Hi
I had my first proper game of BattleTech last night. Last week I had watched a game played at ID Gaming shop to understand some of the basics. That had featured a Davion lance against Kurita (I dont remember all of the mechs but included Centurion, Enforcer, Jagermech, and Dragon, Trebuchet and Panther). That had been slow game with most shots missing and little damage to mechs armour, let alone internal structure. That had left me a bit concerned as to the pace of CBT.
So for last night's game I travelled over to Grimsby Wargames Club to play against Chris from Starship Combat News forum. We played lance on lance with 2 players per side both choosing 2 mechs with no more than 100 tonnes combined. All mechs 3025 era with no clans. Standard pilots & gunners.
I had Griffon & Assassin, my immediate opponent had Jagermech and Panther. I think other mechs included Clint, Commando, Whitworth and a Lyran design that I had not seen before.
Game was quite cagey. My Griffon and Jagermech exchanged long range fire, my Griffon benefitting from some cover from a low building. The Assassin and Panther played hide & seek jumping around large building. We lost initiative virtually every turn so I had to use the Assasins jump jets & manueverability in a futile attempt to stay out of Panther's threat zone.
As the game wore on my Assasin lost first it's left arm and then left torso, with Panther having suffered damage but spread across torso. However the Panther had suffered build up of heat and was one point away from a shutdown roll when we finished. Meanwhile the Griffon had managed to get an LRM shot on the Jagermech's head, the 10 points punching through it's head armour and damging both Jagermech's sensor meaning that it was unable to fire for rest of battle.
We finished with the Jagermechs retreating attempting to get away from Griffon whilst the Assasin was clinging on joping that the Panther would shutdown.
A good fun game against sporting opponents and a great intro game. It definitely helped taking the lighter mechs. My opponents said they normally took Assault and Heavy mechs- just having Light & Medium mechs made it far more tactical. The game saw several instances of hit & run style attacks and feints. Also the attempts to keep alive damaged mechs so that could live for another day. Even though it was a one-off pick up game it felt as if easily could be a part of wider campaign with our forces representing two heavy recon lances sizing each other up.
We did not use all of the full rules. We did nt use piloting checks oitherwise the Jagermech's pilot could have been in trouble from my Griffon's head shot. However it was ideal to get basic grasp of the core rules.
Next time we will try slightly heavier mechs. Depending on player numbers we will probably take a heavy mech each. I need to get my Warhammer assembly finished (just the weapons to glue on).
Am waiting for the arrival of Intro Box Set and TRO 3039 with as much patience as can muster (i.e. not very!!)
Looking forward to this weekends game of Kurita vs Ghost bears at ID Gaming.
Cheers
James