Pirates.

It never mattered if they’d gotten punked a few years ago or a few days ago; they’d always get back up and try again. Scrounge together anything they found and head out to see what they could shake loose from the people of The Reaches. There was something admirable in there, I figured; something about the Indomitable Human Spirit or some philosophical shit Professor Holland would say back at the academy. All I knew was that it was starting to get damn tiresome to see them try the same old tactics over and over again. 

Heavy slabs of old iron, myomer, servos and rust thrown down the Marshals’ gullet again and again and again. It was good for keeping the Reaches flush with ‘new’ ‘mechs to rebuild and recommission but god did I wish they’d just knock it off and get a real job.

“Overhead reports a pair of enemy lances closin’, three clicks out.” Amaline chimed in from Pistol Packin’ Mama’s second seat. “Movin’ fast. Cruisin’ in ‘round 60 an hour.”

The plodding rumble of ‘mechs stamping through dry grass and dust thundered around us as we crested the top of a ridge. The plains before us rolled and bucked with low hills and stands of scraggly dying trees. A roiling cloud of dust and debris churned in the distance, driving on towards our position with clear intent. 

Well. That’s certainly a new one.

“Guess they drummed up the cavalry this time.” I sighed, bringing Mama’s slew of weapons systems online before keying the Battlemaster’s aging COM 4000 to hail the rest of the demi-company. “Marshalls, be advised; Company’s inbound.”

— Marshal John ‘Hicks’ Adams, Battlemaster BLR-1Gc primary pilot, Fronc Reaches Colonial Marshals. Herroticus, November 3144.

—

Howdy Mechwarriors and welcome to the first Goonhammer BattleTech battle report! We’ve been getting asked for Battle Reports for a while now and Peri and I have been working out a good way to give them a shot. For this first installment we’re going to be doing something a bit more ‘traditional’ to how we usually play our pickup games:

• 10,000 BV.
• 1 Neoprene Map Sheet.
• No Objectives, just kill the other team dead.
• IlClan Era, all ‘mechs on the table.
• Don’t be a dick with your list.

Additionally we are running the following optional rules:

• Floating TACs.
• ECCM
• Command Console Initiative Bonus.

This rough format is likely to be the baseline for any future battle reports with the primary avenue for change being the lack of objectives or addition of other optional rules.

Peri: I want to point out as well that we played this game at Liberty’s cowboy-ass house instead of the game store we usually go to, and one of his chairs made an attempt on my life by going from “wobbly and shitty” to “actively collapsing” in the middle of the game.

Liberty: You leave Fred the chair alone, he’s trying his best. Also I need to go buy some wood glue.

The Lists

All good fights have to start with the fighters and we’ve certainly got quite the pair of lists to work with today. Peri is coming in with their Blood Sails Pirate band on a raid against the Colonial Marshals stationed on the Fronc planet of Herroticus. The lists themselves are certainly quite different in both implementation and intent so let’s get into that!

The Marshals

Liberty: For my Marshal list today I started with the opening intent of building only using ‘mechs from the Fronc Reaches IlClan era MUL avail or things that at least feel like they fit the Marshals’ style. I do this just about any time this force hits the table and it largely puts me into funny spots of lists packing both wildly effective and horrendously outdated machines which makes for a fun time! Additionally I wanted to build a force that had a baseline of requirements in it:

• A command ‘mech that could hold its own and, barring a ‘techening, would be a fair bit of hassle to actually put down.
• A big anchor that can take an absolute beating and keep on ticking.
• Some mobile harassers with enough gun and armor to be threatening if they got picked for fire.
• A Big Gun toting gunfighter that could get into useful places without too much difficulty. Real cowboy hours type shit.
• An effective and mobile light hunter that would be good for keeping my big boys safe.
• Tinstars. Not for any particular reason other than the fact I think they’re neat and mag clamps are funny.

Now, I’d be fine if any of these overlapped and a few of them certainly do. To fill these roles I found a few frames in the Fronc list that fit the bill quite well and pulled some old friends that have started becoming staples of my Marshals lists:

To fill my command role I really only had two choices with a Command Console in the Fronc MUL: The Battlemaster BLR-1Gc or an Atlas AS7-S3-DC. I chose the Battlemaster due to the significant price difference, 1,577 BV vs 2,276 BV and general mobility bonus. For all the shit Battlemasters get they really can be quite durable if you run them right and the 1Gc has the luxury of being very heat efficient while having 2 tons of ammo for the SRM bin meaning it can grab some infernos for any opportune moments with little risk of creeping into the 10 heat break for ammo checks on them.

For the anchor I grabbed what may well be one of the most durable ‘mechs in the game: The Xanthos XNT-4O. This is a 100 ton quad with a full load of stealth armor, a compact engine, a heavy duty Gyro and, because quad, the capacity to hide all four of its 42 armor legs in partial cover. This thing is on Periphery General. It’s just vibin’ out there, existing eternally and refusing to believe that any man could ever hope to kill it.

The Fronc Reaches get one of the best-for-price mobile harassers in the game and I am not even joking. The Marshal MHL-6FR is an absolutely horrid 55 ton ‘mech that I want CGL to release a plastic for solely so I can review it. A+ if not S ‘mech for the sole reason of how much it can warp a game by never letting up on someone no matter what they do. Designed by and built for the Colonial Marshals the 6FR is 4/6/6, has full armor, a Snubnosed PPC, three medium X-pulse lasers, a flamer to sate the infantry man, a light engine, 15 Double Heat Sinks, no ammo and it’ll only ever go up +1 heat a turn unless you add the flamer. The 6FR is genuinely not okay. Going forward I’m limiting myself to two or less of these outside of special occasions. Any more than that and I feel compelled to notify the opponent beforehand. The first time I ever put one of these to table Peri asked me if it was a custom because it is genuinely that angry.

NOTE: To try and cut down on confusion between the use of ‘Marshals’ the organization and ‘Marshals’ the ‘pair of abominations closing on your position rapidly’ I will be referring to the ‘mechs as ‘6FRs’ throughout the article.

My big gun is a bit less optimal with the Helios HEL-3D. It’s approaching ‘minimum viable ‘mech’ in some places but is still largely worth it for being a 4/6/4 Gauss rifle with some back up weapons! In hindsight I should’ve grabbed ol’ Marty and his Victor 9Ka for that real ‘Big Iron’ vibe.

To fit my desire for a nice light hunter I fell back onto the ol’ reliable: The Spider SDR-9M, always feels odd that they have them when I put one in a Marshals list. Looking at the MUL it seems they probably buy them off the Canopans, if I had to guess? That or the birds. Either way I’m happy to have them! Today the role of Ms. Spider will be instead played by your friendly neighborhood Ostscout! Because I still can’t find an actual spider model and I refuse to pay that dude on E-bay thirty bucks for one.

And Tinstars! I’m playing the Marshals! How could I not have them! Them and the Marshal ‘mech are like the Colonial Marshals whole thing! Note, these are the OG Tinstars, not the production versions, they’re just so much better, the production ones crave death and make me sad.

Unfortunately all of this together without skill changes is 10052 BV. As such I have shifted the Tinstars to 4/6, dropping their anti-mech as they rarely get the chance, and have moved the Spider SDR-9M to 4/6 as well. This brings the list’s total BV to 9980.

Blood Sails

Peri: Meanwhile, I sat down with a random mixture of Pirate mechs I had painted four years ago and a really stupid idea. Unlike Liberty, I rarely build forces that stick purely to one faction, and built this force with a mechanical focus. I had recently played a force that was made up entirely of 5/8/0 or faster mechs, and I wanted to go with that sort of energy again, just faster. I decided on 6/9/0 or faster mechs this time, with no slow losers allowed.

I was mainly limited by the Pirate models I had available here, which meant basically no Clan mechs and a random scattering of somewhat poorly painted, mostly metal minis. I knew the first thing I would want would be a command console mech, as we were allowing them and it is a bad idea to leave them out if you have access to them. At 6/9/0 or more there is only one option to my knowledge for a Command Console, the unfortunately named Grand Dragon 5K-DC. I have used this mech quite a lot as it is a cheap, mobile, and reasonably durable command console with some adequate long range support fire. It isn’t a great mech, but it fits the role for a low price. I ended up giving it a skill increase because I had extra points.

For light mech removal duty I grabbed a Cicada 4A and a Locust 1Vb. The Cicada 4A is very fast, well protected, and has a pair of MVSPs. This is a good combination of traits and means that it tends to evaporate enemy light mechs. The 1Vb was mostly just a cheap mech with some pulse lasers that I had painted up in these colors.

I snagged a Raven 3M because I had the model, and I figured taking some sort of Narc mech was a good idea considering the amount of LRMs this list ended up with. Like all Ravens it is kind of disappointing, but it has some ok utility and can use its mediocre mobility to hang back and lob some mediocre LRM damage towards the enemy.

Rounding out the lighter half of my list was a Firestarter Omni-Mech, specifically the OR variant. It is technically clan-tech and costs a shit ton for what you are getting. I thought it would be fun but it ended up not really making its 1700 BV back in this game. It is theoretically a cool mech, moving 6/9/6 with a pair of Clan ER large lasers. That price tag is high and the list might have been better if those points were spread out a bit.

On the heavier end of the force, my “centerpiece” was a Thunderbolt 9T, a 6/9/0 variant with a mix of ERMLs and light PPCs. This is a pretty good skirmishy mech with some decent armor for how fast it is. A Rifleman 7X was backing it up, and the 7X is an extremely funny mech, carrying two snub PPCs and two light PPCs on a 6/9/6 frame with some pretty good armor. Extremely funny, very good, and a great example of how good the Rifleman platform gets after the Succ Wars.

