A big ol' scrum

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The view from Anthony's side of the battlefield. One thing of note: this is the first time I have ever seen a Goliath used in a game.

I played in a multiplayer scrum the other night, 6K, clan invasion era, and periodic 'non-agression pacts' that didn't last much longer than the hand shakes that sealed them. 

Jake's forces attacking enmass. Curiously, while all seriously damaged, all three of Jake's Shadow Hawks survived the game. Those LRM carriers however, not so much.

Initially this was just going to be myself and Anthony, but Jake the FLGS' owner joined in as did a new player Aiden, though he only played for a few turns before heading out due to time limitations. 

Below are a few highlights from my side:

My Jagermech JM6-S (which we all know is pure garbage), fired a quartet of autocannon rounds at Jake's far off Longbow. Only one round connected, an AC-2 golden BB that went into a right torso LRM ammo bin, inflicting 120ish points of damage! 

Its celebration was short lived as a gauss rifle removed the Jager's leg shortly thereafter. Still, I am sure the Jager's pilot was smiling as he punched out of his/her wrecked machine knowing that next time they would they would be getting a better mech to pilot.

Later on, Anthony's Scorpion scampered over and put a PPC into the leg of my UMR-90. In return the Suburbie put both it's PPC and a medium laser into the Scorpion's right torso. Punching thru the thin armor and hitting the only thing in there: the SRM-6's ammo bin. Another mech go BOOM!

The UMR-90 would also contribute to the death of one of the LRM carriers and put some more hurt into one of Jake's Shadow Hawks. The Suburbie also survived the game.

Shrooms, kitties and clan mechs oh my!

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Nick's Awesome AWS-9M taking shelter amongst the giant shrooms.

Earlier this week Nick 2.0 came over for a game, I really didn't take enough pics for a battle report, so am just posting a few photo highlights. 

Poor Neeka, pouting as her lounge table has been turned into a dumb battlefield again. 

Nick's Commando COM-2D skulking behind a burning tower as my Hunchback HBK-4P and an AC-10 Hetzer close in... 

We called the game early due to time. Nick called it a marginal victory in his favor. It was more of a crushing vistory by that point as he had accomplished far more objectives than I. That said, I had beaten the hell out of his Awesome in the last round played. Likewise my Dragon lost a side torso to an ammo explosion but didn't die for once (thank you CASE!). 

*****

The Fast & The Furious sequel number...what? 10? 12, 13?

I also finished up a trio of clan mechs for the Desert Horde. Previously known as the more generic Desert Force, I went back and updated all of the prior post's labels to now say 'horde'. With the addition of these three, to go with my Mongoose and six Mercuries, I will now be able to field a clan second line binary where the slowest mech has an 8/12 movement rate! These three are also the only ones with any appreciable offensive firepower in said binary. 

Piranha, the only mech that makes me want to play Alpha Strike.

Locust IIC, the arms have 8 ER small lasers, rather than the SRM-4s that they look like they carry.

The binary commander's rocket ship Fire Moth.

Some time ago, I also painted up a point of Elementals for the Fire Moth to carry around as ablative armor. I am planning on a third star that will have a much more normal rate of speed, allowing me to field a full second line trinary. 

Urban gridlock

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Nick and I got together for another game this week. Here was the scenario of his creation: 

3500 BV, Units are limited to infantry, combat vehicles and Mechs of no more than 30tons. It will be a very small city map, the objective is to have the infantry occupy a specific structure to gain VPs. For each unit more than your opponent occupying the structure at the end of the round you gain a point. For each enemy unit destroyed you gain a point. We play to 10 points, first one there win's. Only infantry can enter the structure and only by (2) possible entry points. Only units inside the building can fight each other with a +1 to hit modifier.

Here is how it all went down....

My 'Skittles' Force: (2) ML Scorpions, (2) RL Galleons, (2) SRM Wheeled APCs, (2) Command Van, Q-Variant, (2) Warrior H7A VTOLs, (4) Assault Hover Mechanized Platoons, (1) Motorized MG Platoon, and (2) Ballistic Rifle Foot Platoons, and my 'official' job title. 

Nick's Force: (2) Standard Scorpions, (2) Standard J. Edgar Hovertanks, (2) UM-R60s, (1) Warrior H7A VTOL, and (7) foot platoons of various types. 

Baxter helping set the table up. 

Small and dense city indeed, the large grey building next to Dunkin Davions was the objective. 

We set up 10 hexes out from the objective building. 

Nick curved his force around the city at the same distance. 

Neeka checking on Nick's math. 

She had her game face on and even 'helped' smack my dice around a bit. 

Early on Nick realized his error as his foot sloggers had no transports and my mechanized platoons moved 4 hexes a turn. 

His Warrior swoops in to gun down my lead hover platoon with it's machine gun. Due to modifiers, their return fire was ineffectual. 

