Mission 1: Alpha Lance used our Karnov transports to rapidly deploy in response to the enemy's attack on the capital. We approached Thule City from the south along the coast. We had hoped to draw out some of the Ronin heavier elements... we succeeded... in the form of a Battlemaster, a Hatamoto-Chi, a Charger, and a Victor. Massively outgunned, we hoped to only skirmish with them, hoping to deal some minor critical damage before pulling out. Val, apparently, had other plans. I had forgotten her history with the Snakes. I can't approve of her methods, but I can't deny her results. Probably suicidal, but definitely ballsy; she went right after the AC/20 armed Victor even knowing his lancemates were right around the corner. By luck or skill (probably both), she managed to avoid the worst of his fire while dealing significant damage on her own. Cursing and screaming at her to fall back, I ran in after to try and help her. What happened next I still can barely believe. I guess Val must have really pissed that Victor pilot off, because without warning, he launched his mech at her with reckless abandon, clearly intending to crush her Crab under the weight of his massive assault mech. Time seemed to slow for a second as I desperately fired everything I had at the plummeting mech; its shadow casted a darkening shadow over Val. I connected well but it seemed nothing was going to stop it. And yet Val seemed to see it coming; in one smooth motion, Val planted a foot and then seemingly... almost effortlessly, stepped to the side... and then 80 tons of angry war machine faltered and fell, smashing itself on broken reinforced I-beams and ferro-crete... and then... the AC 20 ammo started cooking off. The first couple rounds sheered the mech's arm off, then the whole right side expanded and exploded, and then the whole torso just disintegrated in a blinding light; the head blasting up and away before lodging itself in the third story of the nearest building. There was no time to punch out for the pilot; i doubt anyone could survive such a violent fall. Unfortunately, this event was not enough to carry us to victory. While we could have fully disengaged at this point, adrenaline got the best of us; we instead pushed further into the city. Along the way, we got separated with Val alone, damaged and exposed. Ghiest was the closest and attempted to prevent the remaining ronin from blocking Val's best vector of escape only to get boxed in himself. Despite his (and all of our) best effort to extract him from the situation, his mech was simply too slow to disengage the fast assault mechs at such close quarters. Ghiest's Catapult was torn to pieces. I wasn't able to get a good look at his mech go down, but Val saw everything... Mission 2: TBA Mission 3: TBA (sorry Skwi.. was too good a pic to pass up)
We've come south from Arnhult aboard transport ships to meet the enemy around Thule City. In an effort to cover BG1's northern flank, we loaded up and landed to the north, in the Industrial Center. Our goal was to push the enemy back and protect this flank as best we can. We didn't know what we would be up against, other than it would be mechs and a hard fought battle, given the intermitent chatter we'd heard from our fellows who had engaged already. The result was a Pyrrhic victory, I'd say. We were outmassed and outgunned at range. Our opponent had a few crack pilots, and was lead by one hell of a sniper. Unfortunately for us, we weren't able to draw them apart from their battleclump very easily, until their Trebuchet ran out of LRMs. With our Spider and Hatchetman attempting to bait the enemy, our Crab and Grasshopper were able to sweep in from the opposite side as we started to rotate the battle to our favor and gain an advantageous position. The dry and somewhat damaged Trebuchet felt that discression was the better part of valor and withdrew from the field, leaving us to concentrate our fire on the enemy Shadow Hawk. Knocking out its PPC and both of its arms seemed to be the signal that it was time to retreat. That allowed us to focus our attention on the Wolverine, which did its best to get in behind our group, but sustained some pretty horrid damage in the process. The whole time, the god damn Dragon was blasting away at us with its ER PPC and LRM 10, and getting in close wasn't much of an option due to the 4 medium lasers that backed it all up. In the end, the Dragon ended up challenging our Grasshopper to one on one combat. While it tried kiting Southpaw for a while, Skwisgaar was able to close the gap, with the Dragon up on a hill and him swinging his hatchet from below. Both hit hard with weaponry, but the physical attacks turned out rather poorly for us. Damage was done to the Dragon's leg, but it managed to kick Southpaw and explode the remaining LRM ammo, blowing the Grasshopper to tiny pieces. Luckily Skwisgaar was able to eject, and with the enemy in retreat, we recovered him. The call was made to allow the Dragon to leave the field, but we demolished what was left of the Wolverine before it could escape. In the skies, a friendly Stringray was up against an enemy Shilone that wouldn't quit and seemed to get the upper hand in maneuvers more than once. Both fighters took some serious damage, the Shilone