Vote Results:
"Right. Beta-Hunter, hang back a little then come in and engage. Beta-Fire, stay with the dropship, keep your eyes open. Let's move out."
June 6, 3051
Fletcher Convention Center, Habitation Dome 8D
Al Na'ir, Draconis Combine
Round 1:
"I'm it?" Our Zephyr's driver exclaims. "No, bitch, TAG, *you're* it!"
Except he TAGs the nearby pavement.
The whole thing, from our end, is an exercise in futility, as we don't have a single LRM, laser-guided bomb or Arrow IV missile in the area.
Our battle armor's first outing is so far a disaster - a Zephyr hovertank comes around a corner as they move into position and lets rip with lasers and SRMs, downing two troopers. The Zephyr avoids all return fire, including the grenades.
A few infantry from an LRM platoon eat LRMs from the Archer as well, taking some casualties.
Our Flashman exchanges fire with a Crusader, the two mechs scoring laser hits on each other's armor.
Round 2:
Our two Falcon hovertanks break north and get intercepted by a group of militia hovercraft - one of our Falcons opens up on a Harasser, breaching the hovercraft's armor with a laser blast, then gets blown away by an SRM salvo from a Zephyr.
Zenn7 sights a Guillotine to the north - the Liao variant with jump jets. Three PPC blasts take off two tons of armor, causing the mech to stagger a little but the mechwarrior keeps it upright. Meanwhile our Hatamoto-Hi moves down a parallel street and immobilizes an SRM Carrier with its twin PPCs. The enemy Crusader pings our assault mech in the head with some LRMs, but armor holds.
Round 3:
The Guillotine steps out of line of sight, the mechwarrior obviously having an understanding of what the eventual outcome of that "duel" would be. Zenn7 opens up on a Rommel tank to the north, hoping to take the AC/20 out of action, but the tank is tough, absorbing all three PPC shots without too much trouble.
Meanwhile, our second Falcon pulls back to the south, chased by the Zephyr. Both hovertanks get flipped over by an artilley round landing nearby.
Our Flashman moves northeast to help the Hatamoto-Hi engage the Crusader as our mechwarrior clears his head after getting dinged a little. The Crusader takes some more armor damage, causing it to stagger backward and fail to inflict anything in return.
Our Victor takes a break from shooting its gauss rifle at a dual AC/10 turret with our UAC/5 field gun infantry rolling into position and taking over - instead, an enemy Archer takes the gauss slug instead.
Our battle armor troopers hide out in a building, allowing them to avoid taking any more casualties.
Round 4:
Our jump infantry platoon gets revenge on one of the Kurita hovercraft, firing their small arms as the vehicle passes by the building they're camping out in. A few lucky shots make it into the hovertank's fuel lines, lighting it up. No salvage, but good shooting.
Our battle armor troopers engage an enemy Jenner from inside a building, using the cover to prevent themselves from getting blasted and pinging some grenades off its right weapons mount. Well, it was a nice try anyway, guys - then, the Guillotine kicks the building, crushing another battle armor trooper with collapsing debris.
Zenn7 continues the duel with the heavy armor to the north, heating the Awesome up pretty severely, but inflicting major armor and tread damage on a Rhino, with not any serious damage in return. Our Hatamoto-Hi and Flashman continue engaging the Crusader, taking some LRM fire but inflicting several armor breaches - our Flashman circles around the back of the enemy heavy, delivering a nasty kick to the rear torso from a short nearby building - the left arm and attached weapons go flying off.
Our Victor disables the AC/10 turret and moves north to engage the Archer.
Round 5:
"It's just me now, this grenade launcher isn't cutting it." The lone remaining battle armor trooper reports. "Bugging out."
"Right." Zenn7 replies. Obviously we have some work to do on our battle armor doctrine. Our mechwarrior contents himself with blasting a hole through a Rommel's front armor with PPCs, watching as its turret sags.
The Rhino had switched streets to avoid our Awesome, but that doesn't help it as our Flashman steps out and makes the assault tank eat lasers, fusing its treads. The reply LRMs cause some armor damage, but nothing our mech can't handle.
Round 6:
Siljanus brings his lance in from the northeast, sealing the trap.
To the west, our infantry make hash of a Galleon light tank's treads, disabling it in the middle of the street.
Zenn7 fires the Awesome's PPCs at a Jenner that skylines itself going after our Flashman, smirking in satisfaction as the light mech drops to the ground. It's not out yet, but that was a good hit. Our Flashman takes an armor breach to the center torso, so the mechwarrior will have to be careful (or, better yet, pull back).
Round 7:
Our support laser infantry is having a field day today, directing fire against the Guillotine as it moves west and scoring a headshot along with some other minor armor damage.
Zenn7 fires PPCs at a Manticore to the north, blasting off enough armor that our Flashman's lasers can open up a breach, inspiring the driver to run his vehicle off, the tank's gunners pinging a few LRMs off the slightly worn armor.
