Monday Knights' Christmas Party - Battletech!

Every year the Monday Knights wargaming club in Melbourne runs a light-hearted tournament for their end of year / Christmas celebrations. This year I put my hand up to run the tournament.

To keep the organising simple I ran a poll between bringing a mech for Battletech or a car for Gaslands and then randomly allocating these to each player. So there was a chance you could get you own mech or car, but you'd more likely to be facing off against it. The Battletech option won out unanimously. The rest of us were just happy to drink and talk about the year that was.

Basic rules were:

1. Each player brings 1 mech and corresponding data sheets (no BV or date limits; piloting 5 / gunnery 2; clan mechs were fine).
2. The mechs are pooled and each player is randomly allocated a mech (and to respect using someone else's miniature).
3. Swiss draw, either 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 2 (teams are temporary and during that game a player can’t attack a teammate).
4. Players start the game by rolling for initiative for corner selection (4 player game any corner, 2 player game the second player deploys at the opposite corner).
5. Victory Points are per internal damage inflicted, with +20 points bonus for each mech destroyed OR +50 point bonus if it was by a head shot.
6. Three rounds, with games limited to 50 minutes.

Phil brought a Widowmaker to the party. That's like bringing a tank to a knife fight. While the match ups between rounds weren't perfect, it was more to limit the damage it caused (both on opposing mechs and on team mates that were unlikely to score victory points that round). A full list of mechs are in the final scores below, with the Widowmaker and Nova being paired up on the kiddy table far away from the other two games in the first round. After that I used it for the mid-tiered players to have a quiet(er) game.

Games were over relatively quickly, and hopefully were fun to those that weren't facing the Widowmaker at the time. If I was to run this format again, I'd have a list of mechs players could select from, and would probably include everything above except the Widowmaker, Nova and Thorn.

Best quotes of the night:

"I’ve got more armour in my back than my front"
- Leadgend running away with spider and stating it was the best tactic to keep his mech standing.

"It’s f***ing geometry"
- crudboy after three games of plodding across the table to get some shots off and being told there wasn't line of sight (when there was). This was against a player who's a mathematician.