My thanks to those of you who've contacted me to join in the BattleGroup closed beta test. I've heard feedback from only one of you, but would love to find out what the rest of you think and if you've given it a run-out.
I've made some amendments and additions to the rules since the first call-out, so if those of you who have already had the beta rules would like to touch base, I can send on the updated version.
Since starting the beta test, I've had two full battles at 10 and 9 points respectively, which may be considered a "platoon plus" or "company minus" level of battle. The first pulled in the AirFrame and MechaWar rules, as my opponent elected to take some air support. A traditional "breakthrough" style mission, I sought to cross his baseline; he sought to stop me!
In addition to his air support, he had artillery, with a Special Forces team acting as forward observers, and a single heavy cavalry element. My force included a Mass 2 mech, supporting two elements of light infantry, three of mobile infantry and one heavy cav.
My plan to push the mobile infantry up the flank, supported by the mech, while my tank softened up his
SF before the lt inf followed up to finish them off. His
SF proved hard to shift (an element dug in in a building takes a lot of firepower to damage, unless you get a string of critical hits), but a dramatic CQB ensued in which, astonishingly, my lt inf finally won out. However, my flank assault was being surgically annihilated by his air support and, just when I thought I'd got away, he brought his reserve artillery on on the baseline to put direct fire on my survivors.
In the end, I limped over his baseline with one mob inf, my crippled mech and a tank that was almost dead, snatch a Pyrrhic victory at the last minute.
In the second battle, I had originally planned to go straight BattleGroup, but my opponent happened to have his MechaWar force in his case, so we threw one of his Mass 3 mechs into the force (spending no more than 30% of your points of mechs is a good rule of thumb for a balanced game as mechs are, deliberately, slightly better than almost anything else). His mech was supported by a heavy infantry platoon (CHQ and two elements) and a single heavy cav. On my side, I had three hvy cav elements (including the CHQ) and three lt cav elements.
We were using the new "Direct Orders!" rule, which allows the CHQ to use an action to allow any other element that hasn't yet been activated to perform an action without spending an action token. This gave us motivation to protect our CHQs as well as an extra tactical challenge as to how to use the rule to best effect.
I remembered to take a photo at the start of the game:
We were playing the Advance to Contact mission from the rulebook, with myself as the attacker. He revealed his hidden heavy infantry on the first turn, blasting one of my lt cav and entirely disabling its firepower. In response, I moved up my entire force - having learned from my previous game how hard infantry in a building are to damage - and gave him the full benefit of my heavy cav's FP5. Meanwhile, he brought the rest of his force on from reserve. His (terrifying) mech stomped straight up the middle, whilst the heavy inf took his right flank and the tank the left.
Fortunately, he never opted to Dig In in the building, relying instead upon his hvy inf's AR4 to protect him. It still took me two and a half turns to finally see them dead, by which point his mech was already taking pot shots at my forward elements.
I pulled my CHQ back into cover and started using its Direct Orders to drive my lt cav into his half. Meanwhile, he occupied another building with his hvy inf - leaving his CHQ in cover but outside a building to prevent me targeting it - and pushed his tank across to my left flank to intercept my lt cav advance on that flank.
I was extremely lucky that my forward tank absorbed a huge amount of damage from the mech, whilst inflicting critical after critical in return before powering forward in a heroic charge at the mech's injured leg. The mech counter-charged, but the impact was enough to shatter its damaged leg and the whole thing collapsed catastrophically to the ground. The tank survived, barely, but was left exposed to fire from the surviving heavy infantry.
On his left flank, his tank annihilated my lt cav advance before it was able to run down his CHQ, but by doing so he exposed his tank's vulnerable rear to a counter-attack from my own armour that blasted his element apart. My surviving lt cav was now deep in his territory and able to swing around behind his hvy inf - occupied with finishing off my tank crippled from its epic encounter with his mech - to run down his CHQ, leaving them a damp patch on the concrete.
Technically, there was still a turn to go. But he was reduced to just one hvy inf element in a building and I had five elements in his table half by this point in the battle, so we called it: a decisive victory for the designer!
R.
