Alpha Testing Battle Report: The Siege of Boston

By RonPlay Testing

Background

This session will test Incursion: America’s new campaign system. The Siege of Boston is the first campaign developed for AI and will likely be the first available in the Starter Set. It has a total of 6 possible missions. As players win or lose battles, the story unfolds and they are guided to the next battle. Players will play a total of 3 missions as they work their way through the campaign.
Some other things we will be looking at is whether the missions are balanced and whether  any of the rules appear to need tweaking. The Russian Medium mech Bear will see action in game #3. This will also be the first real test of the American hero Major Ryder in his Command Scorpion mech.
This session pitted game designer Ronnie playing the Americans against play tester  Jon in command of the Russians.

Game #1 – Establish Drop Zone:

The first mission in the campaign is a reconnaissance mission (10 points). The Russians are looking to land their forces near Boston. The Americans are using two Archer Mechs that can only do light damage but are fast and have a range that reaches across the game board. The Russians are fielding a Viper and a Swarm. Both are designed to engage at close range, but the Viper’s railgun can do massive damage. After placing obstacles (buildings), players placed a total of 7 markers across the center of the board. These are waypoints. Jon’s Russians have to reach 4 of them to win. Ronnie must annihilate Jon.

Round #1:

Jon wasted no time racing his mechs forward. Ronnie can’t get clear shot on any of Jon’s mechs, so he damages a building in hopes to have line-of-sight later in the game.

Round #2:

Archer has the longest range on the board, so Ronnie hangs back out of Jon’s range and takes pot shots at the Russian Swarm mech; hitting for 2 damage.  Jon runs forward and collects a waypoint marker.

Round #3:

An Archer does 2 more damage to Swarm. The long range Ronnie is firing at has reduced his aim and has been causing half his shots to miss. Jon hits an Archer with Swarm’s gatling gun for 2 damage and collects a second waypoint marker.

Round #4:

One of Ronnie’s Archers scores the third hit on Swarm; it is disabled and goes into Reactor Overload. Jon rolls a dice to see how many rounds he has before the explosion. He rolls a 1 and Swarm immediately explodes taking a nearby building with it. Jon finally has his Viper close enough to fire its railgun at the damaged Archer. He uses the Russian special ability “Stabilization System” to increase his aim; needing only a 1 to hit he  disables it easily. Ronnie rolls to see how many rounds he has before Archer’s reactor overloads and also rolls a 1. Archer disintegrates in a fiery explosion and takes out another nearby building.

Round #5:

Ronnie’s remaining Archer fires at long range and does 2 points to Jon’s Viper. Jon moves and collects his third way point marker.

Round # 6:

Archer hits Viper for 2 damage. Viper moves towards another marker.

Round # 7:

Ronnie shoots but misses. Jon moves the Viper and collects his forth marker.

Win: Russians

The American Archer mechs don’t have enough punch to stand up to the Viper’s railgun. Jon wins and successfully establishes a drop zone for his army near Boston.

Game #2 – Capture Ammunition Depot:

Because the Russians won the first mission, the campaign chart has the Russians attempt to cut off supplies to American forces. This is a skirmish level mission (20 point forces). After obstacle setup, Ronnie picks a building near his left board edge to serve as his depot. Five countdown dice determine when a transport will leave the depot – the player closer to the depot when a dice reaches 1 intercepts the transport and gets a point. Starting on turn 5 the transports will be available to be collected. The player at the end with more points wins.

The Americans debut the hero Major Ryder and his Command Scorpion partnered with  an Archer. The Russian’s use Major Molotov as their hero in his Command Viper flanked by two standard Vipers.

Round #1:

With no good shots, Ronnie uses the Command Scorpion and Archer to damage a building. Jon uses the buildings for cover as he moves his mechs forward.

Round #2:

Jon’s use of cover still leaves Ronnie with no good shots. He fires again at a building the Russians are using for cover. Jon moves forward.

