Training Day 1 (Battletech Aces: Scouring Sands)

 Now that I have finished the Forgotten Ruin campaign, it is time to play Battletech Aces. The first training scenario involves four Inner Sphere mechs fighting two Clan mechs. These are all mechs found in the Alpha Strike boxed set.

Set-up. The 8th Sword of Light face off against a pair of Rasalhague Dominion mechs

To help you get to grips with using the Aces automa for the hostile force, the scenario is set up as fully programmed with all the dice rolls done for you. It tells you where to move your figures and walks you through reading the Aces cards to determine what the hostile force does. I did this once to get my head round it, then I played the scenario out properly.

The forces comprise, on the Draconis Combine side, an Archer, a Warhammer, a Phoenix Hawk and a Locust. Facing them are a Rasalhague Dominion Timber Wolf and Pouncer. In theory, the advantage lies with the Inner Sphere mechs, because they are worth more points.

The Timber Wolf moved into cover of the building ahead of it, dodging around to get a good shot at the Archer, which had moved into the woods in front of it, supported by the Warhammer. Meanwhile, the Pouncer had also moved into the woods ahead of it as the Locust and Phoenix Hawk raced forward, using buildings as cover. Before it knew it, the Pouncer had a Locust standing right behind it hammering it. Unphased, the Pouncer pilot let rip a carefully aimed shot at the Phoenix Hawk, scoring a freak critical that damaged its engine. The Timber Wolf was busily hammering the Archer from range at this point. Despite its best efforts, the Pouncer could not shake the Locust, whose persistence was rewarded. The Pouncer was pounded into the ground, leaving the Timber Wolf on its own.

"We have you now, cursed clanner!"

The four Inner Sphere mechs closed in on the lone enemy mech, surrounding it. However, the Timber Wolf pilot was canny and spotted an opportunity. He moved to close with the Locust and blew it apart, while keeping his mech far enough away that the Inner Sphere weapons all missed him.

"Oh no you don't, spheroid scum!"

Then he gunned his engine and raced in behind the Archer, firing everything he had at it, causing the heat in his cockpit to jump massively.The Archer slumped to the floor, a pile of slag. The rest of the lance retreated.

Conclusions

As far as this game went, the clanners had the dice on their side. They won the initiative every single turn of this five-turn scenario. They also scored a through-armour critical against the Phoenix Hawk, and trashed the poor Locust and Archer with an unfeasibly high number of normal hits that took out the structure of both mechs in no time at all. Meanwhile, the spheroids missed a lot of the time, and the two times they scored a chance of a critical hit, the result was 'no critical hit'. It reminded me of playing my brother and my friend, both of whom score lots of crits while I always seem to roll the 'no critical hit' result. It was lucky for me that the Locust was able to dance around the Pouncer and pound it in the back or I might not have taken out even one of the enemy mechs.

The automa worked well, giving me a few surprises and leading to a fun game. It took a bit of getting used to. There area a bunch of icons on the cards that you need to get familiar with. Fortunately, there is a cheat sheet on the back of the rulebook, which helps a lot. Working through the priorities lists that you are given and remembering to stop when you meet the conditions of one of them is also a mental hurdle. However, that will come with more practice. The play by play walkthrough really helped both with remembering where to stop and just apply the conditions and with making the conditions for choosing actions make sense. Movement is the more complex part of this, with a good chance of you having several possible end points for the move, but it did not make my brain ache too much. I should note at this point that the rules include a note to just relax and not fret if you get something wrong. Important and good advice. My solo gaming became way more enjoyable once I achieved that realisation.

Now I need to read the rules again to trying to fix them in my brain before playing the second training scenario. That one features all the mechs from the Alpha Strike boxed set, so it will be interesting to see how long it takes to play out.

