IRL games AAR campaign.

[DevianID]

With only 4 players this week, but no one downgrading to cheap elementals, the OPFOR got a 3rd mech (Grayson) in his Marauder, but I could only afford sill 4/4 instead of the 1/1 on his actual pilot card.

With no one taking the alternate victory options, the game opened with the arctic cheetah arriving on t4, the Nova and Twolf S arriving on T5, and the Vulture arriving on t6, as they all had to cross 17 hexes of rainstorm to get to the battle site.  Thus turns 1-3 I just got some distance from the edge of the board and placed infantry in defensible positions.  Turn 4, the first mech to arrive was an arctic cheetah.  Between the storm and the arctic cheetah jumping +3 each turn, my skill 4 gunners all needed 9s if I stood still at short range.  Thus, with movement and range I never landed a shot on the arctic cheetah for the entire game.  His shooting back on t4 slowed one of the hover tanks a bit with a motive crit.

Turn 5, the Nova and Twolf jumped into woods.  Greyson moved up to set up attacks for next turn, while the hunchback covered his rear and the Javelin stayed evasive.  The infantry moved out to engage.  This turn I believe the pulse lasers from the nova wiped the entire motorized infantry platoon out, since they were in the open.  The twolf hit with some pulse lasers and did 17 to the CT on Greyson.

Turn 6, the Vulture arrived, and we goaded the player into staying back, as without jump jets the MP penalty from the storm would be disasterous for him out of heavy woods cover.  So he agreed and took up point in the heavy woods, which kept him pretty safe.  Greyson used his pilot card ability to act first, and he put 20 damage onto the Twolf before the Twolf even got to move.  The Twolf stayed upright however, even with the storm penalty.  In return, the players unleashed all their BSP air assets into greyson, plus the Twolf got more potshots.  The Air strikes ended up pretty much all rolling crazy, getting the 5/6 rear on a bunch of damage and rolling the left torso enough to generate 2 crit rolls, which only have ammo.  I ended up using 3 out of 4 of Greysons edge rolling off the Rt torso crits, and the player still managed to sneak a CT engine hit in.  The arms and legs were virtually untouched.  Worse, with 75% of my edge gone, the Twolf managed 3 SRM6 hits, and even with low profile he got 8 missiles, which proceded to hit the head TWICE.  I decided to keep the head hits, as I could edge the KO roll.  Well, I failed the KO roll and failed it again with a reroll, meaning in 1 turn the players stripped 4 edge and KO'd Greyson Carlyle.  Sadness.  The Vulture beat on the Javelin, and the tanks continued to miss a bunch thanks to weather plus evasion or heavy woods, though the Nova killed 1 with pulse lasers.

Turn 7, with a KO'd Greyson, both the Twolf and the Nova jumped into point blank range of the KO'd greyson.  The Twolf has 3 pulse lasers, and targeted the head with all 3, needing 5s I believe.  2 hit, both hit the head with the targeting rules, and Greyson got brutally killed on a failed KO roll WITH a reroll.  The Nova, who broke honor to kill Greyson if the Twolf missed, took his shots into the Hunchback, where a TAC resulted in an engine and gyro hit, knocking him over.  My ac20 meanwhile only did 20 damage to the Twolf's arm, which he shrugged off.  The tanks landed some scattered damage, but nothing real.  On the other side, the Vulture did some crits to the Javelin, taking out an SRM launcher but not killing him.  The Javelin missed his return shots.  The arctic cheetah immobilized a hovertank.

Turn 8, the Nova rolled high enough to sieze the init, and he shot before the hunchback could move.  The Nova got into the rear, and landed multiple pulse lasers into the rear CT, which was alread TAC'd out earlier.  He got 3 chances for crits, including yet another TAC, and each earned 1 crit, which was engine gyro engine.  With 3 total engine hits, the mech was destroyed after only firing 1 time.  The twolf took this opportunity to go infantry hunting, and used infernos to burn out an infantry squad.  The vulture destroyed the damaged Javelin, and took about 12 total damage in return, while the Arctic Cheetah and it's streak SRMs found another immobilized result on a hover tank.

Turn 9, The Arctic cheetah immobilized a 3rd tank, and the the players started cleaning up my remaining forces.  At the end of the turn, I only had 1 platoon with 14 troops, and 2 immobilized vees.

Turn 10, the final turn, each clan mech focused down a different target, and they managed to kill all 3 remaining units.  A full victory for the Clan forces!

I was kinda shocked at this one.  The mission is set up that the clans lose this battle, as the historically GDL made it across the river in a victory.  I know if Greyson didnt have to burn so much edge rolling off those rear left torso hits from the lucky aerospace BSP strikes, then he wouldnt have taken those head hits as I could have edge rerolled them.  With Greyson not KO'd, he wouldnt have been so easy to kill, and his ability to shoot and kick out of initiative order with combat intuition would have definitely done damage and stalled the clan forces.  In the lore, he was supposed to have to abandon his marauder here covering the retreat, but him dying so fast meant the players had enough momentum to clear the rear guard before the mission time was up--to the last turn no less.  Great stories coming out of this game, gotta love the narrative dice want to tell some times.

Track 5: The Battle of Hammarr Spaceport
   The Grey Death Legion as well as much of the militia forces have been ordered to evacuate Sudeten instead of continuing to fight, despite the exceptional fighting retreat of the GDL and recovering much of their fighting strength in the days after the Killiring river crossing.  The falcons must try and stop the retreat as much as possible to recover honor lost from letting their prey escape their talons.  While initially hard pressed, a suicidal last stand of some of the GDL including the hero Delmar Clay, along with a militia mech company, are trying to buy enough time for the dropships to launch.
   
Track Cost 2
Option: Fight with honor (+1 Honor)
Option Warden: Wing Support (1 honor).  The player use aerofighter support stationed on the moon to harrass the fleeing dropships.  +1 turn to the turn limit if buying this option with honor.  If using own aero support, for each 20 damage done +1 to the turn limit.
Option Crusader: Strider support (1 honor) The player may control a second unit (a unit of elementals).  If bought with honor, these are 3/ 4 skill.  If using players own elementals, use their skill (4/5 free pilots most likely)
Map: The clan players arrive from desert hills on turn 1, while the GDL deploy on the Citytech map representing an unused dropship staging pad at the edge of Hammarr spaceport.  The militia arrive from the citytech edge on turn 3.
Objectives: Defeat the enemy forces by turn 10 to be able to attack the launching dropships. (+1 point)  Earn points for mech kills holding the field as normal.
Forces: The defenders have hardened their resolve and are not subject to the forced withdrawal rules.
   Mai Li-Fong 3/3 Vindicator*
   Delmar Clay 3/3 Wolverine* 2 edge  Delmar is providing a +1 initiative bonus with his command mech.
   Craig Priestly 4/6 Dervish*
   Charles Lovell 4/4 Centurion*
   1 Foot rifle 1 foot SRM
1 company of militia mechs arriving on turn 3.
   Rifleman 3/ 4, Rifleman 4/4, Archer 5/4, Warhammer 4/4
   Hatchetman 3/3, Phawk 4/3, Dervish 4/4, Griffin 4/4
   Locust 2/3, Ostscout 3/3, Spider 4/4, Wasp 4/4

The culmination of the battle against the grey death legion.  The defenders are throwing 18646 BV.  There is no pilot skill balancing for this match, instead the clan forces are expected to bring as much weight and damage as possible to win within the time limit, and for the first time can fully control 2 units with the elemental option.  Only the mechs of the Grey Death Legion (those with the *) can benefit from the grey death special unit abilities and quirks.

[DevianID]

So to recap the last battle, the enemy had about 18k, and the players (plus their elementals) were able to muster over 20k.  So the 'gear check' was successful.

The flow of the battle, round 2-3 when the Grey death lance met the enemy in ernest, it was a blood bath.  With the Night Gyr player breaking honor to double team mechs, armor started falling immediately.

Round 4, when the enemy reinforcements had made it most of the way up the map, the grey death forces were all wiped out when the players all siezed the initiative, stripping most of my units of their TMM>

Round 5, with my commander gone and grey death init bonus lost, the players 'Turkina Keshik' force bonus had them all seizing the init again, and all my evasive lights died instantly.  The seizing didnt stop either round 6 and round 7, with clan forces shooting the enemy with no evasion, and each kill preventing shots back.  I was losing 3 units a turn most turns.

Round 8 I had so few units left that now the players were rolling init against each other, to see who could get that last kill to put their kill tally into the next bracket for honor rewards.  The Night Gyr Gladiator and I think the Warhawk all scored 150+ tons of metal, with all enemys dead by turn 9.  This was a huge showing for the unit's special initiative ability, as for a solid 4 turns the entire team, or most of it, was acting first out of order, scoring kills and knockdowns that I couldnt get simultaneous fire back on.  Also, the elementals soaked up good damage by purposely keeping their TMM lower then players mechs, thus tanking for the players.  I killed a suit or 2 but nothing crazy, and the most damaged elemental unit got sold back immediately by the player.  The elementals got 2 mech kills for their owners too.

Wave 5: The falcon rests.
Following the death of the Ilkhan, the invasion of the inner sphere takes a one year hiatus.  Steel Viper forces take this opportunity to begin several trials against the Jade Falcons due to long standing animosity and rivalry between clans.  The new ilKhan Ulric Kerensky further fans this grudge by ordering the Vipers and the Falcons to partner in the renewed invasion.  Both sides exhausted themselves in trials to invade and control worlds in the invasion cooridor, weakening the Falcons so much that they didnt recover their strength spent on these trials until Tukyyiad began.  The Falcons only had the strength to claim 2 additional worlds after the year of peace during wave 5 as a result.

During this track, banked honor can be spent freely due to the lengthy duration the year of peace takes.  The turkina Keshik is not involved in any inner sphere battles during this wave.

Track 1:  The Trial of Peace.  Steel vipers began their trial over the genetic legacy of the very Khan of Jade Falcon himself.  Khan Elias Crichell showed that despite his advanced age he was still an apt tactician, as he leads an orbital drop with Keshik forces almost on top of Viper positions that were assaulting the Jade Falcon landing zone, intending to beat the numerically superior Vipers by trapping them between the Keshik and Omega galaxy and winning with superior tactics and cunning.

