Corey's Cavaliers

 o/

Securing my wife's tomato plants. Were it not for their basing, these would blend into her raised planter's bed and it's tomato seedlings almost perfectly. 

I don't recall when I first stumbled across this canon mercenary unit but it was quite some time ago. Like so many merc units in Battletech (and Space Marine chapters in 40K), they exist as a random name in a blurb, in a book. That's it. Their minimal background says they inflicted a serious defeat on the St. Ives Cheveau-Leger during the Lostech era, inflicting particularly heavy losses on their air lances. 

Shadow Hawk SHD-3H, which swaps out the SRM-2 for a pair of machine guns. The emblem on the torso marks this mech out as the lance leader. 

The suggestion of 'Kill!' is almost an oxymoron being painted on the side of a lowly LRM-5.

So, the defeated a regimental sized unit (or more likely a smaller detachment thereof) with air support? Did the Cavaliers have extensive AA units? Their own aerospace forces? Did a CGR-1A1 stumble across an airfield and simply run amok? No other details, really? No of course not, these fuckers don't even have a color scheme. 

Charger CGR-1A1, are those two kill marks on the torso? Or the number of mechs that stuck around long enough to get into small laser range? Note this mech is dangerously skirting the edge of a minefield!

The Wolf icon really looked cool on the pauldron. Or, being on a Charger, perhaps its a more sarcastically applied dog...

Well, they didn't until the Unit Color Compendium created one which is about as official as this bunch is going to get. Also, for those that don't know, my name is: Corey, and decades ago when I was in the SCA, my persona was of a Cavalier, so I'm almost obligated to paint some of these up. Also, the UCC color scheme is both striking and pretty easy to paint. 

Rifleman RFL-3N: the epitome of mediocrity, especially as the AA mech that it was supposedly designed to be. 

With their only known action being well within the Lostech era (another favorite of mine), I opted to make my first lance for the Cavaliers (I rarely stop at just one...) as what my old buddy Hoss would call a Lostech FUBAR lance: All crummy/mediocre mechs that are thrown into a front line role because there is nothing else left. Thus far I only have 3 mechs painted for this lance of Corey's Cavaliers, but the fourth (a Vulcan) finally arrived in the mail and is now in progress.

Escort the Spy

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I need to get a Mobile HQ mini so my games don't need to keep using this god-awful 'Command brick truck' model. 

I played the next mission in the 3rd leg of our ongoing campaign this past Thursday. This one ran more or less on rails with limited set piece actions over the course of the first half dozen turns. We were told not to make a list until we were told of the scenario rules/situation once we got there. To save time, I showed up with 9 premade lists from my campaign company and chose what I thought would be the best one. 

I started off with a wedge 'pursuing' the truck, with my locust flanking out at long range. Unfortunatly, terrain and the multitude of AC2s and the indirect firing LRM carrier would make mince meat out of it!

Shadowstar was playing the OpFor, he suffered thru this mission the week prior.

This post is as much a rant as it is a bat rep. Basically my forces were 'pursing' the fugly command truck to a fortified building. In said truck was a mole whole would go in, collect the spy and then make a run for it back along said road (5 hexes movement, no bonus for pavement) hoping to survive where the OpFor would then target the truck over all else. 

The Catapult sat back and used the last of it's ammo (from the prior mision) up taking down AC-2s on the tower. Unfortunately, the cluster chart meant you had to more or less fire 2 LRM launchers or large lasers (from the Stalker) to guarantee a cannon kill. 

Just as the Bulldog goes up in flames, a pair of SRM turrets pop up and replace it. If the popup turrets brings to mind the Solaris debacle, yeah well, the same guys are runing this leg of the campaign.

Prior to the esceape, the OpFor would be defending what they thought was a friendly vehicle from my forces. I took my commander's STK-4N, my CPLT-C1 from the previous mission which was down to 3 volleys of LRM ammo per launcher My intent was to have it running & jumping with lasers so was fine with that given the map, a LCT-1Vb and an HBK-4J. 

Struggling to remain upright due to a gryro and foot hit, and a multitude of other damage from slogging thru hellish terrain and high angled enemy fire, the Royal Locust lasered the LRM carrier to death before fleeing the board with 1 point of remaining CT structure. 

Something like 2-3 turns were spent pounding on tanks and turrets (and vice versa) while waiting for the Mole to fill out the government-like release forms in triplicate. By this point my Stalker's side torsos were so thin that I had dumped all of it's almost 3 full tons of remaining ammo, turning it into a laser boat. 

I was facing a tower with 2 turrets armed with 4 AC-2s each, 10HP per gun to be targeted and destroyed individually (really?). On said tower was also a spotter, and all were high enough to not have to suffer any terrain penalties. Also a pair of std. Scorpion light tanks, a std. Bulldog medium tank (proxied with a goblin) and an LRM carrier. There where no bonuses for pavement on the road and the scenario required a PSR to leave the road at any speed. Additionally, there was a 3MP cost to enter/exit water (6 to cross!) no MP penalties to move in water aside from no running. and once the spy was on the run, a fresh, randomly rolled for OpFor lance would appear 1 mech at a time per turn to take out the spy's truck. 

