Schwarzer Tag

Schwarzer Tag
Product information
Type	Campaign
Author	Frank Lenzer and Hartwig Nieder-Gassel
Pages	6
Illustrations	Hartwig Nieder-Gassel
Publication information
Publisher	FanPro (Wunderwelten magazine, issue #20)
First published	1994
Content
Era	Succession Wars era
Universe Date	between 3031 and 3034

Overview

Schwarzer Tag ("Black Day" or "Bad Day") was a BattleTech campaign scenario by Frank Lenzer and Hartwig Nieder-Gassel, published in issue #20 of the FanPro house magazine Wunderwelten. It was designed to showcase the "Double Blind" strategic game rules for BattleTech campaigns presented in an article in the same magazine (directly preceding Schwarzer Tag), and written to be playable on any scale from classic BattleTech (board game) to BattleForce, with the option to add in MechWarrior (RPG) elements for roleplaying.

The strategic "Double Blind" rules should not be confused with the tactical Double Blind play mode for boardgame BattleTech.

Strategic "Double Blind" is intended for strategic planning and playing on larger scales across large areas and entire continents. Each gameboard hex is ten kilometers across; when player units run into encounters on the strategic map, a battle is played out on regular BattleTech mapsheets. Unit movement per turn is determined by the slowest individual vehicle assigned to a given unit, and each turn represents one standard hour. This can be scaled as the GM wishes, with another option being 500-meter hexes and each turn taking three minutes (in the Drachentrick campaign, each strategic hex covered 188 km). This game mode is mostly concerned with strategic maneuvering, ground-based and aerial reconnaissance, to give players greater control over large-scale raids or entire planetary invasion campaigns, with all the strategic and logistic concerns these entail.

An expansion pack for Schwarzer Tag with additional information, BattleForce stats and a tie-in MechWarrior (RPG) scenario could be ordered via FanPro for 10.00 DM plus postage, and was shipped on a 3.5" floppy disk for IBM-PC and the Commodore Amiga.

Story

Depicted as a complex series of training maneuvers carried out by Camerons Legion with support from Hansen's Roughriders, implicitly during their shared garrison tenure on Suk II between ca. 3031 and 3034, the premise for Schwarzer Tag is that colonel Thomas Cameron (CO of Cameron's Legion) set up an exercise for his unit to keep their skills sharp and train responses to unexpected problems. His XO major Ron Dexter narrates the individual steps. Hansen's Roughriders provided the opposition forces for the simulated battles.

The initial objective was a two-pronged raid to rescue hostages and retrieve a container. At the onset the troops wouldn't be aware that their mission intel is spotty or even outright false and that enemy forces are waiting for them. The landing operation faces unexpected resistance and enemy artillery forces the DropShip to lift off and relocate. Can the players improvise an alternative battle plan? Next up is unexpectedly extreme weather that precludes the deployment of infantry, and prepared ambush sites along the players' route to their target zones. Finding the hostages in the city proves difficult when three different locations instead of only one are marked by radio beacons, and then it turns out the hostages may be uncooperative, as they were each told that the others will be killed if one escapes. Similarly, the military facility holding the container is protected by a minefield and turns out to hold not one but sixty identical containers. Finally, the attackers need to find or establish a safe pickup zone where their DropShip can land and take them on while a large enemy force is approaching, putting them on a tight timetable. The entire setup is deliberately harsh and unfair, and it is expected that the troops (players) cannot complete the nominal mission successfully; instead, the idea is to force them to adapt their plans to changing situations and to teach them to persevere under pressure and never give up.

Canonicity

Published exclusively in an apocryphal magazine, the Schwarzer Tag training scenario as carried out by Camerons Legion and Hansen's Roughriders must be considered apocryphal as well.

Wunderwelten was the house magazine of FanPro, who were the German BattleTech licensee at the time of publication and later even held the complete BattleTech license. While Wunderwelten does not technically meet the current criteria for canon, its BattleTech-related content does therefore still have a claim to being an official publication under a valid license.

Other Wunderwelten Scenarios

Other BattleTech scenarios published through the Wunderwelten magazine include

• Cargo Queen
• Der erste Kontakt
• Drachentrick
• Inselhüpfen
• Operation Zitadelle & Operation Striker
• Réunion
• Testfall

Bibliography

• Wunderwelten, issue #20 (February 1994), pp. 40–45