Operation Blue Paladin – Week 3Melissa Lyle completed her training and joined Ichiro, giving the unit a functional Aerospace element once again. Hovi replaced her with her Behemoth tank, as more than half of its crew is of green quality, despite their excellent showing in previous battles.
On Halloween, the FedCom forces invited the Brotherhood to go trick or treating with them. Their next-door neighbors, the Liaos were home with a heavy vehicle platoon and a mixed medium vehicle and ‘Mech lance defending their firebase. The goal was to sneak past the Liao to see what the fire base was guarding.
However, Lieutenant Kaine had a better idea – if they blew up enough of the Liao, they’d run away, and the unit would get to loot the firebase in peace. In the spirit of good will, Nova’s Knights were invited along for the visit.
They even gave Major Kincaide a new drone with upgraded cameras so he could follow the action better!
Victory Condition: Scout the north end of the map and return
Loss Condition: Lose 3 Units
Loot Condition: Destroy 8 enemy units before Turn 8, or 9 enemy units after Turn 8.
Nova’s Knights would take a while to join them – hopefully the Kings will leave them something to do, but in the meantime, they had enough enemies to deal with. The Wasp, Partisan and a unit of motorized infantry moved to meet the mercenaries.
As before, the Liao defenders had Knave in their sights, but he managed to keep his feet, skillfully taking down the Wasp in his face while simultaneously using his autocannon to damage the PPC turret. Ragu and Wind heavily damaged the Partisan and stunned its crew with the fury of their attack.
The Liao SRM Carrier lost control and skidded into a building, then was destroyed under the collapsing rubble. The Maxim daringly darted past the ‘Mechs to offload its infantry, only for Vo to be there with her machine guns spinning up hungrily.
Meanwhile, Knave led the charge deeper into the base, targeting the Liao Vindicator, though a LRM Carrier was setting up to fire down the main street.
The Maxim retreated guiltily, leaving the shredded remains of its foot platoon where Vo killed them. Knave jumped out of the line of fire, while Wind moved to finish the Partisan before its crew recovered their bearings.
The PPC turret came back online as the crew made repairs, only for Vo to take pot shots with her medium lasers.
One of Vo’s lasers killed the crew of the PPC, taking it out permanently. Knave took out the LRM Turret by exploding its missile stockpile, reducing the building it was on to rubble. Wind continued his efforts to kill the Partisan, and the LRM Carrier closed to short range, targeting their liaison’s Wasp at point-blank range.
Wind finished the Partisan and moved on to a Vedette, while Vo finished mopping up the group of motorized infantry. Ragu and Knave pressed on into the base, pursuing the Laser and LRM Carriers and the damaged Vindicator falling back.
With the Vedette destroyed, Wind jumped back to engage in the fighting. The thinly armored Carriers didn’t move, making them easy pickings. The Vindicator tried to down the FedCom Wasp, with Ragu’s Shadow Hawk looming behind it.
The plucky Liao Maxim managed to weave through the legs of the ‘Mechs and land damaging shots to the leg of Ragu’s Shadow Hawk, dropping her to the ground. The Vindicator took out the FedCom Wasp’s leg, causing the pilot to eject. He turned his guns on Ragu’s ‘Mech, but Wind is there to defend her. Vo continues her campaign of terror against infantry as she pursues the Field Gun units, and Knave steps forward to keep the pressure on the vehicles.
Ragu keeps working on getting her ‘Mech upright, but Wind dealt with the Vindicator, removing an arm and a leg. However, Liao Air Support arrived and naturally targeted Knave with their runs.
Even as Knave’s autocannon blasted chunks from the MechBuster, its payload of HE bombs struck, blowing apart his ‘Mech as its right and center torso sections were destroyed.
Ragu finally got to her feet and expressed her displeasure with the Maxim by detonating its four tons of ammunition in an enormous fireball. Vo continued hunting one of the teams of Field Gunners, but with her armor holed and losing Jump Jets to damage, she was forced to begin falling back.
Nova’s Knights arrived and moved forward to deal with the last remnants. Ragu and Vo began falling back, leaving Wind to harass the Field Gunners.
The Liao air support returned to make runs against the fresh ‘Mechs remaining to the mercenaries but were greeted by plenty of ground to air fire in return.
The Knights made their own contribution to the fight, as Starburst and Glaive both scored air kills against one of the Meteors and the MechBuster. Wind struck his target as well, sending it out of control and tumbling into the ground.
With any threat of air support dealt with, all that remained was mopping up the two units of Field Guns. Starburst got one, and Glaive the other. With that, the fighting ended as all enemy units were destroyed.
In the aftermath, Glaive finally remembered to ask the important question.
“Weren’t we supposed to scout something?”
While successful, the Iron Brotherhood paid a heavy price for their victory. Knave’s Wolverine was recovered and salvageable, but it was inoperable with heavy engine damage. Vo’s Phoenix Hawk was crippled, and Ragu’s Shadow Hawk had heavy damage. Wind’s Griffin was lightly damaged, while neither the Stalker nor the Warhammer suffered more than minor armor damage.
