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[Darrian Wolffe]

Hell is a Cold Place

Aside from a few remaining Castles Brian, active combat operations in the European, African, Asian, and Australian continents had ceased by January of 2778.  The 17th Army's operations in the Caucasus region continued into that January, but the heavy lifting was done by the XLVIII Corps, though with heavy losses, including 80% of the 38th Jump Infantry Division's strength.

The 741st is assigned to guard the Odessan ports and shipyards while it recovers its strength.  Delta Company is declared a total loss, leaving Echo, Golf, Hotel, and India companies as the only fully combat-capable units in the regiment.  During this time, much of your duties include guarding a particular ship manufacturer's yard.  After his rescue, Dr. Higgins disappeared for a month up the chain of command.  He returned in May of 2777, accompanied by a large number of Intelligence personnel and engineers, and disappeared into the shipyard.  You see him only occasionally, while on patrol.  He takes lunch with WO Banzai, a few times, but flatly refuses to tell what's inside the yards which is so important.

In July of 2778, you find out.

Preparations for the invasion of the Americas has begun.  Dr. Higgins has been hard at work for a year, building prototypes and manufacturing specifications for a series of BattleMech delivery craft (which some wag named "Higgins Boats", over his strenuous objections) intended for use in an amphibious assault against the American coastline.  In a way, it make an insane sort of sense.  The SDS systems overwatching the Western Hemisphere are the best in known space, both in quantity and quality.  It is rumored that it is accurate enough for naval-grade PPCs to track, engage, and destroy conventional fighters with regularity...to say nothing of a Mech-carrying DropShip.  This claim that is never officially dispelled.

For the remainder of 2778, shipyards across Asia and Europe churn out these "Higgins Boats", with their massively-armed flat bows which double as assault ramps.  The armor is so thick that the carried Mechs actually act as ballast to keep the craft from tilting forward.  The craft are overbuilt, each able to carry a full company of 12 BattleMechs, plus an additional 2 Mechs or armored vehicles for specific battlefield roles.

In December, you learn your target.  Operation ANCHORHEAD will be an assault against the Anchorage beaches by the 9th Jump Infantry and the 322nd BattleMech Division.  Each Regiment of the Antarctic Division will carry two companies pulled from 17th Army Independent Regiments to act as a mobile reserve and "ready-response" force.  With your pedigree, you're assured of the premium spot: ready reserve with the 1138th BattleMech Regiment (Lucas's Liberators).  They will be the first to hit the beach.

The landing is scheduled for 7 January, 2779, but poor weather and stiff seas delay the action.  SLDF scouts, having infiltrated their way into position weeks earlier, report that the weather is scheduled to break soon.  So it is that, on the afternoon of January 14 January, 2779, you set sail across the Bering Strait.  You are scheduled to hit the beach at 0330, 15 January.

Godspeed.

[Darrian Wolffe]

Alpha Red Sector, Anchorage Alaska
0330 local time
15 January, 2779

Scenario: "...and when he gets to heaven, Saint Peter he will tell, another grunt reporting sir; I've served my time in Hell."

THIS GAME IS PLAYED USING THE QUICK-STRIKE RULESET.  ALL EDGE IS REFRESHED, AND ALL PCs ARE DRIVING THE MECH INDICATED IN THE QUICK-STRIKE CONVERSION THREAD.


Map Layout

As many maps as possible, filling the available table space.

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<-West

The Western maps are Coastline Maps.  The center maps are folded in half and underlapping the east and western maps, and are a mix of Clear Terrain and Classic BattleTech mapsheets.  The Eastern Maps are City, Suburb, and Residential maps.

Setup
1) Each player will control ONE company worth of units.  SLDF players will control one company, plus UP TO 2 PC units (converted to QS rules, as per the conversion thread).  All PC units must be present during this scenario.

2) SLDF players will each be assigned a mapsheet row (possibly two, depending on the number of players who show up).  This is your landing zone.  You must nominate three, 2-hex wide sections of beach (where the water hexes meet the land hexes, discounting islands) within your mapsheets (hereafter "area of operations"); one for each of your 3 lances.  All initial Mechs and reinforcements will come from these zones.

3) After the SLDF players have nominated and written down their landing zones, RWR players will place their company as they see fit on the Eastern Maps, and nominate a single building hex in their Area of Operations (which cannot be closer than 6 hexes from any board edge) as their reinforcement point.

4) On the first turn, SLDF players will move their units from their appropriate Landing Zone into play, exactly as though they had just entered the board (they are "springing from nothingness"...ie, the landing craft).

5) Once an SLDF player has lost 4 Mechs, he may recycle those 4 mechs from the Landing Zone of his choice (within his area of operations) on the following turn; this represents follow-up waves of units.  PC Mechs may not be recycled, and do not count towards the 4-Mech mark.

