Vote Results:
In addition to the loss of Pvt. van Aalst, we also lost one of the poor scrubs driving the coolant truck. Of all the things for a dropship to unleash its firepower on, you wouldn't expect a random coolant truck to be one, but that's how that goes.
Alpha-Ranger winds up spending several days tracking down the units that escaped from our encounter with the Queen of Butte Hold. Our lance lacks the firepower to take on the firebase that they discover, but they keep an eye on things. When two lances of heavy mechs, supported by a medium and light lance plus assorted tanks and hovercraft, emerge from the firebase and head towards one of our designated defense facilities, we decide to intercept them before they get there. Alpha-Ranger will nip on their heels while Alpha-Urban will move out from the facility they're defending and provide the anvil. Coming along with Alpha-Ranger is a Star Guards... Stinger. Sigh.
The good part is that we've been able to set up a minefield along the projected pirate route. The bad part is that someone swapped our conventional mine shipment for vibrabombs. For those that haven't heard of these before, this is special ordnance that "responds" to ground vibrations. Such as those generated by mechs walking along the ground. Or earthquakes. But we're not anticipating that here. When you set these up, you have to set them for a certain tonnage. Tanks and mechs lighter than the tonnage setting don't set them off, while mechs of the specified tonnage or higher do. So they're pretty tricky to use when you have a wide variety of mech tonnage on the field or don't know what the bad guys are fielding ahead of time. We'll see how it goes. Neither Isgrimnur nor Cujo are impressed.
Round 1:
"Stay out of that water, it's flowing pretty fast." Cujo reminds everyone as Alpha-Ranger lance closes in on the middle of the enemy formation. The hovercraft have already moved south, so it'll be up to Alpha-Urban to stop them, but the jump-capable medium mechs and assorted tanks are fair game.
Including a Galleon tank trundling through the mud, which is cut to ribbons by the lasers on Bass's Griffin 1S.
Isgrimnur, to the south, moves his thumb to toggle the LBX autocannon between slug and cluster rounds, but all he hears is a click and a beep sound. Diagnostic computer shows no damage, but the ammo feed isn't switching over. And, the anti-aircraft targeting software craps out again. The mechwarrior reacts with indistinct grumbling. A little piece of crap Ferret scout chopper zips by unmolested, while a Warrior lingers briefly to fire LRMs in the general direction of our BattleAxe, missing.
Round 2:
Bass is on a roll, blasting the treads off a Vedette. It's not actually clear whether its the laser damage or something else, but long story short, the tank gets stuck in the mud. Bass's Griffin takes a couple of SRMs from nearby bad guys but it takes a little more than that to take a Griffin down.
Also, yet another advantage mechs have over tanks - they don't get stuck in relatively shallow mud. "Seriously?" Bass remarks. "It's only one or two meters, tops. Wankers."
Stefan is silent, concentrating on engaging a Grasshopper, which outmasses his Trebuchet by twenty tons, and is thus a pretty rough fight.
Cujo, meanwhile, knocks over a hostile Wolverine, avoiding its clumsy counter punches, while the Warrior VTOL lazily avoids Alpha-Urban's weapons fire. Granted, the rain and the VTOL's rapid movement is making weapon targeting a little difficult, but at least *one* of those PPCs and pulse lasers should have hit.
The allied Stinger reports shoulder actuator damage on its right arm, which is where pretty much all of its guns are, so that thing is basically useless now. Not that it was in any way useful before.
Round 3:
As Cujo spots the two lances of heavies coming in, she fires up the Wolverine's jump jets and hops over the river to the south, expecting her Wolverine counterpart on the opfor to get back up and rejoin the fight. Instead, the opposing mech slips in the mud and lands face down, at which point an ammo explosion rips it apart. Our mechwarrior mouths a silent "what" before switching targets.
Bass continues his rampage, fuel-tanking another Vedette.
Our new Blackjack scores its first kill, finally taking the Warrior helicopter out just as the VTOL is about to fly out of range. Those rear-flipping arms can be really helpful sometimes.
Isgrimnur intercepts a Plainsman hovertank trying to slip by. The autocannon might be on the fritz, but the hatchet works just fine, smashing the hovercraft apart as the Hatchetman absorbs a few SRMs.
