Part 1 THERE WAS A FIREFIGHT!!!! pretty sure it looked something like this, or at least it felt like it with huge mechs! Now go to the bathroom, grab a fresh drink and get your popcorn as you prepare for the 27 turn drop that Gamma lance experienced... you have been warned, now on to your regularly scheduled wall of text! Gamma Lance “Midnight Oil” Lojtnant Hedloff Van Brisngr (Tzeentch) Sergeant Gunnar Kirk (MostlyHarmless) Kavellerist Sigmund Helgrim (Derak Darksun) Kavellerist Dyre Sigvaldsson (Sardonic) Where to start, I swear we were minding our own business, trying not to stick out or cause any trouble!! but we all know how well that works with this unit… These mystery forces that keep jumping unit members are beginning to suck in a major way. Sure enough Gamma managed to get ourselves ambushed while out trying to shake down our new mechs, good thing we were doing it all together because it turned ugly fast. Poor Hedloff, we hoped that the techs could get his newly acquired Banshee dialed in better but it seems rather than cranking it to 11 they turned it down to a 3. It’s now having a heck of a time trying to target and aim correctly at short range. We are going to have to work on it and see if we can get it straightened up but it’s going to take a while I’m afraid. Speaking of work, it seems my negotiation skills (namely using the business end of a large laser) have been hit or miss lately; with all the reshuffling after the pirate hunting I decided to try my hand as a tech. It seems to have worked out well with squeezing in some extra training and then running into some old contacts to work out getting us some priority service and better repair facilities, not a moment too soon either. Sigmund swore that he wasn't out too late last night drinking and it was just a slow week, while he was definitely on his game we did manage to walk ourselves right into an ambush. Dyre just came in with his Crusader to join the lance and not only does he have a silver tongue he was on fire, always just ahead of everyone else’s movements. Sadly even that couldn't protect him forever. Now back to that ambush, I guess you could say their hammer and anvil move helped us a bit, we found ourselves faced with two Griffins with ERPPC’s coming from the west and a Thunderbolt and an Axman coming at us from the east. After much cursing, and very little planning, we went heavy against the Thunderbolt and Axman hoping to get them knocked down before the others arrived and then to use what building cover there was to the southeast to save us from the Griffin's PPC fire. I know we are in Lyran space, even if it’s the slightly independent duke of Tamar’s seemingly private kingdom, but the amount of relatively fresh mainline Lyran battlemechs we are seeing is disconcerting a bit. Sure the Thunderbolt is a common enough of heavies and the Griffins have been around for a long time but seeing these Axmen is a bit troubling. Well since we were pushing the two heavy mechs we figured it would be a good thing to neuter that Axman before he decided to wreck our day when we closed on them. It was a good plan, but we all know how plans tend to turn out and this was no different. The firefight started out with much shooting and much missing except for the Axman who was all over the left torso and arm of Hedloff's Banshee managing to all but obliterate it within two volleys. Dyre wasn’t faring much better, he managed to get into some light jungle but both the Axman and the Thunderbolt unloaded on him with devastating results, thankfully all our return fire had the Axman getting knocked hull down. The enemy thunderbolt had maneuvered next to me as he shot at the others, I managed to dodge his punch and counter with a nasty kick to his right leg. Sigmund had started using the jumpjets to maximum effect hopping all over the place taking pot shots at the enemy, he managed to keep at it for most of the match which just annoyed the enemy and largely was responsible for keeping him alive in that little Panther. The Axman wasn't down for long before he was back blasting away at the Banshee with the Thunderbolt focusing his fire on our Crusader. Thankfully our fire was starting to take its toll on the Axman, he was getting critical damage all over and lost that LB 10-X before he could do anymore damage with it. The Axman's arm how ever was another story, he managed to connect that nasty axe with Hedloff square in the head, I’ll raise a pint to the engineers that designed that monster of a Banshee, Hedloff was shaken up but the armor held somehow!! It caused him to miss one of his two punches at the Axman but between his one hit and my kick into its right leg left it hurting. At the same time the Thunderbolt managed to punch Dyre in the head as well. The armor on his Crusader just barely