Can you post a battle report if you don't really remember the battle?

Unfortunately, life over the past 2 weeks was hell and hobbying as I know it ceased to exist during the span of it. Worse yet, just prior to the shit hitting the fan (literally, the night before...or perhaps the night prior, see? it's a bit fuzzy to me) Screech came over for a 12k point game of Battletech. However the game ought to be mentioned as it was the first time EVER (to my knowledge), that Screech fielded Inner Sphere mechs!! 

This caught me by complete surprise as expecting the usual Clan Nova Cat onslaught, I'd prepared an elite, 3060s Capellan augmented assault lance. In return he was fielding all of the plastic mechs out of the new Game of Armored Combat boxed set (and thus all with lostech weaponry and heat sinks). 

I introduce to you a new mech: the Corvair. Which end is the front? Yeah, we don't know either... 

I don't recall what variants Screech used, but coming from the boxed set and it's record sheets, I'm assuming they were all base models, and piloted by Lyrans-his favorite of the Inner Sphere's factions. On the other hand I had an Atlas AS7-K, a stealth armored Cataphract CTF-4L, two of my own modified Awesome AWS-8Rr (adding CASE for the ammo, Artemis IV for the LRM-15s, and swapping the large laser with a large pulse laser, all coming at the expense of several superfluous heat sinks), and lastly a pair of Liao Condor hover tanks. 

The following is my usual photo-dump with vague recollections that...in truth won't be much different (I guess) than my usually half-assed bat reps. 

I rotated the map 90 degrees from our last game, which meant advancing across the table would be at a diagonal, with the hex grid instead matching the roads only in the left-to-right direction. It turned out to be difficult for maneuvering for the both of us. 

My augmented lance, under the name of the Blackwind lancers who's color scheme is quite similar to that of the Atlas (as it turns out, the 16th Lyran is a Republic of the Sphere era unit, necessitating a search for an earlier era unit with a similar color scheme).

Our scouts initiated with a fruitless exchange of quite inaccurate medium laser fire. My Atlas however pumped a gauss round into the left torso of his Locust! The hit tore off the entire torso as well as a chunk of center torso armor. 

Hovertanks aside (which were running amok) my line was fairly static, whereas Screech's forces were on the advance, needing to get closer to engage with their (generally) shorter ranged weapons.

It matters not at how good the pilot, or advanced the weaponry. My dice ensured that these two lights survived their close range firefight with my assault mechs. Worse yet, he scored a snake eyes to the front and rear of the Awesome on the right, resulting in 2 engine hits!

As I recall, this is where the Awesome literally stomped on my Condor! Surely that has to be seriously demoralizing to the crew...
Also note that Catapult up on the building, we'll come back to that soon... 

My Awesome is clearly quite popular with the enemy. 

However, in a brief round of hand to hand combat, my Awesome finished off the Wolverine, my first mech kill in quite awhile!

The as yet untouched Catapult took about 20-25 points of damage this round, a gauss slug and LRMs I believe. Subsequently failing it's piloting check, it fell three levels and upon landing sustained another 20+ points of damage!!

....and following that spectacular event, we called it a night.

In the end, as the hour was late, we called it a night and Screech ran up the white flag. The Wolverine was destroyed, the locust and Catapult crippled, and the rest all damaged in one way or another. In return my tanks both had suffered heavy armor damage though curiously neither any motive or regular criticals of any sort. The two Awesomes took a pounding, but the only internals came from the two lucky snake eyes and subsequent engine hits to the one 8Rr, though given the still numerous heats sinks, it wasn't all that hindered. The Atlas had little more than a few dings, whereas the Cataphract hadn't even been shot at as with the additional stealth added to-hit modifiers, Screech commented that 'it wasn't worth shooting at'. 

I'd like to play against his Inner Sphere forces again, but with 3020s era mechs of my own, making it a true 'fair fight' rather than just relying on my bad die rolling to hold the superior equipment in check. 

