Another battle kicks off.

The Action of April 26, 3051

Drake, ever the tactical genius in addition to his other fine qualities as a leader, manages to draw the Draconis Combine forces out of the city in which they had established defensive positions as the tornado passes by. We’re now engaging the enemy in a valley at dawn, with moderate snowfall covering the battlefield.

The terrain slopes downhill from west to east, and is dotted by patches of forest. That may be handy for lighter units in the later phases of the battle; woods can screen a small, fast mech from enemy fire with a bit of luck.

Round 1

We deploy on the north edge of the map, along with our FedCom liaison, today a pilot in a Phoenix Hawk. The enemy deploys in the center.

Woad and the Phoenix Hawk deploy to the northwest corner of the map, where they can navigate the rough terrain with jump jets to perhaps flank the enemy. Drake, Rook, and Carcer start in the middle of the north edge, ready to open fire as soon as the enemy shows itself.

The enemy is two mixed lances, two mechs and six vehicles, with an expected mixed lance of reinforcements arriving later. The two mechs on the field right now are Dragons, a fast, low-profile heavy mech. The enemy seems confident in their skill, moving them forward, along with two of the four Vedettes they brought to the field.

Predictably, the enemy targets Drake. Once again, the AI has proven itself to be much better than me at using cover and sightlines; most of our weaponry is impossible to bring to bear.

None of the Bastards besides Drake hit anything; Drake nails a Vedette with two PPCs to the right side and nearly destroys it. He takes a hit from an AC/2 and an AC/5 in return.

Round 2

Drake manages to get himself in such a position that he can only shoot at the Vedette he damaged on the previous turn. This isn’t bad, per se, and might even net him a kill. On the other hand, Rook is shooting at it too.

The rest of Heavy Lance has lined up pretty neatly on the enemy Dragons, and will be prosecuting that advantage for all it’s worth.

Rook takes five hits from the AC/2 carrier in the distance, which is hardly anything to worry about, especially since all the shells impact her mech’s arms and legs. Nothing really important in there anyway. She and Drake both hit the Vedette, but don’t manage to eliminate it.

Woad and Carcer take aim at the two Dragons, but can’t combine for more than a low-percentage medium laser hit from Woad’s Grasshopper.

Round 3

Heavy Lance has a pretty solid line going, occupying the forest here and benefiting from its defensive bonuses.

Drake has nothing to shoot at, again, but the Vedette he’s been whittling away at. Rook has the Vedette right in front of her to take a crack at; she’s joined by Carcer. Woad and the Phoenix Hawk fire on the nearer Dragon.

Drake gets his kill, while Rook does not, though she damages her Vedette’s track.

Woad gets a pair of medium lasers onto the nearer Grasshopper, taking an AC/5 shot in response.

Round 4

One of the Dragons moves around behind Woad, who is happy to about-face and take a crack at him. The Phoenix Hawk is able to get enough of a twist on to join the fun.

Drake, Rook, and Carcer all take aim for some of the nearby Vedettes, angling to reduce the enemy tonnage on the field.

Drake puts three PPC shots onto one Vedette, while Rook dispatches another. Woad, the Phoenix Hawk, and the Dragons trade fire ineffectually, but Woad plants a solid kick on the Dragon.

Round 5

Finally, Heavy Lance is decently positioned. Woad and the Phoenix Hawk each have a solid shot on a Dragon, while the Awesome, the Crab, and the Flashman can begin to deal with the tanks further away.

Drake will take a crack at the AC/2 carrier in the distance, while Rook dispatches the Vedette in front of her. Both score.

Woad scores some decent damage on the Dragon in front of him, and also manages to land a kick. So does the Phoenix Hawk.

Drake takes several hits from the enemy Manticore heavy tank, and at the end of the round, his left torso armor is gone.

Round 6

The AC/2 carrier and the Vedette destroyed, the enemy Manticore heavy tank now looms largest (besides the mechs, of course).

The enemy’s reinforcements, a light lance comprising a Locust, an Ostscout, and two hover tanks, arrives.

Drake and Rook both have clear shots at the enemy Manticore, though both are running a bit hot this turn. Rook fires her large lasers; Drake chances another three-PPC volley. Carcer can manage a good shot, too, and does so.

