Urbie Warfare!

 o/

So many Urbanmechs...

Nick 2.0 and I got together for our first game of 2025 last week. He was just starting to set up the board as I got there and said that he'd like to set up a tight, urban battlefield rather than spread the terrain out. I said it that sounded perfect because...

Oh no, no you didn't? 

Actually yes, I did. 

One of these is not like the others...

I decided to kick off 2025 with a long standing promise/threat of bringing nothing but Urbanmechs. 3,998 points of Urbanmechs! Seven UM-R60s, and 1 UM-R60L. Nick said he was terrified. Seriously. Luckily for him, my Capellan Homeguard rarely gets a chance to see combat, and my forthcoming die rolls would sadly reflect that. 

I'll do my best to sort the following pics out, but its hard to keep track as there were so many Urbies and...well, they all kind look the same...

The battlefield, we would start with our mechs all within 2 hexes of the outer edge of the terrain.

Nick's pirate raiders. No idea what kind of pirates attack with Urbanmechs. Maybe they're from the treacherous St. Ives compact or something...

Blue lance enters the city.

The Guillotine unloads into Red 4 stripping all armor from the front torso and knocking it to the ground!

The Blue lance hits the pavement and realizes that they can get extra movement! 

Nick sending pics to his buddies, much as I was doing. 

At this point my red lance was fully engaged while the Blue lance were all still flanking the pirates.

Red 4 regains its feet, facing backwards as it stood. With full armor on it's rear torso, it reversed guns and continued to press it's attack. 

Blue 4 rounds the corner and promptly misses the Stalker with it's AC-20. Unaware of the enormous round that just killed everyone on three floors of the Highrise to its right, the Stalker unloads into the thin skinned 60L, destroying the AC-20, most of it's meagre armor and knocking it to the ground!

The rest of blue lance, making good time on the city streets finally makes it into range and begins to create a crossfire. 

Some hot, sexy, Urbie on Urbie action...

Red 4 could have moved out of view of the Guillotine, but elected to stand still after finding itself in short range of the stalker with no modifiers (and my lousy die rolls). It's final AC-10 slug connected moments before it died. 

Suffering 40 points of damage applied, the stalker succumbs to the pounding and hits the ground!

Recovering, it rounds the building and the guns turn on the Guillotine. Unfortunately I don't think I hit anything this round. 

Am pretty sure I took only 3 medium laser hits in return, maybe there was a lot of smoke or something...

With targets barely in sight, Blue lance continues to fire, killing (rather than defending) many civilians.

The surviving red lance mechs either reposition or provide covering fire to blue 4 as it leads the charge with it's lone, small laser blazing!

The Guillotine ignores the charging small laser and targets the other Urbies, who in turn ignore the fast moving heavy mech can continue to hammer the Stalker and its little friends. This may be the round in which the Stalker's right arm was taken off. 

Same turn, different view.

Blue lance charges the pirates' Urbies for point blank shooting and toe to toe combat!

I threw everything I had at the Stalker and Green Urbie. I think he lit up the entire Blue lance in return.

The Green Urbie goes down for good, whereas Blue 1 hits the ground losing both it's left & right torsos!

The Stalker, it's right side in tatters starts to retreat with the suicidal Blue 4 in pursuit. What's left of Blue 1 makes a run for it while the yellow Urbie moves in. Meanwhile Red 1 & 2 provide covering fire. 

Blue 2 hits the ground in much the same state as Blue 1, and the pirate Urbie moves in to deliver a kick to the downed mech. Fortunately, it was aiming for a torso that was no longer connected, rolling a snake eyes! Luckily for Nick, it then made its piloting roll to keep from falling itself. 

Blue 4 delivers a small laser hit with no shots taken in return (guessing the stalker couldn't depress its remaining weapons far enough). Kicks were exchanged with 3 points delivered in 1 direction and 9 in the other! Luckily, the leg the stalker hit had yet to be hit, allowing Blue 4 to continue this suicidal assault. 

You can't getaway Kirk...

Did you just quote Wrath of Khan to me?

You mean to tell me that Ricardo Montalban is here?

On the table? In an Urbanmech???

