This was part of a much longer post and I carved this out as a standalone section because I suspect I may want to refer back to this and refine it as I play various matches. Some background: in 2024, the beta rules for a generally “balanced” Matched Play format were released. These are kind of like quick-start recommended house rules that a group could adopt and use to put together pick-up games. I won’t go through all the listbuilding stipulations from the document, but I wanted to put together some rough notes on each mission type (generally focused around skirmish scale battles).
There are a dozen different objectives listed in the Matched Play document. Having a general understanding of the expectations of each mission type means I can have a sense of what kind of force I need. No list can be perfectly optimized for every single mission type (but some can get real close if you don’t care if your opponent is having any fun).
A quick note about distances: For a skirmish game, the board is either 36×48″ or 48×48″. Through the magic of MegaMek, I can see which units have the kind of broken levels of movement where they can get just about anywhere without even having to sprint.
Fireball ALM-XF: 48″ and 25 PV. Thankfully, it’s listed as “Unique” on the Master Unit List and has no other faction association. It technically shouldn’t be allowed in Matched Play, but the wording is wishywashy enough that you probably still need to house rule it. I have a Fireball, but there are way saner versions.
Locust LCT-6M: 36″ and 31 PV. Technically available for mercenaries in the IlClan era.
Celerity: Most variants of this go 40″ and are also very cheap. A handful are also available to Mercenaries in the IlClan era. I should probably pick one of these up because I like Repulic of the Sphere mechs.
Dasher (Fire Moth): The P, T, and G all go 30″ and can hit pretty hard. Will fall over to a stiff breeze.
Another useful breakpoint is 21″, since that’s the minimum distance your objectives can be from your home edge in Objective Raid. And, thankfully, there are a lot of mechs that move move than 21″. Remarkably, there are pitifully few lights that feel true to the Capellans, though. The Raven has a lot of good ECM toys but is a little slow. There’s a Flea with Stealth and a few other Capellan appropriate characteristics – even though that variant has pretty widespread availability.
Objective Raid
The big one here is that Sprinting and Airborne units cannot pick up, control, or interact with objectives. Each player puts down three objective tokens at least 21″ away from their home edge. Players then send out their units to pick up and move back to their home edge. Non-mech units need to spend an entire turn at a standstill to pick up the token (presumably because the crew needs to get out and pick it up). Some of these kinds of modes will also have you roll to pick up and give you a bonus if your mech has hands. Thankfully, you just need to spend the turn there. No penalties for shooting, either.
Okay, so I’m going to want to consider having a mech that can move close to 21-22″. Another sneaky thing might be to also have something like a Hovercraft with the “AC” ability to load it up with precision rounds and see if I can pop the inevitable Fire Moth my opponent will run.
Control the Field
No objectives to place for this one. You just need to march across the map and get within 12″ of your opponent’s home edge. For every unit within that threshold, you score that unit’s “Size” number in victory points. Speedier big units are ideal. I’m going to spend a bit of time working through this, as this kind of thing is pretty easy to look up in MegaMek and worth considering for a couple other scenarios.
I don’t have many of these, but I could probably proxy the regular Mongoose as a Mongoose II. The Dasher II looks *super* different from a Fire Moth, unfortunately.
Targe (TRG-1N and 3M): 20″ and Size 2. 32 and 43 PV, respectively. Mercenaries only, former Republic of the Sphere.
Mongoose II: 20″ and Size 2. All of these are bonkers expensive. 36-45 PV.
Phantom J: 22″ and Size 2. Can duke it out on an objective, but expensive at 48 PV.
Black Lanner J: 22″ and Size 2. Extra armour and structure, but less short/medium damage. Same cost as Phantom J.
Cicada CDA-4A: 20″ and Size 2. Less tough than the Phantom and Black Lanner, less damage, but way more cost effective at 37 PV.
Fenris (Ice Ferret) J and T: The J, not unlike the Phantom and Black Lanner, is kind of spooky. Still expensive, but the J at 65 PV is probably able to put 6 damage into a rear arc every turn and still take a punch. Might have to make a point of folding this into a Hell’s Horses lance. The T is 46 PV and a little overcosted for the damage output it can reasonably manage.
Dasher II 2: 26″ and size 2. Similar damage profile and cost to the Ice Ferret T.
After that, we’re looking at Heavies or Assaults, none of which move faster than 16″. However, a sprint of 24″ for a heavy mech is really solid in some modes. I figure I’ll throw a couple in here just in case:
Quickdraw QKD-9G: 16″, 51 PV. With this guy, you’re overpaying for jump jets that go slower than just running. CASEII isn’t bad. Better damage and availability than the Ostsol OTL-9M. Unfortunately, I’m probably going to have to paint this dork despite being let down by the Quickdraw at every turn in the Harebrained Schemes Battletech game.
Ostsol OTL-9M: 16″ 49 PV. I love the Ostsol. I am not a Free Worlds League fan, and this one’s exclusive to them. Bummer. I took this variant to an event without faction restrictions and it was a great little harasser.
Grand Dragon DRG-7K, 7KC and 12K: 16″, 47-49 PV. They called this thing the Grand Dragon. I love the Dragon as a Heavy mech and the Combine has a few really great mechs, but I really struggle with getting past the “I studied the Blade” energy the Combine has. Maybe I’ll change my tune when the Kurita force packs drop. Admittedly, the Capellans have a whole set of other problems with their portrayal and they’re the only great house I have a specific paint scheme for. I contain multitudes.
Exterminator EXT-5F, 5E, 4DX: The dead do not trouble the living. ComStar exclusive and extinct in the IlClan era. I love the sculpt and hope we get wider availability for this one some time.
Lancelot C 2: 16″, 48 PV. Same problem as the Exterminator, in general. Weird damage profile that drops off in the mid range. Probably an overpay for what you get. Also extinct in the IlClan era/weird availability elsewhere.