Round 7

Medium Lance takes the field, and with enemies to spare and not far out of range, at that. Some kills for our second line, perhaps?

A confused movement phase sees Rook facing off against the Manticore at short range, firing every weapon she can bring to bear. Drake leaves two of his PPCs unfired so he can sink some heat.

Woad and Carcer have a Dragon caught between them.

Medium Lance has split in two. Severe and her repaired Locust and Milspec and his Phoenix Hawk proceed down the west edge of the map, while Ker-Ker and Double Dog advance up the middle.

Between her weapons and her Flashman’s foot, Rook destroys the Manticore. Woad and Carcer both shoot at and kick the Dragon between them; Carcer’s kick knocks out its leg.

Round 8

The downed Dragon attempts to stand and fails. Woad keeps his eye on it to finish it off, while Carcer heads south to help Rook with the three mechs now near her. (A Dragon, and the two lights from the enemy reinforcements.)

Milspec gets his weapons into action for the first time, though he misses; Drake scores three hits on the enemy Dragon, and Rook adds a large laser hit.

Woad fails to finish his Dragon, and will attempt to complete the job with a kick.

Rook, in melee range of several enemy mechs, elects to dodge this round instead of hit back. An uncharacteristic lack of aggression.

Round 9

The enemy reinforcements seem to be falling back. Drake and Rook push forward through the center of the map, flanked to the west by elements of both Medium and Heavy lances. Milspec and Severe are in position to eliminate the final Vedette, while Woad continues to wear away at the northern Dragon.

The allied Phoenix Hawk jump jets over a lake and will take a few shots at the southern Dragon.

Round 10

Not much happens on the prior turn; the big guns were out of action. Woad still hasn’t killed his Dragon, but this is probably the turn. Severe and Milspec work on the Vedette, while the enemy Ostscout approaches.

Drake, Carcer, Rook, and the allied Phoenix Hawk all shoot at the southern Dragon. Double Dog and Ker-Ker are closing in, nearly in effective range. So far, they’ve been moving into position too quickly to stop and shoot.

Milspec scores the unlikeliest kill of the day.

While waiting to kick the Vedette that Milspec just killed, Severe might well have scored us another mech to salvage.

Cleanup

The enemy appears to be in full retreat now. We’ll mop up what we can. (For all our battlefield success, nobody is going to call the Bastards a fast lance.)

Woad gets his kill after all; he just had to aim for a different Dragon. He scores with a kick which blows up the Dragon’s AC/5 ammo supplies. Rook wings a hover tank, but Carcer gets the kill with a hit to its fuel tank. Ker-Ker scores a kill on a Locust; kicking it from one elevation level up, she hits it in the head. The whole weight of the Lancelot behind the blow, the poor Locust has no chance.

Two enemy units retreat: the Ostscout and a J. Edgar hover tank.

Damage, Injuries, Salvage

The Awesome and Severe’s Locust are mildly damaged, and Severe herself took a knock when the enemy Locust knocked her over. Otherwise, the company is in good health.

We salvage the Dragon DRG-5N Severe headshotted, as well as a Vedette to bring us up to 60% salvage.

Battle loss compensation comes to about 60,000 C-bills, and we ransom prisoners for 120,000 more.

Kill Board(s)

Severe may not be all that high up the kill board, but she is currently the giant-slayer of the bunch. All of her kills are mechs, and in that category she’s second only to Rook. Who, incidentally, has now scored 20 kills. Drake gets two, though, to stay at just above half of Rook’s total.

Last Battle

All-Time Leaders

1. Lieutenant “Rook” Ishikawa (20, 5 mechs)
2. Captain “Drake” Halit (11, 3 mechs)
3. Private “Carcer” Ngo (9, 3 mechs)
4. Private “Woad” Kohler (7, 3 mechs)
5. Lieutenant “Linebuster” Atkinson (5)
6. Private “Severe” Payne (4, 4 mechs)
7. Lieutenant “Double Dog” Dare (4, 1 mech)
8. Private “Ker-Ker” Ec (3, 2 mechs)
9. Sergeant “Milspec” Ortega (3)
10. Private “Euchre” Kojic (2, 2 mechs)
11. Private “Teddy Bear” Jamil (2, 1 mech)
12. Private “Wojtek” Frajtov (1, 1 mech)
13. Private “Hanzoku” Yuksel (1, 1 mech)

Status

It is now May 15, 3051.