Track cost: 0
Option: Fight with strict honor (+1 honor point)
Option Warden: Preliminary smoke barrage (-1 honor).  Place a 7 hex heavy smoke area anywhere on the battlefield to aid the combat drop.
Option Crusader: Preliminary challenges (-1 honor).  Declare your challenge target before turn 1 starts.  If multiple players choose this option, roll to determine who declares the first challenge.
Map: outskirts of landing zone.  The Falcon forces must deploy via combat drop (PSR or you scatter).  The Viper forces begin deployed on the map facing opposite the landing falcons.
Objectives: Defeat the 3rd Rattler Heavy Mech star.  +1 Honor.  Earn 1 honor per 50 tons of mechs killed if holding the field (up from 100 tons per normal--clan targets are more honorable kills thus worth more).
Forces: 1/ 2 Thor C, 2/ 3 BattleCobra B, 1/ 3 Crossbow B, 1/ 2 Loki Prime, 1/ 2 Timberwolf Prime (22,114 BV).  The Khan underbid, intending to shame the Vipers with a numerically inferior force that used better tactics.  The enemy has 120% the players BV, so should outnumber the players slightly--adjust skills to match 120% of the players BV.  The clan Steel Viper forces will abide by honor duel rules as long as all combatants are honorable.  They will all break honor as soon as 1 player breaks honor.  The clan Viper forces have no special abilities/tactics or unit abilities.

[DevianID]

Some fun Steel Viper versus clan jade falcon player action was had!  Thank goodness for the player's edge and unit special abilities, they really made this fight not a TPK.

The initial setup was a deepstrike drop, and all the players had risky deepstrikes that could have scattered off the table if they failed their PSR.  Fortunately everyone passed so no mechs were destroyed in deployment...

The Vulture challenged the Crossbow B, hoping to use range to whittle it down before the 48 damage in streaks ruined the Vultures day.

The big Warhawk challenged the heaviest Viper mech, the Timberwolf.

The lightest player in the fastest mech didnt declare a challenge, hoping to line up back shots before getting an opponent, then challenge the enemy and back shot them all at once.  I rolled lower initiative, so a mech with a 360 arc of fire, the Battle Cobra B, challenged the Fenris mech who was the Thor's rear, saving the Thor from being backshot.

The Night Gyr decided to go after the Loki, hoping to kill the Loki and then deal with the Battle Cobra.  Since the Battle Cobra got the jump on the player's Fenris, this put the Night Gyr up against a second clan heavy, the UAC20 Thor C, once the hellbringer was finished off.

The opening salvos saw the player's mostly ahead.  The Vulture had shots at range 25 and then 21 and 13 on turn 2, 3, and 4, but didnt cause any serious openings in the 65 ton Crossbow's armor.  The Warhawk C player alpha striked the Timberwolf every turn, with ER lasers and LRMs coming back.  The Night Gyr bought smoke, and used it for the Warhawk, so the Warhawk had +2 cover versus the Timberwolf meaning the Warhawk was winning his long/mid range trades up to turn 4.  The Loki actually put up a good fight versus the Night Gyr, with both mechs having a pair of ER PPCs.  The ultra ac/10 and extra heat sinks of the Night Gyr put it ahead, stripping an ERPPC turn 2, another turn 3, along with some engine hits, and eventually with just 3 er mediums left the hellbringer was still doing 21 damage before being laid low with a torso destroyed and engine hit to the other torso.  Lasting 4 turns and doing that much damage was a pretty good showing.  Finally, the Battlecobra was too overheated firing 2 PPCs on turn 2 to capitalize on turn 3/4, where i won init, so I just gave the fenris no real shots on the Battle Cobra while the Battle Cobra whiffed the ER PPCs.

Turn 5, the Crossbow was now in range of the Vulture, and did 36 damage right off the bat.  This sent the Vulture into a hasty retreat, blocking LOS on turn 6 and beelining straight away turn 7 to at least put the crossbow at range 9, where I only hit with 12 damage.  The return fire was inconsistent coming back, not hiting anything vital but going internal on the left arm for no crit.  The player rerolled the crit chance with one of their 2 edge, as the ammo or a shoulder crit would halve the crossbows fire power.  No luck on the edge reroll either.

The Warhawk, with the timberwolf now in short range, took enough damage to fall.  Damage back at this point has destroyed the Mpulse and one of the arms, but the pair of LRM20s were still online.  With all the heat the Warhawk had accumulated just standing was all it could muster, letting the twolf get up into the smoke in base contact for machine guns too.  The Warhawk fell again, and took a head hit and failed PSR, so had to burn the player's 1 edge staying awake.  Standing up and backing up to protect the rear with the cliff edge, the warhawk got off light and dealt an engine crit to the twolf, who fell down, putting the warhawk in the lead for now with 1 salvo of LRM20 left.

The Night Gyr was afraid of the UAC20 with multiple ER PPC and laser damage weaking all the mechs armor, so played keepaway for numerous turns.  This was actually pretty intense for the player, as he wasnt in good shape to deal with a fresh 70 ton mech with that kind of short range firepower.  Fortunately he won init all these turns, so the Summoner couldnt close the gap very well.  The Night Gyr's shooting at 12-9 hexes with woods put the Jumping Thor at 12, 10s, and 11s for the ultra, which all missed.  Return fire was better for the Night Gyr who had medium range instead of long with the paired ER PPC and ultra 10.  Plus the Thor fell at the end of that set of exchanges.

The Fenris finally won initiative, and was getting rear shots.  With no crit soaking on the Battle Cobra, the 4 crits to the left and right rear torsos all transfered internal, meaning he got some engine and gyro damage.  This caused a fall, which caused a failed PSR, into a snake eyes consciousness roll.  With the mech asleep, the pulses targeted the center torso, and the Battlecobra went down.

The next set of exchanges started with the Warhawk siezing the initiative on a good roll.  With the Timberwolf knocked down, but half the Warhawks firepower neutered from prior shoulder damage, it was no or never, and the player knocked off the side torso.  Thanks to the engine crit on the other side, the timberwolf shut down for good, and thanks to the sieze the Warhawk got to apply damage in the movement phase, so I got no shots back with my point blank paired LRM20s into his armor stripped mech.

Up north, the Battle Cobra got another 24 damage in streaks in, getting a head hit.  The Vulture burned the second edge on initiative, trying to get away.  Fortunately, a streak missile got in and hit the left arm, causing 2 crits!  The crit rolled into the streak ammo, which blew the arm off, cutting the firepower in half.  Sadly for the vulture the pilot stayed awake, so it was still a fight.

The Night Gyr got some internal damage to the CT on the Thor, with the gyro taking away its mobility and the engine knocking its mobility down due to overheating.  This lead to a second knockdown, and the Night Gyr could risk getting closer now that the Thor was ground bound.

The Fenris, who only took 1 point of internal damage in the duel with the Battle Cobra, moved up incase the vulture needed help with the crossbow.

In the final round, we saw a sieze from the Night Gyr let the Night Gyr close the distance and alpha the Thor, hoping for the kill in the movement phase so the Thor couldnt shoot the weakend Night Gyr.  This gamble paid off, as the engine was destroyed when a side torso was destroyed thanks to the previous crits to the center.

On the other side, the Crossbow did another set of streak damage, critting the hand and shoulder of the Vulture and knocking the pulses out of the fight going forward.  Fortunately for the Vulture, his streaks connected back at the battle cobra, and while he alpha'd up to 14 heat to do it, the 12 streak missiles hitting open torsos, like on the battle cobra, transfered the crit inwards.  So combined with the 3 snake eyes TACs the player rolled at the same time, he dealt a silly 8 confirmed crits total to my center torso--which had only taken 3 internal structure damage.  So the final mech went down in a spectacular way, leaving the players battered but intact.  Without edge and siezes I would have destroyed multiple mechs here, as the players were fighting 120% of their BV in clan forces.  So that puts the initiative bonus and edge bonus somewhere at +25% id say, judging from this battle.

[DevianID]

Track 2: Political maneuvering.  With the return back to the homeworlds and lull in the invasion, warriors have an opportunity to issue personal challenges for rank, technicians, or possessions that had to be put on hold during the invasion.  Each player has several options for trials.

Rank: Players may take a new trial of position.  This allows them to earn a new rank, which in turn grants much honor to those that rank highly.  Since a trial of position is a formal trial, players area provided a free heavy omnimech for this trial that does not cost points to buy or maintain.
Trials of position involve a pair of warriors facing off against 3 enemies each.  Each enemy destroyed increases your rank, starting with a medium omnimech of regular quality, a veteran heavy omnimech, and elite assault omnimech.  A player can earn a higher rank by engaging the other trialmates targets, initiating a grand melee in which all clan mechs are active and free to target either trial mech.  By defeating 4 or more mechs in this way a legendary rank can be achieved.

Technicians: Players may make a trial of possession for the right to create and maintain a non-standard omnimech config.  While not worth honor per say, winning the right to a specialist team allows a warrior to create a custom omnimech configuration instead of the tried and tested standard omniconfigs.  A player may only have a single custom omniconfig.

Possession: Players may make a trial to aquire and use unique mechs not normally available to the Turkina Keshik.  This allows a player to use a mech only found in a different faction for example, or to use a second line mech in the frontline Turkina Keshik.  If a player wanted to use a Kodiak, this is the trial required.  This trial also lets players acquire expensive mechs without paying the normal cost.


Track cost 2:
Option: Fight with strict honor (+1 honor point)
Option Warden:  Careful planning.  (-1 honor).  The player knows the enemy opposition before selecting mech and variant for the trial, though the player's weight class is still fixed.  If the mech type is known (such as the different trials of possession) the player learns of the special condition the challenged party is imposing, such as fighting without sensors, or with only energy weapons.
Option Crusader:  Unrelenting violence (+1 honor).  The player and all enemies start with +1 pilot hit due to unaugmented trials pre match or prior combats, such as the infantry stage of a trial of position.  The player can not heal this injury until after the trial.
Map: Circle of Equals or equivalent
Objectives: Defeat the enemy forces as generated by the trial.  +4 honor per new rank earned.  Honor for holding the field, 1 point per 50 tons defeated.  If the trial of possession is successful, the player gets the mech, or can use the custom omni-config.
Forces:  Trial of position forces include a regular medium, veteran heavy, and elite assault clan mech.  The player uses a heavy omnimech, which is provided for free, in a trial of position. 
In a trial of possession, the challenger (the player) chooses the map and location.  The challenged (the enemy) will be using the mech (either a custom, or the mech the player is trying to win).  The challenged in a trial of possession must be given a mech of equal or greater tonnage if they win.  The player mech must not be heavier then the enemies mech (must bid down their force).

