Addendum: Training ReportsOur combat personnel have not been idle while the administrators and techs bustle around. Our berthing arrangements on Outreach include access to some rural areas where we can conduct proper, semi-live-fire training—lasers on low power mode, frangible autocannon rounds, missile casings without warheads. It's a chance for our mech drivers to get to grips with new hardware and new lancemates, and to work out what tactics will work best for their equipment.
Three months of focused training culminate in three mock battles, supervised by Gordon Patroni, one of our tactical operations officers, who has experience with this task from his time with the armed forces of the Free Worlds League.
Rook's Raiders vs. Fourth Lance (May 3)Hosting our first battle is a relatively compact battlefield, with a river running down the center, a high hill on the west bank, and small hills and light woods on the east bank. Rook's Raiders start in the north, and Fourth Lance starts in the south.
Double Dog (in the Warhammer) and
Kicks (in the -1Kk Phoenix Hawk) take cover behind the woods on the east side of the river, while
Severe and Simona push up the west bank. The Raiders attempt an end run: sweeping south to knock out the two eastern mechs before the Koshi and Ryoken can get stuck in.
They have mixed results. They do eventually knock out the Warhammer and Phoenix Hawk, but Simona catches
Rook in the open, and the Ultra AC/20 proves as lethal as it sounds. The rest of the Raiders survive the battle, in various states of heavy damage, while the Koshi and Ryoken survive to retreat, the Ryoken totally out of ammo and the Koshi badly damaged.
Gordon Patroni, one of our tactical operations officers, is supervising these fights, and declares this one a draw.
Some takeaways from this battle:
- Simona is deadly with the Ryoken, but a lot of that deadliness comes from cranking out fire with the UAC/20, which is hard to feed. Without the UAC/20, the Ryoken only mounts four Clan ERMLs. ("Only.") Not a tremendously heavy weapons fit. Maybe we buy an omnipod or two and stick some Inner Sphere medium lasers into the loadout, to give the loadout more teeth absent the UAC/20.
- Fourth Lance is a superb hit-and-run lance. The Ryoken, Koshi, and Phoenix Hawk are all fast and punchy. On battlefields where there is terrain to hide behind, they can do serious work.
- Medium pulse lasers (as on the Phoenix Hawk) are a bit of a challenge to use, as far as ideal range goes, but they're usable even for relatively green pilots in the long-range bracket because of their -2 to-hit bonus.
- Euchre's Lancelot refit feels good. Good gunners get the best use out of it.
- The Flashman feels a little underwhelming, at the moment, but it's still a solid mech. Flipping the rear-mounted laser to the front, and adding double heat sinks the next time we have a few months, is probably a good plan.
Drake's Destroyers vs. Ortega's Outriders and Sixth Lance (May Eighth)Our administrators reckon that the four mechs in Drake's Destroyers are a rough match in combat power for the eight in Ortega's Outriders and Sixth Lance (accounting for pilot skill), so that's the next fight. It goes down on a much larger field than the first one, owing to the larger number of mechs involved. The map is low, rolling hills with dense patches of forest, a bit heavier to the flanks and a bit lighter in the middle. The Destroyers deploy in the south, while Ortega's force takes the north.
Drake keeps his lance in the south-central part of the map, hoping to reduce the enemy forces before they get into effective range, while
Milspec splits his force lance by lance to run along the flanks of the field.
Ultimately, the weight of numbers tells: there are no real slouches anywhere in the Bastards these days, and
Milspec's side does a good job staying out of the Awesome's line of fire on the run south. Patroni declares a win for the Outriders and the newcomers in Sixth Lance.
Lessons:
- The Awesome is awesome, when it has clear lines of fire.
- Once again, the Lancelot refit performs well. It can take a hit, and deliver heavy fire at long range to boot.
- For a medium lance, Ortega's Outriders has a superb long-range punch: six ER Large Lasers across the four mechs, and an ordinary large laser on the Phoenix Hawk.
- It's important to keep our assault mechs screened from enemy fire. All of them are relatively well armored, but none of them are so heavily armored that they can withstand sustained fire from several mechs.
- Or, keep the assault mechs in the back, and use the rest of the lance (or other forces) to screen them.
Rook's Raiders vs. Bear's Bruisers (May 11)This battlefield is much more the Raiders' speed. A moderately-sized hill in the center is the main feature, with small rises at the north and south ends.
Starting in the north, the Raiders shade to the east side of the map, drawing the Bruisers into a long advance.
Rook whittles down
Linebuster's Emperor, which falls before it can get into close combat, but the Stalker goes down too, under fire from both Guillotines.
In the end, the two Guillotines of the Bruisers survive, along with
Faceplant's Dragon and
Carcer's Flashman. Patroni declares it a draw.
