That Guy vs. That Guy = SO. MUCH. NERD. RAAAAAAAAAAAGE!!!!

 o/

That's me on the left in the brown shirt. 

Okay so first things first: I had fun.  

Two rounds, Lostech Era, with lances provided by the TOs including several custom mechs, randomly chosen by the players for both rounds, so each player didn't field the same lance twice. That said, I believe Sven bucked the trend and did get the same lance for both rounds. Each lance also came with predetermined piloting and gunnery skills which were all over the place too. All lances were play tested by the TOs with those of higher tonnage having lower skilled pilots and vice versa. 

Both of my games were against good opponents, with my games being enjoyable despite my going 0-2. My first game against Sven came down to the wire, with me losing my Vindicator to a trio of headshots (the last of which was delivered via a hatchet) at the very end of the last turn! 

Round two was vs Noah whom I played in my first Battletech tournament (which, as it turns out was the last time he has played a game). As we had both lost our first round and were out of the running, I had suggested we just play a game and ignore the scenario. However, the scenario was rather novel so 2-3 turns in, we made a go of it. 

Both rounds spawned VERY loud arguments, with two of the FLGS' that guys in attendance. One player whom I prefer to avoid gaming with (he's just fine to BS with though) was involved in the both of them. That said, from what bits & pieces I gathered from the 2nd round his arguments were justified. His opponent whom I have played once before was by far the worst of the two that guys playing, refused to even listen to the TOs (both of them) and kept arguing his point. Whatever it was. 

Something about underwater movement, & surviving tonnage of said underwater unit which was unable to move and/or shoot. Honestly, I steered clear of both confrontations. Especially the one in the 2nd round which had me wondering if fists would fly. Remember kids, this is supposed to be fun with giant stompy robots. 

At one point a trio of US Navy Seamen (this is Charleston) were watching bemused from the FLGS' entrance as a couple of guys their dads' age, argued loudly about their toys. Having later played said scenario with Noah, I have no idea what the issue was. However, in my game with Sven, the volume of arguing had gotten so loud however, that Sven and I were having difficulty communicating with one another about what mech hit what, and what damage was applied to where. 

That guy number 2 won 2nd place and a $20 store credit to go with it. He was the one that was arguing with even the TOs as well as the other that guy whom he was playing. I hope he enjoys his store credit, because after this experience, I am sure he will have a hard time finding anyone who was present willing to play against him. Seriously dude, is winning worth it so much that you're content to alienate the entire local player base to get said win?

Anyways, tournament ranting over, below is a photo dump of the festivities (photos of the aforementioned arguments omitted): 

Early on and off to a good start. 

Nick 2.0 had intended to just stop by and shit-talk me. However, as somebody was a no show, he got sucked in for a round. He played this tournament's that guy #2 and unfortunately, as you can tell by this photo, he was not enjoying his impromptu game. 

There is one lance I didn't want (based purely on the paint jobs), and so naturally that is what I got for round 1. The Yen Lo Wang was the only stock model, with the rest being custom mods, and all with Hatchets. The only weapons I had that could reach beyond 9 hexes were two large lasers. 

Tourney Organizer Blaine on the left and my opponent Sven on the right. Am already in the process of working out a timeframe to get another game in with Sven. Note: his t-shirt. 

Sven weighing his options. That or I just did something that threw him for a loop. 

Believe it or not, my Vindicator came thru this exchange completely unscathed!

The Yen Lo Wang goes down! Yes, even the Archer had a hatchet!

Blaine took Nick 2.0's place for round two. Noah on the right is calculating his firing solutions.

My Awesome is starting to feel the 'love'.

My s

My Shadow Hawk (another custom variant, no hatchet though), advancing on the CPLT-K2 in the distance. My Archer spent the game camped on the hilltop, raining sporadically accurate missile fire down on Noah's mechs all game. 

Turn three and the Battlemaster and my Wolverine manage to hop aboard the moving hover train. A shootout was attempted, but nothing came of it. All that was missing from these two were the cowboy hats. 

The train, sans cargo/objectives. My Wolverine captured one while Noah's Battlemaster captured the other two which, along with the loss of my Shadow Hawk (typical) would hand him the win. the train's 'track' was numbered which made for a handy turn counter as well. 

My Wolverine escaped with an objective, garnering me all 27 of my victory points. However, by moving off of the board to capture the 20 VPs, it cost me 55 tons against my surviving tonnage which seemed a bit counter intuitive.

Another train scenario table, much nicer than the one I played on. Nick played on this in the first round and in the second Sven got brutally tabled on it in the 3 or 4 turns.

Break-Out Mission

o/

SURPRISE!

