Since the last time I updated this:
Mechtober 2022 -
Acid Rain went significantly better than I had hoped. I wasn't able to completely run the scenario, but clearing out the closest PPC turrets allowed me to succeed at "Ware the Watchtowers" without issue.
Heat Lightning was uh... We had four maps set up. We used the equivalent of one. Most of the fight was down a single corridor of clear hexes between the blazing inferno that were woods. Lots of fire. Lots of smoke. Got most of my charges off the map. My friend decided to add a custom 'Mech to the OpFor so I officially have my first non-canon non-Omni design.
Mecha' De Mayo 2023 -
This gathering was quite a bit more of a gathering. Which was perfect for Iron Giants since it had an allied force for my command. It went well for me, and I really do love having an opportunity to use the Solaris VII maps.
Comes the Reaper was a bit, less good. Still won, but didn't achieve all goals because there was an Atlas on the field. And free Gauss Rifle turrets for my opponent. Oh boy.
Mechtoberfest 2023 -
So far, one match for the Scions. Run them Down. Was worried at first, because I lost initiative turn one, and my Ostsol had everything shooting at him with no TMM. Did not die. Turn 2 saw me knock his biggest thing to the ground with a convenient TAC on his leg. Turn 3 the rest of my forces arrived. The only OpFor unit to leave the board was a single hover tank.
Edit:
Infestation was as dire as I was expecting. I took the Firestarter Omni and the Watchman out for this one, as I only had 10% of my total forces for use. Really not sure with what I had at the time if I had a better selection. OpFor was an AH Centurion, a Peregrine VTOL (What's with the side mounted SRMs!?), the LB10-X/ UAC5 Partisan, armor variant of the Schrek, and three squads of infantry. I knew I would be outnumbered going in, but being this massively outweighed in single units? It's kinda' rough. Especially since the OpFor also got two free LB10-X turrets, one for each map we had. (He had the option of going with Gauss Turrets, but took the LBs instead.)
The game went three turns. Turn one, there was no effective fire. Turn two the Partisan shot off the Firestarter's Plasma Rifle, leaving me with two flamers, and a quad MG array - and the Watchman. Turn three I bolted. There was really no way to deal with this fight after that. In hindsight, I should have kept to the map that the Cent was on and dueled him with the Watchman and Firestarter, forcing him to maneuver the other two tanks over. But I didn't.
The Supply mission went a bit better. Granted, I won because of two rather lucky dice rolls. Facing a Veteran Avatar Prime and a Phoenix Hawk 3M, I had a Cicada 3G, the Firestarter Omni (After repairs), my Bandit "Brotherhood" (2 ER Mediums, SRM-4, and BAP.), a Squad of IS Standard (Laser), and a platoon of Foot Infantry (To sink initiative, but never came into play.)
Battle Armor rode in on the Firestarter, and the Firestarter and Cicada started the match. The Bandit with the infantry would arrive on turn 6.
The Q&D of it, the Firestarter ended up falling over two times in the match, and each turn they fell I ended up having to go on the defensive because I would lose initiative the following round. The Cicada took a calculated risk and jumped behind the Avatar to get a building scan and maybe put some damage into him. The Avatar hadn't moved yet, so just turned. Turns out I am bad at math. Despite jumping 8 into woods, the Avatar was able to get a shot on one of the Cicada's legs. Then on an 8, kicked the same leg, putting some damage internal. Double crit, for a nice hip and leg hit. By some miracle, the Cicada succeeded at all three PSR's they had to make. But failed when they jumped away the following turn. That would spark the demise of the Cicada. That said, the Avatar became threatened by the battle armor, and couldn't huddle in his Heavy Woods anymore. A TAC on the Avatar hit his engine, which kept the Avatar a little warmer than he wanted to be.
Meanwhile the Phoenix Hawk and the Firestarter dueled. The irritating bit was twice, needing 5s (20+ damage) or 4s (got kicked) to remain standing, the Firestarter failed. The dice allowed me to manage to *not* get heavily punished for it.
Things felt bad until turn 6 when my cavalry actually arrived. While the Bandit didn't do much in the way of damage the turn it arrived, it added a new threat to the Avatar beyond the single squad of Battle Armor. Turn after the Bandit arrived, my opponent decided to try to destroy my battle armor squad, which allowed me to sneak the Bandit and Firestarter into the rear arc of the Avatar. The Firestarter got a convenient floated TAC, combined with doing enough damage to remove the rear armor on the Avatar to get two rolls. The second one didn't matter as the first critical confirmed for two. Ammo and Ammo. Avatar was down. This secured two objectives by this point - two buildings were scanned and over 25% of my opponent's forces were either destroyed or crippled. All I had to do was keep both the Bandit and Firestarter alive until turn 10.
The next turn made that easy. The Phoenix Hawk was running quite hot by this point, and had a weakened left side. He leapt away into heavy trees. Both the Bandit and Firestarter pursued, a risky move given that the Firestarter was close to losing an XL torso and the Bandit over over a level 1 water hex. Despite needing 12's, the Phoenix Hawk fired his pulse lasers at the Firestarter, missing everything. The Firestarted landed the one thing he needed to - the Plasma Rifle. With the heat from the Plasma Rifle, plus the jump, and an earlier engine hit, and the laser fire - the Phoenix Hawk heated up enough to require testing for ammo explosion, and for shut down. He failed both rolls. In a lovely display of pyrotechnics, I survived the mission. And acquired a new Avatar, and sold the Phoenix Hawk for scrap. (Sorry, the 3M is not exactly a great 'Mech.) Between the sale of the Hawk, and the bonus SP I got from achieving all objectives in the mission, I was able to repair everything, and replace the Cicada.
After both of those missions, I decided that the MG array wasn't worth keeping on that Firestarter. I swapped it out with two ER Medium lasers and a targeting computer. I felt that landing the Plasma Rifle more often was worth a lot more than the chance of getting a quadruple head shot, quadruple motive hit, or buzz-sawing infantry with the array. The Plasma Rifle and Flamer still makes this guy a terror to infantry squads, without having to add more anti-infantry weapons.
The Avatar got refit to match my other one, and loaded the MML racks with infernos and semi-guided missiles.
Given that I had a rather robust support point stockpile, I felt it was time to go on a small shopping spree. I hired three more veteran pilots - one for the new Avatar, one to replace Irena in her Locust, and one for a new 'Mech - an Awesome AWS-9Q. I realized this command has been very glass cannon so far, so added an assault 'Mech to the mix. Again.
Irena took command of the Mongoose "Surprise" (A zippy little thing, apparently a stolen prototype based on the Mongoose 76 - which wasn't released yet. The 200XL was stripped out for a 275XL, a lighter weight gyro was installed, and the ECM suite as well as the weaponry was replaced with a quad loadout of ER Medium lasers.)
The shopping spree brings the 'Mech compliment of this force up to a reinforced company with the overall force being a mixed battalion. Everything is still in semi-formal lances, but they will likely continue to be shifted around for the time being.