Notes:  In the interest of speed for group play, multiple trials will be played at once, some on the same maps--trials of position for example are usually done 2 at a time.  The custom omni-config doesnt net the player any honor--indeed the cost of 2 for entering means with battle damage this option will cost the player most likely, and they also have to first defeat whatever monster config they create.

[DevianID]

Personal Trial aftermath: Mostly positive, but the Grendel/Mongrel Mech remains a player killer, reprising its role from day one session 0.

We had 2 players going for the trial of position, hoping for higher rank and thus higher honor.  The risk?  If you fail to kill the first mech, you wash out and have to roll a new pilot.  Fortunately, we had no washouts.  The players chose a nova cat prime and timberwolf S.  The S, being less BV, got the easier trio.  The Nova Cat made a good showing on the first opponent, a Nova, killiing it with tight clustering of the PPCs and blowing out the CT after just a few volleys.  His next mech was a Timberwolf N, a much fiercer opponent.  The Timberwolf stripped all but 1 ER PPC off the Novacat, but in the end died to more very tight clusters of PPC fire--I believe my legs were almost untouched.  The 3rd mech, a Dual ER PPC+large pulse gargoyle, finished off the player Novacat.  This earned the player the rank of star commander.
The timberwolf S player took longer to kill the Nova, who had paired ER PPCs not to be trifled with.  The low gunnery of the first mech proved too much a handicap though and the Timberwolf prevailed.  The second mech, a Thor B, didnt ever hit with the NARC, and in general missed more 7s then he hit.  So the Timberwolf slowly carved up the Thor with pulse lasers as they bounced left and right, until the recurring misses from the Thor eventually meant it lost the damage race.  The final mech, a gargoyle prime, had the massed cluster damage to exploit the open torso.  The player got into short range and put everything into the Gargoyle hoping to race the low damage high crit enemy assault.  I took the players torso off, leaving just 2 SRMs and 1 pulse laser, and I also generated 5 crit rolls on the CT.  I failed every single 8+ to get the final single point of engine damage to kill the player.  In return, he rolled a super high initiative, used the Turkina Keshik special to attack in the movement phase, and killed the Gargoyle before I could shoot back by taking off a side torso for 2 engine crits and rolling a 3rd crit on the opposite side torso, which powered down the mech and earned him 3 kills for star captain!

On the personal trials, one player was playing for a custom Executioner config.  He made it a brutal short range fighter, but put mostly range 6 ER Smalls or range 12 SRM streaks.  So to fight his custom, he brought a bunch of pulse lasers.  The special Fog limited his max range, so he used smoke to make the hits for all the standard lasers and streaks a 9, 10 or 11 on a run/jump, while his pulse lasers not shooting into smoke needed 7s at the same range.  Since he got to place the smoke from his SRM, he always placed it in a location that I wouldnt be able to benefit while staying within 4 hexes for my streak short range, so if I wanted defensive cover id need a range penalty and thus wouldnt even be able to hit at all.  So it was a slow death with my much more numerous weapons only barely hitting while his few but accurate pulse lasers eventually took a leg, killing my mobility and making me easy pickings.

Elsewhere, a Timberwolf Prime was fighting to claim a ghost bear exclusive Kodiak.  This matchup came down to his longer range compared to the big damage UAC and streaks.  The Twolf excels at medium range, so was firing LRMs and ER lasers at 9 hexes any time he won initiative while the kodiak needed 10 with the big guns at long range and 8s with the lower damage ER lasers.  The player eventually got cornered by the Kodiak, with damage piling up, but an edge roll to reroll an UAC 20 that hit saved him 40 damage, which he could not take in any single location.  Worse for the Kodiak, the player had a string of initiative wins, letting him break out of the corner and re-establish long range dominance.  With my firepower halved and both players out of ammo, the Kodiak fight ended abruptly with a double head shot with medium lasers dealing 14 damage to the head in a single shooting phase.  While the Kodiak was in a bad position now that the Twolf was out of the corner, the CT armor was still strong and the timberwolf was getting crit chances any time the kodiaks ER lasers connected.  So the Kodiak died right before things got critical for the player, a lucky break.

Not so lucky was the player challenging the Diamond Sharks for their new omni, the Mongrel, before its debut on Tukayyid.  The player bid low, so his 2/3 Arctic Cheetah A only had to fight a 4/4 Mongrel A.  The player had some misfortune of missing multiple streak shots on decent numbers when he won initiative and got in the Mongrel's rear.  Worse, he forgot the Mongrel's only rear firing weapon is on the right arm, the medium pulse and ER small, and he didnt arc dodge it, so the medium pulse was scoring free shots it shouldnt have been able to take while his streaks into the rear were rolling low.  With a few losing initiative rolls meaning the light Cheetah no longer could threaten the rear, he had to retreat which brought the LRMs into range.  Due to the earlier medium pulse damage, I eventually connected with the leg a second time and felled the light mech.  A combination of bad dice and one mistake about not arc dodging cost the player something like 7 honor, maybe more if the pilot took pilot hits that need to be healed.  This is twice a 4 gunnery Clan Mongrel has cost a player 7+ honor in a trial. 

With all the individual trials complete, next week players begin competing in the blood name seeded tournament.  The march madness style bracket will be populated with random clan pilot cards, giving me the gunnery, piloting, and special piloting skills, along with the pilot's favored mech.

Track 3++: Bloodname Tournament.
Track cost: 2
Option: Fight with strict honor (+1 honor point)
Option Warden: Sibkin bond.  +1 personal honor each time you play as opfor (as one of the players Sibkin) against another player and win.
Option Crusader:  Independant Allegiance: +1 honor for defeating another player character with your own player character in the tournament.
Map: 1-2 mapsheets or 1 neoprene, chosen by defender.
Objectives: Progress as far down the bloodname tournament as possible.  Honor for holding the field after a match, 1 point per 50 tons defeated.
Forces: 32 seeded participants, though only the matches involving players will matter.  Players may be tasked to face other players, or to play opfor as needed.  Each match is a 1v1 duel.  Contestants will roll off.  The winner declares the challenge and sets the weight class limit as the attacker.  The loser picks the location (maps) of the battle.
The winner of the tournament gains the honor of becoming one of the bloodnamed members of the Clan.

Note on crusader and warden options.  The Warden option is a way for players who get knocked out early to gain some honor back by playing as Opfor against the other players, to speed the games up by having multiple trials going on at the same time.  The first round will be all the players versus the GM, as no PvP seeds lined up (earliest possible PvP is round 2).  The players flip a coin or roll off, the winner is the attacker who chooses the location of the battle (picks the map).  The loser picks the weight class of the fight.  An attacker can not bring a mech of a heavier weight class then the one the defender choose, allowing light mech specialists to actually have a chance.  For all the random opfor I will populate the tree ahead of time with who won each matchup between 2 cards using megamek AI, which will also give any pilot damage the winner has accumulated, so the players only have to worry about their battles.

[DevianID]

So the bloodname trial was completed, but it was a little chaotic.  Me, the gamemaster, didnt even stay to the end as the final 5th bout was PvP.

One player couldnt make it so we ran 4 1v1 matches at once.  My initial thought for multiple mapsheets was immediately thrown out--1 map sheet x4 players fit barely with all the other record sheets and dice and such.  Round one went well for everyone, they all beat their first OpFor opponent played by me.  The 4 semifinal brackets saw one player in bracket 1, one player in bracket 2, no player in bracket 3, and 2 players in bracket 4.  So after round one, with the tournament reduced to 16 total slots, 2 players had to face off.  The player who was defender choose an assault mech, which the other player didnt have, so they had to fight up in a timberwolf.  The direwolf just stood and delivered, with every turn dealing more out then they took.  The timberwolf player hesitated and by the time they finally closed into short range the long range guns on the direwolf had already done too much damage.  On the other side, the players had to face mechs which both randomly had rangemaster.  So both players picked point blank mechs, and despite my random card pilots being 1 or 2 gunners, taking a +4 long range penalty at short range meant they just couldnt hit.  So the random card pilot abilities pulled from a stack of 32 saved both players.

Round 3 was another bot round, like round 1.  Some damage was dealt here and there but overall the brackets 1 and 2 saw opfor executioners paired off against player owned assaults, and bracket 4 saw an opfor nova facing a player stormcrow.  The nova did lots and lots of 7 damage medium laser hits, but the nova clutered pretty hard with the ultra ac20, double head shotting and ct coring the mech in the same turn after only 3 turns of exchanged fire.  The Opfor executioners faired no better, with 1 dying to a player ERPPC from a Warhawk to the head, with the other losing initiative to the players custom all point blank backshooting assault, generating 3 engine crits with the quad mount streak6s and small lasers.

Round 4, bracket 1 and 2 players met in the semi-finals, while bracket 4 met with the opfor 1/2 skilled timberwolf.  The Player on Player match was set up to be a player Fenris backstabbing the other players Thor in a low visibility fight.  However, with a flubbed init roll the Thor siezed the init, and acted in the movement phase.  With a full alpha strike, everything hit the torso, taking out 2 engines on the left side XL and the Thor's SRM sneaking a 3rd engine hit to the CT.  So now the players get to see the kind of BS I have to put up with LOL.  Turkina Keshik has a great unit bonus even in PVP situations.  On the other side of the bracket, the card pulled that rose to the top had sniper and +1 to crit, so at long range the hit mods saw multiple lucky location rolls against the player.  With a TAC dinging the engine and causing unexpected heat, the player failed the ammo explosion roll, so burned all their edge on round 2.  With no edge and critical heat, the player took a turn jumping away to cool off, then jumped in and took more heat damage.  However, the player took inferno srms as well, and did just enough heat to cause a shutdown roll... which the fresh opfor timberwolf failed.  The player then stood still and put all their direct fire weapons to the head dispite the to hit penalty and hit with a medium and small laser.  Both rolled the 6-7-8 needed to confirm a headshot to an immobile shut down mech, meaning the unlucky player turned the entire match around in a single turn with 12 damage to the enemy Twolf while passing multiple ammo explosion and shutdown rolls along the way... He played to a very unlikely out after taking a bad TAC early, and sometimes the draw on the flop saves you.

