Jason Wolfe, Star Army Tanks & Mechs battle report
Jul 12, 2022 11:05:24 GMT
brian, ryanmobile, and 3 more like this
Post by stryderg on Jul 12, 2022 11:05:24 GMT
Jason Wolfe walked from the flight line to the HQ tent. The data briefs available onboard the transport ship did not prepare him for the misty weather, stunted plant life and generally dismal environment. Just as well, it fit his mood.
As a freelance mercenary, he had hoped for a quick route to fame and fortune, mostly fortune. That wasn't working out so well. So here he was, on a backwater ball of dirt that somebody thought was worth fighting over. At least with his experience piloting mechs, he wouldn't be slogging through the mud...probably.
"Papers", the nondescript NCO in the HQ tent said, holding his hand out and looking like he would rather be anywhere else. After glancing over the paperwork and consulting a data terminal, he turned to an orderly and barked, "Take Sergeant Wolfe to Fox Company, second platoon. See that they get him settled then get back over here." And with that, he was dismissed.
The orderly was as talkative as the processing NCO had been. Fortunately, it didn't take long to get to Fox Company.
It hadn't taken Jason long to get settled in, figure out the structure of the Free Company he had joined, or figured out how they operated. This was not going to be a permanent home for him. Their camp was disorderly and haphazard, a good indication of how the company was run. At least he would get experience that would be valuable to the next Free Company that he joined, provided he survived this tour.
***
This morning's mission brief was pretty straight forward. A march with the rest of his squad, each peeling off to a designated jump point. Then a simple recon patrol to get the lay of the land and try to find the enemy. "Piece of cake", he thought as he climbed into the Tiger class medium mech that he was assigned to.
On the march to the jump point, he decided that this mech was a piece of junk. It had been maintained about as well as everything else in the Free Company, which meant poorly. The scanner readings were all over the place, range of motion on the arm actuators was limited and it had a slight list, like one leg was shorter than the other. Oh well, at least he was being fed and getting a paycheck, and with any luck he could scout the area and return without making contact.
Waiting at his jump point for the command to go was a strain, wondering how this mech would perform if things got hot. He felt that strain in the tightness of his shoulders and the tic of his left cheek. At least he had found a small wood, so he wasn't a sitting duck if the enemy showed up before he got started.
Finally, the command was given over the radio, and he walked his mech through the woods. Checking his sensors, he could tell there was a small village ahead with some hills behind it. There could be three contacts on the far side of the hills, or they could be false contacts, sensor clutter from the hills themselves.
Finally reaching the edge of the woods, his sensors lit up with another possible contact behind the hills, and a light mech across the open fields in front of him. Maybe the sensors had been maintained better than he thought. The light mech was looking right at him and he could see its guns swinging up.
His mind froze, but his reactions were spot on, firing and scoring a direct and debilitating hit on the light mech just as it also fired, and missed. Watching the secondary explosions got his mind working again, so he checked his sensors and status panels. Everything was green, but his guns needed more time to reload.
While he was distracted, another light mech came out from behind the hills. With his guns still reloading, his only choice was to backtrack into the woods.
With some cover, Jason had a moment to breathe. While looking over his readouts, he noticed a grinding sound that should not have been there. The autoloader! With a few deft motions on the controls, he managed to eject the stuck round which cleared the way for the next round to load, which it did properly.
Now with his guns ready, Jason moved his Tiger to the edge of the woods again. The sudden fire from the light mech made him realize his mistake, not moving first, he came into the light mech's view exactly where he was before. Mentally kicking himself, he tried to get off a shot, but it felt like his mind wasn't talking to his body and his arms weren't working right.
Taking a deep breath, trying to focus on the task at hand, he managed to fire. It looked like the round went straight through the light mechs cockpit! Well, if he could report back, that mech might be salvageable, but it was definitely out of action. With the immediate threat over, Jason looked at his scanners again, and they were clear. Assuming that his scanners were wrong, he gingerly moved forward and patrolled his sector. There were tracks of a mech that looked to have left the area, but that wasn't his mission, so he pulled back and started thinking about what he was going to put into his report.
***
There wasn't a celebration or ceremony, he didn't really expect one. Just a quick handshake, a halfhearted smile and a promotion to section chief. Apparently, not everyone from his section had returned from their first patrol. Now he needed to find a bar so he could figure out how he felt about the new situation.
