Capturing more bridges...

 o/ 

One hellova fight in progress!

As promised previously, Nick & I played this scenario again with our roles reversed. This time I was playing the defenders and he the attackers. Oddly, I was playing Capellans and Nick Mercenaries, so we also switched factions. 9300 BV this time as Nick's force was a little off again, 3050s era although Nick would end up fielding no upgraded tech. 

Here's how it all went, or as best I can recall as there were a lot of mechs and tanks on the board. 

My Capellan Homeguard force which I called the Jedburg Militia (Jedburg is a town not far from here, with the most redneck sounding name that I have ever heard of). I had a Heavy Mountain Platoon, 3055 LRM carrier, (2) standard Bulldogs, a Liao Vedette, a UM-60, UM-R63, (2) UM-R60Ls (both with 3/5 pilots), an RVN-3L, RVN-4X, CTF-1X and a CPLT-C4C with a 3/5 pilot and serving as my commander. 

The battlefield during our opening maneuvers.

A better view of the same...

I did not get a group photo of Nick's forces, but you can see them pretty good here. In green were The Swamp Foxes fielding a Highlander, Marauder, Quickdraw & Valkyrie, and in blue with the lightning trim were Haim's Hebrew Hammers (yes really), fielding a Battlemaster, Phoenix Hawk, Warhammer and Wasp. All of his mechs were base models & pilots I believe.

Turn two and both sides finally got a good bead on one another with the Vedette leading the charge down the center.

In my backfield, the Infantry platoon was camped atop a building and calling out targets for the hidden LRM carrier's indirect fire. These two units would neither move nor suffer any damage all game. Firing with impunity, they would connect with a fair few missiles on Nick's forces. 

The suddenly, all hell breaks loose! The Cataphract would put an AC-10 into the head of the Highlander deleting it's life support systems (luckily not needed on this world). The Cataphract would suffer heavily for that, but remained standing. In the backfield, Nick would complain that my RVN-4X was tying up an entire lance though in truth that was not so. 

I love this photo. On the left you can see that if any of Nick's mechs were to hop over my Raven and the building behind it, then they would be squarely in cross hairs of a trio of Urbies as well as an immobilized Bulldog (not quite, but the driver was bleeding out...), which were instead sniping at limited targets and doing so at long range. 

With my Catapult, and all of my forces across the 2nd river providing fire support, my Raven-3L, Cataphract and 2nd Bulldog run straight into a hornet's nest! The Raven whiffed other than to plant a Narc beacon onto the Battlemaster, the Cataphract & Bulldog put in a few hits into the Warhammer, which along with the indirect LRM fire, brought that mech to the ground. In return the Cataphract got mauled with it's autocannon being taken out of action, as well as a rear facing ML. The Bulldog was hit as well I think, but nothing major.

The Catapult meanwhile dumped into the Highlander, hitting with both LRM 20s & large laser for a collective 40 points of damage! 

Just another angle of the brawl on the boulevard.

Behind all of this, the first bridge was heating up as well...

Successfully having run the inital gauntlet, the Vedette moved to secure the first bridge. My RVN-4X and Nick's Valk & Quickdraw all jumped onto the bridge as well (luckily it was sturdy). They traded fire but no major damage was suffered as the movement mods were pretty high all around. 

Meanwhile one of my UM-R60Ls held the 2nd bridge, daring something to come around the corner. With so many models firing, the non-firing R60Ls went unnoticed in the chaos. We don't declare mech variants beforehand, so Nick probably assumed that the Urbie on the bridge was another standard one. That said, with 4 Urbies on the table, he commented while we were deploying that there was likely an AC-20 Urbie hiding in there somewhere. 

You're about to find out why Nick really doesn't like this Catapult variant...

Things got rather ugly when Nick's Mercenaries made a late push on the 2nd bridge! The Cataphract backed up to a building to dump its now useless AC ammo (which had little armor by this point to hide behind). The Catapult took a punishing volley of fire that knocked it from it's feet, but not before it put it's large laser into the Highlander's head, vaporizing the mechwarrior within! The Phoenix Hawk & Wasp jump onto the Bridge and the Urbie damned near takes the Phoenix Hawk's leg off with an AC-20 slug! Knocking the mech to the ground. 

The Brawl from the first bridge moves on up the street following the rest of the mechs, while the vedette stayed behind, successfully securing that objective. The Narc'ed Battlemaster ran into some heavy trees to (successfully) avoid any incoming fire and damaging the 3L Raven which whiffed it's shooting at the wasp aside from plunking a Narc beacon onto the back of that mech's head.

My backline continued to fire at whatever was in range all game, the 2nd UM-R60L took a pot shot on this last turn, cratering a building and scaring the be Jesus out of the Battlemaster, but doing little more. Nick was not pleased by the realization that there were two AC-20 Urbies were on the table. Aside from the Bulldog in the trees, none of my units in this last pic suffered any damage in this game. 