Its red and black all over again...

o/

The other day I decided to just paint a mech in whatever caught my fancy and I ended up doing red trimmed with black. In hindsight, this proved to be reminiscent of the Kell Hounds (okay, a direct copy), there are several other units within the battletech universe with the same color scheme as well due to a collective lack of imagination I guess. 

I've never been a fan of the Hounds due largely to the lame 'phantom mech' incident. You're targeting equipment can't get a lock? How bout you line up your guns visually on the mech sitting right the fuck in front of you and then just pull the trigger?   So dumb. If ever there was a textbook case of 'plot armor' that was it.

Amusingly, I realized that this color scheme is just a reverse of the commission I did of my buddy Dana's Night's Watch mercenaries.

Ya know...I'm betting a Kell Hounds decal would look perfect in that black triangle on the Swayback's rear...

Other obvious choices are the FedSun's Robinson Rangers (though they usually use an Orky red/black camo) and possibly the various Draconis March militias, and speaking of Draconis,  these scream the Swords of Light to me even though that brigade doesn't use black trim (well, officially).

Like The Night's Watch, these also paint up quickly and painlessly, and I cranked out both a Swayback and my last Whitworth in just a few hours. With a bit of luck I'll manage to paint up at least a lance, if not a demi-company's worth before burnout sets in, but we'll see... 

It's the great pumpkin Charlie Brown!

I've never been a fan of the Atlas. The whole 'unstoppable mech' myth is a fallacy that I'm quickly proving now that I have one in my collection. Then there's the terrifying death's head/skull mask sculpted head...yeah no. To me, it's always looked like a jack-o-lantern. As such, now that I have one and am likely to only ever going to have just one, I saw little option to but to realize that pumpkin visage.

Its the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!

Terrifying as it may not be, I think it actually goes quite well with bizarre and seemingly ineffective blue/khaki camouflage of the 16th Lyran Regulars. The 16th is a unit with next to no history...in fact, it's odd color scheme (chosen to reasons unknown) is about all it is known about it and even then that's thanks only to camospecs. Still, such a camo scheme isn't without precedent...

Image copyright of Tank's Encyclopedia.
Its a great site, you should go there often!

Also of note is the half-buried wreck of a Whitworth in snake Draconis Combine colors. That was my 3rd Whitworth, however it was a plastic one I got from Hoss. Whilst it worked as well as any of the others I have on the table top, I just couldn't reconcile the differences in the sculpt vs. it's metal counterparts. So, I sawed it in half and used it as basing material. The Commando from the new starter box suffered the same fate, only it was because I just don't like Commandos. 

Whilst I don't agree with the sentiment, in the opinions of most would agree that the Whitworth is only fit for basing material. 

At this time...I only have a single heavy lance intended for the 16th Lyrans, but as with so many collections, we shall see...

ALL UNITS, SUPPRESSIVE FIRE!!

o/

Unfortunately, 'suppressive fire' isn't really thing in battletech, but I'm going to assume that that was the erroneous order issued forth by my mech commander in order to justify the otherwise atrocious inaccuracy of my mechs' shooting Thursday night. 

Oh sure, I did hit the enemy now and again...however in all but two specific instances during the WHOLE game, my shooting was an exercise if futility. Indeed, most hits seemed to be by accident rather than design. Admittedly, Screech's gunnery skills weren't much to be praised either, however mediocre is still vastly better than atrocious!

I'm not sure what the Free Worlds League is paying these schmucks, but it's clearly too much!

My TBAGers were running a demi-company consisting of an an assault lance made up of an AWS-8R x2, STK-3H, AS7-RS, and a medium lance using all three of my HBK-4N2 refits, as well as a Stinger STG-3R refit that upped the armor to that of the 3G, and swapped the MGs out for a single small pulse laser.   

