Running a Hinterlands League

Hot Spots: Hinterlands is set up to support multiple players with mercenary units playing against each other. At the beginning of the year, I decided to embrace this and run a league for a group of us to play through the book. It took a bit of time to figure out how I wanted to run things and get ready, so we kicked it off in March. After 5 months or play, covering April 3151 – June 3152, we wrapped up the playthrough of Hot Spots: Hinterlands last month.

League Structure

For my league, I had each month of real world time map to three months of in-game time. This allowed for contracts, which generally last 3 or 6 months of in-game time, would map nicely onto real world month boundaries.

At the beginning of each month, I’d send out a list of the available contracts and a Google Forms survey. Players would use the form to rank their top five contract picks for their unit. If a player wanted a particular contract, I also included the option to use Reputation to break ties rather than for negotiating the terms of the contract.

After getting everyone’s responses, I would work on pairing up players on hot spots with the goal of giving as many folks their top choices as possible while also keeping an eye on which stores they liked to play at and which times they were available. Then, once I had assigned everyone a contract, I’d share out that list to kick off games for the month.

There was no set play time for the games. Two different local stores have regular BattleTech nights, but each pair of players was free to find times that worked for them to get their games for the month played. Then I encouraged players to post back in our discord channel with quick battle reports to let everyone know how their units fared.

Starting Forces

For starting forces, I kept things pretty open for the players. With every other ‘Mech acquired from random tables, I figured it was good to give players a lot of options for their initial 1-2 ‘Mechs. I did have players limit themselves to tech covered by the BattleMech Manual, and then I also asked them to choose from units with Master Unit List availability matching their unit’s origin: Dark Age Mercenaries, Clan Jade Falcon, Lyran Commonwealth, or Kell Hounds.

Optional Rules

For the league, we had a standard list of optional rules that was pretty close to what most of our local games use anyways. We used Backward Level Changes, Careful Stand, ECCM, Floating Criticals, Forced Withdrawal, Partially-Occupied Hexes, and Retractable Blade Piercing.

My Unit – The Celestial Guard

I played a merc unit called the Celestial Guard for the league. I skipped the first month of play because an odd number of players signed up, but got to play for the other four months. I started with a Centurion CN11-OB and a Trebuchet TBT-9N. Across those 12 months of in-game time, the Celestial Guard completed two contracts and expanded to include a Phoenix Hawk PXH-9 too.

How Things Went

Overall, I was pretty happy with how the league played out. I think across the group we covered almost every Hot Spot in the book – I didn’t assign anyone to Mkuranga due to its long length.

Managing a mix of 3 and 6 month contracts was a bit of a pain. It meant that some players didn’t get to bid on contracts at every bidding session, and remembering which units were ready for new contracts proved a challenge. At least one time a unit was accidentally booked to fight two contracts at the same time for a few months of in-universe time.

Allowing the full set of options in Hot Spots also caused some balance issues. Special Pilot Abilities just aren’t balanced enough and resulted in at least a couple of bad play experiences. Starting forces that consisted of a single powerful assault ‘Mech also seemed unbalanced. For example, one starting force was a 3/4 MechWarrior in a Dire Wolf A that was a terror for any opposing force throughout the entire league.

A New Season for the League

After a month off, I’m starting a fresh season for the league using the core rules from Hot Spots: Hinterlands, but a new setting. This time, we’ll be playing in the Chaos March in 3058. I had a pdf copy of the old Chaos March book that I’ll be using alongside the contract generation rules from Hot Spots: Hinterlands. In addition to the change in era, I’ve made a few other adjustments to the league rules.

This time around, I’m not allowing players to use Special Pilot Abilities, Special Command Abilities, or Formation Bonuses. Starting forces also have a few more restrictions beyond the lower tech of 3058. No single unit in one can be worth more than 2,000 BV, and initial skill improvements are limited to one Gunnery and one Piloting improvement.

