Well, it’s a wrap! Hot Spots Melbourne was a great success, It sold out twice and with 22 players on the day that makes us one of the (if not the) largest Alpha Strike event in Australia.
But we couldn’t do it without the players so thank you all for your support and attendance on the day. We also saw a strong showing from Monday Knights and the return of the travellers from far away at GUF Ballarat (if I missed anyone message me and I will add your club). Keep an eye out for the Battletech events of these clubs and stores during the year that are great to join in on.
A special prize was announced for the five lucky players who would get to go up against the club president and slay the “Ogre” in his force (actually a Gulltoppr OmniMonitor A). These so-called “Ogre Slayers” would be put into a draw win a force pack.
SCENARIO 1: VAULT HEIST
Scenario 1 is one of my favourite scenarios and was based off a you tube video by alpha strike games in Perth (love you guys). This scenario sees the players fighting to control four toggleable objectives with the highest control scoring objective points.
The top three scores for the first round in order fell to Redundant Royals, Andrew’s Strikers and Lucky’s Space Cadets.
Highlights players wrote on their score cards:
- Alacorn’s controlling the centre and blowing up my elementals!
- Combat Intuition on second turn causing mayhem!
- Whiffing the Axeman 2N axe hit! (TO – obviously not a Steiner piloting; reported by both players)
- Second engine hit from a rear shot took out the Linebacker!
- The “Ogre” took fire at 13 damage
Photos of the tables are available here: Scenario 1 Photos
SCENARIO 2: TERROR IN THE NIGHT
The second scenario was a mixed deployment scenario based on advice from Lorne to not make all scenarios a simple walk in. From other games I have seen the club play mixing up deployment is a fun and interesting way of switching things up.
The top three scores for the second round in order fell to Golder Lioas, Kolonel K and the Dragoon Warriors.
Highlights players wrote on their score cards:
- Two Alacorn’s blowing up with the Turkina X.
- Victor Headshot out of the blue! (reported on both cards)
- The “Ogre” took a beating at 27 damage
Photos of the tables are available here: Scenario 2 Photos
SCENARIO 3: CAN’T STOP THE SIGNAL
This scenario is the most experimental in my list at this stage, and will likely get a revision pass (it’s been through so many already). I do like to throw in a mixer, similar to Drop Zone in the previous event.
The top three scores for the third round in order fell to The Headbangers, DakkaGrabz Freebooterz and Clan Wolf Beta Galaxy
At the conclusion of round three the rankings for the solo games sat in the order of Andrew’s Strikers, Clan Wolf Beta Galaxy and the Jade Falcons.
Highlights players wrote on their score cards:
- Level of carnage but the locust survived!
- Headshot to my awesome! (was awesome!)
- My opponent sprinted everything on the first turn! (while i destroyed the towers…)
- The Ogre was DESTROYED!
Photos of the tables are available here: Scenario 3 Photos
SCENARIO 4: CRACK THE VAULT
The doubles round… Pitting two pairs of players up against each other and expanding the board to double size (you will see no blue tape in the photos here). This scenario is not just a test of your list and skill but your ability to work with someone else to achieve victory. Putting two strangers together can be risky and intimidating but some real teamwork emerged on the day. This round also caused major upsets in the scoring, throwing the standard Swiss win/loss breakers to the wind and making Mission Points all the more important.
The top three scores for the final doubles round in order fell the teams:
- Clan Wolf Beta Galaxy and Bricharni’s Bandits
- Redundant Royals and 1BTC Beez (aka Jezz-abar)
- Lucky’s Space Cadets and Blokes Squadron
Highlights players wrote on their score cards:
- There was a chuckle when the Drop Eagles were partnered with the Headbangers making a team sounding like a metal album.
- The mighty axe landing a blow on turn 2!
