Fan Council OOC Thread

[Arkansas Warrior]

So do I, but we don't seem to be able to get the involvement to make it work.

[Iron Mongoose]

For me, I'd like to see density over anything else.  Yes, the best times were the 3067 game, or in the early part of the 62 game, when every faction was just crawling with people.  The Bears at one point had 12 people, and the 48 Jags the same, and that was fun because there was a lot of interaction (12 may be too many, but 3-5 is nice).  Thouse factions make the most RP, and can have inter faction and intra faction RP.  You need both, and that takes a high density of players. 

But, if you only have a dozen players and you want several per faction, you need you limit yourself to 3-4 factions.  Which is tricky.  Or, we could do a dozen factions and give each one, but then what?  Who do they RP with?  Espcealy in the last two games, with no SL or GC, there's not a really good internation RP forum.  3039 made a few up, which was inportant, but better either to have a set one, or not to need it.

[Fatebringer]

As a faction head, I've had several people under me. But it hardly ever lasted. The only game where my team stayed together what the recent FGC 3010 game, but the rest of the game crumbled. I really wanted to see how that would turn out.

The CC had been nearly cut in half, our enemies were confident. When we lost the worlds, we lost between 1 to 20 FP on about a dozen worlds for less than 100 FP loss. However, on Victoria, the Big MAC straight up killed about 200 FP of invaders in a counter assault. Logistically, we were kicking butt.

The turn the game ended we were poised to make a huge counter-invasion. We had a plan to recover every world that was taken before they flipped. A point of order that was unique to the FGC 3010 setting was the pacification of a world. You can take a world in turn 1, but you had to spend 3 turns and spend RP to pacify the worlds.

Our plan? To let them spend the RP for 2 turns and then snag the worlds back at the last second. People were like. Oh, the FS is so much bigger than you... but I was like... yeah, but they're down 200 FP on the border and unless they had some secret deal with the DC, they've got most of their forces on that border because they don't consider us as much of a threat.

Had our plan succeeded. The FS would have wasted resources on pacification, lost three times the troops we did and would be vulnerable for raiding until we decided where we wanted to really hit.... which of course is always Kathil I just love to mess with their production there.

Anywho, we had several players to start that off, but dwindled down to only 3. Still, it was a solid 3 and we were posting and doing our RP. I'm still using the sigbar for that It's why I wasplaying Capellan for 3039. I usually like to play Drac, but the Cappies have grown on me.

[Iron Mongoose]

Too bad we wern't pacifying.  We were taking the worlds to limit stretegic mobility for you, but it was understood that untill we defeated the big MAC, they wouldn't be safe, so I didn't spend a dime on that.  And even if I had, we had money comming out our ears.  Our forces near Victoria actualy still outnumbered the MAC by a few hundred FP, but since we couldn't attack and defend at the same time, I was reluctant to force the issue on Victoria, lest we pass in the night as you hit into the FS.  The hope was to streatch a line across the CC, to isolate the troops in the south from the north, and then when you tried to break through, counter attack there.  In the north, yes, we were falling back, but we had reserves in place, and I was prepaired to trade worlds for time.

One problem was the context.  The DC was the main assualt, with about 1500 FP with Ian Davion's assualt group.  The whole Capellan march only got a bit less than that.  The Terran Thumb had about as much as well.  And, in classice Iron Mongoose style, the rest was defended by huge gaps.  As ever, I was ready to take some risks.  But, the CC assualt was not meant to be a killing blow, and for several reasons.  One, the DC was target one.  Two, I genuinely feered taking the CC out too early with a crushing drive on Sian (it would have been easy enough to assign it 2000 FP and still be at ease with my DC defences).  Because of the shape of the CC, between the FS and FWL we could have taken every important world in two turns, and I don't suspect you could have stopped it.

But, what fun would that have been?

We wanted a massive assualt that would impress, and distract, but that didn't cripple the CC, because we didn't want to break the game too baddly.  That was truely the plan, OOC though it was.  To me, it was a sort of good meta gaming.  The decision not to attack the playerless DC was also a sort of good metagaming, and it hurt the CC move. 