6) Once a RWR player has lost 4 mechs, he may recycle any TWO of them from the building serving as his reinforcement point.

7) Initiative is determined via a straight die roll between RWR and SLDF forces.  ALL players on the losing side must move one of their lances first, and ALL players one the winning side must move one of their lances, and so forth.  Player character units move with the LAST lance controlled by the player (ie, they get the most favorable initiative result).  PC skills and leadership scores have no effect on the initiative roll; this engagement is too big to effect.

8.) Shooting is simultaneous.  Once all players have indicated that they are done shooting (and have marked kills on the Master Kill Board), the turn will end.

9) Ejections of PCs: if a PC Mech is destroyed, the pilot will attempt to eject.  The TN is 10; each point of MoF will result in 1 point of damage to the pilot (so, since you'll heal in time for the next mission, essentially, don't roll a 4 or less if you have 6 boxes of health, or a 5 or less if you have only 5).  Alpha-Strike Rule

Scoring
Each player is responsible for marking on the Master Kill Board each kill they have achieved within a given turn.  Each kill is worth 1 VP.  Get the most VPs.


EDGE
Player Characters have Edge available (which should be marked on their QS stat card, NOT the dry erase cover!).  Edge allows the for the following game effects:

1) re-roll a unit's missed attack roll.
2) Negate up to 4 points of damage (or 1 critical hit effect) suffered by the spending unit in a turn. (declared at the end of Shooting Phase)
3) Negate the destruction of the unit; the unit will be considered to have 1 point of IS and 1 point of armor remaining and will suffer none of the critical hit effects it may have suffered during shooting.  The following turn, the spending unit may not make attacks, but may move normally. (declared at the end of the Shooting Phase)

Players are responsible for knowing this.  Also, a unit with Edge remaining, which would otherwise be destroyed by an attack, MUST ALWAYS use remaining Edge to avoid destruction.  The exception is if they have only 1 point of Edge remaining; that point may be conserved for a reroll on the ejection attempt.

[Hat]

I was going to reply to the Quick Strike thread but it's locked.

Looking over the QS rules it talks about armor points.  The entries here have say Armor: 6, Points: 16.  I'm guessing that the 2nd number is actual armor that you mark off, what's the first #?

Are there other ways to take critical hits beyond having lost all of your armor and being into IS?  I'll try and look at Strat Ops after I get home.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

[Darrian Wolffe]

I was going to reply to the Quick Strike thread but it's locked.

Looking over the QS rules it talks about armor points.  The entries here have say Armor: 6, Points: 16.  I'm guessing that the 2nd number is actual armor that you mark off, what's the first #?

The first number is the value of armor points you mark off.  The second number is the point value of the unit for balance purposes (it's there so Mike and I can have some semblance of an idea how good your company is).

The numbers you should be concerned with are Armor and Structure.  And I should be concerned with figuring out, when I've checked the table formatting three times now, the bloody damage value/overheat/etc columns won't line up for 3/4s of the mechs.

[Hat]

Ok, final question (I hope) on the rules.  Smythe's Excalibur does 5 points of damage at short and medium ranges.  This means that two hits on Yamamori's Starslayer (Armor 5, IS: 4) will destroy it, correct?  The expectation being that most units will likely only take 1 or 2 hits before going to internal structure or destroyed outright?

It works on both sides, so that's fine, just want to confirm.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

[Darrian Wolffe]

Ok, final question (I hope) on the rules.  Smythe's Excalibur does 5 points of damage at short and medium ranges.  This means that two hits on Yamamori's Starslayer (Armor 5, IS: 4) will destroy it, correct?  The expectation being that most units will likely only take 1 or 2 hits before going to internal structure or destroyed outright?

Her Excalibur is actually a VERY high-damage unit.  Most non-clan units in Quickstrike can't generate more than about 2 points of damage at long range,  3 at medium, and 3-4 at short.  Your PC Mechs are not good comparative examples, because your SPAs and modifications are built into the damage values, the range bracket attack modifiers, or both.

As a comparison:

Awesome -8Q:	Short: 3	Medium:3	Long: 3	Armor:8	Structure: 6
Guillotine -3N:	Short: 4	Medium: 4	Long: 0	Armor: 6	Structure: 6
Warhammer -6R:	Short: 3	Medium: 3	Long: 2	Armor: 5	Structure: 6
Griffin -1N:	Short: 1	Medium: 2	Long: 2	Armor: 5	Structure: 5
Phoenix Hawk -1	Short: 2	Medium: 2	Long: 0	Armor: 4	Structure: 4

With that said, yes, it will generally take between 3-5 hits to wipe a single unit from an equivalent unit.  The next-to-last hit is the one that will usually deal critical damage, and concentrated fire is the name of the game.  Remember, with no Attacker Movement Modifier to your attack roll, and free hexside facing changes, this game is much more free to be a game of maneuver, rather than TurretTech.  

