"Battlesuit" by Steve Jackson: Several Plays Later

Yee-haw!  It's a great day to be in a Battlesuit!

^{© Steve Jackson Games}

I reviewed this re-issue of "Battlesuit" previously here [CLICK], with the summary of "buy it!" because I dig the retro components altho the map is a bit lightly colored. While I found the rules a bit scattered and needing better organization, I wrote up a QRS of my own that summarized them for me. Overall, the game is very tactical but the mechanics are a bit slow if used as prescribed.  I streamline the Line of Sight rules a bit and don't use the handy chart provided.

The game requires a larger space than Ogre, but is still faster to set up than a full miniatures game, and takes about an hour to play a small scenario of 4-5 Units per side. With familiarity, one can double the force to 8-10 Units without much added time.

In getting back to the game after a bit of an absence of almost a year, I did a quick run-thru of the 9.01 Training scenario. Just to try and get Reaction Fire dominance against the Black team, Red entered the south edge with all men at Jump High level - only being within Soft Cover would avoid a Line of Sight. The drawback is they can all be seen also. What I was gambling on is that Red's Reaction Fire would damage a few key suits right off the bat, as Black entered the North edge, and before Black could Fire at Red.

The Actions and Reaction Fire mechanics produce a set of individual confrontations between Units - this makes the activity choppy compared to a game where all Units perform the same activity in a given Phase, e.g. Move Phase, Shoot Phase, Close Combat Phase.

This left Black with few options. The high Level 6 Hill on the north half of the map doesn't block Line of Sight from Units that in a Jump High status.  So if I entered as below, each man would take Reaction Fire as he entered, until all Red's Units had Reaction Fired. By the Combat Results Table [CRT] about half would Hit for a Shock result or Damage, and the Heavy Weapon was almost guaranteed to badly damage a battlesuit.

Instead, I had to leverage the Reaction Fire mechanic that allows the Phasing side to Fire or Jump Straight Up and Fire before taking Reaction Fire. Ergo, Black snuck quietly into the battlespace using the only cover available, the woods at the northwest corner. By being in Soft Cover and out of Line of Sight, the Reaction Fire was almost negated - only the Heavy Weapon had a good chance [>60%] of getting Shock and/or a Damage result.

Goes to show...do the CRT math before you choose your game tactics!

The plan worked out well!  

Black was able to get shots in against Red on the next Player Turn, achieve some Fire superiority, and ground Red down thanks to their Soft Cover and some better rolls, also, resulting in quick kills on a couple suits and the Heavy Weapon.

Black had one destroyed Standard 'suit, two badly damaged Standard 'suits, and one badly damaged Assault 'suit.

NOTE: Without some hot dice, Black would have just barely won as the Soft Cover is helpful but not a strong modifier like Hard Cover or a Bunker.

Red was wiped out, except for one lone badly damaged Standard 'suit. Even their Heavy Weapon was destroyed by Fire!

The aggressive "Jump High" tactic for the Red Team didn't work out. They should have landed everyone on Red Player Turn 2 and then been methodical in their approach to engage Black. Also, Red should have kept everyone closer together, which makes it easier to keep the Heavy Weapon in Action after there is battle damage [damaged 'suits can't man the Heavy Weapon]. 

My other takeaways from this practice game is that the CRT is a bit too deadly. There is very little space to maneuver when Range penalties only come into play in 10-hex increments starting at 11+. The entire board is only 30 by 23 offset points [hexes, effectively] so not much penalty for shooting across the entire board. I would like a bit more maneuver on the field. One solution would be to double the ground scale and inflict Range penalties in 5-hex increments, about every 250 meters. This seems pretty reasonable.

Also, I think the CRT needs to be a bit less lethal - again, assuming that Range is longer per hex, it makes sense that there will be some areas of the board that it is safe to maneuver in and only a Heavy Weapon is a threat. This makes the game map more useful and I can play across the narrow side also.  

Overall, the game produced a lot of tense moments as 'suits popped up and Fired at each other, while the powerful Heavy Weapons supported the effort through Indirect Fire [IF] mostly. Black was able to get some Direct Fire [DF] in with theirs, which helped them to achieve Fire superiority.

While the mechanics are a bit detailed / less abstract for modern tastes, they do produce some real granularity in tactical decisions that makes for an intense experience. With just a bit of tweaking, I will satisfy my nostalgia itch fully!