The Great Download Caper

In the far future world of Battletech, only one building in the galaxy holds the complete musical archives of Australian band 'The Cat Empire'. And the company that owns it plans to erase it!

Five squads of mechs descend on the city to take the music before it's wiped. The more that each squad can collect the more valuable a resource it is for them. If other squads can be prevented from downloading then its value increases.

The stage is set for a five-player game of Alpha Strike. Each of us had 250 points of mechs and vehicles, and our objective was the cobbled square in the centre of the board.  At the end of any turn a side had at least one mech or vehicle in the square they would get 100 points. If they were the only player to have anything there then they would get 200 points. At the end of four turns, whoever had the most points would win.

Here's my stuff. I've forgotten what I had. A couple of things with Hawk on the end. Some tanks. A VTOL. The big one is an Atlas. Beyond that? Nah.

Ed and I used our speediest things to get a presence in the square on the first turn. Everyone else advanced close and moved into firing positions.

There was lots of firing. My VTOL was the first casualty. But I ended the turn with a light mech in the square, so got to download a couple of albums.

Things began to hot up in the square. Daniel was my immediate opponent. He had a small squad of skilled mechs and some meaty tanks. The tanks went in for the downloads and the mechs provided fire support. I just kept feeding things into the square as quickly as I could.

Some action on the other side. It's hard to tell who has what. Daniel and Craig brought their own toys, so they could be identified. But Ed, Frank and I just used Ed's models which are a mix of three colours but with all of us having units of each one. We remembered whose models were whose but it makes for confusing photos. 

Anyway, here's Ed's forces taking on Craig's stuff. I think the yellow mech in the distance is one of Frank's.

Because being in the square was better than not being in the square the fighting got very up-close and personal. Craig kept forgetting that his light mechs were fire-support ones and had no short-range capability. At least twice he ran them into the rear of an enemy only to find he'd gone too close and couldn't shoot.

It was really serious in my corner of the square. We were all shooting and frantically downloading and I don't remember how anyone else was doing but I was running out of kit.

However I stuck it out to the end.

It was obvious from the first turn that no-one was ever going to have undisputed control of the square. And that it was unlikely that a single player would have all of their in-square assets knocked out at any point. So it boiled down to which players had had stuff there for the most turns. Ed and I drew for first place, with 400 points - our early game dropping off of fast light assets paid off there. Daniel and Frank were a turn behind us so got 300 points. Craig had lots of fun shooting people up, but seems to have forgotten the objective and scored 200 points (I think).

So it was possibly a flawed scenario, but it gave a fun game, and I think we worked out an alternative version with more scope for movement, albeit with more of an element of luck.

Thanks to Ed for setting everything up!

Alpha Strike

We played Battletech: Alpha Strike last night. There were about 8 mechs on each side fighting over three objectives and I've already forgotten what I had. They were red and reasonably well-armed and stompy. Darren had some lighter, faster red ones. Caesar and Daniel had a similar-sized force in purple and light-blue.

Here's some opening moves.

I love Darren's little MDF houses, from a manufacturer that no longer does them.

There was lots of fire exchanged over the housing, and surprisingly few hits. Sadly my Orion in the foreground took one of them from a particularly nasty mech (Kodiak, I think) on the other side. Took lots of damage.

We'd been late starting and after a few turns of movement we were running out of time. We held one objective each and were both looking at the one in the centre for a win. Caesar jumped a mech onto it and Darren jumped a mech behind that mech. We were set up for an epic finish.

Caesar's mech held up pretty well, but was taken down by a long-range indirect shot from a mech on the other objective we held. This left Darren's Jenna in control of teh objective giving teh red guys a 2-1 win.

Most of the mechs were still up and running (a few only just, it's true). A testament to how awful everyone's shooting was.

I actually started to get a handle on some tactics in this fight, making use of cover rather than just charging in. Didn't do me a lot of good, but certainly an improvement on previous games.

Big Battletech

The thing about Battletech: Alpha Strike is that the mechs and rules are massively simplified, which enable to play with far more toys on the table. Which is how, last night, we found ourselves playing a game with three players a side and over 70 mechs on the table.

Darren put together some lovely terrain. Scattered across the table are the red mechs - some kind of corporate samurai faction. This was their light company; off-table you can see the other two companies (medium and heavy) which would come on as reinforcements.

Opposing them was a group of mercenary mechs (the beige figures entering from the foreground). They had to fight their way to some objectives on the far side of the table. Initially all that stood in their was were the red light mechs.

Frankly we (for I was part of the mercenary team) made heavy weather of them. Specifically I did, showing a spectacular inability to hit them - for example over a couple of turns I took twelve shots at one opposing mech and score two hits. In one volley I rolled 2,3,and two 4s on 2D6 as my rolls to hit. It was pathetic.

We did manage to push forward on the flanks where there weren't so many enemy mechs.

Of course the reinforcements turned up before we'd even made a significant dent in the starter. Here two of Stuart's light mechs regret their decision to push forward so rashly, although you can just see a third that's jumped into the rear of the advancing reinforcements.

I sent a lance of heavy mechs down the other flank. They weren't fast, but with no opponents to shoot at they could sprint.

A view of the centre. In the foreground my other heavy mechs continue to fail to hit anything regardless of range. In the centre our other mechs gang up on some enemy lights.

