You must like this guy, you finished painting all of your terrain.

 o/

The title is a direct quote from Frankie Wednesday afternoon.

Only having 4 heavily damaged buildings and a half painted dropship to go, I took a break from mechs to paint the last pieces of my terrain. The novelty of a fully painted battlefield at home, not just the FLGS is what spurred the finishing of my terrain. Here you can see the Battlefield (sans cat) using a mix of both my, and Nick's terrain. 

Look who forgot that the table opened up to reveal another table inside?

Nick came over for the inaugural game of Battletech at my house Wednesday night. 4500 points BV, 3020s era as always, homemade lasagna in the oven, and the following scenario of Nick's creation:

One side is trying to steal newly discovered technology from the other, in this case, the chemical make up of the coolant for lostech double heat sinks. There were 3 structures on the field that a designated hacking mech needed to be adjacent to for 2 turns (could not shoot while downloading the info), and would need to download from all three structures. If damaged but the hacker mech was capable of escaping the board, another mech could pick up the task to get to the remaining structures for downloading the still needed info. 

The forces of arrayed for battle, not pictured is Nick's Capellan weapon of terror (for both sides), a Thumper artillery cannon that would be firing from the table itself. 

The scenario sounded pretty steep to accomplish, but figured we'd give it a try. As I was fielding periphery pirates in the form of Battle Rattle the 65th Lyran Regulars (Battle Rattle is no more), vs. Nick's filthy Capellans Red Lancers, it only made sense for me to be the raiding force trying to steal the technology. Also as periphery pirates, all of my ammo bins were half empty at the start of the battle as logistics is hard when you have to steal supplies. My hacker mech would also be my fastest, a Javelin.

Turn 1 was the usual maneuvering and some sparse LRM shots at maximum range.

The Javelin plugs into objective building #1 while the Blackjack tries to fend off a Locust and Battlemaster. Luckily the Battlemaster was confused by the tree the javelin totes around on its base, and largely missed!

My shooting was largely ineffective aside from this Whitworth putting 2 volleys of LRMs into the sliver of Wolverine behind that large objective building .

With the Thumper terrorizing both sides by lobbing rounds of death that are scattering randomly (hitting nothing but scaring all), my 2nd Whitworth breaks free and runs down the board edge (and behind Dunkin Davions) to kill that infernal cannon!

The T-Bolt and my commander's refitted primitive Griffin shoot at point blank followed by a good ol' fistfight. Unfortunately, a punch to the head knocked out my commander for 2 turns!

Alpha striking with all weapons as soon as it got in sight, the Whitworth takes out the Thumper!

Trouble brewing...

Neeka takes to the field (she made 3 separate passes thru during the game). By this point my Javelin was lost, legged (as usual) by the seemingly not-so-random damage chart. The Javelin took 1 ML hit to a side torso, and all other damage to its leg. Seriously WTH?  

With the Javelin lost and the Capellans pummeling my prone Griffin, all hopes of salvaging the technology was lost and the Blackjack and Whitworths tried to inflict as much damage as they could against superior foes. 

Guess what turn it is? 

Correct, last turn and everyone piles in for a good scrum!  The Battlemaster (unsurprisingly) really pummeled the Whitworth in front of it resulting in 1 gyro and 2 engine hits. The awakened, 1-armed Griffin had a few parting shots for the T-Bolt, and the Blackjack shaved all of the armor off of the back torso of the Battlemaster, but sadly failed to go internal. 

Scenario Result: Capellan Victory. 

The Javelin losing a leg after successfully hacking the first building, and thus unable to get away with any stolen info was disappointing. Not saying I would've won had it not taken virtually all of its damage to 1 location, but had the damage been spread out to something reasonable (for even a lightly armored mech), then I ought to have had al least a fighting chance. As such, the scenario needs some tweaking in both our opinions. 

Being unable to fire, needing 2 turns each per (3) locations (so 6 static turns for 1 mech?), and with the defender knowing where you are headed and able to surround the target location is borderline insurmountable (well, we were out of era for Wobblie shenanigans, those fuckers can accomplish almost anything). Roles reversed, I am not sure Nick would have fared much better in this scenario even with heavy his mechs.

Now its my turn now to devise a dastardly plan scenario for a future game...

This week's mechs

 o/ 

The grab bag continues...