Last but actually not least is the MVP for this game, a Centurion CN9-D. I actually end up using this mech quite a bit, it isn’t particularly expensive at 1130 BV, it moves fast at 6/9/0, and that boosted speed really helps to make up for the Centurion having an infamously poor armor load on most variants. It isn’t the coolest or the funniest Centurion, but it fits into nearly any force and can contribute in nearly every situation. You can basically never go wrong with it.

A few interesting notes about this force that I didn’t properly realize at the time: For one, every single mech here has an IS XL engine, and this is some subtle foreshadowing for how this game ends up going. It also is pretty skewed towards fighting a long-mid range maneuver fight. There are a lot of random LRMs and PPCs in this force, so it really should be played with a focus on avoiding the enemy and taking pot shots from range. The 5/8/0 force I had played recently was made up primarily of point blank range brawlers that wanted to punch people in the face, and contained a lot of AC/20s and pulse lasers. As long as I don’t lose track of what this force wants to do, and play conservatively, I should be fine.

The Map

We played on the Savannah side of the Savannah/Grasslands D neoprene mat and decided deployment edges based on initiative! The Pirates lost and as such the Marshals got to pick their deployment zone. Now, with all that setup out of the way, let’s get into it!

—

We finally caught a glimpse of the Pirates that’d decided to try their luck today, it wasn’t pretty. A pall of garish white, blood red and putrid yellow adorned the machines as they plied their way through the sprawling savannah. Paint aside, the machines themselves were new; largely cared for and operational. Far above the standard of any other band of pirates that’d marauded their way into The Reaches. That could only mean one thing:

Deserters.

The two lances pushed through the saddle of a pair of hills, the Grand Dragon at their head pivoted left and right, scanning the horizon before coming to a halt on John and Amaline at my left. The old heavy lifted an arm, ripping off a streak of lightning high and right over us as a flight of missiles splashed harmlessly a few hundred meters short. Their comms exploded in fervent chatter and shouted expletives as the rest of them finally spotted us before breaking into a full tilt run looking for cover.

“Marshals,” John called, pushing his and Amaline’s old Pistol Packin’ Mama on ahead of Trigger and I, “give ‘em Hell and hang ‘em high!”

— Marshal Annabelle ‘Colt’ Caulthon, Xanthos XNT-4O pilot, Fronc Reaches Colonial Marshals. Herroticus, November 3144.

—

Setup Choices

And so we begin with our deployment phase and the lead into the match itself. The pirates loaded up on NARC ammunition for their LRMs that didn’t have Artemis IV onboard and also took a ton of High Ex for the Raven’s extra NARC bin. The Marshals, being quite low on ammunition, swapped the Battlemasters second ton of SRM-6 ammo for infernos. The Tinstars are Magclamped aboard the Marshal MHL-6FRs in the hopes to take advantage of their relative mobility and desire to be in the battle line.

Peri: We have been playing a lot recently with a rule where, rather than having a separate deployment phase where you set up on a table edge and then start moving, on the first turn you simply move onto the board from off map. It changes the feel of the deployment step quite a bit, but the jury is still out on if it is better or not. We did use that rule for this game.

Round 1

Movement

The Pirates lose the initiative to get us underway.

The Raven walked in first, attempting to find themself a good spot to park up and provide whatever support they could manage followed immediately by the light-mech seeking sidewinder that is the Spider 9M jumping towards it at full speed, eyes full of hate, malice and LASIK related intent. Peri responded by spinning up the supercharger and sprinting their Cicada up dead in front of the Spider, posing a serious threat to her health and well being.

The first of the 6FRs responded by running up to the Spider’s side and dropping off the first squad of Tinstars. Next the Pirate Firestarter pushed up onto the central hill, poising itself to try and get setup for good shots on target with its cERLLs. The second 6FR saw fit to push in alongside his brethren, dropping off his own squad of Tinstars and putting more pressure into the response on the Cicada 4A. I’m doing my best to hopefully take an important game piece off the board early here. The Dragon sprints onto the hill posting up with its ERPPC to add to the Pirate overwatch.

With much of the Pirate forces on the field the Marshal’s Xanthos moved into partial cover to provide some stubborn overlook for the center of the map. To make up the 4/2 deficit Peri deployed both the Rifleman and the Centurion, pushing them down the centerline of the map to meet the Xanthos head on and swing in on the rest of my force. The Helios walked on to support the Xanthos’ position, also in partial cover.

It was about here that we realized I had forgotten to turn on the required cowboy music that goes with the cowboy house, the cowboy get up, the cowboy vibe and the cowboy force. My taste in music has begun to permeate every game of BattleTech Peri and I have played for the last several months, I will do all in my power to spread the good word of modern outlaw country and western. As such I went off to go get the speaker and we promptly resumed the game!

Lastly Peri’s Thunderbolt and Locust took the field with the Thunderbolt taking up the rear of the approaching bulk of the pirate force while the Locust blitzed their way in as deep as they could manage, hoping to distract the Xanthos from the more important pieces. Unfortunately Mr. Locust met the Marshal’s Commander, and his Battlemaster, running into the light woods ahead and left of him like an approaching omen of ill tidings and the consequences of poor piracy related life choices.

It’ll be fiiiiiiiiine.

Peri: Deploying the Raven like I did was a horrible mistake. It was in some really broken terrain and I had already figured out that I wanted to fight on the other side of the table. The theory was that the Raven would be able to hang back away from the fight and sling LRMs, but the practice was that it got dived on and I wasn’t willing to deploy everyone around it to support it.

Firing

The entirety of the pirate list that was in range turns to fire all that they can into the Battle master, hoping to do some good damage to the Marshal command ‘mech, or at least force a PSR, in the opening salvo.  Meanwhile the Cicada did its level best to take down the Spider before it could wreak havoc on the Pirate backline but unfortunately whiffs all three shots. The concentration of fire results in a total of 14 damage to the Battlemaster between one of the Locust’s Medium Pulse Lasers and a splash of missiles from the Centurion’s LRM pack.

In return the Marshal 6FRs and their Spider friend have elected to feed the Cicada all that they can muster, taking a chunk out of the left leg and managing to nail an X-pulse into the head.  The Helios, unable to see the Locust and with poor range on the Centurion and lower TMM Thunderbolt, brings the main gun around on the approaching Rifleman and buries a watermelon into their right torso. Meanwhile the Battlemaster and Xanthos shout ‘Suffer not the Locust to live’ and train everything they’ve got on the scout who is suddenly very out of their depth. The Xanthos’ heavy PPC takes the Locust’s leg clean off and dumps the poor thing on the floor in a heap.

Peri: The Cicada 4A is fairly tough, as was pretty well shown here. The majority of 8/12 mechs really do not like taking multiple pulse hits in a given turn. My dice didn’t cooperate this first turn, but most of my shots were on 9s or 10s so it wasn’t too far away from what I was expecting. The Locust mega-fucking dying was my own fault, I needed to keep it held back for longer and I got lost in the sauce of my own bloodthirst.

Physicals

At current there is only one melee option on the field which is the Battlemaster doing its best to put a boot through the Locust’s chest as it lay, pleading, on the floor before it. ‘I’m just a little guy!’ he shouts over the comm, hoping for mercy as the Battlemaster pilot hauls his boot up high to stomp down on the little bug ‘mech.

And misses.

This commander of mine is very bad at his job, apparently.

Peri: I mean the Locust is already functionally dead but at least I can use it as an initiative sink next turn. Being able to waste an activation like that has a lot of value in BattleTech.

Heat

None of these firing orders invoke much on the heat scale for the Marshals or the Pirates with most of the ‘mechs on the table having pretty good heat neutral or heat negative firing orders.

For the Marshals the 6FRs go up 1 heat while the Spider goes up 2.

The story isn’t much different in Pirate land as the Firestarter builds 2 movement heat from running and firing off both of his cERLLs. The Cicada should have built movement heat but someone is dumb and can’t do math!

Peri: I did heat math wrong on the Cicada this entire game, and I deserve to be flogged for it. Also, the majority of my list builds very little heat in this game, as I generally dislike overheating and prefer mechs that manage heat well. It’s a nice coincidence that the ones I wanted to take for being 6/9/0 or faster also happened to have good heat management.

Thoughts

Liberty: It was a shame to have to drop off the Tinstars here to get the pulses on target with the 6FRs as this really makes the little bastards do just about nothing for the rest of the game. I probably could have remounted them but I had more important things to do and they move for three, I figured it’d be fine to leave them to their own devices. Unfortunate but kinda needed, all things considered.

Peri: I have deployed insanely badly in this game and I have no excuse. The Raven is isolated and fucked, the Locust move was far too aggressive and I genuinely do not know what the aim was beyond distracting the Xanthos. I am basically already down two mechs due to deployment, and that is bad. The deployment of the Firestarter also became a problem later, but it seemed fine for now. At this exact moment my plan was to surge forwards, focus fire down one mech at a time, and break through, collapsing the lines into a melee where my higher mobility can shine.

—

The Locust hurtled towards Amaline and I, its legs a blur as it banked, bobbed and bounded over the odd scrub and rocks in its path. Pistol Packin’ Mama’s PPC whined to life as we hefted it up and on target; tracking the light ‘mechs path across the shifting grass for a few moments as it charged before letting the lightning fly. The crackling lance of energy slammed into the ground wide to the right of the white ‘mech as our quartet of lasers slashed through the air the little menace had just occupied, letting the encroaching problem get ever closer. 

