Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

[Stefan Stirzaker]

That was a vicious ac20 hit. Hopefully i can gain some agility one day to stop falling over when kicking things

[NickAragua]

August 29, 3030
Dropship landing zone

Alpha and Epsilon launch the assault on the enemy Triumph. Unfortunately, they see us coming, so they've got a defensive screen of tanks deployed - mostly lights, but some heavies and assaults (Rhinos with their LRM arrays, a Manticore and a Brutus, as well as a couple of Saladins are of particular concern). They also have a couple of infantry-crewed autocannons set up on the field. The dropship fires up the engines, so we won't have much time to take it down before it lifts off.

Additionally, a heavy lance of enemy mechs approaches from the north. We've seen these guys before, it's the two Crusaders, Archer and Rifleman.

Alpha lance is Lt. Adnan in the Atlas, LordMortis in the Hunchback, Isgrimnur in the Vindicator, Madmarcus in the Wolverine and an NPC in a Spider.

Epsilon is Lt. Scrub in a Warhammer, Hyena in a Striker, an NPC in a Grasshopper and El Guapo in a Rifleman.

The snow's stopped coming down but left a light layer on the ground.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

We advance from the southwest, using the spaceport buildings as cover from the dropship's considerable firepower. The enemy tanks move in to screen the dropship, and we all open fire from long range. The Grasshopper targets a distant Saladin with LRMs, taking it out of action as a couple punch through the armor and wreck the turbines. Madmarcus drills through a Scorpion tank's armor with the large laser then fires a pack of SRMs at it, coring into the internal structure. At this point, the tank is basically just able to throw sparks and smoke. The field guns open fire pretty rapidly, causing me to re-evaluate their threat status.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

We advance past the outer spaceport wall, and things go pear-shaped. Madmarcus moves to the bottom of the runway and opens up on a nearby Rhino, inflicting heavy damage on its treads. However, an LRM salvo from the dropship craters his armor, and a cluster of LRMs takes off the right leg at the joint. A Saladin swings around the back of Isgrimnur's mech, shooting him in the back of the left leg and damaging a couple of actuators. El Guapo squashes it as it passes by underfoot. The Grasshopper blasts the AC/2 field gun crew with lasers, killing over half the platoon.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

Hyena and the Spider move up the runway, while the Warhammer and Grasshopper hang back a little. Hyena opens up on the nearby Brutus, damaging the armor with the autocannon and lasers, crushing the front with a boot, while the Grasshopper helps out by hitting the sensor cluster. El Guapo spares an AC/10 burst for the nearby Condor, wrecking the skirt and immobilizing it, then LordMortis finishes it off by splattering it with a burst from the AC/20.

Isgrimnur presents a very good target on the rooftop and struggles to a knee as he gets pounded by LRMs from the Archer and Brutus. Despite this, he manages to immobilize a Striker tank before losing both arms.

Madmarcus rotates his mech to get a better shot down field, but is mobbed by the remains of the AC/2 field gun crew, who toss charges at him and set off the SRM/6 ammo. His ejection seat bounces off a nearby building. Mechwarrior status unknown.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

With no arms and being highly exposed, Isgrimnur yanks the ejection lever, safely landing behind a building. El Guapo "takes cover" in the basement of a nearby building as he skids on the pavement past LordMortis.

The Striker and Spider move up the runway to make a run at the dropship, while the Warhammer and Grasshopper cover them. The Atlas approaches from the west side of the runway as well. The dropship tries to get a bead on the Spider but can't hit the fast-moving mech.

LordMortis opens up on the AC/5 position with the AC/20, severely damaging the building and killing several crew with shrapnel.

Lt. Adnan blasts a Manticore with the AC/20 and several lasers, wrecking the treads, then stomps a couple of the AC/2 infantry swarming over the remains of Madmarcus' mech.

The Grasshopper zaps the armor off a nearby Vedette, causing it to throw out sparks and highly discouraging the crew.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

The Spider gets into the dropship's blind spot and starts drilling through the side armor with lasers and fists. Hyena advances as well, taking a left arm armor breach from the dropship's fire, while the Warhammer and Grasshopper screen against the enemy mechs. The Grasshopper opens up on the second Brutus, damaging its armor, then LordMortis perforates it with a burst from the AC/20, as he delivers an extra kick to the AC/5 position. Lt. Adnan advances down the runway as well, blasting a Hetzer with the AC/20 then putting some medium lasers through the breach, detonating the fuel tank.

Round 6:

Spoiler:

Hyena sprints into the blind spot, skidding past the dropship, whose fire goes towards the Atlas instead. The Atlas retaliates by opening up on the Rhino, savaging it with the AC/20 and rattling the crew, but takes a bunch of fire from the AC/5 field guns and enemy Rifleman, losing said AC/20 and taking a shot to the hand actuator (not a big deal unless she wants to punch things).