On the other side of the board, Screech had a mixed star made of 4 points (8 tanks) of the base model Joust, and his star commander piloting a Thor/Summoner, who clearly shat in some Khan's cornflakes to be tasked with leading a bunch of tanks into combat!

As such this won't be as much of a bat rep at as it will be me showing off my WIP city map/board, whilst lamenting about the inability of my force to even kill fucking tanks of all things!!

An overhead view of the battlefield. All of the little MDF buildings are now painted. The cardboard blocks were intended to be temporaries until I got more terrain, but they make for excellent line-of-sight blockers. So I think I'll just keep them, prime and paint 'em up a ruins. 

The Marik Militia's vehicle park. The problem with a parking lot is it creates a vast open space. However using it as a tank park broke it up nicely, not to mention being the TBAGers' employers, they couldn't simply step on them, making  that lot into a bit of an obstacle course as well. I periodically tried to activate the tanks but Screech would have none of it for some reason...

The view from the other side of the board. Screech was running late (as usual), so while waiting I used a spare base to trace a hex grid on top of the cardboard bricks in he event that any mechs jumped up there. It was a bit crude but usable, and in any event none jumped up there. Once these bricks are painted up, I'll redo the hex grid with a bit more care than this go round.

(In my best Star Wars Imperial Officer impression): Ah yes, our first missed shots of the day...

Gratuitous Dropship pic. Still super happy with this though I have yet to paint it or it's landing pad.

Okay, 1st excellent gunnery incident: My Stinger jumps 6 hexes into the rear arc of two Jousts, firing and hit with both lasters! Unfortunately you've no doubt seen the two other jousts that did a quick reverse in direction to get rear armor shots at said Stinger. Screech was salivating at the prospect of 16 LMGs taking it apart, however his 1st shot, an ERLL hit the center rear torso and killed the mech in 1-shot! Normally, players are thrilled with 1-shot kills, but Screech looked totally crestfallen as all of those LMG gun barrels slowly spun to a halt, unfired.

The last savage exchange of fire, shooting lots and hitting little. Just off to the right and sadly not in the photo, my other Awesome connected with both LRM15s and its large laser with no less than an 11 for any rolls! As usual the missle clusters were kinda meh, but whatever it hit at least.

As for my mechs above, collectively about 1 weapon in 5 actually hit their targets, though I did at least get a box cars roll on the cluster chart for the lone LRM20 of the Stalker that hit. That aside though, many, many civilians no doubt died horrible deaths.

*****

In the end, my Hunchback on point as badly beat up and the one mech I lost, the Stinger, I fully expected to as it was the cheapest thing on the board by a vast margin of points! the Stalker's left torso was exposed meaning had we gone another turn it would have tried to hide to dump the SRM ammo in that location before continuing on it's bonsai charge! Lastly the Atlas' left arm was in ruins but otherwise was doing fine. The loss of the laser in said arm would have eliminated and future over heating issues. The rest had just a few minor dings with one Awesome and Hunchback each leaving the board untouched!. 

On the other side, Screech's Thor had taken a few decent hits, but no internals . Whereas his collection of tanks ranged from untouched to crawling off of the board trailing busted track links whilst a few drivers struggled thru multiple, stacked driving penalties! One Joust also lost it's weapon's stabilizer in the last round which would have been an issue had we continued. 

So it was kindova draw I guess. 

The dropship has landed!!!

Okay first up, a bit of a USPS rant here. I commented on my prior post in response to WestRider on how my last birthday purchase was circling the state of Tennessee due to the US Postal Service's gross inefficiency. The approximate driving distance my package had to go was about 1000 miles. In the end, thanks to tracking I saw that my package went about 2400 miles (and the box looked certainly looked like it upon arrival). Luckily there was lots of bubble-wrap and all arrived intact!

The 3d printing resolution is pretty good, with print lines really only noticeable on the top of the shuttle itself.

