It's that time again. I've won another stein-style event, this time a pbp Traveller/RECON mashup refereed by Joshinyu. What follows is my general strategy for victory and observations about the setup, pace, and conclusion of the game from my perspective.
I played as Captain Bellisarius "Whiskey" Woltievsky of the WTF PMC. My nod to the storygamer Ref was that CPT Whiskey was being fed 40k Imperial propaganda from an unknown source; Inquisition, Astartes, Chaos agent, who knows?! It didn't matter at all to mechanical choices that I made but it certainly fed the flavor. Our mission was to overthrow The Great Leader of Pergamuth and establish rule in our image.
The setup of the game was surprisingly involved. We had a budget to purchase men and equipment of various levels, from infantry grunts to ballistic submarines. Ref wanted us to roll up individual Traveller stats for our personnel which was quite the ask. I wasn't doing that so we negotiated a middle ground of establishing skills. Still a lot but I got through it.
I built out Whiskey as a spec ops sniper a la Mellowlink from VOTOMS. I then had two identical squads of infantry with a versatile cross section of roles. One squad had an aerial craft in support, the other an ATV. Rounding out my loadout was an artillery piece, which the ref considered a mobile combination arty/AA gun. I essentially made templates for each type of infantry; rifleman, medic, AT, etc. This made tracking stats and capabilities of each squad easier to see at a glance. With the advantage of hindsight, I think part of the budgeting would have been to buy a template, rather than a blank slate, for infantry if those skills were required to be known.
The next stage of setup was placement on the map. Ref gave me a few options so I chose as close to the Starport as I could get. A plan was forming to take over the means of resupply and reinforcement and then strangle the game by capturing the Starport. I couldn't do it alone and I couldn't do it without the fog of war. The other players were gonna help me out with both of these challenges.
I needed an ally. Glancing at the roster I had a handful of known lunatics, a handful of unknowns, and one player of honorable and noble character, HootOwl (nevermind that I had to blast his character in the face in the previous stein event that I undisputedly won). I approached him with my plan and after some negotiation and light RP we formed an alliance. Our loadouts complimented each other well and he had his eyes on a village near him to capture for uh, reasons. At this stage of the game we didn't know how anything worked or what anything meant so we really leaned into a bias for action.
Turn one came around and I needed recon, I was blind. I knew I wanted to work towards the Starport so off I went. My scout team turned up with a native smuggler who had lost his team. He was starving and cagey but after some encouragement I got some critical local details. Another warlord was destroying river crossings nearby. The smuggler, who I named Snowman, also knew a smuggler's route into the Starport area.
This first turn had a lot of back and forth and I sensed that that wasn't gonna be the norm. I identified two targets, the river guys and some guys laying mines at the Starport. I had set my objective at the start so I opted to engage at the Starport. I attempted to set an ambush, was mostly successful, and after a brief fight had control of the only means on or off planet. So far so good.
Thankfully, it seemed most of the other groups were scrapping well away from me. This gave me and Hoot a chance to consolidate our forces at a fortified position. It was around this time that my side project of running through the USMC Decision Making Tactical Games workbook with Belloc bore practical fruit in the form of how to issue orders. The light bulb moment was that someone else was going to process your orders, either a subordinate or a referee in a game, so they needed to be delivered in an easy to understand and direct manner.
The second turn put the river guys in our crosshairs. Since we were consolidated, I would use one of my squads to act as a fixing element and Hoot's highly mobile squads to flank and destroy. I'd keep my other squad for a QRF and defense of the base. My new order format was a hit with the ref and really helped organize what I actually wanted to achieve with a turn. I also sensed the scope of game the ref wanted, one of strategic maneuver and scheming rather than fiddly tactical shot by shot combat. I let him adjudicate the results of orders based on my declarations without needling him with detail and took the good with the bad. Hold on loosely, baby.
Our second engagement was successful, destroying the river mercs to the south with air strikes, flanking, and a little help from unknown third parties who dropped an ATV on some of Hoot's men. Meanwhile, I was attacked at the base! Good thing I'm a strategic mastermind and my defense force was able to repel the counterattack from The Great Leader's men trying to recapture the Starport. The Great Leader was goin' through it, one warlord was KIA, and we had our target secured. I got reinforcements from off-world and set my sights on capturing TGL's island base nearby.
Turn three, we established a screening force of Catechan jungle fighters, a mine field in the water to combat the threat of Frogmen in Submarines, and Hoot's highly mobile platoon as a QRF. I consolidated my entire force and struck at the island fortress. We captured the base while TGL fled in a VOTOMS, which he ditched to try and sneak off world. Our minefield disabled a submarine, man am I smart, causing it to surface and be destroyed. The warlord aboard mounted the ditched VOTOMS but was destroyed by focused fire from the remaining resources on the island.
Meanwhile, the Frogman's indigenous ally struck at the Starport but fell to a Catechan ambush and artillery. With both the functional power and symbolic seat of Pergamuth in our control, Hoot and I declared victory. He definitely was not considering betraying me and is a good and loyal subject of the Imperium. The remaining warlords spent their turns scrapping amongst themselves and their stories are their own (cuz I have no idea what went on over there).
The game went very well for me, equal parts teamwork, forethought, and luck. I'd also like to think understanding what type of game the ref was trying to run helped me to communicate my turns effectively. My take away from this game was all in the orders. I made a good alliance and then really didn't communicate with anyone else outside of a clearly sketchy attempt to fish for details from one of those aforementioned "known lunatics." 10/10 would play again.
