Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

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AWS260
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by AWS260 »

I got this.

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Zenn7
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zenn7 »

AWS260 wrote: Tue Jul 16, 2019 7:39 am I got this.
On second thought, Nick says we have more money than we know what to do with... let's continue the COMMSTAR chats...

:P
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Paingod
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Paingod »

I like speed, personally. You stop moving and you die, or lose an arm ... or leg... or your favorite PPC.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

To facilitate the quick capture of the adjunct data center (it's not actually right next door, it's linked by a nice, thick network cable from almost 50 kilometers away), we load Gamma-One up in the Sparrow, hop over to pick up the combat-effective elements of Gamma-Two and Gamma-Three (leaving the Blackjack, Phoenix Hawk and Jenner to supervise salvage operations) then fly over to the data center for a hot drop. It'll help keep the bad guys on their toes and we could use the air support.

The garrison at this location is a heavy mech lance (including two ground-bound Guillotines, a Rifleman and a Stalker), backed up by a mixture of light and heavy tanks. The main concerns being the SRM Carriers.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
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"Gamma-One dropping!" Scrub calls out as the heavy lance steps out of the bay doors, firing the attached jump packs. Her Warhammer's right arm PPC is still out, but that mech has enough other firepower that it should be fine.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
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"Gamma-Two dropping!" AWS calls out as most of consolidated Gamma-Two and Three step out. Unlike Gamma-One, AWS' Phoenix Hawk attracts a lot of skyward fire, but thankfully most of it misses, with the exception of a single AC/5 round from a Vedette.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
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Cylus crunches the Grasshopper off a building after a jump jet misfires, but the rest of Gamma-One lands on target, ditching their jump harnesses where necessary.

This hot drop was a really bad idea. AWS's Hawk loses an arm to ground fire from an SRM Carrier while Gamma-Two's Guillotine takes a center torso hit from an LRM Carrier and the engine almost falls apart. At least the Sparrow blasts through a Saracen hovertank, immobilizing it.

Round 4:
Spoiler:
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Gamma-Three's Clint lands and takes a faceful from an SRM Carrier that comes careening down the street. While the mech is struggling on the ground, an enemy Guillotine puts a PPC shot through the gyro. That's three of our mechs down. Ouch.

We manage to return fire pretty effectively though, with Hyena blowing the offending SRM Carrier away with an AC/20 burst, while Xwraith tanks some SRMs and cuts a Harassers missile platform in half, although the SRMs cause our Thunderbolt to stumble and fall over. The Sparrow continues providing fire support from above, disabling a Condor hovertank.

Round 5:
Spoiler:
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Hyena advances through the fusillade of fire from the nearby Guillotines, firing the AC/20 at one to breach the right torso armor. Scrub fires at the Rifleman down the street, knocking to a knee with a PPC blast and some lasers, while Cylus takes the left arm off a Firestarter that tries to jump in behind our Kintaro.

The Sparrow disables an LTV-4 tank as it circles around the battlefield, picking off isolated units.

Round 6:
Spoiler:
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The Sparrow picks off a Hunter support tank, making our lives a little easier.

A Guillotine gets in behind Hyena - Cylus tries to get it off, breaching the enemy mech's rear armor, but Hyena's LRM ammunition is detonated by an SRM salvo and the Davion-model Thunderbolt meets its inglorious end. Hyena bounces around but stays alive as the ejection seat fires. We just never have any luck with those ground-bound Thunderbolt models.

At least our Kintaro manages to inflict enough damage on the enemy Firestarter that it withdraws.

Round 7:
Spoiler:
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Cylus and a Guillotine continue dueling among the building tops, although Cylus pulls a dirty trick and knocks the building out from under said Guillotine, sending it down about 20 meters. A whole bunch of armor comes off, giving our Grasshopper the opportunity to curb stomp most of the armor off the center torso.

Round 8:
Spoiler:
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Scrub lines up a second PPC shot on the SRM Carrier and hits the same spot she hit previously, melting the unit down to slag.

Xwraith takes some major damage to the right torso, losing heat sinks and jump jets left and right but puts an ER laser shot through the core of the Guillotine we've been working on, cracking open both the engine and gyro. The enemy mech stays up, but only barely.

The Sparrow "zips" in and takes out an LRM Carrier, greatly reducing the amount of LRMs coming our way at an oblique angle.

Round 9:
Spoiler:
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The Sparrow is pretty much the MVP this battle, as its gunners are exceedingly accurate, blowing away a Vedette trying to fire on Cylus.

Xwraith attempts to back up out of the line of fire, mostly making it out, except for a single Guillotine which follows and opens fire on our damaged Thunderbolt. Between it and the Kintaro, the Guillotine's host building collapses, as Cylus gets in a headshot. Somehow, Xwraith's mech manages to avoid damage to the right torso, while the Guillotine is unable to avoid a curb stomp.

Scrub zaps a Manticore with a PPC and shorter-ranged weapons, rattling the crew, then the Kintaro adds a kick in. The tank is still technically operational but unlikely to further participate in this battle before we blow it away.

Round 10:
Spoiler:
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The Sparrow loses balance under fire and is forced down, crushing a couple of buildings. It looks like the Illyrian forces are more interested in capturing it, as they don't fire. Given that the interior structure is groaning and the avionics system is shot, the crew elects to continue damage control rather than rile the locals up.

Xwraith's Thunderbolt is disabled by the enemy Guillotine as, against all odds, the enemy mech gets up and slices the damaged right torso section to bits.

Round 11:
Spoiler:
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Cylus chases after the Guillotine as it attempts to cut off Xwraiths' escape, blasting through the right torso with lasers, then taking a few chunks of the building under it out, causing the whole assembly to collapse.

Scrub really works that Rifleman over, blowing off an arm and taking out multiple leg actuators, forcing the machine to the ground.

Round 12:
Spoiler:
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With the last Guillotine in retreat as well, Cylus jumps back east, blasting the Rifleman and Manticore. The Rifleman doesn't quite get back up as its engine gives out, while the last of the Manticore's treads give way. Scrub exchanges fire with the Stalker, both mechs losing some armor.

Round 13:
Spoiler:
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The battlefield is quiet briefly as the Stalker moves up the street, thinking to catch our damaged Warhammer and Kintaro and take them out.

The Kintaro steps out, baiting it, then Cylus delivers a couple of lasers to the back of the assault mech - it flips arms backwards, taking out one of the Grasshopper's lasers, then goes up sky high as its on-board SRM ammo detonates when one of Cylus' lasers penetrates the rear right torso section.

With no more mobile units left to defend, we've technically captured the facility, but man did we get beat up doing it.

The Sparrow is going to be grounded for the time being (engineers estimate several weeks of repair time) so it looks like we're going to be living in this data center for a while.

Our techs take apart the most damaged Phoenix Hawk for spare parts - the left arm goes to AWS' Hawk while the left leg goes to the Blackjack. The raiders are pretty happy with our performance and continue their attacks against the local industry, now made much easier because the local militia don't have access to a sensor network or the computing power to crunch all that sensor data. That gives us an extra couple of weeks of quiet time to fix up the frankly unacceptable damage our mechs have taken.

Our techs are able to work some miracles and two weeks later, we've got just about every mech operational that can be. Gamma-Three's Phoenix Hawk is spare parts, while the Clint is too damaged and we just don't have anything comparable. The Jenner is missing a jump jet. Hyena's Davion-variant Thunderbolt is gone, but we're able to use parts from a salvaged Crusader to bring Xwraith's Thunderbolt back to life. Cylus' Grasshopper has damage to an arm actuator that we're not able to fix. So that's three out of twelve mechs out for the duration of the contract, two with minor damage.

On the plus side, the raiders have hit the jackpot a couple of times. They're willing to sell us some replacements: a Stalker for 6.7M C-Bills, a Jenner for 3.2M C-Bills and a Firestarter for 3.2M C-Bills. All standard variants. However, these sales also come with the condition that we train a couple of their mechwarriors - a guy driving a Wasp and a guy driving a Wyvern, both snot-nosed rookies. We don't have access to the general company fund from here (the nearest HPG uplink is about three jumps away), so we've only got 11.6M C-Bills on hand.

So, do we want to take the raiders up on their offer? If so, which mechs do we want to buy?
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Zenn7
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zenn7 »

Yes, the Stalker and the Jenner. Firestarter's don't strike me as something we would excel with?

What happens if our trainees fail training (going splat in the process?) And how do we train them? Throw them into combat missions with us? How the heck do we keep a Wasp from getting blown to bits when we're getting hammered as hard as we have been???
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Hyena
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Hyena »

Dear Lord. Do we have a tally of how many mechs I've destroyed while not in my Striker? It's amazing I'm still alive, to be honest.
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NickAragua
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

Thinking off hand:
Centurion
Battlemaster
Atlas
Warhammer
Thunderbolt 5D

Although that last one was almost guaranteed to go, as it's both a ground-bound Thunderbolt *and* you were driving it. :D

Worst injury suffered is a tie between a broken collar bone and a concussion.

While Gamma carries out repairs and drills obnoxious raider rookies (and Hyena deals with the shakes), and Alpha watches the jump drive recharge bars go up, let's check back in with Beta company on Zorn's Keep. The Circinus guys reinforce the orbital tracking facility almost immediately, to the point where there's no way we can take it, even with FedCom support. Delta stages a quick raid to grab some servers, after the FedCom guys compromise the tracking station's network security and identify which. They get into the base in the middle of the night, and the only thing in the way is a single Locust, which Paingod dispatches pretty effectively with a couple of laser blasts and a solid boot, taking only minor armor damage from an errant MG burst and expending a few SRM/2 salvos.
Spoiler:
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September 9, 3040
Zorn's Keep
Landing Zone

As our techs work on decrypting and analyzing the tracking station data, Delta-One discovers an artillery staging area while on patrol. They also discover a substantial enemy force moving to attack our dropship landing zone. They lead a large chunk of the hostiles on a wild goose chase, but we still need to take down the artillery, otherwise it'll simply blow our dropship to bits from out of range. So we send in our aircraft and the understrength Beta-Two lance, and ask the FedCom guys for help, which they provide, in the form of a Manticore tank and three SRM Carriers, plus a FedCom-detached Battlemaster, Vulcan and Assassin.

It turns into a complete charlie foxtrot. We do manage to take out the artillery, but lose everything except Beta-Two's Orion, which comes away missing the right torso. This renders Beta-Two basically a non-entity. We also lose one of the aircraft, while the FedCom guys, in addition to their mechs, lose half their SRM Carriers. Still, at least that means there won't be any artillery shelling the dropship. It comes under attack anyway, but at least we can reach the guys trying to shoot it.

Defense of the dropship falls to Beta-One, a short lance of FedCom mechs and a couple of tanks (SRM and LRM Carrier). The FedCom guys were even nice enough to set up a network of defensive emplacements to help us out. Our Awesomes take cover in some improvised berms and watch the south flank, while LordMortis and the FedCom guys watch the east flank. With Delta-One having run off most of the potential attackers, this shouldn't be too hard.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
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"What the *bzzt* *bzzt* in the *bzzt*?!" Comes an exclamation as the turrets open fire on us instead of the approaching Circinus forces. It doesn't look like general treachery, because the FedCom guys are still firing at the hostiles. Zenn7 takes a couple laser blasts, but armor holds up fine.

Moley is caught out in the open with no support from our other units, who are busy taking down the suddenly-hostile turrets, but still manages to disable an incoming Saladin with a laser blast. A Scimitar hovertank overcorrects trying to avoid some blasts from Zenn7 and slams into a tree. To the east, LordMortis soaks up a PPC shot and some LRMs from Manticores.

Despite the surprise, the turrets are proving to be less than effective, with about half of them gone already. Probably the bad guys forgot that our dropship can shoot as well.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
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Moley pulls back getting clear of a Saladin's firing arc. Zenn7 covers him, blowing the Saladin away, while Zarathud puts three PPCs into a Hunchback poking out through the woods to the south, knocking it over. The Union and the allied FedCom units blow away the remainder of the turrets, with just a single flamer turret still pumping away. So much for that distraction.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
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Moley pulls back to within the cover of the structures. We'll wipe out the loose enemy units to the south, then start moving on the longer-ranged but slower units that are hanging back. A Spider, a Vulcan and a Pegasus jump in to try to get among our heavier units and cause confusion. The Spider loses its right arm to an LRM salvo from the Moonraker, then a couple of lasers take the left side off the 30-tonner as well. The little mech just can't take the punishment and keels over.

Zarathud takes care of the Pegasus, blasting it with three PPC shots - sure the mech heats up to the point where the raindrops sizzle and evaporate when they touch it, but it's worth it to eliminate the steady stream of SRMs plinking away. Zenn7 zaps a distant Saladin, eliminating the last of the fast-moving AC/20s.

The FedCom Warhammer zaps the approaching Hunchback as it gets up, sending it back down to a knee.

Round 4:
Spoiler:
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Zenn7 holds position, blowing away a distant Vedette. The Hunchback loses its left arm to a PPC from the FedCom Warhammer, while the Vulcan wisely avoids our line of fire.

At this point, the fight goes out of the remaining Circinus units, and their heavies pull back (having lost almost every one of their lighter screening units).

The salvage is basically complete crap, although we do grab a couple of AC/20 reloads for LordMortis' Atlas. We're starting to run low on LK rounds for our LRM launchers, so we'll have to switch back to standard LRMs shortly.

