Total Chaos, Brotherhood of Outreach

[Azakael]

Rather than keep making brand new topics for each game, I think I'll just keep all my games in one topic now. So this topic is for the Total Chaos after-action reports for my Brotherhood of Outreach.

[Azakael]

Situation June, 3070. Solaris VII
"With a majority of my Mechwarriors on planet finally clearing out of the infirmary, the SHDL called on our extended contract with other mission. They needed us to recon out a city way out in the middle of nowhere. Apparently they seem to think there might be a cache of supplies that could be used against the Blakists. I sent my scouting elements out, and they happened to hit a freak ice storm. Weather reports didn't indicate anything of the sort. This left my vehicles incapable of effective scouting. My forces were expecting to just ambush and scan a few militia 'Mechs, bust them up a little, and then get back to our lines. When they returned heavily bloodied and missing a vehicle, I needed answers. Apparently, this militia recruited some top Solaris champions. In reviewing the BattleROM, I've never seen militia forces this accurate, or cunning. I'm beginning to question the intel I continue to receive from the SHDL. I'm thinking 'breach of contract' needs to come up in conversation soon." - Gabriel D'Vries.

Optional Rules:
Floating Criticals
Careful Stand
Ground Vehicle Hit Location Chart removes the Critical on an 8 and the possible motive Damage on a 9.
VTOL and Hover Lateral Slip

Mission Options:
Complicated Weather - Ice Storm. (Seriously, -60 degrees C? Does it *really* need to be that cold for an ice storm?)

Forces:
Attacker
Local "Militia" (Seriously. Elites!)
(2/3) - Champion CHP-2N
(2/3) - Hermes II HER-5SA

Defender
Brotherhood of Outreach
Tess Forrest (4/5) - Wraith TR1
Justin Caldwell (3/4) - Lightray LGH-4Y
(3/4) - Pegasus Light Scout Hover
(3/4) - Pegasus Light Scout Hover

Map Set-up
North
[Heavy Woods #1][Inverse Desert Mountain #2]
Attacker Edge North
Defender Edge South

Pegasus 2 set up in hiding on the edge of the woods. Lightray and Pegasus 1 deploy in the valley on the Desert Mountains. Wraith deploys in the woods.

Turn 1 - Initiative OpFor
Sinking initiative with the Pegasus, moving him towards my own board edge, (He would spend the entirety of the game hiding from the OpFor. 5/8 Hovercraft (Thanks weather!) is a death sentence.) Opponent would bring the Hermes into the forest (which was a saving grace for me.) The Wraith hopped over him into some heavy woods, but with his back to the opponent's board edge. The Lightray started into the forest. The Champion would take up position right behind the Wraith. Despite the high skills, the Chapion would only hit with a single SRM 6 with three missiles. However, his kick would cause the Wraith to fall over and crit itself through the rear left torso. Double engine and a jump jet. Whee.

Turn 2 - Initiative Brotherhood
Pegasus 2 continued to idle in hiding, and Pegasus 1 took this time to make his way to his hidey-hole.
The Wraith would be able to stand and put enough distance between himself and the Champion, that it would not be able to get an effective shot off. The Lightray and the Hermes would exchange a single Large Pulse Laser and Medium Laser each.

Turn 3 thru 8 - Initiative OpFor, OpFor, OpFor, Brotherhood, Brotherhood, OpFor
These turns would simply be some bouncing around trying to not get killed and try to cripple the Hermes II. The only "success" would be an LPL hit on the Hermes.

Turn 9 - Initiative Brotherhood
Pegasus 1 would escape, while the second Pegasus would get greedy and attempt to get a shot off on the Champion. The *untouched* Champion. Needless to say, the return fire got an immobilization on it and the crew would shut down and button up afterwards.

Turn 10 thru 13 - Initiative Brotherhood, OpFor (12 versus an 11!), OpFor, Brotherhood.
The Wraith would try to dance around and see if he could get a safe shot on the Hermes II, while the Lightray escapes. (Breached torso with uncased SRM 2 ammo.) Nothing doing.

Turn 14 - Wraith escapes.

Post-battle thoughts:
Ugh. Weather. The Ice Storm was more of a hindrance to me than it was to me. Between the maps and the weather, about half my firepower was nigh-useless. I could have kept the second Pegasus hidden longer, as a point blank shot on the Champion might have hit with more. Who knows.
Over-aggression. Twice I was far too aggressive. Instead of jumping my full 7 hexes, I could have positioned the Wraith better where I still would have been able to scan the Hermes and not taken a shot from the Champion. The damage from the fall kept me on the defensive with the Wraith, as well as negated her ability to fire effectively. The attempt to shoot the Champion with the Pegasus was, for lack of a better word, stupid. If the Champion had been severely wounded, that would have been one thing, but it was not.
Needless to say, while I succeeded at my objective, Pyrrhus would have been proud of my actions.

