When The Dice Want More Table Time

So this past Saturday, I finally got another Battletech game in with Cheef. He was fielding his Ace Darwin's Whipits while I was fielding a unit of my Caselton Militia with a couple Rabid Foxes attached. In my head I had it as the Foxes on a data gathering mission using the militia forces for cover. This was one of those games where Cheef's dice were fairly unforgiving towards him while on the other hand my own dice were trying to send me the message that they wanted a lot more useage as I was rolling way better than I normally do.

My full deployment was in Civil War era units and consisted of the two Fox agents in PXH-3PL Phoenix Hawks, a militia Marauder MAD-5M, 2 militia WVR-7K Wolverines, and then a pair of SRM variant Hetzers. He had Ace in his pink Panther, two Shadow Hawks, a Grasshopper, an Enforcer, and a Wasp. All his units have their call signs, rides, and a brief backstory on his own blog here. Several of his mechs had slight tweaks from stock variants as well as improved piloting skills while all my pilots were 4/5s. However my mechs all were loaded with pulse lasers to improve their shooting as well as the Phoenix Hawk variant having a targeting computer to go with those pulse lasers.

We both deployed fairly normally and just charged at each other. By turn 3 we were at close range and unloading all we could into the other. His Enforcer was his leading unit and I singled it out first as a target. It took a lot of hits which resulted in major damage all over it including 3 criticals for 2 engine hits and 1 gyro hit. It did manage to stay standing and ended up backing off the table in withdrawal a few turns later. Over the next few turns I managed to kill the Wasp, force one of the Shadowhawks to withdraw, and then at that point with moderate to heavy damage to his remaining units while I had one heavily damaged and the rest moderately to lightly damaged, his force decided that getting paid another day rather than no more paychecks was the better option and called it a day.

While it was nice to get a game in, the dice were definitely not being balanced between us. One of my Hetzers managed 21 out of 30 possible missile hits where 4 of the 5 SRM/6s hit and then I rolled high on the scatter chart as well with only 3 of the 24 missing. I have never in any game managed a missile accuracy like that before and when paired with the pulse lasers bonus offsetting my movement penalties, it definitely became a one sided game around turn 5 or 6. Hopefully we can get another game in soon that is more balanced and fun for all without the dice gods being petty.

So more of an overview than a full up battle report as I didn't take a ton of pictures but I will say it was nice with us both having fully painted and based forces on the table. I know that has been a slight annoyance to Cheef lately as he's dipped his feet into the waters of Alpha Strike and has been facing nothing but bare gray plastic models on the other side of the table for several games now. So that's all for now and with the parting joke that I "Raid"ed his Wasp pilot "Hotshot", I will see you all next time. I need to get the next installment of Red Bull Rising up and will aim to get that up this weekend.