My first ever Battletech tournament is in the books

 

 I got the award that I really wanted. I refused to give myself any points for my paint jobs, even offering Noah's new, bare plastic mechs 1 point with none for my own. Despite that, I was told I won this by a unanimous vote.

Due to a few dropouts' both prior to and on the day of the tourney itself, only three of us showed up with one of the TOs playing as ringer to balance the numbers. I felt bad for the TOs who put lot of effort into this, nonetheless fun was had by all (5 of us).

Round 1. My force was more or less incapable of achieving the goals of this one. However, I 'broke' the scenario more or less forcing my opponent into a Pickett's charge scenario. My opponent Kevin thought it a very solid plan. This one came down to the wire with only a last turn Hail Mary granting Kevin the victory! 

My record: 0-3. Which...while certainly not the best showing does fit perfectly with my Society force, as they were exterminated by the end of the Wars of Reaving. Going off of past 40K tournament experiences, I figured I would be facing stupid lists, so I made a stupid list: 

I won a VP for most surviving tonnage for every game and only suffered the loss of the Man O' War in the second round. Point blank range of a Kodiak is a BAD place to be. 

Faction: The Society (Note: my mechs are in Clan Coyote's Rho Galaxy colors)

Force: Mech Trey consisting of:

Bane, standard

Man O' War B

Warhammer IIC, standard

Gnome battle armor Un (Squad of 3), riding on the Man O' War.

All mechwarriors and the gnomes were G:3/P:5.

My list featured HEAVY firepower, armor and not much in the way of mobility which cost me. Inflexibility aside, The Warhammer IIC did by far the most damage, the Man O' War provided some semblance of hope due to its speed (it got a few good licks in too), whereas the Bane in particular was the most entertaining of my units. The Gnomes snagged an objective in round 3 but did little else of particular note. 

The 3D printer has rendered my famed pizza templates obsolete. They printed these off in spades and I was gifted a few to take home. Here my Man O' War was dropping off the Gnomes to help blockade Kevin's objective drop-off point in the first round.

I was using a little tacklebox full of dice for the 10 UAC-2s die rolls (only 3 guns jammed across all 3 games). While everyone loved the tackle box idea, Noah noted it was very intimidating to have that many dice coming at him at once, even if they only were UAC-2s.  The fact that in every round, I parked the Bane on the closest high point to my deployment zones and rained irritation across the boards was also commented on, because it was almost impossible to get out of its range.

Why is DFAing with lightly damaged mechs that can do more harm shooting than trying to land on your head so popular?

Due to jumping near vertically, the Shadow Cat only had a +1 to hit. That said, it survived the Warhammer's onslaught of MPLs that needed 5's to hit, only to fail the PSR to land on my Man O' War which deftly side stepped the plummeting mech and watched it fall to its own detriment.

I only took few pics as we were allotted 2 hours per round which in Battletech is not much. Needless to say, specialized ammo would be quite useful as running out was more or less impossible. That said my Bane did finally empty 2 of its UAC-2 ammo hoppers, dipping into the second bins in the last round. 

I did take pics of what turned out to be the most hilarious(-ly bad) moment of all of my games. Noah was using a Jade Hawk as a proxy for a Phoenix Hawk IIC 5. After picking up an objective in round 3, its mission was to just survive. 

All he needed to do...was roll a 4 on 2D6 and he'd be effectively hidden for the rest of the game.

Jumping into a depth 2 water hex with his pristine mech, he failed the landing, rolling a PSR of a 3 (only needed to roll a 4). His mech suffered 8 points of damage all to the CT due to the belly flop, which necessitated 2 'water breach' rolls of less than a 10+ (never heard of that before), he failed one, causing the CT to flood, wrecking his mech, and costing him the loss of the objective as well. 

Jumping into water is bad, apparently.

lol, nuts. In hindsight we determined that he could have just hid in the corner of the board and survived as I was too busy trying (and failing) to kill his Legionnaire which was running away with 2 objectives. The missed DFA was also his and I told him that going forward he wasn't allowed any more jump jets. 

 In addition to my best painted award, Noah got best sportsman and John best general and best overall. 

Mini-Campaign game

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Wait, what?

Nick 2.0 was in town, and devised a mini campaign using tonnage rather than BV. Unit build specs were a heavy lance in weight, with no more than 1 Assault mech, a light recon lance that could include vehicles, and a mixed weight lance. Each lance would have a lead unit with a 3/4 skill, all else would be 4/5. Lostech era. 

