Stupidly easy victories

[Vehrec]

So recently, after a hard-fought battle in an urban area involving a dozen or so light/medium tanks, a few Commandos (special forces infantry and the Battlemechs), an Atlas and a Thunderbolt against a couple Heavy lances of very angry and far more skilled pirates,  both my players and the pirates staggered away from each other shaken up pretty badly, with a Pirate Archer actually getting taken out by an ammo crit.  The Pirates fall back to their dropships to plan and repair, and I roll dice to see how many Mechs are taken offline to be repaired.  The dice gods speaketh-all of them.  Apparently, these guys were counting on getting turned around first and back in the fight while my players tried to claim the salvage.

Meanwhile, my players are shaking out their force to go on the offensive-they've been shot up, and several critical hits all around, and barely any of the tanks haven't taken a Motive Crit, but these guys have their blood up and they're sending in a commando infantry team to probe the perimeter while they get organized.  I duly role some more dice to represent the recon, wanting to get this over with sooner rather than later.  The dice gods speaketh again-special forces are practically inside the pirates' Union, and relaying information back.

The fight that followed was a joke.  Nothing makes Pirates surrender faster than learning they've been boarded by an Atlas that snuck up on them through a flame trench.  So what's the most stupidly easy fight you've ever won or lost?

[Pouncer]

Well I was working with one group, they represented a mixed bag merc rookie lance.  I put them up against a lance of equal tech but slightly lighter, it was their first battle and I wanted them to come out winners.  However  3 rounds later, thanks to 2 lucky head crits, the surprise triple engine crit and 2 disastrous falls from the enemy Commando, the rookies stood victorious with little more than some scratched paintwork. 

Yes, the dice gods giveth and the dice gods taketh away.

-POUNCER

[Mendrugo]

The assault on Anton Marik's palace scenario from "The Spider and the Wolf" can be won by the Dragoons in about two turns.  Just use the defensive bunkers as stairs to get up and over the southern wall, stand on the roof of Anton's palace and shoot down until the structural value is less than the weight of the 'Mechs on top, and poof, the rebel duke is pudding before his defensive 'Mechs even power up.

[Vehrec]

The assault on Anton Marik's palace scenario from "The Spider and the Wolf" can be won by the Dragoons in about two turns.  Just use the defensive bunkers as stairs to get up and over the southern wall, stand on the roof of Anton's palace and shoot down until the structural value is less than the weight of the 'Mechs on top, and poof, the rebel duke is pudding before his defensive 'Mechs even power up.

Huh.  Was that intentional, or just not caught in play-testing?  It was a different era I guess.

[The Eagle]

The first, last, and only time my Star Adder-loving friend challenged my Blood Spirits to a fight.  I headcapped a Blood Asp with a Highlander IIC's gauss rifle first turn, then my Blood Kite got three golden BBs with its LRMs that cored the engine on a Dire Wolf turn two.  He requested hegira turn three and we went back to our Marik vs. Liao fights instead.

[Breetai]

Marauder vs. Warhammer (both -3R), the Warhammer hit the Marauder with both PPCs, both to the left torso, roll for crit, 8.

[Stormlion1]

Rioting Infantry with shotguns shoot my Emperor in the back, roll snake eyes, roll for possible crit, roll number of crits. Three engine hits later...

One Emperor taken out a rioting mob with shotguns.

[Sartris]

first turn of firing in a game, i rolled six boxcars in a row and headcapped three mechs. at that point it was six vs two and we decided to start over.

[GoldBishop]

Back when "Partial Cover" hit rolls were done on the Punch Chart, I managed to maneuver an opposing player's Atlas and Awesome into an ambush, catching them as they crossed a river.  The following initiative, I moved 2 medium mechs to the riverbank, effectively "blocking" them from exiting the river, forcing them to idle while a pair of missile boats rained fire down from a level 4 hill on either flank.

The Awesome spread its PPCs to each leg and a side torso of one striker, while the Atlas' shots went wide against the other.  The Mediums managed to peel off enough armor to allow the missile salvos to be reigned in - 3 5-pt cluster hits to the head, 2 on the Atlas, 1 on the Awesome - with the rest of the damage going to the naked torsos.