Stefan gets the upper hand on the Grasshopper, tripping it up while avoiding its laser attacks, while the Star Guards' Stinger somehow manages to knock over a Rifleman.
Round 4:
"Alpha-Urban, be advised, you have a reinforced lance of light mechs and hovercraft moving in your direction, with three jump-capable medium mechs close behind." Cujo informs Isgrimnur.
Stefan disengages from the Grasshopper temporarily to give the Trebuchet's heat sinks a break - he's just not doing enough damage to the heavily-armored 70 tonner and the Trebuchet is starting to creak and groan. Our Ostroc takes the opportunity to remove half the treads from a nearby Goblin - a laser from the enemy tank blasts our mech in the head, but armor holds up and then the tank slowly sinks into the mud.
The allied Stinger continues its unexpected rampage, zipping in to trip a Marauder up. This guy seems to be surprisingly good at this - or lucky.
Round 5:
Isgrimnur jumps north to intercept the incoming hovercraft, hoping to repeat the performance with the Plainsman. An AC/20 blast from the Saladin rocks our mech, nearly breaching the armor on the right arm. A quick swing from the hatchet breaches the armor on another Saladin as our mechwarrior shakes off the impact.
To the north, Bass and the Ostroc continue picking off tanks, a Packrat and another two Vedettes being disabled.
Stefan continues the duel against the Grasshopper, the enemy mech's left leg armor looking pretty weak while our Trebuchet avoids most of the outgoing fire from the heavier mech.
The Star Guards Stinger flits back to the Rifleman it worked on earlier, tripping it up again.
Round 6:
Our weapons fire is pretty ineffective for a little while, as the hostile hovercraft and mechs pepper or mechs with hits from lighter ordnance. Isgrimnur decides to disengage from the Saladin that's tracking him and jumps north, bringing the hatchet down on a hapless Wasp's right shoulder. The impact crumples the right torso section and breaks the right leg as well, sending the bug mech to the ground.
With the tanks to the northwest wrapped up, Bass and the Ostroc move south to join Stefan and help out with the Grasshopper.
Round 7:
"Sustained critical damage, pulling back." The Star Guards Stinger reports as its engine shielding evaporates after taking a PPC from the hostile Marauder - the heavy mech lance apparently has had enough of the stupid little bug mech jumping around and tripping them.
Bass puts a shot from the Griffin's large laser through a stray Vedette on the way to help Stefan, taking the tank out of action. Stefan, meanwhile, avoids most of the Grasshopper's laser fire and breaches its left leg armor, snapping one of the actuators.
Round 8:
Our Blackjack gets the remaining Saladin trying to get past us, a PPC shot frying the hovertank. Meanwhile, Stefan's duel with the Grasshopper is ended with the arrival of Bass and the Ostroc, the latter of which cracks the 70 ton mech's damaged left leg, sending it to the ground.
Round 9:
Our Blackjack scores the last kill of the fight, sinking a Maxim hover transport as it tries to cross a small lake to get past Alpha-Urban. A PPC shot causes the hovertank to dip, its fans suck up a bunch of water and the engine just gives out. The Hatamoto-Hi finally scores a hit as well, blasting bits off the Stinger that tries to take on our Blackjack, which gives said Blackjack an opening to leg the bug mech with short range weapons and a kick.
The rest of the heavies and mediums withdraw - so basically, we got all their support units but not the big guys (with the exception of the Grasshopper).
---
"So why can't we keep the Grasshopper?" Bass asks.
"Contract terms say salvage goes to employer until they reach 1.2 billion." Cujo replies.
"What are they at now?"
"Last time I checked, about 300 mil after we hauled in that Leopard."
"Do... we have to tell them about it? Like, just say the mech walked off under its own power or something, then shove the thing into our Jumbo and fix it up later. Not like any of the Lyran people are anywhere near here." Bass continues the line of inquiry, puppy dog eyes showing even through voice comms.
"... the guy driving it ejected, and you're literally holding his ejection seat and him in your mech's left hand." Cujo points out, with an expression of consternation on her face.
"... we could sign the guy up?" Bass presses on. "I mean, he kind of sucks if he couldn't even beat up a stupid little Trebuchet, but..."
"Hey!" Stefan pipes up, indignant.
[] Come up with some kind of contrived excuse to keep the Grasshopper and quickly shove it into our cargo dropship
[] Just let the stupid thing go