Assault on Minette III – BATTLETECH Chaos Campaign pt. 2: Pursuit

As a last game 2025, we managed to play the pursuit track, the second game, of our Planetary Assault Mini Campaign, a free Battletech Chaos Campaign supplement set during the Succession Wars Era.

Pursuit

Since my Davion force was able to defend the unexpected onslaught its garrison on Minette III, they were now engaging pursuit of David’s (freshly repainted) invading Merc company. We played the second scenario (or track as it’s called) in the Planetary assault mini-campaign from the Battletech Chaos Campaign booklet.

An early misstep by the invading Mercs led to their rout. They doubted the resolve of House Davion’s garrisoned troops on Minette III, and now they must make their retreat painful and bloody. It is foolish to consider them defeated, but if House Davion succeeds now, it may draw them into the sights of even fiercer defenses.

Chaos Campaign – Succession Wars

During the meeting engagement, the previous track, I came out as winner. It was a very, very tight victory though.

Out of our 1000 Warchest Points (WP), we had to pay 300 WP to participate in this 2nd track of the Battletech Chaos Campaign.

Setup and victory were similar this time. One side was the attacker (David), the other the defender (myself) and each had to cripple 50% of his opponent’s force. The deployment of Mechs, however, was very different and quite unique at the same time.

David and I would field again a third of his company, i.e. a Lance each.

Our respective lances capped at around 230 tons each. Contrary to our last game, it was David’s Mercenary Lance that had a higher tonnage and Battle value (BV) than my Davion garrison Lance.

David’s Mechs	Weight (tons)	BV	Eric’s Mechs	Weight (tons)	BV
Commando COM-3A	25	540	Blackjack BJ-1	45	949
Catapult CPLT-C1	65	1399	Enforcer ENF-4R	50	1032
Thunderbolt TDR-5SE	65	1414	Hunchback HBK-4G	50	1041
BattleMaster BLR-1G	85	1519	Marauder MAD-5T	75	1750
	240 t	4872		220 t	4772

And as for the entire campaign, all Mechwarriors are veterans with a gunnery skill of 3 and a piloting skill of 4. However, their gunnery skill was brought back to 4, due to the “Lamentations” rule, the “Moderate Rainfall Planetary Condition” planetary condition”, I as the defender chose to use (200 WP). Also, we used “Forced Withdrawal” again.

Battle report

David’s lance had 3 rounds to move into the map. To represent that movement, this scenario track used the short sides of the hexmaps as deployment zones. I entered from that same edge 3 rounds later. By that time David’s Merc lance was already in position to intercept my Davion Mechs.

We strategically made use of terrain for line of sight blocking. Modifiers build up and partial cover.

Physical attacks

This time, we engaged in quite a lot of physical attacks. Charging and Death from above to be more precise. We had some unit displacement and domino effects happening as well, from which my Mechs were miraculously spared.

A physical attack is a very efficient, and fun, way to quickly take out enemy Mechs … and your own, if you’re not lucky …

Victory

At the end of round 6, my trusty Hunchback managed to cripple David’s Commando, which went into forced withdrawal.

We stopped playing at round 7, since it was already late. We agreed to call House Davion of the Federated Suns victorious once more. That victory in the BATTLETECH Chaos Campaign Pursuit track was, however, very tight again.

Next time, we’ll try to come up with some fluff to flesh out our campaign and the background of our troops. For instance we introduced names for our MechWarriors this time. I’ll post a campaign tracker too in due time.