AAR: Battletech Alpha Strike

 The Space Cadets convened at Casa de Ski on Saturday for an Alpha Strike game. We haven't all gotten together in a little while and even so, we were still missing Mark. Since I've been off all week I put the scenario together. Since we had five players, it seemed like an Inner Sphere v Clan battle was appropriate, with each player running a Lance or Star. 

Free World League:

Lance 1 (Ziggy)
Jenner 7K
Wolfhound 2
Raven 1X
Uziel 2S

Lance 2 (David)
Albatross 3UR
Marauder 2T
Crusader 3R
Bandersnatch 1A
    
Lance 3 (Wayne)
Orion 1K
Panther 1K
Blackjack 2
Huron Warrior R5L

Clan Mire Mandrill:

Star 1 (myself)
Kodiak
Sun Cobra
Spirit
Conjurer
Horned Owl

Star 2 (Mike)
Incubus
Incubus II
Hellion B
Hellion B
Pack Hunter

We randomly assigned units to players and set up on opposite corners with 60" of table between enemy forces.

Objective locations are marked in red. The Marik deployment area is the lower left.

I sent my Spirit and Horned Owl through the BUA and directly towards the center objective.

The Marik forces move out.

And they've taken good spots to watch that center objective. Wayne's Huron Warrior has already taken the location in the ruins to the east while the rest of his lance follows.

My Sun Cobra and Conjurer are going to have to stall Wayne's lance by themselves while the rest of my star focuses on the central objective.

My Spirit captured the objective but became one with nature when that nasty gunline opened up on it. 

Me, doing my best to delay Wayne. Ziggy's Jenner popped in to really be pain the ass. They've got me 5-2! What a bunch of bull.

My Kodiak finally gets a shot to land. I overheated by 2 and sent the Bandersnatch to a new plane of reality with a rear shot. Of course the Marauder, Crusader and Albatross (across the river) now had a juicy target.

Poof! Kodiak out. Buuuuut....

Heheh. Poof. Marauder out.

Mike's Pack Hunter takes the central objective and begins drawing fire. The rest of his star finally starts joining the fray. You can see his Incubus II atop the pyramid in the upper right, steadily scoring points for us, just like the Huron Warrior was for the Sphere side.

Boom. Sneaky Jenner out.

Boom. Brave and mighty Sun Cobra joins his ancestors in Valhalla.

Boom. The Albatross spite-kills my Conjurer which was trying to get a bull-shot on the Crusader but missed horribly.

Turn 9. Mike gets his last Hellion on the central objective after the Pack Hunter gets hunted down by a pack of Marik hunters. The Hellion magically survives the turn!

It doesn't survive turn 10 though. The Fire Mandrills three remaining mechs run and hide to avoid a wipe out. The FliegenderIncubus takes a few long-ranged shots from Wayne's peanut gallery in the center but hangs on.

Final score... 17-16, Clan win!

A remarkably well-played and evenly matched game, perfect for a Saturday afternoon. Teams scored one point per kill and one point for sitting on an objective at the end of a turn. Once on an objective, mechs were not allowed to leave and "rotate out" with another friendly mech in order to keep units with good TMMs, etc on the objectives - they were required to stay still, go hull down. or simply abandon the objective. 

Mike's "speed kills" star was terrifying. The mechs in that group are all crazy fast, all TMM 3 and have solid weapons. I collected those models for a specific purpose and it was awesome to see them perform exactly as I'd hoped. My Kodiak was jinxed. Three shots, one hit and it was dead in what felt like two minutes. The IS force, a ragamuffin group if there ever was one, was quite effective. Zig got really good mileage out of his light lance, taking advantage of speed and numbers to get rear-shot opportunities while Mike and I were more concerned with bigger, scarier mechs.

Painting And Stuff

 Finished up a bit more over the last week or two... Always like to keep the brushes moving! It's been sci-fi stuff recently with some secondhand Warmachine minis and Battletech.

Here are those Warmachine things. Ugly little monstrosities. Hideous demonic bile-spewing things. They'll be a wonderful addition to my evil Xenos Rampant force. I like the way the color shift paint turned out over the textured bases. It was certainly experimental and lends a neat demonic otherworldly touch. 

And then there are these five additions to my Battletech Fire Mandrill clan collection. It's the "Ad Hoc Lance" force box.

Certainly not "canon" mechs for Fire Mandrills but who gives a darn? A Kodiak is a bad mammer jammer and who doesn't need one in their collection? A pleasure to paint and a welcome addition for sure. I'm hoping to host a game of Alpha Strike next weekend and some of these might make the table.

My wife and I went up to Atlanta last weekend for a concert - Steve Miller Band, Journey and Def Leppard. It was a blast.

A view from the top of Truist Park. All the bands were terrific. Def Leppard was noticeably better from when I saw them in 2022. Vocals, sharpness... just better. 

Elfin' Paintin'

 I've had a box of 28mm Elf Infantry for about a year that I finally got into a few weeks ago after I finished up the Bolt Action guys. Models are from the Oathmark range. I have some Goblin infantry from that range and these are high-quality multi-part kits that are easy to assemble and well-detailed. I put together this group of 16 simply to make a dent in it and paint something different. They also gave me an opportunity to try out the new Army Painter metallic speed paints. All were primed white and well, here they are.

Vanilla elf warriors. I need to get some decals for the shields.

And of course elf archers.

The metallic speedpaints are nice and do exactly as advertised. As with all speedpaint-type products, lots of surface detail helps. The helmets and swords on the warriors are noticeably stranger looking than the chainmail and breastplate which look really good. I was happy to be able to paint with brights and metallics without having to spot-prime the metallic areas with black first. The minis will join my halflings, goblins and orcs and one of these days will do battle on a tabletop near me!

Pulpy - Scenario Testing

 A couple of weekends ago I put my Pulp skirmish game on the table for the first time since March when we played it at Skirmish game con. It was a scenario test run to check objectives, terrain, etc. The testing went well and my playtesters, Ziggy and the Bride both enjoyed the game itself. I'm hoping to take Pulpy up to Southern Front in Raleigh in September and this is the scenario I've put together. Without going too deep into specifics, a few pictures.

I've decided on one fairly significant dice mechanic change to the rules to speed up play. One of those flashes of brilliance while I was doing something else. It helps me stay true to my preferred gaming tenet of ONE DICE ROLL = ONE RESULT. I'm pretty excited about that. I do need to set up a small game of Pulpy! to confirm that it works as expected but I'm pretty confident. Until next time, be well!