during the ground battle. The aerospace players should continue to battle and note the number of turns that the battle lasts. Once one side gains complete aerospace superiority, as in the other side is wiped out, the remaining assets may attack the enemy ground units. This may only happen on the turn after their enemy in the sky is wiped out, which is why the round number is recorded.

For example: if one side is completely wiped out in turn 9 of the aerospace battle, then the aerospace fighters left may engage the ground units in turn 10. If the ground battle has not reached this turn yet, the aerospace player will have to wait until it does.


Optional Secret Commander Objective – to be voted on BEFORE game.
Each ground unit leader will have a secret objective they need to perform to score a bonus 50 VP for their side and their overall tally as a commander. Pick out of a hat – keep the result hidden and reveal only when you have achieved the objective. Any unit can achieve.

1. Assassins Creed - cause internal structure damage through an enemies rear arc.
2. Head Hunter – kill an enemy lance leader.
3. Pill Boxer - destroy 2 vehicles.
4. Argy Bargy - connect on a 10”+ charge attack.
5. Highland Burial - connect on any length Death From Above attack.
6. Bug Hunter - Kill an entire squad of Battle Armour (not from an artillery strike).
7. Raining Lead – be a spotter for an artillery strike that hits at least 2 units.
8. Players Choice – discard this and look into the hat and pick one.


Optional Rule – Brisbane Virus – to be voted on BEFORE game.
Due to a long campaign on Brisbane, all personnel have been affected by the degenerative Brisbane Virus.

Once per turn after the first turn, each commander picks an enemy unit out of a hat to be infected with the Brisbane Virus for a single turn. The unit is drawn after all movement has been done. Effect is +2 penalty to all skills rolls made in the rest of the turn. After this turn has passed the unit can no longer be affected - remove the unit from the draw/hat.

I used Hexon terrain for artillery co-ordinates, each hex representing a zone of splash damage. I made a fairly simple arty rule to keep the game flowing.

We didn't do the optional rules for secret objectives or use the Brisbane Virus as we had late arrivals to the game and lost valuable game playing time. We also only got 7 tuns in on the ground.

We only had 2 enhanced companies per side instead of an entire battalion but it ended going in our favor to have less. But we had aerospace which was cool. I will let others tell their experiences in the thread.

Players: myself, Jellico, Kommando, Cambo, Asmo and someone who isnt on these forums I don't think...we will call him Dave.

Pic of the entire table. More to follow...

« Last Edit: 16 March 2015, 00:29:04 by Son of Kerenski »

Son of Kerenski

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #1 on: 02 March 2015, 00:02:18 »
Here's a close up of Objective 1, the Star Port. 7 Hex area for control puposes. You needed to have your entire base inside the hex to be considered controlling.

Son of Kerenski

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #2 on: 02 March 2015, 00:03:19 »
Here's a close up of Objective 2, the the HPG. 7 Hex area for control purposes. You needed to have your entire base inside the hex to be considered controlling.

Son of Kerenski

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #3 on: 02 March 2015, 00:05:17 »
The game in action. Cambo and Dave in the FG. Jellico and Kommando battling it out in the Aerospace behind.

Son of Kerenski

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #4 on: 02 March 2015, 00:09:15 »
My forces:

COMMAND
Atlas S3 – 54 (66) skill 3 - LONG RANGE MASTER (+0 at Long range + 4 at Short) - DESIGNATED COMMANDER
Awesome 9Q - 45 (54) skill 3
No Dachi 2KC – 42 (50) skill 3
Thunderbolt NAIS – 41 (49) skill 3

HEAVY
Catapult K4 – 42 (50) skill 3
Archer 9K – 44 (53) skill 3
Grand Dragon (7K MARK) – 36 (36) skill 4
Wolverine 9M – 35 (35) skill 4

PURSUIT
Locust 6M – 19 (23) skill 3 - ANTAGONIZER SKILL - this was brutal. Probably needs further expansion or errated. Really nasty.
Mongoose 76 – 22 (26) skill 3
Jenner C2 – 27 (32) skill 3
Venom 9KC – 25 (25) skill 4

