The Battletech Dynasty: Chapt. 5 - The Invasion, 3050-3056 - Completed

[Abe Sargent]

Rewind


March 1, 3055 – Contracts:

FedCom – Guerilla
Rasalhague – Guerilla
St. Ives – Objective Raid on major Davion outpost, Davion has told us not to attack them and we can’t take this one.

All crap

April –

Company wants Garrison
ComStar wants Defense

ComStar has approached s for a major contract. They want Shadow Battalion to strike Irian itself. Irian has only been invaded once, and rarely raided, because it’s too well protected. Blake is using that to make a major base in the area. Lots of mechs are made here. The units on planet include 13th Marik Militia, and other units.

Our goal is to hit Irian, and instead of going after mech factories and the heavy industrial elements, to hit the Blake-ists. We have several targets. We are successfully paid for each one we take out, and we get a bonus 5 mill for each additional target destroyed.

The Word of Blake has a military center that is where they are building up their materiel. Our targets are:

1). Destroy the 3 local warehouses that are believed to contain massive materiel, armor, ammunitions, etc.
2). Destroy the military center itself
3) Destroy at least 50% of the defending Blake Force

This is a great contract for us, considering our current shortage of quick cash.


Shadow Battalion, Star River, Amalgamated Bliss, Robin Hood, Scots Flotilla, Arrow Company and 4 IS Standard Battle Armor Platoons – Irian Campaign


Salvage: Full
Salary: x1.6, x4 x1.3, x1.5 if we face the clans
Support: Battle Loss 50%
Command: Indy
Remuneration: Yes, x1.05
Length: 3 months
Transport: 100% Reimbursement
37.5% Bonus

We will arrive on Irian on March 28.

[Abe Sargent]

Mar 29 – We have arrived at Irian. The planet is one of the most valuable industrial planets in the Free Worlds League. It’s time to get out and scout.

Apr 11 – After scouting heavily, we know where the warehouses are, they are right beside the military center. The area is under constant and heavy guard by Blake forces. There is no chance of a lightning raid.

Apr 13 – We have an early idea for a plan. Due to the sensitive nature of industry of the planet, Irian has a lot of forces. It’s also a bit nervous about them too. Let’s explore that further.

Apr 21 – Okay, we have painted our mechs the color of the 18th Marik Militia. This is a unit within one jump and it is due to rotate on planet for defense in a few months. Appearing as them on the streets shouldn’t cause a big ruckus early.

Meanwhile, our armored troops, including the elementals of Shadow Company, will have rented a lot of trucks. They will get ready near the warehouses. Once we start battle against the center, they are to head in. Two trucks are loaded with explosive sand the rest are ready to load up. If they think they can kill the defending infantry and take the supplies in there, they will. If they can’t, they will cover for the truck bombs and blow it up. Boom!

With our three powerful companies pounding onto their military center they’ll need all forces to respond. We will send one company each at one side of the center, in order to distract their troops. They supposedly have a level III force here, which is six sixs, or 36 mechs – the same as our Battalion ,but counted differently. We smash, and then ether dash and grab, whichever works based on the situation.

Once we’ve done our part, local forces and Blakes are going to pursue us, and Arrow Company will buy us the time we need to get the stuff and get home

Apr 24 – Here we go.

The intel is dead on. (I rolled snake eyes) 36 mechs and a small amount of infantry at the warehouses.

We are out, and…our trick works and no one finds our colors or mechs suspicious.

We split into three companies and surround the base from a distance. Everybody is ready.

Shadow Company, under the command of Braham Essex, is taking the right flank of the base and the one closest to our DropShips. He eases the throttle forward on his clan tech Orion. Shadow Company moves in. The other two companies do as well.

Seeing mechs, even those painted in Marik colors, moving towards their base, the Blakists call out for help. The 12 mechs on patrol respond. They march to the front and face Shadow Company. As all of us approach, the alarm is raised and they begin to move to a defensive position. We are still a minute away from the base. They pour their mechs out, and then form up at ferrocrete bunkers outside of the military complex.

The other two companies are unopposed so far. Shadow slows down a bit and within 20 seconds, out come another six wobbie mechs. What does the Blake commander order? I roll dice, with smart moves high and dumb moves low. A quick assessment shows Shadow Company has the weakest looking mechs – no clan tech. He orders all 18 mechs outside of the building to charge Shadow Company and break them as fast as possible. Meanwhile minor gun turrets try to slow down the other companies.

They won’t for long, but here come 18 Blake mechs.


Jackal
Hammer
WSP-3M Wasp
Sentinel
SHD-5M Shadow Hawk
Kintaro
MAD-5M Marauder
Anvil
Champion
2x Grand Crusader
Crockett, vet
CP-11-A Cyclops, vet
Flashman, vet
2x Apollo, vet
Mongoose, vet
CDA-3M Cicada, vet


Everybody else is regular.


This is their Anvil, a recent Marik 60 ton heavy mech with 5/8/3 movement, 12/24 heat, no XL, 9.5 tons of armor, 2 large pulse lasers, 2 medium lasers and a Guardian ECM.





They will be charging at me as fast as they can and try to force us to retreat or destroy us. We can retreat Shadow Company any time we want. If we retreat it too soon, then they will be able to commit more forces against our other two companies. They will send some forces to prove we are retreating, but not that many. Our goal is to survive as long as possible without needing to retreat. We also don’t have the cash to lose a bunch of mechs. We need to be careful. If Braham Essex can take long enough, then the other two companies will begin battle against the remaining troops, and will easily overrun them and destroy the center.

[Abe Sargent]

1 – Here we go. We lose init. We set up in a corner behind some rubble, and hope they have difficulty getting to us. Several of their Artemis systems are prevented from working due to our ECMs. Our Zeus destroys their Cyclops RA. Our Gallowglas hits the gauss rifle, causes 20 damage o its RT, and then that is gone, and hits the CT for two gyro hits. Dead mech.

2 – We use Braham’s tactical genius to win init. I hop a Lynx behind their Jackal. Our Thug destroys the LA of their Champion. Braham’s Orion destroys the RL. Our Thug’s leg actuator is hit. Our Apollo destroys the Champion’s H and kills it. Our Highlander tumbles.

3 – Another TG init victory. They base their Sentinel to the Highlander, which I stand. Lynx to the back of it. Our Highlander gets a limb blown off crit on the Jackal’s RA. He also hits a hip actuator on its LL. Our Gallowglas hits the engine, head, and two jump jets on their Marauder. Our Highlander falls again.

4 – We lose init. They stand their Jackal. I will keep my Highlander out for another turn. It’s got a lot of armor on it, and it should act as an armor shield as our foe spends some weapons to ensure they take it out. Our Thug hits three leg actuators a pulse laser and the LB 10 X on their Marauder. Our Apollo destroys the RA. Our Highlander’s LA is destroyed. Our Starslayer takes out an opposing Apollo’s H. Our Zeus destroys a Wasp’s LA. Their Marauder falls and destroys it RT, dead mech. Their Shadow Hawk falls too.

5 – We win init. While moving in to base us, one of their Grand Crusaders skids and falls. I eject the savaged Highlander. They stand the Shadow hawk. 6 of their mechs are now based with ours. Our Flashman hits the AC5 ammo on their sentinel and it lights up. Our Thug nails the engine twice and destroys the RA of their Shadow Hawk. Our Zeus follows up and destroys the RT, dead mech. Our Apollo hits and explodes the ammo on their Wasp, but CASE keeps it alive. Their Flashman hits a leg actuator on Braham’s Orion. Both their Wasp and the other Grand Crusader tumble. Everybody is just unloading all weapons on each other, it’s a major slugfest, but we took out the major threats before they could close like the Cyclops’s AC20 and their Champion’s large weapons array. Our Thug gets a limb blown off crit after kicking their Anvil, which I had never targeted until now and we got lucky. We destroys LLs on their Mongoose and Flashman. Our Orion falls from a kick. Their Flashy destroys its LA in the fall.

6 – We lose. I stand the Orion. Their Jackal tried to move, fell, and destroys its RT and shuts down. Our Shootist hits the ammo on their Kintaro and boom! It’s engine ignites and this a lot of mechs – destroys RA of Wasp and hits gyro and engine each once. Their Flash’s RA goes, and that’s the end of it. . Their Crockett hits our Flashman’s engine twice. Braham destroys both arms of a Grand Crusader. Our Apollo adds an engine, gyro, head hit and a blacked out pilot. Their Apollo destroys our Thug’s CT. Our Gallowglas hits a Hammer’s ammo and it goes up. We kick and destroy the LT on their Mongoose.


This was not what the Blake’s expected. They expected to crush me at best and get bogged down at worst, but to get their ass handed to them? They destroyed two of my mechs and I’m going to eject the Flashman next turn. Meanwhile, they’re down to four mechs standing – Crockett, Apollo, Grand Crusader and Cicada. They retreat. Their legged and down mechs, like Anvil, Mongoose, and Wasp are left behind because the lance has to return. We leave behind three damaged mechs to secure them and move in.



