Big Battletech

The thing about Battletech: Alpha Strike is that the mechs and rules are massively simplified, which enable to play with far more toys on the table. Which is how, last night, we found ourselves playing a game with three players a side and over 70 mechs on the table.

Darren put together some lovely terrain. Scattered across the table are the red mechs - some kind of corporate samurai faction. This was their light company; off-table you can see the other two companies (medium and heavy) which would come on as reinforcements.

Opposing them was a group of mercenary mechs (the beige figures entering from the foreground). They had to fight their way to some objectives on the far side of the table. Initially all that stood in their was were the red light mechs.

Frankly we (for I was part of the mercenary team) made heavy weather of them. Specifically I did, showing a spectacular inability to hit them - for example over a couple of turns I took twelve shots at one opposing mech and score two hits. In one volley I rolled 2,3,and two 4s on 2D6 as my rolls to hit. It was pathetic.

We did manage to push forward on the flanks where there weren't so many enemy mechs.

Of course the reinforcements turned up before we'd even made a significant dent in the starter. Here two of Stuart's light mechs regret their decision to push forward so rashly, although you can just see a third that's jumped into the rear of the advancing reinforcements.

I sent a lance of heavy mechs down the other flank. They weren't fast, but with no opponents to shoot at they could sprint.

A view of the centre. In the foreground my other heavy mechs continue to fail to hit anything regardless of range. In the centre our other mechs gang up on some enemy lights.

A wider view. Top left you can see my flanking force pretty much at one of teh objectives, with the Red Perils reacting to it. Enemy lights are being mobbed in the centre, but there's a lot of heavier reinforcements on the way.

Weight of numbers (as well as weight of weight) actually does its work and a lot of enemy lights are finally polished off.

But this is what we'd now have to fight through. 

It was all a bit much. And it was getting late. So we called off the attack.

It was a fun game, although we were running a lot of stuff with some very inexperienced players, so the game didn't play as quickly as we'd hoped.

Thanks to Darren for putting it all together and to everyone else for an entertaining evening and for not mocking my terrible, terrible die rolls too badly.