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Tsingtao
The Bastards spend a lot of time twiddling their thumbs on this contract, which is good in the sense that it's risk-free money, and bad in the sense that it's the worst combination of tense and boring.

Our next deployment isn't until November 7. Fourth Lance and Rook's Raiders are patrolling a region of clearcut forest some distance from the capital, when a call comes in over the radio net: a group of Capellan officers are attempting to escape AFFC lines, and eventually get offworld, in civilian vehicles.

The Action of November 7, 3053
The map covers Fourth Lance's sector, hilly with a ridge running through the center of the map, northwest to southeast.

The targets are moving from north to south through Fourth Lance's sector. Double Dog and his units start in the middle of the map. Rook orders her lance ahead at best speed, throwing formation to the wind. Faceplant arrives at round 6, Ker-Ker and Carcer arrive at round 8, and Rook arrives at round 9. The given objective is to destroy the force of civilian vehicles (two APCs, a mobile repair vehicle, and a forestry mech) before turn 10, and optionally, to reduce the main enemy force attempting to break them out (a collection of heavy tanks) by 1/3. The enemy also receives reinforcements, scheduled for turn 8.

Double Dog thinks the strategy here is clear: target the officers' transports immediately. He sets up his lance to do just that. The escort vehicles to the south can wait.



Turn 2


The first turn goes well, yielding solid damage on the enemy force.

In the south, the FedCom Vulcan charges (alone) into the teeth of the heavy tanks, then frantically radios for help as he takes heavy damage. Double Dog sighs and turns his Warhammer around to provide some covering fire, while the Vulcan attempts to escape.

In his Ryoken, Simona scores two kills in one weapons phase: an AC/20 shot to the nearer APC, followed by medium laser shots to the further.

Turn 3


The friendly Vulcan, frustratingly, is lost to a gyro hit. We will unfortunately take a ding to the contract status for that, but we should be able to complete enough objectives to make up for it.

Simona takes out the forestry mech, while Severe gets the field repair vehicle. Thus is our objective completed, seven turns before it needs to be. The rest of the lance will head south now, joining Double Dog, to see if we can't knock out some tanks and complete that objective too.

Turn 4
Repositioning: nobody is in range yet.

Turn 5


Two vehicle kills is the goal, out of this main force.

Turn 6


Faceplant arrives this turn, and should be able to take a shot at the LRM carrier with his Ultra AC/5.

Shooting and moving are more complicated than usual, owing to the fog over the battlefield.

Simona scores another kill, this time on the LRM carrier, with assists from most of the rest of the Bastards.

Turn 7


I think we have a good chance at knocking out the Bulldog this turn, which would fulfill our second objective, and allow us to call this a success and retreat from the field. Enemy reinforcements arrive next round.

Simona is the one to knock out the Bulldog, but it rolls well for a shot at the Koshi, and yields something that's going to be a little challenging to fix:



Turn 8
The Bastards begin to fall back to the northwest. Carcer gets the kill on the Scorpion that imprudently (and also impudently) pulled out in front of most of Rook's Raiders.

Turn 9


This 'fighting retreat' is probably going to kill all of these Vedettes, if they pursue, but it would be a little silly of them to do so beyond this turn.

Turn 10


They seem to feel the same way, and begin to fall back. Rook gets the one that's still peeking out around the corner, but after that, both sides depart the battlefield with no further shots taken.

Damage, Injuries, Salvage


On the plus side, our techs observe, the Koshi's arms are ablative: there's no priceless Clan technology in there. On the minus side, the Koshi's arm is priceless Clan technology. I don't think we have a way to get our hands on endo-steel limbs, although we may be able to bum one off of our FedCom friends for a doubtlessly incredible price.

The Warhammer took a lot of hits, but I think it's mostly armor damage.

Double Dog had his bell rung a bit, and will need a few days in the infirmary, but otherwise, no injuries.

