So many battles!

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A dual to the death between two heavy recon mechs.

Well the Inner Sphere is well and truly aflame here locally, with three games of Battletech played since my last post, two of Alpha Strike and one of Classic. 

Painted up for the occasion; like any self respecting newly painted minis, they all died!

First up, Frankie and I played a civil war era game of Alpha Strike vs. Rob & his Capellans. Frankie was running mercs and I had Capellans, the St. Ives Compact. This was a fun game and our FIRST victory in Alpha Strike, huzzah! Frankie tends to write notes all over his unit roster page with all of the mech cards printed on it, and I noted when we got home that 'we won!' was written across the page, lol. 

UM-R69s providing covering fire for Frankie's advancing Mercs. 

This firefight became known as the alley of death, and decided the game. 

Later that weekend, my Whipits got their battlefield debut vs. Kushial's Davion forces. Rather than retell a story already told, you can just read his account here. 

Yeah, this about sums up that debacle.

This past Wednesday, neither Rob nor Screech were available, so instead our 300 point force split in half and Frankie and I battled each other in a 150 point game at home (after 14 months, it was the first mini game played in our new house). 

Tired after a long road march, the FWLM voted for dinner at the next Urbie Burger on the route, only to hear over coms that their Wobbly allies were pulling up at a Dunkin Davions instead. Naturally this disagreement lead to a fight to the death!

A nasty firefight this was. 

+4 to hit was no matter, my Guillotine turned the cocky little Mercury into a greasy smear.

The last two on the board, my Wolverine with one point of damage vs. Frankie's untouched Vulcan. This fast moving dual would cover several turns and about half of the board. 

In the end I got him though, the extra tonnage pulling me thru! That said, the Wolverine was down to 2 points of structure remaining and only a 5" movement rate.

I just squeaked out that one! He was kicking my ass early on taking down my battle armor squad and Scorpion mech by the end of turn two. Had Frankie had a battle lance with rerolls like I did, rather than light strikers with the speed demons SPA (+2" movement to all but the Crabs), odds are I'd have lost. Indeed, following the game he said 'I want to play this list again! I think I like fast mechs rather than the big heavy ones you usually give me, but I think I want the rerolls next time.' 

And there we have it folks. Not only is Frankie definitely hooked (speaking of, Kushial donated some more reading material for Frankie), but he's even found his preferred playstyle! This makes me a happy Dad.

The latest on my Mercenaries

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This pic explains a few die rolls...

I've been rather productive on Battletech front. We're settling into a summer routine of a game of Alpha Strike once a night per week (fingers crossed it stays that way). Frankie seems to have taken a liking to it the game despite our continued losses. Indeed, he specifically requested that his lance include the Dragon this week, seems he's found a favorite mech. 

Unfortunately I was unable to squeeze my painted CGR-SB Challenger into this list.

Last week's game of AS saw The Buffet Assault Group itself take to the field, and for the first time ever at company strength! Having learned to not put all of our eggs into Frankie's basket, our lists were almost identical in points. Frankie commanded the lance in back, whereas I used the Hunchback lance as I knew he'd have trouble telling them apart. We split the recon lance with 1 Stinger a piece, with him taking the Phoenix Hawk and the Firestarter for myself. 

That's our dead pile on the right, with the three survivors on the left not having taken a single point of damage among them. Curious.

In Frankie's estimation 'I think we did a lot better this time!' (quote), to which I agreed that yes, we didn't get tabled. Rob & Screech both fielded 150pts each themselves with Rob claiming to have the Capellan Confederation and Screech with Steiner as is usual. Once again, without a lick of paint nor primer to be seen, they looked like the Grey Death Legion to us. 

***

In a bit of hero warship, rather than stop at a pink paw print, Hotshot has added splotches of pink to his mech's 2-tone purpleflage. 

Prior to that, I painted up the last member of Ace Darwin's Whipits: The WSP-1A who's pilot's callsign is 'Hotshot'. Named by Kushial after a brand of Wasp killer that he no doubt sells in the store that he manages. 

With a name like 'Hotshot', you can (correctly) imagine that this guy has an ego a mile wide crammed into the little mech's even tinier cockpit. An eternal discipline problem for the 18th Marik Militia, he 'wandered off' and was left behind on Hall when that unit suffered a crushing defeat in the War of '39. When the Dragoons radioed the dropships boosting towards orbit, informing them that 'they forgot one', the Marik response was 'he's your problem now'. 

Why stop at a mere pink paw print when you can make your mech's ridiculous camouflage scheme even more garish?

While a discipline problem pilot might normally fit in well with the Black Widows, they were unimpressed with both Hotshot & his mech, and left them both behind as well. Stranded on Hall, Hotshot begrudgingly signed a contract with the Fed Suns' 4th Republican Guards. Often-bored out of his mind by garrison duty (much like his servie in teh FWLM), he would amuse himself by using his mech to play Jenga with their palletized supplies. Quickly, the Davions cashed out their 'contractor' with a 1-way trip off world. 

Eventually making it to Outreach, Hotshot has bounced from command to command and contract to contract. He has quickly earned himself a reputation that few are willing to deal with. That said, he's like a star struck groupie in the presence of Ace, and has even gone so far as to add pink coloring to his Wasp's purpleflage, over and above the mere paw print that Ace requires.

