The Buffet Assault Group goes green(ish).

 o/

The initial test model.

Not for the first time, and I cannot say it is for the last, but I realized that the reason I have been painting minis from every faction BUT The Buffet Assault Group is because I just don't enjoy painting their color scheme anymore. No real reasoning that I can think of but it happens. The tan/OD green camo with the central red stripe and occasional battlefield repairs is actually their third color scheme. 

So what follows is a bit of a history on their previous colors: 

The original TBAGer color scheme was an urban-type camo that almost looks like SWAT camo to me now. 

Yes, the Awesome on the left is the same one that is now painted below. It's been waiting on a paint job since 2019!

Note the Billboard sized/15mm scaled TBAGers logo on the side, and some digital chicanery to make up for an apparently crummy photo. 

I've looked & looked but cannot find a photo of The Buffet Assault Group's 2nd color scheme, that being not too dissimilar from the last one. It consisted of the same shade of tan (Vallejo Flat Earth) with a deep red, almost crimson trim. I know I had a metal 3rd party Stalker from Australia (yeah, that wasn't cheap) again with the TBAGer logo billboards on the sides of it's LRM arms. That was the unit's command mech at the time. 

I had at least an assault lance painted up like that before they went the way of eBay. I recall that they went to a buyer in Detroit. Their trip was more of an odyssey as the package visited every Detroit suburb that surrounded the buyer's burb over the course of two weeks or so, before landing in a distribution center that had no public access. Worse yet, he drove by it every day on his daily commute. The package spent another week or two there before finally arriving at his house. We had so many convos over the shipping shitshow that we were almost friends by that point.

Then came the color scheme that you all are familiar with: 

A company sized photo-op just prior to my first game of what  would become the eventually disasterous Steel Haven Campaign.

I kept the HBK-4G & UM-R60, but the rest of the painted mechs from the this bunch have redeployed to the western coast of Florida. The Urbie was featured in my last post, the Hunchback is currently soaking in Simple Green, and the two painted Warriors are now just a generic VTOL flight for whatever faction needs them (which is more or less what they were doing anyways). 

There isn't any consistency of the fonts used for the numbers on individual units.

I retained the tan and red in their new color mix for both some contrast and as an homage to the old color scheme. 

The addition of some Autumn colors to their basing shrubberies means the red still works for camo, or at least as much as camo works for a battlemech.

This is an Awesome choice for a my new company command mech.  

So, skipping to the present, I thought I'd try something different (yes I know that I paint most everything green, shut up!). I wanted to try a pattern breaker camo as that is about as close to digital camo as I can personally get. At first it seemed a bit tedious, until I realized that if I fucked up somewhere, I could just repaint over that panel with the next color selected. 

I am very pleased with how this lance has turned out. This color scheme has also been well received on my FLGS' discord which is nice.

The dark green AK Grime has given me fits though, far more than the regular shade that I use on everything else. Not sure why but I had to almost repaint close to a third of the Awesome after inking and maybe a quarter of the Blackjack.  That's as much trouble as I have had with almost a full battalion of the Desert Horde.

I just started on an armor lance, so will try using the regular grime on them and see how they end up. If they are not too visually different in the end, I may just continue on without the green grime going forward. 

We shall see I guess. 

The Four Urbanmechs of the Apocalypse

 o/

Yes, the Golden Urbie is the lance leader.

I noticed recently that my Chisholm's Raiders/Lone Wolves company had collected a trio of urbies. Previously it was two which isn't all that bad. However, after the addition of The Buffet Assault Group's Urbie in their now obsolete color scheme (foreshadowing), Urbies amounted to a third of the Raiders/Wolves' mech compliment. That kind of tactical inflexibility is best reserved for either my Capellan Homeguard or a stand alone force. 

Running with the meme...if not the actual Urbies.

Thus I decided to split them off into their own separate meme lance. The fourth, urban-camo Urbie was painted specifically to fill out the roster. You can laugh all you want, but one never knows which variant of mech they are facing until it shoots. So were I to field these as a lance of UM-R70s, I am sure that any mockery would evaporate the moment a volley of 24, AC-5 slugs went spraying in all directions. I would imagine that following said 1-trick pony act, these would be immediately be elevated from a joke, to high priority targets. 

Tread carefully my friend...

Normally we don't play in the eras that the UM-R70 is available in, so more than likely these will be a Suburbanmech merc lance with the golden suburbie being the UM-R100 prototype. This scenario is far more likely to happen on the table top than the R70 lance. 

Weekly painting update.

 o/

Just a quick post of this week's painted minis. I did play a game last night, but didn't take too many pics. Unless I can get some photos from Nick, I'll have to skip the battle report on that game. 

The hero of my last post, the Demolisher/Devastator tank is now painted, replete with nose hull art and 3 kill markers on the turret. The sides of the turret are a slightly darker shade of tan making this one of the rare, 2-tone models in my Desert Horde. 

Also for the Desert Horde, for when we play in the SLDF/Early Succession wars era, the rare LBX carrier. Equipped with 2 LBX 10s, and 3 LRM 5s, and a decent amount of armor, I'm hard pressed to wonder why a Lostech version with standard AC-10s was never created. 