TOTAL
 432 (499)


ARMOURED
JES Missile Carrier - 48 (48) skill 4   (Behemoth II body, with Missile Pod proxy)
Regulator II – 29 (29) skill 4
Void BA – 9 (13) skill 2   (Kanazuchi proxy)
Void BA – 9 (9) skill 4    (Kanazuchi proxy)

TOTAL
89 (99)
« Last Edit: 02 March 2015, 00:25:06 by Son of Kerenski »

Son of Kerenski

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #5 on: 02 March 2015, 00:10:42 »
My first turn of full control on turn 4. Managed to snag 50 VP early.

Son of Kerenski

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #6 on: 02 March 2015, 00:13:28 »
End of turn 5 we had an unexpected visitor. A friendly Sabre dropped out of the sky and decided to visit us on  the ground...3 structure left! He managed to get a shot off and damaged the tank. Then he poped the canopy and ran. BA killed the Sabre, then a turn later killed the pilot. He almost got to the HPG...

Locust and Mongoose killed during shooting therefore not preventing me capture of the zone for 2nd consecutive turn.
« Last Edit: 02 March 2015, 00:15:38 by Son of Kerenski »

Son of Kerenski

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #7 on: 02 March 2015, 00:17:07 »
Final turn of the game. Had control of my zone for 4 consecutive turns and then got straffed by enemy fighters, losing my No Dachi.

Son of Kerenski

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #8 on: 02 March 2015, 00:20:13 »
The aerospace jocks...will let them tell their stories. They have some tales to tell in their battle...

We also managed to damage a few units with snap shot artillery strikes from one of our guys who had the artillery spotter skill. Called 4 of the 5 shots down. Think we damaged with three shots through drifting, might have been only of the 2 rounds that did damage. Never hit a single hex we designated!

My side had a pretty convincing victory - me, Asmo and Kommando were victors. I managed to score 474 points through kills and objective control, Kommando killed 93 points of enemy aeropsace & Asmo managed to kill 149 points of opp force. Dave managed 141 of killed opp forces, Cambo had 262(?) of killed opp forces and I didn't catch Jellicos VP's before he left.

My losses: Mongoose, Locust, Jenner, Venom, Dragon & NoDachi plus the Regulator II.
« Last Edit: 02 March 2015, 00:56:30 by Son of Kerenski »

Son of Kerenski

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #9 on: 02 March 2015, 00:43:15 »
One more glamour pic of my forces before they depart for Brisbane via Union dropship...

Kommando

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #10 on: 02 March 2015, 04:43:09 »
Aerospace 150PV

Eisensturm EST-0C 54PV
Riever F-700b          54PV
Sabre SB-28            21PV
Sabre SB-28            21PV


Jellico only managed to eliminate my 21PV Sabres.
But the Eisensturm was holding together with 3 structure and the Riever was in much the same shape having taken an FC hit and two weapon criticals.
He carried AA Arrow 4 missiles while I, loaded for CAS,  carried HE bombs.
The sabre that was shot up over the centre zone lost all engine power and bravely made a heroic powerless landing. Randomly determining what direction the plane dropped out of the sky and picked a highway leading right towards the enemy to reduce the landing number from 12 to 10s. Double 5s did it among much cheering. And conveniently he had targets in front and ammunition aplenty.

After circling each other for 9 rounds, our planes barely holding together, we decided to break the engagement, carry out our ground support and bug out home.

I was really impressed with the abstract aerospace rules in the Alpha strike book, and could see issues that i raised with the StratOps Abstract aero were fixed, hopefully i had a hand in that.
theyre quite polished and almost bulletproof. The only parts that are not explicitly detailed are how to handle multiple combatants and where a craft enters the ground map when it attempts a crash landing if it loses engines over the Centre Map.
But that was easily handwaved and the whole game is quick and brutal.
What avarice!