On the salvage front, we pick up a crippled Zhukov heavy tank (armed with a pair of AC/10s; we immobilized it during the fight but didn't destroy it), and some scrap vehicles. We take a few prisoners from the convoy, but functionaries from the Department of Military Intelligence take them off our hands.

Kill Boards
Simona pulls off the ace in a day, while Rook, Carcer, Faceplant (who KOed the Zhukov to the point that it was salvage, even if he didn't kill it), and Severe notch one each.

Last Mission


All-Time Leaders

• "Rook" Ishikawa (29, 9 mechs, 2 Clan kills)
• "Drake" Halit (17, 6 mechs, 2 Clan kills)
• "Woad" Kohler (14, 5 mechs, 1 Clan kill)
• "Carcer" Ngo (12, 5 mechs, 2 Clan kills)
• "Teddy Bear" Jamil (11, 4 mechs, 2 Clan kills)
• "Wizard" Que (8, 6 mechs, 6 Clan kills)
• "Severe" Payne (8, 6 mechs)
• "Hanzoku" Yuksel (6, 4 mechs, 2 Clan kill)
• "Euchre" Kojic (6, 2 mechs)
• Simona (6, 1 mech, 1 Clan kill)
• "Double Dog" Dare (5, 2 mechs, 1 Clan kill)
• "Linebuster" Atkinson (5)
• "Milspec" Ortega (4, 1 mech, 1 Clan kill)
• "Blinky" Stirzacre (4, 1 mech)
• "Ker-Ker" Ec (3, 2 mechs)
• "Pepper" Popalzi (3, 1 mech)
• "Wojtek" Frajtov (2, 2 mechs)
• "Kicks" Hernandez (1, 1 mech, 1 Clan kill)
• "Faceplan" Farooqi (1)

Contract Continues
The damage to the Koshi isn't quite so dire as it seems—access to FedCom markets means we may be able to scrounge one for salvage. (It's going to cost a lot more than the 'list price', to the extent that's a concept that applies to Clan parts, but so it goes.) The Koshi's TAG unit was also in the left arm; that's going to be harder to come by, but we can hardwire an Inner Sphere TAG in instead.

Rick Papatamelis, administrator extraordinaire (or at least the guy who usually does acquisition checks, because he's the first alphabetical elite-skill command administrator) pays a significant bri— uh, finder's fee, and two weeks later, a crate containing a scorched, twisted mech arm arrives. It's not pretty, but it will do.

Also two weeks later, a first: two missions on one day.



I guess that's what you get, when you're two full companies.

The colonel sends over an aide de camp to brief us on our role in a general offensive targeting the Capellan beachhead, enabled by the intelligence FedCom picked up from the Capellan officers we captured in our convoy raid. The Bruisers and the Outriders will fight a diversionary action, skirmishing with a heavy concentration of enemy vehicles to keep them away from the main thrust, while the Raiders and Sixth Lance will take a sector in the center of the main attack. The Destroyers and Fourth Lance will remain in reserve, in the event that follow-up effort is required.

That, however, is a story for another day.

Status
It is now November 21, 3053.

TO&E, Claims, and Assignments
No change since last time.

Contract
The Capellans haven't broken yet, but I have to imagine they're close, and I suspect this final push will do the trick.

Finances
83.922 million C-bills on hand. The only really interesting thing on the unit market is an Awesome, and maybe the Marauder. Also out there are a pair of Vindicators and a Wolverine, as well as some light mechs.

Energy-heavy mechs really don't feel as nice until we can slap double heat sinks on them, I have to say.

Repairs and Refits
Everyone is in good shape, going into the big push to end this contract.

I had forgotten: Severe's original Locust wasn't just damaged, it was totally cored, and thus irreparably damaged. I unmothballed it, salvaged the remaining items of interest, and made a note that we owe Payne 1.5 million C-bills upon her retirement, or the winding down of the company.