This left 2 players winners of the semifinals.  With time running late for me I had to run, but the players decided to stick around in the shop and determine the winner right then and there.  The Warhawk with its headhunting PPCs or the Direwolf S.  The direwolf player got to choose maps, so picked won with no LOS and woods, allowing him to get right point blank on the Warhawk before shots would be exchanged.  Thus the raw extra damage of the direwolf S, with 90+ damage but only at range 12 or less, was all in short range when the 2 players actually could see each other.  The ER PPCs and large pulses needed very lucky clustering to fight out of this, but the dice instead scattered damage all around.  The direwolf player on the other hand clusted well despite having lower damage per shot, as there was just too much total damage not to get something through, and once the torsos were open the myriad of srms and LBX cluster shots dealt 3 engine hits in the same turn they got exposed.  It went 6-7 rounds total, but the warhawk just didnt have the luck to win out, and even was failing PSRs and taking additional fall damage to make matters worse.  At least thats what I was told.

The end result is a ton of XP for players (the winner of the night fought 5 times, and got MVP for winning, totaling 6 XP), and the winner also gets the Roshak bloodname.

With this the year of peace is over, and turkina keshik is returning from the clan homeworlds.  Their next battle is one of the longest and bloodiest ever, the battle of tukayyid!  I am running the campaign straight from the Tukayyid campaign book, which will see all players start with 4 honor to last though what may be up to 18+ battles if the players are unlucky... or 2 battles if they are extremely unlucky!  In addition, buying new mechs during Tukayyid is more expensive in that campaign book compared to normal (only have what you bring with you for the most part) so its entirely possible the players will quickly run out of resources, just as happened to the falcons in the lore.  The players will have to bid exactly what mechs they will be bringing.  Comstar gets a similar military force based on the player's size, and unlike normal the comstar force has to manage a warchest of their own, meaning on a macro scale the players can potentially bankrupt me and take away my ability to repair damage.  I get the equivalent of 20 'honor' in supplies, and like the players I must buy into the tracks too now.

Since the campaign has a back and forth element, I can only predict so far in advance.  The first mission randomly rolled is Recon.  The location is outside the Jade Falcon landing zone on the south Prezno plains.  Jade Falcons start with priority, and the random roll for attack/defender sees the side with priority get a bonus towards being attacker--each time the players win or lose the priority can swap from Jade falcons to neutral to comstar, or back.

Edit: Housekeeping.  The massive Tukayyid campaign will see all the players coming together versus comstar.  Track cost and options are fixed by random rolled mission.  Both sides have a universal advantage (in addition to the usual Turkina Keshik unit bonus).  Any player can pay the track cost out of their own pool.  Track rewards will need to be split among the players as needed to fix damage and such.
Wrath: Clan forces gain a -1 bonus to hit any foe that refuses a fair challenge.  A fair challenge is from an honorable Jade Falcon battle mech to an enemy mech of equal or larger weight class.  (This replaces the normal +1 honor bonus for fighting with honor.  The Turkina Keshik is still expected to fight with honor as the Khans signature unit)
Comstar: Comstar start's with +12 bonus BSP points each mission, used for artillery, vehicle, and other support, in addition to their mech forces.  Several of the Comstar divisions also have a unit bonus, like the Turkina Keshik bonus.  For example, the 394th division, the White Lions, (the first comstar opponents) have "Forcing the Initiative" (+1 to my initiative per clan unit killed the prior turn) and "Rapid Strike" (only when attacking some of the comstar forces can strike from the sides).

Finally, the comstar unit pool is based on what the players bring.  My current list of player assets is:
Executioner, Fenris, Arctic Cheetah, Paul (2/4 pilot?)
Dire Wolf, Timber Wolf, Storm Crow, Uller, John (1/3 pilot?)
Night Gyr, Arctic Cheetah, 10 BSP, Jeff (2/3 pilot?)
Timber Wolf, Mad Dog, Storm Crow, Andrew (2/4 pilot?)
Warhawk, Summoner, JeffC (3/4 pilot?).
2-4 total elementals (all but jeffC?  Or some got sold i think?).
If any of these assets are being left behind, I need to know soon.  If I dont hear anything im assuming this is the list going to Tukayyid and building my Comstar force accordingly.  Players can also salvage and repair comstar mechs, and pay normal rates when repairing comstar equipment.  Comstar has to pay double to repair captured clan equipment.

Assuming 300ish points, I have randomly generated the 36 starting comstar mechs.  Since I know your starting mechs, you can know my RNG mechs/skills.

77th:  Veteran Iota.  “White Monsters” Heavy Assault Level II Marksman 1 in 3.  60 points
   Black Knight 9x2  <--I rolled up the one you want to salvage JeffC with the hatchet/sword!
   Shootist 8a
   Orion Mx2
   Thunderbolt 7M

201st: 3rd army Regular Kappa.  “Snow on the Mountains” Heavy Fire Mountaneers 1 in 4.  48 points
   Marauder 5CS x2
   Bombardier 12D
   Warhammer 7CS
   Rifleman 3N
   Archer 5CS

388th: 11th army Green Delta.  “White Banshees” Light Fire Command Sharpshooters. 32 points (regular)
   Panther 8z x3
   Urbanmech r63
   Rifleman 5D (unit swap ability)
   Battlemaster 3s (commander, unit swap ability)

394th: Veteran Lambda “White Lions” Medium Battle Forcing Initiative/Rapid Strike.  48 points
   Wyvern 9N
   Crab27 x2
   Sentinel 3L x2
   Centurion 9A
403rd: 11th army “Forceful Words/Prenzo River Rats” Regular Upsilon Assault Striker no skill.  72 points
   Cyclops 11A x2
   Victor 9B x3
   Battlemaster 3M

111th: 3rd army “The White Clan” Regular Rho Light Striker no skill.  18 points
   Mongoose 66
   Mercury 99
   Mercury 97 x2
   Hussar 200D
   Hussar 400D

[DevianID]

Tukayyid Track 1: Recon; South Prezno Plains.  A large flatland covered in fields and grass, irrigated by the mighty Prezno river to the north.  The Jade Falcon landing was mostly uncontested, with only the 394th and 403rd division active in the area.  Day 1 the Jade Falcons begin their invasion with a recon of the area, while the defending Comstar fight a series of delaying actions.  This first day is usually glossed over by historians of Tukayyid, as day 2 saw the Jade Falcons masterfully surround and destroy the 403rd division, with headhunter elementals finding and killing the 403rd's leader and routing the whole division.  Still, despite only losing a single warrior in the Jade Falcon's day one, the Comstar 394th division "White Lions" made the Jade Falcons advance wearily amidst constant harassment attacks.

Recon: The attacker (rolled 3, Jade Falcons) deploys no more then 25% of their total campaign force.  They move on from their edge turn 1.
The defender deploys up to 100% of the force the Jade Falcons attack with, set up anywhere on the board.

Track Cost: 2 (any combination of players may pay the track cost, as long as 2 points total are paid)
Option: +2 (Jade Falcon only--refund the players, the player who bought into the track get to choose).  25% of the defender is 'hidden'.

Objectives: Identify the opposition (Jade Falcon).  Scan 50% of the enemy force. +1
Objectives: Pre-emptive strike (Jade Falcons).  Destroy or cripple 25% of the enemy force. +1
Objective: Escape (Jade Falcon).  At least 50% of the Falcon force must live and leave the map from their home edge by turn 8. +1
Comstar scores any of the objectives the Jade Falcons fail to accomplish.
The game ends on turn 8.  Comstar holds the field unless wiped out, in which case no one hold the field.

Map:  Deployment zone (map pack tukayyid). 
Prezno plains events--
   no 'Thunderstorm' (rolled 6, need 11) (no weather)
   Yes 'Fields as far as you can see' (roll 9 need 7)(No trees)
   Yes 'The Heat has gotten here first' (roll 7 need 7) (no water)

Comstar has 18(edit24) bsp support points (edit since 300 is between the book 200 and 400, im upping the base BSP from 12 to 18, since we are playing in the middle).  The 394th have a balanced mix of support forces.  2 medium tank, 2 jump infantry 2 motorized infantry, light bombing, light air cover, 1 sniper artillery.

So if John Jeff and Paul bring lights (33 points out of 75 max for Tukayyid mission 1 Recon) then JeffC can bring his lightest unit (a Summoner) for 20 leaving Andrew the choice of 20 points for the Timberwolf/Mad Dog or 19 points for the Stormcrow
So im looking at 72 or 73 points.  This lets me deploy the randomly generated Veteran 394th 'White Lion' Medium Battle unit for 48 points, along with 2 assault mechs from the Regular 403rd 'Forceful Words/Prenzo River Rats' Assault Striker unit for 12 points each, putting me at 6 mediums 2 assaults for 72 points, plus the BSP minions.

Comstar's supply count: 20 (-2 for upcoming mission)

[DevianID]

Game 1 of the Battle of Tukayyid!  It did not go as I expected...

My players were apprehensive of their lights getting focused down by the medium mechs of the veteran 394th 'White Lions'.  The mission, recon, saw me already deployed with 8 total mechs and some BSP vee/infantry support.  The rolled mission had 3 objectives: Kill 25% (2 mechs), retreat with 3+ clan units by turn 8, and scan 50% (4 mechs).  So after a few lucky shots on light mechs that were a little to forward, the players were ready to GTFO and forget the scan mission.

Round 1, the players decide not to give me hidden units for some extra supply points, so I deploy the Cyclops and sentinels in long range sniping positions, with the pair of crabs and centurion mid board.  The Wyvern and Victor deploy behind some hills to jump on anyone running up the flanks.  I rolled high for initiative, forcing all the players to move up.  The 2 lights that got targeted were a pair of Arctic Cheetahs.  The right arctic cheetah was in range of the pulse laser equipped Wyvern, and thanks to the pulse bonus I put a crit on the mech's gyro.  The other Arctic Cheetah had a +4 evasion, but wandered into medium range of the 50 ton crab/centurion trio, and ate a 10 damage AC10 to the CT.  So both Arctic cheetahs, who had probes to scan mechs, were 1 CT hit away from death after two big damage attacks hit home.