Linebacker G, I: 16″, 48-52 PV. Kind of a weird one. Will definitely duke it out in short range, but pitiful range outside of that.
Charger C: 16″, 83 PV. My beloved. You need to build your whole ass force around the footprint that thing has but it will serve you well in a few mission types. Only available to Raven Alliance, though. The 1X1 also exists but doesn’t have anywhere near the damage profile. Use that if you want a quick-moving brick. This is probably one of the few mechs I will buy a duplicate of so that I can run it with the Raven Alliance.
Ti Ts’ang TSG-10L, TSG-9DDC: 16″, 49-50 PV. I definitely need to pick up a Ti Ts’ang at some point. I keep holding out hope for an updated sculpt or a plastic version from CGL.
Thresher MK II: 16″, 49 PV. I haven’t heard of this thing. Decent availability, but I’m probably not going out of my way to get one.
Destroy the Enemy
What it says on the tin. 1 VP for every PV (round down, min 1) of an enemy unit that is destroyed or crippled. Basically a damage per turn check.
Hold the Fort
Each player places two objective tokens at least 12″ from their home edge and 14″ from any other objective token. At the End Phase of Turn 3, if no enemy units are within 12″ of your objective and one of your units is within 6″ of the objective token, they score 2 VP. This is probably the mission I’m most curious to try out.
Breakthrough
A bit like Control the Field, but units disappear after they’ve scored. Also need to be in base-to-base contact with the home edge of your opponent. Kind of forces you to balance toughness, mobility, and damage.
Find the Target
This is a scan three different objectives by getting within 6″ of them kind of mission. Roll at the end of a phase. On a 7+, the objective is a target building. Buildings can take 15 damage before being destroyed. You may not fire on an objective without successfully designating a target.
Extraction
This one seems a little over overtuned. I had to read the instructions like four or five times. So you put some units in an extraction zone, these are the only units that can score victory points. Only units with TMM of 2 or less can score. So kind of like the anti-high-TMM/JMPS mission. You’re running the extraction units to your home edge to score them while you sweep in from your home edge to give covering fire.
Escort
You get an Ordnance Transport truck for every 100 PV of your force (round up). You score 10 VP for getting them to your opponent’s deployment zone. The trucks can’t be used to initiative sink. They always move first. Cannot spot or do anything meaningful.
Reconnaissance
Alright, so this is a scanning mission. The instructions make it seem more complex than it actually is. There’s value in having units with PRB or BH to help with scanning.
King of the Hill
Each player is placing a token within 3″ of the middle of the play area. They also place two secondary objective tokens at least 12″ from the home edge, with each token at least 18″ from every other objective token. The goal is to keep enemy units away from your objective tokens while getting within 8″ of your enemy’s objective tokens. Again, asking you to balance speed and toughness, as you’re probably going to be heading into short range to capture some of those objectives.
Capture the Flag
Flag tokens are placed within 8″ of the home edge. Base-to-base contact to pick up the flag. If size 1 or less, MV and TMM is halved (round down). If size 2 or more, MV is reduced by 2″ and TMM by 1. 10 VP for getting the token back to your home edge.
Headhunter
1 VP for every 10 PV (round down, min 1) of an enemy that is destroyed or crippled. One unit in each formation is designated as a command unit, killing this is worth 2 extra VP. Basically a more interesting Destroy the Enemy.
And that’s it for the Matched Play mission types. I have a separate post I’m working on that’s related to listbuilding, but I figured I could just carve this bit out and have it free-standing. As I play more of these mission types, I’ll probably add some notes for solid mech variants to use.
I’ve followed Battletech for a good portion of my life – whether it was through the video games, occasional dabbling with the novels, or the tabletop rules. I watched older kids play the tabletop game at my local game store in the 90s, but didn’t really get a chance to play myself until the last year or so. I say this to emphasize that I am not, in fact, an expert (no, not even after a year of hyperfixating on tabletop Battletech). Most of the writing I do here is to help organize my thoughts as I get more knowledgeable about the hobby and hopefully articulate the stuff I like (and dislike) about the setting and rules in a way that feels approachable for other folks who might be curious. I feel like this is an important disclaimer, lest a super-experienced player happen across what I write here. I’m going to make mistakes or misunderstand stuff as I learn. That’s kind of the fun and the critical preoccupation I’ve had for most of my adult life: celebrating failures as opportunities to learn and a core part of what makes us human (see also: all the stuff I’ve written about roguelikes and permadeath over the years).
That out of the way, remember this post about preparing for a pickup game of Battletech? The one where I assumed from the jump that I’d be throwing some mechs into a larger force with other players and did not once account for the possibility that I might need to field my own force by myself? That post? That one?
Well.
When I got to the shop, I found that most of the weekly players were over on the Classic Battletech table and that it would be a solo mission on my end. Me vs. the Aces deck, operated by the person who also happened to have penned that week’s super rad scenario. I’m going to keep specifics vague for privacy reasons and because I have no idea if that scenario might wind up folded into something official at some point. I hope it does, though. It rocks.
The Scenario
This is a recon-focused mission. There are six objectives, spaced evenly across the middle of the map. These are communication arrays that turn on and off based on the ebb and flow of power thanks to a particularly nasty storm. These objectives are connected in pairs going north to south, creating three lanes of possible objectives. One to two of these rows of arrays are active on any given turn and can be accessed by placing a mech in base-to-base contact. At the start of every turn, we figure out which have been knocked out by the storm. These arrays can be shut off with ECM or turned on with active probe (including arrays that are disabled by the storm).
Requirements:
300 PV, no force # restrictions
No unit can move slower than 10″ (or walk speed of 5, for Classic)
No faction/era restrictions
Objectives are scored at the end of the turn by the team with the highest total tonnage still alive next to the objective. In the case of a tie, nobody captures it.