By this point in time it was 9:45pm on a weeknight and Nick ran up the white flag. I held 1 bridge, the 2nd was contested with my R60L staring down a Phoenix Hawk and Wasp, both of which had one leg into structure. The Highlander was down, the Warhammer not far from it, and...well everything on that road leading to bridge #2 was moderately to severely damaged in one way or another. 

I still had a pristine LRM carrier, spotter platoon and trio of Urbies in the backfield, The Urbie on Bridge 2 took a ML hit I think. While not mobile by any means, were there still time to play this one out, he wasn't sure his battered forces could weather this untouched force, while still having to deal with my first wave units. 

Once again this was a fun scenario, and again a close one with 1 bridge held and the 2nd contested. After the first game, I was fearing Nick would arrive with his Demolisher tanks, to do to me what I had previously done to him. Likewise while the infantry spotters and 3055 LRM carrier preformed admirably, all it would have taken was 1 VTOL to zip into the backfield and wreck my day. I don't think he did anything wrong tactically, rather I just got really lucky with his traditionally built force. It allowed my static backline and sheer numbers carry the day. 

A few more projects & game highlights

 o/

We had another rain sodden weekend which lead to a bevy of painting time. So see below at what all crossed the finish line: 

First up: I completed the last three mechs, a Shadow Hawk IIC, Crab/Night Chanter and a Lancelot for my Fire Mandrill Kindraa Mattila-Carrol (gosh that's an awful thing to both type and have to say!) star. This star is a fast moving glass cannon. 

Brightly colored and bordering on obnoxious!

I almost took this for a game eariler this week, but couldn't squeeze them down to 6k BV without running prettymuch all 4/5 pilots which is not at all in the flavor of the clans, not even for the crappy solahma units that I tend to favor. I still plan to paint up a point of Elementals to hitch a ride on the Night Chanter, but nothing is currently planned to expand them beyond that. 

One of these is frightening, and it is not the one you are thinking it is...

Next up: An armor lance for Corey's Cavaliers. In my recent game where the Cavaliers & Turtles took the bridges from the Capellans, The Cavaliers couldn't help but note that the tanks had largely carried the day. Unable to convince the Turtles to join their ranks (the tankers simply took their payment and left), the Cavaliers sought to purchase and outfit their own assault armor lance. 

I tried to tie in the brown accents on the mech's lower limbs by adding it to the lower and rear hulls.

They started off with the Shrek which killed their budget for this project, and corners had to be cut to flesh out the lance. Two Scorpions and a Vedette round out the force. That said, in another recent training skirmish scrum with Anthony & Aiden where my Cavaliers were woefully outgunned, my new armor lance suffered 75% casualties. 

You know how this worked out...

I used the Armor Scorpions which, in both cases required an extra turn of shooting to finish them off. In the interim they landed a few AC-5 slugs before expiring. 

After his other Mad Cat was crippled by Anthony's forces, my Vedette scored a glorious SRM hit that caused Aiden to run up the white flag! This also saved my (by-then armless) Rifleman from certain destruction.

My armor lance's MVP was AC-2 Vedette that plinked an AC-2 round into a Highlander IIC's cockpit, and later put an SRM into a Mad Cat's side with a snake eyes crit yielding 2 XL engine hits! It took a few good licks in return, but survived the game! It has thus been promoted to the lance's lead tank. 

And last but not the least:

I mean seriously, why would it be any other number?

An old custom decal from Fallout Hobbies (they no longer offer this service).

Lastly, I finally put the decals on my Canopian Pleasure Circus' dropship. Sadly, it does not feature in games at the FLGS as the last time I brought it there to use as terrain, one of the landing gear's 'feet' broke. Thus, it is only used here at the house. 

A big ol' scrum

 o/

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.

Capture the bridges!

 o/

Charge of the 'Light Brigade'!

Nick 2.0 came over for a game this past week with another scenario of his own creation (he is much better at that than I am). Clan invasion era, 9050 BV. Originally it was just 9K, but he thought he was over by 40-odd points and I added in a platoon of hover-laser infantry. Turns out he was under by 100 points, so I just gave him a hover-laser infantry company to compensate. 

There were three bridges over impassible waterways (jumping over was allowed) and each bridge would need to be held by a controlling unit at game's end to count as a siezed objective. Killing the opposing forces was a secondary objective. We both took a ton of pics during the game, and rather than mix the two, I've decided to use his pics almost exclusively, with just a few of mine added it. Here's how it all went down:

My mercenary force consisted of a lance of Corey's Cavaliers mechs: VT-5M, SHD-3H, CGR-3K, RFL-3N, backed up by a lance of the Turtles assault armor: Schrek - Std., Ontos - Std., Behemoth - Std., Behemoth - Armor, and lastly a platoon of despondantly unemployed hover-laser mechanized infantry platoon that we found in a spaceport bar. 

