Photo dump!

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This worked out about as well as you can expect. 'Hamburger' (the Enforcer's pilot) managed to limp away from this dual, sans right arm and torso. 

The home campaign 2.0 is in full swing and the FLGS is also looking to start up another store campaign. Interested players voted and the Lostech era won out for the time period (immediately followed by disagreements on just when the Lostech era is). All of the bad apples that killed the last campaign are showing interest and some are already complaining. 

I will partake; Nick 2.0 is pondering to do so as well. I've already told him my level of expectations which should improve things considerably over the last store campaign: 

This is going to be an absolute shit show!

Having dropped the bar of standards on the floor, it should alright. I am looking to run the Desert Horde as the Fed Suns' Deneb Light Cavalry. Speaking of, onto the recent paint jobs: 

The new Kintaro sculpt, now without the tutu styled hips. 

I have never used one of these before. The DCMS variant is far superior to the Fed Suns' model. But being from a desert force, it should be running HOT! Right?

Note, this mech is numbered #20 in the battalion. However, I currently only have 16 mechs. As such, I will be reusing some numbers as a few Desert Horde mechs have been either sold, or recently an unused Clan 2nd line star was gifted to Screech for his birthday. 

I have decided to name this one: Checkers. Garth Brooks is in the cockpit. 

#13, that's a reissued number, I am rather pleased with how well this one turned out.

From this angle it looks like actual camouflage rather than the stylistic color scheme that it is. 

I don't think I've ever fielded a King Crab before. So far, I've only either been shot by them, or have knocked them over with charging Chargers!

All was quiet on the DCMS front, until this SHD-2K came along.

Like all of my Swords of Light mechs, no inks were used as my usual preference for dirt, grime & filth doesn't fit with the background of this elite brigade that looks more like a parade unit.

Armed with only a PPC & LRM5, this mech is essentially a DCMS Griffin. 

Only the fists and forearms show any kind of damage, as the infernal Davions insist on getting inside my weapons' minimum ranges. 

I broke up one of my foot slogging infantry platoons to add a few guys to every base of these little APCs from Microworld games. These will represent mechanized (tracked) platoons. I have 6 of these, so it will be mech infantry for everybody!

That's all for now. I have several minis in progress currently, so hopefully will have another update soon. 

My latest updates.

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The Cyclops from my last post wasted no time in getting 'stuck-in' in our campaign.

Unfortunately, said campaign ended in a spectacular double kill, with my Cyclops putting an AC20 slug into the Victor's ammo bin, while at the same time the Victor delivered an AC20 slug to the Cyclops' head!

In a nutshell, the above was the end of our home campaign. Both of our forces were thread bare, and neither would be able to replace the losses of the assault mechs.

Screech, taking a snooze in his battlefield debut in the new campaign. 

 As such we threw in the towel and started a new campaign. We moved the timeline up to 3049 & earlier. I am fielding the 1st Chisholm's Raiders whereas Nick is fielding Mercs of an indeterminate name. 

Just in case you were wondering, this is what 'forced withdrawal' looks like. This wreck limped off the board and has since been repaired. Screech however will be convalescing in the med bay for a bit...

In our first three games, I've managed to repair all damage suffered, whereas Nick is already down 3 mechs and 2 pilots (I head capped a Crusader & Griffin in the same game with a gauss rifle)!

The typical lance of random paint jobs. 

My converted STK-4N, this is my CO's mech in the current campaign. It is piloted by 'Major Grognard' a name inspired by Nick 2.0 himself!

The TBAG unit initial decals resulted in the typical memes when I posted these pics on the FLGS' discord. 

Next up, for my Corey's Cavaliers mercs, a pair of Hornets named The Grapes of Wrath. One of these is partaking in the campaign, piloted by John Steinbeck himself! Surprisingly, it survived its first game with only moderate damage. 

This Orion missed the last campaign, and as such will not see battle any time soon. 

I've never once fielded an Orion before, which is a trend that will continue for a bit longer it seems.

Everyone loves lava bases, why a mech would want to be in a lava field is beyond me though. If you haven't already guessed, this will be used as the Blazing Inferno variant.

Lastly, a Blackjack BJ-3 & Wolfhound WLF-1B, both finished up this afternoon.

As you can see above, I've also done a fair bit of painting. The Buffet Assault Group is even up to a company strength formation, combined-arms of course. I'll need to take some group shots soon. 

I hope everyone has a happy 4th of July! Don't go blowing any of your fingers off, it'll ruin your die rolls!

The dying art of blogging.

90 tons of: I'm gonna get you sucka!

The mini campaign continues, casualties have been high. Indeed, the past several games have been blood baths, more like 1-off battles to the death than campaign games, where pilots and machines are preserved (speaking of, the Ostroc's reign of terror has come to a crushing end, and its pilot has been hospitalized with multiple injuries). 

So, why haven't I posted about any of this?

In the campaign, currently the counts as CP-10-Q on the left is being overhauled into the CP-10-Zr that you see in the middle. the 'r' is because it will be a custom variant the turns the SRM-4 into a 1-shot weapon and uses the spare half ton of weight, to add C.A.S.E. and all of the ammo to the left torso. Finally, it won't be an ammo bomb. Hell, I might even use that version on the regular!

The Orion in back is a WiP currently.

I can post a fully detailed, battle report on here, pics of the game, play-by-play recaps aaaaaand, get maybe a dozen views. In the first week. It reminds me of a t-shirt I saw once that said: More people have seen this shirt than your blog. 

Painful, but true.

I can post a pic or three on Instagram along with a blurb of text more or less saying: 'we played a game' and get 20-30 likes. Curiously, my Instagram followers are predominantly BattleTech fans. My Star Wars Legion posts get about half that on average. 

Or...

I can post the same few pics and blurb in a Facebook, BattleTech group and have in a few cases gotten upwards of 300+ likes and dozens of comments and discussions going on said post. 

So...that's where we're at as far as the private digital diary TBAGers blog's lack of posting is concerned. 

I good view of the side that always seems to get shot at the most.

Well, that and lately I have been on a SWL painting kick, so the Cyclops CP-10Zr above, is the first mech that I have painted in quite a while. Also, once it comes out of overhaul, 2 missed games from now, it will be gifted to the now destroyed Ostroc's, by then recovered pilot (named Kushial). 

This blog is not dead (but I'm working on it...).

lol, I've just been on a big Star Wars Legion kick here of late and when one blog goes active the other tends to get neglected. I have been playing sporadic campaign games with Nick 2.0 when he is available, But I haven't taken many pics in game, nor have I really painted anything BattleTech here of late. 

I had a recent encounter with Nick's Pink Panther, which is painted far better than my own!

An in-game pic from this past Tuesday. The pizza template replacement helped to convey the actual altitude of the Warrior VTOL. My most notable action in this game was the (by then armless) Ostroc managing a 30point charging hit on the Dervish a few turns after this pic was taken.

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.