Thanks for the game today Joel, I have reaffirmed my hatred of night missions, lol, or anything that makes shooting in a game about shooting, more difficult.
That said its always a blast to do world events.
Quick review.
North Map: (1 Move On Turn + 6 Combat Turns)
Green Ghosts+Wob+FC (10Units: Mixed LvII + Mech Lance)
Lancelot (ERs) (Special Night Fighting Ability)
BlackKnight-9? (Hatchet)
Bandersnatch (Ultra10)
Stealth
Night Hawk
Owens-O (LL/2ML)
Garm (ER)
Ontos-3053
Demon-2750
Galleon-MGs?
With 7 Mechs & 3 Tanks this force seemed to have some SERIOUS tonnage advantage to it.
Defender: Marik Protectors + Planetary Militia (2 Lances, 1 Big Mechs, 1 Light Vees)
Tempest (Special Target a Hex ability)
Stalker-6M
Awesome-8Q
Quickdraw-5M? (3050 OS SRM Model "crap")
Pegasus-Missile
Saladin-LBX
Harasser
HawkMoth
Turn-1, The Ghosts get first blood by landing a single ERLL on the Stalker.
Turn-2, Much more fire, but lots of wiffs. (Also Notable as the ONLY turn I won Initiative, grrr)
Turn-3, More Contact fire & I think this is when the Owens gets pummeled & looses the leg to a 12 crit as well as 1 side torso, of course it only had 2 points of internal left & I scored NO crits in like 20 attempts on the Owens, Ontos, & Galleon.
Turn-4, The Tempest jumps forward & even at +3 defensive mod in trees is hammered by fire from most of the ghosts. Which wouldn't have been so bad if he had hit with his own shots or not rolled a snake-eyes on the PSR check. DOH. Ghost fail to kill the downed Owens pilot. All the Hovers make close range strikes & sadly, The Peg is immobilized, Double DOH.
Turn-5, The Tempest fails his PSR to stand up, ugh, and takes another massive round of fire that is now internal in several areas. Peg armor is down to 2 in the rear & crew abandons ship. Saladin tries for another round of short range shooting & again lands the 20 in a well armored location but the Lancelot kills it with 2 ERLL through the side.
Turn-6, Tempest Jumps away to trees behind the Stalker, the Maelstrom is de-legged & now in forced withdrawal, the Stalker gets killed by an SRM round & an ERPPC to the head when most the Ghosts alpha on its mostly pristine armor. The Ghosts fire 3 units into the Owens to finally kill its pilot.
In the end the Ghosts finish up with 3 or 5 Points in last minute kills while the Mariks still have just the 2 for the Owens.
(Does the abandoned Peg count as a kill since its forced withdrawal that made it abandoned? I know I didn't get credit for the Bandersnatch.)
This was certainly my turn with the unlucky dice this time around, too many snake-eyes & initiative losses.
Some thoughts.
I think both players felt the game was against them based maps, units, rules, etc etc. So maybe that means it was balanced?
The Ghosts had minimal fast units to recon with & a boatload of trees & hills to get through to find the dig site.
They only scanned 3 building hexes in 6 turns & were not even close to the site.
Meanwhile the Marik group felt WOEFULLY under tonnaged & the Light Vehicles were not nearly as effective in such tight tree ridden quarters as they would have been on a normal map with less hills/trees. (I also realized in hindsight that while the set up was bad, failing to win initiative & being outnumbered was also a major contributing factor)
Both of us pretty much hate the Night rules & +2 to hit because it meant doing anything but a Short Range Slug Match was basically out.
The Units themselves felt totally determined by a RAT table & had zero "focus" to them for either side and not at all optimized for the maps or scenario.
After looking at the total forces, it does look like almost 2500 BV less that was made up for in skills & 135 more tons to go with the 2 unit advantage for the ghosts.
So the Marik forces had skill on their side which would have been useful in a more open battlefield where maneuver was possible.
For other GM's out there still choosing what forces to field for this fight, my suggestion is some recon units need to be on the side of the attackers, while the defenders need jumpjets & close range guns for the late game because range & speed have minimal use on maps covered in trees, buildings, & hills.
For the Designers, you can tell they wanted to pull out the rare situations like Night & special mech rules, for the event, but like a bit too much to keep track of & no one likes not being able to hit anything. Less is more IMHO. Something with a movement penalty would have been less punishing for "environmental effects" and maybe keep the special abilities to something that doesn't require trying to pre-guess the enemies movement.
I think my opponent described it that the fight felt like a slow plodding struggle with terrain being in the way & no vision.
For the South Table, the Defenders had several Missile Carriers for their vehicle lance & those made the attackers pay.
Also the attackers had several VERY fast units (Locust, Hussar, Mercury, Beagle) that were able to find the building quickly.
I heard the score there was 7-6 Attackers when the game ended after Turn-5
So total so far is 10/12 to 8 in favor of the Green Ghosts with 50% finding the dig site and 50% destroying it.