Mama’s SRM pack let out a sharp pop, quickly replaced by the roaring howl of the ignition charges hurling the flight into the air, corkscrewing on billowing plumes of white smoke. Errant missiles spattered across the ground, blossoming in small explosions and kicking up a mess of dirt and shattered rock while the Locust screamed in closer and closer. 

A thunderous CRACK split the air as the Locust skidded to a stop within spitting distance of us. The streaking light of Annabelle and Trigger’s heavy cannon slammed home into the little ‘mechs leg, shattering it at the knee and sending it tumbling to the dirt. A spray of flickering lasers flashed out at us, the staticky PWOM-PWOM-PWOM of the beams only just audible past the cockpit’s armored confines as most of them lanced wide. The familiar sizzle of melting armor crept in from somewhere on our left side as I turned, striding forward to raise an angry boot to silence the nuisance.

Scout pilots are the same anywhere you go, it seems.

— Marshal John ‘Hicks’ Adams, Battlemaster BLR-1Gc primary pilot, Fronc Reaches Colonial Marshals. Herroticus, November 3144.

—

Round 2

Movement

The Pirates win initiative at the start of round two, forcing the Marshals to get underway first.

To start the fodder movements get out of the way, with the Tinstars shifting forwards and the locust staying prone due to ‘I-don’t-got-no-leg-itis’, flopping aggressively at the Battlemaster and issuing the ever respected challenge of ‘I’m a Bad Bitch, you can’t kill me’.

The Pirates pull away their Raven, aiming to build some distance from- or find help with -the encroaching sidewinder missile that is making some very violent ‘the missile knows where it is’ noises on the other side of the hill.

Peri continues to attempt to hold the high ground on the hill by wobbling the Firestarter around to build some TMM and end up back in his current woodline. (Peri: We had forgotten that mechs that use both forwards and backwards movement in the same turn can’t count the same hex twice for TMM. We got this wrong the whole game.) The Helios jumps forward into light woods hoping to get the gun on target.

It was here that we realized that, despite having gotten up to go get the speaker I had in fact forgotten to actually play any music with it. I am a very smart man. Now, with the required cowboy music on Peri resumes their movement.

With the encroachment of the Helios into an admittedly bad position the heavier brunt of the Pirate force turns to push up onto the hill. Seeing the chance for a target rich environment to hunt in while also trying to force themselves into the engagement proper..

The Battlemaster has a target before him that he desires to commit great violence against and as such, prepping for next turn, rotates to be ready to push out while still being ready to plant a size 80 boot into the locust should the guns fail to end it. Peri, seeing a lot of possible danger in front of their command ‘mech, turns the Dragon and moves it down the hill and out of the primary line of fire. Realizing my earlier Helios related mistakes I jump the Xanthos forward to try and give a better target to the Pirates.

Finally the Cicada, wanting to pile onto the coming Helios Hate Hoedown, blitzes over to stand in the nearby woods while remaining in short range for its MVSPs.

Peri: That Helios found the worst single hex on the table to stand in at that exact moment. Liberty has an incredible talent to find dogshit hexes that let entire forces focus down a single mech at a time, and this is one of the worst ones I have ever seen. This Helios is about to get John Marston’d.

Firing

Every single Pirate ‘mech that is in a position to do so is giving both barrels to the Helios and let me tell you they are not bad shots. For those of them who cannot shoot the Helios, or who have more pressing issues instead: The Raven and Dragon are firing into the Spider that is standing worryingly close by with what they can actually manage to get on target and the Locust, out of spite, is shooting into the right side of the Xanthos.

The only shot to hit the spider was the Raven’s small pulse laser, taking a bite out of the right leg. ‘Neath the angry eye of the Battlemaster Lil’-guy-Locust manages to scrape a little bit of armor off the Xanthos’ CT with one of the small pulse lasers, unfortunately missing the rest of his fire. And then Marshal Griffith and her Helios… Yea, this doesn’t go well.

The Firestarter lays into her first, landing one ERLL on the right leg, accompanied by one of the Cicada’s VSPs, blowing internal by four. Luckily this does not result in a critical hit but we’re well past a PSR and things ain’t done yet. The Rifleman pitches in as well, landing a snubby into the right arm, blowing damn near all the armor off. Next up the Thunderbolt lets fly with its haul of weapons, dispensing a lot of five pointers down range. A light PPC pops her in the mouth, giving her a consciousness check which she passes, next the other light PPC hits the right arm, taking all of the armor off and leaving that Gauss rifle worryingly exposed. Luckily there’s only one ‘mech left! The Centurion CN9-D with his LB-10 and LRM…

Oh. Oh no.

The LRM fails to connect but the LB lands and gets 8/10 pellets on target with 6 of them scattering about the still armored torsos and legs and two of them finding the marks that matter. One lands in the right leg, pulling a 10 on the crit check and ripping out the Helios’ upper and lower leg actuators while the other finds the right arm and pulls an 8 to land one crit in the space that is mostly dominated by Gauss rifle. It’ll be fine, there’s only a 66% chance it explodes!

It explodes. Oof, ouch, owie, my pilot’s bones.

Well, that’s less than optimal as the Helios comes out the other side of the fight down the main gun, down to a 2/3/4 movement profile and with 3 PSRs at 8+ to stay upright and two more consciousness checks from the Gauss explosion..

On the other hand, Goldie in the Helios is apparently God’s Favorite Mechwarrior as she does not pass out and, more importantly, passes all three of her PSRs. Surely I will not squander this new lease on life to continue on as half of a ‘mech next turn!

With the Pirate firing order complete we move on to the Marshals and the life, and sudden death of a Raven. Ravens are squishy, damnable little things that do not like taking a 9 damage hit into the back and that is exactly what happened. The Spider only lands the one VSP but it strikes home, burning through the rear of the left torso and eating a hole straight through the ton of High-ex ammo Peri was so excited to get to use this game. Being an XL engine ‘mech, even though it’s CASE equipped, this instantly kills the Raven in a glorious cacophony of fire and explosives, dumping the little light ‘mech straight onto the ground in a heap.

On the other side of the engagement the Battlemaster stares down at the Locust and buries all four of his medium lasers into it, boring a hole straight through the left torso to gut the engine and make sure the little scout never gets up again. The SRM-6 fires off as well, blowing a few extra chunks of armor away just to be sure.

Moving on to the skirmish up on the hill the rest of the Marshals list turns to look at the Thunderbolt, sensing blood in the water and a whole bunch of easy shots everyone sights in on the heavy and lets fly. The Helios, somehow finding the time amongst being pelted by every gun known to man, puts the last slug that Gauss Rifle will ever fire square in the Thunderbolt’s chest, blowing a pretty good chunk out of the plate and splashing a medium laser into the right leg. Then a 6FR lands a snub nosed PPC on the thunderbolt’s right arm. That was all… My dice are rude sometimes.

Peri: The Helios got obliterated insanely hard this turn and the initiative is firmly in my hands at the moment. It isn’t technically dead but it might as well be. The Raven is completely fucked and goes boom, the Locust is also fucked and dead, but I still have a significant overall mobility lead. If I play a bit more carefully I should be able to leverage this into a win.

Physicals

None this turn, poor lil’ locust got wiped before the Battlemaster could feed him a size 160 steel toe.

Heat

The Pirates, in their Helios obliteration schemes, build up to +3 heat on the thunderbolt, an improperly tracked 0 heat on the Cicada, +5 heat on the Firestarter and +1 heat on the Centurion.

In return the Marshals build +1 heat on one 6FR and +2 on the other with the Spider reaching +4 now.

Otherwise all ‘mechs remain heat neutral at 0 heat or sink back below!

Thoughts

Liberty: I should not have pushed the Helios in like that seeking the good shots, it would’ve been the same TMM and only one worse outbound to have her land in the heavy woods behind her to get better terrain coverage. Additionally Peri probably should have saved the Raven for last, as ‘meh’ a ‘mech as it is, to force the Spider to end up somewhere that probably would not have been near as fatal for the poor little bastard. As well I really need to stop jumping the Xanthos around so much, it will never hit anything when I do and it almost always takes it out of a position where standing still would have given it some pretty acceptable shots.

Peri: I am currently just suffering from the sins of my deployment, losing a couple of light mechs to my own greed or bloodthirst. Turn 2 casualties are really not great, and I am down about a thousand BV right now. That said, crippling that Helios might be worth about the same amount, so we are pretty even at the moment. Assuming I can keep the momentum up, I should be able to keep control with my much better mobility.

—

The thunderous howl of Flight Risk’s jump jets tossed us skyward just as Goldie and her Helios landed, suddenly finding herself in the midst of the advancing Pirates. We came down fast, landing behind the Pirate line as the little skittering Raven sprinted underneath us. It turned, pivoting around as it ran and sending a flickering pulse of energy backwards, the pilot spitting curses over the local net as I leveled my sights onto its rear arc and let the pulsing growl of Flight Risk’s lasers do the talking. The familiar flash of energy meeting metal sparked through the air as the beam struck home, stabbing the Raven in the back and casting small, flickering fires across the ground.

They stumbled a little, a lick of fire brewing from the torn and melted armor as it stumbled, trying to keep running for cover. The fire grew, turning from a dull light to a roaring inferno as one of the Raven’s ammo bins cooked off, letting loose in a cacophonous explosion that wrenched the entire right side of the Raven free, scattering it across the hillside. The pitter-patter of showering ‘mech parts clattered off of Flight Risk’s armor as I swung my attention onto the Pirate commander. It was time for some head hunting.

