To battle once more!

 o/

That's me on the right where my grey beard is looking suspiciously like mutton chops!

Happy Labor Day folks! Wow. Its been....EIGHT months since I last posted. What the actual fuck? I had a game or two get cancelled earlier this year due to real life and all of that nonsense. Then, my beautiful wife got a job in Charleston, South Carolina. So everything got boxed up and shipped outta Tennessee to our new home. Working remotely I've been going a bit stir crazy as my only hobbying here of late has been painting 40k minis.

I took this pic one evening after about a 10 minute bike ride from my new house.

In the Charleston area, folks use discord to set up games and being an older player (damned near 50!?!) I was avoiding that but finally joined one. Honestly it looks like a rebranded AOL chatroom to me, but after asking around a bit and getting added onto a few more servers, I replied to somebody looking for a 2500 BV, 3020s era Classic BattleTech game and he accepted. 

I was going to post that this was my first miniature game outside of Tennessee in a quarter of a century. However I just remembered that we used to go to the Atlanta Gamesdays and play in tournaments, so it was more like 15ish years or so instead. Doesn't quite have the same ring to it. Moving on...

There was a temptation to just bring (5) Urbies, but I didn't want to be that guy on my introduction to the South Carolina BattleTech scene. Nick, my opponent laughed and said he'd never considered that and likely would have wanted to cuss me if I had. He brought a battlemat, 3D-printed and painted terrain as well. After we set up the terrain we created a scenario on the fly where he was attacking and I was defending (due to having an Urbie) a large storage tank in the center of the board which had 100 points of structure. 

Here's how it all went down:

The battlefield, the large dropship-looking objective in the middle. 

The Urbie trying to gain altitude for a better advantage in terms of LoS.

As usual, the first few turns were just to advance into range, though the Rifleman was already pumping rounds into the objective much to my dismay.

The Capellan Confederation's Tikonov Lancers launch their raid!

Trying to get lines of sight. The problem with 4/5 pilots across the board (both sides), is that it is hard to hit anything at range. Except of course a large, immobile (-4 to hit) structure.

I'm faster than you! To-hit modifiers kept the Spider from shooting the Wasp, but it did deliver a nice, 3 point punch to the back of the Wasp's fragile head!

Still hammering the objective, a 40K-esque close combat scrum breaks out with my Hatchetman getting into close combat for the first time!

At this point, we gave up on the scenario as the to-hit modifiers made it impossibly easy to win for the attacker. Thus the game descended into the typical 'let's just kill each other' slugfest. The Spider kept punching holes in the Wasp, but stopped when I buried the hatchet in the Wasp's SRM-2 ammo bin!

The combatants scatter, the Phoenix Hawk goes after the Urbie with my Commando (the lousy AC-2 variant) in pursuit. The Spider and Hatchetman kept on after the Rifleman.

Caught in a crossfire, the Rifleman pummels the Hatchetman and in doing so overheats badly!

The Rifleman overheats so much that his ammo cooked off! It was partially my fault as the Hatchetman's AC-10 caused 2 engine crits! That said, the (now) Hatchetlessman also failed his piloting check and hit the ground hard enough for it's pilot to take a snooze for the next 5 turns! It was practically a double kill. 

On the other side of the board, the Phoenix Hawk shot up the Urbie enough to hit the last 3 rounds of AC-10 ammo in the Urbie's bin, obliterating the little guy! 

Not sure if this was a fair fight. The Commando's medium laser arm was gone leaving in point blank range with an AC-2 that was best deployed as an instrument of blunt force trauma (if 2 points of damage can be called that). The Spider just has 2 medium lasers and like the Commando hits like a wet noodle in close combat. The Phoenixhawk on the other hand was nice and toasty, and missing a jump jet or two. 

Unable to outrun my mechs, another scrum ensued for another half a dozen rounds or so where the spider kinda flailed about uselessly in the background while the Commando did the same to the front before finally going down to a lost leg. 

