Desert Rats

 o/

I painted up a 2nd lance to go with the first and...uhh, I got the base color wrong. Apparently. As you can see, the new lance doesn't quite match the original one, but they're close enough to not bother with a repaint. 

The fast, the fragile and...uh...an Ontos. 

I'll be using these later on this evening (minus the 10-ton APC in the front), along with 2 platoons of added infantry and a Warrior VTOL. My opponent Nick 2.0, will also be fielding an all conventional force. No idea what he will be taking other than his favorite weapon(s?) of terror: on table artillery. 

Urbie Warfare!

 o/

So many Urbanmechs...

Nick 2.0 and I got together for our first game of 2025 last week. He was just starting to set up the board as I got there and said that he'd like to set up a tight, urban battlefield rather than spread the terrain out. I said it that sounded perfect because...

Oh no, no you didn't? 

Actually yes, I did. 

One of these is not like the others...

I decided to kick off 2025 with a long standing promise/threat of bringing nothing but Urbanmechs. 3,998 points of Urbanmechs! Seven UM-R60s, and 1 UM-R60L. Nick said he was terrified. Seriously. Luckily for him, my Capellan Homeguard rarely gets a chance to see combat, and my forthcoming die rolls would sadly reflect that. 

I'll do my best to sort the following pics out, but its hard to keep track as there were so many Urbies and...well, they all kind look the same...

The battlefield, we would start with our mechs all within 2 hexes of the outer edge of the terrain.

Nick's pirate raiders. No idea what kind of pirates attack with Urbanmechs. Maybe they're from the treacherous St. Ives compact or something...

Blue lance enters the city.

The Guillotine unloads into Red 4 stripping all armor from the front torso and knocking it to the ground!

The Blue lance hits the pavement and realizes that they can get extra movement! 

Nick sending pics to his buddies, much as I was doing. 

At this point my red lance was fully engaged while the Blue lance were all still flanking the pirates.

Red 4 regains its feet, facing backwards as it stood. With full armor on it's rear torso, it reversed guns and continued to press it's attack. 

Blue 4 rounds the corner and promptly misses the Stalker with it's AC-20. Unaware of the enormous round that just killed everyone on three floors of the Highrise to its right, the Stalker unloads into the thin skinned 60L, destroying the AC-20, most of it's meagre armor and knocking it to the ground!

The rest of blue lance, making good time on the city streets finally makes it into range and begins to create a crossfire. 

Some hot, sexy, Urbie on Urbie action...

Red 4 could have moved out of view of the Guillotine, but elected to stand still after finding itself in short range of the stalker with no modifiers (and my lousy die rolls). It's final AC-10 slug connected moments before it died. 

Suffering 40 points of damage applied, the stalker succumbs to the pounding and hits the ground!

Recovering, it rounds the building and the guns turn on the Guillotine. Unfortunately I don't think I hit anything this round. 

Am pretty sure I took only 3 medium laser hits in return, maybe there was a lot of smoke or something...

With targets barely in sight, Blue lance continues to fire, killing (rather than defending) many civilians.

The surviving red lance mechs either reposition or provide covering fire to blue 4 as it leads the charge with it's lone, small laser blazing!

The Guillotine ignores the charging small laser and targets the other Urbies, who in turn ignore the fast moving heavy mech can continue to hammer the Stalker and its little friends. This may be the round in which the Stalker's right arm was taken off. 

Same turn, different view.

Blue lance charges the pirates' Urbies for point blank shooting and toe to toe combat!

I threw everything I had at the Stalker and Green Urbie. I think he lit up the entire Blue lance in return.

The Green Urbie goes down for good, whereas Blue 1 hits the ground losing both it's left & right torsos!

The Stalker, it's right side in tatters starts to retreat with the suicidal Blue 4 in pursuit. What's left of Blue 1 makes a run for it while the yellow Urbie moves in. Meanwhile Red 1 & 2 provide covering fire. 

Blue 2 hits the ground in much the same state as Blue 1, and the pirate Urbie moves in to deliver a kick to the downed mech. Fortunately, it was aiming for a torso that was no longer connected, rolling a snake eyes! Luckily for Nick, it then made its piloting roll to keep from falling itself. 

Blue 4 delivers a small laser hit with no shots taken in return (guessing the stalker couldn't depress its remaining weapons far enough). Kicks were exchanged with 3 points delivered in 1 direction and 9 in the other! Luckily, the leg the stalker hit had yet to be hit, allowing Blue 4 to continue this suicidal assault. 

You can't getaway Kirk...

Did you just quote Wrath of Khan to me?

You mean to tell me that Ricardo Montalban is here?

On the table? In an Urbanmech???

Well, it didn't matter which leg the Stalker kicked this time, Whichever one it was went flying off the valiant Blue 4 and that was the final end of the little Urbie that couldn't. 

The Stalker walks back into the shooting gallery, taking a few more hits and stripping the CT armor down to 1 point left.

Blue 2 moves up to avenge the fallen Blue 4 and suffers heavily for it. 

And this is where we called it. 

