"Ok, here's the plan. Both lances approach from the south. Gamma-One-One and Two will engage enemy units at maximum range. Keep an eye on that main street, that's where most of the bad guys will be coming out of. Gamma-One-Three and Four will advance to the edge of the base and pick off isolated enemy units. Delta-One will approach thirty seconds after we open fire and join Gamma-One-Three and Four in clearing the town." Scrub pauses.
"Watch those heavy and assault tanks, and there's still a little gnat buzzing around. Everyone ready?" She gets a chorus of yeses and affirmatives.
"Move out."
Round 1:
It looks like the Kurita guys have had time to tow their stuck tanks out of buildings and regroup at the center, but little else. They also seem to have deployed some infantry with field guns. One of the crews promptly gets run over by a careening hovertank, which crashes into a building (again) and stops moving. A single Harasser zips around outside the base, while the rest of the tanks use numerous buildings for cover - a few LRMs and light autocannon rounds zip by Scurb and Cylus, then Scrub blows away the Harasser with a single PPC shot.
Round 2:
Cylus and Hyena open up on the Scimitar hovertank that comes out. It pings Hyena with a single SRM, then a medium laser from Cylus cracks one of the fans while an AC/10 burst from Hyena busts open the front of the skirt. Scrub exchanges fire with a Maxim transport within the base, immobilizing it with a pair of PPC shots.
Round 3:
Looks like the Kurita guys aren't planning on bailing out of their vehicles right away, even if they're immobilized. That's fine, we'll help them out. Xwraith and Cylus both take minor hits, but their armor holds up. Our weapons fire isn't too effective, either simply melting armor or missing entirely. The nearby Wasp scrapes a little leg armor off Cylus' Grasshopper, then Xwraith steps on the back of the bug mech's leg. The limb itself comes off, then snapping myomer bundles smack the internal SRM ammo bin, and the little mech explodes.
Round 4:
Delta-One arrives, bringing news. "Delta-One-One to Gamma-One-One, I've got a lance's worth of sensor blips coming in from the southwest. Looks like light units, mostly. One heavy. ETA, one minute."
"Fine. Get in there, these guys are dug in like a Steiner noble looking for a promotion."
Delta-One is engaged almost immediately by a disabled Scimitar. A Warrior helicopter pelts Scrub with SRMs. Cylus gets a good hit on a Griffin jumping on top of a building, severely damaging its right arm with a large laser shot, burning out a pair of actuators. Scrub gives it a matching left arm, while blowing away the annoying little Scimitar-turned-turret underfoot. The Griffin can't take it and falls over.
Madmarcus aims at the annoying little Warrior helicopter and fires an SRM salvo, as well as several lasers. The lasers miss, but the SRMs completely annihilate the chopper as its on-board ammo goes off. That's two tons of LRM/10s and a ton of SRM/4s.
Xwraith jumps on top of a building and blasts a Scimitar as it peeks around a corner, immobilizing it and stunning the crew, ducking under a pair of AC/20 shots from a Demolisher. Gotta be more careful there.
Round 5:
The guy in the Griffin knocks himself out trying to get up. An annoying little aircraft comes in for a strafing run on Xwraith, while a Whitworth jumps in to our Thunderbolt's left - Xwraith is busy gunning down infantry firing out of a building. Well, the building comes down, anyway. Cylus nails the Whitworth with four lasers trying to cover Xwraith, while Scrub joins in with a PPC, taking off the medium mech's left arm. Madmarcus blasts one of its LRM/10 launchers with a laser as well.
Hyena nailes a Kurita Wasp in the left torso, blowing off the arm and disabling the torso section. He cringes as his Striker takes a hit from several LRMs and loses the PPC in the right torso, as well as a heat sink. But at least the Wasp falls over.
Archinerd puts a laser through a Maxim which keeps firing at us. If you guys are going to keep shooting after we disable your vehicles, you will die. Just, FYI.
Round 6:
We're going to be a bit conservative in our approach to the center of the base - there are a lot of tanks in there, and their crews are being remarkably suicidal. Unlike the guy in the Wasp with the missing torso, who bails out after failing to get up - the amount of sparks flying out from the left leg is only exceeded by the amount of sparks as the ejection seat crashes into a building.
Hyena moves forward into the base, engaging an enemy Thunderbolt. The Kurita mech hits mostly the building in between the two of them, landing just one medium laser, while Hyena nails it with an AC/10 burst and a laser.
Archinerd disables a Skulker with a couple of SRMs, while all Scrub can do is squash some infantry.
Round 7:
That guy in the Griffin just isn't having any luck. He wakes up, tries to get up, and fails, crunching his left arm in the process. Then knocks himself out again.
A Panther jumps up above the cover provided by the buildings, and Scrub immediately nails it with a PPC shot. Given the damage that mech must have taken previously, its center torso armor breaks wide open, and a large number of core components take damage. Freyland finishes it off with a quartet of medium lasers.
The Thunderbolt goes chasing after Archinerd, and Hyena takes full advantage of it, blasting the enemy mech in the back with an AC/10, taking out both missile launchers in the right torso (an LRM/15 and an SRM/2). What he doesn't notice is a bunch of infantry swarming over his mech, trying to plant explosives. The problem takes care of itself, though, as a Demolisher unleashes its AC/20s on the Striker. One shot nails the right arm, while the other clears out just about every infantryman. I guess we call that "ablative armor".
Xwraith, busy blasting away at a Brutus assault tank, takes some damage from the Whitworth, losing the LRM/10 launcher.