If ECM and an Active Probe are in effect against an objective, the more skilled pilot wins the tie. Angel ECM (AECM) always beats an Active Probe, while a Bloodhound Probe always beats ECM. In a case where AECM is vs. a Bloodhound Probe, the more skilled pilot wins.
The rule for variable attack rolls will be used.
A Bit of Background
A slight update from the list of possible options: I didn’t bring the Thug or Dola – a chunk of the basing for the Thug dropped off when I was applying pigments and I didn’t have the time or patience to fix it. Also outside of being a decently speedy assault mech with some solid damage numbers, the Thug didn’t have any abilities to interact with the objectives outside of scoring. The Dola’s canopy wasn’t coming together in a way I really liked and also the antenna fell off while I was trying to apply the basing. I suspect this thing is probably going to force me to get a pin vise so I can drill out the super glue in there and then properly situate a new antenna so it won’t fall out again. I can’t overstate how much I like the Dola as a concept and design but holy shit that antenna fucking sucks. The antenna really did look cool and while some of the older sculpts from Iron Wind can look a little fucking weird, this is probably the happiest I’ve been with a paint job for a metal mini outside of my Yeoman. If I’m going to keep occasionally assembling metal minis, I was going to need to figure out how to pin things. Right now, stuff is held together with gorilla glue and a prayer. I also didn’t pack up the Centurion, Scorpion, or Hunchback – I felt like I had a decent set of options that could contribute to a force. I also realized that I painted up the Mongoose in anticipation of the last time this scenario was running, so I threw that in the box as backup.
Every force pack for Battletech comes with a double-sided Alpha Strike card for each mech, typically representing two common variants (or variants related to the general basis for the model). These cards can be used with dry erase marker to track things like damage to armour or structure, or to track heat/critical hits. I am fast approaching a point where I need to organize and store these cards because it’s getting a little out of hand. You can also go to the Master Unit List to find digital stat sheets for Alpha Strike for just about everything in the game (I think drop ships and a few other vehicles like that don’t have Alpha Strike conversions yet). If I’m playing at home, I’ll usually use the roster builder for Jeff’s Battletech Tools to automate some things on a laptop. On the road, I save a PDF with images of the Alpha Strike cards I want to use and just annotate that with an eInk tablet. I also note the step value to increase skills so that I can adjust to fit the force if needed. Nobody’s really at the level of sweaty (at least at the Alpha Strike table) where we start making our pilots worse to decrease the PV cost.
At any rate, here’s what I had to work with:
Assassin ASN-109: 33 PV
Spartan SPT-N4: 57 PV
Charger CGR-1X1: 59 PV
Ostsol OTL-9M: 49 PV
Hierofalcon Prime: 46 PV
Ostscout OTT-8J: 33 PV
Mongoose MON-96: 35 PV
Charger C: 83 PV (lol. lmao.)
A note about this list: I chose these mechs because I had recently received them as a gift (the Charger and Assassin) or had been painting them for a while and needed that kick in the ass to force myself to finish (Hierofalcon, Ostsol, Ostscout, Mongoose). A lot of them are relatively new Catalyst releases, or in the case of the Hierofalcon, a brand new chassis added to the setting with the Recognition Guides for the IlClan era that was only available in metal. I probably had a handful of appropriate mechs already painted that I could have thrown on this list if I’d bothered to look. To try to field a force like this as a cohesive whole is not advisable – especially not against another human being.
If we leave off the Charger C (because I’d have to pick between the two anyways), that actually puts me over the 300 PV force limit by 12. If I were Sweaty Like That, I could have increased the Mongoose pilot skill to 7 to reduce its PV by 12. Pilot skill in Alpha Strike does double duty for Gunnery/Piloting skills in Classic. It’s the base difficulty for ~doing stuff~ in the game. I won’t get into the weeds on the costs of increasing and decreasing pilot skills – they can definitely warp the game in surprising ways. There are two tables in the Alpha Strike Commander’s Edition book that explain the PV implications of adjusting skill levels and trying to explain that without just replicating the tables is melting my brain. It might help to just walk through the usual calculation for determining what number you need to roll higher than with 2d6 is: Skill (usually 4) + (range difficulty: +2 for medium, +4 for long) + (target’s base Target Movement Modifier or TMM: how hard is that thing to hit) + other considerations (is the target in partial cover or woods, does the target have Stealth active, did the attacker jump, is the attacker overheating, etc.). This means you want lower skill to have a better chance at hitting stuff, but that also means your units are worth more on your list. There are also lore implications – some players will insist that every Clan mechwarrior should be upgraded to Skill 3 because they were genetically modified and trained from birth to fight in the Clans’ freakazoid honour duels and endless wars. I do have to admit that by default forcing Clan lists to upgrade to Skill 3 for everything might actually balance some of the issues with matchups against the Inner Sphere. That a post for another time, though.
So let’s see how that formula works in action: say one of the opposing forces wanted to shoot my Spartan at medium range, that’s 4 (pilot skill) + 2 (medium range) + 2 (the Spartan’s TMM) + 1 (because the Spartan has Stealth active). This means the opposing forces need to roll a 9 or better on 2d6 to do damage. That was a very common difficulty roll for most of the game, meaning the opposing force had a 27.77% chance to hit on any given roll. This means that if I made my Mongoose pilot worse by going from Skill 4 to Skill 7, the vast majority of shots are impossible or very unlikely: a 3 point increase on the calculation above means you need 12s (2.77% chance) to hit a mid-range shot with some minor complications. Why would I do this? because I’m not ever going to use that thing to shoot. One of the movement options in Alpha Strike is sprinting – you can use 150% of your movement points but can’t shoot or attack that turn (this is available in Classic, but as an optional rule). Having a dork with 30″ movement while sprinting and a Bloodhound Active Probe might have been worth cramming into my list, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
We’re using the variable attack rule, meaning instead of rolling once and applying all the damage at the appropriate range bracket, you roll a set of 2d6es for each point of damage at the appropriate bracket (and add more pairs of dice if you’re doing something that might increase the potential damage). It makes things a little more dynamic but also slows down the game. If we didn’t have it in place, I feel like the game could have had much larger swings: some shooting phases where nobody hits anything and then others where a single hot roll deletes a mech. I tend to be ambivalent about the variable attack rolls rule, while a lot of players absolutely refuse to play without it.
