Assault on Minette III –  Meeting Engagement

A BATTLETECH Chaos Campaign

We finally got together to start playing the Planetary Assault Mini Campaign, a free Battletech Chaos Campaign supplement set during the Succession Wars Era.

The booklet tries to convey narrative play beyond the standard scenarios found in the rulebook from A Game of Armoured Combat. Of course, each battle, or track, as they are named, is basically a scenario. But, tying together the different tracks within a flow chart, a in between battle housekeeping system and the overarching narrative rules, result in a proper wargaming campaign. The Planetary Assault mini-campaign doesn’t specify a precise location, time frame and backstory. It rather provides you with a generic toolkit and additional rules to construct your own lore around the battles. It actually states it somewhere in the booklet.

That said, fluff wise, we decided to go with the planet highlight from Shrapnel Magazine issue 2. Hence our campaign takes place on planet Minette III. We haven’t completely decided who plays which faction. But I have a strong tendency for a House Davion garrison company stationed on the planet. And, let’s assume David’s playing a group of Mercenaries for the time being. We don’t know yet, who hired them. Anyhow, they seemingly came out of nowhere and invaded Minette III. Let’s go from there.

This time, I tried Flechs Sheets to generate and print my Record Sheets. They come with some useful tables. They’re pretty legible in my opinion. I’ll try the Mech Factory ones next time, however.

Of course, we played on our nice looking 3D table from our tutorial series.

Meeting Engagement

Let’s start by playing the first scenario (or track as it’s called) in the Planetary assault mini-campaign from the Battletech Chaos Campaign booklet.

And now, again, a battle is joined.
Some believe that you get the true measure of your enemy when you first face them in combat. This is true enough to be said, and true enough to be repeated, but it is not a whole truth.
Surely, the first time your weapon strikes out at those who face you, you do not merely test the manufacture of their armor. The flesh and bone beneath it all might give sooner than the metal.
But you cannot know the measure of your enemy until you bring them close to death.
Let us see, then, who has come to face us.

Chaos Campaign – Succession Wars

Setup and victory conditions were quite simple in the opening track of this Battletech Chaos Campaign. One side was the attacker (David), the other the defender (myself) and had to cripple 50% of his opponent’s force. David and I would field up to a third of his company, i.e. a Lance.

We agreed on a Lance on Lance battle boasting 195 tons each. On the Battle Value side of things, I was (in hindsight) a bit more on the advantageous side with 207 BV more than David’s lance. Sorry David …

David’s Mechs	Weight (tons)	BV	Eric’s Mechs	Weight (tons)	BV
Locust LCT-1E	20	553	Jenner JR-7D	35	875
Shadow Hawk SHD-2H	55	1064	Vindicator VND	45	1024
Wolverine WVR-6R	55	1101	Hunchback HBK-4G	50	1041
Thunderbolt TDR-5SE	65	1414	Catapult CPLT-C1	65	1399
	195 t	4132		195 t	4339

We left out the drop rules and mine fields. We decided however to use the “Strong Gale” planetary condition rule, but completely forgot about it during the game. Age, you know… However, we abided to Forced Withdrawal. According to the rules all Mechwarriors are veterans with a gunnery skill of 3 and a piloting skill of 4.

Battle report

David advanced his swift Locust across the river and into the relative safety of light woods. From there he fired his first shots at my Jenner. Firing back at the Locust, the Jenner started to heat up very quickly. Even though, I managed to lower its heat by a temporary retreat and conservative firing during round 2, that issue would quickly become a serious problem to my Lance.

I used my Vindicator’s jump capabilities to get into shooting range with David’s Shadowhawk, which he conveniently positioned in Depth 1 water, granting it partial cover.

Using the river to his advantage again, David moved his Wolverine completely underwater in order to close in on my Mechs. Once in Depth 1 water, he ignited the Wolverine’s torso jump jets and positioned it in shooting range to my Mechs. Well played!

David’s Thunderbolt rolled a 2 (critical hit) during the Weapon Attack Phase and took out one of my Catapult’s Engines.

During round 3 our Mechs were all clustered around a hill, but Physical attacks were still avoided. No one wanted to damage their own Mechs in the process.

Also, during that same round, my Hunchback managed to get into short range of David’s Locust. From there, its AC20 blew a gaping hole into the Locust: the first and only casualty of the game.

Since it was already late, we decided to play until the end of round 4.

Outcome

I still had all my Mechs, although my Catapult had an injured MechWarrior and severe damage in its CT (Center Torso) and head. My Jenner was shut down, due to overheating because of “alpha striking” his enemies. To my shame, I completely forgot to roll a Piloting skill roll for the Jenner’s MechWarrior.

To me, I’d consider this game a draw, but since we needed a winner-loser outcome to progress to the next track, David decided I was the winner, since he had lost 1 Mech, had his Thunderbolt with way too much excess heat and his Wolverine with internal structure damage.

Housekeeping

As with every good narrative campaign-based game (I’m looking at you, Frostgrave), there’s an after game management system available to impact your next game. Here, every player has to handle so-called “Warchest points” to heal Mechwarriors, repair Mechs, buy new ones, and even influence the next battle in which my Lance will pursue David’s. But, after the first track in this Battletech Chaos Campaign, players are not allowed to use Warchest points. So no repairs, healing and buying upgrades this time. I presume, this follows the logic of my Lance immediately pursuing David’s retreating Mechs. It makes sense to me. Story-wise our broken Mechs will be left behind for the Techs to get them and haul them back to their Mech bay where they’ll be repaired eventually.

And, unlike last game, this one was once again sponsored by alcohol. Nothing fancy this time, but a decent mild Scottish Single Malt.