The FedCom guys tell us that their turrets' targeting systems must have been compromised, either remotely or by direct access. We'll have to let it go for now, although at this point most of our personnel feel it's better to simply rely on our own forces for dropship defense.
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Zenn7
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zenn7 »

Given that the FedCom guys were shooting at their own turrets, I'm inclined to believe them. If they were going to betray us, blowing up their own turrets was an odd way to do it.

Not that I trust them mind you, just don't think that action was their betrayal plan.
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NickAragua
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

Delta-One's escape from the larger Circinus force is pretty impressively successful - they expend a lot of LRMs, but manage to string the hostiles along for quite a while, getting one of their mechs stuck in quicksand and enabling a pair of FedCom mechs to do a hit and run and disable or destroy a lance's worth of tanks (and cripple a Cicada). The scenario itself is a whole lot of "fires LRMs at near maximum range and misses or strips some armor off", so we'll skip it for brevity.

On October 9th, the rest of the company jumps in to Zorn's Keep and the Jumbo burns for orbit. They are 17 days out.

Our techs analyze enough of the tracking data to show that the Free Worlds League jumpship we were looking for hasn't been here, although they do pinpoint a couple of pirate points. We share the conclusion with the FedCom guys (although we keep our theories re: the other possible locations of the jumpship to ourselves). They don't look very impressed.

October 15, 3040
A lance of FedCom units runs into some Circinus mechs and requests our support. Delta-One is on patrol nearby, so they are able to get in there pretty quickly. The opposition is a medium mech lance and a mixed tank/hovercraft lance. The most noticeable mech in the opposition is a Cronus CNS-3M - this is a 55 ton mech packing a large laser, three mediums, and an SRM/4 launcher. It also has the maneuverability of a Griffin. In other words, we want it for our "recon" lances.

The allied forces are a short mech lance (a Hermes 1B, a Wasp and a Wolverine) plus a pair of crappy tanks. They won't be much help (except the Wolverine maybe). The rest of the Circinus guys aren't much to look at.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
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Delta-One advances southeast, outpacing most of the FedCom guys. This is heavy wooded terrain, so our jump-capable mechs will have a major advantage.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
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Contact!

Paingod sends a salvo of LRMs screaming at a Jenner, scoring with six out of twenty, as most of the warheads either whiff or impact the surrounding woods.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
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The enemy mech lance jumps in and the fight starts up.

Paingo continues blasting away at the Jenner with LRMs, scoring a few more hits to strip off armor. Freyland gets a good shot on the Cronus, as does Madmarcus. The Blackjack engages Freyland up close, and the two mechs exchange kicks, clanging armor off one another.

Round 4:
Spoiler:
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We get the drop on the hostiles pretty good.

Freyland "sneaks up" behind the Jenner, timing the Ostroc's jump so that it lands directly in the back of the enemy mech, and blasts off the right weapons mount. The Jenner's left leg loses an actuator as well to a well-timed kick.

Madmarcus gets in behind the Cronus, taking armor off the back with a laser. A boot cracks the 55-tonn mech's right hip and pops the foot actuator. The Cronus goes down.

Archinerd has a little less luck against the Locust, taking a few MG rounds while whiffing all of the Dervish's shots.

Round 5:
Spoiler:
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Archinerd jumps south, engaging the Jenner as Freyland moves east. it inflicts heavy damage on the allied Wasp, but one of our Dervish's SRMs finds its way through an armor breach created by Freyland and lights up the SRM ammo, destroying the light mech.

Madmarcus continues whaling on the Cronus as it gets up, knocking it down to a knee, then doing some curb-stomping with Freyland to break off a bunch of armor.

Round 6:
Spoiler:
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The Cronus loses its left torso section and arm to an AC/10 burst from Madmarcus, then is tripped up with leg actuator damage, while Paingod focuses on the Blackjack that's trying to hide in the water.

Round 7:
Spoiler:
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The allied Wasp is knocked over by the Locust, although the FedCom Hermes then legs said Locust. The Blackjack loses its right autocannon to Paingod's continued LRMs.

Round 8:
Spoiler:
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Madmarcus and Archinerd finish off their target Vedettes, ending the stupid little cat-and-mouse game. The Blackjack scores a couple of hits on Archinerd, but is then dogpiled on by our Dervish and Ostroc, with Freyland delivering enough of a kick that the 45-ton mech keels over with a disabled leg.

There's nobody else left on the battlefield except for a Condor hovertank, which rapidly makes its exit. While conducting salvage, we also discover a Drillson hovertank that managed to crash into a tree well away from the battlefield.

Delta-One is able to make it back to base in time to be able to run down a couple of commando types trying to make off with data they copied from the tracking station. Perhaps a little too enthusiastically - one of them sets off a couple of grenades when Paingod goes to pick him up, and the less said about the other guy the better (but he does conclusively prove that a single person is not enough padding to prevent armor damage to an Ostroc that trips over a fallen tree going about 70kph).

At this point, the FedCom guys release payment and cease all communication. We send Beta-One over to check it out, and then our dropship comes under attack.

-------------------------
Meanwhile, on Trondheimal the raiders have apparently filled up their dropships with loot and burn for orbit. This leaves us in an awkward position with the militia, who demand compensation for the damage we've caused (apparently, to the tune of 30M C-Bills). We tell them to piss off, as they don't really have the capability to hurt us. We don't really have the capability to push out, either, but there's no reason for us to do so.

On the plus side, the techs have finished analyzing the Trondheimal data and they find the jumpship we're trying to track down!

It's sitting at a pirate point, waiting for we're not sure what. A quick "back-of-the-envelope" plan produces the possibility of getting our two fighters into orbit and to the pirate point using drop tanks mounted where the bomb bays would normally be. The good part about this plan is that the jumpship is unlikely to spot our fighters, meaning it probably won't have time to jump out, as long as we wipe out the escorts pretty quickly. It's an unarmed Star Lord-class, so it won't be giving our units any trouble, either. The risk is that if our fighters are unable to capture the jumpship, it will jump out and then Kerensky knows where it's going to be after that.

The Sparrow is not currently space-worthy, so the other option is to wait the month or so until our jumpship comes to pick us up. We'll have more firepower at our disposal at that time, however, there's no guarantee the Star Lord will stick around long enough.

What will it be?
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Zenn7
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zenn7 »

Given how hard everything has been so far, I think we might want to wait for the backup.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

October 19, 3040
Moonraker landing site

We're not really sure why the FedCom Thug is still hanging out with us - all the rest of their mechs have pulled back to their dropship.

We're also nto really sure why the incoming hostiles (we assume they're hostiles - their IFF transponders aren't squawking our codes, or FedCom codes) have chosen to attack during the night. Probably they don't understand that Delta-One excels at night fighting.

The Thug is an oldie but goodie - featuring a pair of PPCs and two SRM/4 racks, and not quite enough heat sinks to fire both PPCs continuously. The mechwarrior inside hasn't impressed us with his piloting ability so far, stumbling around the battlefield, but at least he's not shooting at us and might soak up some fire.

The attacking force is a mixed company of mechs - lights, mediums, heavies. Plus almost as many tanks and hovercraft. Normally, the biggest threat would be the two Demolishers, Devastator and the Rhino. However, they're so slow, especially at night, that we should be able to pick them apart. Beta-One has been recalled as well, and will arrive... well, whenever they can.

On the plus side, at least we know there won't be any suborned turrets firing at us. The structures around here are looking a little worse for wear (since we leveled a lot of them to get at the turrets), but that's not our concern.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
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The night-time does allow some of the enemy units to get within firing range of the dropship, and we're unable to fully screen it - a hostile Griffin gets a PPC shot and some LRMs, but thankfully the armor holds. We send some LRMs of our own off, hitting a pair of approaching Demolisher tanks, but no armor breaches.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
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A couple of LRMs and an AC/2 round ping off the Moonraker's armor, but weapons fire is pretty ineffective. Freyland does manage to strip some armor off the right leg of an Ostscout as it jumps in to harass us though.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
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Long-range AC/2 fire and LRMs continue plinking off the Moonraker's armor, but nothing serious hits.

Freyland jumps to the east and targets one of the AC/2 units, a Vedette, cutting its left side treads off. The Ostscout keeps zipping in to try to harass our Ostroc, but gets punched in the head - convenient that all the Ostroc's weapons are torso-mounted, leaving the hands free for punching.

Round 4:
Spoiler:
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A salvo of LRMs from the Moonraker evaporates an incoming Harasser, while Freyland and Madmarcus tangle with a Firestarter, which takes a solid boot from Freyland's mech, losing right leg armor.

Round 5:
Spoiler:
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The night-time conditions make it pretty difficult to hit anything, so almost nobody does. Except for Freyland, who takes the leg off a Stinger.

Round 6:
Spoiler:
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More of the enemy units are now closing in, coming within PPC range of the Moonraker. Our dropship retaliates, blowing through the front of a Maxim hover transport with an LRM salvo.

Madmarcus jumps north, firing the Wolverine's AC/10 at a Demolisher tank as it comes trundling around a hill. There are actually two Demolishers there, but they both thankfully miss with their AC/20s. Our mechwarrior is pleasantly surprised when the target Demolisher falls apart. Perhaps its left side armor had been weakened by LRM fire before.

Freyland jumps east, hunting down a Vedette firing AC/2 rounds at our Union and a Saladin slowly floating along. The Vedette survives the laser blasts, but the Saladin does not survive the boot from above.

Archinerd and a Cronus tangle at point blank range, the Cronus deftly avoiding the Union's closer-range weaponry. The two mechs trade armor, but the Cronus winds up on the ground after being tripped up.

Round 7:
Spoiler:
Image
Archinerd's Dervish has had its feet planted in the ground for some time and been unloading LRMs at Demolishers from beyond their weapons range, but now it's started to attract some fire. Literally. Time to displace.

Round 8:
Freyland finishes off the Vedette that survived the Ostroc's lasers earlier.

Round 9:
Spoiler:
Image
Beta-One arrives to relieve Delta-One. Zenn7 and Zarathud come in from the northeast, getting in behind some slower assault tanks, an Archer and a laser carrier, while Moley and LordMortis come in from the east, getting in behind a Rifleman. Zarathud plasters an Archer with PPC shots, while Zenn7 blows away a nearby SRM Carrier. LordMortis lets rip with the autocannon and lasers, tearing through the Rifleman's left torso and sending its left weapons assembly flying. The catastrophic damage forces the Rifleman to a knee.

Delta-One uses the distraction to good effect as well. Well, kind of. The maneuvering is there, but the weapons fire doesn't connect quite so well. Still, the Cronus giving Archinerd a hard time takes several LRM and laser hits from the Moonraker, losing its left arm.

Round 10:
Spoiler:
Image
Zarathud knocks the Archer over with another three PPC shots, damaging the shoulder actuator. The return LRM fire isn't too effective.

Madmarcus continues working on the nearby Demolisher, while Freyland hops around and gives the Cronus another boot, stripping armor off the left leg.

Round 11:
Spoiler:
Image
Archinerd lets rip with a few LRMs at a Panther. Actually, quite a lot of them hit, sixteen out of a twenty salvo. Armor goes flying off, revealing the interior in many places.

Zenn7 briefly turns the Awesome's PPCs on a laser carrier, destroying it to get it out of the way mostly. Zarathud continues pounding on the Archer, ignoring its piddly laser attacks. The slightly smaller mech's left arm is disabled, and it takes a head shot and has to drop to a knee to avoid falling over altogether.

Round 12:
Spoiler:
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The Moonraker finally gets a solid missile hit on the Bulldog that's been pelting it with AC/2 rounds from long range, taking it out with a fuel tank explosion.

Zarathud continues exchanging fire with the Archer, knocking it all the way to the ground this time, while Zenn7 begins the slow, pain-staking work of destroying a Rhino. LordMortis gets fed up with the little Ostscout jumping around all over the place and takes its right torso and arm off with the AC/20.

Round 13:
Spoiler:
Image
Nine PPC shots later, the Rhino's armor finally gives out.

Zarathud, meanwhile, has pumped a full fifteen PPC shots into the Archer. Our mechwarrior smirks as one of said PPC shots hits an LRM ammo bin. It's mostly run dry, so the explosion isn't the usual spectacular light show, but just a little piff. However, the auto-ejection system fires anyway, resulting in us getting a free Archer. Minus an arm. But still, pretty good.

To the south, LordMortis cores out a Panther with a combination of AC/20 and laser fire. He takes some fire form a Firestarter, then Freyland jumps in and uses the Ostroc's lasers to blow the arm off before breaking its left leg with a well-placed boot.

The remainder of the enemy units beat a fast retreat, jump-jetting or trundling away as best they can.

Freyland gets the MVP on this one, having disabled or crippled three mechs and three tanks. The mechwarrior is still pretty unhappy with the Ostroc, preferring the up-close effectiveness of the Quickdraw, but grudgingly admits that it's an ok mech.

Madmarcus has been pretty unhappy with the 6D Wolverine and insists on going back to the 6M. The AC/10 provides decent firepower, but it doesn't really cut the mustard up close as well as the 6M.

At this point, there's no reason for us to stick around on this planet, and the Moonraker is spaceworthy enough (only missing some armor plating and LRMs), so we make like the FedCom guys, pack everything up, and lift off, burning for our jumpship. We'll swing by Trondheimal to recover Gamma. If the Marik jumpship is still there, we'll make an effort to capture it then. If not, this contract is essentially over, as we have absolutely no idea where the Vasps will be going.