Here is the latest battle report from my most recent game. No, this is not the Frenemies 2.0 follow up mission as that was more or less a slaughter in terms of victory points rather than casualties. Nick brought the speed and I really wasn't able to counter it. I believe the VP total in the end was something like 17-2, ouch! Anyways, onto this battle: 

The Scenario:

Allied forces have been holed up in a dense urban area and have been under segie, unable to break out and retreat. Your objective as the attacker is to break through enemy lines and escort your trapped forces to safety. As the defender your objective is to prevent the enemy breakout and if that fails, to prevent their retreat off of their home board edge. Two separate forces were needed, 3K & 5K, Late Succession war/Renaissance era forces. 

Here is how it went: 

The Battlefield.

My 3K force was a tank lance and a UM-R60L in the city. Here my missile carrier deploys with an excellent lane (literally) of fire. 

Nick's 5K break-through force advancing on my defenders. I had deployed the catapult up on the hill, but with 3 medium/heavy mechs on approach, i jumped it down into cover. I was more interested in it surviving past turn 1 than going down in an immediate blaze of glory. 

Another angle of the above. My Raven at the top of the image would take several hits, all to the same leg taking it out 1 turn! I was not off to a good start...

My urban defenders moving into close quarters with the enemy with the misssile carrier hanging back on overwatch. 

Down a medium laser and a little beat up after a skirmish with one of my Bulldogs, the Spider races down into point blank range of my missile carrier. It is at this point that I revealed that my SRM carrier would stay put! Hilarity ensued and the Spider's pilot punched out when it's 2nd laser was lost. Aww, I wasn't even half way thru my damage rolls. 

Nick's Locust made it to the city and the enemy moved to flee. It was difficult to pursue as my two Bulldogs and Vedette had all suffered motive crits, rendering them as slow, if not slower than the Urbie (which was only remodeling buildings instead of mechs with it's AC20). 

But here comes the SRM carrier! I would spend the rest of the game moving at flank speed, serving as an area denial weapon desperate to get into range. Following the Spider's demise, it never got to fire another shot. 

Hiding in a copse of trees, my Catapult had long since revealed itself to be the unique Butterbee model and it was pummeling an LRM Scorpion tank (that had been NARC'ed earlier on) with impunity. Sadly, the woeful lack of double heat sinks in this mech was severely limiting it's rate of fire. Seriously, why the fuck was that never remedied after they became availible?!? 

Speaking of being NARC'ed, my 2nd Raven died here. 

The Cataphract was outgunned and outnumbered, yet fought on valiantly...

The Scorpion succumbs to the inevitable. 

The Butterbee, camped in the trees simply reversed it's arm launchers to engage the oncoming horde. 

The Cataphract, after a protacted scrum takes a hit to it's remaining AC10 ammo and goes BOOM!

The Butterbee takes a headshot that knocks my pilot unconcious and we called it there. My defending force in the middle was down to the snoozing Catapult and my pursuing force from the city was being lead by an SRM carrier and it's blinding 3/5 speed curve. 

This was a fun one and we will play it again in the future with roles reversed. We collectively took a lot more pics than are posted here, but it gets hard when looking at the thumbnail pics to sort them out into a coherent order as the time stamps differ between phones. 

Complicating matters further, I can tell that the order in which Nick sends over his pics (no doubt sent in the order they were taken), clearly doesn't match the order in which they are recieved, making a further mess of the time stamps. Going thru 30+ pics, reordering them chronologically while deleting dud/redundant pics is kinda laborious. 

A Thunder Run with our 'Frenemies'!

lol, almost looks like it's been attacked by a salad!

A battalion of the 2nd Chisholm's Raiders are deployed to McComb to serve as a ready reserve for the 1st Chisholm Raiders' operation on nearby Marduk. Just as they settle into their FOB, HPG transmissions arrive telling of the burgeoning FedCom civil war which is rapidly devolving into violence. While ultimately siding with the Archon, at this stage the Raiders like so many units are a mix of troops with varied political affiliations. 

The battalion splits in half along political lines, and while both sides are sorting themselves out, one faction seizes the initiative and captures the nearby spaceport. Unfortunately, the Raider's jumpship is no longer in orbit and both sides are stuck planetside. Having not yet come to blows, trading only insults with their new found frenemies over inter-unit comms, the commanders of both camps are left wrestling with the twin threats of tension and boredom amongst their troops. 

Tired of being on the backfoot, and just sleeping in the mud with the bugs, the Raiders bivouaced at the FOB outside the spaceport decide to make a 'Thunder Run' into to mix things up a bit, and perhaps opening yet another front in the civil war...

The Mission:

6,000 point BV, 3060s era, Fedcom faction availability only. The 'attackers' will enter from one short board edge and need to reach the Dropship's landing pad before turning back to exit via their board edge. Initially caught unawares, the defenders will be deployed midway between the opposite board edge and the landing pad.

 The attackers get the first turn, with the attackers/defenders determined by a die roll. 