Action Items
I think it would be good to bring our other two Phoenix Hawks up to modern standards—maybe another 1Kk and another 3K, although only the 1Kk is feasible without another long interlude on Outreach. Maybe we just leave them for now.

Are we interested in buying any mechs, or in keeping the Zhukov tank and perhaps going combined arms with Third Company? Or should we strip the tank and sell it, like we usually do?

Finally, in looking through mission prep for the double-header, I see that Sgt. Khadjikyriakos has a few rerolls due to tactics skill—should we invest in tactics for the four other lance commanders who don't have it?

Turns out the Wasp belongs to the unit—we salvaged it on Nashira, way back in 3051. We're free to sell it, if we like.

Hey, I like that idea. Then I can give them names beyond their model numbers. Jack of Clubs, Queen of Hearts, King of Diamonds, Ace of Spades. Beyond the Frankenstein Lancelot, we don't have enough mechs with individuality.

If Teddy wants to stash his Vulcan for some kind of jump-capable Phoenix Hawk, that can probably be arranged...

Outreach
Contract negotiations proceed smoothly. Teddy has a chance to plead his case to Drake regarding command rights, but the latter is unmoved, and the final terms look like this.



The Bastards are shipping out. On May 30, a FedCom dropship arrives, we bundle aboard, and before you know it, we're on the way to Tsingtao.



Tsingtao-the-world is the second planet in Tsingtao-the-system, and has a little more than half of the system's total population. It orbits at about ½ AU, has a breathable atmosphere and surface water, and an average equatorial temperature of about 15°C—quite a bit colder than Terra. It's in historically Capellan territory, but currently under Federated Commonwealth ownership, which is undoubtedly part of the reason why we've been employed to help out.

Blinky Stirzacre spots an interesting footnote: Tsingtao is apparently the home of Tsingtao Brewery, an inheritor of the name (if not the same entity) as a 20th-century Terran brewing company. It doesn't have the the same cachet as the mercenary's favorite, Timbiqui Dark, and, in fact, those of the crew who hail from worlds far from Capellan space don't know the name, but our Capellans (Euchre, Carcer, and Linebuster) speak to its virtues, and there is eventually general excitement that the Bastards' headquarters will be in Tsing City, along with the brewery.

Some of the Bastards, crammed into the spare corners of yet another series of military dropships, daydream of something a little more permanent. "I did a few assault drops out of an Overlord, back with the AFFS," Erine Forakis volunteers.

A chorus of "as if we could afford that!" is her answer—and it's not wrong; even if we had the money for an Overlord, nobody would sell one to us. It does get Kepano Endo thinking, however, and he begins to doodle some ideas, in the shape of a Mule hull, on a napkin...

Tsingtao
We set down on July 25th, a little ahead of schedule, and take some time to get to know the area. The unit rents out most of a decent little hotel on the outskirts of Tsing City, sets up field workshops just beyond the suburbs nearby, and readies for battle. Our FedCom commanding officer on-world is a colonel with a long history in the AFFS prior to the FedCom unification. AFFC forces on Tsingtao amount to a beaten-up regiment, so our two companies make a noticeable difference, and the colonel seems grateful to have us.

Drake's Destroyers, Bear's Bruisers, and Ortega's Outriders are our first three units in the field, patrolling a hilly, lightly urban area northwest of the capital. We're not even on-world for a week before we get the call for the first time: a FedCom scout reports two lances of House Liao vehicles and one of mechs on the way toward a small town. Consulting his map, Drake deploys his own lance and Ortega's Outriders to hold them off in the hills just outside of town.

Action of August 11, 3053
On this mission, we're holding the line: the goal is to destroy at least 33% of the enemy or force their withdrawal, while losing neither the FedCom scout or more than half of our own lance. The FedCom scout, Sebahat Bedreddin, is driving a Wolverine, which is a pretty capable mech, and has instructions to run for it if things get bad. (editor's note: I may have made him a little too cowardly, in the bot settings.)