Regardless, after that, it'll be back to Outreach for some serious R&R. That, and a lot of our older mechwarriors are pushing 40 or 50 and seriously considering retirement. Considering we have about a billion C-Bills on the books, a retiring mechwarrior could expect to see between 5 and 20 million C-Bills when they cash out their shares.

Which is enough to buy a nice, quiet island on an out-of-the-way planet somewhere. Or, uh, start up a new mercenary company.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by LordMortis »

Have I ever mentioned I love the AC20?

Enlarge Image

That said, retirement may be an option. I'm not a known like some people in the outfit. I'm just a schulb.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by El Guapo »

NickAragua wrote: Fri Jul 19, 2019 3:53 pm Or, uh, start up a new mercenary company.
Sounds like the network is looking for a spin-off series or two.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

November 2nd, 3040
Trondheimal

After the raiders leave, we wind up negotiating an awkward truce with the Palatinate forces. They agree to a small exclusion zone around our dropship and we agree to stay within the exclusion zone, and to leave immediately when our jumpship arrives.

After a month monitoring the location of the jumpship and waiting for backup to arrive (estimated arrival time is mid to late november), we intercept a radio transmission from planetside. It appears a dropship will be burning for the pirate point, and then they will be jumping out. Since there's not going to be a way to track it once it translates out, we wind up having to implement our original plan. Gamma's two fighters are loaded up to the gills with fuel in drop tanks, mounted on the external ordnance hardpoints, and off they go. It's a long, uncomfortable burn towards the pirate point, but our fighters make it.

The Vasps have their jumpship defended by a rotating patrol of six fighters - four lights and two mediums. Our fighters are a Slayer and Lucifer, both heavies. The good part is that the Jumpship is completely unarmed, so at least it won't be lighting off weapons at us. Once we take out the escorts, we'll open up a channel and see if they want to surrender nicely or if they want a couple of irate aerospace jocks badly in need of a stretch to blow their hangar doors open and conduct an impromptu boarding operation.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
Image
"Gamma-Two to Gamma-One, jumpship is launching two fighters. Medium weight - Corsair and a Lightning."

"Roger that. Stay in formation."

Round 2:
Spoiler:
Image
"Gamma-Two, I'm dropping back to cover you against those light fighters."

The Lucifer acknowledges, then squeezes the trigger on the two large lasers and a pair of small lasers, scoring hits across a Sparrohawk's front and right wing. Sparks and components fly loose, and the enemy fighter's counterattack misses.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
Image
The light fighters zip by, going around for another pass. Our Lucifer takes a couple of hits to the tail from the enemy Corsair's large lasers, while a Sabre burns a little too hard and winds up directly in front of our Slayer, which takes a large chunk out of the light fighter's engine. Amusingly enough, that's enough to let the aero jock regain control and get his fighter to stop spinning around, but it won't be taking any more strain.

Round 4:
Spoiler:
Image
Letting the crippled Sabre float off into the void, our Slayer turns its attention to the other Sabre, opening up with lasers and LRMs. The light craft shudders as components spin off or boil away under the onslaught. The fighter's thrusters go crazy, causing to spin around and zip off on a random vector. The enemy Corsair puts a large laser shot onto the Slayer, but armor holds up.

Gamma-Two's Lucifer engages the enemy lightning, taking a medium laser off the other craft with a large laser blast of its own.

Round 5:
Spoiler:
Image
The Lucifer stays on the lightning, firing lasers at their maximum range, but the enemy craft's armor holds.

Round 6:
Spoiler:
Image
The Lucifer pilot cringes as the Lightning swings around and delivers an AC/20 burst to the front, along with a laser shot. The avionics system blinks, but doesn't quite go out, even as our Lucifer fires back, hitting the front of the Lightning with some effect.

Round 7:
Spoiler:
Image
The guy in the Slayer lets out a breath as a string of AC/20 floats by just to the left, with only a single laser brushing the left wing. Our Lucifer takes advantage of the Lightning's distraction to put some lasers into it, knocking out one of the medium fighter's medium lasers.

Round 8:
Spoiler:
Image
The Lightning continues to get the drop on our Slayer, while the Lucifer continues firing at the Lightning. Or, at least that's what the other pilot makes us think, instead, putting a substantial number of AC/20 rounds into the Lucifer's nose, followed by a laser shot to take out pretty much all the armor there. The targeting reticle on the Lucifer's fire control system begins "swimming" around, although our aero jock is still able to continue firing at the enemy craft's right wing, nearly removing it.

Round 9:
Spoiler:
Image
The Lightning loses control just long enough for both of our fighters to get on its tail and open up. The Lucifer's large lasers cut the right wing off, and the craft breaks apart.

Round 10-14:
Spoiler:
Image
Rather than risk the rest of the fighters coming back while we're trying to negotiate/force dock, our fighters drop their relative velocity and stick around to re-engage. They do eventually return, with a Sabre zipping in to point blank range, while the others hang back a little. It's a mistake - an LRM from our Slayer hits the Sabre's fuel tank, and it disintegrates, though not before inflicting some damage on the Lucifer, taking out the landing gear.

Round 15:
Spoiler:
Image
"My damage panel's lit up like a christmas tree, I don't think I'm going to be any help. Initiating boarding operations." the Lucifer pilot calls out.

That's fine, there are only two non-crippled fighters remaining in the area. The Slayer begins working on the Sparrowhawk, firing LRMs and missing.

Round 16:
Spoiler:
Image
The Slayer stays on the Sparrowhawk, blasting chunks off the right wing. The enemy Corsair drops in, firing a couple of lasers to nail a laser on the Slayer's wing. The guy in the Sparrowhawk loses control.

Round 17-20:
Spoiler:
Image
The Lucifer is currently playing possum and drifting while the Slayer is attracting all the attention, whaling on the Sparrowhawk as the hapless aero jock tries to get his spacecraft to stop spinning around like a centrifuge. The Corsair zips off then decelerates to come around for another pass, while the Slayer continues working on the Sparrowhawk, introducing several changes in geometry which make the fighter unusable. The enemy aero jock puts on his distress beacon and powers down his targeting systems.

Round 21+:
Spoiler:
Image
While the Lucifer "negotiates" with the jumpship's crew, the Corsair comes back and engages the Slayer. The two craft have a weird moment where they engage each other with rear-mounted weapons. The Slayer takes some damage from small lasers then turns around and blasts the Corsair with LRMs. Armor damage only.

It takes our Slayer pilot almost a half an hour of back-and forth passes to take the Corsair out. Our fighter runs out of LRMs and loses two of its lasers, but the other fighter's engine loses structural integrity.

At that point, our fighters maneuver to match pace with the jumpship and open up a channel.

As it turns out, the jumpship crew was pretty unhappy about being press-ganged by a bunch of contract-breaking mercenaries. Once the enemy aero jocks left their hangars, they took it upon themselves to space the remaining "security element".

A couple of months later, our jumpship arrives at Trondheimal (although we have a close call en route, when our jumpship captain informs us that the K-F drive controller has crapped the bed. Luckily, several near-heart-attacks and 10 million C-Bills worth of sparts later, they actually get it fixed up). The Marik liaison is ecstatic and releases the remainder of the payment.

We bid farewell to Sergeant Major Suhayb "LordMortis" Ragheb, who announces his retirement and intention to open up a Solaris VII stable. The value of his shares in the company cashes out to about 41.6M C-Bills. Combined with the salary and previous share payments (and the fact that he didn't have to pay for mech repairs or room and board), that brings him up to about 60M C-Bills. Which is enough to buy a lance of assault mechs, or a couple of lances of heavies.

LordMortis retires after fourteen years of service with 82 battles under his belt and 151 confirmed kills. His first mech kill was a Firestarter FS9-H, while the heaviest was a Banshee BNC-3E. In addition to his favorites the Hunchback, Victor and Atlas, he also drove a Javelin (for approximately one mission) and a Wasp (also for one mission) and a standard Wolverine.

Another retirement is Corporal Johanna "Archinerd Mk II" Wojciechowski, who opts to take a teaching position at the Albion Military Academy on New Avalon. Her retirement fund is "only" ~30M C-bills, but the FedCom guys tend to pay through the nose for skilled instructors, so she'll have no trouble getting along. She punched her ticket out after only three years of enlistment with 34 missions and 32 confirmed kills, entirely with the Dervish DV-6M. Her first mech kill was a Wasp WSP-1K, with the heaviest being a Vulcan VL-2T. She takes the Dervish with her as well, opting for that instead of a larger amount of cash - it's become something of a family mech.

A small number of other, less notable mechwarriors leave the company as well, some taking their mechs with them.

The Jumbo winds up needing four months of yard work as one of its engines blows out during the burn to Outreach. At least it manages to land. We arrive on Outreach in late April 3041. Thanks to our access to the Wolf's Dragoons factories, we're able to get our mechs fixed up within a couple of weeks, with the exception of Madmarcus' Wolverine, which takes about a month to get rid of the AC/10 and put back the laser assembly and SRM/6.

Zarathud is promoted to Sergeant Major, while Moley is promoted to Corporal. Beta-Two's replacement mechwarrior is a pretty impressive mechwarrior, one Ratan Suryanarayama. He's not quite as expert in the inner workings of the AC/20 as LordMortis, but he knows his way around a jump jet. So, we buy a Victor on the open market and stick him in it.

Archinerd's replacement is PFC. Nori Goto, an older mechwarrior originating from the Draconis Combine (a recruit we picked up during the war of '39). He's proven himself quite able to handle a mech in the trees. We assign him to the spare Dervish and stick him in Delta-One.

Things have been pretty quiet since the FedCom-Combine truce, so there's not much call for an entire reinforced battallion of mercenaries nowadays. This means we're not really missing out on any amazing-paying contracts, but it also means that things are going to be pretty slow-going for a while. However, just because the pot isn't boiling doesn't mean it's not simmering. We're likely to be able to scare up some company-sized contracts.

In fact, we already have some contract offers. We whittle out one where the salvage rights are 10%.

1) Deegan Aerospace, a minor aerospace manufacturing concern, wants us to implement a quick recon raid against one of their competitors on Maule in the Free Rasalhague Republic. After some wrangling, they agree to cover any transport costs.

Green/D expected opposition
Liaison command
100% transport coverage
40% salvage rights
20% battle loss compensation
1 month expected contract duration
4 month expected travel time
Estimated profit 13M C-Bills

Nice and quick, pretty low-paying, but should be a cakewalk.

2) Our old buddy Col. Ferrerro offers us a job to help bail out a group of mercs he hired some time ago to carry out a raid on the planet Marcus, a few jumpst southwest of Terra. We'll be in charge, and are expected to a) rescue the mercs and b) assist them in carrying out their objectives. A standard relief duty contract. "Sure, we'll pay your fuel costs and such." he says with a smirk. "You're worth a couple extra C-Bills."

Green/D allied forces
Green/F expected opposition
Independent command
100% transport coverage
60% salvage rights
40% battle loss compensation
6 month expected contract duration
1 month expected travel time
Estimated profit 170M C-Bills

Sounds like a cakewalk, although it's always best to be wary of getting into it with FedCom. The main downside is that this is a pretty high-G world, 1.12, and has an average surface temperature of 48 degrees celsius.

3) A representative from Earthwerks Incorporated wants to hire us to guard their mech part production facilities on Asuncion - their current defensive contract has run out and they're looking for someone to pick up the slack. We'll have access to their factories (and the other manufacturers on planet as well for spare parts and ammo).

Regular/D allied forces
unknown expected opposition (could be pirates, raiders, FedCom specops, Capellans)
Liaison command
100% transport coverage
40% salvage
40% battle loss compensation
21 month contract duration
1 month expected travel time
Estimated profit 300M C-Bills

A cushy, relaxing garrison duty for whoever gets deployed there. Unless it's not.

We could probably take all three contracts, and still have a company left to reinforce one of the others if they run into trouble, or take another contract if it comes up. We could also chill for another month or two (or wait for the Jumbo to be fixed in three+).
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Isgrimnur »

I veto #2. Hot and heavy is no way to go through a contract, son.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zenn7 »

"I'm going to miss you Lord Mortis, you were an invaluable asset to our lance. I'll be watching your Solaris stable though. Looking to make some money wagering on your successes!"

Is the option 1 recon raid suitable for Delta company? If so, let's send them. If not, think that will require Gamma (need some recon ability) or Alpha w/ a lance from Delta for scouting.

Send Beta company on option 2.

Option 3 is where I'd really like to send Gamma.

Keep Alpha/Delta in reserve (whichever one is not going to option 1).

How close are we to buying our own planet to retreat to for a base of operations in our downtime (assuming we want a decent planet, not some scrub pile of crap in the boonies)? :)
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

May 12, 3041
Outskirts of Harlech, Outreach

Major Rayhan "Gbasden" Ashimov and the rest of the command staff of the 1st Octopus Overlords mercenary company sit and discuss the latest contract offers on the table. A corporate recon raid against a research facility on Maule, within the Free Rasalhague Republic. An extraction raid against a beer brewing conglomerate on Orestes, again within the FRR (most everyone else at the table scrunches their faces in confusion and disgust - who the hell wants to hire a company of battlemechs to raid a brewery? Is the beer really that good?). Search and rescue (diplomatically called "relief duty") on Marcus for a bunch of mercs who got in way over their head fighting Federated Commonwealth militia - probably because of the high gravity and 48 degrees celsius average surface temperature. And a cushy, boring garrison duty contract for a company of mechs to defend some EarthWerks Inc. facilities on Asuncion in the Free Worlds League.

