T-Mobile in Space-ace-ace - Unit Spotlight: ComStar

White is the color I, like so many others, struggle with most & whilst I could just prime some stuff, paint a panel or two, then call it a day, thought it best to at least pay some lip service to maximum effort. So rather than dwell on painting white, I got some Army Painter speedpaint, slathered it on, picked an accent color I liked (even though C* is basically solid white), painted exactly four panels per miniature in it, did some weapons, cockpits, decalled, based, called it a day. 

This whole thing was based on the Tukayyid hardcover book. I decided I wanted to build a flexible C* force to fight campaign battles with/against and originally, I was going to use my chocolate chip desert force for it. However, since I decided to use them as Northwind Highlanders instead, I shifted focus back to classic white-ish. Then, using same book, I started looking at who the various Armies fought on "the 'Yid", and what Divisions walked outta that meatgrinder. 323rd looked good, especially some of their later history where they move to the 3rd Army, absorb some survivors of another Division that really don't like Victor S-D, and then get their loyalty rating downgraded because of it. Loyal to ComStar, not some Great House lordling-cum-Precentor Martial. Given my distaste for most of the Steiner-Davion misbegotten offspring, I feel that in my soul.

I'm running this as a reinforced III, so the Command and Support IIs will be separate, meaning I need two more IIs, but that's forthcoming if a) Cat decides to put the six missing ComStar 'Mechs together (or I 3d print a bunch of Hussars lmao) and b) when I've decided how many more tanks/infantry to add.

ComStar 5th/3rd Army, 323rd Division
Unit Commander -
Aide de Camp -
Location - Tukayyid

Division Command II
KGC-005 King Crab
AS7-D-H2 Atlas II
AS7-S3 Atlas (Get Focht, Clanners!)
AS7-D-H2 Atlas II
TDK-7Y Thunder Hawk
CRK-5003-1B Crockett

Headquarters Support II
ARC-2Rb Archer
LRM Carrier (C3i)*
LRM Carrier (C3i)*
LRM Carrier (C3i)*
LRM Carrier (C3i)*
LGB-12C Longbow

Hong Kong Cavaliers III

Command II
CP-11-G Cyclops
BL-9-KNT Black Knight
FLS-9C Flashman
GLT-6WB Guillotine
THG-12E Thug
LNC25-04 Lancelot

Fast Striker II
EXT-5E Exterminator
CRB-30 Crab
PXH-7CS Phoenix Hawk
STN-3Lb Sentinel
MON-66b Mongoose
MCY-102 Mercury

Ground Support II
Kobold Battle Armor Squad
Kobold Battle Armor Squad
Kobold Battle Armor Squad
Kobold Battle Armor Squad
Kobold Battle Armor Squad
Kobold Battle Armor Squad

Spotter II
OTT-9CS OstScout
GAL-104 Galleon
GAL-104 Galleon
GAL-104 Galleon
GAL-104 Galleon
GAL-104 Galleon

June Event 2024 (FKA Waterly Memorial)

Sad news, friends.

The saddest of news.

I'm no longer allowed to memorialize the sainted Myndo Waterly within our yearly event. Something something Word of Blake were the baddies all along yadda yadda nuclear warfare and chemical weapons et cetera et cetera. It sounds like heretic Comstar spreading misinformation again to me, but whatevs. 

At any rate! My printer was/is down for a bit so I had to get a little more creative with force building this year. Using the ASForceBuilder and the Alpha Strike cards packaged with each Force Pack, I threw together six pretty solid Clan Stars. Sean is bemoaning all of the Clan games lately whilst his beloved FedSuns languishes unused, but we'll be making up for that shortly.

Game one was a Star v Star match up with me and Sean, where he ultimately triumphed. One of the biggest gripes for me, with Alpha Strike, is that it really isn't super tactical if you're just doing straight up deathmatches (as the next game showed) so it mostly just comes down to "if I hit one more attack roll than you, I'll probably win" sometimes. Especially in games where Clan 'Mechs are prevalent, there's almost zero reason to worry about survivability & instead focus on full-ass glass cannon existence. At least for pick up games and one-offs.