I am tempted to order more of these, though we rarely play in that era so am not sure how often even this mini will actually get used. 

Lastly, my Fire Mandrills Elemental point is now painted. Being the closest in game to 40K's Spess Mahreenz, I'm thinking in hindsight that I ought to have painted them like ANGRY MARINES!! as Neverness suggested when I posted pics of thier mech star. 

Just a good ol' fashioned slugfest!

 o/

Two different flavors of death by a thousand paper cuts. 

Last week I played a game at the FLGS vs. Anthony again, where the scenario was simple:

Just kill each other! 

8K, Clan Invasion Era, I was fielding my Desert Horde as mercenaries this time vs: whatever Anthony put in his force. He's still a newer player so is not concerned with faction limitations. It's kinda like fighting an ilClan era force, albeit with units from the 3050s. 

I didn't get force pics, but we fielded the following: 

Desert Horde Mercs:  Crusader CRD-6T, Shadow Hawk SHD-3H, Cicada CDA-3G, Starslayer STY-3D, Condor medium tank (Laser), and a Devastator heavy tank.

Anthony's mixed 'star':  King Crab KGC-001, Bane 3, Jenner IIC 3, Fire Falcon D, and a base model Sturmfeur heavy tank. All missiles in his force were Narc capable.

Here's how it went down:

Ugh, not what you want to see coming at you...

The Shadow Hawk tries to swing wide and moves up the flank whereas the Devastator just punches it and runs straight up the middle!

Jenner IIC got cocky, and ran right past the Devastator!

Not a good idea, even with +4 to hit! One AC20 connected with the center torso and that was all she wrote for the Jenner IIC!

After some careful maneuvering, my (narced) Crusader moves into point blank range and these two just start pummeling one another! The Starslayer mesanwhile was firing a consistant large laser & ER PPC shot per turn, usually hitting with at least one per turn. 

I forgot that the starslayer had a rear facing medium laser, not that I would have stopped it from getting narced here. 

Cicada, Condor & Shadow Hawk vs. King Crab = still not a fair fight!. The Sturmfeur was largely immobile at this point and the Devastator started working over the Sturmfeur with it's big guns!

The point blank pummeling continues...

The Starslayer snipes at the Bane while the Crusader turns and smacks the Fire Falcon, causing to to hit the ground!

The Bane falls back out of the Crusader's optimal medium laser range while the Devastator moves into point blank of the Sturmfeur which really cannot defend itself from that range!

Luckily, the King Crab largely wiffed, with the Shadow Hawk's right arm being the only casualty! The Cicada maintains it's point blank attack on the Crab's rear with all guns & even kicking!

Down goes the Sturmfeur!

Oh hey, look who was running from the King Crab on pavement and failed it's PSR...

The Bane keeps living up to it's name and hammers the Crusader, damaging a shoulder which more or less fuck's the firing of half of the Crusader's lasers! Not that I stopped shooting with them or anything...

The King Crab is slowly getting surrounded and taking on heavy fire!

The Bane & Fire Falcon both move into the back corner, for mutual support of each other while my forces move in (with the rest of the board more or less being ignored at this opoint).

In a lucky shot, one of the Condor's ER medium lasers connects with the Bane's head (previously hit by a medium laser from the Crusader). On the crit rolls, both the life support & the mechwarrior connected to it are vaporized! 

Huzzah!

With the Bane down, everything turns their guns onto the King Crab, ignoring the Fire Falcon which is by far the lesser of the two threats left on the table. 

The King Crab goes down fighting, taking off the Crusader's side torso, as the Devastator does the same to the King Crab, resulting in double XL engine-induced kills! The Fire Falcon being the last thing left standing in Anthony's force, wisely fled the field. 

Dude, look at that! Only 6 points of armor left on my Crusader's forward facing! This thing was an LRM sponge! It should have died well before it did!

The King Crab certainly had a rough go of it as well, although oddly a barely hit the CT. 

That was fun and Devastator is already in the process of getting painted in recognition of it's glorious actions in combat! I'm also a fan of the Crusader CRD-6T, it's like an HBK-4P on steroids!

Capturing more bridges...

 o/ 

One hellova fight in progress!

As promised previously, Nick & I played this scenario again with our roles reversed. This time I was playing the defenders and he the attackers. Oddly, I was playing Capellans and Nick Mercenaries, so we also switched factions. 9300 BV this time as Nick's force was a little off again, 3050s era although Nick would end up fielding no upgraded tech. 

Here's how it all went, or as best I can recall as there were a lot of mechs and tanks on the board. 

My Capellan Homeguard force which I called the Jedburg Militia (Jedburg is a town not far from here, with the most redneck sounding name that I have ever heard of). I had a Heavy Mountain Platoon, 3055 LRM carrier, (2) standard Bulldogs, a Liao Vedette, a UM-60, UM-R63, (2) UM-R60Ls (both with 3/5 pilots), an RVN-3L, RVN-4X, CTF-1X and a CPLT-C4C with a 3/5 pilot and serving as my commander. 

