Yep, neurohelmets are still a thing. Welcome aboard, Private Thanh-Huong "Xwraith" Luu. Might be a little while before you see action. For a bug (apparently that's a term reserved for 20-ton mechs with "insect" names), the Stinger is a pretty good mech, though.
April 24th, 3027
Beta lance is dispatched to intercept and destroy another shipment of raw materials stolen from a FWL facility. Scrub tries to wait out the rain, but it only gets worse, so we'll be fighting in some seriously deep mud. The other wrinkle in our plan is that Archinerd's Clint took a hit to a jump jet that we haven't been able to fix, so he'll be a little bit slower than usual. The lance takes up position in a small town and prepares to carry out their interception as the enemy unit passes through en route to their extraction zone. The liaison is in a 4/4 pilot in a Wyvern, which is a 45-ton mech I'm rather partial to. The enemy escort force has exactly three hover tanks and two jump-capable mechs, while the rest are tread heads that will be stuck in the mud. We shouldn't discount them, as there are three AC/20 equipped Hetzers in that mix. We will need to destroy or disable five units of the enemy escort force and the entire convoy. Allied air recon reports that an enemy dropship is on the way to extract the enemy convoy, but will not stick around as allied interceptors are scrambling.
The terrain is as muddy as I expected. Terrible. At least it's not *all* mud, unlike Alpha lance's last mission. There's six treadheads directly to our east, a similar number way to the southeast, and a lone AC/10 Hetzer all the way to the northeast, where I predict he'll stay the entire game.
Round 1:
Our first order of business is to close with the cargo transports and take them down while keeping away from the enemy escort force. The crowd of vehicles to Archinerd's east are an issue, so we steer clear for now. The Powerman unloads SRMs on the Quickdraw, getting a head shot, but the pilot is only momentarily shaken. Archinerd lines up an AC/5 shot and knocks a rocket launcher directly off the Carbine Constructionmech, while the Wyvern hits it with a large laser and takes off the arm.
Round 2:
Enemy hovercraft reinforcements close in rapidly, and two Vedettes trundle up the road. I think I'm going to drop that bridge into the water if I can to stop them coming over. Our Griffin continues working on the Carbine, blasting off a leg. The mech falls over, destroying its gyro, and the pilot bails out. The liaison in the Wyvern switches targets and hits the Crosscut with large laser and LRM/10, severely damaging the mech. Instead of following up with a devastating kick, Scrub misses and falls over, as does the Quickdraw further up north. Yikes.
Round 3:
Our mechs get up, slightly humiliated and hopefully to do better this round. It occurs to me that the Vedettes can't cross the bridge anyway, weighing more than it can support, so we'll just keep that in mind going forward. Our Quickdraw pilot redeems herself, pouring lasers into the Powerman she's dueling then following up with a kick to the right leg, pretty much ripping it off - the whipping and rapidly disconnecting cables and pipes also severely damage the engine as the mech splashes down into the mud. The impact jostles something in the engine which comes apart completely. Scrub and the enemy Maxim to the south exchange fire, with Scrub coming out slightly ahead. Our Griffin unloads on the Crosscut, boring through the center torso armor with the PPC and collapsing one of the legs with an LRM salvo. Archinerd contributes with a medium laser engine hit, and the mech falls over, stalling his engine. The pilot's attempts to restart it fail catastrophically and instead of a nice "winding up" sound, he gets a "sputter sputter KABOOM".
Round 4:
The Quickdraw comes after the APC to the north, while the rest of our mechwarriors can now concentrate on the enemy hovercraft and jumper mechs trickling into town. The APC is history after a quick laser blast to the front. The liaison in the Wyvern takes the time out of his busy day to drill through the approaching Saracen's left side with a laser and remove all motive elements along there, following up with some LRMs to make life more difficult. The vehicle circles around crazily, but the driver manages to regain control and bring it down to the ground.
Round 5:
As the Quickdraw makes her way back to the area of engagement, the rest of Beta lance engages the enemy "recon detachment" that's entered the town. Our Griffin "surgically" removes the left arm from the enemy Stinger, the damage extending to the left torso section. The J.Edgar pings our liaison with a medium laser through the center torso armor, damaging the gyro. The pilot remains standing, but we'll be pulling him back a bit. Scrub and the Maxim continue to exchange fire, with Scrub inflicting slightly more damage.
Round 6:
Scrub splashes down a little too hard in a small lake and winds up fully in the drink. Firing yields little result, and our Griffin gets kicked too.