That said, they held up the Phoenixhawk long enough for the Hatchetlessman to wake up, get up and run across the field to deliver a game ending AC-10 Headshot!

Well that was a lot of fun! The original scenario not so much, and when I suggested that it was going down fast enough to play two games, switching roles of attacker and defender that we opted to just shed the scenario entirely. Both sides up until that point had taken minimal to no damage, so it was akin to starting over anyways. 

My opponent Nick was a blast to play against, and I look forward to future games with him. He'll be outta town for a few weeks for work but we already have tentative plans to play upon his return. Also the FLGS' owner was all about building up the local BattleTech community, and was asking about running events. Personally I've never been involved in one of those, but I sent them a link to the Comstar site in my blog roll at right. Those guys run pub tourneys all the time in England.

So hopefully they will be running some similarly styled events in the future. Its taken me a few months in in SC, but I finally think that I'm starting to find my local gamer community! I was also asked about playing Alpha strike and gave a few pointers on that (prefaced with the fact that I am a bit rusty on those rules as well). 

The Battle against the Mech that shall not be named

 o/

The following battle report is of my game vs. Kushial that we played Saturday night. Kushial said that it's been at least three years since we've played Battletech against one another and while I find that hard to believe, I gave up on trying to find a battle report on here of the two of us playing a game. 

We played our usual 8k points at the local FLGS on one of their 3D printed maps which was really quite a treat! He was fielding the Lyran Alliance's Donegal Guards whilst I had the Clan Snow Raven's Epsilon Galaxy. 

Both sides deployed.

Moving up the center with a Shadow Hawk C and Hellhound, my pilots started to question their superior technology in the face of all of the massed tonnage and firepower before them...

As my Star Commander's Adder drops off it's load of Elementals, the mech that shall not be named is spotted and a furious exchange of gunfire ensues. The Adder loses that fight as virtually all of the enemy mech's fire connects with the Adder's right leg (while it's UAC-5 rounds fly off into the ether)!

On the rest of the board, my fire was a bit of a mixed bag, with the Shadow Hawk likewise taking a LOT of damage to it's right leg whereas I seemed to be carving thru his right torsos. Then of course there was the piranha, blazing away with lasers and a dozen machine guns a turn and hitting with just one MG on average before his Valkyrie jumped away again. 

The Mech that shall not be named outmaneuvered me following a mistake on my part, and dishonorably kicked the Adder's already crippled leg, destroying it and removing the mech from the game. The Shadow Hawk took command as it was painted, only to lose it's leg a turn later. 

Command then fell to my Primed Hellhound which had the most surviving paint left in my force (and was also inflicting the most damage overall). Here it unloads in the the Mech that shall not be named while in the background the Elementals and piranha collectively sandblast about 40 points of armor off of the sides of the Donegal Black Knight! As heavily armored and undamaged as the Knight was, it merely found this experience to be irritating.

The Hellhound punches thru one of the side torsos of the not named mech and hit the SRM Ammo, obliterating it and avenging the fallen Star Commander! He hoped that this act would inspire his remaining troops...

However it was not to be as the piranha, dreadfully overheated due to an engine hit, tried to duke it out at point blank range with the Donegal HBK-4P. A dazzling exchange of 8 medium lasers vs. 12 MGs and an ER small laser ended in the only obvious result.

At this point my 2 remaining Hellhounds (of which the unprimed one had lost half of it's weapons) bugged out, leaving the 4 remaining Elementals for dead. 

As crushing of a defeat as it was, this was still a fun game and I'm looking forward to vastly more frequent games with Kushial in the future!

Starting off 2023 with a fighting retreat...

I know everyone is planning on a glorious victory, however dead mercenaries collect no pay checks!

'There is no way that I am getting

paid enough for this job...'