Of course, the really key problem was that I had hoped to deligate most of that attack to other people, but then through my bad comunication I failed to keep thouse people informed enough to make the right decisions, and so I ended up making them all myself at the last moment.  Despite having been Hasek in the, AW will probably read this and it will be new news to him, which is my fualt and something I take responcability for and feel bad about.  And, more than anything, that hurt us a lot.

But, I think that our baddly made, thrown together plan was working, and would have worked.  And we would have crushed the DC, too.

For about three more turns, untill we ran out of MPs.  I was burning through our reserve pool about 1000 a turn, hoping for knock outs early against opponents who wouldn't belive anyone could be so rash, and not commit the nessissary MPs to respond.  I figure the CC guessed about how many MP and FP we had, and when I was prepaired to use twice as many, I hoped to make a supprise win.  I was going to drop about 1200 FP on the one DC world with the PF on it, with only a 600 point MP pool, and again the thought was that the DC would never see it comming, put 500 or 600 FP there and think themselves to have pulled their own ambush because I'd teligraphed my intentions so clearly.

[Fatebringer]

It is a foregone conclusion that if the FedCom wanted to Roll on us, there's not much we could do... But... oh wait, you weren't playing the FedCom! You were playing the Federated Suns pre-IS Level II People don't seem to understand that we had over 3K FP ... Yes, we have a small realm but that helps in defense. The second you try a "Stack of Doom" approach, you we go into Defensive Grinder mode while we converge to defend that and the fact that Capellans make superior mechs ALL FEAR THE LOCUST!!!

[Fatebringer]

hoping for knock outs early against opponents who wouldn't belive anyone could be so rash, and not commit the nessissary MPs to respond.  I figure the CC guessed about how many MP and FP we had, and when I was prepaired to use twice as many, I hoped to make a supprise win.

The way my strategy usually works, I, like you, Create stronghold leaving some worlds with Militia, and others with only raid defense forces. That is why we lost so many worlds, but so little in forces.  I was being economical with my MP. Not to mention the broken nature of Salvage in that game. One good early roll and the odds can flip in a heartbeat.

[Iron Mongoose]

Yeah, Victora was not too lop sided going in, but your good roll in the first round really clinched a big win.

And I think we guessed you at closer to 2.5k, but we had 6.5k.  Had we gone whole hog for Sian, what could you have done?  Conversely, New Avalon is burried deep inside the Suns, as deeply as any other national capitol.  We were probably the most defensable house, with the fewest exposed resorce sites and key worlds.

I think had we had two or three more turns, we would have each done our thing for a turn or two.  We might have gotten some reserves shifted up to the New Argon thrust to blunt that, or we may not have.  We might have tried to hit Victoria, but unlikely.  Probably, we'd have tried to get the FWL to come back into play (I think they saw the big DC attack and thought we didn't have the heart to still fight you, though we were ready to do both) and take that line of worlds across your relm.

I'd have really liked for someone else to have run that show, to be honest, as I mentioned, but I still think that we'd have come out ahead in the end, or at least we'd have broken even and the FWL would have come out ahead, which would have been a win for us.

[Fatebringer]

That and you had Free World help. But conversely. I can imagine the DC having a sizable military as well. Bigger than ours for sure and Attrition makes a difference. We had a plan initially where we were pretty much willing to sacrafice the lower half of your worlds to make a push on your coreward worlds and meet up with the DC border. Yes, the DC and CC were talking Before they lost players.

Anywho, we were down about 30 FP going into Victoria and by the end of round 1, we were up by about 80. The large salvage pools and their immediate reintroduction to the unit after the round of combat were a definate factor.

[Iron Mongoose]

Anyway...

I think we both think we could have unfolded out plans the way we each wanted to, and there's no real way to test it.  Oddly, both of our plans alowed for the other simply doing their own thing for several turns; our Terran corradore forces would have made life hell on earth if you wanted to break through there, but if you struck further east you would have found vast tracts of nothing, because it would have taken three or four turns to bust through, and I was content I could do what I wanted to do in that amount of time.  You were content to let us have the south and link up with the FWL, because that area was mostly a waste land anyway (which, as I mentioned, was why it was our target).

But, unless well all pull our sheets out and get Harlock back and find a player for the DC, we'll never know, and that's not the end of the world.

