My son and I played some Battletech in our garage this weekend. 15,000 BV2 points.

I had a limited C3i network with four of my ‘Mechs, and a couple of ECM jammers. My son had a company level C3 network and everybody had ECM.

At the end of the first turn, we were out of range, just advancing towards each other. I was doing a flanking move with two Shadow Hawks (one of which had the C3I for the Longbows) and a Griffin.

At the end of the second turn, we continued to close, again just out of weapons range.

The third turn saw a lot of action. My son’s Catapult closed to within point-blank range of the Shadow Hawks and Griffin. It turns out that it had a pair of RAC5′s instead of LRM’s. He opened up, and missed. My Griffin, inside his minimum PPC range, hit and got a center torso critical. I scored three criticals, two gyros and an engine hit. Down goes the Catapult.

The rest of my son’s ‘Mechs made a hard right turn and moved towards my flanking force. From long range, my Awesome fired four PPC’s, and hit with three of them. One of which hit the head, and I got a critical on the head, critting the cockpit and killing the pilot. That’s two ‘Mechs down.

His entire force opened up on the Griffin, and he failed his piloting roll, down he went.

Turn 4: The Shadow Hawk which is painted blue is the one with the C3I, moved to provide the Longbows with a good shot on the Zeus, now in the face of the Griffin. He didn’t get out of the range of the Catapults ECM though. All of the fire again concentrated on the Griffin, knocking him down again. All of my fire concentrated on the Zeus, hurting him with two engine hits but he passed his Piloting roll. The Zeus spiked his heat with an alpha strike, putting the Griffin down by giving him two engine hits and a gyro hit.

Turn 5, things are winding down. The Zeus attempts to put the Griffin out of the Zeus’ misery by alpha striking again. The good news, he cored the Griffin, killing the ‘Mech. Bad news, he spikes his heat past 30, shutting him down. Really bad news, he suffers an ammo cookoff, which destroys the ‘Mech. The C3I Shadow Hawk gets pummeled by the Atlas and tanks and goes down. My son’s Jenner charged my main force, and with a +4 modifier to hit, was on the receiving end of 4 PPCs, 8 SRM6′s, 2 RAC5′s (which all missed) and 210 LRM’s, 49 of which hit. Hurt, but nothing serious.

It was at this point the game was called. My son had a heavy and two assault ‘Mechs down, I had a dead Griffin, and a wounded Shadow Hawk. He had a wounded Jenner, a pristine Atlas and four light tanks. I had 4 assault ‘Mechs and a heavy that were untouched.

My wife then yelled at me (jokingly) for beating up on my son. She always yells at the winner, no matter who wins.

No, I’m not dead.

Things have been busy around here. I haven’t had any time to post. Here is one of the irons I have in the fire.

I painted my mercenary Battalion, the Second Battalion of Kirstin’s Krushers. I have talked about it before. Here is a summary:

1. Superglue a Battlemech to a base, then fill in the gaps with this stuff, Texture Gel. It’s basically white glue with lava bits in it. I slathered it on, intending for it to provide a realistic look to the base, but it shrank in some cases, leaving a dip in the texture gel. I suppose the bad news is you can’t get it anymore. What I have is all that I’m going to get.

2. Hosed the Battlemech down in the Army Painter system, a spray paint with primer and color in one can, so you don’t fill in the details with several coats.

3. Dip the Battlemech in a lacquer to make the details really “pop” out. That worked, but not quite the way I wanted it to.

4. Paint details, such as the cockpit and weapons. I painted the base an awful brown. I thought it looked good or at least passable at the time.

5. Finish up with a Matte sealer to protect the paint job. This also didn’t work out quite right, some ‘Mechs “frosted,” so they will just look a little funny. I then glued some tufts of grass on the base. Again, I wasn’t too picky, and I used stuff meant for 12mm models instead of 6mm models.

Here is an example of one of my “finished” Battlemechs.

Well, after finishing everyone, I thought the bases were a disaster. So, I’m redoing all of them in these steps:

1. After soaking in water to soften the glue, I peeled the grass off.

2. After letting it dry, I painted the base in white glue, and then dipped the base into some Fine Brown Ballast I bought at the local model railroad store.

3. I then painted the entire base, including the sides, flat black. This seals the ballast to the base.

4. I used this mix of paints on the base, Beasty Brown, then a drybrush of Plague Brown, followed by a light touch of Dead White.

When I make the effort to go down to the Games Workshop Bunker, I’ll get some static grass to put on the base as well. I don’t have the time, energy or money to go there right now.