Contract Status

No battles on the calendar right now; the Bastards get a bit of a break.

At the end of April, the FedCom forces gift us a civilian-use Commando (with a primitive cockpit, limited armor, and a large laser). In addition, we picked up a Dragon this month. At present, we have 18 mechs, though not all of them are worth bringing to the battlefield.

Finances

We have 9,426,500 C-bills in the bank.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing in the unit market to spend it on, besides maybe a pair of Hunchback HBK-4Gs.

Recruitment

Another mech pilot comes up on the recruiting market: Abdul-Hafiz Popalzi, of the Free Rasalhague Republic. He’s a 4+/4+ regular to boot. He joins the company.

Training

Wojtek is the only remaining Green-rank pilot; Hernandez and Euchre are now regulars, too.

Organization

Adding the two misfit heavies to Cadre Lance, with Hernandez and the newcomer Popalzi driving, yields a second heavyweight lance. At present, Medium Lance and Bear’s Bruisers (if we’re sticking with that) are both medium-weight lances.

Repairs and Refits

Everything’s in tip-top shape, although the Dragon and Rifleman designs are still questionable.

Our technical teams are a little under-strength compared to our mech strength now. We’ll have to see to that.

Spares

We had to use a few more actuators and a spare torso or two to patch up the Dragon.

Mechwarrior Claims and Assignments

• For the record, the following mechwarriors are claimed.
  • Captain Huri “Drake” Halit (Mephansteras)
  • Lt. SG George “Linebuster” Atkinson (Hasek10)
  • Lt. SG Mariamu “Rook” Ishikawa (Culise)
  • Lt. JG Sung-min “Double Dog” Dare (a1s)
  • Sgt. Jose “Milspec” Ortega (milspec)
  • Cpl. Damayanti “Carcer” Ngo (Dorsidwarf)
  • Cpl. Tedros “Teddy Bear” Jamil (Knave)
  • Pvt. Ferdinand “Woad” Kohler (A Thing)
  • Pvt. Jan “Euchre” Kojic (EuchreJack)
  • Pvt. Cathrine “Severe” Payne (Burnt Pies)
  • Pvt. E-Shei “Ker-Ker” Ec (Kanil)
  • Pvt. Ed “Hanzoku” Yuksel (Hanzoku)
  • Pvt. Ik-jun “Wojtek” Frajtov (Blaze)
  • Pvt. Xue-Min “Wizard” Que (Rince Wind)
• The following mechwarriors are available.
  • Pvt. Abdul-Hafiz Popalzi
  • Recruit Gwenael Hernandez

Action Items

• There are mechwarriors for claim.
• Several refit questions open now: both the Dragon and the Rifleman could do with some changes.

It’s good to be back in the saddle.

The Action of 16 April, 3051

The Opinionated Bastards are deployed on the right flank of the FedCom front line, and have been tasked with breaking through the Draconis Combine defenses at a weak point in a mountain pass. Opposition is expected to be light to moderate; there are a few heavy mechs deployed with a number of vehicles in support. The weather is snowy, and the terrain is predictably rugged.

That cliff is eleven levels from top to bottom. That’s a lot.

Heavy Lance is first on the scene, and deploys to the east side of the map. That’ll let us skirt around the peak pictured above to the east; it’ll provide cover and a height advantage, and there are patches of pine forest nearby into which our mechs can duck.

The Armed Forces of the Federated Commonwealth chip in a Hunchback HBK-4G, a nice step up from our usual allies. Not only that, but it’s under our direct command.

Round 1

Heavy Lance moves forward. The enemy has deployed in between the peak I showed you in the picture above and the next one further north, with one medium tank a hair to the south. With adroit positioning, several of our mechs have the enemy in range and in their firing arcs. We’ll take some PPC and large laser shots to see if we can’t start to even the odds.

This picture shows a peak to the south-southwest of the one in the battlefield description.

Only Drake scores hits; two PPCs strike the enemy tank in the side, knocking its track off. It’s now immobile, and a much easier target for everyone else. A solid opening to the battle.

Round 2

Woad moves further up along the edge of the Bastards’ assigned sector. His Grasshopper’s jump jets made the transit much easier.