Force Selection (The part where I beg the audience’s forgiveness for being a coward, a rube, and a dilettante)
The moment you get to the shop, you’re burning time. They usually start wrapping games up around 8:00-8:30, so you have just shy of three hours to move stompy robots around and chuck dice and that time goes fast. Upon learning the ramshackle list of support mechs I’d brought would need to go toe-to-toe with a more considered force, I made a series of very fast decisions. From the list above, I just cut the last two options right off the bottom. I did this primarily because the document I had was listed in that order, so navigating it without having to look at a mech I didn’t have on the table seemed appealing. I had to pick between the Charger CGR-1X1 and the Charger C anyways, and I couldn’t have added the Mongoose to the mix without doing some skill changes.
Sometimes you make decisions with the full knowledge that you will have to shoulder their spiritual and philosophical burden for the rest of your days. The moment the decision is made, it cannot be undone. Once your choice is made, the ineffable weight will settle behind your eyes and upon your conscience. This ballast provides no stability and cannot be dumped. Call it regret, call it the cowardly and selfish foreclosure upon a brighter timeline. I do not wish these decisions upon anyone. I was tested that day and I felt the enclosure of a funerary cowl upon my heart, as if to shield it from the rest of my pusillanimous form. If Anubis awaits me after my death, he will need no scale to take the measure of my heart. I will be damned in the time it takes that hoary old cynocephalus to take in my whole post-mortal situation.
I am not good at math, especially when expected to do it quickly. If you add up the PV for the Assassin, the Spartan, the Ostsol, the Hierofalcon, the Ostscout, and the Charger C, all at Skill 4, you get 301 PV. One point over the line. I could have asked the other player if they were fine with that discrepancy and maybe they would have been okay with it. I could have modified the Ostscout’s skill to level 5 and saved the 3 PV needed to run functionally the same force I ultimately chose. Instead, I chose what was expedient over what was right. I chose the Charger CGR-1X1. I will not ask your forgiveness, for I do not deserve it.
This meant I had a little bit of PV to work with. This is where my next mistake came. I simply made the Spartan and Charger Skill 3. I don’t think this was inherently a bad call – both made use of the increased skill level, but my main damage dealer was the Hierofalcon and I had to keep jumping it, meaning it whiffed on more rolls than I otherwise would have preferred. At the cost of improving those two, I could have probably made the Hierofalcon a skill 2.
The opposing force was operated using a prototype of the Battletech Aces deck. Aces was developed to automate an opposing force. I think a lot of folks talk about it as a “single player” mode, but I’ve found Aces probably plays better when there are other players involved, even if it’s just one person running the deck vs. another player. Another great potential application is two players using the Aces decks to automate two opposing forces like you’re playing SaltyBet but for mechs instead of AI-controlled fighting games. It’s really neat and I can’t wait for the box to come out, assuming it doesn’t cost a million zillion dollars thanks to tariffs. I won’t go into detail here, but I’d also be really shocked to see major box releases (either Aces or Gothic) this year if we’re still on the 90 day trade war roller coaster/market manipulation simulator for the foreseeable future.
What’s important to note here is that the opposing force is generally well designed. I don’t have the specific variants, but I believe it was:
Commando
Crusader
Berzerker
Hatchetman
Bushwacker
Wolfhound
Hunchback
Nightsky
You’ve got some speedy mechs (Commando, Wolfhound), some decently mobile bruisers, two of which are built for melee (Nightsky, Hunchback, Hatchetman), some fire support (Crusader), and a meaty brawler, also built for melee (Berserker). I have, uh, [checks notes] two support assault mechs, one under-armoured trooper, a Clan medium, and two light mechs, one of which is rarely intended for direct combat. Three of my mechs do three to four damage at the mid range and the rest are one damage. I’m pretty sure the Hunchback and the Crusader do more potential mid-range damage than two or three of my mechs combined. This force is not built for a kinetic engagement. However, absolutely every one of my mechs has the ability to interact with the objectives in some capacity.
The Assassin has AECM, the Spartan has AECM, the Charger has AECM and Bloodhound Probe (the Charger C also has these), the Ostsol has ECM, the Hierofalcon Prime has ECM, and the Ostscout has AECM and Bloodhound Probe.
Alright, I’m going to try to recount the turn-by-turn playthrough. I’m not going to bother recounting the times either force fired and missed everything. My list put out a truly pitiful amount of damage and outside of a couple pivotal circumstances it didn’t really matter.
Turn 1: Assess
The middle row was active during this phase, so I jumped my Hierofalcon up to capture the point (the objectives provide cover, as well). In retrospect, I could have played more aggressively and sprinted to get into position, but I was leery of line of sight and also still processing how I was even going to use this force to eke out a win. I should have just sprinted my Ostsol up to direct cover. As a reminder, Sprinting means you can move half-again as many inches as your overall movement speed. You just can’t shoot after doing so. Hypothetically, I could have moved the Ostscout in the background up on the objective on the eastern side of my zone and used the probe turn it on for scoring purposes, but that’s not a realization I had yet.
The deck moves the Wolfhound up to score on their middle objective, as well.
A shot of The Objectives.Visible from left to right: Ostsol, HIerofalcon (top, also capturing that point), Assassin (bottom), Charger, Ostscout.
A wide shot of most of the board state. Opposing forces from left to right: Bushwacker, Hatchetman, Nightsky, Berserker (top), Hatchetman (bottom), Commando (top), Wolfhound (bottom).