I think one of the things that I like about BattleTech is that I can complete forces before I really get bored of them. I mean, I paint more or less everything piecemeal, barring the occasional burst of impetus with one faction or another in 40K. However when painting random models here and there for 40k, there's little feeling of accomplishment because so fucking many are needed for a damned army of any appreciable point value. 

Whereas with BattleTech, I really don't foresee any of my forces exceeding a company (or maybe a binary for the Clans) in size. Often its a combined-arms company/binary which further breaks things up. Also, in BattleTech, its rare to have too many multiples of the same model. For instance, the lowly but beloved Urbanmech is my most common mech at 14 models, with only 7 in the same color scheme. In 40k, in most cases that's not even a squad!

But anyways, enough pointless rambling! What you see above and below is what I (finished) painting this week. I say finished as I still have another lance's worth in-progress. 

Marik Militia Marauder & Chameleon

The Marauder always was, and still is a pretty mech, all the more so now that it is painted! 

I know that my buddy Neverness loathes BattleTech, but I am sure he grew up on Robotech as much as I did, and would most likely be at least a little nostalgic about this model. Even if only in secret...

Both of these mechs are stomping around on their not-so-friendly neighbor's planet. 

The Chameleon is primarily a trainer in the fluff, but I am hoping that it will be a decent mech in battle.

Its mostly energy weapon load out is supposed to train pilots not to overheat their machines. Well, unless they're in point blank range, I doubt all those small lasers will even fire, much less over tax the heat sinks!

Painting that old Imperial Guard icon in blue, under these mechs was a real treat I can assure you!

Meanwhile in the periphery...

The Masakari T of the Scorpion Empire is the whole reason that this mech was painted in their colors. It mounts the perfect blend of Clan & Inner Sphere tech, with just a splash of periphery garbage to round things out. 

It mounts 2 Clan ER PPCs, 2 plasma rifles with 3 tons of ammo, and most importantly, a circa 1950s era rocket launcher 10!

Oh good, he/she didn't step on their little friend!

Also in the periphery...

This Retrotech Griffin is the newest acquisition of my deep periphery, piss poor mercs: Battle Rattle. Built to primitive standards, yet refitted with a large laser and MML 5 with 1 ton each of LRM & SRM ammo, it wields a missile launcher far more advanced than any other mech in my Battle Rattle force. Yet, it is of course built on a woefully obsolete mech, perfection! 

Its a little hard to see under all of the grime, but it says 'Kill!' on the gun arm. 

I was tempted to fit this arm with modular armor to match the model (this arm is clearly much better armored...well, at least visually), but the negatives vastly outweighed any appreciable benefit. 

This coming weekend is the FLGS' Solaris event. While I have a 'list' of 2 mechs to bring (TOP SECRET: on the very outside chance that any of my opponents Saturday read this), you know me. Meaning, I'll likely be pondering alternative builds from my collection right up until the last moment!

This week's roundup.

 o/

The new Charger sculpt reminds me of something, but I just can't quite place it...

lol, as you can see, I painted up my new KS Charger. I love the Charger, its one of my favorite minis, and it will be one of the two mechs that I will be fielding in my local FLGS' upcoming 3020s era, Solaris free-for-all event. 

Bob's Boomerang, your morning commute's eye in the sky!  is reporting heavy foot traffic on access lane 4...

Those large pauldron armor plates are screaming for a logo of some sort! 

Originally, I was thinking of running the original CGR-1A1 as it is a true zombie mech in that the head, Center torso and legs are the only things to worry about. Well, that and I was hoping to try a charge attack, where if the stars all correctly align, the Charger can mete out a whopping 64 points of impact damage (in 5 point increments)! 

 That 'charge maneuver' might work...once. Then, after my poor, hapless target was cartwheeled across the field following its 80-ton impact. I would likely be shot by everything still left on the table (and the winner is the last mech standing). As such, I'll go with my good ol' standby Zombie-Charger, the CGR-SB Challenger. 

Post Solaris event, I'm not sure who will get this mech, be it my deep periphery Mercs: Battle Rattle, or if it'll gain a pink paw print and join my still winless Ace Darwin's Whipits (I was thinking of bringing Ace to the event purely for style points, even if it is out of his era). Or possibly just start a new faction altogether like the DCMS' Dieron Regulars, allowing me to field this as a CGR-1A9.