Grand Crusader missing RA, LA
Kintaro LA, RL, RT
Anvil reattached LL
Shadow Hawk missing RT, RA
Sentinel RA
Cyclops missing RT, RA, gyrox2
Champion, missing H, RL, LA
Jackal missing RT, LL
Apollo missing H
Marauder missing RT, RA
Hammer LA, LL, RL
Flashman missing RL, RA, LA
Mongoose missing LT, RL
Wasp missing RA, LT, LA





Highlander missing LA
Thug, RT, LT, RL, LL, H, RA, LA

[Abe Sargent]

MEANWHILE…


After hearing a lot of booms and damages, our infantry get the word to move in. They start driving trucks to the warehouses. Regular infantry is in their way but our armored infantry easily culls through them and they flee. They bust open the three warehouses and start loading up trucks with the best looking equipment. We have captured the warehouses. If we get eh word, we can run out hot and blow up everything else, but if we win the battle, we can take everything at leisure.


MEANWHILE…

12 of the remaining 18 mechs emerge from the center and the commander orders them to attack Bruiser Company while the other six hold defensive positions over the center. With a losing battle to his east, the CO looks to hole up the other six and try for a win in the 12v12, knowing its along shot.

Their mechs:

FS9-S Firestarter
SDR-7M Spider
PXH-3M Phoenix Hawk
TBT-7M Trebuchet
Wraith
WHM-7M Warhammer
War Dog,vet
Grand Crusader, vet
King Crab, vet
Bandersnatch, vet
CRD-5M Crusader, vet
Crab, Vet


This is their Bandersnatch, a custom mech made by guys right near Epsilon Eridani. They can only make roughly one every 9-10 months. ComStar still has people defecting to Blake, but they aren’t letting them take their stuff with them. So WOB has been buying up as many mechs as possible, and mechs like the War Dog and Bandersnatch that are new and on the market for the right price are among those added. The Bandersnatch is 75 tons, 4/6 with XL, 10/20 heat, 11 tons of armor, and 3x LRM5, 2x LB 10X, 4x Medium laser facing the front and 2x facing the rear. With CASE.

[Abe Sargent]

T1 – We win init. Our Vulture C hits and destroys the ammo in the Bandersnatch’s LT and it is destroyed Our Rifleman IIc destroys the LT and ignites the AMS ammo and destroys the Warhammer. . Their Firestarter hits he MASC on our Gladiator. The Highlander IIc falls. We kick and destroy the LL, and LT of their FS.

T2 – We win init again. Our Highlander IIc rises. Our Phoenix Hawk skids and collides with our Dasher and forces it off the field. The Gladiator destroys the RA on their Trebuchet. Our Archer destroys the Rt and it shuts down. The Warhammer IIc eliminates the RL of their Crusader.

3 – We lose. They stand the Firestarter so I move our Vulture C next to it. We stand the Phoenix Hawk and run. We destroy the Wraith’s RT with Peregrine pulse lasers. Gauss slugs from the Vulture destroy the War Dog’s RT. Their Crab destroys the RL of our Phoenix Hawk. We kick and destroy the other leg on the Firestarter – dead mech.

4 – We lose. They can’t retreat. They keep pushing. We destroy the LA, RA, RL and finally RT of their Grand Crusader. Their King Crab knifes AC20s into the Gladiator and hits an engine twice.

5 – We win. A gauss destroys the King Crab’s H from our Atlas. Their Crab has its CT destroyed. Their Crusader’s RL has three leg actuators hit and it spins to the ground. They concede. We have several wounded members gather the downed but working mechs and move on,


Phoenix Hawk missing RL
Crusader missing RL
Crab H, LL, RL, LT, RT, RA, LA
King Crab missing H
Grand Crusader missing RA, LA, RL, RT
War Dog missing RT
Firestarter missing RL, LL
Wraith missing RT
Bandersnatch missing LT.
Warhammer H, LL, RL, RT, RA, LA
Spider LA
Trebuchet missing RT, RA



Phoenix Hawk missing RL

[Tellistto]

Talk about underestimating in that first fight and subsequent ownage all the way around. Nice stuff! Quite a few new mechs for the buildup as well.

Tell

[Abe Sargent]

MEANWHILE

Sealion Company has closed with the center, but we can’t get in. It’s locked up too tight. We call in our fighters now, and within five minutes they strafe and bomb the center and the remaining mechs stumble out and are chewed to pieces in front of the center. The Center is destroyed.

We have completed all three targets, and made out with a ton of mechs, weapons, armor, parts and ammo.


Experience:

Bruiser Company has three, all gaining Edge: 1. Vulture C pilot Rachel, Rifleman IIc pilot Sevil Aliyeva, Archer pilot Aysel Teymurzadeh.

Shadow Company has Rachel Perry, Shootist, Edge: 1. In the Gallowglas, David Morgan gets Edge: 1 as does Robert Perez in the Thug.



Speaking of Perez and the Thug, it was destroyed in the battle with Word of Blake. It’s not recoverable. He will be taking a Grand Crusader.


Money: 18.5 mill from the contract including both bonuses. We also get 50% Battle loss, which is 1.61 mill (includes parts, Thug, armor and ammo).


What was in the warehouses? Let’s roll.

We get a lot of level two weapons, armor both regular and ferro fib, and crates and crates and crates of ammo. Unfortunately nothing too valuable. The total price of everything in the three warehouses is 15.5 mill -10% commission so 14 mill.

It’s easier on my time if I don’t calculate every item, then figure out what I need to repair and reduce those costs and yadda yadda. Let’s just do the big numbers and move on.

To repair everything we salvaged: 23.45 mill include armor and ammo too

2.19 mill for our stuff.

Plus roughly 1 mill for payment of our peoples. We ended up making 7.11 mill

We will return on May 27.

This shows what happens when large scale battles work. The attack on Kressly by a battalion tore into us hard and we lost a ton of materiel and money. Here we dominated and we made money, and although we lost a mech that was easily replaced from salvage, we ended with a ton of mechs heading back to our garrison.

Braham will head back to Outreach upon their return.

We also now have the cash to fix up that BattleMaster chassis we have in the garrison.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Tellistto

Talk about underestimating in that first fight and subsequent ownage all the way around. Nice stuff! Quite a few new mechs for the buildup as well.

Tell

I know, yay!!!

[Abe Sargent]

Rewind: April contracts:

Periphery – Pirate Hunting
Dracs – Relief
Marik – Defense

Nothing here for us. That’s okay, I just took 20 mechs, so we’re good. Plus, I only have four companies of mechs on planet right now, so I don’t want to push it.

[Abe Sargent]

May:

Company – Cadre
Marik – Defense
Blake – Cadre

Wow, crappy contracts back to back months!

[Abe Sargent]

Jun 1 – All of the units we sent to Irian have returned. The Defiance, our Overlord DropShip, is now online and ready.

Tank 2nd Battalion has been signed to an on-planet contract to work alongside Leftenant Pierre Benton, who needs some supporting units to help garrison a new mining complex being built away from the other mining interests in a new part of EE. He doesn’t have the forces himself and the new company doesn’t have the cash or capital to pay for a garrison so he’s renting our Tank Battalion for a year to help out.


Tank, 2nd Battalion, Garrison, EE Mining


Salvage: Shared
Salary: x1, x2.4 x1.2, x1.5 if we face the clans
Support: Straight Support 80%
Command: House
Remuneration: Yes, x1.05
Length: 1 year
Transport: N/A

They start on Jun 3, and end June 3, 3056. At that time, no one will have attacked and they will have made 630k.

We have 7 mech companies and two fighter companies ready to head out for work. Hopefully, this month we’ll get a good contract.

[Abe Sargent]

Just for fun, how many mercenary units in 3055 have two or more regiments of mechs? Not many. They are, with the number of regiments next to their name:

Kell Hounds – 2
Eridani Light Horse - 3
Wolfs Dragoons – 5+
McCarron’s Armored Cavalry – 5 * (Might not be considered truly a merc by now)
Brion’s Legion – 2
Blue Star Irregulars – 1.5 * - Got hit by Falcon and one is down to battalion strength and rebuilding.
Khorsakov’s Cossacks – 3
12th Vegan Rangers – 4
Crater Cobras – 2
Illician Lancers – 3
Screaming Eagles – 2 – Now in Periphery
Lexington Combat Group – 3 * One of the best organized mercs in the IS, with a regiment of mechs, infantry and armor and wings of fighters for each combat group.
Northwind Highlanders – 3 * - Currently a house unit for FedCom again. This will not last long…


There are some distinguished units with one regiment of mechs and other stuff – like Grey Death Legion, Little Richard’s Panzer Brigade and the 21st Centauri Lancers.

This is it – the full roster of every mercenary unit with at least 2 regiments of mechs. Most of these are on long term (I mean decades and decades long term) for various houses. The MAC has been with Capella forever (and will soon be incorporated as full citizens, granted their own planets, and the leaders made nobles). The LCG has been with the FedSuns for about 100 years. The Kell Hounds have always been with the Lyran Commonwealth and now FedCom generally. Brion’s Legion has been with ComStar for 25-ish years now garrisoning Terra.

If you don’t count the Highlanders and Blue Star (which you shouldn’t) then we have 11 other units in the entirety of known space that have two regiments of mechs. When we get to three, and we will, then we will be in a smaller group. However, small states can get big merc units too! The St. Ives Compact employs the Cossacks, the Magistracy of Canopus employs the Screaming Eagles, Capella has several of the best units, and more.