Turn 2: Monitor
On this phase, the middle and east rows were active. I jumped my Hierofalcon over to the east objective from the middle and moved the Charger into position on the middle. I’m not entirely sure what to do with the Assassin and Spartan yet, but I know the Spartan is going to be plenty tanky and also less mobile than the rest of the force. If it comes to it, I’m going to have to sacrifice that thing. The Assassin needs to stay out of sight and pick its moments very carefully. Not entirely sure what to do with the Ostscout yet, I jump it into some heavy cover. I moved the Ostsol into position, but I don’t think that spot is score-able.
The Berserker and the Hatchetman capture the open points on the opposing side.
Visible mechs from left to right (starting with opposing forces): Wolfhound, Hunchback, Bushwacker, Hatchetman (very obscured), Crusader, Berserker, Commando. My forces from left to right at the bottom of the photo: Ostsol, Spartan, Assassin, Charger.Another angle, showing the Hierofalcon (bottom middle) and a slightly better angle on the Hatchetman (top middle).My Ostscout sneaking in the trees.
Turn 3: Secure
It’s at this point that I realize I should start using my Bloodhound Probes to activate the communications arrays that are shut down by the storm. If I recall correctly, the two outside rows are available for scoring. The eastern side of the map is way too hot for my liking, so I jump my Ostscout in to turn on the middle obelisk for scoring. My Charger captures the western objective in my half. The Aces deck takes what’s available. I started to move my Ostsol up into the enemy territory to maybe grab their western point if it becomes available.
Visible mechs on the opposing side along the top of the map: Hunchback (partially obscured by buildings), Bushwacker (also partially obscured by building), Berserker (head and shoulders cropped off), Nightsky with Commando hiding behind it. My forces from left to right along the middle: Assassin and Spartan hiding out for an ambush, Charger and Ostscout capturing objectives.After the beating my Hierofalcon took last turn, they needed to hang out in the woods for a bit.
Turn 4: Engage
I’ve spent the first few turns really trying to avoid a standing fight with a deck that’s programmed to, well, get into a fight. Unfortunately, the eastern row is the only row that was available for scoring on this turn and I’ve been slowly playing ring around the rosie and shifting to the West. So, I moved my Ostscout to turn on the western objective for scoring to cancel out the single objective the deck takes. If I’d been thinking, I should have just used my Charger to turn on the middle objective anyways, but the Charger had a really good opportunity to, well, charge.
When I say that the Charger has a reputation as a “bad mech,” I mean that it doesn’t do the thing you typically expect of an Assault mech. It’s got a lot of armour, sure, but most variants probably do less damage than a standard inner sphere medium mech, so it ultimately feels like a slow scout mech. However, Chargers are (typically) cheap and they are all fast-moving bricks of metal and myomer. If you run a Charger into something, chances are the poor shithead you just clobbered is going to take more damage than you are. So when the Aces deck moved a Nightsky within a few hexes of my Charger, I had a real opportunity to figure out how the charge attack rules play out in a live setting (testing how much I’d actually internalized from reading the rules three or four times before I got to the shop). I declared a charge against the Nightsky and hoped I’d made the right call (spoiler: this was a suboptimal play, but it was Very Funny and Exciting to Do – I will always sacrifice sound tactical play at those twin altars). It’s worth noting that the Nightsky is generally a proud member of the Jumpy Pulse Bastards club and there’s only one variant I can think of that might go out on an ammo crit. They also all uniformly have 5 pips of armour in Alpha Strike, so even a successful charge isn’t going to compromise them in any meaningful way. However, it opens the door for a lucky shot from something else down the line. Once you go internal, you start rolling for crits and even without popping an ammo bin for an instant kill, motive damage is a real good way to take something out of the fight without having to kill it. I also moved my Assassin to get a rear armour shot on the Commando.
The Aces’ Berserker took my eastern objective and I jumped my Hierofalcon into a relatively safe spot to try to get a rear armour hit. This is probably one of those times I really regretted not pumping up the skill for the Hierofalcon as I don’t think I did a lot of damage. Everybody was looking to start some shit with my Spartan.
And finally, in my zeal to try to get into the enemy zone with my Ostsol, I left myself open for a rear shot from the Hatchetman.
My Charger doing what it was designed to do.I’m pretty sure this Hierofalcon had a super disappointing roll because I refused to not jump it every turn and did not upgrade its piloting skill.Another angle on that first shot, showing the Commando giving my Spartan what for. I am also kind of happy how that little dot of white I put on the canopy for the Charger pops in this shot. Definitely did not plan it. Most photos taken in a fugue state.
Turn 5: Evade
Remember when I said I was probably going to have to sacrifice my Spartan to the Aces deck? Well, their time has come. On this turn, the middle and eastern rows are available for scoring. I tried to throw my Spartan on the middle objective on my side, right in the middle of the Berserker, the Commando, and the Bushwacker. My hope was to survive and contest the objective.
The Nightsky I just charged jumped into the trees to cover its rear armour and get line of sight on my Spartan. The rest of the Aces deck immediately moved to clobber my Spartan, and while they were busy throwing a boot party, my Charger sprinted to capture the middle point on the opponent’s side, my Hierofalcon hopped onto the eastern point, and my Ostscout moved to turn on the western objective on the opponent’s side. I am pretty sure the Ostsol turned off the eastern objective to stop the Crusader from scoring, but also received a lot of withering fire for its troubles.
My Assassin finished the job on the Commando, scoring the first and only kill of the game for me.
The Assassin got my only kill of the game and I absolutely hooted and hollered. In the distance, many mechs committing violence against my beautiful Spartan.While the Aces deck was playing Battletech, the majority of my force was out here playing Pointstech.