Round #3:

Archer miss. The Command Scorpion destroys a building leaving Jon’s forces exposed. Jon charges forward and with the help of “Stabilization System” gets a clean shot off on the Archer from his Command Viper. With Major Molotov’s damage bonus, the Archer is disabled in one shot! Ronnie’s dice roll have its reactor overloading in 4 rounds.

Round #4:

With its initiative of 9, the Command Viper moves before the Command Scorpion. Molotov hits with the railgun and Ryder’s Command Scorpion takes 7 damage. Ryder returns fire but poor dice rolls only do 3 damage to Molotov’s Command Viper. The two generic Viper’s fire at long range with machine gun fire and with Molotov’s damage bonus results in 4 damage to Ryder’s ride.

Round #5:

The Command Viper again moves first and deals the killing blow to the Command Scorpion. Ryder ejects, but is standing alone and without any cover in the middle of the game board. The first transport dice reaches 1 and Jon collects the point because the Command Viper is closest to the ammo depot.

Round #6:

Major Ryder goes first and moves towards cover. He doesn’t have any targets in range. Ryder is then disabled by machine gun fire from the two generic Vipers.

Win: Russians

Again the Russians come out on top. American supplies are cut off. Jon’s strategy of ignoring the depot and hitting the Americans hard and fast proves to be successful. Jon wins by eliminating all Ronnie’s game pieces.

Game #3 – Neutralize Enemy Forces:

With the Russian’s second victory, the campaign chart has the Russians going for a knockout blow. This Combat level mission (50 points) is simple – just kill all your opponent’s game pieces. The American force consists of Major Wright in her X1 Bulldog, Major Ryder in his Command Scorpion, plus generic versions of the Bulldog, Prowler, and Archer. Prowler is piloted by Flash who adds 2 to its movement speed. Bulldog and Archer are piloted by the generic pilot Maverick.  The Russians are lead by Major Molotov in his Command Viper. At this moment we realized we didn’t bring Major Reznik and his Command Wolf mech putting the Russians at a disadvantage! The remaining Russian forces are made up of generic mechs: two Vipers, two Swarm, and the medium mech Bear. Compared to the other vehicles, the Bear towers over the battlefield sitting on a 4 inch x 4 inch base and standing at size 3. All the generic mechs are piloted by zero point generic pilots except Bear who has Hunter at the helm. Hunter reduces an enemy target’s cover by 1.
Ronnie strategically sets up layers of buildings to provide cover for his forces. Even his cover has cover. Because Bear is so tall (size 3) the line-of-sight rules will allow the Americans to turtle behind cover while still gaining LOS to Bear. Bear will have to destroy the buildings the American’s are using as cover before it can draw LOS and attack them. Ronnie has faced Bear’s long range and superior damage before, so he intends to deal with him first and then mop up the remaining enemy army.
The Russians put a size 3 building near their deployment zone to give Bear some cover. A couple size 2 buildings are placed near the deployment zone to give other mechs cover. The remaining 2 buildings are size 1 placed in the middle of the board to open up clear firing lanes.

Round #1:

The American’s have too many mechs to hide at the back of the board and stay out of LOS. Because Prowler has shorter range than his other mechs, Ronnie moves him forward behind a building near the center of the board; shooting at the size 3 building Bear is hiding behind. Because all his mechs (size 2) can see the size 3 building from across the map, the American’s Tactical Network ability increases Prowler’s aim to where he needs anything but a 1 to hit. Prowler alone nearly destroys the building. Bad rolls plague the Americans this turn, but Prowler’s cover is destroyed and he takes some damage. Tactical Network keeps the Americans from caring much about dice rolls; Bear’s cover building is destroyed and he takes 4 damage.

Round #2:

The Command Viper has the highest initiative on the board so the Russian fires first with its railgun; disabling Prowler who rolls a reactor overload dice of two. The Russians move forward and chip away at the building’s that make up the American’s cover. Most of the American’s don’t even move. They turtle behind cover and use Tactical Network to pound on the Bear for 9 more damage. Ryder’s Command Scorpion jukes out from cover, deals 7 damage to the Command Viper, then ducks back into cover. At the end of the turn, Prowler’s Reactor Overload dice is reduced to 1; Prowler explodes and takes a building with it.

