My latest updates.

 o/

The Cyclops from my last post wasted no time in getting 'stuck-in' in our campaign.

Unfortunately, said campaign ended in a spectacular double kill, with my Cyclops putting an AC20 slug into the Victor's ammo bin, while at the same time the Victor delivered an AC20 slug to the Cyclops' head!

In a nutshell, the above was the end of our home campaign. Both of our forces were thread bare, and neither would be able to replace the losses of the assault mechs.

Screech, taking a snooze in his battlefield debut in the new campaign. 

 As such we threw in the towel and started a new campaign. We moved the timeline up to 3049 & earlier. I am fielding the 1st Chisholm's Raiders whereas Nick is fielding Mercs of an indeterminate name. 

Just in case you were wondering, this is what 'forced withdrawal' looks like. This wreck limped off the board and has since been repaired. Screech however will be convalescing in the med bay for a bit...

In our first three games, I've managed to repair all damage suffered, whereas Nick is already down 3 mechs and 2 pilots (I head capped a Crusader & Griffin in the same game with a gauss rifle)!

The typical lance of random paint jobs. 

My converted STK-4N, this is my CO's mech in the current campaign. It is piloted by 'Major Grognard' a name inspired by Nick 2.0 himself!

The TBAG unit initial decals resulted in the typical memes when I posted these pics on the FLGS' discord. 

Next up, for my Corey's Cavaliers mercs, a pair of Hornets named The Grapes of Wrath. One of these is partaking in the campaign, piloted by John Steinbeck himself! Surprisingly, it survived its first game with only moderate damage. 

This Orion missed the last campaign, and as such will not see battle any time soon. 

I've never once fielded an Orion before, which is a trend that will continue for a bit longer it seems.

Everyone loves lava bases, why a mech would want to be in a lava field is beyond me though. If you haven't already guessed, this will be used as the Blazing Inferno variant.

Lastly, a Blackjack BJ-3 & Wolfhound WLF-1B, both finished up this afternoon.

As you can see above, I've also done a fair bit of painting. The Buffet Assault Group is even up to a company strength formation, combined-arms of course. I'll need to take some group shots soon. 

I hope everyone has a happy 4th of July! Don't go blowing any of your fingers off, it'll ruin your die rolls!

The dying art of blogging.

90 tons of: I'm gonna get you sucka!

The mini campaign continues, casualties have been high. Indeed, the past several games have been blood baths, more like 1-off battles to the death than campaign games, where pilots and machines are preserved (speaking of, the Ostroc's reign of terror has come to a crushing end, and its pilot has been hospitalized with multiple injuries). 

So, why haven't I posted about any of this?

In the campaign, currently the counts as CP-10-Q on the left is being overhauled into the CP-10-Zr that you see in the middle. the 'r' is because it will be a custom variant the turns the SRM-4 into a 1-shot weapon and uses the spare half ton of weight, to add C.A.S.E. and all of the ammo to the left torso. Finally, it won't be an ammo bomb. Hell, I might even use that version on the regular!

The Orion in back is a WiP currently.

I can post a fully detailed, battle report on here, pics of the game, play-by-play recaps aaaaaand, get maybe a dozen views. In the first week. It reminds me of a t-shirt I saw once that said: More people have seen this shirt than your blog. 

Painful, but true.

I can post a pic or three on Instagram along with a blurb of text more or less saying: 'we played a game' and get 20-30 likes. Curiously, my Instagram followers are predominantly BattleTech fans. My Star Wars Legion posts get about half that on average. 

Or...

I can post the same few pics and blurb in a Facebook, BattleTech group and have in a few cases gotten upwards of 300+ likes and dozens of comments and discussions going on said post. 

So...that's where we're at as far as the private digital diary TBAGers blog's lack of posting is concerned. 

I good view of the side that always seems to get shot at the most.

Well, that and lately I have been on a SWL painting kick, so the Cyclops CP-10Zr above, is the first mech that I have painted in quite a while. Also, once it comes out of overhaul, 2 missed games from now, it will be gifted to the now destroyed Ostroc's, by then recovered pilot (named Kushial). 

Mini-Campaign game

 o/

Wait, what?

Nick 2.0 was in town, and devised a mini campaign using tonnage rather than BV. Unit build specs were a heavy lance in weight, with no more than 1 Assault mech, a light recon lance that could include vehicles, and a mixed weight lance. Each lance would have a lead unit with a 3/4 skill, all else would be 4/5. Lostech era. 

Unable to field a full company in the same color scheme under those requirements, I mixed two forces, using the Desert Horde as the Calloway Training Battalion with an assist from a lance from the Marik Militia. As this is the Lostech era, most of the training mechs and tanks are garbage variants (rookies don't get the good stuff). Force comp would vary per game. I took the Ostroc, Quickdraw, Crusader, Assassin, J. Edgar, 10 Ton hover APC for this match, all were base models aside from the APC being the MG version, and the Ostroc the 2M variant.

