Attack/Defend in 1.7

[commuterzombie]

So I've played my first Attack/Defend in 1.7 (and in fact ever) today and it seemed pretty reasonable in terms of difficulty.

The contract was called 'Proxy War' and it was 3.5 skull in difficulty. The OpFor were Kuritan and their base was defended by 4 half-damaged assault turrets and a medium/heavy mixed lance with a Crab, a Cicada and a couple of heavy mechs that I didn't get eyes on but I think there was a Black Knight and a Catapult K-2 in there.

Their attacking lance was two Centurion CN9-A mechs, a Catapult C4 and a Cataphract.

The friendly base had no additonal defences, but shortly after contact was made (I think 2 turns in) a Taurian lance that was hostile with the Kuritans and myself landed. That had a Banshee (one of the bad ones), Orion, Dragon and another heavy mech. They landed between the Kuritan attack and defend lances and didn't shoot me at all so long as I wasn't shooting at them. They absorbed a lot firepower from both lances and the turrets and made my life a lot easier.

Kuritan reinforcements were only due on round 11 and the base was rubble before then.

This is only one sample of course but it seemed a lot fairer than some of the horror stories I've heard of. How are people finding these missions now?

 

[Prussian Havoc]

I’ve got my first 1.7 Attack / Defend Mission up next. I’ll come back here and note my findings later this morning. :bow:

 

[Prussian Havoc]

I’ve got my first 1.7 Attack / Defend Mission up next. I’ll come back here and note my findings later this morning. :bow:

I just had a 2.5 Difficulty Attack / Defend Mission. It was both challenging and ultimately manageable. This is a great improvement of my previous experiences with Attack / Defend Missions. I am currently playing an Ironman Career and after two early failed Attack / Defend Missions, I had taken to avoiding them at all costs. Now they add a much needed element of FUN to my BATTLETECH gameplay. Great job HBS!

 

[ronhatch]

As far as I can tell from reading between the lines of the stories I've heard, the biggest problem is simply that Attack/Defend missions roll a lot more lances than most mission types. The odds of ending up with a lance that's much easier or much harder than intended for the skull rating go up with each additional lance rolled. That's pretty much just an inevitable consequence of having more units on the field. I mean shoot... recently in one of my careers where I started with all light mechs, I was worried about a blip on the radar that was clearly a medium mech. Wasn't sure I could handle that yet... until it turned out to be a Cicada. The skull rating seems to be mostly focused on tonnage, but some mechs are flat-out more dangerous than others.

In any case, I personally haven't done very many of the Attack/Defends yet, but so far I've been fortunate that I could handle the drops pretty easily. In one case I even intentionally delayed destroying the enemy base so that I could get more salvage. It's also a mission type that I intend to approach very carefully while keeping the withdrawal option in mind. Dropping mechs that don't have valuable equipment in the head that would be destroyed upon ejecting could be a good idea, too.

 

[Donvale]

As far as I can tell from reading between the lines of the stories I've heard, the biggest problem is simply that Attack/Defend missions roll a lot more lances than most mission types. The odds of ending up with a lance that's much easier or much harder than intended for the skull rating go up with each additional lance rolled. That's pretty much just an inevitable consequence of having more units on the field. I mean shoot... recently in one of my careers where I started with all light mechs, I was worried about a blip on the radar that was clearly a medium mech. Wasn't sure I could handle that yet... until it turned out to be a Cicada. The skull rating seems to be mostly focused on tonnage, but some mechs are flat-out more dangerous than others.

In any case, I personally haven't done very many of the Attack/Defends yet, but so far I've been fortunate that I could handle the drops pretty easily. In one case I even intentionally delayed destroying the enemy base so that I could get more salvage. It's also a mission type that I intend to approach very carefully while keeping the withdrawal option in mind. Dropping mechs that don't have valuable equipment in the head that would be destroyed upon ejecting could be a good idea, too.

Yup, when your running lights the difference between having a blip turn into a Hunchback vs a Cicada is like night and day!

 

[ronhatch]

Yup, when your running lights the difference between having a blip turn into a Hunchback vs a Cicada is like night and day!

I didn't have that particular example in mind, but yeah... there's a good chance I would have bugged out if it had been a Hunchback. Don't recall if I had a Sensor Lock pilot at that point, and sniping from long range is pretty much the only way I would have taken him on.