managed to hold but the force of the impact knocked him out. With a gaping hole for a left torso, Hedloff wisely chose to start dumping all the remaining AC/10 ammo that was in there. I wish I could say things were getting better, but now the two Griffins were in range of Dyre’s mech. Both of them ganged up with the Axman and the Thunderbolt unloading everything they had on him. The second Griffin managed to score a critical hit to the Crusader’s engine. With all the withering fire on it, and with Dyre knocked out, it went down hard! The remaining head armor was gone and only some light structure was left on the head. We weren’t sure if we had lost our friend with the additional damage he was taking in the cockpit. To then add insult to injury the Thunderbolt kicked him so hard that it drove the right leg into the right torso blowing up the LRM ammo stored in there. Somehow the auto eject system was still intact and managed to get Dyre clear of the wreckage but not without more injuries. Sadly the force of all that LRM ammo letting go tore the center torso clean apart. It hurts to see such a nice mech torn to pieces so quickly but these guys that keep attacking us are playing for keeps and not giving any quarter. In anger we kept unloading on the Axman getting critical hit after hit, blowing whole sections off of the mech. Somehow in my rage I managed to kick the Axman square in the chest to knock him over again. With so much damage to its gyro and one remaining arm we left him to squirm on the ground while we focused everything we had left on the Thunderbolt for some revenge.
Part 2 The three enemy mechs still standing decided that the Banshee was their next target and unleashed two more murderous barrages that ended up causing the mech to lose its footing on some concrete as Hedloff tried to reach cover of the buildings. Thankfully Hedloff was quick to get back to his feet and continue to return fire at the Thunderbolt. Somewhere in there the Axman pilot managed to get upright and started trying to flee. With my Thunderbolt and the Banshee in cover from the Griffins they turned their attention to the poor Panther but Sigmund kept his jumpjets going preventing them from getting any decent hits while we regrouped. We were starting to get some decent damage on the Thunderbolt so I let a flight from my LRM 10 after the Axman that managed to leave what little was left of his center torso in shreds. No way I was going to let him get away without some more payback! The two Griffins had moved back into sight of Hedloff only to start helping the Thunderbolt pick his mech apart. Thankfully his SRM 6 tore into the enemy Thunderbolt detonating the LRM ammo, while the CASE protected the mech the violence of the explosion knocked the pilot out cold. Normally I hate to see it happen, but after what he did to Dyre as he was knocked out, it was very satisfying seeing that the Thunderbolt’s pilot managed to get himself impaled in the cockpit as his mech fell over, let’s just say Karma’s a bitch at times!!! I wish I could say this was a turning point but… The first Griffin had managed to move in behind Hedloff and its punch finished what the Axman started with its swing. Thankfully somehow while the head was being ripped off of his Banshee and in spite of his injuries, Hedloff managed to get out with the auto ejection. With two of our lancemates injured and their mechs shredded, Sigmund and I were in a rage. The Griffins finally made a mistake splitting up to try and flank us around a small hill covered with buildings in the south east. We managed to get up close on the second Griffin and started trading blows with it. About this time the fleeing Axman crashed to the ground with all its damage, I was really happy that we might get to “interrogate” its pilot a bit more before the authorities arrived if we could only get these griffins knocked out. As the second Griffin and I danced a ballet of death he somehow seemed to forget about the 10 extra tons I had in the Thunderbolt. A pity for him, but very satisfying as I crushed his left hip with a kick. Sigmund managed to keep jumping all over distracting the first Griffin to allow me to keep kicking the second one. I managed to smash its right hip this time with my next kick effectively putting him down for the count. Or so I had hoped, but somehow he was still standing so a third kick ripped his right leg completely off knocking it over and knocking the pilot out at last. The combined fire from both Griffins had taken its toll on my mech, stripping me of my LL and LRM 10 and several heatsinks. The extra double heatsinks I was carrying were more than enough to keep up with my remaining three medium lasers so I started to charge the remaining Griffin blasting away. With some fancy jumping while the Griffin was