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. 

Let's get this beast home (take 2).

Mono y mono...

This past Friday evening, I played a game against Mal, a new opponent to me. This would only be Mal's 2nd tabletop game (having mostly played various video game versions of Battletech), and she asked for a scenario as she'd (correctly) heard that the fight to the death slugging matches can take forever. 

The original scenario:

Unfortunately one of our mechwarriors has fallen gravely ill and had to be medevac'd out immediately. His (canon though quite) unique mech is unfortunately still out in the field and his senior technician is the only other person who knows how to pilot the monster. As he pilots the miserably slow (Urbie slow) machine back to base, a small escort has been detailed to accompany the priceless mech home, we can only hope that enemy forces don't try to ambush us along our route...

As such I suggested we give the above escort the Dragoons Behemoth scenario another try and she readily agreed. We fielded 4K points each, with the defender also having the Behemoth with a 5/5 technician at the controls. We rolled to see who was attacking and who would be defending. I don't recall which of us won said roll, but I would be attacking and she would be defending. 

Mal's backdrop for this particular game:

In the spring of 3031 on the planet Cammal, a small unit action occurred that featured a singularly large 'Mech: the Behemoth. Thought to have fallen to Kurita forces on Misery in 3028, this titan that once was seen only amongst Wolf's Dragoons suddenly appeared in the employ of the Infernal Legion. The infamous 'Mech suddenly faced the possibility of a third change of hands as a twist of fate left the titan' s MechWarrior ill, and his machine piloted by an inexperienced technician. A forward Capellan Lance's Raven detected the massive 'Mech, prompting a fight to steal the warmachine away, or destroy it completely.

Here's how it all went down: 

Mal's force: The Infernal Legion. 

Looking to acquire said Behemoth were my 'filthy Capellans' fielding a Raven RVN-1X, Catapult CPLT-C1, Cataphract CTF-1X (this was my lance's CO with a 4/4 pilot) and of course no Capellan force is complete without an Urbanmech UM-R60. 

The initial deployment with  The Infernal Legion and their charge starting midfield in hopes of actually making it across the board. My Capellans were hugging the board edge. 

Finally! A worthy opponent of the mighty Urbanmech!

Mal & her forces were in high spirits as they charged forward leaving the ponderous Behemoth in the dust.

Mal's left (my rght) flank is already looking like it will be the site of the initial close-in fighting. 

The opposing light mechs immediately started harassing one another, trading medium laser and SRM fire. 

Much to my surprise, Mal kept the Behomoth stationary, sniping from afar while it's escort rushed up into point blank range!

They singled out my Cataphract as their primary target and started to abuse the heavy mech with concentrated fire!

Moving a bit too aggresively, the Capellan Raven give the Legion's Firestarter and Javelin the slip and makes a run for the backfield, keeping intervening terrain between itself and the Behemoth.

While a scrum breaks out on the left flan, the Raven kept running, opting for the long way around to get behind the Behemoth. Not needing to worry about the Behemoth, the Firestarter gives chase, via a shorter route.

The Javelin meanwhile was peppering the generally inaccurate fire from the Urbie. Though the Urbanmech did at least manage to wreck one of the Javelin's arms. 

Pushing in a little too aggresively, the Cataphract slips thru the Legion's line (taking a beating on it's way through). 

Soon almost everybody was behind the Behemoth, and concentrating fire, the Capellans make an attempt to eliminate the Firestarter. They were not successful, though the Firestarter took several hits nonetheless. 

The Marauder turns around to come to the defence of the Behemoth, while the Urbie and Javelin continue slugging it out at point blank range.

The tech driving the Behemoth had had enough of this shit and was making a run for it! Running guns blazing at the Urbie though failing to hit due to his/her lack of training. 

The Firestarter tries to fall back to a safe distance, and too small to really hurt the primary target, the Raven continues to engage the Firestarter. The two damage each other further, though not enough to matter too much.

At this point, the Urbie's plan was to put it's face to the board edge, reverse guns and support the attack on the Dragoon's mech, as it's rear torso armor was thicker than what was left on the front. However, the damned Javelin was still in the backfield forcing it to face that mech head on. I believe both hit each other, but no kill shots were to be had.

The Centurion finally punches thru the shredded armor of the Cataphract, inflicting 1 engine and 2 gyro hits, taking the mech out! 

At this point we called it as the hour was getting late, and my Catapult & Raven were too heavily outgunned to be able to  inflict enough damage on the Bemehoth to end it's trip home. It had taken several licks, and one arm was looking fairly rough. However, unlike the first time we tried this scenario, it's legs were holding up just fine. 

I am thinking that in the future, when/if we try this one again that the attcker should have 5K to balance things out a bit more. We may have discussed that the last time (or something to that effect), but I honestly do not recall, and didn't think of it this time until after I was back home. 

For Mals' second ever table top game, she had an impressive grasp of the rules resulting in smooth game play with very little coming up in question. As such, I am looking forward to more games with Mal in the future!

I think we were both impressed by just how much damage the Cataphract took before falling. It was quite the sponge for enemy fire!

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.