Coincidentally, though, as I've pointed out numerous times, a lot of 3025 or before 'Mechs (things w/o XL engines, even stuff like the Mackie) really out perform Clan machines on a point by point basis, barring their generally much lower damage profiles. A certain banned Turkina variant can wipe out a 0 skill, 107pt Widowmaker in one shot, but can't do the same for an AS7-D Atlas, and that's wild to me.

Next, we did another large team game, though a little more conservative than 2023's. Because we had a brand brand new player, I stepped back to play a coaching roll for this one. A domed colony on Smoke Jaguar-held Modred, the lone moon orbiting the planet Port Arthur, set the stage for a Binary vs Binary match up. Jamie (Nova Cat) and Rachel (Cloud Cobra) stormed in on the north side of the field whilst Sean (Smoke Jag) and Kilcoin (Ghost Bear) tromped in on the south. We weren't necessarily trying to make anything narrative per se but we did keep discussing like the strength of the domes & examples from BattleTech fiction where certain factions intentionally ruptured things like that to kill people (coughcoughDraconisCombinecoughcough). I didn't do any normal spiel about the billions of years of BattleTech history or factional information stuff either, just felt kinda cool to add those narrative bits on a mapsheet we were getting to play on the very first time.

Since we'd never played on this map, there were a few line of sight questions that came up, and quite a few dead-type zones due to sub-levels versus levels. Overall though, it was super cool seeing the smart way people were using cover or taking advantage of an initiative win to cut out entire sections of the enemy force from being able to attack. And having a Gods-eye view of the game where I was plotting out how and where I'd move then watching what everyone did instead made it just as enjoyable as if I were playing. Once 'Mechs were able to see each other though, the damage started racking up and even though there were the usual metric tons of misses, the bodies were hitting the floor after a few turns. Sean made really good use of a crater and at one point, it was just a trio of 'Mechs in a hole in the southwest corner of the map.

We also kept Jamie up well past her bedtime so I stepped in at the very end to finish the last couple of turns, where Kilcoin and I killed each other's last standing respective 'Mech. 20 total crash & burns leading the game to a draw lmao. Not saying it -doesn't- happen in Total Warfare but it definitely is more common in Alpha Strike. So by that point, at least 25 'Mechs had died for the night (I think it was more like 27-28 but who keeps track of that kinda thing).

Last game of the night, also on a newer map (fungal forest?), we got a little silly. BattleTech is designed to be two sides squaring off, or a massive free-for-all, so it plays weird when you have three forces competing against each other. For this one, Sean, Rachel, and I each had a Star to hunt each other down across the hills, holes, and fields of the mushroom kingdom. In true Superior Mario fashion, we decided that the three "if you end up here, you die" mega deep levels would count like the teleportation pipes, with a roll on a d4 determining where you came out (three holes on the map, plus using '4' like a "you're lost until next turn" thing). It was ridiculous, and also I got hard targeted, so my Jade Falcons didn't last long. But it was fun trying to figure out how all hexes on the mapsheet worked. Of course, I remembered weeks after the fact (right now in fact) that the Mappack: Alien Worlds actually had a sheet with special rules for the terrain with it buuuuut that's okay! We rocked it out.

By the end of the night, we were pushing 40 war machines down, and Sean walked away with 2 wins & a draw, so not a bad night of gaming for him.

We already have the next event lined up for near the end of July, and it looks like at least some of the crew will be returning w/more new people coming aboard.

And you knooooow that means I'm like, itchy itchy scratchy scratchy for more narrative games, more campaigns, more throwing the 1000+ pieces for this game I got onto the tabletop etc haha.