Turn 6: Endgame
It was getting to be time to wrap things up, so we ran one more turn. I was up by two points at this time. The western and middle rows were available for scoring. I ran my Charger over to the eastern objective to turn it on. I jumped my Ostscout in place to get its TMM up and then used AECM to turn off the western point captured by the Hatchetman. I then ran my Assassin in to turn off the western point captured by the Bushwacker. My Assassin was untouched this entire match, and was able to weather a rear armour shot from the Nightsky. Sadly, my Ostsol succumbed to its wounds after some indirect fire from the Crusader. My Hierofalcon got some rear armour shots on the Hunchback but did not manage to secure a kill.
The Aces deck scores the two middle points, uncontested. I maintain a razor thin lead with that one point scored by my Charger. Game over. Time to pack up.
How do you pick an MVP when you love every mech you put on the table to absolute bits. However, that Charger fuckin whooped ass this mission.That Assassin saved all its armour to tank a point blank rear armour shot from the Nightsky and stop the Bushwacker from scoring this point.
Some Lessons Learned
If I had a set of recommendations I’d make to anyone who’s nervous about putting together a force for a pick up game with a set scenario, it would probably look like this:
Read the scenario first, make a note of any and all specific restrictions. Write them out on a post-it note if you have to while you search for variants to bring to the game.
Have a couple of lists in mind, but plan for:
A list to cover the entire force by yourself
A list that will cover the entire force but can be evenly divided into 2
A few extra options if you need to fit into a larger force comprised of more players.
If you’re new to the game, think about building a list that’s easy to apply to the scenario. You’re going to burn a lot of brainpower just keeping basic rules straight – don’t make it harder than it has to be.
That last bit is probably part of a larger post I’ve been working on as I prepare for an actual-ass convention (but not tournament) in my area in a few weeks. What I put on the table was probably a Bad List, but it was viable in part because I wasn’t playing against an actual human, so they were constrained by the deck of cards (which, to be clear, played super well). It was also viable because I, a dumbass, had a list full of units that could mostly do the same general stuff, just in different ways. My Charger and Ostscout needed to survive because they could score when the storm turned against me and the rest could stop the deck from scoring in the right circumstances. It helped that everything had high TMM and several had stealth, so they were generally more durable. I just didn’t have any meaningful damage output. This is, in part, why I lamented not bringing the Charger C. A little more durable than what I had, *and* it did 6 damage short, 6 damage medium. Live and learn, I suppose.
I’ve got a couple drafts of list building posts in the works right now. One is for a proper matched play Alpha Strike event (not a tournament) in June and another is about list building in general. This is a little different from that and mostly one I began to write in a fugue state yesterday. The game store where I normally play Battletech has a standing drop-in session every Wednesday. Scenarios get posted the previous Thursday so you have the weekend to prepare. I can’t always make it to the drop-ins (I typically manage to get there at least once a month). I cannot overstate how much work the organizers do for these kinds of things. Local game store organizers are beings of pure light and you should thank them for all of their hard work if you haven’t. When they’re not wrangling with the local game store’s management for table space, they’re crafting inventive and fun scenarios that are welcoming to new players and keep things fresh for the old heads. They’re also probably always mediating those two very different crowds so that everyone feels welcome. What’s more, they’re doing this every week. It’s hard to overstate how quickly these kinds of things can just fold if an organizer misses a week or two. Truly thankless, herculean work.
A lot of these scenarios are built with flexibility and timeliness in mind. They don’t know how many people are going to show up on a given night and they have a handful of hours before the store closes. People need to be able to pull up, put their mechs on the board and get going as soon as possible (most organizers will usually have a spare mech or two for folks who don’t have one or are just in the shop and curious). For a host of reasons, I’m not going to post the entire text of this week’s scenario here, but broadly: it’s a recon mission, you can’t take any mechs that move slower than 10″, things like active probes and electronic countermeasures (ECM) interact with the various objectives, as well. Players are expected to show up with mechs that meet the movement criteria and form a force worth 300 PV to play against the opposing force (in this case, handled by a deck of cards to automate things).
ECM is a special ability that typically has a lot of use in pick-up and competitive formats. It creates a bubble around your mech that can disrupt C3 networks (C3 can be really oppressive in Classic and Alpha Strike as it shares targeting data among all the units on a given network). Also, any unit with Stealth armour will have some form of ECM as that’s how the Stealth armour works. You can turn off Stealth and then use ECM to jam C3 networks if you want and it’s partially why I like the Capellans – a lot of their core mechs will usually have a variant or two with Stealth, meaning I don’t typically need to worry about C3 cheese lists. Active Probes or Bloodhound Probes typically only see play if you’re using the optional Battlefield Intelligence rules or playing a narrative campaign. I love it when scenarios find a use for them because you’re still basically paying PV for them even if they’re largely inert for most formats. Also, Battlefield Intelligence, fog of war, hidden information, macro scale engagements – all of that is probably going to be wrapped up in a separate post I’ve been working on as I read through the BattleForce rulebooks.
I’m a pretty anxious person and try my best to be courteous in these situations. Everyone’s here to chuck dice and see robots explode and I’m happy to oblige someone who has like one or two mechs they really want to put on the table, even if they’re costly. I also tend to use these scenarios as a way to push myself forward on painting projects or building out the never-ending spreadsheets I keep making. So when I prepare for a drop-in game, I usually come with a handful of options and I can pick what feels right for the moment. I have my requirements: under 300 BV, ECM, Probe, minimum 10″ movement. Any era or faction.
The first problem is that fast things tend to be fragile. If you’re on a contested objective, you’re also probably going to be short range to your enemy and then it’s up to the dice gods whether or not you get shot off the table. As the game store is a bit of a drive for me, I’d like to be able to stay in the fight for a bit. The last event I went to, I was out pretty quick and contented myself with controlling the battlefield support vehicles. This time, I wanna stick around. So I booted up MegaMek and did a search for Alpha Strike units that were size 3 or 4 (heavy or assault) and moved a minimum of 10″. I’m still going to pick a couple light fragile mechs for funsies, though.
