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[Hanzoku]

Sell the Rifleman and Commando, keep the Dragon as they're good fast cavalry mechs. I tend to use them in heavy 'scout' lances because it's funny when they run down a light mech and kick it to pieces.

We could switch Bear into the Dragon, then sell the Vulcan as well.

[Fishbreath]

The Vulcan is Bear's personal mech, so we can't sell it. (If he leaves the company, he gets to take

I'll see about putting the mech assignments on one of the lists. I had it on the assignments/claims list earlier, but it's annoying to keep up to date.

[Rince Wind]

If that is the case don't worry about the Mechs.
I know what I am piloting, but it seemed convenient.

[Fishbreath]

To be fair, we lost a few mechs early on, and did a fair bit of pilot shuffling. Now that things are a bit more stable, I'll see if it's easier to keep track over the next few updates.

[Fishbreath]

After a few weeks of downtime, during which our intrepid techs decidedly do not succeed in quickly refitting Teddy Bear's Vulcan to the more effective 5T variant, we end up with a battle.

The Action of May 27, 3051

This time, it's a chase, and we're the defender. We need to eliminate 50% of the enemy before they reach the north edge of the map.

Heavy Lance gets the nod for deployment again. Only Bear's Bruisers are able to make it to the battlefield in time. (I house rule this one—when I'm listed as the attacker, I can deploy whatever I want; when I'm listed as the defender, only the listed lance, lances with a duty of Defend can join in automatically. Other lances have to roll 4+ on a d6.) Happily, Teddy Bear borrowed the new Dragon from Private Popalzi, who's now temporarily driving our Wasp in Cadre Lance.

Besides the Heavy Lance we all know and love, we're bringing another three mechs: Teddy Bear has the Dragon, like I said; Wizard has a Guillotine GLT-4P, and Hanzoku has a Guillotine GLT-4L. Good luck.

There are a full five lances of enemies deployed, largely light forces with a few heavier mechs mixed in. There are several Archers, in particular.

Because it's a chase, and most of the enemy is lighter weight than we are, we'll be fortunate to catch anything, frankly.

Round 1-6

Yes, the enemy gets a seven-round head start. (At least, the lighter things do. All of their speed 6 and slower mechs arrive now too.)

Round 7

A lot of our mechs are about this fast, so a lot of them show up. Taking the field are Woad, Carcer, Wizard, Hanzoku, Teddy Bear, and our liaison unit, a FedCom Blackjack.

After our first round of deployment and movement, there are a number of enemy vehicles we may be able to get some good attacks off against.



Woad opens up the shooting with a kill on an enemy Packrat patrol vehicle, though he takes a few SRM-6 missiles in response.

Wizard, next to a pair of Vedettes, gets his with three medium lasers and half of an SRM-6 volley, which is sufficient to immobilize the vehicle. She's in good shape to get on the killboard in her first battle.

Hanzoku and Teddy Bear don't miss a beat, either, tagging the second Vedette near Wizard sufficiently to immobilize it, too. A good round.

Round 8



Teddy Bear moves up to join Wizard in knocking out the Vedettes. Hanzoku will work on the Archer until Drake arrives next round.

Rook is on the field, to the east; she'll try to knock out the Packrat there while Carcer and Woad move forward.

Rook gets her kill, as does Wizard. Teddy Bear doesn't quite manage to finish his Vedette with his Ultra AC/5, but polishes it off shortly thereafter with a kick to the fuel tank.

Hanzoku makes good progress on the Archer, doing enough damage to knock it down.

Round 9



Most of the Bastards push north. Drake is too slow to catch up, and leisurely picks apart the Archer with Hanzoku's help.

Round 10

As the company advances, Woad takes down a Maxim heavy hover transport, and Rook bags a J. Edgar hover tank.

Further back, Hanzoku kicks the Archer in the back, and it falls over again.

Round 11

We're well on track to win this one by the victory condition, which I didn't expect. Early kills by the lighter mechs in these two lances helped us out immensely.

Woad and Rook both score kills again this round; Rook finishes off a Vedette, while Woad bags a Scorpion light tank.

Further north, Teddy Bear makes some unlikely hits on a Galleon light tank.

Round 12-13



The southern Archer falls once more after Hanzoku kicks it; he advances north to join the rest of the lance, while Drake attempts to decapitate the Archer with a few PPC shots.

