Kitties ALWAYS roll box cars!
Screech came over and we had a fun, 12k game of Battletech. He was running an understrength star of Nova Cat omnis:
Shadow Cat Prime with a 3/4 pilot
Shadow Cat A with a 3/4 pilot
Mad Cat Mk II 2 with a 3/5 pilot
Nova S with a 3/4 pilot
I was running a slightly understrength Mixed Binary from Hell's Horses Eta Galaxy. My list was as follows:
Piranha with a 4/4 pilot
Puma H with a 3/4 pilot (Binary commander)
Crab CRB-27b with a 5/4 pilot (The 5 due to being such an ancient and obsolete mech which is no doubt well passed it's prime, especially in terms of proper maintenance.)
Hoplite IIC with a 3/5 pilot (Custom made clan built Hoplite with 10SHS, Hag 20, LRM-5 w/Art. IV, AP gauss rifle, CASE, 5/8 movement and same armor as the original.)
Marauder C with a 4/3 pilot
(2) Laser Elemental points with gunnery 5
Clan Foot Infantry point with Gunnery 4
Clan Pike with a 4/5 crew
Clan Demolisher with a 4/5 crew.
As the Nova Cats are (quote) 'opportunists' and Eta Galaxy is more or less a dezgra unit, zellbrigen would play no part in the following battle. Here's my photo recap:
My deployment. Forgoing the use of 3-dimensional terrain as we got a late start, we used my 'canyons of death' map. The plateau/canyon walls are all level 4 and the few black objectives in the middle were level 1, though we pretty much ignored them. Note: The pike on the left was a top one of these plateaus.
Screech's deployment, we opted for starting out corner to corner to keep the ranges long, though in and amongst the canyons long range is more or less a moot point.
As such the first few turns were spent maneuvering at high speed in an attempt to get a clear line of fire. The Pike parked atop it's plateau and it's crew summarily fell asleep, taking no part in the game. I lacked any jump-capable mechs, so it's job was to shoot anything that went for the high ground with it's 5 ultra AC-2s. Not much of a threat, however I'd imagine that Screech is still smarting from his Catapult taking heavy fire and summarily falling off of a level 3 building last spring. Thus, he never landed up on a plateau effectively taking the Pike out of the game due to never having any lines of sight.
Turn 3 finally saw some gunfire as our leading elements arrived into the open. My Marauder put an LPL shot into his lead Shadowcat, and the Crab put a few lasers into the Nova. In return the Nova and Mad Cat began their thorough attempt to dismantle the crab, punishing it heavily right out of the gate.
The Piranha added to the din though without connecting, however my Hoplite hit the Nova with it's LRM and HAG-20, inflicting moderate damage which included (2) separate head shots! Shortly thereafter one of the Shadow Cat's would pummel the rear armor of the Hoplite, going internal though not scoring any crits. This would be the majority of the damage the Hoplite would suffer all game.
The following turn saw the moment we were all waiting for: The Piranha unloading with everything into the Nova (though the fucker torso twisted ruining my hopes of shredding the thin, rear armor). The lasers took a few chunks off, but the real fun was shooting all twelve MGs! Only a few hit, but it was still fun if a bit laborious.
As the scrum in the middle continued to to play out, my Puma backed up into cover to deploy it's cargo of toads. Screech's Shadow Cat Prime moved to outflank prompting a torso twist followed by a cinematic firing of both heavy large lasers, 1 at the Shadow Cat and the other at the Mad Cat. Only 1 hit though I don't recall which target it was.
Screech's Shadow Cat A rounded a canyon wall and unloaded into my Marauder, ignoring the Demolisher right in front of it. Bad,
bad idea...
One MPL, and AC-20 slug, and about a dozen bits of AC-20 buckshot later, and the entire side torso exploded due to an SRM ammo hit!
Still running...the poor foot slogging infantry never fired a shot the whole game, or even came into view of the enemy. However due to excessive running in the desert heat in full combat gear, we both assumed casualties from physical and/or heat exhaustion were many.
Ah yes, the inevitable visit from this world's mega-fauna. No doubt attracted by all of the commotion of battle. Baxter decided to aid my forces by blocking off the principle avenue of escape for Screech's stricken Shadow Cat which was being harried by the piranha. Speaking of, in just 2 turns the Piranha burned thru more than 10% of it's ammo, lol.
Baxter. watches approvingly as one of my Elementals puts an SRM into the head of the Shadow Cat Prime. A heavy large laser blast along with the elementals' SRM fire would knock the mech from it's feet!
The Nova moves in to try and finish off the beleaguered Marauder, inflicting heavy damage and hitting the UAC-5's ammo, which tore the entire side off of the mech! Speaking of, my Crab on the other side of the field was still standing but so heavily damaged that it likely resembled legs holding up a bunch of garbage!
In return the last round to leave the UAC-5's barrel pasted the Nova's pilot, taking out the mech! With the Nova down and both Shadow Cats heavily damaged, Screech ran up the white flag, much to the relief of my Crab and Marauder pilots, whose mechs were both on their last legs.
All in all a good game! I was pleased with the performance of the Puma, Demolisher and and Hoplite especially. Though the crab ought to get a thumbs up purely for the resilience of the mech. My Elementals only one fired 1 volley each, however it was my first time ever using them and they did nicely. The new models also look fantastic which is a plus!
On the down side, the Pike was poorly positioned and never fired a shot and I'm thinking that the Marauder may go into Inner Sphere service as I wasn't too impressed with it in this game. Mainly due to ridiculous overheating issues. I mean seriously, two turns to cool off, WTF?!?