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Battletech in Brisbane, Australia.

Jellico

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #11 on: 02 March 2015, 07:11:00 »
yeah, but I was using tin cad FWL fighters.

Riever F-700b
Shiva SHV-0A
Lancer LX-2
Gotha GTHA-500

I have to second the approval of the Alpha Strike Abstract Fighter Rules.

It is accountant tech, but its quick and reflects the power of mobility while still giving the heavies a chance.

SC_Dave

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #12 on: 03 March 2015, 04:58:50 »

Players: myself, Jellico, Kommando, Cambo, Asmo and someone who isnt on these forums I don't think...we will call him Dave.


I don't know if I would have found this thread without the e-mail, but Dave is here  :)

SC_Dave

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #13 on: 03 March 2015, 05:10:41 »

Locust 6M – 19 (23) skill 3 - ANTAGONIZER SKILL - this was brutal. Probably needs further expansion or errated. Really nasty.


As I was kept quite busy dealing with my portion of the battle I didn't really get to observe what happened with the antagonize. Could you elaborate a bit more on how you used it and what effect it had on the battle overall?

The statement in the rules "any enemy unit that comes within 6 inches of a unit" are perhaps a bit vague. Where you taking it as any unit your Locust passed within 6 inches of during its move, or just as any unit within 6 inches at the end of the movement phase? I would have imagined that a Locust that kept finishing its move within 6 inches of the enemy, to antagonise them, would probably have a short lifespan.

Was this "antagonizer" the reason Cambo had trouble getting forces into the objective, i.e. did it keep leading them astray?

Best regards,
Dave
« Last Edit: 03 March 2015, 08:09:03 by SC_Dave »

Son of Kerenski

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #14 on: 03 March 2015, 09:22:20 »
Yay. Dave IS here!  O0

As for the Antagonizer skill, yes my intention was to use that Locust to draw away any units that Cambo was trying to capture the objective with so that I could score points freely.

Where it got nasty is when I would move the Locust away last to end up behind units and they would be come enraged. There wasn't a clear ruling that we could find regarding how the units responded to being enraged against a unit they couldn't actually fire on as it wasn't in arc.  So we sort of decided that it wouldn't fire on any other targets either while it was enraged. Well I did anyway, Cambo just begrudgingly agreed to my logic.

So this stopped a lot of attacks which might have otherwise caused me to lose other units a lot sooner.

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #15 on: 05 March 2015, 05:03:20 »
Thanks for the write-up; it's always nice to see this in actual play.

If you don't mind, a few things grabbed my attention:

Quote
ANTAGONIZER SKILL - this was brutal. Probably needs further expansion or errated. Really nasty.

How so?  Could you be more specific?

Quote
The only parts that are not explicitly detailed are how to handle multiple combatants and where a craft enters the ground map when it attempts a crash landing if it loses engines over the Centre Map.

Would you mind letting me know what you did to handle this, or what should be in the book to cover it?
3028-3057 Random Assignment Tables -
Also contains faction deployment & rarity info.

http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=1219.0

Son of Kerenski

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #16 on: 05 March 2015, 23:25:03 »
Thanks for the write-up; it's always nice to see this in actual play.

If you don't mind, a few things grabbed my attention:

How so?  Could you be more specific?

I had plans to use the Antagonizer skill on my Locust 6M purely to draw my opponents mechs away from the objective zone so that it was easier for me to earn victory points. And that worked really well.

Where it really turned nasty is when multiple units became enraged by my Locust and therefore couldn't fire at it because it was out of arc (my Locust was behind) or the TMM's were so high (+5 and another +2 for partial or woods in most cases). So instead of being able to fire on units that were inside the objective zone they were forced not to fire at all because they couldn't hit it or needed ridiculous numbers.

We also misread the number which made it a little easier for Cambo to resist the number. Thought he needed an eight, which he rolled a few times. After re-reading he actually needed a 9 or more! Thats tough!