Round 7:

Spoiler:

The Grasshopper takes some fire from the dropship as it closes in while the Warhammer sprints into the blind spot. El Guapo takes the time to collapse the building sheltering the AC/5 field gun crew, although some of them scamper out. The Spider zaps the J.Edgar hovertank as it swings by, putting an end to its annoying gnat-like behavior. The Grasshopper blasts the Rhino again, causing some of its weapons to jam as the crew picks their teeth up off the floor.

LordMortis continues hosing the dropship down with the AC/20, and between that and all the punching and kicking, the left side is weakened as equipment dangles and sparks fly.

Round 8:

Spoiler:

The Atlas charges up to a Crusader scoring some good hits, but then eats a full blast from the Triumph, breaching center torso armor and losing the medium laser. Once the center torso armor goes, the other enemy units capitalize on it, sending lasers and SRMs into the breach. Our mech takes some engine and gyro damage and falls over, with the mechwarrior blacking out.

Round 9:

Spoiler:

Lt. Scrub takes a time out from shooting at the dropship to finally take the last enemy Rhino out of action, while LordMortis and the Spider work on the left side. With the AC/20 destroying the last of the armor, a large number of weapon blasts go internal and the left side collapses.

"This is dropship Crimson Virtue! Cease fire! We surrender!"

"Understood, Virtue." Lt. Scrub responds. "All mobile units are to cease fire and leave the field."

The enemy mech lance departs, taking the rest of the mobile units with them. Those four guys may not have been able to stop us from accomplishing our objectives, but they've performed admirably every time we've encountered them.

The search and rescue squad recovers Madmarcus, who gets away with just a cerebral contusion and will be under medical supervision for the next three months. Well, better than what it looked like when that ejection seat fired anyway. The mech is a complete wreck though, not even anything left to salvage. Good thing we've got a spare Wolverine in the hangar!

Salvage is going to be busy for a while. We arrange to transfer the dropship wreck to the local militia. She'll never fly again, but at least there are plenty of parts for those guys to salvage. It'll be difficult for the insurgents to move their legions of vehicles around now that their dropship is wrecked. Until they get their next Liao cash infusion, anyway. But that's no concern of ours.

We hand over the rest of the prisoners to the local Davion militia and begin boxing our mechs up for transport. We have a couple of choices for destinations:

Option 1 - A Davion officer approaches our command staff and suggests that the Federated Suns are looking to have us take up garrison duty on and around the planet Rowe. They've been having issues with Drac raiders and the local militia and Regimental Combat Team aren't up to the task or don't have the spare resources, respectively. Our job would be to repel any enemy landings on the planet and surrounding moons.

Duration: 24 months
Estimated profit: 66M
Independent command (nice, although I've grown to appreciate the extra mechs the liaisons bring)
50% transport coverage (just as well, since the trip costs about 13M)
80% salvage rights (!)
60% battle loss compensation

Doesn't seem bad. Main problem: we'll probably be seeing DCMS Ryuken units as the primary opposition. For twenty four months straight. For those who don't know, the Ryuken regiments were trained and modeled after the Wolf's Dragoons (although, thankfully, the Dragoons are no longer in the Combine's employ). So, they're going to be hardened veterans. We'll have good lines of supply, but it'll still wear our group down considerably over the two years, no doubt. The money and salvage are damn good though.

The other available contracts aren't worth considering - objective raids and pirate hunts with a negative profit margin and some kind of scam where an obviously Capellan guy pretending to be a Federated Suns recruiter wanted to hire us for "relief duty" on Sian, which happens to be the capital of the Capellan Confederation. Yeah, sure buddy, we'll get right on that.

Option 2 - Back to St. Ives. The ex-Capellans have treated us fairly well, so it's a good rest stop and a good place to rustle up contracts.

Option 3 - Head out to Outreach. Recently granted to the Wolf's Dragoons by the Federated Suns, this place has a reputation as a solid mercenary hiring hall. Also a good place to rustle up contracts, with a wider variety and probably better quality.

[AWS260]

Whew. Rough one.

Option 3 looks appealing -- take a breather and see what comes your way.

[Isgrimnur]

I had just put a new sound system in that mech!

[NickAragua]

Well, the head's mostly intact. Except for the seat, neurohelmet, attached wiring and most of the control consoles. It'll take a couple of weeks to get all the parts and put everything back together, but we'll get it working again.

That's the great thing about mechs, you can core out the engine, lose the arms and legs and most of the torso, but as long as the center torso section is at least minimally intact, you can put it all back together.

Of course, at some point, you realize that you're basically building a brand new mech.

[gbasden]

I agree that number 3 looks like a good option if we aren't hurting for cash. The idea of going after elite forces for 2 years seems a bit brutal even for that amount of money. Feeding our mechs and people into a shredder doesn't seem worth it.

[Zarathud]

There was not enough Awesome in that last mission.

[gbasden]

There was not enough Awesome in that last mission.

It's all too seldom that there is enough Awesome!

[Stefan Stirzaker]

Option 3 sounds interestin

[Madmarcus]

Go with option 3 says the man with medical leave.

