The Run In I've always hated high-G runs, and the burn into Twycross was one of the worst I can remember. You spend hours on end being crushed by the thrust of your fighter's fusion engine, then you're expected to turn and burn with those damn Clanners that can outvector and outgun you. We were coming into the OCZ (Orbital Combat Zone) out in front of the main fleet escorting this little infantry carrier to its target. We were also assigned to take out a few clay pigeons, that's comm satellites an stuff in orbit to you people; they're a lot of fun to shoot and they don't fire back neither... Oh yeah, about the Clanners. Well, we were coming into the gravity well when my old Lucifer's computer tags a bunch of targets boosting out of atmosphere as something it dug out of the dark corner of a memory chip: Rapiers, Gothas, and even Spads, all old stuff no one had seen in the Inner Sphere in centuries. And just as the old bird is barely getting tracking locks, forgetting about weapons lock-ons, mind you; something damn near blasts the nose section of my ship off! Then I get a dozen incoming missile warning lights all over my threat screen! No, I don't like high-G runs at all. --Flight Sergeant Dan Bloodstone, as told to Wayne Tse-Lin Senior Correspondent of BattleTechnology's Tharkad office, January, 3051 Game Set-up The AeroTech mapboard is used. The moon depicted and its gravitational effect hexes are ignored. Attacker The attacker represents the first strike unit of the AFFC's invasion airgroup: 6 Lucifers (2nd Squadron, 10th Lyran Guards) 2 Corsairs (A Flight, 3rd Squadron, 9th Federated CommonweaIth) 4 Sparrow Hawks (B & C Flights, 3rd Squad, 9th Federated Commonwealth) 1 Fury Class DropShip The attacker sets up forces along the right edge of the mapsheet, starting velocity of 3. All Fed Com skills are assumed to be Piloting:3, Gunnery: 3. Defender The defenders are two stars of old Star-League aerospace fighters from the second line Clan unit garrisoning Twycross: 2 Rapiers 1 Ironsides 2 Gothas 1 Tomahawk 2 Spads 2 Seydlitz 4 artificial satellite counters The defender begins the game with fighters still at high altitude, thus the counters may be stacked only within the high altitude hexes of the map. The Jade Falcon aerospace pilots all have skills of Piloting: 2, Gunnery: 3. In addition, there are four Clan surveillance/communication satellites in orbit above Twycross. For simplicity's sake, they should just be spaced evenly around the planet in the first hex ring outside of high altitude. Each satellite can take 15 points of damage before being destroyed. Special Rules Once the F-C fighters have completed their objectives, they may move off the same map edge they began on. Also, as long as it has any Structural Integrity points remaining, any craft which exits the correct edge is treated as having escaped (it was later recovered by a friendly troopship). Craft that leave the board in any other direction are treated as a kill for the defender's side. While the fighters the Clan player is using are ancient designs, they have been fitted with modern weapons. To reflect this, the player should feel free to refit his fighters with Clan weapons similar to that which is replaced (ie, trading a large laser for an extended range weapon with a coaxial medium laser as well). As long as the new configuration weighs the same as the old weapons carried, anything is possible. Victory Conditions The attacker has two missions to accomplish in this scenario. The first, and primary, mission is to escort the Fury safely to Twycross' atmosphere. The second is to eliminate the satellites so as to hamper enemy efforts at coordinating their defenses and intelligence gathering. Both of these objectives must be accomplished with a minimum of damage and losses; they then have to return to the approaching invasion fleet to rearm and refuel forthe main landings. The Jade Falcons know that they can not prevent the destruction of their spy satellites, but they may be able to disrupt the invasion by destroying a disproportionate number of enemy craft. The Fed Com player receives 30 victory points for getting the DropShip to the planet's lower atmosphere, and 5 points for each satellite destroyed. The Clan player subtracts 10 victory points from the other player's total for each FC fighter destroyed, or if the DropShip is shot down. (See the Special Rules section for what is considered a kill.) The victor is determined according to the following schedule: 40 points: Spectacular Federated Commonwealth victory 20 points: Decisive Federated Commonwealth victory 10 points: Tactical Federated Commonwealth victory 0 points: Tactical Jade Falcon victory -10 points: Decisive Jade Falcon victory -40 points: Spectacular Jade Falcon victory 1740 Hours, Sept3,3050 Twycross III OCZ In the first combat of the second baffle for Twycross, two squadrons of Federated Commonwealth Aerospace fighters specially equipped with long range reaction mass drop tanks escorted a DropShip carrying accompany of Pathfinder infantry for insertion into Twycross ahead of the main body of the invasion force. This goal was quite easily accomplished given that the Jade Falcon defenders all but ignored the ship, concentrating their efforts on dueling with the escorting fighters. The escorts ran into trouble, however, as they slung around the planet. The F-C pilots had been given specific orders to avoid dog-fighting with the enemy. The Jade Falcons' superior technology would extract a heavy toll on craft that would be needed for the main invasion. Try as they might, the fighter pilots could not avoid the Clan fighters; evasion only seemed to provoke them further. After losing a number of fighters, the squadron commander ordered his heavy fighter into mutual defence formation to protect each other, particularly the lightly armored Sparrow Hawks. While this slowed the attackers withdrawal from the area, it allowed them to reduce the damage inflicted upon their craft and disable a few of the Clan fighters in the balance. While Federated Commonwealth losses were higher than expected, they were not serious enough to threaten the outcome of the invasion. Back to BattleTechnology 20 Table of Contents Back to BattleTechnology List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by Pacific Rim Publishing. 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