There's also the issue of how you approach moving a unit that is already enraged against the Antagonizer when the Antagonizer hasn't actually moved yet - as its not really spelled out fully. How should this be done? I suggested that as long as the units enraged moved at least an inch towards my unit facing anyway he wanted which was usually away from the objective zone. I was always moving my Locust 6M last to put my opponent at a disadvantage.

Xotl I urge you to try it for yourself against an opponent (especially one that doesn't know about it but give them the option to choose a skill as well) using a Locust 6M, to gage for your self how nasty it is even in a straight up fight. Just the ability to deny some of his units a shot at your other forces while keeping your antagonizer out of danger by being behind units should prove a game changer 9 times out of 10. Ask your opponent how he feels about it at the end of the game too. Might prove enlightening.

Drewbacca

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #17 on: 06 March 2015, 03:15:10 »
A question: What terrain is that. I have seen hexes like that before, but I have no idea who makes them or where to buy them.

Son of Kerenski

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #18 on: 06 March 2015, 06:12:20 »
Its called Hexon.

I got mine 2nd hand from a friend who was keen to sell. Essentially got enough to cover 2 ping pong tables. Plus roads plus rivers, plus hills and mountains.

All for 300 dollars australian. Absolute bargain!

https://www.kallistra.co.uk/?page=8

Kommando

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #19 on: 08 March 2015, 02:33:20 »
Thanks for the write-up; it's always nice to see this in actual play.

If you don't mind, a few things grabbed my attention:

How so?  Could you be more specific?
Quote
The only parts that are not explicitly detailed are how to handle multiple combatants and where a craft enters the ground map when it attempts a crash landing if it loses engines over the Centre Map.
Would you mind letting me know what you did to handle this, or what should be in the book to cover it?

The way we had the multiple combatant dogfights was to write down on a scratch pad the various combatants, who they had declared fire against, and their relevant piloting roles against all the other combatants. This way every each combatant is treated as in combat with every other but only shooting its selected target. ie. pursuing one, evading the rest. The winner of each roll off selects range.

Eg:

Turn 3: Sector B
Sabre attacking Lancer
Lancer: Roll 6. Total 11. Short
Shiva: Roll 9. Total 14. Extreme

Riever attacking Shiva
Lancer: Roll 11. Total 12. Extreme
Shiva: Roll 3. Total 3. Jellico picks short. Tailing.

Jellico has his own scratch pad of his rolls.

What this means is in sector B we have a 2v2 combat going. My Sabre and Riever, Jellicos Lancer and Shiva.
My sabre attacks his lancer, my riever attacks his shiva. His Lancer and Shiva both attack my Riever as its a slow pig.
My sabre has +5 to its piloting to determine range and wins most times, passing its 6+ piloting check. It elects to approach its target (The Lancer) at short range, and chooses to put Extreme distance between the enemy Shiva, denying it a shot.
My Riever is attacking the Shiva. Which is attacking me back. I've been able to outmeneuver his Lancer, and elect to put it at extreme range so it cant shoot me. But unluckily I've failed my piloting roll against the Shiva. I am tailed and Jellico (rolling higher and getting a higher total) gets to pick the range. He chooses short and mauls my Riever's tail.

This scratch is done for each sector in each turn.
In our game we had 3 sectors on turn 3 and 4

This scales neatly for 1v1s upwards. A lot of rolls can be ignored if you only roll for actual engagements, but its not much effort to do rolls for every unit vs every other unit in case a daisy chain happens. For most parts however it will be a collection of short and extreme range engagements.