Oh, and these are good questions, as they're helping shed light on the intent behind the game rules.

[Darrian Wolffe]

Quick edits:

1) Swapped East and West around now that I'm awake and fully caffinated.  Now you're actually going the right direction.

2) Clarified "area of operations".

3) Added a disclaimer to the Edge rules to allow you to conserve a point of Edge to help with ejections.

[Hat]

Next question - the combat modifiers say "as TW".  So for my Starslayer I'm 5J.  I can assume I'm jumping every time and if I move 5, 3 mod to be hit and only +1 to my To hit roll for Jumping Jack, correct?

In general, movement listed in QS is the walking movement of the mech rather than running.  For to hit purposes, is the moving mech considered to be walking or running?

In the QS rules it mentions that up to 10 mechs - both friendlies and unfriendlies can be stacked in the same hex.  That might work with flat counters, but not with full scale minis.  How are these clusters handled?

How does a charge or DFA work in terms of damage to the attacking mech?  I'm also guessing that with DFA for example, you can't shoot and still run the risk of falling.  How is damage determined?  Given that it normally goes against a punch/hit location table, is there a chance for a crit?

How much damage do punches and kicks do when converted?

Mechs at range 0 (same hex) are considered in front arc?  Do you have to be in the next hex over to jump "behind them"?

How is heat and its effects tracked?

Just trying to make sure I understand some of the specifics.

Will people have Strat Ops or at least the code list at the game?  I've looked up the ones for my mech, but will obviously be running others.

Thanks!

With a sweep of his...

Hat

[Darrian Wolffe]

Next question - the combat modifiers say "as TW".  So for my Starslayer I'm 5J.  I can assume I'm jumping every time and if I move 5, 3 mod to be hit and only +1 to my To hit roll for Jumping Jack, correct?

Actually, an attacker suffers ZERO Attacker Movement modifiers whatsoever in QS.  All the time.

In general, movement listed in QS is the walking movement of the mech rather than running.  For to hit purposes, is the moving mech considered to be walking or running?

N/A - see above.

In the QS rules it mentions that up to 10 mechs - both friendlies and unfriendlies can be stacked in the same hex.  That might work with flat counters, but not with full scale minis.  How are these clusters handled?

That is in dealing with Battleforce-level play (ie, 1 cardboard counter = 4-6 Mechs).  Doesn't apply here.

How does a charge or DFA work in terms of damage to the attacking mech?  I'm also guessing that with DFA for example, you can't shoot and still run the risk of falling.  How is damage determined?  Given that it normally goes against a punch/hit location table, is there a chance for a crit?

How much damage do punches and kicks do when converted?

All physicals in QS work the same way; move adjacent to the enemy unit and declare a physical attack.  You deal damage equal to the size rating of the unit (nobody has TSM or melee weapons, so those rules don't matter here).  If you have an SPA that applies, it's been added into the size rating of your unit already. 

If you deal internal structure damage, you get a crit roll.

Mechs at range 0 (same hex) are considered in front arc?  Do you have to be in the next hex over to jump "behind them"?

Yes (subject to normal BT stacking rules).  You have to be in the hex behind them to be "behind" them for purposes of getting the rear arc bonus damage.

How is heat and its effects tracked?

There is an Overheat Value on the mech card.  You can choose to do your OV in extra damage points (declared before shooting).  The first time you do it, mark the Heat +1 box on your card...next turn, you have -1 MP and +1 penalty to hit.  The next time you do it, you mark the Heat 2 box and suffer -2 MP and +2 to hit.  "S" means you're shut down (immobile target, the bonus does apply).

Will people have Strat Ops or at least the code list at the game?  I've looked up the ones for my mech, but will obviously be running others.

Yes.  And we tried to keep the units with wierd codes to an absolute minimum; many of them don't even matter, such as SEAL [sealed system - doesn't auto-fail in vacuum], SRCH [unit has a searchlight], and so forth.  The ones that actually matter are going to end up being LRM and/or IF, SRM (adds to damage), AC (adds to damage), AMS (anti-missile system - subtracts from LRM/SRM damage values), and maybe one other which I can't recall right now.

I am keenly aware this is confusing, partially because the Quick-strike and Battleforce rules in StratOps are used interchangeably.  This is one reason why Alpha Strike is being released (hint: we're basically playing Alpha Strike with this); to clear up this level of confusion when using the mass combat system.

There will be about a 15-minute instruction sequence before the game where we'll look at the mech cards and get an example of play (which I've stolen wholeheartedly from Bill Pennington).  That's what my opponent - who had never played BT at all - got at Origins, and he was running with minimal input from then on. 

Basically, it's hard to figure out with the current rules because they're trying to be both BattleForce and Quick-strike.  It's REALLY easy when explained.  Don't sweat this.