Round 7:
The Maxim moves backwards into town and into range of the Quickdraw and Wyvern. Archinerd exposes himself a bit to try to get a good kick on the Stinger, dinging the mech in the head. While he's celebrating, he takes an AC/20 round to the left torso, knocking off his arm and heavily damaging the center torso. The bright spot is that the allied Wyvern breaches the Maxim's armor, knocking out an SRM/2. The driver turns the vehicle around and hits the gas, barreling out of there. No more exposing ourselves to those Hetzers for sure. The downside is that we still need to destroy or disable three enemy units before the enemy dropship arrives in three turns.
Round 8:
Mac reinforcements hot drop in. It's two mechs and a vehicle lance, including hovercraft. We need to wrap this up quickly, or we'll be up shit creek without a paddle. Things in town get a little crowded. Our Quickdraw inflicts major damage on the Firestarter's leg. The allied Wyvern takes multiple hits from AC/5s. One round finds its way to the engine and and another to the LRM/10 launcher. He does manage to plow SRMs into that annoying little J.Edgar hovertank, where one goes right into an air duct and takes out the engine. The Wyvern, Griffin and Stinger engage in a little kicking and punching dance, with the Stinger coming away legless and almost armless. The Stinger pilot bails out the next turn. Still, it's time to pull the Wyvern out.
Round 9:
With the Vedettes hanging out outside of town, sniping with AC/5s, the Saladin and LTV-4 (AC/20 and PPC respectively) engage us at close range. I get the Quickdraw and Vulcan in there to hopefully ding the Saladin, but what we really need to do is take out the Firestarter. Archinerd and our liaison have withdrawn, as they're risking total destruction if I leave them in the fight. The Quickdraw takes some internal damage but breaches the armor on the LTV-4 with medium lasers, forcing it to withdraw. She then follows up with a solid kick to the Saladin's right side taking the hovercraft out of the fight. The Griffin kicks the charging firestarter, after weathering a barrage of lasers, flamers and machine guns, knocking the smaller mech to the ground with center torso damage.
Round 10:
We can see the dropship on radar, so one last round and then it's time to wrap it up. The enemy Firestarter gets up but moves nowhere, meaning he's screwed, as we triple team on him and unload everything we have, heat no longer being a real consideration. He fires back bravely, destroying the Quickdraw's right arm, but loses the center torso section to a PPC. The enemy reinforcement mechs fire from out of town to little effect. With the enemy force in bad shape (although, truth be told, ours is in worse shape), the remaining enemy units that can, jump or drive away to board their dropship and leave.
This turned out to be a tougher battle than I expected, between all the mud and the AC/20 rounds to the torso sections. It's always something: either swarms of SRM-equipped hovercraft or a bunch of AC/20s. Beta lance will take a while to fix up, and we may need to sub in people while that happens. We skip salvage for now, electing to build up a little credit with our employer. We net 105k in prisoner capture bonuses, though, which should just about pay for the cost of the repairs our mechs need. The Quickdraw pilot also wound up with a concussion at some point, and the doctor recommends she take a whopping 37 days off. Normally, I'd say just walk it off, but it does affect her piloting ability. Not to mention her mech is still missing an arm.
For the next week, we sub out the Quickdraw and Clint and bring in a Firestarter, Phoenix Hawk and Saladin hover tank for Beta lance. I know, I know, vehicle peasants. Thankfully, the Magistracy decides to ease up on the raids next week, probably partially due to the drubbing we gave them. Three mechs come up for sale that I'm interested in:
Grand Dragon DRG-1G
60 tons, 5/8, 12 heat sinks, 160 armor
3x Medium Laser (1 rear facing, which we'll fix shortly after getting it)
1x PPC
1x LRM/10
A decent all-around mech, although a little light on the heat sinks.
Guillotine GLT-4L
70 tons, 4/6/4, 22 heat sinks, 192 armor
1x Large Laser
4x Medium Laser
Solid mid-range brawler mech. Can run and fire all its weapons.
Archer ARC-2K
70 tons, 4/6, 12 heat sinks, 176 armor
2x Large Laser
2x LRM/15
I don't really like this one actually. It's slow, lightly armored and can't fire both large lasers without overheating, although it does pack a healthy amount of LRMs, making it an excellent long-range fire support mech. Unfortunately, 90% of our fights don't stay at long range.
Anybody want to switch mechs?
By the time the next week rolls around (we're in May now), Archinerd's Clint is all fixed up, so Beta lance is now Vulcan, Griffin, Archinerd, Phoenix Hawk and XWraith in the Stinger (no Quickdraw). Isgrimnur becomes (in El Guapo's words) "barely acceptable" at gunnery, so now we just have one scrub left. The next week after that, enemy forces resume operations and the local government starts experiencing civilian unrest, so we'll have our hands full.