Ace doesn't expect this subdued state to last, but he's hoping that the hero-worship will last for the duration of this contract at the least.

Alpha Strike, Round 2

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Today is a good day to die!

I got in another game of Alpha Strike this week, again with my son Frankie fielding the 'good' lance, and myself with the lighter weight one. Frankie had a heavy weight, C3 lance. Still inexperienced, he came out cautiously, getting little to no benefit from his heavy armor, weapons, much less the C3. 

I again found myself leading the charge with Urbies, which had predictable results. 

Eventually, he got more aggressive after some prodding by me (and threats to have him field the fragile Urbies next time around). His Dragon did reach Screech's table edge though at one point, unfortunately he pulled a Neverness and blew his collective to-hit rolls and derived minimal benefits from the C3's lack of modifiers.

Screech 'posing' with his Grey Death Legion force.

Honestly, the game became more fun when I told Frankie that the prudent commander would see that the cause was lost and surrender. However the Combine's Bushido philosophy said: NO and the suicide charges began in earnest!

The IFF is...confused. 

(Always remember to paint your mechs kids!)

In a nutshell: we got tabled. As such I can't say that we're improving and I was a little salty for a moment there about Screech's pair of skill 2 pilots, but the game ended on a high note.  And by 'high note', yes I mean suicide charges and glorious last stands. Those being the Hunchback in the first pic, the Marauders above (Screech's survived with a lone point of structure remaining), and our last to fall, the Jenner below. 

Despite have a damaged fire control system, I've found that yelling: "WILD FIRE!' just before rolling the dice still gets good results!. Thus, this fugly little mech, our last to fall, earned itself a proper paint job. 

On to the next list...

My first impressions of Alpha Strike

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R.I.P little Urbie, R.I.P...

Welp, after about a month of no gaming, I managed to get in a demo game of Alpha Strike with my buddy Screech, with my son Frankie in tow.

The 2/3 that managed to show up. I gave Frankie control of the medium lance whereas I took the light lance. Originally I had planned to split the tanks between us but it was not to be.

Frankie liked the idea of learning a game at the same time as i was, and having only read the same set of 'quick start' rules. I do have the rulebook for AS, but like most rulebooks that I own, I've done little more than look at the pictures and their captions. I'm far more likely to learn a ruleset by muddling thru a game of it than I am to read the rules beforehand.

Screech's unidentified Steiner force was suffering from budget cut and as such, were left without any funds to apply the regimental color scheme to any of their mechs.

300 points seems to be the 'typical' size for AS here locally, and conveniently my Dixie CTM clocks in at just that amount. However much to my surprise/dismay, when I was pulling out our forces at the FLGS, I remembered that I had transferred all of my tanks and infantry to another case which was still at home. 

Urbies have an Impressive (well, for an Urbie) movement rate of 4", which is for both jumping and on foot! That said, they have have a big whopping '0' for a Total Movement Modifier. 

As such, with my heavy armor lance not present, the game was scaled back to 175 points, and I informed Frankie that we were likely doomed without all of our big guns. Hell, it was both a weeknight and a learning game anyways, so what did it matter really?

Flanking maneuver in-progress...

This pics in this post are more of a highlight reel as I only took a few being more interested in getting a feel for the ruleset. Overall its not bad, though I can't say that I expect to like it more than the 'Classic' ruleset (no doubt much to Kushial's delight as he has no interest in AS). 

In the heat haze of heavy combat, Screech's mechs actually blended fairly well with the environs of the battlefield (note: the ubiquitous 'crotch shot' of my opponent in the background). 

I can see what Catalyst is aiming for though and Frankie seemed to enjoy himself. He did say he'd play it again whereas I've never bothered with trying to teach him classic as he lacks the attention span needed for it. I've heard it said that AS is more of a gateway drug into BattleTech and indeed I have to agree with that. 

The Hunchback HBK-4N was the first to mech to fall, much to my surprise as I was expecting the first kill to be a slow and fragile Urbie instead.

In all honesty, AS is fast paced enough, and units fragile enough that out-right kills are so much more common than in Classic that My Beloved Wolfy might have actually enjoyed this ruleset. For those who don't know, I'm referring to my late wife who was a gamer but HATED BattleTech as it 'impossibly made giant stompy robots boring'. For those who knew her, and her special loathing of BattleTech, that is a HUGE compliment to the design team!

Screech isn't offering advice here, but is rather looking at our cards to see which mech of ours is likely to fall next. Schmuck.

We tried the pilot die optional rule, where you roll 1 differently colored D6 and then another for every point of damage in your range bracket to simulate the possibility of some weapons hitting and some not, rather than the all or nothing approach. Honestly, I can see some form of that approach to shooting bleeding back into Classic. Although my little 14 section mini-tackle box filled with dice does a fine job on its own. 

The Warhammer went down next though an Urbie and commando went with it. Luckily Screech kinda blew his die rolling a little and the Uziel managed to hang on with 1 point of structure left!

All in all it was fun and definitely worth trying again. I don't think it'll displace Classic BattleTech (for me anyways), and I look forward to tryout some more lists with it in the future. Screech won with three kills to our one.

Alas poor Urbie, I knew him...