January 9, 3065 – Word of Blake takes a meeting with Duke Essex. After helping to bring in the worlds of Nanking and Hall, they want us to take another world – Errai. It’s right on the border, so it makes map—sense. Errai also makes sense because it has a major factory on world, Maltex Corporation. It used to make BattleMech designs back in the Star League and Succession War eras, but their factory was destroyed, so they became more of a design and licensing firm for military hardware. They are the company that created and made mechs like the Thug, the Wyvern, the Assassin, and such.

After the clan invasion, ComStar needed some more mechs, especially after they lost Terra. A few months later, they approached Maltex with an offer of capital investment to reignite their company and rebuild it. About 15 months ago, the first Thugs and Wyverns rolled off the lines again, and into the ComGuard, which means some are on the pro-Victor side of the war.

For obvious reasons, Victor’s side has secured Errai. He‘s still, technically, Precentor Martial of ComStar. Word of Blake would like us to take Errai, so they can remove ComStar from getting these mechs, and put themselves there instead. They are willing to split production with us 50/50 if we do, and we can add Thugs and Wyverns to our unit. Old Thugs are still made in the Free Worlds League, reintroduced a few years ago and licensed by Maltex. No one is making Wyverns anywhere else though.

While an attack against Errai makes sense from a production and logistical standing, there’s just no way we could sell it as anything other than warmongering. Only two non-Chaos March worlds are a part of the Coalition – Zurich, who asked to join, and Nanking, who was conquered but sort-of willingly. Both were parts of the former Capellan Confederation taken in the 4th Succession War, and both were unhappy with their current situation having been switched from the Sarna March to the Capellan one, and both were ready to more to us.

Errai isn’t. You might think a mech factory world, one on the border, would have switched hands more with the Draconis Combine. Nope. It was originally a Terran Hegemony world, and then post Hegemony fall, the Federated Suns took it, and kept it ever since.

It’s not a smart move politically. It’s in the Draconis March, which has been a useful enough ally for decades. Our ally rules it.

Blake mentions that Maltex is pissed off at ComStar for skipping some payment despite delivery. They want to sell to Blake and others, but can’t. ComStar has an exclusivity contract, and you can see how likely that’d be with pro-Victor units on planet.

In case the political situation on Errai changes, go ahead and plan for us to take it. You never know…..

(Early BattleTech products were weird on this issue. Errai is listed as the place of manufacture for the Hatamato-Chi in Technical readout 3050 and other places, and Errai is the site of the production of the HC and in Combine control in the Objective Raids sourcebook. Later on, to explain this away, Errai and Maltex Corp were used as a smokescreen by the Combine intelligence to keep them from finding the real location of the production of the Hatamato-Chi, although that still doesn’t explain why the Fed-Com would think they Hatamato would be made on a factory in their own space. It’s handwaved as, “Maybe Maltex was building a factory deep in Combine space somewhere?” but that doesn’t answer the issue of why Errai is listed as the homeworld of the mech’s production) So I guess you can take whatever canon view you want on the thing. In our world, we’ll follow the major plotline – Errai does not make Hatamato-Chi, but since they make Thugs, it basically the same thing.

BEGIN MINOR RANT ON BATTLETECH –

This actually leads me to one of the “changes” that were made to the universe and canon which I’m not overly fond of. In the early days of BattleTech, there were a lot of high-profile early designs that were virtual copies of mechs, or toys, from Japan. The vast majority of mechs in 3025 TRO were of this ilk. Later on, these designs would be used in 3050 TRO as updated LosTech versions of those mechs, and in 3055 with clan refits. A few designs were also outsourced to other companies from TRO 3055 and 3058.

The problem was that a lawsuit emerged and FASA, as part of the resolution of that suit, had to ban all images of the mechs it took from other companies. They also decided to make sure they covered their bases, and even banned those mechs that were outsourced, or those from companies not involved in the legal action. All of these mechs collectively became referred to as Unseen.

The Unseen included absolute classic designs – Shadow Hawk, Griffin, Archer, Phoenix Hawk, Locust, Warhammer, Marauder, and loads more.

Now, imagine trying to sell an updated version of TRO 3025 without all of those mechs? What about 3050 without the updated ones, or 3055 without the clan versions and outsourced designs?

These designs represented Star League era mechs, which had been defanged in the Succession War era, and then refigured on the backside of the LostTech era of the 3040s and 3050s. They can still be mentioned in sourcebooks, but how do you support their existence in a book that is made after they’ve been removed from the TRO? It would be like including monsters in an adventure published for D&D that aren’t explained, and aren’t in the Monster Manual either. TROs are essentially the Monster Manual of BattleTech.

So, they did what they could. They gave the Star League exclusive designs from the 2750 TRO a similar parabola to the Unseen mechs. In the back-story previously, these mechs only existed in lost warehouses, a handful of hand-me-downs, and secretly in the ComGuard. Their factories were destroyed, the technology required to make them was lost, and so forth.

But now, in the new 3025, we have stripped down versions of all of the mechs from the 2750 TRO. These makes some sense. You can see how a mech from 2755 still around in 3025 would have replaced it’s old equipment with lower quality stuff. You could downgrade that ER PPC to a normal one, just as an example. Or ferro-fib armor becomes normal armor. That’s okay, I guess, as a stopgap.

But then they made some changes to the history. Some of these mechs were still made. The Flashman, for example, was still getting made in the 3025 era, just as a downtech version of the unit, similar to other designs like the Griffin, Locust and Valkyrie.

That’s not good. But they pushed it again. In the upgraded 3050, they included them, again, and this time discussed the new places where many of them are being manufactured again. While a handful of designs are still retired (such as the Mongoose), many are being made in large numbers – King Crab, Hussar, Thug, Highlander, Black Knight, and so forth.


This is a problem. First of all, it changed history and the products just to deal with the fallout of a legal snafu that FASA should never have been in. It took stuff that happened in real life and had it effect the actual game world. That’s dumb.

But there are a variety of other reasons why you can’t these sorts of changes. History in the world reflected them. The best example was the War of 3039, in which a mega powerful Federated Commonwealth invades the much weaker, and now denuded, Draconis Combine. While their initial pushes are awesome, and fuelled by successes, they hit some surprising units, weapons, and mechs, and those help to turn the tide. Used in a strong counterattacks as well, units that didn’t exist using mechs that aren’t real and wielding weapons from a history book are fighting strongly. So the war is called off.

Many mechs from the Star league era were given to the Combine by ComStar in order to keep the FedCom restrained. These mechs were the mechs from the 2750 TRO, such a Kintaros, Champions, Flashmen, Crabs, Crocketts, and such. They had the old updated technology.

FedCom units came up against this stuff and were shocked, and lost battles because of it in multiple places. This was recorded in multiple sourcebooks (25 year update or TRO 3050 as two major examples).

Now, how would that work, exactly, if those mechs were really common? Imagine if, instead of a group of the mechs that found, they just came across a set of Shadow Hawks with double heat sinks or a Warhammer with a pair of ER PPCS instead of PPCs. Would that have been so surprised, so shocking, that you would have los the engagement? Obviously not. It was the appearance of LostTech mechs wielding LostTech equipment combined to help defeat the invading forces.

And these historical changes to the 3025 era are all a result of the fallout.

Now, which is the purer vision for my dynasty? When I play through the eras, do I have a bunch of these post-Unseen changes in my world? Are there Flashmen getting made? Obviously, I have retained the Unseen, and I don’t have a whole party of Flashmen we encountered and took out. And now we have these dopey Thugs, Wyverns, Champions, and lots more flooding the area in the post-3050 universe. I’ve tried to keep them at some degree of arms length, but that becomes increasingly more difficult as time marches on.

END RANT-ISH THING

January 10, 3065 – Much like Martinson, Skobel MechWorks has a Terra factory still rocking. They make a ton of mechs for Word of Blake. They make the Nexus, the Grand Crusader, Excalibur, Mercury, and so forth.

Martinson’s line were destroyed by Amaris. Skobel often just abandoned their mechs, like the Mackie. Many of these are Workd of Blake only designs, but we can take two of the Star League era designs and make them here as well:

Mercury MCY-99 – 20 tons, 2 medium lasers, 2 small lasers, 8/12 movement with MASC, 53/69 armor, no XL engine. A good, solid, stury design for 1.796 mill and with a BV of 586. It basically gives us a better Locust (the design is better, the mech is easier to repair, the hands are free to do stuff with, it’s a better Locust).

We order 2 lines of the Mercury to get redone so we can give our folks scout-oriented and speed merchants

Excalibur is made in other places in the Inner Sphere as well right now, so getting one is not this huge major coup if you will.

EXC-B2b – 70 tons, 5/8 movement (XL engine), 11 heat sinks, 11 tons of armor, gauss rifle, 2 tons of ammo, LRM20, 2 tons of ammo, Artemis, anti-missile system, 1 ton fo ammo, CASE. 1715 BV and a cost of 16.277 mill

We add one/month with them and one line.

February 1, 3065 – The first upgraded Mobile HQ unit with modern technology rolls off the lines of the Browning-Corning Lmtd. factory on Caph. Mobile HQs were just made by one plant, but proliferated ,until destroyed in the Amaris wars. A few others are here and there, but have not been around that much. It should prove to be a major money maker for them.

An updated battlefield recovery vehicle is slated to be the next one off the line. The Coalition picks up some, but many are heading out across the Inner Sphere.


16 March, 3065 - After being flush with cash, Lantren Corporation on Bryant, has decided to push to another line of mechs, in addition to the Quickdraw and Grasshoppers they do. They are looking for one of the Project Phoenix opportunities of refitting older mechs with all of the latest technology, rather than designing their own mech, which they don’t have any experience in. Duke Essex suggests that they look at an assault mech, since the Coalition doesn’t have a lot of Assault mechs being made.


They decide to contact Vicore to see what could be done. Essex provided a wish list of mechs to use. Vicore was involved in the BattleMaster and Goliath refits, but not those of the Longbow or Marauder II. The BattleMaster is the top of the wish list, so they sit down and begin negotiating.

Basically, Lantren would have to liscence the BattleMaster from another company. The original rights-holder lost their line centuries ago, and others sprung up in various armies and nations. Of those that make the new version, there is one we think might be able to do it.

We contact an agent of J.B. BattleMechs in the Lyran Alliance. They worked with Red Devil industries to mass produce the new BM, but the Red Devil factory was captured by the Falcons, so that has pressured JB to sell theirs. Right now, we have helped out the Katrina side of things a few times, and we just took Nanking from the pro-Victor side of the Civil War, so we suspect that we can work out a deal.

Two weeks later we have an ideal deal:

We make the BLR-4S BattleMaster, licensed as is, no changes. We create three production lines, and for the first two years, we sell them exclusively to the Lyran Alliance to help JB meet their goals. Then Lantren can sell the rest to the Coalition and K&C. That’s a strong deal , and we take it.

Lantren has the exact blueprints and equipment already done, so all that is required is building the lines, which will take around 11 months to get ready and start making these things.

They will begin coming off the lines, hopefully, by March 1, 3066. Then we’ll get the ability to buy them in March 1, 3068.

March 22 , 3065 – The first quartet of Buckshots have rolled off the lines.


April 6, 3065 – Word of Blake has contacted Kressly Warworks. They continue to produce a ton of Mechs. They want to contract KWI to make an upgrade Ostroc variant, the OSR-5W using high tech stuff, including a C3i computer, exclusively for Word of Blake. They already have the blueprints and Word of Blake has techs that can be in Epsilon Eridani in two weeks that already know how to build the plants and lines and everything. In four months the two lines can be up and running making 24 Ostrocs a year for Blake.

May 1, 3065 – Right on schedule, Kallon’s new updated Falcon Hawk arrives.

May 5, 3065 – Bombings have occurred on Nanking, and we suspect Duke Hasek’s hand.

May 9, 3065 – Another bombing has occurred, and this time, a newly formed anti-Coalition Coalition is taking acknowledgment of the bomb.

May 12, 3065 – Chief Foster has identified the threat as a pro-Victor unit that is channeling cash from the planet of Firgrove, in the Capellan March of the Federated Commonwealth.

May 15, 3065 – We hold a meeting on Nanking to discuss the ongoing bombing campaign that has clearly begun, and the links to the Capellan March with the leaders of Nanking. We hold a press conference, and the leaders agree to some nasty anti-terrorist activity in order to take it down.

May 18, 3065 – Two more bombs have gone off in Nanking, and they are moving the population in to a very strong anti-Victor and anti-Commonwealth position. Especially considering how they were already more on the Katrina/Steiner/Lyran side of the spectrum

May 20, 3065 – Our counter-terrorism campaign begins in several places where intel has the enemies.


June 1, 3065 – We have decontaminated both of the factories on Caph. Restoration of Martinson Armaments has already begun, and Skobel MechWorks will be underway by the end of the month.

June 11, 3065 – We put down two of the three elements on Nanking but the last one has gone into hiding.


June 15, 3065 – After setting up another set of money from the same bank account as before, Chief Foster follows the money trail and locates the final element.


June 27, 3065 – The terrorism on Nanking is finished for now.

July 1, 3065 – Over the last year, a small number of small mercenary units have begun to appear on Epsilon Eridani and announcing their availability for hiring. The first was a lance of mechs that was hired by a local mining confederation to garrison their mining interests on our colony world of Asmodeus. Since then, we’ve occasionally hired small units for security contracts, short team deals, and more. The biggest we hired was a mixed battalion called Robert’s Rules of Order that did a four month security contract on one of our worls as we rotated Kilts and Commandoes troops to the frontlines.

This is no surprise. Due to the success of mercenary commands generally, as well as the wealth of potential employers on EE (the local government, companies, Kressly Warworks, Kilts and Commandoes, Celestial Coalition) it’s not a bad place to try to find a contract outside of the local Outreach hiring hall. This is also happening on the nearby world of Northwind where small mercenary groups gather to try and get a contract with other interests outside of the Outreach orbit and Wolf’s Dragoons.

Beginning of the Second Caph Campaign



There is a secret coalition in the Draconis Combine that has been agitating for a return to the old ways. (The Black Dragon Society) They don’t like Clan Nova Cat in the Combine and the loss of so many worlds to other clans, and the loss of some of the deep samurai ways. They were the ones that helped spark battle in the Lyon’s Thumb with the Lyran Alliance, with the Clan Ghost Bear as they inspired units to head out and attack, and with the Federated Commonwealth, they were the ones that crossed the border, riled up the Draconis March, and began that whole thing.


It ‘s a natural thing for them to look at us as another way to either gain territory or to embarrass the Combine. They weren’t looking at us too much, but after we hired and placed the Legion of the Rising Sun on Caph, they felt that the potential embarrassment that attacking the Legion might bring, politically, to the Combine was a useful choice of targets.


Therefore an invasion force, unauthorized, is leaving the Combine and targeting Caph.

August 4, 3065 – A large flotilla of Draconis ships arrives in the Caph system to protest our presence here.


Alpha Regiments Myth Battalion – 4 companies of K&C

Legion of the Rising Sun – Regiment of mechs, veteran and reliable, on Caph until the end of 3069, with B+ rating, lots of Combine mechs and clan tech. On a retainer contract.

Angel’s Riders - Dragoons rating B, Regiment of mixed troops, one battalion of mechs, two of armor, with about 40% of mechs and 75 % of tanks upgraded with level 2 tech. They are garrisoning Caph until Sept 1, 3065.

1st Caph Cavalry – 24 vees, 24 Mechs. Green, reliable.

Bad timing by the Dracs to catch us here just before the Angel contract is over. We have started negotiating to continue and were going to move them elsewhere, but now they will be helping us.


That’s a lot of stuff, actually. Basically two full regiments of mechs, and basically one of tanks.

We send off a message for assistance long before they arrive, and they land basically uncontested on the world, since they went for places outside of DropZones. It looks like….

A major foe begins to unload:


40th Dieron Regulars – A larger unit with a regiment of veteran, questionable folks, two battalions of regular questionable tanks, and a regular wing of fighters, and a regiment of infantry, regular, and reliable.

The 40th is a battle forged unit deep in the pocket of the Black Dragons, and are here to oust us form Caph, or to embarrass the Combine. Either way, they win.

Breakdown? 15% of their mechs are clan, 10% of the tanks are too. 40% of mechs are Star League tech and about one in three tanks does as well. 30% of the fighters are Star League eras. Their unit is assigned tech level C when generating units.

The 40th is rolling off in multiple areas across Caph.

We have our own unit, Myth Battalion in the capital city, by the Lang company that makes Shadow Hawks. The Riders are on the south continent working where the new cleaning and investment has been cleaning the area. That’s where the Brown-Corning, Ltmd. plant is.

Meanwhile the Legion has their regiment of mechs mostly in and around all of the areas that are being cleaned up, and the two new factories under restoration.

The 40th wants to hit us hard enough to knock us out of the area. Like others, they have done a quick analysis, and seen that you need a bigger unit to hit us. So they are dropping their best battalion, plus their command company, and then backing that with a battalion of armor and a battalion of infantry plus fighters.

The rest of the 40th is hitting the Legion and the Riders. The Caph Cavalry are in various posts across the world and not a major consideration for this conflict.

Our foes unload quickly and move against us. They have seen our desire to fight battles in small groups, and therefore have maneuvered their force into one, large, mixed regiment of troops and we have 48 mechs to go out there and smash them.

This battle is going to be epic. There are no small skirmishes prior to it, not multiple flanks, nothing. Just one, big, epic bru-ha-ha, with their best mechs, tanks, and infantry. But we don’t have the best battalion. Myth is one of the easiest of us to defeat. Tethys Company? Regular older level 1 tech mechs. Typhon? Elite, but level one stuff. Styx is a mix of elite, regular and veteran, and level 1 mechs., while Heliades is a mixture of pilot levels with mostly level 1 tech mechs. Not a lot of advanced mechs, not a single clan mech, nothing.


In order to make this battle feasible, we are fighting on a very large map. I don’t know if it’ll work, but I am creating a ton of bots, all on the same side. They will all start on the east.

Three tank bots, four mech bots, one infantry bot


Alright, here we go folks!

Our Battle Value is 81020. Theirs? Right around 108,000.

Turn 1 – We win init. I created four prong attacks. Our fire support mechs are in the middle, with a large assault force to the south coming in, meanwhile an assault force is just north of the Fire support mechs, and then a smaller assault force to the far north. We have a lot of minor elevation changes, and some forests too. I think I might want to do the typical sacrifice play a few times against these folks, sacrificing one or two mechs that aren’t that good for some of their units that are. That’s often one of the ways that I win this crap. My hope is that they expose a few units so that we can do some damage. So far, not that many. They are doing this cautiously. Alright, after roughly an hour of moving folks, let’s get this first round of weapons done!

Their Loki clan mech blows off the RL of my Wasp. A Nobori-Nin does the same with its RT.
Our Catapult took out a Saladin Hover Tanks front side.
Their clan Hellhound hit the Ostroc and hit two arm actuators
Our Stalker 3F hit a clan tank, an Odin Scout Tank of theirs, and their commander is injured and the crew stunned.

Our Wasp Falls

We had a lot of high numbers to hit that round, no mech took 20+ damage anywhere.


Turn 2 – We win init again. I do not eject the Wasp, I want to use it as bait. I charge forward again with a lot of units. Their Odin tank, damaged, has begun to pull out and flee. Weapons hot time. Their most powerful tank is the Challenger and I take some snipe shots at it. I also have a Nobori-Nin in my sights, and a Mauler assault mech in the south is my target of choice:

Obviously, our Wasp is totally demolished this turn – everything not a H died.
Our Marauder 3D damages their Bulldog Medium Tank #2 and hits the drive system.
A Pixie of ours nails the stabilizer on another Saladin Tank
Our Stalker 5M destroys the front of that Saladin
One of our trio of Awesomes nails the movement on their Challenger twice
Then our Grand Dragon destroys its Stabilizer

Their Mauler fell. That Nobori-Nin is blessed. We aimed at it tons.

So in two turns, despite massive units on the board, we’ve taken out two tanks, and they’ve killed a Wasp. It’s going to be a long one.


Turn 3 – I win initiative again. I continue to push on the northern flank. They have a huge number of mechs in the center though, so I begin to push on the southern flank as well. My two strike teams above the fire support center have united in the north. I back up a few mechs that can’t fit in everywhere. Their Mauler failed to stand once. Time to target this thang up! Hopefully I’ll do more than take out a lightly armored Saladin tank. First thing I want to do is finish that Mauler off. This time a Ryoken is a target in the north. Still going after the wounded Challenger tank as well. I also take a few targets of opportunity here and there and just hope…

An LRM Carrier devastates and destroys my Locust’s CT.
Our Ostoc destroys the right side of another Odin Scout Tank
Their Wolf Trap nails the Head of one of my three Warhammers (the 6D one) and goes internal, hitting the sensors
One of our Trebuchets jams the turret on their Challenger
Our Stalker 3F hits the LRM15 ammo on their mauler, and it goes, up, CASE, < XL engine.

Mechs that fell – Despite takingjust 20+ damage, our Atlas fell. Our BattleMaster took 40+ and dropped. None of their mechs fell. I Swear, they have the luckiest clan mechs up north. Taking no hits at all.

