Battletech: Sword and Dragon - Touchpoint: Cassias

[ravehnhuhrxt]

Thursday October 1st @ 7 PM

Touchpoint: Cassias

   We burned hard for Cassias after the Sunrise picked up a Kurita raiding group inbound for Cassias. Over two days of weighing twice what we should have with only brief respites as Captain Moran cut acceleration back every six hours.
   I guess it was worth it. We grounded at the firebase just minutes ahead of the Snakes— just enough time to get two lances into the field to meet them. Conditions were terrible— high winds and driving rain made the ground
treacherous and really messed with our sensors.
   Of course, Captain McKinnon found a way to use that against the foe…
—From the journals of Daniel Waylen (3049)

SITUATION
Outskirts of Firebase Xingo
Cassias, Federated Suns
28 February 3049

   During a standard supply pickup at Cassias’ zenith point, the Idaho Sunrise detected the arrival of a Combine JumpShip. When the Combine vessel dispatched a DropShip that sped off towards Cassias, Captain McKinnon knew he had a duty to intercept and defend the planet. The Galloping Ghost burned after the Dragon ship but was unable to catch it before it disgorged several BattleMechs over the Tiber Valley industrial basin.
   Determined to stop this Combine raid cold, McKinnon grounded the Galloping Ghost nearby and unloaded several of his units as fast as possible, racing to intercept the DCMS troops before they could do any damage. The Raider’s lances caught the Dragon’s troops outside Firebase Xingo.

GAME SET-UP
   The Defender sets up two mapsheets, meeting up the shorter edges. The Attacker determines his starting edge, with the objective edge being on the opposite edge of the battlefield.

Attacker
   The Attacker consists of two lances of the Thirty-second Galedon Regulars, a DCMS House force. The Regulars must use the Kuritan portion of the Opposing Forces Table. To determine the Regular’s force composition, roll on the following table:

1D6 Force Composition
1     5 Light, 3 Medium
2     4 Light, 4 Medium
3     3 Light, 5 Medium
4     1 Light, 4 Medium, 3 Heavy
5     4 Medium, 4 Heavy
6     2 Medium, 4 Heavy, 2 Assault

   The Attacker enter s from the designated objective edge. The Attacker’s forces should be determined before the Defender has selected his forces.

Defender
   The Defender consists of any two lances of Fox’s Teeth. One lance enters from the Attacker’s starting edge at the beginning of the second turn. The other lance enters the game from the opposite edge at the beginning of turn four.

WARCHEST
   Track Cost: 400 WP, completion of Touchpoint: Valentina
   Optional Bonuses (points are gained if at least one Objective is completed with following optional rules, all bonuses cumulative):
   +100 Veteran Attackers: Assign half of the Attacker’s units with Piloting, 4 and Gunnery, 3 skills.
   +100 Heavy Rain: Rain obscures vision, so apply a +1 to-hit modifier to all weapons fire made in rainfall. Additionally, apply a +1 modifier to all Piloting Skill Rolls.

OBJECTIVES
   1. Seek and destroy. No more than two units of the Attacker’s force can be allowed to exit the designated edge. (Reward: 500)
   2. Hammer. Cripple / destroy at least half of the Attacker’s forces. (Reward: 500)

SPECIAL RULES
   The following rules are in effect for this track:

Forced Withdrawal
   The Regulars are operating under the Forced Withdrawal rules (see p. 60).

Salvage
   The Defender receives salvage from this track if the second Objective is attained.

Off-Map Movement
   The Defender may assign up to half its force with Off-Map movement orders. This may only occur once during the track.

AFTERMATH
   One of a series of tit-for-tat raids that the Federated Suns and Draconis Combine were exchanging up and down the frontier, the Kurita raid on Cassias had the misfortune to blunder into the Fox’s Teeth just short of their objective.
   Using the deteriorating weather conditions for cover, Ian McKinnon was able to insert his hurriedly deployed troops— catching the approaching Thirty-second Galedon Regulars in a deadly crossfire and sending the survivors scurrying back to
their DropShip.

NEXT TRACKS
Recon, Assault, Defend, Beachhead, Touchpoint: Dust-up

[ravehnhuhrxt]

After Action Report:

We played the Touchpoint: Cassias misson from Sword and Dragon.   The players were the Fox's Teeth and I played the OpFor, 2 lances of the 32nd Galedon Regulars.

One Optional Rule was used, the Veteran Attackers.

OpFor consisted of 4 mediums and 4 heavies.

Grasshopper, Dragon, Quickdraw, Jagermech, Clint, Whitworth, Assassin and Cicada

Fox's Teeth mechs were:

Dervish (Alvares Matteo), Black Knight (Ian McKinnon), Centurion (Paul Danton), Cataphract, Grasshopper, Catapult, Hatchetman (Austin Vorster), Enforcer (Daniel Waylen)

The scenario took place on the river delta maps, taking away any speed advantages the Regulars might have had.

First round saw the Regulars making as much headway they could while they didn't have to worry about pursuit with 3 on the north side of the map and the remaining 5 of the south side of the map.

Second and third rounds came and went with the Regulars moving with as much speed as they could while taking mostly ineffectual fire from the Foxes. The Assassin and Clint made the most headway jumping as far as they could go while the Dragon, Quickdraw and Jagermech sent some long range firepower acrossed the map at the Foxes.

The remaining Foxes entered on round to try and cut off the Regular's escape while the pursuing mechs pounded away on the "northern" Regulars. The Cicada and the Whitworth took the brunt of the damage in the north while the Clint and Assassin took some damage from the newcomers but this wasnt' enough to prevent the Assassin from jumping off the objective edge and escaping.

The fifth round saw the destruction of the Cicada while the whitworth continued onward despite the pounding it was taking, finally being destroyed in the sixth round. The clint had its gyro destroyed in the fifth round and it collapsed to the bottom of the river it was standing in.  By the end of the sixth round, only 4 Regulars remained on the board while the Foxes were relatively unscathed.

The seventh round saw the Quickdraw take a TSM assisted Hatchet hit from the Black Knight destroying/crippling the required 4th unit for the players to achieve Objective 2.

We had to call the game since it was midnight, but figured the overwhelming forces of the players would take out the Dragon and the Jagermech while the grasshopper would escape; The desctruction of 6 of the 8 Regulars would allow the players to achieve objective 1 as well.

The players mechs didn't take much damage, mostly armor with the exception of the Dervish who took quite a bit of damage.

Next up....Touchpoint: Dust Up