Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH Part Thirteen

Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH, Part Thirteen:

The Catapult Hammer and Stalker Barrage were done!

Payday...

The paladins arrived at Robsart. There was a load of Star League stuff in the store - notably one, solitary double-heat sink priced at 693000 cbills.

Wow.

Well, they were ACTUALLY nearly broke this, time, so Lynessa figured they'd better get to work. Safest bet was to do a 2.5 skull battle for Davion against the pirates for max cash, that would at least cover the next pay day, and there were not ALL that many mission they could do here - only five, and two of them were against Davion, so if they were lucky, they'd just about manage to gain slightly overall.

Well, no time like a highland battle to have an experiment...

Mylassta and Poppy stayed in the respective typical mechs, but Alarhan took the Stalker Barrage and Summer the Catapult Hammer, so see how they would work out. 315 ton lance, rated 4.5 skulls. Huh.

Straight into the enemy mechs - a Griffin, a Jagermech, a Thunderbolt and an Orion.

Figures, just when they had minimum salvage...

O...kay, the first salvo from the Catapult Hammer almost knocked the Griffin down! And one of the ++LRMs only has +1 stability damage, not +2 like the others, so if it had all four... Woah.

Whelp, when the Stalker Barrage fired, that mech was falling over...!

The Griffin was the first to die, knocked out by CT destruction before it could be knocked over a third time.

(The RNG really did not want to let me have head hits at ALL today, it took three precision shots from Poppy and one from Mylassta - so that's 6 shots at 33% and sic at 18% before it went down.)

The enemy fire was enough to strip the Decapitator's arm, but they muddled through.

Next mission was a polar base assault against the pirates. Summer swapped to the Raven. Fun though the Catapult Hammer was, for this mission, the stealth - and better vision range - would be more useful.

(Yeah, frack off game. Magically, despite my max vision range, I can't see the enemy until they sudden can all see at once (with two lances and the turrets) AND all the headshot miss again AND you concentrate fire on the Stalker and get a head hit. Frack off, reload-spam time. And you did SO WELL yesterday, not having to make me do that once. That was so nice.

Uh-uh. Two complete precisions fires with no head hit? Frack, off RNG. Reload.

STILL took another reload and even THEN it took both Poppy and Mylassta to take out that one Shadowhawk.)

The lance moved up to the west and sat behind a mountain peak. With Summer's sensor lock, Alarhan took out the first turret. The enemy Shadowhawk moved up to lock on them and got its head shot off.

The Dragon behind it blunder up under LRM fire and was finished off, while a Jagermech tried to sneak in the side got off one shot.

(ABOUT. FRICKING. TIME.)

Then it was just a case of luring the Demolisher up towards them with sensor locks until it came out of the woods and Poppy shot it and finished it off.

(It eas about this time I remembered this map properly from my last playthrough and that this was how you did this map...)

Then it was a case of slowly advancing, destroying all the turrets and finally, at the other side, taking out the enemy Trebuchet, Blackjack and Hunchback 4P.

And despite all the precision fire, only the Hunchback went down to it.

Three parts of the enemy Jagermech (the JM6-A version with LRMs) was all the notable salvage.

Alarhan increased her guts to 8; Summer raised her gunnery to 8.

Next, a polar battle against the pirates for Davion. Alarhan hopped into the Hunchback, and Summer grabbed the Catapult Hammer.

The enemy first encounter was a 75-ton Black Knight, a Javelin, a Kintaro and a 100-ton something - with another lance incoming, because of course...

The 100-ton was an Atlas.

Which the lance managed to headcap with about two or three tries.

...before it did anything nasty and then the Black Knight, while poor Alarhan got badly banged up, as the lance in the distance was a Griffin, Wolverine, Catapult K7 and Jagermech.

(It did NOT want to have any head hits today, it really didn't. Hell, it didn't want me to have precision fire at ALL.)

Poppy managed to headcap the Catapult with the grace of Azurella, but the Jagermech promptly shot her in the head, because of COURSE it did.

So Poppy, back on form, FINALLY, returned the favour.

Mylassta - for the first time getting a precise shot off, headcapped the Griffin.

Summer and Poppy managed to knock the Wolverine down and, damaged in the head by Alarhan's salvo, Poppy finished if off with a head shot as it lay on the floor.

Naturally, after all that effort (and selecting the three Atlas parts), there was nothing else of note in the salvage.

(Frack me, the RNG is fighting me today...)

However.

Remember that the paladins got that one Atlas part from a reward from the Prototype Flashpoint?

Muahahahahaha!