With light tanks on both sides, they make for fairly equal adversaries. That said the SWAT APC was immobilized here. 

My warrior puts an AC-5 slug into the Urbie which turns and cores the VTOL in 1 shot! I lost both of my VTOLs this round.  

Nick's Warrior did it's job and Nick took an early 3 point lead. 

Next turn and my tan hover platoon platoon made it inside the objective and no doubt was recreating the Blues Brothers' mall scene! Meanwhile the other two platoons were right on the doorstep. Desptite being suicide, Nick's VTOL simply rotated in place to gun down another platoon, as his foot sloggers were still 8 hexes out. 

The flame platoon would die before the VTOL met a similar fate, but the grey platoon underneath made it in fine. 

This is chopper 5 traffic, looks like we have gridlock on the west side of town...

The J. Edgar and and Galleon blaze away while the scorpion's AC-5 was unable to hit at point blank range. Out of rockets, the Galleon would not survive this fight. 

The Cavaliers'  Wheeled APC lost it's SRM to a lucky crit on turn one. Rather than retreat, it went hunting for infantry and some vehicular manslaughter. Here it would kill 8 troopers while suffering a shotgun blast of damage all around and a motive hit (or was that just bodies stuck in the wheel wells?). 

A short distance later it would run into another platoon, killing 8 more before succumbing to the collective fire of an outraged infantry company!

Nick's J. Edger was immobilized and the grey Scorpion right next to it would spend a few turns in a static, point blank range fire fight! Still intent on the objective my motorized infantry finally was able to join into the fray.  

The Urbie put an AC-10 slug into the front of the as yet untouched Scorpion, which returned fire and scored an engine hit and jump jet loss on the previously softened up Urbie. 

The Motorized platoon dumps into the beleagered J. Edgar and puts it out of it's misery!

My second Galleon, all out of rockets, zipped by the other Urbie and gunned down another  platoon with it's twin MGs.. 

Yes I will bloody up the Cavalier's APC in recognition of it's war crimes. 

In the end I won, 10-6. While I lost more units than Nick, my hover platoons quickly getting inside the objective won me the game. Despite the force marching, his infantry never got anywhere near the objective (nor did my foot slogging platoons). This was a fun little scenario, that needs some tweaking (or transports) for the infantry. 

It was also fun to have all light tanks and mechs duking it out. Usually they just show up and die quickly, but against equalish opponents, light tanks and mechs quickly find themselves in the rare, lightweight slugging matches. 

More little guys

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This bunch is a mix of very new and a few not so old paint jobs. All have been painted within the past 2 months or so, though none were really worthy of a singular post in their own right. 

1st Royal Cavaliers WASP-WSP-1D 

Generic 10 Ton Tracked APC for no one in particular. Basically it is local militia/PDF

Like all of my 10 Ton APCs, this will be a filler model for when I don't feel like fielding infantry, or rather a horde of infantry. 

1st Royal Cavaliers' 10 Ton Wheeled APC, for when I don't want to spend 1400 points on a Sturmfeur, yet still want to field a lance of armor (and I use that term loosely in this particular case).

 

Wolf's Dragoons' Alpha Regiment Wasp WSP-1A

This is not this mini's first appearance on this blog. Rather that debut was in my last post where it was my Dragoons' sole survivor.

Yes, this is what surviving light mechs look like: Running away!

10 Ton Hover, Wheeled & Tracked APCs. I couldn't resist making a blue 'SWAT' APC to again add to my generic filler forces. The tracked APC is painted to match my Capellan Homeguard, because why wouldn't they have one of these? 

With the teeny tiny skull decal, this hover APC will go to my Dark Caste Bandits, though it would work in a pirate force as well.

Scorpion Light Tank ML/LAC variant(s). This was originally supposed to go to my snowballing out of control desert force. 

On a whim, it got shunted into the 1-off/geneic category after I wanted to try my hand at the old, US Desert Storm era 'chocolate chip' desert camo. 

While I may not have been entirely successful in that endeavor, it looks decent enough.

My final lance of 2024!

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These may be less random than they appear...

I hope everyone enjoyed the Christmas holiday yesterday (if you celebrate it). It was more or less just a random day off in the middle of the week for us, as we are celebrating on Saturday when we get Frankie back from his Dad. As such, I had a bit of paint time and finished off my armor lance for the 1st. Royal Cavaliers. 

The Sturmfeur didn't get a fancy base as you wouldn't see any of it anyways...

My usual want, is to field these as close to WYSIWYG as is possible (i.e.: with the autocannon equipped Hetzers). That said, I'm more likely to filed the Hetzers as the twin LRM 15 variants, with the Sturmfeur as the SRM version to both supplement the LRM output of the Hetzers with it's LRM 20 and to serve as a bodyguard, with its quartet of SRM-4s in the turret. Lastly, the Skulker can serve as a high speed spotter in the event that I want to try some indirect fire shenanigans. 

Escort the convoy!

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'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!