Mission Concept: Meeting Engagement

This is the first of the Mission Concepts that I'll be writing up over the coming week, and is what I would consider to be the 'Standard' M42 mission. In that it doesn't require any special terrain bits to work, and can be played by anyone who's new to the game pretty easily.

Description

This is a 'Meeting Engagement'. Which, in military terms, is a situation where two moving forces suddenly come across each other. We can imagine the situation as two groups of advance scouts meeting in an area that will later be a central location for a larger company or battalion sized battle. Like the first troops to arrive at Gettysburg, their aim is to properly 'set' the battlefield by seizing the most strategically important ground before the main forces move up and form proper battle lines.

Setup

Each player rolls a die and the winner picks a long table edge. The loser then takes the opposing long table edge. Starting with the roll winner, each player takes turns placing 2 objectives in their opponent's deployment zone. Usually they'll want to put these as far apart as possible to encourage their opponent to spread out.

Once the objectives have been placed, each player, starting with the roll winner, alternates placing their units. The command models are deployed last.

Both players then roll again, and the player who finished deploying first gets a +1 to his roll. The winner is the attacker, while the other player is the defender.

First Turn & Objectives

The attacker gets the first turn. None of the attacker's units may be given an 'Open Fire!' order on their first turn. That, plus the normal range penalties should make effective alpha strikes difficult to pull off and encourage some early maneuvering instead.

The objective of the mission is to either seize one of the objectives in the opposing player's deployment zone, or to kill enough of the enemy that they fail a Task Force Morale Check and are forced to retreat.

To seize an objective, you must have at least one unit within 3" of the objective marker (officially the same size as a casino poker chip), and have no enemy units within 3" of the same objective at the beginning of your turn. A single unit can contest 2 or more objectives, but can only hold one objective. You only need to capture one objective to win the game.

A Task Force will have to test morale once it's reduced to half or less of it's starting units. If there is no officer left alive to take the check, it is failed automatically.

There is no turn limit to the mission. You simply play until a win condition is met.

Thoughts?