The mythical fully painted game...

GLORIOUS COMBAT!!

Well, 'mythical' for me I guess. This past Saturday I got to play vs. my buddy Kushial whom I hadn't seen in person in at least a year. Both of us were fielding fully painted forces making the first time I've EVER played a game of Battletech in which everything on the table was painted! 'Tis sad but true. 

Really? They couldn't give us 2 map sheets with roads that lined up? No apparently not. Not liking the 'road to nowhere', I put a bunker on the end point so that it went 'somewhere'.

The game spanned about 7-8ish hours, so rather than try to chronicle all of that (and no, I don't take notes) the following is just a bit of a highlight reel of a really fun game.

My army...

...and it's list. I made a sheet up for the apocryphal Urbie MG variant. Also I swapped out the 1A Griffin's prototype PPC for a standard one as otherwise I'd hardly be able to use it!

Kushial and the Pride of Donegal Guards.

Note: The 8th mech is missing, no doubt this battle conflicted with some Lyran Commander's social calendar!

Turn one and the Urbie's (laughably) charge forward into trees and up hills (making virtually no progress whatsoever)! A few ranging shots were fired, but not much else happened. 

Urbies take the (uncontested) hill! The Wolverine and Dervish had the first real exchange of fire, with the Dervish suffering heavily for it.

Despite the Gunnery of 5 due to obsolete targeting software of the 'primitive' Griffin, it lands a head shot on the Awesome! The Whitworth lobbed a few indirect LRM volleys using Urbies as spotters, but to little if any effect. 

The Awesome's pilot, angered by the creation of his new 'convertible' savages the Griffin in return. 

3 Urbies take up a tight formation on the hill, whilst the 4th (curiously) leads the charge out into open terrain... 

...only to find out why Urbies shouldn't do that. 2 engine hits, AC soon to be knocked out of action and armor plates everywhere but but still attached to it's frame, the reckless Urbie staggers away in retreat...

LRM-5 aside, the Grasshopper and Hunchback open up with everything else they have and hit...NOTHING! Sadly, it was to be the first of many such abysmal exchanges... 

YES! Clusterfuck in progress, otherwise known as: Battletech the way it was meant to be! 

A few more PPC rounds and the Griffin drops again, gyro is hit & internals exposed, the pilot struggles to stand. The Whitworth, seeing the writing on the walls prepares to bolt from cover to avoid having to deal with that beast 1-on-1. 

After a serious struggle to rise, the Griffin retreats as fast as possible. The Awesome claiming to have 'no other targets' dishonorably pumps 2 more PPC rounds into the fleeing machine which miraculously stays on it's feet. 

Ol' Urbie #317, desperately tries to gimp its way off of the board under the protective (though quite inaccurate) covering fire of it's brethren on the hill. Meanwhile the Grasshopper and Hunchback continue to shoot lots and hit little in the backfield...

Seeing little need for LRMs at this point, the Whitworth finds a spot to hide and dumps ammo, turning the 'Tinman' into a laser boat. Meanwhile the rest my lance on the hill continues to blaze away for minimal effect...

317 finally escapes the board whilst another Urbie on the hill, dubbed 4-Fitty disintegrates under heavy fire. Seeing the struggle of 317 to flee, the remaining Urbies choose to stand and die where the are. Finally however the tide turned somewhat in my favor as 2 Hatchetmen fell as casualties.

ACK! FELINE MAXIMUS!!! Resulting in a sudden (and temporary) truce to combine fire and fend off the titanic beast!!

The last Urbie desperately tries to shake the Hatchetman swinging for it's rear, whilst the Hunchback finally figures out how to hit and starts laying into the Awesome. The Whitworth opted for a cinematic 'shoot each laser at a different target' move that sounded like a good idea but instead hit nothing. 

Ignoring all of the shots fired at the Awesome in between the original headshot and the last 2 consecutive turns. Just in those last 2 the Hunchback hit that fucking Awesome 15 freaking times, all I needed was one damned headshot to put it down automatically but nope...just ground thru armor only getting a late crit on a leg or something...

The ragged survivors.

In the end, Kushial's Awesome, Dervish (another mech that refused to die), and Last Hatchetman were all in rough shape, and likely would be out of commission for awhile. The other two were relatively unscathed.

As for me: the Urbie lance was gone, 3 dead and the last that managed to escape was so badly damaged it would likely be scrapped post battle (as would the similarly crippled Griffin).  The Hunchback was pretty chewed up by Game's end but the Wolverine and Whitworth were both in fine enough shape to take to the field again as is, needing only ammo reloads and minor armor repairs.

Apparently, I need to 'up my game' as I'm now holding a record of I'm 0-3. I'm having a ball with it though, so its not really much of a loss! Hoss will be unleashing PANDA-MONIUM!! on me here this coming Saturday, so I'm hoping I can turn the tide of my current losing streak.

I can't wait to see what the Operation Klondike era Wolverines can do on the table top...