The fifth scenario, set in April 3029, is very interesting, story-wise. The Capellan Confederation launched Operation Riposte, hoping to sever Davion supply lines and stop the invasion. Unfortunately for them, false information was fed concealing the presence of heavy fortifications protecting the six stockpile planets holding vital materiel. In the debacle that followed, a separate operation launched against another world revealed the whereabouts of a major NAIS facility research on the planet Bethel, working on the formula for triple-strength myomer. The main force of the Liao Fourth Tau Ceti Rangers was then sent to the city of Oakland, drawing most of Davion Light Guards’ Delta Company away from the NAIS facility. This allowed a smaller force of Liao ‘Mechs to pin down the defending token force and enabling a special commando squad to steal several NAIS research projects, including the one about TSM (we all know how it ended for the Capellans…). The scenario is introduced by an excerpt from “The Capellan’s Dying Breath”, featuring Captain Andrew Redburn – one of the main characters of Michael Stackpole’s Warrior Trilogy, which I am reading as I write this. I’m still a couple of years before these events, when Andrew was captured by Kuritans while escorting the Archon-Designate Melissa Steiner to New Avalon – but I guess that the Kell’s Hounds fleeing from the Kuritans will save the day.
Anyway, back to our scenario. Fairly straightforward to adapt, a Stand-Up Fight and standard scoring (*) and only a couple of special rules: the attacking 4th Tau Ceti Rangers cannot withdraw before the end of Turn 12, so that the commando forces can extract as much data as possible from the secret NAIS facility; additionally, swarming tactics adopted by Delta Company grant the defending player a +2 Initiative bonus for the whole scenario.
The original Battlepack scenario had two Capellan lances (medium and assault) pitted against two reinforced Davion lances (both light) with better pilots, for a total of about 12,600 vs. 11,300 BV.
I took the same 111% ratio and modified it with our 160% balancing for Lorenzo, who chose these units:
Delta Company, Davion Light Guards (AFFS)
Fox Lance (Under-Strength) Role PV Tons Skill PVmod
Rifleman RFL-4D Sniper 27 60 3 32
Valkyrie VLK-QA Missile Boat 22 30 3 26
Hunchback HBK-4SP Juggernaut 30 50 4 30
Cat Lance (Under-Strength) Role PV Tons Skill PVmod
Wolfhound WLF-1 Striker 24 35 3 29
Hatchetman HCT-3F Brawler 20 45 3 24
Jenner JR7-D Striker 26 35 3 31
These amounts to 172 PV, to which I opposed my 121 PV force:
Fourth Tau Ceti Rangers, First Battalion (CCAF)
Command Lance Role PV Tons Skill PVmod
Vindicator VND-1R Brawler 27 45 3 32
Hunchback HBK-4G Juggernaut 28 50 4 28
Trebuchet TBT-5N Missile Boat 29 50 4 29
Catapult CPLT-C1 Missile Boat 32 65 4 32
My son designed a specific Hunchback variant for this scenario, but since it featured Lostech (double heat sinks and CASE) we decided there was no way for it to fit in a regular Davion unit, and he swapped it for another variant combining an energy loadout with twin SRM6, the -4SP version. If you are interested, you can find it on Mordel listed as HBK-2Q, a likely SLDF variant of the original Star League model. I also have an Hunchback, the standard, slightly less powerful (at least in AS terms) HBK-4G.
(*) Going back at the scenario, I considered introducing some slight change to the victory conditions. I always feel the need to add some kind of driver to prompt one of the two sides, to avoid the potential situation in which both players would see turtling as a good strategy (then why should a fight occur)?
The +2 Initiative bonus is quite juicy for the Defender, considering that the attacker cannot retreat any damaged unit until Turn 12. Despite the default assigned attacker/defender roles, I see the defender as the one who should actively move against the opponent. The more so, since in the hypothetical situation in which everybody stays put, the Liao Rangers would just say "thanks, we're done here" and happily retreat after 12 turns - the Davion guards don't know that their Prince actually WANTS Capellans to put their hands on the flawed TSM...
To spice things a bit, I am giving the attacker a flat PV bonus if its units survive until the end of T12. This is also somewhat consistent with the original victory conditions, in which the defender should score a little bit more points of the attacker to win (on a BV basis, considering the 50% higher average unit BV of the original roster). I think that a 20% of the running PV total should be OK (30 PV in our case).
EDIT: Not 10%/15PV as firstly stated. Actually, had I designed the scenario, I would have changed the scoring so that the attacking side scores points for keeping the Davions off for a certain time, without worrying too much about damage they inflict (thus half points scored for kills, but the potential to score as much for accomplishing their objective). However, the original scenario was clearly designed in a symmetric way, so that the objective of the attacker was to inflict casualties on the defender (maybe to distract them from the NAIS facility and dissimulate their intention to simply cause a delay), therefore I decided to stay closer to it.