---------
As for where the aerospace enters the ground map when its crashing, the rules state it enters and crashes at the edge of the map. We simply had the player (me) choose roughly where they wanted to enter and attempt to crash land. Since the aero had effectively two states once it intersected the ground, landed or crashed, it effectively became an inert unit an we decided it didnt matter much to let the controlling player have final say where it attempts to avoid lawndart. I chose roughly where i was attempting to land. Then after arbitrarily before rolling which way 1 was I rolled a D6 to determine direction i was heading. Pointed to a piece of road and said "Pilot is attempting to land on roadway. Base skill 4, plus 2 in atmosphere, plus 6 for no engines, minus two for paved. 10's"
I then rolled two 5's. Cheered and placed the unit on the board. Then rolled D6 to see how many inches it needed to pull stop.
With no engines and thus no power, its an immobile unit and remained on the board while the pilot got out and ran next turn.
« Last Edit: 08 March 2015, 02:36:44 by Kommando »
What avarice!

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Cambo

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #20 on: 08 March 2015, 10:02:30 »
Alright time for me to chirp in I guess... ISP issues have kept me quiet till now, (and still will... I shudder to think what these photos are doing to my mobile data plan...)

Anyways... Battle For Brisbane.. The week after I move...  I built a force from what minis I could easily dig out from boxes and the result wasn't spectacular.

In the Command Lance I had:
Atlas 7D 52pts+10 upgrade
Fafnir 5B 57pts + 11 upgrade
Battlemaster 10S2 51pts + 10 upgrade
Zeus 42pts+8 upgrade

In the C3 Lance I had:
Fennec 1CM 40pts+16pts double upgrade
Hammerhands 5D 36pts+7pts upgrade
Mongoose II 267 27pts+5pts upgrade
Ostsol 9R 36pts+ 14pts double upgrade

In the Scout lance I had:
Locust 3S 14pts
Wasp 8T 14pts
Stinger 5R 14pts
Annubis 3R 25pts

For support I had:
2 Typhoon Urban Assault Vehicles (RAC) 39pts
2 Squads of Void Battle Armor (16pts skill2 + 9pts skill 4)

Turn 1:
SC_Dave and I win init and advance... No combat
Though a nasty artillery strike from Asmo's spotter ability drifts into my Atlas, the Battlemaster, and one of the Typhoon's causing a motive crit... :(
Untitled by cambo_prime, on Flickr

Untitled by cambo_prime, on Flickr

Turn 2:
SC_Dave and I win init again and advance again.
Again the ranges are far enough that nothing really does much.
Untitled by cambo_prime, on Flickr

Untitled by cambo_prime, on Flickr

Turn 3:
Kerenski advances force into the southern objective, I rush my mongoose in to deny the capture points.  I manage to play ring around the fuel tank with all his forces and put a little damage on the enemy without exposing too much of the Mongoose to the heavy hitters at the back of Kerenski's force.
Asmo's artillery spotter again running amok allowing Artillery snapshots, instead of our pre planning one turn in advance.

Also Kerenski has me roll for this "Enraged" thing on my Mongoose.. it doesn't matter as the Mongoose is incredibly lucky this turn.

End of the turn the plane fell from the sky and made a miraculous landing.  Apparently our Air support is doing some damage, but Jellico is getting slaughtered by dice.
Untitled by cambo_prime, on Flickr

Untitled by cambo_prime, on Flickr

Turn 4:
We Win initiative again... were using the swinging init rules and its getting ridiculous

The downed Pilot takes a pot shot before bailing and running.  The Mongoose finally dies as does a friendly Locust due to 1 hit as they try to stop the capture points, but but the C3 network gets to work, and the Ostsol, and Fennec put the hurt on an enemy Dragon and the Regulator.  The enemey Mongoose bites it by the hill, and meanwhile the Locust runs into the firing line... and Enrages for all he's worth...Stopping the Hammer hands from joining the fun..  He also Enrages the Annubis and the battle armor.
Untitled by cambo_prime, on Flickr

Untitled by cambo_prime, on Flickr

Untitled by cambo_prime, on Flickr

Turn 5:
Lose Init for the first time...
That locust still has the Hammerhands, Annubis, and the battle armour enraged and is making the most of it with it's +5 TMM plus any cover he can find...  Waiting until all my forces have moved he finds the maximum density of forces and cover to go and screw with people.