I'm super thrilled with my dropship and landing pad from Hardware Studios!! I opted for the smallest of their dropships (it's about 3.5" in diameter) due mostly to budgetary concerns so its too small to carry mechs. Instead its more of the K-1 Dropshuttle size, making for a good objective and line-of-sight blocker. It also sits perfectly on the landing pad. 

Extra gratuitous pic for no other reason then just because.

As for the pad, its quite large (9.5" x 5.5") and will occupy the space near the parking lot on my new battle mapsheet. It has an open slot on the side for a switch if you're one with the technical prowess (I am not) for LEDs or the optional magnetic setup that allows the shuttle to hover above it. The latter is quite cool but also quite expensive ($79.95 on amazon). 

These paint up in just minutes, its all dry brushing!

As you can see, these are all victims of my pilots/crews' stellar gunnery skills...

I also got some resin, textured bases for my mechs w/o the pewter tab between their feet and vehicles. I also bought two packs (totalling a dozen) 6mm scaled cardstock buildings from Gamecraft Miniatures. Whilst I certainly need more buildings beyond the pad, shuttle and these first few buildings, I'm off to a good start for my urban warfare setup. I have some Space Marines on ebay, and am hoping I can use some of the funds from those when/if they sell to also put towards more terrain (and not just bills). 

My birthday presents are starting to arrive!

Wait till you see what will be placed in that open space next to that parking lot!

For my birthday (44, WTF?!?) my Beloved Wolfy and my awesome in-laws got me a Visa gift card with the instructions of: go buy some toys! 

Gladly!

I had wanted to get some terrain from Steelwarrior studios, however the gift card was only valid in the United States, whereas Steelwarrior is located in Canada. Disappointing, but not the end of the world (and I'll save that set for my Christmas wish list). There are other options for terrain, but I'll get to those in my next post after they arrive later this week. As for what has already arrived? well keep reading:

A perfect fit!

First up, I bought a 36" x 36" gaming mat with a battletech hex grid printed on it from Mats by Mars. Its vinyl, water proof, and I can even use dry-erase markers on it were I so inclined (I'm not). It was a bit pricey but I'm happy with it. In the future I may get another (assuming I start running out of room for terrain) and just trim it down to fit side by side with this one, and thus covering the whole of my game table. 

BTW clan players, if you like the IIC's ATM 12 variant, you can easily do that with this missile plate sprue!

Next, from Aries Miniatures, I bought a trio of Hunchback IICs and some generic missile launcher face plates to use as Inner Sphere Hunchback HBK-4N 'Swaybacks'. I love the hunchback's stats, but have never been a fan of the model, and can't afford anymore Aussie MWO sculpts due to them being cost prohibitive. I do like the clan IIC model though and after Aries confirmed that the missile plate ought to be 'workable' to use on the IIC's guns, I bought 'em for some conversions. 

They fit perfectly! Seriously, its like they were made for one another. The simple solution for using these is to simply make a record sheet, with the weapons rearranged to match these minis. That said, I'll likely to custom refits as well. The most basic swapping the 2 LRM-5s and shedding 1 medium laser to fit in an LRM-10. Also, an easy War of 3039 upgrade from that would be to swap out the nigh useless small laser for C.A.S.E. to protect against ammo explosions. Beyond that, these now scream for an MRM-10 refit as well. 

Stay tuned for the next set of toys that I'll also be showing off like an annoying little kid at Christmas, lol! 

The 'effing' Wobblies vs. Clan Nova Cat

o/

Well, its only taken 2 years, but I finally got Screech to play a (non-digital) game of Battletech! After some debate we settled on 12k points. Originally I was going to field my Wolverines just to irritate his sense of Clan pride, however I would essentially be fielding a carbon copy of a list I've used previously with maybe a single mech swap at best (i.e.: the unpainted one). 

In the typical Wobbly 'false flag' operation, my mechs were using their complete lack of paint to masquerade as Rob's Lyrans, lol. Note: there's a 2nd Stinger deployed on the other side of the Catapult. 

