*blows off the dust*
I decided recently to start playing this out as a series of scenarios against the bot, now that Princess has gotten at least basically competent enough to be fun to play against. For the past couple nights, I've been playing out the Battle of Aeschel Plateau on Arcadia, between the 35 'Mechs of Clan Star Adder (backed up by half a dozen grounded DropShips) and a mixed regiment of forces from the Ilkasur Shogunate (48 'Mechs, 48 tanks and 27 IndustrialMech MODs).
I'm a dozen turns in now, and it's been fascinating to see it play out thus far. The map is largely open badlands, with some strips of Depth 1 terrain and rough hexes like a couple of big tiger stripes running east-west. The Adder DropShips are grounded in a big six-hexes-apart-from-each-other triangle just south of the more southerly stripe, and I arrayed the three Stars of heavy and assault 'Mechs around them in the little trenches, where they went hull-down and awaited the onslaught. The Shogunate forces initially tried tried to storm the Adder defensive line, but after losing about a dozen units in a couple turns, they pulled back to just outside the range of the DropShip guns and probed at the nearest entrenched Adder 'Mechs while waiting for the slower elements of their forces to marshal, presumably for one big push. Meanwhile, I kept the other four, more mobile Stars in reserve on the right flank, waiting until the Shogunate forces had mostly spearheaded toward the DropShips before moving to engage around turn 6 or 7. They're currently rolling over the Shogunate right flank like a steamroller, and in a turn or two will turn to try to start hitting the bulk of the Shogunate forces from a second angle. As of the current turn, the Shogunate has lost about 20% of its BV, whereas the Adders have yet to lose a single 'Mech (although a few are looking pretty rough).