=============================
My first game of 5150: Star Army, Total War Tanks & Mechs.
I decided to start with a single REP4 Medium Mech, just to see how the rules worked. I should have started as a REP5, but I wanted to leave some room for improvement, and I'm surprised that Jason survived his first mission. He's got 2 attributes, Coward and Rage (leaves battle quicker than normal, but gets to re-roll on that table to stay in the fight). I interpreted that as he's a coward, knows it, and hates himself for it. I'm thinking up a back story for him based on that.
I chose to play as a mercenary, part of a Free Company. Gives me more flexibility in writing his story. His first mission is a Patrol against a planetary defense force, think local army.
The terrain was a small, wooded area where I would come in, an urban area in the middle and a row of hills behind the urban area. 2 PEFs were in the hills and 1 PEF in the open (right in front of the woods).
First Activation: 2&5, PEFs can't activate but they do get reinforcements. So, I added another PEF on the hills. For Jason's move, he comes out of the woods, triggers an InSight and ODs the light mech. But he is stuck reloading until his next activation. Two PEFs stay in place, but the other moves closer and triggers an InSight. It's a light jumper mech. I win on the Action table, but am still reloading, so back into the woods. After rereading this, I realize that the PEFs shouldn't have moved...they rolled a 5 for activation.
Second Activation has the PEFs moving first, but they stay in place since I figured they would be on a defend mission. I rolled too high and couldn't activate.
Third Activation has the PEFs move, then the light jumper, then me. At this point, I lost track of one of the PEFs, one moves closer, and the light jumper opens fire. I messed up this part, because I was in the woods and couldn't be seen. In spite of that, the light jumper shoots and misses. Since I'm still reloading, I hesitate. Now that I'm active I can reload, but the only action I have left is recover from hesitate, so we end the turn with both mechs in sight of each other...because I played it wrong. That shouldn't happen if I had done it right...my mech was in the woods and out of sight.
Oh well, on to the Fourth Activation. the PEF moves in closer, trying to flank me, I activate and shoot the light jumper in front of me, scoring an OD. And am stuck reloading until next active again. Fortunately, the PEFs failed the Will to Fight roll and left the table. Which was probably also wrong. But I was feeling antsy about surviving the next firefight, was running out of play time and decided to take a win (deserved or not).
A good game, even with all of the mistakes I made. I blame it on not keeping track of things and trying to play on a text-based map. Now, on to a second game, probable with the same singe mech and hopefully a new story.
As a freelance mercenary, he had hoped for a quick route to fame and fortune, mostly fortune. That wasn't working out so well. So here he was, on a backwater ball of dirt that somebody thought was worth fighting over. At least with his experience piloting mechs, he wouldn't be slogging through the mud...probably.
"Papers", the nondescript NCO in the HQ tent said, holding his hand out and looking like he would rather be anywhere else. After glancing over the paperwork and consulting a data terminal, he turned to an orderly and barked, "Take Sergeant Wolfe to Fox Company, second platoon. See that they get him settled then get back over here." And with that, he was dismissed.
The orderly was as talkative as the processing NCO had been. Fortunately, it didn't take long to get to Fox Company.
It hadn't taken Jason long to get settled in, figure out the structure of the Free Company he had joined, or figured out how they operated. This was not going to be a permanent home for him. Their camp was disorderly and haphazard, a good indication of how the company was run. At least he would get experience that would be valuable to the next Free Company that he joined, provided he survived this tour.
***
This morning's mission brief was pretty straight forward. A march with the rest of his squad, each peeling off to a designated jump point. Then a simple recon patrol to get the lay of the land and try to find the enemy. "Piece of cake", he thought as he climbed into the Tiger class medium mech that he was assigned to.
On the march to the jump point, he decided that this mech was a piece of junk. It had been maintained about as well as everything else in the Free Company, which meant poorly. The scanner readings were all over the place, range of motion on the arm actuators was limited and it had a slight list, like one leg was shorter than the other. Oh well, at least he was being fed and getting a paycheck, and with any luck he could scout the area and return without making contact.
Waiting at his jump point for the command to go was a strain, wondering how this mech would perform if things got hot. He felt that strain in the tightness of his shoulders and the tic of his left cheek. At least he had found a small wood, so he wasn't a sitting duck if the enemy showed up before he got started.
Finally, the command was given over the radio, and he walked his mech through the woods. Checking his sensors, he could tell there was a small village ahead with some hills behind it. There could be three contacts on the far side of the hills, or they could be false contacts, sensor clutter from the hills themselves.