We turn down the beer brewery raid - it pays ok, but the employer gets to keep almost all the salvage. On a raid with no logistical support, that's baloney.

We also turn down the high gravity world relief duty. While Captain Yu-Bao "Zenn7" Ting is enthusiastic about it (he drives an Awesome which would hardly notice), none of the mechwarriors who drive lighter units like to have their mech's leg actuators blow out just because they decided to fire up their jump jets.

That leaves us with the garrison duty and the industrial espionage. We'll send Delta Company aboard the Sparrow to Maule to carry out the industrial espionage, and Gamma Company aboard the Moonraker to defend the Earthwerks Facilities.

"That leaves just one last item. I know we've got access to pretty good facilities here on Outreach, but I've heard a lot of people talking about carving out a place of our own. At this point, I think we've got the money for it."

"One and a half billion C-Bills? Yeah, I think so." replies Captain Zanthe "Scrub" Pappathanassiou. "Any place in particular we want to set up?"

"Let's look through the star charts and see what we can dig up." Captain Shi-wen "Madmarcus" Xu suggests. "We'll keep an eye out as we travel. And see if the jumpship has anything in its charts."

In preparation for our departure, we buy up the local stocks of armor (~170 tons). One might think that 170 tons is a lot of armor, but you'd be surprised how quickly even a company of mechs goes through armor.

Gamma Company files aboard the Moonraker, a Union-class dropship, and burns for the naidr jump point, where the company-owned jumpship awaits. Since the Union only has hangar space for two aerospace fighters, we box up the Lightning and store it in the cargo bay, filling the rest of the space with assorted ammo reloads. Since Gamma will be defending an Earthwerks Inc. facility, and Asuncion is an industrial hub, we expect to be able to purchase basic ammo and armor reloads, and probably even spare parts for our mechs. However, Gamma-One does have a single high-tech unit, Hyena's Striker, which has an LB-10X autocannon in place of the standard autocannon, so we'll need to bring our own LB-10X ordnance. Additionally, Cylus' Grasshopper still carries some Listen-Kill warheads in its LRM-5 launcher, so we'll be bringing reloads for those. Overall, though, it looks like the L-K series of missiles is going to go the way of the dodo, as rumors have it that a simple software update to the basic ECM software aboard a mech can defeat the advanced L-K electronics, basically making them an expensive version of standard missiles.

As usual, the Moonraker smells like feet. If you're in the mech bay, then it smells like lubricant or coolant fluid, while the reactor has acquired the smell of the distillery used by the dropship crew to make "engine coolant", a disgusting brew that's great if you want to knock yourself out or play the "K-F jump" drinking game. That's when you chug your alcoholic beverage of choice just prior to a jump, then place bets on who blows chunks. Obviously inadvisable to play if you've actually got Transit Disorientation Syndrome.

After several incidents involving poor maintenance and various pranks, we've started an initiative to promote greater care with our equipment. So every mechwarrior and aero jock is also an assistant tech (astech). On the bright side, that means everyone gets paid more, and we don't have to rely as much on local labor.

Gamma has two rookies in training in the Striker lance, so this will be a great opportunity for them to shape up.
Spoiler:
Image
Other than having a bunch of factories on it, Asuncion is a fairly average terran-type world. Multiple biomes, wide range of temperatures. It takes us three jumps to get there, and then a two-week burn at a comfy 1G.

We are greeted at the landing pad by an Earthwerks representative, who directs us to the facilities used by the previous mercs defending these factories. We quickly acquire the services of some local security troops who come equipped with some autocannon/2 field guns. AC/2s are ok, but these guys also help out with astech duties around the base. Our liaison chuckles about "finally somebody giving those layabouts something to do".

Gamma gets to spend about two and half weeks putzing around and running training drills with the rookies and the security troops (we want them to practice so they don't shoot us in the back by accident if an actual fight happens). During this time, the local factory workers go on strike. That's great for them, but sucks if we need spare parts.

July 14, 3041
Earthwerks Parts Depot

Striker Lance is out on training exercise when one of the factory complexes we're supposed to defend radios in a distress call. It seems that they're under attack by a lance of light mechs, backed up by a medium-weight lance of tanks. The local defenses are a single mech and five turret emplacements, so there's no way they can hold on their own.

Scrub rubs her chin listening in on the comm chatter. Can the rookies handle it by themselves?

Current support points on Asuncion: 5

[] Yeah, they can handle it. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.
It'll be an even fight, but we'll be saving on ammo, fuel and transport costs.
[] Nah, better get the Battle lance in there and squash them flat.
They'll arrive about 90 seconds into the fight and completely overpower the hostiles. (-1 support point)
[] Nah, better get the Probe lance in there to help out.
They'll arrive about 50 seconds into the fight and will tip the balance in our favor. (-1 support point)
[] Nah, better get some air support in there.
They'll also arrive about 50 seconds into the fight, but we haven't been able to acquire any bombs yet, so they'll be less effective and at possible risk of getting shot down. (-1 support point)

Mechanical explanation:
Spoiler:
Support points are a representation of transport capacity, employers' good will and logistics capability. We can use them to supply reinforcements or request employer support for a given battle, purchase replacement parts that aren't normally available to us or hire personnel that we seriously need. We gain them during initial contract negotiations or by completing certain objectives (taking out or defending supply convoys and depots, etc).
Current TO&E:
Spoiler:
Alpha Company
Command company

Command Lance
Elite
Major Rayhan "Gbasden" Ashimov - Awesome AWS-8Q
SMj An "Isgrimnur" Taalib - Hatchetman HCT-3F (modified)
MSg Patrick "El Guapo" Allain - Marauder MAD-3R (modified)
Cpl Manny "Stefan" Campos - Catapult CPLT-C1

Battle Lance
Veteran
Lt. JG Ragnhild bin Najm al Din - Merlin MLN-1A
PFC Ben Kalkman - Trebuchet TBT-5J
PFC Zina Ochieng - Griffin GRF-1S
PVT Yuki Sato - Ostsol OTL-4D (modified)

Urban Combat Lance
Veteran
Lt. JG Kazuyuki Sato - Crusader CRD-3L (modified)
PFC Shaylee Nicholson - Shadow Hawk SHD-2K (modified)
PFC Nicolas Reichel - Trebuchet TBT-5J
PVT Siena Castelucci - Phoenix Hawk PXH-1D

Strike Squadron
Veteran
Ensign Arnwlle Schumann - Shilone SL-17
AbSp Congalie Lyvet - Hellcat HCT-213
AbSp Guillaum Jaouen - Corsair CSR-V12

Beta Company
The heavy metal

Assault Lance
Elite
Cpt Yu-Bao "Zenn7" Ting - Awesome AWS-8Q
SMj Song "Zarathud" Jiang - Awesome AWS-8Q
Cpl Hoshi "Moley" Higashi - Thunderbolt TDR-5SE
Pvt Ratan "LordMortis" Suryanarayama - Victor VTR-9B

Hunter Lance
Veteran
Lt. JG Demesu Jefar - Guillotine GLT-4L
PFC Tyra Drusse - Stalker STK-3F
PFC Suljo Djukanovic - Atlas AS7-WGS
PFC Evdokiya Mahaev - Orion ON1-K

Fire Lance
Regular
Lt. JG Morad Chandrasekhar - Catapult CPLT-C1
Pvt Dermott Snow - Vindicator VND-1R
Pvt Victor Gould - Whitworth WTH-1
Pvt Tessa Eng - Wyvern WVE-6N (modified)

Strike Squadron
Regular
Ensign Lurdes Tarquini - Stuka STU-K5
PO2 Daniel Stephens - Lightning LTN-G15
AbSp Brit Egglestone - Lucifer LCF-R20

Gamma Company - Deployed to Asuncion
General Purpose
Battle Lance
Elite
Cpt Zanthe "Scrub" Pappathanassiou - Warhammer WHM-6R (modified)
Sgt Brad "Hyena" Mandara - Striker STC-2S (modified)
Cpl Varada "Cylus" Sunondo - Grasshopper GHR-5H
Cpl Iiro "Xwraith" Rintala - Thunderbolt TDR-5SE (modified)

Striker Lance
Green
Lt. JG Ramon Vazquez - Cronus CNS-3M
Sgt. Bettina Bosse - Ostroc OSR-2M
Rct. Tomas Nidheesh - Wolfhound WLF-1A
Rct. Lili Seema - Jenner JR7-D

Probe Lance
Regular
Lt. JG Sebastian "AWS" Kost - Phoenix Hawk PXH-1D
PFC Clinton Mavroudis - Phoenix Hawk PXH-1 (modified)
Pvt Nara Cutillar - Clint CLNT-2-3T
Pvt Nicolas Dvorak - Vulcan VL-5T

Strike Squadron
Veteran
Ensign Leslie Leshtchenko - Slayer SL-15B
AbSp Truls Ebersbach - Lightning LTN-G15
AbSp Loc Do - Lucifer LCF-R15

Delta Company - deployed to Maule
Recon
Ranger Lance
Elite
Captain Shi-Wen "Madmarcus" Xu - Wolverine WVR-6M
SMj Mab "Paingod" Orme - Griffin GRF-1N
Sgt Kesia "Freyland" Hauli - Quickdraw QKD-4H (modified)
PFC Nori "Archinerd" Goto - Dervish DV-6M

Sweep Lance
Veteran
Lt JG Zofia Kubo - Wolverine WVR-6M
PFC Sixten Wisth - Phoenix Hawk PXH-1 (modified)
PFC Tom Chagares - Griffin GRF-1S
PFC Gregory Molnes - Cronus CNS-3M

Recon Lance
Regular
Lt JG Sebastian Jackman - Firestarter FS9-H (modified)
Pvt Martha Kanaris - Assassin ASN-21
Pvt Isabelle Framnes - Ostscout OTT-7J
Pvt Chris Mitchelle - Firestarter FS9-K (modified)

Interceptor Squadron
Veteran
Ensign Dave Malavika - Cheetah F-10
AbSp Yick-Kan Tsui - Seydlitz SYD-Z2
Spc Trevor Turner - Centurion CNT-1D

Space Assets
Invader-class Jumpship
"Moonraker" - Union-class Dropship
"Sparrow" - Union-class Dropship
Jumbo-class Dropship (inoperable - engine damage - in refit)

Additional Ground Assets
3x Thumper Artillery
1x Long Tom Artillery
Gyroslug Rifle / Support Laser infantry platoon, with Maxim (SRM4) hover transport
LRM jump infantry platoon, with Maxim (SRM4) hover transport
SRM jump infantry squad, with Ferret Scout VTOL
FYI, I'm planning on cross-posting this to another forum I visit, since I think they might get a kick out of it. So we might start seeing more named mechwarriors, rather than just scrubs. Or not.
Last edited by NickAragua on Tue Jul 23, 2019 4:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by LordMortis »

Pvt Ratan "LordMortis" Suryanarayama - Victor VTR-9B

I'm alive!
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zenn7 »

LordMortis wrote: Tue Jul 23, 2019 4:40 pm Pvt Ratan "LordMortis" Suryanarayama - Victor VTR-9B

I'm alive!
We expect big things out of you, your replacement was pretty damn good with that AC/20!

*******
[] Nah, better get the Probe lance in there to help out.
They'll arrive about 50 seconds into the fight and will tip the balance in our favor. (-1 support point)

I'm leery of sending the rookies in alone. Let's send a little support in and keep our heavy firepower available in case some major comes up next round.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Hyena »

Zenn7 wrote: Tue Jul 23, 2019 11:07 pm
LordMortis wrote: Tue Jul 23, 2019 4:40 pm Pvt Ratan "LordMortis" Suryanarayama - Victor VTR-9B

I'm alive!
We expect big things out of you, your replacement was pretty damn good with that AC/20!

*******
[] Nah, better get the Probe lance in there to help out.
They'll arrive about 50 seconds into the fight and will tip the balance in our favor. (-1 support point)

I'm leery of sending the rookies in alone. Let's send a little support in and keep our heavy firepower available in case some major comes up next round.
Agreed.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by AWS260 »

Hyena wrote: Wed Jul 24, 2019 2:51 am
Zenn7 wrote: Tue Jul 23, 2019 11:07 pm [] Nah, better get the Probe lance in there to help out.
They'll arrive about 50 seconds into the fight and will tip the balance in our favor. (-1 support point)

I'm leery of sending the rookies in alone. Let's send a little support in and keep our heavy firepower available in case some major comes up next round.
Agreed.
Ditto.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Paingod »

AWS260 wrote: Wed Jul 24, 2019 9:24 am
Hyena wrote: Wed Jul 24, 2019 2:51 am
Zenn7 wrote: Tue Jul 23, 2019 11:07 pm [] Nah, better get the Probe lance in there to help out.
They'll arrive about 50 seconds into the fight and will tip the balance in our favor. (-1 support point)

I'm leery of sending the rookies in alone. Let's send a little support in and keep our heavy firepower available in case some major comes up next round.
Agreed.
Ditto.
Tritto?
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by gbasden »

Paingod wrote: Wed Jul 24, 2019 9:31 am
AWS260 wrote: Wed Jul 24, 2019 9:24 am
Hyena wrote: Wed Jul 24, 2019 2:51 am
Zenn7 wrote: Tue Jul 23, 2019 11:07 pm [] Nah, better get the Probe lance in there to help out.
They'll arrive about 50 seconds into the fight and will tip the balance in our favor. (-1 support point)

I'm leery of sending the rookies in alone. Let's send a little support in and keep our heavy firepower available in case some major comes up next round.
Agreed.
Ditto.
Tritto?
Agreed!
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

Scrub makes up her mind. "Striker lance, expect Probe lance to approach from the north."