Deployment
We start in the center of the map, occupying a high hill, from which we'll try to batter down the lighter enemy vehicles as they close. We have a big range advantage, but on open terrain, some of the vehicles will be faster than us.

At the start of round 4, the Outriders will arrive, so by that time, Drake's lance will be well on its way north.

Turn 1


There isn't much long-range weaponry in the enemy's force, and they're not all that great at gunnery, so the Destroyers largely stand still for the first round, to make their opening punch tell as strongly as possible.

The first time Drake fires his new PPCs in anger, he destroys a Scorpion light tank, piercing its side armor and gutting the fighting compartment. Euchre scores two hits on a Vedette, and Pepper hits another one. The LRM hits on the latter damage one of its tracks, and it slows to a crawl.

Turn 2


A repositioning turn, as the Bastards fall back a few hexes. The terrain to the east is more challenging, so Drake plans to move in that direction—much easier to move a mech through a stand of trees than a tank.

Turn 3
... is also a repositioning turn.

Turn 4
Ortega's Outriders arrive, just within ER Large Laser range to the northeast portion of the map.



Drake and company should reach the cover of the stand of woods to the northeast of the image before the Capellans can fire on them, and the Outriders will probably be in range this firing phase or the next.

Turn 5
The Capellan forces appear to be waiting on their reinforcements, at this point, in tight formation in the shadow of the hill we started on.



Pepper and Euchre take a crack at the Vedette exposed on the enemy's right, and combine for a kill: Euchre immobilizes it with a large laser shot to the right track, and Pepper's LRM barrage ignites its fuel tank. It goes off in a cloud of smoke.

Private Forakis, in the Phoenix Hawk 3K, and Milspec both have line of sight to enemy forces, but they're a nose beyond large laser range at the moment.

Turn 6
A hovertank exposes itself to an awful lot of firepower, spotting for the LRM carrier in the back.



Most Drake's Destroyers target it. Milspec and Pvt. Forakis have line of sight on both a Hezter and that LRM carrier, and this time, they're in range.

Some truly dire dice rolling yields few hits and no kills, but Forakis bloods the PXH-3K with two hits on the Hunter LRM carrier.

Turn 7


Euchre is a bit exposed here, but the enemy force hugs the hill and stays out of line of sight to him. The rest of the Bastards have better firing solutions.



The Outriders (Forakis and Milspec, in this case) score the most telling hits this round. Drake plugs the Pegasus scout hovertank with one of his PPCs, as well, but it continues to escape damage to its motive systems.

Turn 8
Enemy mechs arrive on the field: two Phoenix Hawks, a Shadow Hawk, and a Locust. I don't find them particularly concerning.



The ER Large Laser/double heat sink main armament on a lot of these mechs gives them a significant range advantage. (Veteran and elite pilots help too, I admit.)

Euchre badly damages the Hunter LRM carrier's left track, taking three LRMs to the center torso in response. Blinky immobilizes a Vedette, and Pvt. Forakis wings another one. Drake finally gets the better of the Pegasus, one of his PPC shots piercing it through and through.

Turn 9-10
The enemy vehicles are in a bad spot now, several of them damaged and one immobilized, out of their own effective ranges but within ours. We ought to have this part of the enemy force cleaned up pretty quickly, at which point we'd have fulfilled the mission objectives and then some. We will, however, stay on the field—if the mech lance comes north, we'll be there to meet them. Otherwise, they're well placed to escape, being lighter and faster than we are.



Euchre and Blinky both score kills (on the Hunter LRM tank and a Vedette, respectively). The next round, Pepper gets the Hetzer, and Drake fully immobilizes the Vedette.

Turn 11


Running to the west, the Outriders manage to draw the enemy mech lance forward, where we'll have a shot at knocking them out.

Drake finishes off the last vehicle, clearing the field for some mech-on-mech action.

