A Thunder Run with our 'Frenemies'!

lol, almost looks like it's been attacked by a salad!

A battalion of the 2nd Chisholm's Raiders are deployed to McComb to serve as a ready reserve for the 1st Chisholm Raiders' operation on nearby Marduk. Just as they settle into their FOB, HPG transmissions arrive telling of the burgeoning FedCom civil war which is rapidly devolving into violence. While ultimately siding with the Archon, at this stage the Raiders like so many units are a mix of troops with varied political affiliations. 

The battalion splits in half along political lines, and while both sides are sorting themselves out, one faction seizes the initiative and captures the nearby spaceport. Unfortunately, the Raider's jumpship is no longer in orbit and both sides are stuck planetside. Having not yet come to blows, trading only insults with their new found frenemies over inter-unit comms, the commanders of both camps are left wrestling with the twin threats of tension and boredom amongst their troops. 

Tired of being on the backfoot, and just sleeping in the mud with the bugs, the Raiders bivouaced at the FOB outside the spaceport decide to make a 'Thunder Run' into to mix things up a bit, and perhaps opening yet another front in the civil war...

The Mission:

6,000 point BV, 3060s era, Fedcom faction availability only. The 'attackers' will enter from one short board edge and need to reach the Dropship's landing pad before turning back to exit via their board edge. Initially caught unawares, the defenders will be deployed midway between the opposite board edge and the landing pad.

 The attackers get the first turn, with the attackers/defenders determined by a die roll. 

Attacker (ground) units get 1 VP for reaching the spaceport, and 1 more for evacing back off their board edge (if not under forced withdrawal). 1 additional VP is scored for each defending frenemy unit destroyed or placed into forced withdraw towards their board edge (standard rules for forced withdrawal apply see page 258 in Total Warfare). Likewise the defenders recieve 1 VP for every unit they prevent from reaching the landing pad, 1 VP for any unit forced to withdraw, and 2 additional VPs if said unit is destroyed thereafter. Otherwise they get 2 VPs for killing a unit outright. 

Note:  Chisholm's Raiders were chosen because they lack a cohesive color scheme and conveniently, the 2nd Raiders were known for their mobility. However unlike the 1st regiment on Marduk, the 2nd's whereabouts during the Civil War are unknown.

Here is how the game went:

Starting with the backrow and going left to right, my force consisted of a Javelin JVN-11A, Whitworth WTH-2, Shadow Hawk SHD-2D2, Griffin GRF-1DS, a standard Vedette tank (which was carrying the) squad of Cavalier SRM battle armor, and lastly a standard Rommel tank. 

Nick's force consisted of an Axman AXM-1N, Nighstar NSR-9FC, Vindicator VIND-5L and a Bushwhacker BSW-X1

The initial set up with just my terrain  which yes, includes Baxter. 

the Thunder Run begins with my forces charging in from the right, while Nick's mechs moved in towards the launch pad for the most part. 

I believe everything that I had that was elligible to shoot in my first turn needed boxcars to hit. Which is to say, everything missed. 

Nick's to-hit numbers weren't much better and the first round of shooting was largely bloodless. 

The Bushwhacker tries to flank me and draws a fair bit of fire in return for it's efforts. 

My Shadow Hawk & Griffin make it to the objective first, scoring me 2 VPs. Knowing that the Shadow Hawk is the weaker link, Nick concentrated fire on it knocking it to the ground (where the Axman delivered a savage chop to it). Damage sustained put it into the forced withdraw category giving Nick his first VP. 

My Javelin zips around into rear, point blank range and startles Nick when it opens up with all 7 MLs! Naturally only 2 hit and Vindi's rear armor was not penetrated. Typical. 

Neeka was pissed that we were using her lounge table for a game and wanted it back! Most of the time, the table is covered with a quilt & kitty cushions where they can lounge in front of the windows all day. She is the most hostile towards gaming member of my household.

