(Intro for those who have to wait for pics to load; yes, pics of MechWarrior, for those of you who have read the reports of SlingsNArrows and wanted to actually see what happened)
Hello all you BattleReport readers, this is Kylaer, reader of many reports, writer of none until now, and shockingly NOT a player of StarCraft. I still don't know what a "natural" is on Lost Temple, despite reading several dozen reports based on the map (I read the reports looking for funny comments, not strategy advice).

This report, instead of being about StarCraft, is about running all over a battlefield in giant robots, shooting other robots to death with a myriad of interesting weapons. Welcome to the universe of MechWarrior 4. Since this is my first report, I will explain things in painful detail for those poor people who don't know about the game yet (in later reports I can say "Read my first report if you wanna know what I'm talking about")

Part 1: Lock & Load An aspect of MechWarrior 4 (from now on called MW4) that is really great is the Mech Lab. This allows you to take a basic mech chassis and modify it with different weapons, armor thickness, speed, etc. I have a very specific playing style (when I play for kills, that is; when I play for the sheer joy of insanity I have several styles) which involves getting very close to the enemy mech and then shooting the hell out of it. Let it be known now that I despise sniping at range; it seems so passive, just sitting there waiting for a missile lock, then firing, repeat repeat repeat.

With that in mind, I took a Mauler assault mech chassis, and gave it the following:

For those who don't know the meaning of the icons, I gave it a pair of close-in tracking missiles, four extended range medium lasers, and a pair of weapons that are basically big shotguns. Very nice for close-in fighting. I also upped my armor somewhat, which would hopefully allow me to survive the damned sniping and actually get close enough to use my weapons.

I log onto the server finder, and what catches my eye but a Team Attrition game, with about 10 players in it already? I hop in, and find that it hasn't started yet. The map is Lunacy, which I have never played before (I am not only a newbie at writing reports, I'm a newbie at the games I write them about! Hah!) I pick my team (team 2, Red) and wait while the other people dither around modding their mechs or something, then we finally launch.

Part 2: Hunting and Killing (and getting shot by damned snipers)

Here is an image of the world, as seen through my mech's cockpit.

Looks like a swamp setting, but I didn't see any water in the brief time I was on the planet, so I'm not sure.

Battle is joined as I charge down into the valley, with no regard for my own life ---- OK, I tell a lie, I dodged around some to try and keep from being shot, although a Mauler is very slow and not too good at this. Blood is first spilled by the snipers (naturally) firing with gauss rifles and Long Range Missiles (LRMs) from both edges of the mountain valley I'm busy running into. Lucky for me Team Blue's snipers are mostly concentrating on our own snipers, and I reach the valley floor without much damage.

Here is my attempt to get some action, and prevent it from being a mindless sniper's shooting gallery. Godfather is using a 100-ton Daishi, a very powerful mech indeed, and at the moment he's a sniping target. The blue spiral is a gauss rifle shot, and the green bolt is obviously a laser. In the upper right part of the screenshot you can see a Blue Team sniper, I think it's a MadCat Mark II, but I never got close enough to be sure.

I chase Godfather around some, hitting him with all my weapons. The LBX 20's are excellent at close-range fighting, which is just what I'm doing. Godfather's Daishi was already hurt by sniping, so it goes down, resulting in this pretty picture here (if you examine the chat/message window, you can see the victorious "Kylaer destroyed Godfather" message).

But, as you can see from the read-out on the lower right corner, my mech is also seriously hurt. A Daishi is nothing to fool with, and when you're also getting sniped it gets even worse. Most of my weapons still work, but I lost one LBX in my left-hand chest.

And the sniping keeps up the pace, I'm a little hazy on exactly how many times I get hit, but it's enough to knock out all the weapons I have except my four lasers, on my arms. And then look who arrives to add injury to injury, it's MOLINEAUX in yet another Daishi (People really like Daishi mechs, I guess it's because the basic chassis is said to be the most heavily armed in the game, heh heh heh).

Ah, what the hell, I'll attack him. His vital areas are at near-full health, and I'm nearly dead, but the sooner I die the sooner I'll respawn so I can fight again. Brave people, even very foolish brave people, do better than cowards in this game.

The result was utterly predictable. I die in a fiery explosion, which also hurts MOLINEAUX quite a lot. I know very, very well how much a mech exploding in your face can hurt, I'm usually right on top of my enemies when I kill them. Maybe as my skills improve, so will my ability to get away right before I deliver the final shot.

I respawn, to the welcome message that someone else put a few last shots into MOLINEAUX and killed him; I have been avenged! I run at my top speed of just-better-than-pitiful into the valley; I take only minor sniper damage this time, which probably meant that our side managed to clean off the snipers from the opposing valley rim. But as you can see in this picture, there is actually something for an infighter like myself to go up against; the Atlas-user Thunderskull, in the mech halfway between the right edge of the screen and the midline (it's got a faint red box around part of it).

An Atlas has even heavier armor than my mech. But there's no way of telling if he's using the basic version, or if he's modded his to be something utterly different.

Now there is a battle in which I am too busy to take screenshots. I end up with a lot of damage, and I'm pretty sure that it didn't all come from Thunderskull. But I survive, whereas he does not.

There follows another battle I am too busy to take screenshots of; a running battle, as we say. Running, because the mech I am fighting is something small, fast, lightly armored (all three of these are relative, compared with my Mauler), and aggravating (this was not relative at all, this was solid). I think it was a Thanatos, but I don't recognize all the mechs yet. I had to chase the blasted thing around a little, but heavy weaponry prevailed and I landed a few good hits on it. The chase ended with the mech trying to run up a hill, and me hitting it dead-on.

Here is an image. You can see the kill report in the message window, of me killing Hannibal, the little mech. Before you laugh at how much damage my mech is showing, check the damage read-out in the last picture. They're almost identical, heh heh.

And look who's shown up in my target window, it's MOLINEAUX the Daishi, with a situation nearly identical to the last time; me being seriously hurt is what I'm referring to. Let's see if you can guess what happens next

Hah. I bet that was not what you expected, was it? The score table didn't appear, because of the disconnect, so sadly I cannot include it.

Lessons learned:

1. Sniping is annoying. And it's not a very interesting method of play, unless you play a TRUE artillery piece and snipe with Long Tom shells (weapon that arcs downward, kinda tricky to use)
2. Daishis are over-rated. Yes, they are big, tough-looking, and happen to be the heaviest mech in the game, tied with the Atlas at 100 tons. But they are not, NOT, the be-all and end-all of mech perfection.
3. Little mechs die. That is an almost un-arguable fact. If a little mech goes up against a big mech, the little mech dies, unless there's a mob of little ones or something. Or if the big mech pilot is an idiot and the little mech pilot is a veteran. (By "little" I mean things 30 or more tons lighter, than kind of thing. My Mauler was 90 tons, and I took out a couple of 100-tonners. I had a little sniper help, but hell so did they). But USUALLY, a little mech will simply get slaughtered. Always remember that lessons are based on experience, and as experience grows old lessons may become outdated.

OK. There it was, my first battle report. Please leave any comments, praise, constructive criticism (this category does NOT include "u sux n00b" and that style of message), flames (this category DOES include that style of message, heh heh), whatever.