Another convoy disappears in no man's land...

 Spoiler alert? 

Given all of my bat reps on here of late, no...not really. 

Anyways, this week I got in my rescheduled due to covid campaign game ,where I was to defend 4 truck tokens vs an unknown force. My forces were an HBK-4H & HBK-4J as well as 2 randomly borrowed mechs from Larsen's Loaners (pun intended?), after losing 2 mechs in my previous bout. I randomly rolled for a base model Scorpion & Panther 9Z. 

The OpFor was a CPLT-C1, a flea, a locust (mounting pulse lasers!) a Jenner and a Victor which luckily didn't have an AC-20 though it did have enough medium lasers to compensate. What follows is my usual tale of woe(ful dice rolling). For those who know him, Neverness would be proud!

Digger, the OpFor Commander, scenario creator and our campaign herder of cats. 

The terrain with Digger's diabolical road. The convoy didn't need to roll PSRs for all of the turns, but were also restricted to said road. Some how at least 2 players in the campaign have managed to get a few trucks safely through this nightmare!

My HBK-4H rounds the corner and spots a Victor! The mechwarrior may have needed to change his shorts following that discovery...

Nonetheless, a heavy volley of fire was exchanged and luckily I passed my PSR, whereas the assault mech fell to the ground!

The 'trucks' roll out! The lead truck was a gun truck sporting an MG and some armor (the rest had the bog standard 2 points of armor per side). 

The missile boats start lobbing LRMs back and forth at extreme range, I believe I came out on top in this particular exchange.

Regaining its feet, the Victor finds itself outgunned...or it would have if my typically atrocious dice rolling were not involved. 

Failing to scuttle away, the Scorpion takes a beating to its backside including a 16 point kick!

Tossing me a bone maybe? The Jenner oddly hunkered down, perhaps it was just bait, which I took hook line and sinker! It lost an arm and took a few more hits, whereas the Jenner & Victor savaged my Hunchback in return. 

Why is that flea still alive (much to the bewilderment of the two of us)? I believe it took a spread of SRMs here as the Scorpion's PPC had been disabled by this point. 

Surrounded the Hunchback alphastruck hitting with everything but the infernal autocannon! Speaking of, the AC-10 was disabled in this exchange. The locust lost and arm and its entire side torso if I recall, in return for hits all around on the Hunchback. 

Meanwhile, still camped in the backfield, my HBK-4J decided to be totally unhelpful and miss with both LRM-10s. Schmuck.

Oh and the trucks? 2 down, 2 to go...

The Victor was hoping for a kick but the Hunchback fell to the ground before it had a chance!

Overheated, and beat all to hell, the Hunchback struggles to its feet but not much else. 

Due to my inability to kill any enemy mechs (as usual) the rest of the convoy falls easy prey to the wounded light mechs. 

One 16 point kick later and the HBK-4H falls for the last time with my pilot ejecting for safety. Of the four mechs I brought to Mica II, only 1 is left. I don't think this planet likes me much...

With both weapons disabled and collectively...maybe a half dozen points of structure left in the right side torso and legs, the Loaner's Scorpion scuttles away to safety. 

The Victor takes aim at my last Hunchback with the other wreck burns in the background.

The Panther had been sniping at range out in the midfield most of the game, and not hitting much. The combination of slow speed (for a light mech), woeful inaccuracy and being continuously surrounded didn't serve it too well out here. Mainly it was the inaccuracy though. It landed the occasional hit which was much less than I had hoped for. 

Honestly, I don't think I should have been playing my HBK-4J as a back field fire support mech as when moving in close, the 5 medium lasers it carries is still quite threatening. 

The last parting shot of a PPC to the Catapult which replied with a decent missile spread to the Loaner's Panther. 

At this point we called it on time as it was getting late, and the cause was lost. The convoy had been wiped out, I had lost yet another mech, a second had fled the field in tatters, and the 2 that I had left could hardly hit the broadside of a barn. It was a solid, if not almost overwhelming victory for Digger's OpFor! Prior to my game, this scenario was a mixed bag of 2 player wins and 2 OpFor wins. Not sure if it is good to be the tie breaker or not. 

Digger is looking to add reputation points to the campaign for merc units with good reputations to garner extra bonuses. I dread to think of what the bad reputation points (if any) will result in as I am far more likely to rack up some of those! That said, in the end it was a night rolling dice and laughing with friends, so not a total loss. 