The Annubis and the Hammer Hands Pair up to stop any "out of arc" Locust Shennanigans, but it doesn't do much good as we've lost the init, and the slow moving units are too slow to escape the wrath of the Locust and it's Antagonizer skill.

This time the Locust Enrages the Atlas, the Battlemaster, the Typhoon... and is skilfully out of arc or at a to hit roll of 13 on all of them.

Untitled by cambo_prime, on Flickr

Turn 6:
Loose Init again... the Locust will probably be the death of me...
All the Enraged units have to move towards it... and do... only to have the locust bolt out of there as it moves last in the Init order... and runs straight up behind the Fennec.  Luckily the Fennec avoids being enraged, and puts the hurt on the Jenner, and spots for the C3 on the Regulator and NoDashi.  The Hammer hands finally uses it's C3 on it's Enraged Target the locust, but it takes the Atlas to also put it down.  But by this point the Zeus and the Battlemaster have been copping huge amounts of damage from the Long Range Specialist Atlas... They don't have long to last...

Turn 7:
We win init...

Battle armor catch up with the downed Pilot, the Battlemaster falls, as does the Fennec, Zeus this turn thanks to whithering fire from Kerenski's heavy's that have finally gotten into range.

Untitled by cambo_prime, on Flickr

Our "traitorous" air support finally makes it to the battle (the rules prohibited them from firing on the ground until they'd sorted out the mid air stuff first... but neither side would have survived so they declared a truce, did a single turn of support and bugged out).  The Airsupport takes down the Vennom, and misses on everything else.  In return Kerenski's air support return the favour taking out my Atlas... :(

And we're out of time...

In retrospect.. giving the LR ability to my Fafnir wasn't the smartest as it was too slow to make it to the party.  Ditto on adding the Sniper ability to my Fennec as that was already done by the C3.  My rolling wasn't great, and the Antagonzier skill was a huge pain.  I tried to find every way to kill it... I debated since the Locust wasn't in arc it my units should still get to fire, the base to base contact meaning if he moved last, my battle armour could at least stop the Locust from Running (this is a Battleforce Rule, not an alpha strike rule).. anyways...

I'm interested in playing more air... and the Air support guys were slightly upset that the scenario required them to finish air to air before going in to ground pounding mode... I know Kommando had built his force with fast bombers that were supposed to swoop in before the covering air support could catch up.

Anyways... Lessons were learned... we'll play again I'm sure.

You can find my album of pics at https://flic.kr/s/aHsk8qMZVk

Cambo

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #21 on: 08 March 2015, 10:21:00 »
Thanks for the write-up; it's always nice to see this in actual play.

If you don't mind, a few things grabbed my attention:

How so?  Could you be more specific?

Would you mind letting me know what you did to handle this, or what should be in the book to cover it?

Handle it?  We didn't really... I got p0wned...  plain and simple...
Here are some pics to illustrate what happened...
Turn 3:

Turn 4:

Turn 5:

Turn 6:


Now granted, this is a Locust 6M a notoriously dasterdly unit in Alphastrike, and you pay for it in points, and yes, I lost init, and Kerenski put on a show of tactical movement, and yes Kerenski messed up the Antagoniser roll... but Antagoniser is a tad over powered on light units like these. 
Except on the last turn the Locust was only receiving fire from maybe 1 unit each turn... He'd move to antagonise but make sure the target units couldn't shoot back each time, thus removing them from the game.

Granted if I could have targeted him I would have, but most of the time he was out of arc.   My suggestion for the rule would be
"If possible to fire on the Antagoniser the Enraged unit must fire on them to the exclusion of all other targets, other wise the enraged unit may fire on other units"... or allow the Antagonised unit to make the Enraged Roll each turn to try and escape.  I know this is the Iron Will ability, but the Antagoniser is just too powerful... He'd tied up >50% of my force by the end... If I can ignore Trolls on the interwebz, I should be able to do the same in battletech ;)

Son of Kerenski

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #22 on: 09 March 2015, 18:15:36 »

End of the turn the plane fell from the sky and made a miraculous landing.  Apparently our Air support is doing some damage, but Jellico is getting slaughtered by dice.


