Urban gridlock

 o/

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

 o/

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.

The forest was full of corpses...

...and that was just the battle's halfway point! 

I got together with my buddy Hoss at the FLGS for a game of Battletech this past Saturday. Unlike our usual bouts where by game's end, everything on the table is staggering around like a bunch of drunken brawlers. This game was an absolute blood bath! Here's how it all played out:

The first two turns were simply advancing at speed. It wasn't till turn three that any shots were exchanged, and these were few (though my Cyclops' AC-20 did vaporize the left arm of Hoss' Panther much to his dismay). Note: my IFV on the left is disembarking a platoon of Ceremonial Guard.

Hoss' borrowed 'suicide box' (MG variant heavy APC) has by this point torn across the map and is in the process of gunning down the aforementioned platoon! The Cyclops' mechwarrior screamed BUSHIDO! and suicidality charged into the enemy's point blank range, whilst blazing away with his own weaponry. Despite being an assault mech, the Cyclops is too lightly armored for this type of fighting.

My Goblin (MG Variant) IFV comes to the aid of my beleaguered platoon, who is cut down by half to Hoss' APC's machine guns. The Panther pumps a PPC round and a few SRMs into my Hunchback which in turn fires a withering volley of medium lasers in reply.

The green turreted tank was a proxy of a Patten heavy tank, and was all too happy to put another AC-10 round into the cyclops. However the cyclops then finished the job started previously by my Hunchback and finished off the tiresome tank. Normally, only I am fielding tanks...so it was kinda eye opening to be on the wrong side of them for the first time in a long time.

As this nasty little firefight continues, the infantry are slaughtered to the last, filling the forest hex they were holding with only the dead and dying. Meanwhile the Hunchback soaks up another PPC blast whilst taking the Panther apart with yet another laser onslaught. Indeed, one such laser bolt struck the short-ranged-missile ammo bin and the panther is vaporized! We didn't total it up, but I'm guessing it was something like 170+ points of internal damage to an already pummeled 35 ton mech! 

Indeed, the dead pile was growing quickly as my borrowed Panther had also succumbed to a multitude of PPC hits. Hoss' Awesome and Catapult K2 had slagged it's leg which took the mech out of action. Not that it had far to go mind you, sponging far too many PPC hits than a mech of this size ought to endure. 

My commander, had been valiantly leading from the rear in his Dragon 1C, sniping targets of opportunity whilst staying clear of the heavy fighting. However with his ceremonial guard dead, one mech down and the other two already in dire straits, he crested the behind which he'd been hiding and fired all of his weapons into the Awesome, getting it's attention in doing so. 

It is at this point I ought to stop and explain the optional floating crit rule we were using: Normally a snake eyes hit location roll represents a possible golden BB that potentially penetrated the center hull armor and hits the juicy bits within. Instead the floating crit, you roll another location after the snake eyes roll, and inflict the armor damage in the 2nd location rolled, and then roll for the crits there instead. Now back to the game. 

The Awesome, turned ponderously at this new threat and returned fire with it's 3 PPCs. 2 hit, with one snake eyes location roll, that switched then from the center to right torso following the 2nd roll. Untouched up until this point, the Dragon absorbed the two hits without notice but...there were 2 crits rolled for in that right side torso. The only thing in there is Autocannon ammo, which came out to a 78 point internal damage explosion. It go BOOM! This was Hoss' first ever 1-shot-kill!! 

I was displeased at this sudden turn of events until the following turn in which my Goblin IFV also scored a floating crit which rolled a box cars the tore Hoss' Griffin's leg off with a single SRM! Unlike my Dragon's demise, or even the earlier Panthers, I do believe all remaining combatants paused for a moment to witness that shocking kill!

A very happy Hoss just after he obliterated my Hunchback in a brutal crossfire.

Once again screaming BUSHIDO! My much overheated Cyclops charges into point blank range and cuts loose at the Catapult, which returns the favor with plenty of help! 

The Next turn would see a 2nd AC-20 slug hit the Catapult's right leg, taking the mech down for good...

...only for the Cyclops to be blown apart moments later! With that, my Goblin IFV, now my sole surviving model, rode off into the sunset with nary a scratch on it.

The dead pile. 

The survivors, the my Goblin on the left being my only one.

Dude!  That was an absolute blast! It's rare to lose more than one or two, it's even rarer to have so many units just flat out die! Also, not only was this the first game in which Hoss had a 1-shot-kill (paint that Awesome Hoss!!!), but it was also the first time he's ever beaten me in Battletech! 

I did not know that. 

As for painting, I think my Goblin, Cyclops and Hunchback all deserve paint for their glorious actions in combat.