Mummerset 03.27.11 Part 3: Battle of Elizabethville AAR

         

The battle of Elizabethville was the second BattleTech game of the Mummerset campaign.

OPFOR Force Composition

Trevor was again the commanding the OPFOR with me as GM for this second game of the day. 

Trevor's force this time had four battlemechs, two jump infantry platoons, two standard infantry platoons, two mechanised infantry platoons (represented with mono-wheeled gyro bikes), and one power armour platoon, four towed artillery pieces and an armoured car,  to deploy as he saw fit.

Urban Mech UM-R70P  custom modified 3062 Inner Sphere tech tech worth 741 bv (move 2-3-2, armour 99 points, and 11 single heat sinks). Loadout 1 x Rotary AC5, 1 x ER medium laser, and 1 x ER small laser.

Rifleman RFL-PAC custom modified 3025 Inner Sphere tech worth 708 bv (move 4-6-0, armour 72  points, and 10 single heat sinks). Loadout 4 x Ultra AC2s.

ConstructionMech MOD-P custom modified 3132 industrial tech worth 332 bv (3-5-0, armour 48 points, and 1 single heat sink). Loadout 1 x SRM6, and 2 x lift hoists.

ConstructionMech MOD-P2 custom modified 3132 industrial tech worth 368 bv (3-5-0, armour 64 points, and 1 single heat sink). Loadout 1 x Light AC2, and 2 x lift hoists.

However, both the industrial mechs were played as notional mechs, as I hadn't remembered to print them out, but could remember roughly what their stats were (very roughly as I remembered the weapons wrong, and they were played as if one had an LRM5 and the other as an AC5, oops).

Force Anvil Composition

Clive was in nominally in command command of force Anvil, being the pilot of the Commando, while Susan piloted the Scorpion, and this time Dan controlled the four battle armour squads.

Commando 2C XP custom modified 3132 Clan tech worth 1067 bv (move 6-9-0, armour 86 points, and 10 double heat sinks). Loadout 2 x ER medium lasers, 1 x Streak SRM4, 1 x (Streak) LRM5, 1 x ER small laser, and (1 targeting computer). See notes in italic.

Scorpion 2C XP custom modified 3132 Clan tech worth 1763 bv (move 6-9-0, armour 192 points, and 10 double heat sinks). Loadout 1 x ER large lasers, 1 x ER medium laser, 1 x LRM5, 2 x  SRM2, and 1 targeting computer.

The battle armour was two squad each of five Grey Death Scouts, and five Grey Death heavy suits. Dan also had the use of the Northern Lights infantry security platoon, which was deployed before the dropship left to go back and pick up force Anvil from Cromwell.

Initial Deployment

Trevor's orders were again to not lose his mechs, and as this was his second game he had quickly cottoned on to the fact that while he had a lot of stuff that looked very impressive as it swept onto the the battlefield,  it was stuff that would in all likelihood die once engaged in combat.

Force Anvil moved to engage hostile forces that were heading towards the barracks of the the 3rd Royal Mummerset Guards where the dropship Northern Lights had landed them so that they could relieve Force Forge, which was under attack from rebel forces outside the palace at Elizabethville.  As they moved out from the camp they came under immediate fire from hostile forces.

The picture shows the game at the end of turn five.

The players had deployed the Scorpion in the center, which meant that it dominated the main thoroughfare and slowed down the enemy advance.

The Urban mech was the first mech destroyed, after the Scorpion's second round of fire had hit with devastating effect with the right arm being blown off after the right torso was completely vaporized, which resulted in the Urban mech pilot ejecting.

Meanwhile one industrial mech on the players left flank had been rendered hors de combat by the Commando, after some dilly-dallying around that had caused the Commando 15 points of damage total, with a five point hit to the head. 

 

After beating the industrial mech to a pulp the Commando then swept up the left hand side to flank the remaining industrial mech.

Then the Scorpion went on to punch holes in the Rifleman, which then failed its piloting roll and promptly fell over causing more damage to itself. 

 

Unfortunately, for Susan, her Scorpion suffered a golden bb hit when Trevor rolled a double six on the critical hits tale after rolling a double one for the hit location. Fortunately, Susan's Scorpion only took two engine hits and one gyro hit from this event, otherwise her mech would have also been rendered hors de combat.

As can be seen from the above picture, placing the Scorpion on the central thoroughfare meant that Trevor's rebel force had to divide into two and come down both flanks. Well it didn't have to divide, but after the first round of fire hit the Urban mech to devastating effect, the rest of his forces strangely enough moved out of the Scorpion's line-of-sight.

During the mech part of the battle, Dan's battle armour and one infantry platoon had managed to roll up the rebel infantry platoons that they encountered, including ripping the armoured car to pieces with a close assault by a battle armour squad.

 

Unfortunately, Dan's battle armour got a bit of a licking too, losing a total of four heavy and two light battle armour suits.

With the Scorpion severely damaged the players didn't fancy pursuing the enemy who had started to withdraw at this point. The game was called, with me as GM again declaring a Steiner victory as the purpose of the battle was to send the enemy dropship packing and identify the existence of hostile mechs. 

 

Seriously, this was a bloodbath with droves of rebel infantry being killed and downed mechs and the loss of the armoured car meaning that they would not to be able to effectively take control of the the 3rd Royal Guards barracks and armoury.

Notes in Italics

Clive was to say the least really unlucky with his die rolls throughout this game, which caused him a certain amount of frustration to say the least. So I decided to retcon his mech stats slightly, hence the italics. 

 

I've changed out his Streak LRM launcher for a targeting computer as on the whole this will make hitting things generally easier. The in game rationale will be that when servicing his mech after the battle the technicians discovered that the computer programme controlling the mech had the wrong software for the actual hardware the mech was fitted with (though how no-one noticed this until now is another matter, I guess wrongly labeled parts?).

Just realised this is my 100th post. Permission to cheer loudly!