Monthly Archives: April 2013

Most MWO fights tend to go like the above. You engage fast, and the amount of crap flying around means it’s brutal and ends quickly. My Dragon teammate and I did a flank run and was base capping, when this Cataphract came flying back. He was in a hurry so didn’t really scout, so probably missed me entirely. That let me get behind him and do a lot of damage. He already seen some combat, but I’m still surprised how fast I cut through his rear armour (which looked to be intact). Less than 20s from initial contact to kill.

Lessons learnt: Scout, especially in base cap. Nowadays it’s usually scare cap, but once in a while you get a pair of jokers who end-ran your team (granted, it’s rarely a pair of Dragons; more commonly a pair of lights). It can turn quite ugly.

I went into this Caustic game not too happy, as the last few games had been PUG-bad, and the crawl up the skill tree is just long. I need about 1000 XP to finish off the basics on the Flame Dragon. Was thinking I need another 3~6 matches to do that.

Started and half the team went up the mountain and the bloody fast movers started to cap (!). I pop up over the caldera to see a pair of Atlas on the far end, so I do the natural thing — I sent Gauss rounds into them. They backed down; LLs vs. Gauss is a losing proposition at that range, even with 140 tons of advantage. I was left with nothing to do, so I started working my way to the left, but was caught by surprised when I noticed an ECM Atlas going by outside my cockpit within 100m.

I skidded to a halt and started working my way behind him, and he was tunnel-visioning into a teammate, probably the Stalker. I was left free to wreck his rear, so I throttled down and sat behind him. Thankfully, my team had engage the rest and I was unmolested. Blew off a torso, then followed in as he stumbled forward and quickly killed him — this kill I worked for.

Still fresh, I joined in a hillside brawl between an enemy Raven, a enemy Centurion, and some of my team. Centurion had an AC10 I think, and the pilot was good, and he was eventually making some serious holes in my Dragon, but my fire eventually tore a leg off and someone got the kill. I cooled a bit and then popped back over the crater to chase down the last few stragglers, and managed to land a killshot on the back of a fleeing Centurion, blowing off his torso, probably his XL engine too. Then the last enemy, a Raven-2X, came up and I took a snapped laser shot at him; this barrage apparently was enough to core him. I went “huh” at that point, certainly not expecting to get that many kills, and certainly not expecting to top the table with a Dragon and molesting so many of the enemy!

On top of that, I earned enough XP for me to finish off the last skill with this one game, and I can now move on to another Dragon. 🙂

I normally don’t do this, but personal best, so would like to keep a record:

I started on the high side of Forest, and moved to guard the tunnel entrance. Nothing happened until a X-5 came up from my base’s side to annoy me and a friendly Cat, and then I noticed that enemy mechs were moving below me. So I ran down the slope and saw a Dragon (should be the 5N) dispatch a teammate. I ran up behind him, throttled back and started hammering his rear with AC20 rounds — he never noticed me, so 3 or 4 salvo later, Kill #1.

Spun into a nearby Cat, which was shut-down. Slammed AC20 rounds into his side and front, and used him as a shield against LRM fire from the enemy Stalker or Hunchback. Dispatched him with CT kill — Kill #2.

Then I raced up the hill to tackle the LRM-Hunchback. Chased him down the hill into the water, where he ignored me and tried to kill our Atlas. Rear torso hits then, and Kill #3. Turned around, got chased around a bit by the other enemy Dragon, then saw the Stalker come off his hill. Snapped an AC20 shot into his center mass, was surprised when he turned into Kill #4.

Help polish off the second Dragon, then we hunted down the X-5 and gleefully legged him. He’s good, but not that good. The last assist was from an Atlas that was with the enemy Catapult earlier, I lasered or AC20 him a bit.

Overall a very good run, plus I encountered rubberbanding issues, and thankfully the disco lights problem wasn’t too prevalent. It’s a good way to send off the Centurion-YLW, as I maxed its Elite quirks. Have since moved on to Dragons. 🙂

Had this match last night. Tough fight, and when you fight the last parts of the battle missing two arms, a torso, and more armour on my head than the rest of my front armour combined, you have an appreciation of how zombie a Centurion can be.

Good fun, good fun.