Nick's force was (I think, am going off of memory) a lance of the Tikonov Lancers mechs: WHM-7M, PXH-3D, WSP-1S & RFL-3N, backed up by a lance of McCarron's 6th Armored Cavalry with: RVN-3L, ENF-4R, VTR-9D and an HBK-5M/or 5N.

Lastly, he had the loaner hover-laser mechanized company that fired the platoon that my force had hired. 

The battlefield with our deployments. 

Note the early use of a pizza template as the Raven was occupying the same hex as a hover platoon. 

Turn 1 would be unusually bloody, as my Vulcan put a large pulse laser thru the cockpit of the Raven killing the pilot instantly! The Raven's Narc beacon missed though it was a moot point as the rest of Nick's nearby forces pummelled the Vulcan, destroying it!

The remainder of my mechs sent supporting fire across the river whilst, the first bridge groaned under weight of the 375 ton tank lance meandering across it. Nick's Victor, P Hawk and enforcer fired into the hulking tanks, making them angry. 

Turn two and there were two separate brawls breaking out. On the bridge, a Capellan hover platoon inflicted 3 points of damage to the Armor Behemoth and a lucky side crit of 'crew stunned'. 3 points to an over-armored brick and I think I was more stunned by that result than the tank was! Sensing an easy kill, two hover platoons raced into point blank range of the stricken Behemoth as well as the other Behemoth's many machine guns...

The Victor and Enforcer all took hits as did a few tanks. Meanwhile the Charger and Shadow Hawk (henceforth: SHD because I am lazy), crossed the river for a pointblank duel in the backfield. 

In what would become a comically repetitive (for me) event, Nick's Warhammer fails it's piloting check and hits the ground. 

Thw Warhammer regains it's footing and the scrum is more or less a repeat of the last turn. The Hunchback lands a rare AC-20 hit removing an arm from the SHD, luckily for me it is the one with no weapons in it. 

The two leading Capellan hover platoons were now gone, and the wounded third was engaging with what was left my hover platoon in a fratricidal firefight on the second bridge. The Enforcer (it was in really bad shape by this point) and Victor fall back under the withering hail of tank fire! All three of the forward tanks had mobility crits, but the roads were largely compensating for the mobility loss. 

Both the Ontos and Behmoth #2 were trundling about at reduced speed, whereas the armor Behemoth #1 was immobilised. The Schrek and Rifleman both stayed behind to snipe at whatever targets presented themselves, the the Schrek securing the bridge. 

The damaged, lead Behemoth makes a miraculous roll of 11 on its PSR to round the corner a flank speed without skidding! The Victor jumps back across the river while the Enforcer makes a run for it. Whilst the Enforcer's rear armor is notoriously thin, at least it had armor in that location! The backfield scrum continues with the Schrek sniping the Wasp out of existance with a lucky PPC shot.

Run Forest, RUN! The gunners on the Ontos cackled maniacally as they unleash hell on the fleeing Enforcer. The Behemoths meanwhile concentrate their fire on the Victor.

2-3 falls later, the beat-all-to-hell Warhammer starts an orderly retreat along with the rest of Nick's remaining forces. The SHD brazenly contests the 2nd bridge as an AC-20 slug whizzes by! As you can see by the new set of flames, the Enforcer had unsurprisingly succumb to the Ontos' laser light show. 

A wider angle of the board. Also down and burning was the Victor. After another massed volley of AC-10 slugs, the mech failed it's PSR, inflicting a critical hit on itself during it's fall, which if I recall correctly hit the SRM ammo bin. Meanwhile the SHD suffered a CT crit of a 'lower-6'. Normally that would be the SRM ammo and certain death, but this was a 3H model. So instead of another mech kill, all Nick did was wreck a machine gun.

I'll probably never field the 2H model again...

In the final turn the Charger moved up onto the 2nd bridge to help the beleagured SHD secure the objective. While it would be successful in this endeavor by distracting the Hunchback, it came at a heavy cost. An AC-20 slug punched thru the rear torso armor and hit an almost empty LRM-20 ammo bin. CASE and an XL engine took care of the rest and the Charger was down for the count!

Still falling back, the Warhammer relinquished control of bridge #2 and with my Schrek still parked on the first bridge. Victory was mine with 2 out of 3 objectives secured! That said, the Hunchback was still in my SHD's backfield, rendering the 'secure' status of the 2nd bridge tenuous at best. 