For the players, they abandoned all honor immediately and put all 5 mechs into the Pulse laser wyvern, practically killing it and rendering it unable to shoot.

Round 2, the players won initiative but not by 2 to use the Turkina Keshik act first ability.  So the Uller put a kill shot into the downed Wyvern, and the other 4 clan mechs all focused fired on the lead Crab.  The Thor, one of the 2 heavies of the Star, purposefully moved slow to present an easier target then the damaged lights, so all my fire saw about 40-50 scattered damage, but he stayed upright.  The final salvo of the 4th mech, the Timberwolf, cored out the crab, leaving the players with 2 kills.

At this point, they surprised me.  Instead of playing the 8 turns, they all just ran off the field on turn 3.  I was kinda surprised by this--I didnt use my artillery and bombing BSPs as I was waiting to use them at clutch moments in the late game, so they went wasted.  The players of course dumped all their light and heavy strikes immediately on turn 1.  So after just 2 rounds of combat they won the 'kill 25%' and 'survive and retreat 3 units' and failed the 'scan 4 objective' part of the mission.  With 2 to 1 they took their minor win and literally ran away with it.  I was expecting a short game, as recon is only 8 turns, but they really got me with a 2 turn game as they abandoned their honor instantly.  We found the 'Wardens' hiding in clan jade falcon thats for sure.

So Comstar is down 1 supply out of 20 (aka down 100 WP out of the starting 2000wp) and the cored out Crab and Wyvern cant be recovered.  The players took the equivalent of 300wp in damage, but kept all their mechs, so comstar has a supply advantage but the players have a mech advantage as it stands now.

Next game rolls: Roll =1, pushback, 4=JF Attack (If JF lose mission 1, comstar attacks due to priority swing)  Map roll=7,6, Grasslands 1 and 3.  Storm=6, no storm, Trees=6, keep trees, water=7, no water.

Tukayyid Track 2, Pushback; South Prezno Plains, May 2nd.  Day one (May 1st) of the Jade Falcon campaign saw the Falcons cautiously advance, as the 394th supported by the 403rd forces engaged in delaying actions.  Wary of the defenders, only one Jade Falcon mech was lost the entire day due to the slow advance [and none from the players].  This escalated to a full on battle for the central corridor of the South Prezno Plains on the second day.  The Falcons surrounded the 403rd's positions and utterly destroyed them with heavy omnimechs, exacerbated when elementals killed the 403rds commander and through them in dissarray.  Elsewhere the 388th fended off Falcon attacks until the Falcon units victorious against the 403rd came to reinforce against the 388th, driving the 388th into a retreat.

Attackers can deploy up to 50% of their starting force (so 152 points in units).  Defenders can 100% match the player's deployed force.
Track Cost: 4
Options: None
Objectives (Jade Falcon): Destroy 75% of the defender force (+2).  Destroy 100% of the defender force (+4).  Destroy the enemy commander (+1.5).
Objectives (Comstar): Hold--Keep 50% of the forces alive by turn 8 (+2).  Make them Hurt--Destroy 75% of the players forces (+4).  Lead to Victory--complete both other Comstar objectives and keep the commander alive (+1.5).

Clan forces deploy from either edge flanking the Comstar on turn 1.  Comstar must be at least 12 away from their home edge (so its hard to just run off turn 1) and can deploy anywhere.

Suspected Player force: Legendary Direwolf, Elite Warhawk/Gladiator, Elite Timberwolf/Night Gyr.  35+30+30+20+20 points.  135 points.

Enemy force: 403rd 'Forceful words' Regular Assault unit.  3 Victors, 1 Battlemaster, 2 Cyclops.  72 points.
394th 'While Lions' Veteran Medium.  2 Sentinel, Crab, Centurion.  32/48 Points remaining.  Sieze the Initiative unit bonus.
388th 'White Banshee' Regular Mixed Command: 3 Panther, UrbanMech, Rifleman, Battlemaster 3S*.  32 Points.  Sharpshooter unit bonus.  134 points total, 16 mechs.
24 BSP: 2 Assault Tanks (14), 2 Jump infantry, 2 Mech Infantry (8) Light Smoke artillery (1) Light Air Cover (1).

GM Notes:  Since comstar wants to retreat at least the commander of the 388th to deny both the Jade Falcon 100% kill and commander kill objectives, expect the Battlemaster to run as fast as possible to get off the board on turn 3, using smoke for cover.  Diving on the commander at short range is risky considering its 16 to 5.  Expect to lose a clan mech here.

Edit: Further GM notes.  16 mechs is almost half my 34 remaining mechs.  This can be a giant death pile that really sets me back if I fought too the end, but the mission is for me to run off the map with most of my forces, lingering on the board edge until turn 8 if it looks like I can get away with it.  Its a whopping 4 supply to go into this match, so if I manage to retreat everything I just drain 4 supply from both sides.  Since Comstar has a supply advantage, if I do run away with everything the mission will be a tie but ill be up on supply.  That said, if the players get too aggressive trying to stop me from running off, I will put 16 mechs into that player and go for the throat, as I need to kill some clan mechs or Ill win the supply war but lose the mech attrition battle.

[DevianID]

One player dropped last minute this week, so I had to cut 3 mediums from my forces.  The remaining brought the beef though, a legendary dire wolf, and elite gladiator warhawk night gyr.

I split my forces (terrible idea) with the (flawed) idea to keep 6 of my assault mechs on the other side of the table to 1) score the hold objective and 2) not overwhelm the players.  The remaining side had my 4 light 1 medium/heavy/assault mechs.  The players attacking from the flank decided to rush the commander on the lighter side to prevent his escape, so the 6 assault mechs on the other side of the board did nothing for many turns.

Turn 1, I put my 1 smoke down to keep my commander safe.  So far so good.  The players immediately broke honor and all shot at my crab, and with great cluster rolls pierced the CT without going internal anywhere else, and hit the gyro.  So the crab fell down.

Turn 2, the gladiator crit seeker put more crits into the ct without coring it, earning that player some salvage resources.  Elsewhere, the slow urbanmech got a sharpshooter shot off that failed to crit, and the players again clustered all into 2 locations, the rt and CT, and killed the mech instantly.  A panther took 20 scattered damage and needed a PSR, failed, PSR seatbelt check, fail, 3+ pilot check, failed on snake eyes.  So a panther is knocked out now too.  It got worse.  My commander ran up to partial cover and despite the partial cover absorbing an amazing 35 damage, they failed their 20+ damage PSR and fell, delaying their escape by 1 turn.

Turn 3, the panther who is asleep gets executed thanks to that -4 immobile bonus.  My commander failed to STAND UP, so what was a turn turn 4 escape on turn 1, and a turn 5 escape on turn 2, was now a turn 6 escape at the earliest.  Ouch.  The panther executer also secondary shot my infantry with mguns hitting on 10s, killing them.  With the commander not a target due to not successfully standing on a 5, the players shot my rifleman who made it to the board edge.  He lost a leg sadly, so he wasnt getting off the board now either.  My remaining 2 panthers jumped into smoke to take some heat off my commander, but honestly at this point they should have just run away to rejoin the other assaults on the opposite end of the table.  This flank was crushed in 3 turns due to CT great clusters, snake eyes KOs, a legging, and multiple failed PSRs on the commander.  I did get some indirect missile damage from the battlemaster S onto the warhawk which was fun.  The panthers, for their trouble of staying, were rewarded with damage to the gladiators left and right exposed torsos.

Turn 4, my commander finally stood and got closer to the edge.  The players, having seen my (failed) plan the previous turn, sent both the jumping night gyr and masc'ed gladiator over to get LOS on it.  The gladiator clustered into the left side, hit the turn prior, to kill the torso and disable the XL engine, earning some salvage.  At least the commander critted out the players comm equipment with his medium laser return fire and burned his edge with a head hit, hampering the gladiator going forward.  My victors started moving up, but I didnt move up my 3 longer ranged assaults yet... so far those 6 assaults have shot only a single gauss and lrm10 the whole game.  My tanks, slowed by the elevation penalty vees take, finally were in range to start putting their 10 damage ppcs to work and I scored 40 damage to the dire wolf.  The players also put enough fire into the legged rifleman to break an arm off, as it shot them from the ground earlier that turn, and knocked down one of the stationary panthers in the smoke.

Turn 5, I broke and ran with a panther, and the victors moved again.  The other panther tried to hold the smoke position since he fell over the turn prior.  The gladiator moved into the smoke, to shoot both my infantry hiding in it and the panther that just stood.  The gladiator killed the panther at point blank, and then rolled boxcars to hit the infantry in smoke and killed them too with a second lucky 2d6 mgun on infantry this game.  The direwolf got shot by a different infantry unit and the tanks, taking 20 damage but staying standing with their legendary piloting skill.  The direwolf and warhawk hit the fleeing panther (who should have ran away sooner) and knocked it down, slowing its escape for next turn.

Turn 6, the warhawk pilot rolled high enough to seize the initiative, and killed the panther before it could stand and run.  The dire wolf, with no good target, sniped a victor on his sieze before the victor could reposition.  He also fired a couple random shots into the infantry.  The infantry died to more lucky 2d6 rolls with near min damage, and the victor failed the PSR for 20 damage at range 20 before he had his evasion, rolled to fall on his left side, rolled snake eyes for the fall damage, and the player I allowed to use his edge on fall damage my snake eyes crit rolls to explode my ammo.  It was hilarious at the time, but this battle was such a blood bath cause i split my forces to go easy on the players that I cant afford to give them fun kills like this in the future.  The other players damaged a tank but it stayed alive.

Turn 7, the players were done with tanks dealing ppc hits to them, and did 80 damage to one of them, killing it.  They also picked up my last infantry.  All my mechs were running for the board edge now, but I placed the assault mechs so far back they will need a few turns to make it off.  With the assaults finally having moved up, I was hitting with their PPCs and gauss/missiles, causing damage to the warhawk but no knockdown.  I was fully routed at this point due to bad positioning and splitting my forces.  The victor pair were the closest in range besides the tanks, so in addition to losing one tank one of the victors got the AC20 damaged by an arm crit.  Victors having short range guns meant the players took no damage this turn from them.

