Surprisingly enough, nobody argues with that.
August 31, 3037
Gamma-Company has their work cut out for them. The plan is as follows: Gamma-Three will try to plow past enemy pickets to locate the local enemy commander and create a diversion. Gamma-Two, accompanied by allied units will then move in along a more favorable route to eliminate the commander. Gamma-One and an allied lance will hold a nearby mountain pass against reinforcements coming over.
Come Wednesday, Gamma-One is the first to get into the action. Nothing serious, a light mech lance, a heavy mech lance (two Orions, a Marauder, and an Awesome), and almost a
battallion of tanks. Mixed between hovercraft, light units and heavy treads.
"Archidia", Scrub says, defaulting to Greek for a bit as she looks at the swarm of sensor blips. "Gamma Air, get your asses in here."
The good part: the Crescents have gotten their heavy lance up and running. They're committing a Thunderbolt, a Marauder, a Crusader and a Warhammer (6D). Combined with our Warhammer/Striker/Grasshopper/Enforcer, and with air support (a Lucifer and a Thunderbolt, both loaded with cluster bombs), this should be doable, although the aircraft will have some trouble manuevering, what with all the cliffs everywhere. It's basically "fly straight down the pass and hope you don't get shot down".
Round 1:
"Like I said, balls." Scrub repeats.
The good part: the rain is coming down, so everything is mud. This'll give us more time to pound the enemy units as they attempt to steamroll us. A healthy number of LRMs and PPC shots goes flying back and forth between our allied units and the hostiles, but nothing hits.
Round 2:
"Conserve your ammunition." Scrub tells Hyena. The "yes ma'am" in reply sounds like someone just kicked a puppy.
We open up with long range weapons. Enemy fire is ineffective, while Scrub gets a PPC hit on a Stinger's left torso, and the allied Crusader sends an LRM salvo at a Pegasus hovertank - about half of the thirty missiles connect, and the hovertank swerves into a tree, sending fan blades spinning everywhere.
Round 3:
The enemy light mechs make contact, trying to disrupt our formation (such as it is). A Firestarter jumps in next to the allied Thunderbolt. Our mechwarriors can't see through the rocky outcropping it lands behind, except for a couple of sparks flying out, then a large amount of ordnance flying past - apparently, the enemy mech had a hard landing, which allowed it to avoid an alpha strike from the Thunderbolt. Scrub exchanges PPC fire with an LTV-4, landing two PPC shots on the hovertank while it whiffs. The Spider exchanges missed lasers with Cylus and then dodges a kick. Congratulations to that mechwarrior, he's probably going to make it through our formation.
Round 4:
The Firestarter has some trouble getting up, sparks coming out of its legs as its actuators cry. At least time, the guy in the Thunderbolt manages to hit him a couple of times. The amount of ordnance flying around is pretty staggering, but most of it actually misses. We score a couple of armor hits here and there but nothing major. Scrub and our Enforcer manage to light up a Saracen hovertank, though, Scrub melting off most of the armor then the Enforcer cratering it with a burst from the autocannon. Cylus has better luck against the Stinger than the Spider - the Grasshopper's weapons salvo mostly misses, but a kick to the right leg as the bug mech lands severs it, and down it goes.
Round 5:
The guy in the Stinger ejects as Cylus points the large laser at the downed mech's head. The Firestarter stops moving. Not so good for him. But, the allied Thunderbolt turns its attention to more pressing matters, placing a large laser through a Saladin's fuel tank and sending it sky high. Hyena mutters something about "kill-stealing bastard". Scrub blows away a Vedette, sending a PPC shot through the left side. Cylus gets in behind a Wasp trying to jump by, hitting it with one of five laser shots - it's a good one, though, popping a heat sink and spraying coolant fluid out the back. The Grasshopper then follows up with a kick, which breaks off the left half of the bug mech. The Enforcer blows the turret off a Galleon as it gets a little bit stuck in the mud. He'll have to cool off a little.
Round 6:
Our air support arrives. Well, one of them does, the Lucifer. The Thunderbird has trouble setting up an approach vector into the narrow canyon. The lighter enemy units have figured out to try to take cover while the heavier units move forward. This should be fun.
Cylus jumps forward, pushing the Grasshopper's jump jets to their limit, but manages to stick the landing and disable a Pegasus trying to hide behind a cliff. Nice try. We take some fire from the heavies, a few LRM hits here and there, but nothing serious.
Round 7:
Scrub and the allied Thunderbolt team up on a Vedette that's busy throwing mud out from under its tracks, PPC and laser shots breaching the front armor, then an LRM salvo wrecking the interior. Said Thunderbolt starts taking fire, a pair of PPC shots from the Marauder coming up the hill, which knock the allied mech over.
The Lucifer takes a PPC hit to the engine from an LTV-4 as it moves to drop its bombs. This wrecks the aero jock's aim, but his bombs still manage to take down a pair of Saladins. The aero jock manages to retain control over the aircraft, but informs us that he needs to bug out. Well, he did something at least.