Round 8:
Our jump infantry take some casualties as the Guillotine works on their building, although they manage to score some damage against the mech and cause an armor breach on the left leg.
Our Hatamoto-Hi and Zephyr disable the Partisan tank, melting two of its autocannon barrels and sending a PPC shot through a left side armor breach to melt the engine. Our AC/10 field gunners engage a Von Luckner with fire from their field guns, scoring a couple good hits, but are unable to clear their hiding place before a burst from the tank's autocannon levels the structure.
To the northeast, Siljanus' lance continues engaging the stationary defenses, with Siljanus picking an LRM/20 turret off a building roof with a dead-on shot from the gauss rifle. The Victor continues battling the Archer, the latter mech's LRM launchers being all but useless in the situation, but it still holds its own as well as it can.
Round 9:
The Jenner has made its way through nearby alleys and moves to harass Zenn7's Awesome, but a gauss slug from our nearby crew-served weapon brings it up short. This lets our mechwarrior sight on the light mech, shearing off its left leg with one PPC shot and right weapons mount with another one, bringing it flopping to the ground.
A Scimitar and the Guillotine get in behind our Flashman as the mech tries to retreat from the Von Luckner to the north, damaging an arm actuator and blowing out a laser. Our Hatamoto-Hi retaliates by stitching pulse laser blasts across the Scimitar's motive surfaces, deflating its skirt and settling it down on the pavement.
Our ultra-autocannon infantry finally pick off the Sniper artillery turret that's been dropping shells on us the whole time.
The Archer, getting some backup from an eighteen-tube SRM/6 turret to the west, forces an armor breach on the Victor, although no critical equipment is destroyed thankfully.
Round 10:
Our support laser infantry gets their second Galleon kill of the day, blasting through the armor on the second one that crosses their line of fire. The light tank opts to retreat.
The Guillotine chases the Flashman as our mech retreats, but runs into Zenn7, eating an armor breach to the right leg from PPC fire and a small laser head shot. The Flashman capitalizes on this and shreds the damaged limb with lasers, throwing some flamer into the mix as well.
Our Hatamoto-Hi disables the remaining Scimitar as it zips by.
To the north the Victor and Siljanus' lance knock down both the Archer and Phoenix Hawk with concentrated weapons fire.
Round 11:
"Leave him for the infantry." Zenn7 tells the Flashman. "Rally on me and push north."
The Phoenix Hawk that our Thunderbolt and Guillotine teamed up on gets up, slips on the pavement and falls down, the mechwarrior knocking himself out.
Siljanus fires the Mackie's gauss rifle and a few energy weapons, holding a PPC to conserve heat. The medium laser turret in front of the Mackie sags and the building collapses, and then Siljanus is hit with a wave of nausea as the Mackie's gauss rifle blows up again after getting pinged with an SRM. This time, our mechwarrior was ahead of the game and didn't eat a full lunch before going out, so he's just hit with a wave of nausea and passes out from the pain, the mech standing there briefly before keeling over.
Our Hatamoto-Hi loses an arm to LRMs from a 45-barrel turret to the north, which our Victor takes out, but not before it lets out its last salvo.
Round 12:
Our Thunderbolt disables the remaining Skulker, while our Guillotine saws the leg off the Phoenix Hawk with the unconscious mechwarrior to prevent it from getting up later (the mech was in pretty good shape otherwise). Our Hatamoto-Hi stomps around the corner, getting the Von Luckner that was waiting for Zenn7, cracking through the tank's armor and causing it to slip its treads to boot.
With that, there are no mobile hostile units left on the field. The Archer, a Crusader, a Galleon tank and a Manticore got away, along with a Harasser from way early on, but the rest of the units are ours to salvage. The Locust uses its superior mobility to hide among some buildings then makes a run for it when our infantry move in to do a sweep. It's pretty good - for a Locust. Well, no matter.
There's not much left of the Falcon that got blown up or its crew, mostly just carbon scoring on the pavement. Our AC/10 field gunners and jump platoon took some heavy casualties as well.
Salvage is a couple of high-tech turrets with Artemis systems - we also grab a pair of TAG Scimitars, along with the beat-up Guillotine (legless, the mechwarrior bails out) and the Phoenix Hawk, mostly for spare parts.
Our MVP this battle is the mechwarrior in the Hatamoto-Hi, who got an "ace", scoring five mobile kills. It's not quite as cool as a mech "ace", but you almost never see that in an actual fight - mechs are a little more rare than one might think.
---
When Siljanus wakes up, he's once again in the sick bay, his head in traction, the Moonraker thrusting towards the nadir jump point at a comfy 1G.
"Kind of getting to be a habit, isn't it?" TheMix states.
"Damn gauss rifle blew up again, didn't it." Siljanus responds.
"Yeah. Doc says you're only gonna be out for a couple weeks this time. Gotta watch the head, big guy."