After some research (and some recent gifts from loved ones) I had a short list of mechs I wanted to paint and pilot that would probably do well. I’ll add photos once I’ve finished painting them up.
Thug (THG-13U): this thing’s an assault mech with Ballistic Reinforced Armour (cutting damage in half from ballistic sources). There are a decent number of Assault mechs that can move 10″ – I just don’t have them or don’t have them painted. However, this one also has TSM, so I can overheat it to move a bit farther and hit harder in melee. It also has CASEII, so it’s not going to go down from an ammo crit. No ECM, though. 4/3/1 damage at short/medium/long range. I had a spare Thug hanging around and the local game shop was toying around with a mercenary paint scheme, so I figured this was a good excuse to take a crack at it.
Spartan (SPT-N4): I think I technically painted this one the last time this mission type came up. 10″ movement. Doesn’t hit as hard as the Thug at short range, but can overheat up to 2. It also has CASEII and AMS, so decently survivable. This does have ECM and Stealth, so can contest objectives a little better.
Ostsol (OTL-9M): Now we’re talking. This moves 16″, has decent armour, also has ECM. I’m a sucker for the look of all the Ost* mechs (Ostscout, Ostsol, Ostroc, Ostwar, uh, there’s a lot). Whether I take this one or not is contingent on how well I can manage to paint the canopy which is kind of a fucking nightmare.
Assassin (ASN-109): This was in a recent force pack my partner gave me. In the lore, the Assassin is typically viewed as one of the “worst” mechs in the game. It moves a jump-capable 14″, won’t be winning any fights, but is using Angel ECM (and Stealth). It also has CASEII, so it’s not going down from a random through-armour crit. It’s probably got enough juice to take one punch and maybe limp away. I love this fucking thing so much.
Dola – (DOL-1A or 1A1 – same stats for both): Very fragile, but 16” jump, Angel ECM, and on the off chance it catches a through-armour crit and isn’t already dead, it doesn’t have any ammo to explode on the crit table. I just love the look of this thing and want to force myself to finish painting it. One of the handful of metal minis I’ve put together.
Ostscout (OTT-9S or 8J): The Ostscout is an ECM and recon platform that someone grudgingly handed a boxcutter before they dropped it from orbit. They’re not there to fight, they’re there to turn on all the lil gizmos in their pocket and make the enemy worse through ECM or your force better (through TAG, spotting, C3, etc.). Their damage output isn’t meaningfully different from a Spider, Dola, or Assassin, so I suspect Alpha Strike’s calculations might have rounded up somewhere because those are all mechs I’d use in a fight in Classic, but I probably wouldn’t bother to pick a fight while using the Ostscout. At any rate, I fucking love the new sculpt for this thing and I’ve been waiting to paint the canopy for a while. The 8J is the premium version: 16″ jump, Angel ECM, Bloodhound Probe, and an all energy loadout, so it won’t get ammo critted to death. 33 PV is a lot to pay for it, but it’s not far off from the Assassin: enough armour to probably take a punch and limp away. The inclusion of the Bloodhound probe probably makes this the more efficient choice for this scenario but I do not care. The 9S is a straight budget version of the 8J: Regular ECM, regular Active Probe, less armour, 9 PV cheaper. If we’re splitting hairs like *that* for a casual game then we have bigger problems.
Charger C – This mini was in the same force pack as the Assassin. The Charger is another candidate for “worst mech in the setting” and the mirror image of the UrbanMech (an over-gunned, nearly immobile ambushing mech that is almost useless outside of a city), most Chargers are under-gunned, very mobile assault mechs with way too many weird lil recon toys crammed in there. The Charger C (a lot of inner sphere mechs have “C” variants to indicate versions that have been upgraded with Clan weaponry) is an unholy monstrosity and I’m probably going to wind up with a second mini to paint up for my burgeoning Snow Raven forces. The Charger C moves 16″ and hits like a fucking truck (both in melee and when shooting). It takes seriously the premise of the Charger (big armour, fast, a lot of recon toys) and goes “what if this thing also did a lot of damage?” The biggest fight will probably be convincing someone to let me pilot nearly 1/3 of our allocated PV. At an eye-watering 83 PV, it’s probably one of the priciest mechs I’ve seen or even considered fielding (I went on a whole rant about the Charger C that isn’t super relevant here, so I’ve moved that to the end). I’m going to include the CGR-1X1 card in my doc – same movement and general beefiness, but only does one damage at each range bracket and is 30PV cheaper.
Hierofalcon (Prime, probably, but the A is a little cheaper by 3PV): Also contingent on the paint scheme coming together. I’ve painted the Goshawk (Vapour Eagle) in a scheme I want to share between Snow Ravens and Alyina Mercantile League, but I’ve really struggled to get that consistent on other chassis. Should have just done my desert drab scheme for “every faction that’s not Capellan or Snow Ravens.” This is also an Iron Wind Metals miniature. It’s one of the more recent ones and generally looks good, but some of the details are a little muted by the metal. The Prime moves 12″ on the ground and jumps 16″. It also has ECM and the almighty JMPS1 ability (it adds extra Target Movement Modifier (TMM) when jumping above the usual +1). Its base TMM is 2 and gets that whenever it moves at all. Jumping adds a base +1. JMPS adds whatever number after that, so its TMM goes up to 4. This means that its base difficulty of getting shot (before you calculate intervening woods, pilot skill rating, or range modifiers) is already at 4. A regular skill pilot (4) shooting at short range (so no range modifiers or woods) needs to roll 8 or better on 2D6 to even hit this fucking thing at point blank range. The A is even more gross: it drops the ECM and a few other toys the Prime has but jumps 20″ and has JMPS2. There are four stock mech variants (two of which are the Flamberge, one of the most deeply unfun mechs to play against in the setting), one unique Solaris mech, and one single protomech that have JMPS2. However, I’m less worried about my opponent having fun because my opponent will be a deck of cards automating a bunch of mechs and not an actual human.