Queue Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries...

The one on the left has a bit of foliage stuck to its turret, apparently it got a bit too close to the treetops!

Run away!

The counter rotating props give these a very Russian KA-52 vibe. I have a feeling that they will be just as ineffective in combat as their real life counterparts...

I also painted up my Warrior attack VTOLS. These make my TBAGers the first (ever) unit of mine to have its own air support, meagre as they might be. These look to easiest to field in Alpha Strike, and will likely be contained to just that form of BattleTech play. Actually on second thought, I'll try one of these out in a game of Classic tomorrow night. I'll let ya know how that turns out.   

All together!

Lastly, I also got my first Steel Haven campaign game in. It was a lot of fun even though I lost the snatch and grab scenario. All damage was free to repair for the first game which is good as my Assassin suffered an ammo hit and was obliterated! While my mech will be rebuilt for free, I am down one mechwarrior as there wasn't enough left of that guy to even bury. 

The Buffet Assault Group and 4th Syke Rangers pose for a pre-game, full company photo op. 

The 100pt game experiment

 o/

Surprisingly my Javelin would survive this point blank exchange, but only to fall a turn later.

Why not right? We normally play 300 points at the FLGS, with Frankie and I splitting our force into two, 150 point halves which easily are played against one another when playing at home. That said, our 150 point home games, tend to take a bit too long for school nights (or so Mom says). We usually don't start to play until after dinner, so I trimmed the forces down to an even 100 points and starting at 6pm we finished up at about 8:30. Perfect!

Or was it?

The long range fire support units eye one another warily from a distance.

However, Frankie was less than enthused about not having a pure, speed freaks type of lance. Having not played in a good while, and only having a Wolfhound with a 12" movement and a Spider with a 16" movement, he lapsed into his noob, uber defensive mode. His lance was rounded out with a 4N Hunchback and a skill 3 Hatchetman 3F for his commander. 

While his Spider and Wolfhound went to the flanks and the Hunchback up the middle (briefly), he basically hid his Hatchetman in the back field as it was 'so slow that it was useless' (8" movement, just like the Hunchback). I tried to explain that by hanging back he was playing to my strengths, to no avail. I had two WTH-1 Whitworths, a skill 3 Blackjack BJ-1 and a fast moving 10N Javelin, making for a medium fire lance where both Whitworths halved the medium and long range modifiers. 

Urban combat, not the Whitworth's favorite place to be. 

Pointing out that only the Javelin had a greater than 8" movement on my side, and that his Hunchback was the best mech on the table, not to mention the Hatchetman's lance mates were likely screaming over comms to get into the fight did little to motivate him to bring it into range. It maybe fired 2 shots all game, and spent most of its time in hiding. 

Frankie, lamenting his poor dice rolls. 

His dice were not rolling well and effectively outnumbering him 3-4 at the outset, the end results were predictable. Not even his 6 rerolls were of much use. In the end I lost the Javelin, whereas he lost the Wolfhound and Hunchback, and the Spider was rendered weaponless.

Trying to balance out a pure, high speed lance with a more rounded one at such a low points total wouldn't be easy in my opinion. Of course he complained (every turn) that the Spider only moves at 16" a turn. I had to remind him that not every mech moves like a Mercury, not to mention I only have one Mercury in my collection. 

The final pic taken after the weaponless Spider and barely damaged Hatchetman fled the field. Frankie wanted to memorialize all of his bad rolls with a display of ones.

Note: the tanks were just terrain.

As such, I'm calling this one a bust. I'll see if I can come up with a decent 100pt speed daemon list & something to effectively oppose it. Otherwise I guess that I'll just stick with our usual 150pt lists (I don't think he has the attention span to run a full 300pt list on his own). If the games run long, we can just leave them at the end of a turn and finish up the game the next day (one of the benefits of having a gaming area at home). 

Edit: I made him a 100pt speed freak list this morning and while fast, it's damage potential is kinda meh, and its mechs are fragile as hell...

This week in random paint jobs (part 2)

 

One of these is not like...anything else...ever.

As stated in part 1, bereft of a game to play this past Saturday evening, I opted to clear some of the half painted stuff off of my desk, the Battletech portion of which you can see above. 

Parallel parking a 20-ton mech is an absolute bitch!  

Hot feet! Hot Feet!

