In recognition of valorous acts in combat...

 ...these two have been painted!

Sorry Blood Angel fanbois, but you're not the only ones with tanks in this color scheme!

The Cyclops is still a WIP, though given that it's base coated red, I'm already more than halfway there. The Draconis Combine's Swords of Light flat red color scheme is...really boring to paint. Metal mechanical bits aside, I did add a smidgen of black as an accent color. 

So much for camouflage...

Being the créme de la créme of the DCMS' elite units, means that these are relatively clean (as opposed to my normal filthy paint jobs). No doubt these machines receive considerably more waxing and buffing time than their lessers. 

The laser housings are black which breaks up the monotony of red without deviating too far from the official color scheme.

That said though, even with some very moderate weathering I'm quite pleased with the end result. 

The side no enemy sees, as these honor-bound warriors would rather die where they stand then retreat from a foe in battle.

The forest was full of corpses...

...and that was just the battle's halfway point! 

I got together with my buddy Hoss at the FLGS for a game of Battletech this past Saturday. Unlike our usual bouts where by game's end, everything on the table is staggering around like a bunch of drunken brawlers. This game was an absolute blood bath! Here's how it all played out:

The first two turns were simply advancing at speed. It wasn't till turn three that any shots were exchanged, and these were few (though my Cyclops' AC-20 did vaporize the left arm of Hoss' Panther much to his dismay). Note: my IFV on the left is disembarking a platoon of Ceremonial Guard.

Hoss' borrowed 'suicide box' (MG variant heavy APC) has by this point torn across the map and is in the process of gunning down the aforementioned platoon! The Cyclops' mechwarrior screamed BUSHIDO! and suicidality charged into the enemy's point blank range, whilst blazing away with his own weaponry. Despite being an assault mech, the Cyclops is too lightly armored for this type of fighting.

My Goblin (MG Variant) IFV comes to the aid of my beleaguered platoon, who is cut down by half to Hoss' APC's machine guns. The Panther pumps a PPC round and a few SRMs into my Hunchback which in turn fires a withering volley of medium lasers in reply.

The green turreted tank was a proxy of a Patten heavy tank, and was all too happy to put another AC-10 round into the cyclops. However the cyclops then finished the job started previously by my Hunchback and finished off the tiresome tank. Normally, only I am fielding tanks...so it was kinda eye opening to be on the wrong side of them for the first time in a long time.

As this nasty little firefight continues, the infantry are slaughtered to the last, filling the forest hex they were holding with only the dead and dying. Meanwhile the Hunchback soaks up another PPC blast whilst taking the Panther apart with yet another laser onslaught. Indeed, one such laser bolt struck the short-ranged-missile ammo bin and the panther is vaporized! We didn't total it up, but I'm guessing it was something like 170+ points of internal damage to an already pummeled 35 ton mech! 

Indeed, the dead pile was growing quickly as my borrowed Panther had also succumbed to a multitude of PPC hits. Hoss' Awesome and Catapult K2 had slagged it's leg which took the mech out of action. Not that it had far to go mind you, sponging far too many PPC hits than a mech of this size ought to endure. 

My commander, had been valiantly leading from the rear in his Dragon 1C, sniping targets of opportunity whilst staying clear of the heavy fighting. However with his ceremonial guard dead, one mech down and the other two already in dire straits, he crested the behind which he'd been hiding and fired all of his weapons into the Awesome, getting it's attention in doing so. 

It is at this point I ought to stop and explain the optional floating crit rule we were using: Normally a snake eyes hit location roll represents a possible golden BB that potentially penetrated the center hull armor and hits the juicy bits within. Instead the floating crit, you roll another location after the snake eyes roll, and inflict the armor damage in the 2nd location rolled, and then roll for the crits there instead. Now back to the game. 

The Awesome, turned ponderously at this new threat and returned fire with it's 3 PPCs. 2 hit, with one snake eyes location roll, that switched then from the center to right torso following the 2nd roll. Untouched up until this point, the Dragon absorbed the two hits without notice but...there were 2 crits rolled for in that right side torso. The only thing in there is Autocannon ammo, which came out to a 78 point internal damage explosion. It go BOOM! This was Hoss' first ever 1-shot-kill!! 

I was displeased at this sudden turn of events until the following turn in which my Goblin IFV also scored a floating crit which rolled a box cars the tore Hoss' Griffin's leg off with a single SRM! Unlike my Dragon's demise, or even the earlier Panthers, I do believe all remaining combatants paused for a moment to witness that shocking kill!