Turn 4 – I lose init. Our Atlas rises and runs. Unfortunately, we can’t stand our BM and run it into heavy woods, so we just stand it after it fell once. I charge in stuff to distract them from the BM. Like our assault Striker and such. Another day, another attack phase. We need to step this thing up. Right now, we are not doing well. Alright, here we go, I’m worried about that BattleMaster…

Our Ostsol immobilizes a Myrmidon Medium Tank
Their Nobori-Nin destroys the BM’s RT
But our BM at least nails the head of their Nobori-Nin back with a PPC.
Our Archer 2R immobilizes one of their Saracen Medium Hover tanks
Our Striker nails an engine on the Nobori-Nin
An Awesome 8Q destroys the left side of their Challenger.
Our Trebuchet takes out the H of one of their Panthers
A Schrek PPC Carrier lances a PPC into our Spider’s leg and hits an actuator.
Their Challenger’s gauss nails our BM’s CT and hits a engine once
Their Mauler hits the H of our damaged Warhammer’s H with an LRM salvo and the mech is down. Our pilot dies.

Falls? Their mauler, our Battle master falls and destroys its engine (which is unfortunate, because it would have made a great target next turn) . Our Atlas took 80 more but is still up. Their Hellhound fell though.

That was a bad pair of turns. Head hits took out the basically pristine Warhammer, falls on the BM forced us to lose it this turn on the fall to the ground, and we have a savaged Atlas. Not good at all. We should have taken out an injured Jenner, we had four fire support mechs with 7s on it, almost all missed. We had a bunch of fire on a LRM Carrier, most missed, etc.


We keep pushing forward though.

Turn 5 – We lose initiative. I hop our Watchman into the heavy woods their Ryoken used to frequent. Their other Odin flees the board. We need to really push things out here. We are losing this battle, but its early days yet. Our Hunchback bases, and is above, their Firestarter O. Their Mauler and Hellhound each failed once in rising. Is this the turn we turn things around? Here we go…

Their Ryoken gets an through armor critical on a Thunderbolt of ours, hits the ammo, and it explodes dead ,mech
Our Cyclops destroys an LRM Carrier
One of their Tokugawa Heavy tanks destroys the LA of my Hunchback #2
Then their Hatamato Hi destroys the Hunchy’s LT and hits the AC 20 ammo. Boom! The Hunchback suffers a cascading engine failure

It does damage, badly, their Tokugawa which has a stunned crew and damaged motor system

Our Awesome 8Q #3 immobilizes their 3rd Saladin
Our Trebuchet destroys another LRM Carrier
Our Crusader destroys the RA and LT of their Ryoken

Nobody falls.

Our Watchman kicks and destroys the H of their Nobori-Nin. This turn I lost two, untouched, good, quality mechs. This can’t keep happening. Gotta keep pushing.


Turn 6 – We win initiative at least. We need a sacrifice play again I’m thinking. Their Bulldog, injured, begins to flee. They eject their Ryuken. I hop our wounded Spider deep in their territory in heavy woods. Luckily we made the piloting skill roll on the other side. They are pushing hard in the south, so hopefully the Spider will distract them. One of their tanks skids, and hits the Ostsol and forces it off the board. And there’s another mech gone. Dang. I leap our Blackjack above and next to their Wasp and Warhammer. Maybe we can land another lucky kick? We aren’t doing badly in the north. We lost the BattleMaster and Thunderbolt, but have taken out lots. We are not doing well in the south flank at all. So I pulled that back some. Weapons hot…

Our Trebuchet #2 destroys the immobile Myrmidon Tank.
Our Ostsol destroys the final Saladin
Their Hatamato-Chi hits the MG ammo on our other Thunderbolt and it goes up too
Their Mauler destroys the LA of a Crusader of ours
Their Owns nails the LRM ammo on one of our Trebuchets and it ignites and is dead


Falling down? Their Avatar and Quickdraw. I fired 15 mechs at their Daikyu, just took 60+ damage . It’s just not in the cards. At least our Crusader didn’t fall.

Our other Hunchback kicks, destroys the RL of their Wasp, and it falls and destroys its LT. That’s a nice consolation prize

We should pull out. They would likely let us go, and they would have won the battlefield and the salvage.

But, they have a lot of damaged units. Their Quickdraw just took 40 last turn and this turn too, their Avatar Omnimech took 60+ and fell, and we have blasted another Mauler and their Hellhound and another Panther and a Jenner that haven’t exposed themselves since then, and that Daikyu has been hit, and they have some immobile tanks we can easily finish off. If we push, we can likely start finishing some of these nasties.

The Spider was barely touched, despite getting a lot of fire its way. I need to keep that up. So we are down 9 units (8 dead mechs, Ostroc knocked off the board). We have a badly damaged Atlas in the south and Crusader in the north.

My plan for pulling this out –

1). Bring all fire support mechs out now
2). Reform battle lines around untouched assault mechs – 3 Awesomes, 2 Stalkers, Cyclops, Striker.
3). Use light mechs as distractions
4). Provide Crusader as bait next turn.

Let’s keep on!


Turn 7 – We lose initiative. I initiate our strategy. They eject their Wasp. Both of their fallen mechs rise. I push forward, hard, in the north behind our line. I move the fire support puppies out – the Archer, 2x Riflemen, Trebuchet, etc. I leave our Crusader isolated and alone, and I walk a Comet in the south right next to their wounded Jenner. Alright weapons time. I overheat that Comet good…

Our Comet blasts the Jenner’s RL and CT and both are destroyed. (It has 5x small lasers and 2x mediums)
Numerous parts on the Comet are destroyed, including all three torsos.
Their Loki omnimech takes out the Crusader’s SRM ammo and it lights up.
Our Hunchback’s AC20 on the north flank just carves into their Quickdraw’s CT and its down. A couple other pieces of it will die later this turn as well.
PPCs from a Marauder cascade into a Shrek PPC Carrier and destroy its front. They have two left.
Our Striker kicks and breaks the front side of a Drillson. Dead tank.


That turn went bascially as planned. Took out two damaged mechs (Jenner and Quickdraw) traded a damaged Crusader and a fresh Comet, and then added two tanks as well. That’s the beginning of what I want to see.


Turn 8 – We win init. One of our Rifleman will run out of AC ammo this turn (It’s the 5M with the ultras). We push forward on the north. I have taken a few woods. We retreat from their infantry here though, I don’t want to get too close. Meanwhile, we have established a line along a ridge in the south and I intend to guard it. I move a couple of mechs to the south from the fire support area – another Awesome and the Centurion and Grasshopper. We walk another Comet, this time beside their damaged Hellhound. Weapons fire again.

The Comet is again savaged, and it doesn’t do much. It dies.
LRMs from the Archer take out the RA and RT of their Hellhound though. Medium lasers from our Stalker hit its hip actuator.
Their second Goblin Medium Tank ran near my Ostsol, and it destroys the Goblin’s movement system in punishment.
One of their Hatamato-Chi nails the Atlas and hits the AC20 weapon, shutting it down.
Their Kabuto’s SRM4 streaks both hit the Atlas and it’s RA is destroyed.
We blow the LL off their Avatar in the north, and it is on the ground.
Our Awesome’s PPC nails the Avatar’s RA and destroys it.
A machine gun on our Watchman finishes off an immobilized Saracen.


Falls? Their Hellhound falls very hard, very fast. Their Avatar joins them. Our Atlas almost fell.

Again, that was not a bad turn either. We lost a light mech, and we essentially ended the Hellhound and Avatar as a threat.

Turn 9 – We lose init. I flee with the Atlas (next to the edge of the map). They eject the Hellhound, then try to rise with the Avatar once, it falls again, and they stay down when the pilot blacks out. I run our Cicada and a Jenner next to it. We have fully re-established our lines. This turn they exposed a Shrek and a Warhammer. We fire on both, and the Warhammer takes 40+ damage, the Shrek is da,maged, but fine, and nothing else major happens until the Jenner hits the H twice on their Avatar. . Not one mech of ours took more than 20 damage.

Turn 10 – We win init. We can’t get our Cicada out after they block they block the land exit with tanks and mechs. Our Jenner leaps out though and into heavy woods 5 hexes away. I just Stand the Cicada still, as it is facing a nasty Tokugawa Heavy tank (they have three of them, this one is unwounded). Their Kabutos both charge and base our Marauder in the south.


Their Kabuto gets a through armor critical on the Marauder and nails a leg actuator
Our Stalker 3F savages their Kabuto #2 and it goes internal in four places.
Our Marauder’s short range weapons take out both arms on the Kabuto #2.
Our Cicada is not hit well for a while, but eventually, is taken out.
Their Goblin is destroyed when our Dragon finishes it.
We pepper that Daikyu some more.


Falls? Our Marauder, their Daikyu and Kabuto.

The other Kabuto kicks and misses the Marauder, but keeps standing.


Turn 11 – We win init. We fail the stand to Marauder, once, twice. Dammit! I move both Jenners over to protect it. We move again in the north, pushing down, we have broken that flank. They are pushing back at the center at our fire support mechs. Their Daikyu also fails to rise, then again and breaks its LA, then finally does so on the third try with one arm. I leap a Phoenix Hawk to the rear of that Daikyu.

They savage the Marauder. Their Shrek #3 destroys its wounded LL and it’s now yellow everywhere.
Our Jenner #2 hits the wounded Kabuto and destroys its LL.
Our Awesome #2 carves the Daikyu’s RT into pieces and it dies, XL engine.
Their Owens omnimech hits the H of our Striker assault mech, and that cracks it open, but no critical.
Our Warhammer blasts the RL of the Daikyu as well.
Their SRM motorized infantry hit the Ostsol and destroy its RA.


Falls? Their wounded Kabuto.

Our Pixie kicks and hits the speed of their Tokugawa Heavy tank #2.


Turn 12 – We win init. I intend to use the downed Marauder as the target of off opportunity this turn and I push my mechs forward massively on all flanks. Might as well, since they are targeting that Marauder. They eject their wounded Kabuto many folks are basing each other.

They destroy four parts on the Marauder, including the CT. Dead mech. They also hit the H, and killed the pilot. That’s not what I wanted.
Speaking of head shots, our gauss rifle from the Cyclops just carved a H kill in their Grand Dragon #2.
We finish off the wounded Tokugawa Heavy tank with our Catapult’s final salvo of LRM ammo.
Our Stalker 5M slows down the engine on their Po Heavy Tank #2. Our Pixie follows that up with full on immobilization from its medium laser
Our Rifleman 5Ms large laser dices into another Saracen, hits the ammo, and it explodes.
We pepper their wounded Mauler some more, and open up its torso severely.

Falls? No one. Just one of our units other than the Marauder took 20+ damage, an Awesome in the north after I pulled back the exposed H of the Striker.

We kick a Striker Light Tank with the Grasshopper and it’s right side is destroyed.

As of right now, here is the counter:

We have lost 12 mechs and fled with 2 (Ostroc, Atlas). They have lost 9 mechs and 17 tanks. (Those numbers include ejections and fleeing mechs). Now things are looking a bit better since we began to regroup as things looked bad. We began with 48 mechs, and have 34 left. They went from 90 tanks, mechs, and infantry, down to 64.

They have more left than we began with, and there’s no need to keep things fleeing. So they are still in.

Turn 13 – We lose init. I use the PXH-1 as bait this time, and base that wounded Mauler to keep things real after it walked behind a level 2 hill, by leaping into an adjacent heavy woods. There are all four of their Hatamato mechs back here (Two Chi, 1 Kaze, one Hi), the Mauler, and their Atlas. A bunch of assault fun! Their Loki runs here too. We pull back some of the map this turn, I don’t want to push too much against their infantry and such. I leap the Blackjack next to, and above their Wolf Trap and our Watchman joins us. I haven’t put any weapons into this right now. It’s not really that great of a mech and it’s running low on ammo, but it’s the best target of opportunity this turn.

Their Marauder ‘s PPC smashes the RA of our Valkyrie into pieces. A Panther PPC follows and it’s the RL, going internal and nails two actuators.
They barely hit the PXH. But it’s machine guns hit the ammo on their Mauler and it ignites too.
Their Saracen #2 Hover Tank is just eviscerated by the combined PPCs of two Awesomes and a Warhammer. That was their last Saracen.
Meanwhile we pepper that that Wolf Trap, and expose some areas.

Falling? Our Valkyrie


We kick the Wolf Trap twice and…the Watchman kicks the RT and destroys it. Dead mech.
Meanwhile our JagerMech kicks and damages the movement system of a Maxim Hover unit.

So we keep the Pixie, will likely lose the Valkyrie instead, and took out a tank and a fresh Wolf Trap and that blasted Mauler. Again, a turn that pushes things our way.


Turn 14 – We lose init. I don’t eject or move that Valkyrie. Again, I push hard, moving lighter units into the right places to push our foes. The only major exposed target are tanks and an Assassin. I don’t care about the Assassin, so I focus our fire on the two other Shreks. We lose the Valkyrie badly, and both Shreks fall. A quick little turn where little else was happening.


Turn 15 –We wrest the initiative from our opponent. Hmmm… How to play this turn… I decide to push the position of their Thor, Daikyu #2, Hitman, and a couple of tanks in some woods on the northern part of the east edge of the map, right below our major units there. We charge in with a lot – Stalker, Awesome, Hunchback, Dragon and Ostol and more a few hexes behind. In the south, their assaults have begun to push our line, which won’t be good. I leap my Spider over by them in heavy, and for the first time since it was injured, I failed our piloting skill roll. Their other Kabuto bases our Stalker.

They blast the Spider with everything they have, and all they can do is hit it a few times, and destroy its RL and RA. The +4 for jumping 8 hexes, and +2 for heavy woods was rough to hit through.
They manage to savage my Ostsol some more and destroy its other arm and hit a large laser in the RT.
We carve into the Loki with a lot of close range mechs, after opening it with the AC 20 on the Hunchback we still have standing. We only have one shot left in that thing.
In the south, our Awesome smashes the right side of their Tokugawa and stuns the crew for 3 turns.


Falling? Our Ostsol, their Loki. Our Spider is on the ground already.

Our Stalker 3F kicks and destroys the RL of their Kabuto. It falls and destroys its RA.
Their downed Loki is kicked twice by the Dragon and Hunchback. It loses it’s RA.


Turn 16 – We keep initiative. On the first try, their Loki fails to stand, falls, and the pilot blacks out. Yay! We keep our forces here, and they bring in a Griffin and Daimyo to help out their team. They ejected the Kabuto. Our Ostsol stands on the first try and runs far away quickly, behind some trees. I leave the Spider alone.

They blast the Spider massively. It dies.
Meanwhile, in the northern front, they put a bit of long range weaponry into our Rifleman 5M and open up its armor in two places.
Our Jenner #1 hits the front armor on their stunned Tokugawa and it’s immobilized.
We unload a few PPC mechs onto their 40 ton Daimyo, and even eventually destroy its RT. No XL so its still alive.

Falls? Their Daimyo

We kick the downed Loki and get two gyro hits on the CT and it can’t move, it’s dead Good job Dragon!
Our Trebuchet kicks and hits the Drillson that ran under him, and destroys its fuel tank – boom!


Okay, quick check now:

We lost – 14 mechs; 2 off the board
They have lost – 16 mechs, with a savaged Daimyo, 20 tanks, with 2 more fled. They only have 14 tanks on the board. They still have 32 mechs, which is a lot. We are down to 32 mechs.

They are wasting time. The battle has swung completely in our direction. But, it could swing back ,and they have to keep pushing, they have too.


Turn 17 – We lose init. Their Loki is blacked out still. I decide to use that PXH-1 on a sacrifice play and hop it next to an unwounded Hatamato-Kaze. Their Panther, wounded moves out to expose itself from behind some trees. I continue to push us forward in the north, and in the south, I start pulling back again. They eject from the Tokugawa.


They smash the H of our Striker with an AC5 from their Grand Dragon. That sucked, dead mech and pilot. It was virtually untouched, and I pulled it back to long range because of the H damage, but a random attack from that Grand Dragon is annoying.
Meanwhile their mechs fire into the Pixie as planned, and they hit its machine gun ammo and it explodes.
Our Marauder 3R stabs out and smashes the Panther’s CT. Then our other mechs blow it up a few more pieces.
Our Grasshopper hits a Maxim Heavy Hover Tank #2, and knocks its speed down some
The only other thing we do is pepper their other Daikyu.

No one falls. We kick and wound the Maxim with the Hopper and stun its crew.


Ouch. We took out a wounded Panther, and they took out a Phoenix Hawk and a Striker. Not a good trade. That was the first round they just grabbed momentum back.


Turn 18 – We keep losing that initiative. I move some lighter elements by the wounded Maxim. Our downgraded Wolfhound is the sacrificial offer this time, and it’s exposed, but beside the Maxim, while I also ran both Jenners by it. Their Firestarter O and Pixie hop out by our Stalker 3F in the southern flank. Our Catapult A1 variant is out of ammo this turn, and has no backup weapons, so we start moving it up to, I guess, kick? I set up our Watchman to be the sacrifice play next turn. We push their wounded Daikyu. Here we go!

After cracking their Daikyu #2 open with a few PPC mechs, Our Centurion’s LB10X hits it, and shotguns it, one shot hits its AC5 ammo and it booms. Dead mech.
They pepper our Wolfhound
A Warhammer 6R smashes their other Myrmidon Medium Tank and immobilizes it
Our Jenner #2 lances medium lasers into the Maxim, hit its LRM5 ammo. Boom!
Their Hatamato-Hi smashes the RA right off our Wolfhound. Then an Atlas follows up with its RL and RT.
In the north, they are peppering our Catapult, since I’m moving it up.

Our Wolfhound falls. Our Stalker kicks and just blasts the Firestarter O onto the ground after losing its RL. -

Turn 19 – We lose init. I leave the downed Wolfhound on the ground as a target. I move back the Jenners, and again, hop the Watchman into a place where it can jump into heavies next turn. All of their remaining tanks are moving forward in a major push. Their Firestarter tries to stand twice, then falls on its H, and destroys it. That’s hilarious! They move Assaults beside the Wolfhound. Our Catapult, denuded of ammo, runs up and into the front of the flank in the north, next to the immobilized Myrmidon and a wounded SRM infantry I occasionally sent close or medium range weapons into. They exposed their Assaults in order to do that though…. I focus every single weapon that reaches him into an untouched Hatamato-Chi. A few smaller range things hit a couple of tanks and such.

Every piece of the Wolfhound, save for its H, is destroyed.
Meanwhile 100+ damage cascades into the Hatamato, and we just smash its armor
They pepper the Catapult some more.

Only the Hatamato falls.

The second Myrmidon tank is hit and destroyed by a kick from our Catapult. So I guess that worked?

Turn 20 – We lose init. I push the Catapult as a sacrificial lamb, and leap it above in a light woods hex, and next to a Hatamato-Chi that’s standing and the one on the ground. Then that one tries to stand, fails once, then succeeds, and it’s in the same spot. That’s a nice target of opportunity. Their Owens and Spider move with their Phoenix Hawk in the south and are pushing us there hard, they jump the Pixie behind our JagerMech.

They blast the Catapult, and destroy its RA.
Our Cyclops just blasts a medium laser into the Hatamato’s RT and hits the SRM6 ammo. Explosion, contained by CASE, but no XL engine, so it’s still here. But, the feedback from the explosion, and the falls previously, have done enough damage to black out the pilot.
Their stupid, stupid stupid Phoenix Hawk nails the CTR of the JagerMech twice and nails its Gyro
Some short range weapons hit the SRM infantry, and our Watchman’s machine guns finish them off.

The Hatamato falls, the pilot takes damage, and dies. That’s unusual, you don’t see a dead pilot without hitting the head very often. Our Jagermech tumbles too. But our Catapult? Makes it’s 8 piloting skill roll and is still standing. Wow Catapult!

We kick. The Catapult kicks the untouched Hatamato-Hi beside it and…misses Ah well. Can’t win them all I suppose. At least didn’t fall down. They kick the JagerMech but don’t do a lot.


Turn 21 – We win init. I rise the JagerMech – good number rolling. It’s behind some hills, so long range mechs don’t have a great line of sight to it. I bring faster mechs over to help, like the Jenners and the upgraded Wolfhound we have. They keep their trio of lighter elements here as well – PXH, Owens, Spider. In the north, we base that final Tokugawa tank, and a gently peppered Warhammer 6K they have. Our Catapult leaps out and I push a Watchman as an option, leaping it into the space the dead Spider used, the heavy woods and a full 5 leap.

Actually, they barely target the Watchman. They gave themselves lines of target on our JagerMech instead, and a Pixie nails the AC2 ammo and it lights up. Dead JagerMech.
Meanwhile we stab fire into the Warhammer and the PPcs from our Awesomes and a Warhammer of our own just savage it.



Their Warhammer tumbles and destroys its LA. Then our Grand Dragon kicks it and destroys its RA. Armless baby! Meanwhile, a kick on the Tokugawa slows it down by our Marauder 3D. We miss a kick in the south with our Wolfhound which was set up nicely on their Spider, but their Spier also misses a kick, and falls down.


Turn 22 – We lose init. Their Spider rises and runs away quickly back to their side, right beside some infantry, and on top of a Po Heavy tank. They eject the Warhammer. I leap the Watchman out and leap in the Ostscout. I don’t want it do die, actually, but the +8 jump plus the heavy woods, and many mechs aren’t near it anymore will hopefully keep it running.

In the north, they choose to fire a lot on our Marauder 3D, which takes 60+ damage.
Meanwhile, in the south, Stalker 3F large laser lance out and gets a limb blown off RA on their own Spider.
Then our Awesome #1 hits the Spider twice with PPcs and opens the CT and nails the engine four times. Dead mech.

