Mercenaries clash, a Horizon Wars AAR

This engagement is from a few weeks ago, when I decided to try tinkering a bit with HW again, this time with less of a success than I hoped for. I had hoped using a firing solution somewhat like that of aircraft in HW but with the twist that you could only fire your full F if anybody in your army had a lock on the target in question. This turned out to be more reductive than I had hoped and didn't noticably add more movement, which was what I'd hoped for.
 But every failiure is an opportunity to learn and I have a few more ideas on house rules to try out before I'm done!

 The battlefield. A single mine stands in the badlands surrounded by rocky hills and boulders, the objective of both sides.

An unknown merc force, hired by some corporation or consortium to secure the resources the mine produces. 3 heavy walkers with autocannons and one with a set of plasma cannons make up their number.

Opposing them is a lance of Warg Industries mechs. Two assault mechs, one on either flank along with a long-range and direct fire support mech each in between them.

Coming under fire from the unknown force's plasma cannons, the warg missile-mech advances into the relative cover of a small hill. There it returns fire with a salvo of missiles, scoring several hits!

Walking into the incoming fire of the enemy, one of the tan mechs accept some damage..

..And in return manages to score a hit on the flank of the missile mech!

With the plasma mech critically damaged, one of his lance-mates decides to take up a covering position before him. It is a decision that costs him dearly, as both armor and arms start falling apart under the incoming fire.

Wethering the attacks, he soon finds a chance to counter with a few shots of his own, causing some damage to the close assault mech barreling towards him.

It's not long before the incoming fire becomes too much however, and the warmachine collapses!

Start of the 2nd turn. Two of the tan mechs are down, the CHQ plasma mech one of them. The Warg mechs are a bit worse for wear, but two of their machines are completely unharmed as well!

Getting close enough to do what it does best, the assault mech charges! It's powered claw rips and tears, but the enemy mech takes a toll on it, firing point blank and crashing into the Warg mech whenever able.

With both meleéing mechs locked in combat, the remaining mech manages to swing around behind the combatants and lay into the unprotected rear of the close assault mech. A group of lucky shots penetrate the armor and wreck the powerplant, sending the mech crashing into the ground!

The this is where that pilot's luck runs out. As he moves to take down the long-range mech with the missiles, he is charged in the flank by the second close assault mech. His rounds critically injures the target, but it stays on it's feet. He does not, as the Warg mech easily picks apart his already damaged mech.

With only a single (barely) functioning machine, the unknown mercs signal surrender and withdraws, leaving the Warg mercenaries in control of the mine and it's riches.

This fight ended up being kind of one-sided, but a combination of poor decisions and bad luck on one side with a lot of crits on the other made it somewhat inevitable. It was fun either way, even if my ideas didn't really work out.

With the benefit of hindsight, I realized you could just use the aircraft firing rules as written (but still no firing when using rapid move), but applied to mechs. I'll have to try that and see how it affectes the rest! 

I have another AAR in the works, using Starport Scum with a few tweaks and fixes that I'll share, hopefully rather soon. I still need to paint the buildings I showed last time and there are a few new mechs being sculpted.

Til next time!