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.