But, the Spider’s engine has a cascade failure. Uh oh. Our Ostscout is closer, and takes some damage. Meanwhile, two infantry squads, and the Po are destroyed. (units in the same hex always die) It blasts their Hitman, in the next space over, and the Hitman’s RA and RT are destroyed – dead mech (XL Engine). Other mechs scorched a bit are their Grand Dragon #2 and Marauder. Meanwhile, their Drillson #2, next to the Ostscout, is immobilized

So we took out five units in one shot. Can’t argue with those results!

Back in battle, we fire a lot of weapons into their Hatamato-Hi in the northern flank
Our Wolfhound WLF-2 ER Large Laser knifes into the unmoving Tokugawa and finishes it.
Our Blackjack cascades heat into Maxim and drops its movement by one.

The Hatamato Hi, after taking 60+ damage, falls and gets a limb blown off LL.
Our Marauder tumbles as well.

Our Ostscout was barely touched, other than the explosion. It kicks the Drillson and destroys it. That’s the last Drillson they have.


Now it’s time to take stock:

We have lost: 17 mechs, plus 2 fled, and a pretty well damaged Marauder and Catapult. We have 29 mechs, plus the damaged ones

They have lost: 27 tanks, leaving just 9 on the map. 3 infantry squads, leaving 3 on the map. And 25 mechs, leaving the badly damaged Hatamato-Hi, and 22 other mechs on the field


We have won this battle. It’s pretty clear to see. Even with no more gauss rifle ammo for the Cyclops, and two Rifleman using medium and large lasers, two Archers and a Trebuchet doing the same, we are still pushing. I still have an awesome Blackjack variant with all of the lasers working well out there, three Awesomes barely touched, two Stalkers barely touched, A Cyclops not sucking, that nasty Hunchback in the north, an unmarked Watchman hopping all over, And that’s pretty good stuff.

They have two unmarked Hatamatos, and an Atlas. They have a Quickdraw, two Dragons left, a Marauder, two Phoenix Hawks, that Owens, another Daimyo, and a 3rd Jenner. Other than the heat at the top, that’s a pretty weaker selection of units.

Because I didn’t eject my mechs usually to save them, I was able to force them to waste time finishing them off. So the numbers look really good for us now.


They pull out, and we get to keep the legged Hatamato-Hi.

Dead Tanks – Saladinx3, Odin Scout Tank (clan), Challenger, LRM Carrierx2, Myrmidonx2, Shrekx3, Drillsonx2, Drillson (tank), Saracenx2, Goblin, Tokugawa Heavy tankx2, Saracen #2 (by explosion), Striker, Maxim (explosion), Po (explosion),

Fled – Odin, Goblin,

Ejected – Wasp, Ryoken, Hellhound, Kabuto #2, Kabuto, Tokogawa, Warhammer 6K, Daimyo

Daikyu missing RA, RT, RL
Daikyu missing RT
Mauler missing LT
Mauler missing RT
Hitman missing RA and RT
Wolf Trap missing RT
Panther missing H
Nobori-Nin missing H
Avatar O, reattach LL, missing H
Grand Dragon #2 missing H
Firestarter O, missing RL, H

Hatamato-Chi, missing RT, dead pilot

Hatamato-Hi, reattach LL

Kabuto missing RL, RA
Kabuto #2 missing RA, LA, LL
Hellhound missing RA, RT
Ryoken missing RA, LT
Wasp missing RL, LT

Dead Spider

Warhammer 6K missing RA, LA

Quickdraw H, RT, LT, LL, RA
Jenner H, LL, LT, LA, RT, RA
Phoenix Hawk LA, H, LL, RL
Panther H, RT, RA, LT

Loki missing RA, gyrox2.

Daimyo missing RT

Ours,

BattleMaster missing RT, enginex3
Warhammer 6D missing H

Thunderbolt LA, RAx2, H, RT
Trebuchet LA, LL, RL
Comet Hx2, LLx2, RA
Crusader LL, LA, RA
Wolfhound H
Spider H
Valkyrie LA, H
Marauder RL, LA
Wasp H
Locust H, LA, RA, LT, RT, LL
Cicada H, RL, LA
JagerMech H, LL, RA

Dead Hunchback #2

Atlas missing RA
Catapult missing RA
Ostsol missing RA, LA, large laser in RT hit,


Kill – Catapultx3, Stalker 5M, Ostroc, Stalker 3F, Awesome 8Q #3 (Heliades), Trebuchet 5Nx2, Cyclopsx2, Watchmanx4, Trebuchet 5N #2x2, Ostsol, Comet #2, Hunchback #2, Marauder 3D, JR7-F Jenner #2x2, Dragonx2, Awesome #2, RLF5M Rifleman, Grasshopper, Phoenix Hawk, Warhammer, MAD 3R, Centurion, Awesome #1x5, WLF-2, Ostscout,


Whew! That battle took more than a day of real life to play, since I started on one day and finished it the next. That was epic!

After a similar amount of battle, the Legion of the Rising Sun, who had numbers, lost around 9 mechs, and blasted the 40th. Meanwhile we have basically a stalemate with Angel’s Riders, who also have numbers too. But after we pushed back in the other flanks, the major ones, they pull back.

And the 40th are driven back to the DropShips, spend the next few hours under their protection, load up, and blast off.

One day invasion!

The Legion salvaged two more mechs that they lost, so they are fine.

We lost 14 mechs that we cannot salvage. We salvaged 21 mechs from them. We also lost 3 mechwarriors

So here we go:

Our lost mechs, replaced by the ones we salvaged:

Cicada replaced by Daimyo

Wolfhound 1 replaced by Firestarter O

JagerMech replaced by Daikyu

Crusader replaced by Mauler 3R, a variant we fix up for it

Hunchback replaced by Hellhound clan mech

Cometx2 replaced by Kabutox2

Locust replaced by Hitman

Valkyrie replaced by Panther

Wasp replaced by Wasp

Trebuchet replaced by Daikyu

Thunderbolt replaced by Loki clan mech


Spider replaced by Nobori-Nin

Marauder replaced by Hatamato-Chi


We send the Hatamato-Hi, Mauler, Warhammer 6K, Ryoken, Grand Dragon, Wolf Trap, Avatar O,


August 7, 3065 – We have solidified the area and gotten things done.

End of the Second Caph Campaign

A few days later, Duke Essex arrives to survey the area. We can’t let the Combine just attack us, but the Combine has really counter-punched hard against anyone who punched back. They absorbed the 8 systems of the Lyons Thumb and then counter-attacked the Draconis March and more.

He meets with the CO of Legion of the Rising Sun, Co. Jurgen Petersen, to get his take. Petersen, a guy who really understands the Combine, talks about the reason for the counter punch.

There is a concept of a honorable retribution that is rife in Combine society. We are attacked by a rogue element in our border. If we were to use that as an excuse to invade 4 planets, that would be excessive and unhonorable.

If Duke Sandoval had just raided the worlds in the Combine, as a punishment for the attacks against his people by the Black Dragon Society, and then left, there would likely have been no Combine reprisal, because that would have been viewed as fair.

On the other hand, if we do nothing at all, we could be seen as weak and tempting targets. He recommends a hard raid. And we have a good target, one jump away.


Quentin.

Now, before I go ahead with the Quentin Campaign, let's do a bit of a rewind and then follow some main plotlines for a bit.

This conversation was held in the middle of 3065, about six weeks Hall joined us.



Jaime Wolf, CO and co-founder of Wolf’s Dragoons, a ex-clanner who created one of the most iconic mercenary units of all time, and is next door in the planet Outreach, surrounded by Coalition planets in the former Chaos March.


After light pleasantries from two COs of the largest mercenary units in existence, they get down to business.

“So why did you really call Jamie?”

“I wanted to let you know that you are making an absolute mistake allying with Blake. They aren’t who you think they are. They are mean, nasty, prone to lie, splintered into numerous groups. This is going to end badly for you.”

“So you are calling me to chastise me? That’s it? Finger-wagging?”

“You can still get out from this alliance. ComStar will take you back in a minute.”

“So you are chastising me, and you are offering me a lifeline?”

“Exactly.”

“Jamie, let me tell you something. Let me remind you about the real world. In the last 8 years since the Chaos March has formed, all around your fief on Outreach, billions of people have died. They have died to war, to bombings, to famine, to hunger, to illnesses, to devastations, and they have died. They have died in large amounts on planets like Sheratan and Caph.

There have been bandits, huge destructions of mines, roads, DropPorts, farms, plants, factories, cities, towns, schools, and much more. After we freed ourselves here on our home planet, we didn’t just thank our lucky stars and call it a day! For years we have been going out there and ending this crap. We have been waging war against all of the various issues going on around us too.

We’ve fought bandits in Bryant and Acamar. We’ve liberated and defended planets that asked for it with Ingress, Sheratan, Fletcher and Epsilon Indi. We were welcomed as liberators in Liberty, Keid, Caph, Hsien, Elgin and Genoa.

And where were you? With people dying, and infrastructures being destroyed, where were you? Did you help the people around you? Have you helped them now, after the disasters? You could have sent your soldiers, your companies, your technicians, your navy, to eliminate all of these. You could have saved people’s lives by the bucketful. You could have stopped Sheratan from burning, or to have put out the fires early. Where were you?

You didn’t send so much as one battlemech to help. Not one DropShip to shuttle supplies. Not one advisor to help out. Not one engineer to help fix things. Not one, single Cbill, to help out. Nothing. You have sat in what I can only assume is a highly decorated Ivory Tower and done nothing for the people. And then you have to audacity to call me up and tell me that my alliance, with people who actually have helped, is wrong.

With all due respect Jamie, right now, you have all of the moral authority of a cockroach. As far as I’m concerned, this conversation is over.”

Essex hangs up.

Jamie Wolf stands for a moment.

“You are right, I should have done something earlier. Now I will.”

July 4, 3065 – “Are you kidding me? Major Zhen, did you know about this facility when you did reaserch on the Star League era facilties here on Epsilon Eridani back when we wer looking for the depot here?”

After finding out that no one knew, Duke Essex gets on the phone and calls in CEO and wife Elizabeth Walters-Essex and Leftenant-General Pierre Benton along with Maj. Zhen.

“We have apparently uncovered something so incridble, that you have to see it to believe it. It’s about 20 miles from the Star League depot we found a while ago, hidden in the mountains. As you folks know, we have begun to search the nearby mountains for other things over the years, sincean entire depot was in that area, undiscovered for centuries. Figured we should keep on checking, right? Well, we found something all right, let’s go check it out…”


Roughly nine hours later, the four of them get off a DropShuttle right by the long forgotten facility in the Goushen Highlands.

They walk into a large, hidden facility. It’s centuries old. Vintage Star League technology. The area opens into a huge wind tunnel and hangar, with broken doors preventing them from being opened. The factory has been damaged and broken in some places, but it still has some computers, some dies and such.

“You can feel it, can’t you? The age. The technology. We found this yesterday, and our techs looked over it completely. This is the factory for the Harvard Company. They made one thing, and they made it well – the Wasp LAM. It was made, right here. It was the only place the Wasp LAM was produced.”

They move around and do some more inspecting. Maj. Zhen begins talking, “As you can see, we have a few LAMs in broken condition here and there. We think we can salvage at least two. That’s our target goal. Meanwhile, we have plans, and some dies, for both the original Wasp LAM Mark 1, and a later Mar kII 105 variant that replaced it. We could, theoretically, make them again, but the parts aren’t made. All of the LAM factories were destroyed centuries ago, except for one Stinger LAM facility in Irece, which was shut down by clan Nova Cat a while ago. Parts from the Stinger and Wasp are interchangeable, but no one has been making these parts for a long time.”

The Essex couple discuss the facility. Kressly Warworks has been asked about building a line of fighters for a qwhile, but the start up cost has invariably been way too much. But instead, Kressly could simply refit and fix this place into a new fighter factory, and testing facility.


They purchase equipment, set up tours of the Brooks Inc plant on Liberty, and begin to work on the renovation and conversion of the old Harvard Company facilties in the Highlands. It should take around 2.5 - 3 years to get it up and running.

In order to get a dry run begun, they agree to create a conventional fighter line first, not an aerospace fighter line, or a future Wasp LAM even. Conventional fighters are easy enough to make. In fact, most systems design their own conventional fighters. In order to simplify things, Kressly has agreed to lisence the Defender Medium Strike Fighter. It’s an extremely common conventional fighter, and we’ll be making them roughly sometime between January 3068 and June 3068 – although obviously, it could take some time to figure out the rest, and the project could be delayed considerably (or sped up considerably)

(In the main time line, Harvard Company was rediscovered in the early Jihad years, and then purchased by Kressly and turned into an aerospace fighter making planet in the 3080s. We are speeding up its fnd by a couple of years (like 3 or 4) and then investing in it now.)


After working on Nanking, we are going to move TekTeam Technical Services to here to help with salvage operations, and they will uncover a few more Wasp LAM parts and such, and eventually enough for a 3rd salvaged unit, fully repaired. We extend TekTeam’s contract as well to help us out.

July 18, 3065 – In the midst heavy fighting on Hesperus II, the Gray Death Legion’s CO, Lori Kalmar-Carlisle is killed in battle. Most of the core leaders and veterans have been killed in the fighting on the world, as the defenders use the GDL as their meat shield. The handful of units surviving, move to fight under local banners.


July 26, 3065 – After hearing about the battle, scion of the Carlisle family, Alexander Carlisle, currently enrolled as officer for the LCAF is approved for some time away n Hesperus II.

Aug 29, 3065 – Alexander arrives at Hesperus II to mourn the loss of his family, and perhaps, his legacy as well. Alexander Carlisle’s request for a more permanent leave of absence to rebuild the Gray Death Legion is refused.

Sept 11, 3065 – No-Longer-Duke Alexander Carlisle is stripped of his title, and his family of their holdings, on Glengarry, the planet ceded to the Gray Death legion by Victor, and re-stated by Katrina.

Sept 19, 3065 – Chief Ingrid Foster sits down for a normal daily briefing with Duke Braham Essex. She brings to his attention a new possible opportunity for everyone interested. After hearing her proposal, he agrees quickly. It’s very similar to things we did with Storm’s Thunder, Smithson’s Chinese Bandits, and Barber’s Marauders II.


Sept 20, 3065 – Thoma Marie Essex, on world in Hesperus II as a local soldier, meets up with Alexander Carlisle, offers him her sympathies, and then offers him something else. Her father would love a chance to chat before he returns to the LCAF.

Sept 29, 3065 – Alexander Carlisle and Duke Essex meet aboard a JumpShip and have their first meetings. After spending some time getting to know each other, the real conversation begins.


“As I mentioned Alexander, I have an offer for you. I’d like to offer you the full support you need to rebuild the Gray Death Legion as a semi-independent mercenary unit under the auspices of the Kilts and Commandoes unit.

I have a ton of good quality mechs we have salvaged in various campaigns that we are just sitting on. I have the techs, the infrastructure, and the materiel to get you started. You have the contacts. You can find people to pilot the Mechs, grab armor or infantry you want, and so forth.

Plus, your unit can be as independent as you want to be. If you want to keep your own warchest, independent from our own, that’s fine. You can negotiate your own contracts, have your own transport, and so forth. Your unit will exist again, as your parents knew, in the mercenary life. “

“And why would you be willing to make that offer?”

“Not that many reasons. I’ll start off with the most important. We need power armor. The Kilts and Commandoes unit specifically, and the Celestial Coalition generally. I’d like to have your power armor making techs and scientists, Gray Death Technologies, make all of the variants of Grey Death armor for the Coalition and Kilts and Commandoes exclusively. That’s one.

Second, we pull those machines out of mothballs and save our upkeep and expanses

Third, we get a chance to add you and your unit to our roster. You put a line in your contract that, in times of severe emergencies, that you can break the deal and come to Epsilon Eridani, and then help us, in case we are blasted by a major house or somesuch. That helps us too.”

“Battle armor, huh?”

“Absolutely. Basically we are contracting your Battle Armor for a regiment of mechs and some armor and infantry too. You can stay on Glengarry if you want, and can secure a garrison. This is the best deal I think you’ll get. No one is that interested in making a fellow mercenary unit work again. We are.”

“I wouldn’t want to return to Glengarry. It was my home, but that was a lifetime ago now. We were stripped of the title, and the unit has ceased to be according to everything ever read.”

“Your father built the Grey Death Legion. You can rebuild it according to a new way of thinking. You can even garrison on one of the worlds in the Coalition, while you set up your units, techs, and support system.”


“I’ll think about it. I’ll get back to you in a week, with my decision.”

“Sounds fair, we’ll talk to you then.”


Alexander Carlisle takes the offer and goes shopping with it. Can he find a better deal? Or at least an equal one? Wolf’s Dragoons, the Northwind Highlanders, the Kell Hounds, and a lot more. No one is interested in reinvigorating the Gray Death Legion. Many just don’t want the competition, and others aren’t interested in helping a fellow merc with the financial investment that would be involved.

October 6, 3065 – Alexander Carlisle has agreed to become the CO of Gray Death Regiment, a semi-independent unit under the umbrella of the Kilts and Commandoes.

They will be doing their own transport, contracts, and warchest.

He has already begun placing calls out and such. Like many others, most are ready to get away from Glengarry and it’s disappointment to them as a unit.

Grey Death Technologies has looked at potential new places to call home. Not only did they do a survey of the various planets in the Celestial Coalition to see who was the best, but they looked at some nearby worlds that would fit their needs. Places like Marduk, or Addicks, or Fomalhaut or Quentin. But in the end, they agreed that it seems like having a company in the Draconis Combine or Federated Commonwealth, but not selling them any of the product, would be a recipe for problems down the road.

So they have agreed to move to a place in the Coalition. Acamar, Genoa, and Nanking are all heavy mining planets that would give them all of their needs right there, thus reducing costs. All were rejected though. (Acamar is not the best place to live, Genoa’s mining product is slated for other companies, and Nanking could be recaptured at any point in time).

They actually have a top three list they show us:

Epsilon Eridani – Already has a military-industrial complex that enables quick relation of their group to the world, and the modest mining on planet would help them somewhat.


Asmodeus – Very rich mining-colony we founded, with all of the metals they could want, but he world is not that developed at all.


Terra Firma – Former regional capital of the Sarna March, Terra Firma is a strong planet with a very healthy economy. Larges forests, minerals, and farms have pushed it into a strong, powerful place. It was always well developed, from the early days of settlement, and later usage as a regional capital gave it increased infrastructure with DropPorts and other facilities all over the map. They have 39 spaceports, just as an example, and are growing and developing in new ways.



While they like all three, they will be relocating to Terra Firma and setting up shop there.

We send the Gray Death Regiment a bunch of mechs, some tanks and 25 million CBills as a way to prime their pump. Carlisle will spend time recruiting, bringing in folks and more. He mentions that there are a few ex-GD folks that have their mechs, and want to bring them over. He’ll just need around 100 mechs.

We send them:

(It’s a big list)

Attilax2
Atlasx2
Barghest
Battle Hawkx2
Blackjack
Bushwackerx3
Caesarx2
Catapultx3
Cestus
Clint CLNT-2-3U
Commando 5Sx2
Crusader
Cyclops
Dart
Dervish DV-7D
Enfieldx4
Enforcer
Falconer
Fireball
Firestarter
Garm
Goliathx2
Grasshopperx3
Greyhound
Griffin 3M
Hammer
Hatamato-Chi
Hatchetmanx2
Highlander
Hollander
Hunchbackx3
Huron Warrior
Jackal
JagerMechx3
Lao Hu
Longbow
Marauder 5Dx2
Merlin
Mongoose
Nightskyx3
Phoenix Hawk 3D
Quickdrawx2
Rakshasa
Raven RVN-3L
Rifleman 5Mx3
Scarabusx2
Scorpion
Sha Yu
Shadow Hawk 5Dx2
Stalker
Starslayerx2
Striker
Valkyrie
Victor
Vindicator
Warhammer 7S
Whitworth
Wolf Trap
Wolfhound
Wolfhoundx2
WVR-7M Wolverine
Zeusx3

Clan Omnis:

Hankyu
Shadow Cat
Ullerx2
Vulturex2


We tried to include enough mechs of each class and type to count. They have assaults mechs like Striker, Goliaths, Zeuses, Atlases, Stalker, Longbow, Highlanders, Hatamato-Chi, Attilas, Victor. Then add in heavies from attacking, in your face heavies (Grasshopper, Quickdraw, Orion, Barghest) to missile boats and other long range mechs (Crusader, Riflemen, Catapults, Cestus, JagerMechs and so forth). We have a large amount of strong medium mechs, from fast scout mechs to strong range mechs to powerful bruisers. Hunchbacks and Nightskys join Whitworth and Vindicator. We also used this as a bit of an opportunity to clean out some mechs we weren’t using much. I had a lance of Nightskys, a bunch fo Zeus and Goliath and Rifleman and Jagers sitting around, not doing anything better. They are all gone now.

You might notice a lot of these mechs come from Liberty and Zurich.

We also send Carlisle 5 fighters with pilots to begin his unit (we suggest that he increase his fighters from the 8 they used to have), 6 squads of infantry,

We also toss him 18 tanks to get those started (he’d like to get to a battalion at least)

Alacorn
Blizzard x2
Brutus x2
Drillson x2
Harasser
Hetzer
Hunterx2
Legion
LRM Carrier
Maxim
Ontos
Partisan
Pegasus
Striker

So we’ve sent him a lot to get him started on his way.

They’ll arrive and start building up in a month on Terra Firma.

