Like I said, pretty soon.
Hard Light Brigade versus 1st Hussars on the icy plains of Thule. This fight is set to be significantly more difficult than the last one, simply due to the fact that the 12th and 13th aren't nearly as experienced as the pilots of the 11th.
Strobe, this is StarSlayer. We have visual on a two lances of enemy units in 1st Hussar markings just over 20 km from objective alpha. They are moving north toward the objective at roughly 35 km/hr. Unit composition is six 'Mechs, two vehicles. Current time is... 1104 lima. Please advise.
StarSlayer, Strobe. Confirmed visual on two lances of Hussar units two-zero clicks south of objective alpha, moving north. 12th Scout is on station and able to assist. Advise you hold distance for five mikes and then engage. Allied air support should be able to assist. A flight of Sholagars is en route, ETA... three mikes. Designate target now, over.”
Strobe, StarSlayer. Roger that, holding distance. Target is designated for air support. Time to engagement is... four mikes. We'll keep a seat warm for you at objective alpha. Out.
In this instance, the 12th will be entering the battlefield right before turn 6 starts, so the 13th has a full minute on its own before the cavalry arrives to make everything easier. Just as a reminder, the sortie in which the 11th just curbstomped a Hussar's armored column took exactly six turns from start to finish. Food for thought.
I arrange the lance into buddy pairs of two vehicles or two 'Mechs each and keep them in range of supporting each other. The vehicles are going to be damn slow no matter what I do, thanks to this cold, but the 'Mechs are capable of staying together on a map like this.
]
Here you can see how the Hussars deployed themselves, in conjunction with the deployment minimap right below this paragraph. Their 'Mechs that can actually hurt me are focused up north, with the 'Mech that can barely hurt me (and can't get out of the way) closest to me, along with their lone vehicle. A 'Mech that can barely hurt me is also down south: a Vulcan VL-2T. Its autocannon has the potential to annoy the **** out of me, but two point plinks aren't going to be a huge pain unless it gets ridiculous with the direct blow shenanigans. With the range on that thing, there's a potential there, but I don't intend to allow it to be realized. The 13th is going to sweep across the middle of the map and then south, clearing the three units most vulnerable right now, and then wait for the 12th to engage the north contingent. I only have to take out one of them, so the most vulnerable one is going to go down, and then it's victory celebration time.
]
As promised, the minimap. You can see the relative locations of all of the units on the map here. The light green hexes are light woods, and the darker ones are heavy woods. Amusingly, the units in blue camo appear in red, and the units in red camo appear in blue. Now then, onto moving out!
I immediately move the vehicles closer together into a lance formation and get them moving, now that I know where all the enemies are. The 'Mechs stay together to the north flank and are going to screen the more vulnerable vehicles if the 'Mechs up north decide to be nuisances. I technically have a shot with the Vindicator at one of the north 'Mechs, but it's at a 12 and with glancing blow that means it's not even worth taking. I very much doubt anything is going to happen this turn, but stranger things have been known to occur.
Then the fire phase rolls around, and that damned Trebuchet lands a hit on a 12 with an LRM-15. Cheeky bastard. He doesn't do much, but it does tell me I need to get the hell away from the north before they pick me apart on approach.
A quick look at the map after that turn shows me that the north 'Mechs are headed my way. Crap. I immediately dive south with all units that I can, heading southeast if possible, and make for the most vulnerable units I can. I've got a bad feeling about this game. New priority target is the Vulcan while I attempt to roll up the enemy flank.
While I do that, the enemy demonstrates with amusing timing why sometimes enabling Expanded Backwards Movement is kind of cheap. One of the Scorpions tries to back up down hill and falls over. That's even more spectacular because it's a quad, and quads are known for their stability. Best part is that it actually manages to fall on its head, in some bizarre spectacle of flailing limbs and failure.
Everybody starts shooting at everybody while I scramble to reposition with my very unfortunately slowed vehicles. The Prowler takes the brunt of the firepower aimed at it, while the Brutus starts to empty its substantial magazines in the Urbanmech's direction, hoping for a lucky hit early on, perhaps to make it even slower.
The Prowler gets a hit in on a Hetzer that leaves it well and truly dead in the water, with a destroyed engine
and a vehicle immobilized results on two clusters of LRMs. It's way out in the middle of nowhere with naught but an AC/20 that can no longer reposition. I'll give it one turn, and then that juicy target is getting abandoned to save everybody in it.
The Prowler finds itself the subject of an inordinate amount of firepower headed its way. I want it dead, since it's the reason my Hetzer is a mission-kill already, at best. The Urbanmech gets some token missiles too, but it's by far not the primary target here. The Hermes and Trebuchet from the north side are on their way down, while both Scorpions hold their ground. This has the potential to go either really well or really bad. Let's find out.