This shows just how unusual our size is – which is a good thing.

One of the advantages we have in recruiting is our size and cash. It says in several books that it’s hard for smaller merc units to recruit the small number of DropShips and JumpShips that arrive at Outreach looking to join a merc group – because the big units gobble them up. Now we are the big units!

[Abe Sargent]

Contracts for June

Rasalhague – Defense
Capellan Confederation – Assault
Blake – Garrison
Fed Com – O Raid – target Amity


Amity is a planet just one jump from Solaris VII that has Imstar Aerospace company. Our goal is to land and hit the company. They make Cheetahs here. A battalion of mechs from the 31st Marik Militia are on guard. Our contract is to land, hit them hard, allow Fed Com spies to sneak in an infiltrate, and then leave before the other two companies can rouse and strike us.

We send:

Defender Company, Bolt Company, Robin Hood, 4 platoons of jump infantry



Salvage: Full
Salary: x1.3, x4 x1.6, x1.5 if we face the clans
Support: Battle Loss 50%
Command: Liaison
Remuneration: Yes, x1.05
Length: 1 month
Transport: Full
30% bonus

We can arrive at Amity on July 19

[Abe Sargent]

July 19 – We land on Amity right on schedule.

July 28 – After scouting the factory, we have a strong understanding of the guards. One mech company is on guard at all times. We jump in, and then while fighting, FC operatives sneak in, and we fade just five minutes later. There is a low chance of salvage, and if our operational requirement removes the chance of salvage, then we get a 10 mill C-Bill bonus from our FC employers. Bolt Company will cover our retreat from the other two companies.

(In secret, we are renting four giant 45 ton trucks, each If there is an opportunity, we will order our men in to infiltrate their hangar and see if we can take anything. Our hope is that we’ll find a few cheetahs to take.

We move forward and Defender Company slams long range weapons into their Hermes II and destroys a LL. Their full company moves in to attack us. We only have a few minutes to stop them and distract them before the other two companies will be up and ready. We tell our infantry to move in.

Their company arrives. We destroy an Apollo and then lose a LA on our Whitworth. A pair of large lasers from our Stalker meet in the CT of their Firestarter and destroy the section and the mech. They begin to maneuver in. A Thunderbolt moves in and leads the charge against us.

Missiles fly in and peppers their Thunderbolt but it doesn’t go internal. They focus their fire on our Daishi, but it barely scratches the deep armor. Meanwhile clan weapons ring out from it and a Thor to completely destroy their Rifleman’s right side leg, torso and arm all gone. It falls hard and won’t be getting up any time soon. They shift their fire to our Hunchback and hit a leg actuator. We back it up to prevent more damage.

More weapons fire is exchanged and we use the landscape to our advantage. They close, but they are careful, knowing they’ll have backup soon. Every time we have a mech that even gets close to going internal, we back it up.

A few minutes of this and it’s time to pack things in. Our Infantry radio that they found two Cheetahs and a few crates of small lasers, and we have them loaded and they are out.

We retreat, and that buzzing sound is Bolt Company covering for us. We have all of our mechs, but two missing arms. Everything works smoothly and we are gone the next day from Amity.

The contract pays for our units.

We sold the crates for a mill and the Cheetahs are just cheap little 25 ton fighters worth 1.6 mill each. We’ll add them to our stockpile at the garrison.

We return on August 23

[Abe Sargent]

Rewind

June 19 – Archon Melissa Steiner-Davion is assassinated live on TV via a bomb. At the age of 25, Victor Ian Steiner-Davion will become the leader of the Federated Commonwealth and the united realms of the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth. While Victor is the sort of guy that is really great, and a good MechWarrior and brilliant tactician, he is not equipped to handle the big realm and the challenges it brings. His father, Hanse Davion was a brilliant and magnificent bastard. He could make the hard decisions and push. Victor responds to the underside of ruling an empire, but he does not have the heart for being proactive. He is not ethically able to rule the realm.

[Abe Sargent]

July 1 –

Company – Extraction
Blake – O Raid on ComStar. That’s only fair I suppose
St Ives - Cadre/Garrison
FedCom – Security on Sarpsborg

The Company wants to hit Senftenburg, a highly visible FC place, and we have to turn that down.

WoB wants us to nail a ComStar garrison on Hood IV. We tell then thanks but it’s too far away. We’d be happy to reciprocate for them but we just don’t want to go out that far.








Security for Trinity, Miner and Fallout Companies on Sarpsborg

Salvage: Full
Salary: x1.3, x3.7 x1.3, x1.5 if we face the clans
Support: Battle Loss 50%
Command: House
Remuneration: Yes, x1.05
Length: 6 months
Transport: Full
10% bonus


We arrive on September 15. We begin a contract for six months to help alleviate against constant Marik raids. While on planet we do encounter them once.


Sept 21 – Fallout Company is on guard when a Marik company lands in a hot landing and moves in. they must not have gotten the intel that we were on planet yet, because Fallout is right between them and their target.


They have

Tarantula
LCT-3M Locust
GRF-3M Griffin
WVR-7M Wolverine
ON1-M Orion
GHR-5J Grasshopper
Grand Titan
STK-5M Stalker
CGR-3K Charger
DV-7D Dervish
Her-1S Hermes
SPR-5F Spector


Their assaults are all vets, and the Orion too.



This is their 100 ton Grand Titan, sporting an LRM15, 2x SRM6, 2x large pulse laser, 2x medium pulse lasers, 2x small pulses, Artemis IV for everything, 4/6 movement (with XL), 12/24 heat, a powerful 18 tons of armor. It’s not a strong mech, due to its low heat dissipation and heavy energy reliance. You’ll fire just an LRM15 at range (an IS lpl only goes ten spaces). When you get within the lpl’s range you can use them and the LRm15 but that’s hardly the most devastating barrage from an Assault mech you’ll see. Once you get to within 6, you can connect with the mediums and SRM6s and drop the LRM15 and large pulses, but all you can do is firing two medium pulses lasers and two SRM6s, and again, that’s pretty weak for the class. A lot of mechs with XL engines at least have a crap ton of weapons but this doesn’t – just great armor and adequate weapons.

[Abe Sargent]

T1 – We lose init. Since they didn’t expect to be fighting us, my guess is that they will leave at the first real sign of contention. I focus the weapon of every single mech I have at the Grand Titan. It’s not my normal strategy, but it’s open. Our Apollo cracks open its head and nails life support and sensors. It falls.

T2 – We lose again. They stand the G Titan. This time their Stalker falls.

T3 – We win this time. Our Kintaro lights up their G Titan’s ammo.

T4 - We win again. It’s been a weird battle. None of my mechs are even in yellow armor and we’ve only killed one of theirs. Weird. It’s like both sides have missed a lot. Our Daimyo takes out the RA of their Stalker who is still on the ground. Our Hatamato adds a LL and our Apollo adds the RT. Their Griffin nails a hip and LL actuator on our Awesome. It falls. Our Black Knight destroys the RL of their Spector and it falls too.

T5 – We lose. I stand the Awesome up Our Hatamato hits the gyro twice on their Stalker. Our Atlas takes out the Spector’s other leg.

They retreat and pull off their attack.



Spector missing LL, RL
G Titan RA, LA
Stalker gyrox2, missing RA, LL, RT

It costs us 2.5 mill to get everything running, armor, ammo and to get these two mechs ready too.



We roll dice and there are no more attacks during the security contract.

We made 6.724 mill and 1 mill of that pays for the year for all three units upkeep and salary.

We are done on March 15 and return on May 27.

[Abe Sargent]

Rewind –

July 8 – The Lineholder begins production at Kressly. They’ve ramped up their mech line to sell them.

July 10 – With the Lineholder now officially done, we have a meeting with Kressly Warworks techs and engineers that they have figured out Omni technology based on the two clans and one IS Omni we donated them. We can design our own OmniMech, and they believe that by the end of the year, they can have the first prototype OmniMech built for everyone to review.

In order to make things easier, we will be using a modified Hunchback chassis for the mech. Kressly mentioned that they could license it for cheap.