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

[NickAragua]

After a brief command staff meeting, it's decided that we head to Outreach. Our techs begin the process of boxing up the mechs and rounding up a Mule to transport us. We unload the remaining prisoners with the local militia, and strip the captured tanks for armor and ammo. With our last payout and various bonuses, our bank account is sitting pretty at 126.5 million C-Bills. The transit to Outreach will cost about 4M (it's a lot of jumps and we have a non-trivial amount of materiel to carry).

Spoiler:

Three months later, we arrive on Outreach. We rent a maintenance facility and some closed-off training grounds. Parts are really easy to come by, so we have no trouble fixing up our busted mechs. We even replace the busted old jump jets and leg actuators on Isgrimnur's mech that were basically held together with duct tape and super glue.

We hire a platoon of SRM-equipped jump infantry to supplement our future defensive operations. Those SRMs are pretty nasty against mechs and tanks and they're also good in a pinch against other infantry.

One day though, Lt. Adnan walks into Gbasden's office.

"So boss, any chance we accept that Free Worlds League retainer?"

Gbasden shakes his head. "Not happening. House Marik has to be the most disorganized military and political system in existence, short of pirates. We sign up with them, we'll be getting dragged into politics and civil wars. You hear what those guys pulled on the Gray Death Legion?"

"Yeah, I know boss. Still, we're tired of running around back and forth across the galaxy. No hard feelings, but we're going to take the retainer."

Gbasden gets up and reaches out with a handshake. "I understand. Sucks to lose you, but you gotta do what you gotta do."

Lt. Adnan and several other NPC mechwarriors choose to leave our employ and accept the open retainer with the Free Worlds League - two lances of mech warriors in total.

Pvt. Imer "Cylus Maxii" Berisaj retires, taking a position as a tactical analyst for a training course here on Outreach. We pay for the replacement cybernetic leg, and an additional contract termination payout of 2M C-Bills. Over the course of three years, he went from humble beginnings as an ultra-green 7/8 mechwarrior to a veteran. Having killed five mechs, he's considered an ace. Heaviest kill - a Demolisher tank (the kind with dual AC/20s).

Spoiler:

We do hire a replacement Mechwarrior, one Varada "Cylus Maxii Mk II" Sunondo. LordMortis, Paingod, Isgrimnur and Madmarcus are all promoted to Sergeant (Madmarcus once he recovers). In February, we pick up two interesting contract offers:

1) Comstar wants to hire us to guard an HPG station out in the sticks. Recently, the Magistracy of Canopus and Duchy of Andurien have been beating on the Capellan Confederation, and they're concerned that some of the conflict may spill out to "Borden". The gory details:

Liaison command (it took some negotiating)
55% transport coverage
50% exchange salvage rights
60% straight support payments
41M expected profit

Expected opposition is unknown, but there's nothing out there except low-power periphery states and Liao guys. The contract lasts for 23 months (which is an oddly specific number). We'll have supply lines, but I still don't like exchange salvage, as it deprives us of the ability to acquire cool new toys. It's nice, relaxing garrison duty though. Well, as relaxing as it can be, sitting in a compound with those ComStar weirdos.

The Liao guys probably hold a grudge against us, considering the beatings we've given them in the last couple of years, so I don't know that we can expect them to avoid taking pot shots at us (or staging outright ambushes).

2) The Lyran Commonwealth wants us to launch an extraction raid into the Free Worlds League, against several facilities in "Escobas". A completely un-noteworthy system, the Steiner rep is a little bit cagey about what it is that we are to extract.

Liaison command
100% transport coverage (they're providing us with dropships and lending us a jumpship basically)
60% salvage rights
80% straight support
19.3M expected profit

We've been allocated four months to get the job done. The jumpship will drop a Union and a Leopard and depart, coming back within the four month window. Opposition is expected to be local militia regulars. It's also possible that the extraction target may be "off world".

The profit ratio is pretty good though, and it's nice to get on Steiner/Davion's good side. Supplies will be a little hard to come by (unless we uh, "acquire" them), so we'll need to stock up prior to getting there.

3) We can hang out and see if any other better contracts come up.

[xwraith]

I wouldn't be against the ComStar contract if it had better salvage rights. However, good profit on a short timeline is much more attractive. I say extraction raid.

[Isgrimnur]

19M for four months' work is a pretty good profit.

[Archinerd]

I'm good with whichever one is likely to have less inferno bombs dropped on me.

[El Guapo]

I'm good with whichever one is likely to have less inferno bombs dropped on me.

Fewer inferno bombs.

[Archinerd]

And something for El Guapo to shoot. He obviously has too much time.

[El Guapo]

Hey, constant participation in warfare is no excuse for poor grammar.

[gbasden]

Hey, constant participation in warfare is no excuse for poor grammar.

I like the extraction raid as well. It sounds more interesting than garrison duty with a target on our backs.