The Prowler gets taken out by the sheer damage thrown at it, but at the same time my other Hetzer is first immobilized, and then the FUEL TANK EXPLODES on a critical hit through 15 points of armor. At this point I'm rather pissed off at this game, because I'm down
both Hetzers, and only one of them got a single shot off. Fortunately (if you can say that), the Hetzer that just went up in a gasoline powered explosion was the one further back. Unfortunately, that was Dire's ride, so he is probably dead right now. On the other hand, this is exactly why the 3rd Jump is on rescue status. They'll make it, unless someone else I like more also would buy the farm today, they just will all have massive burns across most of their bodies, and lose a point of piloting/gunnery for it.
[009 Urbanmech Next]
I abandon the Hetzer this turn. No sense in it getting creamed too by LRM fire from outside of its range. I still have four units to complete the objective, and can actually still lose one without suffering a defeat in this battle. Additionally, the 12th is still on its way.
The Urbanmech is very clearly the next unit I have decided must die. All the combined firepower of the lance is about to rain down on him until he stops moving. The Vulcan is being surprisingly painful with its medium laser from the south, and the Trebuchet from the north is aggravatingly accurate. I honestly can't decide which one will be the next target.
Every single thing fired at the Urbanmech misses. Figures.
Once again, most everything opens up on the Urbanmech. Corporal Duineveld takes up a position behind the bugger and gets ready to punch his face off once he lets loose a PPC bolt at point blank. The Vulcan has gotten entirely too close for comfort to StarSlayer, and I intend to use the 12th to dissuade him from getting that close again when they deploy at the start of next turn. Corporal Fisting in his Vindicator lines up a couple shots, and Sergeant Moore lines up one with the AC/5 as well.
At this point, the Trebuchet immobilizes my Brutus as well. That ****er has now immobilized all of my vehicles except Sergeant Moore's Vedette with impossibly accurate LRM salvos. I seriously am not sure how to respond and keep my guys out of the line of fire from him, since as a Gunnery 2 pilot, he's pretty much not going to miss at all.
Phantom's fist glances off the Urbanmech, which is infuriatingly still standing. This is not going well for the Brigade right now.
And then the cavalry shows up. Time to show that punk Vulcan the error of his ways before he manages to knock out StarSlayer's Brutus, the way things have been going. I actually deployed the 12th behind the wrong stand of trees, so their approach was made a bit more difficult by that. No matter, all but the Locust have jumpjets, and it's fast enough to push through the woods easily enough.
The Vulcan doesn't want to play with the new kids, and hops around to go beat up some more on StarSlayer's crew. I don't take very kindly to that, so he'll be receiving a faceful of lasers at the earliest opportunity. Worth mentioning that playing Light 'Mechs in this game is an exercise in patience. They're fragile as hell, so staying in the woodline, even if it means surrendering a better shot, is the only way to keep them alive for very long. I've made something of a specialization of using small, under equipped Lights to take down enemies much heavier and better armed than I am using really bouncy, “I can barely hit you but you can't hit me at all” tactics. Against a human player, I would be a colossal dick, but the bot doesn't get frustrated at my stalling.
In this turn, Captain Bowden demonstrates why I keep him around by having 6s to hit against a jumpy, low profile Medium that doesn't want to be hit, StarSlayer decides the Trebuchet isn't getting enough LRM love in return, and everybody else gangs up on either the Vulcan or the Urbanmech, whichever is closer. This still isn't going
well, but it's not going irretrievably sideways yet.
It's also in this turn that the bot once again demonstrates an absolutely
infuriating tendency to tell my tank's turrets to go **** themselves, and buries every single shot it fired into the left side. Seriously, the Brutus took
one turret hit this game, and then everything else hit somewhere else. The Brutus is knocked out, and probably unrecoverable. Figures. The bot really does not like my tanks.
I still have three units from the 13th active, so the game isn't over yet. I just literally can't afford to lose any more of them, or I suffer a defeat for this mission. This is already going to be damn expensive, simply from a lost equipment perspective. Silly me to think that my tank would be able to weather a round of fire from low end mediums without exploding. I'll have to abandon them more quickly next time, much as it annoys me to say that. After this turn, all of the 13th will be withdrawing south and letting the 12th handle what's left to be handled before I can claim victory and get the **** out of here.
Probably the
most annoying thing about that loss is that now I may very well have to choose if some of my tankers die or not. Still, the 3rd Jump is good at that sort of thing, so more likely they'll all just be worse at their jobs instead of dead.
