Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

CurtisLemay

Wargamer, Amateur Historian, Writer
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[X] Declare martial law
[X] Warn the Griff Tigers about the incoming trouble.
[X] Activate the militia, activate the Continuity of Government plan and disperse the Royal Family and advisers. Also, get the Commons and Lords members under cover as much as possible. We cannot allow our planet to be decapitated like last time.

[X] Write In- "My people, we again find ourselves attacked by a perfideous invader bent on our destruction and enslavement. I know our fair world. Our wonderful people, Human and Grifftiger. We are a nation of laws, of good and decent people. But we are also a people of steel, and determination. We shall show these invaders they have made a grave mistake returning here. I believe, as you should, in the determination and skill of all of our armed forces. And so should all of you. It is time to come together. It is time, my friends, my people, to fight for our homes, and our families."
 

UltimatePaladin

Well-known member
Well, design a Royal Flag for Griffin's Roost and that's what you'll get!
...Eh, guess I'll throw my hat into the ring.

Before I start though, is there anywhere I can find information about the history of Griffin's Roost? Or perhaps, the history of how Griffith Family came to power, to be more precise?

...Or will I get that history if I win the 1k words? 😛
 

LordSunhawk

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...Eh, guess I'll throw my hat into the ring.

Before I start though, is there anywhere I can find information about the history of Griffin's Roost? Or perhaps, the history of how Griffith Family came to power, to be more precise?

...Or will I get that history if I win the 1k words? 😛

There's a basic history in the Rules tab of the main spreadsheet.

Your great-grandfather led the most powerful faction post-Catastrophe, made up of most of the surviving security forces, your grandfather unified the planet (after winning a fairly vicious civil war), your father worked to heal the lingering divisions and animosities from said war and was doing quite well in that regard when the Dracs attacked and we had turn 1 of the quest :cool:
 

Culsu

Agent of the Central Plasma
Founder
[X] Declare martial law
[X] Warn the Griff Tigers about the incoming trouble.
[X] Activate the militia, activate the Continuity of Government plan and disperse the Royal Family and advisers. Also, get the Commons and Lords members under cover as much as possible. We cannot allow our planet to be decapitated like last time.
 

kelgar04

Well-known member
[X] Declare martial law
[X] Warn the Griff Tigers about the incoming trouble.
[X] Activate the militia, activate the Continuity of Government plan and disperse the Royal Family and advisers. Also, get the Commons and Lords members under cover as much as possible. We cannot allow our planet to be decapitated like last time.
 
ShadowArxxy - Countdown to War

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
Apparently I am in an unusually write-ey mood, so have an omake!

----




Within hours, General Potter reports that all military assets have been brought to DEFCON 2 level readiness, while an uncharacteristically serious Tyler reports that all senior officials have acknowledged COGCON 2 and are prepared for dispersal to hardened shelter sites. As a standard security measure, the actual site assignments will be randomly generated and transmitted when the enemy dropships reach the eight-hour mark. Both of the Triton class submarines have been recalled to port for immediate resupply, preparatory for acting in their secondary design role of long-duration mobile national command posts.

Public emergency shelters are being brought online, supply stocks verified, and vital infrastructure carefully locked down. Official evacuations won't begin until the two-day line, but handfuls of citizens nonetheless begin arriving at the shelters shortly after the Queen's address to the nation; none are turned away, and those who are fit are quickly organized to help.

It is, one newscaster comments, simultaneously heartwarming and frightening to see an entire world fall silent and brace itself.

----

The heavily loaded submarines set sail at the one-day mark. On the bridge of one, the Queen stares at the incongrously bright, sunny sky for the last time in a long time, and wishes Willis were here to blame instead of on board the other submarine.

----

The ASFs launch at the two-hour mark, fusion torches glowing star-bright and sonic booms rattling empty buildings and streets. They vault into the air, wheeling in formation, and await their final intercept vectors and commands.

Below them, the shelters seal and lock their doors.

----

War has come to Griffin's Roost.
 
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Ridli Scott

Well-known member
[X] Declare martial law
[X] Warn the Griff Tigers about the incoming trouble.
[X] Activate the militia, activate the Continuity of Government plan and disperse the Royal Family and advisers. Also, get the Commons and Lords members under cover as much as possible. We cannot allow our planet to be decapitated like last time.
 

Chaeronea

Well-known member
[X] Declare Martial Law
[X] Warn the Griff Tigers about the incoming trouble.
[X] Activate the militia, activate the Continuity of Government plan and disperse the Royal Family and advisers. Also, get the Commons and Lords members under cover as much as possible. We cannot allow our planet to be decapitated like last time.


"Life is cheap but BattleMechs are not." - original tagline of BattleTech.

Yeah, bullshit.

We may have to expend the lives of our soldiers, our pilots, our civilians in the service of our nation - but they shouldn't be spent stupidly or cheaply. If we have the choice of taking a short-term economic hit or losing the lives of thousands or ten of thousands of our people, then we'll take the hit to our production and protect our people not just because it's easier to recover from economic damage with an intact population base but simply because that is our duty to the people.