Siljanus chuckles, wincing. "You're one to talk, driving a Crusader. That thing has enough ammo in it to launch you into orbit."
"True, but at least my ejection seat works." The other mechwarrior replies.
---
Funerals for the infantry and battle armor personnel are held en route to the jump point. We're not terribly happy with the battle armor's performance and will have to re-think our usage of it. If we'd used them more appropriately, they'd have done better but they got caught out in the open by a hovertank and had no chance.
Replacement armor and battle suits are ridiculously expensive: 500,000 C-Bills per ton (although, to be fair, a Waddle... sorry, uh, "Infiltrator Mk I"... suit mounts only a third of a ton of armor. Replacement battle suits are 350k C-Bills apiece (and we need two of them). For reference, a Firestarter's engine costs that much.
We like our Falcon hovertanks and have the opportunity to grab a replacement one. The turret-mounted weapons are highly effective and we like the speed and the techs (and our wallets) like the fact that it doesn't have any crazy star league tech on it. But, as we've seen, sometimes, they blow up.
[] Replace Falcon
[] Just go with our existing Scimitars and Zephyrs instead, Weisman knows we've got plenty
We also loot crate after crate of high-tech components (and capture all the targets attending the convention), and, upon returning to Outreach, our employer gives us a cut of the goodies. We get 14 points of "stuff". Available components (that we're interested in), one point per piece of equipment.
[] Double Heat sink (we have 10 currently)
[] LB-10X autocannon (we have 3 spares)
[] Medium Pulse laser (we have 2 spares)
---
Inner Sphere tech news update:
Mechwarriors on Solaris VII have taken to mounting reinforced spike plates on their battlemechs. Initial reports indicate that spikes make it more difficult to land effective blows with melee attacks, although it does eat up tonnage. We're unlikely to install this on our mechs, as we need all the tonnage we can spare for guns and real armor - we'll leave the show-boating to the Solaris jocks.
Federated-Boeing Interstellar has announced a partnership with the Federated Commonwealth to produce capital-scale missile launchers. While FedCom (or, really, any other Inner Sphere power) lacks any WarShips on which to mount said launchers, they can be placed in fixed installations to drastically improve a planet's defense against approaching hostile spacecraft.
Warner Inc. and Jalastar Aerospace have announced the release of the Sparrowhawk SPR-6D, using an XL engine to mount an array of pulse lasers. If we see these, we'll be sure to snap them up, both to replace our crappy old Sparrowhawks and because we could use the spare medium pulse lasers.
Kallon industries has announced a production run of the HNT-171 Hornet, a 20-ton mech with a medium laser, an LRM/5 rack and an AMS installation. Two tons of LRM/5 ammo keep the mech over-supplied with LRM ammo, although it is protected by CASE to prevent a total blow-out. It's got ferro-fibrous armor and endo-steel internal structure, which makes all of no difference, since it's not really fast enough to avoid weapons fire and doesn't have enough armor to withstand it. We'll be taking a pass on these, except in cases of salvage, when we could always use more ferro-fibrous armor.
The Clan front is still calm, with no offensive actions taken by the clans.
The only other major news is that the world of Gei-Fu (as of a few months ago) attempted to secede from the Capellan Confederation and join the nearby St. Ives Compact, but the uprising was put down by forces from Warrior House Hiritsu.
---
Contract options:
Once we get back to FedCom space, only one option strikes us as interesting: a treasure hunt on Graham IV, a relatively low-G world a few jumps from Terra. Back in the days of the Star League, this world held vast resources and multiple military manufacturing facilites and academies. Then, when Stefan Amaris the Usurper took over, his forces dropped a large number of nuclear warheads on major population and industrial centers. Today, the world has a population of ~400 million, living mostly in orbital habitats and near the poles, where there was a little less "applied nuclear proliferation". The nuclear winter is long gone, and there are still a few manufacturing facilities here and there, but nothing compared to the planet's heyday.
Some (extremely well-funded) "treasure hunters" from Free Worlds League space have apparently gotten a hot tip that some of these industrial complexes didn't quite get destroyed, and want to hire some security forces to "proactively defend excavation operations" and "eliminate competition". Said opposition is likely to be other mercenary forces and corporate security, though planetary militia is a possibility as are elements of the 5th Lyran Regulars. We do not expect FedCom forces to become involved, however, unless existing strategic assets come under attack (or somebody blabs about Star League goodies right under their noses).
Details:
14 high tech purchase vouchers
Liaison Command
Green/D allied forces
Regular/B opposition
100% transport coverage
60% salvage
80% battle loss compensation
3 months estimated action time, 2 months estimated travel time
162M estimated profit
This isn't going to be a cakewalk, but salvage should be excellent and the pay is superb.
[] Take the Graham IV Star League treasure hunting raid
[] Pass, hang out on Outreach for a month
---
I'll be taking a hiatus until after July 4th.