Turn 8, the 2 remaining victors jumped into the smoke, trying to take cover before making a push for the board edge.  The direwolf moved down off the hill, ready to charge the smoke turn 9, so spent this turn damaging my last tank.  With help from the warhawk they did 80 damage to it combined and killed it.  The Gladiator chose to stay in the smoke point blank to the victors.  He killed the damaged one without the AC 20, and the night Gyr killed the other one's entire right torso with great clustering, dropping the ac20 for the future.  The victors missed the gladiator in the smoke, dealing only arm damage and not hitting the open left torso stacked with ammo.

Turn 9, the cyclops and battlemasters were in short/medium range.  The Night gyr headshot the fresh battlemaster with the first shot from an ER PPC... thats rough.  The battlemaster actually had the armor to potentially make it off the board, which was my last hope when the last victor died via the direwolf charged into the smoke to wreck it's day before it could move.

Turn 10+ cleanup.  With 2 cyclops plus the limbless rifleman, the right side cyclops lost a leg, but not before putting a gauss slug into the warhawk's head.  The warhawk player hadnt used their edge, so the damage was rerolled into an arm hit.  With no leg, in the next turn the return fire was penalized and the direwolf picked it off with a gauss rifle explosion.  The left sided cyclops got knocked down, and the gladiator ran up to the left side where it couldnt shoot the gauss rifle while prone.  With all the point blank SRMs and med/small lasers, the gladiator caused an ammo explosion to the 12 on the CT.  The warhawk used the targeting computer on the helpless rifleman to take out the XL side torso, in order to salvage the mech to sell for resources.

So the warhawk had a 60 ton rifleman and 80 ton victor salvage, the night gyr had an 85 ton battlemaster and victor, while the gladiator had a salvageable victor and crab IIRC.  Might be a little off here with who did what as I dont have the record in front of me, but of 13 mechs they salvaged 6 and cored the other 7.

This was a CRUSHING defeat for the comstar OPfor.  In the lore, the 403rd Forceful Words all died, but the 388th White Banshees held their ground until eventually retreating.  However, in this game since I split my forces like an idiot, I lost the 388th first, and then the 403rd when they arrived super late to the fight.  I expected to lose 6 mechs here, to try and match the fluff, by putting the 403rd far away from the board edge.  Instead, the players (wisely) used their outflank option to wipe out the 388th first, to prevent them from escaping.  Lesson is, I cant pull any punches this campaign, as the players when not bound by honor/lore are too good at nuking the closest mechs each turn, taking me out piecemeal.  I need to stick together to aggressively punish players who are too close, as at this point I need to salvage and steal their mechs to have enough mechs to last the rest of the campaign without cheating LOL.

[DevianID]

With the South Prenzo Plain region captured with 2 wins for clan Jade Falcon, they move onto the Prenzo River region.  This region was the costliest obstacle for Clan Jade Falcon, who lost multiple omnimechs when comstar targeted the only 2 bridges that covered the 250+m raging river.  Artillery, safe on the opposite side of the river, is extremely heavy from both sides, with the clan's using arrow barrages to counter the conventional comstar artillery as possible.  After the bridges were destroyed, comstar made a counterattack to scatter the Jade Falcons still remaining after their bridge losses.

Roll 1, Retreat!.  Roll 5, Comstar Attacker!  Maprolls, Grasslands#3 (starter set), OpenTerrain#2 (MP grasslands)

May 4.  One day after their victory on the southern plains, Clan Jade Falcon marched to cross the twin bridges across the Prenzo river.  Defended by the 111th 'White Clan' Division, 388th 'White Banshees', and 201st 'Snow on the Mountains', the comstar forces hid and waited until omnimechs were on both bridges before blowing up the bridges at the same time.  At this point the artillery barrage intensified, and the Jade Falcon forces were forced to retreat from the exposed riverbank 30 KM south until they could find alternate crossings.  After their retreat on May 4, the clans would take 4 days to find an alternate crossing, not able to attack again until May 8 into May 9th.

Special Rules:  Due to heavy bombardment in the Prenzo River region, any time 3 or more units of any kind are adjacent, those hexes will be targeted for next turn with offboard attacks.  These attacks hit any units still in the targeted hex next turn on a 6+, and deal 20 damage in 5 damage clusters.

Retreat! Track Cost: 3
The defender arranges the 2 mapsheets in long (chase) orientation of their choosing.  The attacker chooses the home edges.  The defenders (Clan Jade Falcon) deploy on the falcon home edge turn 1.  The attackers (Comstar) deploy on the FALCON home edge turn 2 (behind the players).  The attacker can deploy up to 33% of the force limit (101 points).  The defender can bring up to 100% of the attackers force points.  The Jade Falcons (defenders) must flee off the attackers home edge to exit the battlefield without being destroyed.  Comstar (attacker) holds the field automatically.

Objective (Jade Falcon).  +2; retreat half the deployed units off the attackers edge.
Objective (Both).  +2; destroy or cripple half the enemy force
Objective (Comstar). +1.  Scan 25% of the enemies force.

201st: 3rd army Regular Kappa.  “Snow on the Mountains” Heavy Fire Mountaneers 1 in 4.  48 points
   Marauder 5CS x2
   Bombardier 12D
   Warhammer 7CS
   Rifleman 3N
   Archer 5CS

111th: 3rd army “The White Clan” Regular Rho Light Striker no skill.  18 points
   Mongoose 66
   Mercury 99
   Mercury 97 x2
   Hussar 200D
   Hussar 400D

*The 388th that should be alive are all dead.  The 394th: Veteran Lambda “White Lions” will have to take their spot.  Sieze the Init and outflank*Ed see below.  24 points.
   Sentinel 3L x2
   Centurion 9A

24 points of BSP.  2 Jump (4 points) 2 Mech Infantry (4 points) 2 heavy tanks (10 points).  1 light air cover, 1 smoke thumper (2 points), 1 sniper artillery (4 points)

90 total force points.  Possible Clan combinations:  22+12 (2 light mech elite 1 light legendary) +40 (2 heavy elite mech) = 74.  16 points available to upgrade with.

Note to players: Edit.  The 394th have Rapidstrike, not outflank.  Rapid strike is way worse for the players.  50% deploys normally, but 25% (1 clan mech) deploys on turn 2 and 25% (1 clan mech) deploys on turn 3.  The players choose who is in the 50%, but dont know which mech of the 2 delayed mechs will move on turn 2/3.

[DevianID]

Had to turn off Ixion or i'd never type up this AAR and post the next mission.

This battle, where comstar attacked, went swimmingly for comstar.  The big advantage was starting with 15 to 3, as I delayed 2 clan mechs.  The players were clever and chose to bring salvaged mechs with bondsman pilots to delay me, using a crab and a rifleman.  Turn 1 they proceded to run up the two sides of the map.

Turn 2 I got clever/viscious.  I rolled really low, offered them the chance to sieze, and they denied.  So with my early mech advantage and the fact that they were on the board edge, I completely surrounded the Vulture/Mad Dog.  Further, since the player in the Fenris didnt move his max turn 1 in order to set up shots turn 2, I surrounded him too.  With a level 2 of heavy mechs to back up my surrounding forces, I killed the Fenris with a 60 LRM barrage to the rear.  The vulture was a real trooper this game though, surviving and killing a light mech.  He stuck around till turn 4, each turn with me surrounding him and trying to kick him.  Of note, the veteran centurion failed multiple PSRs trying to kick, and damaged himself multiple times, bleeding me of resources to repair him.

The players did a great job switching gears.  With this mission lost, they retreated the jump jet equipped Timberwolf S to preserve the heroic skill pilot.  They then targeted as many mech of mine as possible, looking to cause damage, head hits, and internal structure hits.  The Crab and Rifleman didnt hold too long, but the Rifleman crippled an expensive marauder and the Crab went for damage on my medium sentinels.

At the end of the mission, the clan forces were down 2 clan mechs, 2 captured IS mechs, and 3 points of honor.  The Comstar Forces still have 15 mechs thanks to salvaging the crab rifleman and vulture from the players at the cost of 3 light mechs, but I went from 16 logistic points down to THREE.  Since I was so short on mechs I had no choice but to repair everything.  After this, I will start having to sell mechs just for points to enter missions.

Next weeks mission:
Roll3=meeting engagement, Attacker roll 4=JF Would Attack, but due to switch in priority from losing the retreat mission Comstar attacks again.  Primary enemy 201st.
Map roll 8, 7: Open terrain and grasslands Streams.  Defender (JF this time) chooses edge.  Attacker can use up to 33% (100 force points).
Track Cost: 1
Destroy, Cripple, or force off the table 50% of the enemy force.  (+2 Points).  Units may only retreat off their home edge, but this counts against them for victory conditions.
Special Rules:  Artillery Barrage:  Any time 3+ units are adjacent, all hexes are targeted with 20 damage of artillery the next turn, which hits on a 6+.
  Limited engagement: The game automatically ends on turn 15.  (To hold the field/salvage mechs, one side must be completely destroyed/retreated by this turn limit)

201st: 3rd army Regular Kappa.  “Snow on the Mountains” Heavy Fire Mountaneers 1 in 4.  48 points
   Marauder 5CS x2
   Bombardier 12D
   Warhammer 7CS
   Rifleman 3N
   Archer 5CS

BSP Support: 2 Heavy Tanks from the 201st, 2 Mech/2 Jump infantry, 1 light air cover, 1 smoke, 1 sniper artillery.

Supporting mech forces:

*The 388th that should be alive are all dead.  The 394th: Veteran Lambda “White Lions” will have to take their spot.  Sieze the Init and outflank*Ed see below.  32+16=48 points.
   Sentinel 3L x2
   Centurion 9A
   *Salvage Vulture Prime (Pulse Wyvern Pilot from mission 1)
   Crab (Crab#2 pilot from mission 1)

So I used 96 points out of 100 points.  Because of the "White Lions" on the attack thanks to the priority change and roll of 4, 2 clan mechs will be deploying late like last time, though this mission is a cakewalk compared to the last one.