Sean did also bring a piece of Thunderhead Studios/GF9's hextech terrain and now I kinda want to get more just for the 3D aspect of the battlefield. I do prefer to mapsheet play, even doing Alpha Strike, but it looks super cool to have 'Mechs hugging up against buildings. And I can 3D print some of the smaller pieces in the Thunderhead collection (I should have bought the tree STLs when I had the chance though) so shouldn't be too hard to fill up a table someday.

Updated New Unit Design Philosophy

Here I am, Ostroc you like a hurricane

One of the key core concepts of the 357th and unit design is keeping some kind of logical fealty towards the faction that a unit is from, a unit works for, or a unit is to represent. And that philosophy still really holds true - you want your Cappie, Drac, or Feddie unit to feel "authentic." However, now there are a couple other wrinkles I'm throwing into every new force I'm building - era and Alpha Strike/Total Warfare. 

Basically, after multiple discussions in our last few game sessions, it's come up that some 'Mechs are -fantastic- in Alpha Strike, then garbage in TW. The Mackie is a huge example of this. By AS stats, this thing really rocks on the table top. I might actually prefer it, for the points, to a lot of contemporary IS 'Mechs. Then you switch over to TW and it's laughably easy to exterminate. 

Era is less of a concern but then also, matching up your Clan Invasion-era 4th Tau Ceti against someone else's Civil War/Jihad Davion force can be a bummer in Alpha Strike. I'd never consider such a huge BV difference in Total Warfare. Turns out though, that a CI Tau can win if the dice are in your favor.

But really, for my own personal edification, I'm looking at - Succession Wars (3025) era, Clan Invasion (3049-3052) era, Civil War/Jihad (3062-3075) era, Republic/Dark Age (3083-3151) era, and IlClan (3151+) at force composition. I assume those dates are pretty close to CGL's for era breakdown, depending on what they consider the start and there are some gaps in there, obv (SW tech works up until the Helm 3039 updates but you can roll those in CI era, and whilst lots of stuff came out between that and the FedCom Civil War, it's easier to just go the next era up).

A lot of canon changes occur in the transition between eras, or writers, as it were. So, the 4th Tau Ceti becomes a light force for some reason, but I think all iterations of it that I'll be running (barring SW) will be built along the lines of Cappie tactical doctrine with the augmented lances, as an example. I might run a 3L Raven in '49, but I'll for sure be running a 4L or better in '67. The Recognition Guide series brings new IlClan variants of older 'Mechs as well, so that'll inform my decision making process on current timeline stuff.

This isn't very important for pickup games, though even then we try to stick somewhat to cohesive unit choice buuuuut we're debating a "splintered timelines" approach to campaigning coming up. We're thinking a series of "what ifs" because any player campaign, by definition, is going to deviate from canon.

One campaign for sure is Nachtfalke, and that is going to be almost wholly using what we can, best versions of stuff to fit our play styles. Then, mayhaps, there's an alt 4th Succession War/3025 era/early Clan Invasion timeline depending, wherein we follow more old school MechForce stuff, tallying up wins and having leaders of each faction determine the direction of planetary conquest. Jihad era, we have a real humdinger of a situation laid out for our 5th Succession War that'll see some really interesting developments. And then there are so many mini campaigns, Tukkayid, Wars of Reaving, Hinterlands stuff coming up, Chaos Campaign framework, etc.

Flexibility in units is a must, even with how massive our collective resources are in miniatures.

Edit for clarity - I don't mean building/rebuilding/buying a thousand 'Mechs to have one battalion of 36 for each era, I mean using era-relevant variants or configurations with an existing force. I'll have to post my 4th Tau TO&E since that's what I'm using as an example here but essentially - for Succession War-era games going into Clan Invasion, I'd have a scout lance led by an RVN-1X Raven (a 3024 model, the prototypical test bed), but then for Clan Invasion, I'd switch the Raven model to the RVN-3L (a 3048 model using recovered technology) and switch again to the RVN-4L (a 3062 model with Stealth armor) going into the FedCom Civil War, as an anchor for Shadow Lances (lances of 4 'Mechs all equipped with Stealth armor). My battalion of 36 'Mechs would be shuffled on paper to fit these different eras & which 'Mechs thematically fit better in each lance, but overall, it's still the same 36 'Mechs. 