Scorpion (SCP-2N): This is just an excuse to put a Scorpion on the table. I love the new sculpt for it and I’ve been sitting on finishing it up for a while now. It’ moves 16″ and is decently tanky, has CASEII. It doesn’t do a *ton* of damage, though. I could upgrade to the Scorpion C to ditch Tag but with a damage profile of 3/2/2 vs. the 2N’s 2/2/0*. It’s a Quad, though, so it will have a narrower firing arc than other mechs and it has comparable cost to a Hierofalcon.
Hunchback (HBK-7S): I have a Hunchback mostly painted and this also has AECM and a Bloodhound Probe. It doesn’t (currently) spark joy. I’ve been emulating a paint scheme that’s basically “grimy Comstar mechs” that I saw on Goonhammer. I mostly like it, but once I saw I could do it, the motivation kind of dropped out from under me. I bet someone else will have this one anyways.
Centurion (CN9-D3D): Just a cheap 16″ movement dork. Once you get into medium mechs, you’re going to find a lot of these guys. The Centurion is one of the first mechs I ever painted, so I have a bit of fondness for it.
Realistically, I’m probably only piloting like one or two mechs off this list, so it’s definitely overkill. I doubt I bring even half these out of the box I transport them in. My current vibe check is: at least the Assassin and maybe the Dola will see some action because they’re both cheap and I will probably advocate for them. After that, Thug or Spartan, whichever I’m feeling more. Then Charger, then Ostsol if I finish it.
On the Charger C and PV in Alpha Strike
To put into perspective just how deliciously unhinged the Charger C is, the Ares ARS-V1C Aphrodite is a superheavy tripod mech. It does 7/7/5 damage (vs. the Charger C’s 6/6/0), has 5 more armour and 6 more structure than the Charger C. And the Ares is a Turret, so it can apply its full damage profile in its rear arc. The Ares mechs aren’t typically something you put into a normal force, you make them a boss fight at the end of a narrative game. The Ares costs three PV less than the Charger C. A good ratio for an “efficient” mech in Alpha Strike is to look at the ratio of PV to mid-range damage and you’re looking for a 10:1 ratio of PV to damage. A 5 damage mid-range mech is generally efficient if it comes in at 50 PV. Obviously higher TMM and movement can skew this a little. Part of why the Charger is so expensive is because it has assault mech armour, decent movement, very solid damage, and a bellyful of recon toys. Normally, something has to give – you want a lot of armour? Get ready to move slow. You want a lot of damage? Get ready to be slow or fragile or both. If you want all the things, get ready to pay for it and honestly? It’s fuckin just about worth it. The Ares is just about in that wavelength, too – not a perfect ratio, but close enough considering the tools it has. Now, the Turkina Z, a mech that is often banned from most formats because it is well past the point of being broken. It’s a mech with so much damage potential that it achieved escape velocity from either BV or PV systems to accurately account for it. The Turkina Z does 15/10/5, has 1 more structure than the Charger C, and also has a fuckton of bits and bobs and toys in it. The Turkina Z only costs three PV more than the Charger C.
The Master Unit List won’t let me search for Alpha Strike units that cost more than 100 PV so I have to assume that’s the ceiling. The only things that are more expensive than the Turkina Z are either siege artillery vehicles or superheavy tanks that are functionally moving garrisons. Most of these have never received official models – probably because the scale of these things should exceed a single hex. You can find STLs online for most of them if that’s the life you want to lead but you’re probably only doing that in a narrative game. The Destrier Siege Vehicle is 90 PV and needs a second line for all its armour pips and is a massive artillery platform with some basic defenses if something gets in close. The Gulltoppr Omnimonitor A is probably the most expensive Alpha Strike unit in the game outside of customs. It’s a nearly efficient 8/9/9, with a juicy 23 armour and 16 structure, but I still don’t think it could take on a single Turkina Z and win consistently.
There’s a larger discussion to be had around the PV system and I need to dig into it a bit. Apparently when Alpha Strike first came out, the formula for calculating PV was explained in the Alpha Strike Companion, so maybe that will answer some of the questions I have. One of the most gnawing questions I have in the back of my head is that Inner Sphere doesn’t quite seem properly balanced against Clans. This is a perennial problem that I think the BV system *mostly* accounts for outside of clear edge cases, but the PV-to-damage efficiency ratio tends to go out of whack with Clan forces. Or put another way: in the lore, the Inner Sphere triumphs over the Clans in a couple of ways: more numerous forces with thicker armour, artillery and battlefield support, and C3 networks. I haven’t quite had that feeling in designing Alpha Strike lists. Finding ways to get Clan tech in the mix is almost always the better decision. The discount on less-efficient Inner Sphere mechs doesn’t quite seem to line up in a way that feels right. Thankfully, that’s easier than ever in the IlClan era as both Inner Sphere and Clan cultures have really had a lot of opportunity to mesh over a century of hating each other’s guts. It’s also a trend I’ve seen with Alpha Strike tournament results (not that I really care about competitive balance in Battletech – one of the enduring appeals is that it’s not striving for that and the rules often stay the same for long stretches) – a lot of people are just playing Jade Falcons because they have direct access to like three of the four JMPS2 mech chassis or Mercenaries (who also have access to two of them in the IlClan era). I’ll probably have more fulsome thoughts after I do some reading and put together some lists for that event in June. Since it’s a casual event, I’ll probably come prepared with a few lists and see how they do (until my brain completely melts and I need to go lie down).
Anyways, I’ll update this post with photos once I get the mechs painted to a reasonable standard and ready to go for tomorrow.