Well, it didn't matter which leg the Stalker kicked this time, Whichever one it was went flying off the valiant Blue 4 and that was the final end of the little Urbie that couldn't. 

The Stalker walks back into the shooting gallery, taking a few more hits and stripping the CT armor down to 1 point left.

Blue 2 moves up to avenge the fallen Blue 4 and suffers heavily for it. 

And this is where we called it. 

At this point we called it as it was getting kinda late, and having lost so many Urbies I was ready to hand Nick the win. However much to my surprise, he called this a draw. His second Urbanmech was on its last legs and the Stalker was 'one die roll away from an ammo explosion'. So yeah, I'll take a draw. It doesn't really matter as I had a blast anyways, I always do when fielding all Urbanmechs. 

Our next game will be with just conventional forces...

Turtles

 o/

A slow (moving) death awaits...

While there are a multitude of official house and Merc units with flat green paint schemes, most all of them are accented in one color or another, white, red, etc.. Whereas, while just being green, these are generic enough to be used by most anybody in the Inner Sphere, much like my desert lance. 

Lacking any official identity, It's easy enough to just say that they're a small conventional mercenary lance that go by the name of Turtles, under the leadership of Captain Joanna Whitmire.

Yes, that Joanna Whitmire...

These heavily armed and armored monsters are normally employed by isolated settlements, city states, mining and/or industrial concerns that want their own protection from raiders. Clearly incapable of any sort of rapid response, they tend to stick close to what their clients want protected most, and await any would-be attackers to come to them. 

Very few light raiding and pirate forces are going to want to deal with 375 tons of assault class conventional armor that is bristling with a multitude of weapons. This intimidation factor alone has both kept the Turtles steadily employed and their clients happy throughout the late Succession Wars era. 

Urbanmechs don't run from a fight!

 o/

Never tell me the odds!

I got in another campaign game, this time taking a lance over to the nearby world of Mica II where I was to clear a settlement of enemy fortifications and Mechs. The only known opposition was a King Crab. BV was set at 5K which caused quite a bit of consternation amongst the campaign members, especially after I mentioned the modified BVs for our 3/4 pilots. I did so only after seeing some prospective lists and realizing folks were forgetting to modify their BVs. Previously, missions went by tonnage alone. 

My 5k BV force for this op. all 3/4 pilots, with an HBK-4G, 4H, 4J & a UM-R60.

Digger, our new campaign manager/DM was pondering bumping it up to 6k BV, however as I had the day off and would be in to the FLGS early, I opted to play guinea pig at the 5K BV, in return for an additional added bonus in payment (The Buffet Assault Group are mercenaries after all). Digger would be running the unknown to me OpFor. 

The battlefield recently completed by Digger, the strip in the middle was a yet to be painted runway.

Digger, our new Herder of cats...

Not only would I have an enemy lance to contend with, but there were several weapons turrets as well! Along with the stock  King Crab there was a base model Valkyrie, a Blackjack Bj-1DB (proxied with an Enforcer mini) and a Locust LCT-1E. 

The hunchbacks make short work of the first turret! 35 points of armor is stout, unless of course it takes an AC-20 hit.

A 2nd turret goes down, however at this point I was more concerned by the mechs than the turrets. 

The HBK-4G decides to see what destiny (the pilot's new name) has in store and goes after the King Crab. Unfortunately my AC-20 missed with only the medium lasers connecting. Whereas one of the Crab's AC-20s connected! Luckily only just wrecking an arm!

As often as I like shooting folks in the back, it would instead be me suffering that fate (repeatedly) this game. That said, the Urbie flipped its arms and proved just as dangerous to the rear as the front!

Round 2 of this duel and my AC-20 connected with the KC's center torso! However both of it's AC-20s hit in return and...

...that was that. Destiny did manage to eject at least. The 4H missed with everything it threw at the KC while the Blackjack continued to harry my flank. 

The 4H out maneuvered the KC but couldn't shake the Blackjack. in dire straits at this point, the whole right torso of my 4H separated from my mech and the Hunchback turned to flee the board (successfully doing so). 

