Author Topic: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.  (Read 2948 times)

marauder648

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A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« on: 09 January 2013, 22:19:25 »
Was doing a pick up battle on a normal slightly forested terrain map, IS Vs Clans with the following set up.

IS (me)

Hauptmann Prime (command mech)
Sagittaire (ALL THE PULSE LASERS! _o/)
Jagermech III
Ceasar

Scarabus
Wolfhound 3-S
Valkyrie QD-1
Garm

Clans

Hellstar Prime
Burrock Prime
Timber Wolf E (the ATM one)
Stormcrow C
Puma Prime

I lost but I made the clanner work for it but dear god. Burrock operating as a bodyguard for the Hellstar..I could not force them apart they just stuck together and caramelised anything that came close.  The Hellstar is a demon hell beast thats for sure, I ended out pelting it with the Haupt, the Jager and some of my lights when they had shots but it just took it all.  The Timberwolf went down to an Ammo explosion coutesy of the LB-20X on the Hauptmann after using HE missiles on me at near point blank range which did a horrific ammount of damage. 
The Burrock and Sag went toe to toe, heavy lasers vs Pulsers, both mechs blazing away until the ultra cored the Sag's center torso. 

In the end I disengaged with the Jager which had not been fired at all game apart from a hit from the Puma's PPC before it got attacked up close by the Scarabus, the Garm (undergunned) and the crippled ceasar.  The Hauptmann was finished off by the Hellstar whilst the Clans lost the Timber Wolf, the Burrock to combined fire from everything I had whilst the Storm Crow and Puma were mauled, the Puma seen as a bad choice as its woefully heat inefficient. 

How the hell do you deal with a Hellstar? If it camps it can just pump out ER PPCs all day long whilst the Burrock has its flaws, no long range guns but dear lord if it gets close..
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imperator

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #1 on: 09 January 2013, 22:55:39 »
I would take in a lance of Blitzkriegs.  They tend to solve lots of problems themselves.  If I need support, I'll use the Gause Rifle Firemoth VTOL O:-) ;D O0
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cold1

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #2 on: 10 January 2013, 08:13:34 »
Be glad he didn't  use a Burrock 2 to add to the long range power of the Hellstar.
The Hellstar really needs to be teamed up on by multiple mechs to go down.  The Scarabus might should have gone after it and tried to whack it a few times, though that's a suicide mission.

Sticking a Burrock next to a Hellstar is just asking for your opponent to not want to play anymore.


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Savage Coyote

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #3 on: 10 January 2013, 08:33:06 »
Artillery... no seriously.  If you can at least make him move, you are adding to his THN's which means your faster speedier stuff can get in there.  If he wants to sit still with his Burrock buddy, TAG'em or keep firing till you get on target.

The other option would be slight more long range fighters.  The Hauptmann and Saggitaire are beasts, but are playing the Burrock's game, and the Burrock plays that game far better.  An 9Q Awesome and Thunder Hawk firing 85 points worth of damage at the Hellstar and/or Burrock will also force him to make some choices...

Redshirt

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #4 on: 10 January 2013, 08:36:14 »
Artillery... no seriously.  If you can at least make him move, you are adding to his THN's which means your faster speedier stuff can get in there.  If he wants to sit still with his Burrock buddy, TAG'em or keep firing till you get on target.

The other option would be slight more long range fighters.  The Hauptmann and Saggitaire are beasts, but are playing the Burrock's game, and the Burrock plays that game far better.  An 9Q Awesome and Thunder Hawk firing 85 points worth of damage at the Hellstar and/or Burrock will also force him to make some choices...

Or a pair of Devastators...
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Sabelkatten

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #5 on: 10 January 2013, 09:12:53 »
A 3025 Warrior H-7. No, really - it outrange the Hellstar by 1 hex, and the only way he'll ever be able to get into range is if you let him.

Plus, of course, next to getting killed by PBI a vehicle with an AC/2 has to be the second worst thing possible to a clanner! ;D

Pa Weasley

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #6 on: 10 January 2013, 09:55:30 »
Always though it would be fun to run a lance of Yasha Spectres (or better yet, a Star) against a Hellstar.  }:)

Beukeboom Fan

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #7 on: 10 January 2013, 11:57:55 »
Just looking at the forces - did you balance by BV or something else?   It would seem like the clan have a pretty signficant BV advantage, but that's just at first blush and I don't have all my stuff to do the precis calculation?

My only thought would be to stay at longer range, beat the crap out of everything else, and "save" the Hellstar/Burrock for the end.  If he's bodyguarding with the Burrock - he's not getting much if anything from it, and you could potentially have a somewhat of an advantage at long range. 

My issue is that your mech choices seem to be pretty short ranged focused, which means that you have to close, which plays right into the Burrock/ATM-HE madness. 

With your force, my only suggestion would be to try to seperate his forces by dropping some smoke between his fire-support (aka - Hellstar & Puma) and his short range beatsticks.

Also - any particular reason why you ran the mechs you did?   Running the light mechs you did seems to play into his hands, as they don't have much knock down power.  Understand if you wanted to do 2 lances vs. a star, but seems like you're light on "oomph" compared to what he's got on the table.

Col.Hengist

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #8 on: 10 January 2013, 12:15:08 »
No sense in playing the range game with clanners... they can do it much better. The 4 blitzes is a nice little lance that'll scare anyone, add in some barghests with iHGR and some Zeus Stacys. You can save the the rest of the bv for pilots
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Savage Coyote

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #9 on: 10 January 2013, 13:28:00 »
The Clan BV is 12068... I whipped up a Steiner-esque force for 12114

7Y Thunder Hawk
9Q Awesome
4D Penetrator
6Y Cestus

2x 3F Blitzkrieg
5W Talon
6S Dart

Is it an auto-win?  No.  But it does allow you to return a lot of long range fire and leave the Burrock out of the equation and force him to either seperate or move up together.  Dart is more of an afterthought, though it's fast enough to stay alive with careful movement and placement.  The five of the eight 'mechs have long range options while only four of his do.  Focus fire, patial cover, woods etc should help to hurt the Hellstar.