ALX-1 Alexander
55 ton OmniMech

11.5 tons of armor
5/8 – no XL Engine
10/20 heat

16.5 tons of pod space

ALX-1p Alexander Prime:

1 Double HS
1 ER PPC
1 SRM 6
4 Medium Lasers
1 ton of ammo w/ CASE

Cost – 6.32 mill, BV - 1511

We’ll see what the prototype looks like in a few months

[Abe Sargent]

Here is what we look like at the end of July

Kilts and Commandos Roster:

Alpha Regiment:

Heliades Company - Return on June 8, 3057
Styx Company - Return on June 8, 3057
Tethys Company – Return on June 8, 3057
Typhon Company – Return on June 8, 3057
Defender Company – return on August 23
Cinq Company – Return on March 18, 3056
Brawler Company – return on March 21, 3056
Delta Company – Return on February 16, 3056
Trinity Company – return on May 27, 3056.
Butler Company – Return on March 18, 3056


Beta Regiment:

Phaeton Company – Fort Loudon, end Oct 4, 3056
Boxer Company – Fort Loudon, end Oct 4, 3056
Rebel Company – Fort Loudon, end Oct 4, 3056
Mustang Company – Fort Loudon, end Oct 4, 3056
Hex Company – Fort Loudon, end Oct 4, 3056
Raven Company – Fort Loudon, end Oct 4, 3056
Aleph Company – Fort Loudon, end Oct 4, 3056
Laser Company – Fort Loudon, end Oct 4, 3056
Sabre Company – Fort Loudon, end Oct 4, 3056


Breaker Battalion:

Trident Company – Return on Mar 24, 3056
Miner Company – return on May 27, 3056
Fallout Company - return on May 27, 3056


Shadow Battalion:

Bruiser Company –
Shadow Company –
Sealion Company -

Arrow Company –
Bolt Company – return on August 23
Tank First Battalion – EE- mining garrison complete on October 15, 3055.
Tank Second Battalion - EE, mining garrison, complete on June 3, 3056
Garrison and Infantry – EE, garrison,

Robin Hood, Union DropShip - return on August 23
Star River, Union DropShip -
Scots Flotilla, Merchant JumpShip –
Serendipitous Victory, Union-C DropShip -
Amalgamated Bliss, Union DropShip –
Defiance, Overlord DropShip –

[Abe Sargent]

August, Contracts!

Only Shadow Battalion and Arrow Company are on planet, and we’re not going to send it away without a major contract. We decided a long time ago to always keep a few of our forces on planet. Defender and Bolt return later this month, so I’m comfortable sending in a heavy hitting company, but not much more.


Periphery – O Raid
St. Ives – Security
Company – Security, deep in Marik space

Nah

Aug 17 – We get a message from Kressly that their engineers have hit a snag in making the prototype of the Alexander. We loan them all 15 clan techs to get them back to speed. In fact ,they’ll likely be ahead of schedule with the clanners.

[Abe Sargent]

August 20 –

Vegas Company

Lt. Mika Sanders, elite, BattleMaster
Keith Rayburn, veteran, CP-11-A Cyclops
Martha Myers, veteran, CN9-D Centurion
Shuhei Nakamura, veteran, CRB-27 Crab

Sgt. Alison Williams, elite, Grand Crusader
Henrik Jorgenson, veteran, Apollo
Sarah Olongu, veteran, MAD-5M Marauder
Sabrina Carter, veteran, Rifleman

Sgt. Bonita Sanchez, elite, HER-5S Hermes II
Tazzem Sandhu, veteran, STG-5M Stinger
Reed Muelman, veteran, JVN-10F Javelin
Thoma Jackson, veteran, FS9-S Firestarter


I bought the Jav. Not a bad company at all. Just the Javelin, Rifleman and BM are level 1 mechs. I‘m not a super big fan of the Hermes II or Stinger, but they were among the best I had to work with. Ditto Cyclops, but I wanted to use my two big guns left for being rocks in the next company. I used the better fire support assault here to make up for the weaker Cyclops with its mighty 10 tons of armor. The only other option was a King Crab, and I didn’t want to flip that trigger just yet. The fire assault mechs are a mix mixture of ACs – Marauder and Rifleman, missiles Grand Crusader and Apollo, and laser/ppcs -Marauder and Grand Crusader and Rifleman. The Cyclops has a gauss too.

[Abe Sargent]

Guile Company


Lt. Lisa Xiang, elite, BNC-3S Banshee
Raven Skye, veteran, CRK-5003-2 Katana
Faith Skye, veteran, Anvil
Muhammad Fatil, veteran, CN9-D Centurion

Sgt. Ricardo Hernez, elite, STK-5M Stalker
Ronan Gascoigne, veteran, MAD-5M Marauder
Logan Kale, veteran, Huron Warrior
Belina Yevgina, veteran, Catapult

Sgt. Lloyd Slaughter, elite, JR7-K Jenner
Nikolas Vassiliadis, veteran, SHD-5M Shadow Hawk
Aaron Conners, veteran, Javelin
Ivory Baxter, veteran, Commando



I sold a Jackal and purchased the Catapult, Commando and JVN-10N Javelin. With the Narc Beacon on the Stalker, I wanted an SRM and LRM oriented mechs. All three of those fit.

We could only get vets mostly on short notice. Elites are only coming out for the Clan Tech or officers. Speaking of which,

[Abe Sargent]

Tango Company

Lt. Scott Moore, elite, Kodiak
Qiang Lei, elite, Grizzly
Vern Saunders, veteran, Thunderbolt
Meghan Royale, veteran, Hunchback

Sgt. Jessica, elite (for clan), Masakari A
Marie Thibadeau, elite, Galahad
Jason Nunez, veteran, CRD-5M Crusader
Vaughn Fields, elite, Black Hawk A

Sgt. Petr Cernak, elite, Watchman
Roger Ellis, elite, Peregrine
Justina McKinley, veteran, JVN-10F Javelin
Ruth Goldberg, veteran, LCT-1E Locust




We sold the War Dog for 16 mill which we then put into various mechs I was able to find on the market. Our 16 mill budget purchases a Thunderbolt, Hunchback ,Watchman, Locust and Javelin. 5 good low tech mechs for one not that great high tech one. Jessica was an elite Nova Cat MW who was captured on Luthien by the Kell Hounds and was with them for a couple of years before deciding to leave them due to a dream she had. When we told her we were looking for a pilot to get a Masakari, she leapt at the chance.

These three are collectively referred to as Scimitar Battalion, and they will make up the third battalion of Gamma Regiment. Gamma now has Shadow Battalion, Scimitar Battalion, and Breaker Battalion. Eventually I’d like to free up Shadow for itself but for now, that gives us three full Regiments of mechs.

Now Braham will start recruiting a third Aerospace Fighter company

[Abe Sargent]

September 1 –


Blake – Recon Raid
FedCom – O Raid
Drac – O Raid
ComStar – O Raid

That’s a lot of raids. Let’s take a look.

Blake wants a military oriented recon of Moultrie. It would take us at least 6-8 months to get there. No thanks

The Fedrats want us to nail the Combine world of Waldheim. It’s also very far back there. Estimated time of arrival is 13 jumps away – about 6ish months

The Dracs want us for a Very Special Contract ™

ComStar wants us to hit the Cap world of Hexare.

Let’s do the Caps first

Vegas Company to Hexare


Salvage: Shared
Salary: x1.3, x3.4 x1.6, x1.5 if we face the clans
Support: Battle Loss 50%
Command: Indy
Remuneration: No, x1.05
Length: 2 months
Transport: Full


Vegas will arrive on January 3, 3056.

[Abe Sargent]

January 1 3056 – Using ComStar flight paths and such we have arrived on Hexare. The local government has allowed some rebels to take over the HPG station and we have been asked to demonstrate the foolishness of that decision. We are to move in and blast the rebels. The most recent report has tons of infantry, about 8 mechs, and at least 5 armor.

Jan 3 – We have arrived surreptitiously at Hexare’s HPG.

Jan 15 – After some studying, we believe the ComStar claim is roughly accurate. We move in to smash.

Our foes:

STG-3G Stinger
Phoenix Hawk
Vindicator
Rifleman
CRD-3L Crusader
Victor
2x UrbanMech


Saracen
2x Scimitar
2x Goblin

2x Flamer, 1 Laser, 2x Rifle, 3x Machine Gun Foot Infantry

[Abe Sargent]

1 – We win init. We focus a lot of fire on the Phoenix Hawk and it falls.

2 – We win init again. Their PXH stands and runs. Our Marauder immobilizes a Scimitar.Our Jav gets a limb blown off crit on the PXH’s RA. It falls again.

3 – We win again – rar! Their PXH falls again, loses its LA, stands and runs by my Javelin – suicidal much? Our Centurion immobilizes a Goblin. An Urbie destroys the LA of our Stinger. Our BattleMaster hits the head of their Victor three times, medium laser medium laser glancing, and SRM missile. Their pilot blacks out. Our Marauder destroys the CT of an UrbanMech. After being punches and kicked, their PXH falls again.

4 – We lose init. Their crazy PXH stands again. A gauss from our Cyclops destroys the RA of the other UrbanMech. Our Jav destroys the PXH RT. It falls and destroys its LT> Also falling, our BattleMaster, their Urbie and Crusader. Our Firestarter kicks and immobilizes a Saracen.

They concede and pull out of the area, and abandon the HPG station.


Victor – 8 mill
Goblin immobile – 600k
Scimitar immobile – 720k
Saracen immobile – 800k
PXH RA – 425k
Urbie RT, LT, RA, LA, H, LL, RL – 1.1mill

Replace La of Stinger



Money schtuff: This is a perfect example of a bad money contract. We salvage 11.645 mill worth of stuff, but we are on a Shared Contract, so they’ll pay us half and we can take half. The only good thing is the Victor, and it’s too heavy. So, I finish a contract with three minor vehicles, a few parts, and 5.8225 mill in salvage money. Add 609k for our salary.

We pay just 550k for armor and ammo, and 250k for the Stinger arm and armor for tanks. Total paid – 800k. We get 400k off. We also pay Vegas Company for 8 months – 391k.

Total made – 5.64 mill.

We return on Apr 20.