I got together with my buddy Screech for an 8k game of Battletech this past weekend and what follows is sorta how it all went down (I say 'sorta' as my battle reports aren't the most detailed). 

The Buffet Assault Group was fielding a fully painted force, with nothing in the way of advanced tech outside my Commander's custom CGR-SB with 4 tons of comms. equipment generating a 3 hex ECM field. Turns out we were playing ECM incorrectly so the few Streak SRMs that failed to connect should have. In hindsight, I ought to have stuck with the stock model and it's fourth large laser. 

Screech's Steiner force was sporting his trademark 'fresh from the factory' grey and probably 3060s era tech. We'll just say they dug deeply into all that the Helm Memory Core had to offer. 

The first few turns were mostly uneventful maneuvering and dodging the corrosive environmental effects of the map. The Catapult would spend most of the game on it's high perch, lobbing 30 missiles down range, and on average connecting with about 9 per turn. Typical.

One of my Stingers, ran into a Shadowhawk whilst trying to sneak into the backfield. The Shadowhawk would remove both of it's arms (and all of it's weapons) in this exchange, and the Stinger would flee the field in the following turn!

Screech pondering his next course of action.

The charger and Hunchback (the AC-10 version) leading the charge and tangling with his Marauder and Warhammer!

On my other flank, the 8-Z panther and 2nd Stinger get into the Wolverine and Warhammer's rear arcs, where the torso armor is thinnest, and where they would instead only hit arms and legs...

Realizing that they're outclassed, my commander starts her slow, exonerable retreat. Walking backwards while firing most everything would be how she more or less spend the rest of the game. The hunchback on the other hand was happy to remain stuck in, guns blazing in all directions!

Collective fire from multiple mechs started to punch holes into the Warhammer resulting in 2 XL engine hits. When rolling to avoid a heat-induced shutdown, Screech rolled a snake eyes and the Warhammer went dead!

Dishonorable mercenaries as we are, my forces had no qualms about shooting the stricken mech!

The Warhammer took enough hits to knock the inert mech over. Karma is a bitch though as my Hunchback also needed to make a piloting check to avoid falling, however my pilot lost consciousness following a pair of SRMs to the head. Rendering the check a moot point, and down it went as well. 

My Charger, heavily damaged by this point gets an attempted assist from the Catapult  which fired and missed with all four medium lasers. 

The Warhammer powers back up and presses it's attack. With only 1 functional PPC, it was more or less heat neutral despite the engine hits. The Scouts hang back to guard the Hunchback and it's still snoozing pilot. However the Wolverine dumps everything into the Panther's side torso, hitting its SRM ammo and vaporizing the mech!

The Hunchback struggles to it's feet, and in a brutal exchange both the Warhammer and Hunchback are destroyed! Not pictured but the other stinger tried to run cover for the horrifically damaged Hunchback and lost an arm along with taking a spread of SRM hits to an otherwise pristine scout mech. 

My custom Charger. Ya gotta love the CGR-SB, proving once again to be an excellent 'zombie-mech' that refused to fall. 

At that point it was almost midnight and my force was spent. The Panther and Hunchback were both vaporized by ammo explosions, the two Stingers had a single arm between them, the Charger was an absolute mess as you can see above, and the Catapult had taken a few good licks as well (and it's ammo hoppers were almost dry!).

On the other side, Screech's Warhammer was so badly torn apart that it may as well have died to an ammo explosion. Both the Marauder and Shadowhawk had taken a fair beating, though the Wolverine had only taken minor-to-moderate armor damage, and so would be able to escort it's comrades home with no trouble at all. 

Not mentioned above but worth mentioning: My Hunchback was modeled with the two right torso medium lasers facing the rear. Rear mounted weapons are usually derided as situational wastes of tonnage. However, stuck in the middle of a brawl, those two lasers were blazing away, turn after turn, indeed neither of us could recall a game in which we had so much rear weapon usage. 