At the same time, I’m also trying to make initial forces a little more resilient to losses. Even though we’re still starting at Scale 1, starting forces will have an extra 1,500 BV of reserves for a third ‘Mech. Then I’m borrowing the defensive Edge rule from the recent Atomic Empire Classic BattleTech Tournament with one point of Edge per track. Those should reduce the chances of a unit disbanding after one bad game and make a month with two tracks a little less punishing.

The other big change for this season is that I don’t have any pre-made Hot Spots to work with. I’m planning to use the random contract system in Hot Spots: Hinterlands as a starting point, but I’ll be rolling (or picking) more of the details before hand off to players. In the Hinterlands league, I left it to players to roll the number and types of tracks, but this time I want them ready to go when they get assigned so that I can add a bit more structure and setting details to them. I’m also going to try to keep contract lengths aligned across the league, so everyone will be on contracts that are the same length. For September and October, we’ll do 3 month contracts, then 6 month contracts that span November and December for everyone since I expect people to be busier during the holiday months.

I’m excited to be kicking off this new season in just a bit over a week.

#BattleTech #ChaosCampaign #HotSpots

Escalation on Zhongshan

After a long break to play other games, my daughter and I have finished our second set of contracts using the Mercenaries box set. We played using the Street War option for continuing the campaign on Zhongshan.

If you want to review how the first contract went, read Violence on Zhongshan.

Forces

Jade Tiger Mercenaries

The Jade Tiger Mercenaries are former members of Clan Jade Falcon who became mercenaries after they were abandoned by Khan Malvina Hazen and the rest of their Clan. With one contract now completed, they are both more skilled than when they started out.

• Jade (3/4) in a Fire Falcon T
• Mateo (3/4) in a Kit Fox A

While their first contract with the Pearl Dragon Mining Corporation was not as successful as hoped, the corporation has hired them to serve on Zhongshan for another 3 months.

• Base Pay: 100%
• Transportation: N/A
• Support: 40%
• Salvage: 30%
• Command: Liaison

Kate’s Cutlasses

Kate’s Cutlasses are a pair of MechWarriors who decided to become mercenaries in the chaos of the Hinterlands. Both of them have improved their Gunnery skill as a result of their experiences fighting on Zhongshan.

• Kate Morán (3/4) in a Shadow Cat Prime
• Jess Becker (3/4) in an UrbanMech UM-R80

With the Jade Tigers still on Zhongshan, Kate’s Cutlasses have signed another contract with the Great Eagle AgroWorks Union to continue defending their facilities and workers. With no travel needed, the Union offered a 300 SP bonus for signing on to the contract.

• Base Pay: 110%
• Transportation: N/A
• Support: 60%
• Salvage: 10%
• Command: Liaison
• Bonus: 300 SP

Contract Log

July 3151

The situation here on Zhongshan has taken a turn for the worse. While the fighting over the past few months has been located in the agricultural regions, today the Jade Tiger mercenaries advanced into the city of Zuhai. The resulting battle was quick with limited damage, but this move into urban combat represents a dangerous escalation in the violence plaguing our world.

Zuhai Public News Network, 14 July 3151

Our first track of this contract was an Objective Raid. The Jade Tigers were on the attack and aiming to steal supplies from a Great Eagle office within the city. Unfortunately for them, their Kit Fox lost its leg to a gauss slug from Kate’s Shadow Cat. With it unable to move and the Fire Falcon lacking hands, the Jade Tigers withdrew from the city.

The complete failure of their objective raid meant that the Jade Tigers earned no combat pay for the month. They received their base pay of 500 SP and then used that all for maintenance. They then had to pay 90 SP for repairs with their employer only covering 36 SP of that. That left them with 54 SP less in their war chest than the month before.

