August comes in on the shoulders of Battletech merch's

 Gregg brought his mechs and an armor company.

 

 I I brought my mechs and a scout platoon.

We played approximately at 700 points each in about 2 to 2 1/2 hours.
 

 Without going into excruciating detail, Greg handed me my head on a platter. Despite the fact the mechs were identical to each other and the forces were in 4% of each other in points, six of my mechs were destroyed or forced off table , the scouts lost one half of their unit.  Greg lost I believe two armored vehicles of 8 and had some paint scratched on a coupe of his mechs. 

Rarely have I had the opportunity to be trounced so thoroughly and still have a good time. Greg kept apologizing as he rolled up in the ten to twelve range and I replied consistently below five. I did manage to blow up a building with a mech on top, but the mech exploded at the moment of collapse, no chance to inflict extra damage. 

 We did use for the first time the lance as organization, the skills allowed to a lance by its type, fire support from off board. next time we will add infantry to the mix. 

 Perhaps the mechs require to be painted to properly function. The three done did ok.

This whole process of going into BattleTech has been done quickly compared to some other things.  I think the ease of use of the Alpha strike version is a good entry, easy-to-use and yet allows the user to create situations that are interesting.