Heavy Gear Battle Report

06/11/2021

Phil Abramowitz (North) vs JJ Alexander (South)

100 TV

Overview

This battle report is a playthrough of a scenario from the Heavy Gear Blitz Tournament System v 0.1.  We rolled a random scenario from a set of 2 (High Ground and Sector Control) as we already played Incursion (the third random choice).  This time we ended up with Sector Control.  This was a 100 TV North vs South game.

Forces

North

For my Northern Force I chose this time go small.  Big mistake.  My initial thoughts would be that I would flood the areas with lots of light gears so that I could have three combat groups.  However, due to my poor command ability almost everyone ended up dead.   For this game I was fairly familiar with all the units in my force as I’d used them before.  . For my 100 TV force I had three combat groups:

These groups are listed to match the picture above, left to right.  All models are metal – including many of the original metal sculpts.

Name	TV	CG	Commander
Weasel	9	RC
Cheetah	10	RC
Sniper Jaguar Thunder Seccom	14	RC	X
Strike Cheetah (Regular Cheetah in picture)	9	RC
Hunter Gunner	7	SK
Kodiak	20	SK	X
Destroyer Grizzly	12	SK
Hunter Headhunter	7	GP	X
Mortar Squad Team	3	GP
Hunter	6	GP
Assault Squad Team	3	GP
TOTAL	100

In general I misplayed my RC squad again – I should have been haywiring the large gears so that they would roll fewer defense dice. 

South

JJ Took 3 combat groups as well: GP, FS, Recon:

Name	TV	CG	Commander
Command Naga	23	FS	X
Long Fang Hetairoi  (with drone)	26	FS
Drone	1
King Cobra Gunner	19	SK	X
Jager	6	SK
Jager	6	SK
Elan	3	RC
Jager	6	RC	X
Jager	6	RC
Recon Squad	4	RC
TOTAL	105

Map Setup

We set up the map terrain first this time before we rolled for the mission.  As a result, the middle of the table was fairly empty.  We decided to place a little more terrain than we normally do.  Again, we could have used clarification on the terrain density, particularly how it related to the portion of the map near the objectives, especially at the map center).

Deployment

North

I deployed my recon squad on the left side, mostly in cover (the edge of the base of the cheetah is barely visible on the left edge of the map in the box).  The Strike and GP squads were clumped together in and behind a forest – aside from the mortar hidden behind a building. 

South

JJ Deployed his heavy Fire Support squad in the middle of the board, with the Strike right next to it.  The King Cobra, Naga and Hetairoi in the middle were looking formidable.  The recon squad was split on the left and right edges of the board.

Objectives

North

I assumed this would be bloody.

• Assassinate (King Cobra  and Jager)
• Hold (The two green circles in my deployment photo Figure 2).

South

JJs objectives were:

• Assassinate (Kodiak and HeadHunter)
• Wipe Them out (Strike Squad)

JJ’s stated goal was to kill my Kodiak – which would give him two objective points for the one kill.

Turn 1

JJ won the initiative on turn 1.  He activated his recon squad, which mostly advanced with cover up to the temples on either edge of the map. One gear forward observed my clump of models from my Strike and GP squads (Note to self: stop clumping up models) which were then bombarded by his fire support squad.  The rolls mostly went my way, and all I lost was a assault squad team, and some minor damage to the Kodiak and Hunter.  Meanwhile, I had my recon squad advance up the left side and the Hunters from the GP squad advance up the right. I also forward observed with my recon team and attacked the King Cobra with my strike squad and did light damage.  In retrospect the Weasel should have attempted to hack it first.

Score 0-0

Turn 2

I won initiative, and I activated my Recon squad and the Thunder Sniper Jaguar started off by cripping a RC Jager.  The Cheetah again forward observed for the Strike squad, who again did little damage against the King Cobra (again, I did not use the Weasel to hack first).  On my next activation of the GP squad, the two hunters took out the Jager in charge of the RC squad, earning an  easy assassinate objective (maybe not a good move strategically and I could have saved this for later?). 

At this point things then started going poorly for me.  The Wesel was killed by light artillery rockets, and both the Strike Cheetah and Kodiak were crippled by the Northern FS squad.  At this point I was almost out of healthy gears with heavy weapons that could hurt the big Northern units. The Northern FS squad also advanced toward the center of the map, towards the high ground.

Score 1-0 North but I could see the writing on the wall…

Turn 3

At this point I did not think I could kill the big Northern units, so I resolved to kill as many of everything else as possible.  The North concentrated on making its assasitnation objectives.  I activated my GP squad and my Hunter Gunner killed an Elan.  On my next activations the crippled Kodiak took out a Jager – which then died in a hail of reaction fire, and the Thunder Sniper Jaguar killed another Jager – and also died as a result.  My destroyer Grizzly later was able to use reaction fire and take out the recon infantry – which killed off the recon squad.

The North met both of their assasination objectives, as well as reducing my Strike squad to 50%.

Score 3-1 South

Turn 4

At the start of the turn I had three gears (each from a different squad) and one infantry team left, while the South had lost the recon squad.

The South won the initiative, and commenced to massacre the rest of my troops. The FS squad finished off the Grizzly and killed the Cheetah in its initial activation. The two members of the FS squad also moved to control two different sectors. Eventually I lost the Hunter Gunner as well, while the other remaining units moved to control sectors.

Objectives scored this turn:

South:  Controlled three sectors

North:  Mortar Team held one hold objective

Final score:

6-2 South

Total carnage at the end of the game:

• South lost 25% of its TV
• North lost 97%! of its TV – just the mortar team survived

Mission Hotwash

Things I did wrong:

• Again, I did not use my EW units correctly – failing to perform any EW actions with them.  Hacking and haywire strong enemies before forward observing them could have really helped out my high AP weapons.   
• Repeat from last time – I need to spread my units out more so that AE weapons don’t have opportunities to hit secondary targets.
• Issues with my list:
  • I needed some bigger units that could go toe-to-toe with a 50 TV FS squad made up of two units.

Thoughts on Scenario

What I liked about this scenario is that it again forces both sides to engage in the middle of the table.  Assasination and Wipe Them Out objectives are much more attainable than when using the standard objectives.  I do like that different scenarios tend to lead towards the selection of different types of objectives.

The opportunities for better rules would be:

• As mentioned earlier, some discussion of terrain density and placement with regards to the objectives
• A question I have about the regular Heavy Gear rules – am I allowed to retreat units off the table?  I could not find anything in the rulebook, but I would have liked to retreat some of my crippled units that were assasination targets off the board to deny points to my enemy.  Might be nice if this could be clarified by either DP9 or the tournament rules.  My Headhunter was near a side table edge and could have easily have been moved off.