While he was visiting, we also managed to play a round of Armor Grid: Mech Attack at my house. The scenario was set in the BattleTech universe: a fight for possession of a factory on the world of Addicks. The battle occurs in the year 3136 during a Trial of Annihilation.
Instigated by the visions of Nova Cat Mystic Kisho, this trial pitted Clan Nova Cat against their separated Spirit Cat kin. The attackers had 8 turns to get two of their mechs in contact with the factory. We had to fudge the minis a bit, but here are the forces involved. All are rebased Mechwarrior clix miniatures. No additional painting!
Ryan's Star of mechs from Clan Nova Cat landed with the intent of defeating the the Spirit Cats and bringing their remnants back into the Nova Cats.
My Star of Spirit Cat mechs must defend the factory.
The first two turns were mostly movement as the Spirit Cats took up defensive positions and the Nova Cats advanced.
The Nova cats advance, using the rocks to shield their movement.
By turn four we see first blood as concentrated Spirit Cat firepower brings down a Nova Cat mech. The Nova Cat Orion on the right flank will shortly temporarily lose a turn of firing due to heat overload, placing the Nova Cats in a very dangerous position.
By turn six, two more Nova Cat mechs have gone down. All Spirit Cat mechs are still operational, though many have sustained heavy damage.
Turn seven arrives with the destruction of a Spirit Cat light mech. The Nova Cat Orion has opened fire again, but it's too little, too late. The Spirit Cats concentrate all their firepower on the Nova Cat Maurader II (in the upper left in this photo) which goes down in turn eight.
Conclusion
This was a fun game, though it didn't have very much suspense since the battle went so dramatically against the Nova Cats by the end of turn five. Ryan and I enjoyed the game, and it made me wish I played Mech Attack a bit more. As well as playing more games with combined arms, at some point I'd like to stat out more mechs with exaggerated strengths and weaknesses (sort of like 3025-era BattleTech) to really challenge the players to get the most out of imperfect designs.
This game proved that focusing firepower on one mech at a time is a key part of Mech Attack's strategy — as well as guarding against rear shots, which almost always deal significant damage.
The game was typically short for Mech Attack, taking well under two hours to play, not counting setup. I don't have much experience with other mech games (having played a couple, read quite a few), but Mech Attack remains my favorite game of mech combat. It plays well with a combined arms strategy, too.
As I mentioned before, neither one of us was using optimized mechs. I built the game stats based on the appearance of each individual mech miniatures, with a nod to BattleTech fluff, and I didn't tweak them to create more devastating in-game combos. This seems to result in much more balanced and interesting games, as Ryan and I had to think of how best to use the tools we were given rather, than starting the game with perfectly designed mechs.
— Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member
2 comments:
Great battle report! Thanks for taking the time to post it.
I really like how you equipped the mechs true to design rather than min-maxing them. Definitely more fun that way.
Maybe the Nova Cats could have benefited from some fast moving vehicles to harass and break up the Spirit Cats defensive line... that would be fun to see...
Dagger
Yep, I think that some vehicles would have definitely added a new dimension to this particular scenario. Especially since it would likely have given them more units with which to occupy the factory. Usually we play with combined arms, but this was a quick pickup game.
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