On Saturday I attended “SOBSCON 2025,” the first Southern Ontario Battletech Society convention. It was held at the lovely Torchlight Games in Burlington, a lovely location with ample gaming space.
They held a bucket list of events, demos of Catalyst games other games (Leviathans being the big one, ha), but also an Alpha Strike tournament, Grinder events, Legends, and the reason I was there, a Battletech Classic tournament.
6,000 points, Clan Invasion era, Inner Sphere only, exactly 4 mechs. Gibberish for non-BT players, but it basically meant a three round events where you wanted to blow up more of their stuff than they blew up of yours.
I took a King Crab 001 (a pair of Gauss Rifles, a Large Pulse Laser, an LRM15, and two Streak SRM2s that didn’t successfully fire all tournament) with a 3/5 pilot, a Hatchetman 5S (LB10X autocannon with Cluster ammo, three Medium Pulse Lasers, and his Hatchet) with a 3/4 pilot, a Bushwacker X2 (3 LRM5s, an AC10, two Medium Pulse Lasers, and a pair of MGs) with a 4/5 pilot, and a Panther 6R (PPC and SRM4, the most vanilla of the Panthers) with a 4/5 pilot.
For the record, I painted all my mechs according to the Aurigan Reach/House Arano scheme, a minor Periphery State that I am very fond of.
No gameplay impact aside from looking great.
Upsides: a lot of very accurate long range firepower that does serious damage.
Downsides: slow AF. The fastest model is the Bushwacker at 5/8 (walk/run), and the two models with jumpjets were both 4/6/4 (walk/run/jump).
Heaven or Hell, duel 1! Let’s Rock!
This was the only round I remembered to take any pictures…
My opponent, a really lovely fellow named Ian, was playing a Marik Militia list which included:
Flashman (lots of lasers)
Ostroc (even more lasers)
Spider (fast jumping, surprisingly sturdy little Light with 2 pulse lasers)
Thug (basically a Warhammer dual PPC and SRM, but with more armour).
The spot where my King Crab is standing is a Level 3 hill, allowing me to see almost the entire field. I stood there and rained Gauss shells o’er my enemies, aye, until they were naught but burning hot wreckage.
The King Crab basically won me the game by itself. First round I got a very lucky hit on his Spider, taking out the left torso and half of his jumpjets. Everything else was trickier, but eventually it all died to the King.
Heaven vs Hell, Duel 2! Let’s rock!
My second round opponent was in green and yellow (probably a Liao player?), and he had
Longbow (2 Artemis IV linked LRM20s and 2 Artemis IV linked LRM15s)
Siracco (sp? A 95 tonne quad mech with dual UAC10s)
Tarantula (a fast quad with a few medium lasers)
Spider (as above)
The Spider took an ungodly amount of abuse, getting both torsos and a leg blown off, basically with 3 pips of center structure and a little of its right leg remaining. My King Crab was able to put serious damage on the Siracco, and my Hatchetman took out the Longbow with repeated axe blows, but when the King Crab fell (lots of damage from those UAC10s and LRMs), my opponent took out everything but the Hatchetman. A loss, but a well fought one.
Heaven vs Hell, Duel 3! Let’s Rock!
My final opponent was running a mishmash paint scheme, no particular unit cohesion (but whatever, no judgment here) including:
Banshea (an AC20 with Precision Ammo and a small laser)
Daedalus (a Phoenix Hawk but loaded with SRMs)
Flashman (all the lasers)
and a Rattlesnake (a Jenner with more lasers)
My dice were super hot this game, in a very unusual way: hit rolls were pretty good, average one might say, but when rolling for Location on the Location Table, I rolled a lot of double 1s.
The thing is, “2” on the location table is a Through Armour Critical (basically part of yiur shot penetrated through the armour, resulting in a chance of critical damage). And I got a LOT of those. 6 or 7 of them, enough that my opponent was starting to get very upset. I swapped out my dice happily, and still got a few more.
Eventually his Banshea fell, his Flashman was kicked in the head and died, and we called the game a victory before my opponent started throwing things (unsportsmanlike behaviour, sure, but we’ve all had bad dice days).
Overall, a fun tournament!
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
