ScrapYard Armory

Pressure

The opening fiction to OTP: Death to Mercenaries follows a lone Dragoons lance and their struggle against impossible odds.  What appears like a resounding victory soon fades back to reality.  Reality for the Dragoons after Misery is bleak and unforgiving.  The stage is set for this Turning Point sequel and by all accounts, we can expect a tragedy to evolve.  The writing is excellent and action packed.  I would love to have read more about this particular sub-unit of the Dragoons in future fiction but I know in all likelihood, they would not have survived the next few hours.

Atlas

The events of this OTP take place on no less than four planets within the Federated Commonwealth.  Each has a short biography and a small (1D6) terrain table with suggested Tactical Operations upgrades.  Most if not all of the information supplied in the atlas section is superfluous in nature but should not be overlooked.  While crafting my own tracks and one-off scenarios, I relish access to this type of information to add flavor that will make the mission stand out and feel less generic.  Most gamers I expect will gloss over this information on their way to the good stuff.  Never-the-less, it is presented in earnest for the curious or motivated to carve out a little piece of the sandbox for their own.

Random Assignment Tables

The provided RAT tables are near copy-paste from the earlier released Historical Turning Points: Misery.  There are a few modifications here and there but nothing drastic.  Most will never know the difference.  The biggest change I saw was the addition of the WLF-1 Wolfhound to the Dragoons medium 7 slot.

Death to Mercenaries

This two page section gives a brief overview of the conflict between the Dragoons and the singular minded Draconis Combine.  It is an excellent primer for the rest of the Turning Point and brings together the end of Misery to a new beginning within these pages. Descriptions of events and battles are short and to the point.

A full page map describes force movements between 3028 and 3029.

Commanders

One leader from each side is detailed with a short bio with picture with RPG special abilities.  The RPG stats are not a total description but a list of suggested traits and abilities to be used to guide a player’s own incarnation of these legends.  With Jaime Wolf already covered in HTP:Misery, Natasha Kerensky takes center stage for the Dragoons.  Tai-sho Li Dok To is the commander of the Galedon Regulars.

The character bios add flavor to the campaign but I find their special abilities to be less than useful for most BattleTech enthusiasts that will pick up this PDF.  Along with the nebulous Administrative, Leadership, and Tactics skill bonuses I think it would have been prudent to include a gunnery and piloting skill as well.  I also don’t believe that the developers need to be straitjacketed by the RPG rules to flesh out famous unit leaders.  There are any number of unique and original special abilities that can be cooked up to fit any personality or history.  These famous characters should not be expected to fit any manner of mold even in a world where the motto is “Yeah, we’ve got a rule for that.”  Writers should feel free to be original rather than looking up a special ability that fits close enough.

Combatants

All of the Dragoon regiments have been described in Misery.  Luckily for us, each unit has a notes section with a post Misery update.  Unit abilities are either updated or changed completely.  I loved Epsilon Regiment’s ability.  Best of the Dragoons if you ask me.

The Combine forces are likewise deliciously described with accompanying special abilities that are as worthwhile as they are varied.  The Twenty-Firth Galedon Regulars are back for more but have suffered heavily in the experience category since Misery. The only thing I can say that seems out of place is the Fifth and Sixteenth Galedon Regulars vehicle specific special abilities when there are no vehicle RATs provided.  It is an easy fix for the energized gamer, but it seems like there was more than enough room to include an extra column in the RAT table provided earlier.

How to Use the Campaign (and something more)

This section is a cookie cutter of OTP:The Red Corsair, tailored for the Dragoons and the Draconis Combine.  It lays out the framework for the campaign ahead.  But then there is more.  New to this PDF is the inclusion of a sidebar called, How It All Goes Together.  This simple sidebar gives a plainly spoken description of how a gaming group (much like your own) could use the generic tracks alongside Touchpoints to stretch the campaign over many many gaming sessions without becoming old and stale.  I feel like the writers and developers are pulling the reader aside for a moment and calmly suggesting, “Hey, in case you are having a hard time getting it, this is what we all had in mind with this crazy Chaos Campaign system.  It’s easier than you think!”

I don’t know if there was a piece of feedback or customer interaction that prompted this inclusion but I’m happy to see it.  I enjoy the Chaos Campaign system and love to see it so vigorously supported by Catalyst.

Tracks

For generic tracks, known as Missions, we have Scout, Flank, Assault, and Defend.  These can be easily combined with missions from OTP: The Red Corsair to add additional variety.  The Red Corsair has Strike, Defend, Assault, and Interdict.  The Assault missions are the same but the Defend mission are quite different from each other.

The generic missions are for the most part bland and leave much to the imagination of the GM or the player group.  But for generic missions, they fit their purpose.

The Touchpoints unfortunately followed the lead set by the generic missions.  Optional bonuses are a mix of optional terrain and Tac Ops rules.  Objectives with few exceptions are variations of “kill the other guy”.  Not all that inspiring.  By comparison Misery did a better job reliving the story behind the battles.

Record Sheets

Each side of the conflict has one custom ‘Mech detailed.  The Dragoons have a custom Annihilator which is an energy weapons monster.  It’s a scary assault ‘Mech with well more firepower than the best Awesome chassis and enough heatsinks to be very dangerous, especially in 3028.

Li Dok To’s personal ride is an odd Victor variant packing a swarm of medium lasers and a lone LRM15.  With only 19 heat sinks it is not as scary as the Annihilator.  Indeed this Victor will be forced to close the distance if it expects to bring the bulk of it’s arsenal to bear.

Something is very off with these record sheets.  Previous iterations of the Turning Points series have had crisp readable record sheets but this time Catalyst tried something different.  The background of the record sheet is obviously a raster based graphic with overlayed vector based stats and armor circles.  The sheet looks awful.  Much of the content is blurry.  The armor dots are uniform in size and just look wrong.

The powers that be have already weighed in on the manner.

My apologies for the RS quality, but it’s an issue we’re dealing with on the back end. RS issues are a big reason for the XTRO hiccups and I chose to bypass our normal (severely overworked) route for a lesser quality so that the TPs don’t hiccup. When things get better on the RS front, we’ll update the PDF.

-GhostBear, BattleTech Assistant Line Developer

Wrapping it All Up

Death to Mercenaries is a worthy successor to the Misery Turning Point PDF despite it’s shortcomings.  Any fan of the the Dragoons is going to want to pick this up.  Combined with Misery, Death to Mercenaries easily contains months worth of gaming sessions.

All together, Death to Mercenaries is well worth the slightly higher price point and a great addition to any fans PDF collection.