About the Reports
There are three major kinds of reports which are handled within the campaign records posted here, and I feel I should explain just what you're looking at as you open one up. Most of these reports and explanations are going to slide into more technical aspects and be presented more as accounting of events by facts and figures. The intent of the reports is to show close to the events of the game as though the reader were present at the table, not to dramatize what happens for entertainment purposes. For that, there are the fiction accounts, which are usually told from a more limited perspective.
About Campaign Turn Reports
The Turn Reports begin in Act Two and carry through, signifying the time when Priam Company and the Harbingers begin digging in for a long stay on the planet. Each turn has a number of notes which may need to be explained:- Force Dispositions: These notes are included to describe what bases each of the player forces has (and their level), as well as what assets and personnel are located there. Until Round Nine, however, this was less important and not tracked closely. At Round Twelve the matter became increasingly complex enough detailed notes were made.
- Actions Phases: Each force has a number of actions dependent on their bases and the number of divided forces they command. These actions can be reserved for after the battles, for reasons such as to press a potential advantage.
- Battles Phase: Once the players are sure they have done all they wanted to do before the battles, the battles are handled before any further actions are taken. These battles are all recorded in the Mission Reports, where one player handles their side and the other player handles the opposing force.
- Training Phase: After all battles and actions have been taken, training begins. This is not so much an intense training session as it is representing the culmination of much hard work and effort. The payment to advance their skills represents investing time and money spent focusing the experience into something which remains. During this time, there are chances for volunteers which will offer to join up free of charge to the player forces.
- Repair and Maintenance: After all training has been decided and paid for, maintenance, medical care, and repairs are handled. The repairs, if failed, do not require funding to be spent for the items again, they merely will not be finished in this turn. All which will be covered in the Turn Reports are any notable end results regarding units being available or not. The meat of these are currently to be appended in their own reports, so as not to overload the Turn Reports.
- Income Phase: These notes will show what income a force draws in, and how much is spent during the turn.
About Battle Reports
The Battle Reports are semi-fictionalized accounts of tabletop game sessions where two or more battle forces met and fought each other. As such they are written largely in a specific manner to describe the setup, the different battle forces, the goals, and the events which took place from a high-level in-universe perspective. This primer should help to understand what you are reading about when you open a Battle Report to read it.Summary of Entries
- Mission Profile: This will cover the basics of the mission, such as the type of mission, the size of the battle force (in Battle Value), and how much it costs to undertake the mission. Sometimes a mission may not have an associated cost, due to other considerations.
- Situation Overview: A quick analysis about the situation around the mission to cover why the battle forces are present and what they hope to achieve. Sometimes there may not be all the data here, if the forces are unknown to the players; these times there will be a more limited overview.
- Objectives: This covers what objectives must be met to claim victory by either side, including such times as when the objectives are not the same for each time. The objectives are usually presented in order of importance; primary objectives, then secondary objectives, then potential bonus objectives. Following each objective is, if applicable, the reward for completing it.
- Setup: This will describe in vague terms what terrain to expect and how much of it, as well as occasionally a particular arrangement of the terrain on the battlefield. It should be noted this campaign is played almost extensively on a 1" hex grid mat and the terrain is roughly homemade to conform to it, as opposed to official maps from Catalyst Game Labs.
- Forces: What are listed here are the various units by model number, followed by the specific Pilot or Crew name (if known) and their combat skills. The combat skills are listed in a (X/Y) format, with X being their Gunnery skill and Y being their Piloting skill. When reading these notations, remember lower numbers show greater skill. For example, the average skill rating is 4 Gunnery, 5 Piloting - expressed as (4/5)
- Special Rules: Any rules here which are not specifically normal to a tabletop session will be recorded here. This includes such things as general rules of conduct (salvage rights, when someone withdraws or surrenders, morale) and weather or other battlefield conditions. Also included under this section are explanations of any special abilities in play.