[Azakael]

Situation July, 3070. Solaris VII
"The SHDL requested my assistance with another possible cache. Another militia force was headquartered in a mostly abandoned town, and they felt this was suspicious. We were asked to help push them out so we could scour the town for supplies unmolested. Given the intel we got last time, I chose to lead the force myself - just so I could see things for myself. We attacked under cover of night, though it was a full moon. The fight was swift and brutal. I think they ended up damaging their own equipment more than we did. That told me everything I needed to know. There really wasn't any glory in crushing a bunch of weekend warriors. But, we needed the equipment."

Optional Rules:
Floating Criticals
Careful Stand
Ground Vehicle Hit Location Chart removes the Critical on an 8 and the possible motive Damage on a 9.
VTOL and Hover Lateral Slip

Mission Options:
Complicated Weather - Full Moon

Forces:
Attacker
Brotherhood of Outreach
Gabriel D'Vries (3/4) - Griffon GRF-3M
Melvinia "Mel" Richter (3/5) - Gallowglas GAL-1GLS
Tess Forrest (4/5) - Wraith TR1
Justin Caldwell (3/4) - Lightray LGH-4Y
(3/4) - Drillson
(3/5) - Drillson (SRM)
(3/4) - Bandit G
(4/4) - Patton Tank
(4/5) - IS Standard Battle Armor (Laser)
(4/5) - IS Standard Battle Armor (Laser)

Defender
Local Militia
(5/6) - Enforcer ENF-5D (Commander)
(5/6) - Firestarter FS9-OA
(5/6) - Blackjack BJ-3
(5/6) - Strider SR1-OG
(5/6) - Hunter Light Support Tank (LRM 10)
(5/6) - Pegasus Light Scout Hover (SRM)
(5/6) - SturmFeur Heavy Tank (SRM)
(5/6) - Behemoth (Flamer)
(5/6) - IS Standard Battle Armor (Laser)
(5/6) - IS Standard Battle Armor (Laser)

There really isn't much of an after-action report here. This was legit a slaughter. He could barely hit me, between the bad gunnery skill and the penalty to hit from the full moon. On top of that, he was suffering more falls due to the roll-to-not-trip from the full moon effects. The question wasn't "Will I win?" but, "How hurt am I going to get? How much salvage will I get from it?" This was the largest fight we had, the last one, and the least fun for him because there wasn't really much he could do. Seems to be tradition for our Battletech weekends. The last game always ends up being the "unfun" one. If I could have taken an option to upgrade him to "Regulars" for more WP for winning? I would have taken it in a heartbeat. Greens just aren't that fun to fight against. (Plus you end up fighting a ton more weight or numbers.)

[Azakael]

Situation September 3070. Solaris VII
"Our retainer with the SHDL brought us back into the fray again. This time we were asked to pull a small garrison out of position, scan their equipment, and destroy or cripple what we could. I sent a small but quick strike force in. They quickly grabbed the attention of the Word employed mercenaries who gave chase. My forces lead them to the outskirts of an industrial port, where they turned the chase around on our opponents. Some minor bang-ups, but my men controlled the field at the end of the day. Surviving 'Mechwarriors and Vehicle Crews were turned over to the SHDL as prisoners. Whatever they do with them, not my concern. Supplies for my own forces were given in exchange for the salvage that we we acquired."

Optional Rules:
Floating Criticals
Careful Stand
Ground Vehicle Hit Location Chart removes the Critical on an 8 and the possible motive Damage on a 9.
VTOL and Hover Lateral Slip

Mission Options:
Wet Conditions - Torrential Downpour

Forces:
Attacker
Word Employed Mercenaries
(4/5) - SHD-5M Shadow Hawk
(4/5) - ZPH-4A Tarantula
(4/5) - Striker Light Tank (Ammo)
(4/5) - Scimitar Medium Hover Tank (Missile)

Defender
Brotherhood of Outreach
Tess Forrest (4/5) - Wraith TR1
Justin Caldwell (3/4) - Lightray LGH-4Y
(3/5) - J. Edgar Hover
(3/4) - Bandit "Brotherhood"

Map Set-up
North (Water Hexes Were facing North)
[Seaport (Map Set 7)][Coast #2 (Map Set 7)]
Chase Format (Short edge to short edge)
Attacker Edge West
Defender Edge East

So, funny thing about "Retreat"... it's broken as written if the player chooses to be the attacker. One of the Objectives is move half your forces off the opponent's board edge. The Attacker starts entering from their opponent's board edge. Take both options, and for no effort, the attacker earns 200 WP. Needless to say, we've house-ruled that the mission cannot be taken as the attacker.
That said...
Despite the fact that this was a "chase" I really never moved anything onto the eastern-most board. After my free turn of movement, I turned my forces back on him. Most of the fighting took place within 3 hexes of the western board edge as I pushed as much effort as I could on his Shadow Hawk in order to eliminate the biggest target on the battlefield. The Bandit and J. Edgar mostly existed to draw forces away from his Shadow Hawk, and dart in and out of combat.