The battlefield during our opening maneuvers.

A better view of the same...

I did not get a group photo of Nick's forces, but you can see them pretty good here. In green were The Swamp Foxes fielding a Highlander, Marauder, Quickdraw & Valkyrie, and in blue with the lightning trim were Haim's Hebrew Hammers (yes really), fielding a Battlemaster, Phoenix Hawk, Warhammer and Wasp. All of his mechs were base models & pilots I believe.

Turn two and both sides finally got a good bead on one another with the Vedette leading the charge down the center.

In my backfield, the Infantry platoon was camped atop a building and calling out targets for the hidden LRM carrier's indirect fire. These two units would neither move nor suffer any damage all game. Firing with impunity, they would connect with a fair few missiles on Nick's forces. 

The suddenly, all hell breaks loose! The Cataphract would put an AC-10 into the head of the Highlander deleting it's life support systems (luckily not needed on this world). The Cataphract would suffer heavily for that, but remained standing. In the backfield, Nick would complain that my RVN-4X was tying up an entire lance though in truth that was not so. 

I love this photo. On the left you can see that if any of Nick's mechs were to hop over my Raven and the building behind it, then they would be squarely in cross hairs of a trio of Urbies as well as an immobilized Bulldog (not quite, but the driver was bleeding out...), which were instead sniping at limited targets and doing so at long range. 

With my Catapult, and all of my forces across the 2nd river providing fire support, my Raven-3L, Cataphract and 2nd Bulldog run straight into a hornet's nest! The Raven whiffed other than to plant a Narc beacon onto the Battlemaster, the Cataphract & Bulldog put in a few hits into the Warhammer, which along with the indirect LRM fire, brought that mech to the ground. In return the Cataphract got mauled with it's autocannon being taken out of action, as well as a rear facing ML. The Bulldog was hit as well I think, but nothing major.

The Catapult meanwhile dumped into the Highlander, hitting with both LRM 20s & large laser for a collective 40 points of damage! 

Just another angle of the brawl on the boulevard.

Behind all of this, the first bridge was heating up as well...

Successfully having run the inital gauntlet, the Vedette moved to secure the first bridge. My RVN-4X and Nick's Valk & Quickdraw all jumped onto the bridge as well (luckily it was sturdy). They traded fire but no major damage was suffered as the movement mods were pretty high all around. 

Meanwhile one of my UM-R60Ls held the 2nd bridge, daring something to come around the corner. With so many models firing, the non-firing R60Ls went unnoticed in the chaos. We don't declare mech variants beforehand, so Nick probably assumed that the Urbie on the bridge was another standard one. That said, with 4 Urbies on the table, he commented while we were deploying that there was likely an AC-20 Urbie hiding in there somewhere. 

You're about to find out why Nick really doesn't like this Catapult variant...

Things got rather ugly when Nick's Mercenaries made a late push on the 2nd bridge! The Cataphract backed up to a building to dump its now useless AC ammo (which had little armor by this point to hide behind). The Catapult took a punishing volley of fire that knocked it from it's feet, but not before it put it's large laser into the Highlander's head, vaporizing the mechwarrior within! The Phoenix Hawk & Wasp jump onto the Bridge and the Urbie damned near takes the Phoenix Hawk's leg off with an AC-20 slug! Knocking the mech to the ground. 

The Brawl from the first bridge moves on up the street following the rest of the mechs, while the vedette stayed behind, successfully securing that objective. The Narc'ed Battlemaster ran into some heavy trees to (successfully) avoid any incoming fire and damaging the 3L Raven which whiffed it's shooting at the wasp aside from plunking a Narc beacon onto the back of that mech's head.

My backline continued to fire at whatever was in range all game, the 2nd UM-R60L took a pot shot on this last turn, cratering a building and scaring the be Jesus out of the Battlemaster, but doing little more. Nick was not pleased by the realization that there were two AC-20 Urbies were on the table. Aside from the Bulldog in the trees, none of my units in this last pic suffered any damage in this game. 

By this point in time it was 9:45pm on a weeknight and Nick ran up the white flag. I held 1 bridge, the 2nd was contested with my R60L staring down a Phoenix Hawk and Wasp, both of which had one leg into structure. The Highlander was down, the Warhammer not far from it, and...well everything on that road leading to bridge #2 was moderately to severely damaged in one way or another. 

I still had a pristine LRM carrier, spotter platoon and trio of Urbies in the backfield, The Urbie on Bridge 2 took a ML hit I think. While not mobile by any means, were there still time to play this one out, he wasn't sure his battered forces could weather this untouched force, while still having to deal with my first wave units. 

Once again this was a fun scenario, and again a close one with 1 bridge held and the 2nd contested. After the first game, I was fearing Nick would arrive with his Demolisher tanks, to do to me what I had previously done to him. Likewise while the infantry spotters and 3055 LRM carrier preformed admirably, all it would have taken was 1 VTOL to zip into the backfield and wreck my day. I don't think he did anything wrong tactically, rather I just got really lucky with his traditionally built force. It allowed my static backline and sheer numbers carry the day.