 Only exception to this, for me anyway, would be 'Mechs that don't exist in an earlier era. Like if I have Mad Cat Mk IV/Savage Wolves (a 3130 OmniMech) in a bunch of Clan Wolf forces, I'd probably want something to swap out for games set before the Republic/Dark Ages era. 

Waterly Memorial/Sixth of June 2023 Recap

It's a bad moon on the rise!

For this year, we slapped together about a dozen different Alpha Strike forces at 275ish points per and went with a "deserts of despair" theme on map sheets. The initial idea was just pairing off and running through essentially stars/reinforced lances.

However, as is becoming a bit too often an occurrence, even though we shifted the date around to accommodate more people, attendance was pretty disappointing. It was enough though, and not to take away from anyone that was able to make it out.

So, in what might have been a pretty giant strategic blunder on my part (lmao), I convinced the whole room to jump into a single game.

What we ended up with, was Sean (FedSuns), Kelsey (Ghost Bears), and Rachel (Jade Falcons) on the south side of the map line, with myself (Steel Vipers), Jack (his force), and Alex (Cloud Cobras) coming in from the north.

The biggest issue was that because I'd built AS275 forces, we hit the table with a LOT of pieces, with three brand new players. And I tend to forget that movement in AS is (generally) equal to walk movement in Total Warfare BattleTech so we had three mapsheets laid out lengthwise when two probably would have been fine for a training game, though a three by two would have been best for maneuvering the sheer scope of force.

33 'Mechs hit the field, and after a few turns of just getting them all up there, clashed centerline as these things do. We'd had some basic shot attempts earlier (even though we were all trying to avoid a straight kill alley) but once the battle was joined in full, armies clashed and 'Mechs died. Eventually. A LOT of missed attack rolls - we were doing standard 2d6 SAR instead of 1d12 MAR optional rules.


In the end, it got late, people were falling off 'cause even though AS in general is quick-ish, 33 pieces and new players nerfs that idea, so we decided to finish one last turn and call it on points. North side won by 12. 12 little points. Not even the full cost of -any- of the pieces on the field, and I think we decided we only won by even that small margin 'cause I managed to take down Rachel's Warhawk.

Jack's Locust lasted for far more turns that it should have given all of the firepower on the field and was a real, real good line blocker for our side.

All in all, win or lose, I love playing and I love getting other people to play but had I been planning to do a six player game, I most likely would have done AS200 forces, and gone with using 1d12s per point of potential damage to speed it up even further. Huge thanks to my people for humoring me and getting that game in. Really missed out on having some more of our experienced people tagging in but there's always next time.

Honestly, the biggest win for me was that my kiddo is finally at the age where he can hang out when my gaming people & has the interest in actually playing (Alpha Strike rules at least) BattleTech, even if we sort of made him in this case haha.

But from a higher level overview of things, the more active players we have, the better. Also, the more players that live with me, the better 'cause that means I have the opportunity to get in more games & put less burden on all my friends to learn it. And, of course, running campaigns is what I'm here for.

It sure was a field. 

A copy of our "brilliant" tactical plan. 

Full Blog Updates

The 357th ID Blogspot goes all the way back to 2011, though the genesis of the group had its roots in the hallowed antiquity of 2006, after a decade of people coming & going and solely subsisting on pickup games with a limited pool of 'Mechs. I started this as a way for all of us to touch base and throw our units out to the wider world, to commemorate some of our gaming excursions (especially our later Waterly events), and in general to just muse over a universe that I've loved playing in since the first MechWarrior video game (and those a-hole Dark Wing Lance guys!).