Wizard, Teddy Bear, and the allied Blackjack are in position to take a shot at the Galleon light tank near the middle of the map.

Drake gets his critical hit, and a little more to boot. He's not likely to see much more action this battle, but he'll gamely run north anyway.



Round 14



Rook finishes off the Galleon, according to the combat telemetry analyzed after the battle, although it would be more accurate to say that the combined weapons fire of a lance vaporized it just about all at once.

A Phoenix Hawk from the Draconis Combine reinforcements moves into range, and we'll start to engage that now.

Round 15

Surprisingly, Drake is catching up and Hanzoku is almost in range. The enemy reinforcements have pushed a bit further south, with a second Archer now roughly in weapons range. We'll finish off the Phoenix Hawk, take down that Archer, and call it a day.

Cleanup

The Phoenix Hawk pilot ejects after the allied Blackjack kicks out its gyro.

Woad is the man of the hour, finishing off the second Archer with a medium laser shot to the head, followed by a large laser shot to the head.

But wait, there's more! A Vedette from the Combine reinforcements moves south in a futile attempt to cover the Archer's escape, and Woad, on a tricky LRM-5 shot, finishes it off after the rest of the company chips away at it.

That's right: two five-kill battles for Woad. Look out, Rook, there's a new challenger.

Damage, Injuries, Salvage

The Dragon and Wizard's Guillotine both took a good bit of armor damage. She and Teddy Bear both took a few knocks during the fight, and will have to stop by the infirmary.

As for salvage, well, I'm just going to post the picture and let your jaws drop.



In addition to that epic haul, we earn about 60,000 C-bills in battle loss compensation and 130,000 C-bills from prisoner ransom.

Kill Board(s)

Woad is the story of the day, with another epic five-kill performance to move into a tie for second place on the leaderboard.

Last Battle



The killboard here pictured is missing the Packrat which Woad killed—the game assigned them both the same name, without giving one a #2, so it didn't know they were separate kills. I gave him the Harasser Missile Platform instead (which killed itself by failing a movement roll before we even deployed).

All-Time Leaders

• "Rook" Ishikawa (24, 5 mechs)
• "Drake" Halit (12, 4 mechs)
• "Woad" Kohler (12, 4 mechs)
• "Carcer" Ngo (9, 3 mechs)
• "Linebuster" Atkinson (5)
• "Severe" Payne (4, 4 mechs)
• "Double Dog" Dare (4, 1 mech)
• "Ker-Ker" Ec (3, 2 mechs)
• "Milspec" Ortega (3)
• "Euchre" Kojic (2, 2 mechs)
• "Teddy Bear" Jamil (3, 1 mech)
• "Wojtek" Frajtov (1, 1 mech)
• "Hanzoku" Yuksel (1, 1 mech)
• "Wizard" Que (1)

Status

It is now June 15, 3051.

Contract Status

Again, no battles on the calendar.

Enemy morale is now believed to be very low.

Unit Market



There are a few tasty chassis on the market, including a few assault mechs, and all are easily affordable. Should we pick anything up? Build a second elite heavy lance? Save the money for now?

Finances

The Rifleman and civilian Commando get kicked to the curb. In addition to the monthly payout, that puts our current finances at 15.177 million C-bills.

Training

On the strength of his second five-kill performance, Woad is now a 4+/3+ veteran, and is promoted to Corporal. He also gains Weapon Specialist (ER PPC), not that we can buy ER PPCs. Congratulations!

Nobody else has much to do on the training side. Rook is sitting at 48 experience, and needs 100 to make the final step from Gunnery 1+ to Gunnery 0+. She could alternately spend 40xp to go from Piloting 3+ to Piloting 2+, or buy a special ability.

Organization

The Bastards are currently organized into four lances. Heavy Lance and Medium Lance are unchanged. Cadre Lance looks like this:

• Lancelot LNC25-02 (Linebuster)
• Trebuchet TBT-5S (Euchre)
• Trebuchet TBT-5N (Wojtek)
• Phoenix Hawk PXH-1K (Hernandez)

That's 205 tons, so it's not really a good lance to be deploying for combat. It's a heavy lance by weight, but only barely above medium lance strength. It's also not really a cadre lance anymore; only Wojtek still benefits from training, and he'll be up to Regular soon.

