Your First BatteTech Battle

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rider
02/17/11 01:56 PM
198.212.99.11

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I'm starting this forum to ask players to describe their first tabletop BattleTech battle.
How many players were involved?
What 'mechs did players choose?
What was the outcome?
Any interesting highlights of the battle or other anecdotes?

For my own part I started playing the game a couple years after it was introduced. Got the first box set with the iconic Warhammer on the box top. I chose an ARC-2R Archer and my brother chose the CRD-3R Crusader. My brother and I used cardboard cutout 'mechs, so I think we made our choices more due to how cool the pictures looked rather than any rational decisions on armor or firepower.
My recollections of the battle are vague, but I think we both chose to close in on each other and turn the battle into a melee. The Crusader should have the advantage in that case, but I convinced my brother that the antenna coming from the back of the head were the medium lasers that fired in the rear arc and that they could flip 180 degrees to shoot toward the front. In my defense, some of the early drawings I saw including the cover of CITYTECH, the green and red Robotech picture of the Archer, and even the cardboard cutout led me to believe they were weapons. This evened the match pretty well during a close-in fight. In the end I believe we were adjacent to each other, both of us with one or both legs destroyed still shooting whatever was left of our armament. I think during the final round one of us died with a head shot, the other with a destroyed center torso, but I couldn't swear as to which of us "died".
This first battle cemented my love for the game whereas my brother who was younger, thought the whole thing took to much time and didn't suit his shorter attention span. As he grew older we played more and added the role-playing portion, MechWarrior, to the game making it more fun. Now that stuff has been sitting idle in my basement for more than 14 years, my forlorn hope that as my kids grow older I can get them into it and start a new chapter of first BattleTech battles.
MagusVerde
03/06/11 06:28 AM
109.78.238.151

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I played my first Battletech Battle against my brother about 7 years ago. We have been playing Warhammer for some time and wanted to try something new. Because we were not very familiar with the rules we just played 2 light 'mechs vs. 2 light 'mechs.

I remember that we did not really get the difference between the AC2 and AC20 on my brothers Hermes so it was a rather short game . The Hermes shredded my stinger and locust in only a few rounds so that was kind of frustrating for me. Nevertheless we sticked to Battletech!
rider
03/07/11 02:24 PM
198.212.99.11

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Thanks for your input. I didn't think anyone wanted to bother with this forum.
Looking back, I think most the battles that my brother and I had early on were basically heavy weapons duels at 50 paces. Run up to one another and hope you have enough lucky dice rolls to annhilate your opponent first. Later as we role-played a little more we would run several 'Mechs. I would play an NPC on my brother's side and control the enemy 'Mechs. These battles would rely more on maneuver to get a shot into the enemy's back. Usually I'd stack the odds to favor my brother so that he usually could win pretty decisively. This allowed me to keep him interested in continuing to play.
His_Most_Royal_Highass_Donkey
03/07/11 02:33 PM
184.228.188.8

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Let the other person win and you can keep having them come back for more.
Why argue if the glass is half full or half empty, when you know someone is going to knock it over and spill it anyways.

I was a Major *pain* before
But I got a promotion.
I am now a General *pain*
Yay for promotions!!!
Goundry
03/19/11 10:24 PM
82.33.161.138

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My first battle tech battle lasted about 30 seconds, my friend managed to hit me in the head with a gauss rifle in the first salvo, fortunately the second battle was more fun
DoctorPayne
03/20/11 12:34 PM
75.128.135.61

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I played my first game last night, there were 5 of us playing, me using a BJ2-0 Blackjack, my friend, who was also playing for the first time, was using a Centurion, a Hatchetman, a Clan Crusader, and a Clint mech. It lasted around 5 hours, with mostly the Hatchetman, Clan Crusader, and Clint mech playing hide and seek in the wooded areas of the table with my friend and I dueling around the opposite area. The Clint went down first, after getting both arms blown off by my friend's Centurion. As his final move, the Clint tried a DFA attack, which utterly failed against the Centurion due to some lucky rolls and a botched piloting check on the Clint's behalf. A few turns later, I took out my friends Centurion with some minor internal damage and a damaged jump jet. The Hatchetman began a "run away and hide from everyone" strategy, while the Crusader and my Blackjack decided that our long range weapons should be sufficient to take each other out. In the end, we ended the game around 1 A.M. with the Crusader, Blackjack, and Hatchetman all alive, but with my 'Mech face down from a failed piloting roll, the Crusader's pilot unconscious from a lucky PPC blast on my part, and the Hatchet man fleeing with his hatchet arm blown to bits by the Crusader. All in all, this game was a total blast and I can't wait for the next session.
Brian_Paxt
03/20/11 10:48 PM
71.13.25.12

