Battletech....

Pushing hard given the Ironman/my rule-set for the run had been both easy and challenging. My love of building up the perfect mech/lance and pilot roster was out the window from day one.  Knowing the game and knowing my play-style it was hard challenging to accept mission outcomes after loosing 3 and a half mechs, with the last pilot crawling over the finish line. A win is a win. Ironman is Ironman mode and one self deleting save is one self deleting save. Gotta roll with the outcomes. Doing the hardest of settings on Ironman is so overly punishing, no fun in that for me. Fun is fun and each to their own. At least the game allows options for player play-style accommodation. I still feel the need to justify my Ironman rule choices.

Playing Ironman, the safeties are always off. You need to push and press hard. Technically all you need is one mech and one pilot to survive Storyline missions. Obviously that's a worst case outcome. Get too many like that it becomes unsustainable. A death spiral. Pickers can't be choosers, salvage and recovery is as always in the hands of RNG. I was lucky. For the most part..... In the successful run.

I tried to make the most of early game missions for cash and mech buildup's. A good foundation to start from. The missions are 'the same' as a non Ironman run but the pressure of failing and loosing it all had to be channeled to gain advantage rather than hesitation.

Thanks to 'my' rule-set, money and mechs were no real issue by mid campaign. There were a few occasions where the monthly cashflow was really on the line. RNG is RNG. There were more than a few occasions when my pilots were in mech's I'd not willingly have picked under normal circumstances; In a one in four knife to a gunfight kind of way. That mech would usually be on point/decoy/distraction etc. As interesting as it is to see such encounters unfold, it's not for the timid.

The campaign was halted in the early stages three times and twice mid game. 6 attempts worthy of note; Not bad all considered. Maybe I do know what I'm doing! I was persistent and did pour in a lot of hours to 'get it done'.

The worst parts were the more mundane mission/campaign failures. An NPC vehicle that slipped in behind mechs from the fog of war and parks in the middle of the mission objective..... Game over(closed captions on for that one).

Some of the achi's thankfully unlocked in the failed runs and progress 'still counted' for others, so the later runs main aim became less about melee/DfA and more about mission/campaign survival and completion.

Allowing friendly NPC lances to take a lot of punishment was also 'allowed' to happen. If they only needed one mech to survive then that was more of a mech shield for my lance. I may also have liked to 'get a killing blow in' after their hard work. That's not to say I never 'got' my primary protectee killed(sshhhhh *alternative timeline* that one time)..... Push the limits and they can break you. #Restart. 

Long story short, done and dusted, I got the achi's I wanted. Mission Successful.

A great game, one I've constantly gone back to for one reason or another and sometimes 'just to be in'. Nice to have been back to it with purpose this time. A big part of that is for the tailored 'difficulty'. Well worth it.