- “I want to go up against the Ogre…” (declared by doubles partner on same team as ogre)
Photos of the tables are available here: Scenario 4 Photos
Summary of final scores
When all was said and done and the dust settled on Mateo the clear winner was Clan Wolf Beta Galaxy. With Redundant Royals and Andrew’s Strikers taking second and third place.
| Final Rank | Force | Player | Win / Loss | Total Points | Crippled HMM |
| 1 | Clan Wolf Beta Galaxy | Jason B | 4 | 163 | 69 |
| 2 | Redundant Royals | Andrew B | 3 | 160 | 82 |
| 3 | Andrew’s Strikers | Andrew O | 3 | 154 | 65 |
| 4 | Lucky’s Space Cadets | Phillip E | 3 | 152 | 56 |
| 5 | Kolonel K | Kurt K | 3 | 135 | 61 |
| 6 | Jade Falcons | Walter S | 3 | 125 | 52 |
| 7 | The Reoccurrence of Blake | Matthew H | 3 | 122 | 39 |
| 8 | DakkaGrabz Freebooterz | Michael L | 2 | 120 | 66 |
| 9 | Matts Forces | Matthew D | 2 | 118 | 72 |
| 10 | 1BTC Beez | Jeremy K | 2 | 115 | 83 |
| 11 | Blokes Squadron | Roan | 2 | 111 | 77 |
| 12 | Sherwood Yeoman | Lorne G | 2 | 109 | 81 |
| 13 | The Drop Eagles | Adrian B | 2 | 102 | 56 |
| 14 | Sand Spiders | Dane B | 2 | 95 | 56 |
| 15 | Uimaine Cavaliers | Geoff K | 2 | 76 | 42 |
| 16 | Golder Lioas | Christian G | 1 | 130 | 57 |
| 17 | Elblanc’s Reinforcements | Natalya (Res) | 1 | 130 | 65 |
| 18 | Bricharni’s Bandits | Shaun G | 1 | 128 | 97 |
| 19 | Dragoon Warriors | David W | 1 | 117 | 95 |
| 20 | The Headbangers | Luke M | 1 | 80 | 84 |
| 21 | Aranda’s Grandes | Kirsten W | 0 | 135 | 89 |
| 22 | Pavlovs Dog | Leith G | 0 | 94 | 88 |
All scores are available here: HSM Results
Our focus is on building the community of players but we have prizes too! All players had access to a table of prizes with printed mechs and terrain being available on the day. Force pack prizes were awarded to:
- Top three players ranked by win, then total points (as above).
- The most units crippled across all games – Bricharni’s Bandits on a whopping 97 points crippled
- Draw prize for players that managed to destroy the “ogre”. Won by Clan Wolf Beta Galaxy – who graciously passed taking a table prize followed by Pavlos dogs who passed with Aranda’s Grandes taking the last force pack (who I will add is excited to paint and field the longbow at the next tournament).
The story so far…
MATTEO
HINTERLANDS
16 FEBRUARY 3152
[Intel below incorporates units who submitted a force description]
Conflict has returned to Matteo for a second time. Having located the entries to several vaults in the prior conflict, news reached Almotacen via jump trader networks of potential on world salvage. It didn’t take long before contracts were signed up and new units arrived on world.
Forces clashed around the vaults probing the locations for clues that would unlock the massive doors. The Redundant Royals, having not been seen in these reports since before the first landing on Matteo, strode into the field with a completely new force. Deploying fast assault mechs and reinforced units from various noble families across the sphere they were the first to make headway in this battle. Later in the campaign their HQ would be raided by the Mysterious force known as Andrew’s Strikes, but they would later lead a campaign to crack a vault with the 1BTC Beez.
The Beez, a Hells Horse detachment, are no strangers to Mateo and have refitted their losses from the previous campaign with salvaged Falcon mechs, likely salvage from Matteo itself. Overall their campaign to unlock the Vaults saw many setbacks but this last minute partnering with the Redundant Royals has set them up well for future campaigns.
Lucky’s Space Cadets also resurface from their mobile operations base on world fielding advanced clan equipment. Successfully uncovering vital intel and raiding opposing units to gather insights from their HQ network they were unsuccessful in consolidating this information with off world intel. This did not stop them from working with the Blokes Squadron to successfully unlock the second vault.
