Hello all! I have been playing Battletech as of late, mostly because its easy to set up games with myself and another person. I have been playing through the new Tukkayyid campaign with my buddy Schoop and we are going to be playing a deciding game soon. George and I recently played a rather long and very exciting game that was using a modified version of the Trial of Possession scenario in the new Clan Invasion boxed set. We chose our own forces rather than the ones presented in the booklet and the battle in this instance was between Georges Clan Diamond Shark and my Kappa Galaxy Clan Jade Falcon forces. This was no mere battle for a ficticious technology or planet. This game was for possession of a galss Storm Trooper decanter that was up for grabs due to a friends spring cleaning. I will get into the game a little bit, but I wanted to talk about the 2 stars of the show, at least on my side. In fact I am going to concentrate on one particular mech that I have used in 3 games now and it has performed excellently every time. The Ryokan or as it is known in the Clans, the Stormcrow.
The Game was great if not long. George brought a striker / scout lance. The heaviest mech in his group was a Summonor aka a Thor. It was accompanied by a puma, and Ice Ferret and 2 Locust 2C's. Which in Georges opinion is the meanest 25 tons you can buy in the clan arsenal. I have to attest to the Clan Locust's lethality. It is very fast and packs an array of small lasers that can chew through armor very quickly, especially if they are doing a coordinated attack. I went a little heavier with my star.
I had 2 Storm Crows, a Timber Wolf and a Dire Wolf. I was a mech down, but I made up for it with tonnage. I know, it sounds a little one sided. I went as heavy as possible and George went for mobility. The game lasted about 5 hours though and it was not one sided. By the end I was down to a basically untouched Dire Wolf and he was down to 3 very worked over mechs. He used his mobility and the terrain very well and managed to disable 3 of my mechs. The exchange was even though. Well maybe not quite even. I managed to have an untouched Assault Mech as my remaining unit. The real stars though were the Storm Crows. I won the match due to how resilant and upgunned these 55 ton mechs are.
I ran A Storm Crow Prime and a Storm Crow B. For those not completly famliar with Battletech, the Clans are a technologically superior force made up of remnants of the old Star League army. They left basically because of all the arguing and chaos in the Inner Sphere after the Fall of the Star League due to a coup. The great houses that made up the Star League argued who would be in charge once the coup by Stephen Amaris was fianlly ended. Ultimatly they broke apart and warred with each other. General Alexander Kerensky, sick of all the crap went into exile with a bulk of the Star League army and fleet. They went out into deep space and eventually formed a new society. The Clans were born. Each its own faction with its own leaders and armies. It is a warrior culture and eventually became a culture that genetically engineered its warriors. Their Battle mechs are very advanced compared to their contemporary Inner Sphere counterparts. They use what is know and Omnimechs. That is Mechs that can easily be reconfigured. Everything is modular. Thus the different Varients.
As I said I used the Prime configuration and configuration B in this particular game. The Prime configuration for a Storm Crow is energy based. All of its weapons are lasers. No ammo to worry about. Two Extended Range Large Lasers and three Extended Range Medium Lasers are its weaponry. Heat is not an issue with the Prime. Twenty two double heat sinks means you can fire all your wepaons, move and not generate any heat. It boasts a decent amount of armor as well. It has decent speed, but lacks jump jets. The B configuration has an Ultra Autocannon 20 as its main armament with 6 Extended Range Medium Lasers as back up. You have to watch your heat generation though as it only has 13 double heat sinks. The autocannon doesn't have a lot of ammo, but I don't see this as a problem given its back up weapons. The B packs a major punch. My two Storm Crows did all the heavy lifting in my game with George. They were able to severly cripple or destroy what they targeted. My prime was able to deal with both of the Locusts before is was eliminated and the B was able to inflict massive damage on the other 3 mechs with is autocannon. The Timber wolf supported them both, but was done in by mechs who could move faster and get into optimal fireing position with ease.
The Storm Crow has 9 different configurations. I am not going to talk about all of them though. Each configuration has a different battlefield role. I could have an entire Star of these mechs and have close range, medium range and long range all covered. There are 2 different missle boat configs, a couple heavy hitters like the B, but having some newer tech. There are a couple oddballs, but nothing that I can say is really weak if you use it in its proper role. I love the Storm Crow. It's my favorite medium clan mech.
The only real downside to the mech is that is lacks jump capability. Its not a major flaw and I think adding jump jets would give it an over the top advantage given its weapon loadouts. The again you would be sacrificing weapons, armor or heat sinks to get said jump jets. Still my favorite Clan Medium Mech.
Well thats all for now. I have my Dystopian Wars Gubins box, which has the final rules book version in it, on predorder as well as the new Prussian fleet. Its called the Imperium now, but they will always be the Prussians. We are talking about it on the latest episode of Exploding Dice Radio which we recorded last night. It should be up in a few days. There has been no movement on the FSA beta so nothing to talk about there. I sadly have not gotten any games in of the latest version. That will hopefully change soon.
Until next time...
REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!!!!!
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