Scenario:
"Kuritans learn that the Word of Blake is attacking one of their food-processing factories and hastily break up a Coordinator's Day Parade and load up the first four mechs they can onto a Leopard dropship and fly to the grounds of the factory to defend it. The factory is strangely heavily fortified, including a turret full of Medium Lasers. WOB forces arrive via their own Leopard dropship with only four mechs."
"Just as the Kuritan lance leader notes that they are lucky that the Blakists arrived via Leopard as they usually travel in reinforced lances of six 'Mechs, he and his 2nd in command both have their mechs shot IN THE BACK by the other two "Kuritan" mechs just now emerging from THEIR OWN dropship. The two traitors were actually members of the Word of Blake 14th Militia (known for operating in mechs bearing deceptive color schemes). Their Mechs are wearing Kuritan colors and squawking Kuritan IFF. These Blakist spies/agents had infiltrated the Coordinator's Day festivities for just this reason. These unexpected new WOB mechs immediately move to attack the turret."
Are there any RULES that cover betrayal among your own lance? Has anything like this ever been done before? I cannot find examples of anything like this being done outside of the Mechwarrior/Time of War Roleplaying rule sets. In those games, like other RPG's, the GM's word is law. Battletech is a bit more rules-centric.
Is there any way in a Scenario-based game that someone acting as a Referee can have this sort of effect on a game legitimately?
I'm prepping this scenario to act as an introduction to Battletech for potential new players and thus I want to add as much "drama" to the narrative as I can. It should be a spectacle.
Having the Kurita player arrive at the factory and then the referee hands him a sheet so he can control the turret would be a good moment for that player because he suddenly believes he has more assets on the field than his opponent. To have the referee then tell him to hand over 2 specific 'Mech sheets/cards to the WOB player would be much less fun for the Kuritan player. Not to mention the having to resolve the attack IN THE BACK. That would be interesting. There would likely be much protest.
For those who are thinking that this might be UNFAIR, there ARE reinforcements on the way that have specific triggers in the scenario. I'm looking for rules for the specific betrayal action I mention above, but any examples of 'Mechs changing sides after the start of the game would be interesting to learn about.