Unable to field a full company in the same color scheme under those requirements, I mixed two forces, using the Desert Horde as the Calloway Training Battalion with an assist from a lance from the Marik Militia. As this is the Lostech era, most of the training mechs and tanks are garbage variants (rookies don't get the good stuff). Force comp would vary per game. I took the Ostroc, Quickdraw, Crusader, Assassin, J. Edgar, 10 Ton hover APC for this match, all were base models aside from the APC being the MG version, and the Ostroc the 2M variant.

The scenario was an attacking dropship had crashed, and the central memory core could be captured/destroyed. Forced withdrawal would also be in play. The defender would also have 2, CF20 objectives for defend from being destroyed. I opted to defend and failed miserably at it. 

I didn't take enough pics for a true bat rep, so here are some highlights:

My company, post-game with the 10-ton hover APC & J. Edgar having not survived.  

Due to motive crits these two would be bricked and fight point blank all game. The J. Edgar died first but only just, with the Pegasus down to 1 point of internal structure holding the back end together.

The Assassin doing Assassin things. Basically running & jumping around in full distraction mode while inflicting minimal damage.

With my (lack of a) plan already falling apart, the Ostroc opted to enter the drop ship thru a side door and punch the memory core into scrap!

The intermission is brought to you by an annoyed Neeka.

The highlight of the game for me: After several turns of being little more than a distraction, the Assassin went into Kamikaze mode and charged the Panther connecting for 24 points of damage! Both remained upright afterwards, though the Panther's left arm was pancaked into scrap.

Post game clean up with my 'supervisor' annoyedly awaiting the table's reassembly and her cushions being put back in place. 

Post game I was only able to repair one mech, so I opted for the Ostroc which proved more effective than I thought it would. The Crusader hung out in the backfield and never took a hit, the Assassin and Quickdraw are both fairly beat up and will likely sit the rest of the campaign out until I can either afford repairs (or things get really dire). I believe Nick was able to repair all of his damaged units.

DEATH FROM ABOVE!

 

Ha HA! I have you now!!

Such a dumb tactic. Why do people like DFA's so much? They usually fail. Considered a 'last ditch' effort in the fluff, on the table top the are in my experience usually attempted by near pristine mechs which is just baffling. Thus, in all of my many, many years of playing Battletech I have never attempted a DFA...that is, until this past Wednesday night.

My Fire Mandrills in their battlefield debut where they faced off against what should have been a forbidden foe: Space AT&T. Given the topic of this post, you can surmise just how well the game went. Honestly all was going well, until about turn three when the beat-up Night Chanter died to a 2nd head shot, and the pristine Lancelot C was also decapitated by a lucky gauss slug. It was all downhill from there. 

Anthony used his LAM Urbies as standard UM-R60s.

It was really weird fighting Urbies rather than fielding them. I killed one and beat up the other. 

Pivotal moment: the Black Knight unloads with all it has save the MPL in the Hatchet arm. All guns miss however, the hatchet hit which was brutal to my little Howler! Then, at +24 heat, the Black Knight shuts down. 

My Howler 4, with its 5/5 rookie sibko pilot was in tatters: missing an arm and lone LRM disabled. With little option to hurt either the heavily damaged King Crab nor the Pristine Black Knight, the rookie at the controls opted for a glorious death in combat and DFA'ed as the that was the only option! It passed over the Locust which sprayed the sky with laser fire, 2 small lasers connected with the little mech that could, which was all that was needed for the Howler's side torsos (yes both of them) to separate from the flying mech.

Bereft of jump jets, gravity took over and it connected with the immobile Knight, inflicting a whopping 6 points of damage (and taking 4 in turn) on impact.  The Howler made its landing PSR whereas the Knight simply fell, taking another 9 points, for 15 damage in total!

As the last mech on the field, what was left of the Howler fled the board, hopefully to graduate to a real mech in the future. 

Desperate times indeed. The other Howler disintegrated under fire and the Shadow Hawk IIC, trying to reposition following the death of the two heavier mechs, fell on pavement, and failed 3 fucking attempts to stand up with only a 5 needed! Already heavily damaged, and in sight of the 2nd Urbie and the one-armed King Crab, it died on its ass in the subsequent crossfire.

