Today I went to London (Ontario) to visit my buddy Nick and his wife Heather, who are expecting their third kid in the next week or two (so this will be the last visit for at least a few months).
We started by playing a modified Battletech Aces campaign, using the Battle of Tukayyid Chaos Campaign supplement.
A Long Rambling Explanation of How It Works
So the Battletech Chaos Campaign system uses what it calls “Warchest Points” (WP) to track an abstraction of materiel, money, and supplies for a given campaign. In the case of Tukayyid, there are 2 major considerations:
- The size of the Clan force you will be playing against in each scenario (a Star of 5 mechs, 2 Stars, or 3 Stars), and
- How many missions you want to play against each Clan for the overarching campaign itself. Historically there were 7 Clans involved: Wolf, Jade Falcon, Nova Cat, Steel Viper, Ghost Bear, Diamond Shark, and Smoke Jaguar.
I decided to play at a Star-level (5 Clan mechs) per scenario, and to aim for 4-5 missions per Clan. That gives a total of 1,000 Warchest Points to Nick and I as the Com Guard, and 1,000 WP for the Clan we are currently fighting.
For each Clan, you build a Campaign Force using the system’s Force Generation rules. The most interesting part about this is that you pay for a class and ability of mech (so, for example, an Elite Clan Light might cost 9 points, and a Veteran Com Guard Light might cost 5), but then you roll on a random list of mechs for that class to determine the specific mech you actually get.
Nick wanted to play against Jade Falcon, so I built the Jade Falcon Campaign force:one each of a Gargoyle, Stone Rhino, Timberwolf, Mad Dog, Summoner, Marauder C, Stormcrow, Ice Ferret, Adder, Kit Fox, Hunchback IIC, and Arctic Cheetah.
I then generated our Campaign Force for Com Guard: one each of a Atlas, Cyclops, Banshee, Thug, Awesome, King Crab, Black Knight, Lancelot, Marauder, Rifleman, Warhammer, Sentinel, Blackjack, Crab, Phoenix Hawk, and Mercury.
Then you roll on a scenario for the given campaign theatre, and that will allow you to take a percentage of the Campaign Force into the battle.
Afterwards, the objectives you accomplish earn you Warchest points, and because Battletech can’t do anything without making it ten times more complicated than necessary, you multiply the Warchest points by either 5 for the Clans or 10 for the Com Guard to convert those into Supply Points, spends those to repair and rearm your mechs, and then convert the remaining Supply Points back into Warchest points for the next round.
Each mission costs a minimum number of Warchest Points for each side: whichever side runs out of WP first loses the campaign.
Oh, each side has a faction advantage: the Clan mechs are piloted by 1 level better pilots by default (their line-troops are Skill 3, whereas the Guard is Skill 4), and Com Guard get 12 points of Battlefield Support… Artillery, minefields, bombing runs, etc… to represent their dug-in defenses.
The scenario was a Jade Falcon attempt to destroy the Com Guard fortified HQ in a blitzkrieg strike: victory would push the Com Guard back to the river, but if we could hold the Falcons here for a few rounds then we could push them off Tukayyid for an even more impressive victory than the Com Guard managed in the lore.
The Green Turkeys brought their Timberwolf, Adder, Ice Ferret, Arctic Cheetah, and Hunchback IIC. Nick took command of an Atlas, Panther, and a Crab, while I took a Cyclops, Rifleman, and a Lancelot. For Battlefield Support, I took 2 Medium Minefields placed near the middle of the table, and two Heavy aerospace bombing runs.
The scenario required the Verdant Geese to Scan 4 buildings in the middle of the table to determine which was our HQ, and then destroy it (the HQ is a fortified building with 40 health, so it could take a considerable pounding… the heaviest mechs on the table could do 5-6 points of damage at most, so that’s multiple rounds of ignoring everything else and just pouring firepower into our HQ, but the Clans can be surprisingly hard-hitting). We had to destroy the Clan commander: we decided we would randomly determine which mech pilot was the commander after the game was over, rolling 1d6 to determine which mech was piloted (and giving 5 and 6 to the Timberwolf, making it twice as likely to be the commander’s mech because it was the biggest and most dangerous thing on the table by a fair margin).
Last wrinkle: the Lime Pigeons could only deploy half their mechs at the start of the mission, and the rest would randomly show up on a later turn from one of the table edges. In the regular rules, the way it works is the Clan player rolls 1d6+1 and has their reinforcements show up then: because we were using an AI for the Clan, we just rolled 1d6 on Turn 2, and on a 6 they showed up that turn. On Turn 3, they showed up on a 5 or 6. On turn 4 they showed up on a 4-6, etc, etc.
So, with all that settled, we began! The Timberwolf, Hunchback, and Arctic Cheetah deployed immediately, with the Adder and Ice Ferret held in reserve. We put the Cyclops and Atlas as close to the Timberwolf as we could, hoping to leverage our numerical superiority before the Clan could bring overwhelming firepower to bear.
Turn 1 saw basically all six of our mechs focus fire on the Timberwolf, not killing it, but inflicting heavy damage. The minefields hit the Hunchback IIC and Cheetah, and the Hunchback started scanning a building and confirmed it was not our HQ.
Turn 2 and the Timberwolf hammered the Atlas and we blasted off the last of its armour. The Cheetah flanked my Rifleman but managed to miss, and my Lancelot got into a prime spot behind the Hunchback and managed to take it down.
Turn 3 and the Clan reinforcements arrived, but not in time to save the Timberwolf or Cheetah, both of which were sandpapered off the table. In return the Adder and Timberwolf vapourized my Lancelot and the Ice Ferret landed a very solid hit on the Atlas, putting some internal damage into it.
Turn 4 and the Adder went down, and the Ice Ferret took just enough damage to go into retreat. The speedy little Clan mech escaped.
The scenario awarded us 100 WP for defeating more than 50% of the enemy. Nick rolled to see which of the Clan mechs was the commander… and of course, it was the Ferret! Curses! As a result we got a marginal victory.
In the aftermath, we checked to see if there was anything we could salvage: the Cheetah was in good enough shape that we could scrap it for supplies, but that was it.
At the end of the mission, once repairs and training for both sides were tallied, the Olive Ostriches are at 749WP (and down 4 mechs), and the Com Guard are at 850WP (and down a Lancelot). We’re calling it a win!
After all of that, we chatted about the next scenario (Pursuit, where the Clanners are trying to rush across the board and we need to chase them), and then I set up a game of Beyond the Sun.
Neat little game. I don’t think I’ve ever won, and this time was no exception! But it continues to be a fun little efficiency engine, and I kinda like the peaceful-ish way that colonizing the stars works. Overall, still a fan of the game!
i think round 1 would be impossible. but I have yet to prove that.
But she was finally well enough to sit for the length of each of these games! Which is some real progress. One of my favourite 2 player quick cardgames. The expansions are a must though!