So, the follow up question might be, what else do we not know?  And what do we want to find out?

[Fatebringer]

One thing I did like were the signature PC units. Although they were way too small to be affective overall.

[Iron Mongoose]

Yeah, I had a lot of fun with units like the Dark Shadows and Romita Avengers in the previous game (the whole Mandrill Clan was my personal unit, but Tassa's Blood-whatever cluster and Marlin's Fire Ants were shining Clan examples).

[Parmenion]

One thing I did like were the signature PC units. Although they were way too small to be affective overall.

I'd agree with that.  From memory, they were only a battalion strength unit, and so not really useful for anything other than in a support role for a larger force.  Yeah you could have used them in raids, but I'd be going 'ouch' if I sent my green unit on a raid and came up against the DAG or Dai Dai Chi.   You need something like a regiment to absorb the losses one would expect to occur. 

But an interesting idea all the same, and one the Federated Suns in this game has picked up on.  We are fitting out a unit at the moment for one of our players, and when one that is completed, will be starting on the next one.  Just trying to find a way for my own unit to have 5 mech lances with a short battalion of tanks.  I think Natasha was stomping Marik heads around this time wasn't she, with the Black Widows.  Might use them for my inspiration. 

[Fatebringer]

Inspiration comes from many places. My Tank BN for the 3010 game was supported by 1 Mech Lance. I like Tanks in the early years because they were cheap.

My first introduction of Orwell's Oilmen was in a Merc game where we had to keep track of our money. We had access to Level II at the time and could get scavanged Clan parts in game. But we only started with one Lance. I spent my money on a Brutus, Von Luckner and an Crusader. We had starting points for different bonuses so I used a good chunk of my starting points to get a Star league Starslayer. At the end I had good skills for the slayer, but horrible skills for my Von Luckner.

The tanks were my baby's though. I thought I was done for in my first match, but my 5/6 Von Luckner was the luckiest SOB ever. 3 Kills in the first game. One from the Big AC20 Head Shot, another from the SRM crit barrage, but the last one was the killing blow on an Awesome as the tank was trying to get distance so the Awesome didn't kill him. Shooting off it's rear LRM 10, it killed the Awesome needing 11. "The Lucky" ended the game at 3/5 with 12 kills.

I took my money and sold the mechs to buy a six Hovertanks immediately doubling my size and combat affectiveness. I had money left over for more crews and techs so I got to upgrade there too. I lost a lot of tanks, but having those techs really helped me stay in the game.

The first time I ran into Clanners, I beat them using saturation fire and luck. Yup. Lucky struck again with at least 2 headcaps in that game. When the first Executioner went down I felt a lot better than I did to start that game. It was a bloodbath, but when it was done I had a horde of Clantech scrap. I stripped the weapons pods off the useless ones and sold the rest for scrap. I got really good money for Clan Ferro Fibrous and Endo Steel scrap as some of the frames were still intact. I also sold a few of the mechs whole because I didn't really need them.

I bought me a full company of Tanks for 2 mechs and the scrap and by this time I had a rep and could get better contracts and tank crews. People knew I took care of them and didn't just abandon people out there. Plus, I wasn't picky about people's pasts. Yeah, we were that kind of merc crew.

By the time I was done playing, I had a full mech company and two companies of solid Vehicles. Ten of the Mechs were Clan and the two IS designs were Clan upgraded. The CMD (Starslayer) and XO (Archer).  The RP for that game was awesome, but of course the game ended due to lack of players. We started off with about 6 players and near then end the GM had me playing the bot because there were no other players and he didn't have the time to play, that's when I knew it was over for me. A shame really.

[Arkansas Warrior]

Yeah, the PC units were fun.  Mine never got to see combat, but was going to see Michael Hasek-Davion at the head of a Zeta BN-inspired unit of heavy and assault mechs that drew inspiration from the Warrior Houses, Knights of the IS, and historic Warrior Orders like the Templar or Hospitallers.  If successful, I'd probably have built more 'copycat' units, as a sort of FedSuns answer to the Warrior Houses.  But probably with some conventional/ASF support that the PC unit was lacking.

[Fatebringer]

I'm definately going to keep the Oilmen on the side for future use.