Kate’s Cutlasses earned 550 SP for their base pay plus 750 SP for completing all objectives on their mission. Then they had to spend 500 SP for regular maintenance and 135 SP for repairs. Their support terms meant that the Union covered 81 SP of those repair costs though. That left the unit up 746 SP for the month. An Ostsol OTL-8E was available on the market, so Kate picked that up for 1,552 SP and hired a new MechWarrior, Anton, to pilot it.

August 3151

Fighting moved into the city of Zuhai again today. The Jade Tiger mercenaries took up position near the city’s HPG station. While the HPG itself has been nonfunctional for about two decades, the facility is still an important hub for worldwide communications and computer networks on Zhongshan. In response to this advance into the city, Kate’s Cutlasses went on the attack and pushed the Jade Tigers out of the area.

Zuhai Public News Network, 23 August 3151

The next track in our campaign was Defend. The Jade Tigers would be defending the mapsheet with Kate’s Cutlasses attacking. Both forces wanted to control the center of the battlefield. The battle turned against the Jade Tigers when a Manticore Tank destroyed the left torso of Jade’s Fire Falcon. Then moments later, it was completely destroyed and their Kit Fox was crippled as well. With that much damage to their hardware, the Jade Tigers withdrew, giving Kate’s Cutlasses another victory.

The Jade Tigers received 500 SP in base pay and 250 SP in combat pay. They had to pay 500 SP in maintenance plus 130 SP for repairs. The Pearl Dragon Mining Corporation covered 52 SP of those repairs. The bigger loss was that Jade’s Fire Falcon was completely destroyed. Luckily, a Starslayer STY-4C was available to purchase, so Jade bought that for herself for 2,218 SP.

The Cutlasses were paid 550 SP for their base pay plus 750 SP for completing all of their mission objectives. They had to pay 500 SP for maintenance plus 30 SP for repairs (with 18 SP of that covered by support terms). That gave them a profit of 788 SP for the month.

September 3151

The residents of Zuhai have breathed a collective sigh of relief thanks to the apparent end, or at least pause, in the fighting between the Jade Tiger and Kate’s Cutlasses mercenary units since late August. This break has allowed for our world’s citizens to begin to repair the damage caused by the fighting, and life feels like it is return…

Zuhai Public News Network, 30 September 3151

With Kate’s Cutlasses winning the first two tracks, there was no track for the third month of our contracts.

With no combat during the month, the Jade Tigers were paid 500 SP and used all of that to cover their monthly maintenance costs. Their war chest was quite low after this contract.

Kate’s Cutlasses meanwhile earned 550 SP in base pay and paid 500 SP for maintenance. At the end of the contract, they also paid 200 SP to improve Anton’s Gunnery skill.

End of Contract

One moment, we have breaking news coming in…

It seems that an unidentified military DropShip has been detected moving towards Zhongshan, and it is not responding to communication attempts.

It seems our world’s troubles are not yet over.

Zuhai Public News Network, 30 September 3151

With their two victories, Kate’s Cutlasses was the victor for this batch of fighting. The Jade Tigers have taken a beating and accomplished little.

At the conclusion of their contracts, a presumably hostile force was detected moving toward Zhongshan. Seeing an invasion or pirate raid as a danger to both of their interests, the Great Eagle AgroWorks Union and Pearl Dragon Mining Corporation came to an agreement. Both would support extending their current contracts with their mercenaries in order to have them defend the world against these new invaders.

#BattleReport #BattleTech #ChaosCampaign #ZhongshanCampaign

It begins. Finally starting to paint up my little merc company for a BattleTech Succession Wars Chaos Campaign. It's gonna need another pass, but so far that Golden SoFlat acrylic paint is great to work with IMO.

#battletech #miniaturepainting #chaoscampaign #successionwars

Violence on Zhongshan

After getting both Hot Spots: Hinterlands and the Mercenaries box set, I started a campaign with my daughter. I decided to use the campaign rules from Hinterlands but start with the contract set on Zhongshan from the box set.