— Marshal Ada Carnut, Spider SDR-9M Pilot, Fronc Reaches Colonial Marshals. Herroticus, November 3144.

—

Round 3

Movement

Peri once again wins the initiative, now down two lights, and decides it is time to begin drawing down from the engagement and tries to consolidate their forces in the woods atop the hill to prepare for a breakthrough while I try to press the advantage. This whole turn’s movement just ends up devolving into a gigantic furball atop the center hill.

I dive in the 6FRs while the Xanthos and the Battlemaster try to stay out wide to hopefully cut off any attempts at a breakthrough next turn. Both squads of Tinstars keep on chasing after the engagement as best as they can with their little Battle Armor legs. The Helios, in another big brain move of mine, takes its beaten to shit ass and pushes in even further because surely they wouldn’t shoot that one twice! Both 6FRs and the Spider keep pressing, using their mobility to dive into point blank range and really get the party started.

Peri’s ‘mechs, for their part, shack up atop the hill and try to get dug in with alright TMMs before they make a break for it next turn. The Rifleman also swings up onto the hill, getting into the Helios’ face with its, by this point, significantly more substantial armament as the Firestarter bounces away from the forming furball to try and get some good shots on target against the advancing Marshals.

Peri: I smell blood this turn and I go in for the kill. This is a bit of a mistake because I should really be drawing back, those Marshals are getting a bit too close and I know better than to let them do it.

Firing

One of the 6FRs and the Spider pour their fire into the Cicada, trying to take what might be their best chance to put it down. Unfortunately most of the landed fire biases into the arms, taking the right off and spreading the extra 5 points onto the torso while another 10 point hit connects with the other arm and 12 damage from a pair of Medium X-Pulse lasers find their way into the armor on the right leg. This thing is surprisingly hard to kill for a Cicada, highly recommend taking it if you’re looking for a good light hunter. At the same time the other 6FR is dumping its entire salvo into the Dragon, landing everything and scouring off a good clip of armor. A PPC from the Battlemaster manages to find its way onto the Centurions left leg, taking a good chunk of armor away while all the MLs and SRMs go wide.

Peri’s fire is concentrated between the two 6FRs. The Cicada managed to hit the Yellow based 6FR, landing both VSPs and the Re-Engineered laser on target. White based 6FR also takes a hit from the Dragon’s ERPPC into the left torso.

The Rifleman tears into the Helios alongside the Centurion, which nets another head hit, which she fails the check on which automatically earns her another when ‘mech meets ground. Crit wise the Helios also loses both right leg jump jets and the lower life support spot. The Helios retorts with a full tilt salvo from its twin ERMLs and SRM-6s which scrapes some armor off the Rifleman but not much.

This is now a very expensive, and generally worse, Urbanmech. Ouchie. Goldie is no longer God’s Favorite Mechwarrior and shall be cast into the hell of unconsciousness for her, and my, sins.

Amongst all this the Xanthos sent another 15 point hit into the Thunderbolt’s CT, blowing it down to only 5 armor remaining. The Thunderbolt to this point has only taken four hits and is a very good showcase on the importance of having can openers on your side. Any further fire from anything on my list other than the Tinstars will open this CT which is a big problem.

Peri: The Thunderbolt is fucked and my force is badly hurting from not having that many good hole openers. The Helios not dying is intensely unfortunate because it lets him use it as an initiative sink, giving him an initiative advantage until it dies, even though it is broadly worthless by this point.

Physicals

There’s quite the smattering of physicals available up on the hill in the furball… And all of them miss.

Kicking is illegal up there, apparently. Forbidden by law and the local magistrate.

The Rifleman on the other hand  has one of the easiest kicks of his life and buries a big old boot into the Helios’ left arm, scraping away even more of the ‘mechs’ thinning armor.

Peri: I mean it’s cool that I hit but also the mech isn’t dead and I can’t afford to continue shooting it while it is unconscious.

Thoughts

Liberty: Those heavy hits stack up fast, the T-Bolt has only been hit in the CT twice now and is already damn near exposed. In hindsight I really should’ve kept pressing the hate into that thing but his time will come later.

Peri: I haven’t quite made any game losing mistakes but I got really greedy this turn. I should have backed off and tried to use my range advantage, but instead I am going to get Marshal’d for the rest of the game.

—

God Damned MARSHALS.

Arnold had charged in on that Helios, doing his best to feed the teetering wreck the bulk of his guns to put it down as it careened through the air towards him sending out scorching lasers and corkscrewing missiles. Old myomer strained and groaned, keeping us on the move as I swung Scattershot around, putting the cannon and the missile box on target to make sure he didn’t fuck up again. Busted or not, the last thing we needed was that Helios putting a boot through somebody’s head.

Twin streaks of lightning lanced out from his barrels, blasting away chunks of armor and gouging gaping holes for me to exploit. The roaring report of the cannon mixed with the whistling screech of a flight of missiles as they bathed the flying ‘mech in sparks and explosions. A scatter of shattered armor fell away from the head as it came down. The ‘jets in the right leg sputtered out and sent the ‘mechs bulk slamming into the dirt at Arnold’s feet, unmoving. Putting a barely functional ‘mech down wasn’t much.

But it was at least a good start.

— ‘Mech Warrior Romero Caldwell, Centurion CN9-D Pilot, Blood Sails Pirate Band. Herroticus, November 3144.

—

Round 4

Movement

One day the Marshals will win the initiative! Just not right now.

The Marshals get us underway again with the unconscious Helios continuing to fester on the ground as the rest of the force chase after the Pirates who are trying to seize the initiative to make themselves some distance.

The Battlemaster, the ever-present Spider and both Marshals get in on the Rifleman, deciding they want to do everything in their power to take another Pirate ‘mech off the board by hitting it as hard as physically possible from some off angles while keeping each other, relatively, safe.

The rest of the Pirates take the chance to put the hurt into the Marshal commander and maneuver to put themselves into a nice spot to pour a lot of fire into that old Battlemaster. The Xanthos is trying her best to keep up but man is that 3/5/3 movement profile holdin’ her back. The Tinstars are also feeling the burn themselves as they do their level best to get somewhere to shoot at something this turn.

Firing

The firing orders here are rather well and all set with the Marshals giving that Rifleman every barrel they’ve got while the Pirates are laying it in on the Battlemaster.

The Marshals, for their part, tear a good portion of the front, and rear, armor off both side torsos and the arms on the Rifleman. Pouring more than enough damage into them to force a PSR which, unfortunately for them, they fail.

The Pirates hammer into the Battlemaster, chewing a pretty good clip of the old assault’s armor away, dealing some good damage into the legs and forcing a PSR which it manages to pass, staying upright to commit some ultra violence upon the now prone Rifleman.

Peri: Focusing fire is the main way to kill things in BattleTech, and I was really consciously trying to shoot as much of my list as possible at single things for this entire game. I did some good damage but I really needed to knock the thing over to make this worth it.

Physicals

There’s one physical here, and it’s Mr. Battlemaster’s Big Bootening aimed squarely at the Rifleman’s ass. The kick into a prone ‘mech is easy, coming out to a simple 5+ which, for once, the Battlemaster lands. Biggest boot blows through the already damaged right side torso and eats all the structure within, destroying the location and taking the XL engine with it.

This kills the Rifleman.

Peri: Moving where I could get kicked by an assault mech with a mech that has the extended skirmishing range that Snub PPCs grant was a horrible mistake. I really needed to back the fuck up and use my range advantage and I utterly failed to.

Thoughts

Liberty: Things are going well for the Marshals right now and a large part of that is having a few turns where I do my best to maneuver into good positions to pour everything I can into singular targets until they’re dead. Well that and being lucky on shots actually landing.

Peri: At this point during the game I was pretty sure the game was lost. I was far too close to the enemy and, while at the time I blamed this on my list, in truth I had lost this due to moving far too aggressively and closing in to a much closer range than my list actually wanted to be at. I direly needed to hang back and shoot those fucking Marshals (mech connotation) on their way in.

—

We’d drive every last one of these Pirates off-world with shot, beam and boot if we had to. One slab of armor at a time if we had to. One damned rust-heap at a time if we had to. 

One more funeral at a time… if we had to.

That damnable Pirate Rifleman flew past me, filling my viewscreen with splashes of purple ‘neath that flaking livery they’d haphazardly sprayed over the old ‘guards paint she’d previously borne. They were running, doing what they could to get as far away from us as they could manage. Lord willing we’d stay right there on their ass until they were dead or gone. 

The roar of James and Billy’s jump jets filled the air, falling to the ground at the Rifleman’s sides before breaking into a run after the fleeing ‘mech as I hauled ‘Mama around to chase after them. The pair scoured away armor and shattered steel with a deluge of lasers and particle fire as ‘Mama, Amaline and I hurtled after the stricken ‘mech.

‘Mama’s reactor hummed all the louder as the sizzling growl of her lasers cut the air, carving tracts of molten metal into the Pirate’s back as I hauled her pistol up and on target, doing my best to keep her on and level as the old weapon charged. The familiar streak of lightning and burning plasma split the air as the PPC barked out its hate, slamming into the machine’s side to scour away the armor, chewing at the components within.