Arriving late to the conflict, the unit known as the Headbangers met with limited success. Their gladiatorial fighting style saw them miss critical victories early on in their campaign. Despite this they managed to secure a spectacular victory, seizing vital off world intelligence. Their bright and colourful parade style markings will make them difficult to avoid in future conflicts.
An unusual group known as the DakkaGrabz Freebooterz, who’s Almotacen contact appeared to be coded to some foreign pirate language, managed to unlock a vault with the force known as Kolonel K. Having been unsuccessful at prying information out of on-world sources the received a mysterious transmission that appears to have led to their success.
Two other mysterious forces on world unlocked the final vault. A detachment identifying themselves as Clan Wolf Beta Galaxy in both IFF signals and in parade paint worked consistently across the various conflicts achieving victory after victory to achieve their goal. It was truly the hour of the wolf when they worked with Bricharni’s Bandits to achieve a flawless victory and unlock the largest vault on world.
Reports also indicate that forces such as Aranda’s Grandes and Sand Spiders resurfaced during the conflict. Starting the campaign on Matteo, the Grandes failed to achieve victory and like many similar forces will likely return to Almotacen to lick their wounds and rebuild. The Sand Spiders achieved victory to a point, collecting sufficient intel to reach a vault only to be thwarted by an old nemesis the Reoccurrence of Blake and a new unit known as Matts Forces.
To those who uncovered the vault from before the purge where the apparent science caste had fled and failed to find sanctuary during the purge. Here a mech of periphery design designated the “Brumby” was found having been tested for clan technology refits (Spoiler – it was on the pack cover). In its basic form it was a high speed heavy mech with twin snub nose PPCs in its right arm mounts. Its similarity to the nova Cat had intrigued the scientist and with so many mercenary outfits uncovering the design we would expect to see it fielded in future conflicts.
Format design thoughts
Overall I am happy with the revised format this year. I saw a lot less errors on forces this year after simplifying from the previous BTCC approach. I think that’s just a practice thing at this point and have no changes planned, but remain open to feedback.
The format tries to be a hybrid of competitive and narrative with a focus more on building the community of players. I think some critical feedback is to create more awards based less on ranking and more on other factors to accommodate both serious and casual players (our community is not large so I want all to play).
I will say the winner prepared, prepared, and prepared, and gave me some great feedback on the scenarios as we worked through them (some of which I will implement in future revisions). This is the intent of the open/declared scenario style of play. Also players that just turned up to enjoy the day expressed that they liked the stories of the scenarios and that it felt a bit more narrative to play through. One of my goals is to make the format open to different types of players, so I think I’m on the right track.
In terms of forces on the day I have made a summary of the lists in the link below. There remains a strong preference for certain clan units (Dasher and Mad Cat I’m looking at you) but it’s hard to separate this from general fandom as opposed to value for PV. To some degree mid board objectives and scenarios that support a mix of units stop this being a problem. Some strong club metas were present creating a mix and the shock of TSEMP was there but its randomness and cost did not seem to give an edge (it is unreliable requiring a 9+ and costs a lot in PV terms).
Finally a few inner sphere and succession war lists were competitive on the day and those fielding them both had fun and won half their games, so there’s space for all styles of play in this format.
Force Listings: FORCE LISTING SUMMARY
Thank you and see you at the next one…
Finally a big thank you to the Melbourne Battletech community, even those who couldn’t make it but wished me well. Thank you as well to the PPC podcast for helping us promote the event (seriously go listen to them struggle to say Nunawading!). I feel really inspired to keep running these events and make next year bigger and better than ever before.
Thank you to those who provided prizes: Stratos for the terrain, Jeremy for the transfers (jeremysdecals@gmail.com) and Josabar and Dane for the 3D printed prizes. We funnel the vast bulk of the ticket purchases back into the prizes so the rest was retail purchased. If you are a retailer and you want to sponsor or support us next year please reach out.
Finally if you have any feedback I’m available on the NWA discord or you can email me (at drrnwh@gmail.com). I’m interested in feedback on anything related to the format, scenarios or setup on the day. Thank you to those who have already messaged me, the thanks and support is appreciated. See you all at next year’s tournament, the next event at another club/store or at Victorius.