"Salus populi suprema lex esto." - the good of the people is the highest law.
 
Turn 15 - BATTLE RESULTS

LordSunhawk

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Turn 15 - The Second Battle of Griffin’s Roost or When Deathapotamusaurus Attack

It’s frustrating, incredibly frustrating. You are safe and sound, you and your family, deep beneath the waves while above you battle rages. You have a SATCOM link via a trailed buoy connecting to the orbital surveillance system, but there is nearly nothing you can do to affect the outcome of the fighting.

You are confident as the battle starts, you outnumber the enemy significantly after all. But then it starts to fall apart. The Dracs obviously know what they are doing when it comes to a dropship assault, with the three dropships just close enough together to provide mutual supporting fire while being far enough apart that your Rocs are forced to pick only one to attack.

You wince as the rocket attack appears to be almost completely ineffective, the return fire sending debris flying as armor struggles to stand up to the punishment. If the Rocs had been any less well built you’d have lost a number of them in that first pass.

Meanwhile the Falcons are mixing it up with the enemy fighters, and despite outnumbering them it appears that the battle is far more even than you’d thought it would be. Your birds are faster than most of theirs, but crucially there are faster birds in the enemy formation that are able to tie yours up and set them up for attacks by their comrades. It’s a sprawling, chaotic mess in the orbitals.

The Dropships continue burning closer, only the huge aerodyne showing any damage at all, and that seemed almost all cosmetic. Your shoulders slump, the ASF force that you’d been so proud of was clearly not succeeding as well as you’d hoped.

Closer and closer they come, angling to come down near the Huế mới drop port. Thank God for small mercies at least, a traitorous part of you whispers. Prosperous as the port was, it was a fraction of the size of Griffsport.

The fighting continues, you have a brief moment of excitement when it looks like the laser satellites might swing the battle, but the Dracs compensate smoothly and all they suffer is more scratch damage, with the Rocs looking extremely worn around the edges.

It’s just not working out the way you’d hoped, you’d wanted to stop the enemy dead in space, but it’s not happening. The Falcons are fast enough to dance with the enemy ASFs, but too weak to damage them enough for it to matter, while the Rocs are tough enough to handle the incoming fire from the Dropships, but can’t seem to damage them in return, again, at least not enough to matter. You’ll need to reconsider your plans...

You pound your fists on the table in frustration as a dozen mechs spill out of one of the incoming Union class dropships, dropping down to assault and secure the drop port, even as your fighters struggle to accomplish anything at all useful against the combination of Drac ASF and Dropship defense.

Your fighters continue to get savaged, constantly coming out on the losing end of the exchange against the enemy. The power of the dropships clearly swinging the tide in the enemies favor.

The Mechs touch down, and the Rapid Reaction Force swings into action. They aren’t able to do much more than cosmetic damage to the mechs despite getting in a very large number of hits. The mechs are taking armor damage, and the RRF vehicle are barely getting scratched in return, but then your blood starts to boil… the DCMS mechs start ignoring the hovercraft and simply begin lobbing inferno SRMs into the city itself, obviously bent on causing massive property damage and destruction rather than fight an actual battle.

Your eyes tear up, but then Willis grabs your shoulder and points at the screen… one… no two… of the massive gates used to close off the spaceport from the surrounding wilderness is open… and you see a sight that you never thought would be this comforting coming over the horizon on the satellite display.

One of the largest herds of deathopotamusaurus that you’d ever seen. Stampeding straight towards the now grounded enemy mechs.

It takes the DCMS a crucial half hour to notice the incoming stampede, time in which the mechs continue indulging in blatant war crimes and destruction. It’s obvious on the display when they do notice it, as the mechs suddenly abandon their incendiary ways and race back to the dropships as the just disembarked vehicle battalion hastily starts reboarding.

It’s too late. The stampede thunders through the gates. The two Unions are able to lift, incinerating dozens of the massive beasts, but the giant aerodyne is trapped. The weapons fit on board lashes out in a desperate defense, but it is completely futile. The aerodyne might have been the largest of the dropships present, but it crumpled under the onslaught of stampeding wildlife. You can see Grifftigers around the periphery of the stampeding herd, roaring and making feints at it, steering it towards the other opened gate and away from the city itself.

Air combat continues, but your birds are nearly out of fuel, and it looks like the Dracs are now just planning on going home. Combat breaks off, and the Dracs retreat off world, leaving a smoking ruin where the space port once was, out of control fires throughout Huế mới, and a frustrated and angry monarch behind.

FINAL RESULTS -

DCMS LOSSES - 1 Triumph Dropship trampled by deathopotamusaurus.

1 Vehicle Battalion (Galleons, Vedettes, and LRM Carriers) trampled by same.

1 Union w/12 mechs escaped, scratch damage to the mechs

1 Union-CV with the ASFs escaped, scratch damage to the ASFs


Griffin’s Roost Losses - Scratch damage to AeroForce (worst to Rocs) and RRF. No units reached CLG.

