Vote Results:
"Hey, whatcha guys got in that Goblin? Infantry?" Moley asks the commander of the tank lance that goes with Alpha-Ranger to take out the Warhammer. Greeted with silence, our mechwarrior adds. "Better just leave them home, they'll probably get themselves killed."
"Take that Warhammer intact if we can." Alpha-Ranger's lance leader interrupts the taunting. "It's the heaviest mech on the field, so the guy driving it probably has intel we want. And also we need the spare parts for our big chunkier brothers." he adds with an amused chuckle.
"Shove that laser arm up your 55-ton ass." Hyena mumbles under her breath.
Our plan is to engage the hostile force and get them to come north, then Alpha-Urban will power up and come in from the east for a pincer.
Round 1:
"Man, this is great!" The mechwarrior driving the Dervish says, rotating his mech's arms like a windmill. "The techs finally fixed my arm actuators!"
"They're actually hyper-extending now?" the guy in the Ostroc comments.
"Hell yeah, they're hyper DUPER extending!"
"That's not the only thing that's hyper extending, I guess." the Ostroc's operator comments with an eyeroll.
"Cut the chatter and move to nav beta, over by that second hill there." the lance commander orders.
Round 2:
"Hey look, the Dislocator guys are trying to use artillery again. That's cute." Our Ostroc's mechwarrior comments. "Hey, the hell's that thing?" He asks, in reference to a new design that pops up in the targeting computer as the SDR-9K "Venom". Guess the Kurita guys have come out with a new Spider variant, that's nice. A brief glance at the specs shows the same maneuverability as a standard Spider and four medium pulse lasers paired with standard heat sinks, which probably turns the mech into an oven in short order.
"Excuse me?" the lance commander asks.
"Uh, sorry sir. Visual, uh, contact at ten o'clock on top of designated hill. New mech variant."
Still, it's as nimble as the original design and easily evades all of our long-range fire, LRMs free-flying through the air while laser blasts leave brief afterimages.
Round 3:
"Fine." Our lance leader states as the Venom jumps in behind our Wolverine. Our two fifty five tonners fail to score any weapon hits on the nimble mech, although our Dervish flips its arms back and pelts it with SRMs.
"Hah, make fun of my flippy arms, will you?" The mechwarrior comments.
Our Griffin then rips about half the actuators off the lighter mech's left leg - but, amazingly, the mechwarrior keeps it upright.
Round 4:
Our Demon tank blasts a Griffin as it hops over a hill, a gauss rifle shot glancing off the 55 ton mech's arm. Well, better than a total miss.
Our Ostroc and Dervish engage a couple of light mechs on top of the hill, while the hostile Warhammer hangs back and fires away with its PPCs. Though, ineffectively. Our Dervish legs a Wasp, sending it flopping to the ground, where it explodes - the machine gun ammo bin pretty much annihilates the mech.
To the north, our Wolverine chases down the Venom as it tries to limp away - our mech takes a few pulse laser hits, but the Venom loses a leg, the damage traveling up to the left torso and blowing up a pair of jump jets as well, while sending its heat signature through the top of the thermometer.
Round 5:
The Venom quits struggling as its XL engine loses enough shielding that it goes into automatic shut down. Otherwise, we continue engaging hostile units on the hill top. A Locust loses a leg while we take some more armor damage.
Round 6:
"Chunky mechs, coming in!" Moley announces, leading Alpha-Urban in from the back of the hostile group. "Target that Warhammer!" The Warhammer fires a PPC, a bunch of lasers and its SRM/6 rack at Moley's Thunderbolt, but misses every shot. Our BattleAxe doesn't do much better, it's PPCs going wide as the hostile mech weaves and bobs (as much as a 70-ton mech can). Moley, Hyena and the Blackjack do better though, landing multiple laser and a few PPC hits, scoring a couple of tons armor from the heavy mech and forcing it to a knee. It's going to be tough for that mechwarrior to get out of this pickle.
Our Ostroc's operator swears as the mech's right arm goes limp after repeated SRM impacts - luckily, none of the mech's weapon systems are in its arms, so its combat effectiveness is still pretty good. Our mechwarrior shows this off by stomping a Saladin hovertank flat as it tries to crest the hill.
An artillery round comes in just as a Scimitar zips by one of the allied Vedettes, dinging both vehicles. There's some annoyed-sounding chatter back and forth on the allied mercs' frequency.
Round 7:
Moley thinks to break south and go after the Schrek PPC Carrier hiding out in the little alcove down there - the weapons platform's PPCs miss while our Thunderbolt scores multiple hits with lasers, damaging treads and shaking the crew up a bit. The Warhammer isn't having any of it and chases our Thunderbolt, but, luckily, only a few SRMs hit the limbs (and a kick that strips more than half the armor from one of the legs). Hyena, in turn, follows the Warhammer, lasering away more armor and damaging the 70-ton mech's hip actuator, dropping it to the ground.
To the west, our Demon tank reports being disabled by the Griffin it was "dueling". Well, you tried, "little" buddy.
Round 8:
"Holy shit, they actually hit the bad guys. Good effect on target, artillery, Tokugawa tank immobilized!" The Ostroc's operator reports. Not mentioned is the fact that he literally saw an artillery shell arcing his way and had to fire jump jets up on maximum to get clear of the blast radius. But hey, no harm, no foul.
To the north, our Griffin disables a TAG Scimitar, another one to add to our collection.
Moley finishes off the Shreck, carving through its right side (and out the other side) with lasers, while Hyena opens up on the Warhammer. Unfortunately, our mechwarrior's enthusiasm gets the best of him and, in addition to taking out its damaged leg, a laser brushes the SRM ammo bin, scattering the 70 ton mech to the four winds and sending the mechwarrior inside for a little flight through the air in an ejection seat.
Round 9:
With our Wolverine and Ostroc wiping out a Vedette and a Pegasus respectively, while the allied merc units take out the remaining Wasp, the rest of the hostile forces retreat.
We didn't get the Warhammer, but we did scoop up the mechwarrior. The Demon tank is going to need a tow back to base, but that's what the salvage crews are fore. The Venom is pretty nice, we're keeping that. Maybe see if we can upgrade the heat sinks and up the armor if we get the chance.
Keeping their word for us defending the dropship, the mercs sign over two of their high-end equipment purchase credits. Which is great, because that about covers the damage that our Stingray took.
While Moley makes fun of the Dislocator infantry for staying in their APC like he advised earlier, we'll need to decide how to handle providing backup to Beta-Assault. Alpha Ranger's only serious damage is the Ostroc, which lost one of its arms and all the armor on its other arm. For the rest of the mechs, armor is in the green (with a little yellow and red) and ammo expenditure is about 33%.
When the captured mechwarrior wakes up, she starts ranting about how "you fools have no idea what you are doing" and that "there will be grave consequences for this affront". The Dislocators offer to take her off our hands, although Moley and Hyena both admit to having some desire to ask a few more questions in a less "in the field" setting. Or, we could just cut her loose so we don't have to put up with the flying spittle and get on with our job.
[] Send the damaged Ostroc back to our dropships with an escort
[] Let the allied merc crew have the prisoner
[] Cut the prisoner loose, we're not running a POW camp here