The Rifleman stumbled, falling to the ground with a crash, digging a furrow as it slid to a stop. The pilot within fought to rise to their ‘mech’s feet, finding no purchase as we approached. Mama’s boot rose high, hanging for a moment as the Rifleman faltered again, the mangled barrel-arm giving out on it; sending it back into the dirt below.

And Mama sent it even deeper with her boot.

— Marshal John ‘Hicks’ Adams, Battlemaster BLR-1Gc primary pilot, Fronc Reaches Colonial Marshals. Herroticus, November 3144.

—

Round 5

Movement

I have offended the initiative gods. I know not that which I have done but they are surely angry with me.

The Helios continues to be unconscious while the Tinstars and the Xanthos do their best to keep up with the fight. For once the Xanthos actually is in the fight, having bolted forward to find a pretty good portion of the Pirate force swinging out and away from the bulk of the Marshals, successfully finding someone to fulfil their dream of possibly being shot at by a substantial amount of fire.

The bulk of the Pirate force, now down their Rifleman, push up onto the next hill, leaving the Firestarter behind to its fate as both 6FRs and the Spider dive on it, hungry for the prospect of consuming the table’s only Clan tech. Peri’s Cicada begins hounding the Battlemaster, pursuing the stricken ‘mech in the hopes of putting the damaged assault further into the hole.

Side note: This 6FR can be pushed out of play right now, meaning it would be instantly removed from the game and considered dead. Do not place your ‘mechs like this if you are not certain that nothing is going to take the chance at doing it. It really sucks to have it happen.

Peri: I forgot to push the 6FR. Don’t do what I did and forget to go for pushes. Pushing people off the edge of the map is a hilarious anti-cheese mechanism. It keeps people from using the space off the map to their advantage by denying their rear arc, because it is so risky to stand on an edge when you are one successful attack roll from instant death. I abandoned the Firestarter here because it really needed to move away last turn and at this point it can’t outjump the Marshals and the terrain sucks too bad for it to just run away. Genuinely completely fucked here unless I get lucky.

Firing

The Marshals are here to do, largely, one thing: Kill that Firestarter. Meanwhile the Pirates, being that they are mostly out of position trying to get away, are going to put some fire into the Battlemaster and the Xanthos.

The Pirates land a fair bit of damage, chewing further into the Battlemaster’s armor. The right arm falls off, peppered away by the Centurion’s LBX at the same time that the PPC in the arm is taken offline by another pellet. The fire forces a PSR but the Battlemaster manages to stay upright. The Xanthos takes a light peppering of fire but, as Peri stated at the table, it really just isn’t worth shooting at.

Mr.Firestarter is hit by a good clip of damage, opening up a few locations but not quite managing to take anything off line. This does force a PSR which he fails, promptly falling onto his open left arm and critting the cERLL within. The Battlemaster gets to fire off everything this turn, missing everything in the forward arc but managing to land his pair of medium lasers in the rear arc! Crying tears of joy at having finally been able to actually use the anti-backstab weapons! The Cicada didn’t really care but it’s cool to use them!

Peri: Shooting the Xanthos is a waste of time but those mechs really didn’t have any other takeable shots. I really wanted to kill the Battlemaster at this point because I need to get more meat off the table while I still have mechs to do it with. In a long, point blank ranged brawl I am at a severe disadvantage due to my list skewing long ranged, and in order to win I need to kill some more of the meat and break the hell out of this bad situation.

Physicals

The Cicada puts a kick into the Battlemaster, missing but not falling over from the resultant PSR. The Spider also puts a kick into the fallen Firestarter, missing and managing to pass its PSR.

End of Round

The Helios pilot wakes up! Finding herself in a ‘mech that has been turned into a, somehow, shittier Urbanmech. She is now God’s middle child ‘Mechwarrior. She very dearly wants to go home. Normally I don’t withdraw ‘mechs in our pickup games but I thought it way funnier, and on point given the circumstances, for Goldie and her Helios to decide it was time to leave and begin making efforts to do so.

Thoughts

Liberty: This is going badly for Peri, pulling away to try and make the distance is a good decision but unfortunately a lot of these ‘mechs are having issues in managing to hit the biggest problems that are coming for them in the 6FRs. Even if the B-Master, Xanthos and Spider go down these 6FRs are just unrelenting.

Peri: I direly need to get onto open ground to get away from the 6FRs. They aren’t super fast but they are insanely brutal to fight in rough terrain, almost unbeatable for the price. One of the game’s best medium mechs.

—

They were leaving me.

Casting me to these bloodthirsty Marshals like a juicy cut of meat just so they could save their own sorry ass skins. No honor among thieves, I suppose. 

Those damned Marshals and their little Spider lapdog hadn’t let up for a moment since this whole debacle had started, chewing up Marlon and his Raven before throwing themselves into the fray and coming out all but unscathed. 

My lasers burned away at that brown and black Battlemaster as Ruth and her Cicada hounded after him, the LRM in Burn-Order’s arm shuddering out a swirling corkscrew of missiles that splashed against the assault’s heavy bulwark of armor.

The loud crash of a ‘mech dropping to the ground pulled my attention left, finding one of the big, blocky Marshals staring dead at me as the other streaked over my head, coming down back and to my right as the Spider followed close behind. 

Now it was my turn to deal with them.

I was far from excited.

— ‘Mech Warrior Barry ‘Flashbulb’ Baldwin, Firestarter FS9-O pilot, Blood Sails Pirate Band. Herroticus, November 3144.

—

Round 6

Movement

Who could guess it, the Pirates win initiative! It is illegal for the Marshals to do so, such is the way of the universe.

The Helios manages to stand on a 7, taking stock of the area she decides she should really be leaving in her busted ass ‘mech and will begin doing so as fast as possible. The Firestarter also attempts to stand, fails the check and smashes in their right torso, destroying the location and dying to XL engine loss.

OOF.

The Marshals are continuing to chase after the rest of the Pirate ‘mechs as they make their break for distance, hopping up onto the hill while the Cicada continues to be very annoying, continuously bullying the Battlemaster.

This position for the Battlemaster must be pointed out as I pretty consistently manage to do this. I have placed this machine in just about the worst hex it could be in right now. It can’t meaningfully support its friendlies while somehow also being unsupported so no one can really try and whack the Cicada now aggressively spinning a ballasong at his back.

Oopsie.

Peri: Such is the life of a mech with an XL engine. That Battlemaster is totally fucked and Liberty absolutely deserves what happens to it here. I once again position to get as much fire onto the Battlemaster as possible, but its getting a bit harder to focus fire and I am increasingly just trying to run hard for open ground.

Firing

The Marshals miss. Like. Everything. Dagnabit.

The Pirates focus hard on the Battlemaster, smelling blood in the water they pour everything they’ve got into it and score some good hits, stripping more armor away. The ever annoying hate machine that is that damned Centurion dumps another salvo of cluster pellets into the Battlemaster and blows out the right leg’s foot actuator, exacting a pair of PSRs which he fails, criting the left leg foot actuator. Both pilots avoid the head hit but the Battlemaster is in a real bad way now.

Peri: Assault mechs do this thing sometimes where they have way too much health and survive taking really gross amounts of damage. The random times where you just keep taking big hits to places that somehow still have armor is the main reason to take one over a heavy mech.

Physicals

The only Physical is the Cicada putting a kick into the Battlemaster which bites a good chunk of armor off of the CT but doesn’t manage to go internal.

Peri: I mean you take any kick you can get.

Thoughts

Liberty: Bad positioning here, and a refusal to ever let off the gas, is going to get that Battlemaster killed. This, were the situation any different, would be a very big problem for me considering it would mean Peri would gain further advantage on initiative… not that they need it.

Peri: The Battlemaster is fucked after this turn but the key word there is “After”. I still haven’t killed it, it is still providing its initiative buff, and I am still struggling hard to get to more advantageous terrain. At this rate I am going to need to spend an extra turn killing it, which really sucks.

—

Hit ‘em o’er and o’er again and, eventually, they’ll all come down.

That bastard in the Battlemaster was beaten and battered, but damn if he didn’t keep on coming. Ruth was on his ass and wasn’t fit to be letting up any time soon. Dipping, ducking, and dodging out of the way every time he swung those lasers around on her like a prize fighter on Canopus; this was probably the best piloting I’d seen out of her yet.

I figured it’d fit to do my best to help. 

Scattershot turned, responding as I hauled her torso around to level the gun back at the hulking Battlemaster. Holding it on target for a moment before it barked again, casting a wide net of shot out toward the glowing, rended metal skin that coated the blasted machine. A few sparked off the armor, chipping away paint and metal while some sailed off into the distance, cast wide across the plains.

And some found a perfect new home amongst those delicate legs.

The brown behemoth stumbled, rolling over their mangled joint and crashing down atop the other with a resounding cacophony that shook my teeth.

Bang on target.

— ‘Mech Warrior Romero Caldwell, Centurion CN9-D Pilot, Blood Sails Pirate Band. Herroticus, November 3144.

—

Round 7

Movement

Sometimes I dream of winning initiative. I imagine it’s very cool.

This in mind, the Pirates are still on the run, doing their best to extend away from the Marshals’ force. The Battlemaster shudders to its feet and takes a step forward as the Xanthos backs up onto the level one behind it. Goldie and her Helios are still on their way off map; hobbling along as best as they can to try and get to safety while the Tinstars continue running after the battle, slowly but surely angling to chase the damnable pirates down. One of the 6FRs sticks by the commander’s side while the other, Spider in tow, dive in on the Pirates.