QM notes - Whew, first time blues and plenty of things it turned out I didn’t account for. Thank you to Jarow, Decim, and Yellowhammer for their assistance as the dice-rolling brigade. We actually had to restart when we realized that the laser defense satellites were far too overpowered. I’ll be prototyping and considering ways to account for fuel points in ASF combat, as well as explicit rules about strafing, non-direct combat actions, etc. This was a learning experience for sure!
 

Knowledgeispower

Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Clearly we need another ASF design and a whole lot more of them in general. Ideally we'd also have Luthien's sun to go nova
 

PeaceMaker 03

Well-known member
So do we start integrating Grifftigers into military training?
Do we keep herds of deathopotamusaurus to be hearded into the enemy by grifftigers?

Interesting that the former DC troops are using ghazi tactics.

Rewards and $,money for R and D towards better anti DS defenses.
Big bowls of milk for the tigers.

......and commando space marines to attack and seize the pirate JS when they raid again.
 
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CurtisLemay

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That was underwhelming...Yeah, we need a Corsair analogue, we need 'Mechs, at least 2 battalions worth, and we need bigger tanks.
 

Jarow

Well-known member
Before we realized just how overpowered the laser satellites were, we had the Triumph retreating; and Yellowhammer was about to have the entire force withdraw. Second attempt, Urist decided he liked Yellowhammers DCMS more than me :(

For the record, the DCMS Aerospace forces consisted of 4 light, 4 medium, and 8 heavy fighters. Not sure of specific designs, I'd assume whatever the Combine's standard fighters of that weight class are.
 
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CurtisLemay

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From: Defense Analysis Section

To: Your Royal Highness

Subject: Preliminary After Action Report, Battle of Hue Moi

The effects of the Battle of Hue Moi have been felt throughout our world, and the frustration we felt that our defensive preparations did little in the face of a determined Combine landing are paramount.

We have only the efforts of our Grifftiger citizens to thank for our continued survival as an independent nation, and we cannot expect we will be so lucky again in the future.

Where did we go wrong in procurement and defense policy since the last enemy raid?
  1. We underestimated the enemy: The Combine force has made opposed landings such as this before. We have not. They had an idea of what they could expect from us, and due to our needing to protect three scattered continents, we were left with a variety of lighter forces (the exception being the 1st Armored Division, which did not see action, and our Rocs, who achieved little in the fight over our planet.)
  2. We are simply put, outgunned. We need to be able to meet the enemy on something approaching his terms. We need at least a battalion of our own ‘Mechs before he comes back, and we need dropships of our own to cripple, and board his ships to add to our own. We also need to have heavier tank designs to slow down, if not stop his lighter ‘Mechs.
  3. We need better intelligence about projected enemy movements when they attempt to make a landing. We need to know where the enemy is projected to land, and we need the capability to mass DECISIVELY to meet him with overwhelming force.
Therefore, we make the following recommendations:
  1. Procurement of at least 2 more wings of Roc fighters to harry enemy dropships and force them to make high altitude drops with their ‘Mech forces.
  2. Design of a missile carrying submarine to supplement the anti-space defenses.
  3. Development of combat dropships
  4. Procurement of a Heavy Tank design that can take out an enemy light ‘Mech 60-70% of the time.
  5. Procurement of a heavier Space Superiority fighter, what we had failed to achieve much in this fight.
  6. Increased study and training of enemy Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures. Interrogation of enemy survivors from the current raid will come in handy here.
  7. Creation of a Jump Infantry Brigade designed to supplement the RRF and allow us to mass decisively against enemy dropzones.
  8. Build significant fast sealift to move elements of the 1st Armored Division in the event of a landing.
  9. Creation of a 2nd Mechanized Division on Hue Moi.
In conclusion, we feel, your Highness, that we got extremely lucky with this last raid. This was not a failure of the men and women of our military. We were simply outgunned. We cannot allow this to occur again, and expect to remain an independent nation.
 

Jarow

Well-known member
Procurement of at least 2 more wings of Roc fighters to harry enemy dropships and force them to make high altitude drops with their ‘Mech forces.
They actually did do this.


In general, this doesn't really take into account that we couldn't pull forces into the fight, which was the biggest issue; and that the system didn't really let numbers play a part. I agree we need to build up though.

The raid was over pretty fast, the time they spent on planet was about two times the time between soon-as-possible drop and land and unload Combat vehicles

One thing that resulted in so much scratch damage is the way unit combat worked. In space, there was Roc and Interceptor vs Fighters, dropship 1, dropship 2, and dropship 3. Each unit got an attack/defense roll; which one chosen by the fastest unit (interceptors and a drag fighter) This worked pretty well in space (at least on our end, not sure how Yellowhammer feels about the deaf fighters). On ground, we had the RRF or the RRF+garrison (depending on whether the RRF was actively attacking the landing forces) vs mech forces, then dropships vs stampede. Initiative was either mine security force (defense garrison) or chaussers. Here, we had effectively a single foxhound tank attack with the health of the combined unit vs a single mech with the health of a whole unit. (This was true in space too, but it felt less obvious) This pretty effectively minimized potential damage. The combat system is getting modified, so we’ll see how the new system works out next time.
 
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