Battletech!

Oi, it's been way too long.  I've done quite a bit of gaming since the last post, just haven't blogged any of it.

Scorpio at http://metal-skirmish.blogspot.com/ has done a great job of tracking some of our games, including Tomorrow's War, The Department, Pulp City, and MERCS.

On the menu for the foreseeable future is a lot of MERCS, 15mm Fantasy and 15mm Scifi, as well as some other things mixed in there.  Maybe I'll actually get to those MERCS strategy posts I was hoping to write...

ALSO, I am like 5 months over-due on writing my Gruntz Gencon report.  I really suck for not having this done yet and owe Robin of Gruntz and the awesome sponsors at Rebel and CMG better.  It's almost done.

Anyways, I did get around to a rousing game of Battletech with my brother today.

We played a simple scenario.  12 turns, kills worth have their tonnage in points, +30 points for killing your secretly selected target, +30 for having your secretly selected leader on the board at the end.

Lances were:
Me:

• Jagermech - 2x Ultra AC5, 2x Med Pulse Lasers, 2x ER Large Lasers (leader)
• Jagermech - 2x Ultra AC5, 2x Med Pulse Lasers, 2x ER Large Lasers (brother's target)
• Dragon - LRM 10, AC/10, Med Laser, Rear Med Laser
• Trebuchet - LRM 15, 3x Medium Laser

Brother:

• Highlander - LBX20 AC, some other stuff (my target)
• Cataphract - PPC, AC/10, some Medium lasers (leader)
• Whitworth - 2x LRM10, other stuff
• Whitworth - 2x LRM10, other stuff

Here's a shot after turn 1 of movement from my side of the board.

Basically, I quickly focused in on his Highlander, who obliged by running into knife-range as he lacked anything with any sort of reach.  His Whitworths and Cataphracts encircled, but didn't get to optimal range fast enough.  I managed to inflict a Gyro critical on his Highlander, knocking it down.  After he failed to get up, I backed my Dragon up to be able to get a shot with my rear laser, while also firing my forward weapons at his Cataphract (bit of a dick move on my part, but we laughed).   Well, I paid for my cheekiness.  His Highlander, from the ground, basically annihilated any rear armor I had, while the Cataphract blew off my left arm.  The his Whitworths opened up with their LRMs and ate into my rear torso structure.  He critted my right and left torso with the same salvo, managing to pop both my LRM and AC ammo.  ~285 points of damage later (the Dragon only has about 250 armor + structure points to start), my heavy was a crater.  Then it was my turn to fire: my non-leader Jagermech opened up on his downed Highlander, hitting with everything.  The 2nd AC/5 shot managed to crit HIS left torso, and popped his LB20 ammo.  This did enough damage to kill him, and also would've triggered his SRM ammo in the same location, probably doing something like 400  damage.  Apparently ammo explosions are bad.  

Here was my 3-year old's interpretation of my Dragon after his demise:

Anyways, from there, I focused in on a Whitworth, killing it with a headshot, and then finished off the Cataphract.  He did manage to kill his Target Jagermech, but at that point, it was over.

I had killed his 90 ton mech (45), a 40 ton mech (20), and a 70 (35), killed my target (30), and likely would've protected my leader (30).  This gave me 160 pts, to his (35 + 30 + 30) 95.  

Good times!  12 turns was probably too many to really have mattered, although we did basically just get stuck in straight-away.  The Dragon seemed pretty pointless, and I dislike the mix of very short and long weapons on the Trebuchet.  The Jagermechs, however, were golden.  Those UltraACs are a fun threat, and getting into range to alpha-strike at potentially 48 points of damage is nice.