Campaign Development #1- Where are we going, what are we doing.

The decision to do a Klondike campaign was settled on fairly quickly after the book came out, as I remember.  Myself, I wanted to do a Klondike campaign because I am drawn to origin stories.  I am far more interested in the history and the story of the Clans than I am in playing them in their modern day incarnation.  Bruce is a fan of the Way of the Clan, and in particular of Clan Ghost Bear.  Joel has an affection that almost borders on Fanboy-ness for Wolf’s Dragoons, but most of us went through that at some point or another.  (I blame it on Natasha carrying the Kerensky name in my case; but I’m pretty sure that was one of the developers’ goals.)

Once we had agreed on a Klondike campaign, as opposed to the Red Corsair campaign that had started and died on the vine, the next decision was what planet and what clans.  I read through each of the five planetary campaigns and drew up a short outline of each.  Initially I had thought we would do whatever planet Clans Wolf, Jade Falcon, and Smoke Jaguar were on.  This is what I came up with for Eden:

·         Jade Falcon engages the Khanate in open field battles and allows survivors to escape.  Clan Hell’s Horses sent to back up the Falcons, and the two engage in “honor battles” following “friendly fire” incdent.  Then engage the Sarbat Khanate in a large scale battle (“light battalion of mechs vs. mixed arms regiment).

·         Hell’s Horses used mixed arms to subdue a series of city-states
·         Smoke Jaguars take several cities using “total warfare” tactics.
·         Wolves pacify mostly through negotiation and only to deal with “security matters.” Very few actual combats against mech equipped units.
·         All four clans engage in campaign for Novy Moscva

After reading it, I wasn’t all that excited about the idea of an Eden campaign.  Negotiating with natives makes for good role-play, but not great ‘Mech battles; and using artillery to level whole cities sounds like an exercise in math, not a battle.  Before I got my head too set around one campaign or another, I brought the outlines to the group so we could discuss what we wanted to do.  Arcadia’s write up was pretty bare bones.

·         Adders and Ghost bears drop first, do not support one another.

·         Adders use aerospace to break out and engage in running battle.  Then Shogunate forces attack dropships.  Then attack on a supply convoy.
·         Ghost Bears attack major city Cyaegha.
·         Vipers and Blood Spirit drop together and compete for targets.  Blood Spirits have to mop up after advancing Vipers and protect their rear.  Missions will have to be coordinated and will directly affect one another, will require GM to dictate campaign flow.
·         Long campaign with multiple stages after the initial campaigns listed above.

I actually developed a bit of a fondness for the idea of an Arcadia campaign.  The Star Adder’s predicament seemed to create interesting possibilities; the Ghost Bear’s assault on Cyegha struck me as being a lot of fun, particularly the mission to plant explosives; and the dynamic of the Steel Viper/Blood Spirit campaign struck me as having some really contentious opportunities for player-vs-player scenarios.  The others agreed; Bruce opted for the Ghost Bears (not a surprise), I took the Star Adders, and Joel decided to play the Blood Spirits.  The next step was to decide how to run the campaign.

It was quickly decided to run a Warchest Point campaign similar to the one we had in Sword and Dragon, rather than the one that was in the book.  Bruce and I had both enjoyed that model, and liked having a fixed stable of pilots and ‘Mechs to build stories around.  Having decided on a stable of 40 warriors, to coincide with the history of the clans despite the implausibility of 160 warriors conquering an entire planet, it was time to set a baseline for purchasing equipment and pilots.  I did 3 random builds using the random unit assignment tables (RAT) in the back of the book, assigning most of the unit as veteran (3 gunnery, 4 piloting) with elite (2 gunnery, 3 piloting) star commanders, and a legendary (1 gunnery, 2 pilot) Khan or saKhan.  The 3 builds used different models for selecting units: one force that would be based on 75% mechs, 15% vehicles and 10% aerospace; one unit that was 50% mechs, 20% vehicles, 20% aerospace, and 10% infantry, and one that would be 40% mech and 20% of each of the other 3 categories.  The agreed upon baseline came in at 90,000 modified BV.

