Please see the Attachment. So a little background. This is a campaign using the latest box sets, BattleTech Manual, Total Warfare and MechWarrior RPG 1st Edition with some house rules (Though I'm intrigued by MechWarrior Destiny). The fluff is that Major Hector Davis, forced to retire from the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns due to severe injuries and without an heir, surrendered his Barony in exchange for the resources to found his own mercenary Unit. On Galatea in early 3025 he recruits five rookie MechWarriors that have their own 'Mechs (each was less than perfect, all being old, with some chronic problems). He also has his own BattleMaster 1G (though it is currently out of service as he tries to modify its cockpit to accommodate his disabilities), an old Shadow Hawk 2H, a technician team, and the services of Captain Matadora Badu, a Jumpship (Calypso) and Dropship (Sputnik) free trader under a debt contract. The first game, titled Who Wants To Be A Lieutenant? took place in the backroom VR pods of a bar called Marauder 'ills. It was a virtual 'Mech free-for-all between the MechWarrior recruits to determine who would be promoted to Lieutenant and given tactical authority in the field, with Commander Davis maintaining unit operational and strategic command. The Griffin pilot, Cadius Krell, won the honor. The MechWarriors were then given three mercenary contracts to vote on, all garrison missions: 1. A sub-contract under the Lone Wolves on Galtor III, 2. A nobleman worried about Liao raids on Stein's Folly, and 3. A supplemental garrison job on Zaniah. They were also supposed to come up with a Unit name. The contract on Stein's Folly received the most votes, and the Unit arrived at their destination after several weeks of travel, but without a name. None could be agreed on, so the Unit was called its Mercenary Review Board identifier, Mercenary Short Company - BattleMech # 49563. The Unit's employer is a rustic Davion Baron, Saul Liebowitz, whose fief on Stein's Folly is a vast region of swamps, forests and trackless lakes called the Ordola Basin. For the next several months the Unit provided 'Mech security for the Baron's interests, with zero action. Then in July 3025, the Capellan Confederation struck, not with the expected raid, but a full scale invasion. In short order the Federated Suns garrison, a battalion of the Capellan March Militia, is all but completely destroyed. The second game, titled Buying Time, found Mercenary Short Company - BattleMech # 49563 fighting a delaying action against an entire company from the 1st St. Ives Lancers. The Unit needed to give Commander Davis and Baron Liebowitz enough time to evacuate the Baron's Plantation Manor, where the Unit has been based. The goal was to get away with the supplies and equipment necessary to conduct a guerrilla campaign against the Capellan forces while operating from the Baron's outposts deep within the Ordola Basin. Luckily the Liaoists arrived in waves by Lance, enabling the Unit to delay them significantly without losing a 'Mech or suffering too much damage, while mauling the Capellan Recon Lance and damaging the Medium Lance before withdrawing from the field with the arrival of the Liao Command Lance. This victory allowed the Baron's Manor to be completely evacuated and in addition provided the opportunity of a nearby supply depot of the destroyed Davion garrison to also be emptied. These extra resources made is possible to fix many of the old, chronic problems nagging the Unit's BattleMechs. In the third game, titled Payback, a daring raid on the Liao invasion headquarters at the main spaceport outside the captial of Steindown was executed to show the Capellans that they didn't hold Stein's Folly securely and that they faced a determined resistance to their occupation. The Unit 'Mechs arrived lying prone and hidden on large cargo hovercraft, proceeding then to rise and shoot up the headquarters buildings and infantry security platoons (killing CO of the Capellan occupation forces in the process!) until the Command Lance from the 1st St. Ives Lancers company they had tangled with earlier arrived. The Unit then proceeded to take down the two largest Liao 'Mechs, a Marauder and an Orion, before re-embarking onto their hover transports, racing through Steindown and escaping out over the nearby sea bay, where in crossing they were lost to prying Capellan eyes due to the oncoming stormfront blowing inland from over deeper water. To be continued... The inspiration for the Stein's Folly campaign comes from the novel The Sword And The Dagger, in which there are a few throwaway paragraphs where Chancellor Maximilian Liao is briefed by his Senior Colonel Pavel Ridzik that all is going well on Stein's Folly, and then right after receives a Comstar delivered message that the occupation headquarters was hit and the CO of the occupation forces killed by guerrilla activity. He berates and then orders Ridzik to go right back to Stein's Folly and take charge again personally, convinced that the guerrilla activity is more than just desperate Davion holdouts. Nothing else is said in the book about this, so I'm making it the focus of the Unit's efforts on Stein's Folly. After this latest action the unit finally got its name, playing on the word "guerrilla" and a brief misunderstanding with my daughter (the Locust pilot) regarding its difference from "gorilla."