[Abe Sargent]

Rewind back to September.

The Draconis Combine wants to pay a powerful unit (read, Shadow Battalion) to use Wolcott as a base for raids against deep raids vs Smoke Jaguar and Nova Cat. They want us for 6 months to head deep into clan space and just tear into them. They just want us to wreak havoc on the clans for 6 months. We are the only unit in the Inner Sphere to defeat 5 clans. This would give us an opportunity to beat the 6th – Nova Cat.

This a great offer. The pay is outrageous and we do have the Battalion for it. We’ll have total independence, we can choose the targets using DCMS and ComStar intel and we can fight for whatever we want in Trials, so if we want 10 gauss rifles or a Daishi or another 10 elementals and suits – we can really get a lot if we win.

When can we be on Wolcott?

Dec 28 – This involves taking the Scots Flotilla and jumping into a few uninhabited systems to cut our travel. Normally, you jump into a habited system from one to another to another, so if your JumpShip misfires or breaks down, you are in a place that can handle it. However, systems aren’t exactly evenly spaced out 30 light years from each other. We’ll cut travel time by a month by reduce the number of jumps by two over the course of the trip.


We will take the Scots Flotilla, Defiance and rent a DropShip as well. The Scots Flotilla is a merchant class JumpShip and only has two spots for DropShips. The Overlord Defiance will carry Shadow Battalion. It also has room for 6 fighters. The Scots Flotilla has room for plenty of items – it can carry 657 tons plus two “small craft” where small craft are things between 100-200 tons each, like shuttles.

I’ve been using MegaMek prices for DropShips and JumpShips, but now that I’m studying the 3057 TRO that has just aerospace assets in it. It looks like they really differ. For example, I’ve mentioned that an Overlord costs 330-340 mill but 3057 says 430 mill. I’ve said a Union is way too expensive at 222 mill, but 3057 says 160 mill. That’s a big difference. The Merchant price is just 16 mill diff between the sources.

From here on out I will be using the official source in Technical Readout: 3057

We will rent a DropShip to carry the rest of our AeroSpace fighters in Arrow Company, and our infantry. We’ll leave most of our holds empty for salvage.



Shadow Battalion, Scots Flotilla, Defiance, Arrow Company, 4 squads of power armor infantry, 4 squads of jump infantry, and four empty ATA-2 Attilas.


Salvage: Full
Salary: x1.4, x4 x1.6, x1.5 if we face the clans
Support: Battle Loss 50%
Command: Indy
Remuneration: Yes, x1.05
Length: 6 months
Transport: 100% Reimbursement
50% Bonus

For each completed raid against a different world, we get a 5 mill bonus.

Our contract will end June 29, 3056

[Abe Sargent]

Dec 27, 3055 – We arrive at Wolcott planet and are introduced to the extensive military operation here. Tons of sparkling new mechs, fighters, DropShips, even a new IS WarShip are all in the system. There are mechs we’ve never seen before – the latest Combine stuff.

We have agreed to take aboard a Drac advisor who knows the clans and planets better than we do. She is not an official liaison, just an advisor, but she’ll be our communication with the Combine and ComStar. She’ll also send progress reports to the Combine and be their official representative to us.

We have our two DropShips ready and our JumpShip is outfitted. Arrow Company has 14 fighters, and that’s a major force. Usually people assign 2 or 4 or 6 fighters to most missions, but we put them in full fledged companies with 12 at a time. When we need fighter support, we usually win by numbers alone.

After talking with our contacts, they feel that planets within one jump have been raided a lot from Wolcott, so they expect it. It is recommended that we move farther away.


Jan 12, 3056 – We have arrived in Juazeiro at a pirate point given to us by the Dracs not two days from the planet.

Jan 14 – We arrive and issue a batchall to Nova Cat. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to decide what to take in a Trial of Possession. At the end of the day, we decide that we need more clan techs for this mission. They are all on EE. So our first Trial is just for 10 more clan techs. Nova Cat is happy to oblige us and this is not something that they consider too high. If we were to demand a JumpShip, then we’d expect a full out campaign. They want Braham Essex as their bondsman if they win. He points out that he is too old to be a warrior for them, but they mention they have an assignment for him f they were to win.


They agree to meet us with two stars of Cat mechs and pilots in a large open field, with no barriers or terrain to speak of.

Nova Cat:


Jenner IIc
Shadow Cat Prime
Kingfisher A
Koshi Prime
Hunchback IIc
Loki B
Rifleman IIc
Clint IIc
Masakari B
Mad Cat Prime

All are clan elite (1/2).


This is their Kingfisher, a 90 ton OmniMech design. It has 4/6 movement, 17/34 heat and max armor. The A’s weapons payload are an ER PPC, LB10-X, SRM6, ER ML, MPL, and ER SL.




We send down Sealion Company for their first anti-clan battle.

[Abe Sargent]

T1 – We win init. Remember, our only goal is to destroy clan mechs and some elementals. That’s it. We focus every weapon on the Kingfisher. A Galahad gauss slug slams into the Kingfisher’s H and it is destroyed.

T2 – We lose init. I sacrifice play our Mad Cat by running it up to their Jenner IIc. Our Marauder IIc hits the gauss in their Loki’s RA and it explodes the arm. Our Galahad destroys its LA and our Grizzly its RL. The pilot blacks out. They destroy the LA on our Marauder IIc. Dead Loki.

T3 - We lose init. I run our Locust over to them. I use the Grizzly this time as our sacrifice play. This time we focus fire on their Masakari. They destroy the LA of my Locust and blowoff the right one. Our Mad Cat destroys the RT of their Clint II, blows up the ammo, hits the CT engine once and it shuts down and pilot blacked out from the ammo. Our Grizzly hits their Masakari’s targeting computer. Our Grasshopper destroys its RT.

T4 – We win init. Dragonfly hopped adjacent to their Jenner IIc and Koshi. Our Mad Cat has roughly 20% of its armor left. I back it up and out of the way. Their Shadow Cat destroys the Grizzly’s gauss, and the RA explodes and the pilot blacks out from the feedback. An ER PPC from our Masakari nails the Rifleman IIc in the head. Our Dragonfly blows off the LL of their Koshi. The Grizzly destroys its RT in the fall. Their Massakari and Koshi join it on the ground. We kick and destroy its RA.

T5 – We lose init. Their Masakari manages to stand. Our MAD IIc destroys the LL of their Mad Cat. Our Griffin IIc adds a RT destruction. The Shadow Hawk Iic hits the Masakari’s gyro twice, dead mech. Our Mad Cat destroys theirs’ LA. Our Crusader hits its engine once and gyro twice and shuts it down. Their Hunchback IIc destroys the LA of our Griffin IIc. Their Masakari pilot blocked out from the damage, explosions and such. We offer hegira and they accept. Only their Hunchback IIc and Jenner IIc manage to survive.

[Abe Sargent]

Kingfisher A missing H
Loki missing RA, LA, RL
Clint II missing RT, enginex3
Masakari B missing RT, gyrox2
Rifleman IIc missing H
Koshi LL
Mad Cat Prime missing RT, LA, LL, gyrox2, enginex3


Us:

Marauder IIc LA gone
Locust, missing LA, reattach RA
Grizzly, missing RA, RT
Griffin IIc missing LA


Loki Pilot, Jakob
Clint II pilot, Kyle
Masakari pilot, Sara


# Clan Mechs destroyed or Captured: 6
# of maimed Clan Mechs: 2


We get 10 Clan Techs.

[Abe Sargent]

We stay with Nova Cat for a few hours while they get our techs ready. They help us with our salvage and introduce us to the three unconscious MechWarriors we took as bondsman. They are quite nice. Braham asks what they would have had him do, and they mention that they need a liaison for Nova Cat to their worlds. They’ve been the nicest clan in running their worlds, and they need some assistance with that to prevent more rebellions and needless deaths. They thought a non-clan and non-ComStar voice might help. They are much warmer than the other clans we’ve visited.

We lift off on Jan 16.

We are currently unable to repair our clan mechs, but we get the Locust up and running. We’ll look at salvage, what we get up and running later.

Feb 7 – We have arrived in the Marshdale system. According to our intel, Smoke Jaguar has no units stationed on the world garrisoning it, but that can’t be right, so we are checking it out by arriving here and issuing a batchall.

We get a response from Alpha Galaxy leader, saKhan Brandon Howell. The entire unit is on planet preparing for a Trial of Bloodright. We are not welcome to fight right now. We are invited down to the planet and Essex agrees.


Feb 8 – We get to observe the Trial of Bloodright as some of the best in Smoke Jaguar vie for a Bloodname. At most, only 25 people can have the same Bloodname at a time. They are fighting for the Wirth name. It’s not one of the big names like Showers or Osis, but it is a respected MechWarrior bloodname. We have arrived just as the single elimination contest is held. Two battles are fought each day, and we are granted a major honor – to observe the Trial. Since we have fought with honor, we are being granted it. Several observers from other clans are here as well, but none from the Inner Sphere besides us. Connor Ward, who not only was Jade Falcon but won his bloodname there, is our major liaison.

Feb 12 – After culling down the warriors, the final battle is held today. David, who was the favorite all along, manages to dominate his foe in a mech competition between two Daishis. David is now David Wirth.

