HOLD THE PASS! Capps Vs. Canopian Highlanders

This was my first game of Battletech in... 10 years? The other 2 players (MemphisMark being one) (fielding just short of a combined 2 lances of Canopian Highlanders) were about as equally foggy over the rules. But like riding a bike, we all got back into the rhythm of things pretty quickly- and had a complete blast.

The setup was a friendly pickup game/re familiarization of the rules. I fielded around 7000pts of Cappie goodness vs. 14000 of greedy Canopian Highlander mercenary filth. I got to deploy on board and 'defend the pass' (presumably the only avenue to the local orphanage) while the mercs walked on board.

I'm not biased at all... really.

The "good guys":
ASN-21 "Assassin"
VND-4L "Vindicator"
LGB-12C "Longbow"
OSR-4L "Ostroc"
4x Po Heavy Tanks "The Door Stops"

The Canopians: (Forgive me if I'm not entirely clear on the unit designations)
Modified LGB-12C featuring C3 "Longbow"
Modified Atlas with targeting computer "Atlas"
KGC-001 "King Crab"
Behemoth
Masakari(Prime)
Annihilator modified to feature 4 RAC5s (and enough ammo casings to fill a parking lot).

The situation after the first turn: (any area with green 1 "level" above the ground is trees)



The Po's fire into the Annihilator scratching the armor while the Longbow makes use of the terrain and pummels the Masakari over the tree line. This proves to be a problem as return fire in the form of pot shots from nearly everyone is too much. He will turn around and get off the hill. The RAC5 Annihilator begins to motive crit the tanks and cause issues.


The Po's flush out to take advantage of the hill and deny half the Canopian assets a valid target while whittling away at the behemoth and annihilator's armor. The Cappellan lighter assets make a move around the flank behind the trees to slow down the assault group. The Masakari continues to fusillade the Longbow for the LRM insult the turn before and the Cappellan LGB pilot learns a valuable mistake in turning its back armor to the crowd.

Nearly everything on the board takes a pot shot at it. Though nearly everything wiffs, it does core out the left torso rear armor and all but one internal structure point.



He wiffs the piloting roll to withstand the onslaught.

The Annihilator climbs to the top of the hill and begins to unload his ammo on the tanks below in a fashion not dissimilar from a scene from Hot Shots Part Deux, completely disabling the main armaments of one tank. The rest of the group unloads what they can on the Annihilator hoping to hurt the resale of the assault mech... or something. Anything.

It is a grim time for the Cappellans. I'm still nearly out matched 2 to 1 in an attempt to save the orphans protect the pass. With no appreciable damage thus far against the Annihilator, the Longbow takes a shot at it. Nearly everything connects with the cluster rolls being somewhat lousy.
The last 6 point LRM groupings are allocated... the dice are cast.

Roll for 5 points...

2; Crit chance

Roll for last point...

2... crit chance

Could this be? A potential turn around? Unlikely as it was, I was already pressing my luck, I rolled the dice for the crits
"come-on box cars come-on box cars come-on box cars come-on box cars" *dice roll* I had to stare at the dice for a second before I realized it.

***BOX CARS***

And like a Brazillian Soccer commentator announcing a goal, I screamed 'Yes' and quite nearly did a victory dance. I was completely unaware of myself for a moment, and followed up with a quick sorry and moved on to the next crit. A 10, 2 more crits.

And with a sudden halt, the XL engine on the 100 ton monstrosity whined to a halt and (presumably) fell over in ankle deep water.


The Cannopian's assault stuttered for a minute. The Behemoth stopped to whittle down the opposition at range, the King Crab diverted to take care of the light assets threatening to flank them while the Cannopian Longbow began making shots at the Assassin clearly running into their flanks. The Ostroc came out of hiding to completely miss and overheat firing at the Behemoth.
The Behemoth, in one turn, started generation crits on the Ostroc in kind.


The glory of the Confederation still relying on risk, slowing down/distracting his assets, and denying him the ability to concentrate fire, the Vindicator leaps from the woods to Death From Above the King Crab. The crab nearly knocks the leg off the Vindicator in defensive fire (taking out a leg actuator) while it successfully executes its DFA.

One of the Po crews, previously stunned and otherwise out of action, sprints into the assault group hoping to absorb some fire and buy time for the rest of the combat team.



The flanks successfully threatened, the assault group (Atlas, King Crab, Longbow) stops and turns around to deal with the Assassin, Vindicator, and brave Po crew with one working machine gun. Another Po charges into the fray at an opportune moment hoping to force the rear armor on something. The group manages to puncture the rear armor of the Longbow and generate some crits, damaging the XL engine.

The Ostroc charges attempting to make a difference but just loses an arm, leg, and pushes 24 heat.

In return, the Cappellan Longbow finally succumbs to the whittling of armor and loses a torso to the Masakari. The Vindicator also goes down to the impressive firepower of the King crab and the Atlas.

The game was called at this point (and rightly so, i had the black knight AKA Ostroc barely conscious and offensively making the ground hot and a collection of tanks in various states of operation). MemphisMark called it a pyrrhic victory for the Cappellans since they never made it to the pass. It was a good game nonetheless.

The real winners here were the Vindicator and Assassin.



These 2 little guys managed to tie up nearly an entire assault lance for almost 4 turns and gave the rest of the team time to even the odds against the other 3 mechs... And one of them survived till the end.
...and the Cappellan Mechwarrior dice I used for the game that I got as a gift. Can't over rate some lucky dice that pulled through at the right moment. =D

Other observations:
The Po tank is individually just a decoration. As a lance, they can't be ignored. They accounted for nearly half the damage I was doing.
The RAC/5, when fired conservatively, is incredibly effective mid range crit finder.


Great game... Good guys... And a great place to game. Check out GamerzDepot outside of Memphis if you guys ever get a chance.