So I started over this week playing again, since I haven't had a very good/reliable interwebs connection anyway. First tutorial I gave my self one of each unit type to experiment with (inf, tank, mek, aero) just to figure it all out again, but in the backdrop of a BCT vs BCT level engagement between my own House Marik (year 3015) and it went totally against Marik, to the point 4 meks 5 tanks and my 1 aero were left alive. I then spun this to be the beginning of my own Merk unit, took those units and purchased a ton of cheap infantry in the case of getting garrison/defend missions, and another aero. 10 years later, I've gained/lossed 41/34 meks, 22/18 tanks, 4/4 aero, 19/14 infantry. A vast majority of those units were salvage, and the infantry were stocked by prisoners who turned to my unit instead of being turned over to Liao. Irony of ironies I now work for Liao and that is the point of this post. I have been threadbare and working hand to mouth for the entirety of this play through, until September 28, 3025 on the planet of Acamar a Fed Sun BCT assaulted my mission area with dropship support on map landed at the outskirts of the city I was defending. Liao sent 1 Lance of med/light along with 5 random tanks and 7 turrets, and the civilians managed to cobble together 4 improvised meks lead by their militia commander in a shadow hawk and a dozen improvised trucks/other things to help. I had 3 operational meks, a Panther, half of a Annihilator that id rolled 5 12's in a row to justify getting, and even then it was missing its right arm. Lastly the hero of the match from the mek side, my AC 20 urbie. I also deployed every infantry unit I had weather they were up to full strength or not, and deployed every vehicle tank or otherwise I had to include my ammo loaders and HQ vehicle. My aero assets were both down due to pilots retiring and my new pilots not arriving in time. The enemy was overwhelmingly powerful, and this fight took place over 3 RL days due to the computer needing a bunch of time to process each move, they had 19 meks, 14 tanks, 5 vtol/rotor, and that dropship (a union). Holy shit was I considering just /surrender for most of this match, my panther was headshot nearly at the start of the fight, I lost both of my assault tanks a Ontos and Partisan, as well as half of my SRM platoons. But this battle swung on turn 26 of 31, when my Annihlator went down with a gyro and 2 engine hits after his CT was stripped bare by a Centurion and Orion, they closed for the kill, when the hero of the match showed up. Those two meks were next to each other, the urbie calmly refused to move and fired into the orion who at this point was fully healthy as I was trying to take out the centurion first, and made the mistake to target the Orion. Through armor crit into the ammo, boom, explosion takes out the Centurion. At this point the center of their line is gone, and I can drive my remaining vehicles alongside the suicidal civilian trucks remaining into their flank and sweep them off, thankfully the Ai retreated their units off the edge starting on turn 30 so I didn't have to spend another 41 turns chipping away at them and losing more stuff. At the end of the fight Liao assessed I was due 45% of the salvage totally nearly 100m, yup, payday finally came. But in my jubilation I failed to notice something, I was dead. I was in the Annihilator and I never got the option to stand up again, due to accumulated pilot hits. My former Daymio commander has taken the lead of the unit for the duration of the contract due to expire in 9 months, but I wont be there to see it along any further, I set up the kill shot that broke the assault and went down AC 10's dry.
Interesting note I just noticed, the Centurion pilot was the same pilot who was in my first mission against them but he was using a spider at the time, and he was the one with a glancing blow to the head with a med lazer. So he got me in the end, but my boys and girls got the last laugh, hahahahaha mother fucker, ill see you in hell.
This is weird as shit, Liao is giving me shit every month now, from a LRM carrier, to a civilian recovery vehicle and now a Toro. Also, the enemy morale went from before that assaults Very Good Rating A Elite, to a Route and D Green, now on Feb 1 and still no new missions, almost 4 months of quiet. I liked it better when I was scraping together forces to barely complete missions or at least not completely flub it all.
I still want to play, but can't commit the time to any formal campaign. Also, we've been trying to get more people who can host, but Tzeentch has been having trrouble getting it to work for him.
Pissant Thrush with 3 med lazers just got three through armor engine crits on an archer, with a 5/6 pilot
Planning on writing up a couple of the pivotal fights in this campaign now that its become unstable and unplayable. But it might be a few days before I get anything written up. Minor annoyance though, is the mandatory retirement check at the end of any campaign even if its 1 month long, shouldn't I get to dictate the rate of retirement checks in the GM role if not negotiating employment period? No one wants to train/equip some one with shit just to have them leave in 4-12 weeks.
Date: 3028, March Location: Jansen's Hold (Taurian Concordat) Employer: Cappelan Confederation Objective: Extraction Raid Mission: Extraction of Civilian Agents Time of Day: 0425 Weather: Light rain Terrain: City Center, near spaceport OOB (Taurian Defenders) 5 Battlemechs (2 light, 1 medium, 2 heavy) 7 Tracked Vehicles (1 light, 4 medium, 2 heavy) 3 Hover Vehicles (2 light, 1 medium) 2 VTOL's 8 Turrets (2 lazer, 4 autocannon, 2 srm) 1 Union Dropship OOB (Mercenaries' inc.) 12 Battlemechs ( 4 light, 4 medium, 4 heavy) 14 Tracked Vehicles ( 6 light, 6 medium, 2 heavy) 8 Hover Vehicles (6 light, 2 medium) 4 Aerospace Fighters (4 light) OOB (Civilians) 2 Civilmech (Converted Ants) 1 Securitymech 1 Flatbed truck (Armor), Occupants, 15 civilians OOB (Cappelan Coordinator) 1 Battlemech (1 heavy) Briefing: Placeholder AAR: Shortly after entering the security patrol area of the spaceport we were intercepted by a reinforced Company of security forces that attempted to prevent our escape. The Scouts started the skirmish and provided spotting reports for our LRM carriers and Catapult to take advantage of. Almost immediately we lost a Pegasus with all crew when its SRM ammo detonated inside the vehicle. Another 5 minutes went by before anything significant happened as the Civilians and their escorting tracks showed up along with the Aero support. The latter quickly zeroed in on the Dropship that was powered up and providing communications and fire support to the security forces. Scoring a lucky hit on something critical the Union's fire slackened noticeably, and the surrounding city was thankful that their buildings were no longer suffering as much collateral from the missed shots. The rain began to become a torrential downpour around 0500 and the Aero support had to fly away and gain altitude before coming back in again. Our heavies managed to pin their heavies inside a culdesac and that allowed the civilians to use the buildings as cover to get past them and make for the spaceport entrance. Their escorting Goblins moved forward to take the fire from the emplaced turrets and trade shots with the remaining dropship weapons. Around 0520 the Cappelan pilot attempted to jump his Pheonix Hawk ontop of a 3 story building to gain line of sight on the enemy VTOL's, only to collapse the structure and upon reaching something that his internals didn't agree with, detonated in what I presume was an ammo explosion. No one spotted an ejection and he was presumed KIA. (TBC)
