[SirFozzie]

Notes from Commander Henry Dolman (Commander: Dolman's Defenders mercenary unit)

February 21st, 2025

We've made planetfall on Edasich, our home for the next year. We'll be working with the Edasich Militia, as well as corporate forces from Edasich Motors, the planet's main employer. We've already set up some test runs to give the Militia a chance to try to work on defending the planet against raiders. We'll be playing the part of the OpFor (opposing Force). They seem nice enough, but they seem to be over their heads.. worse yet, they know they are, as they were only instituted a few months ago. Right now, they're looking at us like a puppy looks at their new owner. Afraid of getting yelled at, capable of making an unholy mess, but still wanting to please.

March 20th, 3025.

Well, that went pretty much as we feared. They tried to come at us in a bunch in an open attack. That is the worst possible tactic for vehicle units against Mechs, and it became a basic turkey shoot.

According to the judges, we would have successfully routed them with minimal damage, except for Stenson's Atlas. He got too excited with chasing down "fleeing units" and over extended himself. He got himself surrounded by units who realized that they could take him down with massed fire, He claims he didn't hear the admonition to get back into coverage, and while that didn't stop me from ripping him a new one up one side and down the other, I think that it's pretty likely that he just got "buck fever". He sheepishly admitted this was his first skirmish in the field, all the other time being simulator battles. Hopefully the lesson sticks.

May 15th, 3025
Nearly had an incident in the city today, Brawler Lance was on liberty, and nearly got into it with members of the militia in a bar when the Militia members got a bit rowdy about us being "cash warriors" and Kinnison (one of the Hunchback pilots), said "Well, it's obvious why we're getting paid, because right now you couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag". That went over just the way you thought it would. Thankfully, this didn't get much beyond the "Yeah? YEAH!" stage before the bar owner called the cops who broke it up. Unfortunately, I had to hear about it from Herr Thompson. That's what I hate about this job, having some stuffed shirt tell us that we need to win the hearts and minds of the populace to train them properly. Battle is what trains people properly. But, he's the paymaster's choice to command, and it could be a hell of a lot worse.

June 12th, 3025:

Sounds like things are getting a mite bit testy between the Davies and the Cappies. Scuttlebutt says that the Capellans tried some trick on the Davions that was discovered and countered. Bunch of Capellan bigwigs were declared persona non grata and kicked off planet. Things have been quiet for a while, wonder if we'll see some things hot up soon.

((OOC Note: This event in Battletech History was known as Operation DOPPELGANGER. The Capellan Confederation's Chancellor, Maximillian Liao created a double of House Davion's First Prince, Hanse Davion, and attempted to replace the real thing with their doppelganger. They used brainwashing and other tactics to make their version (they had to BELIEVE they were Hanse Davion), so they basically took a person, used tactics to completely erase his personality, and made him into "Hanse Davion". The double was discovered near the end of the plot, and the real Hanse Davion was able to prove his identity by doing something only the real him would know, and that is his Mech's Check Code (a security program to prevent Mech Hijacking, a person would have to know the check code to activate weapons, etcetera. This is covered in the first Battletech novel, "The Sword and the Dagger". This is the starting point for what is to come, timeline wise.