was hit by our Stingray and had its fire control system severely damaged, as well as a hit by my Hatchetman that destroyed some of the landing gear. Our Stingray was forced to withdraw after suffering some serious engine damage. Our remaining mechs are in disrepair, but still fully functional. Damage was mostly superficial, though there was a lot of it. The enemy Shilone picked Clamps apart, its armor is pretty well paper at this point. Our Spider had a torso blown out. Amazingly, our new light pilot was able to keep mobile the entire battle and stay in the thick of things, yet still coming out in one piece. My Hatchetman is worse for wear, a head shot nearly took me out early on, and armor and internals are not looking too hot. Skwisgaar is alive and well, though distraught over losing his mech. Thankfully he has his Clint back at base while we wait on reimbursement from the FRR. In the end, we control the field. The Industrial Center is ours, the enemy is in retreat, and badly damaged. The mission was accomplished, no lives were lost, but the loss of our heavy mech is a massive blow.
Well 3rd herd decided to go into the city to see if the bar was still open with the invasion on, and some jackasses decided to start shooting at us. Well we were thirsty and in a hurry so this pissed us off a little, so we decided to stop and see what their problem was instead of just flying on into the city. They had setup right on the eastside of where the big buildings started popping up. Hak and his wingman swung north at the start and ran into 2 Manticores and a Bulldog playing support. Tzeentch and I went south and ran into two more Manticore. Tzeentch and Hakiyah went balls out and ran right up on a couple manticore to unleash their swarm of rockets. Turned out good for us and bad for them. Scraped a bunch of armor off all over and rattled the crews for the rest of the fight. After a couple exchanges of weapons fire Haki and his wingman came back south to help me team up on the 2 tanks down my way. We started playing hide and seek amongst the building by flying nap-o-earth. I was able to get in close and blast away with miniguns and got lucky with a bunch of lucky crits right off the start. Blew the engine and tracks on 1 Manticore and the tracks on the other. The Manticore with the damaged tracks started heading south trying to get outta dodge. Haki's wingman gave chase and pounded him with Infernos till he ran outta range. The 3 tanks to the north meanwhile had come down to support their 2 mates in the south and started getting in some good hits. Then Haki softened up the Manticore with the dead engine and I got in hit on the ammo and he blew sky high. We turned on the Manticore that Haki had first lit up with his rockets and proceeded to tear him down. His 2 buddies decided discretion was better part of valor and high tailed it north. Just as we were about to take out the 2nd Manticore the crew punched out and fled on foot into the city. We decided that they ones that took off might come back with friends so we took off back towards the forward rally point to get our armor patched up. Never did make it to the bar. Them bastards are going to pay for that before this is over.
Beta lance of the MBT company was tasked with seizing the local industrial complex. Initial insertion was quiet and the two fire teams had almost reached the complex itself when enemy autocannon opened up from near point-blank range. Scattered calls over the intercoms confirmed out fears - we had run into an ambush of hetzers in prepared positions. Fire team two began to put pressure on the flank while fire team one desperately tried to disengage the enemy center. The command Patton ended up nearly chased out of the park itself, surviving with what can only be attributed to either dumb luck or rapid prayer to the DhimPope. A fierce autocannon exchange between the command Patton and its opponents left one hetzer a smoking ruin while the enemy's continued pressure destroyed the other half of fire team one in a fuel explosion. Fire team two fared much better, catching the enemy flank in pincher movement, with one member engaging in a dangerous game of hide and seek amongst the northern part of the industrial park while the lance member Steelbear cored into a hetzer from behind. Luxan continued his duel with the lead hetzer while the rest of Beta lance converged on a pillboxed hetzer whose driver had apparently succumbed to shell shock. Unable to move, the third hetzer died that night, lying amongst the rubble of what had been an industrial office building. Beta lance converged on the final hetzer only to find that after 'cornering' the tank none of them could see it on their radar. Slowly trying to close the net on the surviving hetzer we were surprised to find out the 40 ton diesel vehicle had snuck out of the contained area and was making hell on water for the closet enemy position. An all-out race to catch and engage the opponent was made but they made it to the enemy line without another shot being fired at them. We may have failed to capture that last hetzer, but a 3 to 1 trade against the enemy and possession of a new bridgehead means that this gives our northern attack groups a good tactical edge for the coming conflict.
