Friday brought what is certainly one of the biggest and possibly the best gaming experiences I have had at G&G to date: a game-mastered Battletech scenario on one of the largest tabletops we have ever played on, filled to bursting with 3D-printed scenery including rivers, hills, buildings of various sizes, an elevated roadway and an immense wall bisecting the battlefield.
Jeff supplied the scenery and mechs while Scott ran the show, describing the mission as a followup from another one run in his Wednesday night Mechwarrior campaign. Those players had rushed into a starport city in order to disable the large-calibre howitzers ("Long Toms") and then dashed out before the swift patrol of light mechs could engage them. As the two mercenary companies involved in last year's head-to-head G&Golden Griffon fight, our job was to assault the same site and destroy two key buildings and the gargantuan mech defending the area (a 100-ton Atlas) before those same self-propelled guns came back online.
The city's wall was the mid point of the map, and in addition to the same recon lance that had chased out the sappers, we had to contend with a tremendous array of turret emplacements armed with large lasers and class 20 autocannons. Oh, and all while being shelled by smaller artillery pieces called "Snipers".
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| The orange markers are impact craters courtesy of enemy art'y |
Once past the wall, we would need to deal with several infantry companies defending the artillery (who thankfully could not fire inside their own city!) supported by two squadrons of tanks (one hover-capable squadron), and two heavier mechs as well as the dreaded Atlas itself.
In order to make the game as engaging as possible, Scott had also prepared a number of cards with smaller objectives written on them, such as the first player to rally their own side or first mech to cross the wall. Each of these carried a tonnage bonus (and a funny, relevant pop-culture quote) which that player could add to whatever else they destroyed n the game. This meant that there could be some internal competition overlayed on the cooperative mission.
The colossal map and the fact that Scott was the only opposing player meant that it took us quite a while to even get to the wall, and the game took almost six hours to complete, but I heard no complaints. The number of opponents and the variety of objectives kept all the players engaged, even the ones tied up outside the wall fighting the recon lance.
I got the "O Captain, My Captain" award for interrupting our deployment to suggest ignoring the enemy recon lance and going up one flank instead of straight down the middle. Two players opted to take their mechs up on to the elevated highway on the opposite side (which would expose them to more fire but also speed up their approach), and thus the sketchiest of battle plans was adopted. But hey, better than no plan, right?
My 95-ton Banshee waded up the river for cover, which also increased the efficiency of her heat sinks so she could fire both particle cannons every turn, taking out 4 turrets and allowing the non-jumping mechs to rush through the aperture.
Meanwhile, Earl's 55-ton Shadow Hawk and Island Mike's 80-ton Victor dashed along the roadway, and Earl used his mech's limited jump jets to be first across the wall and garner the "Leeeeroy Jenkins" award.
Rob's own Victor and Totty's 50-ton Enforcer jumped across the opposite wall section, flanking the 85-ton Battlemaster lurking there.
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| Advantage due to superior positioning! |
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| ...versus advantage due to superior size... |
Jeff's Zeus (80t) and Pete's Archer (70t) ran through the gap in the wall along with my Banshee and we battled our way past the hover tanks and tracked armour to engage the Atlas.
Meanwhile, the Victor on the opposite side battled a Jagermech while Earl's Shadow Hawk gleefully trampled as much infantry underfoot as possible. Once free, he dutifully smashed the communications building, freeing us to focus on the Atlas already stomping towards us.
With the Battlemaster tied up with Rob and Jeff, the rest of us advanced gingerly on the massive enemy mech, whose AC 20 hit caused me to miss a piloting roll but netted me the "First to Fall Over" award (sigh).
Totty's plucky Enforcer, the lightest mech on the board, lit its jump jets and made a daring Death From Above attack on a mech nearly literally double its size, rocking the Atlas, but missing the headshot that could have taken it out.
This softened it up though, so after Pete's Archer lit up the Atlas with a salvo of long-range missiles from his twin twenty-racks, it took away all its remaining armour in one torso and damaged its internal structure. No critical hits were rolled, but Scott called the game anyways, as the next hit was very likely to take it down, and we were already close to the six-hour mark for this one game.
I had to rush away in order to get a late dinner of grilled Polish sausage started, but was unsurprised to learn Jeff had killed enough enemy mechs and turrets (plus awards) to become the only winner. A very suitable outcome for the man who provided us with the best-looking tabletop that wasn't the Death Star trench from G&G XIV, back in 2019.
After supper we turned to one of two games returning from the year before - Arena: The Contest. This is a dandy little D&D-esque game that can be played cooperatively with up to four players or competitively between two four-character teams of players for a total of eight. Last year's game had run late but everyone was intrigued enough to come back for more this year, while we still maintained memories of our previous match-up.
We randomized teams and drafted our characters, ending up with a Zafara the fallen angel, Thalia the druid, Ohris the monk and Nakral the death knight (Totty, Pete, myself and Scott) versus Niary the elven archer, Catharina the witch, Vanarus the demon and Katar the orcish barbarian (Rob, Earl, Jeff and Island Mike).
Our side got off to a good start, focusing on the enemy controller and felling Catharina the witch while keeping our distance from Island Mike's fearsome Katar. Before too long, however, they had used an action card to bring her back and vanquished my monk soon after.
I was revived as well, but then our opponents focused on our own healer, Thalia, able to revivify fallen comrades (like my monk!). Once she was done, Katar had taken hardly any damage and was able to kill off our two weakened fighters in short order.
This is a game I wish we had the opportunity to play more frequently, not just because it is a lot of fun and there is a narrative campaign that Earl, Jeff and I have waited to play for two years now, but the sheer variety of character abilities lead to some interesting combinations that you will only ever discover by playing. Plus, for a Kickstarted game from a then-new company, it boasts tremendous (if perhaps er, provocative) artwork and wonderful sculpts.
Despite having a large number of pieces, the game is intuitive enough to allow for very quick and tactically significant play, and was put away in fairly short order, allowing us to get a couple of games of Bang! The Dice Game in before bed. Using some new dice and rules from The Old Saloon expansion pack, we had some great fun, with two Outlaw victories and maybe the definitive "don't play with dynamite" roll.
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| um...3 x TNT is enough to end your turn... |
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