Early 3050s, just after the Clan's defeat at Tukayyid is announced to the Inner Sphere.
Your reinforced battalion- short mech battalion of mostly meds & heavies, security armor company (Scorpions & Bulldogs), security infantry company, and a lance of TAV artillery- was hired to strike past the "frontlines" of the AFFC & Clans, going through the periphery to hit a world in the Clan rear. Your force just came off a multi-year garrison contract for the Free Worlds League on their Marian periphery border. A mech & weapon manufacturer has hired your merc command to secure examples of Clan technology for their R&D program to reverse engineer. They are providing transportation, in fact paying to expedite your trip into the periphery. The weapons company has also hired a consultant for your command, a mercenary who is currently Dispossessed because the Clans wiped the unit he belonged to out in 3050 with just a few escaping off world from the Invaders.
You spend the long trip hooking around out into the Periphery with your staff and the advisor making plans. You have all the information ComStar released about their victory over the Clans as well as what footage & reports made it out of each wave of the invasion. Your advisor is pretty honest about their experiences and what happened to the unit they had once belonged to when the Clans came.
It seems far fetched that the Clan defenders would announce what forces they would defend with and where you would fight. But they swear it is the Clan way and what happened at Tukayyid seems to support that along with some rumors about Twycross and other worlds.
You have no way of knowing what will be defending a world, but where your employer wants you to hit- and this makes sense- was a backwater area when the Lyrans owned the worlds. It does not seem likely this has changed, and it would be 3-4 jumps from the "frontline" of the Clan/FedCom border zone.
You jump for your first target system tomorrow after months of travel- which plan do you chose
if you had never met the Clans before and were accustomed to Inner Sphere warfare?
Trial of Possession- Apparently they will agree to fight over what your employer wants and your command will risk less forces over all. Supposedly they will give you what you want if you win and then stand aside as you leave with it.
Steamroller plan- Land with everything you have, make no declaration, Trial, or whatever other silly terms these nutcases use. Just go in and smash them the same as if it was the 4th Succession War and they were Liao forces. You can get the tech your employer wants when you salvage the field and loot their base.
Lightning raids- Sneak on planet, set up quick strikes against patrols or isolated garrisons to recover examples of the technology. You can get local superiority that way, and no matter how much better their mechs or weapons are you can bury them 5 to 1 easily. Downside here is you do not know the state of the HPG nor how close any other Clan force is to support the defenders.
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