Project: Recovery

 o/

Covid recovery always involves working on minis for me. 

The past week good ol' Covid decided to stop by & ruin my week for a third time. While I powered thru the best I could at work (I work remotely, so can still push buttons on a keyboard despite feeling like death warmed over). Luckily the fam didn't get it, though they did get...something. The Mrs. was none too happy as my telehealth visit got me some really good drugs whereas hers, not so much.

Anyways, despite the glorious weather outside this past weekend, I didn't do a whole lot out there aside from chilling in our adirondack chairs. When in post covid recovery you tend to get really tired, really fast as so many folks know. That said, I did do a fair bit of painting as you can see above and below. 

You'll note that several photos were taken out in the yard. Why yes, I did lay down in the backyard to take these as any, self respecting 49 year old gamer would. The Mrs. rolled her eyes and the teenager ignored me outright & the dog thought THIS IS GREAT! Or rather he did right up until he got yelled at for stepping on my toys. Clear coat for the win!

A Patton/Rommel for my generic Desert Force that is sucking in units like some sort of fucking black hole!

A second Patton/Rommel as well as a Drillson for my 1st Chisholm's Raiders which is once again a home or my orphaned units and random paint jobs (as the Raiders lacked a coherent color scheme). 

A point of Elementals for the Desert force in case I run my lance of  old Star League mechs as a 2nd line star. Likely as Nova Cats as all of their Galaxies always use appropriate camouflage. 

The Raiders' mech lance made up of survivors from my defunct Comstar/Wobblies and St. Ives formations. I opted to try and tie them together with repainted base edging and a shitload of decals!

40K Ork checker and triangle stripe decals work GREAT on mechs!

Hit 'em Hard The motto of most any Hunchback variant. The Space Wolves paw looks nice on there too. 

Vulcan, not seen in this pic though you can see it above, are the checker stripes across the tops of the shoulders. Also on the MG arm is says Buzzsaw in the same script as the Hunchback's Hit 'em Hard. 

This mini was actively on eBay when is was saved after performing admirably in a game where it was used as a primitive Archer. The decals came out great on this one!

Holy Camouflage Batman! It is a good thing this has blue markings & a brightly colored base, otherwise it would disappear into the background!

Three more models are also in-progress, but I'll save them and whatever else for a fututre post. I'm also hoping to reschedule a campaign game this week coming after cancelling last week due to my case of the black death. 

More little guys

 o/

This bunch is a mix of very new and a few not so old paint jobs. All have been painted within the past 2 months or so, though none were really worthy of a singular post in their own right. 

1st Royal Cavaliers WASP-WSP-1D 

Generic 10 Ton Tracked APC for no one in particular. Basically it is local militia/PDF

Like all of my 10 Ton APCs, this will be a filler model for when I don't feel like fielding infantry, or rather a horde of infantry. 

1st Royal Cavaliers' 10 Ton Wheeled APC, for when I don't want to spend 1400 points on a Sturmfeur, yet still want to field a lance of armor (and I use that term loosely in this particular case).

 

Wolf's Dragoons' Alpha Regiment Wasp WSP-1A

This is not this mini's first appearance on this blog. Rather that debut was in my last post where it was my Dragoons' sole survivor.

Yes, this is what surviving light mechs look like: Running away!

10 Ton Hover, Wheeled & Tracked APCs. I couldn't resist making a blue 'SWAT' APC to again add to my generic filler forces. The tracked APC is painted to match my Capellan Homeguard, because why wouldn't they have one of these? 

With the teeny tiny skull decal, this hover APC will go to my Dark Caste Bandits, though it would work in a pirate force as well.

Scorpion Light Tank ML/LAC variant(s). This was originally supposed to go to my snowballing out of control desert force. 

On a whim, it got shunted into the 1-off/geneic category after I wanted to try my hand at the old, US Desert Storm era 'chocolate chip' desert camo. 

While I may not have been entirely successful in that endeavor, it looks decent enough.

Let's get this beast home...

o/

Easy-peasy, right? Note: the incorrect die was used for the Atlas' movement. 

Nick came over for another game and below was the scenario that I came up with.  

Unfortunately one of our mechwarriors has fallen gravely ill and had to be medevac'd out immediately. His (canon though quite) unique mech is unfortunately still out in the field and his senior technician is the only other person who knows how to pilot the machine. As he pilots the miserably slow (Urbie slow) machine back to base, a small escort has been detailed to accompany the priceless mech home, we can only hope that enemy forces don't try to ambush us along our route...