The tanks reach the launch pad and the Vedette drops off the Battle Armor, netting me 3 more VPs and an early big lead! I was starting to rethink the scenario...

As my first wave retreats from the pad, the Whitworth which had been hanging back with supporting fire was finally on approach. 

I got lucky here in that the Axman's AC20 & ax both missed the Griffin. Both of our pulse lasers hit though I believe my punch missed as well. The Griffin 1DS is over-sinked which allowed me to jump and alphastrike every turn with impunity. I could do so even with an engine hit had I suffered one! As such, I quite like this variant.

But then the Shadowhawk went down to a trio of engine hits, followed by the Vedette which was obliterated by the Nightstar in just 1 volley! The Vindi which was taking heavy fire, overheated itself by 25 points(!?!) and shut down, falling to the ground. It would not rise again as I kept shooting at it and destroyed the smoldering mech while it lay helpless on the ground.

The battle armor swarmed the Nightstar in the prior turn. I had to look the rules up and in the Total Warfare book, where it explains how the enemy's infantry can also swarm the same mech to fight my troops on said mech before bothering to explain what damage I could actually do with a swarming attack. Well done game designers, well done! It was a mostly superfluous 2 page read to find what I was actually looking for.

The Whitworth, having left the landing pad, waddles away as fast as it can while the Nightstar ignores my battle armor and destroyes the oh so dangerous Rommel. Barely mobile by that point, the tank was stunned in the prior round and unable to defend itself. My lead was quickly dwindling as the casualties were racking up!

In the backfield, despite a last ditch effort to stop it, my Griffin escaped on one side whilst my unopposed Javelin did the same on the other, netting me two more VPs. The battle armor were doing their best to annoy the Nightstar, though as heavily armored as it is, only the 1 head shot got it's attention. Undeterred, the Nightstar ignored the battle armor and obliterated the fleeing Whitworth instead. 

At that point all I had left on the table was the battle armor, and being too slow to escape the overwhelming firepower remaining in Nick's force, I conceeded that they would be casualties. Adding up all of our VPs we ended up with an even tie!

Well that was fun! This scenario is loosely based on an old X-Wing scenario that we used to play called Wolfy's Hit & Run. I was concerned early on when I pulled ahead with an early big lead, but once my casualties started to mount, Nick closed the distance quickly! 

It was kinda hard to make a list not knowing who would play what. Speed is needed primarily as the attacker, but so is the need to put down mechs quickly if defending. Next week we will try this again with roles reversed as we often do. Nick was lamenting about what he ought to take as most of his mechs are on the slower end. I'll try not to tailor my force too much, now that I know that I will be defending on the next go round. 

The Buffet Assault Group goes green(ish).

 o/

The initial test model.

Not for the first time, and I cannot say it is for the last, but I realized that the reason I have been painting minis from every faction BUT The Buffet Assault Group is because I just don't enjoy painting their color scheme anymore. No real reasoning that I can think of but it happens. The tan/OD green camo with the central red stripe and occasional battlefield repairs is actually their third color scheme. 

So what follows is a bit of a history on their previous colors: 

The original TBAGer color scheme was an urban-type camo that almost looks like SWAT camo to me now. 

Yes, the Awesome on the left is the same one that is now painted below. It's been waiting on a paint job since 2019!

Note the Billboard sized/15mm scaled TBAGers logo on the side, and some digital chicanery to make up for an apparently crummy photo. 

I've looked & looked but cannot find a photo of The Buffet Assault Group's 2nd color scheme, that being not too dissimilar from the last one. It consisted of the same shade of tan (Vallejo Flat Earth) with a deep red, almost crimson trim. I know I had a metal 3rd party Stalker from Australia (yeah, that wasn't cheap) again with the TBAGer logo billboards on the sides of it's LRM arms. That was the unit's command mech at the time. 

