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James Goldfinch
Australia
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I've been quietly using my spare time to play through all of the scenarios of this book, and I think they are amongst the best of the scenarios published by FASA for Battletech.
Let me just prefeace the rest if this discussion by saying that the 1st scenario in the book is the worst and a total cake walk for the Rolling Thunder player... forgive them for getting it wrong and turn the page to the second scenario as it is much better from there on.
So the first step for me was to collect and paint the 12 Rolling Thunder mechs so that my games would be pretty. The 1st Regulan Hussars have quite a simple but attractive paint scheme (you can view this on the Camospecs website... and see a Battlemaster in the paint scheme on the front cover of the scenario book).
So how are the scenarios?
Play balance is excellent in most cases. Often scenarios hinged on one little decision, and I was so interested to see what would have resulted from other decisions that I would play them again.
The forces are adequately varied, even for the Rolling Thunder force which is using a combination of the same 12 meachs for most of the scenarios, but due to mission objectives you are forced to find new uses for the same mechs in many of the missions (one where I had to use the Rolling Thunder Hunchback to run from forest to forest on the board hunting for infantry comes to mind... a close combat mech turned scout).
Mission objectives were good and usually clear. The missions didn't always simply tranlsate into kill all the opposing units, which is good. Often time limits were involved.
So before my lap-top battery runs out lets get to the down side...
The history and character bios plays no role in the scenarios... so it is really pointless unless you happen to find it a good read.
All opposing units are 4 gunnery, 6 piloting... and this is only stated on the introduction page. A little variety would have been good.
There are two missions I don't think Rolling Thunder can win.. one is to clear 4 mechs, 4 vehicles and 4 infantry platoons in 15 turns with just 6 mechs of their own... they hardly have the force to guarantee a win in a stand up fight let alone chasing fast hovercraft around the board with a 25 shot limit. Another is a similar issue chasing VTOLs.
The scenarios should be Date Ordered so you can run through the pliots careers, and so that some pilot improvement system can be used over time... the 6 gunnery monkeys should be at least 3 pilot veterans by the end of the scenarios. And I just can't understand why it isn't date ordered...
There are typos.. lots of them... in one scenario the opposing force is labelled as House Liao, when most of the Scenario makes it clear it is House Steiner.
All up though an excellent product.
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