I'm one of the Motley Marauder players in Kibutsu's on-going Alpha Strike campaign, Beta Company commander. It's been a couple months since Kibutsu's last post, so here's one from this past Monday.
Coventry Clean-Up
Background:
The Word of Blake raided Coventry in March, 3068, using their pocket warships to nuke several military and civilian infrastructure sites across the planet before withdrawing. Not all of them withdrew, however. A small scientific mission remained behind to comb through the wreckage of Coventry Metal Works looking for salvageable material. There is only a small Blakist military presence on site to guard them, and the Allied Mercenary Command sees an opportunity to put a little hurt on them. Motley's Marauders Beta Company may be just the tool for the job.Our story to date:
So, Beta company remains out of direct contact with the rest of Motley’s Marauders. And the coffers were getting low. We could either try and meet up with Alpha/Gamma and hope we were still solvent, or go out, make some money, get some job action under our belts, then meet up with the rest of the Marauders. And after our humiliating debacle against the Swarm on Icar (
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=66669; though we did manage to secure a rather large dropship from it), morale was low. We needed to be in the field again.
I canvassed the available contracts looking for mercs and selected this one from the Allied Mercenary Command:
Contract Type: Various
Compensation: Competitive
Salvage: 50% minimum
Command: Independent
Location(s): Lyran Alliance/Terran Corridor
Specifics: Unit will perform a variety of combat/combat support duties opposing Word of
Blake and their allied forces. Possible duties may include, but are not limited to
combat/combat support, active defense, objective raids, garrison and cadre. Unit will be
expected to be able to work independent of centralized command but must also be
prepared to work with other AMC allied units. Unit will be expected to conform to the
AMC/MRBC code of conduct and must hold themselves to the highest of standards.We signed up for a job and were handed assignment and objectives:
Drop in on the ruins of a city where the Coventry Metal Works was located. We were advised that a small Word of Blake military detachment was overseeing a team of WoB scientists combing through the wreckage, looking for salvageable material. Our job was threefold. First, damage the WoB forces as much as possible. Second, learn what kind of weapons the Blakists used to bombard the factory (i.e., how dirty were those nukes) so the AMC has a better idea of what they are up against. And third, capture and interrogate some Blakist prisoners, WoB scientists if possible. And make sure none of them leave Coventry.
Okay. Can do.
Of course we would expect heavier resistance than what AMC suggested. But … that’s part of the job, right?
Ferried to Coventry by the AMC, we took our shiny, new, extra large dropship down to the planet. Our options really were to combat drop in on the Blakists in the ruins, or land a few kilometers away and hike in. The former would be a surprise, the latter would allow the Blakists time to prepare defenses and their forces. We went for the combat drop.
And things started going wrong from there.
Combat DropThe radiation levels were ‘medium’ (check that objective off the list), which meant combat drops would have a +1 penalty (due to radiation interference on the instruments) and long-range combat would also have an additional +1 penalty (same reason). We dropped in, and ¾ of Beta’s ‘Mechs had no issues. The other three…well, the newly purchased Trebuchet took a bad stumble (2 pts damage to armor), the newly purchased Blackjack narrowly missed landing on the newly purchased Shadow Hawk, and our long-time veteran Keagan Makela, piloting a Marauder II, ended up landing squarely on his lance commander’s ‘Mech (which was, unfortunately, a Flea). The lance commander’s survivability luck held (as it has since the beginning of the campaign, why he is named Keagan “I’m Okay” Gray) but the Flea…not so much. Beta was down one asset already (Gray was one of our Forward Observers). Meanwhile, the Marauder II suffered pretty harshly from the bad fall and smash into the Flea, taking out 50% of its armor. That would cost us in the end.
The Marauder II is offset from the Flea so the model wouldn't also fall over - but you get the idea!While we dropped we could not shoot, but the Level II in the ruins we were dropping on had no such restriction. They leveled fire into the first ‘Mech before them, Kira Grant’s Marauder. Concentrated fire managed to put her out of the fight in two combat rounds. Our return fire netted us a Shadow Hawk. Still, we were on the losing side of that exchange in mass and capability.
Being engaged by a Blakists LancelotThe rest of the Level II closed in on our heavy lances, while the command lance of medium and light ‘Mechs ran flank to capture the Shadow Hawk pilot. In one of the few combat missions we had unopposed air support and it screamed in….to absolutely miss with everything (when you need ‘5’s and repeatedly roll ‘3’s…).
The heavy units closed with one another, ducking in and out of ruins as they were able. The Sagittaire was the new focus of the Blakists and they did everything to bring it down. Ultimately they succeeded, but not before they lost several more ‘Mechs from their heavy Level II, leaving an Excalibur and Spartan virtually untouched on the field. However, by this point their reserves had come in (light ‘Mechs with Demon Tank support) and started hitting us hard. The Marauder II was in pretty bad shape by this point, and facing two Demon Tanks, decided to close to melee range so they wouldn’t shoot at him. Still left all the light ‘Mechs, who pulled over to shoot the snot out of the Marauder II – and with one lucky critical hit, ammo explosion. Keagan managed to safely eject, but the vaunted Marauder II was no more.
At this point we were down four ‘Mechs, and the weight of fire being leveled against us was tremendous. Radio call to the company commander requesting a command decision: do we pull out (and leave our fallen pilots behind) or do we fight (and very likely just die)? The company commander looked over the littered wreckage of the battlefield, at the assets remaining to Beta, and the forces they still had to deal with, rolled up his sleeves, and responded, “Fight.”
And it was on! Beta rallied and started hammering. Hard. They took it hard back, as the Blakists crit-destroyed both the Blackhawk AND the Shadow Hawk in two successive turns, killing both pilots. I have never seen this many double-1s and double-6s rolled for crits in one game before.
But Beta kept fighting. It was now a grudge match, winner take all. Either Beta was going to come out of this baptism of Blake Hell or they weren’t. And the way things were looking, with the Blakists ‘Mechs (and surviving Demon tank) essentially surrounding the dwindling Beta company, some people were reminded of the Alamo.
'Mechs down all over the placeThen…slowly, the tide turned. First one, then the other, of the two remaining Blakist heavy ‘Mechs went down. The remaining Demon tank was destroyed. And one by one the remaining light units of the second Level II were dismantled by concentrated Beta fire, until they were no more.
Last of the Blakists, and they weren't surrendering or running away
The remains of Beta CompanyDuring this whole time, the science team was retrieved and whisked away by a fast hover, as were a number of the Blakist ‘Mech pilots. We failed to prevent the scientists from escaping. But we did more than hurt the Blakists. We destroyed two Level IIs.
But we did capture two other Blakist pilots, who would be held under lock and key and turned over to the AMC when we returned.
Now to go through all the potential salvage and see if we can recoup our losses any.