Having gone internal in several locations, only the Atlas' Head was worth remembering: rolled 3 crits and took out the cockpit on the second roll (Life support and sensors were the others, IIRC).  The Awesome took a hit to the head, but the player rolled snake-eyes for consciousness and toppled his mech into the river.

With his two heaviest mechs out of commission, the player conceded the remainder of the match

[Mendrugo]

Huh.  Was that intentional, or just not caught in play-testing?  It was a different era I guess.

The scenario's author depicted Anton's capital city (with walled fortifications that had kept several regiments of Dragoons at bay) as a 500 meter wide compound.  It appears the designer intended the Widows to fight their way through the city streets and then blast through the walls, but forgot about 'Mechs' ability to climb L1 buildings, so the "defensive bunkers" become stairs to get up and over the wall.

[Sartris]

I remembered one from the Chaos Campaign I was running a few months ago.

The player was a merc under Davion employ in the Chaos March. It turned out that Maj. Cross, the FedCom logistics liaison, had been selling war material and intelligence to the Capellan-backed rebel militia. With the jig being clearly up, Maj. Cross and his loyal subalterns attempted to escape in a pursuit scenario. The chase was fraught with peril. Hidden units. Minefields. Off-board artillery. The PC's force would be lucky to achieve his objective.

Then the PC headcapped Maj. Cross' Argus in turn four. Barely a scratch to any other units on the board. The game was over in less than an hour.

[garhkal]

A lance on lance battle with my brother.  250 tons each, IS tech (3055 and lower)..  Within 3 rounds of actual combat (it took 2 rounds to actually get to where any shots were fired), i had destroyed 2 of his mechs (one a head hit and the other from getting a pair of lucky Tacs to the CT and took out his engine).  Only had suffered 24 points of damage to any of my mechs at this time.  The following round, i hit another of his for a TAC on the right side and blew up his LB-10 ammo which took the mech out.  He was now down to 2 mechs (a 35 tonner and a 45 tonner).  He spent the better part of 4 more rounds moving them so much i could barely touch them till i finally got to his 45 tonner, and took out it's right leg.  He surrendered.

[Natasha Kerensky]

Early on, I stopped using Gauss cannons, Clan peepers, and AC-20s when training a newbie.  These training games were the one time -- and exactly the wrong time -- when I could consistently headcap an opponent.  I once headcapped a guy in college with an Executioner Prime on the very first turn in a one-on-one training game.  We restarted, and I headcapped him again on the first turn.  Traded the Executioner for a Summoner on the third try.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I had a friend that eventually had to stop playing against, since very time we tried running a game it ended with his force getting horrifically mangled.

The worst was a Star on Star fight between the Ghost Bears (my force) and Nova Cats (his).  We were playing with Honor level 4.  His Mad Cat Mk II took three SRMs to the head, suffered an ammo explosion, and failed the PSR to remain standing and the one to prevent pilot injury- 6 pilot hits in one round.  My Black Hawk H alpha striked his Nova Cat from behind, it melted.  My Arcas 2 scored a heat hit with a PPC against his Nobori-nin.

And that all occurred in one round.  He'd managed to strip all the armor off the front of my Kodiak without going internal anywhere, and the only two mechs he had left were a Black Hawk E and a Dragon Fire.  He decided that the battle was pretty much over at that point.

[Stormlion1]

I usually give the headcappers to the guys I'm teaching or use 3025 mechs. Just makes it easier. One of the strangest defeats for me was a pick up game where my Kodiak is surrounded by small mechs. Almost everyone misses, then I get hit by a small laser. Snake Eyes possible crit. he gets a eight. So we roll it. Get the head, roll the location. Cockpit.

[Vehrec]

I'm noticing a lot of critical hits and head-capping, not so much fights so badly balanced that one side can just sweep the field.  We are apparently not very good at picking off weaklings in our campaigns or using overwhelming force to acomplish objectives. :D

[GoldBishop]

Personally?  I've only ever played in stand-up games that were single-battle "Last Man Standing" or "achieve X objective".  Clashing forces have been rather well balanced (only once did I play an ad-hoc game where I didn't have any Lance cohesion; once I learned the rules, it never happened again).