By the time Striker lance gets there, the bad guys are just about on top of the depot. They're split up about half and half, coming in from northwest and southwest, with a lone Drillson hovertank zipping in from the west. The lone defending mech links into our comms network and reports ready for action. The good part is that it's a Crusader, whose 65-ton bulk will be pretty helpful. The defensive turrets look pretty sturdy as well, so we'll have some time to work on the incoming hostiles.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
Image
"Striker-four, you're too far out!" Sgt. Bosse calls out as she feathers her Ostroc's jump jets to clear a building and watches the rookie in the Wolfhound run out into a crowd of hostiles like an idiot. She hasn't been with the company that long (having only joined up at the beginning of the year during our last R&R period on Outreach), but she still knows a dumb move when she sees one. Her main concern is the SRM Carrier to the north turning towards the Wolfhound and letting rip with its sixty SRM tubes.

The rookie gets lucky though. His Wolfhound's three chest-mounted medium lasers all miss as the mech is shaken around by only five SRMs, and he holds the large laser to conserve heat. The nearby Phoenix Hawk misses as well, except for a few machine gun rounds plinking off the armor.

The main success this round is an LRM turret from the base landing over twenty missiles on the Valkyrie, flaking all the armor off its left arm. The Valkyrie's left arm isn't very important, having no weapons (it's just got the one laser in the right arm and an LRM/10 rack on the left torso section), but it's symbolically nice. We observe that one of the turrets is a Sniper artillery tube, but at this close range it's kind of pointless. Still, they might get lucky.

To the south, our mechs whiff their shots while the Vedettes begin plinking away at the depot's turrets from long range. We'll need to close distance and take them out.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
Image
Guess that rookie in the Wolfhound isn't as dumb as we thought. He runs right through the enemy formation, winding up behind the SRM Carrier. This time, he lets rip with the large laser and two mediums, bringing the heat in the cockpit up to sauna level. He's just about to pull the trigger when a large laser from the Phoenix Hawk nails him center of mass, throwing off his aim.

To the south, the Lieutenant in the Cronus gets outmaneuvered by the Vedettes and Firestarter, running in only to have them advance towards the base. Still, both of the tanks are in medium range of his shorter-ranged weapons (three medium lasers and an SRM/4 rack), so he lets rip with those, holding the large laser to keep heat down. He scores a couple of hits, but only manages to flake off armor. The Crusader, though, does better - Lt. Vazquez watches with some amusement as its target Vedette dodges several laser shots and a string of MG rounds, then gets disabled by a salvo of SRMs from the left side.

Sgt Bosse jumps in next to the Drillson hovertank as it zips back and forth, firing both of the Ostroc's large lasers at its back. The Drillson is a solid piece of Lyran engineering, but the two blue laser beams hit the same spot, breaking through the armor and continuing to the engine compartment. The hovertank slides to a stop along the ground as its power goes out and the turret seizes up, and the crew clambers out rapidly.

The rookie in the Jenner is too busy staring in horror at the SRM salvo heading her way (although the rockets scatter and fail to hit her) to do any aiming. Probably part of the reason they missed was that the SRM Carrier's right side armor was entirely scraped off by the Wolfhounds boot.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
Image
Seeing the SRM Carrier pull back, the Wolfhound lets it go and gives chase to the three mechs that have now gotten into the base. He's backed up by our Jenner.

A Sniper artillery shell lands right next to the Phoenix Hawk and Wasp as they move in on the LRM turret, hitting both and catching the turret in the blast as well. Guess our buddies aren't too concerned about friendly fire or preserving their own facility. The Wasp lands on top of a building, unloading its limited armament (a single laser and a couple of SRMs) on the LRM turret. It's a little hard to track, but the building isn't. The Jenner overheats quite a bit, firing all four of its lasers and the SRM rack - the mech's actuators and structure groan in protest... and then the Wasp jumps off. Sonofabitch. She manages to land a kick on the Phoenix Hawk in frustration, but armor holds up.

Round 4:
Spoiler:
Image
"Hey, we've got mechs in the perimeter, are you gonna clear them out or what?!" comes a panicked call from someone at the depot.

"Keep your shirt on, we're working on it." AWS replies as Probe lance arrives from the north, sprinting in.

The arrival of the four new mechs is just what the doctor ordered, and the fight goes from slightly in our favor to completely in our favor.

AWS sights in on the hostile Phoenix Hawk as it jumps around and drills it with his own Hawk's large laser. Then Sgt. Bosse's Ostroc comes around the corner and hits the center torso section, blowing through the armor and dinging the gyro. The enemy mechwarrior can't keep his mech upright and it falls over.

Our Wolfhound targets the building that the Valkyrie landed on - a few kicks to some structural looking elements and the important section of the building comes down, bringing the mech with it.

Our Jenner blasts the enemy Wasp with just two lasers, allowing her mech to cool off, but the two laser shots are pretty effective, taking out the Wasp's right arm laser and breaching armor on the left leg.

To the south, our Cronus continues drilling the lone remaining Vedette with lasers and also gives it a solid boot, ripping all the armor off the front. The tank has had enough and pulls back rapidly.

Round 5:
Spoiler:
Image
The Valkyrie gets up, but the Phoenix Hawk's damaged gyro makes it difficult for it to do so, and it collapses back down on top of the building where it landed.

"Allied artillery, cease fire!" Sgt. Bosse calls out as a round from the Sniper blasts chunks off her rear armor. It was funny when they were blowing their own stuff up, but now that it's our mechs getting hit by friendly fire, it's a little less fun.

The Valkyrie runs off to the north, trying to get past Probe lance. Not so fast, though. It dodges the Wolfhound's shots, flaying armor from its right arm with the laser, then our Phoenix Hawks turn on it. AWS scores the kill shot, blasting through the right arm and torso with all three lasers and torching the LRM ammo bin. His 1D model doesn't have the machine guns of the standard model, but they're unnecessary. The lighter mech disintegrates, sending chunks flying every which way.

To the south, there's only one active enemy unit remaining, a Firestarter, which jumps away to avoid the allied Crusader but gets knocked over after our Cronus works it over with lasers, SRMs and a boot.

Cleanup:
The Phoenix Hawk is unable to get up, and the mechwarrior ejects. The Firestarter manages to get up and rapidly disengages, as does the Wasp. Well, the Wasp tries to disengage, but makes the mistake of trying to take a couple of last shots with its SRMs at our Phoenix Hawks as it passes, and eats a well-deserved pair of large lasers. AWS' shot takes off the right arm, while the other Phoenix Hawk hits center of mass. The 20-ton bug mech drops to the ground, motionless.

The Firestarter, a Vedette and the SRM Carrier manage to escape, and we don't make a particular effort to pursue - we've got the guy who was driving Phoenix Hawk.

Our contract stipulates that we get to keep 40% of the salvage, so we claim the Phoenix Hawk, leaving the rest of the crap for our employers. Well, we don't tell them it's crap, but it's crap. We don't use tanks, except to strip for armor and ammo, and there's not much to do with a cored-out Wasp, either. It's a no-brainer, as our techs report that they can get the mech back up and running within the week. We'll be keeping it as you never know when you might need a spare mech.

The guy in the mech defending the depot is pretty impressed with our performance, although some important-looking guy (balding, with a combover, wearing a cheap suit, and sweating worse than a mechwarrior after an alpha strike) comes out to yell at AWS as he admires the debris from the Valkyrie. The two have a heated exchange about damage to the buildings, but AWS points out that their artillery hit one of our mechs. And their own buildings. We agree to call it even.

It takes a couple of hours to patch up our mechs, with the exception of the salvaged Phoenix Hawk. Which takes a couple of days and ~200k C-Bills worth of parts ("the gyro wasn't hit too bad, just needs a replacement housing and a re-alignment", the tech tells Scrub). But we're currently working on a 53M budget, so that's chump change. Despite the factory workers strike, we're still able to purchase the three actuators that blew out, which proves to be the limiting factory - two of the bundles don't arrive until a week later.

In addition to the mechwarrior (who's in pretty bad shape with a punctured lung, along with multiple cuts, bruises and sprains), we've captured a pair of tank crew members. What do we do with those guys?

[] Interrogate. Try to find out where they came from, who hired them, etc.
[] We're mercenaries, not detectives. Just hand them over to the liaison for a standard prisoner capture bonus (80k C-Bills).

---------------

Delta Company is currently en route to Maule in the Free Rasalhague Republic and is expected to arrive in mid-to-late August.

Our remaining two companies continue entertaining contract offers, coming up with five potential ones that we may consider. Of those, we eliminate three immediately because of crappy salvage rights (10%, 10% and 30%), which leaves us with two.

A representative from the Draconis Combine contacts us, requesting our services for a "delicate" operation. It's fairly significant, due to house Kurita's public stance against mercenaries. A bit of back story - in the War of '39, FedCom forces were initially pretty successful in pushing into Combine territory. However, Gunji-no-Kanrei Theodore Kurita launched a counterattack which caused Hanse Davion to panic and hold his forces in place, resulting in basically a stalemate.

One of the counterattacks was towards Galatia III, a mostly unremarkable world. The force in question was left stranded after their jumpship suffered a jump sail failure, and is apparently still putzing around there, engaged in intermittent guerilla-style warfare with the Twelth Deneb Light Cavalry Regimental Combat Team. This is obviously embarrasing for the Combine - they don't want to admit that they still have active military units in FedCom territory, so sending a jumpship for pickup or officially asking about it is out of the question.

So, our job would be to jump in, spring the Kurita forces loose, then provide transport out. Nitty gritty details:

Liaison command
Regular/F allied forces
Regular/A estimated opposition
4 months expected contract duration (once on planet)
100% transport coverage
80% salvage rights
60% battle loss compensation
228M estimated profit
1 month estimated travel time

Going up against FedCom is somewhat risky, but the salvage opportunities would be excellent.

The second contract offer is from Scrub's old buddy, Colonel Geoff Ferrerro of the Free Worlds League. It seems that some "mercenaries" hired by the FWL have gotten themselves into a pickle on the planet Eom. He's being a little bit cagey as to why the FWL would hire mercenaries to carry out an attack on a Capellan world (and who can blame him really, it's a little embarrasing - they're supposed to be allies after all). Our job would be to get in there, get the mercs and their equipment out, and assist them in carrying out their objectives.

Zarathud posits that the FWL is trying to steal some kind of tech that the Capellans are refusing to share. Nitty gritty details:

Liaison command
Regular/A allied forces
Regular/D estimated opposition
5 months expected contract duration (once on planet)
100% transport coverage
80% salvage rights
100% battle loss compensation
277M estimated profit
2 months estimated travel time

Nothing like wading into a little internal spat between allies. Other than the longer expected duration, the main difference is that the salvage is likely to be second-rate knockoff Capellan crap.

Reviewing the force estimates, we conclude that we'll need to deploy both Alpha and Beta on these jobs.

Thus:
[] Take the Galatia III "sensitive" relief duty contract
Great salvage, but against the Federated Commonwealth
[] Take the Eom "embarrassing" relief duty contract
Good salvage percentage, but only of crappy Capellan tech
[] Skip the additional contracts
Very easy, but time is money

Also:
Due to space constraints, Delta Company could only fit two of their three aerospace fighters into the Sparrow (it's a Union with only two ASF bays). Pick two of three to take.

[] Cheetah F-10. 48 armor, 2x M laser, 1x small laser, 12/18 movement
Super fast, weak armor, weak armament
[] Seydlitz SYD-Z2. 32 armor, 5x M laser (but only 10 heat sinks, yikes), 11/17 movement
Super fast, paper-thin armor, strong armament
[] Centurion CNT-1D. 120 armor, 3x M laser, 10/15 movement
Still pretty fast, good armor, good armament
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Freyland »

Seems kinda dicey to take a contract *with* a House that doesn't like mercenaries *against* a House that is tough, and generally likes us.

Oh, and "Go Me" for that last misson Delta ace'd. :horse:
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by gbasden »

Interrogate the prisoners! The more we know about what we are facing, the better.

Help the FWL and hope that there is secret Capellan tech to salvage

Take the Centurion and Cheetah.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zenn7 »

gbasden wrote: Thu Jul 25, 2019 1:34 am Interrogate the prisoners! The more we know about what we are facing, the better.

Help the FWL and hope that there is secret Capellan tech to salvage

Take the Centurion and Cheetah.
Agreed on prisoners and FWL (isn't this the guy who was giving us Streak SRM2's? maybe we can get more or maybe they have some other tech like that Atlas they were going to have us test?).

Take the Centurion and the Seydlitz. Armor is so crappy, between Seydlitz and Cheetah, go for the firepower and hope we shoot first...
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by AWS260 »

I would argue for the Drac contract. Very, very nice salvage seems like a better prospect than potentially imaginary "secret tech."

On the other hand, AWS isn't even going on this one. He's already on assignment, chasing his dream of assembling an all-Phoenix Hawk lance.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by El Guapo »

On balance I would pick the Marik contract. While the salvage from the Drac mission would be better, going up against FedCom (Regular/A opposition) means that we would probably lose a lot more in combat than we would going against the Capellans, which would probably offset most or all of the better salvage.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by gbasden »

Zenn7 wrote: Thu Jul 25, 2019 7:35 am
gbasden wrote: Thu Jul 25, 2019 1:34 am Interrogate the prisoners! The more we know about what we are facing, the better.