A lot has changed in the past dozen years. Even more has changed since my first time hitting the tabletop in 1996. Official and unofficial membership in the group has ebbed and flowed. Many of us have "grown up" more, got married, had kids, picked up crazier job obligations etc. Some former members have made themselves so unwelcome in general as to become excommunicado (thanks, John Wick!) and others never had a chance to really get going with group activities to be considered as such despite the interest. There have been moves and breakups and shakeups and breakdowns. Life has been lived and whatnot.

So I thought it was a good time for 1) a general update about the updates and 2) going through & cleaning up the ol' Blogspot. My biggest goal with this is to get all the various units cleaned up with tables of organization & equipment (such as they are), and to take new pictures as all but a handful of existing units have had additions or primed pieces finally painted. And many have been "finished" in that I won't be adding anything new to that particular unit, though the faction itself may see growth.

In many cases, this has already happened. Clan Ghost Bear, for instance, has an entry with Tau Galaxy but thanks to the successful Clan Invasion Kickstarter and so much plastic available for a much, much lower price point than metal minis, I've also built a small Rasalhague Galaxy force. Clan Cloud Cobra now has a new Beta Galaxy unit in progress. House Liao, if we're looking at it as a Citizen's Honored type unit and not a straight mercenary force, as the 4th Tau Ceti Rangers looking towards a battalion by mid next year.

In other instances, under-represented houses like Steiner/Tamar Pact will be getting a unit added soon as will Davion sort of. And in doing this, it will push me to get my paint backlog cleaned up more. Since the CI Kickstarter, I've barely touched anything metal and I have so, so much work on that side to finish. I've been trying to keep units purely metal or purely plastic but also, since I have the ability to 3D print, there's going to be a lot more blending of units down the road.

And when I say "3D print," I mean for 'Mechs and stuff that don't have miniatures already. I fully support Catalyst and whilst I haven't purchased any Ironwind Metals products in probably 8 or 9 years, I still support them fully too. But I'm also not going to sit around and wait for the next six years to get a bevy of Iron Cheetahs and Mastodons for my forces anymore. Plus, and going back to the Clan Invasion Kickstarter (and the more recent Mercenaries Kickstarter), the Catalyst plastics are scaled with each other much better & their designs are more of a current aesthetic than most of the older IWM sculpts that were inherited from Ral Partha so when I do 3D print, I have the option of scaling to fit (even if it takes me a few tries to make it look right) so no more giant-sized light 'Mechs or tiny assaults (Blood Kite). |

Last, I want to go in and retool the history/backstory/large components thereof of my Kuroi Kaze force. I don't use it in many games these days but it is a huge part of my own BattleTech history and I love it dearly. So it deserves a clean up, a refresh, and some changes based on how much more I know about BattleTech in 2023 than I did in 1996, especially because I oft note how many unintentional similarities my history has with canon stuff in the early BattleTech fiction that I didn't read until the last few years (like, I just got the first two books of the Warrior Trilogy, 35 years after they were written...). Which is kind of a sad look for Mike Stackpole that my musings as a 16-20 year old sync up with his adult stuff buuuuut I'm sure people will just say I must have read -something- about these characters and copied ideas so whatever. It doesn't matter much to me either way, but I do have some newer ideas that I want to incorporate whilst leaving some core background untouched. Legacy history won't go away, I'll still hang onto what I had, but we'll consider this a giant retcon in another universe or some shizz like that.

But yeah. 2023. Post-pandemic edition. Looking at playing with people a lot more. Teaching more new players. Sticking with my "I'm willing to foot the bill for your first lance/star" is much easier when I can grab a lance or star pack for less than $30 these days, versus $50-80 depending on composition. And with a huge amount of tanks and general-use 'Mechs coming between now and next year, it's a great time to be a BattleTech player.