Round #3:

Tactical Network continues to allow the Americans to hit with anything but a 1. Archer plinks Bear for 2. Then the Command Viper destroys the Americans main cover building. The Command Scorpion returns the favor doing 7 more damage to the Command Viper. With cover no longer a problem, the X1 and generic Bulldogs both take damage. Bear takes 6 damage, loses its long range Particle Beam Cannon, loses its Guided Missiles, and goes into Reactor Overload. Bear still has 1 hull point, so it can still (barely) function until it explodes.

Round #4:

With their cover gone, the Americans scatter; one Reactor Overload could cause significant damage to multiple closely spaced mechs. Archer plinks a Swarm for 2 damage. The Russian’s Command Viper hits the X1 Bulldog for 7. Major Ryder’s Scorpion then disables the Command Viper. Major Molotov ejects onto the board. Bear only has an Autocannon left, but uses it on the X1 Bulldog for 2 damage; damaging its Laser Gun. Bear is hit and disabled; reactor overload in 5 rounds. Hunter and 2 generic pilots eject from the Bear. Major Ryder’s “Shoot and Scoot” ability gives the American mechs cover even when they are out in the open. When coupled with penalties for firing at long range, several Russian shots miss their mark.

Round #5:

Major Wright’s special skill “Field Repairs” allows her to fix her damaged laser gun before she attacks a Viper, allowing her to do 5 damage instead of only 3. The remaining two Swarm and the remaining Viper are all hit from multiple sources and disabled.

Round #6:

The American’s mop up, shooting at and disabling the remaining Russian vehicles and pilots running around the board.

Win: Americans

The Americans stop the Russian assault in its tracks. But, this game shed light on some broken game mechanics. Tactical Network in a large game with many American mechs makes attacking a near sure thing. Line-of-sight where smaller mechs can see larger mechs but larger mechs can’t see smaller ones gives an unfair advantage.

Aftermath:

  • The Good:

    • Campaigns: The campaign format worked well. The players were able to get through 3 games in under 2 hours. The flavor text on the campaign chart gave context as to why the players were fighting. The three missions told a story as the players won and lost.
    • Heroes: All 3 heroes worked as designed and influence the outcome of the game. For the Americans, Major Wright’s ability to do “Field Repairs” to ally vehicles brought weapons back online at critical times; allowing them to do extra damage. Also for the Americans, Major Ryder’s “Shoot and Scoot” tactics in the middle and end of game #3 provided extra cover that caused the enemy to miss several shots and kept Major Wright and others from being defeated. For the Russians, Major Molotov’s “Pinpoint Targeting” did extra damage that allowed Archer to be one-shotted in game #2 and in game #3 did extra damage to buildings that opened up line-of-sight earlier so the Russians could end the turtle tactics of the Americans.

  • The Bad:

    • Line of Sight: To attack, a game piece must have LOS to its target. In game #3, the Americans were able to hit the massive Russian medium mech Bear without moving from behind cover. By the time the Russians destroyed the cover the Americans were hiding behind, Bear was destroyed. Some minor rewording of the LOS rules are needed.
    • Tactical Network: The American’s special ability grants a plus-up to their aim when other mechs can see a target. In game #3, so many American mechs could see the medium mech Bear that it was nearly impossible for them to miss. Some limitations need to be put on this ability.
    • Stabilization System: Likewise, the Russian special ability grants a plus-up to their aim if they limit their movement when attacking. This made it too easy for the Russians to hit. Slight modifications need to be made so it isn’t overpowered.
    • Capture Ammunition Depot Mission: Jon was able to ignore the mission and concentrate on destroying Ronnie’s force. While the rules are set up to make this an option, completely ignoring the mission seems broken.