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Campaign 2 is going well. First mission was a pain, briefly. Then my Crucible got mad at the Beast guarding the starport, planted 2 chainsaws to the head.

With 2 mediums down (my Mirage rained GMH 2's on the first until it keeled, helped a little by my Apparition in its face), instead of entering the exit point and winning that way, my squad went after the last Medium. 4 against one, even if my four were getting kinda armour peeled, didn't last long.

Mission 2 was a snap. With a nice open arena like that, and no enemy Titan with ECM, my Titans managed to get at least yellow scans on 2 Titans a piece. At which point, it was simply a matter of charge, knock the enemy down, and aim for the damamged locations. My Imp took out a Thunderclap no problem. 2 Teslas to the CT, and it didn't even slow down. The Apparition and the Crucible DFA'd and charged, respectively, a Scorpion. While it was down, the 4 combined chainsaws, plus the MG's and Flamethrowers was enough to remove both arms and a leg. They barely slowed down. Passing over that the three then went on to triple team an Instigator. Meanwhile, my Mirage in the background had switched targets to the last enemy, a Club.

The Instigator tried to run away. It never got a chance. The Crucible charged in knocking it to the ground, and two Teslas and 4 Chainsaws and 4 Flamethrowers removed an arm and the LowT. At this point the Imp was running a wee bit warm. And it had been harrassed by the Club (and everybody else, what few shots they managed), so it withdrew a bit while the Crucible went on to have words with the Club. The Club didn't seem to get the fact that it was alone with three mildly damamged Light and Medium Titans and one Medium damaged Light, and pursued the Imp. It got about two hexes before the rain of GMH's from the Mirage in back took it to the ground, allowing the Crucible to catch up. At which point, it never got up again. The Crucible saw'd and melted through a leg and an arm, and the jock quickly ejected.

Gained 125k in payment, and another 110k in salvage and bounty (apparantly one of the pilots REALLY REALLY screwed up his ejection roll, as I didn't hit any heads this time around). After 70k of upkeep, I netted around 160 170k. With a modest repair bill of about 60k (most of that to the Imp, who was missing most of the front armor), I am about halfway to earning my second Medium Titan. most likely a Piranha for my leader.

Mission 3 is coming up, and as this is a hot planet, I've modified my Titans to run MUCH cooler.
The Imp lost its Teslas in favour of Cold Lights and a slightly upgraded heat register, plus about a ton more armour.
Dropped the Jumpports way down on the Crucible, and upped its heat reg one category. Lost the Medium Laser as well, but upgraded the scanner.
Dropped the BC down one category on the Mirage for an increase in its heat reg by one category.
And dropped a MG from the Apparition, plus a slight downgrade in the scanner and BC and upped the heat reg two levels.

Hopefully this should allow me to continue to fight in the heat w/o worrying unduly about the heat. The Crucible should come in REAL handy here, as Titans will already be running hot. Plus the Mirage's 4 GMH 2's (yes 4, I lost the LRM 9 in place of another GMH) should have a field day.

For those curious, I'll append my squad stats to the end here.

And that is the Android Rebellion down. As well as the missions Neutron Device (ran middle of the 1st campaign, actually) and The Fortress.

Everyone is now in Heavy Titans. Just need to run a random mission or two to tick everyone over to Veteren, instead of Regular. Heh, I think I'm missing about 100 or 200 XP per person, so shouldn't be that hard.

Have 3 stock Titans (Grizzly, Fog Giant, and Sagitta) and one custom (Rook, stats listed over in the mech arena), and everyone's primary skills are hovering around 65 to 75%
Onward to the Metabor. Or, actually, a random fight or two first, and then the Metabor.

I wonder if I am not playing things exactly right. Seems I'm the only one who doesn't run into may heat issues?

ORIGINAL: Iskandar

Onward to the Metabor. Or, actually, a random fight or two first, and then the Metabor.

Tell us how you like the Metaborator campaign.

Pippin: Well, yeah, I have heat issues. You just have to watch the heat you generate, and plan accordingly. Generally, if you are much past the blue point, now may a good tme to go and cool off. Unless you REALLY need to kill someone. Like right away. Do not red line yourself unless it is either you hit or you die situation.

Use the down time you have to cool off to do other things. Repair, or scan, for instance. Just walk (or run) out of the hex if you are currently sharing it with an enemy Titan.

And remember, the enemy is dealing with heat as well. Paying attention (and green scans) can clue you in to how hot he is running. Using FT and napalm missles can really ruin someone's day. Especially if you have a Titan on a hill with GMH's.



As far as the android rebellion campaign goes, you will know going in that maps 3 through 6 will be toasty. Realize that you can go into the factory and modify your units to compensate somewhat.

And, as always, on a hot map, having Titans with Flamethrowers and napalm missles is a good thing. Just, you knowe, STOP shooting them when they shut down, as you can detonate a Titan if you over do it. (matter of fact, if the poor soul has a Heat Reg 1 or 2, if you rip a leg off, run away. He now CANNOT dissipate heat, and will eventually explode his engine.)

And a hot map is a perfect place for a GMH Titan or two, everyone will be running warmer, which boosts to hit.

First mission of the Netabotator.

Interesting, and painful. Well, not extremely painful, but painful enough.

Kinda dissolved down to to or three individual fights, due to poor planning.

My Grizzly vs a Fist and a Guru. Grizzly won, but had to spend about 5 minutes patching damamged systems back together. Only one arm actually got any armor internals, luckily.

My Rook and Sagitta against a Swift Death and a Heliopos. Sagita and Rook wins, but the poor Rook gets beat nearly apart (loses an arm, and almost the entirety of the front armour. Again, had to spend about 4 or 5 minutes patching damamged systems back together).