There were quite a lot of options for the Atlas, and Lynessa experimented for a bit (and bought in three assault jump jets).

But there was no point starting until all they were ready to set out.

Oops, Lynessa, thought, she probably ought to have done that pirate mission before she did the last Davion one, since it had dipped her reputation below the point she could accept it.

Oh well, better do that one escort mission for the Kuritas against Davion then (WHY was it the Paladins had a good reputation with everyone they DIDN'T want to ally with...?)

Lynessa took over the Decapitator, Alarhan hopped into the Fair Marauder, Scarlet took the Catapult Hammer and Summer the Phoenix Coil. Time to steal a Demolisher!

The lance quickly moved up to the vehicle pool the Kuritas were stealing from. Aside from the Demolisher, the Kuritans were nicking a Shrek PPC carrier and two Inferno Carriers! Niiiice!

The enemy’s initial force consisted of a Marauder, Archer 2S and a pair of Trebuchets.

Alarhan started out with a pot-shot at the Marauder’s head, but true to form, no dice.

(Aaaand a Trebuchet appeared and immediately killed one of the vehicles. Reload. Fortunately, I'd saved at that turn start, so it just meant I didn't hit reserve.)

Summer jumped up to distract the pair of Trebuchets, with Scarlet providing support.

Lynessa and Alarhan took headshots, and after three goes between them, they took the Archer out.

The vehicles pummelled the Marauder, then one of the Trebuchets, overheating them. Alarhan was FINALLY able to headcap the Marauder when she ran right up into its face. Scarlet KO'd the shutdown Trebuchet with an LRM called shot to the torso. The other Trebuchet ran up to the Decapitator. Scarlet h hit it with LRMs, then Summer punched it so it fell down, and Lynessa shot it in the head.

Just as the vehicle reached the drop point, a Phoenix Hawk, Catapult, Quickdraw and Shadowhawk appeared right on top of the lance. Summer's shot to the Shadowhawk's head missed, but hit the centre torso and Scarlet muttered "well, it worked the last time..." And Precise Shot it to death with LRMs! Alarhan had found her grove.

Two down.

Lynessa took a shot...

The poor Phoenix Hawk pilot who started to run forward must have had the shock of his life, seeing all three of his lancemates gunned down before they could even move. For good measure, one of the Infernos and the Demolisher had a parting shot as they left, just out of spite...

(And for some reason, combat exited, the Phoenix Hawk ran a bit and entrenched, and combat re-started...)

Needless to say, the hapless fool did not last long...

So. One part Archer, to complete the one they had (they got two, actually...), one part C1 Catapult, to complete the one they had, and three part Quickdraw, because they didn't have one of those yet, plus a ++ Medium laser. Not bad, not bad at ALL.

The Catapult went to storage - the extra missile hardpoints of the Catapult Hammer actually made it better.

The Archer... Was a bit disappointing, at least as far as immediate usage went. The Missilery Suite improved he clustering of LRMs or adding stability damage to SRMs. Which would lend themselves to either +damage LRMs or + stability SRMs, none of which the paladins currently had. It could certainly have done the Catapult Hammer's job with slightly better armour, except the Catapult Hammer actually wanted generally to sandpaper the enemy to pilot kill by knock-downs.

Next jobs - repair the Hunchback, and take the ++LRM 10 off the Raven Fair and swap it with one on the Catapult Hammer so the latter now had four identical +2 stability damage LRM 10s (the forth one having previously been a +25%, +1 stability damage). Then swap another +10 damage Medium laser onto the Decapitator.

Lynessa after, much debate, decided that, for the moment, the Atlas would not be greatly different from the stock. While it was a possibility to have it take over from the Trebuchet, the cost of maintaining a mech was fairly trivial (less than the MechWarriors), and she wanted to keep a few mechs around for low tonnage operations. So the Atlas was fitted with the +++AC/20 and LRM 20. Instead of the SRM 6 and Medium lasers, though, it had a couple of Small Lasers (one of them a +5 damage one), three jump jets and extra armour and finally the ++ Ballistic TTS they acquired some time ago.

The Archer would be left alone for the moment; not put into storage, but not outfitted either - when they paladins got some extra damage LRMs or some stability damage SRMS enough to be worth it, then the Archer would definitely be getting used.

There were no contracts left they could take, and so it was time to move on. The next likely spot (as they wended their way back toward Independence and the Canopians they wanted to ally with) would be Mendham, a 3.5 skull world two weeks away - though whether they would find any mission they could do there might be a matter of debate, but they DID have enough for the next payday, which was 26 days away...

But we shall leave them there for today!