I had at least an assault lance painted up like that before they went the way of eBay. I recall that they went to a buyer in Detroit. Their trip was more of an odyssey as the package visited every Detroit suburb that surrounded the buyer's burb over the course of two weeks or so, before landing in a distribution center that had no public access. Worse yet, he drove by it every day on his daily commute. The package spent another week or two there before finally arriving at his house. We had so many convos over the shipping shitshow that we were almost friends by that point.

Then came the color scheme that you all are familiar with: 

A company sized photo-op just prior to my first game of what  would become the eventually disasterous Steel Haven Campaign.

I kept the HBK-4G & UM-R60, but the rest of the painted mechs from the this bunch have redeployed to the western coast of Florida. The Urbie was featured in my last post, the Hunchback is currently soaking in Simple Green, and the two painted Warriors are now just a generic VTOL flight for whatever faction needs them (which is more or less what they were doing anyways). 

There isn't any consistency of the fonts used for the numbers on individual units.

I retained the tan and red in their new color mix for both some contrast and as an homage to the old color scheme. 

The addition of some Autumn colors to their basing shrubberies means the red still works for camo, or at least as much as camo works for a battlemech.

This is an Awesome choice for a my new company command mech.  

So, skipping to the present, I thought I'd try something different (yes I know that I paint most everything green, shut up!). I wanted to try a pattern breaker camo as that is about as close to digital camo as I can personally get. At first it seemed a bit tedious, until I realized that if I fucked up somewhere, I could just repaint over that panel with the next color selected. 

I am very pleased with how this lance has turned out. This color scheme has also been well received on my FLGS' discord which is nice.

The dark green AK Grime has given me fits though, far more than the regular shade that I use on everything else. Not sure why but I had to almost repaint close to a third of the Awesome after inking and maybe a quarter of the Blackjack.  That's as much trouble as I have had with almost a full battalion of the Desert Horde.

I just started on an armor lance, so will try using the regular grime on them and see how they end up. If they are not too visually different in the end, I may just continue on without the green grime going forward. 

We shall see I guess. 

The Four Urbanmechs of the Apocalypse

 o/

Yes, the Golden Urbie is the lance leader.

I noticed recently that my Chisholm's Raiders/Lone Wolves company had collected a trio of urbies. Previously it was two which isn't all that bad. However, after the addition of The Buffet Assault Group's Urbie in their now obsolete color scheme (foreshadowing), Urbies amounted to a third of the Raiders/Wolves' mech compliment. That kind of tactical inflexibility is best reserved for either my Capellan Homeguard or a stand alone force. 

Running with the meme...if not the actual Urbies.

Thus I decided to split them off into their own separate meme lance. The fourth, urban-camo Urbie was painted specifically to fill out the roster. You can laugh all you want, but one never knows which variant of mech they are facing until it shoots. So were I to field these as a lance of UM-R70s, I am sure that any mockery would evaporate the moment a volley of 24, AC-5 slugs went spraying in all directions. I would imagine that following said 1-trick pony act, these would be immediately be elevated from a joke, to high priority targets. 

Tread carefully my friend...

Normally we don't play in the eras that the UM-R70 is available in, so more than likely these will be a Suburbanmech merc lance with the golden suburbie being the UM-R100 prototype. This scenario is far more likely to happen on the table top than the R70 lance. 

Weekly painting update.

 o/

Just a quick post of this week's painted minis. I did play a game last night, but didn't take too many pics. Unless I can get some photos from Nick, I'll have to skip the battle report on that game. 

The hero of my last post, the Demolisher/Devastator tank is now painted, replete with nose hull art and 3 kill markers on the turret. The sides of the turret are a slightly darker shade of tan making this one of the rare, 2-tone models in my Desert Horde. 

Also for the Desert Horde, for when we play in the SLDF/Early Succession wars era, the rare LBX carrier. Equipped with 2 LBX 10s, and 3 LRM 5s, and a decent amount of armor, I'm hard pressed to wonder why a Lostech version with standard AC-10s was never created. 

I am tempted to order more of these, though we rarely play in that era so am not sure how often even this mini will actually get used. 