Rook stays put; she can’t cross the lake in one turn, and moving into the water ahead of her takes the immobilized Bulldog out of her line of fire.

Drake walks slowly forward, aiming now for the Rifleman facing him from the south flank of the peak ahead. He’s already immobilized the Bulldog; the others can take care of it from here.

In what is now a predictable outcome, Rook notches the kill on the Bulldog with a precisely-aimed large laser shot.

Round 3

There’s nothing for it this time. Rook gingerly moves her Flashman into the lake, taking her out of action for the round.

The remainder of Heavy Lance will aim to get some fire on the nearer of two enemy Riflemen. Drake scores a hit, as does Carcer.

Round 4

More jockeying for position. Heavy Lance has a big advantage over the enemy in terms of long-range firepower, so unless they show interest in getting closer, we’ll keep pounding away at them from a distance.

Speaking of which, the Mustered Militia advances with a Hermes. Heavy Lance is still occupied with the Rifleman somewhat more distant.

Drake scores two hits on three shots, knocking the Rifleman down, but not before it scores with an AC/5 on the allied Hunchback.

Round 5

Heavy Lance slowly draws closer to the enemy, hampered by the rough ground but still moving in. The Rifleman remains the priority target.

Though Drake fires three PPCs, it’s Carcer who scores the most important hit. The two criticals to the Rifleman’s center torso destroy its gyro. Tally another kill for Carcer, whose performance in the Crab is nothing short of spectacular.

The Draconis Combine pilot ejects, given that the Rifleman is now entirely immobile. Structurally, it’s in good shape. We may be able to take it as salvage at the end of the battle.

Round 6

With the enemy Rifleman down, Heavy Lance continues its slow advance and sets its sights on another enemy Bulldog on the south flank of the central peak.

Carcer, taking advantage of the brief lull to enter the lake directly ahead of her, nevertheless finds herself with a target: the enemy Hermes, attempting to flank Heavy Lance to the west. She lines up a shot with her large lasers. Since her mech is in depth-1 water, she can even fire both without building up any excess heat.

She scores a hit, but it’s the allied Hunchback who does the lion’s share of the work. With an AC/20 shot, its pilot blows off the Hermes’ left arm and heavily damages its internals.

Round 7

Medium Lance deploys! They’ll move up the western edge of our sector and outflank the enemy there.

Heavy Lance continues its advance, while Medium Lance races ahead. Milspec and Severe, in the Phoenix Hawk and Locust, charge ahead, while the two slower heavy mechs hang back.

For the first time this battle, Woad brings the full firepower of his Grasshopper to bear, targeting the Bulldog. The rest of Heavy Lance joins him.

He misses with all his weapons, but Drake steps in and polishes off the Bulldog with a pair of PPC hits.

Round 8

The faster elements of Heavy Lance (Woad and Carcer) move forward to target the second enemy Rifleman. Drake is in range, too, so he lines up on it. Rook, moving through another glacial lake, can’t get the Rifleman in her sights.

Medium Lance continues its advance on the west side of the map, targeting the enemy light mechs. Further north, four Draconis Combine vehicles deploy as reinforcements.

Drake, Woad, and Carcer deal heavy damage to the enemy Rifleman.

Round 9

Again, Heavy Lance aims for the second Rifleman, while Medium Lance is foiled in its light mech hunt by the enemy’s crafty use of terrain.

Heavy Lance scores several hits, but not enough to destroy the Rifleman. It does fall, however, and it’s looking decidedly less healthy now. Medium Lance continues its push to the west.

Round 10-11

The snow starts to accumulate.

Severe gets herself into a bit of a pickle; she has a good shot on the enemy Hermes, but a J. Edgar hovertank has lined up to shoot into her rear armor.

Medium Lance generally is better placed now, on the peak of the southernmost mountain in our sector, and three of them have shots on the enemy Hermes.

Heavy Lance continues its punishing of the enemy Rifleman.

Severe gets the kill on the Hermes, and Woad scores the last hit on the Rifleman. Severe takes moderate damage from the hovertank, but evades any serious hits.

Round 12

The enemy hovertank maneuvers but stays in the same hex in the end. Severe steps forward a hex to stand on top of it.

Heavy Lance is now badly out of position. It’ll take Drake a long time to get back in the fight, but the other mechs are a little more sprightly, and should be in firing positions soon.