Why You Should Play BattleTech, Why With Us, and the Ethics Thereof

There are a myriad of reasons to want to play BattleTech. I could even enumerate them, if I were so inclined. But let's just say, you're a casual person, living their life and someone is like "yo, come over to my place, lemme teach you this game!" and you're like "I dunno, bruh, seems kinda sus," or whatever it is the kids say these days. And me, as that someone, would lay it out so you can play it out like so...

(Note: when I say "play BattleTech," I'm not differentiating between Total Warfare BTech and Alpha Strike BTech, unless noted below, because a prospective new player isn't going to know the difference and really, Alpha Strike is easiest to teach.)

1 - do you like mecha anime, especially stuff from 70s-00s? Robotech/Macross, Gundam, Crusher Joe, Dougram, etc? Does the "every machine matters" small scale conflict of things like Gundam 8th MS Team or the "one elite pilot is worth an enemy brigade" feel of Gundam Wing really appeal to you? Then you'd definitely enjoy leading a table top team of MechWarriors into victory over your foes. 8th MS Team is actually pretty spot on how a company of 'Mechs operating in a forward base during a planetary assault, broken down into lances of four, would work out. That whole supply chain thing, small unit esprit de corps, high stakes for the unit but not necessarily for the universe at large, etc.

2 - do you enjoy the political intrigue and house on house drama of Game of Thrones, but think it'd be a LOT cooler set in space and with maybe a little less sister-fucking? Houses fighting each other because they just can't wait to be king/God-Emperor? Does waiting 20 years for a new book in a series suck monkey nuts when you want to know what happens -right now-? Then hooo-boy, is this game right for you. Let's start with the political drama; you have five Great Houses that have been fighting with each other to some degree for hundreds of years. You have a score of Minor Houses/lesser powers looking to step up to the big dogs. You have non-alien external threats shaking up the status quo. Unifying "universal leader" assassination? Check. Galactic Civil Wars? Check. Lannister-style inbreeding? Uh.. I can't say check here but -reads notes on Alaric Ward-Steiner-Davion- also I can't not say check? A novel series that is entirely unnecessary to enjoy the game but that also is in and of itself enjoyable? 100+ times check. Characters having plot armor heavily in some cases but then also being killed when the narrative requires? Oh, definitely check. Forming alliances to defeat your friends and then back stabbing your allies when it suits you? CHECK AND MATE.

3 - do you need a new hobby that is fun to do with others but also allows you the creative freedom to do what you wanna do? BattleTech features an extensive amount of factions to choose from to suit your tastes, from the samurai of the Draconis Combine, to the noble Azami brotherhood, to the "God Save the Queen!" Davionistas, to the Knights of the Inner Sphere, to the mystics of Clan Nova Cat, to the catgirl loving Canopians, etc. Like a faction but none of their regimental paint schemes really appeal to you? Make a new regiment! Make a new mercenary force! Paint your 'Mechs hot pink and call it "Bubblegum Crisis 3040"! It's your time to shiiiine.

But why should you play with us?

4 - do you wanna play but are unsure of where to start/what products to buy/what kind of units to get, etc? Let our team of experts share their knowledge with you! Library of novels, sourcebooks, product awareness, pros and cons assessment of the various factions with all their flavorful goodness? We -absolutely- got you covered there. Do you want to build a highly mobile and flexible long range sniper type force that rains long range missiles indirectly behind hill coverage and just really need pointers on how to get there? I'll lay out a list of my top ten missile boats with their spotter pairings for your perusal. No joke when I say there are decades of experience at your fingertips with us. 

5 - do you wanna play but don't know if you want to/are able to dump large sums of cash into a new game/hobby? Not a problem at all! No matter what faction you think you might like, we probably have a unit available for your use. 20+ campaign ready (company sized or larger) units are currently on hand, with more being added all of the time. Clan or Inner Sphere, mercenary or House regulars, Periphery or pirate scum, we got a wide, wide variety of flavors. Now, I generally don't have a "you can take this unit home to practice with" policy but I'm kind of working on that for the future too... Plus, I do have a habit of buying people a lance or two & with the new lance/star packs out there being way more affordable than metal minis have ever been...