As for one-sided battles?  Most recent one I was in happened March 7th at Arcticon (Valpraiso, Indiana).  First event was a 3-man, 250 PV Alpha Strike "Free-For-All" on a 4x4 table full of terrain. 
- Corner 4 (me), 1 mixed Star [Indirect Fire] with Summoner, Madcat, Vulture, Dasher, and 5 Gorgon Protos; skills roughly 2/3
- Corner 3, Society Star w/ 2 Osteons, 2 Septicemia, and 1 Cephalus (all w/ Nova CEWS); skills roughly 4/5 to make the cut-off
- Corner 2, mixed Lance (1 Shogun, Centurion, Wolfhound IIC, Jenner); Skills all 0

The Inner Sphere Lance never missed - they hit every Target Number.  However, except for the Shogun ("C" variant that does 7 damage at Short and Medium ranges) their mechs couldn't do more than 3 damage at a time.  AND that player was focused entirely on the Society mechs, earning the first kill by taking down a Septicemia, and, later, the other one. (2 kills)

The Society mechs were the beefiest on the boards - lots of armor, crit resist, etc - but their pilots were grossly underskilled.  My best guess was that their Accuracy was a meager 20~25%.
Even with the Nova CEWS, the lowest TNs for that player was an 8 (4 skill + 2 range + 2 TMMs on average, or 5 skill + 3 TMM).  With it's 2 favorable c3 networks, the Society player was able to split fire between the two lances, but only managed to kill the Centurion and Jenner of the Inner Sphere Lance (2 kills)

The Clan Star was there to essentially mop up what was left.  After the Cephalus underestimated the jumping potential of the Summoner, fatally ignoring the Protomechs (previous damage allowed two Gorgons to tear it apart and kill it). The Dasher - moving from cover to cover - devastated the Shogun from behind before giving chase to a fleeing Wolfhound.  The first Osteon made the mistake of closing to range on the Summoner as it moved to away engage the Shogun.  It receiving concentrated fire - both direct and indirect - that crippled the exposed mech.  Once the Ceph was neutralized, the Osteon's began to withdraw but fell beneath the Vulture's talons.
The Shogun and surviving Osteon charged one another, only to be flanked by the Clan forces.  The Summoner swooped in and tore out the rest of the Shogun's rear, an ammo explosion sending the mech to the dirt even as the Dasher finished off the Wolfhound; the Osteon took more critical damage that crippled it just as it's twin had.

In the end, it was 9 units vs 1 crippled, armor-less Osteon. 

[Mendrugo]

I'm noticing a lot of critical hits and head-capping, not so much fights so badly balanced that one side can just sweep the field.  We are apparently not very good at picking off weaklings in our campaigns or using overwhelming force to acomplish objectives. :D

Looking at official scenarios:

Rebirth (Northwind Highlanders) can be easily won by the defending side if it strategically places its Manticores and the target buildings so the attacking hovercraft can't really participate in the battle.

Birth of the King (BattleCorps) is designed to be a curb-stomp battle pitting the first Mackie against primitive Merkava tanks.

Tactics of Desperation (BattleCorps) is also designed as a curb-stomp battle between the Battlecruiser LCS Invincible and the last Combine WarShip battlegroup (a carrier escorted by destroyers and corvettes).

In "End of Days" (BattleCorps), the pirates can instantly win on points if they retreat without their water transport vehicles. 

In Hide and Seek (BattleSpace), the Black Lion massively outguns the two Congress-class WarShips it fights. 

The Great Lee Turkey Shoot (Northwind Highlanders) is nearly impossible for the AFFS to win, improbably enough, since the AFFS' numerical superiority isn't enough to compensate for the massive disparity in firepower and armor between the Davion Sparrowhawks and the Capellan fighters.  The AFFS needs to field a lot more fighters than seen in the official scenario to achieve the historical outcome.

In Killing Dragons (BattleCorps), Langston's Lancers can't win, because the setup describes a hammer and anvil situation with the pirates trapped between the Lancers and its Assault elements dropped in ahead.  Unfortunately, the coordinates given for the drop are actually behind the pirates, so they start out ahead and have the speed to widen the gap and get away without a shot being fired.

The Bigger They Are... (Spider and the Wolf) as previously noted can be won before the defending 'Mechs even power up, due to the poor placement of the defensive bunkers.