Severe and Milspec end up being the only Bastards in any position to take a shot, and do so. Severe kicks off one of the hovertank’s tracks; since she took another hit in the process, she’ll scarper for the moment.

Round 13

Not a ton going on right now; the Bastards are moving up to get into range, while the enemy is maneuvering to respond.

It’s the allied Hunchback which gets the kill on the immobilized J. Edgar tank.

Round 14

Sparser updates from here on out. Severe attempts to move into the water, and ends up falling, which ends up letting water into her mech’s structure. Not good. Hopefully she’ll be able to make her way out of the lake before she takes any further damage.

Drake and Carcer continue to move along the eastern side of the map, hoping to flank the enemy reinforcements.

Again, the Hunchback proves its worth, immobilizing an enemy Vedette.

Round 15

Severe manages to get out from underwater, though her Locust loses an arm in the process. Drake now can bring his PPCs to bear again, though not on all the enemies. The firepower from the Awesome will be a welcome addition as the Bastards wrap this one up.

Woad destroys the immobilized Vedette with a barrage of laser fire.

Round 16

Fatigue begins to set in for your intrepid correspondent.

The enemy is down to four vehicles and a light mech, which shouldn’t pose too much of an obstacle from here on out, especially with the Awesome back in play. I’m going to call it cleanup from here on out.

Cleanup

The rugged terrain means that jumpjet-equipped mechs, like Milspec‘s Phoenix Hawk and Woad‘s Grasshopper, are vastly more mobile than the rest of their lances.

Woad scores a third kill on a wheeled scout tank and a fourth on the Goblin medium tank, while Drake damages the last enemy mech—a Wasp—and Rook knocks out its gyro. Carcer destroys a light tank. Milspec kicks the engine out of a Vedette, and Woad notches his fifth kill today with a hit to its fuel tank. Ace in a day!

Damage, Injuries, Salvage

Milspec‘s Phoenix Hawk took a number of hits, but nothing which made it through the armor, while Severe‘s Locust has some moderate internal damage we’ll have to see to. No pilots took any hits.

It’s a bountiful day for salvage. We take both the crippled Rifleman and the Wasp, as well as a second Rifleman which is only good for spare parts. That puts us 6% above our 60% salvage share, but we can make that up in later battles, and getting two potentially-operational mechs seemed like the right move to me.

We make about 50,000 C-bills in battle loss compensation, and ransom six prisoners for 120,000 more. One prisoner decides to defect to our company. Welcome, Recruit Gwenael Hernandez.

Kill Board(s)

Woad moves from 12th to 4th on the strength of a magical five-kill performance. Rook has scored nearly twice the kills of her next challenger.

Last Battle

All-Time Leaders

1. Lieutenant “Rook” Ishikawa (17, 5 mechs)
2. Captain “Drake” Halit (9, 3 mechs)
3. Private “Carcer” Ngo (8, 3 mechs)
4. Private “Woad” Kohler (6, 2 mechs)
5. Lieutenant “Linebuster” Atkinson (5)
6. Lieutenant “Double Dog” Dare (4, 1 mech)
7. Private “Severe” Payne (3, 3 mechs)
8. Private “Euchre” Kojic (2, 2 mechs)
9. Private “Ker-Ker” Ec (2, 1 mech)
10. Private “Teddy Bear” Jamil (2, 1 mech)
11. Sergeant “Milspec” Ortega (2)
12. Private “Wojtek” Frajtov (1, 1 mech)
13. Private “Hanzoku” Yuksel (1, 1 mech)

Status

It is now April 25, 3051.

Contract Status

We have a battle ahead, another attempt to break through House Kurita’s lines, scheduled for tomorrow. Heavy Lance is ready to deploy. We’ll discuss reinforcements a little later.

Finances

We have 7,080,500 C-bills in the bank. Thanks to battle loss compensation and a well-developed spares stock, we actually made money on the battle.

Training

Woad has enough experience to bump both his piloting and his gunnery. He’s graduated from green to a 4+/4+ regular. Severe is at the same level; both are a mere hop, skip, and jump from veteran status. (By which I mean about 20 xp.)

