Image 1: The battlefield: Some industrial buildings and scattered trees.
This is a game of Battletech, a tabletop miniature wargame which portrays futuristic combat in the 31st century. If you're familiar with the Mechwarrior video games, they're adaptations of Battletech. The game is normally played on simple printed map sheets with a hexagon grid. The use of three dimensional terrain in this battle is unusual but growing in popularity. Battletech's setting ranges several centuries, but the year 3058 is the latter half of the "Clan Invasion Era"
Image 2: The House Steiner forces. A Wolfhound, Griffin, Nightsky, and Bushwacker.
Battletech is primarily focused on mech vs mech combat, and this game features four mechs. The four here, in blue, belong to House Steiner. House Steiner is one of the five Great Houses of the Inner Sphere, essentially the five major nations in known space. Battletech portrays a future where humanity has spread to a few hundred known star systems, divided among five powerful countries and several smaller ones. House Steiner has an overt germanic and eastern european theme. The four mechs in this House Steiner force are in the medium weight range, meaning they have a balanced mix of firepower and speed, but are relatively light on armor
Image 3: The Jade Falcon forces: A Piranha, Uller, Wolverine, and Vixen.
Clan Jade Falcon is one of the Clans, who are a eugenics-loving warrior culture who invade the Inner Sphere, including House Steiner, in the year 3049. They have more advanced technology than the Inner Sphere, and due to their obsession with warfare above all they build all their best technology into their mechs. The Wolverine in this picture is being used to represent a related mech called a Conjurer, because we didn't have a Conjurer miniature handy. Notably, the Falcons taking four mechs is unusual. Inner Sphere forces normally use four mechs at a time, but Clan forces generally take five.
Image 4: Initial movements
All four of the Clan mechs present in this battle are particularly fast, and the Clans used this speed to quickly take valuable positions in the center of the battlefield. Battletech is a game heavy on maneuver - your position determines who you can see and engage. For example, the Conjurer used powerful Jump Jets to launch itself to the top of a water tower, allowing it to see most of the House Steiner forces. The Vixen and Piranha moved into the center of the field, setting themselves up for next turn.
(part 2 coming)