Comedy of Errors AAR

[Zaketh]

I've been playing TOS for about a year, and enjoying the AAR's for nearly as long. Since there hasn't been one for a while, I thought I would supply one, and hope it starts them up again. Especially, since one of my battles ended up as a comedy.

I've been slowly developing four squads, through the arena and the campaigns. Three are regular (mainly veteran and regular jocks, with a few lesser experienced jocks) and one is novice. All have 6 jocks and 9-12 titans, mainly recons, lights, and mediums. The 3 regulars have gotten into the Metaborator campaign, through 1-4 missions, with varying degrees of success. I've been trying to get the novice squad up to regular, so it too can start on the Metaborator, and stop the ridicule of the other squads.

The squad, the Vicious Trilobytes, has Athena (regular, leader) on a Foxhound (Bloodhound variant with 2 HMG, 2 AC 7, scan 4, comp 6); Aphrodite (regular, business manager) on a Typhoon (light, BLG, LL, scan 5, comp 6); Artemis (regular, mechanic) on a Bloodhound S (scan 5); Aurora (regular) on a Bowman Plus (light, 2 LRM 9, 2 Napalm 7); Ariadne (rookie, I mean, ROOKIE) on a Black Knight (recon, BRG); and Andromeda (rookie) on a Blue Bolt (Stinger variant, scan 4, comp 4, no jp).

They fought an arena battle that started out almost perfectly. The map was cut in half by a mountain range that ran east-west across most of the map. My squad started out in the west near a low and medium hill, with 3 forest hexes 5 hexes to the west.

I sent my squad to the top of the medium hill. They saw the enemy at the far east of the map, with only plain hexes and a few depression hexes on the other side of the forests. The enemy squad was an Attila, 2 Pharaohs, a Pest, a Lancer II (light, 2 AC 4, Tesla), and a Gunner II (recon, 2 HMG). My LRM's and AC's softened up the lead titan, one of the Pharaohs, and got a lucky hit that must have damaged its gyro, as the rest of the battle, it just fell down and stood up over and over. I then switched over to the Lancer II. Except for potshots from the Lancer's AC 4's, I was taking no damage.

When the lead enemy titans got up to the forest, I lit them up with the BRG and napalm missiles. When the Lancer came through, I shot a leg off. The Pest took a couple of shots to the head and ejected. The second Pharaoh came out of the fire and stopped. The Gunner II came out of the fire and crouched. Both at range 4. The Attila in the mean time had closed to range 2. Concentrated fire power blew off a leg and knocked it down. I switched to the Pharoah at that point.

So far, I had some light armor damage to the Bowman Plus and the Bloodhound S, and nothing else. I had already started counting up the salvage money and the low repair bill, when the comedy started.

The Attila had become a nuisance, because it suddenly developed a never-miss, rapid fire medium laser, while it was lying on the ground. The Gunner was just taking potshots, and the Pharaoh had run up next to the Attila. Since the Black Knight had only about 30% shots on the Pharaoh, I had the ROOKIE Ariadne switch back to the Attila...hoping to convince the pilot to eject without putting too much more damage on it. However... her first shot exploded the Attila's engine, which exploded the Lancer's engine, heavily damaged and heated the Pharaoh and Gunner, and knocked down and shut down the Pharaoh.

Of course, my entire squad took damage too. Four of my previously unscratched titans took moderate armor damage, including a red leg on the Black Knight. The Bowman became red all over, and the Bloodhound S yellow or red all over. All had heat in the red or yellow. While I was cooling down, the Gunner and Pharaoh pilots ejected.

That left just the first Pharaoh, which was still constantly standing up and falling down. So I sent all but the Bowman to finish it off...with, you guessed it, Ariadne leading the way. They went to the north, around the burning forests. In her rookie enthusiasm, she didn't notice that one of those green colored depression hexes was actually a different shade of green swamp hexes. She promptly proceded to run full speed into the swamp, and lead 3 of her squadmates who were right with her, in rapid succession into the swamp also. Only Athena was able to stop in time, and look down at a pile of 4 titans driven deep into the swamp in a tangle. And then came the final comedy. While the 4 were trying to stand and failing over and over, Athena went AROUND the swamp to finally finish off the last enemy. But just as Aphrodite and Artemis finally stood up, the last Pharaoh finally fell for the last time and disabled itself, ending the battle.

So, with one shot, and one step, one rookie pilot managed to kill 4 enemies and damage 6 squad mates. My rookie did more damage to me, than the entire enemy squad did. And the enemy finished itself off, I couldn't even do that. My repair bill went from minimal to 78,000. My salvage went from lots and lots to 61,000. And guess who got the only promotion? Of course, the ROOKIE Ariadne, to green. She will forever be known to her squad as THE ROOKIE ("Grandma, why do people still call you 'the rookie'? "Don't ask.")

I hope this has brought some amusement to you.

[AngelWuff]

wow, just... wow [&o] I'm planning to get up the nerve to write a rookie AAR for the Savannah campaign for amusement, but not very good player, and just started playing again. I've had a few games where I've done the dance of death (fall, get up, fall, get up, fall...) but never quite a sudden turnaround like that...

[LarkinVB]

Thanks. Geat story.

[Black Knight]

It's an honor to me, that one of your Titans bears my name. [:D]

(Okay, okay, you didn't know me, before you wrote this AAR.)

[majama]

yea, great story