In fact, following the loss of one of it's arms the the autocannon, moments before it's fiery demise, the Hunchback was actually more dangerous in the rear arc than it was the front!

All in all it was a fun brawl!

This is not the Steiner Scout Lance you are looking for...

 ...nope, no Atlases here!

(although the Urbies are just as slow)

Its a new year and as such I'm starting off with a new color scheme and unit. This lance is painted in the colors of the Lyran Alliance's Dixie Cavanaugh II Theater Militia (aka: Dixie CTM). I chose them more for the color scheme than anything else. Their unit history involves mainly garrison duties, static defense against raids, and losing to superior forces. 

The above lance clocks in at a paltry 2600 points, which is well below our usual 8K point limit. Luckily, the true Steiner mentality of compensation via sheer tonnage comes shining through via their as yet to be painted, accompanying heavy armor lance. Lastly of course, there will be the usual infantry platoon and APC to round this force out. 

My first game of 2020!

o/

After a yearlong hiatus due to misaligned schedules and an untimely illness on my part, Kushial was finally able to come over for a game! He was brining a medium/light weight company (well mostly, he left 2 behind to guard the dropship), against which I fielded a similarly weighted demi-company, of mechs, with an APC carried infantry platoon. 

The following is my usual brand of a half-assed bat rep. Kushial already posted his which you can read here. 

My setup assistant Baxter 'helping' as usual...he would be removed from the table several times over the course of the game. 

Kushial's Donegal Guard approaches...

My right flank defenders, with my Urbies in the 'subdivision'. I had hoped he would close to slug it out with them in these close confines, but to no avail. 

My left flank, and the LoS blocking hunk o' cardboard that would see much fighting around it. 

My hunchback advances boldly out in front of the vehicle park, tempting the hatchetman horde to charge in, but they don't take the bait...

My Whitworth would stand rooted in it's spot most of the game. with a multitude of targets, it had no need to close and performed admirably (well, when my die rolling actually cooperated) in the fire support role with it's twin LRM 10 launchers. 

Ceding ground to try and draw him into close range, the hatchetmen and Urbies instead trade long ranged AC-10 fire, whilst the first real scrum begins on my left flank. 

My first ever use of a quad mech, the Scorpion performed fairly well, though the lack of both adequate heat sinks and the ability to torso twist were rather difficult to grapple with. 

Backed into a corner already, grrr...

As a bit of a side note, in the background on the platform next to the dropship, That valkyrie had just finished incinerating my infantry platoon to a man! This was the first time that anyone actively engaged my infantry, normally they're just ignored.

The beginning of the end as the end starts to swing against me...

TREACHERY! Attacking a prone mech!?! (A Gryo hit and destroyed foot actuator would keep it down). This shall be noted in the Book of Gru-wait, wrong game system...never mind. 

I kept forgetting about that little, overheated all to hell and heavily damaged but still not dead little bastard.

and lo, the mechs began to fall...

The hatchetmen continue to dance back and forth in front of my gunline, taking damage but not enough to die. 

Finally they charge, axes held high! Two urbies would fall to shooting however, denying them their axe swings. Remarkably, one urbie took an ammo crit and survived by dint of only having 1 round left in the hopper! It still hurt quite a bit though. 

Trapped like a rat and preparing for death. 

The hatchetman would decapitate my griffin with it's axe, though a solid right hook to the hatchetman's face made for a glorious death!

With the last 2 urbies combat ineffective (only 1 small laser left between them), my still untouched (and almost out of ammo) Whitworth, and surprisingly only lightly damaged Scorpion run up the white flag and retreat. Likewise that heavy APC put pedal to the metal and made a run for it as well. 

My ragged survivors (though 'survivors' kinda debatable given the state of those two urbies)

So...I started off 2020 much like I finished off 2019, by losing. Of well, consistency is half the battle they say (just not the half I was hoping for...). Still, it was a fun time and I look forward to our next bout which hopefully will not be until 2021.