PANDA-MONIUM STRIKES AGAIN!!!

Seriously, they have to be stopped...

Hoss, the wiley commander of PANDA-MONIUM!! was in high spirits as he launched his assault!

My prior efforts to contain these rogues however were kinda meh. Hopefully my Capellans will do better. This time the Capellan Confederation's (as usual) woefully ill-equipped Home Guard raced to intercept whilst screaming for assistance by anyone who could hear them! The St. Ives' Sentinels weren't all that impressed with their pleas however and merely sent a lance as backup. 

The battle begins...

PANDA-MONIUM!! (I really think that that name should always be in all caps, and maybe followed by a few exclamation points whenever mentioned) fielded essentially the same list as last time (despite the recent acquisition of an understrength battalion of plastic mechs), with only the Griffin being swapped out for the GRF-1N model. 

The intrepid Home Guard fielded a lance of Scorpion light tanks (proxied as I loathe the actual mini) of 3 standard models, and 1 modified medium laser variant which removed the MG & its ammo which allowed the 1-ton cargo bay to be expanded into a 2-ton infantry bay via the other-worldly magic of Battletech's construction system. Riding in said infantry bay was a heavy mountain platoon, which consequently is just about the only 2-ton platoon available aside from the near worthless (well, on the table top) medics.

Sadly, I couldn't claim that die as cover...

Starting things off, the standard Scorpions valiantly (or is it stupidly?) charged forward, whilst the ML version slogged thru a wooded ravine. The St. Ive's mechs advanced cautiously aside from the Locust which was predictably ran forward at full throttle. There was some minor exchanges of fire, nothing too impressive other than to say that the Scorpions were making the enemy assault mechs angry. 

This match up ought to have been a lot more in my favor than it looks...

Moving a full, straight line of 12 hexes and coming to a stop inside the minimums of both of the Griffin's weapons, the LCT-1E  let loose with everything hitting the Griffin in the face with a sole ML! In return the Griffin would need an 11 to hit and...the fucker rolled box cars for the PPC! Seriously? Yup, blew off the right arm and a good chunk of the right torso, as such the Locust pilot was already planning his escape from the board.

Don't recall much from this pic other than my poorly positioned Thunderbolt (appropriately not in the picture) was only able to bring 2 lousy MGs to bear on the Griffin...

Yeah, there's the friggin' T-bolt, failing...meanwhile the mtn infantry disembarks, preparing to take the nearby (and uncontested) hill!

The board was quickly splitting into a short-ranged ravine slugfest on my right and a woefully imbalanced, open ground duel on my left.

With 2 assault mechs bearing down on it, both unfazed by the neverending LRM barrage, my Catapult pilot makes a beeline into heavy cover to weigh his dwindling options.

In doing so, he hung the poor Scorpions out to dry, I can only imagine the fury over the comms...

With the sudden disappearance of the Catapult into cover, the Battlemaster and Awesome turn their guns onto the Scorpions. Both had already taken several hits, with #2 in the front impressively absorbing 3 PPC rounds without going internal! Sadly, it was caught in a crossfire with the Battlemaster as well which scored a turret crit hitting ammo and BOOM!! The Scorpion was vaporized. This was Hoss' first ever kill and he was most pleased. 

Meanwhile on the other side, my 3rd std. Scorp unwisely took on the Shadowhawk, and suffered heavily for it.

We need to paint these mechs, cause to the outsider its really hard to tell who's is what.

Cursing the Catapult, the left flank's last, heavily damaged Scorpion wisely turned tail and made a run for it, whilst the other that took on the Shadowhawk, unable to flee crawled up to higher ground seeking cover. With the screening force gone, Hoss' 2 assault mechs went in for the kill on the Kittypult, whereas the fighting was still more or less a free-for-all in the hills and valleys on my right flank.

Despite running wide open, the Griffin manages to get in a parting shot at the fleeing Scorpion, which replied in kind though I don't think either scored any hits.

We need to look into the death from above rules as Hoss is really keen to give this a go. He had pondered jumping onto my infantry earlier, and then again later my Wolverine, but in the latter case (he skipped it in the former) he just charged in for some regular ol' HTH combat...

His Griffin swings! (and misses), After which the Wolverine puts a nice round-house in to the Griffin's head! 

...and perhaps he ought to just stick to the shootin' instead. Speaking of, despite hunkering down in cover, his Battlemaster and Awesome were kicking the ever-loving-shit out of my beleaguered Catapult which was doing its best to fend them off, but they have so much fucking armor...

The Shadowhawk, quite outnumbered, tries to pull back but is pursued and attacked from almost all directions (whereas the T-bolt just kinda waffled around in the back field, again, as usual...).

Six, I said SIX FUCKING PPC rounds connected in 2 turns! I'm not sure which pilot was sweating more, the Awesome's or the Catapult's! The last shot finally went internal and luckily only hit a heat sink, though the ammo in that torso was low enough to possibly survive the explosion had it been hit...maybe.

At this point it was starting to get late and both sides were pretty ground down. I'm calling it a win for Hoss as I'd lost 1 tank, with a 2nd as well as a Locust forced from the field. All other mechs on the field were damaged, though nothing too serious aside from that late hit on the Catapult. 

Screech is slated for to come over for a game later this week, with Hoss returning once more on Saturday for another blood bath! This makes me quite happy as I don't think I've played this much Battletech in such a short span of time in at least a decade!