Sample 96 points: Regular Timberwolf/Stormcrow (14/13 points from andrew), Heroic Medium/Heavy mech (21/22 John), Elite Light Mech (11 Paul), Elite Assault (30 JeffC), Elite heavy mech (20 Jeff)=96

So with the Warhawk, Night Gyr, Arctic Cheetah, Andrew and John can bring a timberwolf and stormcrow, either or since they both have the same mechs.  Or some other combo but 96 points is pretty do-able.  The arctic cheetah is a good mech to be delayed, the other delayed mech will probably be whatever has short range guns.

[DevianID]

Covid Strikes, so only a small group today.

This mission was 6 good comstar heavies vs 3 clan mechs, 2 twolves and an arctic cheetah.  Meeting engagement is a 15 turn limit, so early on I settled in to just get my armor across the river and do poke damage with all my long range heavies.

The clan players used the SRM6s on the Timberwolf S to lay heavy smoke, which they used to cover their advance.  Smoke is so broken lol.  So I often needed 11s or 10s with weapons, and 9s with LBX cluster, the whole game.  The turns I needed 8s/9s was mostly from walking LRM mechs to exactly 7 hexes away.

Turn 3, the Timberwolf A head shot a fresh marauder with an ERPPC.  Turn 6ish, the ERPPCs clustered all in the side torso of a warhammer, killing its XL engine.  Turn 9, a Bombadier that was trying to body block and push clan mechs back now that the LRM bins were empty got headshot... the Bombadier could take 15 damage anywhere but the head, even in the rear... but Boom!  Headshot...  Then, turn 11, the turn I finally put down the Arctic Cheetah, the Timberwolf A headshot the Archer.  It was so demoralizing haha.  Whats worse, on turn 4 I destroyed one of the PPCs on that Timberwolf A, as before the Marauder died its ER PPCs were doing good damage and I was internal in the arm and torso pretty early on.  So 2 of those headshots were done when the Twolf had only 1 ERPPC each turn.

Since that pretty much dominated the flow of the game, After the 3 kill with a headshot I switched to a tactic of just living till the game ended on turn 15.  In this way, I could deny the clan players all the salvage and resources from holding the field.  So the damaged vulture hit behind terrain, and while the TWolf S, the other twolf this match, put some crits into it, it stayed alive.  Meanwhile the final marauder took a TAC from the TWolf A, to pair with all the headshots, that took out the engine and gyro.  After failing to stand a few times and beating the mech from all the falls, I just kept it on the ground behind a level 1 elevation change, and it just barely survived with a few CT structure left by the end on turn 15.

So 3 headshot mechs and one destroyed to side torso XL engine, for 1 clan light mech and 4 honor in damage to the timberwolf pair.  Comstar definately lost big here, as those headshots turned a close game into a blowout.

Next mission SHOULD have been 'crossing the streams', the story based mission where jade falcon has to jump across the mighty prenzo river after comstar destroyed the bridge.  Except... the mission doesnt say that the Jade falcons are always the attacker.  So the random roll for attacker/defender=5, meaning comstar attacks?!  Why oh why comstar did you have to roll to be the attacker!  Kinda defeats the whole point of the mission.  I even checked the errata, to see if the mission changed any, and all the errata mentioned was the attacker/defender options are renamed.  However, i DID find errata for 'Pushback', the mission that RUINED my comstar force... that mission ends on turn 8.  So the pair of cyclops, the rifleman, the battlemaster, and the victor ALL would have survived that battle as it would have ended before those units could be killed.

So a few things will happen.  Comstar has no jump jet mechs, which is kinda the theme of 'Crossing the Streams' as its an 8 hex river that, cannonically, the Jade Falcons had to jump across, and Comstar was the defender.  Comstar as the attacker, without the omni abiliity to swap into jump jet mechs to play the mission, automatically loses this mission, as I dont think its even possible to walk across the river by 5 turns with my jumpless mechs even if I manage to make every single piloting skill roll.  So Comstar Forfeits this match cause the only way I could play it would be to take 1 light mechs so the clan force cant bring any mechs at all, and try and load up on air cover to stop the 10 BSP in air attacks from killing my light mech.  Thus instead of trying to cheese the mission ill just take -3 honor as the track cost, but +4 honor to JF for winning, as I dont think its worth playing 5 turns just to bomb a mech with 18 BSP in air cover just to be cheesy.  However, in return, im going to let the results of pushback stand (the clans wouldnt have been able to salvage or anything as the game ending on turn 8 would have prevented any hold the field bonus.) but im also going to give those mechs that were lost that shouldnt have been lost back.  So the clans keep all the crazy honor they scored for killing all the units, but comstar is not in such a hole for continuing to play that mission and losing 5 more mechs when it should have ended.  Comstar had 3 honor, -1 for the meeting engagement, -3 for crossing the streams, so comstar is -1 honor and will need to sell mechs ANYWAY, so gaining 5 mechs (3 of which were damaged by turn 8, -1 armor on battlemaster -2 for crippled rifleman -3 for crippled victor) means I can sell the duplicate 5D for 1 point to be at 0 instead of -1.

Recordkeeping aside, the next mission we will actually play is 'Cities of Death'.  This is the story mission where JF is automatically the attacker, and has to move into a city where comstar has set up hidden units.

When the Jade Falcon forces moved to attack the town of Olalla, comstar prepared by demolishing all the buildings and building hidden bunkers for all their units to hide in, disguising the bunkers as normal buildings.  Wary of a potential trap, the Jade falcons only moved one unit through at a time, so that only one unit could get ambushed, and with the element of surprise lost the superior Jade Falcons destroyed the smaller comstar ambushing forces to (briefly) take the city.

Track Cost: 3
Objective (Comstar) Destroy/cripple all JF mechs (+4)
Objective (JF) Destroy/cripple all Comstar mechs (+4)
Special Rule: Unless JF gives the defender 2 points by waiting to receive loremaster Kael Pershaws warning, comstar can, as long as no units have been revealed yet, automatically win initiative one time before a roll is made.
Special rule: Suburbs.  1d6 (roll=6) clusters of light buildings 3x3 hexes (with the central hexline being a road) are placed.  The height is 1d6/2 rounding up, rolled 3 lvl 1 clusters, 2 level 2 clusters, 1 level 3 cluster.  Players alternate placing building clusters with comstar placing first.
Fake Town: All the comstar units are hidden, 1 per building.  A comstar unit can not be attacked or make an attack until it moves out of a building, even if discovered by an active probe.

Map:  Foothills #2 x2

Comstar Forces: 100 points.

77th:  Veteran Iota.  “White Monsters” Heavy Assault Level II Marksman 1 in 3.  60 points
   Black Knight 9x2
   Shootist 8a
   Orion Mx2
   Thunderbolt 7M
2 Heavy Tank BSP, 2 Mech/2 Jump Infantry, 1 light air cover, 2 heavy air cover, 1 sniper smoke.

        Vulture Prime 16, Veteran
        Rifleman 3N 8, 12 leg damage
        Rifleman 5D 8
        Marauder 5CS 8, 2 head hits

[DevianID]

So we had our battle in the cities of death... only it was less death for the clan players.

The mission set up saw the clans bring some lower skilled warriors to get more total tonnage on the field.  However that was not the story of the week.  The mission was really bad for comstar as well, as the only goal was to kill everything, which is really hard for comstar when the clans are focusing fire on the closest thing.  But that too is not the story.  We also wont talk about how the random map rolls were hills, which are terrible for my inner sphere heavies to traverse, but the clans outfitted in jump capable mechs were able to cover quite easily... so my 6 run speed moved me 3 hexes for a +2 shooting penalty for only +1 TMM, meaning to even get closer to the clans hopping 5 hexes each turn I had to keep running up and down those damn hills to bring my shorter ranged weapons into play... but no, that too is not the story of the week.

The Story of the Week... Black Dice for Black Knights.  Let me explain.

One player really liked the swordhachet black knight 9 that comstar made.  So he was really looking forward to fighting and salvaging it to use despite being a clan mech player.  So, the 77th rolled their random mechs and got two!  Meaning this player had his chance to kill and salvage them, the only way to aquire the mech as it is not a variant the clans, who have the older star league black knights, can get normally.

Deployment turn 1 saw the clans picking the edge with the fewest buildings on it.  My mechs are all hidden in bunkers, so they only come out after I see the clans, but I had to deploy across the map turn 1.  So, with the clans in an open corner able to establish range advantage, my turn 1 all my far away assets on the other map sheet left hiding to try and box in the clan mechs, so my closer units on the same mapsheet as the clans could attack from hiding with the far away units on a later turn.  I did cripple the executioner clan mech with LRM fire, as I outranged most of the clans in indirect fire at least since the clan players took no LRMs.

Turn 2, I rolled low initiative, so the clan players siezed since their initiative was so much higher using the Turkina Keshik special rule.  Thus, they got to shoot before I moved and gained cover/evasion.  One of the 2 timberwolves fired at the closest mech out of hiding, a black knight.  However, the next to activate was the hero of the hour, clearly a goliath scorpion at heart, and first shot with his Thor's ER PPC took the black knights head clean off, giving him the salvage on a great comstar mech with only 32 damage taked total.  That meant that my closest unit, who was gonna stalk up using LOS blocking buildings in my turn to pin the Falcons in place, was now dead.  The falcons had an open flank to maneuver back, making my mechs at long range unable to deal any damage for the next few turns.  In my movement phase I brought everything out of hiding, trying to deal damage in short range this turn as next turn the clan forces will move back.  I did some damage but nothing critical.

Turn 3, the clan players got another sieze, as I rolled horrible again.  As I feared, they focused down another mech 4v1, this time my vulture, and also sent a shot into the crappy Hussar which died to a medium pulse laser to the head and another to the chest.  Paper armor everywhere.  Ouch.  The most damaged mech, the Gladiator, was now in the corner.

Turn 4, my initiative was snake eyes, so yet again the clan forces got a full activation before me.  This time they didnt kill anything, but damaged the tbolt and shootist.  I had bad odds with the shootists AC20 turn 4 that maybe could have crit the black hawk, but I missed.