Was it turn 3 was it? I guess according to your sequence of pics it is. My bad. Sounds about right.

Turn 4 - he fires on the tank
Turn 5 - pops canopy and runs
Turn 6 - The Void BA kill the plane
Turn 7 - The Void BA kills the pilot
end game

Now granted, this is a Locust 6M a notoriously dasterdly unit in Alphastrike, and you pay for it in points, and yes, I lost init, and Kerenski put on a show of tactical movement, and yes Kerenski messed up the Antagoniser roll... but Antagoniser is a tad over powered on light units like these. 
Except on the last turn the Locust was only receiving fire from maybe 1 unit each turn... He'd move to antagonise but make sure the target units couldn't shoot back each time, thus removing them from the game.

Granted if I could have targeted him I would have, but most of the time he was out of arc.   My suggestion for the rule would be
"If possible to fire on the Antagoniser the Enraged unit must fire on them to the exclusion of all other targets, other wise the enraged unit may fire on other units"... or allow the Antagonised unit to make the Enraged Roll each turn to try and escape.  I know this is the Iron Will ability, but the Antagoniser is just too powerful... He'd tied up >50% of my force by the end... If I can ignore Trolls on the interwebz, I should be able to do the same in battletech ;)

Actually its relatively cheap - only 19 points!

I would add to the being able to fire on other units if the Antagonizer isnt in arc errata that "because you are distracted by the antagonzier, the shots on other units are at a +1 or +2 penalty." Otherwise its just too nasty. You can potentially tie up the majority of your opponents force with just one of these things. And maybe drop the target number to an 8 or more to avoid as well.
« Last Edit: 09 March 2015, 18:28:34 by Son of Kerenski »

nckestrel

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #23 on: 09 March 2015, 20:58:41 »
Or just limit it to one target (you have to keep antagonizing them).
Otherwise you would have the antagonized deliberately turning the antagonizer out of arc just so they can fire at the target they want?
Or a shorter range limit to break it?  12"?  If the antagonizer moves more than 12" away, you're no longer antagonized?  That makes the antagonizer more predictable (or breaking its antagonizing)?
Alpha Strike Introduction resources
Left of Center blog - Nashira Campaign for A Game of Armored Combat, TP 3039 Vega Supplemental Record Sheets

Son of Kerenski

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #24 on: 10 March 2015, 00:01:30 »
Those are definitely other options worth exploring. The 24" range from any enraged unit is rather brutal as well...

Drewbacca

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia)
« Reply #25 on: 14 March 2015, 03:21:03 »
Its called Hexon.

I got mine 2nd hand from a friend who was keen to sell. Essentially got enough to cover 2 ping pong tables. Plus roads plus rivers, plus hills and mountains.

All for 300 dollars australian. Absolute bargain!

https://www.kallistra.co.uk/?page=8
Sounds like it, and I would only need enough for a small table. hmm...

Thank you for the link.

Son of Kerenski

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia) - Alpha Strike
« Reply #26 on: 16 March 2015, 00:30:33 »
No problems. It is expensive to buy new, I am incredibly lucky to have a generous friend.

Drewbacca

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia) - Alpha Strike
« Reply #27 on: 18 March 2015, 16:03:35 »
The wife countered with another idea. Go to the craft store and buy moss rubber, cut it into hexes and use that.

Son of Kerenski

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Re: Battle of Brisbane (In Brisbane, Australia) - Alpha Strike
« Reply #28 on: 19 March 2015, 05:01:59 »
Our group has a similar thing with battletech maps. A bit of carpet rubber spongy underlay painted green or brown or white exactly 32 hexes long by 17 wide. Theres a big metal template that we lay over the top to paint in the corners of the dots for the hexes as well. It is a pretty cheap alternative. Effective too.

 

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