Starting Forces

Jade Tiger Mercenaries

The Jade Tiger Mercenaries are former members of Clan Jade Falcon who have decided to strike out on their own after being left behind by Khan Malvina Hazen when she launched her assault towards Terra.

• Jade (4/4) in a Fire Falcon T
• Mateo (4/4) in a Kit Fox A

The Jade Tigers have signed their first contract with the Pearl Dragon Mining Corporation to raid the Great Eagle AgroWorks on Zhongshan in order to encourage the workers union to accept corporate ownership of the facilities. Jade negotiated for the corporation to pay 25% of their transportation costs before accepting the offer.

• Base Pay: 100%
• Transportation: 25%
• Support: 0%
• Salvage: 70%
• Command: Liaison

Kate’s Cutlasses

Kate’s Cutlasses are a pair of MechWarriors who have decided to see if they can make it on their own as independent mercenaries.

• Kate Morán (4/4) in a Shadow Cat Prime
• Jess Becker (4/4) in an UrbanMech UM-R80

Kate and Jess signed a contract with the Great Eagle AgroWorks Union on the planet of Zhongshan. With the sudden departure of Clan Jade Falcon forces, the Union was concerned about attacks on their facility and wanted to hire a garrison. Kate negotiated better support for repairs in exchange for a reduction in salvage rights.

• Base Pay: 100%
• Transportation: 100%
• Support: 40%
• Salvage: 30%
• Command: Liaison

Contract Log

April 3151

Raiders attacked a Great Eagle AgroWorks maintenance facility yesterday. Assording to eyewitness accounts, the facility was bravely defended by two mercenary warriors, but the primary supply warehouse was still a total loss after it was struck by an AeroSpace bombing run. A representative from the AgroWorks Union has assured ZPNN that they are confident in the ability of their garrison to repel any future attacks.

Zuhai Public News Network, 24 April 3151

Our first track was a Strike. The Jade Tigers needed to identify and destroy a building with Kate’s Cutlasses working to defend it. The high speed of the Jade Tigers allowed them to quickly identify the correct target and then a heavy bombing reduced the building to rubble. Despite the destruction of the building, Kate’s Cutlasses came out ahead in the battle thanks to crippling Jade’s Fire Falcon after she had scanned the building.

The Jade Tigers had monthly maintenance covered by their base pay, received 250 SP in combat pay, and had to spend 165 SP on repairs.

Kate’s Cutlasses had monthly maintenance covered by their base pay, received 750 SP in combat pay, and had to spend 74 SP on repairs in addition to the 49 SP of repair costs covered by their contract.

May 3151

The Jade Tiger mercenary force launched another attack on Great Eagle AgroWorks this morning. In a lightning raid, the attackers seized a container of agricultural supplies and then escaped. The garrisoning mercenaries chased the raiders off before more could be stolen, but were unable to destroy or capture any of the Jade Tigers. While a representative from the AgroWorks Union assured ZPNN that the stolen supplies were not essential to their operations, inside sources expressed worry that the AgroWorks were no longer a safe place to work with many laborers seeking other options.

Zuhai Public News Network, 18 May 3151

Our track for the second month was an Objective Raid. This time, the Jade Tigers came out ahead by seizing one component and then escaping before Kate’s Cutlasses could destroy either of them.

The Jade Tigers had monthly maintenance covered by their base pay, received 750 SP in combat pay, and had to spend 110 SP on repairs.

Kate’s Cutlasses had monthly maintenance covered by their base pay, received 250 SP in combat pay, and then had to spend 74 SP on repairs in addition to the 49 SP of repair costs covered by their contract.

June 3151

In another daring raid, the Jade Tigers have destroyed another Great Eagle AgroWorks facility. A representative from the AgroWorks Union assured ZPNN that the raiding forces were left crippled by the fighting and expressed confidence that whoever hired the mercenaries would soon abandon their campaign of destruction. For all of Zhongshan’s sake, we hope they are right and the violence ends soon.