1 Sviftmont 1000 AC - In Search of a Dragon

 Broneslav awoke early and packed his gear. He thought about what was happening back in Karameikos. It would be autumn there, but here it still felt warmer than high summer. He also worried about his ship. Would the captain return for him? He knew that he had stayed out in the jungle longer than planned, but he had also given the captain instructions on what to do. If he was lucky, the captain had been canny enough to trade on his behalf and earn him a good bit of silver into the bargain. It was really too late to worry about that now though.

Bidding goodbye to the villagers, he set out on his next adventure. It would involve a circuitous route round the plateau, unless he got lucky and found a way down the huge cliffs on the north-east side. He had rope and climbing gear with him, so it would be possible to do so. He mused on the problem as he followed the guide from the village using a much easier route out than the one he had climbed to get in.

Saying farewell to his guide, Broneslav set out across the plateau, glad of the relatively easy going for now. Ahead he could see mountains and he knew that the going would be slower and tougher in a day or so.

Cresting a low rise, he stopped suddenly and ducked back. A huge lizard was grazing on scrubby bushes about 100 metres ahead of him. The beast was about half the size of the ship he had sailed here in and stood twice as high as Broneslav himself. It had three massive horns on its head and a huge bony frill protecting the back of its head. It was intent on its meal and did not appear to have noticed him. He skirted the area warily in case it spotted him, but the triceratops was too intent on its food.

By the end of the day, the young warrior had reached the edge of the plateau. He found shelter and made camp in a concealed spot. Tomorrow would involve climbing and he intended to be well-rested for that.

Cartaventura Vinland: The Queen of VInland

 Following on from my last adventure, Freydis Eiriksdottir chose to do what her wimpy, Christian brother did not. Despite Freydis refusing to accept prima signatio, her mother Thjodhild gave Freydis her blessing and told her to be careful and to change her underwear regularly while she was travelling. It would not do to be killed by monstrous sea beasts while wearing dirty underwear.

Freydis gathered a crew including the carpenter Helgi, whose brother she had saved from a slavering Jotun, and set out for Vinland. She also added Thorbjorg the seer to her retinue and saved her younger brother's life from some type of pestilence thanks to an elixir she gained from the light elves.

The journey was largely uneventful, if only because the crew steered clear of the large sea serpent they saw on the way. Every time Freydis sought to close with it and attack it, the ship seemed to get pushed away by the waves. How ever did that happen?

Landing in Vinland, Freydis and her crew gathered supplies, only for one of their number to be eaten by a uniped. Freydis drove the beast off by yelling and pounding her naked breast with her sword. Then she singlehandedly drove off a Kraken that sought to drag her ship under. And finally, Freydis and her crew landed in Vinland, where they set up serious wine production, only for Freydis to get a rotten taste in her mouth when Thorfinn karlsefni turned up with his simpering, Christian bride Gudrid. As a strong, viking woman with no liking for the white Christ, Freydis drove them off.

Unfortunately, the livestock started getting stolen at this point. Freydis did not have enough men to take on the locals who were enjoying this food, so she was forced to return to Brattahlid in Greenland, where she told me this tale that I have relayed in her own words with no embellishment or adornment.

Skål for Queen Freydis of Vinland!

Our story will return to Leif next time I pick up this game.

N.B. Freydis does not come off well in the Vinland sagas. She is murderous and inclined to do nasty things to people she does not like. Most people remember her driving off indigenous people by baring her breast and beating on it with a sword she had picked up, and admire her for that bravery. However, the treachery towards Helgi and Finnbogi and the instigation of their murder is often forgotten. Fortunately, in this game she did not have them killed yet. Maybe next time?

Jessing the Falcon (Alpha Strike)

 The Alyina Mercantile League had put out the call for help and the Full Throttle Lemmings had responded. The terms of the contract were generous because the Hinterlands were full of opportunity for those that sought it, so companies were always busy. A remnant of Clan Jade Falcon was standing in the way of the AML's newest business opportunities and the AML had declared that this aggression should not stand. The meeting with the factor had been interesting and had given Jai the opportunity to practise her sales spiel, even though it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that the Lemmings would get this contract.

