Mummerset 07.18.11: The Battle of South Boring AAR

The session started with me bringing the players up to speed on real life and in game developments.

Trevor couldn't make it so I accounted for that by having some in game problems develop that allowed his mech to be detached, and unfortunately, Graham was required to be in Bournemouth, which meant that I would be both the GM and have to run the OPFOR; the 1st Battalion of the 1st Republican Guards under the command of General Spencer.

Background

At the end of last session the players had taken off in their dropship and were heading towards the jump point.

But the flight plan was a ruse, and that in fact they were only boosting out on an extended elliptical orbit, by using the local satellites to swing back and fall back to Mummerset pulled by gravity, rather than boosting all the way in.

Meanwhile, there are two incoming dropships from the Lyran jumpship inbound for Landfall that will take about a week to arrive and therefore land about three days after the the battle that is about to occur. 

In addition, the so called "pirate" jumpship has used the pirate point and released a dropship that will arrive in orbit around Mummerset at about the same time as the players will be dropped off at South Boring.

This will mean that their dropship can't be used to dominate the airspace over South Boring.

While all this is happening General Spencer has led the 1st Republican Guards out of Clear Water Boring and is heading towards South Boring to deal with Colonel Whales and his 3rd Royal Guards Regiment.

This move will take him approximately three days, with the attack beginning on the third day.

General Spencer has managed to pin Colonel Whales force in South Boring with his 3rd Battalion, while the 1st and 2nd Battalion's are sweeping round the flanks.

The 1st Battalion is under General Spencer has three battlemechs; an Awesome with a command console for the general, a Blackjack and a Hornet. The 2nd Battalion has one battlemech and two industrial mechs; a Fireball and two custom converted industrial mechs with weapons.

Colonel Whales is in a bit of a pickle as his naval convoy that was moving the 3rd Royals up the Fork River was attacked on route by Republican Guard air units. This sunk one of the boats, damaged another and this has meant that the only one battalion of the 3rd Royals in actually sitting in South Boring, and it has been forced to take up a defensive position in the town.

The good news is that he does have two of his four industrial mech with him, but these are seriously outclassed by the enemy Fireball, and the Colonel requests that one battlemech be sent to ease the pressure on his left flank, with the players being tasked to stop General Spencer's attack on his right flank.

1st Republican Guards 1st Battalion

1x Awesome AWS-8P custom modified 3132 Inner Sphere tech worth 1768 bv (move 3-5-0, armour 232 points, and 11 double heat sinks). Loadout 1 x autocannon 10 (with 20 rounds of ammo), 1 x large laser, 2 x PPCs, 2 x ER medium laser, and 1 x small laser.

1 x Blackjack BJ2-0P custom modified 3132 Inner Sphere tech worth 1134 bv (move 4-6-4, armour 125 points, and 10 double heat sinks). Loadout 2 x Er large lasers, and 2 x autocannon 2s (with 45 rounds of ammo each).

1 x Hornet custom modified 3132 Inner Sphere tech worth 585 bv (move 5-8-5, armour 69 points, and 10 single heat sinks). Loadout 2 x medium lasers, 1 x LRM5 (with 24 rounds of ammo), and 1 x small laser.

4 x Vedette light tanks worth 475 bv each (total 1900 points)
4 x Striker light missile tanks worth 564 bv each (total 2256 points)
4 x 3039 wheeled APCs that could carry one squad of infantry worth 157 bv each (total 628 points)
4 x 3039 GEV APCs that could carry one platoon of infantry worth 102 bv each (total 408 points)

1 x mechanised infantry platoon
2 x jump infantry platoons
2 x foot infantry platoons

Also on call were three artillery batteries and one possible airstrike.

4th Battalion of the House Steiner 4444 Regimental Combat Team

1 x 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 with 24 rounds of ammo), 3 x ER medium lasers, 4 x ER small lasers, and 1 targeting computer.

1 x 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 (with 24 rounds of ammo), 2 x  SRM2 (with 50 rounds of ammo to share), and 1 targeting computer.

1 x 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 LRM5 (with 24 rounds of ammo), 1 x Streak SRM4 (with 50 rounds of ammo), 1 x ER small laser, and 1 targeting computer).

