After Action Reports from The Front
It’s been well over a year since I last played this game. They’ve updated the mobile app from what I’ve seen.
Time to take another dive into this one.
Heck, I finally ordered Jabba’s Realm for it, just so I can play with that female Mandalorian in the expansion.
That would mean starting a new campaign, even though I’ve barely touched the original one.
Ah well. I’ll figure it out.
Stand by.
I just spent my morning working on something that may never see the light of day.
I created a ‘Mech lance for Battletech.
Gavin’s Grenadiers, a mercenary unit consisting of the above silhouetted mechs.
I also created the Mechwarriors for them:
The names came from an online random name generator.
This is how my brain works sometimes.
I see little plastic or metal game pieces for a game that I haven’t played in years (hell, decades) and I’ll come up with more backstory than necessary for them.
If I had the energy to do so, I’d come up with fiction about them, but I’m not that well versed in Battletech fluff/background.
USS Yorktown CV-5
I decided to try a more difficult campaign in Corsair Leader, so I picked the Battle of the Coral Sea (short campaign, 2 days), which allowed me to use my personal pilot card.
I actually used the ‘skilled’ version of this card, making him the squadron leader.
After assigning skills (gave Gung Ho to 4 pilots who had none, and Attack Run to the Devastator and Dauntless pilots), I drew two targets:
I sent 6 planes after the carrier (Shōkaku, which was damaged in the actual battle), 3 Wildcats (VF-42), 2 Devastators (VT-2), and 1 Dauntless (VB-2). I armed the Devastators and Dauntless with 500lb bombs, when i should have (historically) armed the torpedo bombers (Devastators) with (duh) torpedoes.
They made short work of the carrier and sunk her. The campaign awarded an additional 2 Victory Points for sinking the carrier.
Meanwhile, Saguisag escorted a single Dauntless on a bombing run against the small freighter, which had an additional VP attached to it. Again, they sank the target, with no losses.
The combined Victory Point total for the day was 10 VPs, which gave me a great result, and I decided to give the squadron the 2nd day off.
I think I lucked out on my first day of the introductory campaign, Luzon 1945.
I drew two targets, a large anti-aircraft battery, and photo recon for a secondary mission.
I sent in 5 planes to deal with the AA battery, and they destroyed the target with no losses.
I sent a single plane for the photo recon, and the mission succeeded with no casualties.
Of course, when I first played Phantom Leader, I had the same success at first, then failed miserably during the second day of my campaign.
We will see what happens with the next draw from the Target Deck.