Bears Bruisers look like this:

• Vulcan VL-5T (Teddy Bear)
• Guillotine GLT-4P (Wizard)
• Guillotine GLT-4L (Hanzoku)
• Archer ARC-2K (Popalzi)

It's a 250-ton heavy lance; not as well-optimized as actual Heavy Lance, but still functional. Its pilots aren't quite Heavy Lance good, but they're no slouches; Wizard especially is pretty good.

At present, we have two spare mechs: the Dragon and the Wasp.

Repairs and Refits

As you may have noticed above, Teddy Bear is back in his Vulcan, which is now armored nearly to the level of a stock Rifleman, and mounts a solid primary armament of four medium lasers.

The salvaged Archer and Phoenix Hawk both enter service.

We are quite dramatically understaffed in the technical department; we have fourteen tech teams for eighteen mechs.

Mechwarrior Claims and Assignments

• For the record, the following mechwarriors are claimed.
  
  • Captain Huri "Drake" Halit (Mephansteras) - Awesome AWS-8Q
  • Lt. SG George "Linebuster" Atkinson (Hasek10) - Lancelot LNC25-02
  • Lt. SG Mariamu "Rook" Ishikawa (Culise) - Flashman FLS-7K
  • Lt. JG Sung-min "Double Dog" Dare (a1s) - Thunderbolt TDR-5S-T
  • Sgt. Jose "Milspec" Ortega (milspec) - Phoenix Hawk PXH-1
  • Cpl. Damayanti "Carcer" Ngo (Dorsidwarf) - Crab CRB-20
  • Cpl. Tedros "Teddy Bear" Jamil (Knave) - Vulcan VL-5T
  • Cpl. Ferdinand "Woad" Kohler (A Thing) - Grasshopper GHR-5H
  • Pvt. Jan "Euchre" Kojic (EuchreJack) - Trebuchet TBT-5S
  • Pvt. Cathrine "Severe" Payne (Burnt Pies) - Custom Locust
  • Pvt. E-Shei "Ker-Ker" Ec (Kanil) - Lancelot LNC25-02
  • Pvt. Ed "Hanzoku" Yuksel (Hanzoku) - Guillotine GLT-4L
  • Pvt. Ik-jun "Wojtek" Frajtov (Blaze) - Trebuchet TBT-5N
  • Pvt. Xue-Min "Wizard" Que (Rince Wind) - Guillotine GLT-4P
  
  
• The following mechwarriors are available.
  
  • Pvt. Abdul-Hafiz Popalzi - Archer ARC-2K
  • Pvt. Gwenael Hernandez - Phoenix Hawk PXH-1K
  
  

Action Items

• There are mechwarriors for claim.
• Should we buy any mechs?

[Rince Wind]

Personally I have a hard time not buying every Stalker I come across. Do you play with quirks? Because then the Stalker gets another 4 heat capacity above and beyond what the heatsinks provide.

I tend to ignore the "hard to maintain" quirk (hmmm...so I think you do play with quirks) on introtech mechs in times when more modern stuff is around.

What I love to do to Archers: strip the backwards facing lasers and replace them with heatsinks. Then they can fire and move (LRM15 versions) or at least fire all day long (well, until they run dry) when they don't move (LRM20 versions).

[A Thing]

I am impressed by Woad's performance! Green to Vet in three battles is pretty great. Now for the RNG to have him killed in a freak ammo explosion/HD crit.

[Mephansteras]

Buying another Assault would be good. Give us options for taking on tougher fights.

[Hanzoku]

Personally I have a hard time not buying every Stalker I come across. Do you play with quirks? Because then the Stalker gets another 4 heat capacity above and beyond what the heatsinks provide.

They’re one of my favorites. My current unit has 3 Stalkers in it, and they’re always solid performers. They can output up to 36 damage a round at long range, or 44 at close range, all without generating heat. The only real caveat with them is the pilot has to have good piloting skill because with their stubby weapon pod arms, they have trouble standing up.

[Knave]

Thanks for letting Bear test out the Dragon. in a meta way part of me thinks why wouldn't Tedros accept assignment in a larger/better mech, but the RP side of me definitely agrees he should stay put in his Vulcan. His backstory seems to be fairly mysterious (no known homeworld), so I like to imagine the Vulcan has been with him or his family for a long while. And with the upgrade the the 5t, I imagine he'll be spitting out a good deal more damage now.

As for the market, I agree that having the Stalker would be a great option. Too bad it doesn't have the discount like the banshees, but it doesn't look like our coffers are hurting too badly.