Originally I said 5K BV and early succession wars, Nick asked if he could upgrade to a little Star League era tech right about the time I realized that my Wolf's Dragoons showed up in the lostech era. That said, I was running a canon custom mech (albeit with a shitty pilot) and said why not (eschewing advanced weaponry, Nick mainly want after double heat sinks, though there were a few other bells & whistles). 

The objective, was to get my Wolf's Dragoons' Behemoth BHN-6H across the board (theoretically made all the easier as it was a straight shot, and there's a hex of free movement on pavement which is handy as it moves as fast as an Urbie). The technician driving this monster was a 5/5, which dropped the BV down to a reasonable BV of 1533. 

Here's how it all went down:

My Dragoons force: The aforementioned BHN-6H, escorted by an AS7-D, HOP-4B & a WSP-1D

Getting the requisite cat on the game table pic out of the way early.

Nick's OpFor sporting it's new lightning scheme. 

The battlefield during the opening moves. Nick asked what malady befell the Behemoth pilot. Food poisoning? However with the Canopian pleasure circus dropship on the platform, we decided it was an STD. 

You see those modifiers? Yeah, nobody hitting anybody in this corner. 

The Hoplite and Phoenix hawk exchange some early shots. 

Moving in, close and fast!

The Atlas jumps runs out on point taking advantage of the extra movement. 

That's a hellova decoy! I know my LRM 20 lit up the Battlemaster.

And the fun continued with the Battlemaster taking the worst of it. 

The Behemoth lobs some in accurate shots into the surrounding city, while taking several hits in return. Luckily it stayed on it's feet.

The Hoplite just kept hanging back and laying down fairly decent fire support. I do believe it took a PPC to the head right here though. 

Ah, a good old fashioned scrum ensues. The Atlas holds the Warhammer still and puts an AC-20 slug right into the CT rear! Unfortunately (and as would be the case pretty much all game, I failed to roll a crit). It the threw 2 punches, one of which connected and shattered the Warhammer's head, but again failed to Crit. Return fire more or less targeted the Behemoth, though an SRM volley hit the Atlas which had a golden BB that delt 2 engine crits to the already toasty Atlas. Not good. 

While it took a few shots to its heavily armored rear torso with no ill effect, virtually all of the hits sustained by the Behemoth were to either it's head, or its right leg. Mostly though, it was just the leg. 

So, suffering the fate of most of my light mechs, the Behemoth goes down due to a leg loss, costing me the game just a few turns in. 

Seriously, WTF? 

We interrupt this broadcast for a feline intermission...

With the Behemoth down, all guns turned towards the Atlas. It could only return fire with the LRM due to the high heat levels. The Wasp & Hoplite did their best to help the big guy but under the concentrated fire...

Down it went, suffering a gyro hit before falling. THAT would essentially be it's death knell as it's piloting jumped up to an 8. 

After inflicting 20 points of self inflicted damage in failed attempts to get up, it propped itself up and heat be damned it fired the rear lasers hitting the Stinger and sending some LRMs downrange. Damage inflicted on the prone mech knocked the Atlas' pilot out cold for 5 turns. Sad face. 

The wasp jumped in behind the Warhammer, and lost its left torso to the Battlemaster, but in return...

It put a medium laser into the head of the Warhammer which the Atlas had punched earlier, decapitating the mech! 

Yup, time to run!

In the last act of vengeance, the Phoenix Hawk did a death from above, crushing the cockpit of the Hoplite which took a PPC to that location earlier in the game! With that, the Wasp bolted. 

Welp, it seemed like a good scenario, especially with 50+ points of armor and structure in each leg alone, but...when that's all that gets hit (and I watched the rolls, it was totally random) is a single leg for the most part. There's not much you can do about it. 

I was pleased with the Atlas this time around, as most every AC-20 round hit aside from those needing box cars, and it more or less looked like hamburger when it was taken out of action. Whereas the Hoplite only took a few hits, unfortunately two went to the head. 

The Stinger aside, Nick's Battlemaster was in pretty bad shape and and I think the Phoenix Hawk was pretty well beat up as well. It was fun though, and I enjoyed not being on the wrong end of the AC-20 for once! As for the Behemoth, well...next time it is used, it'll be with a real mechwarrior behind the wheel.