Escort the convoy!

 o/

'Its bumper to bumper out there folks, oh and watch out for that nasty crossfire...'

I played another game this week, though this time it was against my buddy Nick rather than a campaign game. It was my turn to come up with a scenario and I found this one:

We made some minor adaptations, we traded inches for hexes, and the movement for the convoy vehicles was slowed to 4 hexes rather than five (same +2 TMM) due to a lack of road. With 4000 points each of 3020s era, mechs (and in Nick's case, vehicles) all with base 4/5 pilots and crews as usual, the transports would be quite challenging to hit. 

My Lancers move up into position to escort their charges. 

The Jagermech makes a lucky, boxcars roll to put an AC-5 round into the far off warrior! I was hoping for a 1-shot-kill but instead I only stripped the armor off of the left side of the chopper. I never hit it again (though not for a lack of trying). 

I brought my St. Ives Lancers with an Enforcer, Jagermech, Vindicator (all base models) and a Hunchback HBK-4SP. That totaled out to 4K even and while that factor alone was enough for me to stop making lists, it really wasn't an ideal force as they'd be hard pressed to keep up with the convoy. 

The hover tanks swoop in, cutting across traffic with no turn signals employed! No hits were scored on the convoy though the J. Edgar took a few. Unlike my last game, this evening's shooting rolls were largely atrocious. 

The Lancers and Cavaliers move into close quarters. One Flatbed truck had been disabled, but rather than assist their stricken comrades, the convoys motors away.

Nick had his 1st Royal Cavaliers with an Awesome, Shadow Hawk, a Pegasus and J. Edgar Hovertanks and a warrior VTOL. As he would be the attacker (we rolled after set up to see who was who), his vehicles' to-hit modifiers would be even worse than those of the convoy!

Previously the Enforcer had only taken a single SRM to the head, but the Awesome took it out with a PPC headshot that vaporized the pilot! Seriously, no other locations were hit, just the head!

The Hunchback closes in, unloads and...

...Neverness sent me an instant message and apparently his dice rolling black magic was attached. That or Games of Thrones was on the shop's big screen, and the Hunchback's pilot was too busy watching the in-progress sex scene to give a shit about the Shadow Hawk. 

My stacking template is intended for mechs to be in the same hex as tanks, but it needed a boost to put the VTOL over the Shadow Hawk! Side note, I posted this pic on the Everything Battletech FB group, after less than 24 hours, it currently stands at 223 reactions and 38 comments! The blog post won't garner even a tenth of that. 

Ack,  while I forgot to take a final pic, the convoy almost made it, almost. One flatbed truck did manage to escape the board, but with only 1 out of 5 getting away, Nick won the game, though it was a toss up right up until the last turn! Another point of amusement was the Pegasus which I never managed to hit; it failed it's piloting check and slammed into the city wall for a nice 19 points of damage! I would imagine that there would also be chiropractic appointments needed for its crew!