So this turn in the Campaign I attempted to pivot and take Tony out of Vama.
In the frozen wasteland of Vama I decided to see if I could kick Tony out of the sector. I made two drops on Abaza and Ostplanes. This is the fight on Abaza.
First of all, I am at a disadvantage because Tony has a supporting Command, giving him 11k points to my 10k. I was also using my "light" command, which meant my units were limited to a maximum weight of 55 tons. He was not likewise constrained.
| Mark | Tony |
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Pilots as noted |
All Pilots 4/5 |
This sector is cold enough to make Hoth look like Honolulu, with a -4 to heat generation. It didn't help that Tony rolled a Blizzard. This gave a +2 to every piloting check and +1 to energy weapons, +2 to ballistic weapons and +3 to missile weapons firing. I was intending on using concentrated fire, combined with wheel and fire to arrive at victory again. Most of all, I meant to stay as far away as possible from that Superheavy Omega with four Gauss Rifles and two LB-10X autocannons. While Tony's bad rolling is notorius and infamous, I wasn't going to give him any opportinuty I could avoid to stay out of the sights of that beast. For my mission, I rolled "Cripple Recon," to destroy anything that can move faster than 8 hexes a turn. Out of Tony's list, the only one that I have to kill is the Preta since the Yurei is in Aerospace mode (for now).
Turn 0: Because I have a Light Command, I got a free move and took advantage of it.
Turn 1:
Movement: I took the midline of the board, my Shadow Hawks in partial cover, my Bushwackers taking cover in some woods and the Dervish keeping his options open to cover the entire area with his LRM's. Tony brought everything but the Preta (carrying the Purifier BA) to his left around a butte. The Yurei he put into Aerospace mode and sent it aloft to duke it out with my Transit. It will show up on Turn 3.
Aerospace: I bring my Transit around, intending to do a 180 and catch something in the rear armor.
Shooting: HA! Are you kidding? This is BattleTech!
Turn 2:
Movement: I forgot the Preta is a jumpy little bugger, with a movement of 6/9/8. I move my L1 Bushwacker and a Shadow Hawk into the woods to take him on, the other Shadow Hawk wide to take a shot at him. The Preta laughs and jumps behind the Bushwacker on the other side of the Butte and drops the BA. By all this long jumping, he keeps his modifier high enough that I can't get a good shot at him the whole game. The Omega and his Mini-Me (the Urbie) and the Stalker are lumbering along as fast as they can to join the battle with the Legacy riding shotgun.
Aerospace: The Transit comes in and catches the Preta in the side with a couple lasers, but the AC20 missed. Drat.
Turn 3:
Movement: One of my Shadow Hawks runs through the woods, booking it to catch Tony's core force in the back with his RAC-5. The Bushwacker -L1 gets jumped on by the BA. The Preta jumped behind my Bushwacker -X1 while the Dervish and the other Shadow Hawk took cover behind the hill anticipating what's rolling into town. The Omega/Urbie/Stalker/Legacy are just going "and we're walking, and we're walking..."
Aerospace: My Transit is not quite coming around for another ground pass because his threat sensors have picked up the Yurei inbound.
Shooting: The BA starts throwing sachel charges on the Bushwacker -L1. The armor is takes minimal damage, but what hurt was the automatic crit roll chances he gets. Tony rolled on the lower leg actuator. The Preta hits and penetrates the -X1's right torso rear armor doing a single internal but no crit.
Turn 4:
Movement: The Dervish moves to dislodge the Preta from the Bushwacker and was successful. The bad news is the Preta got into the back of one of the Shadow Hawks. The Bushwacker -X1 moves into position to return the favor to the Preta. The Shadow Hawk clears the butte just enough to only see the Urbie. The Bushwacker -L1 feels like he's being mobbed by puppies. Except these puppies have sachel charges and lasers.
Aerospace: The Transit loses the initiative and the Yurei gets in behind him. He forgets to commence evading and pays the price.
Shooting: The Shadow Hawk lights up the Urbie, who then falls on his own head. More leg crits to the Bushwacker -L1, however he's still standing for the moment. Tony's Omega/Stalker/Legacy take aim at the Bushwacker -X1 with little or no effect.
Turn 5:
Movement: The Urbie stands up. That's all he can do. The Shadow Hawk in front of the Urbie cracks his knuckles and prepares to smash the "Clown Button." The other Shadow Hawk is trying to get away from the Preta while supporting the other Shadow Hawk. The Preta stays right behind him and the Bushwacker -X1 is following, forming a bent Conga line.The Omega walks on, forgetting all about his Mini-Me. The Stalker and Legacy pivot around the woods that's between them and the Dervish, planning to go "SURPRISE!" on him as the Dervish tries to do the same to the Omega.
Aerospace: the Transit loses initiative once again and feels the "thump thump thump" as his airframe is forcefully turned into Swiss Cheese.
Shooting: The Bushwacker -L1 says "FML" as he's running out of crits on his left leg from all of the sachel charges. The BA finally get a hip crit and he does down hard and to stay. The Dervish falls over from multiple body blows from the Stalker and Legacy, while the Dervish splits his fire, missiles to the Omega, lasers to the Legacy. The poor Omega has no one to shoot (he haz a sad) and the Conga line has no critical damage on anyone.
The event of the turn was the Shadow Hawk when he hit the "clown button" and did an alpha strike at range 3.
All six shots from the RAC-5, both Medium Lasers and the Streak SRM-4 hits, and I ended up with six crit chances. The poor Urbie was like...
I didn't even roll for all the crits because the first one caused an ammo crit and he Stackpoled.
Turn 6:
Movement: The BA, their job done decised to get outta Dodge and jumps up on the butte, hoping to wash, rinse and repeat on the Shadow Hawk that just polished the Urbie off and looking to to the same with the Omega. The Dervish is also hightailing it out of the area, the Stalker on his heels and the Legacy not too far behind. the Bushwackers and the other Shadow Hawk decide to "scrum it up" with the Preta.
Aerospace: The Yurei savages the Transit again, forcing three control rolls, one of with the pilot fails. The pilot is at altitude 4 already, so there's a 50/50 chance he will conduct a "forceful, unanticipated and semi-controlled landing." Except he rolls a 3, which means he (barely) stays in the air and has to pull tree branches out of his undercarrage when (if) he gets home.
Shooting: The Shadow Hawk behind the Omega hits the Clown Button again, with most of everything hitting, however the Omega is so massive it doesn't even notice the damage. The Dervish takes damage from the rear, but no significant amount. The scrum also produced no notable hits.
It was at this point that time and spouses called for the end of the fight. Everyone was okay (as in not in Forced Withdrawal) but the (obviously) dead Urbie. The point total was my 10,623 to Tony's 10,517, so Tony did a dice-off and declared me the winner.
Lessons learned: Don't ignore, but don't engage superheavies and most certainly don't give them a good shot at you.