The TBAGers take on Panda-Monuim!!

o/

GLORIOUS COMBAT!!

My buddy Hoss came over Saturday night, and we fought our first Battletech game vs one another. I'm not sure, but I'm thinking that this was Hoss' 3rd or 4th game, but in general his grasp of the rules already equals mine (and as we all know, rules aren't my strong suit). No scenario, just a simple, straight up kill each other game, between two early succession war mercenary lances. 

The Battlefield. 

I found the above on a forum...somewhere, so I claim no credit for its creation. There are only two height levels present: 1 & 4. As such, only Hoss's Griffin had jump jets powerful enough to propel it up on top of these ridges. We ignored the black objective things in the middle, pretending they weren't there in order to create at least one large open killing zone.

Also this was the first time Hoss played with a lance made up entirely of his own minis, though I did make up a list for him. I'm sure it won't be long before we won't know what he'll be fielding until he arrives to play!

Much like on Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop, what follows is a captioned highlight reel of pics which passes for my usual sort of half-assed battle reports.

My list. The 'Catalina' part of my Awesome is a simple refit moving the ammo out of the center torso to the sides.

Hoss's list. Hoss loves all things Panda, hence the name I chose for his unit. Now he's thinking of painting his mechs black and white!

Hoss, my wily opponent during the game's opening maneuvers.

My first hit of the game! My stalker hit the Griffin on the ridge with 2 large lasers and an LRM 10. His mech fell, though not off of the ridge. 

My Whitworth and Panther, flanking around to take on the Shadowhawk lurking in the darkness. The Whitworth got a lucky SRM hit, scoring a snake eyes for location and a further engine hit! Luckily for Hoss, his Shadowhawk doesn't run all that hot, so this wasn't much more than an annoyance.

All the assault mechs close to optimal range and the armor plates all around start taking some serious punishment! Its been quite awhile since I've been on the wrong end of an Awesome. Let me tell you now in case you didn't know: it sucks!! My 8T at close range was clearly outmatched by his 8Q!

My light mechs blocked the exit to the canyon, trapping the shadowhawk-or so I thought. Rather than try to take on 2 lighter mechs, Hoss jumped-reversing course, shielding himself behind the spire and hanging my ambush out to dry!!

The next turn, the Panther rerouted for the main battlefield, whilst the Whitworth made pursuit. The assault mech meanwhile continued to hammer one another...

My stalker, having dissipated it's excess heat the prior round, strode out into the open and Hoss took the bait! Hoping to take advantage of my stalker's lack of close combat capable 'arms'. Instead, the stalker torso twisted and hit his awesome with everything it had (minus the LRM), all hit aside from a single medium laser! My awesome and panther added to the weight of fire and savaged his awesome, tearing the arm (and it's fist) off of the mech, and exposing internals in the torso and one leg, killing 2 heat sinks in the process.

Meanwhile his assault mechs hammered mine in return. In the backfield his Shadowhawk and Griffin beat the hell out of my Whitworth, punching a hole in the Whitworth's arm, taking out an actuator, whilst it destroyed the Shadowhawk's AC-5 in return.

Dead mercenaries collect no paychecks!

As such his mechs started a slow, fighting retreat. Putting 2 PPC shots into the center and right torso of my (up until that point) pristine Panther! The Whitworth and shadowhawk continued to skirmish in the backfield, whilst his battlemaster kept up the pressure on my stalker. Agreeing with his sentiment, my Awesome fell back as well, whereas the broiling stalker stayed where it was, firing a token shot or two whilst it's overtaxed heat sinks dissipated the 10+ excess heat points! 

We called the game here, making it a draw. Neither side was beaten though both were very much bloodied. No mechs died, though most will be out of commission for quite some time due to repairs.

It was a fun game and we look forward to the next one! Next up though, Rob has a game tentatively scheduled with me on Tuesday, hopefully he'll actually be able to make good on that! I'll field one of my other forces as the TBAGers will be laid up in R&R for awhile.