Hyena opens fire on a Hunchback coming up the hill behind an Orion (it's a Swayback without the AC/20 but still dangerous), knocking it down with a PPC shot and a slug round.
Cylus lands a lot of lasers on a Saracen zipping by but fails to disable it. However, the Grasshopper's foot stomps on another Saladin just fine, crushing the hovercraft.
The guy in the Firestarter wakes up and tries to get up again, but falls over. This time, the right arm comes off in the attempt and he stops moving again. Hyena and Scrub team up on the Hunchback, although this time the mechwarrior keeps his mech upright. The allied Thunderbolt is taking heavy fire but manages to avoid the worst of it, only taking one PPC hit. Cylus' foot clangs off the nearby Saracen's armor, but the impact sends it careening towards the allied Marauder which kicks the field goal. Nothing like playing soccer with a hovercraft.
Round 9:
The Orion coming up the hill takes a bunch of PPCs (from Scrub, Hyena, the allied Marauder) and falls over. A Shadow Hawk jumps up to Hyena, but gets a boot to the left arm for its trouble, which trips the enemy mech up and it hits the ground. Our Thunderbird flies in for a pass. Not sure how much damage he'll do but it's worth a shot.
Round 10:
Cylus waits for a chance, then jumps in behind the two assault mechs moving up the east side. The Awesome takes a few lasers to the rear, but nothing penetrates armor. Neither does a kick to the left leg. An Awesome's not going down that easily.
Our Thunderbird flies over and drops bombs on enemy tanks. It takes some AA fire from the nearby Orion, losing the nose-mounted LRM launcher to an AC/10 burst, then some LRMs going up the tailpipe to damage the engine. As its distracted with anti-aircraft duty, Hyena aims dead center. A PPC shot melts a lot of armor off the center torso, then a slug round from the autocannon shatters the engine. The heavy mech simply flops over. The Thunderbird's bombing run isn't very cost-efficient, destroying a Skulker and an SRM Carrier. While the fighter is able to avoid crashing, it informs us that it needs to return to base, as "the pedal is shaking".
Scrub works on the nearby Shadow Hawk, severely damaging both of the mech's arms with PPC and laser fire. Combined with shooting from the allied Marauder, the 55-ton mech falls over, cracking its right arm open, which helps it avoid Hyena's backhand.
Round 11:
The guy in the Firestarter makes another attempt to get up and falls over. No luck for that guy.
The allied Thunderbolt takes a beating from PPCs and LRMs, falling over and crunching several weapons in its right arm. Cylus continues working on the back of the Awesome to little effect, while Hyena fires at the Shadow Hawk. Scrub and the Enforcer work on the Hunchback, stripping some armor as well.
Having taken significant damage while only getting two units past us (a Spider and a hovertank), the remainder of the enemy force pulls back. We find three hovertanks jammed into the woods to the south after the battle.
Thanks to the rain and not exactly being top-tier troops, their tracked tanks weren't able to help out at all, so this turned out to be much easier than expected. The allied Thunderbolt and our aircraft absorbed most of the damage, so no big problem there. Salvage is pretty good. We claim the cored-out Orion and a pair of Saracens, while the Crescents get the rest (a bunch of bug mechs and light tanks). A full engine replacement for the Orion isn't in the cards, so we'll be using it for spare parts and then sell the chassis.
A shame we couldn't get the Marauder or Awesome, but we would have had to tangle with the tanks and SRM/LRM Carriers to the south.
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Meanwhile, Beta-One moves to capture the newly-activated air defense facility. The Scorpions bring in a lance of heavies (a Hetzer, an LRM Carrier, an AC/2 Carrier and a Manticore), along with the liaison in a JagerMech (JM6-S). Apparently, his Warhammer is still getting its engine fixed, two weeks later. Combined with our Awesomes, Thunderbolt and Victor this should be doable (the allied lance will be good for absorbing fire if nothing else).
The garrison is pretty significant: there's a reinforced heavy lance (two Quickdraws, a Warhammer, a Grasshopper and an Orion), a light lance (Panther, Firestarter, two bug mechs), plus a loose Hunchback. For tanks, they've got a few hovercraft, and some missile carriers. No bones about it, going to be a tough nut to crack.
Zenn7's face lights up briefly, though, when the liaison informs us that will have artillery support. Two Thumper tubes and two Long Tom tubes. Not too shabby. Then, the smile turns into a frown. "We're going to be designating targets for them, right, they're not just going to start blasting the base to bits, right?"
The liaison gets a confused look on his face.
"The artillery units. We're trying to capture the base, not blow it up. Are we going to have a means of designating target coordinates." our mechwarrior asks again, without actually intoning the phrase as a question.
Confused look again.
"Can. We. Tell. Them. Where. To. Shoot.", Zenn7 asks, exasperated.
The liaison nods slowly, but it's obvious that he hasn't thought about that.
Choice: tell the mercs to forget about the stupid artillery? It'll make the mission harder overall, but at least we won't have trigger-happy artillery guys blasting our objective to bits.