For their part Peri has kept up the movement, taking the opportunity to try and build distance from the Marshal’s commander. The Dragon, Centurion and Thunderbolt keep swinging around the outside of the map, doing their best to find concealment where they can. The Cicada, hungry for light ‘mech and activating the supercharger on a 5+ from the sudden arrival of a 6FR, chases down the Spider, finding itself in her back arc with some pretty nasty shots.

Peri: I want to use the supercharger on the Cicada every turn so bad. It makes the thing so fast even though I blow them up constantly. It has some good shots here and I am about as well set up as I can be while still trying to disengage and pick a better fight in other terrain that will favor me better. (Liberty’s Note: Peri had me make a note at the time that they were ‘Fighting their dice like the Green Goblin Mask’ over using the Supercharger every turn.) 

Firing

Despite a lot of good shots this turn not much actually lands.

Everything that can see it puts fire into the Thunderbolt, doing just enough damage to cause a PSR, which it fails, and not much else.

In return, the Pirates do their best to put down the Spider that has wandered into their midst. It, largely, does not care as the only meaningful damage to land was a VSP into the CTR which failed to secure a crit, leaving them to go on their merry way.

Peri: BattleTech just BattleTechs you sometimes and you don’t land easy shots. Such is life.

Physicals

There is one physical available here, the Cicada kicking the spider. It does. It hurts a bit, biting a chunk out of the right leg and instigating a PSR, which the spider passes.

Peri: Take any kick you can get.

Thoughts

Liberty: I got especially lucky to not lose the Spider here with that much fire being pointed at it. The Battlemaster is still not having a great time but it’s still here, still got guns and still has some armor on it. I’m gonna keep pushing it until it’s either over or it falls apart, whichever comes first. That early drop on the Tinstars is still biting me in the ass with them not having any major effect on the battle so far but that’s a risk to take with BA that can’t jump.

Peri: I got dice’d a bit this turn and I am a bit anxious I am not going to get away from those fucking 6FRs.

–

“Fuckin’ hell this is horrid. How you doin’ o’er there, Damian?” Flint growled over the radio as we sprinted after the battle, our squads close on our tails. “Billy an’ James could’ve at least picked us back up after that damned Cicada got away!”

“And them damned Pirates could just be helpful and stand still long enough for us to pull them out of their cockpits.” I grunted back, breathing heavy even with the suit’s assistance. “Really quite rude of ‘em not to.”

“Got that right!” Alan barked behind us, his laughter lancing out over the network as we watched James pour fresh fire into the Pirate Thunderbolt, taking a good chunk off its leg.

“MARSHALS, HIT THAT THUNDERBOLT!” I shouted, catching the men’s attention as I hefted my trusty magshot up and on target, sending a zipping slug of nickel off toward the battered ‘mech. A hail of slugs and particles followed close behind, tearing through trees and slamming into berms instead of finding their intended target.

Dammit.

— Marshal Damian Thran, Tinstar Squad Leader, Fronc Reaches Colonial Marshals. Herroticus, November 3144.

—

Round 8

Movement

I won? I finally won! Initiative is mine!!! And here I thought that was illegal!

The Pirates get moving first, continuing their tactical withdrawal. Commander Dragon and the Centurion push on, making some distance on the Battlemaster as the Thunderbolt swings around the hill, finding itself a good spot with some cover and concealment to try and take a breather from being a punching bag.

In response the Tinstars push ever closer while both 6FRs dive in, landing in woods, eager to gnaw on the Grand Dragon alongside the Xanthos that lumbers forward a few steps into short range. The Battlemaster takes what little movement he can forward before getting Omae wa mou’d once again by the Cicada, quickly followed by the Spider swinging into position to take advantage of the safe spot in the Cicada’s rear.

Also Goldie and her Helios are here… trying their best as they keep limping off the map. Poor bastard.

Peri: At this point my movement for the rest of the game is planned out. Get to the opposite side of the table with my superior speed, fire at him with my superior range while he closes, then do it again as many times as I can.

Firing

The Dragon and the Centurion put their fire into the 6FR in the Dragon’s face, only landing the Dragon’s ERPPC on target. The Thunderbolt puts more fire into the Battlemaster, hoping to help put it down this turn, taking a few more chunks of armor off the CT.

Both of the 6FRs and the Xanthos dig into the Dragon, landing a lot of good hits, tearing away slabs of armor and doing a great job of messing up what was, previously, a perfectly fine machine. A few spots blow in but fail to secure much of import this turn. They do fail their PSR, falling over and eating it a touch. The secondary pilot fails the seatbelt check but stays awake!

Our ever present nuisance the Spider pops some good hits into the Cicada, unfortunately missing the side torso as it bites at limbs. The Cicada, for their part, spools up their VSPs, putting the entirety of the Battlemaster’s rear in its sight picture before pulling the trigger, blowing out the Battlemaster’s left hip and upper leg actuator.

And striking the standard SRM ammo bin in the left torso…

Uh-oh.

Kaboom.

Before being atomized the Battlemaster fires off both of his rear facing medium lasers, only needing 8s to spit in the little bastards face on the way ou-

I hate it here sometimes.

Peri: The Battlemaster finally fucking dies several turns after I wanted it to. The Cicada taking this long to kill the fucking thing has kept it out of the game and kept it from trying to intercept one of those fucking 6FRs, a task that I badly need something to be doing right now.

Physicals

With the Battlemaster strewn across the plains in parts and her Pilots drifting down on their ejection suits the Cicada is unable to kick anything; neither is the Dragon, as it fights to get up from the floor.

The Spider, on the other hand, puts one fist into the Cicada’s rear right torso, scuffing the paint and not doing much else. The 6FR puts a good 11 damage it into the Dragon’s rear right torso, blowing in but failing to secure a crit.

Peri: Be smarter than me, and don’t let people kick you from a level above. Pay attention and try to avoid this.

Thoughts

Liberty: Honestly I’m surprised the Battlemaster survived this long, I got incredibly lucky for him to not just explode at some point already. Chewing on the Dragon is good but I’ve lost any chance of winning initiative again now that Peri gets a nice +2 since they have the only command console on the field.

Peri: The Battlemaster took too long to die and I am fucked. That Cicada badly needed to do literally anything else for the last few turns and I am really running low on armor on my remaining big boys.

—

“God Damned CICADA!” I roared, trying to haul Mama around to keep the speeding ‘mech in sight as it ducked in behind us again, Ada close on its heels. It flashed for a moment in the rear sight, that gaudy mess of a paint job hanging there before being replaced by the pursuing Spider’s brown and black. With this much movement around me, I’d never manage to get anything on target against that Dragon. This nuisance had to get put down. Now.

“They’re coming around again, John!” Amaline shouted, a touch of worry in her voice as I swung an errant fist at the streak of white that zipped past.

“Doin’ my best here, Amy! That heap of scrap is faster’n it looks.”

At this point the only option I’d have was the old pair of Medium lasers in Mama’s back. They’d gotten more use today than they’d had in years. Guess we was lucky Amaline convinced me not to have Seth flip them around last time we were on base.

The splotch of white red and yellow skidded to a halt for a beat, having just managed to ditch Ada for a moment as they put us between them and her. I took the chance, slamming down the trigger for the rear lasers, waiting for the familiar thrum of scorched air and spent power.

But none came.

I spared a glance at the weapons status panel as I continued trying to fight the weapons to life, searching to see if I’d lost the pair and not noticed. What I found was a glaring red error message instead:

[—]AMMO FEED FAILURE[—]

“Oh what the fu-”

Mama rocked beneath us, rumbling and shuddering as that horrid buzz of lasers sawing through armor sparked through the cockpit. The Neurohelm screeched in my ears, sending a splitting spear of pain lancing through my head as Mama stumbled a step, dropping out from under us. Familiar walls, trinkets and air fell away from around us as we soared up into Herroticus’ great blue sky, the roar of our ejection seats quickly drowned out by the thunderous explosion of Mama’s munitions scattering her parts across the countryside. 

The Force Marshal isn’t gonna like this one bit…

— Marshal John ‘Hicks’ Adams, Battlemaster BLR-1Gc primary pilot, Fronc Reaches Colonial Marshals. Herroticus, November 3144.

—

Round 9

Movement

Aaaand back to Pirate initiative land. Fun while it lasted!

The Helios keeps pushing on off the map as the Tinstars move to intercept the incoming Pirates. The Xanthos, knowing the Thunderbolt can’t get far, elects to stand still, waiting for the battered heavy to close in, which it does. One 6FR lands in the Thunderbolt’s back arc while the other chases down the Centurion as it pushes towards the wounded Helios, seemingly intent on taking something off the board- even if it is a barely functional Helios. The 6FR in the Thunderbolt’s back arc is bait from Peri and I took it hook line and sinker as the Thunderbolt has more rear armor than front right now everywhere except the left torso.

I am a foolish fool.

The Dragon swings forward, all but stepping on the Tinstars while the Spider runs to burn off some heat. The Cicada, close on her heels, gets into the Spider’s back arc and prepares to eliminate the nuisance.

Peri: I cannot stress enough how hard it is to escape from 6 hex jumpers in rough terrain. You cannot make enough distance to keep them from shooting you. The Thunderbolt rear arc bait was a clever play because, as mentioned, it had more armor there. Most BattleTech players genuinely cannot resist shooting a back arc no matter the cost.

