Those Bloody buildings are in the way again!

 o/

Great, it can't see anything...again!

My buddy Screech came over Thursday night and we played an 8k point game of Battletech. I was surprised that he agreed to such a low point limit (locally that's the norm, but most of the time we're all fielding Inner Shpere mechs) as I knew he wanted to use his new shiny clan mechs which tend to be hideously expensive. 

Nonetheless he agreed and we played a straight up kill each other game pitting my Federated Suns force (probably the Chisholm's Raiders as they lack of coherent color scheme which matches my style) vs. his Nova Cats. Here's how it all went down...

The battlefield. The two central, forested areas at the top and bottom were all 'light forest'. Also of note is the Duncan Davions corporate headquarters (for this planet) surrounded by ample tank-scaled parking.

My Davion force consisting of a Charger CGR-SB (my commander), two Enforcer ENF-4Rs with the Blue one dubbed 'Yankee' and the grey one 'Rebel', a Jagermech JM7-D, and lastly a heavy tracked APC and  heavy mountain infantry platoon as filler (my army totaled 7999 points!).

Screech opted for the 'That Guy' list consisting of a Dire Wolf Prime and an Executioner A. Clocking in at 195 tons between just the two of them...all of my pilots, troops and vehicle crew collectively wet themselves at the sight of these monsters! There were enough points available to round out his list with a point of small laser equipped Elementals who would ride on the Executioner.

My right flank just after the first turn's movement. Turns out my Jager was a single hex out of range, damnit!

On my left side, the Charger lived up to it's name and ran straight into the jaws of hell!

On the far left, the APC was slogging thru the forest in hopes or remaining both hidden from view and uninteresting to the enemy assault mechs (and it was mission accomplished!).

Turn one saw the charger shoot poorly, maybe scoring a lone large laser hit, whilst being savaged in return! It's a good thing it has 40 points of armor on the CT, because Screech ground thru 35 points of it in one volley, whilst also scoring 2 engine crits! At least it managed to stay on it's feet!

Not to ignore the rest of my force, Rebel also drew some fire taking a pair of clan LL hits as well. Whereas my return shooting was largely ineffective

What would a bat rep be without a pic of Baxter getting in the way...as usual?

The Infantry dismounts (still within the forest) and it's participation awards for everybody! Seriously, aside from some wandering around in the woods in subsequent turns, this is all the infantry platoon would accomplish in this game.

Turn three....would be the turning point in the game! Up until this point things had predictably gone badly for my force as they desperately fought these two monsters. However Yankee managed a to hit with it's AC-10 and then made a lucky location roll of box cars, putting that AC-10 round right thru the head's canopy! 

2 Crits were rolled, destroying the life support which was irrelevant as what was left of the pilot was splattered around his cockpit as well! With a groan the mech toppled over into the nearby building and it's accompanying shrubberies, scattering elementals all around (slightly wounding 2 in the process). 

Aww yeah! Yankee is now #1 on my painting queue!

In what would become a reoccurring theme, my Jager's line-of-sight to the Dire Wolf was blocked by the intervening buildings. Thus preventing it from actually doing anything. Again. As usual.

Ironically, using these buildings as cover hide behind was largely the reason I purchased them in the first place. Unfortunately it turns out that that was a double edged sword.

In the following turn Yankee would suffer that same fate, rendering it unable to support the Charger which was again being savaged by the Dire Wolf.

Whilst the Charger fires what lasers it's heat sinks will allow (given the engine hits), it and Rebel engages the Dire Wolf, which sponges all incoming fire with no apparent ill effect! 

The Jager meanwhile blazed away into the Elementals missing with virtually everything, fucker. Whereas the Elementals themselves started chewing on Rebel. 

The Dire Wolf then closed in for the kill, whilst my force closed in to surround the beast. Hell even the little APC that could even came flying in, machine guns blazing (spoiler alert: it missed). 

Rebel wanted to flee, but wouldn't in front of Yankee which had already proved itself my MVP! Basically everything pounded the Dire Wolf from all directions, chewing thru armor and inflicting an engine crit (from Rebel) and taking out a heat sink (from Yankee). 

In return the Jager took it's first hits of the game, the Charger's 2nd large laser was disabled and one of the Enforcers took a hit I think as well. Seriously, that damned Dire Wolf has waaaay too many weapons on it! 

At this point we called it as the hour was getting late and we both had to work in the morning. Had I been paying attention to the time I'd have fired another large laser on the Charger, heat be damned. However I'd only fired one plus the medium to bleed heat for the next turn. Oh well. 

We called it a draw as we weren't sure how the chips would have fallen had we gone another round. Having alpha struck, taken an engine hit and suffering the loss of a double heat sink, his Dire Wolf was cooking at 11+ heat! Likewise his Elementals were out of SRMs. 

On my end, the Charger was almost a heat neutral mech once again having lost 2 large lasers, however it was beat all to hell, and most any hits not on the head or left leg would have just gone straight into the internals. The Jager was fine, the Rebel Enforcer was in fairly rough shape though, whereas Yankee was still fit for active duty without need of much repair. 

Still, it wouldn't take much to drop the Charger and Rebel with no guarantee I could finish off the Dire Wolf at the same time. So a draw it was. 

Fun game, and I'm looking forward to the next.