Situation December, 3068. Solaris VII
"It felt good to be back in the cockpit again. I came here on behalf of my old friend, June Ishikawa. We went back a long way, she and I. She did a short stint in the DCMS. Dealing with authority didn't suit her, nor did the sexism in her unit - but she loved fighting. Came to Solaris VII after mustering out. Did well enough to make a living, but never made a big name for herself. That's where I met her, while I was on leave. We had a thing going, but like I said - she loved fighting. So, I was a bit surprised to hear from her.
Seemed she hooked up with an organization calling themselves the 'Solaris Home Defense League.' Our actions earlier this year on planet caught their attention. They wanted us to lend them a hand in resisting the Robes' occupation. The mission itself was simple, we were to turn the predators into prey. We duck into Ishiyama, the Word follows - and we ambush them in the darkness, using the arena against them. The execution, was not so simple. June brought her Sunder, and the Silver Dragons sent another gladiator with a Komodo with us - both of which were mounted with some rather gaudy searchlights.
They lost us in the tunnels, we had dead falls rigged on a remote detonation - we caught a patrol passing by towards a ravine - which was a perfect place to trap them. Deadfalls triggered, two of them versus five of us. Guess their buddies heard the explosion. We chased them towards the ravine, where the rest of their so-called 'Level II' were arriving on the other side. The fight was short and brutal. Even with the darkness covering some of my forces, we took more damage than I care to see.
I admit I got a little lost in the moment. There I was, fighting in a Solaris VII arena. I could almost hear the voice of Solaris himself, Duncan Fisher, in my cockpit. I jumped the chasm to get around behind one of the quads on the other side. Tripped up on the landing and hit the ground, hard. Got back up and scrambled for some cover, but there was just nothing around I could get behind that wouldn't leave me trapped alone by almost three times my own weight, so I backed against the wall - June on the other side of the chasm. A Sirocco chewed one of my arms off, and the rapid thud-thud-thud of autocannon fire threw me off balance. I hit the ground, again, this time my other arm was crushed under 95 tons of quad. With nothing left to fight with, I shut it down and crawled out the back, hiding in the darkness.
It was hard to see what was going on with the fight, something happened though, because the ground shook nearby - and the spotlight from June's 'Mech lit up the quad nearby. It collapsed to the ground, unmoving. I thought maybe, just maybe, a lucky hit took it out of action. But the beast rose again, turning around to face the other side of the chasm. The loud report of its autocannons in the darkness was deafening. Man-made lightning shot shot across the chasm several more times until the 'Mech in front of me shuddered and dropped to the ground. There was momentary silence, and then I heard a voice echoing in the chamber, 'It is done!'. June's.
It took a few hours, but support came in and hauled out the wreckage. My own assets were pretty well banged up. Both my Bushwacker and my Watchman had to have extensive engine repairs. My own 'Mech needed arms replaced. I let the SHDL keep the Sirocco, Trebuchet, and Grim Reaper in exchange for repairs and spare parts. I was almost about to let them take the Perseus too, when my lead tech suggested that he might have some ideas he has about that one. He also pointed out that it could be used to carry our second squad of Battle Armor. Couldn't disagree with him there. Then there was the Lightray. I heard about that one. It's fast. It could keep up with the Wraith we have, and with the Locust be the start of an actual recon 'Mech lance... but it's a Word 'Mech. After seeing what happened on Outreach, and watching commands turn at the drop of a hat. I don't know. Using a Word 'Mech might make potential allies look at us as too much of a risk factor. And then we'd have to find a pilot willing to take a decidedly Robe 'Mech into battle. But it could be a worthwhile asset...
I'll say it again, it was good to be back in the fight. I've been at a desk too long, and my skills seem to be getting rusty. June and I have been spending some time 'catching up,' and a bit of time in the simulators working on my aim, she felt I had too many missed shots in the battle. Like I said, she loves to fight."
Optional Rules for all missions this track:
Floating Criticals
Careful Stand
Ground Vehicle Hit Location Chart removes the Critical on an 8 and the possible motive Damage on a 9.
VTOL and Hover Lateral Slip
Mission Options:
Night Fighting
"Live" Arena
Endless Tunnels
Attackers
Word of Blake Twenty-fifth Division
(4/5) Perseus P1
(4/5) Sirocco SRC-3C
(4/5) Lightray LGH-4Y
(4/5) Trebuchet TBT-7M
(4/5) White Flame WHF-3B
(4/5) Grim Reaper GRM-R-PR30
Defenders
The Brotherhood of Outreach and two Silver Dragon Stable Members
Brotherhood
CO: Gabriel D'Vries (4/4) - Griffin GRF-3M
Russ Carrasco (3/3) - Watchman WTC-4M
Ryan "Outback" Levkoff (3/4) - Bushwacker BSW-S2
Silver Dragon Stable
June Ishikawa - (3/4) Sunder SD1-OE
Brad Anders - (3/4) Komodo KIM-2
We had six Ishiyama maps set up, WoB deployment was Map :Lightray, Grim Reaper: Trebuchet, White Flame : Perseus, Sirocco: Map : Map.