Lastly, my Fire Mandrills Elemental point is now painted. Being the closest in game to 40K's Spess Mahreenz, I'm thinking in hindsight that I ought to have painted them like ANGRY MARINES!! as Neverness suggested when I posted pics of thier mech star. 

Just a good ol' fashioned slugfest!

 o/

Two different flavors of death by a thousand paper cuts. 

Last week I played a game at the FLGS vs. Anthony again, where the scenario was simple:

Just kill each other! 

8K, Clan Invasion Era, I was fielding my Desert Horde as mercenaries this time vs: whatever Anthony put in his force. He's still a newer player so is not concerned with faction limitations. It's kinda like fighting an ilClan era force, albeit with units from the 3050s. 

I didn't get force pics, but we fielded the following: 

Desert Horde Mercs:  Crusader CRD-6T, Shadow Hawk SHD-3H, Cicada CDA-3G, Starslayer STY-3D, Condor medium tank (Laser), and a Devastator heavy tank.

Anthony's mixed 'star':  King Crab KGC-001, Bane 3, Jenner IIC 3, Fire Falcon D, and a base model Sturmfeur heavy tank. All missiles in his force were Narc capable.

Here's how it went down:

Ugh, not what you want to see coming at you...

The Shadow Hawk tries to swing wide and moves up the flank whereas the Devastator just punches it and runs straight up the middle!

Jenner IIC got cocky, and ran right past the Devastator!

Not a good idea, even with +4 to hit! One AC20 connected with the center torso and that was all she wrote for the Jenner IIC!

After some careful maneuvering, my (narced) Crusader moves into point blank range and these two just start pummeling one another! The Starslayer mesanwhile was firing a consistant large laser & ER PPC shot per turn, usually hitting with at least one per turn. 

I forgot that the starslayer had a rear facing medium laser, not that I would have stopped it from getting narced here. 

Cicada, Condor & Shadow Hawk vs. King Crab = still not a fair fight!. The Sturmfeur was largely immobile at this point and the Devastator started working over the Sturmfeur with it's big guns!

The point blank pummeling continues...

The Starslayer snipes at the Bane while the Crusader turns and smacks the Fire Falcon, causing to to hit the ground!

The Bane falls back out of the Crusader's optimal medium laser range while the Devastator moves into point blank of the Sturmfeur which really cannot defend itself from that range!

Luckily, the King Crab largely wiffed, with the Shadow Hawk's right arm being the only casualty! The Cicada maintains it's point blank attack on the Crab's rear with all guns & even kicking!

Down goes the Sturmfeur!

Oh hey, look who was running from the King Crab on pavement and failed it's PSR...

The Bane keeps living up to it's name and hammers the Crusader, damaging a shoulder which more or less fuck's the firing of half of the Crusader's lasers! Not that I stopped shooting with them or anything...

The King Crab is slowly getting surrounded and taking on heavy fire!

The Bane & Fire Falcon both move into the back corner, for mutual support of each other while my forces move in (with the rest of the board more or less being ignored at this opoint).

In a lucky shot, one of the Condor's ER medium lasers connects with the Bane's head (previously hit by a medium laser from the Crusader). On the crit rolls, both the life support & the mechwarrior connected to it are vaporized! 

Huzzah!

With the Bane down, everything turns their guns onto the King Crab, ignoring the Fire Falcon which is by far the lesser of the two threats left on the table. 

The King Crab goes down fighting, taking off the Crusader's side torso, as the Devastator does the same to the King Crab, resulting in double XL engine-induced kills! The Fire Falcon being the last thing left standing in Anthony's force, wisely fled the field. 

Dude, look at that! Only 6 points of armor left on my Crusader's forward facing! This thing was an LRM sponge! It should have died well before it did!

The King Crab certainly had a rough go of it as well, although oddly a barely hit the CT. 

That was fun and Devastator is already in the process of getting painted in recognition of it's glorious actions in combat! I'm also a fan of the Crusader CRD-6T, it's like an HBK-4P on steroids!