Thus I delved into list hammering for something different.  Initially, I was trying to come up with a Kuritan C3 lance, but the modifiers are just to damned expensive! The only two mechs I have that have C3master variants are the Atlas (which is why the mod. is so expensive) or a Komodo (which is too fragile really). I originally bought the Komodo for the C3M capability, but only for use in a medium-light lance, which really isn't the best choice when fighting against the clans.

OMG! SCREECH PAINTED HIS MECHS!!! Well sorta, lol. Seriously though folks, even just primer is actual progress (though how recent this primer was applied I couldn't tell you). 

However in the end, (mostly) light mechs is what I opted for, deciding to use this game to try out a bunch of mech variants I've never used before. Not to mention, who is better than for fielding new stuff than the Fucking Wobblies? Also no, it wasn't a C3i Level II for the same reasons I didn't field the Kuritans. 

Going for a suicide squad of uber pilots (Urbie excluded) in mostly light mechs, for the 'new' designs I chose the the rocket launcher equipped Panther 14S and  5R Stingers, a Flashman 8K (with that mini making it's battlefield debut), and lastly the R-80 Urbanmech. A Catapult CPLT-K4, the only variant out of this list that I've used before, rounded out the list.

The first couple of turns was merely maneuvering at speed (the Urbie was literally bouncing along lest it never get to shoot) to get into line of sight of one another. 

No scenario, just the typical slugfest on my canyons of death map. We deployed in opposite corners with everyone eventually joining the melee in the middle. We made the black objective markers level 4, the same as the canyon walls just to fuck up lines of sight even when we were out in the open.

My first piloting check and I rolled a fucking snake eyes! yay. 

My initial shooting was in a word: abysmal, hitting with next to nothing. Also, unlike my last game with Hoss where I held the initiative almost all game, in this one I had it maybe once. Eventually the dice warmed up, though with a bunch of light, 1-shot wonders floating around shooting and missing is bad!!!!

Ack! Squiggoth! Squiggo-oh wait, wrong game system. 

You is looking here, so I sits here.

lol, it never fails. Whether I'm doing a crossword at dinner with the Mrs.,  or playing a mini-game, Baxter figures out where our attention is focused and plants himself right in the middle of it every time. After a few of these interruptions, I moved him to one of the hammocks in the kitty tree, where he could watch (and luckily decided to stay).

That said, my crummy little expend-a-mechs took far more punishment than I thought the would, with one out of every two rocket launchers actually connecting with their targets. Heat spikes resulting in lost movement weren't really a concern as the mechs are fast and the excess heat is from 1-shot weaponry (mostly), so you don't continue to add excess heat turn after turn. 

Gauss rifle huh? Yeah well I have a rocket launcher...

Yup, gauss rifle. ...sigh...

The Nov Cat 'war face'. Rumor has it he just tested down to a solahma vehicle crew position, hence his lack of fury/glee.

Still though, Stingers vs. Shadow Cats is anything but a fair contest with both Stingers coming out on the losing sides. The Panther did fairly well vs. the Ryoken, however caught in a crossfire between that mech and the Nova Cat squashed and hope of victory in that exchange.

I believe this is where the Panther started losing it's arms, side torso...eventually in the last turn, the Panther's pilot would have no other option and just reach out of one of his mech's gaping holes and fire his sidearm at the enemy. 

....and another one bites the dust! Have you ever seen what a gauss rifle in the back of a Stinger looks like? It ain't pretty!

Good night sweetheart! This was the 2nd game in a row where an enemy pilot has been knocked unconscious!

To be honest I wasn't looking to win (and its a good thing!), but rather just test out new-to-me designs and was happy just to get a game of anything in with Screech. To that end I'm calling this a draw even though technically the game was a loss for me of 3 mechs lost vs. none (though he didn't kill the Urbie, a mech he loathes especially which is a win in my book!)

