Biochem Beatings

[Shadow Paladin]

Once again Peter Why and I decided on another bit of Random mech madness. Thanks to Pete once more for doing most of the donkey work and trying to make heads and tails out of my notes (my thoughts are between these mostly) and congratulations on a resounding thrashing he gave to my team [:D]


Small Biochem arena, random tiny teams at Crack skill level.

SP's squad:
Dart - Recon - LRM 6, 2 x SRM 4
Stinger - Recon - 2 x Auto 4
Marksman - Medium - 2 x Auto 4, 2 x Gauss Cannon

PW's squad:
Guru - Recon - Tesla Bolt, 2 x Machine Gun
Morningstar - Heavy - 2 x Tesla Bolt, 2 x Chain Saw


The two teams started roughly opposite each other, SP on the west side, PW on the east.

PW: Given the short range of all the weapons, the aim was to find the enemy, keeping under cover as much as possible, until in range, then run to optimum attack distance. Because of the titan mix (recon plus heavy), the recon would run ahead to find suitable cover, then wait for the heavy to catch up before scouting for cover again.


(SP: Given the terrain I decided on my favourite tactic of climing the hills/mountains just to the East of me and pepper any of PW's incoming titans. Having a good mix of long range firepower I was feeling pretty confident.)


After an initial barrier of hills, a north-south plain opened up, with hills a couple of km to the west. The highest hills seemed to be towards the middle of the wall, so both titans headed that way. Large acid pools south of the hills made a direct move west dangerous. They were spotted by the Stinger, which was crouching on a hill-top on the other side of the barrier of hills. The Dart was seen shortly after, on a hill-top next to the Stinger. The two were perhaps ten hexes away from the Morninstar (the Tesla has a range of 5 hexes).

PW's Guru reached the cover of the hills, a couple of km north of the enemy, still trying to approach the closer without being hit. Meantime, the Morningstar failed a dodge, and fell, luckily taking it out of range of the enemy's weapons. When it stood and started to move north again, it was hit by cannon fire from the Stinger and fell again.

The Guru, climbing the hills, did come just within Tesla range of the Dart, and spotted a third enemy titan, the Marksman. However, it could now be hit by all three enemy titans, so, with the Morningstar being slowed so much, the Guru decided to head back south to join it in a more direct advance through the hills to the west. The Guru was brought down by Autocannon fire as it travelled south, but got up and continued running to join the Morningstar.

They both came over the hills just within Tesla range of the three enemy titans on their hill tops. All three of the enemy were firing now. The Morningstar fell at the end of another dodge, and rose to a crouch to fire on the enemy. The Guru dropped to a crouch, too. The first tesla bolt from the Morningstar took the Marksman's leg off, and he fell; the second hit him in the head .. not fatally. (At this point I was pretty convinced I had had it as 2 TBs straight to the same leg is pretty fatal to anything but the biggest and most well armoured of titans)

The Guru was taking too much damage ... especially from the missiles ... and was brought down by damage to the lower torso. The enemy continued to attack the downed machine (I was trying to make it explode near the Morningstar) as well as the heavy titan as it approached along a ridge between acid pools. If SP was lucky, he could make the Guru explode and damage the Morningstar. The Morningstar was taking damage as it ran .. the right arm quickly lost much of its external armour (I had a huge amount of hits on that RA but with my marksmans GC gone so soon I might as well hopped out of the titan and used a cheese grater on it). At its first stop on the ridge, it hit the Dart's left torso and left leg.

The Dart decided to jump to attack (I did not think the Dart would last much longer with the hits it had taken of late so I decided it was worth trying to damage the bigger titans head somewhat) at the end of the Morningstar's run along the ridge. He was hit in the leg in mid-air and fell in the valley (missing the acid pools).

Morningstar was now moving towards the Stinger, whose cannons were causing damage too often; the heavy's right arm was now red, its right leg yellow. He had to clamber across the downed Marksman to get to the Stinger, so put another tesla bolt into it, and swung the Chain Saws as he went by. Marksman's jock ejected (With a survival and damage control skill of 60 and the Morningstar in the same hex I thought I would try to rig the engine and eject... then I got 78% for the eject roll and totally fluffed it)

The Stinger was still firing its cannons as the Morningstar approached, but caught a tesla bolt to the head. He desperately charged the heavy titan, damaging the Morningstar enough to knock it down and damage its jock, but when the Stinger itself fell, its head dropped off.

The Dart lying in the valley was still firing at the Morningstar (sometimes getting shots through) so the Morningstar retargeted as it started to get up, but the battle was won.

[GeneSteeler]

Cool. Thanks for writing that up. Long live the Morningstar! [:)]

So, in hindsight, is it worth the gamble spending fire on a downed mech on the off-chance of scoring an explosion? (I'm not being cheeky, I'm new to TOS and genuinely curious)

BTW, did you scan it and use called shots, or just fire randomly?

- Gene Steeler [8D]

[Thorgrim]

An explosion will annihilate the exploding titan, negating salvage and special reward for that titan. It will also damage the surrounding (enemy) titans, decreasing salvage. It will however kill the jock, giving you bounty.
Depends.

[LarkinVB]

I use titan explosions to soften up the enemy in hard battles. I often provide 40-50% weight advantage for the AI. Salvage isn't much of a problem when you are facing 2000t. I have 4 heros in my squad with 95-100% weapon skill which make it easy doing called shots to the center. Last time I tried headshots instead and scored 5 kills with a single jock in one battle. I was very lucky as some shots hit at 20% or less. Salvage was 800000$ - nice but needed when upkeep is 300000$. I play hotseat with a friend. We share our squad and have lots of fun doing so.

[Thorgrim]

At that level, enemy jocks will be much better at avoiding engine explosions [;)] And at ejecting before one can happen.
The opponent will have to cooperate too, grouping his titans together nicely. [:D]

BTW, explosions might lead to chain reaction explosions, and then salvage may become a problem.

[Peter Why]

That battle was a lot of fun. I *do* love those Teslas!

[Shadow Paladin]

I noticed [:'(]