- Battle Report: The report starts with an in-character short piece from the perspective of one of the battle forces. It will then proceed through each turn of combat (which is roughly every ten seconds or so), until the end of the combat when forces withdraw or surrender. Most turns will have an accompanying image (hosted by imgur.com) to allow you to see the battlefield.
- Aftermath: When all the dust clears, this is how the situation has changed as a result of actions and events in the battle. You'll read about how well objectives were completed, and what the penalty is for failing them.
- Miscellaneous Reports: In later reports there will be attached a more detailed breakdown of the results. This will include wounds, damage to the players' forces, salvage recovered from the battlefield, what the rewards are in terms of data, and how the non-player forces reacted.
About the Repair Reports
The Repair Reports are segregated as they can be quite a lot of data during busy turns, and it is presented almost entirely in a raw format. This is largely to provide a window into the repair and maintenance process as per the rules outlined in the rulebook "Strategic Operations" (p. 168). There are some notable house rules regarding the repair and maintenance which differ:- All Quality Ratings have been relabeled to start at Quality A and descend to Quality F instead. This is largely a matter done to help the players' comprehension, as we are quite used to a grading scale of this type. It is noted here only to prevent confusion later. The quality ratings still retain the same numerical progression: (-2)/(-1)/(+0)/(+1)/(+2)/(+3)
- Most basic units when acquired from sources will be at Quality C (+0) instead of Quality D (+1). This was done as a means of simplifying the book-keeping at the time. However, salvaged units will usually be taken at a lower quality and thus will retain the general idea behind this rating.
- Experience for technician and medical teams is gained differently. For now, we are investigating manners of adjusting this, but we found the accumulation of points was proceeding very slowly and assorted modifiers were accumulating which made it very implausible to succeed at heavy repairs. As noted, we're still revising these rules a little at a time.
- Every campaign round takes place over a few days' time, though this has fluctuated from round to round. In these rounds there is only eight hours of work time available to a technician team, though they can do up to twelve hours of work in exchange for being unable to work the next round. This time does not include rearming, only maintenance and repair tasks.
- Any base with a DropShip at it counts as having the basic facilities to take care of BattleMechs, and an advanced enough base may be able to invest in the machines and tools necessary to do more extensive work. A base without a DropShip present and without dedicated 'Mech Bays will not be able to effect repairs.
Comments
Author's Notes
While the intent is to chronicle events and the campaign progress here for those who are interested in viewing it, it is not the intent to present all the information and rules so as to make it possible to run it yourself.
First, this is because a good portion of the rules are in books published by Catalyst Game labs and will not be copied here. I may cite books and passages from time to time, or link to external sources such as the Sarna wiki, but these are to direct those who wish to play along. Such citations will be handled almost entirely within the Campaign Rules Document when I publish it here.
Second, due to various things discovered as we go the house rules portion of our campaign play is often in flux and this is not fair to anyone trying to play along. The aforementioned document is roughly twenty pages long currently and is still in flux; each revision tends to remove half a page for clarity and incorporate two more to cover situations and material we began layering into the campaign. As I said, this is not fair to those trying to play along with our information.
Lastly, I believe there is something about this campaign's charm which would be lost if it was being handled by another verbatim. In the end, the reports are here to show the framework from which the fiction and dramatizations are built on. Without them, I could tell a story but that was never the aim of writing the fiction. The campaign record drives the fiction and serves as the basis from which the fiction blossoms. As such, to not show it would be to show only half of something, instead of the whole.
The fiction is up here to entertain readers who would like to read about the dramatized exploits of Priam Company and the Harbingers. The records are here to entertain players who want to see what sort of things you can do within the rules, or bending them ever so slightly to make something new. The campaign material pages are being put up here to inspire others to try their own hand at it, and to get a feel for how much work goes into this.
This is a long Author's Note, and this is the place I chose to put it rather than on the front page because this is about the whole of the campaign and the progression of it from simple idea to complex mechanism in motion.This is the one page among all the others where I pull back the curtain so you can see the mechanisms at work and go "you too can do this".