4 x Anhur VTOLs that could carry one platoon of infantry 720 bv each (total 2880 points)
1 x Grey Death scout battle armour platoon 16 bv each (total 320 points)
1 x Grey Death assault battle armour platoon 43 bv each (total 860 points)
4 x foot infantry platoons

Initial Deployment

As the players had aerial recon and orbital dominance General Spencer's forces were deployed on table in order of the line of march.

As can be seen above our Captain Green (Dan) looks as happy as Larry as he surveys the oncoming battle. I'm using MechWarrior Dark Age models for the vehicles, with all the vehicles being stand ins for General Spencer's forces.

From the other side Captain Magnusson (Clive) is feigning his usual indifference to such trifles, as for him the battle is won or lost prior to the deployment. He may not look it, but he was feeling quietly confident.

This is the first kill of the game as the 1st Republican Guard Hornet is caught in open by Dan's Zeus that manage to blow both legs off, the left arm and gut the left torso completely in one round.

Prior to this move Susan's Scorpion had blown the left arm off the Blackjack.

The two Republican Guard Vedettes, next to the Hornet, are eliminated by a combination of Susan's Scorpion and House Steiner infantry attacks from the buildings they occupied when the players VTOLs swept in and deposited infantry in choice buildings that then were able to act as choke points to threaten the Republican Guard infantry forces.

We are well into the battle at this point.

Clive's finger is pointing to where the Dan's Zeus is as it lines up to brew up the 1st Republican Guard APCs. One of the Strikers has also been taken out by Susan's Scorpion, which you can just see a bit of a leg of in this picture (the orange blob between the destroyed tank and the tree).

The Blackjack is taken out by Susan's Scorpion, which takes out both gyros and leaves it with one functioning autocannon 2, so at that point the pilot ejected as he was no longer combat effective.

Meanwhile Dan's Zeus takes out the first Republican Guard APC, but misses the shots on the second, third and fourth, which at least allows the remaining infantry to de-bus. Not that it will do them any good, because they then come under a hail of withering fire from the House Steiner infantry that have occupied the building they were about to try and enter.

The MechWarrior mono-cycle horde represent a motorized infantry platoon that was delayed getting onto the battlefield.

Finally, one of the Republican Guard jump infantry platoons was able to deploy while the Awesome and the Zeus face off to exchange pleasantries with each other.

While the Awesome held its own against the Zeus it was forced to move as the Susan's Scorpion was flanking it.

I was trying to get the Awesome off the table at this point, but assault mechs are just too dam slow, and I had nothing that I could use to slow down the House Steiner advance at this point.

However, I was able to move the Awesome away from the Susan's Scorpion and avoid my mech being shot in the side. But, Clive's Commando had been keeping up small scale indirect harassing fire all this time and it was chipping away at my armour, and I felt quite put upon by the cheekiness of it!

Unfortunately the Zeus was waiting and this time Dan got the better of me, as my shots missed, and his didn't.

By this point the Awesome had 5 points of armour left on the right torso, had lost its left arm and had taken internal hits on the right arm, left torso and center torso sections with a gyro hit. The left leg had 12 points, and the right leg 5 points of armour left.

Needless to say as it fell over from failing the piloting roll and the General with his pilot ejecting to be retrieved by the motorized infantry platoon.

And above is the final shot showing the position of the Susan's Scorpion that had herded my Awesome into the Zeus's kill zone, with Clive's Commando snuck in between two buildings lurking with intent.

So another glorious victory for House Steiner, which has saved Colonel Whale's from ignominious defeat at the hands of the Republican Guards.

We of course still have the second battle of South Boring to fight, where Trevor's Firestarter will be facing a Republican Guard Fireball. 

All I have to do now is work out when we can fight this next action? Once this battle has been resolved this will bring this phase of the campaign to a neatish resolution, in that the Republican Guards are now going to be very much on the defensive. 

This then just leaves the Freedom Army of Mummerset to be dealt with by our heroes. I suspect that this will be a far trickier proposition.

Note: No points cost were used in the creation of this scenario, I just added them in so that BattleTech players could see what the totals added up to to satisfy any curiosity about the balance.