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My first game took place about 16 years ago when I was 15. There were 5 of us playing, I was in a Wolverine (a mech I still love to pilot today), there was an Archer, a Centurion, a Berserker, and a Wasp. We were taking on a a Company of House Kurita that was raiding against the planet we were on. We lost our Berserker when the pilot locked up his MASC in the first try, I managed to take out an Atlas, a Grand Dragon, and a Panther with the assistance of the Wasp. The Centurion took on a Zeus and Banshee and barely made it out alive. The battle took about 5 hours as we were using a lot of cover in the mountians.
His_Most_Royal_Highass_Donkey
03/21/11 08:31 AM
107.25.241.55

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A reinforced lance of light and mediums against a company of mediums and heavies and you won.

That would work if you where elite and they where green.
Why argue if the glass is half full or half empty, when you know someone is going to knock it over and spill it anyways.

I was a Major *pain* before
But I got a promotion.
I am now a General *pain*
Yay for promotions!!!
Brian_Paxt
09/29/11 03:19 PM
76.17.141.164

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No, it's called Tactics. We were Regular mech pilots. Using terrain for cover and scoot and shoot tactics. You don't take a heavy force stright on, you have to out think them and use your speed to your advantage. Hence the reason it took 5 hours to play that battle alone. Plus if the enemy follows you into an area where you can ambush them, their numbers slowly begin to dwindle.
CYBRN4CR
06/09/12 05:54 AM
67.204.151.83

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My first battle was three months ago. It was at a local board game night where I brought my copy of the introductory box set hoping to meet someone who even knows what the heck Battletech is. Luckily I did, and we played a 1 vs 1 match using the Steiner Coliseum map from the Solaris VII mappack because it was completely flat for ease of calculation, and enclosed to ensure no cheap pushes off the map. I gave my opponent first choice of mech and without hesitation he picks the AS7-D Atlas. I roll my eyes, fully expecting the choice, but I made the mistake of picking the CLPT-C1 Catapult to challenge him. At the time, I picked it because I thought I could out-range him with the LRMs, and if things got too close, I could flank him with the jump jets and use my ML advantage to wear the Atlas down. Well, right out of the gate the Atlas charged toward my Catapult, and even though he could only fire with his LRM20 (which he missed) I failed both of my rolls to hit with my LRMs, and since then, I could never regain my range advantage. I was forced to play in range of his dastardly AC20, which he had uncanny success with despite the both of us having 4/5 pilots. By the end of round 3, my CT, LT and RL were gutted but thankfully still intact with no critical damage. When I finally won the initiative, he turned his back to me heading toward the wall. I thought that was his way of giving me a chance to deal damage to him since all my shots had missed in the turns before. So I got right behind him and fired with all my lasers. I wanted to fire my LRMs into his back, but those minimum range modifiers would make them automatically miss, so I grit my teeth and dealt with it. Then next turn, I got the initiative again and I found out the real intention for the previous turn's movement as he turned his Atlas around to face me with the mech's back against the wall. I cursed my lack of foresight and contemplated my final choices of movement. With no other standard choice of movement able to get my mech out of the line of fire, and no knowledge of charging rules, I decided to go with the only move I thought I had left, and that was to perform a DFA on him. Surprisingly, I did manage to hit him, but I didn't hit his head and I failed the recovery piloting roll, so my mech fell backward and landed face up right in front of his mech. At that point, we had been playing for two hours and my opponent was ready to move on to other games, so we decided to declare him the victor sparing both mechs and pilots.

In hindsight, I should have brought along a Panther to level the tonnage playing field and keep him from parking his Atlas against a wall, but I didn't want to make my first experience too complicated.
Gemini
08/16/12 01:22 PM
70.193.206.221

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My first battle was bad. We had a copy of the Battletech Compendium, Aerotec and Reinforcements II.

We put down a blank mapsheet with 5 3050 Atlas (AS7-K?)each and ignored heat modifiers.

After an hour or two of looking up rules we called it. The next time we played we took our 1 damaged Atlas from the first game and a Marauder II. Still didn't track heat but we did start counting movement modifiers.

My cousin won that one.

Our next fight was a combined arms force with a bunch of custom stuff. (VTOL with Clan Ultra 20's)

I had to wait a few years to start playing with older players before I started to understand things like why you would use something besides 100 ton mechs.
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