My mission: destroy everything and make sure the spy & mole escape in the truck. A cakewalk right? If you haven't figured it out from the preceeding pics and captions, it was anything but. 

Once the truck left, the Hunchback and stalker dropped the building in 1 turn, taking its 2 remaining AC-2s with it. Oh an look, the first randomly rolled for OpFor mech arrives, a Guillotine with a 3/3 pilot. Yay, that shooting exclusively at a box with 40 HP sounds fair. 

Followed by a Crab the next turn, I think the truck was down tot 20ish HP by this point, while I was pounding the Guillotine.

Next a Whitworth arrives and the Stalker punishes it for doing so, unfortunately the reversed arms' medium lasers all missed the Crab and it's rear armor. Meanwhile the still in the water Hunchback alpha strikes hitting the whitworth with it's 1 remining LRM and the Gullotine with everything else. In return the Gillotine kicks it in the chest as it was 1 level higher. Technically Shadowstar rolled a headshot, but knowing it would kill my pilot (who had already taken a head hit) he insisted on rerolling it to prevent me from losing a pilot in what he felt was an unfair scenario.

1-turn from the board's edge with 2 remaining hit points...

What? It blew up? The hell you say! The spy & mole managed to clamber out of the wreck after I rolled for them. With the loss of the truck aside, I accomplished all objectives. The cost of victory however...

Okay, so all objectives accomplished basically, I took out all of the guns, tanks, the tower, and damaged the new lance of mechs somewhat. I haven't said to much on damage suffered in this meat grinder. It was extensive, behold:

If this mech does indeed used in part 2, I am dumping its ammo beforehand out of self preservation. Hell, it only has 1 functional LRM-10 anyways.

Were it not for the gyro hit, I would be fine with this one fighting on as is. 

1 point of CT internal structure holding it together and I am supposed to use this? Sure. I should have left it on the board to die.

The part 2 mission is supposed to be some sort of 'pursuit' mission by the OpFor lance. Thinking it will be a rearguard action, and as slow as a Stalker is on the best of days, my CO may try and sacrifice herself while the other mechs escape. 

Now, I have no issue with feeding mechs into the proverbial woodchipper on a weekly basis as you all know. What I take issue with is an overly complicated set up that (as Digger put it) 'railroads you into slogging thru a meatgrinder of a mission' (again, not really unhappy with this, but..). We now need to use the same surviving mechs (I didn't lose any, Digger lost 2), without any repairs for a part 2 pursuit mission (whatever the fuck that means) which follows this one. Sure, the enemy mechs will be in the same boat, but they came on late (and in my game, the Jackalpoe didn't even make it on the board), so their damage is minimal. Well, Guillotine aside, I did beat that one up pretty good. 

Now, at the beginning of this track of the campaign, all mechs were transported to the planet of this campaign after being stuck with the same 4 mechs which caused some discontent in the previous leg, especially if casualties were suffered. So rather than grab some of the 7 pristine mechs I have on site, I need to use these 4, where the Locust is held together with prayers, 3 of the 4 have gyro hits, and all have considerable damage? 

What the actual fuck? 

There has been a lot of grumbling and negative feedback. Funnily enough, I've played the current organizer, and he gets really pissed when his mechs take heavy damage, so I have to wonder if this is all out of some sort of spite. He's a generally nice guy, so don't want to think that, but it's hard to tell at this point.

Nobody who had played thru this scenario has anything good to say about it really for one reason or the other (and several of us won), and one player who is new to the game isn't sure he wants to continue playing if this is how it is always going to be. Seriously guys, what did you learn from the Solaris feedback? 

Notta fucking thing by the looks of it. 

SHOVE IT!

 o/

Wait, what?!?

I played a game this past week vs. a new opponent, Aaron (guessing on the spelling of his name). 5K, no scenario, just kill each other. Not sure what era we were playing I opted for the all tech level I, fielding my rarely used FRR Drakons. I had a Catapult CPLT-K2 with a 3/5 pilot, a Charger CGR-1A1 with a 4/4 pilot, a Warhammer WHM-6K and a Blackjack BJ-1 (both with 4/5 pilots) and lastly a Jump Laser Iinfantry platoon which rounded my force out to an even 5K. 

The battlefield with a large light forest in the upper right. I screwed up in placing the mapsheet making the only straight running lanes on the paved roads running left to right, rather than straight at one another. 

Aaron fielded a Clan invasion era lance (not sure what faction but going by the MUL is was likely FedCom, Mercs or St. Ives) consisting of an Ostscout OTT-7J, a Javelin JVN-10P, a Spector SPR-5F and lastly a Helios HEL-5D, all with 3/4 pilots. 