 "You see," Jai Rator, CEO of the Full Throttle Lemmings, explained to the factor, "The lemming of ancient Terra was a ferocious creature. Despite its small size, it could bring done prey much larger than itself. A swarm of lemmings could fall on a fully grown heffalump and reduce it to just bones in less than a minute. Lemmings were so ferocious and committed to the hunt that they would even throw themselves off cliffs en masse to land on the prey below. They originated the death-from-above attack, you know. That is why we have adopted them as our nomme de guerre and company name. We may not be the largest mercenary company around, but our commitment to ferocity and teamwork has ensured that the company has lasted for over one hundred years."

The factor looked sceptical about this biology lesson. They had never heard of lemmings before though, so perhaps it was true. There were many strange creatures out there in the universe.

"Now," continued Jai, "let me show you our current roster of mechs and vehicles. You will notice that we tend to keep them in the livery of their original owners, apart from painting the head and shoulders in our Lemming colours. We want our foes to know that we do not fear them and find it enrages or unnerves them, so they make mistakes that we can take advantage of."

She stood up and led the recruiter out into the mech bay, where the company was being serviced before the next contract.

(L to R) Wasp, Archer, Phoenix Hawk, Devastator, Wolfhound, Centurion, Spider, Mad Cat (Timber Wolf)

Jai was pleased with the newly signed contract and with the fact that she could continue the family tradition of drinking and fighting in this way. It had not always been easy to keep the Full Throttle Lemmings going while she had been CO of the company, but she had managed it, and she was sure her great-great-grandmother Jennie would be proud of what she had done with them. Now, of course, Jai had to get the company through this next campaign without going bankrupt, which would mean trying to get her pilots to care about damaging their mechs. She reviewed the resources available to her for this contract and assigned two lances and support units to it. The units assigned were the best fit she could manage based on budget and utility. They would have to do. At least she knew she could mostly rely on the ground commander Tom Skalle, who had been with the company for a while now, to try to nurse them through this campaign. For her own part, she was stuck with doing the company accounts again. The Mercenaries Review Board was demanding a full audit. Honestly, she would rather face a Dire Wolf in a Locust than wade through all these numbers with her accountants.

(L to R) Patton, Savannah Master, Patton, J. Edgar, Savannah Master, J. Edgar

The force listed below, and pictured here, will be my assigned unit for my first run through Battletech Aces: Scouring Sands. I have no idea how effective it will be. It was designed around using mainly unpainted figures from my collection, so that I was pushed to paint them. The mechs I assign to the Full Throttle Lemmings are always those that are left over after I have allocated mechs to regular forces, which I feel is as good a way as any of simulating salvage and the vagaries of the market for an irregular force.

The force is heavy on lights and mediums, with a couple of heavies and an assault mech in support. The Savannah Masters are present for fast scouting and scanning of objectives. The tanks are there as additional cheap and relatively quick support. The Lemmings prefer highly mobile tactics and I have designed with that in mind, even though I know that light mechs tend to go up in smoke with just one hit in Alpha Strike. Wish me luck!

In terms of content, I am going with the recommended 4 named pilots. These are the heroes with the potential to improve and earn special abilities. I have also saved 2 points to convert to Support Points so that I have a small warchest available for paying the named pilots and hopefully enough to cover repairs if things go completely sideways in an early mission.