They bring in many of the transport assets the old Legion had – 4 JumpShips, 5 Unions, Gazelle, Condor, Leopards, etc. They still need more though.

Thoma Marie Essex’s most recent tour of duty ends at the end of December, 31, 3055. She has submitted her resignation, and will be joining the Gray Death Regiment as the XO.


By the end of the year, Gray Death has purchased land, Technologies has set up shop, mechs have been stored, Alexander is on Outreach doing recruiting, and we’re looking good.

The independent planets of Outreach and Northwind today agreed to create a new state called the Allied Mercenary Command, formed to fight against aggression by the Celestial Coalition.

When asked about the reason, Jamie Wolf discussed that neither himself, nor the Highlanders at Northwind felt safe, and that this was a purely defensive response. The AMC would not be attacking any planets from the Coalition without any cause. Meanwhile, Wolf asked that any worlds in the Coalition that want to break free from the Coalition, but are afraid, or don't have the money, should just go ahead and let him know, and the AMC will free them.

Beginning of the Quentin Campaign

On the border, Quentin is home to Independence Weaponry. The number of units it makes its just staggering. It was taken from the Federated Suns in the War of 3039. It makes around 10 different mech lines for the Combine.

Quentin is garrisoned by the 10th Ghost. They were damaged in the fighting against the Draconis March of Duke Sandoval and have not fully recovered yet. They are a veteran mech regiment, with around 60-70 mechs right now, mostly level 2 mechs, with some clan mechs in there as well.

In support of that regiment of mechs, the 10th Ghost has an Aerospace wing, regular, all level 2 fighters, but missing a few; a regiment of regular tanks, 75% strong right now, with 50% level 2 tanks; and 2 battalions of regular infantry.


They are weakened for battle. Independence also has a company of merc mechs guarding their facility.

Our goal is to hit Quentin so hard that we take it and Independence, using our full naval flotilla then force Independence to make a bunch of units for us for a few months, while the Combine gets a counter group ready. Then we fade before they arrive, and let them have their planet back

In four months of use, we can make a regiment of mechs from Quentin. We expect it’ll take roughly 6 months to rally a naval and ground force large enough to challenge us, because they are in war in other places. We’ll hit the road in 4 months.

Aug 21, 3065 – We arrive in the Quentin System with the two WarShips, their full escort, more than 75 fighters, and a lot more.

There is a lot of traffic here, naturally. Quentin is a border world after all.

Unfortunately, there is a naval presence here. Uh oh. They weren’t here according to our intel, they must have just arrived. They appear to be escorting some transport vessels and such, probably fearing an attack here on the border by the Federated Commonwealth, so they have a WarShip here just to probably keep away opposing DropShips and fighters from even smelling their units.

And here we are, with two WarShips, a pocket WarShip, a huge flotilla, and the desire to use it…

Captain Randall Lewis contacts the Captain of the Combine WarShip. We are here to take Quentin, and you know you can’t stop us. You can decide if you think the Combine can lose your ship, because, of the five houses, the Combine is really weak in the WarShip department and 4th out of 5. So, you can leave, with your entire naval flotilla, without any combat.


Their Captain consults with folks. They have a Tatsumaki destroyer class WarShip, who’s goal is to be that escort for folks, The Lair of Mighty Wyrms. It’s a very good, close range WarShip, and it has two droprings, and quite a few powerful assault DropShips are around it. It’s the only one of its kind, the other was destroyed in their Ghost Bear War, and there were some technical issues with it the design, so none others have been planned right now.

Now, imagine that you are the captain of this ship. You have a destroyer class ship which can’t hold a candle to the Heavy Cruiser (BV of a Tatsumaki? 91k Of an Aegis? 174k Of the Fox? 39k). It could likely win against a Fox Corvette, a lighter WarShip. But you have no chance against our naval flotilla.

You are captaining a ship with an uncertain quality to it. It’s not like the Tatsumaki is going to be a massively reliable Ship. Meanwhile, your flotilla isn’t making up for it. If this were another planet, like, say, Fomalhaut, you would flee easily. The Combine has just 14 WarShips. They can’t afford to lose this one.

But this is Quentin. It is the heart and soul of their industrial complex for hundreds of light years. Only Luthien Armor Works makes more mechs for them in one place than Independence at Quentin. They had to build it up, since it was far from the clan lines. And there had been relative peace on the border as well.

So, if the Captain of the Tatsumaki were to leave, without fighting, without bloodying our nose, do you think he would be praised for making the necessary call? Or berated for not defending the dragon?

He defends the dragon.

Our enemy has:

Tatsumaki WarShip – 18 fighters, 15 small craft (10 of these are combat small craft, 5 transports)
Nekohono’o DropShip – designed to be one of the nastiest assault DropShips, featuring 9 BattleTaxis and 6 fighters, and a lot of naval class weapons
2x Avenger DropShips
4x Leopard CV 24 total fighters from them
2x upgraded Intruders – 4 fighters
Okinawa DropShip – Fighter Carrier with 18 fighters
Model 97 “Octopus” Tug DropShip – 4 small craft
Noruff Class DropShip – Clan, captured by the Combine apparently. Lots of weapons, weak armor.

2x Mule DropShips with cargo all swelled

They also have a ton of transport DropShips on planet, but they keep them down there, not wanting to risk the loss of Unions or stuff like that in this battle.

We have:


Swift Justice, Aegis WarShip – 18 fighters, 10 small craft
Brest, Fox WarShip – 12 fighters, 2 small craft

Vulcanized Majesty, Claymore DropShip –
Bannick’s Burn, Claymore DropShip –
Firebird, Avenger DropShip –
Arrow of Fate, Achilles DropShip, Upgraded – 2 fighters
Stalwart Destruction, Model 96 Elephant DropShip –
Her Majesty’s Interference, Hamilcar DropShip – 4 fighters, 8 mechs
Blaze of Glory, Overlord-A3 -
Paris West, Intruder DropShip, Upgraded -


Fury Unbound, Vengeance DropShip – 40 Fighters
Galvanic Arc, Leopard-CV DropShip – 6 fighters
Stellar Phantom, Leopard CV DropShip – 6 fighters
Fang of the Lion, Leopard CV DropShip – 6 fighters


To carry stuff with

Donkey’s Wrath, Mule DropShip –
Errand of Duty, Mule DropShip -

Plus we have a ton of our military DropShips (Unions, Gazelles, etc) – We will not be risking these assets.



They have 70 fighters

We have 94 fighters

We have two WarShips and a pocket WarShip to their WarShip and a pocket WarShip (Nekohono’o).

We have a Captain who knows how to fight these big naval battles. They don’t, the Tatsumaki hasn’t been in any major battles in the 17 months since it was deemed ready to go. Their captain was on an assault DropShip before being promoted.

We have fighters, WarShips, and DropShips all in our advantage. They have a few extra small craft and that’s it. They landed the Mules to get them out of the battles.

August 23, 3065 – Battle is enjoined.

Instead of the normal stuff, I am just using dice and the campaign notes. I will not be regaling this battle in the same detail as the others, because it’s going to be so one sided, that I just want to quick dice resolve it.


After battle, we won. No surprises.


We lose a Claymore, the Vulcanized Majesty is destroyed., which we cannot salvage, as well as a Leopard CV, the Galvanic Arc, which we cannot salvage.

They used their naval weapons to target our Fox for a few turns, and it was moderately damaged.

We are unable to salvage 22 of our fighters. We are able to salvage 28 of theirs though. So we made fighters after operations are complete.

Knowing our desire to take WarShips, we spent a lot of time landing forces on their WarShip and capturing it, lightly damaged actually. We lost the Hamilcar doing it, but we can salvage it and repair it.

Meanwhile, we also lost 11 small craft, including 5 Battle Taxis. We salvaged just 7.


Now, we destroyed many of their elements that are unrecoverable. I would have loved the clan DropShip, but it’s in pieces. The Okinawa is ours, as is one of their Avengers, 2 of the Leopard CVs, and the Octopus. Those will be easy to fix up.

But the major issue is the Nekohono’o. It was badly wounded, and will take a lot to fix, and needs to be taken elsewhere, but we did salvage it. That’s going to be a huge bonus to our fleet.

Salvage operations begin, as we have taken the sky above Quentin.

25 August, 3065 – Our forces have arrived. We have gone in heavy. We have the surviving fighters able to provide nasty air cover – 50+ fighters. You can’t touch that.

Meanwhile:

First Tank Battalion

Epsilon Regiment

1 battalion of Smithson’s Chinese Bandits mercenary force

Lindon’s Battalion

Lindon is attacking Independence Weaponry, which should fall quickly since it has a company of mercs, plus a company of tanks and some infantry from the 10th Ghosts.

Chinese Bandits and our tanks are securing the LZ and our reserve.

Epsilon Regiment is hunting enemy mechs,


We hit the various places on world where the 10th are supposed to be garrisoning, but they aren’t there. Fighters flying all over the planet can’t locate the defensive force at all.


A few hours later, Lindon has secured the factory, and it looks like the 10ht has gone to hiding, since they can’t escape from the world. I wouldn’t be surprised if we encounter some guerilla warfare or hit and run tactics.

We meet with Independence. They have always been a neutral company when it comes to international states. While we could force them to make mechs for us, without paying them, with the materials they already have, we decide to pay them the same price the Combine would, at a 12.5% discount.

Meanwhile we begin to relax the rule of the planet. The Combine is more restrictive on traffic and trade in their worlds, as well as with local policies and laws. Meanwhile, on a border world, restrictions rise, and Quentin, as the place for Independence Weaponry, has even more. So we have folks relax and calm down.

We also have a quick conversation with the local Comguard. We have no desire to replace them with Word of Blake, they can continue to work here without any issues at all. I don’t want ComStar push back.

Aug 30, 3065 – Duke Essex arrives at Quentin and meets with local leaders. Many remember the days of the Federated Suns and the strong value the planet had. Ever since then, the Dragon has not been as nice, but the Dragon has invested in the local military-industrial complex massively, so there have been a lot of benefits there as well. We talk with the local rulers, and let them know that we don’t intend to be here that long, and that we’ll give the world back to the Combine.

In the meantime, we agree to repair all of the damage done in local battles, and make a public display of our mechs fixing and repairing roads and bridges and stuff.

Sept 2, 3065 – Duke Essex takes a meeting with the CO of the 10th Ghosts after radioing that we offered a peace negotiation. We tell them that we’ll give them free passage off the world, if they want it. We could have forced them out of hiding, by attacking their DropShips in the various ports. We have not done so. We have not stripped down the local warehouses of their stuff to take it either. We are not here to wage war on the Combine.

A regiment of Combine troops attacked us, and we are here for one thing – Independence Weaponry. We will be here for a few months, pay Independence for the mechs they make, then leave, then leave voluntarily. That is an appropriate and honorable response to the attack.

The 10th don’t want to leave their planet, since it’s still theirs.

So Essex offers to have them come out of hiding. And they do. The 10th Ghost have removed themselves from hiding, taking up pickets in various places on the planet. They will wait to see if we keep to our word.

This will remove our need to have as many defenders on world, and it also prevents a lot of the anticipated guerilla activity.


One of the unseen values of taking the WarShip from the Combine is that it will take longer to build a flotilla that’ll take us out, with one less WarShip for them and one more for us.

Right now the Draconis Combine counter attack is still underway, and they have a lot of their naval assets tied up in guarding their forces out there.

So we have more time than previously expected.

Sept 10, 3065 – We have gathered a lot of salvage and debris, and bring in two more cargo DropShips to gather the salvage from the operations outside of the planet.

Sept 25, 3065 – Duke Essex heads away from Quentin.

Sept 29, 3065 – A few minor, amateur bombings occur against our folks. We ignore it.

Oct 11, 3065 – We are becoming increasingly popular in the local world and among its citizens, as we fix things up, don’t attack the 10th, and relax the local laws and restrictions. But there is a strong counter-current to that of real lovers of House Kurita. People 25 and younger, born on Quentin, were born under the Combine. So they more used to the restrictions. The Combine was the home of their birth. And they’ve seen it get better with increased investment in the military complex of the planet.


Oct 29, 3065 – The first load of BattleMechs from Independence leaves for our space. We also replace two mechs from Lindon that were destroyed in their battle.

November 22,3065 – Duke Essex has contacted Theodore Kurita, and they agree to meet on Dieron.

December 14, 3065 – Essex arrives at Dieron and meets with Coordinator Theodore

“Hello again Coordinator. Thank you for meeting with me. I wanted to discuss the ongoing situation between our nations.”

Theodore and Duke Essex talk for a while. Essex explains his actions in Quentin are an honorable response by the Coalition to the attack on Caph. We understand you did not authorize the attack, but we cannot have that if we are to be neighbors. So, instead of going after a ton of your worlds, or attacking your people, we have landed on Quentin, and just paid the factories there to make mechs for us, instead of you, for a few months so far. We have not taken anything that is yours – this is not even a raid. We did not take units you had already paid for, and were sitting in your warehouses, we did not take your ammo, armor, mechs tanks, infantry, or anything else. We didn’t attack civilian targets, we didn’t swap ComStar out for Word of Blake, we have not exacted martial law, and we have not forced Independence to make units for us for free, which we could have done, at gunpoint, using the stuff already on planet. We have paid them, so we have actually helped the economy of Quentin. We have even fixed battle damage we caused in our skirmishes.


So far, we have done an honorable response to your actions.

“I know we can’t hold Quentin forever. Even if they asked to join us, you would land 10 regiments of mechs and bring every single WarShip you own in order to knock us off the world. I get that. And that would not be a friendly, neighborly thing for us to do either.

But it would cost you. Your troops are already battle beaten in the Thumb, the Fed Com flank, and the Ghost Bears. You would lose hundreds of mechs, tanks, and thousands of soldiers. You would lose so many fighters. And you would damage the economy and infrastructure of a highly valuable world, one of the ten most valuable ones you have.

Then you would have to bring a full navy and forces against us. And you will do this, Quentin is too important not too. I get that.

So, I’m willing to give you Quentin back, peacefully, without a single shot fired. And, I’ll trade you the WarShip we captured from you too. And there’s just one thing that you have that we want.”

“What would that be?”

“Remember when our units fought together in Operation Bulldog? As you know, the Star League forces there took out a few Smoke Jaguar WarShips. Afterwards, they gave the hulks to you. Some you sat on, some you scuttled, and some your restored to make up your navy.”

“You want the ones we still have.”

“Precisely.”

“I don’t remember them exactly, hold on, let me look it up. They left nine WarShips.

There were two Essexes. One, the Sabre Cat, we have restored. The other, the Dark Claw, we moved and have ready, in case we need to fix it later.

We had two Congresses. One, the Fire Crest, was salvageable, and we were going to do the same with the Dark Claw that we did to it, but it went missing. We suspect Word of Blake took it.

We had two Yorks. One was past its sell by date. The other , the Lioness, is now waiting if we ever want to do anything with it. It’s in the same state as the Dark Claw.

We got a Texas class which was unsalvageable and scuttled.

Finally, we had two Fredesa class WarShips. Both were badly damaged. One was deemed unsalvageable without paying more than the ship is worth. The other could be done, but would require some cash. We did not want to build the infrastructure to refit the clan vessels, so we didn’t bother, and they are towed and in storage as well.”

“And they are right here, above Dieron, right?”

“Yes. So let me get this straight, you want the Dark Claw, the Lioness, and the two Fredasas, one of which you can’t do anything with?”

“Correct. You aren’t using them, they have no value to you right now, and you didn’t spend a lot of money making them or taking them down. As you know, your WarShip is fully captured, repaired, and ready to go. You can get it back, free of any money lost, and a planet back for free as well. And we get four hulks of WarShips.”

“How could a nation your size even begin to get the money together to pay for their restoration, let alone their upkeep?”

“Upkeeping Warships is a lot cheaper than people think. Making them is the expensive deal. The Dragoons have 6 WarShips with one planet, Outreach, supporting them. We have 20ish. Plus, remember the Periphery in the Star League era had dozens of WarShips per state. We can have a few too.

This is a fair offer. You give something not worth that much to you, and we give something not worth that much to us.”

“Oh, and I promise not to have my people put any bombs or spying devices or anything on the WarShip we give you back, but check anyway. Because you never know what Blake will do.”

A smile escapes the coordinator. “I was surprised that you moved your realm to their grip, that won’t end well. You know that the stuff they are doing for you is just to build up their prestige.”

“Of course they are. You remember when ComStar had to admit that they had a he army they never told anyone. The ComGuards, stationed on every planet in the Inner Sphere. It was scary, so for years, they helped out with humanitarian causes and fixing up stuff and helping those in need on every planet. To build up goodwill. But after around 7 or 8 years, they stopped. Blake is doing the exact same thing. But you know what? It helps my people out, so I’m in.”


He wants us to toss in the Okinawa DropShip and pocket WarShip that we captured, and to move up our departure date from Quentin. While we are keeping our ships, I agree to move us out in just a couple of weeks.

December 31, 3065 – We launch off Quentin, after taking the last of the mechs Independence made this month.

January 4, 3066 – We arrive back in our space, and our flotilla and troops from Nanking head back there.


What did we get, mech-wise,?

8 Atlas AS7-K
8 Tai-Sho
4 Marauder II 4K
8 Akuma
8 Naginata
8 Gunslinger
8 Victor 9K
8 Hatamato-Chi
8 Shugenja
12 Chimera
12 Tessen
12 Excalibur CS
12 Ninja-To
4 JagerMech

That’s 130 mechs we made from the factory. Now, we purchased them at a 12.5% discount, and we immediately help to pay for them by having the Coalition pick up the bill for a lot of them and move them to various militia we are trying to build up. Meanwhile we move many of these mechs to our garrison.


January 29, 3066 – The four hulks arrive in the Terra System just a few days after Duke Essex does. He meets with local Blake representatives.

They are going to repair the Fredasa, York and Congress WarShips for us, for free-ish. We give them the fourth hulk that was damaged too much, and they can fix it up here in Terra. Their specialists tell me it’ll cost less than the Combine estimated. So they get a WarShip added to their roster. Meanwhile we turn over all of the salvage and pieces and armor and weapons from that battle to help pay for stuff.

We also sell them some of the Mechs we produced at Quentin for market price, and made some of the cash back that way.

Meanwhile, we use that cash to purchase two Assault Triumph DropShips from them. They have been refitting Triumph DropShips here with all due speed. We agreed, a while ago, to be able to buy their DropShips and JumpShips coming off their lines because we had neither.

So, total pluses and minuses were strong.

This was a very good campaign, because we doubled our WarShips, Blake will fix them up (they like having a nearby ally with WarShips) and we gave them one of the hulks for them to use, so they increase their fleet (something they are doing madly.). Plus we sent them some mechs, and gave them a bunch of salvage, worth a lot of money, and including parts of DropShips, fighters, and more. Thousands of tons of the stuff. That helps Blake to defray their costs considerably as well.

Plus, we left a happy Quentin behind. IW thought we were oddly nice in dealing with them, and the planet became very pro-Coalition in it’s feelings, after we helped them in a few ways, while also being very honorable and relaxing with the laws. You never know what kind of benefit that might sow down the road. Either the enhanced relations with IW or with the people of Quentin.



End of the Quentin Campaign

Here’s our current naval assets:



Naval Assets:

Warships –

Swift Justice, Aegis WarShip – Nanking
Brest, Fox WarShip – Nanking
Merchant’s Death, Fredasa WarShip, Available Nov 1, 3067
Dark Claw, Essex WarShip – Available December 1, 3066
Lioness, York WarShip – Available March 1, 3067
Red Eyrie, Black Lion WarShip – Available December 3067

JumpShips –

Scots Flotilla, Merchant JumpShip –
Johnny Appleseed, Invader JumpShip - –
Maxim of Glory, Invader JumpShip –
River of Fate, Merchant JumpShip – M.I.A.
Celestial Vagrant, Tramp JumpShip –
Majestic Hobo, Tramp JumpShip -
Merchant of Venice, Odyssey JumpShip – Clan Campaign, Available June 15, 3066
Endless Revival, Odyssey JumpShip – Clan Campaign, Available June 15, 3066


Military Carrying DropShips –

Robin Hood, Union DropShip – Small World
Megan’s Fury, Union DropShip - Small World
Dirty Dozen, Union DropShip – Small World
Charon’s Message, Union DropShip - Clan Campaign, Available June 15, 3066
Star River, Union DropShip – Clan Campaign, Available June 15, 3066
Serendipitous Victory, Union-C DropShip - Clan Campaign, Available June 15, 3066
Amalgamated Bliss, Union DropShip –Clan Campaign, Available August 5, 3065
Lights of Volga, Union DropShip, Upgraded – Traded to Blue Star
Victory Assured, Overlord DropShip – Nanking
Serial Advantage, Overlord DropShip - Nanking
Defiance, Overlord DropShip – Nanking
Daily Menace, Overlord DropShip, Upgraded – Traded to Blue Star
Faith’s Bulwark, Fortress DropShip, Upgraded - Nanking
King Arthur, Excalibur DropShip – Nanking
Peacemaker – Gazelle DropShip -
Turret Diplomacy, Gazelle DropShip -
Profit of Guns, Gazelle DropShip - Clan Campaign, Available June 15, 3066
Honored Living, Colossus DropShip – Nanking
Green Goblet, Broadsword DropShip – Clan Campaign, Traded to Diamond Shark
Roost of War, Broadsword DropShip – Clan Campaign, Traded to Diamond Shark



Aerospace Fighter Carrying DropShips -

Fury Unbound, Vengeance DropShip – Nanking
Stellar Phantom, Leopard CV DropShip - Nanking
Fang of the Lion, Leopard CV DropShip - Nanking
Galvanic Arc II, Leopard CV DropShip – Nanking
Pride of the East, Leopard CV DropShip - Nanking
Clawhammer, Carrier DropShip – Clan Campaign, Available June 15, 3066

Assault DropShips –

Bannick’s Burn, Claymore DropShip – Nanking,
Firebird, Avenger DropShip – Nanking
Hawkeye, Avenger DropShip – Nanking
Ninja Dog, Assault Triumph DropShip – Nanking, ready in March 1, 3066
Nightly Devastation, Assault Triumph DropShip - Nanking, ready in March 1, 3066
Arrow of Fate, Achilles DropShip, Upgraded – Nanking
Stalwart Destruction, Model 96 Elephant DropShip – Nanking
Her Majesty’s Interference, Hamilcar DropShip – Nanking
Paris West, Intruder DropShip, Upgraded - Nanking,
Repo Rewards, Model 97 Octopus – Nanking
Sword’s Savagery, Okinawa DropShip – Nanking

Blaze of Glory, Overlord-A3 - Nanking,
Distant Reprisal, Nekohono’o – Nanking, ready January 1, 3067

Cargo DropShips -

Camel’s Luck, Jumbo DropShip -
Jakob’s Ladder, Buccaneer DropShip (Cargo Vessel) – Clan Campaign, Available June 15, 3066
Donkey’s Wrath, Mule DropShip –
Errand of Duty, Mule DropShip -

The Octopus is a very weak version of the Elephant.