Turn 5, my initiative of 5 was the best id rolled in 4 turns, but still too low so yet again the clans got to activate multiple mechs before me.    The Gladiator I smacked with more indirect LRMs from my infantry spotters, but the gladiator is good at swatting infantry so this was my last turn shooting him.  He positioned well to have some mechs on the left side and some on the rear, to keep the open right front torso from getting even more crits.  I failed my 1 crit roll to hit ammo, and he passed all his PSRs.  With no more infantry to spot, turn 6-7 he could just hide and stay safe.  In the sieze portion of the turn the Tbolt died, and the shootist was finished off by the stragglers.  Hilariously, the Nova that shot my shootist rolled boxcar crit on the arm, and then rolled boxcar crit on the leg... so despite having tons of armor and structure everywhere else, the shootist was out of the fight as it was gonna fall automatically.  I rolled for fall damage, and, of course, hit my head, which had suffered some damage earlier.  Thus I killed myself.  The nova player took great joy in this LOL, he turned red laughing and earned the nickname 'the jeff that laughs' in a Gotham-esh villainy laugh sort of way.

Turn 6 I finally won initiative but to little too late, my black knight, 2 orions, and a tank was all that was left that could hurt the clans.  However, the Thor, with the new black knight finally in range, acted first in the turn order, and first roll, ER PPC, and he tossed the dice but didnt look at them.  The other players had to look, and confirmed a SECOND head shot.  So I shot back, but only did minor damage... another fresh mech dead to the first turn being shot at.

Round 7, I had a good initiative roll but the players won initiative when they used up their edge to force me to reroll... into a 3.  With only 2 mechs left they ignored the tank and far off infantry and went all in on the 2 orions.  Both mechs were fresh, but man was momentum with these players.  It took all 5 clan mechs alpha striking, but both orions had the same thing happen... the rt torso got open, and of the 11 crits in that torso, they found the LBX ammo and destroyed the XL engine.  So I didnt even get a shot back on turn 7.

In the end, I lost 2 fresh black knights to a head shot, the Shootist to medium damage and multiple headshots following multiple boxcar crits to remove limbs with 3 points of IS damage to each, the Tbolt got cored when the Thor put 21+ damage into my open CT, coring it out with the ER PPC and both LRM clusters all hitting the same spot and none of the other fully armored spots, and both orions to lucky ammo crits despite a pretty packed rt torso.

I caused some damage, but thanks to great salvage from all the headshots and XL torsos the clan players came out ahead of their damage costs.  And the Thor player who only rolled his black dice when rolling the ER PPC retired those dice after so many headshots lol.  Hence his 'Black Dice for Black Knights'.  With 3+ mech kills The Thor was the MVP by a landslide.  Last game, it was the Timberwolf A who went nuts with ER PPC headshots, earning 2 ER PPC headshots last week and 4 total kills.  The fact that a Thor matched it is extra impressive, but it also means that comstar is RUINED.  I lost 6 out of 8 mechs to bad initiative where I couldnt even shoot back this week, so the players mechs got out of this fight pretty amazingly.  The mission and map were both bad, but holy heck add in bad initiative luck and multiple headshot kills on fresh mechs, and the results are just devastating. 

Comstar mechs remaining.

403rd (regular, 12 each)
Battlemaster (-1)
Victor (-3)
Cyclops 11A x2

388th (regular, 8)
Rifleman 5D

201st (regular, 8 each)
Marauder (-3 damage, 2 head hits)
Rifleman 3n (-1 damage leg armor)

394th (veteran, 8 each)
Sentinel 3Lx2
Centurion

111th (regular, 3 each)
Mongoose
Mongoose
Mercury 97
Hussar 200

Next mission, comstar attacks back (roll 6).  Meeting engagment, 201st (whats left) primary attacker (heavy unit so heavy tanks again).

Jade Falcon (defender) picks home edge.  Attacker deploys up to 100 force points, defender deploys up to how much the attacker brings.

Track cost: 1.  Objective (+2) destroy 50% of the enemy force.  Game ends automatically on turn 15.
Maps: Rolling hills plus open terrain.
Special rules.  6 clusters of buildings placed, 3 per map, alternating by side.  Comstar is the attacker so cant use them for bunkers per the Suburbs rule, but can deploy 33% of their force as normal hidden units per the fake town rule (so can shoot out of phase if not detected by an active probe, and can be shot at if detected).  Thus 6 units can be placed in hiding out of my 19 units.


Enemy force: Marauder and Rifleman (who has leg damage as I cant spend 1 to just heal 12 leg damage) +16, The 394th medium attack specialists sentilelx2 and cent (so 2 clan mechs are delayed) +24, The 111th light mongoosex2 mercury hussar with LB10x(+12), the Rifleman 5D (+8), The cyclops, victor, battlemaster (+36), so 96 total.  2x2 infantry (8 points) and 2 heavy tanks (10 points).  Im selling some battlefield support points to fix the above units damage, so thats less bomb attacks you have to worry about.  Cant heal my 2 head hits on the marauder.  This leaves 1 cyclops in reserve.

[DevianID]

Pretty good game for the players, no major snags.  The first few rounds were mostly maneuvering and dealing with BSP infantry and tanks.  I had a few shots with the tanks but overall they whiffed.  The first mech kill came from a Gauss rifle that hit and rolled the exact ammo crit, detonating a sentinel from cross map with no fanfare.  Thats rough.  I also jammed my other sentinels ultra cannon, so he started to retreat.

The players were trying to deny any assets from leaving the table, so any time a unit moved to the board edge they went out of their way to focus it down.  I play an optional 'flee the field' rule that you must start the turn on the battlefield edge and be standing to actually flee (the megamek houserule), otherwise we would need more mapsheets, as with 18 units being played on 2 maps the clans should have at least one more mapsheet my retreating forces would need to go to actually get away.  Since I so greatly prefer 2 mapsheets to finish games faster, im ok telegraphing which units are retreating, giving players one final chance to stop them without needing to put down 2-3 more maps.

After the sentinel died, I had a string of 4 turns of lost initiative, 2 from the players using edge to reroll my initiative.  The leveled up players at this point are murderers with the Turkina Keshik 'shoot in the movement phase before the enemy moves' special unit ability.  First they focused down my Cyclops, killing it the turn it tried to fall back, without me being able to shoot back.  Next they destroyed a marauder and Hussar in the next turn, again thanks to me not having any evasion cause of the unit special ability.  After that, my retreating Battlemaster was destroyed, and the gyro in my centurion ripped out.  They also legged one of my mongooses.  On the 4th seize, the victor and the mercury died.  They then took their time to capture the Mongoose, though the ammo on the centurion exploded preventing it from being captured.  This left them with a captured Mercury, mongoose, marauder, battlemaster, Victor, and cyclops, with the centurion, sentinel, Hussar all total losses.  This salvage put them out of negative campaign points, as I whiffed a lot of attacks and then lost multiple shooting phases from their sieze the initiative rules.  Rough.

The 2nd Jade Falcon victory in Oalla wins the Falcons this objective, meaning the Falcons are free to push onto the final zone of Humptopolis.  Comstar is out of gas, and will be just launching delaying strikes at this point, hoping for a desperate last ditch defense that may give time for reinforcements from the Comguards victorious over the ghost bears to land and bolster their efforts.

Mission rolled, pursuit.  Roll 3, JF attacker.  The attacker deploys 25% of their force (75 force points).

Track Cost: 3.  Objective (JF) cross the map and flee with 50% of the clan units by turn 15 (+3 Points).  Cross the map and flee with 75% of the clan units by turn 15 (+1 more).
Objective (Comstar) prevent 75% of the Attacker from crossing the map and fleeing by turn 15 (+3 points).  Destroy 100% of the attacker (+1 Point more)
Mapsheets: Roll 6, Rolling hills.  Roll 6, Rolling hills.
BSP: Comstar's lines are broken as Jade Falcon pursuit closes in on the scattered remaining forces, only the aerospace reinforcements from the Ghost Bear theater can save them.  6 Heavy Strikes/TN6, 20 damage each.

Mission 2, Withdraw/On the Run if Jade falcon is the attacker.  Roll 4, JF attacker assuming they win mission 1.
Map, deployment zone neoprene, or rolling hills and grassland.
Track Cost: 3.  Objective.  Attacker: Destroy defender before turn 10.  Defender: Survive 10 turns or defeat 5 attackers.
Options:  The attacker can gain two honor to allow the defender to ignore the night fighting rule.
Special Rules: A combination of Night and lingering battlefield smoke makes all attacks add 2 to the difficulty.
The defender deploys 1 mech (probably a Cyclops with veteran sentinel pilot if Comstar is the attacker).  The attacker deploys any unit a player wants, 2 units on the field max.  Whenever a unit is destroyed another unit from the players force can come on, until the attacker runs out of mechs.

BSP: Comstar forces are trying to withdraw until Ghost Bear Reinforcements can land and meet with what little they have left.  2 Light air cover, 2 heavy air cover protecting the dropships approach (6 points) + 4 heavy strikes from reinforcing aerospace assets.

I managed to flee with only the pair of riflemen, the jammed Sentinel, and a mongoose, and have a Cyclops thats getting the veteran sentinel pilot that I can put into a fight, though many units are damaged.

[DevianID]

So the players wrapped up tukayyid successfully, taking a few hits from air strikes but nothing that burned honor too badly.  The total butcher bill leaves the collective clan players with 3 honor amongst all 5 of them, enough to bring 1 salvaged inner sphere heavy back into action, either the marauder or black knights.

The next known major story point is the refusal war in 3057, so '53 '54 '55 and '56 represent possible years with no conflict.  The steel vipers attacked a number of worlds, as did some mercenaries, but turkina keshik was absent from the dozen or so battles in the interim.  Per clan tradition, one battle must be fought each year or you need a trial of position to retain warrior status.  Thus, the next 4 battles would be trials of position, which would determine if any of the player's warriors are retired.  We have one star captain, one star commander, and 3 mechwarriors.  So I propose that the next battles would be Andrew in an assault, Jeff in a heavy, and a random bondsman from the group in a medium, versus one player, and 1 other player versus a bondsman, a regular pilot, and a player.  Since a trial of position involves 8 total units on the board, participating in this trial will keep everyone active for the year of '53.  Each year we will rotate who is trialing for rank and who is called to act as the examiner after this, with deference to those with rank or blood names serving as examiners per their rank, as seems to be clan tradition.

There is a bit of text in the sourcebook that the constant trials within the clan post tukayyid were bleeding the clan of warriors, which is partly why 3057 saw a return to major battles to put the battle hungry falcons to work against others instead of among themselves, so the trials are the most lore accurate thing I could find that turkina keshik would be doing during the time jump.