Firing

The 6FRs don’t do a whole lot of immediately effective damage; the one behind the Thunderbolt puts a few rounds into the limbs while the one behind the Centurion strips the back armor pretty well, blowing into the right torso and gnawing on the right leg, failing to instigate a PSR. Big hoss Xanthos, on the other hand, slams a Heavy PPC and a Light PPC into the right torso on the Thunderbolt and staves it in, destroying the XL engine and killing the ‘mech. Interestingly, even if this hadn’t blown out the side torso, this ‘mech still would’ve died to two engine hits in the CT and one extra hit from a crit in the RT.

A pall of fire from the Helios, Spider and Tinstars do a good job peppering the Dragon with small time damage but see no meaningful concentrations this turn, instigating a PSR that the Dragon passes handily.

The Cicada scrapes a fair bit of armor off the Spider, landing a VSP into the left arm, taking it off, and into the right leg.  A puff of shot from the centurion goes wide against the Helios, failing to connect into the stricken target while the Dragon similarly misses all of its fire on the same target. Before falling over dead the Thunderbolt rips a few shots off at the Xanthos, doing little damage to the unbothered Assault.

Peri: The Xanthos is an unbearable mech to deal with. It does a vaguely adequate amount of damage but it is so fucking unreasonably hard to kill that it feels pointless to even try. The Cicada at least is actually in the game now and doing something useful.

Physicals

With the Thunderbolt dead there are two available physicals here: A kick from the 6FR into the back punch table of the Centurion and a kick from the Cicada into the Spider.

Both land with the Marshal putting an 11 point kick square into the CT, blowing in and failing to secure any crits or a failed PSR. Meanwhile the Cicada buries their foot into the Spider’s now-damaged right leg, blowing in and taking a chunk out of the Upper Leg Actuator. This forces a pair of PSRs at 7+, with the Spider passing both.

Peri: The Spider not falling over is very funny.

Thoughts

Liberty: Things are getting desperate in Pirate land but they’ve still got some fight left in them. With the Commander dead and the spider not feeling its best right now there are some possible problems for the Marshals. That being said, this snowball is thoroughly and irrevocably rolling. Even if they manage to put down the Helios, the Spider and both squads of Tinstars the 6FRs and that Xanthos are more than enough trouble to keep on truckin’ through what’s left of the Pirates. Shit, just the 6FRs are, if I’m honest.

Peri: The game is really, extremely over. The Xanthos is never going to die and those 6FRs are unbearably tough and annoying to fight. Those are S tier medium mechs, and they encourage a really annoying play pattern where you just jump forever and have enough armor to never die.

—

Hustler shook as I banked her around a stand of trees, doing my best to keep those jumpers off of us. A howl of jump jets came down behind us, falling silent as we skidded to a halt face to face with that nuisance of a Xanthos that’d been plodding along like a lost puppy. I cast a glance over Hustler’s shoulder through the rear cam, finding myself looking square into the cockpit of one of those damned Marshals as it hosed us down with what it could muster.

“I-I could use some help here, guys.” I grunted, Hustler shuddering beneath me as she grew a few tons lighter under the barrage.

“Bit busy ourselves here, Mark.” Romero called back, the thunder of his cannon chopping through and lacing his voice with static as I pelted the Xanthos with a flight of LRMs and both barrels of Hustler’s PPC array. “Gonna have to break away yourself, this time.”

“Easier said than done!” I countered, watching as the hulking Assault planted itself, leveling its guns on us. 

It was now or never.

Hustler sprung forward, bolting from the Marshal on our ass as the first bolt of lightning flew free, slamming into us and earning a howl of alarms and containment warnings from Hustler’s systems. The next pair screamed in, crashing through her side with a screech of rent metal and the dying whine of an engine that just couldn’t keep going anymore. 

The Xanthos turned, leaving us broken in the dust as the strained sound of actuators and Myomer filled the now still air. A shift of dirt drifted past Hustler’s cockpit, swirling lightly in the wind as a Marshal towered above us. There was an apology in its posture, if only for a moment, before it brought its boot skyward; the textured flat of old metal hovering over Hustler’s cockpit like a waiting guillotine. 

Old Callahan always did say those Marshals never leave Pirates alive…

Why the fuck did we even come here?

— ‘Mech Warrior Mark ’Runabout’ Wayne, Thunderbolt TDR-9T Pilot, Blood Sails Pirate Band. Herroticus, November 3144. 

—

Round 10

Movement

The Pirates take the initiative once again! I like to think of it as the Marshals just being good sports at this point. Yeah, that’s it…

The Marshals get underway by pushing the Helios up into a position with, hopefully, some cover prompting the Centurion to swing into her rear arc, followed close behind by his new friend the 6FR while the Spider on the far side of the map jumps in near the Xanthos, hoping to find solace, and protection, in having friendlies nearby. The Dragon swings forward as well with the Pirates angling to take the Helios off the board at the very least. The first squad of Tinstars run after him, excited to finally get their guns on target against something  while the other squad moves to try and guard their friend in the Spider.

Being that I lost initiative the Marshals need to get everything moved before the Cicada. As such the Xanthos and Marshal swing into position to do their best at supporting the little guy and trying to take the Cicada off the table.

The Cicada spins up the supercharger to blitz forward and dive on the Spider to finally finish the nuisance off… and fails the check. It does avoid the engine hit and, unburdened by fresh heat, continues its run up to the Spider, ready to commit great crimes against them.

Peri: We vaguely forgot how superchargers worked here but I did finally blow it up, which is funny. I fully cannot get the fuck away from those goddamn 6FRs and the Xanthos has more armor left on it than my entire force does. The Pirates are cooked.

Firing

The Marshals do their best at putting down their targets with the Helios firing off both medium lasers and both SRM6 packs into the Dragon alongside the Tinstars in his feet. The pair tear just about all of the remaining armor off the Commander with the only two locations still having any integrity by the end of the barrage being the left arm and the head. With the easy shots the pair had going well past twenty damage the Dragon takes, and fails, a PSR, toppling over to land squarely on its right torso, smashing it off and dying to XL engine hits. Also, it falls on its leg at the same time and rolls 12s on the critical check, popping it clean off. Died like a damned Lego man.

Next the 6FR into the Centurion’s back, he manages to bury a few shots into his rear, the snub into the already damaged CT, and an MXPL into the LT. landing a pair of crits into the left torso to destroy the LRM 10 and deal one engine hit. The CT is looking dangerously close to being drilled out despite the fact that the front armor hasn’t even been touched. Falls short of a PSR at only 16 damage.

The Cicada gets savaged, losing the left hand MVSP and taking a good amount of damage that strips most of the armor off and forces a PSR which they fail. Luckily the fall does not result in any pilot damage but this is a really bad place to be laid out on the floor right now.

For the pirates part the Centurion and Dragon pour fire into the Helios, ripping apart even more of the already faltering ‘mech and dealing a PSR which the Helios fails. She falls on her face, TACs the CT and takes an engine hit.

And then she fails the seatbelt check… and the 11+ Consciousness check. Back to bed! Next stop: Medbay back at base!

Finally comes the Cicada and its hateful vendetta against the Spider, burying a lot of fire into the little mech. They manage to land all three lasers and saw the left torso clean off sending the little spider that could crumpling to the dirt.

Peri: At least I killed the Spider and my Cicada did its job of light mech hunting. The Centurion was my MVP this entire game and it continues to do some decent work here, but the game is over. I am too battered and too fucked up to keep going.

Physicals

The Centurion throws a hand into the Helios, striking the unconscious mech in the leg, going in but failing to secure a crit. The 6FR behind them puts a boot into his leg, taking a good chunk out of the structure but failing to crit or force the Centurion to the ground.

That’s it, no further physicals.

Peri: Take any kick you can get.

Thoughts

Liberty: Oh hidy-ho Force Marshal! We’ve had a doozy of a day. There we were minding our own business- just doing patrols around the continent like ya asked us to- when these pirates just started killing themselves all over our property! It’s the damnedest thing I tell ya’!

Peri: Fun fact, every single mech of mine that died this game died because of losing a side torso with an XL engine. Normally at least one dies to something else, but fucking hell it was bad out there this game.

—

With the end of this round, and being left with a prone, suddenly very hot, Cicada down a gun and a beaten to shit Centurion, Peri concedes and we go into a post game chat to talk about what happened and what we can take away from it!

—

Post Game Thoughts:

With the fighting quieting down, and the Pirate pilots being drug from the wreckage by rather excited Tinstars, we’ve got a few things to talk about here so let’s run through them.

All in all this has been a pretty platonic game of BattleTech without any major game turning swings on low chance headers or TACs. Everything that happened here went about how it should have statistically, which is probably a good place to start off the reports! It does need to be stated that Peri didn’t quite lose this one in list construction but it was going to be an uphill fight for these Pirates from the get. Unfortunately the last nail was driven in when the Firstarter bashed itself apart in turn 5, everything after that was just the thrashing resilience of a dying force and the fact that neither of us ever give up on a fight until it truly cannot be salvaged.

That disadvantage in mind the Pirate list still managed to drag a pair of Marshal ‘mechs into the grave with them, obliterating the Battlemaster and knocking the Spider onto its ass after having thoroughly savaged the Helios. In an instance of this fight where Peri had taken one highly mobile Cav group backing a lance of battle line brawlers I think it becomes far more likely they manage to drag this into a closer match.

Peri: This was a pretty platonic game yeah, nothing really went wrong because of dice. I deployed badly and my force was focused around a game plan and gameplay style that I failed to execute correct

The Map

As we all know the map you play on can play a huge part in how a game of BattleTech goes and there’s no disputing that. The Savanna side of this mat is in-credibly tight across a fairly good portion of the map which really forces the issues on these tight fights. This map was not ideal for Peri’s force from the start and would heavily favor my Marshals with all their jumping about. But it must be remembered:

Starting edge matters too.

