Lawerence ran again. Today went WAY better than last time. EVERYONE had fun. Still prefer the commando as a GM but he has personal problems, won’t be back for a few weeks. If the other sessions go like yesterday we’ll be fine.
Had 4 contracts to choose from. Less than we had players, but the other players opted to take “retainers” and run OPFOR. Only one contract was palatable to me. 2 of them were lance-sized affairs, and the other company scale one had the words “assault a HPG”. (I immediately thought of the NULLSET book I’d given Lawerence for Christmas years ago.)
My contract was to get atmosphere dropped in and assault a DCMS held world. Pay was 5.5 million. 50% salvage. no armor, ammo, or repairs. They only wanted 9 mechs and wouldn’t let me bring my dropship. Whatever… after last week ANYTHING was an improvement.
Vanderhuge brought the Warhammer lance, the Archer and the Phoenix Hawk. I had 3 holes and couldn’t decide on whether I wanted the Panthers or the Witworths. LRM’s or PPC’s. it was a decision.
Ended up deciding that 9 medium lasers ans 30 tons of mech beat 3 SRM-4’s. Whatever I was gonna face was gonna suffer more from those factors than anything else.
Amy decided to play as my OPFOR because she wanted to gossip about her friend she hooked me up with for a date. I was happy to oblige. As for the game… The force seemed ideal for hey play style of “Hi I have LRM’s or PPC’s and I’m a
sniper.”
Dragon 1n (3/5)
Centurion 9a (4/5)
Crusader 5s (3/3)
Dervish (3/4)
Hatchetman (3/5)
Panther (4/4) CT kill
Phoenix Hawk PHX-1 (4/3)
Veterans and Elites. But over half of those mechs struck me as FEDCOM, not DCMS. The Panther/Dragon/P-hawk being the exception.
Map was pretty good for her too… 2 battletech starter maps joined on the long edge with one reversed so that the hills were on the outside 4 corners. Deployed from either side so that there wasn’t a straight line path to the other side, you HAD to zig-zag. It was a delay and destroy from range map. Amy’s specialty.
Thing was the map was good for ME too.
She had me out-skilled (all my guys are still 4/5), but I had what I like to refer to as
ablative skill. 530 tons on 9 mechs versus 305 tons on 7 should, in my line of thinking, do much to tip the odds back in my favor.
First few rounds of combat are us advancing and fireing at long range. She was sending the dragon and the ‘hawk down the left, and her hatcheman and dervish down he right, with the others keeping to the back as overwatch. She split fire on things she had good numbers on, I wailed on the Phoenix Hawk. Fired every PPC and LRM at it and had 2 solid PPC hits to the ‘hawks center torso and left leg. Took just short of a piloting check on my Archer, a Whammy 6d, and a ping to a Witworth. She fell. It was worth it IMHO.
Next round saw me pour everything into the Phoenix Hawk. Including Medium lasers from the advancing Warhammers. Thing was reduced to two legs, and everything left of its center torso. It took a head hit and a point of engine damage, and fell again. I figured it was out of the fight.
She responded by massing into Stomp Meattrunk with everything, scoring a “Golden BB” that rolled boxcars. 2 engines and a gyro. OUCH! The rest of the fire pushed through armor and scored another internal hit, but with no critical. (Thank god) Stomp passed his piloting check and the next turn fled the board. Amy wondered aloud if the Dragon could follow it and I responded by massing fire into it, critting ammo. Amy responded by pouring fire into Vanderhuge, who was in the center of the board flanked by trees.
Next turns saw the decimation of the panther (a full-on CT kill) and any alternate fire going into the ‘hawk… which just WOULD NOT DIE. 8 LRM launchers one turn, 8 PPC’s the next. It kept taking damage, but not enough to kill it. I finally massed the entire lance on it and obliterated its CT.
Amy was a study of “I want to fire on the things I have the best numbers on” and I participated in the school of “If my company fires on it, then it dies and there’s less counterfire
NEXT turn.” Eventually I won, but not before taking a LOT of armor damage. (see
Sheets) But because the damage was limited to targets of opportunity, I could control who got hit and try to mitigate the damages… Golden BB’s and lucky Headshots notwithstanding.
The stars of the game were MY phoenix hawk taking 4 turns of NOT firing into the crusader’s back so that I could punch it 8 times and finally punch the head off, the 3 witwirths playing the part of a Blackhawk omnimech and massing lasers after running out of ammo (much to the chagrin of the Hatchetman and his Center Torso) and Large Vanderhuge and his Archer’s ability to be the last mech I fired, thereby performing the most “kill-steals” I’ve ever seen. (of 7 mechs killed, he got 5 killing blows!) Bonus points to the two Warhammer 6R’s for having the ONLY ammunition on my side at the end of this, full bays of MG and SRM (minus a volley… or five)
I might take those MG bins to a half ton and add more armor… Warhammer WHM-6R (II) has a nice sound to it…
Salvageable items were mostly limbs and heads from mechs that had their CT’s shot out, a headless Crusader, and a Dirvish that in
one round of fire took 4 engine hits and two to the gyro. The FEDCOM got the salvaged Crusader and the Hatchetman parts, and I got the Dirvish, another lot of Phoenix Hawk parts (head/right arm/left leg), and pile of Panther parts (head/right arm/both legs/right torso) scrounged some Heatsinks from the “unsalvageable” sections of torso on the other CT kills.
Getting a Gyro and an Engine for a Dervish (or wolverine/griffin/shadowhawk) oughta be a cinch and I’m not upset at not getting the Crusader. In all honesty I think that what I got was less than 50% but that’s what I get working for the people who I “stole” a dropship from. (And YES I’m doing
that in the fiction.)
In short: Yesterday’s game was FUN again, even if I did come out of that fight with significant weightloss to armor (317 dots of armor and 17 of Structure. That’s 20 godfearing TONS of armor) and significant needs for repairs to one of my precious Warhammers (2 engine hits and a gyro. Probably cheaper to BUY new ones than fix the components) and several of my pilots have headhits they need to sleep off… But I got 5.5 million (4.78mil after overhead/operating costs), a new Dervish, and a bunch of parts. A nice loss/benefit transaction for my unit!
Next “Tales From Muscles Inc” will have details from the aftermath of the dropship heist from the troops perspective, as well as detail the “hiring process”. I’m starting to really enjoy Vanderhuge as a character, and have gone from hating the stupid names I’ve given them full circle back to loving them. May need to generate ones for the techs, dropship crew, etc…
Login
FAQ
Search
. . . Unlike the 