Zuhai Public News Network, 17 June 3151

The final track of the campaign was a repeat of the Strike track from the first month. We even rolled the same map sheet. Again the Jade Tigers were able to identify the target building and then eliminate it with a bombing run, but they suffered enough damage that they were not able to claim victory.

The Jade Tigers had monthly maintenance covered by their base pay, received 250 SP in combat pay, and had to spend 155 SP on repairs.

Kate’s Cutlasses had monthly maintenance covered by their base pay, received 750 SP in combat pay, and had to spend 74 SP on repairs in addition to the 49 SP of repair costs covered by their contract.

End of Contract

With their contracts complete, both mercenary units had made a profit and avoiding losing any hardware or personnel. The Jade Tiger Mercenaries ended the contract with 3,595 SP in their war chest and then spent 400 of that in order to improve the Gunnery skill for both Jade and Mateo. Meanwhile, Kate’s Cutlasses ended their contract with 4,528 SP in their war chest and also spent 400 SP on Gunnery training for both Kate and Jess. With an overall victory, the reputation of Kate’s Cutlasses has improved while the Jade Tiger Mercenaries will need to work harder to prove themselves in the future.

With the Pearl Dragon Mining Corporation showing no signs of being willing to leave the AgroWorks Union in control of the facility, both units have pending offers from their employers to serve another three months on Zhongshan.

#BattleReport #BattleTech #ChaosCampaign #ZhongshanCampaign

The Best Chaos Campaign

Chaos Campaign is a lightweight campaign framework for BattleTech that was introduced about 20 years ago for the Jihad sourcebooks. BattleTech had supported campaign-style play before then, but it was with a complex system that asked players to track C-Bills, individual supplies, all of their support personnel, etc. Chaos Campaign, originally just called the Warchest Point System, was much more streamlined. It provided a lightweight way to link together games in a campaign while players just had to keep track of abstract points representing their war chest which could be used for repairs, purchasing new equipment and personnel, and paying to get to the next battle.

Since its first introduction, the Chaos Campaign system has seen a good amount of support as well as refinements. In addition to being the campaign system for the Jihad sourcebooks, Chaos Campaign was supported by numerous Turning Points pdfs covering conflicts throughout BattleTech’s history. A free Chaos Campaign: Succession Wars version was released in 2019, and it powered the Tukayyid campaign book that was part of the Clan Invasion Kickstarter.

The Mercenaries box set and new Hot Spots: Hinterlands book have introduced the latest refinement of the Chaos Campaign system. Focused on running a relatively small mercenary unit, it allows for players to sign contracts and then fight battles to chart their unit’s future. It is by far my favorite iteration on the campaign rules thanks to a few improvements.

Warchest Point System No More

Previous implementations of the campaign system used two different types of points to track resources. Warchest Points (WP) were the main currency tracked, but then a player needed to convert those to Support Points (SP) in order to spend them on repairs and purchases. The conversion rate was based on the size of the player force. For example, a company would use a conversion factor of 3 (1 per lance), so each WP could convert to 3 SP.

The Mercenaries version instead uses only SP. A scale number, similar to the old conversion rate, is used as a multiplier for some rewards and costs, but a player only ever tracks SP. While functionally accomplishing the same thing, switching to a single type of resource points makes the system feel a whole lot more streamlined.

More Granular Repairs

Another nice change for Mercenaries is more granular repair costs for ‘Mechs. Older versions had repair costs cover fixing all armor or fixing all structure. Mercenaries expands that to have increased costs for repairing ‘Mechs that have been crippled or destroyed. This is a nice change to give players more reason to minimize damage to their units since more damage to it can continue to increase costs.

Cost-Free Tracks

Before Mercenaries, costs for running a unit were abstracted into a track cost. In order to play a game, a player’s unit needed to spend a certain number of WP in order to cover their costs to get to the battle. These had always felt odd to me since there wasn’t much story weight behind that mechanic. Mercenaries removes these track costs and replaces them with SP costs for monthly maintenance and transportation costs. This adds a little more tracking for players, but in my opinion feels much more flavorful.