Overall I was pleased with the rest of my mechs in their collective test run. Expenda-a-mechs aside, the other three performed well:

My last pic of the game, with the Panther and 2nd Stinger both starting on their ultimately futile attempts to retreat. 

The Urbie was a wobbling and a weaving (i.e.: evasive maneuvers), drawing considerable fire but remaining untouched until taking 2 medium pulse lasers and a gauss slug to the back in the last turn. Despite that, it survived and remained upright! Prior to that mauling it had scored several snub nosed PPC hits on the Ryoken, Nova Cat and one of the Shadow cats.

The Flashman, once it warmed up (both literally and figuratively) proved an excellent combination of speed, firepower, resilience, and heat sinks (though 17 doubles are still easily overwhelmed, so ya need to be careful with it). Expect to see this beastie fielded more often in the future!

As always, the K4 Catapult is a slow but deadly mech. Kind of hampered by terrain and the bouncing Urbie being in it's way early on, once it got stuck in the HPPCs never missed a shot! It is well armored too (for a Catapult) and soaked up a savage last turn exchange in which it and the Nova Cat both fired near point blank alpha strikes at one another with neither missing at all! I should have gotten a photo of that in hindsight but oh well. 

I suppose I'll take something a bit more conventional next time. Something that can absorb the high-powered, clan weaponry. I have altered the TBAGers fluff to have them not be wiped out till the clan invasion. So they can now plausibly face Screech's clan mechs. They might have this time had I not announced early on that I would be using this map which would have neutered both of my Awesomes at the outset. 

Regardless, I just hope it doesn't take another two years to get Screech to play again. 

Gyro hits! Gyro hits everywhere...

o/

The TBAGers backed up by a local Marik Militia Urbie piloted by the infamous Levi.

The infamous PANDA-MONIUM!!! Sans their trademark Jagermech, and accompanied by a borrowed Urbie named Noober, lol.

Hoss came over for another round of Battletech Saturday night, and I thought it was about time the rarely seen Buffet Assault Group themselves took to the field for a battle. Sporting their new primer coat of German Ochre (well, except the Atlas), they were joined by Levi representing the local PDF. 

Hoss had demanded an Urbie to be in my force, and after some debate on what to use to counter that, we eventually decided on an Urbie for his force as well (oddly the two would barely even come within range of once another in the forthcoming battle). It was as usual, an hours long slugfest, interrupted only by an enjoyable dinner break out on the deck. Here's my usual, half-assed, psuedo-bat rep:

Initial deployments. 

Note my poorly positioned Atlas. This was the first time I've ever fielded and Atlas, and scraping for points, I chose the newly retconned but canon AS7-A variant as it was the cheapest option. I would soon find that whilst amusing, its not at all a worthy opponent vs. another Atlas in a 1 v. 1 contest. 

Hoss would add some occasional visual commentary to my photos...

It started off well at least, with my Atlas firing a long ball, lucky AC-5 round that rolled a snake eyes location hit, followed by a triple-crit to Hoss' Battlemaster resulting in 2 engine hits and one to the gyro as well! Effectively neutering the beast (all mechs were Tech level 1 machines).

Turn one went well on the other flank as my 8R and 8T Awesomes lit up his rapidly closing Griffin, inflicting another lucky snake eyes, followed by an engine and gyro hit. In return he'd pump 2 PPC rounds into my 8T's left torso.

Seriously, WTF?!?

Ya know, in the past I've been accused by Rob for always hitting the left torso. Well Hoss put 4 PPC hits in as many shots in 2 turns into the left torso of my AWS-8T, hitting the ammo and killing it in a massive explosion (only 90 points of internal damage...)! It usually takes an act of Congress to grind thru an awesome's armor. Normally, the ammo is in the center torso, but I prefer in the side torsos of my mechs due to the all-to-frequent snake eyes rolls. Guess its a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't...