Each of the clans was given an appropriate breakdown based on their general philosophy of combat and the fluff information available in Operation: Klondike.  Clan Blood Spirit’s philosophy is that all ground troops should be approximately equal in representation, so their breakdown was 40% mech, 30% vehicle, and 30% infantry, with aerospace being considered a support unit and not requiring the elite warriors that would become the blood-named.  Clan Ghost Bear is a heavy duty unit, and 75% of their force is battlemechs.  The other 25% are divided as 10% aerospace, 7% vehicle, and 8% infantry.  This would change later with the introduction of the Elemental, but that was still over a century away.  The Star Adders take a balanced approach to the forces in combat: 40% are Mechs, 25% are aerospace, 20% are vehicles, and the last 15% is made up of infantry.

This meant we were going to have to learn some new rules.  Up to this point, everything had been Battlemech vs Battlemech combat.  We needed to integrate vehicles, infantry, and aerospace rules.  While we were at it, we might as well add in artillery.

Next Time: Learning the ropes and treads and hover-skirts

Last night I finished painting the second member of the Ivory Six Shooters, Star Cmdr Ge DeMarque's PHX-1b Phoenix Hawk (royal).  Tonight I based and sealed it. 

 

The unit's colors are Blue and Black with White or Gray trim.

 

The logo on the left leg and jump jet is the Star Adder logo (green snake wrapped around a gold star.

 

The 87 on the right is represntative of the of the 87th Dragoons, the official designation of the Ivory Six Shooters.  I thought it would be more appropriate to outline them in white and gray.  Later in their existence they become part of Alpha Galaxy, whose colors are Blue and Black with Gold Trim.  Tomorrow night, hopefully Star Cmdr DeMarque will lead me to victory.





Re-Purposing

This account has been lying languid for years now.  Quite frankly, I quickly burned out on the art-based mysteries I was going to do.  After I read the third book promising to be an art history-conspiracy novel and turned out be nothing more than another woman-discovering-her-inner-beauty-and-finding-love story, I gave up on the whole genre.  Also, I haven't really had anything worth blogging about for a while now, and I'm not so egotistical to believe that anyone wants to read about my day to day life.

HOWEVER, a couple of years ago I rediscovered Battletech and found my friend Bruce is also a fan.  We corrupted our friend and fellow gamer, Joel, into joining us and introduced him to the glory that is giant, stompy robots wandering around the battlefield blowing the hell out of each other.  We played a campaign from the Sword and Dragon starterbook, and I have several of those after-action reports, which we chose to write up as fictional first person accounts, on file.  I may share those over time as well.  They make for interesting little stories.  About a year ago we decided we needed a new campaign, so we all picked up copies of Operation: Klondike and settled on an Arcadia campaign.  In order to fully enjoy it, we needed to expand our knowledge of the rules and move into other areas of combat.  We taught ourselves how to use vehicles, VTOL's, infantry, and artillery.  Finally, we dove into the aerospace rules, which was a fiasco all its own and we still haven't fully wrapped our heads around those, but we're getting there.

A month ago we launched the campaign with a 6-hour session using both 'Mechs and aerospace units.  This blog will be the story of that campaign, the rules we develop for it, a couple of discussions about force design, and pictures of the units we acquire and paint for it.

The players are:
Neil: I was introduced to Battletech in 1990 while I was in college and expirementing with new gaming systems.  I brought it home and introduced it to my brother and some other friends that made up my D&D group at that time.  We played an ongoing campaign in the heady days when FASA was at its height, churning out novels and the clan invasion.  Traditionally, I have always preferred playing the spheroids because I always thought the clans were a little too munchkinny, but they make for good foils and I have come to appreciate the work that goes into their plot lines.  I am playing the Star Adders in the current campaign.

Bruce: The friend that I played the Sword and Dragon campaign with.  Bruce and I have been gaming together in various D&D, Pathfinder, Arcanis, and Role Master campaigns for over 10 years now.  His luck with dice is phenomenal and he frequently destroys whole strategic models with a turn 2 or 3 head shot with a gauss rifle or PPC from long range.  Bruce is playing the Ghost Bears.

Joel: The friend we corrupted.  Joel was introduced to our D&D group by Bruce, they used to work together.  Joel and his wife are very much involved with Rocky Mountain Great Dane Rescue, and usually have between 2 and 4 Great Danes living in their house at any given time.  Sadly, Joel moved to Wisconsin a few months ago and doesn't get to join us for bi-weekly games very much anymore. He still skypes in for D&D and the occasional BT game. Originally he was going to play the Blood Spirits.

Next posting: The planetary and force composition decisions: