Mummerset 03.27.11 Part 2: Battle of Cromwell AAR

      
The battle of Cromwell was the first BattleTech game of the Mummerset campaign.

OPFOR Force Composition

Trevor commanded the OPFOR with me as GM for this his first game of BattleTech. Trevor's force consisted of two battlemechs, one jump and one standard infantry platoon's, and four towed AC5 artillery pieces to deploy as he saw fit. He also had four smoke barrages from eight pre-registered artillery pieces that he could call upon.

Urban Mech 2C P custom modified 3132 Clan tech worth 1105 bv (move 3-5-3, armour 96 points, and 10 double heat sinks). Loadout 1 x Ultra AC10, 2 x ER medium lasers, and 2 x ER small lasers.

Jagermech JM6-P custom modified 3132 Inner Sphere tech worth 1230 bv (move 4-6-0, armour 128   points, and 10 double heat sinks). Loadout 2 x Ultra AC2s, 1 x LRM15,  2 x ER medium lasers, and 2 x ER small lasers.

Force Anvil Composition

Dan was nominally in command command of force Anvil, being the pilot of the Zeus, Susan notionally controlled the off board artillery battery (she wanted to watch and learn), while Clive controlled the two battle armour squads.

Zeus 2C XP custom modified 3132 Clan tech worth 2973 bv (move 4-6-4, armour 240  points, and 16 double heat sinks). Loadout 1 x ER PPC, 1 x LRM20 (with Artemis), 3 x ER medium lasers, 4 x ER small lasers, and 1 targeting computer.

The battle armour was one squad each  of five Grey Death Scouts, and five Grey Death heavy suits.

Both the four GEVs and four self-propelled artillery pieces had notional stats, as the models were effectively off board throughout the game. Therefore the GEV missile carriers were treated as LRM20 launchers, while the self-propelled guns were Thumper artillery pieces (the smallest artillery caliber in BattleTech).

Inital Deployment

Trevor's orders were to not lose his mechs, and the players wanted to nail the Urban mech. 

Force Anvil entered the outskirts of the abandoned city of Cromwell and came under immediate fire from hostile forces that were hidden in various buildings. Dan strode the Zeus down the centre road giving fire support to his battle armour squads and destroying the enemy AC5 towed field artillery units.

The above picture shows the game at the end of turn three, and we can see the Urban mech retreating after one round of fire had hit it to devastating effect.

Both sides offboard artillery barrages have been resolved and the Jagermech has decided it will leave the area under cover of the smoke barrage having done nothing more than threatening the VTOLS, which the players could not afford to lose therefore effectively denying them of the chance to do a coupe de main.

During the mech part of the battle, Clive's battle armour rolled over the rebel infantry platoons that they encountered, but lost a total of one heavy and one light battle armour suits while doing so. As he noted this may appear to be light casualties, but they are inherently not replaceable.

Trevor effectively lost three quarters of his infantry platoons and towed AC5 artillery pieces, there not being much left to extract after the barrages hit home.

Things have been difficult recently after my mother-in-law became ill and died last Friday, hence the delay in posting these AARs to the blog. Things may be a little slow for a while until after the funeral.