The locust sniping at my HBK-4J which was now backing up, laying down fire as my mission went from seek & destroy to a fighting retreat. 

The HBK-4J managed to avoid the pursuing King Crab and flee the board in much the same tattered state (missing half a torso) as the KBK-4H did. The Urbie meanwhile was walking backwards with it's AC-10 blazing. Digger offered me a chance to concede to which i replied: Urbanmechs don't run from a fight!, and so my fighting retreat continued...slowly. Someone watching suggested I rename the pilot 'Custer' and I was happy to oblige. 

In my Urbie's last defiant act, it blew an arm off of the Blackjack, though much to my dismay as the Blackjack's head was down to it's last point of structure! Beaten all to hell and almost out of Ammo, the Urbie was still 3 walking turns away from the board edge when it was legged and Custer ejected from his ride. 

Well that was rough. Following my game it we decided follow on players would bump up to 6K, and the cat was out of the bag on the King Crab's lancemates and the surprise turrets. I watched for a bit but didn't see how he next game concluded.  I lost 2 mechs, though there was a mobile repair base available on Mica II making repairs far cheaper than expected, netting me a small profit in terms of Warchest points. 

When my dispossessed pilots are able to return to Steel Haven where the rest of my force is currently, I have a pilotless Assassin waiting, meaning I'll only need to replace 1 mech (and that will be the end of the aforementioned profit...). 

So many Capellans...

 o/

I painted another lance of mechs for Capellan Home Guard (though now that they're at company strength, they're more like one of the Confederation Reserve Cavalry regiments). That said with these four, two of which are Urbies, my Capellans now can muster 9 Urbies! 

Now mustering a reinforced company. 

Two solid lances of them with the SRM Urbie in the 3rd lance. Speaking of that one, I made a custom, 3020s era version of it. Basically removing the case & enhanced actuators (leaving all else the same) with the left over weight going into the engine making it a Suburbanmech with a 3/5/2 movement curve. 

My infantry is generic, but with 2 platoons of those, all I need to do is paint up a heavy tracked APC to match these and that will give me a conventional combined arms company along with the mech company for an understrength battalion. Not quite Kushial levels, but getting there...well, sorta. 

My final lance of 2024!

 o/

These may be less random than they appear...

I hope everyone enjoyed the Christmas holiday yesterday (if you celebrate it). It was more or less just a random day off in the middle of the week for us, as we are celebrating on Saturday when we get Frankie back from his Dad. As such, I had a bit of paint time and finished off my armor lance for the 1st. Royal Cavaliers. 

The Sturmfeur didn't get a fancy base as you wouldn't see any of it anyways...

My usual want, is to field these as close to WYSIWYG as is possible (i.e.: with the autocannon equipped Hetzers). That said, I'm more likely to filed the Hetzers as the twin LRM 15 variants, with the Sturmfeur as the SRM version to both supplement the LRM output of the Hetzers with it's LRM 20 and to serve as a bodyguard, with its quartet of SRM-4s in the turret. Lastly, the Skulker can serve as a high speed spotter in the event that I want to try some indirect fire shenanigans. 

No, not an Omnimech…but rather an Insomniamech.

Tuesday a rough night where I just couldn't sleep. About 2am-ish I said the hell with it and started painting.  I did manage about 3ish hours sleep later that night, however I was more or less a zombie for most of Wednesday as a result. 

Nonetheless I did get this mech painted. Like all proper metal Javelin minis, this one also has it's very own tree behind which to hide. While normally hiding is a bit hard with a fiery paint job, the fall foliage does help a bit. 

Some of you may have noticed that this paint job matches that of my Hell's Horses Iota galaxy force. The Horses have a pair metal (lead to be exact) of Stinger Cs and a metal Locust C. Add in this Javelin, and I have a lance of 3020s era mercs to use when we're not playing in the later eras. 

An Army fights on it's stomach!

Neither mech is mine...

