BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Game Systems => A Time of War => Topic started by: ragnar on 29 December 2013, 05:58:18
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It is a staple of Mechwarrior scenarios, the finding of a lost SLDF base including perhaps brand new and advanced mechs.
However if you are playing ATOW in 3085 or 3145 you have a ready made alternative, lost Word of Blake bases! Or even worse lost Manei Domini bases!
Perhaps the best to use in 3145 are Manei Domini bases. Their uses can vary depending on how they fit into a camapign:
1. The PC's find the base, but do not recognise what it is. The traps are however all working as they are only sixty or seventy years old. When they trip the first trap a countdown starts. When the PC's get to the heart of the complex they find cryo berths warming up, with some already open.
2 What happens next will depend on the campaign. If it is supposed to be a short interlude then you can have an Alien style running fight with one or more Manei Domini Zombies as the opposition. Maybe the PC's come out with just their lives and /or some great equipment before the base blows.
However if you want something longer you can have a couple of options:
3 The base is situauted on a relatively out of the way planet, such as Tincalunas in the Fronc Reaches, so the Manei Domini take over the planet and start converting the 'Frails' About a mixed level III or less should do it. The GM can have the 2nd Liao Dragoons raiding the planet and finding opposition they cannot deal with. Or perhaps elements of the 2nd or 3rd Fronc Cuirassiers come calling to find out why the system has gone quiet, with the same results. The PC's have to rally the opposition and harass the Manei Domini until they can work out how to destroy the base.
4 The PC's manage to destroy some of the Manei Domini but the rest escape in a large dropship to a similarly hidden Jumpship. The PC's can escape before the base blows in the remaining Leopard class dropship, including mechs. Partial downloads from the base computer will indicate that the Manei Domini are going to commit some unspeakable atrocity, but they have to stop off at other sustems to gain renforcements and / or parts for the weapon. The PC's will also have to spend a long time piecing together the evidence as to where the MD are going from the encrypted records. The PC's have to chase the MD across space trying to stop them, while trying to hide the fact that they are in a WOB dropship and their mechs are as well. Maybe they wiil have to convert the mechs cockpits so that they can be used by 'frails' as well.
Whichever option you use the Manei Domini are always mysterious and evil enough that the GM can get away with almost anything!
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Good idea, ragnar! I'll keep it mind for when my campaign makes that jump!