Formation building - Inner Sphere

[MechMike]

I'd like to play around with tanks and VTOLs - some LRM and SRM Carriers and some Cavalry choppers for spotting, but it looks like according to pp 116 that an entire lance has to be "4 combat vehicles (of the same movement mode)" which means I'd need to make an entire tank lance and an entire VTOL lance, rather than being able to throw in a chopper to a Fire Lance (which works, since the Cavalry TAG variant is considered a Missile Boat).

Am I reading that right?

[worktroll]

Yup. However, with Alpha Strike, you're usually thinking more at the company level than the lance level - so having a platoon of Warriors and a platoon of Sturmfuers, with a platoon of Bulldogs as bodyguard, is more the thing. Platoons/lances become the building blocks.

Note also (unless it dropped off in ASCE) you need vehicles in pairs - eg. you could have a platoon with two Bulldogs and two Sturmfuers.

[Sartris]

the battle lance is the only formation requiring pairs

[MechMike]

Great! 

Sounds like I'll have a Scout lance of four of these:
http://masterunitlist.info/Unit/Card/3026?skill=4

Then a Fire Support Lance with 3 LRM Carriers with Semi-Guided missiles and a SRM Carrier with Dead-Fire as a guard dog

Only 140 points

With Oblique Attacker, TAG, and Semi-Guided, that would get me a -3 to indirect shots!  At least until the Sprints get whacked.

[MyndkryM]

Also on pg. 116 a couple paragraphs down:

Beyond ComStar and Word of Blake, other exceptions that
exist to homogeneous lance/Star compositions exist in the form of
specialized formations such as the Support Lance, or the Clan Nova
formations.

So you should be able make your initial mixed lance.

[MechMike]

Also on pg. 116 a couple paragraphs down:
So you should be able make your initial mixed lance.

So the Support Lance removes not just the size / role (75% mush be size 1 missile boats) limits, but also the type, so I can have one VTOL, one tank, one infantry and one mech in a Support Lance?

[MyndkryM]

That's how I'm reading it. Also check out pg. 121, Support Lance - Requirements: None

Now keep in mind that you must have another non-Support Lance in your formation; pg. 124 "* Only 1 Support Lance per 1 core non-Support Lance."