Finally reaching the edge of the woods, his sensors lit up with another possible contact behind the hills, and a light mech across the open fields in front of him. Maybe the sensors had been maintained better than he thought. The light mech was looking right at him and he could see its guns swinging up.
His mind froze, but his reactions were spot on, firing and scoring a direct and debilitating hit on the light mech just as it also fired, and missed. Watching the secondary explosions got his mind working again, so he checked his sensors and status panels. Everything was green, but his guns needed more time to reload.
While he was distracted, another light mech came out from behind the hills. With his guns still reloading, his only choice was to backtrack into the woods.
With some cover, Jason had a moment to breathe. While looking over his readouts, he noticed a grinding sound that should not have been there. The autoloader! With a few deft motions on the controls, he managed to eject the stuck round which cleared the way for the next round to load, which it did properly.
Now with his guns ready, Jason moved his Tiger to the edge of the woods again. The sudden fire from the light mech made him realize his mistake, not moving first, he came into the light mech's view exactly where he was before. Mentally kicking himself, he tried to get off a shot, but it felt like his mind wasn't talking to his body and his arms weren't working right.
Taking a deep breath, trying to focus on the task at hand, he managed to fire. It looked like the round went straight through the light mechs cockpit! Well, if he could report back, that mech might be salvageable, but it was definitely out of action. With the immediate threat over, Jason looked at his scanners again, and they were clear. Assuming that his scanners were wrong, he gingerly moved forward and patrolled his sector. There were tracks of a mech that looked to have left the area, but that wasn't his mission, so he pulled back and started thinking about what he was going to put into his report.
***
There wasn't a celebration or ceremony, he didn't really expect one. Just a quick handshake, a halfhearted smile and a promotion to section chief. Apparently, not everyone from his section had returned from their first patrol. Now he needed to find a bar so he could figure out how he felt about the new situation.
=============================
My first game of 5150: Star Army, Total War Tanks & Mechs.
I decided to start with a single REP4 Medium Mech, just to see how the rules worked. I should have started as a REP5, but I wanted to leave some room for improvement, and I'm surprised that Jason survived his first mission. He's got 2 attributes, Coward and Rage (leaves battle quicker than normal, but gets to re-roll on that table to stay in the fight). I interpreted that as he's a coward, knows it, and hates himself for it. I'm thinking up a back story for him based on that.
I chose to play as a mercenary, part of a Free Company. Gives me more flexibility in writing his story. His first mission is a Patrol against a planetary defense force, think local army.
The terrain was a small, wooded area where I would come in, an urban area in the middle and a row of hills behind the urban area. 2 PEFs were in the hills and 1 PEF in the open (right in front of the woods).
First Activation: 2&5, PEFs can't activate but they do get reinforcements. So, I added another PEF on the hills. For Jason's move, he comes out of the woods, triggers an InSight and ODs the light mech. But he is stuck reloading until his next activation. Two PEFs stay in place, but the other moves closer and triggers an InSight. It's a light jumper mech. I win on the Action table, but am still reloading, so back into the woods. After rereading this, I realize that the PEFs shouldn't have moved...they rolled a 5 for activation.
Second Activation has the PEFs moving first, but they stay in place since I figured they would be on a defend mission. I rolled too high and couldn't activate.
Third Activation has the PEFs move, then the light jumper, then me. At this point, I lost track of one of the PEFs, one moves closer, and the light jumper opens fire. I messed up this part, because I was in the woods and couldn't be seen. In spite of that, the light jumper shoots and misses. Since I'm still reloading, I hesitate. Now that I'm active I can reload, but the only action I have left is recover from hesitate, so we end the turn with both mechs in sight of each other...because I played it wrong. That shouldn't happen if I had done it right...my mech was in the woods and out of sight.
Oh well, on to the Fourth Activation. the PEF moves in closer, trying to flank me, I activate and shoot the light jumper in front of me, scoring an OD. And am stuck reloading until next active again. Fortunately, the PEFs failed the Will to Fight roll and left the table. Which was probably also wrong. But I was feeling antsy about surviving the next firefight, was running out of play time and decided to take a win (deserved or not).
A good game, even with all of the mistakes I made. I blame it on not keeping track of things and trying to play on a text-based map. Now, on to a second game, probable with the same singe mech and hopefully a new story.