I'm getting brutalized by the initiative this game, for some reason. I just cannot seem to trap the units that I most want to trap, instead watching them slip through my units since they get to go last every time. Fortunately, when an Urbanmech “slips through” anywhere, it does it at merely a fast waddle, so it doesn't get too far.
The next fire phase, that
****ing Trebuchet takes off on of Corporal Adeboro's arms, leaving the Locust with half firepower. I swear, the guy could be shooting tiny insects at this range and still not be missing. It's frustrating and demoralizing, absolutely. By some miracle, everybody who got shot at this turn is still standing. Now, the next miracle I want is that damned Trebuchet to run out of ammunition. He's gotta be getting close. Phantom goes down to a kick in the physical phase, meaning I have a
really tight window to still pull victory out of my ass.
The battle has functionally dissolved into two smaller battles, neither of which is going well. Phantom, Bongo, and Toothless trying to bring down the Urbanmech (the fact that it's taking so long is what's not going well) before it gets reinforced by both Scorpions from the north, and Night, Patriot, Polly, and Esarai dueling with the Vulcan with frustratingly few results while the Hermes and Trebuchet come to play. None of the Light pilots are good at anything, which is why there's frustratingly few results.
I have discovered the primary flaw of the Brigade as it is organized now: the 11th is entirely too concentrated with the greatest experience in the unit. If I could use them for every mission ever, it'd be great, but I can't, and the lack of skill is hurting me
very badly this mission. After this, the entire roster is probably going to get a rewrite while I figure out who is going to do best in what role. Additionally, vehicles are going to be taken out of the first-in-line lances, and designated to a reserve lance strictly for reinforcing already engaged battles. Both battles they've been in front, and both battles I've lost most or all of them before I got any utility out of them, sometimes to absolutely uncanny hit patterns, but lost nonetheless.
The lack of experience rears its ugly face again when two of my pilots fall over during the physical phase.
Several more turns of exactly the same thing pass tensely while I try with little success to worry the enemy down to a more manageable state. Halle-****ing-lujah the Trebuchet finally ran out of missiles and is no longer able to sling laser-guided death at my 'Mechs, but I still have to take out three more 'Mechs before I can claim victory.
Then, finally, I get a break (and a terrible tragedy at the same time). Polly manages to touch off the Vulcan's AC/2 ammunition, detonating it in a fiery explosion. The at the same time, the enemy Hermes gets a shot that rips right through Night's left torso and into the gyro, shattering it and dropping the Locust to the ground in a useless heap. It's still technically active, but it's not going to be able to do anything. He'll be ejecting as soon as possible. Still, that's one less enemy, and I only have to take out two now.
Everybody stays standing during the physical phase, so it looks like I have a chance of actually winning, however costly that may turn out to be.
This is how it looks now. Hermes is priority target for 12th Scout lance, now down to three 'Mechs. Urbanmech is still priority for 13th Combat, as beat up as they are. I gotta get those two down, and I can claim victory. It's going to be damn tight.
Both Phantom and Bongo take big damage this turn, and both miraculously stay standing. I'm honestly not sure how they're still up and moving, but I'm not about to complain about it.
Next turn is more of the same, my 'Mechs trying desperately not to get knocked down and trying to take out the two indicated targets. Phantom succeeds on a piloting skill roll I was fully expecting him to fail hard on, and gets behind the Urbanmech, while the 12th converges around the Hermes and Trebuchet. Without his missiles, he's much less of a threat, and I think Polly can actually outduel him handily with his Pixie.
Fire bursts back and forth, Patriot's Wasp falls over, and nothing dies, again. It's getting pretty close, over on the east side though, and Phantom lost his PPC that turn. He's reduced to an LRM-5 for effective weapons and one fist, because the other arm is missing and hip damage renders him unable to kick. It's pretty bleak over there, to be honest.
Then, with a sudden burst of realization, I notice that the Trebuchet's medium lasers are all in his arms – arms that I have very nearly amputated over the course of the engagement despite his best efforts. I could neuter the single most dangerous pilot on the field with a few good hits. The 12th, despite losing Night's Locust, are still holding their own against the much more powerful opponents on the west flank, while the 13th have been sucking it up all game. I might have to put a good portion of pure hope into those battered 'Mechs and hope they don't fall apart before I can take out two more. It's a longshot.
A very long shot. Phantom falls unconscious after falling over, losing a leg, and repeated head hits the next turn, and the Trebuchet isn't downed yet, nor the Hermes. This doesn't look good. I'm looking at the very real possibility of losing this fight.
Two turns later, Phantom still isn't dead, and the Urbanmech is missing a leg, finally. Unfortunately, Bongo's Vindicator is missing one, too. The Trebuchet is still alive, though it's starting to show signs of wear, too, with structure peaking through armor all over the place. The two Scorpions and the Hermes show the least damage of any 'mech on the field except, inexplicably, Esarai's Wasp, which is still untouched by anything. I feel like I'm going to regret saying that, but it's true.