Roster

Named Pilots

• Tom 'Headcase' Skalle (Mech Pilot)
• Anne 'Goldfish' Rikke (Mech Pilot)
• Turi 'Ironwood' Skogen (Mech Pilot)
• Lene 'Dodger' Stolen (Combat Vehicle Pilot)

Units (399 PV + 40 SP)

• Archer ARC-5R
• Centurion CN-10D
• Devastator DVS-2
• Mad Cat (Timber Wolf) B
• Phoenix Hawk PXH-9
• Spider SDR-8K
• Wasp WSP-5A
• Wolfhound WLF-2
• J. Edgar Light Hover Tank
• J. Edgar Light Hover Tank
• Patton Tank
• Patton Tank
• Savannah Master (Reflective)
• Savannah Master (Reflective)

1st Falcon Sentinels (Battletech)

 The local games shop got a stock of Battletech Aces: Scouring Sands, so I took the opportunity to buy it. I cannot remember being this excited about a game in a long while. Aces is a solo engine for Alpha Strike and is designed to be used with the Alpha Strike boxed set, although you could easily get into it with Alpha Strike Commander's Edition rules plus some mechs of your own.

The boxed set includes the Aces rules and cards, two training scenarios that use the mechs from the Alpha Strike boxed set, and a campaign together with seven mechs and two vehicles that constitute the opposing force for the included campaign. There are also the counters needed to play and some card terrain. If you have Aces and the Alpha Strike boxed set, then you can get started immediately because you have all the mechs and terrain needed. Obviously, having a wider selection of mechs for your mercenary scum is always an advantage, but it is not essential.

The miniatures from the boxed set

Now that I have the set, it is clear that game play is not limited to what comes in the box, but that you can use the solo engine for any Alpha Strike game. It comes with activation cards for all the core mech roles, so you are not limited to what comes in the box. My own plans will be to use this with various of the supplements, such as the Historical Turning Points: Galtor pack set in 3025, the Operational Turning Points: Falcon Incursion or Hot Spots: Hinterlands among others. There are almost too many possibilities, and no doubt my ambitions are greater than my ability to achieve all of them!

Bane 3

Marauder IIC 10

Thunderbolt IIC

As I mentioned, I was really excited for this boxed set, so much so that the first thing I did on getting it was to sit down and paint the figures that came with it. No waiting to let the figures mature in the pile of unpainted lead/plastic here. Nope, straight down to the painting and a week later they are all coloured in. They won't win any painting competition prizes but I am happy.

Summoner H

Rifleman C 2

I no longer remember why I chose them, but I decided a while back that my Clan Jade Falcon force would be the 1st Falcon Sentinels, so that is who this mob belongs to. I'll post my thoughts on the rules as I get into the campaign, whenever that is, but these are the first members of my dirty clanner unit that will also provide an opfor in Clan Invasion and Hinterlands campaigns at some point.

Howler 6

Locust IIC 4

These mechs will be supplemented with those I need for the Hinterlands campaign based on the opposing forces in that book to fill out a larger force and provide some variety of baddies for the Full Throttle Lemmings to fight.

Fulcrum hover tanks

The Scouring Sands campaign includes support units such as emplacements, foot infantry, Elementals in power armour and so forth. It provides the figures for the Fulcrum hover tanks above and counters for other support units so you can get started right away. However, I had a box of Elementals lying around, so I quickly painted them up too. After all, it is a miniatures game, so miniatures are better than counters in this context.

Clan Elementals

Hopefully, I can replace the other provided counters with miniatures at some point, but for now the goal has to be playing the campaign with what I already have, because my other goal is not to buy more new miniatures until I have painted much more of what I already have.

With the OpFor ready, I now need to design my own campaign force to face off against them. That force will include some unpainted mechs to push me to paint more of the Pile of Shame/Opportunity. But first, I need to return to the Forgotten Ruin campaign and finish that.

21-28 Ambyrmont - Recovery

 Broneslav awoke the next morning feeling tired. He had slept badly because of his wounds. It would take a little while, even with the shaman's help, to fully recover, so he decided to stay at Mantru until then. It felt good to be able to leave off his armour and just potter around. Without headhunters to attack it, the village was peaceful, and the villagers were grateful to him for his help. He spent a week swimming, fishing and generally doing light work around Mantru until his wounds had fully healed. Rest and the shaman's spells had done their job.