Turn 12


The Outriders should be able to get into position pretty readily, this turn. The Destroyers will take a bit longer. Woad, in the Grasshopper, already has an angle on the back line of Capellan mechs, but the intervening woods confuse his line of sight.

Turn 13


The Outriders are in close combat now. They're one of our better brawling lances, being quick enough to build up high movement modifiers, and still passably tough.

Turn 14


Three of Drake's Destroyers have shots on the enemy this round, with Drake himself the only latecomer. The Capellan Locust is crippled and looking for a way out of the fight, so we'll leave it alone for the moment.

Pepper is the man of the round, this time:



Turn 15
The enemy Locust flees, and the Phoenix Hawk is on the way out. We'll try to take down this Shadow Hawk before it can follow suit.



Turn 16
That lying enemy Phoenix Hawk was not trying to flee after all, the jerk.



The enemy mechs are in pretty bad shape, though. Blinky gets the kill on the Shadow Hawk with a double ammo explosion; Euchre and Pepper assist.

Turn 17


Astonishingly, the Capellan survives this amount of weapons fire. Wojtek trips him, however, and that finishes him off.

Damage, Injuries, Salvage


We take very light damage on this deployment. Some armor has been chipped away on mechs marked 'undamaged'; Pvt. Forakis took a crit to the hand in the Phoenix Hawk 3K. Nobody is injured.

Salvage comes to the beheaded Phoenix Hawk, and the wreck of a Vedette.

That salvaged Phoenix Hawk is easily repairable. All it needs is a head, and we're packing sufficient spares to put it into service without ordering anything. I'm leaving it untouched for the moment, though: we could strip it for parts (although it doesn't have much interesting stuff on it), or we could refit it to -1Kk or -3K standards. Alternately, we could sell it for a nice 1.5-million C-bill profit.

Kill Boards
Pepper scores his first kills for the Bastards, and Drake adds a trio of vehicles. Blinky, notching two, moves up the overall leaderboard to slot in just behind Milspec, while Euchre and Wojtek each score once.

Last Battle


All-Time Leaders

• "Rook" Ishikawa (28, 9 mechs, 2 Clan kills)
• "Drake" Halit (17, 6 mechs, 2 Clan kills)
• "Woad" Kohler (14, 5 mechs, 1 Clan kill)
• "Carcer" Ngo (11, 5 mechs, 2 Clan kills)
• "Teddy Bear" Jamil (11, 4 mechs, 2 Clan kills)
• "Wizard" Que (8, 6 mechs, 6 Clan kills)
• "Severe" Payne (7, 6 mechs)
• "Hanzoku" Yuksel (6, 4 mechs, 2 Clan kill)
• "Euchre" Kojic (6, 2 mechs)
• "Double Dog" Dare (5, 2 mechs, 1 Clan kill)
• "Linebuster" Atkinson (5)
• "Milspec" Ortega (4, 1 mech, 1 Clan kill)
• "Blinky" Stirzacre (4, 1 mech)
• "Ker-Ker" Ec (3, 2 mechs)
• "Pepper" Popalzi (3, 1 mech)
• "Wojtek" Frajtov (2, 2 mechs)
• "Kicks" Hernandez (1, 1 mech, 1 Clan kill)
• Simona (1, 1 mech, 1 Clan kill)

Status
Drake, Milspec, and their lances rotate off duty for a bit. Rook and the Raiders, along with Double Dog and Fourth Lance, join Bear's Bruisers on deployment.

It is now October 1, 3053.

Finances
After September's contract income, salaries, share payouts, and other expenses, the bank account contains 70.833 million C-bills.

Repairs and Refits
Our units are in tip-top fighting shape.

Contract
Capellan morale is very low. They haven't stuck their heads back up since our first encounter, although reports via the FedCom chain of command are that Capellan reinforcements have landed onworld.

TO&E, MechWarrior Claims, and Mech Assignments
Units lacking a bolded callsign are free to be claimed.

