The Battle of Tukayyid went badly for the Smoke Jaguars. They sacrificed too much strength in trade for being first to land, and badly handled their attacks on their two targets. Beta Galaxy mired itself in the marshes of the Racice River Delta, and lost the saKhan as well as many 'Mechs. Meanwhile Alpha Galaxy allowed itself to be ambushed in the Dinju Pass, with hilarious results (Com Guard Acolyte Trevis Gray appeared to kill Khan Osis by shooting a laser into Loremaster Hoyt's cockpit, killing him and sending his 'Mech crashing to the ground on top of Khan Osis' Elemental armor. Note: he got better.)
The losses experienced by the Smoke Jaguars forced ilKhan Kerensky to terminate the Jaguar campaign. While the demoralized Beta Galaxy dutifully obeyed the order and withdrew from outside Port Racice, those in Alpha Galaxy were enraged by what they felt was a Wolf Clan snub to their sacrifices and vowed to fight to the death. Unable to fight their way back through the pass to save the Dragoons as the numerical superiority of the 299th and 323rd ground them to dust, the Jaguar Grenadiers launched a desperate assault against the Eighty second and 322nd Divisions outside Dinju Heights, aiming to create an opening to withdraw to their DropShips. This is the story of that battle.
So the scenario details can be found
here, but basically an encounter battle between Clan Direct Fire Star and Striker Star, and two Heavy Battle Level IIs of Comstar, across a valley divided by a heavily forested river.
Specific forces: heavy metal indeed, with PVs of 540 for ComStar, 544 for Smoke Jaguars.
Level II Mech (Heavy Battle) "Blue Oysters" (player: The Great One)
King Crab KGC-001
Highlander HGN-732
Thug THG-11E
Crockett CRK-5003-1
Flashman FLS-8K
Guillotine GLT-3N
Level II Armor (Heavy Battle) "Heavy Metal" (player: your humble battle correspondant)
Crockett CRK-5004-1
Grand Crusader GRN-D-03
Viking VKG-3W
Longbow LBG-7V
Exterminator EXT-5E
Excalibur EXC-D1
Direct Fire (Player: SchwerpunktPrinzip, or "Schwer" for brevity)
Dire Wolf Prime
Warhawk Prime
Warhawk Prime
Nova Cat Prime
Nova Cat Prime
Heavy Striker (player: The Lad
Hellbringer Prime
Ebon Jaguar Prime
Ebon Jaguar Prime
Huntsman Prime
Huntsman Prime
We did play with a few variations:
- Due to misunderstandings, we've been playing that more than 2" of forest blocks LOS. Halfway through, we found the rules that it's 6". Oops! Changing that halfway would have ruined the premise of a contested river crossing, so we decided they were Heavy Woods that blocked LOS with 2".
- Instead of usual initiative, we used four aces from the Initiative Deck, and shuffled each turn. We'd done this in the four-way city battle, and it worked remarkably well when playing sides. We'd had some games with massively one-sided initiative rolling - like first 13 turns won by one side, which had taken some gloss off; this way, it felt very fluid, and having the third ace turned up and realising you were last to move happened to all of us at some point, and felt really good. Something which wouldn't work with Command lances or other SPAs affecting initiative.
- You'll notice little paper tags on each 'Mech, which had the names. With one player not familiar with the BT universe, one partially familiar, and two obsessives, this helped keep things moving quickly, and was a great help when the MUL card showed new art, and the minis were old metal.
- Yup, there's a couple of ahistorical minis in there, but I needed two BIG Level IIs to meet the Clanner PV. Note that any C3I equipment on the listed versions was replaced with inert packing, for the game.
- We use Litko markers for visual effect - small flames for damage, bigger explosions for kills, and the biggest explosion goes to first kill. No gameplay effect, but sure looks good!
- We also started with a piece of wood used for checking LOS; we soon ended up marking ranges on it, which also was a great help despite an abundance of measuring tapes.
Anyway, to the battle!