Snord Rides Again (Cranston Snord's Irregulars) - gives the Marik forces four quad-AC/5 Riflemen...with four bullets per 'Mech - so they can alpha-strike once and then they run dry.

Lady's Man (Tales of the Black Widow) is a disaster from a balance perspective.  Pitting eight damaged AFFS 'Mechs against 11 Widows, the only way for the AFFS to win is to drive the Widows off without losing more than two 'Mechs.

[cold1]

first turn of firing in a game, i rolled six boxcars in a row and headcapped three mechs. at that point it was six vs two and we decided to start over.

Gotta love MegaMek, I headcapped 4 mechs in 2 turns.  With the same mech.  And thus my custom Blood Asp is know as configuration noggin!

[House Davie Merc]

Lost -
Upon first contact his Locust 1M hits my Awesome 8Q on a 11+ to-hit roll .

Yup .
Crits out my gyro and my Awesome falls behind the level 1 hill he
was using for cover .

Next round An LRM round from his Crusader hits ( at 10+ )
the gyro of my Warhammer 6D , while his Archer lands
an LRM cluster right into my Catapult's engine .
( At an 11+ to hit )

Then he proceeds to tell me how flawed my strategy was .


I really wish that lucky through the armor crits received a -2 on the
crit roll table .
We tried floating crits and the result was just more ammo explosions
on otherwise pristine mechs .

[Sartris]

I'm noticing a lot of critical hits and head-capping, not so much fights so badly balanced that one side can just sweep the field.  We are apparently not very good at picking off weaklings in our campaigns or using overwhelming force to acomplish objectives. :D

I goaded another player in a periphery campaign into a hasty urban assault by giving the impression I was holding a person of immense personal value to him there... where i had regiment upon regiment of infantry hiding in every building and back alley.  Under the impression time was off the essence, he rushed through the city as quickly as possible to perform the rescue. It was death by sandpaper... and hetzers  :))

[Caedis Animus]

Lost -
Upon first contact his Locust 1M hits my Awesome 8Q on a 11+ to-hit roll .

Yup .
Crits out my gyro and my Awesome falls behind the level 1 hill he
was using for cover .

Next round An LRM round from his Crusader hits ( at 10+ )
the gyro of my Warhammer 6D , while his Archer lands
an LRM cluster right into my Catapult's engine .
( At an 11+ to hit )

Then he proceeds to tell me how flawed my strategy was .


I really wish that lucky through the armor crits received a -2 on the
crit roll table .
We tried floating crits and the result was just more ammo explosions
on otherwise pristine mechs .

It's situations like this that made through-armor crits get banned in most games I played.

[Atlas3060]

It's situations like this that made through-armor crits get banned in most games I played.

They can be rather capricious when it comes to whom they favor.
I remember in a MegaMek campaign, my Commando TAC'ed a Battlemaster on round two.
SRM to the chest took a gyro out, poor guy just dropped like a brick.
After that we decided I'll take the win, but he can keep his Mech.
The humor factor alone was worth it.

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

  The group I'm GMing is in their tenth game year. Their mercenary unit has been in combat almost nonstop for most of those ten years and they even consider combat as vacation time.
  One player was banned from Solaris and Galatea arena combat as he was unbeatable. He has never lost a fight and has personally killed over 20 Clan pilots in duels. Nearly all of the unit members have earned enough XP to buy special abilities -The unit commander has Demoralizer; The other players have taken Jumping Jack or Sniper or Marksman; One player, who is a TSM expert, is a Melee Master.

  Last weekend, instead of the group commanding their own companies and battalions, they formed one Company from Hell and spearheaded Operation Bulldog. They tore a CSJ trinary to pieces without a single casualty. Now that they have had a taste of what it's like to be a god on the battlefield, I'll be ending the campaign, before they decide to annihilate Clan Ghost Bear.

