Bob’s Battletech

As I said the new map board was too nice to not test it and play a game on.

Using a selection of mechs from my Clan Ghost Bears and Knights Mercian Forlorn Hope.

All my mech sheets were obtained from the Mech Factory App on Google Play which I’ve had for years. It has various data bases for mechs,  vehicles  , battle armour  warships and Aerospace, plus equipment. For most you can then produce unit Rosters , which I did for this game.

The game is asymmetrical  with the Inner Sphere force both outpointing the Clan in both Battle Values and Tonnage  the Clann force wiil have to rely on superior Technology, particularly Pulse Lasers, the Spherers relying on their Gauss Rifles to even the odds.

The Clans will be deployed on table at start of game. In and around the central building compound.

The Forlorn Hope will be deploying the 4 heaviest of the mechs from this edge

The Two lighter Heavy Mechs will not arrive till move 2 from this Table edge as part of a flanking Force

I shall be using the Battletech Initiative deck as opposed to standard Initiative,  though a normal pack of cards would do.

To allow for better pilot Initiative,  better pilots will draw an extra card  for each 2 levels of skill lower than standard so :

Pilot level 5 (standard) 1 card

3-4                    2

1-2                    3

0                     4

With the better skilled picking the card they want for Initiative .

The Historical Background 

The Clan Invasion had been as much a suprise to Mercia as it had to the Inner Sphere. Although they had not regressed technologically and stiil access to much of the Star League era technology,  their advancements since had been more focused on Stealth Technology for their small fleet of Warships   particularly their Bug Eye Scout Jumpships. 

It was in fact one of these that had found the Ghost Bears forward Supply base on Justin’s Eye , a sparsely populated planet on the periphery edge  easily conquered in the Clans initial push into known Space. Once established the Khan of the Ghost Bears  built  a forwar underground supply cache  in case of heavy loses. As the Invasion progressed it became a bit of a backwater   much of the equipment being moved further forward  but still had a reasonable cache of mechs and materials,  plus a extensive data base on Clan Weapon technology. 

This was the very Information that ‘Nighwatch’ the Mercian Intelligence Service wanted  to plug the weapons technology gap. plus if a few mechs could be captured for reverse Engineering all the better.

Therefore a force of  a Forlorn Hope Overlord Dropship escorted by the Essex Class Destroyer ‘Hotspur’. Using their Stealth abilities  secretly jumped into the System.

The previous Scouting mission had determined that only a few stars of a Smoke Bears Garrison Cluster defended the planet, a cache site that was the most isolated was picked at ‘Warrens Port’ as the raid target and a reinforced company was deployed. The Two smaller Standard Scout Lances moving to cover the approachs and warn of Reinforcements, whilst the heavier Assault Lance would Assault the base led by the Mercians Legendary Pilot known only as ‘Ivanho’

The Clan defenders consist  mainly of 2nd line mechs, a Star of  119th Garrison Cluster led by an old  Star Captain Ima Target in his Summoner Omnimech

Finally of the my God they are awesome mechs , The Marauder 11C ‘Black Prince’ whats not to like about a mech with 3x Clan ER PPC’s and Medium Pulse lasers !

When I showed the Balck Widow I said I would put the other standard mechs with them for comparison, the other 3 were not variants as far as I can tell but bascially reposed mechs (mainly change the leg stance)

There isnt a huge amount of difference, I got my Legends with the Kickstarter but they are rare to find otherwise and might be quite expensive on Fleabay which apart from Natash Kerensky are just reposes not variants so really on the whole you would be getting them for the character cards and the Alpha Strike cards. Which I;m not sure the details may not be in the upcoming Legends book.

Some of the previous pictures are a bit grainy on close up , so here are some mechs from Forlorn Hope in detail

All above and in next update painted using the method already described for Grayson Carlyles , using GW Basilisum Grey  ~Contrast followed by light Grey Dry Brush

No thats not my chances of Golden Button !

A couple of updated ago on the painting of Grayson Carlyle I commented I liked the cammo scheme and painted  up the Nightstar for my own Mercanary unit.

Hadn’t figured on how it was going to fit in with the T&O of my already Olive Green painted units, but as I was painting them up, remembered that way in the day as part of Background for The Knights Mercian , we had come with Knight Intelligence ‘Nightwatch’ (we had it before Babylon 5 Gerry). and for the Elite Special forces the Forlorn Hope, (originally with a Saxon Cross as their sbu unit emblem,) who also provided Elite Mech pilots and mechs, so this new all Grey Unit has grey Cammo mechs -sorted

Tending to be predominantly equipped with assault mechs and captured Clan (see later battle report)mechs.

This had the additional benefit of giving me two distinct plastic mech forces for demo games and boot camps, one in Allied Olive and one in sort of Axis Grey.

I show these now as they will provide one side in my upcoming Battle Report using the game board I have been working on.

Well after their journey from China, my 2nd lot of trees have arrived.Based they have been added to table (note I miscounted and one light wood is missing, ut on a hill so nobody will notice. Never realised how many wood hexes were on Maps.

Well having Finished such a nice table It seems a shame to put it away without playing a game on it. So watch this space.

Well after a couple of minor setbacks with hex size, and insufficient light trees to make all the light hex woods, as a proof of  concept, to make map Terrain to match a set of map boards,  it doesn’t look half bad. Added a few old Old Crow  6mm buildings.

Well the whole thing of the last 3 days was to see if massive terrain  was possible.  Despite some snags with the hex base sizes and not having enough light woods trees, I have nearly managed to re-creat most of effects on the base game map board. Need one more double hex Hill and would you believe 20 more light woods.

So progress so far with some old ‘old crow 6mm buildings.

Slight boo-boo- card map boards wert not with Armoured combat starter set, Thought they were very different, they were from the anniversary set that came out with the old style plastic mechs. Explains why not got the new 3d type styling!

This was very much an afterthought post laying out the board. I still had 3 bags of the undersized hex bases, and didn’t(Clanners will shoot me-contractions) want to build any more hills till I got the right side hex bases. Looking at the map there were areas of rough ground, so I thought why not use these spare hex bases for them.

Now the rough couldn’t be too rough or the mech wouldn’t stand on it so just went for a bit of flock put on the wet texture paint.

To help get them to stand out, wiil wash them with Thinned outcAgrax Earthshade.

Woods

Dropped lucky on this  I had been trying to figure out how to do it  but when looking for the flock for the rough ground  chanced upon a bag of small trees, I brought of e-bay. Not sure why I brought them  probably to do an orchard for 15mm Flames of war. Now the nice thing is they come in two colours,  a light green and a dark green, so the former will be light woods  and the latter heavy woods. Plus I can just get 2 on a hex to help represent heavy.

I considered leaving the trees loose for removal when a mech moves on to it  , but figure it’s going to be easier to move whole hex. The player could put it by his mech sheet to remind them what they are in.

Found I have not enough of light trees for all the light woods on map, but luckily I have still got details on ebay and seller still sells them, so order went in. If they are a different size no problem as real trees come in different sizes.