These more granular costs also support the Mercenaries framing of negotiated mercenary contracts for the player units. A contract can now help cover maintenance costs, transport costs, and other costs in different ratios to give players the experience of different contract types and negotiating for what they care about the most.

Well-Defined Game Loop

A nice thing about the Mercenaries system is its well defined game loop for the campaign. Time is tracked in months with players paying their maintenance costs and taking in their base pay at the start of each month. Then they can play a number of tracks during that month depending on the specifics of their contract. After each track, they collect combat pay and can make repairs. Then when a contract ends, they have the opportunity to pick there next one.

The contracts also are multiples of 3 months in length (with most at 3 or 6 months), so in a big multi-player campaign, they provide nice quarterly snap points where players can shuffle around their pairings at different hot spots.

Battle Value as Cost

A change in the Hot Spots book is that the cost to purchase units is now based on their battle value. Previous Chaos Campaign versions had based the costs on tonnage. Battle Value, as a measure of unit effectiveness, nicely makes it feel a bit like prices are aligned with demand for units. From a gameplay perspective, it also means that players will be getting about balanced combat effectiveness for purchase costsl

Limits to Scale

While I like the change to Scale, I think it also brings some potential limitations to the system. The Scale system couples the size of a player force, the pay of a contract, and the size of games played, and it uses Battle Value (BV) as the measure of that. I think the BV definitions for Scale levels is great for a more open GM-less play mode, but for narrative GM-run campaigns, it would be nice to have alternate definitions based on the count of units. This is something that would be pretty easy for a GM to house rule though.

The other issue with Scale that I see is that advancing the scale of contract currently requires also playing bigger games. That feels like a good fit for the small scale units that are a focus of Hot Spots: Hinterlands, but I’m not sure how or if the concept will work for something like managing a company of mercenaries since conceptually I’d want company-scale contracts but not playing games with the whole company on the table at once.

Built for Battlefield Support

One disappointment for me with Hot Spots: Hinterlands was its lackluster support for players who don’t want to use the new Battlefield Support Assets rules. It says that players are welcome to use either the new rules or full vehicle rules, but most of the book assumes that the assets will be used. For example, here’s one of the potential complications while fighting on Apostica:

Your forces are ill-prepared for the dusty, sandy terrain of the day. The Threshold of all Battlefield Support Assets is reduced by one, while all
Battlefield Support Asset MP are cut in half, rounding up.

That doesn’t let players know how the complication would affect their forces if they are using full vehicle rules rather than assets. Alpha Strike, which doesn’t have assets at all and always uses its standard vehicle rules, runs into the same problem. Unless bits like that are fixed in errata, players who aren’t using assets will need to come to agreements on how rules written with an assumption that assets are being used should impact their non-‘Mech forces.

How Do Force Manuals Fit In?

A product that I want to see in the future from CGL is something to link the new force creation rules in the Force Manual line to the updated Chaos Campaign: Mercenaries campaign system. Right now, it feels like players can build a flavorful force with the Force Manuals, but there’s no official guidelines to then use that force in the updated campaign system.

Hot Spots, Coming in Hot

One last issue is that the Hot Spots: Hinterlands book has a few big errors in it with some missing pieces. These are being addressed as errata, but it is still a frustration for folks who bought the physical book. Hopefully CGL will be able to take more time on the recently announced Hot Spots: Draconis Reach and have fewer issues make it to print.

#BattleTech #ChaosCampaign #HotSpots #Mercenaries

Some more notes from #ChaosCampaign~ I would also like to let everyone know that Robin Goodfellow is planning to prank Vecna, God of Secrets, but as this plan is the furthest thing from a secret imaginable, they can't see any reason why Vecna should want to know about it.

#dnd #bulletjournal #art