[NickAragua]

We take the extraction raid contract. Our negotiators push hard to replace the "straight support" clause with a "battle loss compensation" clause and come away with 20%. Well, could be worse. We still get ourselves a 10% signing bonus, then load our mechs and crews onto dropships for rendezvous with the Lyran jumpship. We also stock up on ammo, armor and spare parts.

Xwraith, remember when you said you wanted an Archer? Well, we couldn't get the one off that backwater Davion planet, but one comes up for sale on Outreach. It's a steal at 5.7M. Yoink!

Spoiler:

Our liaison explains en route that our objective is to raid a Free Worlds League prototyping facility. This facility is working on improved targeting systems for light autocannons and Steiner intel says they're on the verge of producing a set of working prototypes. We are to recover the blueprints and any prototypes. Our employer has committed a lance of mechs to the operation as well to serve as liaisons as our units conduct operations.

It's about two and a half months to Escobas. Our jump path takes us through a bunch of uninhabited systems to avoid undue FWL attention.

En route, our jumpship takes on a couple of random dropships to ease transport costs. As we mingle with those dropship crews and passengers, we are able to poach a vehicle tech (apparently he used to work for McCarron's Armored Cavalry, so he's probably got some serious experience maintaining tanks). Also, we get a hold of an elite mechwarrior. Neala Rogers drives a Blackjack and is an expert shot with its lasers. We needed someone to fill out our fourth lance and this person fits the bill.

We also manage to scoop up some infantry support lasers and zero g suits, just in case.

With the departure of most of the NPC mechwarriors [and an experimental new algorithm for generating scenarios and opposing forces], we re-organize our lance structure again.

In order, the columns are:
Rank, Name, Skill Level, Assigned Mech, Assigned Lance, Salary (in C-Bills per month), Callsign, Age, Gender, # kills (for current incarnation)

Spoiler:

The only founding members of the company remaining are Gbasden, Zenn7 and Scrub. Of the rest of the original twelve, one is MIA, five have retired (two independently, three to the Free Worlds League) and three have been killed in action.

Alpha is a general-purpose heavy lance, Beta is a little more focused on close combat, Gamma is a longer-ranged support lance while Delta is the fast recon lance. Well, fast for our company anyway, we don't have any bug mechs here.

April 17, 3031
We jump into Escobas. It's 15 days from the nadir jump point to the planet. Our dropships' flight path will take us past a moon. Our liaison explains that there's a base there that a) is capable of fielding aerospace fighters and b) has some old Star League era naval lasers. We want to take that facility out so the naval lasers don't evaporate our dropships as they fly by.

A Steiner Leopard flies in low, dropping Gamma lance behind a series of hills. The defence force barely gets into their mechs and tanks before we get in (relatively) close and begin the assault. Our objective here is to blow the four orbital defence turrets and get out. That's it. No salvage and definitely no getting punched out of your mech, nobody's going to come get you. Gravity is about .6 standard, so we *can* run fast, but shouldn't. The moon has a thin atmosphere which prevents runaway temperature swings.

The defenders are a reinforced lance of mechs, including a Crusader, an Orion, an Awesome and a Cyclops, backed up by a Phoenix Hawk and Hunchback. Along with a lance of tanks.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

We advance south along a short ridge to get a line of fire on the enemy turrets. Some mechs come out to greet us. Xwraith fires a salvo of LRMs at one of the laser turrets, scoring some serious damage. The enemy Orion fires back at him, inflicting some damage with the AC/10 and SRMs. Zarathud and our newest pilot scores a couple of laser and PPC hits on the Orion, but everyone remains upright.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

This is a problem. The enemy mechwarriors seem to know their way around the low G. Xwraith gets a little beat up and has to take a knee to stabilize himself. Otherwise, it's all just armor damage. The Blackjack pilot does get the drop on the enemy Orion, kicking it in the head and stripping all armor from there.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

Everyone focuses on Zarathud's mech this time. His mech takes a beating, making it hard to shoot the PPCs. The Hunchback rips his left torso armor off with the AC/20, causing severe structural damage, then the Cyclops rips the rest of the left torso structure apart with a boot. Xwraith fires the fourth load of LRMs at a naval laser emplacement - the missiles chip away at the external structure, then a couple fly inside and the building detonates. One down. The Blackjack gets a rear shot on the Orion, damaging an upper arm actuator with a laser.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

Xwraith moves around the west side of the base to get away from the enemy mech swarm, while Lt. Scrub moves around the south. She sees a curious sight, as the enemy Awesome slips and falls over. I guess they're not as good around the low G as we thought. Zarathud prepares to grab his arm and retreat. A Vedette slips a tread as it drives westward, while.

Xwraith's LRMs impact the second naval laser turret. It stops tracking into space and kind of droops, then Lt. Scrub hits it from the south with PPCs, melting the barrel and jamming the rotation mechanism. The Blackjack continues engaging the Orion, inflicting pretty good damage on it with lasers, but a low-end medium against a high-end heavy is going to take time (and is pretty risky to boot).

