Wilson's wargaming: First game of Alpha Strike, played at Essex Warriors club today plus photos of other games on.

Sunday 6 December 2015

First game of Alpha Strike, played at Essex Warriors club today plus photos of other games on.

Today as the club I ran a game of Battletech Alpha Strike with a couple of tweaks.

As an intro we set up with 13 mechs each from the intro box set. equal points only 4pts more to the blue team ran by Gordon.

Gordon Blue 415PV

Me Red 411PV

I painted all the mechs in one afternoon yesterday as it was all a bit last minute so maybe a bit rushed.

But as it is the first real painting I have done in about a year I am pleased with it.

Rule tweaks:

Replaced initiative and turn sequence with:

Bolt action based dice draw for random sequence each turn.

Also when drawn unit would complete movement and firing.

(We did play with this a bit during the game but this we decided gave the best feel).

We used the Advanced combat variable damage rule of 3+ on a d6 per damage scored.

This did have a good impact in spreading the damage caused etc and we are likely to use it again.

Decided that any rear hit bonus damage of 1 or any caused by using OV ability should be auto hits, may require rolls in the future as the rear damage was extensive at the end of the game.

We think there should be a +1 for firing after moving (and there maybe) but it was not on the QRS and to save sanity of having to read the pdf on my phone we left it out after the first turn.

All mechs were regular 4+ and the setting was 3039 as per the intro box set Late succession war.

Exception being the Mad Cat and BattleMaster premium mechs in the box as I think these had later dates?

We also played about with the partial cover rule allowing it for mechs in the fields, or within 2" behind terrain.

At the end we decided no terrain should count at short range unless true LOS met partial cover rules and that the fields should only grant partial cover to units of Size 1.

We found long rang almost impossible to hit, with 4+ skill, 4+ for long and then 2-3 TMM bonus meant you needed between 10-12 on the 2D6 every time if cover was involved.

I did feel those Mechs designed for long range work should have some bonus to reflect that when trying to hit?

Also couldn't work out Indirect fire when most of those we had with it had IF0* so does zero damage?

Can you jump every turn if equipped? thats how we started but quickly decided there should be a heat penalty for jumping two turns in a row, this balanced it a bit more.

specials rules didn't really play a part, no Ammo criticals were rolled the whole game!

Gordon had great luck in rolling no critical results through out the game.

Our big units slugged it out as we closed the range allowing lighter mechs to pick up kills through rear shooting in the later half.

Played ten turns and both lost similar amounts of mechs, had intended to have objectives but we ended up having a war instead!

Roll of the fallen:

Hermes II took out my Commando in turn 2

Hunchback KIA Jenner Turn 3

Panther KIA Spider T3

Assasin suicided after a failed Death from above (had no offence left after Criticals) T4

Hunchback KIA Mad Cat T5 (After lots of slugging it out in the centre with multiple mechs)

Cicada KIA Battlemaster T5 (as for the Mad Cat)

Whitworth KIA Enforcer T5