Mission #5, Pre-mission notes

Just a couple of notes on Mission #5.

1) We are expecting some sort of snow storm on Wednesday.  I'll be all plowed out and will throw some sand down.  Not knowing what type of snow we will be getting, just make the turn into the driveway slowly.  I've had car slide all the way down it into my garage door before.  Wouldn't want the night to start off on a sour note with someone playing bumper cars outside.

2) Initiative:  We will be doing this a little different due to the dueling.  If the battle is one on one, or once it is down to one on one, we will use the traditional die roll to determine who moves first.  If you guys out number the clanner, we will use cards.  There will be one black card for the clanner and a red card for each of the player mechs.  We will shuffle and flip one of the cards.  If a red card is flipped, any of the player mechs (that have yet to move that turn) may move (You guys are not assigned a specific red card).  That will give you a little flexibility with movement.  Plus I've never liked the all or nothing movement when it is 2 or 3 against one.

3) Salvage:  Realized I didn't mention this yet.  There will be no enemy salvage from this mission.  You can get your reward mech if you win enough of the battles, but you will not be salvaging any clan mechs from the field. 

4) Replacement mechs after this battle.  Command has thrown their full support behind this mission.  Normally it takes quite a while to repair engine or gyro damage.  After this battle command has agreed to replace any destroyed mech or any mech that takes engine or gyro damage with a mech from the faction you choose as a group.  However the guys up north are running low on lighter weight chassis, so any left over mechs will be shipped up north.  So if you want to keep your mech and it has engine or gyro damage, you will have to run it next battle with that engine or gyro damage.  Here is how the post battle mech selection will go.

• Players that have engine or gyro damage decide if they wish to turn in their mech for a new one.
• Players will vote on what faction will supply them with new mechs. (Davion, Steiner, Liao, Kurita, Comstar, Rasalhauge, Mercs)
• New mechs will be supplied from the faction chosen.
• Players will go through normal mech section process.
• Unselected mechs will be shipped out and removed from our roster.

5) I'll apologize in advance for those of you that get head shot this time through.  I'm expecting a 50% player mech loss and at least one of you will get the 15 point head shot.  One adjustment to the "What do to if a player dies rule."  When your character dies you get a new character with -5 kills from your total.  The furthest you can fall back is to a skill addition point (5, 10, 15 kills, etc.)  Think of it as a respawn point, once you hit the 5, 10 15 kill mark, you can never fall past that, even on back to back kills.  So if Poe (Rock) were to die this time out. he would fall back to his "respawn" cap of 5 kills.  However this respawn point is set between missions, not during missions.  Your new character will still get credit for the kills of the dead pilot on the last mission, just after he falls back to the "respawn" point.

• Example: Poe was at 9.25 kills at the start of mission 4.  Giving him a "respawn" point of 5 kills.  During the game he kills the Spider but then is head shot.  The new character (Rock) is made starting with 5 kills, then adds the 1 for the Spider kill, giving him a total of 6.  Rock then writes a new dossier giving him a total of 7 kills.  Rock starts the next mission with a respawn point of 5 kills.  Say Rock gets 3 kills during that mission then is killed.  The new character would be made with a total of 8 kills (respawn of 5 + 3 kills).      

See yah Friday.