The Essex and York are both destroyers.



We promote Captain Randall Lewis to Admiral Lewis, now that he has so many more ships. We promote our own people, scan ships for tracers, bombs, spy equipment of all sorts, and do a little recruiting from places where we fully trust people.

We now have the same number of WarShips as the Dragoons.

They have an Aegis like we do, a Congress Frigate, 2 Lola III Destroyers, a Soyuz Heavy Cruiser, and a Vincent mk 42 Corvette. We are lighter, with two corvette/raiders, a corvette, and 2 destroyers, plus the heavy cruiser.

But this is a nice step in the right direction, right? Right!

Once fixed, our WarShip fleet, at six, is just one less than the entire Capellan Confederation with 7.

Now, the Aegis class, which we have, is still, despite a Heavy Cruiser class (below Battle Cruiser and Battleship) is still the 11th best battle value of all ships ever, including the clan Leviathan and the nasty McKenna Battleship. There are multiple battle crusaders and battleships that have a lower BV than our Aegis, such as the Texas Battle Cruiser.

Our new York? 75k BV. The new Essex? 65k. Our Fresada is at 48.7k and the Fox is 39k. Then the Aegis is 174. That’s just a blow out against most modern naval ships.


What we need are more pocket WarShips and assault DropShips. More and more DropShips ar coming off the lines with naval class weaponry, or being refitted with it.

The York is a clan refit of the old Riga design from the Star League. They added a lot in their overhaul and refitting of the ship. It now carries 50 fighters, 2 small craft, has an LF battery for two jumps, and has a lot of weapons, and armor. It’s good, quality design, and our repair of it will obviously replace damaged weapons and such with Inner Sphere ones, but it’s still a good, strong Destroyer with a carrier back-up role and 2 droprings


The Essex carries 10 fighters and 10 small craft. The Essex is known for doling out a ton of weapons, and having lighter armor though. It’s like the Vulture omnimech or Rifleman of WarShips design. The clans didn’t do that many changes to it post clan. The Essex must be escorted, because it only has naval class weapons. But it has a lot. It can destroy a DropShip in one salvo. Normally it would have an updated computer and tracking system, but that was destroyed in the battle, so we have to use an inner sphere one instead. 0 droprings too


We need a ton more fighters, and it’s getting harder and harder to get fighters on the market.


Did you know that?

Between 3054 and 3058, the Word of Blake helped the Free Worlds League, their ally, salvage more than 8 WarShips from before, and stripped down and found around 14 other WarShips, two of which were given to the Blake as a gift from the League.

Blake has been all over recovering WarShips, that ComStar knew about for centuries, and building a huge fleet.

October 9, 3065 – After the counter-attack has damaged his March, Duke James Sandoval has been wearied and drained. He is just too spent to continue. Tancred Sandoval takes over as Duke and James officially abdicates

October 10, 3065 - Angel's Riders take a contract with another group and have left our employ. A company offered them an interesting deal that guaranteed combat, so they turned us down for just boring garrison work.

October 25, 3065 - Duke Essex has Chief Foster begin to investigate the chance of Blue Star Irregulars WarShip, the Kerensky Blues. They have trouble maintaining it, and they are going into debt, and they don’t know how to use WarShips that well, and are having issues with it in battle.

Can we negotiate for it somehow? Adding another WarShip to the roster would be sexy.

Blue Star used to be a three regiment unit, but were savaged in the clan wars down to one regiment. Perhaps we could offer them a ton of mechs? Maybe they want transport assets? We could give them the money they spent on the ship’s repair and upkeep, plus a bonus, and then a ton of mechs and such.

Actually, about 6 weeks ago, their ship was again damaged, this time in a battle with a single Lyran Fox Corvette. Alright, it’s time to see if we can convince them to cut the tie.


This is the third time they've had to repair it since acquiring it, and that's just pushing things past their budget.

October 30, 3065 – The first Oppenheimer Hazardous Material Recovery Vehicle have arrived at Epsilon Indi to begin decontamination of the mass nuclear weapon fallout created on the world centuries ago in the Amaris wars.

November 13, 3065 – A raid is committed against Arboris, and it hits near Alpha Battalion’s zone of protection. They aren’t able to keep the raiding forces from achieving their raid against a local winery, but they do force the raiding forces out sooner than they had expected, and we force them off world, without any major exchange of battle. They blast off on a Leopard DropShip and head off world.

December 1, 3065 – Brenna Twohy, leader of the Hsien Hotheads was elected the leader of the planet, and will join Celestial Coalition’s ruling council as their representative.

December 4, 3065 – We have hired one of our former enemies to come work for us. Up until now, the only foe that we hired was the Blackhearts, who we encountered early in the Chaos March campaigns. They were pissed off when they found out they were working alongside terrorists, not the freedom fighters they had expected, left the planet, and gave us some intel on the terrorists which we used to secure and pacify the planet. Hiring them made a lot of sense for us, they had shown their true colors.

The unit we are about to hire was similarly upset at the Free Worlds League, after signing a 10 year deal with them in January 1, 3056, they were loaned to the Capellan Confederation for their attacks on the Chaos March, were on Caph for a few years garrisoning part of the world on their behalf, and then when we won our campaign against them, they then left and rejoined Marik space, finishing out their deal, and licking their wounds on garrisoning worlds.

We have signed….


Always Faithful, for 5 years, until January 1, 3071, for garrison work. We won’t place them on Caph, for obvious reasons. Rating B-, 1 regiment of heavier mechs, regular, reliable, 35% upgraded, with some battle wounds from the Caph Campaign back in 3062.

The Always Faithful has been around for hundreds of years, and have never defaulted on a contract or left one early. They are, as their name implies, honest to a fault. And neither they, nor the Stealthy Tigers their bed-mates on Caph, acted inappropriately during their stay (They weren’t nasty, or cracked down on freedoms, or attacking civilian targets or stuff like that) and they are a suitably solid unit to add to the Coalition’s forces for now.

They are replacing Angel’s Riders.

We have also extended some contracts coming up soon, such as The Bouncers and Smithson’s Chinese Bandits.


December 22, 3065 – Martinson Armaments is fully restored. The first Kyudos and Spartans should roll off the line in two months time!

December 28, 3065 – We have successfully negotiated for the Kerensky’s Blues. We are giving up some stuff, but we get some stuff too.


We give up:

750 million CBills
1 battalion of mechs, all level 2 tech
1 Company of mechs, all clan omnis
1 upgraded Overlord DropShip for the battalion
1 upgraded Union DropShip for the company


We send:

Daily Menace, Overlord DropShip, Upgraded
Lights of Volga, Union DropShip, Upgraded

Company of clan mechs – Shadow Catx2, Ullerx2, Mad Cat, Vulture, Dasher, Cougar, Ryoken, Koshi, Blood Asp, Hankyu

Battalion of of level 2 mechs – Fireball, Wolfhound, Pillager, Dragon Fire, Atilla, Alexander, Greyhound, Grasshopperx2, Highlander, Wolverine, Enforcer, Hatchetman, Orion, Locust, Commandox2, Hunchback, Clintx2, Wasp, Phoenix Hawk, Starslayerx2, Assassin, Javelin, Bumblebee, Bandersnatch, Snake, Lao Hu , Sha Yu, Men Shen, Anubis, Razorback, Chimera, Banshee


And then we get the WarShip. We have it arrive in Terra for Word of Blake to repair for us. It’ll take them about six months or so to fix up.

December 29, 3065 – Kressly Warworks has purchased two blueprints for two tanks from the Star League era from Word of Blake, and now they own the sole rights of distribution. No one is making them for centuries.

Lightning Hover Tank – Originally made in 2696. We’ll be making an RL variant that uses Rocket Launchers, innovated in the periphery, and used with frequency in the alied powers, including Blake, Capella, Taurian Concordat and Magistracy. 7 15 missile rocket launchrs, and two anti-missile systems. 35 ton, 11/17 hover vee, with 62 point sof armor (light), 1,882,750 CBills and 709 BV.

Beagle Hover Tank – First made in 2666, this 15 ton reconnaissance vehicle has a Beagle Active probe, 1 medium laser, small laser, 12/18 movement, and 53 points of armor. 602,875 CBills. BV of 335. We are also making a variant for Blake-only that has a C3i for them.

We are making 3 Lightnings a month and 2 Beagles a month for us and 2 a month for Blake.

The Beagle will give us a very good version of a typical Savannah Master scout hover vee, with the beagle probe as a nice touch. And the Lightning is highly unusual. A rocket launcher is a one-shot weapon, and it this case, fires 15 missiles, unaimed. Is has 7, and that gives it a strong quick strike and retreat profile (the original Lightning was the same, with one-shot SRM launchers, and this is much better with that goal).

We know tanks, and we have the blueprints. We expect to have these coming off the lines in a year.

December 31, 3065 -

Essex Training Academy


We have 20 MW graduates from the Essex Training Academy, and 29 enrollees for next year. All are staying in the Coalition. We also have 8 graduates of vehicle crews, all regular. We hand them vehicles and move them to our garrison or out to local Coalition worlds. 10 enroll for next year, and 9infantry squads are now being trained as well. 8 infantry squads are completed, the Aerotech wing has its grads – 8 total. 7 more enroll for the 1st year.

We create an Academy Battalion for the senior class, and its 24 folks.


Year 4 - 24
Year 3 – 26
Year 2 - 28
Year 1 – 29

Armor – 10

Aerospace, Year 2 - 8
Aerospace, Year 1 - 7

Infantry, Year 2 - 10
Infantry, Year 1 - 9

We pay 17.5 million to the upkeep of the Academy and HQ.

The Civil War in 3065 –


As 3065 opens, Combine forces cross the border. They begin attacking worlds: Addicks, Breed, Cassias, Kentares IV, and Kesai IV. By May 15, 3065, all of those worlds are in combat.


As 3065 continues, one of the obvious themes is that the various sides have begun to exhaust their reserves and materiel. The battlefields are winnowing. Which is not good for Lyran Alliance against the Free Skye Revolt. Other than there, no new battles have broken out at all.

October 10, 3065 Kathil is finally done. The allied forces of Victor supporters have won.

But in free Skye, battles begin for worlds like Hesperus II and Freedom.


More and more people in the Lyran Alliance are seeing Katrina as the wrong person, and the wrong side, and more and more people are crossing over to Victor’s allied forces.

By the end of 3065, Breed is captured as the months drag on, Addicks and Cassias are ongoing battles, Kesai IV is lost and the Dragon pulls from that world.

3066

January 2, 3066 - The expansion plant of Iveco Corporation, which makes Burro II trucks, among many others, has opened on the Capellan Confederation world of Jonathan. Jonathan is in the systems re-taken from the Federated Commonwealth by the Confederation in Operation Guerrero in 3057. It’s about 65 light years from Arboris and Genoa.


January 14, 3066 – Skobel MechWorks is open and restored.

February 3, 3066 – We take a meeting with Brooks Incorporated, the company on Liberty that is making the Defiance and Ironsides fighters for us. We need another fighter line for the Coalition and for us.

They have factories in a bunch of places in the Free Worlds League where they make tanks, VTOLs, and such, but we are the only factory where they make fighters. So they don’t have the right to any other fighters.

So we can do a new design, or acquire an existing one.

They suggest us contacting someone in a nation we are allied with to license a fighter, since that would be easier and faster.

We all agree to a perfect solution…

February 6, 3066 – We announce that Brooks Incorporated and Andurien AeroTech have agreed to allow Brooks to license their 100 ton Riever aerospace fighter. We are licensing, strait up without changes, the F700 version of this fighter, from 3050, and we’ll build two lines of it here, and they should be up and running in around a year or so, since we are using existing blueprints, and making no changes. The only rule is that we cannot sell them to the Lyran Alliance or Federated Commonwealth, often seen as an enemy of the state of the Free Worlds League.

Here are the reasons why this was a perfect fit:

1). Our two existing lines are both medium fighters with a 55 and 65 ton body. This gives us that nasty assault, Atlas story fighter.
2). We have a long history of an alliance with the Duchy of Andurien, so this makes them money, and is easy to do.
3). Brooks Incorporated’s main FWL factory is on Andurien too.

Because Brooks is there on Andurien as well as Liberty, and we have close Andurien ties, this just makes a lot of sense.

Why is Word of Blake such a strong ally for the Coalition, compared to other options?

What is Word of Blake getting out of all of this?

1). After abusing the 21st Centauri Lancers in the capture of Terra, Blake got a bad reputation among mercenaries. Since then, they have tried to recreate their image using mercs, like us. They have hired some folks like Herman’s Hermits and used them as examples of people that work well with Word of Blake. So the first thing they get is the door no longer closed on them.

2). Finances. The next thing Blake gets is money. The amount of money ComStar/Blake gets for running HPG stations on worlds is incredible. It funds virtually everything they do. Now imagine that you are getting the HPG cash for planets with a lot of traffic, like Epsilon Eridani or Nanking or even New Home or Liberty. It’s really a lot of dough. Blake makes out financially from this deal.

3). Military units. From the very get go, we sent some salvaged mechs to Blake for stuff from them. Since then, they have used us for quite a lot. They use Kressly Warworks to make an Ostroc for us, Liberty’s fighter company to make Defiances, lines that were made exclusively for ComStar on Nanking and more of those things will crop up. Blake had very little defections of people from ComStar with military equipment, and the ComGuards were among the least to head out to help form Word of Blake. They continue to just spit out an incredible amount of military materiel, and they are building that stuff up.

4). Turning into a real power. Word of Blake was initially seen as a more suspicious ComStar, since the people who liked the manipulations and secrery were the ones who left after ComStar began secularizing themselves and turning into a kinder, gentler organization. Blake needed to be seen as a legitimate, and nice power. Their work with the Coalition is another feather in that ongoing cap.

So Blake gets money, respect, and improves their military. Meanwhile, we get military, respect, tech, and planets that boost our economy. It’s a good alliance right now for both sides.

February 15, 3066 – Both Lightnings and Beagles are getting spun from Kressly Warworks.

February 28, 3066 – There has been some push-back over on Quentin after the Combine took back over. Some locals look back on our time there fondly, and the Combine is back, cracking down on again on travel and security and such.

Mar 1, 3066 – The Kyudos and Spartans are being delivered to us and the Coalition.

Mar 4, 3066 – After a long an unsuccessful era of quiet, James Sandoval has passed away. He spent the last few months in quiet.

Mar 6, 3066 – We receive a communication from Duke Tancred Sandoval. Duke Essex agrees to the message and leaves the Coalition on a command circuit prepared for this journey by Tancred.

March 15, 3066 – New Duke Tancred Sandoval contacts the Coordinator and sues successfully for peace, and the Draconis Combine counter-assault ends.

Mar 30, 3066 - Essex arrives at Robinson, the home of the Sandoval family, and the capital of the Draconis March. Tancred meets him. They go to view the body, which is lying in state.


“We’ll keep it up for a few months at least. We’ve had more people visiting his grave than we expected.”

Essex nods. “Your father was a good man.” Seeing Tancred squint a tad, he adds ”Look, your father wasn’t the easiest of people to get along with. We all know that. But we was a good man. He cared more about the people of his March than the aristocrats who placed him in power. That made him abrasive, but in a very good way.”

Tancred smiles a bit at that. “Yes.” After a short walk they arrive inside the Ducal Palace, a place Essex has been before. Tancred has been a huge supporter of Victor, when his father was a pro-Katrina supporter. That has to weigh on Tancred still.

“While I’m happy to have you come and pay your respects to my father, that was not the only reason I contacted you. Obviously things have changed in your state, and ours as a result. We are more distant now. But my father and you never let that interfere with your letters and messages. You sent a unit of ‘Mechs in the dark days of the March. No, my father never forgot stuff like that.”

“Your father was fiercely loyal. So are you Tancred, even if you forget it.”

“Although to different things. I to Victor, to a comrade-in-arms, to the guy who is the white hat.”

“Your father wasn’t loyal to Katrina. He was loyal to these people. These people who you see all around. The ones visiting grave beyond expectations. That’s a loyalty that’s increasing rare these days. For all of my hassles with Duke Hasek, I can’t fault him for that; he has it too.”

“Perhaps. You knew my father in a different way than I did. Than any child could.”

“True. Although that’s not unexpected.”

Tancred lets out a gentle laugh. “My father’s loyalty. That’s why I’m here. Let’s drink to it!” Tancred passes a drink to Essex and they toast Duke James Sandoval.

“And that’s why I brought you here. After I essentially forced him to resign, he had a few months to put his affairs in order as he grew closer and closer to death. He never forgot a debt. The list of people that he feels he owes things to are just extremely long. He has an entire log!“

“Well, as you can imagine, my father willed that you receive some thing that would help defray the bond, trust, and aid you gave him and his people. Come with me, I think you’ll be suitably please.”


Tancred escorts Essex to the local garage and they get a hover-limo driven by an employee of the Duke. After a drive of a half hour or so, they park in the StarPort, and get out.

“My father was always a savvy man with a sharp mind. He knew what people’s greatest needs were. You had an abundance of ‘mechs and other units, but your mercenary unit and your state were always needing more transport assets. Here she is…”




“As you know, JumpShips are all captured by the two sides in the war for combat transport and have been militarized. Even if my father thought that a JumpShip was a proper repayment, we couldn’t have gotten one. The same is true of proper, good, FedCom built and designed DorpShips. But this? Ah this!

This crashed in one of the battles we fought against the Draconis Combine. It took our techs about 9 months to fix it and get it ready again. It’s not on any of our lists of local DropShips and naval assets, since its not ours. My father felt that, since you would often send him battlefield salvage, the least he could do was return the favor in his will!”

Tancred steps aside to reveal a Nagumo class DropShip.


“You sent my father a company of mechs that included some clan tech. If you were to sell it on the open market, this is about the price. That’s a fair exchange. Plus, you have to love the symmetry. My father was a great man.”


“We salvaged this DropShip from the Combine in the last months of 3063 in our campaign against them. Obviously, repairing the crashed ship would be a real benefit to the war effort. But as the techs looked it over, they realized it would take a while to fix up, so my father prioritized other needs. As the war progressed, and it looked worse and worse for us, you can imagine how a infantry-transporting DropShip was de-prioritized.

Every now and then our techs were able to work on in and fix it up, and then, after my father left the office, he made sure that a variety of projects were finished up, this among them. It was repaired about 13 weeks ago. They even launched it to verify that it works. Shoot, you can even take it home with you if you want!”


The Nagumo, a recently created DropShip, is a heavily armed and armored troop transport DropShip. Designed to land and deliver in a hot zone and to protect itself, it has a lot more armor and weapons than is normally expected of this role. It can carry 12 infantry platoons, and 2,270 tons of cargo. (A battalion of infantry) This enables it to deliver all of the various materiel and support that might be needed – food, guns, ammo, mines, surveillance, medical supplies, and so forth.

The only major issue with a Nagumo, is that leaving the gravity well of the planet requires the reconfiguration of the infantry bays, which takes a few hours. You can’t leave hot.

It’s a nice parting gift from an ally.


Essex leaves with the Lucky James a few days later.

Beginning of the Second Small World Campaign


April 20, 3066 – Sir! You need to see this. We have a huge flotilla that has just jumped into the System. They are at pirate points. It looks like a huge army.

“Why would an army that big come here?”

“I don’t know Duke Small, but it’s going to be an issue if they do.”

A few minutes later Small World receives a communiqué.

“Hello Duke Small. This is Leutnant-General Davis Lille. I have been ordered, by Archon’s officers, to bring the 17th Arcturan Guards to Small World in preparation for further campaigns toward Tikonov. We are going to land on your planet.”

“General, please be advised that Duke Braham Essex, of the Celestial Coalition, is two days away in a nearby system. You will not make any move towards my planet until he arrives on scene. He has already been informed. If you come towards our planet, without received permission from him, it will be considered a military attack, and you will be attacked. Just wait two days.”

“Very well, we will wait. On the third day, we move in.”