Attacker (ground) units get 1 VP for reaching the spaceport, and 1 more for evacing back off their board edge (if not under forced withdrawal). 1 additional VP is scored for each defending frenemy unit destroyed or placed into forced withdraw towards their board edge (standard rules for forced withdrawal apply see page 258 in Total Warfare). Likewise the defenders recieve 1 VP for every unit they prevent from reaching the landing pad, 1 VP for any unit forced to withdraw, and 2 additional VPs if said unit is destroyed thereafter. Otherwise they get 2 VPs for killing a unit outright. 

Note:  Chisholm's Raiders were chosen because they lack a cohesive color scheme and conveniently, the 2nd Raiders were known for their mobility. However unlike the 1st regiment on Marduk, the 2nd's whereabouts during the Civil War are unknown.

Here is how the game went:

Starting with the backrow and going left to right, my force consisted of a Javelin JVN-11A, Whitworth WTH-2, Shadow Hawk SHD-2D2, Griffin GRF-1DS, a standard Vedette tank (which was carrying the) squad of Cavalier SRM battle armor, and lastly a standard Rommel tank. 

Nick's force consisted of an Axman AXM-1N, Nighstar NSR-9FC, Vindicator VIND-5L and a Bushwhacker BSW-X1

The initial set up with just my terrain  which yes, includes Baxter. 

the Thunder Run begins with my forces charging in from the right, while Nick's mechs moved in towards the launch pad for the most part. 

I believe everything that I had that was elligible to shoot in my first turn needed boxcars to hit. Which is to say, everything missed. 

Nick's to-hit numbers weren't much better and the first round of shooting was largely bloodless. 

The Bushwhacker tries to flank me and draws a fair bit of fire in return for it's efforts. 

My Shadow Hawk & Griffin make it to the objective first, scoring me 2 VPs. Knowing that the Shadow Hawk is the weaker link, Nick concentrated fire on it knocking it to the ground (where the Axman delivered a savage chop to it). Damage sustained put it into the forced withdraw category giving Nick his first VP. 

My Javelin zips around into rear, point blank range and startles Nick when it opens up with all 7 MLs! Naturally only 2 hit and Vindi's rear armor was not penetrated. Typical. 

Neeka was pissed that we were using her lounge table for a game and wanted it back! Most of the time, the table is covered with a quilt & kitty cushions where they can lounge in front of the windows all day. She is the most hostile towards gaming member of my household.

The tanks reach the launch pad and the Vedette drops off the Battle Armor, netting me 3 more VPs and an early big lead! I was starting to rethink the scenario...

As my first wave retreats from the pad, the Whitworth which had been hanging back with supporting fire was finally on approach. 

I got lucky here in that the Axman's AC20 & ax both missed the Griffin. Both of our pulse lasers hit though I believe my punch missed as well. The Griffin 1DS is over-sinked which allowed me to jump and alphastrike every turn with impunity. I could do so even with an engine hit had I suffered one! As such, I quite like this variant.

But then the Shadowhawk went down to a trio of engine hits, followed by the Vedette which was obliterated by the Nightstar in just 1 volley! The Vindi which was taking heavy fire, overheated itself by 25 points(!?!) and shut down, falling to the ground. It would not rise again as I kept shooting at it and destroyed the smoldering mech while it lay helpless on the ground.

The battle armor swarmed the Nightstar in the prior turn. I had to look the rules up and in the Total Warfare book, where it explains how the enemy's infantry can also swarm the same mech to fight my troops on said mech before bothering to explain what damage I could actually do with a swarming attack. Well done game designers, well done! It was a mostly superfluous 2 page read to find what I was actually looking for.

The Whitworth, having left the landing pad, waddles away as fast as it can while the Nightstar ignores my battle armor and destroyes the oh so dangerous Rommel. Barely mobile by that point, the tank was stunned in the prior round and unable to defend itself. My lead was quickly dwindling as the casualties were racking up!

In the backfield, despite a last ditch effort to stop it, my Griffin escaped on one side whilst my unopposed Javelin did the same on the other, netting me two more VPs. The battle armor were doing their best to annoy the Nightstar, though as heavily armored as it is, only the 1 head shot got it's attention. Undeterred, the Nightstar ignored the battle armor and obliterated the fleeing Whitworth instead. 

At that point all I had left on the table was the battle armor, and being too slow to escape the overwhelming firepower remaining in Nick's force, I conceeded that they would be casualties. Adding up all of our VPs we ended up with an even tie!

Well that was fun! This scenario is loosely based on an old X-Wing scenario that we used to play called Wolfy's Hit & Run. I was concerned early on when I pulled ahead with an early big lead, but once my casualties started to mount, Nick closed the distance quickly! 

It was kinda hard to make a list not knowing who would play what. Speed is needed primarily as the attacker, but so is the need to put down mechs quickly if defending. Next week we will try this again with roles reversed as we often do. Nick was lamenting about what he ought to take as most of his mechs are on the slower end. I'll try not to tailor my force too much, now that I know that I will be defending on the next go round.