The game lasted a bit longer than it should have due to the rain making everything harder to hit... and everything was already hard to hit due to a few high-speed units on the board. The Scimitar would be mission killed from an immobilization in a part of the map that didn't offer it any good firing solutions. The Tarantula took a hip critical, slowing it to a reasonable speed, which allowed the Wraith to finish it off. An early foot critical on the Shadow Hawk would leave it limping along for most of the game, until he tried to jump on top of a building, only to fail the PSR and collapse, the damage being enough to take the leg off. From there a single Large Pulse would get a lucky critical hit on the CT... hitting the Streak 2 Ammo. Kaplooie. The Hawk was also his commander, so the Immobilized Scimitar would have to abandon his tank, due to Forced Withdrawl rules. With enough of his forces destroyed or crippled at this point, I exited the J. Edgar and Bandit, who leave unscathed. Finally after a desperate charge attack against the Wraith, the Striker would take a lucky LPL strike to the front that popped a tyre, immobilizing it. Forced Withdrawal causing him to abandon the vehicle.

Damage to my forces? Mostly armor, pilot damage from a fall, and a single TAC that took the ER Small out on the Lightray. (Which was no big loss, really.) Still, this wasn't as bad a massacre as the previous game.

A little sloppy of a report, but we were trying to get the game finished quickly as this was also an RPG night for us. One thing that was interesting, I lost initiative most of the time, and didn't quite feel the need to turtle on the initiative. Usually that was when the hovers were darting out of the fray.

Next mission was supposed to be Mission: Probe - except the mission got cut from the book, and all references left in. The Mission from Starterbook Sword and Dragon isn't quite compatible - low WP costs and rewards compared to Total Chaos, and it has set number of units, instead of a percentage of your forces. So after comparing the missions, Recon-in-Force is nearly identical to Probe. Additionally, only one of the mini-campaigns requires Recon-in-Force (and also Probe), while a large number of them require Probe. So given both of those, we changed all references to Probe to Recon-in-Force, and the "one" mini-campaign that required both Recon-in-Force and Probe, just has to run Recon-in-Force twice.

[Azakael]

Situation October 3070. Solaris VII
"Intel gave us word that a shipment of material and supplies were recently delivered to a nearby drop port. The SHDL sent a small diversionary force to draw some of the guards away, leaving a lightly armed and undertrained garrison to protect the shipment. We can only guess that it was not high priority gear for the Word, but for us - anything would do. Tess was sick on mission day, but her Wraith was already prepped and ready to go. With his Lightray under maintenance, Justin was given run of her Wraith for this strike. Turns out this was a good decision as both he and the Bandit returned without a scratch. If not for the supplies loaded on the hovercraft, I almost would have questioned if they even went on the mission."

Optional Rules:
Floating Criticals
Careful Stand
Ground Vehicle Hit Location Chart removes the Critical on an 8 and the possible motive Damage on a 9.
VTOL and Hover Lateral Slip

Mission Options:
Timing - Solar Flare

Forces:
Attacker
Brotherhood of Outreach
Justin Caldwell (3/4) - Wraith TR1
(3/4) - Bandit "Brotherhood"

Defender
Word Employed Mercenaries
(5/6) - Vedette Medium Tank
(5/6) - CRD-4L Crusader
(5/6) - SR1-OG Strider

Maps and such are meaningless.
Honestly, there isn't a battle report for this mission because, after a quick discussion, my opponent and I concluded that this wasn't worth fighting. I would have to screw up completely in order to take damage, let alone fail this mission. With the Solar Flare, my opponent started at 8's to hit before his movement, my movement and range, meanwhile I was on 6's. With the Wraith, if I jumped he was at 12's to hit if he remained stationary at short range, and I'd be at 7's because of pulse at short range. So we ran a few turns, where I butchered the Vedette, and a TAC on the Crusader hit the SRM ammo. At which point I backed off and let him call it. No salvage from the mission, but... really? It wasn't worth setting up.
We're beginning to conclude that Green forces against Veterans are not any fun to play once weather starts being added in. Two levels of skill discrepancy is just too much, even with the BV difference. (Regulars vs Elites feel just as bad.)