Finally, gaming communities are full of gatekeepers and grognards, which is weird because DnD is more accessible now than it has ever been and BattleTech is really following suit with the array of starter products out there, and streamlined rule sets like Alpha Strike. It may not seem like it given the vocal minority on the internet, but per my previous blogs on the subject, BattleTech (and gaming in general) should be an open and welcoming environment. And, honestly, our particular group, my home specifically, tends to be an environment where you can come and have fun, roll some dice, leave the mess of the real world behind for a few hours at a time. I really prefer that discussions on real world politics and religion and hot button social topics be taken outside of the gaming area. I'm not saying that anyone who plays with us is a "snowflake" that needs a "safe space" because they can't handle "the real world" - I'm saying anyone that plays with us or even just comes to hang when we play, deserves to have the full respect due to any human being. I'm rabidly outspoken on my beliefs with social media but I don't feel the need to repeat it when we're playing. If you're pro-Capellan, or anti-Marik, or a fursona-having Sea Fox fan, bring your A-game smack talk to the table. Don't bring your real world hangups to the table because we don't need it there. I love all my peoples, and we want to make sure everyone that comes to play feels like they're definitely wanted at the table.

If you game with us, even if you're just spectating, I want you to feel like you belong there and I strive to ensure that carries over in everything I do in regards to gaming.

So come on, come out, let's throw dice, it'll be a good time.

Waterly Memorial/Sixth of June 2022 Recap

"Just when you thought it was over, the sky turned black and we all fell to earth..."

In the darkest of timelines, COVID hit and gaming together became a thing few wanted to do. *Few smart people wanted to do. But we kept on keeping on and eventually, the blackness (kind of) passed so that gathering together became a (somewhat) safer gamble.

And, for the first time in years, going back even before the pandemic hit, we congregated to pay tribute to the Sainted Myndo Waterly, for our (going to return to doing it) annual Sixth of June event. It was a bit of a bittersweet occasion - returning to an event we haven't held since 2018 or 2019 was pretty great but we were also missing a lot of the core crew due to scheduling conflicts or illnesses or disinterest or divorce so...

We powered on, however! And we had nongamer guests over just to help us drink & eat the foods per previous events, which was nice. You don't get to interact the same way when you're gaming but it's just really nice to have the homies around.

Matching up, we had me teaching three newcomers Alpha Strike in a stripped down format. The rules, not the players. This time. I originally had thought about doing a team game with a Binary of Clan 'Mechs to a side for the benefit of the new players, but it looked like it would work better for speed purposes if we split up into two 1v1s with a Star per. And yes, I know, Waterly Memorial w/o Word of Blake 'Mechs is kinda weird, but the SO was entertaining guests more than being interested directly in rolling dice, so I just stuck w/what I had easily on hand, and in plastic (for the most part).

I had six prebuilt Stars to use, with the option of pulling more from my "warchest" quickly and easily. Two of the six were designed to be lighter scout elements (for team games) and the other four were evenly matched 275pts, so those are what we used - a Star each of Clan Ghost Bear Rasalhague Galaxy, Clan Smoke Jaguar Delta Galaxy, Clan Steel Viper Alpha Galaxy, and Clan Jade Falcon Turkina Keshik.

A bit of time has passed since then and I drank a lot later that night, so what I do remember is that Brian lost to me, Poppy & Kilcoin mostly had a draw as he had to leave for a work function before coming back, and it was just a really fun time all around. Can't wait to bring the team back together to dive into more advanced rules and unit building, as well as to encourage these fine folks to pick up some box sets and sourcebooks lmao.

THE STAAAAARS