Nick 2.0 and I got together for a game this past Friday night after my tentative Bolt Action 3.0 game got postponed by a week. It was my turn to pick a scenario and after perusing teh interwebz' multitudes of fan-made scenario offerings of 'Use these pre-selected mechs, with these mechwarrior skill values and then basically just kill each other' I was getting pretty annoyed. However I did find one that had potential, and after some heavy editing it came out like this:

An army marches on its stomach:

 A convoy of 4-6 disabled mobile field kitchens (MFK) are equally spaced along the map along the center line. Any mech or vehicle can drag/tow a target MFK back to their board edge. A mech or vehicle unit must be in the same hex at the end of their movement phase as the target MFK with at least 1 MP left to be able to start dragging/towing it. Mechs without 2 hand actuators and vehicles must use 1 turn to secure/attach the target MFK. Mechs & vehicles cannot attack enemy units while securing an MFK. The dragging/towing unit suffers a 50% reduction in their walking/cruising MP and cannot run or jump. A dragging mech cannot fire weapons in either arm, nor can a towing vehicle fire from the rear arc while towing an MFK.

A unit earns 1 VP for each MFK returned to their home map edge.

This ties in nicely with our convoy escort scenario game as we would be using the same heavy tracked APCs and trucks for the immobilized field kitchens. Game size would be the usual 4K points, except we went for Clan Invasion era mechs rather than our usual Succession wars as I wanted to use some of my Clan forces. Overall I didn't think the scenario wouldn't be too difficult. I mean, it ought to be easy enough for us each to at least drag one or two off successfully.

But then...

Anthony was in attendance at the FLGS and he is a recent convert to the Battletech cause, has some mechs, has read the rules, but has never played a game. With no other players present he was going to just watch, but instead we made it a 3-way scrum. His role in the above scenario? He would be defending his field kitchens. Simple, easy, no problem. 

Oh wait, everything I have is only 20 tons and now there is a defending force to contend with. Fuck.

Nick's Marik force wasn't nearly as perturbed by this new addition that they would to have to contend with.

Anthony's Lance. In the backfield he has a Griffin checking out an MFK's menu.

The Battlefield with the convoy in the middle. We determined that the board edge would be 12 hexes from the center line. 

What follows is less of the usual battle report and more of a highlight reel as I only took a few photos. 

My Piranha decides to go out with glory running at the Axeman that was trying to grab an objective. Due to my high defensive modifier (my mechs were averaging +3-4 all game), the Axeman missed with everything including its axe! I did some damage but nothing too major. 

The Death of one of my Howlers. I believe it survived this exchange, but in the next turn as it was running on by it took an ERLL to the CT rear and that was all she wrote. 

Having survived somehow, the Piranha gets behind the Axeman and sandblasts it a little bit. I believe that I ground all of the armor off of one of the rear side torsos, but nothing went internal. The piranha had to go & hide for a bit as expecting to die at any moment, I kept alpha-striking and it ended the turn at  +12 heat!

Nick's Griffin was trying to get away with an MFK (and made it about half as far as my dead Mercury did on the other side of the board). However unable to shake the piranha off of it's tail for 2-consecutive turns, the massed MGs got several possible crit rolls and I rolled a boxcars, taking off the side torso and inflicting 3 engine hits in the process! 

The last turn of the game, Anthony's Hatchetman goes in for its first ever swing in close combat only to miss. I don't recall if the Catatphract landed a punch or not in return, but both mechs survived the encounter. 

This is about par for the course for the whole game, little green mechs running in all directions. They didn't do much damage, but was the first time I've had Nick flip off my mechs in a game, lol! I believe the Wolfhound blew one of the side torso off of the Dasher in this pic, totally disarming it after it had lost its other arm previously. 

In the last turn, Anthony commented that his Griffin was untouched. I clipped it with a single, lousy LRM. However, Nick's Axeman connected with it's LPL & AC-20 and thoroughly ruined the Griffin's previously pristine state. 

Due to time we had to call it there. No MFK's were captured giving Anthony the victory by default. Nick & I each managed to drag one a short distance before our mechs were each gunned down. My 'Fast & the Furious' star ended the game as more of a triangle with the Mercury and 1 Howler down, and the Dasher reduced to a free roaming torso.  That said, my Piranha's pilot earned a future spot in an Omni-mech for being the first time I've ever had a Piranha take down a mech in a game of Classic (whereas doing that, is standard practice for the Piranha in Alpha Strike). 

