AAR for Thunderstruck chaos campaign mission, 5/10/22 (figured I needed to start dating these for reference as my chicken scratch notes at the table dont always hold up so well)
Going into the mission, the Vulture B and Locust iic took warden options, while the Turkina player (piloting a Black Lanner D for this mission), Nova, and Uller players all took the crusader option to start further up the table with an initiative bonus on turn 1.
Unfortunately I rolled pretty hot on initiative this game, and the command bonus from the Van Strang command mechs only furthered the good rolls.
Turn 1, the locust pushed up to one side with his bad initiative, inviting me to ambush him when my forces moved. The rest of the players sallied out, getting decent bonuses but trying to stay mostly central. Going for back shots on that locust iic, one enforcer slipped, and the pheonix hawk also skidded, but skidded into terrain. Before resolving all the fall/skid damage, I got a center torso crit, and 2 gyros put the phoenix hawk down on the movement portion of turn 1! And these guys were veteran pilots too, but snake eyes are snake eyes. Elsewhere, the second enforcer did manage his run to get rear shots on the locust, the highlander walked up to kick, and the commando made an oblique run to also kick. The tanks took firing positions, and shots started flying. The Locust iic entered a duel with the commando, the Black Lanner star commander got greedy and marked both an enforcer and highlander, the Vulture marked the blackjack, and the nova marked the skidded enforcer. Finally, the Uller marked the mongoose. Shots exchanged saw many search lights get knocked out, with the Uller and the Black Lanner keeping their lights, though the Nova may have its light taken out later. Damage overall was light, as the Nova jumped forward in a way to draw some of the fire off the locust, and the locust with its +4 TMM didnt even take 20 damage despite point blank. The main culprit was the +1 rain and +1 wind making lots of the OPFOR missile attacks bad--the scary 4xLRM15 partisan maybe did 40 damage in 6 turns. The lightning triggered on a roll of a 6, and dealt 10 damage to an Opfor Mech, the highlander I think.
In physicals, the Locust's luck almost ran out. The highlander needed an 8 to kick, and the player had to burn edge to force a reroll, as my first attack hit. 19 damage would have killed the Locust's leg all at once!
Round 2, the players backed up as they could, but the Uller went down a closed off alley which would put it in danger later. With the Mongoose gone after the Vulture, the Uller put an ac/10 into a Scorpion. Fortunately, with no lights to see by, many of my mechs failed PSRs for moving recklessly in the dark, as the loss of the searchlights already started showing. With half my mechs on the ground on turn 2, not much fire was exchanged. The Vulture was the lowest initiative, which got repeated turn after turn, so the Cicada, enforcer and Mongoose closed the distance and hounded the vulture every turn for the rest of the game. The Vulture player was in a duel with the black jack, so while the other mechs were hounding him he kept his honor and just let them get unanswered shots. I clustered everything on the left arm and right leg somehow, and got a foot crit which slowed the vulture down. The pilot did make the PSR for 20+ damage, which triggered their Warden Elemental support. The cicada got attacked by hiding elementals, and rolled to hit with a swarm attack and hit! For the players counter, with many searchlights knocked out, the damage turned to a trickle, the +3 night penalty really slowing things down. I believe the Lanner, with its functioning light, drew some fire and lost its light turn 2 or 3. Round 2 the lightning triggered AGAIN, 2 in a row, and struck the Vulture I think in the arm.
Round 3, the Vulture was forced to move first and tried to make a slow fighting retreat. The cicada, mongoose, and enforcer followed. The Locust iic moved up, but failed their PSR for moving recklessly and fell with an incomplete movement. This turned the attention of the blackjack, tanks, Highlander, second enforcer, and commando. Many got adjacent for that -2 adjacent bonus. The Uller, who was backed into the alley in the previous turn, came out 2 hexes from the fallen Locust, taking partial cover on the terrain in the center of the traffic circle. For shooting, the Locust took a beating but the partial movement mod before the fall was enough, when combined with all the night/weather effects, see him live through the weapons and physicals phase, armless and with critical leg damage. With no arm to prop and shoot, and with the PSR to stand with the no arms quirk and no leg being impossible, the mech was abandoned and a mission kill. The pilot's honor was intact, as it was impossible to continue fighting, making the surrender acceptable, and since the mech wasnt cored out he didnt even have to replace his defeated machine. As for the Elementals, with the Blackjack not in his face attacking his rear, the Vulture doubled up with the swarming elementals to knock the cicada down, nearly crippling it. It too, with the no arms quirk, had enough damage that it couldnt continue fighting as was removed, giving the Mad Dog/Vulture first blood for the player forces.
Round 4, the Vulture, losing initiative again, put his back to a level 5 building and prepared for the assaults. The mongoose took position on his left side, and the Enforcer (marked in a Duel with the Black Lanner who greedily declared 2 mechs at once) took position on his right side. The hover tank floated in, using its 9 MP cruise to get short range shots on something every turn with no skid issues. The vulture saw his left arm savaged, and his right leg had 10 points left, just enough that any kick from the enforce would cleave it. The blackjack took the opportunity to close on the vulture as well, going for a kill. The highlander fell moving into optimal range, and the accumulated damage saw the rt arm get knocked off, so no proping and shooting. The Highlander spent half the game on the ground lol. The Uller, still working on getting out of the bind from turn 2 when it went down a dead end ally, moved back and forth to keep a TMM, while turning to face the enemy--i believe he finished off the scorpion he damaged the previous turn. The mongoose was out of line of sight, and the Uller didnt move to engage his honor duel target this turn, so he earned a Dezegra point. The Nova managed to get a line on the second enforcer this turn, and finally dropped his duel target. The Blackjack, the Vulture's target, also dropped to the accumulated medium pulse and missile fire. In melee, the Enforcer missed his mech toppling kick, sparing the vulture this turn. The Mongoose didnt miss, and got started on chopping down the Vultures left leg too.