Round 8:
Cylus engages the Thunderbolt as it crosses the street to back up the Demolisher, scoring a headshot with a large laser and spreading the other lasers across the enemy mech's arms. The Grasshoppper takes some return fire from the Thunderbolt and nearby Vedette, but armor holds. The Thunderbolt falls over.
A Behemoth moves to the main street, but Scrub is on the ball, sending PPC shots and SRMs at it, with one shot blasting through the left side armor and engine block. Archinerd takes some damage, but at least the enemy tank is immobile.
Madmarcus' mech alerts the mechwarrior to a center torso armor breach as PPC shots zip in from the nearby Brutus. A precise medium laser shot takes out the heavy tank's engine, however. Freyland backs our Wolverine up, disabling a Scimitar hovertank with lasers across multiple air ducts. Madmarcus has to take a knee from all the incoming fire.
The buzzing aircraft pelts Paingod with a couple of missiles, but armor holds up there.
As an amusing aside, a single infantryman has been hanging on to Hyena's Striker for the last twenty seconds. Every time Hyena tries to brush him off, he moves, causing Hyena to punch himself.
Round 9:
Guess what the guy in the Griffin did this round? If you guessed "try go get up, damage his mech and black out", you win the "three blackouts in a row" prize. It's not very good.
Madmarcus tries to avoid as much of the incoming enemy fire as possible, while Freyland jumps in to help the leader get out. Our Wolverine takes severe damage to the engine shielding, heat spiking quite a bit, when combined with the weapons salvo our mechwarrior delivers to a Pegasus, lasers and SRMs disabling the light hovertank. With the mech creaking and groaning and the cockpit becoming a sauna, it's time to leave. Freyland ducks under an AC/20 round and blows the left torso off the Whitworth, not leaving it much to work with.
Scrub scores several hits on the Demolisher, stunning the crew and takes a little damage from the Thunderbolt. This is a good chance to take that damn thing down for good.
Archinerd runs in behind an SRM Carrier to the north, taking out its engine with a medium laser from the back.
Hyena finally gets rid of the lone infantry guy crawling over his mech.
Round 10:
The Kurita reinforcements arrive from the south and west. It's not too much to look at, except for an SRM Carrier which we'll need to watch.
Madmarcus bugs out, screened by Freyland. The Whitworth has had enough and pulls back.
Xwraith, Cylus and Scrub surround the Thunderbolt and Demolisher. Cylus takes the Thunderbolt's head off with a laser. Hyena blasts in from the north, destroying the Demolisher's engine with an AC/10 burst while breaching the nearby Vedette's armor with a couple of lasers. Paingod then finishes the Demolisher off. The three tons of AC/20 ammo going off, combined with the fuel tank, is pretty spectacular.
Round 11:
The Phoenix Hawk Delta-One had damaged in the previous fight comes out to fight Hyena as he blasts away at a turret. Xwraith is on the job, taking off the smaller mech's right arm, and the lasers mounted on it. The enemy mech delivers an alpha strike to Xwraith's Thunderbolt, although our mech's armor holds up better. Paingod puts two large lasers into the pixie's right side as well.
Round 12:
A helicopter which came with the Kurita reinforcements flies too low in an effort to avoid Scrub's PPCs and crashes into a tree. Cylus jumps west, avoiding the cluster of not-quite-given-up Kurita tanks (even though their turrets are jammed, they're insisting on shooting at us, the suicidal bastards). The Grasshopper carves up a Skulker, foregoing the large laser to cool off.
Xwraith and Paingod team up on the Phoenix Hawk, blasting it with enough laser fire that the mech goes down (he'd have stayed up, but his leg actuators were beat up from the previous fight).
Round 13:
The aircraft buzzes Madmarcus in his hiding spot (not a very good one I guess). It scores a couple of hits on armor, and eats a PPC shot from Scrub, damaging the landing gear. I see an ejection lever in that guy's future. Wait, no scratch that, it turns into a lawn dart as turbulence sends it flying out of control.
Xwraith and Archinerd have moved into the center of the base. While Hyena blasts away at one of the transmission towers, the two of them knock a Rifleman over with lasers and LRMs, crunching one of the enemy mech's medium lasers. Freyland has been working on another tower, and, using lasers and a boot, breaks it down to unusable form.
At this point, it becomes obvious to even the most die-hard Kurita loyalist that the fight is over. The Rifleman is the only really mobile enemy unit inside the base (the infantry avoid coming out into the open and we steadfastly refuse to expose ourselves to their tripod-mounted autocannons), so once he "lifts arms" and ceases fire, we let him go. The Phoenix Hawk and Whitworth have retreated already. The guys outside the base are quick to zip off as well. We slag the relevant structures, then call in salvage.
Salvage grabs the Griffin, the Thunderbolt and a Saladin, and we load the rest of the crap into the Union for the Davion share. All of Delta and Gamma-One are fixed up within a couple of days of returning to base. A good start to the operation - taking out a comms hub to degrade enemy coordination, and blowing up a bunch of assault tanks to boot. Not to mention we got ourselves a spare Griffin and Thunderbolt (not that we can re-assemble them right now, but we'll strip them for armor and spare parts and store the chassis in mothballs). It's annoying that the Rifleman, Whitworth and Phoenix Hawk got away, but them's the breaks - we still got more than a lance of their mechs. Would have been nice to salvage the Behemoth, as that's a lot of spare armor and AC/10 ammo, but the salvage clause on our contract is pretty tight. So, not this time.
Interrogating a captured mechwarrior reveals that elements of the 24th Dieron Regulars are already on-planet, so we should expect to see more mechs crowding our space.