A very happy Hoss just after he obliterated my Hunchback in a brutal crossfire.

Once again screaming BUSHIDO! My much overheated Cyclops charges into point blank range and cuts loose at the Catapult, which returns the favor with plenty of help! 

The Next turn would see a 2nd AC-20 slug hit the Catapult's right leg, taking the mech down for good...

...only for the Cyclops to be blown apart moments later! With that, my Goblin IFV, now my sole surviving model, rode off into the sunset with nary a scratch on it.

The dead pile. 

The survivors, the my Goblin on the left being my only one.

Dude!  That was an absolute blast! It's rare to lose more than one or two, it's even rarer to have so many units just flat out die! Also, not only was this the first game in which Hoss had a 1-shot-kill (paint that Awesome Hoss!!!), but it was also the first time he's ever beaten me in Battletech! 

I did not know that. 

As for painting, I think my Goblin, Cyclops and Hunchback all deserve paint for their glorious actions in combat. 

Organizing the troops

 o/

With another small influx of new plastic mechs (including a 2nd KS Urbie!!) as well as the previously mentioned tanks, I thought I'd revisit my chart of units to see what all I have, want and don't want. 

I took everything unpainted and just lumped 'em into one group as their allegiance is fluid until painted. Even then it's debatable, as my Wobblies were running 'false flag' FWLM mechs in my last game. 

Ack! I need to paint more models for my TBAGers!!

(Model hexes in black are unpainted, those that are half black are partially painted.)

Notably absent are my half dozen, painted, old metal Urbies. The new sculpts are just sooo much better. Thus, five of them (along with a few other unwanted odds and ends) will go the way of eBay here shortly. 

The sixth metal Urbie (which is in truth my first one) who's first shot ever fired in anger turned out to be a golden BB that took down an untouched King Crab, will instead retire with honors to my display case. 

The effing Wobblies vs. Clan Nova Cat

 

These two would hammer each other all game long, even though it is obviously an unbalanced match up...

My buddy Screech came over for a thoroughly enjoyable marathon game last week. Clocking in at 15k points, he was running Clan Nova Cat (still short of a full star, what the hell?), and I was running the Fucking Wobblies. He often laments the high cost of Clan Omni-mechs, so to make him feel better, I fielded a C3i unit of 5 out of the 6 mechs I had in my Level II force. The C3i bonus modifier clocked in at just under 2800 points, ouch!

Posting this a week later, I don't recall the specifics, so instead this post is more of a highlight reel than a bat rep.

My Wobblies. The sentinel was a proper shade of white, whereas the Griffin & Scorpion had yet to paint over the colors used in their prior, false flag operation.

Screech's mechs. The Mad Cat mark II was a custom design in which the jump jets were removed, and armor was then slathered on like butter. Also note the black primer, yes folks-he really does paint his minis!

What idiot put a HUGE light forest right in the middle of the battlefield?!? Yeah, as you can imagine that caused all sorts of LoS issues for the both of us.

The crabs and Scorpion would receive a disproportionate amount of damage in return for their collectively heavy fire. 

Close range clusterfuck in progress...

Eventually, the Scorpion, bereft of it's right torso and two attached legs is reduced to cinders. 

For a new mech, this 40 tonner did quite alright. The LAC-5s were loaded with precision ammo, of which the last rounds were fired in the last turn of the game.

My shadow Hawk ended the game at +21 heat! Never before have I gone so high up on the heat chart.  It survived both the involuntary ammo cook off and auto-shutdown rolls, my last of the game.

This is by far the most resilient variant of the Scorpion that I have ever fielded! So much so that it might get a white repaint in the future...

Crabs are in general awesome. Being heat neutral and with C3i, these were down right amazing!

My first mech to fall, but as you can see-it didn't go quickly.

In the end my force was effectively toast. 4 mechs dead (at the end he legged an otherwise lightly damaged griffon), the Shadow Hawk heavily damaged and over heating to the point of insanity, and the Sentinel, defying new model syndrome-staggering off of the field like a drunken brawler. 

In return All 4 of Screech's mechs were on their feet, though only the executioner was in halfway decent shape, with the rest staggering around on their own last legs. 

As a reward to my 2 Crabs and their stubborn refusal to go quietly into the night, especially as they blazed away continuously whilst taking a ridiculous pounding, turn-after-turn, we decided that they deserved to head to the front of my painting queue. As you can see, they are now ready for their next bout, adorned with their new hard earned paint jobs!

The bases were deliberately done differently so as to tell 'em apart.