Round 5, The Nova took position on the LRM partisan, killing it; the Uller landed an Ultra to kill the commando's CT weakened by the earlier Locust iiCs small lasers (and earned a 2nd dezegra point for not engaging the Mongoose), and the Black Lanner continued to tapdance with the highlander at long range and send a streak6 at the Enforcer as honor demanded to keep engaging both units. The Vulture, slowed and stuck fighting with his weakened back to a building, again had to weather the Mongoose on his left and Enforcer on his right. Since he didnt have an honor target, he took the opportunity to break honor entirely and try and save his leg from the enforcer. Since the black lanner was only ineffectively tossing a streak at the enforcer while focusing on the real prize of the highlander, there was no chance the Black Lanner would help save the Vulture from the enforcer. SO he put everything into the Enforcer, causing enough for a knockdown, keeping his leg safe for 1 more turn. The Mongoose finished chopping the left leg armor and started getting internals there though, but somehow the Vulture stayed strong.
Round 6, the Uller finally moved up to engage the Mongoose, and took it out with no time (or Dezegra points) to spare. The Black Lanner stripped the PPC off the Highlander, the Nova moved to shoot the other Scorpion tank and dropped it. The Highlander did some more flopping and standing, but still put a PPC shot on the Black Lanner before losing the main gun. The Vulture was still in a death dance with the Enforcer, as the Enforcer stood and once again was threatening the Right Leg with a 10 point deathblow. The uller had taken some scattered hits throughout, and the Plainsman hovertank almost put him out with critical damage, but he lived. The Vulture took 2 crits to his right torso, destroying both the SRM streak launchers, and didnt knock down the Enforcer with shooting damage--a potential leg killing kick was incoming. The enforcer missed the kick, then fell, but was once again still alive. The Mech started dumping ammo on the now useless streak 6 bin.
Round 7, the initiative was seized with a good roll, and the Vulture finally put the Enforcer down. The Plainsman maneuvered behind the Vulture, and with the 3 SRM launchers I scored a ridiculous number of hits, which took a lower leg actuator, and then I got a silly 8 confirmed crits to the right torso from 2 point SRM damage, a 12, 11, 10, and 8. With the torso crits taken the previous round that knocked out the streak launchers, I fulled critted out the entire right torso, then transferred a few crits to the center torso and got the engine. Worse, since the ammo was being dumped, the ammo was still valid to explode this turn, so the pilot took 2 head hits from the ammo explosion. With the second mech destroyed, the Uller, who had been in survival mode since turn 2, simply moved behind a level 2 wall to ensure more than 50% of the player force survived. The Plainsman took a parting shot from the Uller, not killing it, but damaging it. The real action was with the Nova and Black Lanner with the Highlander. Disgruntled with the Black Lanner declaring 2 mechs, but only engaging 1 (which almost cost the Vulture his life every time that Enforcer went for a 10 point kick), the Nova broke honor and alpha striked with all 12 lasers to try and kill the Highlander out from the Black Lanner. The maneuver failed, as the Highlander had been only damaged significantly in both arms, and while 9 lasers hit out of 12 hit the highlander was still standing. The Black Lanner then fired her 6 er mediums, and these traveled from the destroyed right arm, to the destroyed rt torso, and into the center torso to finish off the Highlander that the Nova had just savaged with 63 laser damage.
With only the 1 plainsman hover tank, I was prepared to call it, but rolled for lighting at the end of the turn 7. A roll of 6! Oh boy, 3 player mechs with damage, 1 hover tank... A killing blow to the uller could turn this to a pyrrhic victory... I numbered each unit clockwise, and rolled a 2, indicating a hit on the Hovertank which got damaged earlier! This 10 lightning killed the hovertank, ending the night with a literal curse from the gods as the vulture's killer suffered divine retribution!
At the end of the mission, the Vulture ended up with 3 mech kills, so he earned the MVP xp for 2 weeks in a row. His damage was significant, so his chaos campaign total is 0 after repairs. The Uller and Locust IIC, after spending many weeks building honor in light mechs, both finally have the points necessary to upgrade their rides after losing their assault mechs in week 1. The Turkina/Black Lanner/Fire falcon player had a butchers bill in repairs on multiple mechs to pay off, so is starting the next mission pack a bit in the red but with multiple mechs to choose from. The Nova player was previously in the red from buying the pilot skill jumping jack, but that skill has paid off way more then its cost at this point--a head hit is still in need of healing though.
This mission was brutal; the falls and skids did a bunch of damage to the Opfor and even killed one of my mechs on a skid, the phawk! The Uller player commented that without that luck, with all the times I won initiative I probably would have cleaned up with the Phoenix hawk stalking around and ganging up on the weakened clan machines.
With the final campaign mission a success as the players kept 50%+ alive while killing 100% of the enemy mechs, the players dont need to play the 4th mission, hot pockets, to clean up the Van Strang forces they missed in any of the earlier missions. This means we advance to 3050, and begin wave 1, the invasion of the inner sphere! Of note, all the City Fighter configs (usually S, sometimes C, depending on the machine/lore) are now available in the timeline, using lessons learned in the periphery campaigns. The next significant time the Omni's get new configs is during/after Tukayyid in 3052, but the 3050 city fighting machines are some of the best configs the clans get, especially for whats to come!
The Turkina Keshik cant rest easy though, as their first deployment into the Lyran portion of the Federated Commonwealth is a doozy.
