Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Battletech 3D printed tanks > the official metal ones

 o/

The new arrivals.

Yup, I've been buying and selling minis again. My previous, resin cast Bulldog tanks were sold off and replaced with the above forces (which, ok...cost a bit more than the 4 that I sold). 

The out-going lance. 

The Bulldogs above came from Steel Warrior Studios and like the title says, they are far better than the official minis (which is like dropping the bar on the floor...). My biggest complaint with these SWS Bulldogs was their turret attachment design. The turrets dropped off of the hull whenever touched which was quite annoying. The new(er) Bulldogs seems to be better though that remains to be seen till they see the table top.


I'm really tempted to BUY MOAR!!!

However I then found the Bulldog tanks above (the two larger tanks in the middle) and opted for those instead. Along with them I bought a pair of Hetzers and a pair of twin-medium laser/AC-2 Scorpion light tanks as well. I don't have pics of them on hand, but from this same ebay seller I've also bought a pair each of Vedettes, missile carriers, and a lone Demolisher II. All are excellently printed and of the highest quality. Honestly, I can't recommend any other 3D printed tanks over these!

Now I need to order more bases from Gamecraft for these and a few 3D printed mechs that are somewhere in transit. 

Saturday, December 12, 2020

Clash of the Clans

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?!?

Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Recent acquisitions and a few repaints

 o/


Long time no post because...well, there hasn't been a whole hellova lot going on aside from the usual array of sporadic games lined up only to be postponed indefinitely if not just outright cancelled. I got my Clan KS stuff, and then summarily sold off most of it. Just not much of a fan outside of Solahma forces. I've also been acquiring a small horde of 3D printed mechs and tanks. 

Below is a gallery of what all I've gotten (aside from that beautifully resculpted Urbie above), and what little I've painted: 

The Enforcer: Simple, rugged, and very utilitarian. Still, it looks infinitely better than the old metal sculpts. 

The two Missile carriers came with hatches to optionally cover the launchers, those will be added to that these will be able to represent the LRM, MRM and SRM variants. Two Vedettes are in the foreground, and a 'freebee' Demolisher II in back. Again, all are vastly superior to the original sculpts (well, barring perhaps the D II).

Aside from the Urbie, all I kept from the Kickstarter was the Puma (my favorite clan mech), Grayson Carlyle's Marauder (or a Marauder C in my case) and the two points of Elementals which look amazing!! Also there are a pair of 3D printed Crabs, and a Piranha which was also a freebee due to being damaged. However said damage is minor and can easily be passed off as battle damage whenever I paint it. 

The Demolisher is the only originally painted mini (i.e.: not a repaint) in quite some time across all game systems. The Clan Pike on the other hand has so many layers of paint slathered upon it's hull that it ought to act as ablative armor by this point (both for the Hell's Horses Eta Galaxy, though are generic enough to be most anybody). 

The Whitworth is also a repaint, for a forthcoming former SLDF mercs/Pentagon Powers force (pay no attention to the monster attacking it from behind...). The Hoplite in back is new and is a custom conversion representing a Hoplite IIC armed with a HAG-20, LRM-5 with art. IV, and an AP Gauss rifle. 

Lastly, the Mauler was also a freebee 2nd, with a mis-molded arm. I replaced it with the arm or a 3D printed Dragon that I didn't like making it into a 'Franken-Mech'. Also not pictured but recently purchased is a 3rd Hunchback (an HBK-4P) and a Charger that looks fantastic!

Tentatively I have a game set up with Screech this coming Wednesday, however being an already once postponed game, I'm not holding my breath. Sometimes it's best to just wait until the holidays are over to resume normal gaming.