This is a Locust C for my Hell's Horses Iota Galaxy. The Locust C, is a refit of a captured inner sphere mech refitted with Clan weaponry for use by solahma (2nd line) mechwarriors. Given that the Iota Galaxy's mechwarriors are generally considered to be dezgra (honorless scum) its really notta bad ride. 

I've designated this class of Frankenmech the WTF-o7.

No weapons face the rear though you can see the remote sensor dispenser's ejection port at the lower waist. Naturally, said sensors have long run out with no hope of resupply. 

This...thing, was gifted to me by Kushial and I had to look it up Sarna to figure out what it even was. Frankenmechs exist only in the periphery where proper mechs are all but impossible to come by, and what few mechs that are there, are little more salvaged wreckage augmented with whatever scrap and spare parts that can be found. 

Once they reach the heavy-to-assault weight class, they're often referred to as 'Corsairs', though I'm just sticking with 'Frankenmech' for my WTF-o7. It's outfitted with an eclectic array of weaponry, armor values that vary across every location (with no consistency what-so-ever), and a half dozen or so wasted tons due to cannibalization, jury-rigging, and shit just no longer working yet not worth the effort of removing (like that sensor dispenser).

This one will be piloted by an Errant mechwarrior, basically the sole defender of a planet. A few of these Errants were the first victims of the Clans when their invasion entered the deep periphery, leading them to believe that the Inner Sphere had degraded to little more than techno-barbarism. 

Anyways, the WTF-o7 will likely fight alongside my piss-poor periphery mercs Battle Rattle. I'll probably toss in a Podunk PDF tank or two and some infantry to round out the points for a game.

Battle Rattle; Mercenaries fighting on a world far, farrrrr away....

 o/

The whole lance in front of...drop...ships...maybe?

Battle Rattle is another merc unit name that I've used on and off over the past few years in 1-off battles with no continuity of forces or theme. They've never had a specific color scheme until now, when I added in a 3D-printed Cataphract gifted to me by Kushial as well as a recently purchased metal Javelin to the two originally painted Whitworths. 

Below is their backstory:

Battle Rattle is your stereotypical, third rate, 'barely eking out an existence' type of mercenary lance. The lance came together during the latter stages of the Succession Wars consisting of a CTF-1X Cataphract, a pair of WTH-1 Whitworths, and a JVN-10F 'Fire' Javelin along with a handful of support staff. 

Oh have no doubt, these fuckers will run away fall back if the situation looks dire! 

Woefully uncompetitive in the Inner Sphere mercenary market due to their lackluster mechs and an almost complete lack of advanced technology, they've been surviving on anti-piracy garrison contacts in the far reaches of the Periphery. Most often on backwater worlds lacking their own indigenous mech forces. 

Their mechs are all painted in standard Davion Green (all pilots and support staff are Davions by birth) with a black stripe on the right side torso representing their long-standing ties to the Periphery. The unit lacks any sort of official logo, though their CO's Cataphract does sport a hand painted 'BR' on it's lower forward torso. 

 I'm sure that little pickup truck on the base is heading out for spare parts. No doubt these mechs are a nightmare conglomeration of jury-rigged field repairs and a multitude of minor mechanical issues.

Speaking of the Cataphract, it recently suffered significant damage to it's right arm in a clash with an unknown band of pirate raiders. The arm was severed just above the elbow and the logistical nightmare of procuring a new Cataphract arm out on the ass end of nowhere means that until they return to the Inner Sphere, their 'Cat' will have to do without. 

Their techs were at least able to remount the rear firing torso mediums lasers to fire forward, mitigating some of the mech's diminished combat effectiveness due to loss of the PPC.

My first ever Javelin as I never cared for this mini's pose. However, looking as though it is stepping around a tree improves it's odd stance considerably. 

The only advanced tech (if it can be called that) are the Whitworths' LRM launchers, which are frequently modified to be 'one-shot' models out of necessity, again due to their employer's lack of proper logistical support. 

Ah yes, the old but reliable Whitworths, one of my favorite mech classes.

The LRM's ammo capacities more or less depend on when the next jumpship arrives in system, and whether or not it's a friendly trader or a pirate raider! Outside of the sparsely loaded LRM launchers and the Cataphract's AC-10, the unit relies exclusively on medium lasers for offence.