At this point we called it as it was getting kinda late, and having lost so many Urbies I was ready to hand Nick the win. However much to my surprise, he called this a draw. His second Urbanmech was on its last legs and the Stalker was 'one die roll away from an ammo explosion'. So yeah, I'll take a draw. It doesn't really matter as I had a blast anyways, I always do when fielding all Urbanmechs. 

Our next game will be with just conventional forces...

Turtles

 o/

A slow (moving) death awaits...

While there are a multitude of official house and Merc units with flat green paint schemes, most all of them are accented in one color or another, white, red, etc.. Whereas, while just being green, these are generic enough to be used by most anybody in the Inner Sphere, much like my desert lance. 

Lacking any official identity, It's easy enough to just say that they're a small conventional mercenary lance that go by the name of Turtles, under the leadership of Captain Joanna Whitmire.

Yes, that Joanna Whitmire...

These heavily armed and armored monsters are normally employed by isolated settlements, city states, mining and/or industrial concerns that want their own protection from raiders. Clearly incapable of any sort of rapid response, they tend to stick close to what their clients want protected most, and await any would-be attackers to come to them. 

Very few light raiding and pirate forces are going to want to deal with 375 tons of assault class conventional armor that is bristling with a multitude of weapons. This intimidation factor alone has both kept the Turtles steadily employed and their clients happy throughout the late Succession Wars era. 

Urbanmechs don't run from a fight!

 o/

Never tell me the odds!

I got in another campaign game, this time taking a lance over to the nearby world of Mica II where I was to clear a settlement of enemy fortifications and Mechs. The only known opposition was a King Crab. BV was set at 5K which caused quite a bit of consternation amongst the campaign members, especially after I mentioned the modified BVs for our 3/4 pilots. I did so only after seeing some prospective lists and realizing folks were forgetting to modify their BVs. Previously, missions went by tonnage alone. 

My 5k BV force for this op. all 3/4 pilots, with an HBK-4G, 4H, 4J & a UM-R60.

Digger, our new campaign manager/DM was pondering bumping it up to 6k BV, however as I had the day off and would be in to the FLGS early, I opted to play guinea pig at the 5K BV, in return for an additional added bonus in payment (The Buffet Assault Group are mercenaries after all). Digger would be running the unknown to me OpFor. 

The battlefield recently completed by Digger, the strip in the middle was a yet to be painted runway.

Digger, our new Herder of cats...

Not only would I have an enemy lance to contend with, but there were several weapons turrets as well! Along with the stock  King Crab there was a base model Valkyrie, a Blackjack Bj-1DB (proxied with an Enforcer mini) and a Locust LCT-1E. 

The hunchbacks make short work of the first turret! 35 points of armor is stout, unless of course it takes an AC-20 hit.

A 2nd turret goes down, however at this point I was more concerned by the mechs than the turrets. 

The HBK-4G decides to see what destiny (the pilot's new name) has in store and goes after the King Crab. Unfortunately my AC-20 missed with only the medium lasers connecting. Whereas one of the Crab's AC-20s connected! Luckily only just wrecking an arm!

As often as I like shooting folks in the back, it would instead be me suffering that fate (repeatedly) this game. That said, the Urbie flipped its arms and proved just as dangerous to the rear as the front!

Round 2 of this duel and my AC-20 connected with the KC's center torso! However both of it's AC-20s hit in return and...

...that was that. Destiny did manage to eject at least. The 4H missed with everything it threw at the KC while the Blackjack continued to harry my flank. 

The 4H out maneuvered the KC but couldn't shake the Blackjack. in dire straits at this point, the whole right torso of my 4H separated from my mech and the Hunchback turned to flee the board (successfully doing so). 

The locust sniping at my HBK-4J which was now backing up, laying down fire as my mission went from seek & destroy to a fighting retreat. 

The HBK-4J managed to avoid the pursuing King Crab and flee the board in much the same tattered state (missing half a torso) as the KBK-4H did. The Urbie meanwhile was walking backwards with it's AC-10 blazing. Digger offered me a chance to concede to which i replied: Urbanmechs don't run from a fight!, and so my fighting retreat continued...slowly. Someone watching suggested I rename the pilot 'Custer' and I was happy to oblige. 

In my Urbie's last defiant act, it blew an arm off of the Blackjack, though much to my dismay as the Blackjack's head was down to it's last point of structure! Beaten all to hell and almost out of Ammo, the Urbie was still 3 walking turns away from the board edge when it was legged and Custer ejected from his ride. 

Well that was rough. Following my game it we decided follow on players would bump up to 6K, and the cat was out of the bag on the King Crab's lancemates and the surprise turrets. I watched for a bit but didn't see how he next game concluded.  I lost 2 mechs, though there was a mobile repair base available on Mica II making repairs far cheaper than expected, netting me a small profit in terms of Warchest points. 

When my dispossessed pilots are able to return to Steel Haven where the rest of my force is currently, I have a pilotless Assassin waiting, meaning I'll only need to replace 1 mech (and that will be the end of the aforementioned profit...).