My Battletech Kickstarter Shipment has arrived!

 Huzzah!

The Dropship has arrived!

Saturday afternoon I was like a little kid on Christmas morning going thru all of my new toys! 

First off, I got all of the standard stuff: (2) sets of dice (Generic BT and House Steiner) the posters, (they're still in the plastic),the big Mad Cat, the Mercenaries starter box, the Visigoth fighter & lastly the salvage box of Savannah Masters (4 hover tanks, 2 bases; remember that before you join the chorus of complaints about that decision, they were free). 

In addition, I also got the following: 

Salvage boxes: 
Flea x2 (giving me 3 total including the one in the starter box)
Phoenixhawk IIC

Ostscout
Vedette medium tank
Galleon light tank (like the Fleas, this gave me 3 in total)
Shrek heavy Tank
Sturmfeur heavy tank (also bringing those up to 3 in total)

Rifle & Command Lances box:
Bulldog medium tanks x2

Hetzer wheeled tanks x2

Sturmfuer heavy tanks x2

Von Luckner heavy tanks x2

Such a cool sculpt! These are likely to only be used as 'filler' or possibly the APC version.

Recon & Hunter Lances:

Ontos heavy tanks x2

Behemoth heavy tanks x2

Skulker wheeled tanks x2 (LOVE the sculpts on these generally worthless vehicles)

Warrior VTOLs x2

Heavy Recon Lance:

Ostroc

Merlin

Charger

Assassin

Clan Cavalry Star:

Griffin IIC

Shadowhawk IIC

Locust IIC

Jenner IIC

Black Python (I found it odd to not make all 5 mechs be IIC variants)

I also gave the new Battlefield Support rules a look annnnnnd have mixed feeling about them. 

Its like catalyst said: Here, use these amazing new vehicle sculpts, now watch as we give you the 'new and improved' vehicle rules that minimizes them entirely. The vehicle motive crit chart is garbage, but I get that it is there to make Mechs more appealing. Personally, I'll stick with my infantry and tanks operating as they always have using the Total Warfare rules I think.

 

The Behemoth heavy tank, for when you need a free roaming pill box. 

As battlefield support, tanks and infantry are referred to as the generic category of 'assets'. No hit points or armor facings, just take this (not) much damage per turn and roll to see if dead and either you are or aren't. If you survive, there's no damage recorded except that they're slightly easier to kill next turn, and so on. Also like Alpha Strike, all weapons are grouped into a generic set of damage in 1 roll to-hit. Whereas the Behemoth above is bristling with weapons, facing in all directions, needing several rolls, meaning some will hit and some won't. 

Aerotech, otherwise known as: Reading Rulebooks, the Game.

On the flip side of that, we've never bothered with aerospace fighters, off map artillery and minefields as the rules are too convoluted to be bothered with. Sometimes it feels as if the folks writing the BattleTech rules assume we all have PhD's in Mathematics. Whereas using arty, airstrikes and mines via the 'Strikes' category of the new battlefield support rules doesn't bother me very much. That said, I am well aware that my lack of bias towards these new battlefield support rules are due to my having never used the old, Total Warfare ones for these types of attacks before. 

The Battlefield Support rules are optional, and...well, feel a hellova like mixing Alpha Strike rules into Classic BattleTech. I was discussing them with Screech and he'd heard that folks seem to like them, though whether that is what Catalyst is saying, or the community at large remains to be seen I think. Alpha Strike is a gateway drug for Classic, but I don't think it has any place in Classic. 

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). 

A little bit o' paint, and another 20ish years to go with it!

 o/

One's fast and Nimble, the other is a slug.

I'm finishing out this week by showing off the latest two additions (which includes my 14th and final painted Urbie) to this blog's namesake command: The Buffet Assault Group. Last year the TBAGers lost their two Stingers to the Hell's Horses Iota Galaxy because the Clan refit of the Stinger is sooooo much better than anything the Inner Sphere has to offer. 

The unit icon is visible on the Phoenix Hawk's leg. The Urbie is sporting one as well in the same location.

Those losses dropped the TBAGers down to a mere 5 painted mechs, whereas now I'm one short (again) of a fully painted demi-company. These two unlike my other TBAGer mechs, aren't sporting any primer gray replacement armor plating and/or salvaged whole body parts from other mechs. This means that either (A) they didn't survive the Andurien Crisis contract or (B) came afterwards. I'm leaning towards the latter...