Here's how it all went down. 

Here they come, jumping and bouncing at me hard and fast! We traded a few shots here, but nothing significant. 

My Blackjack and intended 'Distraction bot' run up the middle looking for the Helios. Given all of the opposing small, fast and bouncy mechs on the board, the Charger would instead fall back on its secondary role: brawler. 

You know he's serious when he shows up in uniform! He's going to the Navy's nuke school, a fitting choice for a mechwarrior. 

I backed up to the edge to hide my rear armor and instead my near pristine Catapult was instead unceremoniuosly shoved off the board! I was rather caught off guard by this, the kick that almost took the Ostscout's leg was of little comfort. Different folks = different tactics (which as you will see in a bit goes both ways). Thus my Catapult took it's proverbial ball and went home to pout.

I habitually roll like garbage on crits rolls, except here where my Warhammer rolled a box cars to crit the CT of the Javelin, destroying the gyro and damagining the engine! Also, one of this game's many point blank scrums was taking place here. I ought to have brought my Hatchetman.

Always in my rear arc! Not sure what was in worse shape by this point, be it my warhammer or the Blackjack. They were both still up and fighting though. 

The Helios' gauss rifle was kind enough to miss on it's first three shots, and the Charger closed to point blank for optimal SL fire and brawling while keeping the gauss itself from shooting. 

Pretty much more of the same here. 

The Helios hopped up on the building but my Charger didn't take the bait to close in (which would allow Aaron to kick while hitting on the punch chart), and opted to shoot at the little guys (that were moving too fast to hit). In return the Helios' gauss finally connected and removed the Blackjack's side torso, ouch!

The Warhammer then scored a critical which destroyed the Helios' Gauss rifle. That explosion knocked out the pilot knocking his mech prone. Aaron exclaimed: 'Now you can do called shots.' Not really knowing how to do that (nor something I would have thought of) we looked up the rules and in the following turn, aiming for the CT the Wahammer & Charger eliminated the stricken Helios. Like I said earlier, different folks = different tactics. 

The Warhammer took a Gyro hit and went down, only to further damage itself trying to get back up. Like the Javelin (which was finished off by the crippled Blackjack just before it's demise) the Warhammer propped itself up for a few shots before blowing up via an ammo hit. 

Down to the three mechs left standing along with my infantry platoon (who inflicted I think 9 points all game), we called it a draw and ended it there. He could out range and run my Charger, but lacked the firepower to take it down effectively, so we didn't see much point to continuing on.

*****

Well that was fun and a bit different. I'm disappointed that I never again hit the Ostscout's leg which was down to a mere 2 points of structure (though the Infantry did try). I was pleased with the Charger, 3 small lasers and 2 punches if the target's TMM was high or else 5 small lasers and a kick if the TMM was low is nothing to sneeze at. Several times Aaron commented 'I gotta stay away from that Charger.' which I found amusing given the CGR-1A1's reputation as garbage. 

I don't think we ever used the shoving models off of the board as it was sort of a gentlman's agreement. That said, I likewise have never used aimed shots on a crippled mech to ensure that it never gets up again either. As such I am curious to see what our next match is like... 

The Battletech Bachelor...party?

The man of the hour.

It was more of just a game than a party. There were no Canopians on the field so no hope for strippers either. 4500 BV, a solaris scenario (with the walls that randomly pop up and down), 2 mechs max (that restriction explicitly added that to prevent me from showing up with a horde of Urbies), 75 tons max weight, no pilot or gunnery skills better than a 2. 

Screech's Rifleman went down fairly early, and everything else prettymuch died in this scrum.

Screech fielded a Rifleman RFL-6X & Warhammer WHM-9D, Terry (his long time friend and best man) had a, Orion ON1-MC and an Ostsol OTL-9M (that I kept mistakenly calling an Ostscout), and I had a Starslayer STY-3C & a Lancelot LNC25-03. 

I didn't take near enough pics to even attampt a battle report. That said, Terry and I made sure that Screech did not win, and was the first one out all together. Though not too far ahead of myself, with Terry's Ostsol being the last mech standing. 

Note the Lightsaber hilt on her bouquet...

As of Cinco de Mayo Revenge of the Sith, Screech is now happily married to Loren, the love of his life. Screech & Loren were the best man & maid of honor at our wedding. We made several attempts to get them together prior to that, but shortly thereafter is when they stopped resisting our efforts. I put a 'We told you so!' on their wedding poster that they wanted everyone to sign. 

Not calling it a production run yet, but he's getting there!

I did mention that what's hers is hers and what's his is now her's, making her the owner of a multitude of unpainted minis. So what was the hold up? Also, as I was leaving the night before the wedding, I told her that it was her last chance to make a run for it, to which Loren replied: but who will paint all of his minis?