A few more projects & game highlights

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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. 

Capture the bridges!

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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. 

Some random stragglers

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Frenemies?

No gaming for me this week, but I did at least finish off another lance's worth of mechs. That said, they are split amongst three different factions as you can see. 

First up, is a century for the Marian Hegemony's III Legio. 

All of the bases line up nicely. As much of a pain in the ass as that was, this bunch might not get any additional minis...

Corey' Cavaliers, up to a full strength lance, with not a decent mech amongst them (well, maybe the Charger).

Lastly the Cicada joins the ever growning Desert force (I wonder if it is too late to change their link/name to Desert Horde?). There are just as many tanks to go with these, plus a point of Elementals. Why Elementals you ask? Well I just reprimed the former Jade Falcon Fast & the Furious star in wraithbone. Meaning that along with the Mongoose and Mercuries, I'll easily be able to field a 2nd line binary with a minimum speed of 7/11!

Corey's Cavaliers

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Securing my wife's tomato plants. Were it not for their basing, these would blend into her raised planter's bed and it's tomato seedlings almost perfectly. 

I don't recall when I first stumbled across this canon mercenary unit but it was quite some time ago. Like so many merc units in Battletech (and Space Marine chapters in 40K), they exist as a random name in a blurb, in a book. That's it. Their minimal background says they inflicted a serious defeat on the St. Ives Cheveau-Leger during the Lostech era, inflicting particularly heavy losses on their air lances. 

Shadow Hawk SHD-3H, which swaps out the SRM-2 for a pair of machine guns. The emblem on the torso marks this mech out as the lance leader. 

The suggestion of 'Kill!' is almost an oxymoron being painted on the side of a lowly LRM-5.

So, the defeated a regimental sized unit (or more likely a smaller detachment thereof) with air support? Did the Cavaliers have extensive AA units? Their own aerospace forces? Did a CGR-1A1 stumble across an airfield and simply run amok? No other details, really? No of course not, these fuckers don't even have a color scheme. 

Charger CGR-1A1, are those two kill marks on the torso? Or the number of mechs that stuck around long enough to get into small laser range? Note this mech is dangerously skirting the edge of a minefield!

The Wolf icon really looked cool on the pauldron. Or, being on a Charger, perhaps its a more sarcastically applied dog...

Well, they didn't until the Unit Color Compendium created one which is about as official as this bunch is going to get. Also, for those that don't know, my name is: Corey, and decades ago when I was in the SCA, my persona was of a Cavalier, so I'm almost obligated to paint some of these up. Also, the UCC color scheme is both striking and pretty easy to paint. 

Rifleman RFL-3N: the epitome of mediocrity, especially as the AA mech that it was supposedly designed to be. 

With their only known action being well within the Lostech era (another favorite of mine), I opted to make my first lance for the Cavaliers (I rarely stop at just one...) as what my old buddy Hoss would call a Lostech FUBAR lance: All crummy/mediocre mechs that are thrown into a front line role because there is nothing else left. Thus far I only have 3 mechs painted for this lance of Corey's Cavaliers, but the fourth (a Vulcan) finally arrived in the mail and is now in progress.