Round 5:

Spoiler:

With a Cyclops coming up with its AC/20, Zarathud retreats from the field. That damned Orion comes after Xwraith, damaging a left leg actuator with its AC/10. The Blackjack brawls with the Hunchback, the enemy mech's AC/20 shots going way wide.

Round 6:

Spoiler:

The Blackjack jumps out just as it's about to get mobbed by a crowd of much heavier mechs. It zaps the Hunchback in the left arm, damaging the an actuator there. Lt. Scrub works on a third naval laser turret, damaging the weapon somewhat, but it still reads as active.

Round 7:

Spoiler:

We've outmanuevered most of the enemies and are now in their base. The Awesome seems to be quite cowardly, as the mechwarrior refuses to come out and engage our Warhammer. That's fine, the Warhammer uses the opportunity to blast and kick the third laser turret mount into rubble.

Round 8:

Spoiler:

The enemy Hunchback blows its leg out trying to chase after the Blackjack, while the Vedette which only a couple of seconds ago delivered a solid AC/5 shot to Xwraith's rear (breaching armor and damaging a rear-mounted medium laser) crashes into a small hill. Only the enemy Phoenix Hawk gets the idea to jump into the base and engage Lt. Scrub, shooting her in the leg with the large laser. Lt. Scrub and the Blackjack work on the last naval laser turret. With PPCs and lasers making significant holes in the building's structure, Lt. Scrub is able to kick a support beam and damage the weapon's barrel, taking it out of action.

Now to get out of here.

Round 9:

Spoiler:

The enemy force doesn't seem inclined to let Xwraith's Archer walk out of there. The Crusader and Orion run up, delivering a lot of pain to the wounded mech's right side. The Phoenix Hawk comes chasing after the Warhammer and Blackjack, who collapse the building underneath it with combined fire.

Round 10, 11:

Spoiler:

The Archer's position isn't looking good. The Crusader and Orion continue pounding it, reducing the left torso to scrap and removing one of the legs. The Warhammer runs over to pick up our ejected mechwarrior, backed up by the Blackjack. We fire at the Orion, breaching the right torso and right arm armor, damaging an actuator there. While scooping up the Xwraith, Lt. Scrub also delivers a kick.

Now it's *really* time to leave.

Round 12:

Spoiler:

The Warhammer takes a nasty hit to the left leg, damaging the foot actuator there. The Blackjack attempts to cover it, fusing the turret on the enemy Condor.

Round 13:

Spoiler:

We retreat to the ridge in the east - just beyond it is our dropship with its covering fire and backup from Zarathud's crippled Awesome. The Warhammer fires at the enemy Awesome, knocking it to the ground, while the Blackjack nails the Orion in the head, hitting the life support system. Bet it's getting hard to breathe in there right now, eh, pal?

Unfortunately, the Warhammer loses the right torso section to an AC/20 burst from the Cyclops.

We clear the ridge and the enemy units don't follow. It would probably have gone better if they didn't have an assault lance guarding their naval laser turrets. At least now our dropships will be able to get planetside without getting shot up. By the lasers, anyway. Uh, sorry about that Archer. At least we get some battle loss compensation for it. 600k is no 5M, but at least we can spread the C-Bills out on the floor and cry in a pile of them. Our mechwarriors get away with minor injuries only, and will be up and about in less than a week. We brought the spare Thunderbolt with us, so we'll be putting Xwraith in it temporarily when he recovers.

[Isgrimnur]

I lead a revolt of the sergeants for getting the same pay as some of the privates.

[El Guapo]

I lead a revolt of the sergeants for getting the same pay as some of the privates.

Right?! Also the new MechWarrior is already getting paid double what I'm making!

#OnStrike #NoGaussCannonsNoJustice

[NickAragua]

Management would like to remind all mechwarriors that monthly salaries are declared only for the purpose of complying with employment regulations in various jurisdictions. In addition to the mostly symbolic monthly salaries, mechwarriors are paid out of a percentage of the monthly contract payments.

For example, for this contract, our monthly payout is 8.47M C-Bills. 50% of that is put into a pool and paid out as a dividend (?) based on the number of shares of the company that the mechwarrior owns. It is currently estimated that there are around 150 shares (accurate data is a pain in the ass to assemble), so we take 4.7M / 150, and each share is worth ~31,000 C-Bills.

Even with that, I'm pretty sure you guys are still getting paid less than the elite rookie. I'll tell you what, we'll raise your salaries to 5k C-Bills.

[Isgrimnur]

Your prompt attention to this matter is appreciated. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to move a SRM warhead.

You’re not headed to your quarters for a while, right?

[El Guapo]

What do we want? GAUSS CANNONS
When do we want them? NOW

Also more pay too.

[NickAragua]

I think this guy



has a Gauss cannon for you.

You may want something a little tougher than a Rifleman though to take him on.

[El Guapo]

I think this guy



has a Gauss cannon for you.

You may want something a little tougher than a Rifleman though to take him on.

I'm sure that gentleman has Gauss cannons available at a reasonable price.

[Archinerd]

I dunno, seems alright to me. I do half the work of Zenn7 and get just as much. Life is good.