[Rince Wind]

It is still cheaper then the Banshees, and way better. The Banshee is about as well armed as the Shadow Hawk (with good rolls on the cluster table the Shadow Hawk can dish out 1 more point of damage. Yay? Neither can get to 20, and both have weapons with ranges that are not very compatible.), which already has a rather bad selection of guns for a mech 40t lighter.

[Fishbreath]

Thanks for letting Bear test out the Dragon. in a meta way part of me thinks why wouldn't Tedros accept assignment in a larger/better mech, but the RP side of me definitely agrees he should stay put in his Vulcan. His backstory seems to be fairly mysterious (no known homeworld), so I like to imagine the Vulcan has been with him or his family for a long while. And with the upgrade the the 5t, I imagine he'll be spitting out a good deal more damage now.

More even than the Dragon, I think. The Vulcan's four medium lasers do 20 damage. The Dragon's UAC/5 does 10 damage (if both hit), plus 5 from its medium laser and 10 from its LRM-10 for 25 total, but there aren't a lot of ranges where both the UAC/5 and the LRM-10 are both easy to hit with, and even after you hit, you only have about a 3% chance of landing both UAC shells and all 10 missiles on the multiple-missiles table.

The Vulcan gives up a bit of armor to the Dragon—112 points against 160—but moves at 6 walk/9 run/6 jump against 5 walk/8 run. It's telling that there are very few modifications starting with the VL-5T and a ton of them which start with the original -2T. The 5T presents a pretty compelling value for its tonnage.

Regarding the Stalker, the question then becomes if we buy it, who gets to drive it?

[Mephansteras]

I'm fine leaving Drake in the Awesome. Maybe reward Rook with it?

[Knave]

I'm fine leaving Drake in the Awesome. Maybe reward Rook with it?

The Flashman is pretty solid, but Rook is definitely deserving. I'd also nominate Woad and Carcer.

[Fishbreath]

Nashira Wraps Up

At the end of June, our FedCom liaison stops into the Bastards' headquarters and lets us know that the assault is over; they've come to terms with the Draconis Combine. We spend another week or two on Nashira while the FedCom military packs up; we spend some money on paid recruitment rolls to pick up more mech techs, and some additional money on spare parts.

The Bastards return to Piedmont in early September, along with a brand-new used Stalker, the company's second assault mech. Unpacking from its rented DropShip, the company bids their traveling companions farewell and gets down to training, refitting, and preparing for whatever comes next.

Which is a bit of a sticky question. The full extent of the Clan push into the Inner Sphere is still not exactly common knowledge, but it's common enough now that a well-regarded mercenary outfit such as the Bastards can get a sense of the scale of the problem. The upshot is that the Inner Sphere is, at present, largely at peace with itself.

What does that mean for us? Mainly, that there isn't much to do right now on the general contract market. There's some pirate hunting in the Federated Commonwealth and Free Worlds League, and the Free Rasalhague Republic is desperate enough to put out a call for mercenaries to carry out security duty against the Clans on Stanzach.

Organization

With Rook getting used to her new Stalker, it's time for some lance reorganization. I've come up with two options, one of which is less well-described than the other. We can also change lance names now, if you'd like.

One Assault Lance

We can pack both assault mechs into one lance; along with our two heaviest heavies, that makes for a 310-ton lance, 70 tons shy of our 380-ton maximum drop weight. The other lances would likely be medium-weight, with one underweight heavy lance.

Two Heavy Lances with Assault Mechs

The setup I have right now. It looks like this:

• First Lance (270t)
  
  • Drake, Awesome AWS-8Q
  • Carcer, Flashman FLS-7K
  • Woad, Grasshopper GHR-5H
  • Pvt. Hernandez, Phoenix Hawk PHX-1K
• Second Lance (270t)
  
  • Rook, Stalker STK-3F
  • Double Dog, Thunderbolt TDR-5S-T
  • Milspec, Crab CRB-20
  • Wizard, Guillotine GLT-4P
• Bear's Bruisers (180t)
  
  • Teddy Bear, Vulcan VL-5T
  • Hanzoku, Guillotine GLT-4L
  • Severe, Locust Custom
  • Pvt. Popalzi, Archer ARC-2K
• Reserve Lance (220t)
  
  • Linebuster, Lancelot LNC25-02
  • Wojtek, Trebuchet TBT-5N
  • Ker-Ker, Lancelot LNC25-02
  • Euchre, Trebuchet TBT-5S

First and Second Lances are both solid, assault-anchored heavy lances near the 280t heavy lance cap. Bear's Bruisers is a durable, punchy medium lance with long-range fire support between the Archer/Locust team. Reserve Lance is a true reserve, subbing in whenever a pilot is injured or a mech damaged in the other lances.