Matt, Linda and Svetlana all suffered minor injuries. Billy, despite riding his ‘Mech down, suffered no injuries beyond that to his pride.
None of what they recovered was functional, but the mercenaries had quite a bit of salvage to sell onward. In total, salvage sales earned them 12.3M C-Bills, more than doubling their liquid reserves.
The no quarter fighting went heavily against McCarron’s Armored Cavalry, with 50 KIA and 41 captured, many with horrific injuries from the liberal use of missiles and machine guns against infantry units.
Billy ‘Knave’ Kaine claimed the Wasp, Rocket Launcher Turret, LRM Turret, LRM Carrier and Laser Carrier.
Linda Vo claimed the Foot Platoon (MG), PPC Turret, and Motorized Platoon (Rifle).
Matt ‘Wind’ Fischer claimed the Partisan, Vedette, Vindicator, and one of the Heavy Strike Fighters.
Svetlana ‘Ragu’ Ragozina claimed the Maxim Hover Transport.
Susanna ‘Starburst’ Nova claimed the other Heavy Strike Fighter and one of the units of Field Guns.
James ‘Glaive’ Gundersen claimed the MechBuster and the other unit of Field Guns.
As thanks for their efforts, the FedCom forces paid an additional bonus of 6.5M C-Bills, making the operation quite profitable.
Our bonus for the ‘recon’ raid was a ‘civilian’ BNC-1E Banshee. I would have been tempted, but it’s a primitive machine (no spare parts or armor for you!), and the worst of all worlds – as slow as every other assault ‘Mech, but with the stock Banshee’s paltry guns.
Sunday was the 1st of November. The Iron Brotherhood received their contract pay of 5.1M C-Bills, as well as news that the morale of the Liao defenders in their area was now
Low, making their operations easier.
However, Albus nearly spat out his morning coffee when he received a listing of the units available for purchase. A Zeus, Stalker and a rare King Crab, followed by a Guillotine and Grasshopper – almost a who’s who of solid Assault and Heavy designs.
The unit sat down together to work out the math. Surprisingly enough, all the offers were legitimately from their employer or fellow mercenaries, and the prices were very reasonable. Flush with cash from the battle the day before, they even had the means to purchase everything available, though it would leave them with next to nothing in their accounts.
What was eventually hammered out was to shift the composition of the ‘Mech unit, though its final form would be forced to wait on training more MechWarriors.
The Iron Vanguard- -
Nova’s Knights- - - -
KGC-0000 King Crab
- - - -
STK-3F Stalker
- - - -
ZEU-6S Zeus
- - - -
STK-4P Stalker
- -
Kaine’s Kings- - - -
GHR-5H Grasshopper
- - - -
GLT-4L Guillotine
- - - -
OSR-2C Ostroc
- - - -
WHM-6R Warhammer
- -
Scout Lance- - - -
WVR-6R Wolverine
- - - -
GRF-1S Griffin
- - - -
PXH-1 Phoenix Hawk
- - - -
DV-6M Dervish
The reasoning behind the shift was simple – the unit often operated in Lance-sized formations against enemies that were often numerically superior, both in terms of numbers and raw tonnage. Operational demands often precluded operating two or more Lances together, so the best method to keep the pilots of the Brotherhood alive and to provide an advantage over their enemy was to bring as much tonnage to bear in their role as possible.
Nova’s Knights was always intended to be a front-line combat formation. Her current Stalker was the slowest machine in the Brotherhood, so adding two more machines with equal speed profiles didn’t change much but would bring an extra 185 tons to bear. The King Crab was also very suited as a Command ‘Mech, being sturdy and having excellent C3 systems.
The campaign also showed that Billy Kaine had already developed a reputation. In his last two operations, the enemy forces showed a marked preference for attempting to swarm down his ‘Mech. Given a choice between the Grasshopper and Guillotine, upgrading to the slightly better protected Grasshopper would improve his chances immensely while playing to his strengths. Wind would continue to act as his bodyguard in the Guillotine, their matching speed profiles allowing them to operate together.
The Ostroc would be able to keep up with them through its higher ground speed. While the Warhammer was the slowest ‘Mech of the Lance, it could provide backup fire support. James had already shown how effective its PPCs were, and it also provided anti-infantry capability to the Lance.
The Scout lance would be like the King’s current formation – it was a proven heavy scout formation, more than capable of evading anything too heavy to battle, while having the mobility to stay close to and wreck light elements.
This would leave the Shadow Hawk, Hunchback and Commando at loose ends. They could sell them on auction for around 13M C-Bills, giving the unit some reserve to work with.
Operation Blue Paladin – Week 4A week’s downtime allowed the unit to get used to their new machines and Lance assignments, and for the techs to repair most of the damage. The Wolverine was the only down-checked machine, only their veteran ‘Tech was capable of repairing the reactor and gyro damage in the field, and she was only one woman.
For this week, the Special Forces were on Picket duty, and Kobayashi’s Crows were on ground support.
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Topic: The Iron Brotherhood - A Battletech/MekHQ Let's Play: Operation Eclipse (Read 46932 times)