My own gaming weekend

Now that I live in a house of our own, it would be a shame to let that space go to waste. To avoid that, I hosted a weekend of gaming at my house. PaukarlahtiCon I called it. Perhaps calling the event a convention is a bit much but I had 15 people over, many of whom stayed throughout the weekend and I was happy I could accommodate them.

The main event was a 6 player game of Battlegroup Kursk. A few familiar faces and a couple of my regular opponents have been collecting WW2 in 1:72 scale for a while and they can pool together large battles now. I've been doing a little bit of 1:72, but contributed only a couple of terrain features, a  Stug assault gun and an Opel Blitz truck into this game. It was nice to attend a game which other people have worked hard on to realise for a change.

The scenario was set during the first soviet attack on Prokhorovka during the battle of Kursk. Our game organizer said the model ratio on the field was something around one model equals three tanks, so the scale was quite appropriate. Here's some pictures of the action with comments.

The table was 6 feet deep and 12 feet long. Three "standard" 6x4 tables side by side. On the bottom left you see the main Soviet tank assault. On the top left, you can see my portion of the forces. ordered to take the farm on the top right. Along the right table edge are German defenders. Infantry and guns fot the top half, mostly tanks on the bottom half. There is a German detachment in the farm in the center of the table.

German assault guns wait for Soviet attackers.

The Soviet T-34's with tank riders.

My forces (Some tank riders included, as well as a bunch of tanks in reserve)

Some German defenders facing my tanks.

The Soviet attack begins! The T-34's ride fast straight towards the German defenders and deploy infantry.

My Soviet forces advance similarly and lose a couple of tanks to enemy fire (German Marder II's in defense).

My tank riders bail out and swarm the enemy entrenchments.

At "the bottom", several Soviet tanks are destroyed and create an obstacle in the narrow pass between the farm and the table edge.

Lots of losses are taken but my forces reach the farm. It is not given without a fight though.

The advance is costly but the trench is taken as well.

In the center, Soviet reinforcements test the German lines but are destroyed by AT gun fire.

The situation at game end. The attack at the bottom of the field has halted at the center farm. On the top, my forces have cleared the farmstead and are poised to flank the German line. The Soviet losses have been unacceptaby high however, and the scenario is a clear win for the Germans.

Battlegroup Kursk seemed like a fun set of rules to play WW2 on this scale with. The rules for movement, firing and morale are easy to grasp and quick to play out. They reminded me a bit of Epic Armageddon actually. The rules for close assault felt a bit odd, however. Groups initiate and continue their close combats by spending order points, which is voluntary. This can lead to groups getting locked down in close combat for a long time if neither player spends points to continue it. Morale checks to enter close combat weren't modified by strenght ratio either, so 10 men assaulting a position held by one man would have the same chance of losing their nerve as against 20. I suppose it's just fog of war then, but it can lead to the player getting frustrated.

Also, I think tank battles feel a bit claustrophobic in 1/72 as the tanks start out what would be very close indeed for real world tanks. 

The "main hall" on saturday night.

Wings of Glory

I also got the chance to play a game of Battletech Quickstrike. I didn't break out the alphastrike rules as I hadn't print out the unit cards for it yet. The game was a straightforward take and hold affair and ended up in a clear defeat for my side. We agreed that the jump pack rules require some tweaking as light jump mechs are super fast enabling them to easily get behind enemy mechs. They are also difficult to hit because their to hit modifiers are affected by their maximum speed, not by how much they actually move.

The city looks a bit green. I think I'll have to get some grey or brown basing for city blocks.

The mechs engage in a close range firefight.

All in all, the weekend was a great success. I'll definitly host another one when I'll get the opportunity

Battletech Alpha Strike out now

Just a note that you can now purchase the standalone version of the Battletech Quick-Strike miniatures rules as a downloadable PDF for fifteen US dollars. It will also be released as a hardback book later but the cost will be three times as much so I grabbed mine now here: http://www.rpgnow.com/product/117408/BattleTech-Alpha-Strike?src=FrontPage.

At a glance, the quick-strike rules seem to be intact, but there's a whole lot of meat around the bones to add all the non-mech elements of 31st century warfare into the mix and run a campaign. Lots of eye candy too. For a more detailed coverage head over to Itinerant Hobbyist's blog. He seems to have an in depth tutorial running.

Heads up to those interested in Battletech Quick-Strike

If you've been interested in getting your beer and pretzels mech action on, take a look here: http://www.rpgnow.com/product/92854/BattleTech%3A-Strategic-Operations?term=strategic+operations

The Strategic Operations manual which contains the full rules for Quick-Strike is now on sale as a PDF for the agreeable sum of 10 United States Dollars. The book also contains stuff like aerospace warfare and rules for fighting Battletech on a grander scale. Other Battletech stuff is on sale as well. If you just want to play Quick-Strike it makes sense to buy the book as PDF and print out the stuff you need as you'll only need a small fraction of the books' pagecount.