The scenario was an attacking dropship had crashed, and the central memory core could be captured/destroyed. Forced withdrawal would also be in play. The defender would also have 2, CF20 objectives for defend from being destroyed. I opted to defend and failed miserably at it. 

I didn't take enough pics for a true bat rep, so here are some highlights:

My company, post-game with the 10-ton hover APC & J. Edgar having not survived.  

Due to motive crits these two would be bricked and fight point blank all game. The J. Edgar died first but only just, with the Pegasus down to 1 point of internal structure holding the back end together.

The Assassin doing Assassin things. Basically running & jumping around in full distraction mode while inflicting minimal damage.

With my (lack of a) plan already falling apart, the Ostroc opted to enter the drop ship thru a side door and punch the memory core into scrap!

The intermission is brought to you by an annoyed Neeka.

The highlight of the game for me: After several turns of being little more than a distraction, the Assassin went into Kamikaze mode and charged the Panther connecting for 24 points of damage! Both remained upright afterwards, though the Panther's left arm was pancaked into scrap.

Post game clean up with my 'supervisor' annoyedly awaiting the table's reassembly and her cushions being put back in place. 

Post game I was only able to repair one mech, so I opted for the Ostroc which proved more effective than I thought it would. The Crusader hung out in the backfield and never took a hit, the Assassin and Quickdraw are both fairly beat up and will likely sit the rest of the campaign out until I can either afford repairs (or things get really dire). I believe Nick was able to repair all of his damaged units.

Capture the Prize!

Do I know you from somewhere?

Nick and I got together for a game this past week. Looking for something fun but simple, we opted for the previously played 'capture the prize' scenario, albeit at 5500BV, Lostech Era. He would be fielding the objective mech this time, and oh so scary Highlander HGN-732 (I think) with it's fully functional gauss rifle. Yikes!

I was fielding the Marik Militia with a Quickdraw QKD-4G, A Chameleon TRC-4B, a Marauder MAD-3M, an Ostroc OSR-2C and (due to the odd BV limit), a Cicada CDA-2A with a 4/4 pilot. 

Baxter's warming up the table. 

Making their battlefield debut were Nick's mercenaries, the 'Swamp Foxes'. He was fielding the Highlander HGN-732, a Quickdraw QKD-4G, a Maraduder MAD-3R and a Valkyrie VLK-QA. 

So Impressed was I with Nick's paint jobs, the freehand in particular that I thought I'd show a few of them off before getting to the battle report. 

The Marauder 'Skull Crusher' (that name is painted on the other side).

"Bad Luck'

Most impressive!

Swampy bases to go with the unit's name.

The Battlefield on my new battlemat from Mats by Mars (same place I got my older city mat). 

Opening maneuvers and a few ranging shots. 

The Ostroc hit with all of its shots, but was not prepared for the gauss slug that knocked it off of it's feet!

One of several passes Neeka made across the board during the game. 

This one got up close and ugly real quick! The Ostroc & Chameleon unloaded and overheated something terrible, but most of their shots counted. 

Speaking of, at point blank range the Chameleon is a literal death by a thousand paper cuts. Fun fact: (in hindsight) Skip the large laser at this range or it will take 2-3 turns to shed the excess heat. 

Mirror match! 

Meanwhile the Cicada was taking a highspeed tour of the backfield...

Guess who lost said mirror match?

The Valyrie likewise falls from a multitude of hits. 

As my Marauder moves into range and the Chameleon jumps into cover, Nick's Quickdraw jumps into the Marauder's rear arc much to my surprise! The Chameleon came to it's aid wrecking my intent to sink the excess heat. Luckily the Quickdraw wiffed!

The Valk regains it's feet only to find the Cicada on approach.

All shots hit followed by a savage kick that took off the Valyrie's leg!

Hard to recall what all happened here other to say it was an ugly scrum. I want to say that Nick's Marauder lost a side torso, forcing it to try and withdraw. 

This moment of potential terror was averted when the Gauss slug went into my Marauder's arm, rather than it's back! It tooks some LRMs to the back, but nothing went thru. 

The scrum meanders back towards Nick's side of the board. 

Unable to shoot the Highlander, the Ostroc keeps pounding away at the Marauder.

Which goes down in an epic double kill! Nick's fell to an ammo hit whereas mine to a headshot that critted the cockpit, killing the pilot!

Unfortunately, this did not bode well for the Highlander's escort which was down to the now battered and bruised Quickdraw...

..and as such Nick ran up the white flag and powered the Highlander down. Victory to Marik, Huzzah!

Well that was fun. It was kinda funny in how both of our lists sort of mirrored one another with a Quickdraw and Marauder each. Am hoping it won't be too long before our next game, but he is out of town often due to work, so we will see.