[El Guapo]

I dunno, seems alright to me. I do half the work of Zenn7 and get just as much. Life is good.

[Zarathud]

So many of those SRMs miss, I wouldn't be worried.

Just fix my mech so I can shoot things and earn some bounties. The more we kill, the more we eat.

[Archinerd]

I dunno, seems alright to me. I do half the work of Zenn7 and get just as much. Life is good.

Cute. Keep it up and you're likely to pull 'Awesome Head Clean Up Detail' for the remainder of this contract.

[El Guapo]

I mean, that does sound awesome.

Honestly, I can't see any real downsides to striking against the management of a heavily armed mercenary company.

[NickAragua]

May 9, 3031
Having landed our dropships without incident (other than a minor dispute over salaries), we establish a base of operations and deploy our non-battered lances. Delta conducts recon to determine the location and optimal routes to the target R&D facility, Alpha is deployed in support to destroy enemy early warning capability while Beta is tasked with keeping curious locals away from our position.

Delta lance detects an enemy unit (a company of tanks with two supporting mechs) on a direct route towards our base of operations, heading through a dense urban area. Alpha lance picks an interception point in an industrial section. We need to prevent these guys from passing through the area. It'll also be helpful (but not required) if we don't get too beat up.

The smog is pretty nasty and the glare from the sun near the horizon doesn't help. And the enemy jackasses are painted in the most garish purple-pink Marik colors imaginable. To be honest, if we blow them up, we'll be doing them a favor.

Alpha lance is Gbasden in the Awesome, Isgrimnur in the Vindicator, Stefan in the Assassin, El Guapo in the Rifleman, and one of our liaison mechs in a Griffin 1S.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

Well, this is mildly annoying. As we spring our attack, a bunch of random turrets power up, and Stefan swears he sees a platoon of dudes packing flamers in a nearby building. The smog makes it impossible for anyone to see where they're going, and Gbasden winds up out of position. A batch of AC/5 rounds flies down the center and eastern street, with the allied Griffin taking a round. Isgrimnur and the Griffin score PPC and large laser hits on enemy units, but most of the firing misses. Stefan hops north and spends some time kicking and shooting at the base of an LRM turret, but the building is way too tough.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

The enemy vehicles very slowly advance down the street, but advance they do. Isgrimnur barely dodges an AC/20 round then nails a Condor hovertank with the PPC, slagging armor off the left side. Our Griffin eats a Saladin's AC/20 burst to the center torso, losing all the armor. He gets a good shot on the front with a laser but doesn't penetrate armor, then falls over. Good job, Gary.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

Gary gets up just in time to avoid the sweep of the Saladin's AC/20, then takes an LRM to the center torso (no critical, thankfully) from a "Golden Eagle" fighter that zips by along with two of its buddies. He retaliates by damaging the treads on a nearby Vedette with his lasers.

Isgrimnur rattles a Vedette's crew with some LRM hits then breaches the armor on the Condor he damaged earlier.

El Guapo brings his Rifleman's autocannons skyward and blasts the Golden Eagle, damaging the sensors and removing armor from both the nose and left wing.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

Gary gets revenge on the Saladin as it zips by, blasting the turbine out through the weakened left side. Isgrimnur finishes the Vedette he started working on earlier, destroying the engine with the electric shock from the PPC as it impacts the tank. He then proceeds to kick over a Maxim as it tries to go past him. Infantry pile out of the wrecked vehicle, but they're kind of irrelevant. El Guapo opens up on the nearby Condor, annihilating it with the dual autocannons. Gbasden is not having a good day, as he misses his PPC shots when an aircraft zaps him with a couple of lasers. Stefan hangs out in the north, picking away at the slow Vedettes there that can barely track him in the fog as he zips around on his jump jets.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

The eastern avenue is cleared out, and El Guapo moves to cover the central route. Gary has a grudge against the Saladin, plus its main gun keeps swiveling so he moves in to finish it off, cutting it apart with the large laser. Gbasden moves to fire at the Hunchback trundling down the street, hitting with a PPC. He also spares a small laser to fry a couple of the infantry that scampered out of the Maxim. Isgrimnur adds a PPC to the Hunchback as well. Between the two PPC blasts, the mech falls down. Stefan eats an AC/5 round to the right arm, breaching armor there, retaliating against the offending Scorpion by temporarily blinding the crew with a medium laser.

Round 6:

Spoiler:

The damn Hunchback gets up and slinks off into an alley. Sonofabitch. With nothing better to do, Gbasden holds the third PPC, opting to zap and stomp a bunch of infantry, their ineffective small arms fire bouncing off the mech's armor plating. El Guapo goes to blast some Vedettes, but an AC/5 round to the head spoils his aim. Stefan damages a Vedette's treads but this round was pretty disappointing.

Round 7:

Spoiler:

This damn smog is really annoying, but it's also annoying for the enemy aircraft who have trouble getting a bead on our mechs. El Guapo and Stefan work on their targets while Isgrimnur and our Griffin reposition themselves.