Nope, I'm not affiliated with Rpgnow, but thought some of you might want to know about the deal.

More Battletech Quick-Strike

Another game of Quick-Strike on the planet strangely reminiscent of 19th century America. We picked 50 points worth of mechs from my mech deck and played a simple meet-em greet-em blast-em-to-bits game on my Port Republic board. My opponent picked four medium and heavy mechs: Archer, Wolverine, Rifleman and Warhammer. I picked two lights, Javelin and Wasp, one medium Phoenix Hawk, one heavy Crusader and one assault mech, Battlemaster.

A selection of mech cards you use to keep track of your mechs in Quick-Strike

We advanced our mechs in pretty much a straight line towards each other. Simo left his Archer into a forest near his deployment zone to provide LRM support, I sent my Javelin to threathen his left flank.

Simo's Warhammer deals out hot PPC shots with frightening accuracy, tearing the Battlemaster's and the Phoenix Hawk's armor to bits but not managing to score internal damage. I manage to take the woods in the center and use the cover to my advantage. The Crusader and the Rifleman sit in water features to be able to cool off excess heat generated by shooting.

My Battlemaster retreats into the cover of the woods and together with the wounded Phoenix Hawk take down the rifleman. The Wolverine dances with the quick Wasp and is forced to block access to his rear by facing the table edge (most realistic). The Javelin gets a rear shot on the Warhammer with his SRM's.

The extra cover of the woods proves to be a game decider as I score more hits than my opponent and take down the Warhammer too, even though my Battlemaster is just barely on it's feet.

The Archer and the Wolverine retreat to their deployment zone and are taken down by superior firepower. The Battlemaster is destroyed by the Archer.

A straightforward game, but I found myself wanting for a couple of modifiers. Straight vanilla, Quick-Strike doesn't impose penalties for moving and shooting, and uses the maximum movement of a mech to decide how hard it is to hit. This means, that a stationary mech is just as hard to hit as one that moved full speed, and light mechs are able to use jump packs to jump behind the enemy every turn and score easy hits. So, I think I'll try these alterations taken from Battletech 3rd ed. for our next game:

Mechs' own movement makes it more difficult to score hits:

Stationary  +0
Walking     +1
Running     +2
Jump Jets  +3

The total distance (not expended MP) moved by a mech during the turn makes it more difficult to hit:

0-4”        +0
5”-8”       +1
9”-12”     +2
13”-18”   +3
19”-34”   +4
35”+        +5
Used jump jets +1 in addition to distance

So now the speed at which the mech moves affects both the shooter and the target. I think it will not bog the gameplay down after I make some counters you can toss next to the mech or on the mech card to remind you of the speed.

EDIT: Here's a PDF of the markers I made, in case someone else finds them useful: link

Battletech Quick-Strike

When I first saw the intro movie for Mechwarrior 2 I was sold on mech-on-mech action:

There's a lot to like in Battletech. Too bad I don't like the rules of the boardgame all that much. I have a set for the third edition of the game with a pile of battlemechs, but I've only played Battletech once. The game takes a long time to play and is heavy with bookkeeping true to 80's game design. I've been looking for a good set of rules for fighting mechs and surprisingly found some under the umbrella of the Battletech rules themeselves.

Battletech Quick-Strike is a lite-version of the Battletech rules meant to be used in large battles and campaigns where the players do not wish to bog down gameplay with the cumbersome rules of the full set. As it happens, the rules offer a chance to play a fast-paced, light game of mech warfare.

The rules are included in the Strategic Operations expansion of Battletech. You can obtain a digital copy pretty cheap from here. Quick-Strike contains all the basic elements you would expect from a battlemech game. The players dice for initiative, with the initiative loser moving the first mech. The players (or sides) alternate in moving mechs until each one has moved. After this, fire attacks are handled simultaneously. Players roll to hit after applying a few modifiers. Shots that hit score a default amount of damage depending on the range of the attack and the type of the mech. Mechs have a single armor score and an internal structure score. After the armor has been depleted and mechs suffer damage to internal structure, they take critical damage and suffer penalties to movement, shooting etc. Once the internal structure runs out, the mech is destroyed.

Mechs can shoot indirect fire with the help of a spotter, deal extra damage with heat penalties, use jump jets to fly through the air, beat each other senseless in melee and all the usual stuff you're used to. Everything has just been simplified and abstracted to about ten pages or so. Each mech has a roster card with all the info required. The system also supports infantry, armor and aircraft.

I plan on using these rules to lure people who normally don't play miniatures games to have a go. I played a couple of matches last night. One with a friend and another with my wife. The rules are easy enough for casual players to learn and is a fun and fast beer and pretzels type of game. Recommended.

The battle was fought on a planet strangely reminiscent of 19th century America. Battletech uses the same terrain scale as 6mm figures do, so I can use my regular 6mm stuff with the game.