Lessons:
- The open sightlines were a big help to the Raiders. Still a very even outcome, though.
- The Emperor is a good mech. LBX-10 autocannons might be worth strapping onto more mechs, although we are currently a pretty energy-heavy force.
- The Stalker shines brightest at ER Large Laser/LRM-15 Artemis range. It's roughly heat-neutral, and the Artemis missiles frequently all hit, for a 46-point alpha strike at up to 19 hexes.
- The Guillotines are an excellent balance of mobile, punchy, and durable. I have in mind a refit that drops the SRM-6 launcher, switches to double heat sinks, and converts the armament to one ER Large Laser and four ER Medium Lasers, while adding another ton of armor.
Company Battle (May 15)Everyone gets one last shot at live-fire training, with a company-on-company battle pitching Drake's Destroyers, Bear's Bruisers, and Sixth Lance against Rook's Raiders, Ortega's Outriders, and Fourth Lance. (That arrangement of lances is about 500 BV apart, on forces worth about 27,000 BV each—well-balanced!) We'll call the first force Company A, and the second Company B.
The battlefield is an old farmstead. Main features are an east-west road at the north end of the map, a north-south road along the east side of the map, a field of crops dead center, a handful of buildings on the west edge of the map, centered north and south, along with a road connecting them to the northern road, a forest south of that northern road, and a valley at the south end of the map. Patroni briefs the combatants, and declares two features on the map the objectives: a large barn on the west side of the battlefield, on the south end of the woods; and a stand of light forest on the east side of the field.
Company A deploys in the south, with
Drake's Awesome screened by
Euchre's Lancelot and
Wojtek's Trebuchet (the SRM version) on the east flank.
Linebuster in the Emperor starts in the same place.
Pepper in the Archer, and bin Ala' al din in the LRM Trebuchet start on the west, along with Khadjikyriakos in the Tallman and
Woad's Grasshopper. The rest of the Bruisers deploy nearby, not quite in direct support, but shaded to the east side of the field.
Company B deploys in the north.
Rook's Stalker,
Double Dog's Warhammer,
Ker-Ker's Lancelot, and
Faceplant's Dragon face off against Drake and company on the east side of the map. Fourth Lance deploys centrally, ready to swing to either side of the map in support. Ortega's Outriders start on the west side of the map, hoping to rush south to the western objective—Company A doesn't have many mobile assets on that part of the field.
The battle ebbs and flows: Company A's force on the east side of the map begins to overpower Company B, but much of it diverts toward the center of the map as Fourth Lance commits to the west, threatening to overrun Company A's forces south of the western objective.
Drake slowly marches up the map, knocking huge chunks out of his targets' armor on the way while remaining largely out of range of effective return fire.
Rook can tag him pretty easily, but she's busy raining missiles and ER Large Laser fire upon elements of Company A getting close to her, or threatening the balance in the center of the map.
Answering a question from an earlier battle, the Ryoken had to fight this battle with only ER Medium Lasers: the UAC/20 jammed on its second shot. Even without the Ryoken's main bite, he fought well this battle: the Ryoken is highly mobile and pretty well-armored, and Simona is a good enough gunner to score hits while moving full tilt.
Severe gets props as well: her Koshi took a shot to each leg early on in the battle, taking out the armor on both and damaging an actuator on one, but she spent the rest of the battle hovering expertly at the edge of medium laser range, chipping away at Company A's armor but never presenting an easy enough target to be worth knocking out.
On the other side,
Teddy Bear did a superb job dodging fire, exploiting terrain, and using his Vulcan's mobility to best effect.
Wizard and
Hanzoku, in the Guillotines, also used their mechs well, mobile when they needed to be, but also willing and able to stand up to heavy incoming firepower.
In the end, Company A wins the fight for the farm field in the middle of the map—just barely—and Company B withdraws. Patroni calls a victory for Company A.
StatusNo time passes in this update.
To represent the time spent training here on Outreach, the Bastards' mechwarriors receive 5xp -each, which leads to a bunch of skill gains.
Carcer,
Wizard, and
Blinky go up to elite rating, and the other pilots who gain traits go to veteran.
Ker-Ker and
Euchre are particlarly good news—driving the Lancelots, they'll be taking a lot of long-range shots. Gunnery skill will make them much more effective.
Sounds like we're not quite in agreement on a contract—let's put it to a proper vote.
- FWL vs. FedCom on Galatea?
- FedCom vs. FWL on Connacht?
- Or a 12-month FedCom vs. Capellan Confederation contract? It may encompass several subcontracts. We can ask for particular terms.
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Topic: The Opinionated Bastards: a BattleTech/MekHQ Mercenary Campaign (Jan. 4, 3054) (Read 95470 times)