We speak with saKhan Brandon Howell, who has often showed some non-clan like thinking. He wants to know, now that the Trial is over, what we want to fight for. The planet? Mechs?

“Nothing so mundane,” Braham smiles. “I have brought with us four of a mech we designed, and I would like your techs to update them with a full clan retrofit – endo steel, clan ferro armor, clan weapons, clan heat sinks, a clan engine. Then, you give us the schematics, and you can have a copy for yourself if you want them.”

The saKhan accepts “I will send out David Wirth to fight for us. Just against you, one on one. We’ll do it tomorrow, here in the arena pit we used for the Trial. Everybody will still be here and this should prove entertaining. If you lose, you give us the schematics for your mech design.”

“So if I win you get the schematics and if I lose you get the schematics?”

“Yes.”

“Very clever. Well bargained and done.”

[Abe Sargent]

Feb 13 –

Braham Essex in his clan updated Orion.

Vs

David Wirth is his trusty Mad Cat B, with its powerful gauss rifle, LRM10 and SRM4 with Artemis, a largse pulse and small pulse lasers. It can make holes with the gauss and LPL and then find them with the missiles. With is a 1/2 elite with 2 edge.

Unlike normal battles, the winner will not get the salvage of the loser.


T1 – We lose. Our gauss hits his RA and his our left. We leach hit with our secondary weapons, our ER PPC and his LPL>

T2 – Win. We each hit LLs with gauss.

T3 - Win. Braham uses his special side step move he has like a quad mech (Ace Maneuvering) to manipulate himself behind David’s Mad Cat and blasts. It surprises David. A gauss to the RT rear goes internal and hits the engine once. An ER PPC hits David’s H but he uses edge and it hits the CT rear and shears into it. Our SRM6 and ER Small Lasers lance it and nail the engine twice more in the CT and with three engine hits, the Mad Cat shuts down.

And just like that, Braham has won.


Braham has 52 kills and gains Gunnery: Missile.


Several clan MechWarriors congratulate Braham on his skill and defeat of David Wirth. The Jags are pretty arrogant, but Alpha Galaxy was recently blasted at Tukkayid and underwent a building process, and it looks like the saKhan grabbed some warriors for the galaxy that weren’t stereotypically extremely nasty. They are still arrogant to a fault, but there is more substance here.

[Abe Sargent]

Feb 27 – Here is the new Attila

ATA-2C Attila
85 tons
Endo Steel
4/6/4 XL (Upgraded engine speed and jump speed)
19/38 heat

2x ER PPC
3x SRM6 Streak
7x ER ML
ER SL


There are a couple of variants we looked at. One of my favorites was a variant that dropped the ER PPCs and SRM6s for double AC 10 Ultras with 4 tons of ammo and more ER lasers. With the heat distribution it already had, you could fire both Ultra AC10s as well as 5 ER Medium Lasers in one turn. That was foxy. However, we ultimately decided to keep it closer to home with its weapons payload. Each RT and LT has two jump jets, ER PPC, SRM6 Streak, 3x Medium Lasers and one ton of ammo. The CT has SRM6 Streak, the H has an ER ML. We have heat sinks in the legs and arms, and an extra ER Small laser in the left arm. We have max armor, but not ferro, because we couldn’t get both it and endo into the mech.

It has a Battle Value of 3107. Only the Masakari Prime has a large BV, the other variants are lower. Warhammer IIc is 2570, the best Man O War is A at 2689, the Marauder IIc is at 2680, the Supernova is 2801, the Kingfisher C is the highest one with 2644, the Gladiator A is basically the same with 3112, the Kodiak is at 2927 and the Daishi A is at 2896, although Hohiro Kurita’s personal version is 3048.

In other words, it would behoove Smoke Jaguar to make some. It would be a good mech for them. We are leaving with four made by clan techs renovating ours completely, and then full schematics on how to build it, which we can send Kressly.

[Abe Sargent]

Mar 1 – We blast off from Marshdale.

Mar 21 – We have arrived at Hanover. We issue a batchall to the PGC Jaguar cluster on planet. We demand that they give us a Daishi, fully equipped, plus four OmniFighters of their choice. They agree, but demand that we turn over the four Attilas that were made to them. Maybe they like the design. We agree. Because this is another smaller demand, they will fight us in a grassy field where corn is grown. The harvest was recently, so there is only a road that runs through the area, but nothing else of note, not even trees.



The Jaguar Garrison:


Cauldron-Born Prime, elite
Masakari C, Elite
Locust IIc
Marauder IIc
Peregrine
Behemoth
Great Wyrm
Highlander IIc
Fenris Prime
Griffin IIc


This is their Cauldron-Born OmniMech, a Smoke Jaguar exclusive that weighs 65 tons, moves 5/8, is about 2 tons shy of full armor, and the Prime wields a gauss rifle, LB 5 X, LRM 10, SRM2 and ER Medium laser plus 13/26 heat.




We have sent Bruiser Company to take these guys down.

They have four assault mechs – Behemoth, Masakari, Marauder Iic and Highlander IIc. However, the Cauldron-Born is their only heavy. The Peregrine and Locust IIc are lights, and the Griffin IIc, Great Wyrm and Fenris are mediums. Bruiser has a Highlander IIc and Marauder IIc as well, plus a Warhammer IIc, Atlas, and Gladiator, so we have five assaults. Bruiser was created to blast the clans. This could be a severely nasty slugfest.

[Abe Sargent]

1 – We won init. I’m using my Flying Wedge formation. Remind me to tell you my tactics soon. Our Atlas destroys its RT and RA. The Highlander IIc destroys its CT. Before it goes, their Warhammer gets a LL blown off crit against our Marauder IIc.

2 – We win. I don’t want to lose parts to mechs we can’t fix, so I eject the Marauder IIc. While I would like to exploit my 5:3 assault advantage right now, I also don’t want to end up with a MAD that loses three limbs. I get our Dasher around the rear arc of their Koshi. Our Gladiator destroys the RT on their Great Wyrm. Their Highlander IIc destroys the RT of our Atlas and it shuts down. Their Locust falls.

3 – We win. Iur Highlander IIc hits the engine once and gyro twice of their Griffin IIC. Before it goes it destroys the LA of my Archer. Their Great Wyrm nails a hip on my Peregrine. All of these fall -= their Highlander, our Peregrine, their Great Wyrm. It destroys the Wyrm;s RL. Our Phoenix Hawk destroys the CT of their Locust with a well timed kick.

4 – We lose. With no weapons left their Great Wyrm pilot ejects. I stand the Peregrine and run with it. I try to finish off their Highlander IIc this turn. Our Rifleman IIc destroys its RA and our Vulture C its LT. Our PXH hits its engine and gyro once each. Our Archer adds another engine hit. It falls and hits its engine once more and gyro twice more

5 – We win init. We focus weapons on their 100 ton Behemoth. Our Rifleman IIc destroys its LT. Their Peregrine hits an engine on our Gladiator and then it’s RT is destroys by their Masakari. Our Warhammer IIc and Gladiator team up to attack their Fenris and each destroys an arm. The Warhammer IIc kicks and destroys the LL of their Behemoth.

6 – We lose init. We eject the Gladiator. Their Fenris ejects due to no weapons. Despite the fact that their Behemoth is missing its whole left side, it manages to stand. Our Peregrine hits an engine and gyro once each on their Behemoth. Our Dasher hits the gauss in their Cauldron-Born’s RA, it explodes and the pilot blacks out. Our Archer destroys the CT of their Behemoth. Our Warhammer IIc destroys the RA of their Masakari. Our PXH tumbles.

7 – We lose. With just two mechs left – Masakari and Peregrine, they accept hegira.

[Tellistto]

Pretty tough battle on that one. They managed to do a bit of damage to you more than usual, it seems. Perhaps it's just perception on my part, though.

Tell

[Abe Sargent]

Behemoth LA, H, RL , RT, RA
Great Wyrm missing RT, RL
Warhammer IIc LT, LA, H, RL, LL
Griffin IIc enginex2, gyrox2
Locust IIc RT, LT< RA, LA, H, Rl, LL
Highlander IIc missing RA, LT, enginex3, gyrox3
Cauldron Born missing RA
Fenris missing RA, LA



Marauder IIc, attach LL
Atlas missing RT
Archer missing LA
Gladiator missing RT


We’ll look at salvage later, but we can repair the Atlas and Archer on the way to our next stop.


Cauldron Born Pilot – 2/3 veteran



# Clan Mechs destroyed or Captured: 14
# of maimed Clan Mechs: 3


We have gained a Daishi Prime and 4 OmniFighters chosen randomly later.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Tellistto

Pretty tough battle on that one. They managed to do a bit of damage to you more than usual, it seems. Perhaps it's just perception on my part, though.

Tell

Yeah, "Never underestimate the clans," should be my mantra

[Abe Sargent]

Mar 23 - We lift off from Hanover.