Of course, if you want to do artillery, I recommend the Yellow Jacket Arrow IV as a cheap, ten shot unit that can stay out of the way.  Pre-plot some area's that he might want to hang and enjoy.  Also, playing on four maps will help with manuver IMHO.  It does give the clan weapons some range, but I think it will help keep the Burrock out of the equation until you are ready to deal with it.

MoneyLovinOgre4Hire

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #10 on: 10 January 2013, 13:48:34 »
The Sagittaire is a bad choice for fighting the Clans with unless you're in a city or lots of woods.  It's a point-blank fighter that just can't defend itself.  Likewise, the Hauptmann Prime lacks sufficient punch at range to really go up against an equal sized Clan mech.  Oh, and if that's the original Garm, it's a terrible mech period.  Better choices would have been things like the Nightstar, AS-7S2 or AS-7S3 Atlas, HLN-694 Highlander, or Fafnir (any variant) instead of the Sag and Hauptmann, and something faster to replace the Garm, like a Talon or Spector.

Tactics wise, try to limit the Hellstar's ability to park in a protected spot: try maneuvering your forces so that if it wants LOS, it needs to enter an exposed area.  If possible, you want to target the Puma and Ryoken early and try to cripple if not outright destroy them.  Use as much focused fire as possible- remember, there's no such thing as overkill if the target is still able to move and shoot.  For the Mad Cat, taking it at mid-range is probably the best bet: you can't beat the range of its ER Large Lasers and ER ATMs, so don't try.  Just keep it out of HE ATM range.  For the Burrock, it's going to kill you if you get close, so don't get close.  Pound it with every bit of your long-range firepower you can bring to bear on it until it stops moving.  Finally, to take out the Hellstar, I recommend just bum-rushing the thing after you've destroyed or crippled at least the Burrock and one or two of the others.  Get as many mechs into their optimum ranges as you can and let that sucker have it.  Unless you're very, very lucky, it won't go down in one round, but it will go down if you hit it hard enough.  You're likely to lose a few mechs doing so, but that's unavoidable.  Alternate strategy: bring a lot of mechs with LRMs, at least one mech with a TAG (preferably two, and it's even better if they've got Stealth Armor), and use indirect fired Semi-Guided LRMs on the Hellstar and Burrock until they expire.
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Colt Ward

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #11 on: 10 January 2013, 21:35:13 »
The original Garm is a fine mech . . .

 . . . if your using it to fight armor and VTOLs, not mechs.

And I agree with the others . . . unless you were planning to fight in a city, mountains/canyons or heavy woods then your force selection is not set up for fighting Clans.  Going after another IS force?  Still not ideal for the Saggie, but ok.
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William J. Pennington

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #12 on: 10 January 2013, 21:54:55 »

There's all sorts of different ways...

A really insanely high  target movement modifier on a spotter, and then 4 or so Heavy LRM carriers (who never, ever come out to play) with a nasty short range bodyguard group.  Lots of long range punch, low BV so you can amp up the carriers gunnery skill to make up for the indirect mod.

Plasma Rifle/Cannon dealign stuff can make the Hellstar feel annoyed, or drop weapons out of its firing chain.  it is a tough combo, but heck, if you spend that much BV on a Clan Force you are going to get a lot of nastyness.

marauder648

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #13 on: 10 January 2013, 22:55:34 »
I still had a blast of a battle and i'll take your advice next time, more long ranged stuff.  I was actually thinking about taking a Blitzkrieg but single gun mechs always worry me, it takes a single lucky hit for them to be rendered impotent and ideally you need to get so close with a Blitz that your pilot can spit on the other mech's windscreen which takes you in heavy laser range and ATM HE 'fun'.

My clan opponent fell in love with the ATMs, dear lord they are potent!  At least they aint streaked 'em though :)
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MoneyLovinOgre4Hire

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #14 on: 10 January 2013, 23:31:33 »
You obviously haven't read Wars of Reaving yet.
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marauder648

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #15 on: 11 January 2013, 00:02:10 »
I did read about the Society developing an I-ATM but I can't remember the rules for it, I assume that's a streak system.
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MoneyLovinOgre4Hire

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #16 on: 11 January 2013, 00:35:12 »
Yes, and depending on ammo type it can fire indirectly, too.
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marauder648

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #17 on: 11 January 2013, 01:20:29 »
Blimey...well at least in theory you won't see it on Clan mechs any time soon as I'd assume that was Society only and the Warrior's probably won't touch it with a barge pole.
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AJC46

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #18 on: 11 January 2013, 01:43:58 »
nah the homeworld clans think that while the makers were bad the weapon system itself is ok to use or at least they are starved enough for resources that they are using them.

and in away it is rather clan like though streak prevents waste yet if needed you can indirect fire missiles against those who don't deserve fair battles.

marauder648

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #19 on: 11 January 2013, 02:05:09 »
Yeesh..well we may well see the Homeworld clans come a calling in the future in the TL thats if they survive and armed with IATM's.
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cold1

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Re: A Clan Tag-team - Hellstar and Burrock = Owie.
« Reply #20 on: 11 January 2013, 21:31:40 »
Yeesh..well we may well see the Homeworld clans come a calling in the future in the TL thats if they survive and armed with IATM's.

...and whatever else the now more practical homeworlders come up with.

Its mostly been said but more ranged weapons would have been a better call


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