The TBAGers, reeling from the sudden demise of the Awesome, suddenly falter. Whilst Hoss duly pumped an AC-20 round into my Atlas, along with a snake eyes/gyro hit (we were up to 3 by turn 2 if you're keeping score) along with a few other shots. In return mine fired an amusing anime-like SRM volley of 30 SRMs (it packs 5, SRM6s) managing a paltry 12 SRM hits or so. 

The Battlemaster pilot was still crying foul...

Now with a piloting skill of 8 due to the damaged gyro, my Atlas takes the first of several falls...

Ah yes, the good ol' Stalker nose-boop maneuver...

In the olden days...my Stalkers had a notorious habit of running around all game. Saturday night was no different. After trading heavy fire whilst running into point blank range, Hoss' Awesome decided it wanted to slug my Stalker with it's battlefist. 

In the shooting phase the Awesome missed whilst the Stalker hit it with most everything it had (no, not the LRMs), generating many hits, and a head shot, as well as managing to dodge the the incoming right hook yet successfully kicking the Awesome in the shin (and wrecking a heat sink)! When the smoke cleared, the Awesome pilot was knocked out cold whilst the Stalker pilot could have fried an egg on his dashboard he was running so hot.

In the backfield, Hoss' Griffin turned to take advantage of the stalker's rear armor, but only hit it's 'arm' and a leg. In return Screech (yes Screech was no doubt piloting the 8R Awesome, as it never moved all game) realised belatedly that the Griffin was sitting on a level 3 hill, making the intervening trees irrelevant. As such the 8R unloaded punching right thru the back and scoring an engine hit to the Griffin, as well as considerable internal damage to a side torso, and taking out 2 of it's jump jets!

Levi meanwhile, runs up the middle, introducing the Battlemaster to his AC-20!!

Guess how this disaster is going?

Yup, down she goes again, this time for the last time suffering an AC-20 hit to an ammo bin!

Cornered, alone, outnumbered, and heavily damaged my Atlas met its inevitable doom head on, with another anime missile launch accompanied by 2 medium lasers and the the AC-5. Everything hit including an impressive 22 out of 30 SRMs. Still, it wasn't enough, though it was at least a glorious last stand!

Ignoring the sleeping Awesome pilot, my Stalker ran a mere hex into a lake to help dissipate it's +12 heat load. Reversing its arms to lob some LRMs and a pair of medium lasers at Hoss' beleaguered Griffin in the back field.

The hour was getting late, but Hoss was up for one last round...

Levi, desperately low on ammo, charges into small laser range whilst firing his last (and sadly inaccurate) AC-20 slug. Unfortunately for me, the Dervish and struggling Battlemaster would remove the little Urbie's leg, ending his day. Hoss's Urbie would also lob an AC-10 round at Levi (the game's only Urbie v Urbie shot, but it was well off of the mark). 

Yeah, we don't play that one-legged mech nonsense...

Its taken me how many games to finally kill this infernal mech????

The Awesome pilot finally awoke, and turned its guns on the Stalker which had run around the slumbering giant and was angling for the Battlemaster. Only to make a quick about-face, to meet the the renewed threat! The awesome's pilot, apparently still groggy missed with all 3 PPCs! In return the Stalker alpha-striked with everything but the LRMs (again), and hit with everything! I didn't even get halfway thru the damage before the Awesome's pilot ejected as the mech's head disintegrated under the onslaught. 

...and with that, we called it quits.

Once again the Awesome is the bane of my existence, though this time it would be one of my own. I did finally manage to kill Hoss' though. The AWS-8R is really more like a tank, as it has so many heat sinks, that heat isn't even a concern after the 1st engine hit! Still, it was a solid loss to Hoss as I lost 3 mechs to his 1. 

It was a fun time as always though, and am looking forward to finally bringing Screech to battle this evening!