BattleTech - Dawn of the Jihad: Golden Goose

Thursday, Mar 25th @ 7 PM

Personal Log #326
   An ideal situation—our high-up muckety-mucks want us to steal a computer core from a contractor that ripped them off. Nothing truly important in the core; apparently it’s just a lot of accounting data. This is more about revenge than a surgical hit. Though I wonder, given that
these orders came after we’d been assigned to help the Illician Lancers raid Tsingtao in the name of the Federated Suns. Why such a prestigious force needs help from grunts like us I’ll never know. All I see right now is being able to take a few months off and hit the Pleasure Circus on Daniel if we can double-score this mission.
   After all, getting paid twice for one job doesn’t happen often…

SITUATION
Inbound Trajectory
Tsingtao, Capellan Confederation
28 June 3068

   Company higher-ups have “attached” your force to the Illician Lancers, who are conducting a high-impact raid on Tsingtao for Duke George Hasek. However, your services weren’t leased out just for good intentions. Apparently your bosses want you to conduct a side raid to steal a competitor’s computer cores—specifi cally, those owned by Shun-lin Networking, Inc. The cores can be stolen from a few locations on- and above-planet, so you’re getting paid by the Davions to hit a world you were already assigned to hit. Twice the pay, onetime risk. Always a good thing for a mercenary.

GAME SET-UP
   Use Mountain and Wooded Terrain maps. Place one heavy Level 1 (CF 70) building somewhere on the mapboard, preferably near a Heavy Woods hex. The building should be at least seven hexes from the map edge.

Attacker
   The Attacker may comprise up to 50 percent of the players’ total force. The other half of the team is operating with the Illician Lancers to keep suspicion down about the player group’s little side trip. The Attacker begins the track on the map edge farthest from the facility.

Defender
   The Defender comprises a mix of planetary militia and mercenaries hired by the local government. Each of these forces should equal 50 percent of the Attacker’s deployed force, resulting in a total deployed force strength that matches 100 percent of the attackers. When determining forces, locally hired mercenaries roll on
the B column of the Mercenary Random Assignment Table; for the militia, roll on the C column of the Capellan Random Assignment Table. The mercenaries are Veteran, the militia Green. If the defending force includes vehicles, care should be given when determining the motive type, as the militia will deploy only vehicles that
make sense in the terrain being used (for example, re-roll any hover forces for the militia if using any Heavy Woods maps).
   The militia force enters the area at the beginning of Turn 5, while the mercenaries are placed anywhere on the battlefield within eight hexes of the facility at the start of the track.

WARCHEST
Track Cost: 700 WP
Optional Bonuses (all bonuses cumulative):
   +300 Ambush: Change the Defender’s militia force to 75 percent of the Attacker’s deployed force. Half the militia force begins the track as hidden units. The mercenary force remains at 50 percent of the Attacker’s deployed force.
   +200 Mines: As an added defensive measure, the area surrounding the selected facility is seeded with minefields. Add four 10-point conventional minefields
   +200 Electromagnetic Interference (EMI): Tsingtao’s unusually powerful magnetic field fluctuations sometimes cause havoc with ground and close-orbit electrical systems. At the beginning of each turn, roll 1D6 for each powered vehicle, ‘Mech, fighter or armored infantry. On a result of 1, powerful EMI adds a +2 modifier to all ranged weapon attacks for that turn, and all rolls on the Missile Hits Table (regardless of the weapon system used) suffer a –2 modifier. During the turn, all ECM systems in use double their effective range, while all active probes are effectively disabled. The facilities are shielded from such phenomena and remain unaffected, as do units inside the facilities.

Victory Bonuses (bonuses not cumulative):
   +300 Marginal Victory: Completing one objective
   +500 Partial Victory: Completing two objectives
   +900 Total Victory: Completing all objectives

OBJECTIVES
   1. Retrieve the core. One attacking unit must end its movement next to the building hex and remain stationary for five complete turns. This may be shortened to three turns if an ECM is in use around the facility at the same time to assist in defeating the computer security.
   2. Defeat the defenders. Destroy, cripple or forcibly withdraw every defending unit.
   3. Destroy the facility. Ideally, the players’ force should do this after seizing the core.

SPECIAL RULES
   The planetary militia is comprised of regular citizens, not hardened soldiers, and so the Forced Withdrawal rules (see p. 135) apply to these units.

AFTERMATH
   Burning out from Tsingtao, you happen to catch the weekend business report. Though not normally your speed, the slick announcer mentions something about Shun-lin, the company you just stole a computer core from:
   “—announced today the total data failure of their intercommunications network. While not normally worth a major announcement, Shun-lin representatives stated that because of the network failure, the company has lost the new genetic codes for
the pesticide protocol needed to hold back the Chaultapec Virus. Scientists are warning citizens to start stocking up on non-perishable items for the coming winter. The Chaultapec Virus is deadly to native wheat, used in making bread products and the ever-popular Tsingtao beer. In the wake of this news, Tsingtao Bottling’s stock
dropped 110 points on the planetary market—“

NEXT TRACK
   Full Metal Press, Falcon Ptomaine