And my Fog Giant, who investigated the target area ended up facing a Beast and Attila. Took the Beast apart early, and trashed the Attilla before falling over due to two hip criticals (and two missing arms). The Rook by this time had come to the rescue and put down the Attila permantly, but the FogGiant was a loss and had to be abandoned when it became apparant it would not get to the exit point.

There was two other recon titans. The first one popped right up in the beginning, and got tore up by long and medium range fire from everyone.

And at the end, near the exit point, a Chucker (two GMH 2 recon) got in a fight with the Sagita (with only two reloads of ammo for its GMH 4's). Sagita won, handily, blowing the CT out of the Chucker and only taking light damamge in return.

All told, close to 550 salvage and bounty and payment.

Of which I had to spend close to 250k in repairs. (major armor repairs on the Grizzly, moderate armor repairs on the Rook, and a new arm, and major repairs in general to the poor mauled Fog Giant. The Sagita needed light armour repairs only.)

And about 1k of experience for everyone. (a lot of repair rolls were made, as well as scans, and a lot of shots were fired).


And as a bonus, got to spend the last 10 minutes of the mission listening to the Attila start up, and then shut down. Missing both legs and having a heavily damaged engine, and a jock who didn't want to eject, meant it would heat up to the shut down point. And then cool off once the engine shut down. And then heat up again once it restarted.

Frickin' ow.

Got passed mission 2 of Metaborator, one volley from the Sagitta early followeed by a full volley from the Fog Giant much later caused the ejection I needed.

Mission 3 however, is a pain.

Will have to try again. Had my three heavy Titans go straight down and plow over every one (well, two, the Sagita hung back in one place and showered GMH's on everything) w/o slowing down. This took care of everything but two recons and a Hunchback, even though the Hunchback got mauled. My last Titan was a Swift Death. She went left, and jumped over to where she needed to be. Before she could do anything though, the two missing recons showed up. She took the Hammer apart easily, and then tangled with the Duelist. Took that apart, but not w/o a bit of sawing going on. So, missing a lot of armour she was the only thing standing between the Hunchback and the target. The Hunchback won. The Swift Death showered the Hunchback with MG fire, until running out of ammo. Then, missing an arm, and most of her armour, she ejected, as my Heavy Titans were catching up. My Fog Giant was capable of placing three AC 12 shots in the rear of the Hunchback, but was just not capable of knocking it over. The Hunchback got over the hill, and out of lock of my Heavies, and that was that.

Keep the reports coming. Please define

Mission 3 however, is a pain

What was painfull, the defeat or playing it at all ?

Eh, getting defeated was a pain. But the map itself a mite fristrating. I'm afraid to step my tonnage down anymore, so I could be a bit faster (mediums instead of heavies, and possibly two rcons, maybe even a new jock), because I am afraid that would force even more of the enemy into recon and light Titans.

Eh, its no big deal, I enjoy the challenge. And, at least, the defeat doesn't count so I can keep trying. Over all, I'm enjoying this.

EDIT: One thing I didn't like was the terrain. Not only are the opposing Titans faster than I am, but the terrain I'm stuck on is all hilly, so I am forced to move even slower, while the other side is all nice and flat. I blieve I can deal however. Just bump up my jj, and FLY.

The Metaborator Campaign pretty much 'inspired' me to start over with a new squad... although the leader was an old veteran who survived many wasteful and pointless AI controlled battle royale of 4 custom squads...

I was on map 3 of metaborator with my previous squad, now I'm on map 2 with my current squad which holds 1 assault, 1 heavy, 1 medium, 1 light, and 4 recons. What I learned from metaborator is to plan way way ahead of time. I'm still trying to build up my regular jocks into veterans, or was it veterans into cracks... I want my jocks to be as good as what difficulty the campaign says... my Leader (a few thousand points before qualifying for Hero Rank) inflates the average skill of the squad...

ORIGINAL: aquietfrog
my current squad which holds 1 assault, 1 heavy, 1 medium, 1 light, and 4 recons.

Careful with those recons... there are some big boys in the Metaborator that like stepping on bugs... uh... I mean recons [;)]

I know how that feels. They used to always end up as decoys so my heavier titans can deal real damage. Generally, I keep my recons together... like a titan aggregate. They move in the same hexes, lock on the same target... and everyone charges until the target falls over. I might shift them back to carry CC weapons. I want to try the effect of 4 pairs of poweraxes...

Hrm, I've done three pairs of chainsaws. of course that was lights, but still nasty.

Mataborator 3 is still kickin' my butt. Got further, but then the new titans showed up before I could get myself in position. Now I know they are there, and WHAT triggers them, I can take care of them, easily. I just was out of position and was forced to take them on piecemeal to keep the Lynx alive. And died piecemeal, too. Though I almost had it. Down to 1 enemy medium, red all over and another legless, vs a Sagita out of ammo and a Crucible coming back from major repairs. . Then the Lynx got into it, and got creamed, and had to start over BEFORE I could reload.

You NEED 1 recon for this one, otherwise the Lynx gets overrun with recons before you can do anything. You also NEED JJ on EVERYONE. Otherwise you won't be able to get over the starting hill in time to catch the interest of the heavier units, and the Lynx AND your recon will get overrun.

I know what I have to do, just gotta do it this time. Hold off on contacting the Lynx until the first wave is down. Then get my heavier units over the lower hill to rain crap on the new arrivals. Very doable.

ORIGINAL: Iskandar
You NEED 1 recon for this one, otherwise the Lynx gets overrun with recons before you can do anything. You also NEED JJ on EVERYONE. Otherwise you won't be able to get over the starting hill in time to catch the interest of the heavier units, and the Lynx AND your recon will get overrun.

Well, the briefing specifically says IN RED "Be sure to take at least one or two recon Titans with your squad to be able to explore the area as fast as possible" [;)]