Round 8:

Spoiler:

Goddamn these Vedettes are tougher than their usual crap bretheren. Another couple of rounds like this and we might have to let them go.

Round 9:

Spoiler:

One of the annoying gnat aircraft rips into Stefan's Assassin, taking the armor off the left torso with the AC/10, then shooting through the left leg armor with SRMs to damage the hip actuator. Gbasden shoots a Vedette a couple of times, breaching armor, then takes a hit from a random SRM 2 to a heat sink. Freaking Gary jumps over to engage the enemy Trebuchet and gets his right leg kicked off. Goddammit, Gary.

Round 10:

Spoiler:

Finally, something dies. Gbasden fires PPCs down the street, clearing out one of the Vedettes. El Guapo opens up on the Vedette driving up to Gbasden's mech, perforating it with autocannon rounds then cutting into the internals with a laser, although he takes a head shot. Gbasden takes enough fire to stagger his mech but remains upright and even manages to stomp another Vedette into the ground.

Round 11:

Spoiler:

The enemy force wavers as their tanks suddenly start dropping like flies. That's "Combat Loss Grouping" for you. Gbasden blows the armor off one, El Guapo takes another one down as it rolls into his line of sight. Even Gary, from his sitting position, gets a good shot at the escaping Trebuchet that's been hanging around taking potshots at Gbasden with its LRMs (and missing).

The remainder of the enemy force (a Vedette and a Scorpion tank in the back, as well as a Hetzer and Hunchback on the right flank and the Trebuchet on the left flank) retreat. Gbasden gives one Vedette a swift boot in the rear as it turns around, flipping the tank over.

Once the mobile enemy force are gone, our jump capable mechs knock on the doors of the buildings with the active turrets, asking them firmly but politely to deactivate. They didn't even really get to shoot at us due to poor lines of sight. Our salvage crews pull a few shifts stripping armor from the enemy crap. We also grab two medium lasers, because why not. The Steiner techs reattach the leg on Gary's Griffin, so he's good as new.

El Guapo is released after a brief stint in the infirmary. The only temporarily non-recoverable issue is that Stefan's mech is basically unusable due to the damaged hip actuator. Well, it works, but a slow Assassin that threatens to fall over every time it jumps isn't exactly the best place to be in. Once Xwraith recovers, we sub him into Alpha lance, driving a "factory fresh" Thunderbolt. For certain definitions of "factory fresh", anyway.

[xwraith]

The RNG giveth and the RNG taketh away.

[Stefan Stirzaker]

Strap it to another mech ala hodor and i can provide rear support

[gbasden]

For certain definitions of "factory fresh", anyway.

I'm guessing Archinerd has already gotten there with the goat urine?

[NickAragua]

May 19, 3031
Delta lance has successfully located the factory we're supposed to raid. Unfortunately, they also managed to stir up a hornet's nest and are being chased down and corralled by about a regiment's worth of tanks with mech support. As the rain starts pouring down, Archinerd sees a chance to lose the enemy units in some dense woods and steers his lance that way.

As long as Delta can make it through this area, Beta lance will be able to cover their retreat.

Delta is Archinerd back in the Dervish, Paingod in a Griffin, Madmarcus in a Wolverine, Freyland in a Quickdraw. Beta is Zenn7 in an Awesome, Hyena in the Striker, LordMortis in the Hunchback and Cylus Maxxi Mk II in a hosed-out Phoenix Hawk. Delta is being accompanied by an Assassin.

Round 1, 2:

Spoiler:

This torrential downpour is great. Our mechs will be able to hop around on their jumpjets while the enemy treadheads will be stuck, leaving basically just the hovercraft and jumpy mechs able to pursue us.

Round 3-6:

Spoiler:

By the time the enemy units get to us, we're long gone. No way these poor bastards catch up to us. Beta lance does report some sensor contacts heading to the rendezvous point, so it's not quite over yet.

Round 7:

Spoiler:

A couple of enemy aircraft buzz by while a single brave Stinger chases us down. We turn our guns skyward and blast at a Guardian - the pilot loses his nerve and misses with his SRMs.

Round 8:

Spoiler:

Beta lance gets the drop on a few enemy units trying to cut Delta off in the north, just as they go off-road. Hyena opens up at a nearby SRM Carrier, as it's the most dangerous target. His fire breaches armor and immobilizes the enemy vehicle, which is a good start. Zenn7 lifts his PPCs up and fires all three at a Guardian fighter buzzing by overhead, evaporating it midair. LordMortis fires at a Vedette near Hyena, breaching its armor with the AC/20 then carving up the interior with a medium laser. The SRM Carrier forces Zenn7 to a knee with a nearly point-blank barrage of SRMs, but it's just armor damage.

Round 9:

Spoiler:

The allied Assassin is just about to clear out of the area when a Meteor aircraft buzzes by and fires SRMs at it. The little missiles go right through the armor and detonate the SRM ammo. More than one of our mechwarriors watching this facepalms.