A pic from last night's Alpha Strike game in which my Blood Money mercenaries were unsuccessful in fighting off Screech's Name Pending© mercenaries. The biggest highlight of the game was turn three I think, in which we collectively lost 6 mechs!

I had been limiting the TBAGers lifespan from the 3030s to the 3040 or so. Meaning their first contract in support of the Duchy of Andurien was also their last. However, as we so often play in the Civil War era (3060s), this leaves them woefully outclassed technology-wise. As such, I'm thinking that they managed to somehow pull their shattered unit back together after being expelled from Marik space and survived as a (somewhat) functional command into at least the FedCom civil war.

A Hokie post to start off 2024

 o/

Happy 2024! Currently (as in the time of this posting) the Southern Snowpocalypse ought to be in full swing, which ought to amount to 2-3 inches of snow. Yes, by all means laugh at us as the region shuts down and chaos on the roadways ensues.

I had intended this to be painted in Jade green in honor of the Jade Turkeys, but my son had other ideas...

Its been a bit slow here on the Battletech front here of late, though I have a few updates. First up, The VTH-1 Hokie battleturkey -mech. This STL was released back around Thanksgiving by Hardware Studios and I bought it intending to make a Jade Turkey mockery-mech. I believe Bishop Steiner himself even came up with stats that would ensure that this bird would be cooked if it alpha-struck with all of it's weapons! 

As Frankie only plays Alphastrike, I'll use the stats of the Firestarter FS9-M for this. That is armed with twin medium & small lasers, and a pair machine guns which match this mini's poultry paltry weapons array.

As this rocket booster of a backend will attest, it also moves 12" a turn and can jump which he ought to like. There was a slight misprint, so I painted that up as battle damage.

Frankie however is a HUGE Virginia Tech fan (for those not familiar, their mascot is a Hokie which is another name for a turkey) and instead requested that this be painted in their colors. As such he was thrilled with this and has claimed it for future use.

As of yet, I have no idea which unit will be blessed with this mech's addition...

*****

Next up, I painted up a Golden Urbie that I had intended to use as a plinth mounted, monument-terrain piece to honor the Urbanmech and all of it's gloriousness. However suitable mounts are stupid expensive. As such, it instead it joined Ace Darwin's Whippets under the callsign of 'Hero'. 

Urban warfare at it's finest. Note the fallen Grasshopper behind Hero. When it came to piloting checks, I apparently I couldn't roll higher than a 3 on 2D6 for most of the night. Several mechs fell as a result. 

Hero made it's combat debut which was anything but golden after it failed a piloting check and broke it's LBX-10 during the fall. Unable to flee, it stood its ground and blazed away with small lasers (neither of which missed, for what little that is worth) as it was hacked apart by Kushial's Hatchetman. 

Speaking of, Kushial ought to have a battle report up soon. However by game's end I'd reached the obvious conclusion that Shadowhawks just plain suck. The two which are in my Whippets unit are liable to be retired from service after two consecutive games of fruitlessly plinking away at the enemy with their crummy weaponry. 

As I continue to be a Thorn in your side...

 o/

Yet another Thorny prospect...

As the year winds down, not all has been quiet on the Battletech front. Earlier this month, Kushial and I played a pair of Classic Battletech games on his birthday. Being bloggers the two of us, we naturally forgot to take any photos of said games. 

The first pitted my son Frankie's Fast & the Furious Alpha Strike Jade Falcons vs. Kushial's 'Yowza! Brigade'. The Falcons lasted longer than I thought they would, but ultimately could do little vs. a bunch of Rommels and Goblins and I eventualy ran up the white flag. I took out two goblins and a lone Urbie in exchange for the loss of three Clan light mechs and several elementals. 

The second game featured my new Rasalhague force (still sans Axels) vs. his ELH. This one was more of a traditional brawl with heavy losses all around. My FFR troops gave a good accounting for themselves (well, aside from the worthless LRM carrier), including a headshot from my Catapult K2 which dropped a Thug. Ultimately however my forces started to crumble towards the end leaving him two victories to savor on his drive home. 

Kicking a Flatbed truck off of the road is about as threatening as thing will likely get. 

Lastly, the aforementioned Axel tank lance and a lone Thorn FINALLY arrived after having to send an inquiry out to the Etsy seller a month after purchase. 'They'll go out tomorrow' read to me as 'they've been done, I've just been sitting on them as I've gotten more orders than I can handle.' 

Regardless they're here. The tanks look too big (Ontos sized), but the new Catalyst plastic vehicles look bigger as well, so may not be an issue in the long run. The tanks came with magnets and pre-molded holes for the same which was a nice touch. 