distracted with my charge Sigmund managed to land behind him and kick his leg but it seemed that the little Panther just couldn't get through the armor. The wallowing Axman finally managed to rip its own leg off effectively eliminating what chance it had of escaping but the pilot punched out and fled. Meanwhile Sigmund managed to stay with the Griffin and landed a mean left hook on him. I will admit I wasn't seeing quite right in my rage to chase the last Griffin down and failed to notice that the other Griffin pilot had come to until his ERPPC tore my left arm off and part of my torso with it. But really at that point I was going to go until there was nothing left. The first Griffin continued its melee with Sigmund ripping up several heatsinks in his right torso but Sigmund wasn't going to go down without a fight landing another good punch. We were all so fatigued at this point that everyone missed everything they shot even at point blank range and both the Griffin and Sigmund were missing with their kicks and punches. While the Griffin blew away my remaining medium lasers as I closed on him, it didn't save him from my kick. While he and Sigmund traded blows I kicked down on his right upper leg so hard it crushed its foot as well. We continued to dance around but I couldn't get in a position to punch with my remaining arm or kick him. Since my torso was so shredded from the front I elected to run away from the Griffin to give him some juicy back armor and hoping to keep him from doing any more damage to Sigmund’s now torn up Panther while Sigmund maneuvered behind him to try and finish him. Well I'd say he fell for it, but he ended up trying to make a run for it as soon as I started away from him. As he ran Sigmund and I chased, Sigmund hammering away with his ERPPC and I hoping he would either take a leg crit or the remains of his damaged leg would finally give out allowing my now weaponless mech to pummel him into scrap. Sadly he managed to get enough distance to elude us off to the north. Since the Axman's pilot was long gone now we turned our attention to the remaining Griffin. We started running back to capture the pilot from the crippled second Griffin but before we could get to him we ran into the, now very late to arrive, local authorities. They claimed that there was no pilot in the Griffin who had just recently been hammering away at us and that they hadn't seen anyone as they approached. Kind of fishy if you ask me since we didn't spot the pilot as we came from the other direction. So here we sit with no new answers, two injured pilots being taken back to our doc's, a battered Panther, a shredded and weaponless Thunderbolt, a decapitated and demolished Banshee, and finally a smoking crater where Dyre's proud Crusader once stood. We are all still among the living so that at least is good. These attackers should hopefully start running out of mechs and pilots soon at this rate.
yep, I'm strongly considering that any future mechs I own have large hatchets to cleave enemies up with. Thinking I may have to swap to an Axman myself or go ahead and get a black knight and equip it with an ax as the BL-9-KNT wasn't released until during the clan invasion.
epic write up MH. nice job. sorry for a lack of an update guys. will have that ready in the next 24 hours. poor sardonic. i feel it is appropriate to cut him a little slack after losing his ride in his first fight. here are his options: Start a "new character" (could be the same as the old one) with the original starting funds of 4 million C-bills, but without the XP from this last drop. The Crusader will still be destroyed. Continue with current character, keep the XP gained, and collect 1 million C-bills from the unit's dispossession insurance as normal. The Crusader was pretty cheap. I think you still have 1.5 million or so leftover from before. So what do you think?
I really appreciate that. Given the circumstances I think it'd be best to just mulligan. However, because I invested significant time into writing up his dossier and background, I'm going to be a bit lazy and say my new character is identical to my old one...just with a different mech.
event rolls from TVI turn01 mission03 Tzeencth = negative quirk (+1 short range) MH = +2XP Derak = na Sardonic = +1 Edge Tech (+3) = Quartermaster, +1 repair facility
fun fact... injuries sustained by Tzeentch's character from that last drop: concussion broken ribs sprained right arm lost left arm don't worry, that's what prognostics are for. on the bright side, you are now technically a cyborg the bad news: it will take 42 days to recover from the lost limb injury... a surprisingly short time all things considered, but it will preclude your character from dropping in the next mission. you can still drop, but it will have to be as an NPC.
