Taking a hit and Failed Piloting Skill Rolls

Well - in contrast to the weekend, last night was a rough night. I played in three missions and managed to lose them all. I feel that I had a decent shot in two of them and the third was a far cry from reasonable. Regardless, my losses were reasonable - so I cost the faction some campaign points, but still came out ahead in terms of money, mechs and bays.

The first match, I decided I would try out my Goliath in a mission, so I attacked a FS on the front.

My army: GOL-1H [4/5], WTH-1S [4/5], TBT-5S [4/5DM], JR7-F [4/5]; BV: 4411
His army: ENF-4R [4/5], HBK-4G [4/4], HBK-4H [4/4], CN9-A [4/5]; BV: 4401
Map type: not sure - had a huge trench at -4 level with mostly -1 and 0 level surrounding it to divide the map.

This one was great for my goliath - an isolated area to sit at +1 level with hull down while the opponents and the rest of my lance tore it up on -1 or 0 land. Things started off well, but took a huge turn for the worse when I made a very bad move with my TBT-5S that left it in point blank with the HBK-4G. He needed a 9 to hit with the AC20 - got it - and blew up the trebuchet's ammo. One mech down.

I tried to recover - focusing my efforts on the HBK-4G since it was already in bad shape - but he soon had my JR7-F on the ground with a hip crit and that was pretty much all I could do.

I can blame my loss in that fight on missing 3 regular PSRs - but the fact remains that my movement for the TBT-5S was very subpar. My opponent had shown his willingness to fire the AC20 at 9 hexes with an 11 to-hit - I should have been content to let him use it all up. In the end - I was too aggressive.

The next fight, I didn't have much of a serious chance:

My army: WVR-6R [4/5], CDA-2A [4/5], SDR-5V [4/5], VLK-QA [4/5]; BV: 3105
His army: BJ-1 [4/5], Goblin (LRM Variant) [4/4], JVN-10F [4/5], Warrior H-7C Attack Helicopter [4/5]; BV: 3008

My wolverine did have the precision ammo that has been so popular in the last few days, but it did little to ease my comfort in that fight. I managed to get 2 shots at the VTOL - one at 11 and one at 12 - but neither connected. In that time, I had done minimal damage to his blackjack and goblin; he managed to do 20+ dmg on two rounds running on my cicada and in both cases, I failed piloting skill rolls to remain standing. On the second one - I damaged a foot actuator and a hip - making it effectively crippled.

In the last round, my spider moved in one level above the blackjack. He hit armor with both lasers, but missed the 6 to-hit on the kick; in return he took some damage in the firing phase, and got his leg kicked off in the physical phase. Blah.

I surrendered and managed to keep the cicada amazingly enough.

My last match looked much more favorable to me - a bandit reprisal with 4 units versus my opponent's 7:

My army: WVR-6R [4/5], CDA-2A [4/5], SDR-5V [4/5], VLK-QA [4/5]; BV: 3105
His army: VLK-QA [4/5], SDR-5D [4/5], STG-3R [4/5AT2], COM-2D [4/5], Hunter Light Support Tank [4/5], Jump Platoon (Flamer) [4/5]; BV: 2839 (BV vs 4.0 units : 3036)

The map was in his favor - but not horrible so. In round 1- the precision ammo eared its worth by hitting the stinger's arm and critting the medium laser there. After that - the battle was split between my WVR and VLK in close range with his SDR while my CDA and SDR were in close range with the rest of his forces. In retrospect - a very bad match up...

Regardless, he managed to move to the rear of my wolverine and with a single medium laser hit - got a TAC to hit the WVR's ammo - 152 armor destroyed in one lucky shot... Meanwhile, I killed off his COM-2D and his badly damaged STG failed a death from above against my spider who happened to be on the edge. In the last round, I missed everything - he hit my VLK hard and I was in bad shape - so I surrendered.

I drew from the factories and received a Shadowhawk - a mech I still don't like. After much waiting I did draw once more and gained a chameleon.

This morning, I traded away the shadowhawk and bought two more bays when a faction mate was quitting. He gave me an ARC-2S (2 LRM15s, 2 SRM4s instead of the 2 LRM20s) and a Jump Infantry (MG) to work with - which is much appreciated.