Session 16

The winter is keeping people at home, which is good for a brisk pace of gaming.  In Session 16, Alex finally got his hands on his own BattleMech, something he's been wanting since Session 3 or so.

In this session, the party got contacted by another Terran Resistance member.  She explained to them that there were going to be coordinated 'Mech hijackings on a particular day all around the world.  The reason for this was because one incident would likely cause the Word to raise their security around their 'Mechs, so while it was low, the Resistance wanted to grab as many as possible.  They gave Simon contact information for a man in Amsterdam who makes replacement security boxes for BattleMechs, and a half-hour window and coordinates for a 'Mech they expected to be available.

Cho made the purchase in Amsterdam, and the party traveled to the site, an outlying patrol hangar not far from Devil's Tower.  Arriving on schedule, the party surveyed the target site, assessed defensive strength at four guards playing poker, and elected a two-prong attack from either end of the corrogated metal hangar.  This was their first encounter with military-grade infantry (Small Arms +4), and as a result, Cho was spotted sneaking in, and was shot twice, once in each leg.  The damage was not enough to stop him, though.  Alex made good use of aimed shots with his rifle to drop two guards with headshots, and the party took the hangar in approximately 20 seconds, preventing the guards from raising the alarm.

Once the guards were neutralized, Cho rewired the WHM-8M Warhammer that was sitting in the bay, and Alex took the 'Mech out.  They departed at 29 minutes into their 30 minute window.  The Word of Blake patrol (the rest of the Level II) returned on schedule, and immediately set off in pursuit of Alexander.  With some support from Cho's helicopter piloting skills and Simon's ability to interfere with the Blakist's tracking of Alexander's 'Mech, he managed to escape with the machine.  The party stowed it in a cave about a hundred kilometers from Devil's Tower.

This session was relatively well received, but the planning phase quickly entered analysis paralysis early on; the party didn't even reach the site until halfway through the session, which limited my options for combat to fit the bad guys into session.  Also, Alex's Small Arms +7 combined with the Aimed Shots rules I discussed last week ended up being more broken than I expected, especially if he "pops out, fires, and returns" in one turn.  I need to determine how to make enemy units more formidable in future encounters.  More on that later this week.