[Abe Sargent]

The First Campaign

8 February, 3031 – We arrive on the southern continent of Cylene and a company of mechs moves to intercept my men. Time to move out and engage.

Cylene is a harsh wintery planet that is beginning a new ice age. Even the Equator experiences freezing winters, but the ore here is valuable and the planet is on the border so it requires a garrison. At this time of year, the southern continent is cold and dry, with remnant of snow and ice from the winter.

Our enemy has one assault mech, the mighty Victor. They also have a large assortment of lights and mediums, and two heavies, a Rifleman and a Grasshopper. We got lucky. If the garrison company here were heavier, we could have had no shot at winning. As it is, we may still take many losses in victory. Several of their mechs are not particularly good, like the Vulcan, Grasshopper, and Clint.

At the end of the first turn my Bulldog Tank is badly bruised, and we hurt one of the opposing light mechs a bit. The first few turns are more maneuvering than fighting.

On the second turn, one of my Ontos Tanks destroys a Kurita Vulcan. They take out my Goblin Medium Tank with a TAC (Through Armor Critical) which knocked out my power plant. We savaged their Rifleman and one of their Javelins (a light mech). The Javelin fell down and both mechs are missing arms.

At the end of the third turn, the same Ontos destroys an opposing Phoenix hawk’s gyro, and it falls, unable to move. One of the Javelin pilots my opponent has completely blacked out from damage.

At the end of the fourth turn, their Grasshopper missed a kick and fell, their Rifleman took a beating and is internal everywhere and on the ground.

After the fifth turn, the Grasshopper fell again after more injuries, and there was an ammo explosion after its exposed internal structure took damage in the fall. Boom! No more Grasshopper.

The following turn sees Ted Izumo blow up the opposing Whitworth after savaging it with his weapons. The Whitworth, a 40 ton medium mech, is actually one I like a lot, and I am sad to see it get destroyed instead of us recovering it. We also pick up the Grasshopper pilot for later.

The next turn sees the opposing Victor blow off my Spider’s arm and torso. The Ontos Heavy Tank once again blasts a mech, this time blowing up the ammo on an opposing Clint and taking it down. My Spider captures the Clint pilot.

I need to get my severely damaged Spider out of there next turn. I also want to focus my energy on a good mech, like the Victor, which if I can get, would be a nice capture for my team. I will likely be getting a Javelin (pilot blacked out, and needs a 10 on 2d6 to wake up each round) and a Phoenix Hawk (destroyed gyro, can’t move, but can still fire still on the field).

The seventh turn sees me destroy the left arm of the Victor.

On the eighth turn, my Stalkers Left Arm is blasted by the opposing Victor. Then my Stalker returns fire, criticaling the Victor’s main weapon – his AC20. Without that, he’s dead in the water. Then the physical attacks occur. My Wasp is one level above the Victor, and tries to kick. The kick works, and he hits the ammo, the Victor explodes. A 20 ton mech just killed an 85 ton mech. My Stalker kicks out the leg from under a 35 ton Panther and knocks it over. Unfortunately, the Javelin pilot finally wakes up and I won’t be getting that mech right now.

On the 9th turn, the pilot once again blacked out when he failed to stand. He also hit the gyro a second time, which takes the mech out of commission. Harder to repair now. No major changes just attrition of armor during the weapons fire phase, but my Wasp kicks the opposing Spider and knocks it down, and it is damaged.

The tenth turns rolls around and their Spider and Panther both fail to stand up. That leaves most of their mechs on the ground for the weapons phase. I suspect this will be ending soon. We blow some more limbs off their remaining mechs, capture the Victor pilot (a vet) and then win the game due to getting 70% of their team destroyed.