Apr 12 – We have arrived at the Rockland System. In this system is a Smoke Jaguar Invader Jump Ship and some fighters currently engaging in battle with a group of fighters and a pair of assault DropShips. We hail the attackers, but they refuse to respond. Our liaison identifies them as pirates that operate outside of clan space and then nip in to attack and raid. They also stole a vital DropShip from the Dragon ,which we are staring at. We hail the Jaguars, and offer our aid. It looks like they are losing, and our fighters are 20 minutes away. They refuse our aid. Braham asks, “Are you sure you don’t need help against these honorless scum?” The Jaguars still refuse.

Braham orders his fighters to assemble and get ready to be deployed. We wait the battle for a bit, and then when the pirate are about to win, we dispatch our fighters. The Jaguar Invader JumpShip has been defeated, and with their attention on it, our 14 fighters get in real close. We have not yet assigned the OmniFighters, so they are in storage.

Our fighters come in against their first assault ship, a simple Avenger. The Avenger is one of the cheapest assault DropShips. Assault DropShips are meant to be used in battles like this. They don’t transport goods or military assets, but they just bring the heat. The Avenger doesn’t even carry fighters. It was damaged by the Clan fighters and we move in and begin firing at it. Its weapons nail one of our Sparrowhawks and its engine is damaged. It is out of the fight. Our other thirteen fighters tear into the armor of the Avenger and knock it out.

The rest of their unit turns to face us. Our Merchant JumpShip has no weapons, and that’s why we brought Arrow Company along. It has turned so that our DropShips are facing the enemy, leaving weapons up if they come our way, but they are not so far.

They only have 4 fighters left after the battle. They clearly outnumbered the clans, but the Jaguars put up a good fight. What they do have is the other DropShip, and that’s something. Say hello to a freshly minted Okinawa, stationed at Wolcott for raiding, purposes our liaison tells us it carries 20 fighters and all new level two tech. This one was stolen, and our advisor informs us that the Dragon would be really grateful for its return.

I intend to capture all of the assets here. The Avenger’s aft is destroyed and we can go in and take it out at our leisure. Now we are focusing on the Okinawa and its severe weapons.

It takes a while to turn in space, it’s not like atmosphere flying where it’s quite easy to bank and roll. Much of vacuum fighting is about vectors and thrusts. We move in, and the long range ER PPCs, ER Large Lasers and LRM20s of their Okinawa tear into our other Sparrowhawk and destroy it in a ball of fire. Meanwhile, we dice a lot of damage into its left side. Their other four fighters have closed and fire level one tech weapons at our fighters and just scrape a Shilone.

We respond with more weapons, but our momentum is now carrying us past the left side of the DropShip. More weapons fire takes out two Corsairs. Both are just severely damaged with massive engine damage and out of the fight. Our remaining ten fighters tear into their squads as we start to turn to refocus on the DropShip and we destroy one of their two remaining Hellcats. It explodes. They continue to focus fire on the Shilone, but only one hits.

Now that we’ve turned, our thrust is taking us back to the DropShip. We fire first and dice into its right side. Weapons fire and destroy the Lucifer completely into little pieces. We see the pilot made it out. Their fighters aren’t oriented right and can’t attack. Another slice from the DropShip scares the Transgressor pilot, but does not do more than blast most of the armor away. We continue to hammer at the right side armor and now we pass again. DropShips have weapons in various arcs, we we’ve reentered the left side arc. We did manage to destroy an LRM 20 facing the right side though.

Once again we have to concentrate on the fighters and we disable two more, leaving only a Hellcat. The disabled ones were a pair of Lightnings. They tear into our third Corsair and disable it, as well as finally disabling the Shilone as well. Our remaining fighters knife into the weakened left side and crumple the armor, with various weapons going internal. Braham beams a message that we won’t turn them over to the Combine if they surrender now. The Okinawa signals its surrenders and begins to power down. It has down one fighter left vs our seven remaining and two torn up sides and us still with another turn of attacking the internal left side.

[Abe Sargent]

We move out to land on the planet and issue a batchall to the 17th Garrison Cluster of the Smoke Jaguars. We aren’t on a contract to grab stuff in aerospace but to destroy stuff on the planets.

We drop forces on the Invader and capture it. We also have captured the Okinawa and we can easily salvage the Avenger. We want to contact Wolcott and rent a DropShip tug to grab a JumpShip and arrive here in Hanover, so our advisor contacts the DCMS and they will be here with their military JumpShip and tugs for us. We are a few jumps away, so it will be a while.

Meanwhile, we start salvaging. We lost:

Both Mabel and her Sparrowhawk
Lucifer, but pilot survived
Corsair – After looking, it was more badly hit than we thought and is just scrap

We also captured a ton of salvage, including several fighters on both sides we can salvage:

3 OmniFighters
5 Pirate Fighters

I’ll figure it out later. We’ll need about 15 mill to replace and fix everything, plus about 10 mill to get these fighters up and running.

Apr 14 – Their JumpShip arrives back in system, expecting them to have won or lost brilliantly. We turn over all of their people back to them. They head back out.

[Abe Sargent]

April 17 – We arrive at Rockland planet and issue a batchall. We might as well do what we came here for. We want them to fix all of our clan mechs, including up to three from the battle if we win. They agree, but they want their Invader JumpShip back if they win. We tell them that an Invader is worth way more than fixing some mechs, so they offer a star of garrison mechs of our choice. We take it.


The Smokes:

Nobori-Nin B, elite
Mad Cat Prime, elite
Grendel Prime
Loki A
Guillotine IIc
Supernova
Shadow Hawk IIc
Galahad
Phoenix Hawk IIc
Jenner IIc

Since our other squads have damaged mechs, we are sending out Shadow Company, with its 11 inner sphere mechs, an Orion with clan tech weapons, and 2 points of elementals. They choose to fight in a area with hills, trees, a few very small mudholes and a bit of rough patches here and there

[Abe Sargent]

T1 – We lose init. Our forces focus weapons mostly on the Jenner IIc because it exposed itself up on a hill with a +3 to hit modifier. Our Flashman destroys its LA, the Orion its LT, and our Zeus its CT.

T2 – We win this time. I have taken the woods in the center of the map. In a blatant example of a Light Mech Shield, I hope my Phoenix Hawk right by their Galahad. Our Gallowglas hits two engines on their Galahad and our Grand Crusader hits its head with missiles and nails the gyro. It falls, and in the fall, the pilot blacks out. Their Mad Cat nails the gauss ammo on our Orion.

T3 – Tac Genius wins us init. Phoenix Hawk by their Nobori-Nin. The Orion;s LT and Rt are both destroyed. Their Galahad’s cockpit is hit by a large laser from our Flashman. Their Mad Cat suffers some serious fire power, falls, lands on its H and destroys it. The Nobori’ Nin’s LA is blown off and on the ground. We punt the head with our PXH but don’t go internal.

T4 – We win init. Braham ejects from his Orion. We focus a lot of fire on their Supernova. They hit an engine on our PXH. Our Zeus destroys the Supernova’s RA and hits its engine twice. Their Supernova’s reactor has shut down from too much heat. It falls.

T5 – We lose. We don’t have Braham’s tactical genius to reroll anymore. I hop the Lynx by their Supernova and our Starslayer follows. Their Nobori’Nin stands, fans, hits its head and is destroyed. Our Starslayer takes out the H of their Supernova.

T6 – We win init. Our Flashman nails a gyro once on their Phoenix Hawk IIc. We focused a lot of fire on their Guillotine IIc. Our Gallowglas took damage and fell. Their PXH IIc fell and the pilot blacked out.

T7 – We lose init. Our Gallowglas stands and runs behind some trees. We run our Talon by their downed and blacked out mech. Flashman by their Shadow Hawk IIc an above. An AC20 to the Loki’s CT by our Shootist nails the engine twice. Our Flashman kicks and punts the head of their Shadow Hawk IIc, dead mech.

T8 – We lose init. Our Flashman destroys the Guillotine IIc’s RT. Their Loki’s RA and LA are annihilated by my Lynx and Starslayer. My Talon destroys its RL and hits the CT engine and shuts it down. Our Apollo hits the engine x3 and gyro once on their Guillotine IIc. We offer hegira and they accept, with just a Grendel left.

[Abe Sargent]

Phoenix Hawk IIc, gyrox1
Loki A missing RL, RA, LA, enginex3
Guillotine IIc missing RT, enginex3, gyrox1
Shadow Hawk IIc missing H.
Supernova missing H, RA, enginex2
Mad Cat missing H
Jenner IIc, H, RT, RA, LL, RL
Galahad, enginex2, gyrox1, cockpit
Nobori Nin B missing H, reattach LA



Orion missing RT and LT
PXH enginex1



Phoenix Hawk IIc pilot.2/3


We have defeated the Jaguars, and they will fix the mechs we captured, plus three from this battle. I choose the Guillotine IIc, Supernova and Shadow Hawk IIc. Our pilots can fix the Phoenix Hawk IIc and Galahad to get them up and running.

We select the following five mechs from their garrison:

Warhammer IIc, Goshawk, Behemoth, Man o War A, Rifleman IIc, - The Behemoth and Supernova do not have Endo Steel or Ferro, so we could repair them easily.


