Mission: Mech Recon

Mission Objective:

Locate the McGuffin with a scouting mech, then retreat off of X side of the board.

Obstacles:

There are six potential locations that might house the McGuffin (number installations on map 1-6, then roll 1D6 to determine the location. The Attacker and the Defender do not know where the actual McGuffin is, as garrisoning forces might not be told where the sensitive tech/VIPs/etc are being held.

To locate the McGuffin, the scout vehicle must move within 1 hex of each of the six locations to 'scan' it with their sensors. This takes one turn.

Once located, the scout unit must exit the map as quickly as possible to return to base with the information.

The Map:

Ideally the map should be an urban, or suburban map so there are many buildings, streets, parks, and the rest. Rules for concealment, line of sight, maintaining footing on smooth surfaces, and infantry fighting from buildings should be used liberally.

Defenders:

The McGuffin is defended only by infantry. There are no armored vehicles, no mecha, no aerospace, no artillery. Infantry can be motorized (for higher mobility in the city) foot (cheap cheap cheap) or even jump-capable (for fast response).

The TWIST

There is a significant twist in the way this mission is set up. The Attacker chooses one mech as their scout vehicle. The defender gains an equal point value to spend on infantry. The more baller the scout mech picked the more infantry who are present to defend the targets.

Scenario 1: Ideal

The attacker chooses a pure scout/recon mech, such as the OTT-7J Ostscout. Fast, jump-capable, and armed with a single medium laser. Battle value of 596

The defender has 600 points to spend on infantry, which ends up being either a modest amount of very normal infantry. Typically this is a mixture of carbines and rifles, almost all of which is on foot. A platoon of foot infantry runs between 40-80 battle value points.

The high speed and mobility of the OstScout mean it can disengage from foot infantry at will, being able to jump out of their effective rifle range in a single turn. It also has respectable armor and can weather said small arms fire for a short amount of time before being forced to retreat. The infantry can potentially win by getting lucky or having their platoons placed in locations where the Ostscout can be ambushed before jumping away (insert potential mech traps, such as high-strength cables strung across streets like power lines, but are stout enough to topple a mech if it tries to walk through it. The defender wins by destroying the scout mech or disabling it. The attacker wins if they find the McGuffin's location and escape. This means the attacker can win without firing their weapons, or dealing any damage.

Scenario 2: Overkill

The attacker picks a more crunchy scout mech, like the RVN-5X Raven II. Weighing in at 40 tons and 1,900 Battle value points, it is an impressive scout machine and can scan each target with its Bloodhound Active Probe from 2 hexes (heavy/fortification) out to 5 hexes (regular light commercial building) as well as revealing infantry concealed within 2 hexes of its location.

With 1900 points to spend, an entirely new level of infantry forces become viable for the defender. Infantry platoons can be equipped with field guns (set piece autocannons, dealing mech level damage) field missile batteries, and even field energy weapons. The Raven II is an impressive machine, with plenty of bells and whistles, but that might not matter so much when militia forces are lighting it up with iron sight aimed light and medium autocannons, and Macross levels of medium-range missiles. The defender can also upgrade their infantry platoons to be equipped with shoulder fired short-range missiles, inferno incendiary missiles, or even infantry versions of the NARC beacon. Anti-mech trained infantry also become affordable at this level.

In Scenario 1, a barely armed light scout mech can technically Leroy Jenkins its way through the mission in a mech parkour run while avoid a few platoons of national guards with rifles and pistols. In scenario 2 the stealth mech has to contend with a ring of heavily armed regular and elite army forces fully equipped to not bring it down, but eliminate mechs much larger than itself.

Summary: The less mech the attacker brings, the easier time they will have accomplishing the mission.