Hey guys,
I'd like to run an Alpha Strike scenario to try out some of the stuff I'm kicking around for the Tokosha campaign. Mostly bidding, zell, and the use of random forces.
For the campaign each of you would be, essentially, a ristar Star Captain. Your Star Colonel wants to see what you are capable of so every mission you will bid for the honor to command the mission. Players will be given a briefing about the mission, along with a max deployment size. They will be given a few minutes to put together a bid to tackle the mission, drawn from the unit's available combat resources. The main balancing mechanic is chance (what is available via RATs) and strategic planning (how well you use what is available), not BV. After you choose a force everyone puts theirs down and bidding begins. Now you may be asking yourself ’why should I only take a binary when I could do it comfortably with a trinary?' Because first of all, it's The Way of the Clans, you freebirth surrat! On a more practical level bidding yields it's own rewards. Undercutting the value of your force will get you extra free SPAs, the ability to change mechs or battle conditions, or other map-exclusive events. The more you shave down your force, the more you get. You'll also be protecting your long-term available resources by using smaller forces. We have very detailed force information and I will roll everything that will be availble. If you are attached to that Kingfisher, you had either better not lose it or you'll have to bid away units to pay for repairs. But perhaps most importantly your Warchest points will be modified by your bids. Essentially, you WILL need to do Clan-like things such as bidding and zell in order to win the campaign.
So for this Sunday Weirdo has already given me two-dozen 2d6 rolls for your forces. On Sunday I'll bring cards for all those units (be they mechs, infantry, air, whatever) and you make a force out of the them. Then we'll start the bidding. Even if forces aren't cut down much I'll still give you guys some points for just getting into the Blood Spirit of things. The mission will then begin. All this is to see if: 1) I will need to have someone helping me with sheets and die rolls, 2) see if bidding is a cool and fun idea or a pipe dream, and 3) see how using random units works out for us.
The grand idea for the campaign is that, rather than tracking repairs and credits like a typical Merc campaign, this one would feel like a Clan campaign. Your resources are personal honor and victory in combat. You'll have to balance cautious planning and bold fighting, because as the attackers in the scenario your opponents have more resources and better positions than you do, even if they are technically outnumbered. In order to win in the end you'll have to learn how to bid, where to strike, and when to retreat. I'm planning to use multiple systems as we go, namely because the campaign packet does so. That means some Aerotech fights will be sprinkled in, and there is an infantry scenario that will be in either Battletech or Battletroops if we wanted to try it. Smaller or more important fights will be in BT, but the majority of the time we'll be using Alpha Strike to simulate the large clashes between the Horses and Bears. The campaign could be long or short... depends on if everyone is having fun.
Now I freely admit that some of this may need to be simplified or tossed alltogether. But I do think we should give it a try first. But one thing that will be an issue no matter how simple or complex the campaign is time. As I've said before we can't not finish campaign battles. That means we'll have to start earlier, and I'll be keeping a clock. I want us to be ready to go by 1230 and rolling by 1
You won't get two hours to look over the forces and decide on bids. More like 15 minutes. You'll probably be shaving down your units as you go anyway so you're really just picking your ideal starting lineup. If this becomes too complex or time-consuming I will toss the concept, but starting early and moving fast through turns will be a must.
So there you have it. Weirdo has generously allowed us to use his Star League mechs to represent the Ghost Bears. This time I'll use my plastics to stand in for the Horses, but we can see about using someone else's nicely painted minis for the long haul.
Questions? Comments? Thrown fruit?