Experience for all of my peops:

Bruiser – Chester, Highlander IIc, gains gunnery – now 1/3

Shadow – Laine Hall, Talon, Edge: 1; Katya Dovich, Starslayer, Edge: 1; Catherine Politska, Zeus, Edge:1; Ricardo Diaz, Flashman, Edge: 2

We captured these bondsmen:

Ike, 2/3
Jakob, 1/2
Kyle, 1/2
Sara. 1/2
Greg, 2/3
Erica, 1/2, pilot
Jessica, 1/2, pilot

[Abe Sargent]

Apr 23 – The DCMS arrives in large style. We spent the time fixing and repairing and salvaging.


After getting estimates, it will cost us about 10 mill to fix the Avenger. It’s worth 70 mill when up and running, so we do authorize that.

The Pirates badly hurt the Invader, but we can fix it with about 80 million worth of work, and 4 months of time in a full blown repair facility. This is not a clan upgrade of an Invader, but s Star League era one the clans use for transport. It’s the transport one for the PGC below.

There was a clan DropShip that was destroyed before we arrived that carried their OmniFighters, but it was lost in the battle. We didn’t even know, because it exploded into pieces before we arrived.

This is a PPC Invader, in case you care. They have spots for three DropShips and virtually no weapons at all, save for clearing out asteroids and debris. That’s why it was relying so much on the Fighters for defense.

The Okinawa is contentious. It is ours by right. We captured it in a place that was not Combine space, from a group that was not the Combine, and not while doing a contract which asked us to do so. We did it on our own. We are not asking for money for this battle, due to battle loss, because it was not part of the contract, but we were asked to hold up by the DCMS until they could arrive on scene.

They want the Okinawa back, and that is clear. We would be within our rights to keep it, or go sell it to the Federated Commonwealth to help show DCMS military secrets.

They offer to buy it back at 50% of its price. It costs 410 mill, so that would be 205 mill straight up. That is enticing. When will I want a fighter carrying Okinawa? We focus on mechs! We’re not invading star systems. However, I make an alternate offer.

We will trade the Okinawa instead. We’ll trade it straight up for an Overlord that they haven’t updated yet. It’s worth 430 mill on the market, that’s a bit in our favor, and more so when you consider the Okinawa is damaged.

That’s too much, but they agree to the idea of a trade. Since it’s clear we like the Okinawa, how about an obsolete Vengeance? It’s a better fighter carrier and cheaper too. Perhaps you want it? Now that’s tempting. It’s a DropShip that carries 40 fighters! It can’t even go into atmospheres, but it is its own assault fleet. Add the Avenger and another assault DropShip and some fighters and you could do some serious damage. You could jump into a system, and release your fleet and just take merchant ships all over the place. I don’t want too, I’m not a pirate, but you could always have Aerospace superiority, in every battle. Your fighters would always shuck aside their 2 or 6 or 10 and just devastate battlefields. It’s a powerful DropShip. It would change our unit. Now they are offering one that is not upgraded, and it’s worth 350 million. We tell them we want them to fix the Avenger and Invader and it’s a deal. They offer to do it at cost only, which is about 70% of the original cost. We accept.

We have gained:

Avenger DropShip
Vengeance DropShip
Invader JumpShip

[Tellistto]

Nice, a Jumpship!

Tell

[Abe Sargent]

Apr 24 – After getting things recharged, we enter the Schwartz System. This is an isolated system back in the back of the Combine Area, but it’s an Agricultural world. Our Draconis Combine advisor lets us know that no one have jumped here in a long time. It’s a low priority farming planet. We arrive and find a familiar sight, a Smoke Jaguar WarShip in flight. We hail them and do the normal – we inform them that we are here for a Trial of Possession and would like safcon to the world around us. Safcon or safe conduct, means that when heading to a Trial, you will not be attacked by them. Their CO is on the ground, but they have the power to agree and we head in.

Apr 26 – Two days into our trip to the planet, something happens. We notice that there is a lot of traffic in this system. It looks like the Smoke Jaguar WarShip, the Lioness, is getting resupplied because there is a constant buzz of ships ferry supplies to and from the planet. We can tell as we get closer. Schwartz is probably the Jaguar main food depot, since its way back into their space and it’s a big food producer.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Tellistto

Nice, a Jumpship!

Tell

If you think that's nice, just wait...

[Tellistto]

With abated breath sir! Please don't make me suffocate on it!

Tell

[Abe Sargent]

Alright, let’s talk. There are a few BattleTech products that really pissed off fans when published. I can think of four off the top of my head – Unbound, Far Country, Wars of Reaving and Living Legends.

Unbound was an adventure that took place on Solaris VII in 3053 and introduces a ton of new technology to the games, including new missiles, center torso cockpits, and tons of new weapons. This wasn’t what a lot of fans wanted. But the obvious hunger that a lot of people had for this book’s technology forced a lot of later product to include these sorts of things in them.

Far Country was a novel where Drac forces crash land on a planet in an unknown place after a jump failure. They find that another Drc force crash landed there in the same circumstances more than 500 years ago, and that the plane had an intelligent bird like species that could talk, communicate, fight and more. The whole point of BattleTech was that this was a universe with no intelligent alien life. There are alien creatures, planets, diseases and more, but not intelligent species. We are our own heroes ad our own villains. Far Country felt off.

The Wars of Reaving was released in August of this year and details a severe time in the Clan Homeworlds. It’s a recently released book, so no spoilers – but wow. Because this one book has a severe amount of change all in one source, some feel that it overstepped the bounds of the clans and pushed too much. Perhaps. I think it created a situation of realistic severity and then backed away from the obvious conclusion in order to not have as much overhaul as possible.

The final book that I think did not resonate with a lot of fans was Living Legends. It takes place any time between 3052 and 3058 in a remote system in the Draconis Combine called Schwartz. In this, something happens that, while technically possible within the scientific context of the universe, just feels off. It’s Far Country in adventure form. No other source or book has ever referred to the events in here again. It just wasn’t popular with the fans, so no one talked about it. It’s 100% canonical, but has no impact beyond the story itself. I guess we just assume that one of the ending where everything is destroyed and killed is the one that actually happens, but even still, this event should be mentioned everywhere.

I have a few adventures in the queue for later chapters in our adventure, but I haven’t run any of the ones in the 3050’s so far. Adventures tend to focus on one of a few things – one unit’s battles and history or a major campaign in one place. I have adventures for Luthien and Tukkayid, but we weren’t at either major battle of the Clan Invasion. I was already doing this contract deep in Jaguar space, and then, 3/4s of the way through, it hit me that this fits here, for us. It makes sense in this run through.

So, what happens when we spin Living Legends a bit? But what if you aren’t working for ComStar as a mercenary group, but for the Combine? What if the events that occurred, whenever I wanted to place them, happened to have a third group in Schwartz in addition to ComStar operatives and Jaguars? What would be the result?

Say hello to Living Legends…

[Abe Sargent]

April 28 – Two days more into our burn for the world, something happens. Our JumpShip and their WarShip are both at the Zenith Point. Then, something jumps in. It’s another WarShip! It looks…odd.

The WarShip doesn’t resemble any we’ve read about or seen. Granted, we aren’t experts in naval warfare. But, we see them regularly in clan space. The Captain of our Overlord DropShip, the Defiance, doesn’t know either. No one has seen this before. Our JumpShip is directly in the line of their communication, since they are all at the Zenith point. They send us what the conversation is. It takes a bit to arrive to us, but this is what we hear:

“This is the SLDF WarShip Manassas. Unidentified vessel, can you give us an ID? Repeat, this is the WarShip Manassas. Please Identify”

Pause for a bit. “This is the WarShip Lioness of the Clan Smoke Jaguar Naval Reserve. You will standby and await further instructions.”

Long pause. Perhaps a minute. “Please clarify your ID, Lioness. To what corps is the Clan Smoke Jaguar Naval Reserve attached?”

Another pause. “Manassas, the name of your captain is James Cromwell?”

“Yes, Lioness.”

“You will await the return of our commanding officer Star Colonel Anton Wirth.”

Over the next fifteen minutes, the Manassas tries to contact Lioness, but to no avail. The Zenith point is 8 days from the planet. We are just under half of that. It will take the CO at least 8 days to return, and that’s if he gets on board a DropShip right now.

What is going on?

Our records have no indication of the SLDF Manassas, but the name James Cromwell? That we know. James Cromwell was the hero of Somerset and Terra, two separate major battles for General Kerensky during his battle against the Amaris Coup and takeover of the Star League, less than 300 years ago.

Essex decides to have the JumpShip Scots Flotilla try to contact the Manassas on a tight laser beam transmission. It’s clear the Jaguars didn’t care if we heard them, but we don’t want to return that courtesy, at least not yet. It takes five minutes for the signal to be replayed to us and then five minutes so return back to the JumpShip. This is a slow conversation, we identify ourselves as the JumpShip Scots Flotilla and I am Col. Braham Essex. They’d like to know what’s going on, so we introduce ourselves as a mercenary outfit currently working for the Draconis Combine. These are not words they understand, so we give them a cliffs notes version – the Inner Sphere is shattered into smaller groups and no longer united. However, we are currently experiencing an invasion of these clans from outside the Inner Sphere. We offer to meet with them on our JumpShip. We can return in four days, and be at least four days ahead of when the Jaguar co returns, and give them an intel briefing. After a long pause, they agree, but they want us to come aboard their vessel.