A wider view. Top left you can see my flanking force pretty much at one of teh objectives, with the Red Perils reacting to it. Enemy lights are being mobbed in the centre, but there's a lot of heavier reinforcements on the way.

Weight of numbers (as well as weight of weight) actually does its work and a lot of enemy lights are finally polished off.

But this is what we'd now have to fight through. 

It was all a bit much. And it was getting late. So we called off the attack.

It was a fun game, although we were running a lot of stuff with some very inexperienced players, so the game didn't play as quickly as we'd hoped.

Thanks to Darren for putting it all together and to everyone else for an entertaining evening and for not mocking my terrible, terrible die rolls too badly.

More Alpha Strike

There will be a few Battletech posts this year, as it is one of the games our club now has on an eight/nine week rotation as Game Of The Week. Last night was the first time it officially cropped up (the game we played a few weeks ago being a filler game for those people not enamoured of the main game).

This time we switched to Alpha Strike, the simplified version of Battletech that's designed to get more models on the table with far less paperwork.

Darren organised everything and set up a battlefield with rural terrain on one side ...

... and a city on the other. We played in two teams of three, each of us running four mechs. The other team were the evil invaders, whilst we were the heroic defenders. Each side had an objective in the corner of the opposition's set up area.

Not knowing what to do I simply advanced my mechs and shot at the biggest thing I could; that large white enemy in the farm-buildings. Our objective was that drop-ship in the distance. In fact both sides went for the strategy of defending their objective with 1/3 of their force and attacking with the other 2/3.

This left Stuart on our side defending our objective (bottom left) with four mechs against eight. The fight in the city was pretty messy and it was hard to follow what was going on to be honest. There were several very fast light mechs involved, so lots of attempts to do rear shots and similar.

The big white enemy mech took a couple of hits to its fire control leaving it unlikely to hit anything, so it withdrew.

This left a small mech called Clint in the farm. We blew it up. It made our day.

Still messy in the city, but we'd lost our objective.

Caesar had a long-range shooter (an Archer) by the objective, so with fire-support from Bailey I charged it. I did lose a mech in the process.

Back to the city. Still messy.

I had a mech called a Grasshopper. I decided to try a move called Death From Above, where you use jump-jets to drop straight down on top of another mach. I missed and spread my mech liberally across the landscape.

At that point we ended the game. The bad guys were currently winning, but we were a move away from taking the enemy objective and making it a draw. 

Thanks to Darren for setting everything up. It was good fun.

Battletech

Last night we played a game of Battletech. We each had one heavy mech and it was a gladiatorial scenario - every man for themselves and winner was the last mech standing. The terrain was a mix of hills on one side and a city on the other. There were five of us playing, but I can't tell you what mech each person had, because I've forgotten.

Not strictly true - mine was a Black Knight. I thought that it was called that because it's a heroic fighter. I was later to discover that it's for a different reason.

Bailey (who had that red mech) and I skulked around in the building, whilst the other three exchanged long-range potshots. Saying that, I took a little bit of missile damage from Caesar (and returned the favour with my lasers).

It was obvious even at this stage that Bailey, whilst looking for opportunistic shots, was content to sit in a corner behind a high building and wait for the other four mechs to wreck each other.

To be fair Bailey's plan had occurred to me as well, but I wasn't very well positioned to do it. I did make for the cover of some high buildings, though, where I encountered Stuart's mech. This had taken a  few missile hits from Caesar's missile-monster, and in a couple of places its armour was looking vulnerable. 

We exchanged fire. I took damage - every bit of my armour had now taken hits. One of my laser shots (I had so many lasers!) took out his remaining torso armour and destroyed the gyros underneath. Stuart's mech collapsed, unable to fight.

First kill to me!

By now I'd convinced Ed and Caesar that Bailey was simply going to wait for us to destroy ourselves, then emerge and pick off the damaged survivor. I suggested that we team up briefly and put some serious hits on the skulker. In the background you can see Caesar's mech moving in to position. We had the red mech cornered against the board edge.

Feeling bold I got in close. In fact this wasn't a bad plan as the Bailey's mech had several weapons that had a minimum range, whereas my lasers didn't have that disadvantage. We ended up in a point-blank range firefight with a small building between us.

For several turns we exhanged fire, blowing bits off each other. Baily ended up leaping onto the building to kick my mech, whilst I returned a punch with the one arm I had left. Yes, my mech's right arm had gone by this stage. As had most of my armour.

Caesar and Ed were now in position. Caesar had sprayed Bailey's mech with missiles, but seeing that both Bailey and I were on our last legs, they opted to shoot at each other. 

Around this time my left arm came off as well. Fortunately a lot of my weaponry was in the mech's torso, so the loss of both arms was but a scratch. Now do you see where the name 'Black Knight' comes from?

Anyway, Bailey and I exchanged more fire, bits came off both of us and I finally put a laser shot through his ammunition store and blew him to pieces.

So I now had no arms, and one of my legs was virtually off, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from keeping up the attack. I charged Ed's mech, looking to get in close.

I did some damage to him. 

He put a laser through my mech's head, and that was the Black Knight done for.

Caesar and Ed continued to exchange fire, but it became obvious that Caesar had the upper-hand, and Ed conceded.

Caesar claimed victory by being the last mech standing. I claimed the moral victory for not only damaging every other mech at some point but also destroying two of them. 

A fun evening of silly stompy-mech action. Thanks to Colin who let everything running (and Caesar for looking up lots of stuff when we asked awkward questions)