• 1st Company
  
  • Drake's Destroyers
    
    • Major Huri "Drake" Halit (Mephansteras) - Awesome AWS-DRAKE
    • Cpl. Ferdinand "Woad" Kohler (A Thing) - Grasshopper GHR-5KOB
    • Pvt. Jan "Euchre" Kojic (EuchreJack) - Lancelot LNC25-0B
    • Pvt. Abdul-Hafiz "Pepper" Popalzi (mrkilla22) - Archer ARC-2K
  • Rook's Raiders
    
    • Captain Mariamu "Rook" Ishikawa (Culise) - Stalker STK-3Fb
    • Cpl. Damayanti "Carcer" Ngo (Dorsidwarf) - Flashman FLS-7K
    • Pvt. Elroy "Faceplant" Farooqi (NickAragua) - Dragon DRG-5N
    • Pvt. E-Shei "Ker-Ker" Ec (Kanil) - Lancelot LNC25-0B
  • Bear's Bruisers
    
    • Lt. SG George "Linebuster" Atkinson (Hasek10) - Emperor EMP-6A
    • Lt. JG Tedros "Teddy Bear" Jamil (Knave) - Vulcan VL-5T
    • Pvt. Ed "Hanzoku" Yuksel (Hanzoku) - Guillotine GLT-4L
    • Pvt. Xue-Min "Wizard" Que (Rince Wind) - Guillotine GLT-4P
• 2nd Company
  
  • Fourth Lance
    
    • Captain Sung-min "Double Dog" Dare (a1s) - Warhammer WHM-6R
    • Pvt. Catherine "Severe" Payne (Burnt Pies) - Koshi/Mist Lynx
    • Pvt. Gwenael "Kicks" Hernandez (Sheyra) - Phoenix Hawk PXH-1Kk
    • Recruit Simona - Ryoken/Stormcrow
  • Ortega's Outriders
    
    • Lt. JG Jose "Milspec" Ortega (milspec) - Crab CRB-30-UK
    • Pvt. Kevin "Blinky" Stirzacre (moghopper) - Ostroc OSR-2D
    • Pvt. Erine Forakis - Phoenix Hawk PXH-3K
    • Pvt. Ik-jun "Wojtek" Frajtov (Blaze) - Phoenix Hawk PXH-1
  • Sixth Lance
    
    • Sgt. Philippa Khadjikyriakos - Thunderbolt TDR-5S-T
    • Cpl. Margita bin Ala' al din - Trebuchet TBT-5N
    • Pvt. Mats Johansen - Trebuchet TBT-5S
    • Pvt. Lise Selvåg - Raven RVN-2X

Action Items
Should we refit the Phoenix Hawk, or sell it? Beyond maybe the engine, none of the parts are worth very much to us.

While the decision-making process shakes out, I tinkered this morning with the MechDropShipLab. It turns out that the Mule, given about 120 million C-bills of work above the hull cost and about two years of time in a shipyard, can turn into a budget home for a full battalion of mechs.



It probably needs a few more cabins for the techs and administrators a third company would require, but even accounting for that, the cargo space is sufficient for the heavy load of spares we're currently carrying. It's not armed and armored for direct combat, but it's not totally defenseless, either. Maybe something to aim for, down the road a bit.

20% battle loss is the better deal if we see any action whatsoever, so I am voting for that.

Does straight support cover our payroll expenses?

Yup, all of our ordinary maintenance and salary costs.

Lots of great battle reports to read through. Fun to see how our groups perform against each other! Thanks for posting them.

A good chance for me to remember how to play, too.

It sounds like we're two for, one ambivalent on a longer-term FedCom contract, so we'll go in that direction. What contract rights are important to us?

Transport, obviously. Between salvage, support (operating costs? battle loss compensation?), command rights (is the employer unit that comes along under our command or not?), and increased base pay, what do we want most?