The Marshals winning initiative at the opening like they did was a big issue here for the pirates as it denied them the capacity to enter on the side that would allow them to setup a few big run lines to keep that TMM up while getting away from the 6FR’s genuinely oppressive movement in the broken up terrain. Even then this only would have helped so much as even the more open portions of the map aren’t exactly movement friendly.

A second fix for this problem may well have been adding another mat into play, giving Peri a bit more room to draw the engagement out as the Marshals approached. Unfortunately both of us agreed that in reality this would likely have given the same result we got here, just with an extra two hours of gameplay and maneuvering as the Marshals creep into range before trying to lock them down in a corner all over again.

Peri: This game really is a great example of why I tend to prefer jump jets to high ground speed. While having high ground speed can be really good for executing close range based strategies, or for maneuvering on more open maps, if you end up on a closed map you desperately want the jump jets and even on an open map the jump jets will still give you adequate TMM when you need it. The ability to clear some of the awful terrain I got bogged down in, or even just to rapidly change the direction of my movement without burning a third of my movement to turn around, would have massively helped my game.

Dr. Extralight or ‘How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Side Torso Bomb’

So, a lot of things here died to XL engines. Let’s count them off!

• Locust: Side torso drilled out from many medium lasers.
• Raven: Ammo explosion from Spider backstab cooked off the torso and took the engine with it.
• Rifleman: Gets free tickets to STOMP! The Musical as the Battlemaster kicks in the side torso and takes out the engine.
• Firestarter: Fails to stand up and falls on an open side torso, staving in the location and blowing out the engine.
• Thunderbolt: After taking successive big hits all game the Thunderbolt finally goes down to the Xanthos’ slamming a bunch of hate into an open side torso.
• Dragon: Took a pounding and then fell on the side torso and tore it off along with the engine.
• Spider: After being a nuisance all game the Cicada finally puts it down by just obliterating an otherwise untouched side torso in one turn.

So, what do we learn from this? Well, obviously, XL engines have some pretty big issues, which we of course knew but this is a bit of an exaggeration as to how bad they can be. To be honest Peri and I pretty rarely end up fielding this many XL engines in one game on one side, let alone on both, and as such have been somewhat isolated from just how debilitating they can really be.

That said, XL engines are bad but a lot of very good ‘mechs, several of my favorites included, take them as it gives them the space to lock up good guns, mobility and armor. On the other hand they will just explode sometimes and that needs to be remembered. If you have the chance to pick a light or standard engine over an XL you should just be doing that. If the ‘mech you want to use has an XL engine still do it but just keep in mind that it is likely what is going to do it in and play accordingly. In a campaign, and in the setting itself, a dead ‘mech is salvageable more often than not with an XL engine as the torso can get beaten in and just fall over, saving the pilot.

Normally you want that to recover your own machines, here though it means the Marshals walked away with quite a few new toys in need of repair. Hopefully the Force Marshal isn’t too angry about one of her Command units going up in smoke.

Peri: I mean I have no words, my entire list died because of XL engines. This is pretty strong evidence for the horribleness of the IS XL engine, which I really think needs to give a much more significant BV rebate than it does. You do get some BV back, but its only a discount on your internal structure BV. If I am remembering correctly you get about 50 BV back on most mechs, it is not worth it.

List Thoughts:

The Marshals:

Marshal 6FR: Holy fuck I love these things. This is probably one of the best ‘mechs of the Periphery. Colonial Marshals MVP and it’s not even close. The 6FR is great at playing the game of marginally better shots than really any other ‘mech built in the periphery. With great survivability between armor, mobility and Light Engine, astounding guns for a medium and a damned cheap cost it strikes a balance that just really can’t be beat. This thing picks all three on the triangle of function and then laughs at you for not being able to do that. Having 6 jump gives them astounding flexibility in deciding the engagement. They were shot at with nearly the entire list on two separate turns and they just didn’t give a fuck. It is only on one list in the periphery and its the Fronc Reaches from its inception until IlClan when the Taurians get it FOR SOME FUCKING REASON. Big bootleg Vapor Eagle energy for not much over half the cost.

Xanthos: Didn’t even come close to making its points back. This is an incredibly good ‘mech if you’re looking for a centerpiece that will just about only die to the CT being beaten out of it or having its head staved in. That in mind it has the issue of lacking the initiative for forcing things to look at it, which is what it wants. The sole purpose of this mech is to get beaten on. Its guns are not enough to be threatening to someone. It’s a weird little bastard but it is far too expensive to take for that purpose. Have to build a list around directing fire into this ‘mech which feels… Weird?

Helios: A good ‘mech with a lot of fun use cases towards the back of the force hopping into good, oddball sniping positions. Unfortunately here I did a stupid and tossed it to the wolves so it cost far more than I actually got out of it in this fight.

Spider: Scary hyper maneuverable VSPs continue to be very very good. Actively approaching your light’s location with grabby hands and a big knife.

Battlemaster: For all the hate they get sometimes an old standard engine Battlemaster can be surprisingly tough, and the 1Gc makes for a good command platform that’s still not terribly expensive. Wonderfully efficient ‘mech that is quite happy to fire everything and keep on going. The lack of CASE is a downside, especially considering it killed it this match, but I can, mostly, justify and deal with its omission.

Tinstar: Fight moved away from them and fast, needs the fight to stay near them to be able to do much. Did good work at the end of the match when the remnants of the opposition came back around on them. Could have remounted them to their caddies but I needed to get the 6FRs in the fight ASAP.

Liberty: There is one big takeaway for me here along with a few extra comments: I simultaneously should and shouldn’t take more Marshal 6FRs. They are fucking hateful little bastards for their price and are almost never the wrong choice. Only take the Xanthos if it can be forced to be your enemy’s best shot at all times so it can live out its punching bag dreams. Tinstars are fucking slow and can be abandoned by fights with fast forces, should remount Tinstars to mobile units if that happens. Could also take a VTOL/Vehicle to carry them around rather than my jumpers. This list, alpha striking everything off the rails, was capable of 254 damage. 36 of that is SRM damage and requires a close fight. The battle Armor is 32 of that and rarely contributed. Meaning we had roughly equivalent damage outputs but mine was far more short range and as such once the fight got started I was doing more of my damage more often as opposed to Peri barely firing off only 4-5 salvos of LRMs per ‘mech while I managed to fire off my BM’s SRM just about every turn.

The Pirates

Cicada: The Cicada here is a fun mech, MVSPs are grossly overpowered and since this game that weapon has had a near 100% presence in our local meta games, usually on a Spider 9M. The 9M is the better of the 2 mechs in my opinion because of the better mobility and lower price, but the greater durability on the Cicada is a very fair reason to prefer it.

Rifleman: This Rifleman variant is a complete weirdo but it is quite good. Riflemans are just good mechs outside of the 3N base model, and this is certainly one of the funnier ones. Take more Riflemans.

Locust: To quote Liberty, “Mistake. Misplay. Double ?? on Chess.com.” We have a joke locally about how it is critical to keep it in your fucking pants when it comes to light mechs like this. I had a zany scheme to distract the enemy with it but it became the only valid target for several mechs and ate shit instantly.

Firestarter: The Firestarter Omni is a really fantastic mech with a lot of fun variants, it is just a well designed, well built chassis, but this specific variant is way more expensive than you should be paying for a FSO. It isn’t cripplingly expensive or anything, but I probably could have gotten better use out of the BV somewhere else.

Centurion: The CN9-D is just such a good mech. Reasonable price, reasonable weapons, reasonable speed, and it functionally always has something to do. It is one of the few trooper type mechs that really makes it work, more or less solely on the back of the LB-10X being situationally incredible. There are just game states where an LB-10X wins you the game sometimes, and this is a great, mobile way to deliver one somewhere. Just don’t get into slugging matches with mechs that are bigger than you and it’ll do good work.

Thunderbolt: Sure was one of the Thunderbolts of all time. It really isn’t worth it, the jumpy Thunderbolts are just better. If I wanted a Cavalry heavy I really should have taken something a bit bigger and 5/8/0.

Dragon: I mean I needed to have a command console to match his and I think this is the fastest one that is mounted on a mech. I think we did command console rules wrong though.

Peri: I need to remember to bring more LBX, there are just game states where it is an instant win button. I was building a gimmick list, and gimmick lists are a lot of fun but if you end up like this list where you are skewing really hard towards a specific range or playstyle, you need to actually execute it correctly. Also, don’t take this many mechs with XL engines. My god do not take this many XL engines. Overall the idea was sound but the list really needed to play a very long, drawn out game over long ranges, and that is bluntly just not how I play BattleTech. I like to brawl or knife fight, and this list was 100% the wrong thing for me to build for my playstyle. It was a fun game though!

Conclusion

That’s the first Goonhammer Battletech Battlereport done and in the books! We had a great time with this and are looking forward to, hopefully, doing more in the future! Let us know what you think and drop your hopes for future matchups in the comments and we just might pick it for future use!

Remember, all the ‘mech reviews, the pretty plastic and shiny mathrocks aren’t worth a damn if you don’t use them to have fun with friends! So go grab a drink, a good pack of snacks, your favorite game partner(s), a box of funny ‘mechs, a cozy spot, and a fun map then get to making some good memories!

Until next time! Fair weather, good seas and happy gamin’!

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