In addition to healing, Broneslav had been listening to the tales told by the people of Mantru. The did not travel far from their crater home, but they were aware of events across the island through infrequent contact with the other dwellers there. Most of these tales were of dangers from giant lizards to the north-west and a dragon to the north-east.

Here's a green dragon I prepared earlier!

"The dragon flies over occasionally, but it has not attacked our village," Fano, the talking chief, informed Broneslav one day, "We are surely tiny morsels, not even snacks for this beast, compared to the huge lizards that live to the north-west of here."

This talk of a dragon piqued Broneslav's interest. He was keen to slay a red dragon and this might be his chance, if he were lucky. He also wondered about the lizards to the north-east. Were they also dragons? Or were they something else entirely? He had never heard of giant lizards that were not dragons. Well, if he survived the dragon, he would find out.

Forgotten Ruin: After-campaign thoughts

 Well, that's the campaign over. How was it really?

The rules work well and are simple enough to implement. I like the whole 5 Distance from Place series of rules, because they are easy to administer when playing solo and do not cause me a headache. There are differences between each book that give a slightly different feel to the games. Forgotten Ruin worked on that basis. If you want a game where modern soldiers go up against hordes of fantasy critters, it will give you that game.

One element of Forgotten Ruin that was particularly cool was the transformation of soldiers. Because of the magical environment, they "mutated", so I wound up with a paladin, a werecat and a beastman in my troop. I avoided problems of finding appropriate figures by using ones that wore full body armour, thus obviating the need to do head swaps or conversions, and by avoiding transformations that would not be concealed by that armour. If I had rolled up the centaur transformation, I would have needed to seriously look around for new figures and do some conversion work. I would also have had the character make lots of jokes about being hung like a horse, so the storytelling could have been entertaining, although not necessarily to everyone's tastes.

Where it did not work as well for me was in the missions. They all felt a bit samey. Essentially, my team went in, did a lot of shooting and grabbed the objectives, whatever they were. It was not always plain sailing, but mostly it was a simple matter of applying as much firepower as possible to the problem until it went away. This led to me struggling to choose to go after any artefacts in the run-up to the final battle. I was really not sure if I could be bothered or if I should just get on with the final battle and not worry about the potential three other games.

In the campaign, you fight your way through twelve areas and pacify them. Then there is the choice to go after up to three artefacts to help you in the final battle, after which you fight out that final battle against hordes of enemies with last person standing being the winner. That means thirteen to sixteen potential missions. You can take a break to let your troops recover, resulting in one fewer mission to fight, but I decided early on that I would only do that if my troop leader took a bad hit. Given that the three artefact missions were just a race across to the artefact and then back to your starting lines, the missions did not seem that interesting so I went straight for the grand finale.

I had also not planned ahead properly, and reached the final battle suddenly realising that I did not have enough friendly force figures. Fortunately, I was able to sub in some Red Redemptionist Rebels as the supporting troop. This would not have been a problem if I lived in the same country as most of my figures, but that is a whole other gripe. Still, it did force me to get on and paint the Rebels, so it was not a wholly bad thing. I have had some of those figures since the 80s, and they were still unpainted!

One other issue I had with the campaign was the abilities and weapons of my soldiers. I kept forgetting to use the abilities. I should have made cards for the abilities and for the weapons to remind me.

Overall, the game was an amusing diversion. I am not sure I would want to play it as an extended campaign. At times it felt like it did not have enough depth, and I did not really engage with the characters in the same way that I normally do. For that reason, I am uncertain whether I shall pick up Tiger Troop and send them on more adventures, but perhaps the urge will strike again. As I type this, I am thinking about the possibility of converting figures for the game, which would be a good reason to dive in once more.

It might also be fun to set up individual scenarios to play with a friend rather than to run through the full campaign once more. The game would probably feel quite different for the special forces player if the enemy were controlled by another person instead of the system, and it would likely have a very colonial wars feel to it too.