My force deployed on the same mapsheet as the Lightray and Grim Reaper, with the Watchman, Sunder, and Bushwacker in the middle of the map, and the Griffin and Komodo bringing up the rear. Rolling to see if there were any obstructions, the map with my forces on it had obstructions on both tunnels leading off the long edges of the map. The Lightray and Grim Reaper were isolated! Or they would have been if I hadn't taken the Endless Tunnels option. So my opponent asked for maps at the top edge of each map that he had forces on. I complied. Without even thinking about it, I placed the Chasm map down above the map with my forces. This effectively forced him against a wall. The Lightray and Grim Reaper couldn't really retreat back to the rest of his forces, but it still left some open areas to shoot me with. It ended up making the fight a really close furball.
The first few turns were me trying to jockey into a position where I could deal with the Lightray and Grim Reaper in a 5 on 1 battle. This did not work. No shots were made.
Both of us moved into the map with the chasm, and the furball started. The Bushwacker lost his right arm, but the Perseus overheated and shut down. This was prime opportunity one. The Komodo risked himself to go deal with the Omni-mech while shut down. Jumped across the chasm for some point blank aimed shots. The Treb moved in reaction to this. Sunder said, "No no you didn't!" to the Treb. Pew pew pew, both the Perseus and Treb were down, but the Komodo was looking pretty rough. So was the Bushwacker and the Watchman, so they both retreated to the previous map. Despite locking the Lightray and Grim Reaper down in tight quarters, I couldn't get any solid hits on them to take them out.
The Komodo began a hasty retreat in order to try to get out of the line of fire because of how hurt it was. Meanwhile, I realized I need to bring the Watchman and Bushwacker back in because I needed to do some damage, and protect the Komodo's retreat. This would not end well for the Watchman. Some additional close-in furball would see the end of the Lightray and Grim Reaper, but at a cost of the Komodo and Watchman's left legs. (Both lost the left, heh).
I took this chance to try to deal with the White Flame from the blind spot with the Griffin. A missed kick ended up in a failed PSR, fall. He moved the White Flame around to put it's guns on the Griffin, but I hadn't moved with it yet, so off behind the White Flame he went. Aaand the Sirocco followed. Bad shooting on my part with the Griffin, and them the Sirocco tore an arm off, and knocked me over. Then came the kick. The other arm goes up, and I shut the 'Mech down during the end phase. I did *not* need him hitting my LRM-20 ammo. However, in exchange for that, he overheated, and the Sirocco shut down.
It was about this point that he looked and realized the White Flame had jump jets. So it came over to play with my downed Watchman and Komodo, while the Bushwacker and Sunder shot at the immobile Sirocco. Two hits to the head later, and the Sirocco sleeps for two turns. Meanwhile, the White Flame finishes off the Watchman (Okay, rather, he came dangerously close to coring it, so I shut it down to preserve my 'Mech), the Komodo, and the Bushwacker, but is so hurt that the Sunder finishes it off as well.
At this point, it's a slugging match between the Sirocco - which was running low on ammo - and the Sunder, which could lose a leg. So nice Streak 6 results on the Sirocco breaches the CT and gets the triple engine hit. The Sunder takes a crit to the leg, but remains standing. 11 'Mechs entered. One 'Mech lived.
Everything but the White Flame was salvageable, and my own 'Mechs were recoverable. We both had a couple of "Oh crap... welp..." mistakes.
He has a 'Mech trigger a minefield, only to realize that it was the wrong 'Mech and profile, and thus couldn't move there. So I lost a free 10 point hit. He then took a kick to the wrong 'Mech, which would have resulted in a double-critical on the leg... only to realize again, marked on the wrong 'Mech, so the crit was lost. I also gave him a pass on his Sirocco, because he fired all the Medium Lasers, but didn't realize two of them were in the legs, and couldn't kick because of it. So I went ahead and let him have it as a 'gimme'.
I had a couple of turns firing the Bushwacker's LBX10, only to remember later, "That was destroyed early on." Whoops. Ghost bullets. So... mistakes were made, but it was too late to retcon some of them, so we went with it.
I kept the Perseus and the Lightray as salvage. I'm not entirely sure if I'll keep the Lightray or not, but the Perseus is not a bad looking Omni. Okay, rules wise. Otherwise, it's... not a terribly attractive 'Mech...