As for the Thorn, its not pretty, but far better than the cannon sculpt. With twin medium lasers and an LRM-5, you can expect this to be lobbing Thunder munitions down range and generally trying to avoid getting shot. I know the fluff states that thunder munitions aren't an honorable weapon, but the Fucking Wobblies are unconcerned by such niceties. 

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year folks, I'll see you again in 2024!

Free Rasalhague Republic's 3rd Drakøns

 o/

Pay no attention to the random minis in the background...

Here's another unit that I've painted here recently. Indeed, I only finished the Catapult and Hetzers earlier this week. This brings my recent Battletech paint jobs up equal to that of a company in total numbers (even if the factions within said company are diametrically opposed, mortal enemies).  

Currently, this demi-company clocks in at about 200 points for Alpha Strike, which is only 2/3 the allotment of our normal games (unless all the pilots and crews are stupidly skilled). So I ordered a lance of Axel heavy tanks off of Etsy to bring this force up to both a full company in strength & 300 points. 

Any resemblance to the modern day Leopard is purely coincidental...

I'm not sure how many points these would currently amount to in Classic Battletech, but I'm sure Kushial will give me an opportunity to find out sometime in the near future...

Clan Jade Falcon Omega Galaxy

 o/

Blinded by the light!

I painted these awhile ago and sadly didn't take photos of them when I did. Thanks now to daylight savings, its usually dark when I get home now from work. When I took these pics in my basement this evening...well, you can see just how lousy the lighting down there is. Indeed it took a lot of tweaking to make the photos not look completely dark or any more horribly washed out then they currently are.

This star is another of my son Frankie's Fast & the Fragile...Furious units. The pair of Howlers in back are the slowest mechs in this star (as is befitting of light fire support units) clocking in at a mere 14" of movement in Alpha Strike! While he likes the speed he was incredulous when he noted that his star contained a total of just 15 points of armor and structure combined!

I swear that it felt like the dopey little van on this base took as long to paint as the mech itself did!

That said, they faired quite well in their battlefield debut against Screech's...unpainted mechs. I forget what he was playing (clans of some sort I think) as it was a few weeks ago and its easy to forget when everything is bare plastic. I don't recall who won that game though my Goliath Scorpion star was almost wiped out early on as despite being more resilient. The problem with teaming up with a bunch of little speed demons like these, is that you end up being a lot easier to hit! 

Alpha Strike: Hell's Horses vs...St. Ives?

 o/

Typical.

Frankie actually stayed home with us for once this weekend. Thus, we got a game of Alpha Strike in Friday night. Looking thru my current collection of pre-existing lists, I found two which were roughly equal in points, with Frankie's being the requisite fast & the furious type of force. Points were 125-ish per side, and here's how it all went down:

The battlefield. 

The St. Ives Cheveau-Legers with 'Little Orphan Urbie' in front. The Jagermech was my CO with Hoss piloting as he always liked Jagers. 

Hell's Horses Iota Galaxy, on what their Khan was no doubt hoping would be a one-way trip.

The Stinger C & Hoss trade fire early on, inflicting 2 points apiece.

Vowing to be more aggressive this time, Frankie's locust charged up into point-blank, rear armor territory on turn two. He inflicted 3 points of damage to the Swayback, whereas the Enforcer missed the damned locust entirely!

There he goes again, doing the same amount of damage to my Vindicator, though at least the Enforcer managed to squash the little bug this time.

Hull down in the burbs.

Frankie checking lines of sight and trading long ranged fire.

The near-crippled Swayback making a glorious suicide charge into short range!

The Piranha makes it into MURDER range, fuck.

The Urbie and second, still surviving Stinger snipe at one another with minimal effect.

Meanwhile, Hoss and the Piranha took each other out. 

I really dislike the fact that in Alpha Strike you can't reverse your guns like you can in Classic.

The hellhound held the middle for most of the game. 

Flushed out of hiding, the Urbie and Stinger would also kill each other in this exchange.

I got a little annoyed at Frankie here, as he was trying to see if his Hellhound could get rear armor on my crippled Enforcer which was hugging the ruins. I told him No, and to quit being a dick, and just take the 2 points of damage to the front and win the game. 

Which he promptly did. 

In the end, the Hellhound was the last mech standing. Aside from getting annoyed with his rear armor shenanigans at the end, it was a good game. 

The myriad array of notes that Frankie adds to his lists always amuses me (which invariably includes a doodle of a dog because reasons).