Contract Options

We have a few short-term options, limited by the fact that the Inner Sphere isn't really fighting amongst itself very much right now, and a few longer-term options. As ever, we also have the option of waiting to see what next month brings.

Short-Term

The Free Worlds League and the Federated Commonwealth both have some pirate hunting on offer. They're very similar contracts; both have Liaison command rights, pay for about 35% of transport, give us 20% or 30% salvage rights, and cover 10% of battle losses. The FedCom contract pays about 22 million C-bills in profit for 5 months, and the Free Worlds League contract pays about 16 million for 3 months.

The Free Rasalhague Republic offers a Security Duty contract against the Clans on Stanzach, as mentioned above, Clan Wolf in particular. We get a bit more transport, 40% battle loss compensation, and 30% pure salvage rights, a generous offer when Clan tech is on the table.

Long-Term

We also have the option now of signing on for the longer haul with one of the great powers of the Inner Sphere. The Federated Commonwealth was impressed with our performance on Nashira against strong Draconis Combine resistance, and is willing to bring us on semi-permanently—until the threat of the Clans is diminished. They'll pay us to relocate to a world in the northeast of the Inner Sphere near the Clan front line plus a signing bonus of 10 million C-bills, and keep us on a mix of reserve/refit missions, like short-term garrison and cadre duty, and front-line missions like planetary assault and security duty. They'll accept liaison command rights and pay good battle loss compensation, but salvage rights will be exchange (i.e., they buy Clan tech we salvage at market rates) rather than pure.

We could attempt to put out feelers to the Free Rasalhague Republic about a longer-term contract. They're more desperate, but also much poorer. We'd have to relocate on our own dime and wouldn't get much of a signing bonus. In exchange, we'd likely see front-line combat as often as we want, liaison command rights, and broad rights to take what we want from the wreckage. In exchange, we wouldn't get a lot of battle loss compensation.

In both cases, we'd of course be paid a fair base rate, although a slightly fairer one from the Federated Commonwealth. It's the bonuses and benefits which are different.

Status

Gonna keep this one short, since it's deep into Saturday morning and I'm still writing this. It's September 8, 3051, and we have 11.874 million C-bills in the bank.

Mechwarrior Claims and Assignments

• For the record, the following mechwarriors are claimed.
  
  • Captain Huri "Drake" Halit (Mephansteras) - Awesome AWS-8Q
  • Lt. SG George "Linebuster" Atkinson (Hasek10) - Lancelot LNC25-02
  • Lt. SG Mariamu "Rook" Ishikawa (Culise) - Stalker STK-3F
  • Lt. JG Sung-min "Double Dog" Dare (a1s) - Thunderbolt TDR-5S-T
  • Sgt. Jose "Milspec" Ortega (milspec) - Crab CRB-20
  • Cpl. Damayanti "Carcer" Ngo (Dorsidwarf) - Flashman FLS-7K
  • Cpl. Tedros "Teddy Bear" Jamil (Knave) - Vulcan VL-5T
  • Cpl. Ferdinand "Woad" Kohler (A Thing) - Grasshopper GHR-5H
  • Pvt. Jan "Euchre" Kojic (EuchreJack) - Trebuchet TBT-5S
  • Pvt. Cathrine "Severe" Payne (Burnt Pies) - Custom Locust
  • Pvt. E-Shei "Ker-Ker" Ec (Kanil) - Lancelot LNC25-02
  • Pvt. Ed "Hanzoku" Yuksel (Hanzoku) - Guillotine GLT-4L
  • Pvt. Ik-jun "Wojtek" Frajtov (Blaze) - Trebuchet TBT-5N
  • Pvt. Xue-Min "Wizard" Que (Rince Wind) - Guillotine GLT-4P
• The following mechwarriors are available.
  
  • Pvt. Abdul-Hafiz Popalzi - Archer ARC-2K
  • Pvt. Gwenael Hernandez - Phoenix Hawk PXH-1K

Action Items

• Lance organization and naming suggestions.
• Contract choices.