Organization

Wizard‘s Guillotine has arrived, but lacking a place in the TO&E to slot her in, I put her in a new fourth Reserve lance for now. Recruit Hernandez hops into the captured Wasp and joins Cadre Lance.

I end up shuffling some mechs around. Heavy Lance remains as previously constituted (Drake, Rook, Carcer, Woad), and Medium Lance stays the same too (Double Dog in the Tallman Thunderbolt, Milspec, Ker-Ker in the Frankenstein Lancelot, and Severe‘s Locust).

Cadre Lance and Reserve Lance, however, see some changes. Cadre Lance is now much more focused on training: Linebuster is the only veteran, with three green pilots (Euchre, Wojtek, and the newcomer Hernandez) under his wing. I may see about rotating Linebuster into one of the primary combat lances to get him some more fighting experience. It would most likely be a pilot swap; Linebuster would hop into someone else’s mech for a few months while the other pilot borrows his Lancelot.

In Reserve Lance, Wizard is the most talented pilot but Teddy Bear is the senior Bastard; he gets a promotion to Corporal and leadership of the lance. Rounding out the lance is Hanzoku. It’s fairly punchy as medium lances go; the two Guillotines provide a solid backbone. Pity about the Vulcan, though.

Medium Lance is a 190-ton medium lance; Cadre and Reserve Lances are both 180-ton medium lances.

Repairs and Refits

As of April 25, all our mechs are in fighting trim, including the salvaged Rifleman and Wasp. The written-off Rifleman we nevertheless salvaged yielded a decent number of parts, although nothing big-name.

If you’re keeping track (and I grant that’s pretty hard, given the paucity of information on mech assignments), you may have noticed that the Rifleman we captured is not currently in the lineup. This is for several reasons:

1. It’s not a great loadout. Two AC/5s and two large lasers won’t do us very much good. There are several available refit kits that swap PPCs in for the AC/5s, which might be nice.
2. It’s also very lightly armored. Carcer‘s Crab, both Trebuchets, and Milspec‘s Phoenix Hawk all have armor as good as or better than it despite being medium mechs, and although our gunners are well above average, it still fell apart quickly under concentrated fire. I’d prefer to address that before we send it into battle, especially since it currently has ammunition stored in the center torso.

Spares

Our stocks are shrinking a bit. We have one three-ton gyro and one PPC, along with three large lasers, as far as big-ticket items go. There are also a hair over 46.5 tons of armor at our field warehouse. (That’s 747 points.) At present, we can’t readily lay our hands on PPCs, but the Federated Commonwealth supply lines have our back for everything else.

Mechwarrior Claims and Assignments

• For the record, the following mechwarriors are claimed.
  • Captain Huri “Drake” Halit (Mephansteras)
  • Lt. SG George “Linebuster” Atkinson (Hasek10)
  • Lt. SG Mariamu “Rook” Ishikawa (Culise)
  • Lt. JG Sung-min “Double Dog” Dare (a1s)
  • Sgt. Jose “Milspec” Ortega (milspec)
  • Cpl. Damayanti “Carcer” Ngo (Dorsidwarf)
  • Cpl. Tedros “Teddy Bear” Jamil (Knave)
  • Pvt. Ferdinand “Woad” Kohler (A Thing)
  • Pvt. Jan “Euchre” Kojic (EuchreJack)
  • Pvt. Cathrine “Severe” Payne (Burnt Pies)
  • Pvt. E-Shei “Ker-Ker” Ec (Kanil)
  • Pvt. Ed “Hanzoku” Yuksel (Hanzoku)
  • Pvt. Ik-jun “Wojtek” Frajtov (Blaze)
  • Pvt. Xue-Min “Wizard” Que (Rince Wind)
• The following mechwarriors are available.
  • Recruit Gwenael Hernandez

Action Items

• There’s a mechwarrior available for claim.
• The upcoming mission is in pitch-black conditions with an F1-F3 tornado predicted. Since we don’t have any vehicles and the enemy does, the tornado might tilt things in our favor. On the other hand, shooting in pitch darkness is difficult to say the least. If we delay the attack for better lighting, we’ll also miss the tornado and probably fight against more even odds. Should we delay, or attack as planned?
• Should we stick with the proven Heavy Lance-Medium Lance combo, or deploy a different lance in support?
• Should we refit the Rifleman? If so, how?
• Should we shuffle lance assignments?