Help the FWL and hope that there is secret Capellan tech to salvage

Take the Centurion and Cheetah.
Agreed on prisoners and FWL (isn't this the guy who was giving us Streak SRM2's? maybe we can get more or maybe they have some other tech like that Atlas they were going to have us test?).

Take the Centurion and the Seydlitz. Armor is so crappy, between Seydlitz and Cheetah, go for the firepower and hope we shoot first...
But with the Seidlitz there aren't even enough heat sinks to make the firepower worthwhile!
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

Alpha and Beta's command staff decide not to screw with FedCom, both because we've got a decent relationship with them currently and because the last time we took a contract against them, we almost wound up party to the use of nerve gas against civilian population centers. Plus, Col. Ferrerro was the one who hooked us up with Streak SRM launchers. So even if we don't get hooked up with any good Capellan tech, we might get hooked up with something else. Scuttlebutt says the Marik guys have been deploying Artemis IV fire control systems for their missile launchers, maybe we can get a hold of a couple of those. And some compatible warheads. Having more of our missiles hit their targets is always good, although the hardware is pretty heavy and we'd have to figure out what to lose for it.

Since the Jumbo is still in drydock having its engines refitted, we'll need to rent transport for our mechs. On the plus side, the Free Worlds League is covering the cost of the ride, and we don't need to rent a jumpship. Estimated arrival time on Eom is mid-august.

--------------------

Delta winds up taking the Centurion and the Cheetah, leaving the Seydlitz behind. We'll see how helpful they are when Delta arrives on site. We seriously consider getting rid of the Seydlitz altogether - when a mech overheats a little bit, maybe it just gets a little warm in the cockpit or the actuators get a little sluggish. When an aerospace fighter overheats a little bit, sometimes the engines seize up and then you've got a good chance of becoming a lawn dart.

--------------------


We have some trouble making up our minds about the prisoners. The mechwarrior isn't very talkative, what with the punctured lung, and the tankers appear to be just hired local goons. They claim they were hired by the Phoenix Hawk pilot to support the attack, and don't really know much else. Scrub hands the tankers over, and we keep the mechwarrior around in our medical facilities citing "administering medical treatment to prisoners of war".

On the plus side, our techs wind up having plenty of time to put the salvaged Phoenix Hawk back together, so we've got a spare mech.

Over the next two weeks, the workers strike at the local factories gets worse, turning into civil unrest and rioting. Something about taxes and police brutality and long working hours and government corruption and all the usual stuff.

August 2, 3041
Earthwerks Actuator Assembly Plant
Asuncion

The civil unrest comes to a head when a local militia base declares for the rioters. The planetary governor, at Earthwerks' request, deploys loyalist militia to defend their facilities (gotta meet those production targets), but they're stretched pretty thin.

Probe lance is out on patrol when they detect two lances of medium and heavy tanks moving in on the actuator assembly plant. Simultaneously, the garrison guarding the plant reports incoming hostiles from a different direction. The loyalist militia is badly outmatched - there's a medium and a light mech lance, as well as a mixed company of tanks, vs two lances of tanks guarding the plant. If the reinforcements Probe lance spotted get there, the militia is screwed. We load up Striker squadron with whatever bombs we've been able to purchase (a mostly full load of cluster bombs for the Slayer and a half-load of regular HE bombs for the Lucifer) and launch them to help the militia. Still, even with our aircraft, it's likely that the allied units will be unable to hold.

Probe lance moves to hold the incoming reinforcements, intercepting them in a commercial district some ways southwest of the actuator assembly plant. In fact, Probe lance gets to the interception point a little bit earlier, so we're able to get the drop on them, "gently" sliding our mechs into buildings. When we run the suggestion by the liaison, he doesn't seem to have a problem with it.

AWS laughs when he sees exactly what the incoming tanks are - it's almost entirely anti-aircraft units. There are three Vedettes mounting light autocannons (AC2s, to be exact), a Scorpion tank with LRM launchers, a Partisan and a Pike, and a pair of Manticores.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
Image
The Manticores are the biggest threat - they're basically the main battle tank of the 31st century. With LRM/10 and PPC for long range combat, an SRM/6 and a medium laser make it inadvisable to approach the tank from the front. Clocking in at 60 tons, it moves reasonably fast and has pretty good armor. Which is why AWS targets one immediately when we spring the ambush, while the other Phoenix Hawk targets a second one. They're tough customers though, and the armor absorbs all the weapons fire with no problem. Even AWS' kick as he comes out of the building only causes minor tread damage.

The guy in the Vulcan gets a little too enthusiastic chasing after a Vedette and slips on the pavement falling over. The Clint moves to cover him, firing its right arm mounted AC/5 at the nearby Scorpion tank while putting lasers and a boot into the nearby Vedette, which pings a couple of SRMs off the 40-ton mech's arms. The liaison's Cronus in the nearby building opens up on a Vedette passing through an alleyway, removing all of its front armor with lasers and SRMs.

The buildings work wonderfully to absorb the enemy fire. Although, AWS' impromptu bunker is perforated, which is pretty rough, but at least it makes it easier to get out of the building without causing any more damage.

Still, we inflicted a lot of damage while taking almost none in return.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
Image
AWS runs out of the building and moves to engage the Partisan and Pike up close as they try to roll away. The two vehicles are very similar, both mounting a batter of autocannons (5s and 2s respectively), which are great against aircraft but not so hot when a mech runs up to you and starts trying to pry your turret off. Our Phoenix Hawks inflict some damage on the AA tanks with weapons fire, and AWS bends a couple of the wheels driving the Partisan's treads with a solid kick.

The Vulcan gets up and carves the Scorpion up with lasers. The mech shudders as it takes a PPC hit followed by an LRM salvo from the Manticore to the north, a leg actuator blowing out.

The Clint continues tangling with the nearby Vedette, taking a few more SRMs to the left arm, exposing the internal structure. The mechwarrior also takes the time to stomp on the Manticore underfoot, cracking its treads.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
Image
The Vulcan backs it up out of line of sight. It won't do to get your leg blown off right this second.

The liaison's Cronus continues working on the Vedettes to the south, blowing away the one that's not frantically trying to drive off to the south, zapping it with multiple lasers blue and green, then adding some SRMs to the mix.

The Clint plays it conservatively as well, simply moving on top of the nearby Vedette and bringing its foot down. The vehicle explodes as the fuel tank is punctured, singing our mech's leg armor.

AWS dodges the AA tanks' clumsy fire, lasering the Pike then stomping on the Partisan's engine block to disable it.

Round 4:
Spoiler:
Image
The tankers appear to have had enough and begin a rout to the west. AWS is a little bit careless and takes a trio of autocannon rounds across the front of his Phoenix Hawk (including a shot to the dome), but armor holds up and he disables the escaping Pike with a couple of laser blasts to the treads. The Manticore trying to escape down the same street is destroyed by the other Phoenix Hawk, but manages to put a PPC shot into the building. The structure remains standing, but Pvt Mavroudis' Phoenix Hawk loses its footing and bursts through the ground floor into the basement, stripping a little armor as it goes.

The face of the mechwarrior driving the Clint goes bright red as he slips on pavement and strips a bunch of armor off his leg while sliding down the street. Initially he thinks nobody saw it, but the liaison in the Cronus obviously did. The mech just about mirrors the liaison's laughing motion.

The other Manticore manages to escape, driving through alleyways and plowing through buildings to avoid our lance's pursuit, but the rest of the tanks are destroyed or surrender. AWS smirks, wiping the sweat off his neck with the back of a hand - that Partisan was his heaviest tank kill yet, a whopping 80 tons. He shakes his head, as the mechwarriors in his lance still have a lot of work to do in terms of not falling over all the time.


Scrub scrunches up her face and rubs her chin, wincing as she runs her finger over a recent cut, considering whether to send reinforcements to the actuator plant - even with our air support, those poor militia scrubs are probably going to get clobbered. She also considers whether Probe lance should stick around and make sure that the remaining Manticore doesn't try to join the fight at the actuator assembly plant or just go there immediately and deal with it as it comes. The liaison will stay and supervise salvage operations.

At least we've got plenty of transport and salvage capacity thanks to having held that supply depot (12 SP available).

Reinforcements for the actuator assembly plant, where the odds are currently 20 vs 8 plus three of our aerospace fighters:
[] Send the Battle lance in, they've been cooped up long enough and are getting antsy. (-1 SP)
[] Send the Striker lance in, that'll be some real good training for the rookies. (-1 SP)
[] Forget it, the aero jocks can handle it.

Probe lance disposition:
Phoenix Hawk 1D - armor yellow and red
Phoenix Hawk - armor green
Clint - left torso, left arm armor breach
Vulcan - right leg armor breach, actuator damage
In other words, they're a little beat up, but probably have another fight left in them.
[] Probe lance sticks around to supervise salvage operations and keep the Manticore out of the next fight.
[] Probe lance moves to join the next fight.

Salvage from this fight:
[] Claim one or two of the hulled tanks so we can strip armor and ammo (we're in no dire need of it right this second, but you never know)
[] Leave it all for our employer to build up salvage credit
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by AWS260 »

My two cents. Let's blood those rookies.
NickAragua wrote: Thu Jul 25, 2019 3:00 pm Reinforcements for the actuator assembly plant, where the odds are currently 20 vs 8 plus three of our aerospace fighters:
[] Send the Battle lance in, they've been cooped up long enough and are getting antsy. (-1 SP)
[X] Send the Striker lance in, that'll be some real good training for the rookies. (-1 SP)
[] Forget it, the aero jocks can handle it.

Probe lance disposition:
Phoenix Hawk 1D - armor yellow and red
Phoenix Hawk - armor green
Clint - left torso, left arm armor breach
Vulcan - right leg armor breach, actuator damage
In other words, they're a little beat up, but probably have another fight left in them.
[] Probe lance sticks around to supervise salvage operations and keep the Manticore out of the next fight.
[X] Probe lance moves to join the next fight.

Salvage from this fight:
[] Claim one or two of the hulled tanks so we can strip armor and ammo (we're in no dire need of it right this second, but you never know)
[X] Leave it all for our employer to build up salvage credit
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zenn7 »

AWS260 wrote: Thu Jul 25, 2019 5:35 pm My two cents. Let's blood those rookies.
NickAragua wrote: Thu Jul 25, 2019 3:00 pm Reinforcements for the actuator assembly plant, where the odds are currently 20 vs 8 plus three of our aerospace fighters:
[] Send the Battle lance in, they've been cooped up long enough and are getting antsy. (-1 SP)
[X] Send the Striker lance in, that'll be some real good training for the rookies. (-1 SP)
[] Forget it, the aero jocks can handle it.

Probe lance disposition:
Phoenix Hawk 1D - armor yellow and red
Phoenix Hawk - armor green
Clint - left torso, left arm armor breach
Vulcan - right leg armor breach, actuator damage
In other words, they're a little beat up, but probably have another fight left in them.
[] Probe lance sticks around to supervise salvage operations and keep the Manticore out of the next fight.
[X] Probe lance moves to join the next fight.

Salvage from this fight:
[] Claim one or two of the hulled tanks so we can strip armor and ammo (we're in no dire need of it right this second, but you never know)
[X] Leave it all for our employer to build up salvage credit
Agree with Sriker and Probe.

Question on the salvage - do we have any realistic hope of getting anything truly worthwhile? If not, might want to get some armor/ammo while we can get ammo that we actually will need at some point.
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NickAragua
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

The main reason to conserve salvage is in case we see a good jump-capable medium, heavy or assault mech (and then manage to disable it without blowing it to bits), which is fairly likely. Well, less likely in combination.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

Vote results:
Spoiler:
Battle lance wins with 4 votes to 3
Probe lance sticks around wins with 5 to 2
Leaving salvage wins unanimously
Scrub cracks her knuckles. "Saddle up, Battle lance, we're moving out!"

Well, technically, they've been saddled up ever since the alert came in. Powering up a battlemech isn't instantaneous - there's a fifty-to-a-hundred point check list, depending on the type of mech and carried equipment - last thing you want is to skip a step and then have an actuator crap out in the middle of a battle because you forgot to test the attached capacitors, etc. Scrub's Warhammer is even more obnoxious than usual - it was a standard Warhammer WHM-6R model up until a few years ago. However, after some work we did on behalf of the Lyran Commonwealth, they hooked us up with a couple of XL engines. So, our techs spent several months installing the bulky, but lighter engine. Combined with a much-needed reduction in MG ammo capacity (from a full ton to a half ton), the mass savings allowed the installation of just about the maximum amount of armor and the addition of seven heat sinks. The mech still heats up, but at least she can fire both PPCs without overheating. The techs even managed to keep the balance the same.

Scrub grabs the neurohelmet off its rack and puts it on, then pushes the throttle forward, moving the Warhammer out, followed by Hyena's Striker, Cylus' Grasshopper and Xwraith's "Eridani Light Horse" variant Thunderbolt.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
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Our aerospace fighters arrive to find the loyalist and rebel forces closing in on each other. The hostiles currently outnumber the friendlies more than two to one, but a good pass by our bombers should whittle their numbers down especially if they keep bunching up like that - our Slayer is loaded up (not fully, but pretty good) with cluster bombs.