Apr 22, 3066 –

“General Lille, this is Duke Essex, say again your reason for being here?”

…

“Alright listen, in the past, Small World has rented part of its surface to troops, and we are happy to do so again. I have a place cordoned off for your arrival. There is no inhabited area anywhere in a 135 mile radius of you. You and your men may unload, and relax here on Small World.

General, I am going to give you one warning. If this is a trick, or a trap to take Small World, if you start building a permanent fort, if you aren’t off this world in four months, that will be considered an act of war. Right now our actions have helped Katrina out considerably, you don’t want to make an enemy of us. I promise you, that if you violate this agreement, I will personally lead an assault on, and take Ruchbah from you and the Archon, and add it and its military industry to the Coalition. Do you agree?”


“We do.”

“Then welcome to Small World.”

The 17th arrives, and there are no major issues. Everything seems to be going fine. We order some additional forces to the world, just in case:


All arrive


Duke Essex and Duke Small spend a few days outlying all of the possible directions that this could wind up going. They create a lot of scenarios for different potential snags that could occur, from sabotage, or a full on invasion.

June 11, 3066 – Another large flotilla arrives in the system.


The 5th Syrtis Fusiliers is here, led by Major General Robert Koenig. They are organized as an RCT with 1 regiment of mechs, 2 of armor, and 5 of infantry. The 17th are a bit bigger - they have 1 regiment of mechs, 3 of armor, 5 of infantry. Both have equal fighters – the 17th has an extra regiment of armor.

The 5th announces that they heard that the 17th was on planet, and they have come to destroy it. These are huge units, not small ones that can come, do a little brawl on the border tundra where the 17th Arcturan Guard is, and then hop on out. The amount of infrastructure units this size require is massive – techs, administrative, medical, support staff, and more are all needed.

Dukes Small and Essex discussed the possibility of a pro-Victor group wanting to fight the pro-Katrina group that’s here.


Duke Small contracts Maj. Gen. Keonig and gives him a list of requirements for being allowed to stage a war:


1). Fighting a war like that on our planet could get out of hand. Lines on the planet will be drawn, any combatants that cross over those lines will be fired on by local troops.

2). Any retaliation to the above, or a full blown assault, will result in the Coalition officially declaring war on the side that attacks. They will join the Civil War on the other side, and immediately seek out and attack nearby planets, fleets, and industries of that side in nearby systems.

3). The Coalition gets 50% of the salvage from the battle from the person who keeps it.


At first Maj. Gen. Koenig refuses to accept these requirements. After Duke Small points out if it broke out on Koenig’s home-world, he’d be suitably concerned, and want some sort of payment as well for compensation for using it as a battleground.

We negotiate down to 20% of salvage, and then broadcast the parameters of their battle.

We carve out clear lines for the battle on the ground, with huge posts and blazes, that give them a 400 mile, (roughly) diameter area, which includes the entire base of the 17th, and some locals hills, and flat terrain, and two rivers, plus a small lake, and dottings of forests all over. There is nothing else there. We pulled out all civilians. We also give the 17th an extenuation of how long they can be there, for obvious reasons.


Because this favors them a bit, the 17th also agreed to the 20% salvage. We mobilize our forces, and Duke Small orders in some aerospace fighters for local support….


Meanwhile, the 5th FC RCT arrives to attack the 17th…

June 15, 3066 – Duke Essex arrives back on planet to supervise what could be some heavy stuff, he bring ssome forces with him to help keep the peace.

June 18, 3066 - After two days, the fighting has been heavy. There have been some dogfights by fighters outside of the markers, but we are comfortable with that, as long as the mechs and tanks and infantry stay inside the marker.

June 30, 3066 – After some early momentum, the battle has turned against the 5th FedCom RCT. Multiple battles have been fought and the 17th has been clever in positioning and such.

July 2, 3066 – The 5th has been pushed to the line on one side of demarcation. We have multiple units on standby there to protect that border. About twenty five miles past the border are some radioactive material mining interests, so we need to keep fighting from the only major industry and economy on Small World.

July 3, 3066 – The 5th FedCom RCT has chosen to send a lance of mechs past the line to scout out their foes. They were probably testing our resolve as well. The lance was killed after 10 minutes of leaving the area. The 5th has chosen not to retaliate after being reminded of the price

July 5, 3066 – Another small group has arrived via JumpShips, and two battalions of mechs, mercenaries, hired by Maj Gen. Koenig have arrived to help him regain momentum. Wilson’s Hussars are here on Small World. They aren’t exactly a high-quality unit, they “procured” a DropShip under highly questionable means a few years ago and barely survived as a unit scraping the bottom of the merc barrel. Is this the best the FedCom could do?

July 7, 3066 – At first, the battle swings back the 5th’s way today, and they have charged back away from the line, supported by the new mercenary folks.

Then after a few hours of fighting, the gutsy 17th have pushed the 5th, and this time, they aren’t stopping, the 17th are taking out mercenaries and FedCom RCT folks with equal aplomb. They have gained a strong advantage. In order to flank the 5th, Wilson’s Hussars take a battalion of mechs way outside of the operational area. That’s against the rules, and they know that. The pro-Davion side of the FedCom is probably hoping they can “excuse” this as a mercenary issue only, and distance themselves from it.

We move to hit the mercs hard, and punish them for their impunity. Then, we’re going to hit the 5th, hard as well, to punish them for thinking we’re stupid. Duke Essex orders out Mesopotamia Battalion to smash these idiots, everyone else to their machines, and radios the 17th, speaks with Leutnant-General Lillie.

“General, we’re going to take out the Hussars, then the two of us are going to finish the 5th RCT off. Today. Tonight we’ll give your soldiers more time on planet to recuperate, allow you into some cities to get some drinks, food, rest, and whatever else you want, until you are needed somewhere else.”



Mesopotamia is loaded and heading out. One company is nearby on guard, and the other two were hot and ready and nearby, so they were able to sneak out and get to their posts. All three are near the Hussars in 20 minutes.

Are those? They are! Well, there’s our proof that this was staged by the FedCom. There are power armored troops riding along with the Hussars, grabbing hold of various foot and hand holds on the mechs as they move out.

The Hussars don’t have the tech or money for power armored stuff, and those are RCT standard power armor. So there’s your proof, right there.

They break off to engage us in companies supported by their power armored buddies, and we engage them, company to company.


Here is what Ninevah is bringing to the party:


Masakari C
ST-8A Shootist
HTM-27T Hatamato-Chi
GAL-1GLS Gallowglas

DVS-2 Devastator
Vulture B
CPLT-C1 Catapult
WHD-6D Warhammer

WTC-4M Watchman
JVN-10F Javelin
PXH-1D Phoenix Hawk
CMT-1 Comet


(Wilson’s Hussars are actually on the cover of the Mercenaries Supplemental and this campaign, minus us, was actually where they regained their mojo, but Small World was taken by the pro-Davion guys against the pro-Katrina forces, and here, our presence has changed things instead.)




2 SRM IS Standard BA and 2 MG IS Standard BA

Axman
Bushwacker
Valkyrie
Vulcan
Warhammer
Zeus
Commando
Dervish
Enforcer
Griffin
Javelin
Orion

About half of these mechs are level 1 tech. They have 5 vet pilots as well. Everyone else is regular.


We have some light terrain, mild hills, and a bit of heavy woods so thick and dense with conifers it’s almost like jungles.

Turn 1 – We lose init. They aren’t moving around much. But they do hop their Dervish next to our Javelin in the woods to the south. Masakari fire destroys the LL of their Enforcer. It and their Javelin tumble. Our Masakari took some damage but is fine and dandy, just like candy. Our Jav misses a kick and falls.


Tur n2 – We win init. I bull right on in. Our Jav stands and runs 7 hexes away. Then I hop our PXH to its rear to protect it. I run our Warhammer above and in front of their Bushwacker. Their Jav rises and runs. I unload on their Zeus. Our Vulture’s ER Large Laser lances into their jav’s CT and destroys it. Meanwhile their Zeus destroys the La of our Warhammer. Our Gallowglas destroys the RA of their Firestarter. After carving it open with the Devastator, our Catapult nails the gyro on their Zeus. Then our Warhammer loses its RT to their Orion. Both our Warhammer and their Zeus fall.

Turn 3 – We win in init. I eject the Warhammer. Our Hatamato bases their Enforcer. I jump the Gallowglas above and beside their Firestarter. Our PXH jumps next to their dervish, and in some woods. Comet leaps to the rear of their Warhammer. Their Zeus rises. Our Gallowglas destroys the RT of their Firestarter. Our Devastator cracks open the Warhammer in a few places. Our Shootist nails their Zeus and hits an engine once. Their Vulcan destroys the LA of our Comet. Our Catapult nails the gyro again of their Zeus – two gyro hits, it’s out. Our MAsakari nails the engine twice and gyro once on their Warhammer. Their Hammer falls after taking 120+ damage. Our Gallowglas kicks and destroys the LT of their Firestarter, who finally falls. Meanwhile our Hatamato-Chi kicks the Enforcer and nails its tgyrox2 and engine once. It’s down.

Because these are mercenaries with a lot sense of value, they radio their concession pending us letting them walk. We’ve taken out a Warhammer, Enforcer, Zeus, Javelin, and Firestarter in three rounds of weapons fire, and they’ve taken out our Warhammer and damaged our Comet. We grant them their wish.


Jav H, RT, LT, LL, RL, LA, RA

Warhammer, enginex2, gyrox1
Enforcer missing LL, engine, gyrox2
Firestarter missing RA, RT, LT
Zeus, gyrox2, engine


Ours:

Warhammer missing LA, RT
Comet missing LA


Kill – Vulture, Catapult, Hatamato-Chi

Battle Two!!


Babylon Company

ATA-2 Attila
Thor C
THG-11E Thug
GAL-1GLS Gallowglas

GRN-D-01 Grand Crusader
Vulture D-UK
ARC-4M Archer
GRF-3M Griffin

ALX-1kc Alexander
VL-5T Vulcan
CMT-1 Comet
JR7-F Jenner



Our foes have 4 suits of power armor.

Wasp
Vindicator
UrbanMech (with an AC10 Ultra)
Stalker
Goliath
Victor
Thunderbolt
Stiletto
Shadow Hawk
Firestarter
Enforcer
Clint


They have a mix of some newer stuff and some older stuff as well, plus several are veteran and the Victor pilot is elite.


This is their Stiletto:






We have two small ridges to either side of us on the east of the are. A few conifers and rough patches dot the area.

Turn 1 – We win init. I hop some mechs in the south to take the lower trees quickly and our Comet, Thor, jenner and Vulcan have that area secure quickly . Then I move our heavier units in the centers between the two ridges an d west. I keep a few units like the Archer and Vulture in some light trees in the back for now. Light dustings occur, and no one falls or anything.


Turn 2 – We win init again. I hop folks to position for potential back-attack runs next turn. We have a lot of high numbers to hit some folks, so I try to shoot well, taking targets of opportunity. After that turn, still not much, although our clan mech Thor took 40+. Our Vulcan punched their Firestarter’s hip, but it’s still standing


Turn 3 – This is going to be one of those longer, drawn out battles. We lose init. They have a lot of short range mechs that scare me – ultra AC10 on the Urbie, Victor, Thunderbolt, that’s a strong Stalker variant – the 5M, and so forth. Range is their vulnerability I think, but we haven’t been pecking them apart like I’d hoped. I’ll come in some, leadi ng with our Attila. Hope it works! I hop our Vulcan into a heavy woods hex that is at -1 elevation, hoping someone might expose themselves to close. Their FS runs on that hip actuators but manages to keep standing. Idiot. Another slow turn with a few mechs taking some damage, and nothing major happening.


Turn 4 – We lose init again. I back up my forces. I walk my Jenner into a similar trap that my Vulcan was in last turn. Still nothing. I alpha Strike my Jenner at their Firestarter, Our Jenner nails the large laser on their Firestarter. Their Goliath nails a medium laser on our Jenner. Our Vulcan takes out the RA of their Urbie. Our Jenner falls and destroys its RA. The hex with the Jenner in it ignites.

Turn 5 – We win init. I charge everything up. Vulcan in the trap again. I careful stand the Jenner. The Firestarter closed with it. Out Attila destroys the LA and LT of their Vindicator, as well as blowing off the RA. Out Thor unloads on their untouched dStalker with its Ultra AC 20 and such and blows it for a ton of damage. After our Thug follows it up with more with two PPCs and 11 out of 12 SRMs from its packs, the Grand Crusader nails it with a pair of LRM20s, and then a medium pulse laser hits the SRM6 narc ammo. Dead mech (no CASE). Their Vindicator falls, destroys its RT, and the pilot blacks out. Their Shadow Hawk falls (from just 20+ damage) as well.

Turn 6 – We win init. I push some folks forward more. I leap the Attila into some woods and right in front of their force. I move the Alexander in hard as well. Their Shadow Hawk rises. Our Comet gets next to their Firestarter. Our Comet fires all of its mighty weapons load and blows off a RA, destroys a RL and LT. Our Thug destroys their Urbie’s LT, and our Griffin it’s Right Leg. Meanwhile our Vulture cracks the AC20 of their Victor and takes it out. Our Grand Crusader’s large pulse laser hits the Thunderbolt’s head, cracks the armor, and nails the cockpit, killing the MW. After it falls, their Urbie destroys its other leg, and their Firestarter tumbles as well. No one else does. Our Atilla kicks an undamaged Wasp and destroys its RL. It falls.


They call it at that. Too much all at once, plus the lucky kill against the Thunderbolt.


Wasp missing RL
UrbanMech missing RA, LT, RL, LL
Vindicator missing LT, LA, RT, reattach RA
Stalker LA, RL
Firetsarter missing RL, LT, reattach RA
Thunderbolt, fix cockpit


Jenner missing RA


Kill – Grand Crusaderx2,

And match #3, here we go!



Jericho Company


Daishi A
GLT-3N Guillotine
FLS-8K Flashman
Loki D-UK

GRN-D-01 Grand Crusader
RFL-3N Rifleman
Mad Cat Prime
SHD-5M Shadow Hawk

WVR-6M Wolverine
WLF-2 Wolfhound
WTC-4M Watchman
SDR-5V Spider


Our foes have some battle armor, plus


Archer
Stinger
Rifleman
Tempest
2x Marauder
Jenner
JagerMech
Fireball
Sentry
Crusader
Orion


This is their Tempest!




Not a single assault mech in the lot, but a bunch of heavies to make up for it I suppose. 4 vet pilots too.

No trees in this area, just some modest hills, and a depression in the middle, plus a bit of concrete.

Turn 1 – We place our big stuff on the east flank to head south towards our foes, unimpeded by the central depression. We lose init. I move my team down 5 hexes. After focusing on it a bit, we destroy their Rifleman’s LT with our Rifleman, and it shuts down the XL engine the mech is toting. They need an 11 to Gauss rifle our Wolfhound with their Tempest – it works and the Wolvies LT is destroyed. It falls down.

Turn 2 – We lose init. We eject the Wolfhound. I charge in again on the flank. Our Shadow Hawk starts carving into their Marauder and hits a PPC and then the Grand Crusader its LA. Our Flashman destroys the LT of the Stinger.

Turn 3 – We lose init again. Our Daishi (which stands for Great Death) destroys the RA of their Archer while our Lokie nails its leg actuators. Meanwhile our Grand Crusader hits the engine and gyro once on the damaged Marauder. Our Watchman blows out their Stinger’s RL. Our Mad Cat finishes things by hitting the engine twice more on their Marauder. Their Archer falls and breaks its LA into pieces. Stinger falls too.


They call it! All done. We took out their Rifleman and Marauder completely, devastated their Archer and Stinger.


Archer missing RA, LA
Marauder missing LA, enginex3, gyro
Stinger missing LT, RL
Rifleman, missing LT



Wolfhound missing LT


Kills – Rifleman, Mad Cat,


With their concession, the Hussars are down.

The next thing we are going to do is coordinate our strike against the 5th FedCom RCT with the 17th Arcturan. We’ve been coordinated with Lillie about ways to go.

We’ve brought in our extra forces, don’t a quick reload/rearmor of the mechs we used against the Hussars (we won’t have a Thor, Comet, Warhammer, Jenner, Wolfhound) and head out to smash the weak and losing 5th.

Fighters fly overhead, and we move in.

Mesopotamia Battalion will drive, minus the damaged units, through the south flank on their position. Meanwhile, Nordic Weapon Battalion will drive on their east flank. That gives us roughly 35 mechs flanking them in the middle of a battle with the 17th that they are already losing.

The 5th FedCom sends out some tanks and infantry to slow us down on the flanks so they can keep focusing on the folks in front. It does, but not as much as they probably hoped.

Seeing an impending flanking attack on two flanks, the 5th RCT breaks and flees. Their DropShips are about 2 miles to the north-east. They begin to move for their transport quickly and appear to be quitting Small World. We begin to follow them, and they break off some units to again act as a rear guard to keep them forward. The 17th blows through them and sends their fastest units to harass the 5th and keep them focused.

After a while, the 5th FedCom RCT reaches their place with the local defenders of tanks and troops here protecting their formations, and a bunch of DropShips as well. An RCT has a ton of DropShips, Unions, Leopard CVs, Gazelles, a Mule or two, an Excalibur or two in there, a rare Conquistador, and a lot more.

The 17th begins to build a cordon around them. What is that?

Essex orders our local DropShips to pick up the 6 companies of K&C here and radios Lillie.


“You need to punish these folks. Your side is losing the war on both fronts in the Lyran and FedSuns territories. You need more than a little victory here. You need a total destruction. Push into the Dropzone and smash their forces, and their DropShips. Do a combat drop right on top of them and smash them!


It’ll take the 5th hours to fully load up and begin to leave. You have time to load up, and then do a combat drop right on top of their units. Don’t let them leave yet. Punch again!”


Lillie takes Essex’s advice and they load up. 6 DropShips carrying Kilts and Commandos mechs get ready to do a combat drop on top of the 5th’s position, and the 17th Arcturan Guard are doing the same, while tanks push forward.

We are fighting hard and furiously, for a while.

They loaded up some of their units already, particularly infantry, and they find out we are coming in, so they get units into defensive positions to fire on us as we drop onto them. DropShips that are fully loaded go ahead and lift up, and around 7 or 8 are heading up.


Like many of our major battles, we are not going to fight every single battle of this drop. Instead, we’ll play a few, maybe one or two, and a follow up or so.

Braham Essex is eyeing that Conquistador. It’s a rare DropShip, hasn’t lifted off, and it not that much loaded. Meanwhile it’s a command DropShip for RCTs that was recently designed. It’s a strong DropShip, and would be a powerful capture.

Outside of the Conquistador is a command company of mechs, all high level, top-of-the-line stuff. That’s going to be our target, and we are going in with our best company to try and blast that company, and the DropShip that’s with it.

Essex has ordered Mjolnir Company, our best one we have, to drop and stop those folks:



This battle won’t end soon.


Here is Mjolnir:

Daishi A
ON2-M Orion
BLR-3M BattleMaster
ENF-4D-UK Enforcer

GUN-1ERD Gunslinger
Nobori-Nin B
MAD-5M Marauder
CRD-5S Crusader

GHB-6B Grashopper
STY-3C Starslayer
Shadow Cat Prime
FS9-C Firestarter

The company is 7 elite, and 5 veteran.


It’s a potent, powerful company, with a load of level 2 and 3 mechs. All are updated mechs with great stuff behind them.

They have the Conquistador in the back, we can move towards it and fight it if possible.

Here is their Command Company:


Uziel
Hellspawn
Dart
Fafnir
Garm
Enforcer III
Jagermech III
Stealth
Nightsky
Wolf Trap
Maelstrom
Valkyrie


Their units are mostly vet, with a few elite in there too.



This is their Fafnir, a 100 ton assault mech with two heavy gauss rifles, and a few solid close range weapons to boot. Nasty stuff!





This is basically all even and such.

Here we go.

Their company starts in the middle of the map. We get the edge. Their BV is about 5000 more than ours, even with our sexy clan tech. Here we go!

We have some hills and woods , not a whole lot else. I begin deploying by tossing our Gunslinger into some heavy woods.

Turn 1 – We win init even with the +2 they get to their initiative (due to the DS). They are on a hill in the center of the map, which is obviously probable, fighting uphill. I need to figure out, do I take out a few mechs, and then focus on the big Conquistador, or vice versa? Whoa, they just blazed their Dart right up to me. The Conquistador has 410 armor on the left side, the area we are attacking. (the rear, while more vulnerable, had massive trees, cliffs, and stuff, and they chose this site well for their folks). I make targets of opportunity instead, to reduce the headaches on the map. That’s the Fafnir, standing in heavy woods and not moving. Our Gunslinger blows the LA off their Uziel with a gauss rifle and its medium lasers hit the gyro and engine once each on their Dart. Our Nobori-Nin hits some heavy gauss ammo in the RA of their Fafnir. Their Maelstrom gets a through armor critical on our Gunslinger and nails the engine once. Three of their mechs fall – Dart, Valkyrie, and Fafnir. Their DropShip misses, mostly, although a gauss slug nails my Crusader.


Turn 2 – We win init again. Our Firestarter leaps into light woods and adjacent to their Fafnir. Our Orion takes some woods to the west of their position. I charge the Daishi up at them too. Our Shadow Cat runs around behind their Stealth. Gauss rifle to your rear? Ouch! Their Fafnir stands. Valkyrie too. The Dart even follows suit. Their Maelstrom moves in and bases some of our units. Our Nobori-nin destroys the RA of that Dart. Our Orion nails the ER PPC on their Wolf Trap. Meanwhile our Enforcer nails the LRM 10 ammo in there and boom!! CASE, but dead mech. Their DropShip nails our Enforcer a few times, and it took 60+ damage from it, but it and our Daishi are standing, while their Stealth and Fafnir fall.


