Thursday, May 31, 2012

Classic Battletech Template & Battle Report Teaser...

o/

Last night Hive Angel came over for a game of Classic Battletech. For some odd reason I had forgotten about it till my dog Molly starting going nuts signalling his arrival. We didn't quite make it to the halfway mark when we had to call it on time, so we decided to leave everything in place and shall resume combat this evening. Personally I don't see myself pulling out a victory, however I thought much the same when I bitched my way to victory in the extraction scenario some weeks back. So who knows...

 One thing we've had trouble with is determining firing arcs. After some discussion last night, we figured that a template of some sort would make things a bit easier. So I scaled the diagram from the quick start rules up to actual hex size & slightly altered the wording as you can see at right. We'll give this a try tonight and see if it helps. It doesn't cover things like side torsos, but I'm concerned that if I add too much more to it, it'll become cluttered and do nothing but add confusion rather than reduce it.

 With that done, I figured I'd give you a quick 'state of my forces' description. I'm not going to going to go into specifics as Hive Angel is working on a battle report for his blog which he'll post following the game's conclusion this evening (so keep an eye out for it).

My force's condition is as follows:

Cicada CDA-3C - One enemy PPC hit took out it's own PPC, leaving it with just 2 machine guns and a pair of legs. That said, there's still one enemy harasser light hover tank to kick to death.


Grand Dragon DRG-1G (x2) -  Both are currently locked into two separate point blank medium laser and kicking slugfests with larger mechs. They are quickly losing these contests...


Stalker STK-4N - My commander has finally decided to grace the combat zone with his presence now that his lance mates are all beat up (though so is the enemy). Currently the Stalker is undamaged and is in the 'sweet spot' for its vast array of weaponry (for which the enemy's Thunderbolt has suddenly become painfully aware). It may be too late to turn the tide, but killing some shit makes for a nice consolation prize.


Maxim Hover Tank (standard) - The school bus is looking a little worse for wear. It's turret is locked to the left and the air skirt is sporting a few holes which is slowing it down some (hover tanks in urban terrain, surely you jest?). Currently I'm pondering on how to maneuver it into a nice left side broadside position.

Conventional Foot Infantry Platoon (Laser) - They haven't done shit! Aside from having a nice little picnic at a city intersection for a while. They've also been running the propaganda machine by continually broadcasting 'they're baby killers' across all known radio frequencies to try and turn the local populace against the enemy. If this is working, it has yet to have any effect...

4 comments:

ColKillgore said...

I love classic battletech. Some buddies and I ran a Battletech/Mechwarrior Rpg campaign. I always liked using a combined arms game, it adds alot of depth to a regular battletech game. In the campaign the player's unit had a Pegasus Hover tank that had finished off probably over a dozen mechs. Once an enemy mech had is armor breached the Pegasus would zoom in and shoot its SRMs point blank and hope for a critical.
I am looking forward to the conclusion of your battle.

ColKG

Loquacious said...

Weren't we just talking about Battletech? Nice template. It should help.

Da Masta Cheef said...

@ ColKillgore: Hive Angel has so many notes it'll take him a few days to sort it out. Spoiler alert though: I got my ass kicked! lol.

When it comes to crit seeking, nothing beats the old days of a lance of Alacorn tanks on a hill raining a dozen Gauss rounds per turn at the enemy, and the LBX-AC2 carrier parked next to them that would just shot gun blast the mechs that just got hammered (assuming they didn't get killed out right)!

@Lo: Yeah good ol' CBT kinda fades away but never goes away.

And yes the template proved to be quite handy. I printed it off as a film positive so that its transparent like my Blood Bowl Templates. I gave one to Hive Angel to ponder for refinement.

Anonymous said...

Just wanted to comment I did a google search for the 'Mech firing arcs and found your template, very useful and not as cluttered as the official one.

Will be useful for my homebrew Battletech rules