Race to the finish!
There's something about BattleTech, every time I've played a game like this, where 'Mechs gain the ability to absorb absolutely
ridiculous amounts of damage. Case in point, the Shadow Hawk that poor Phantom has been piloting this game has been reduced to eight points of armor. Total. On the whole 'Mech. It's still technically an active participant on the field. Further, there are exactly 18 points of internal structure left. Even if I win this, the damn thing is getting sold for scrap, because I do not have three months worth of techs to get it back into the fight. If I could give it a medal I would, mostly because it'd be more effective armor than what it has left.
See? That's dedication to not quitting, right there.
And here we have something almost as desperate. All three of them are overheating quite badly trying to bring that ****er down. Phantom's Shadow Hawk has literally two points standing between it and the scrap heap, and this guy is in the way to getting it off the field.
To give you an idea just how close this race is:
1) I cannot lose any more units. Period. If I do, I lose.
1. Phantom's Shadow Hawk has two points standing between itself and destruction
2) I must destroy two more units in order to win.
1. The Trebuchet has 16 points standing between itself and destruction, most of it on the center torso.
2. The Urbanmech has eight points standing between itself and destruction.
3) The combined firepower of my units shooting this turn is enough to kill both of those 'Mechs three times over, if it hits.
4) The combined firepower of a single machine gun shooting at Phantom would be enough to deep six his 'Mech.
So, that's how close this is. One turn in either direction. Thankfully, all of the 'Mechs that
were shooting at Phantom inexplicably decided to go bug my Vedette, who has been plinking with an AC/5 most of the game at that damn Urbanmech.
The result of that turn makes it an
even closer race. The Urbanmech finally goes down in a pile of scrap, but at the same time my Vedette is now immobilized and under assault by two Scorpions, who have left the two crippled 'Mechs alone on the field. Patriot's Wasp also lost a leg in the last exchange, so he's on the ground, too.
The Trebuchet now has eight points standing between me and victory. The Vedette has between eight and 13, depending on the side the Scorpions hit this turn.
Odds are, I'm going to lose. However, there is the ghost of a chance to win this that I have to hold onto.
And there the ghost goes. Scorpions beat the **** out of our brave Vedette crew before I can pump enough lasers into the Trebuchet to gut it, and the brigade is forced to quit the field.
This is what happens when vehicles get blown up. I had eight crew come back with five hits. Three of them (in the Hetzer) owe the jump infantry their lives directly. It's a not-so-minor miracle every body came back not-dead, but most of them will be out of action for a long time. That's not as big a problem as it sounds, because the company lost enough material to warrant consolidating into just two lances. What it does mean is that Dr. Bones is going to have a lot of patients for a long time.
What it also means is that after that debacle, the brigade is seriously hurting for repairs. Three quarters of the vehicles are gone, leaving me with a Hetzer that has some armor damage and wheels that don't work. The Shadow Hawk is, as Sparda helpfully put on the IRC, a “fusion engine in a box” with no arms, legs, or torsos, and no armor. The Vindicator has no leg, no arm, and very little armor. The Locust has a destroyed gyro and is missing an arm. One of the Wasps is missing a leg.
In short, the 13th got ****ed up hard, and the 12th is feeling the hurt too. I honestly don't know how it's going to get organized after this, but what's absolutely certain is that I can't afford to keep all the best pilots and 'Mechs in the 11th.
Then a miracle occurs, and MekHQ bugs out on me. It gives me back everything that
should have been a smoldering husk on the field in pristine condition for reasons I can't fathom. Since I'm 100% certain I shouldn't have gotten them back at 100%, but am just as certain I should have gotten their flaming wrecks, I'm going to sideline them for a full month (partly while their crews heal up, partly as pennance)
All that's left for me to do is the ribbons for this battle.
Everybody who deployed gets a Thule Campaign Ribbon.
Everybody but Esarai gets a Combat Wounds Ribbon. Corporal Nancy Ma may well get a complimentary second (third) award, because this is the second time in a row she's come back with 5 hits.
Phantom damn near deserves some kind of award, for mixing it up in what amounts to an unarmored box, and keeping the enemy occupied for way too long, and then having the sheer balls to survive on top of that. It was absolutely above and beyond, and I'll bend the new rules for the awards to get him a Yellow Light Award for Valor.
A brief summary:
Dr. Deathfun has 21 patients right now.
The Techs have their work cut out for them, even though MekHQ bugged out and gave me free vehicles. The 'Mechs are going to take a while to be combat ready again.
Two more days until the next potential battle.
Until next time.
