ScrapYard Armory

Pride and PPCs

An action packed piece of fiction opens up our adventure on Tortuga.  After more than a few slower and more subdued opening fiction entries for recent Turning Points (but not in a bad way) it is refreshing to get back behind the cockpit glass and read about some action!  Very good opening fiction.  It would appear that Pirates and heavy vehicle combat are in our future.

The familiar Geoff Swift is at the helm of this PDF.  Lets see if Mr. Swift can impress with Pirates on his palette.

Tortuga Prime

First off is a one page section giving a rough history of the planet and its surrounding region.  It’s a brief history lesson of Tortuga’s slow but steady rise in prominence, including being noticed by the Word of Blake.  This PDF is dedicated to the Jihad era from here on out.

Tortuga seems to be a barren landscape with only two mapsheet tables to pick from.  You are either in an urban area or are stuck in desert flatland.

Optional terrain and weather rules come from Tactical Operations and include much of what you would expect after reading; sand, heavy industrial, low gravity, and more.

The accompanying full color map is a gorgeous view of the world and great for picking out key battles and providing ideas for battles off the radar.

Random Assignment Tables

Two factions are in the mix on Tortuga; The pirates and the Filtvelt Coalition.  ‘Mech tables are combined for them and provided for each weight class.

Vehicles however are broken up by faction with some crossover.  The Filtvelt Coalition seems to have a wider variety of vehicles to choose from.

It is always welcome to see vehicles in the mix and this Turning Point is chock full.  It will be interesting to see how the tracks make use of the vehicle heavy mix of forces.

History

An abbreviated one page summary of the battle of Tortuga Prime gives us the best look so far at what happened and why.  The story is quite interesting and details the Pirate defense of their capital planet from the invading mercenaries from the Filtvelt Coalition.

It is a good one filled with carnage, traps, and pitched battles.  I am looking forward to seeing how the tracks section tells the rest of the tale.

Commanders

This section gives a brief historical background on the two commanders in the battle.  Buck Tripp leads the mercenary force while William Derer defends Tortuga as a representative from the Word of Blake.

A small list of special abilities are given which is a short collection of A Time of War stats.  Only some of the abilities can be translated to tabletop battle conditions.  Die hard role players are left to fill in the blanks if they ever wanted to include them in a campaign.

Not much to write home about here.  We are given mostly story and a small collection of skill levels (Strategy + 3, Tactics +4, etc) to work with.

Combatants

A special note starts us off in the combatants section indicating that if players do not choose to use the included RAT tables then care should be taken to select units that have been produced for some time.  Pirates and Mercs don’t get shiny new toys apparently.  Not on Tortuga that is.  An excellent addition to the flavor of the game for those players willing to go the extra mile to make it happen.

There are only a few commands in play on Tortuga.  Much less than some other engagements we have seen in the past.  Each force is fleshed out including the commanding officers name, unit experience, recommended RAT tables, unit abilities and notes.

The unit abilities mostly have something to do with initiative.  A few Tac Ops special abilities are thrown in for good measure like Banking Initiative.  A few restrictions on unit composition round out this unit abilities.  Not a lot of interesting material with one exception.  The Tortugan Phalanx are a force of light to medium ‘Mechs loaded with as much TSM as possible.  They can carry loot in their hands above the normal limit and can do so without the normal movement modifier.  I can just imagine a rag tag bunch of pirate ‘Mechs hard marching to their dropships carrying cargo nets full of looted ‘Mech parts, supplies, and whatever.  As the only really unique force in the bunch I am hoping that their special ability comes into play during the tracks!

Something new I picked up on was the inclusion of paint scheme details for some of the forces mentioned.  An interesting touchfor these lesser known forces who may not have an entry in CamoSpecs.com (yet…).

Tracks

Right off the bat we are greeted with a smash and grab pirate raid in Breaking the Wheel.  Earlier I was hoping the Tortugan Phalanx would find a use for their pirate looting ability and here it is.  We see lots more of this theme later on.  As a prelude of sorts, this track comes before the main series of connected tracks.

One interesting nuance is the use of fixed unit counts.  Normally Turning Points PDFs shy away from dictating actual force size but rather rely on ratios (defender is twice the size of the attacker sort of stuff…).  I get a feel that these tracks are designed closer to the original Scenario books of old.  We have a series of set pieces rather than the more open ended framework of the Chaos Campaign while avoiding being so restrictive as to giving a set ToE.

The second and third tracks are our first linked up tracks.  In fact, these two tracks are designed to be fought at the same time.  Each force gets a fixed number of units to divide among the two battles.  Both tracks involve the raid mechanics introduced in the first track and look to be fast and brutal affairs.  Players are left with some interesting choices.  Do you split evenly and hope for the best?  Or do you sand bag one battle with the hopes of holding on with whats left on the second?  Decisions decisions…

Moving on we are treated to a nice variety of tracks.  Breakthroughs, kill em all battles, objective raids, and ambush are all there!  There are technician hostages, chemical weapon suicide vehicles, factories, ammo dumps, and jammers (oh my!).  For most tracks I thought that the selection of optional bonuses were weak, but I just didn’t care.  The character and story crammed into these tracks through the primary objectives are fantastic and will offer more than enough strategy than you can deal with.  Tortuga brings a great story and a great series of connected battles that will keep you on your feet and begging for more.

Combined arms including infantry are everywhere.  Several tracks have one force fielding vehicles only.  Infantry is used in conjunction with either defense setups or specific special rules and objectives that make their inclusion anything but token.

Throughout the series of battles you will be reusing surviving and damaged units from previous tracks over and over.  Each scenario links with previous battles in some way culminating in a final battle for the fate of the planet with anything and everything left standing.

The last battle I have some qualms over balance.  After 8 other tracks of beating each other up I am not convinced that it is obvious which survivors are able to be used and the resulting balance of the fight, but given the robust content up until this point I don’t think I am bothered too much with it.  At the end of the day BattleTech is one giant pick your own adventure book anyways so adding a few forces to one side to even things out and make it interesting would not be the worst thing in the world so long as all players are game.

These are some of the best tracks I’ve had the privilege to read in some time!

Technical Readout

I hope you like Brigands.  We are treated to a full TRO entry for the ‘Mech including record sheets for six different variants.  Lots of medium lasers in almost all configurations.  For a 25 ton ‘Mech some players may find the speed profile limiting at 6/9/6 and even 5/8 in one variant.  A bit light on the armor makes me think that this ‘Mech would like to avoid a pitched battle, especially against  PPCs and AC10s.

Rounding out this section is the custom Awesome piloted by the attacking commander Buck Tripp.  It is a scary looking fast variant moving at an impressive 5/8.  A perfect amount of heatsinks will keep this Mech running cool even when alpha striking every turn.  It includes the latest internal technology to make weight, including XL engine, XL gyro, and Ferro Fibrous armor.

This section provides more than usual.  Very nice to see the additional TRO material to make the campaign feel right!

Map

Of course no Turning Points PDF is complete without the multi-page planetary assault map.  I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of Interstellar Operations to put these to good use.

Final Thoughts

Tortuga pulls out the stops with a wild ride on this pirate heavy campaign.  From the combined arms to the linked tracks there is a lot going on to keep you interested.  Any time I was able to find a potential fault with one section or another I found more than enough to make up for it in the tracks.

Tortuga joins the ranks of the best in the Turning points series.  My mind is already racing thinking of how I can run this campaign for myself.  I may be hitting up Iron Wind Metals for some Brigands soon!