The terrain is pretty clear, the only real obstacle being the assembly plant. And the various junk/scrap piles everywhere. It looks like the rebels are moving to capture it, rather than blow it up, which is just as well.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
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Our aerospace fighters briefly circle around. There's a Rifleman within that cluster of bad guys, and even though it's generally a crappy mech, it can still take an aircraft down pretty easily with its advanced tracking system.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
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Some of our allied units move north around the assembly plant.

Round 4:
Spoiler:
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"Striker squadron, engaging target. Lone Drillson hovertank, weapons only."

The hapless hovertank has gotten a little bit ahead of its friends and pays the price. A few autocannon rounds and laser blasts fly towards our aerospace fighters but most miss, except for a single SRM from the poor Drillson pinging off our Lucifer's tail section. The Slayer's pilot uses the hovertank's distraction to line up a full target lock and perforate it with LRMs and medium laser blasts, taking it out of action.

Round 5:
Spoiler:
Image
Having drawn first blood, our aircraft initiate a bombing run. The Lucifer targets the Rifleman with all six of its bombs, while the Slayer targets a cluster of mechs and tanks hanging out in the back.

The Lucifer's bombs hit their mark - the Rifleman staggers but its armor holds. The Slayer's bombs scatter minor damage across the group of hostile units but it winds up being mostly armor damage - although a stray bomblet gets through the Rifleman's rear armor and takes out a medium laser. Our Lightning picks off a Vedette with its nose-mounted AC/20 to breach the armor, then laser blasts to core it out.

The Lucifer spends a little too long admiring the bomb explosions around the Rifleman and takes a string of AC/5 rounds to the tailpipe - the engine shuts off momentarily, just long enough for our aerospace fighter to slam into the ground and crack in half. If it was an R20, that wouldn't have happened.

Chatter from the allied forces indicate that they've engaged the hostiles as well, and the allied Drillson is already immobilized.

Round 6:
Spoiler:
Image
For reference, the allied forces are red and green, the hostiles are cyan. The allied Crusader takes a good amount of damage from the enemy Drillson as it zips in, avoiding almost all counterfire. The Warrior helicopter adds a burst from its AC/5. Even though they haven't even engaged the bulk of the enemy force, the allied units are already clamoring for backup.

Round 7:
Spoiler:
Image
Luckily, the backup arrives in the form of Gamma company's Battle lance, and it's sorely needed.

The allied Crusader gets swarmed by hovercraft. After the Drillson passes by, a Pegasus gets its shots in, firing its two SRM/6 racks and a medium laser. Most of the SRMs just flake off armor, but a lucky one goes right through the center torso armor plating (which, admittedly got scorched by the Drillson's large laser earlier). The 65-ton mech spasms and falls over - its gyro is completely out. Said Drillson moves south, turning its weapons on a Zhukov heavy tank and working it over quite a bit, but then takes a lucky hit from an allied Vedette, which puts just the right amount of MG rounds into the hovertank's drive fans to completely immobilize it.

Our Slayer goes for a strafing run, blasting the right arm off a Wasp (along with the attendant medium laser), while our Lightning noses down to rip the armor off a Saracen with the AC/20. The light hovertank has had enough and starts zipping away.

Round 8:
Spoiler:
Image
The poor Zhukov gets pounded as its crew tries to recover from the Drillson's attack, eating a large amount of SRMs and a laser blast from the Pegasus, and stops moving as its treads slip off and it gets stuck in a debris pile it was using for "cover".

Scrub locks on to it with her PPCs and fires, knocking a hole in the hover skirt to let some air out, then Cylus fires at it as well, the Grasshopper's laser battery immobilizing the hovertank entirely. Apparently, this particular hovertank hasn't had its software upgraded recently, as Cylus' Listen-Kill LRMs work just fine.

Xwraith stays in formation with Scrub and the rest of the crew, tracking the Warrior attack helicopter as it switches targets from the Crusader to the Zhukov. It has to juke to avoid a burst from the LBX autocannon on Hyena's Striker, but Xwraith anticipates the maneuver and puts an ER laser through the base of the main rotor, which stops rotating (as an aside, that Thunderbolt's ER Large Laser was acquired when we scrapped a Star League-era Hussar).

Somehow, the chopper pilot manages to ground his craft without it shattering or exploding, which is pretty impressive.

Round 9:
Spoiler:
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Our mechs wade past the wrecked tanks, moving to engage the main body of the hostile force.

Our Slayer pulls off a pretty cool move, looping around then coming down behind a Centurion. The rear armor flakes off easily under the laser assault, and the on-board AC/10 ammo explodes, scattering bits of the fifty ton mech across the assembly plant grounds. The Lightning's destruction of its target Wasp is a little less spectacular, but the bug mech is cored out nonetheless, its right half disappearing under the autocannon and laser onslaught.

Round 10:
Spoiler:
Image
A lance of faster mechs makes contact with our units, taking a break from pounding on the hapless loyalist militia to pick on someone ... actually, bigger than them. Well, for the most part. Their Wolverine works on the allied Trebuchet, blasting it with laser and autocannon fire, along with some SRMs. Heat sink coolant fluid sprays everywhere as multiple heat sinks are ruptured on the allied mech.

Scrub looks on in disgust as a Wasp and a Valkyrie approach her mech, the Valkyrie burning a little armor off her left torso as she turns towards them and opens up at short range. She holds the second PPC to keep things relatively cool, but the right arm PPC blows the Wasp's right leg clean off, sending it flopping to the ground.

The Valkyrie staggers under the onslaught from Hyena's LBX autocannon, its left arm beginning to throw sparsk as actuators blow out left and right. It's not very important (the laser is in the right arm), but still. The important part is that the mech falls over face first and stops moving.

Xwraith and Cylus focus fire on the Wolverine, stripping a substantial amount of armor off - the mechwarrior is unable to adjust for the sudden imbalance and keels over, where the allied Trebuchet is happy to kick it in revenge and strip armor off the left arm.

Round 11:
Spoiler:
Image
Xwraith briefly considers moving his Thunderbolt over to stomp on the downed Wolverine, but then the problem resolves itself when the enemy mech slips while trying to get up, falls to the right, and explodes, the on-board SRM/6 ammo bin having taken a few too many crunches. The ejection seat fires the mechwarrior directly into an adjacent building, causing our mechwarrior to wince.

Scrub splits her fire between the damaged Rifleman off to the northwest, the Wasp (with a medium laser, as even though it's grounded, it's still trying to fire on her), and also puts a few small laser shots and mg bursts into the Valkyrie. Her PPC shot has the most effect, blowing through the 60-tonners center torso armor and cracking the engine shielding. For a mech like the Rifleman, that basically means the battle is over. The allied LRM Carrier decides to help and destroys the grounded mech almost completely, causing the interior structure to collapse entirely.

Hyena, Xwraith and Cylus move around the north, attempting to flank the hostiles. Hyena evaporates a Darter scout car with a PPC blast almost as an afterthought.

The tide of the battle has definitely turned, and the hostile units begin a fighting retreat. Xwraith and Cylus destroy a Hetzer, while Hyena obliterates a Goblin, but that allows the rest of the enemy units to escape, about a third of the force that came into the fight. This leaves the rebel militia with a short medium lance of mechs (Hunchback, Panther and damaged Rifleman) as well as a Von Luckner tank (an obnoxious behemoth with twin AC/20s that, thankfully, never really got into the fight), a Partisan (which peppered some armor off our mechs but not much else), a Hi-Scout drone carrier and a Saracen that escaped earlier.

The militia force should be fine, they didn't actually permanently lose any units. The Drillson and Zhukov's motive systems can be easily repaired, and the Crusader - well, never mind, a gyro replacement is no small task. But there's literally a factory on planet that makes Crusaders from the bottom up. I think they'll be fine.

For us, it went pretty well, other than the fact that the Lucifer took a nose dive and is only good for scrap and spare parts now. The Lightning reports having lost one of its lasers a swell, so we claim the disabled Pegasus, the idea being to pull the medium laser off of there. Our techs back at base tell us that the Vulcan needs a replacement heat sink, so we grab the legged Wasp as well - the other one doesn't even have an engine left, let alone heat sinks, after being worked over by the Lightning and its AC/20.

Repairs on our mechs are pretty quick once we get the spare parts in, no major issues there. We even get the local Earthwerks guys to hook us up with a replacement foot actuator for the Vulcan.

We should get a replacement for the Lucifer. We put out some feelers and check out the local networks, but don't get too much in the way of people selling aerospace fighters - seems that what is basically about to turn into a full-blown civil war makes this a seller's market. We've got a couple of options:

[] Thrush TR-7. 12/18, 24 armor, 3x medium laser. Average light fighter, pretty fragile.
[] Lightning LTN-G15. 6/9, 168 armor, AC/20, 3x medium laser, 1x rear medium laser. A favorite of ours.
[] Both of those are from "less than legitimate" sources, so there's a good chance we get ripped off. Skip it, we don't need the replacement ASF that bad.

---------------
Spoiler:
Image
Alpha and Beta companies arrive on Eom, over in Capellan space, to fulfill our "Relief Duty" contract with the Free Worlds League. We opt to land in the hinterlands, away from civilization, and our landing is uncontested. More or less. The mercs we're supposed to make contact with do so almost immediately. They're in pretty bad shape, and their exceedingly poor signal discipline leads to a lance of their tanks being detected by local Capellan militia units. We've barely disembarked one lance, Beta company's Fire Lance, and will need to eliminate or run the Capellans off pretty quickly, or else we risk our landing zone being found. We have time to disembark one more lance from the rented dropship, and then they'd have to run all the way to the battle - only Alpha's Battle and Urban lances will make it in time to make a difference, and even then they're probably going to have a very short time to do so. Alternately, we could send aerospace support, but aerospace fighters show up a lot better on RADAR and such than battlemechs on the ground, so there's a risk that we get discovered anyway. Finally, somebody (not going to name names, but drives a Marauder) suggests that we just let the stupid mercs get whacked and hope the Capellans don't think to continue their search afterwards.

Our command staff ponders the possible moves:
(current sp on Eom: 5)
[] Send Alpha Battle lance (Merlin, Trebuchet, Griffin, Ostsol) to help (-1 SP)
[] Send Alpha Urban lance (Crusader 3L, Shadow Hawk, Trebuchet, Phoenix Hawk) to help (-1 SP)
[] Send aerospace fighters (Lucifer, 2x Shilone) to help (-1 SP, risk of drop zone detection)
[] Let the merc lance get whacked
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zenn7 »

Buy the Lightening (hope it's a good source, but this is the kind we like so...)

Send the Battle Lance.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by gbasden »

Agreed.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by El Guapo »

Dunno, I think that sage fellow that said to let the mercs get whacked had a reasonable idea. Unless that's a breach of contract.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by AWS260 »

El Guapo wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 11:51 pm Dunno, I think that sage fellow that said to let the mercs get whacked had a reasonable idea. Unless that's a breach of contract.
Except those some of those mercs might get captured, not whacked, and they know where we are.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

August 13, 3041
Eom landing zone
Dalevsky Badlands

"Right. Alpha-Battle lance, you're up next. Scramble and move out." Gbasden orders. The other mechwarriors grumble, having been cooped up on that rented dropship for the better part of two months, then get back to work. The sooner they can get the mechs unpacked, the sooner they can go out for a walk.

The mercs have got themselves in a bit of a pickle, that's for sure. Beta's fire lance comes around from the south, linking up with the tank lance, just in time to engage a fairly substantial number of what look like Capellan garrison units. The Fire Lance is a pretty long-ranged unit, a Vindicator, a Whitworth, a Catapult and a Wyvern, all packing LRM launchers of some kind. Battle lance double times it and isn't too far behind.

The merc tank lance looks like they've gone shopping at "discount-tanks-r-us". Seriously, it's three Vedettes and a Hunter light support tank (basically a single LRM/20 on treads). They're being chased down by a medium mech lance (Griffin, Clint, Hermes, Firestarter), a few loose light mechs (two Wasps and a Spider), as well as some hovercraft, treads and a helicopter.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
Image
There's not much cover here. You can kind of slink around if you're in a tank, but mechs easily stand over the shallow gullies and sand hills. Of course, the Liao militia Warrior helicopter is on the ball. It fires a burst from its on-board AC/2 at near maximum range, causing one of the "discount" merc Vedettes slips a tread, becoming immediately immobilized. Great start, guys.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
Image
That damn helicopter is going to be a pain. It fires at our Catapult, missing. Our Vindicator takes a couple of LRMs from a Maxim hover transport approaching from the north, but the damage is minor.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
Image
"Fire-One to lance. Take up position behind that ridge." Lt. Chandrasekhar calls out, as his Catapult legs it that way. It's a good ridge, high up and lets us pop out and take pot shots at the Capellans closing in from the northwest. Except for that one damn Griffin coming in from the north, firing its PPC and LRMs at us.

We focus our fire on a Hetzer trundling towards us. Most of our LRMs miss, throwing up a lot of sand and dirt but nothing else. The Whitworth manages to land a few missiles on the wheeled assault gun, slowing it down to a crawl as several of the wheels begin wobbling around. It might not be effective at LRM range, but a Hetzer's front-mounted AC/20 is no joke.

Round 4:
Spoiler:
Image
That merc tank lance is screwed. And, honestly, so are we if our backup doesn't get here soon.

We focus fire on the Griffin, hitting it with several LRM salvos, but its armor holds up. The allied units lose the Hunter to tread damage while disabling a Drillson hovertank.