Mid-week mini-games

Mini as in really small games, not just games with miniatures. 

This doesn't look like a fair fight, but looks can be deceiving...

This all started out with instead of the usual 'hey do you want to play this week?' Nick instead issued the following Batchall:

at an annoyingly high volume

The Wolves of Kerensky have have claimed this world for their own. What tame dogs defend it? A trinary of Delta Galaxy's Red Keshik stand ready to attack!

I challenge you to a Trial of Possession for the relic Griffin 1A known to be in your charge. (I just want the record sheet, I don't have that one) I bid two assault Battlemechs for the for the paltry task of subduing your forces. 

(Yes, I'm quoting him here)

Caught off guard, but playing along I replied:

Greetings lapdogs of Kerensky, we will gladly bestow the blessings of Blake upon you...

 I quickly consulted Google ROM for clan bidding protocols, and thus the bidding began. 

After some back and forth, we settled on 2 'secondline' WoB Medium mechs vs. a single heavy Clan Omnimech, and we both agreed the match up was Bargained well and done!

Not knowing what the lone Clan heavy omni would be, I guessed (correctly) that it would be a Timber Wolf/Mad Cat (a prime variant) with a 3/4 pilot. I opted for a pair of Crab CRB-30s with 4/5 pilots which doesn't seem to be a fair matchup despite being two-to-one, but they're C3i equipped, mwuhahaha!

We also each had a backup lance of 3020s lights & heavies just in case the trial went really quickly. 

The kitties help prepare the battlefield...

Checking line of sight from the rear Crab that was benefiting from the C3i mod bonus!

In the initial exchange, this Crab took a pounding! That said the replied with a few PPC hits in return, including a snake eyes crit roll that dealt an engine and gyro hit!

The next round was brutal again for the lead Crab and the Mad Cat which suffered enough damage to drop it due to the damaged Gyro.

The lead Crab goes down as it's side torso is removed, taking a big chunk of the XL engine with it. Meanwhile the Mad Cat hits the ground again. 

At this point, both opponents were in dire straights and my dice went suddenly cold and so tried to put a bit of space between us resulting in few turns of maneuvering and sniping at range. With only 1 arm remaining and the left torso dangling by a thread, that was not a winning prospect.

Offering his final prayers to the Blessed Blake, the WoB pilot realizes that there is no escape and meets the charge, hitting with all of his remaining weapons!

Unfortunately, so did the Mad Cat and not even halfway thru its damage rolls the Crab's left torso (and again, half of the XL engine) tore away and the soon-to-be-scrapped Timber Wolf was victorious!

With the trial complete, he would receive his record sheet (actually I sent him all of my Primitives XTROs, plus the Retrotech and the custom sheet that I use for the aforementioned Griffin 1A). There was time for a game, but not a full lance each. So we opted for a single heavy and light each, again with base pilots. 

Nick had a base model Marauder & Valkyrie of the Donegal Guards, and I had a Thorn F (the base N model is actually advanced tech) and a primitive Archer of the Arcturan guards. So a training mission it was to be!

Yes! The Thorn can see the Marauder, which also means...

Feline intermission. Neeka doesn't usually like strangers, but she really seems to like Nick. 

Not pictured was the end of the Thorn at the hands of the Valkyrie. Nor was the epic, two-turn continuous close combat brawl between the Archer and Marauder (seriously, WTF? Those two ought never be involved in lose combat of any sort) which resulted in the death of the Marauder due to a leg loss. 

The jumping Valk taunting and dodging the slow moving Archer. Each side was scoring hits, but one was far more heavily armored than the other. 

Finally ready to 'end it'. The Valk surprisingly moves not off of the table edge, but into 'magic range' for the LRMs (7 hexes). In this last brutal exchange of the night, the Valk hits with both its medium laser, and several LRMs land but the wounded Archer still stands. It replied with a whopping 32 LRMs connecting, all but dismantling the already heavily damaged Valkyrie! Which toppled and summarily ran up the white flag. 

All in all it was a very fun night!