AAR: Battletech Alpha Strike

 The Space Cadets convened at Casa de Ski on Saturday for an Alpha Strike game. We haven't all gotten together in a little while and even so, we were still missing Mark. Since I've been off all week I put the scenario together. Since we had five players, it seemed like an Inner Sphere v Clan battle was appropriate, with each player running a Lance or Star. 

Free World League:

Lance 1 (Ziggy)
Jenner 7K
Wolfhound 2
Raven 1X
Uziel 2S

Lance 2 (David)
Albatross 3UR
Marauder 2T
Crusader 3R
Bandersnatch 1A
    
Lance 3 (Wayne)
Orion 1K
Panther 1K
Blackjack 2
Huron Warrior R5L

Clan Mire Mandrill:

Star 1 (myself)
Kodiak
Sun Cobra
Spirit
Conjurer
Horned Owl

Star 2 (Mike)
Incubus
Incubus II
Hellion B
Hellion B
Pack Hunter

We randomly assigned units to players and set up on opposite corners with 60" of table between enemy forces.

Objective locations are marked in red. The Marik deployment area is the lower left.

I sent my Spirit and Horned Owl through the BUA and directly towards the center objective.

The Marik forces move out.

And they've taken good spots to watch that center objective. Wayne's Huron Warrior has already taken the location in the ruins to the east while the rest of his lance follows.

My Sun Cobra and Conjurer are going to have to stall Wayne's lance by themselves while the rest of my star focuses on the central objective.

My Spirit captured the objective but became one with nature when that nasty gunline opened up on it. 

Me, doing my best to delay Wayne. Ziggy's Jenner popped in to really be pain the ass. They've got me 5-2! What a bunch of bull.

My Kodiak finally gets a shot to land. I overheated by 2 and sent the Bandersnatch to a new plane of reality with a rear shot. Of course the Marauder, Crusader and Albatross (across the river) now had a juicy target.

Poof! Kodiak out. Buuuuut....

Heheh. Poof. Marauder out.

Mike's Pack Hunter takes the central objective and begins drawing fire. The rest of his star finally starts joining the fray. You can see his Incubus II atop the pyramid in the upper right, steadily scoring points for us, just like the Huron Warrior was for the Sphere side.

Boom. Sneaky Jenner out.

Boom. Brave and mighty Sun Cobra joins his ancestors in Valhalla.

Boom. The Albatross spite-kills my Conjurer which was trying to get a bull-shot on the Crusader but missed horribly.

Turn 9. Mike gets his last Hellion on the central objective after the Pack Hunter gets hunted down by a pack of Marik hunters. The Hellion magically survives the turn!

It doesn't survive turn 10 though. The Fire Mandrills three remaining mechs run and hide to avoid a wipe out. The FliegenderIncubus takes a few long-ranged shots from Wayne's peanut gallery in the center but hangs on.

Final score... 17-16, Clan win!

A remarkably well-played and evenly matched game, perfect for a Saturday afternoon. Teams scored one point per kill and one point for sitting on an objective at the end of a turn. Once on an objective, mechs were not allowed to leave and "rotate out" with another friendly mech in order to keep units with good TMMs, etc on the objectives - they were required to stay still, go hull down. or simply abandon the objective. 

Mike's "speed kills" star was terrifying. The mechs in that group are all crazy fast, all TMM 3 and have solid weapons. I collected those models for a specific purpose and it was awesome to see them perform exactly as I'd hoped. My Kodiak was jinxed. Three shots, one hit and it was dead in what felt like two minutes. The IS force, a ragamuffin group if there ever was one, was quite effective. Zig got really good mileage out of his light lance, taking advantage of speed and numbers to get rear-shot opportunities while Mike and I were more concerned with bigger, scarier mechs.