End of turn 1. The river and (LOS blocking) trees divide the map in two. There's a couple of logical, easier-to-cross areas - one at the north of the map where the two streaks come together, and at the south edge. The Great one took his Level II to the north, and I moved to the south crossing. Our strategy was based on IS 'Mechs taking more damage than Clan ones (not always true, but true enough of our assault-weight units). The Lad took his Strikers on an intercept course, while Schwer moved to control the centre of his side of the river.
End of turn 2. I moved my fast Excalibur and Executioner to the edge of the river, while the assaults slogged onwards. The Great One's fast movers - Flashman, Thug, and Guillotine - scored hits on the Dire Wolf, which appeared to be drifting north to help the Strikers, while taking hits to the Guillotine in return. Meanwhile, the Direct Fire star sniped my fast movers, damaging the Excalibur.
First kills! Of us, alas. The Ecxcalibur couldn't take the sniping from four large Clan 'mechs, and died (glass hammer ...). While the Flashman got criticalled, and the Great One said "Watch me roll a 12 ..." and did. Boom! Still, at least my dead Exy got the "first kill boom" marker. Some damage on the Dire Wolf, but not a lot. The lines of site across the deep pool got a lot of attention in this area of the battle.
Turn 4. The Strikers move up to take maximum cover from the sparse (but LOS-blocking) woods, while the Direct Fire lance moves away from their central redoubt to support them. The Great One's Clanbuster King Crab soaks a lot of fire, with the enemy Dire Wolf being their main target. Solid assaults take a lot to wear down when you're doing 3s and 4s damage. The Exterminator at least spots for Indirect Fire, which I have some of, and a damaged Huntsman goes down!
Turn 5. Much mayhem! The doughty King Crab gives up the ghost, helped by the Dire Wolf overheating. The Great One's Highlander and Crockett hold the line, while the Guillotine and Thug take fire trying to open the flank around the south of the deep pool. To the south, my guys finally reach the edge of the trees, and score some hits on the Direct Fire line.
Turn 6. From recollection, both Clan players had to move before both ComStar. They decided to fall back to self-reinforcing positions around the north-east hill. The Great One moved forward, losing the damaged Thug and Guillotine to the two Ebon Jaguars still holding firm. I meanwhile rained fire on the damaged Nova Cat and damaged Warhawk, which was reduced to 1 point of IS. But that is not dead that can still return fire ...
This is the turn it all swung on. My conga line had four 9s to hit, and I hit with all four. This took out the damaged Warhawk and Nova Cat, and the lightly damaged Nova Cat. Feel the Wrath of Blake, baby! The Great One kept moving up, trying to concentrate on the Hellbringer and Huntsman on the northern edge, while even the Ebon Jags pulled back. But the Clanners weren't finished. Knowing his Warhawk was on 1 IS, Schwer overheated
four points ... 10 points if he hit. He needed an eight, rolled a seven ...
Direct Fire! Do half damage if you miss by one! So the Crockett took a 5-point slap. Ouch!
Turn 8: cleanup. The Clanners didn't surrender, but lost an Ebon Jag as they tried to regroup. They took out the Crockett, while the conga line went to line abreast. Had 4 rolls at 9s again, hit with 3 of them. It's looking bad for the Jaguars ... Schwer overheated his remaining Warhawk by 3, whacking the Highlander badly. But the conga line closed ...
Turn 9. The Highlander goes down, but whacking the Hellbringer, which I manage to finish off, as well as the last Ebon Jaguar. One Warhawk left, carrying 3 heat, but hurting my Grand Crusader.
Endgame. He takes my Grand Crusader with him, but the Warhawk goes down.
So my very great thanks to The Great One, The Lad, Schwer, and Schwer's son the Imperial Child, who at 4 1/2 months is the youngest player I've had at the Alpha Strike table. The Imperial Child joined us for an hour or two, and was impeccably behaved, and probably the turn of luck affecting the Clanners in the second half of the game can be ascribed to his departure with The Imperial Mum. We all had a great time, I'm delighted to say!
Also thanks to Schwer for the impeccably painted Smoke Jaguars. A delight to have them on the table!