Round 5:
Spoiler:
Image
"Alpha-Battle lance on station." Lt. Al Din reports, his Merlin trailing behind the faster-moving Ostsol, Trebuchet and Griffin 1S of his lance. The Merlin is an "interesting" design from the kitchen sink school of mech design. It's a sixty-tonner with a PPC and LRM/5 for long-range work, a pair of medium lasers, and a flamer/MG combo. This particular one has had the MG ammo down-graded to half-ton because nobody is going to be firing a machine gun for half an hour non-stop. With "only" a half ton of MG ammo, that single MG will shoot dry in "only" twenty seven minutes.

We watch from our firing line as the remaining merc Vedettes get kind of swarmed. The Capellans deploy some infantry from their APCs to capture the Vedette crews, so we'll have to make sure they don't get away with those guys. Which would be a lot easier if we could actually hit something as a Capellan Clint blows away a merc Vedette, leaving just one of the merc units mobile.

Round 6:
Spoiler:
Image
It's a very nice firing line, but the Capellans might not be that suicidal that they'll charge in. We'll probably have to bait them in with a couple of the jump-capable units. Our Merlin's PPC does find a Clint's right torso, burning all the armor off of it.

The last merc tank gets blown away, so now it's entirely our show.
Spoiler:
Round 7:
Image
Having finished the merc tanks off, the Capellans, filled with enthusiasm after their initial victory, charge our firing line. A Saladin darts around behind some rock outcroppings, but our Catapult nails it with an LRM/15 salvo, blowing the light hovertank apart. We take a few minor LRM hits, while our Merlin zaps the enemy Griffin in the left arm with a PPC. Not the best spot - the PPC is in the right arm.

Round 8:
Spoiler:
Image
"Sure, buddy, you go first, we're right behind you!"

That poor Hermes doesn't last very long. LRMs arc out from our firing line stripping armor all across the 40-ton mech's front. A five-missile grouping breaches the center torso armor, dinging the engine and gyro. While the Hermes is staggering around, another grouping of LRMs from Alpha-Battle lance's Trebuchet blows off the right arm then cores out the center torso, causing the Capellan mech to collapse in a pile of scrap.

Round 9:
Spoiler:
Image
It took a while, we're almost out of LRMs, but the situation looks like it's about to degenerate into a melee, as the Capellans make their move.

The damaged Griffin runs up from the south, promptly losing the left arm to a PPC shot from our Vindicator, then staggering back and falling over as our Catapult zaps it in the front with three out of the four medium lasers (sending a separate LRM salvo at a Striker trying to hide behind some rocks).

To the south, our Griffin 1S engages several light mechs and a hovertank, zapping an SRM launcher on the enemy tank's turret. The nearby Firestarter unloads its short-ranged arsenal, causing our mechwarrior to flinch as a few MG rounds bounce off the cockpit armor, and miss his kick, having to drop down to a knee to avoid falling over entirely.

Round 10:
Spoiler:
Image
The Catapult and Griffin continue their duel.

A Wasp (1L variant - SRM/4 as its one and only weapon) jumps in on the Vindicator and Whitworth still firing LRMs, but they switch targets and blast it with lasers at close range. The bug mech takes a head shot from the Whitworth, a laser to the head, which shorts out the mech's sensors, causing its SRMs to blast the hill in front of the Vindicator instead of the mech itself. Then our Trebuchet comes up behind it. A laser melts some armor off the torso.

Our Wyvern runs west, getting around the side of a Hetzer and cutting off a couple of wheels with its large laser, immobilizing the self-propelled gun.

To the south, our Ostsol takes some damage in the back from a nimble Spider firing its lasers as it lands (that mech's going to get nice and hot) - the light mech throws a punch as well, and the damage indicator for the right torso large laser lights up. The Capellan Firestarter doesn't quite inflict as much damage as its attack is disrupted by an LRM salvo from our Trebuchet, which damages one of the arm actuators. Combined with fire from the Ostsol, the 35-ton mech falls over, its left arm completely disabled.

The Merlin fires a PPC shot at the Clint, as well as some other stuff which is irrelevant as the PPC goes straight into the cockpit, frying the mechwarrior inside and collapsing the lighter mech like a rag doll.

Round 11:
Spoiler:
Image
The Ostsol circles around the Firestarter as the enemy mech gets up, disabling its other arm with lasers. This leaves the 35-tonner with a couple of machine guns and flamers. The laser blasts from our Trebuchet don't help, reducing the left torso to scrap. He's had enough and zips off on the remaining jump jets, trailing engine coolant and metal debris. As much as we'd like to chase him down, we've still got others shooting at us, including that obnoxious little Spider that's jumping all over the place and zapping our mechs' rear arcs.

Round 12:
Spoiler:
Image
The Catapult and the Griffin continue circling each other, taking pot shots at other mechs occasionally. Such as when a Wasp wanders into the Catapult's line of sight as it's turning around to face the Griffin and eats a laser to the left torso, severing the arm.

Having forced the Firestarter out of the fight, the Ostsol turns its attention to the nearby Wasp, disabling the bug mech's right arm with laser fire. Our Griffin 1S disables the Maxim that's been harassing it with SRMs, blasting a hole through the hover skirt with its right-arm mounted laser array. The mech's return fire misses as it staggers, then a boot to the center torso from high ground finishes it off.

Round 13:
Spoiler:
Image
There's nothing left on the south flank, so we turn our attention north. Our Vindicator finally puts out of action the Hetzer that we blasted way early in the battle - it was still trundling along towards us, but that stops after a few LRMs knock out the last of the wheels.

The Catapult and Griffin dance around some more, the Catapult taking a moment to cut up the left torso of a nearby Wasp. Just trying to prolong the fight, huh?


Round 14:
Spoiler:
Image
"Gotcha, ya little bastard!" The mechwarrior in the Griffin calls out, as she manages to track the Spider - the little mech jumps to harass the Merlin then takes three lasers to the torso, its left side suddenly sagging and the arm flying off. The Merlin, meanwhile, checks off another little annoyance that's been pelting us with SRMs and autocannon rounds, the Warrior attack helicopter - it east a PPC directly to the front and more or less disintegrates in mid-air.

Our triumph is tempered somewhat though, when the Wyvern explodes as the Capellan militia pump SRMs into its damaged left side. The LRM ammo detonates and the mechwarrior just barely manages to eject.

At this point, the Capellans break and run off. Their infantry had initially managed to capture some of the Vedette crew members, but a quick wave of our mechs' weapons in their direction convinces them to leave their prisoners behind. They wind up having to cram one and a half platoons (minus some casualties that they took when a Vedette raked them with its machine gun) into a single Maxim.

The Griffin, Firestarter, Spider and the 1L Wasp escape, along with three tanks. Although, they're so damaged it'll likely be weeks before we see them again, what with the missing arms and torso sections. The tanks we'll probably see sooner, but honestly it's hard to tell one tank from another.

We get our salvage crews out there to see what's going on. The mercs' Hunter and a Vedette turn out to be recoverable, the other two Vedettes are scrap. Our Wyvern is totaled. We grab the disabled Drillson, intending to pull the large laser off of it to replace our Ostsol's damaged one. Our Vindicator reports its LRM/5 launcher destroyed, so we claim a disabled Maxim as well, as it's got a pair of those. Grabbing the Clint is just common sense, since it's basically intact, other than some missing armor and a completely fried cockpit. To remedy that last part, we also recover the destroyed Wasp, since the cockpit electronics in it are all intact and we can use the spare parts.

The rest, we hand over to the mercs (although some of our mechwarriors express reservations re: their mercenary nature - what kind of mercenary doesn't argue over salvage?) - they come out of the exercise having traded two Vedettes for two Hetzers (is it good? Depends where you're fighting) , plus a scrapped Hermes and some rotor blades from a Warrior attack helicopter.

We also capture the mechwarrior driving the Wasp and a knocked-out Hetzer crewman.

The merc commander looks up at Lt. Chandrasekhar's Catapult with a scowl on his face. "Some rescue, jackass."

"Yeah, well, we probably lost more C-Bills on this one than you did." the Lieutenant replies.

---------------

Pvt. Zina Ochieng, driving the Griffin 1S in Alpha Company's Battle lance, apparently took a couple of shots to the dome, and will be out of action with a broken rib. Combined with Beta company's Fire lance losing the Wyvern, that puts us at two mechs down. Luckily, we've got both mechwarriors and mechs to spare.

Zenn7 talks to the mechwarrior who lost the Wyvern, one Pvt. Tessa Eng:
"We've got a couple of replacement mechs you can drive, so no need to worry about becoming dispossessed and having to hang around with the infantry."

"This guy right here, that's a Crusader CRD-3L. You know the specs on a standard Crusader, right?"

"Yeah, two of everything. LRM/10s, SRM/6s, lasers, machine guns." The private replies.

"Right, this one's the Liao variant. A superior one, if I do say so myself." he adds with a smug grin. "Still runs nice and warm, but as a concession to wusses, downgrades the SRM launchers to 4s, adds jump jets and heat sinks. So it'll be just like your Wyvern, except with more firepower and armor." He raises a finger. "Actually, this one, our techs did some custom work on, and it's got half as much MG ammo as the standard variant. Put more armor on it."

The private smirks. "Makes sense. Never heard of anybody running out of MG ammo. Except that one guy whose ammo bin door got crosswired with his coolant flush."

Zenn7 shrugs. "I wouldn't know, I'm really more of a PPC guy."

"This one's an Icarus II." he points to a beat-up-looking mech. "House Marik made these. About three hundred years ago. Same movement profile, class ten autocannon, two lasers. Lighter than your Wyvern and less range, too. Plus the AC will run out of ammo in about a minute and a half of continuous fire, so you'll have to watch your ammo count."

"What about that Hunchback?" Pvt. Eng points out.

Another shrug. "Sure, but you won't be able to keep up with your lance in rough terrain." He waves around the cavernous storage bay of the rented Mule.

"We've also got another Eridani Light Horse Thunderbolt, a Catapult, a Grasshopper and some Panthers. Oh yeah, and some Whitworths and a Hatchetman. Just don't have the mechwarriors to man them all. Think about it and get back to me in the morning. I'll have the techs pull it out of storage in time for your next sortie."

Replacement for the Wyvern (a mixed-range 4/6/4 mech, which moved at the same rate as the rest of the Fire lance):
[] Crusader CRD-3L - a Liao variant of the Crusader. 65 tons, good armor, good weapons loadout. Ok heat management. SRMs in legs impede kicking.
[] Icarus II - a Marik special. 40 tons, crap armor, ok weapons. Good heat management. Runs out of ammo quick.
[] Thunderbolt TDR-5SE - jumping Thunderbolt. Good weapons, good armor. Ok heat management as long as you bracket fire.
[] Catapult CPLT-C1 - We just saw it in action. Runs dry on LRMs pretty quick, but has excellent heat management and four backup lasers. Good armor.
[] Grasshopper - Cylus' favorite mech. Excellent armor, many lasers plus a tiny LRM rack.
[] Panther - Kurita classic with a PPC. Well-armored for its size.
[] Hatchetman - Not that fast, not much armor, but it's got an axe.
[] Whitworth - twin LRM/10s backed up by three lasers

Temporary replacement for Griffin 1S (a shorter-range better-heat-managed Griffin)
[] Dervish DV-6M - we love these things. Armor's a little low, heat's kind of high, but good weapons at all ranges.
[] Griffin GRF-1N - classic long-range sniper. PPC and LRM/10. Heats up like an Awesome with its heat sinks turned off.

The merc leader we bailed out wastes no time briefing us on their targets. The lance of tanks isn't all there is, but it's all there is in the area, for now. They've been making do with scavenged Capellan militia equipment for a while, which explains why a bunch of supposedly bad-ass mercs would be using Vedettes.

That aside, there are two Capellan facilities within range of one another. One of them contains data servers and equipment prototypes that the mercs (and thus, we) have been contracted to recover. The other contains command & control for the local theater of operations. A combination of our reconaissance and the "after-action report" the mercs share with us explains why they're having a crap time.

The facility with the data servers and prototype equipment is defended by a full assault lance. Two Strikers, a Stalker and an Awesome ("they shot the crap out of us when we tried a hit and run, I'm pretty sure they've got our mechs"). Plus a reinforced company of light tanks, and a pair of Vindicators.

The command center is a little lighter, as it's only got two heavy mech lances and a short light mech lance. But they've also got a dropship, Triumph-class, that they will no doubt use to ferry large numbers of tanks around from one place to the other.

Ideally, we'll want to torch both places, but we still have to grab the servers and equipment prototypes.

Gbasden smirks at Zarathud and winces. "You were right, it's a tech grab. That's going to be a tough nut to crack." he looks at Zenn7. "No holding back on this one."

"Should we bring the aero jocks?" El Guapo pipes up.

"Maybe. We can load them up with bombs, but with that dropship in area, I don't know."

Lance deployment for data center (pick 2):
[] Command Lance (Awesome, upgraded Marauder, Catapult, upgraded Hatchetman)
[] Battle Lance (Merlin, Trebuchet 5J, Ostsol, Griffin replacement)
[] Urban Lance (Crusader 3L, Shadow Hawk 2K, Trebuchet 5J, Phoenix Hawk 1D)
[] Strike Squadron (Shilone, Hellcat, Corsair)

Lance deployment for command center (pick 2)
[] Assault lance (Awesome x2, Victor, Thunderbolt)
[] Hunter Lance (Guillotine, Stalker, Atlas, Orion)
[] Fire Lance (Catapult, Vindicator, Whitworth, Wyvern replacement)
[] Strike Squadron (Stuka, Lightning, Lucifer)
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