One of our Intel weenies got me out of a damn good poker game Thursday afternoon to tell me that they had had a spotting of an unsupported lance of tanks moving around south of Thule City. There was no info on whether they had gotten lost and separated from the main tank company or were out and about doing some sort of dastardly deed while the main group had our attention focused elsewhere. Anyway the brass wanted us up in the air and finding out what they were up to about 5 minutes before the Intel guy actually found me. So I rounded up the rest of our guys and gals and we headed out to the flight line. Never know these might be the same fellows we ran into last week and it would just be rude not to go say hello. After scouting around for couple hours we finally tracked them down in a set of low rolling hills and rivers south of the city. Soon as we popped up on their radar they ran up on to one of the before mentioned low hills and circled up like they were a wagon train from some old old wild west movie. And hey wouldn’t you know it they did sure look like the boyos we got in a scuffle with last week but them seemed to have misplaced the Bulldog that was with them last time. Well being there was little to no cover for us to play with and them holding the high ground we decided to trust in the ECM and charge in and hope to get in amongst them where their PPCs and LRMs would be about as useful as teats on a boar. We got in a couple of shots of Laser and PPC fire as we went in. They on the other appeared to have gunners who were either blind or cross eyed cause nothing they put into the air came anywhere near us. Guess they were having trouble getting a good targeting fix on us with all the over-lapping ECM fields. Now Hakiyah and Tzeentch were leading the charge just a itchin’ to pull the trigger on their rocket launchers while me and Michelle (NPC) swung in behind ‘em. As we closed to knife fighting range all of those Dragon worshiping sons of bitches decided to try and concentrate their fire and take one of us out. They choose Tzeentch for the honor, I think they might not have liked his paint job. The picture of their emperor involved in some sort of My Little Pony fantasy seemed not to sit to well with them. Anyway they managed to hit Tzeentch and knocked off about half his armor, but he was undeterred and finished his run to get off his rockets with Haki right beside him. Well after the smoke cleared I saw that the tank they had shot at looked like a piece swiss cheese. Michelle and I came in to put the boot in while he was down. That crew got rattled around that tank like a bunch of dice in a yahtzee game. Tzeentch then peeled out to get some distance so that the Ronin wouldn’t get to take advantage of his reduced armor. The rest of use continued to pour fire into the stunned Manticore while dodging SRMs and Medium Laser fire from his buddies. Well unfortunately for the crew they didn’t last long as I put some fire directly into the crew compartment and they bought the farm. The other Manticores seemed to take this quick and sudden death of their lance mates as a sign that they were needed elsewhere and started running for the north. Now turning your ass end to someone that is not friendly to your well being is never a good idea. Staying tight on them so they couldn’t bring their main armament to bare on us we proceeded to all tear into the closest tank. That ended rather abruptly as Haki got a laser strike on the Manticore's ammo compartment and that sucker blew up like Chinese fireworks. The other two Manticores seem to find another gear and were hauling ass to the north. Now I knew we didn’t have time to stop them both but I figured we could get one, so I swung around in front of him while the other guys continued to fire at his oh so exposed rear. And damn wouldn’t you know it Tzeentch, who had joined back up with us after they seemed more interested in running than shooting, next laser shot found that guy’s ammo and they went to meet their ancestors. The last Manticore made it out the valley and too close to the rest of their company for us to pursue. Not that I think that crew is going to be worth a shit after watching 3 of their lance get blown to hell and them nothing to show for it. All in all a good day for the 3rd.