Turn 3 – We lost init this time. Their Fafnir rises and our Daishi bases it. Thgeir Stealth rises and runs behind our Shadow Cat. I move our Marauder into the heavy woods the Fafnir was in and base it too. I move some stuff by their Maelstrom. Our BattleMaster bases it. While running, their Dart falls (gyro hit). It was trying to get behind our Gunslinger. Our Gunslinger’s rear facing medium pulse lasers destroy the LT of their Dart. A large pulse laser from our Daishi shears off the head of their Fafnir. We also destroy its RL. Meanwhile, our BM’s ER PPC lances into their Maelstrom’s H and takes it out too. Two headshot kills of the heaviest two mechs. Dang. Our Shadow Cat’s ER Medium Lasr nbails the CT of their Enforcer III and hits the gyro three times. Dead Enforcer III. On the otherhand, fire lances into our Shadow Cat and it fall shard and destroys its RA from their Conquistador.

Turn 4 – We win init. I eject the Shadow Cat. I hop our Marauder next to their Garm. I run our damaged Daishi into the space with the heavy woods the Marauder left. Their Hellspawn bases or BM, so I walk our Crusader behind the Hellspawn. Meanwhile I hop teh Nobori-nin behind both their Uziel and Stealth. Their Dart tries to stand three times, falls down, breaks its RT and hits its gyro a second time, and its down. Our Marauder takes out the RL on the Garm. Our Gunslinger destroys the RT of their Hellspawn, and that’s a kill/shut down with an XL engine. The Garm obviously tumbles.

Turn 5 – We lose init. Whoa! Five squads of powered armor infantry are pouring of the Conquistador! Their Garm stays on the ground. Their JagerMech III tears into my Enforcer some more. Our Daishi destroys the RA and RT of their Stealth. Engine shutdown. Our Marauder takes out the RT, LL, of their Garm. Two legs dead is a kill. Their Conquistador just savages our Starslayer and destroys its RA and RL.


Turn 6 – We lose init. I eject the Starslayer. I have to move my Gunslinger from it’s sniper spot, and our Nobori-Nin is guarding its rear. Our Nobori-Nin finishes their Nightsky by destroying it’s HD with an LB10X without the shotgun shot. Before it dies, it destroys the RA on the Nin. Meanwhile the Gunslinger’s gauss cracks the Uziel open and hits an engine twice on it. Our Marauder destroys the LA of their Valkyrie. Our Enforcer takes even more damage, loses a RL to the Conquistador, and falls.


Turn 7 – We lose again. We eject the Enforcer. RA of their Valkyrie destroyed by the Marauder. I’m focusing fire on their DropShip.

Turn 8 – We win initiative back again. I expose our Firestarter to base their Uziel. The first damage is dealt to the Conquistaor. Our BAatleMaster hits the Fire Control System and a crit on a weapons bay, injures crew, killing two outright, and hits sensors. Meanwhile that Nobori Nin nails the engine and gyro on their Uziel, once each. Engine shut down. They rock the Firestarter, internal, no major damage, and it stands.

The only mechs left are a Valkyrie, badly damaged, and a virtually untouched JagerMech III. Meanwhile, we’ve gone massively internal of the Conquistador, which is weakened.

They surrender. We have captured a Conquistador and some other fun stuff.

Their Stuff?

Nightsky, missing H
Garm missing RL, RT, LL
Stealth missing RA, RT
Enforcer III, gyrox3, engine
Maelstrom, missing H
Fafnir, missing H, RL
Wolf Trap, missing RT
Dart, missing RA, LT, RT, gyrox2
Hellspawn, missing RT
Uziel, reattach LA, enginex3, gyro

Valkyrie missing RA


Our Stuff

Shadow Cat missing RA.
Starslayer missing RA, RL
Nobori-Nin, missing RA
Enforcer, missing RL


Gunslinger, engine


Kills – Enforcer, Daishix2, BattleMaster, Shadow Cat, Gunslinger, Marauder, Nobori-Ninx2,

All across the LZ, similar battles are happening. Of our remaining five companies one was pushed back and lost about half of its units (although many ejected, and the mechs are fine). We destroyed a few DropShips, and captured an Excalibur.

Backed by a smashing of armor, the hot drops have been supplemented by a powerful reinforcing threat. All over the area, DropShips are destroyed or captured, and units destroyed. A few DropShips manage to take flight, some wounded.

Duke Essex orders his DropShips and fighters to chase down the wounded DropShips. They destroy a Gazelle and force down an upgraded Triumph. We lost a few fighters though.


A few more hours pass, and the battle is won, as the handful of remaining forces have surrendered by laying down arms.

The 5th FedCom RCT has been absolutely devastated. Of the many DropShips they brought, only 11 actually made it off the planet, some half, or none, full. A Union, with a full company of mechs, is the only mechs that made it off Small World. Meanwhile, about 40 tanks are off, and about two regiments of infantry made it off too. All of the fighters were destroyed.

The Hussars have about 50% loss to their mercenary command.

The 5th has essentially been destroyed as a unit.

(This is exactly what happened on Small World in the mainline story – while retreating and loading up, a huge hot drop, followed by all of the armor smashed them so hard that they changed the retreat into a surrender.. The only difference? It was the 5th on the winning end, and the 17th on the losing side.)

This is precisely the sort of major victory Katrina and her loyalist forces need.

Leutnant-General Lillie and Dukes Essex and Small meet up to celebrate, and figure out some stuff.

After negotiations for a while, they make the following agreements:

1). In the final battle, units will keep the salvage of things they directly fought against and took down.

2). The 20% battle salvage remittance will not involve anything that was fought for today, but things prior to today(when both sides began fighting the 5th).

3). They have traded 20% of the mechs salvaged from the 5th to all of the tanks salvaged from the 5th (they salvaged around 50 mechs, so we’d get ten mechs. They salvaged about 75 tanks. They don’t want the tanks that much, We’d get 15 tanks, and ten mechs, and we are swapping 10 mechs for 60 tanks, a solid deal)


All of those tanks will be given to the local folks.


The 100% salvage that we have today, alone, is more than enough.

We offer some horse trades of the DropShips we captured with some of those they did. We captured a Conquistador, upgraded Triumph ,upgraded Excalibur, and Leopard CV. We offer them a Triumph for some other mech carriers, or something else we can better use, but they aren’t really interested. They want all of their transport units for this side in the war, which needs more right now.


In other news, we message Blake to tell Maltex Corporation to begin to create the two lines we have discussed. We’re coming in.

July 7, 3066 –

“Correct, and that’s why we are coming out against the pro-Davion side in the Civil War. Katrina’s forces haven’t attacked us once. Not one time has a single mech of hers landed, or a wing of her fighters come towards us. She could have tried to do so at Keid or New Home or Liberty, or at Nanking or Zurich, or at Small World. But she never did.

But here we have a pro-Davion unit, who specifically violated the agreement, and marched a lance of mechs beyond their line. Then they did so with a battalion a few days later once again, en masse. Intentionally. And this wasn’t the first time. Pro-Victor units destroyed buildings and infrastructure on Zurich as well.”


….

“Hmmm? No, I don’t think that this was an example of mercenaries going rogue. First of all, remember that I’ve been a mercenary since 3030. That’s more than 30 years of battles and contracts. I know the mercenary world, and I can tell you that people hire mercenaries to do things all of the time intentionally, in order to avoid the blame. That’s exactly what happened here. Exactly.”

…

“How do I know? It’s simple. Outreach is the Mercenary Mecca, and its one jump away from Small World. If you wanted to hire some mercenaries to come over and smash, the Federated Commonwealth could have done a lot better than to have hired a unit with a D- rating. There were multiple units on planet, not on contract, that were not even approached by the 5th FC RCT. I’ve provided you all with a list of the units with a rating of C or better on world that could have been hired. They intentionally hired a unit with a low reputation on purpose, to increase the likelihood that it would not come back on them.

Well it will. As of today, we are declaring the anti-Katrina forces of Victor Ian Steiner-Davion persona non grata in the Celestial Coalition. They are to remove themselves from our space lanes and recharge stations in one week’s time, or will force them out. They are no longer welcome in any of our systems, and we will deny them furlough on our planets.

You cannot come to wage a war with someone else on one of our planets, agree to keep the conflict away from our citizens, and then ignore us and our people. We will strike back. Citizens should no longer be a casualty of this war, or any other, and it’s time that Victor learned that lesson.

Victor Ian Steiner-Davion. I want you to listen to me. You are not the good guy here. You are not the white knight. Your armies have violated treaties, your supporters have violated the Ares Conventions, and you have not pulled them back. You are not the white knight. It’s time you realized that. If you want to be, you need to clean up your own back yard first.”

July 9, 3066 – Lillie offered to stay and garrison the planet and keep the remnants of the 5th under watch, but there aren’t that many that surrendered.

We turned over the captured mechs from the Hussars to the local guard, as well as the 75 salvaged tanks.


Over the next few months, salvage operations are in full force, as well as tech outfits and security requirements and more. Taverns, restaurants, trading bazaars, and more are all heavily used, and the Small World economy is healthier than ever. In fact, the lingering benefits of this travel and economic growth will be felt for some time. Duke Small uses the temporary benefits to invest in additional mining expeditions and equipment, in order to flesh out their economy a bit more with the radioactive mining.


In the meantime, we have salvaged Mech’s and tanks from our hot drop, as well as those DropShips:


Conquistador, DropShip – Ready September 15, 3066
Triumph, Upgraded, DropShip – Ready December 1, 3066
Excalibur, Upgraded, DropShip – Ready September 15, 3066
Leopard CV, Upgraded, DropShip – Ready October 15, 3066

Not sure we need another Leopard CV but the Triumph is a sign we need to push our tanks more.

Here’s why:

The Upgraded Triumph can carry 36 vehicles, and 4 mechs, or cargo. Basically, it can carry an entire battalion of tanks. That’s a pretty useful transport DropShip.


As was mentioned, that Conquistador was the prize. It’s the most expensive DropShip. Ever. It’s 1.42 billion C-Bills in value (according to MegaMek, 1.6 billion according to Heavy Metal), and roughly 15 of them have been made in the last 6 years or so.

They are designed to be the ideal command DropShip for an entire RCT. First of all, they carry a lot of troops:

Fighters? 18 aerospace fighters
Vehicles? 12 tanks
Mechs? 24 mechs
Battle Armor? 20 squads of battle armor
Infantry? 16 platoons of infantry
Cargo? 877 tons of additional cargo space

That clearly has a huge ability to bring a lot of stuff to the table.

In other news, the Conquistador has all of the latest, most up-to-date electronics, including two decks of computing, electronics, scanning equipment, and more. The general can use it to keep abreast of all of the major changes. Meanwhile, after it lands, it has a huge, spacious medical bay that opens up the ship and is turned into a full service combat hospital. It juts requires a skeleton crew to run (so killing a few helped us considerably). It’s designed to be smooth, and luxurious. And it’s expensive. The next most-expensive DropShip is the recently released Nekohono’o, at 873 million. The only ship, clan, IS, or Star league, that is more expensive is the spyship the Pueblo, and it costs more than some WarShips, and was designed in the Star League era to copy the roles of espionage WarShips like the BugEye.

What do to with the Conquistador? There’s going to be a limited market for them, since they were designed with a specific purpose in mind. You have to have a unit which has Mechs, Tanks, Power Armor, infantry, and fighters. And you have to need the pimped up communications, electronics, and all of that. It’s not a typical DropShip.

On the other hand, large units in the Free Worlds League, Capellan Confederation, Draconis Combine, or even Word of Blake/ComStar might find it exceedingly valuable. Merchants and mercenaries aren’t going to be too interested in it.

But a major player might be willing to shell out the dough.

On the third hand, we could fix it up, pick up some power armored troops, and then use it exactly as intended ourselves. It’s a pretty useful thing.

I go ahead and sell the Leopard and use it to fix, and repair, and stock our battle losses and salvage that won’t be coming out of the Celestial Coalition budget. We have about 65 million left after that, which will hit our general budget.

Here are the mechs we salvaged, get ready for some fun:

Gunslinger
Nightsky
Axmanx2
Garmx2
Stealth
Enforcer III
Maelstrom
Fafnir
Barghest
Bushwackerx2
Victor
Wolf Trap
Dart
Fireball
Hellspawn
Uzielx2
Javelin
BattleMaster
Banshee
Caesar
Devastator
Wolfhoundx2
Battle Hawk

This was on 6 flanks of fighting.

Most of those are on the lighter side of life. The Garms, Dart, Fireball, Javelin, Battle Hawk, Wolfhounds, are all light mechs. Meanwhile the Uziels, Nightsky, Stealth, Enforcer III, Bushwackers, Wolf Traps are all mediums. Only the Gunslinger, Fafnir, Battlemaster, Banshee, and Victor are assaults, so of the 28 mechs we salvaged, just 5 were assault mechs, which is fairly common (target the small stuff first, right?).

This is a huge amount of salvage. All of these mechs are worth some cash. Many can fill holes in the mechs we lost.

We did a lot of ejecting today, but we still had some mechs get demolished in the heavy fighting. Here are mechs we lost, and who will be replacing them:


Gugnir Company:

Lost HBK-5N Hunchback (center torso of it was destroyed). Replacing it with the salvaged Victor 10D version (with an ultra AC20).


Gram Company :

Sentry did a sacrifice play to keep the company’s Viking alive. It was savaged and destroyed. replaced with a salvaged Javelin.

Meanwhile, Gram’s missile launching Cobra was also taken out, Ammo explosion (no case) took it out. Replacing it with the salvaged Enforcer III


Babylon Company

Unfortunately, Babylon lost the Thor, a clan omnimech. It’s CT and other places were totally destroyed. We only left with a handful of parts for our garrison. This was a major hit to the company. It was not the only one. We replace it with a Vulture from the garrison.

Meanwhile, we lost the Archer and the Griffin from the fire support of the mechs here. We’ll replace them with a Gunslinger and the LRM variant of the Axman

They totally blew out Babylon’s Jenner and it was destroyed. We have a lot of good scout, light mechs to choose from though. I like the Raven, from our garrison, for it, this company could benefit from its electronics suite.


Babylon was the company that lost and had to retreat.



Ninevah –

Ninevah’s Shootist was absolutely destroyed, caught in the crossfire of a DropShip and an opposing fire supporting unit. The salvaged BattleMaster heads in for it. That’s probably an upgrade, really.


However the Phoenix Hawk was blasted, and I have to go with a salvaged Wolfhound. That’s probably a downgrade.


Those are the swaps we have to make.



As a reminder, our Javelin 11-F is a version of the mech that has endo steel, 6/9/6 movement, max armor, 10/20 heat, 5 medium lasers, and a targeting computer. It’s our favorite light mech. It’s a field refit we do of many of our Javelins.



End of the Second Small World Campaign

April 25, 3066 – The first suits of Gray Death power armor are released to us. We let the GDR get the first few months worth of sales, so they can build their forces up.


May 1, 3066 – The Excaliburs and Mercurys begin to roll off the lines for Skobel.

June 24, 3066, Duke Essex arrives with the Nagumo-class DropShip, the Lucky James.

Beginning of the Errai Campaign

July 10, 3066 – Alright Blake, tell me what you have. You’ve been working on getting us a way onto Errai for 20 months now, you wanted us to go in, and now we have our political excuse. Punishment for Small World. Victor’s side keeps pissing me off.

So let’s hit them. Hard.

What’s the plan?

That easy, eh?


I want the forces in system in a month. Might as well begin now.


The Northwind Highlanders used to have a unit garrisoning Errai. But, after the Highlanders left the FedCom, they left Errai too, so a new group of mercenaries are there, garrisoned on planet – Harlock’s Warriors. And that’s it. Despite the presence of a mech-making factory on planet, it’s clear that it’s not valued that much (probably because the mechs are sold to ComStar, and not kept domestically). The world is a border world with the Combine and us, but apparently not a high profile target.

Take a look:


Harlock’s Warriors – Recently had a purge of units in some infighting, and are now green, reliable.

One regiment of mechs, purge dropped them to 80ish right now.


The Warriors prefer to attack and do raids, not garrison work. Their mechs are faster medium mechs. Very few heavy and assault designs, and those are usually mobile too keep up with the mediums.

They have a squadron of regular, reliable fighters as well.

And that’s it. Not tons of armor or infantry or difficult troops.

We’re elite, bigger, nastier, have the best equipment, and they would be defending, green, outgunned and out numbered.

That’s an easy recipe for success.

So, with the invasion looking downright quaint compared to some of our others, and the political climate being right, and the numbers lining up, one major question remains –

Will the people accept us, or will they spend a lot of time working against us?

And I guess a second question – what will the eventual counter-strike look like? Can we keep Errai?

Blake has been working on those things for quite some time…


We don’t have an answer to the second question, but will we be resisted?

It’s been a dominion for centuries, since the Terran Hegemony took it first and then the Fed Suns seconds.

Every planet has dissenters, and the Civil War too. There were small outlets of dissent. Remember, at first, the Draconis March was pro-Katrina, and pushing against the Combine. Then it became pro-Victor and befriending the Dragon. That’s a confused thing to do, to yank a people like that. Those created rifts and fractures in the local population, in addition to the typical Civil War stuff.

So right now, the population is roughly 50% Victor and 35% Katrina and 15% don’t care. However, around 55% are pro former Duke James Sandoval, and just 30% are pro-Tancred, his son and now Duke. Those are odd numbers to play with. Tancred’s pro-Victor stance is popular, his lack of an anti-Dragon stance is not.

There is a divide here, and Blake propaganda-ists have been playing it. Now, we don’t think it will get to Zurich/Hall/Nanking levels where we are welcomed prior to heading in, but we do think that things are unsettled enough that an essentially neutral party who is not Katrina, Victor, Steiner, Davion, or Tancred would not be unwelcome.

There would be dissent from some corners, and probably some violence to result, but not as bad as it could have been. Particularly, if we win the world in a more noble way against Harlock’s Warriors. No city fighting, infrastructure derailment, or orbital bombardment.

August 14, 3066 – We have arrived at the system, where the jumppoints are just 2 days away. Duke Essex escorts the group. Everything looks as expected. Solid amounts of commercial traffic, and nothing untoward. We have brought with us our naval flotilla, just in case they were needed, but it looks like they weren’t.


What else came with?

Delta Regiment

Dart Company (Fighters)

We brought some JumpShips and DropShips over to help us out!


August 16, 3066, After some initial skirmishes with their fighters, Dart Company forces down landings of our people. We unload Delta Regiment in a few places.

Errai was colonized to be an industrial world. That’s all it is, a huge manufacturing, mining, smelting, industrial world with roughly 300 million folks. It makes Mechs for non-battle needs, exoskeletons, weapons, transport, refines and purifies the ore it mines, creates the basic building supplies used in lots of other places and ships them out, and that sort of thing. It’s has a very vibrant, robust industrial economy.

It’s hilly or mountainous pretty much everywhere, and there are multiple mining consortiums and complexes on world that bring out stuff although it’s not a major mining world, like Acamar, Genoa, Nanking or colony Asmodeus. Instead it has a lot of gems and stones and other things that have industrial uses and are getting mined, so diamond cutters, gemstone refractors, inhibitors, and more are all made here. Other mines grab the smaller value stuff locally, so they don’t have to ship it.

Errai is a small world, just two days from the jump points, in a small system. Because of that, it’ s not that hard to defend, it’s not a spread out world or anything.

There are a few solid industrial complexes that are extremely large, and thus viable targets. Each of those has a small fort and garrison, some run locally, and some by the Warriors.

The only other place to have a garrison is the capital, where a battalion of Warriors lay.

We have landed Armor Battalion right by the capital, and they are going to engage in a campaign to capture that area and take out the Warriors.

We split a pair of companies into the three different industrial complexes, roughly equivalent to the local defense force.

Our goal is to have four different strikes occur at the same time, preventing support by each unit. We are not going to try and engage the local militia. We want to drive off the Warriors, and then make a play for Errai.

August 19, 3066 – Our mechs are out!


The first industrial complex is right outside of one of the deepest and most labyrinthine mining passages on the world. Old mines are right there. Maltex is here as well. So we need to hit fast and hard, because we can’t secure all of the entrances to that mining area, and we don’t want our foes to go into hiding. We have a lance of fighters with us to help retain strategic control of the area, in case they are needed.

We are leading with Iron Company, and we have Bandit Company in the 4 o’clock position. The militia are not here (Maltex gave them a hint to move out for a couple of hours), and we pull up to their defensive position before they notice us, since their pickets are gone. They manage to get two lances of mechs in one company up and hit us with those two lances, plus the one on defensive duty. They aren’t even picking the best firing lanes or defensive positions.

They really are green. Dang.

Here is Iron Company


Guillotine Iic
CGR-1A5 Charger
ON1-M Orion
KGC-000 King Crab

Mad Cat Prime
EXC-B2 Excalibur
Nobori-Nin B
GOL-3M Goliath

ALX-1kc Alexander
Shadow Hawk Iic
CLNT-2-3U Clint
CMT-1 Comet

That unit has four clan mechs (Guillotine IIc, Mad Cat, Nobori-Nin and Shadow Hawk IIc) and two of those are omnis. Then add in an Inner Sphere omnimech (Alexander) and multiple strong mechs of the heavy and assault category (Charger, Orion, King Crab, Goliath, and Excalibur) and Iron Company was created as a heavy assault company. Other than the Clint pilot, they are all veteran.