Oh hey, guess what? Following the game, I bought some new dice as I still shudder at the sheer number of atrocious rolls in this game.

Tanks for stopping by!

That pun was brought to you by your friends at Technicorp, the fine (and original) manufacturers of the Manticore heavy tank. 

Three of a kind?

As you can see, I finished a trio of Manticores this week and as is so often the case, they are all painted for different units. Thus, they are more likely to be shooting at one another in the future, than be fighting side-by-side.

This one will join my Turtles mercenary lance. Weighing in at 60 tons and moving along at a blinding 4/6 movement, this tank will serve as their recon element...or at least it will until I flesh out the rest of its lance with something smaller and faster. Yes, they are of Lyran heritage. Stop asking!

This Manticore puts my generic clan conventional star firmly in the clan Burrock camp. Among the Clans, they alone seemed to field (at least according to the MUL) both the Manticore as well as the Manticore EC (Early Clan) which is a halfway point between SLDF & Clan weapons technology. That said, none of the Burrock Galaxies use this color scheme, so perhaps this is used instead by their Dark Caste 'friends'.

Lastly, this Manticore will go to the Desert Horde. Designated number XIX, this one got its decal at the same time as the two J-27s from my last post. The Desert Horde is a generic force spanning all factions and eras. With this tank now completed, the rightly named Horde clocks in at 39 models and counting. I'll have to do a group photo at some point. 

Generals study logistics...right?

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Here comes the maintenance platoon!

(...and somewhere Screech is twitching...)

So far this week I've finished up some support vehicles that, while technically armed, are really more like objective type of units. Sure, they're not really sexy or anything (well, Nick 2.0 was rather impressed with the Savior), but they are still pretty good to have around. Notably, the J-27s are painted for Desert Horde, bringing that mob's vehicle contingent up to 21 vehicles in total. The Savior just has a generic appearance. 

Just a bunch of gear heads...

The business end that gives your mech a hug, awww. 

The J-27's trailers were painted (differently of course) and glued to the landing pad as I didn't like the look of them crammed on the base with the tractor. 

My first completed model of 2026 and other updates

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In an annoying Ai voice: 'We're sorry, your package has been lost in transit...'

I bought this wrecked Triumph Dropship terrain piece back around Thanksgiving, started paint it around Christmas and finished it earlier this evening. I'm rather pleased with it:

The print lines across the nose are a little rough but can be chalked up to damaged incurred on landing.

There is a nose art decal on this, but it is so obscured by dirt and debris that I ought not have even bothered.

The rear cargo bay hatches and engines. 

It was used in a WiP state in my game played last night vs. Nick 2.0. I had my Marian Hegemony III Legio vs. is fantastically painted Arkab Legion. Needless to say, I have also lost my first game of 2026. Having gotten that out of the way early in the year: Onwards to victory!

Baxter the pregame-terrain piece, warming up the table. You can see the WiP Triumph about midway up the table.  

The Arkab forces flee at the sight of the Neeka Kaiju!

The Arkab Legion passing the also WiP savior repair vehicle which is working on a defunct PDF Urbie.

The final close quarters scrum, it was at this point that I threw in the towel. The Dervish and Blackjack were in decent shape, the Hermes II was little more than a free roaming flamer, and my Cyclops and Clint were both down. 

Nick 2.0's Arkab Legion...or well some of them. I know he also has a Javelin painted up, and likely two more to flesh out second lance. 

Speaking of games, I also finished the Clan Solahma star I was working on the last time. which fought just before Christmas in my last game of 2025. That game was a brutal slugfest. I didn't know how well they'd fare against mechs, being the clan equivalent of Bulldog tanks (i.e.: average speed, over-gunned and under armored).

I added a point of Clan heavy assault jump infantry to these. 

Unlike Bulldogs however, Oros have clan er-medium lasers, large pulse lasers which are backed up by LBX20s. I lost all 4 tanks with no infantry/Elemental losses. Nick only lost a Phoenix Hawk but everything else on his roster was in dire straits. Had we not called it, we both agreed that it could have gone either way were we to continue. However it was getting late and with both objectives contested, we settled on a draw. 

Monthly Roundup...

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I'm still alive, Things just kinda slow down around the holidays. That said not all has been idle as you can see below:

My Turkey mech made its annual appearance just prior to Thanksgiving. Not only did it manage to survive its game (it is more of a fast-moving gimmick than a threat), but as you can see from this screenshot, it went vaguely viral on Facebook.