All told Corey's Cavalier's  lost the Vulcan and Charger, with the SHD suffering heavy damage. The Rifleman was untouched. As for the Turtles, the armor variant Behemoth was immobilised and the standard one was moving slowly with it's right side internal structure well exposed. The Ontos had a moderate amount of damage, but nothing too serious and the Schrek in the back was untouched. 

The Tikinov Lancer's lost the Wasp, the Warhammer was on its last legs, whereas the Rifleman and Phoenix Hawk both had just minor damage. McCarron's Armored cavalry on the other hand only had the lone Hunchback survive with relatively modest damage. 

Lastly, not a single mechanized hover-laser infantryman/woman survived the battle.

This was a fun one and like Nick's last scenario, we will be playing this one again in the future, with attacker and defender's roles reversed. 

SHOVE IT!

 o/

Wait, what?!?

I played a game this past week vs. a new opponent, Aaron (guessing on the spelling of his name). 5K, no scenario, just kill each other. Not sure what era we were playing I opted for the all tech level I, fielding my rarely used FRR Drakons. I had a Catapult CPLT-K2 with a 3/5 pilot, a Charger CGR-1A1 with a 4/4 pilot, a Warhammer WHM-6K and a Blackjack BJ-1 (both with 4/5 pilots) and lastly a Jump Laser Iinfantry platoon which rounded my force out to an even 5K. 

The battlefield with a large light forest in the upper right. I screwed up in placing the mapsheet making the only straight running lanes on the paved roads running left to right, rather than straight at one another. 

Aaron fielded a Clan invasion era lance (not sure what faction but going by the MUL is was likely FedCom, Mercs or St. Ives) consisting of an Ostscout OTT-7J, a Javelin JVN-10P, a Spector SPR-5F and lastly a Helios HEL-5D, all with 3/4 pilots. 

Here's how it all went down. 

Here they come, jumping and bouncing at me hard and fast! We traded a few shots here, but nothing significant. 

My Blackjack and intended 'Distraction bot' run up the middle looking for the Helios. Given all of the opposing small, fast and bouncy mechs on the board, the Charger would instead fall back on its secondary role: brawler. 

You know he's serious when he shows up in uniform! He's going to the Navy's nuke school, a fitting choice for a mechwarrior. 

I backed up to the edge to hide my rear armor and instead my near pristine Catapult was instead unceremoniuosly shoved off the board! I was rather caught off guard by this, the kick that almost took the Ostscout's leg was of little comfort. Different folks = different tactics (which as you will see in a bit goes both ways). Thus my Catapult took it's proverbial ball and went home to pout.

I habitually roll like garbage on crits rolls, except here where my Warhammer rolled a box cars to crit the CT of the Javelin, destroying the gyro and damagining the engine! Also, one of this game's many point blank scrums was taking place here. I ought to have brought my Hatchetman.

Always in my rear arc! Not sure what was in worse shape by this point, be it my warhammer or the Blackjack. They were both still up and fighting though. 

The Helios' gauss rifle was kind enough to miss on it's first three shots, and the Charger closed to point blank for optimal SL fire and brawling while keeping the gauss itself from shooting. 

Pretty much more of the same here. 

The Helios hopped up on the building but my Charger didn't take the bait to close in (which would allow Aaron to kick while hitting on the punch chart), and opted to shoot at the little guys (that were moving too fast to hit). In return the Helios' gauss finally connected and removed the Blackjack's side torso, ouch!

The Warhammer then scored a critical which destroyed the Helios' Gauss rifle. That explosion knocked out the pilot knocking his mech prone. Aaron exclaimed: 'Now you can do called shots.' Not really knowing how to do that (nor something I would have thought of) we looked up the rules and in the following turn, aiming for the CT the Wahammer & Charger eliminated the stricken Helios. Like I said earlier, different folks = different tactics. 

The Warhammer took a Gyro hit and went down, only to further damage itself trying to get back up. Like the Javelin (which was finished off by the crippled Blackjack just before it's demise) the Warhammer propped itself up for a few shots before blowing up via an ammo hit. 

Down to the three mechs left standing along with my infantry platoon (who inflicted I think 9 points all game), we called it a draw and ended it there. He could out range and run my Charger, but lacked the firepower to take it down effectively, so we didn't see much point to continuing on.

*****

Well that was fun and a bit different. I'm disappointed that I never again hit the Ostscout's leg which was down to a mere 2 points of structure (though the Infantry did try). I was pleased with the Charger, 3 small lasers and 2 punches if the target's TMM was high or else 5 small lasers and a kick if the TMM was low is nothing to sneeze at. Several times Aaron commented 'I gotta stay away from that Charger.' which I found amusing given the CGR-1A1's reputation as garbage. 

I don't think we ever used the shoving models off of the board as it was sort of a gentlman's agreement. That said, I likewise have never used aimed shots on a crippled mech to ensure that it never gets up again either. As such I am curious to see what our next match is like...