The King Crab -




Our foes?


LowTech –

Warhammer
Scorpion
2x Jenner

LostTech –

Centurion
Bushwacker
Quickdraw
Spider
Trebuchet 7M
Phoenix Hawk 3D
Stealth
Thunder

All green save for a regular pilot in the Thunder

(We are playing on a FASA made DropPort map, because it has a lot of conctete a few buildings and such)

I will be leading with the King Crab.

Turn 1 – We lose initiative. Their Centurion races behind our Charger, so I move our Excalibur, Mad cat, and such. Our Orion nails the lrm ammo on their Trebuchet with its LB10X after it took a little damage and the CASE stilfed explosion still shuts the thing right on down. Meanwhile our Guillotine IIc’s pulse lasers carve into their Spider and destroy its RL. It falls right on down. We double kick their Centurion and it falls.

Turn 2 – We lose initiative again. I charge again with the King Crab leading the way. None of their lighter mechs want to get near it, I thas a nasty zone of control with its paired AC20s. Our Clint, Excalibur, SHD IIC and Orion base their Warhammer. Their Stealth falls as it gets a MASC failure. Their Centurion rises fine though. I try to unload some serious power on that Quickdraw. LRM missiles from the Mad Cat take out the RT of their Centurion. Dead mech. All three AC20s that I have missed (Charger, 2x King Crab. Sigh). Despite taking 100+ damage, their Warhammer is still standing. We kick it three out of four changes, and it can’t make every roll, falls, hits its hip. That’s it.

One of the obvious questions is, when will they flee? They are facing a huge number of heavier assault and heavy mechs, without even one assault to call their own. They have green pilots, and a quartet of lower tech units. We have a lance of clan tech units and vet pilots. How long would you really want to throw good mechs after bad, as a mercenary?

After losing a Trebuchet, Centurion, getting a Warhammer savaged and Spider legged, they aren’t here for profit any longer, so they begin gto head out and leave.


Trebuchet missing RT
Centurion, missing RT
Spider missing RL


Kills – Orion, Mad Cat

Meanwhile, Bandit Company pushed behind us on the other company, and they were warmed up due to the delay in getting to them. Seeing the results here, they begin a retreating pattern from Bandit and are covering their losing companions. They aren’t heading towards the mines though, but a large open road that heads away from the complex. They are full on fleeing at this point. Um….okay?

Are being tricked? Or are they just not good when they aren’t on the attack?

The first position has been secured.



The second complex has a lot of refining, smelting operations that try to work with the ore.

Attacking here are Kevlar and Pyre Companies. We have two major routes to the area, and a company moving up the area. They spy us coming in, and instead of playing defender in the keep, they decide to break out and hit us, 2 companies to one.

They choose the company with the fewer clan mechs to attack – Kevlar:


Kevlar Company –

Behemoth
Highlander Iic
THR-1L Thunder
KTO-19 Kintaro

AWS-9M Awesome
Kingfisher A
TBT-7M Trebuchet
EXC-B2 Excalibur

ALX-1kc Alexander
Corvis
PXH-3M Phoenix Hawk
BUM-1 Bumblebee

The clan mechs are the Behemoth, Corvis, Highlander IIc and Kingfisher.

The Behemoth is a massive and nasty unit. It has a very simple weapons payload – 2 large pulse lasers, 2 gauss rifles, and a small pulse laser.

These are all veterans.


Our foes have 24 mechs, with an emphasis on speed and medium mechs, just like the previous group. All are green save for a Victor and Hunchback 6S variant (with a faster engine).

The Corvis:

We are on a map with train tracks, the road, some water to the west and some trees and buildings there too.

Turn 1 – We win init. Remember they are trying to escape, so we can retreat anytime and keep the field. I grab some woods in the south with my units and move in. We have a spot of fire exchange as well. They destroy the LL on our Trebuchet. I didn’t blow out any of their units. The hex with the Trebuchet was on fire though, so yay!


Turn 2 – We win init again. They are charging our position in the north, with some light woods and lighter mechs (Phoenix Hawk, Corvis, Bumblebee). In order to help protect our downed Trebuchet, I hop the Alexander into woods on the west flank by their Charger and Valkyrie. A few mechs move out on the south flank, like one of their Wolfhounds, which just based my Behemoth. I leap our PXH to the rear of their Hunchback. Their Locust bases our Awesome. I move the Kintaro in the check this stuff out. Nothing major in the exchange of fire, but we knock down their Whitworth, Enforcer, and Valkyrie. Our PXh took some damage but is fine. Our Kintaro kicks the Locust’s RL and destroys it. Our Awesome kicks its LL and LT and blows through them both. Meanwhile our Behemoth kicks their Wolfhound, and it falls and destroys its RL in the tumble. Hmm. I would have figured we’d have blown through a few enemies by now. I need to concentrate and take out more of these folks.

Turn 3 – We lose it. Their Locust ejects and the Wolfhound stays on the ground by the Behemoth. Their Valkyrie rises after falling once. Their Whitworth, on the other hand, fails twice, and on the third fail, blacks out. Nasty. Their Enforcer stands easily too. I leap our Pixie back into some woods. A Nightsky runs near my southern team. A Cicada follows. I leap the Alexander away. Here comes a Starslayer as well. They are pushing. Our Highlander IIc nails the LT on their Enforcer 5D and destroys it, dead mech. Our Kingfisher destroys the RA on their Nightsky with an ER PPC. Who falls? Their Wraith and Nightsky. Unfortunately, they set the hex with the Kingfisher on fire – which is not good. That’ll spread to the other woods down here and turn my turtle position into a bad place to be. Our Excalibur and Behemoth kick and destroys the LL, RA, and RT of that Wolfhound as well

Turn 4 – We lose init. Their Nightsky fails to move up three itmes. Then a fourth time. Their Starslayer bases some of my stuff. I decide to hop the Alexander over again. They base it with a Jav, and its next to a Griffin. I run the Thunder to the north to help on that flank. Their Cicada gets near our Trebuchet, still on the ground. Our Kintaro bases it. Our Behemoth tears through the RA and RT of their Enforcer III and shuts it down. The Excalibur nails the engine on a Huncback 6S with its gauss rifle. Meanwhile our Awesome ovheats to slag a lotof stuff on the Hunchback, including its LA and LB20x weapon. Finally the Highlander Iic destroys that LT and its down. We drop their Griffin and Starslayer to the ground. We kick a bunch, but nothing too major happened. Their Withworth pilot awakened.

This is going to be the turn we turned the battle around

Turn 5 – We lose init. This time their Whitworth rises. They lead their Anvil out to smash us. I move their Thunder to base it. Their Griffin on the ground misses rises once, twice, then three. Three failures by their Nightsky, but then stands. Our Kintaro runs next to that Nightsky. Their Starslayer fails, falls, and the pilot blacks out. Our Thunder cracks open the Anvil’s LL and hits a hip and upper leg actuator. Then its LRM5 destroys the Griffin #2’s LA. The Corvis nails the RT of their other Wolfhound and destroys it. Our Thunder took 40+ damage and fell, as did their Anvil and Nightsky. The Nightsky pilot blacked out on falling.

They call it.

We get the blacked out and damaged Starslayer and Nightsky. The Wolfhound gets away, as does their badly damaged Wraith, Griffin and Guillotine.



Wolfhound #2 missing RT
Griffin #2 missing LA
Hunchback missing LA, LT
Enforcer III, missing RA, RT
Enforcer 5D, missing LT
Wolfhound missing RL, LL, RA, RT
Locust missing LL, RL, LT
Nightsky missing RA

Ejected – Locust, Wolfhound


Us - Trebuchet missing LL.




Kills –Highlander IIc x2, Behemoth,


They can’t get past us and we drove them back into the complex, but Pyre Company had already come through on the other sid, so after being surrounded and down to 17 mechs from 24, with a bunch damaged and us having a pristine company in their face, they just surrender.


The second complex is secured.

The third compound is not in the hills or mountains, but along one of the larest rivers on the world, which is used for transferring cargo down from the extremely high mountain chain the riverheads feed. It’s hard to build a base anywhere else. This is the first real spot on the river to do it.

The river gives us a good opportunity to hit the final group, since etheir base is beside the river. We rent a few giant 100 ton+ barges, and then float down the river, get off down the bank from them, and move to their base from inside the complex. We hit them hard, and away from the local militia, which is guarding the borders of the area.

Their forces get ready too slowly, and our two companies of mechs overwhelming their defensive lance in seconds, and then secure the facility and placed the defensive terrain in a holding pattern for a while, until we hear more.

We have secured all three defensive positions.

Now it’s time for the major battle, just outside the capital city of Errai.



Captain Jassa Ramgarhia is here with Armor Battalion. We also have the other two aerospace quartets of fighters here helping out.

They have an entire battalion of forces here on the planet.

Aegis Company is flanked out on the western edge of the city, and the Warriors are in and around an outpost outside the city. The local militia is guarding places in the city, and again, we’ll strike hard and fast, with the goal of smashing the mercs and ending all resistance on the world outside of the militia.


They see us coming for a bit, and load up their mechs. The first company of mechs is out and hits Aegis on the flank:


Aegis Company


Daishi Prime
Man o War H
GAL-1GLS Gallowglas
ON1-K Orion

GUN-1ERD Gunslinger
DAI-01 Daikyu
TBT-7A Trebuchet
ARC-2R Archer

STY-3C Starslayer
Jenner Iic
Koshi B
ASN-40 Assassin

This is a strong company, with four clan mechs (Jenner IIc, Koshi B, Man o War, and Daishi). The Orion is a level 1 mech, but it’s a good strong one to face, so no issues there. 10 of these pilots are elite, and the Archer and Assassin are veteran.


And here is our opposition.

Low tech –

Wolverine
Vindicator
Spider

UpTech

Hercules
Battle Hawk
Quickdraw
Phoenix Hawk
Lineholder
2x Watchman
Marauder 5D
Cataphract 3L

10 are green, the last 2 are vet.



Our Jenner IIc

Here we go!


Turn 1 – We lost init. We’ll be charging up the north on the east flank. 11 of our 12 mehcs are on tha t flying formation. I focus fire on their Wolverine, and the Trebuchet hits its SRM ammo and it explodes. Dead mech. Their Marauder took 80+ and fell too.


Turn 2 – We win initiative. I flank the Jenner IIc and Koshi to the west to keep them honest. I don’t want them to completely come in on my side. Meanwhile, I leap the Assassin deep into their east flank into some light woods, to help build a position for my bigger mechs to use upon arrival. Our Daikyu’s AC5 ultra jams but still manages to rifle an ER PPC at the Battle Hawk and destroys its RL. Our Koshi destroys its LT and gets that kill. Their Cataphract tumbles. They set the woods on fire where our Gunslinger is holing up.


After two rounds of dominating the battle, taking out two mechs and a third badly savaged and on the ground, and with the obvious difference in tech and skill level, and with none of our mechs taking 20+ damage total, let alone in one round, they begin to pull out.

And we let them





Battle Hawk missing RL, LT

Wolverine H, LA


Kill – Trebuchet, Koshi,

Meanwhile Shield Company is blowing through the miles to cover ground, and another force moves in to protest their presence.

AS7-S Atlas
WHM-6D Warhammer
Man o War H
Kraken-3

ENF-6m Enforcer III
Rifleman Iic
Vulture Prime
BJ-2 Blackjack

STY-3C Starslayer
Locust Iic
ASN-40 Assassin
Shadow Hawk Iic

Yes, that’s right. This company has 6 clan mech, 2 in each lance. It rocks 10 elite pilots as well. The Kraken 3 is arguably the best missile boat mech ever designed. It features more LRMs than a lance of missile mechs. I’m not kidding, it features EIGHT LRM15s. That’s just dirty. It also had 19/38 heat, max armor, and 15 tons of ammo. It’s an amazing mech. If I could, I’d have like 20 of them for is.


Our foes have:


LowTech

Clint
Cicada
Dragon


UpTech

Axman
Assassin
2xShadow Hawk
Commando
Wolf Trap
Grasshopper
Charger
Jenner


All green save for one pilot in the Axman.

Our map has a lot of open trees, road, concrete, and a tiny hill in the center.

Turn 1 – We lose init. Again, this needs to end quickly, so I created a flying wedge in the center. We are building it around the Atlas and Warhammer. We concentrate fire on their Axman, who comes up to us. After sandblasting it a bit, our Warhammer’s ER PPC of love stabs into that RT and destroys it. Dead mech. Aw crap. Their stupid WolfTrap fires its LB10x, right? It hits a few times, one of which is a htrough armor critical on the Atlas – hits the head, and knocks out both sensors. Well, I guess it could have been a cockpit, so ok?


Turn 2 – I eject the Atlas, it can’t see or do anything as the first decision after I lose initiative. We pepper than Dragon with some damage and it loses a LA. Then we carve some armor off the Cicada running up on us. Both fall down, and the Cicada breaks a hip actuator.

Turn 3 – We grab initiative this turn, so yay that! I dance the Locust IIc into some heavy woods in strking position of that Cicada, which fails to stand. A lot. Then blacks out. Their Commando bases me, and I leave my wreapons ready and hot. LRMs from the Kraken devastate a Wolf Trap which exposes himself and destroyed its LA, LT, and RL – dead mech. The Locust stabs into the downed Cicada, aiming for its head, and destroys it. We miss the Commando a lot, but we take out the RA of that Dragon. It doesn’t fall though. Meanwhile their Commado kicks our Man o War and it falls. Which is just funny, actually.

Anyway, with three mechs dead, and a 4th almost there, they call it, and we win.




Cicada missing H
Dragon missing LA, RA

Axman missing RT
Wolf Trap missing RL, LT, LA


Kill – Kraken, Locust, Warhammer

A similar result happens on the other flank, and we have taken the capital of Errai.

August 20, 3066 – The next day, we contact the militia and leaders of the planet. After Duke Essex meets with them for some time, including the industrial Maltex Corporation, they make some announcements.


First, by virtue of their invasion of the area, Errai is being annexed. They don’t have any options about that. And Blake is taking over the ComStar controlled HPG station as well, and getting 50% of the product from Maltex, and K&C and the Coalition get the other 50%. Sort of, we’ll talk about that in a bit.

Anyway, the local militia will continue as is, and join a unit we’ll bring things together.


Meanwhile, we’ll leave behind Delta Regiment for now to help garrison the world.

We have another conversation to have though.

Duke Essex sits down with Col. Thomas, CO of Harlock’s Warriors.

“I still don’t get why Errai had just you here. Even in a Civil War, that doesn’t make a lick of sense. Your unit, green on paper and in the battlefield, has the wrong machines and tactics for planetary defense, the wrong experience, and could never hold this world by yourself.

Then, add in the fact that Errai is on the border with both us and the Combine, as well as a valuable economy and a military-industrial complex that not only produces mechs, but also gives a lot of value to anybody who has it, and is in the middle of a Civil War where you don’t want the other side to take it.

Why are you here? Why isn’t there another unit? I don’t get it.”

But of course, Col. Thomas has no idea, he only took over the unit around 2 years ago, and they’ve been on Errai since 3058. We let them head back to the Federated Commonwealth, after taking enough mechs to bring our salvaged total to 20.

We don’t get it either. It seems like someone made a bad choice.


1st Errai Militia – 50 tanks, 1 regiment of infantry, 20 mechs we captured, mechs are green, other units are regular.

Maltex Corporation –

Producing and creating some of the iconic mechs of the Star League era, particularly the Thug. They also created the Wyvern and Assassin. Their mech lines were restored by ComStar a while ago, and they make Thugs and Wyverns again, exclusively for ComStar.

The Wyvern they make is the Wyvern 10N. LRM10, 8 tons of armor, 4/6/4 speed thus far, ER PPC, medium pulse laser, Guardian ECM, and a C3i computer, 11/22 heat, 1199 BV, no XL engine, 5 million CBills.

Can’t use the C3i. Mech really isn’t the best mech for us outside of urban combat.

Now…

Thug…THG-2E….C3i, 2x ERPPC, 2x SRM6, 17/34, full armor, no xl engine, 4/6, 9.9 mill CBills, 1751 BV

Again, can’t use the C3i

So, what Maltex will be doing is adding one new line to each mech line for us exclusively as well.

We’ll be getting the…


THG-11Eb – A Star League era design that was used in the Star League Royal Guard. 80 tons, 18/36 heat sinks, max armor, 4/6 movement, 2x ER PPC, 2x SRM6, 2 tons of ammo with CASE, 8.77 mill CBills, 1759 BV

We’ll be getting this one at the rate of around 15 a year. It’s a pre-existing version that is already in the database, there are no changes to the chassis, armor, weapons, engine, internal structure. It just swaps some more ammo and CASE for the C3i. They can add the line in three months since they are so close.

And we’ll be getting the Wyvern 9N, created by COmStar to help defeat the clans in the battles at Tukkayid. 45 tons, 4/6/4 movement, LRM 10, Large pulse laser, 2x medium pulses, SRM2 streak, 10/20 heat snks, CASE, but less armor. 3.729 mill, 1067 CBills. We went for a cheaper, high quality mech rather than making our own Wyvenr variant which would take a lot longer to jumpstart. Very similar to the one they are making right now – same type of structure, engine, chassis, and more, and they made for 9Ns for ComStar a while ago, so they can refit a new line for us in two months.

Since we told Maltex to begin the new lines back in early July, we’ll get the first Wyvern and Thug off the line in September 15 and October 15 respectively!

So Blake is getting both of the ComStar exclusive lines exclusively, and we are getting these lines as well. Everyone wins really.


(In the main story line, Word of Blake worked with Maltex to secure some of the mechs and technology heading to ComStar. So again, I’m using a similar parabola to the “Real” story line in resonance with our own).

Duke Essex talks briefly about a new Assassin line with them, but they aren’t ready to do that yet. The Assassin has been much maligned lately, and was never a great mech, so they are happy to have outsourced that to other companies, make some revenue free of charge, and then move on.

Essex tours the plants with his wife and son, and a few other adjuncts, and then they head back off world for now.


End of the Errai Campaign

August 1, 3066 – Kerensky Blues has arrived, all fixed up. We have no Blake folks working on it, We just move over our own. We also do a deep inspection, just to make sure we have no spy devices or surprises on board. We don’t involve the Apollo Office at all (which was formed with help from Blake ROM). We don’t find any. (It never hurts just to check)

I trust Word about…..75% on stuff like that. No one else will do it well and quickly like they will.

It’s a Fredasa class WarShip captured from the clans by the Blue Star and Black Aces. It’s a corvette class Ship which is more of a fast raider, not an escort guy. It’s the sort of ship that can be used to escort some DropShips, blow out other DropShips, and win without needing additional problems. It can carry 20 fighters, 2 small craft and has a Dropring, so it can be its own escort service with the fighters and the DropShips too. It’s not really a good choice for facing other heavy WarShips, or several pocket WarShips. It’s not a picket, or somesuch. Has an LF battery too though.

After being defeated in a few places, it has very little clan weapons left, Blake and Dragoons have both refitted it as best as theycan do. They have some naval class stuff, as well as lots of normal weapons. It’s one of the fastest WarShips ever, sort of like the Dasher or Cicada or Spider. Be fast with it, keep it up, and you’ll do well in combat. It can get to the target craft and pick it down prior to the escorts getting there. That makes it a very different sort of ship.

Because of how different the ship is, we need someone truly skilled at the helm, so we promoted the XO from the Swift Justice to take over the helm.

A Fredasa, used right, should be able to take out a Fox (BV of a Fredasa is 48783, of a Fox is 39017). It’s mega fast, heavily armored, and has some strong game to bring. It’s a good, quality addition to our roles. (Aegis? 174094 BV Avalon? 156654 BV)

August 13, 3066 – After raking in dough from the sales of their first two releases, Browning-Corning Lmtd. of Caph, has introduced an updated recovery vehicle for use on modern battlefields, with updated technology.

September 6, 3066 – The Gray Death Regiment is battle ready, and begins looking for contracts.

October 17, 3066 – After spending a few years putting up Storm Reflector Satellites at Bryant, we’ve gotten enough of the area around HartfordCo Industries cleared up that the first salvage team has been dispatched.

Beginning of the Third Genoa Campaign

In the main story line, in October 3066, after employment for more than 25 years with the Capellan Confederation, a large mercenary unit abandoned its post and attacked Genoa in order to bring it under the Confederation’s control as a fait accompli. Duke Hasek moved the powerful 12th Vegan Rangers to check it on Genoa, and the unit was blasted in two weeks, had two of its DropShips taken by the Rangers, lost all of its tanks and infantry, and then blasted for Arboris to bring in a easier-defended planet and use it as a rally point for more Cap forces. Hasek’s forces followed, devastated the unit in one week, and dropped it to 7 lances, killed the Commander in doing so, and captured its DropShips. The unit stole a pair of DropShips from the Rangers troops and launched, returning to Capellan Space where they were stripped of their contract, given an F Dragoons rating, and removed as a unit. Meanwhile, the Rangers had captured enough salvage from the operation to field two new battalions of mechs.

It seems easy enough to fit the initial attack into our campaign, for slightly different reasons, and we may observe some different results, but you get the idea. This is something that can add another defensive campaign to our ongoing battle for legitimacy.