[MAD-4A]

Early on, I stopped using Gauss cannons, Clan peepers, and AC-20s when training a newbie.  These training games were the one time -- and exactly the wrong time -- when I could consistently headcap an opponent.  I once headcapped a guy in college with an Executioner Prime on the very first turn in a one-on-one training game.  We restarted, and I headcapped him again on the first turn.  Traded the Executioner for a Summoner on the third try.

yea, I know what you mean. Last year at Texicon I was in the tournament, I got to the final. We maneuvered in, 1st shot GR (or was it a C-PPC – I don’t remember) too my head. Oh well – that's luck, no skill involved. At home I use a special rule of my own “Double Rolling Crits” the same as Rolling Crits but we do 2&12, 1st roll of 2 or 12 is a possible crit, 2nd roll for location. Cuts way down on the lucky headcapping but, when you get one, you kind'a earned it.

[MAD-4A]

... then I get hit by a small laser. Snake Eyes possible crit. he gets a eight. So we roll it. Get the head, roll the location. Cockpit.

oh yea, in my MW group we called that the "Curly" shot "nuyknuyknuyk". They were part of a planetary assault & wound up facing an Achilles DS. Their Excal & Seeker were pounding away. It was pounding back, then their mod Mk IV landing craft closes to its stern, fires it's small weapons suit (which included a SL, they had an extra .5tn) the SL hit, engine crit...boooommmm. oh, ways cleared. :o

[MAD-4A]

As for victories, well, for reg BT I described elsewhere, a guy I use to play with always had to have Arti or bombers or something, could not play mech-on-mech so one weekend we were doing 15,000 bv. he brought (as predicted) 2 Long Toms & 4 Snipers, along with his mech and tank force. So I pulled out my 2 LT, 4 CAT-5Cs, 4 Demolisher Arrow IV mods, 1 Stuka, 4 Archers & 1 Stalker H with Thunder LRMs & 12 SW scout cars. I proceeded to thunder the 2 bridges across the deep river while my Arti demolished his. when he then ran his mechs through the mine field to the other side of the bridge, I sent 2 SW into each (mined) hex he had mechs in. he protested that they would have to take mine effects too, I agreed & pointed out that if that doesn't kill them I have Arti pre-plotted incoming from last turn, oh and those SWs are Fusion mod (Stackpole rules were in effect  >:D). he couldn't handle someone out-using his own cheese against him.

as for AlphaStrike, I faced a friend who brought a battalion of various mechs. I bought 4 LRM carriers, 4 Locust 3Ds, a command vehicle, 12 SWs and a regiment of 1-2pt vees (SvMast, Gabriels, Hover APCs & a few tracked APCs) - surround, trap, demolish, overrun. >:D He called it cheesy so I went home and wrote up a TO&E for the unit, the "1st Wisconsin Light Striker Regiment"

[Caedis Animus]

Not to be a jerk, MAD-4A, but... Did you forget there was an "Edit post" button?

On-Topic, the most stupidly easy victory I ever got was when I made the "Tactical Mistake" of sending my Atlas ahead of ALL my forces in order to wound/distract the enemy Reinforced Lance.

First turn, headcapped enemy Banshee via AC/20. Second turn, Cored Spider via medium lasers+punches. Third turn, legged and unconscious Cyclops via multiple attacks from multiple units (Chiefly the Atlas' AC/20). Fourth turn, armless Jenner.

Sure, my Atlas died due to sheer mass firepower. But the recoverable pilot was safe, and the enemy beat feet for home with nothing but a heavily damaged Jenner and a terrified Jagermech. What's better is, the Atlas only went down because the Gyro got shot out; While not an easy fix, it's something that can be replaced in 3025. And the icing on the cake was that it was my first match. I've never done that good since then, which is... Kind of depressing.

[SilverSword]

Year and years ago Ed Karl of the Gamer's Union came up to a Con and jumped into a Thump-And-Bump (1d4 weight class, 1d6 weight w/in class, choose any 'Mech, d20 for row and hex). He gets his Stalking Spider jumps 3 hexes behind my Hunchback IIC on turn 1... oops. Quick hop back 4 hexes, both UAC20s hit with 3 total shots... 2 6 7 --- what stalking spider?

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I was playing a one-on-one battle against a friend.  He ended up taking a Thresher against my Black Hawk Prime.  The first round, he attempted to activate MASC.  Rolled a 2 (MASC rolls are one of his big weaknesses, he fails them far more often than is statistically probable).  Crit locations- 1 and 1: both hips destroyed.  At that point I just walked up and gave him an Alpha Strike.