My first ever Battletech tournament is in the books

 

 I got the award that I really wanted. I refused to give myself any points for my paint jobs, even offering Noah's new, bare plastic mechs 1 point with none for my own. Despite that, I was told I won this by a unanimous vote.

Due to a few dropouts' both prior to and on the day of the tourney itself, only three of us showed up with one of the TOs playing as ringer to balance the numbers. I felt bad for the TOs who put lot of effort into this, nonetheless fun was had by all (5 of us).

Round 1. My force was more or less incapable of achieving the goals of this one. However, I 'broke' the scenario more or less forcing my opponent into a Pickett's charge scenario. My opponent Kevin thought it a very solid plan. This one came down to the wire with only a last turn Hail Mary granting Kevin the victory! 

My record: 0-3. Which...while certainly not the best showing does fit perfectly with my Society force, as they were exterminated by the end of the Wars of Reaving. Going off of past 40K tournament experiences, I figured I would be facing stupid lists, so I made a stupid list: 

I won a VP for most surviving tonnage for every game and only suffered the loss of the Man O' War in the second round. Point blank range of a Kodiak is a BAD place to be. 

Faction: The Society (Note: my mechs are in Clan Coyote's Rho Galaxy colors)

Force: Mech Trey consisting of:

Bane, standard

Man O' War B

Warhammer IIC, standard

Gnome battle armor Un (Squad of 3), riding on the Man O' War.

All mechwarriors and the gnomes were G:3/P:5.

My list featured HEAVY firepower, armor and not much in the way of mobility which cost me. Inflexibility aside, The Warhammer IIC did by far the most damage, the Man O' War provided some semblance of hope due to its speed (it got a few good licks in too), whereas the Bane in particular was the most entertaining of my units. The Gnomes snagged an objective in round 3 but did little else of particular note. 

The 3D printer has rendered my famed pizza templates obsolete. They printed these off in spades and I was gifted a few to take home. Here my Man O' War was dropping off the Gnomes to help blockade Kevin's objective drop-off point in the first round.

I was using a little tacklebox full of dice for the 10 UAC-2s die rolls (only 3 guns jammed across all 3 games). While everyone loved the tackle box idea, Noah noted it was very intimidating to have that many dice coming at him at once, even if they only were UAC-2s.  The fact that in every round, I parked the Bane on the closest high point to my deployment zones and rained irritation across the boards was also commented on, because it was almost impossible to get out of its range.

Why is DFAing with lightly damaged mechs that can do more harm shooting than trying to land on your head so popular?

Due to jumping near vertically, the Shadow Cat only had a +1 to hit. That said, it survived the Warhammer's onslaught of MPLs that needed 5's to hit, only to fail the PSR to land on my Man O' War which deftly side stepped the plummeting mech and watched it fall to its own detriment.

I only took few pics as we were allotted 2 hours per round which in Battletech is not much. Needless to say, specialized ammo would be quite useful as running out was more or less impossible. That said my Bane did finally empty 2 of its UAC-2 ammo hoppers, dipping into the second bins in the last round. 

I did take pics of what turned out to be the most hilarious(-ly bad) moment of all of my games. Noah was using a Jade Hawk as a proxy for a Phoenix Hawk IIC 5. After picking up an objective in round 3, its mission was to just survive. 

All he needed to do...was roll a 4 on 2D6 and he'd be effectively hidden for the rest of the game.

Jumping into a depth 2 water hex with his pristine mech, he failed the landing, rolling a PSR of a 3 (only needed to roll a 4). His mech suffered 8 points of damage all to the CT due to the belly flop, which necessitated 2 'water breach' rolls of less than a 10+ (never heard of that before), he failed one, causing the CT to flood, wrecking his mech, and costing him the loss of the objective as well. 

Jumping into water is bad, apparently.

lol, nuts. In hindsight we determined that he could have just hid in the corner of the board and survived as I was too busy trying (and failing) to kill his Legionnaire which was running away with 2 objectives. The missed DFA was also his and I told him that going forward he wasn't allowed any more jump jets. 

 In addition to my best painted award, Noah got best sportsman and John best general and best overall. 

Mini-Campaign game

 o/

Wait, what?

Nick 2.0 was in town, and devised a mini campaign using tonnage rather than BV. Unit build specs were a heavy lance in weight, with no more than 1 Assault mech, a light recon lance that could include vehicles, and a mixed weight lance. Each lance would have a lead unit with a 3/4 skill, all else would be 4/5. Lostech era. 

Unable to field a full company in the same color scheme under those requirements, I mixed two forces, using the Desert Horde as the Calloway Training Battalion with an assist from a lance from the Marik Militia. As this is the Lostech era, most of the training mechs and tanks are garbage variants (rookies don't get the good stuff). Force comp would vary per game. I took the Ostroc, Quickdraw, Crusader, Assassin, J. Edgar, 10 Ton hover APC for this match, all were base models aside from the APC being the MG version, and the Ostroc the 2M variant.

The scenario was an attacking dropship had crashed, and the central memory core could be captured/destroyed. Forced withdrawal would also be in play. The defender would also have 2, CF20 objectives for defend from being destroyed. I opted to defend and failed miserably at it. 

I didn't take enough pics for a true bat rep, so here are some highlights:

My company, post-game with the 10-ton hover APC & J. Edgar having not survived.  

Due to motive crits these two would be bricked and fight point blank all game. The J. Edgar died first but only just, with the Pegasus down to 1 point of internal structure holding the back end together.

The Assassin doing Assassin things. Basically running & jumping around in full distraction mode while inflicting minimal damage.

With my (lack of a) plan already falling apart, the Ostroc opted to enter the drop ship thru a side door and punch the memory core into scrap!

The intermission is brought to you by an annoyed Neeka.

The highlight of the game for me: After several turns of being little more than a distraction, the Assassin went into Kamikaze mode and charged the Panther connecting for 24 points of damage! Both remained upright afterwards, though the Panther's left arm was pancaked into scrap.

Post game clean up with my 'supervisor' annoyedly awaiting the table's reassembly and her cushions being put back in place. 

Post game I was only able to repair one mech, so I opted for the Ostroc which proved more effective than I thought it would. The Crusader hung out in the backfield and never took a hit, the Assassin and Quickdraw are both fairly beat up and will likely sit the rest of the campaign out until I can either afford repairs (or things get really dire). I believe Nick was able to repair all of his damaged units.