Zenn7 fires PPCs at a distant Vedette, melting through the armor and engine block, then kicks at another one nearby, jamming the turret. LordMortis plows AC/20 rounds into an AC/2 Vedette next to Hyena, while Hyena returns the favor and shoots up the Vedette next to LordMortis, then smashes the one LordMortis just shot.

Round 10:

Spoiler:

We're not going to have time for salvage once that swarm of vehicles to the south figures out to circle around, so Zenn7 and LordMortis get to work permanently disabling enemy vehicles. First up is the SRM Carrier, which gets laserd to bits, then a Vedette which gets a Hunchback foot through the left side. Cylus Maxii works on the nearby AC/2 Carrier, melting through armor with lasers and ripping bits off with the foot.

Round 11:

Spoiler:

Beta continues taking apart the northern enemy force. Zenn7 and Cylus Maxii melt the AC/2 Carrier to slag, while Hyena detonates the remaining Vedette's fuel tank. Archinerd fires a spread of LRMs at the Guardian fighter that's zipping in, hitting it with a solid salvo to strip all armor off the nose. It's just as well the pilot manages to level his aircraft out just before hitting the ground, since that would have taken him on a collision course with Madmarcus' Wolverine.

Round 12:

Spoiler:

Hey, look who just caught up! It's a little Stinger! Zenn7 puts a couple of PPCs into it, taking off the left leg. Well, easy come, easy go. A couple of hovercraft try to circle around the back of Freyland's mech, but he's not having any of it, flipping the arms backwards and firing medium lasers at the Maxim, which loses all motor power and sinks into the mud.

Round 13:

Spoiler:

Most of our mechs fire a couple of lasers at the disabled Maxim, taking it apart permanently.

Round 14:

Spoiler:

Well, that's that. We pick up the ejected Assasin mechwarrior on our way out. A fighter zips by and strafes LordMortis' mech, severely damaging the head with its AC/10, but it pays a heavy price, getting blown away by Zenn7's PPCs.

Well, we know where the factory is, but it's pretty heavily guarded. We're going to have to work on thinning those forces out and maybe making some diversionary attacks. We did almost completely take down two lances of tanks (also, two aircraft), but at the cost of an Assassin. Well, at least it's not one of ours. Our liaison isn't happy, but agrees that this doesn't really impact our ability to complete the contract.

Our techs are unable to fix the head on LordMortis' Hunchback before the mech has to go out again (that AC/10 really did a number on the interior and LordMortis is still walking around with a limp), so we sub the newbie in the Blackjack in temporarily.

Next up, we have some tactical priorities to decide on. Our liaison informs us that they've worked out the repeating flight plans for an enemy Triumph-class dropship. Per our contract terms, he considers it a strategic target and wants it destroyed. It has landed within our operational area and deployed a substantial amount of vehicles - about half are in a search pattern in a neighboring sector while the other half are keeping watch. Additionally, the units that pursued Delta lance are still in the area.

Our command meeting produces four competing plans:
1) Engage the Triumph's search parties, and send out a lance to screen against Delta's pursuers, preventing them from reinforcing as well. Engage the Triumph and its guard force with just one lance.

2) Engage the dropship with all three lances, and eat the reinforcements as they show up.

3) Tell the liaison that "we are currently unable to must enough force to taken on a dropship and unknown vehicle complement".

Approach 1 breaks the fights up into smaller chunks, which makes them more manageable (any time you have a company-level action, you're pretty much guaranteed to lose mechs). The lance assaulting the dropship will be able to take their time. Unless the dropship decides to take off.

Approach 2 allows us to engage the dropship with superior force, but in a very limited time window, as we will get swamped with reinforcements. On the plus side, by the time the reinforcements show up

Approach 3 is easier on our mechs and personnel, but then going forward we'll be seeing extra tank lances hot-dropped on us whenever we get into a fight.

What's the call?

[LordMortis]

I am behind in my reading. I'm all like Promoted! WhooHoo! Headshot... Um...

Do we get salvage rights on a dropship? What is say, a seargant's, cut on a dropship? Cause I'm all about the money, money, money...

[Archinerd]

I like Approach 1 though I'm concerned with the 1 lance vs. a dropship part. Is that really do-able?

For certain definitions of "factory fresh", anyway.

I'm guessing Archinerd has already gotten there with the goat urine?

I'd like to point out that it's usually goat urine. Goats are actually quite rare so it's most often sourced as goat urine equivalent.

[NickAragua]

I like Approach 1 though I'm concerned with the 1 lance vs. a dropship part. Is that really do-able?

That's a good question. It's highly dependent on the terrain and what's around to help the dropship. Which we won't really know for sure until we get there. If it's all flat terrain and the dropship is covered by a swarm of hovercraft, we're just going to turn right around.

But, give me some hills and heavy woods for cover? Might be doable. Aerodyne dropships have two blind spots, just like a truck where we can camp out and pound them with impunity.

[Freyland]

Has my "vehicle crits" perk played a part in my last two battles?