Baxter, as usual was 'helping' me set up for a game vs Nick 2.0. 

Usually, once the table is set up, Bax wanders off, but this time he chose to sleep on the edge of the battlefield. I literally deployed around him! As we were setting up on the table's edges, the units that got the free.... uh, movement due to deploying forward were a Suburbanmech and a platoon of hover infantry. Thus, any bonus movement was more or less rendered negligible. He slept there thru the whole game. 

My current project: a generic clan Solahma star. The Oro tanks and elements above are all ready for inking. Still not quite sure what I am going to use to flesh out the rest of the star though. 

*****

In the likely event that this is my last post of the year, I'd like to wish all of my readers...yes, all 14 of you (on average) a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah, a Glorious Day of the Emperor's Ascension, a Happy New year and/or a happy whatever else it is that you celebrate this time of year! 

Recent updates

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Thus far the original CGR-1A1 & later 'Challenger' variant have been my favorite Chargers. However, after really looking over the 1A9's record sheet, I am thinking that this one may be favorite as well

I painted this CGR-1A9 Charger up to go with my 3rd Drakons after I sold their Firestarter some ways back. Ever since they have been a mech short and this have rarely seen the tabletop. I was going to give them one of my CGR-1A1s to use as a 1A9 but then managed to snag this one off of eBay along with some cheap tanks and several more Urbies, all for about $7.50 apiece (tax & shipping included).

I'm not sure if the red & white, quartered roundels on top of the MASH unit will warn of the vehicle's true purpose or insinuate that the circus is in town...

Next up, I have a MASH unit for use as either an objective or else as terrain, as well as a Bulldog & Hetzer, for my DCMS Swords of Light company. These are the first ever vehicles that I have painted for the SoL. All three of these are from the bargain priced purchase I mentioned above, as is the one below:

This is painted for my WILDFIRE! mercs which share some mechs and tanks with my Hell's Horses Iota galaxy force. The Horses do not have any access to the Skulker though oddly they do the command van...because honorably leading from the rear is a clan thing apparently. Oh wait, Iota has no honor, convenient!

Speaking of the rear, this is usually the end that Nick's VTOLs are invariably shooting up as the van tries to flee in futility.

Unless you really just need some speed, the skulker offers little of actual tabletop utility. This is why I mostly use these as a proxy for a 15-ton Command Van, or as I call them: senior citizens' activity buses (to fruitlessly dissuade Nick 2.0 from shooting them). 

As an armored lance for some cash-strapped mercenaries, this lance is all basics and no frills. 

The missile carrier has both launcher types (which one is the MRM?), and the Hetzer has been converted into the much maligned (even amongst Hetzer crews) laser variant. Please see below for an explanation of that. 

Speaking of vehicles, for the first time ever, The Buffet Assault group finally has its own vehicle compliment (well, aside from their former pair of Warrior VTOLs). The laser Hetzer (yes really) & Bulldog which I was using as the LRM variant survived their first game in the unit's new colors, as did all of the accompanying mechs, though there was quite a bit of damage suffered. 

Some pics from the battle vs Stephen, a new opponent.

The Suburbanmech survived this encounter with nothing more than a heavy punch taken to the CT. Two turns later it would exact revenge via a hit to the back of the Banshee's head with a PPC shot. Sadly for me, I wasn't able to inflict any crits.

I converted the Hetzer into the laser variant as I have always liked the concept of (though have never fielded) the atrocious cousin of the Missile and AC carriers: the Laser carrier. The Laser Hetzer is faster and much more heavily armored, if mounting only half of the Laser carrier's firepower. 

Optimal range: success. An LRM kill: well...

Combine that with the TBAGers' quartermasters not wanting to have to source AC20 ammo purely for a metal box and suddenly this doesn't seem like an entirely bad idea. If anything, it is the cheapest Hetzer option, and in it's battlefield debut was ignored as a non-issue which allowed it to get into the backfield where it proceeded to miss with 75% of its shots on average. 

Yes, the pizza template can even mount a potted plant...or a light forest hex.

After considerable effort and some abysmal gunnery, the Merlin (which had eaten enough LRMs to only have 2 points of head structure left by this point) achieved the game's only kill, taking down the other LRM carrier on the board. Had I kept it back out of the PPC's minimum range I likely would have killed it a turn sooner, but oh well.