This After Action will be a bit sketchy, won't be loaded with detail and will not have pictures. (Not that there is anything awesome to show standard maps and unpainted 'Mechs.)
Situation: October, 3067. Outreach.
"The Word hit Outreach pretty hard. With several other commands turning on Wolf's Dragoons, we knew it was time to make for greener pastures. None of us wanted to get caught in that crossfire. Dad always spoke highly of the Dragoons. Said they legitimized our trade. I say they made a few too many enemies on the way there. Most of our gear was stowed up on the Drop Ships as we prepped to head for Galatea when we got a contract from Blackwell. Seems their VP needed out of town and we were available. Seems the 51st Dark Panzer Jaegers wanted a piece of him too. I sent my fastest units to get there before they did. With time being of the essence and again, most of our gear was stowed, we could only get a little bit of ammo into the bins before they had to get rolling. The grim look on my crew's faces, one of my Drillsons being towed the rest of the forces and the lack of cash flow to the bank account tells me they didn't fare too well. Damn. I was hoping to get my costs to travel off of this rock paid for, and perhaps score a higher level contact within Blackwell to get better access to parts for the Bandit. Instead I get repair bills and a hit to my rating... if that'll even matter after this is all done." - Gabriel D'Vries
Setup:
Map Sheets (Left to Right), giving a battlefield of 17 hexes wide by 49 hexes long. (The sheets were joined at the long edge.)
City (Suburbs); City (Residential); City (Downtown)
My map edge was the Downtown edge, his deployment was the first quarter of the map, setting up in the 'Burbs.
Forces:
Mine:
The Chaos March Irregulars -
Locust LCT-1E (3/3)
Drillson (3/4)
J. Edgar (3/6)
Bandit G (3/4)
Blackwell Security Contingent -
Badger A (3/4)
Badger A (3/4)
Heavy Hover APC (3/4)
OpFor:
51st Dark Panzer Jaegers -
Clint CLNT-2-3U (4/5)
Phoenix Hawk PXH-3D (4/5)
Dart DRT-6S (4/5)
Valkyrie VLK-QA (4/5)
Centurion CN9-D (4/5)
Battlefield Conditions:
Moderate Rainfall and Light Gale.
Force Conditions:
25% Ammo load on my forces.
As I said, things were going to be sketchy as I didn't record anything on a turn by turn basis. So instead we have phases:
Phase 1 -
He moved his forces forward, committing most of his forces on my left, save the Dart. With that, I pushed the Blackwell contingent towards the Dart, viewing it as the least threatening of his forces. The rest of my forces attempted to tie him up on my right with my primary goal of taking out the Clint. I knew he had poor armor compared to the rest of his forces and I felt the ER PPC was the biggest threat at the time. I had also hoped that the rain would interfere with his shooting, being regulars and not bother mine so much being Vets. This was not the case. Rather, the Blackwell contingent found the Dart to be much more of a threat than I had given it credit for as it decided to forgo the guns and do the Mexican hat dance on the APC instead. Which hurt. A lot. The motive systems were taken out and it didn't take much else to off the APC. On top of that, his ability to maneuver due to jump jets allowed him to shift over to where the APC was quickly. The other issue was that the Badgers ran out of ammo for their SRM launchers. 13 shots between four launchers just isn't enough. Lesson Learned: Jump Jets are great in cities. If you're going to split forces to draw him away... don't make it the majority of your force...
Phase 2:
With the VP taken out, the 51st started to withdraw. (Which ended up bringing up a question, the track in the book states that the 51st will not withdraw but will keep fighting to capture or kill the VP... what happens if that succeeds? Do they then get to retreat, or are they forced to stay until the VP's entire escorting force is destroyed? Unfortunately, the player of the OpFor went for the former, rather than the latter and beat a hasty retreat.)
Breaking formation to retreat, the Clint and Valk went towards my board edge to get in some terrain, while the Phoenix Hawk, despite having suffered two engine hits and gyro damage, jumped onto a nearby building. The Clint was offed by a nice alpha strike from boith the Locust and the Bandit. The Dart ran, while the Centurion attempted to destroy my Drillson. The Badgers started to head for my board edge, having emptied their ammo bins and losing the VIP they were protecting. The Dart finished one of them off and the other decided that he wanted to take some revenge out and tried to ram the Centurion to no effect. The Drillson, having been immobilized started a long range fight with the Centurion who stuck around to try to kill it, but failed. The Dart was chased half-way down the board by the Bandit and the J.Edgar, losing a leg in the process. The Phoenix Hawk, despite the severe damage started to run away passing every. freaking. Piloting check it needed to make except for *one*. Which I couldn't capitalize on as my forces were not near it.
The final turn had the Locust attempting to charge the Phoenix Hawk for 18 points of damage, possibly knocking it on it's butt and maybe even taking out a leg. If the attack failed, the Phoenix Hawk could run for the board edge and escape.
The Locust needed a 6.
...
...
Yeah.
Dice suck.
So in the aftermath of the battle:
I got jack and squat. No salvage. No objectives. Nothing.
The Locust and J.Edgar had some armor damage, while the Bandit and Drillson had some motive damage that had to be repaired. (Which costs... as if it were internal structure being repaired?)
Looking back at it, I would have dropped the Drillson for my Schrek PPC carrier, giving me three units that had no concerns about ammo and one that only had a little concern. Plus, by keeping such a threat near the APC, it would have forced him to be clever and creative about engaging the APC, especially since his forces weren't terribly heavily armored.
Also, Vees can stack in the same hex. That might have been helpful for keeping my forces together better.
And I would have rolled better. Too many turns where I had shots that needed 7's to hit and I'd score less than half. Hopefully the next report for the CMI's will be more detailed.
