The Custom Choppers are intended to be a band of lunatics and misfits who none the less are a functional and extremely effective Mercenary Unit.
The one of the core themes of the unit is that they're lead by a woman who is as much a tech as a Mechwarrior and have taken it as a mark of pride that basically everything they use has been to some degree customized, tricked out, or otherwise modified. Just make sure the modifications have some internal logic.
This takes place around 3025. Equipment rules are a bit more lax. I see no reason why Rocket Launchers, MMLs, Light/Heavy Machine Guns, or Retrotech technology like Rifles or even Retrotech equipment couldn't be used. The idea that all R&D simply derped out during the Succession Wars, or they forgot how to build less advanced technology makes less than no sense to me.
Characters need to be confirmed by me, just to make sure that they're not too over the top (or Mary Sueish) and unlike the old version, we don't have stuff 2 chief intelligence officers and 3 "Oldest Member of the Unit"
Now to Start it off:
Shadow Hawk SHD-2-Chopper “Wolf Mother”
Mass: 55 tons
Tech Base: Inner Sphere
Chassis Config: Biped
Rules Level: Tournament Legal
Era: Succession Wars
Tech Rating/Era Availability: D/X-E-D
Production Year: 3017
Cost: 4,654,632 C-Bills
Battle Value: 1,302
Chassis: Earthwerks SHD Standard
Power Plant: CoreTek 275 Fusion Engine
Walking Speed: 53.75 km/h
Maximum Speed: 86.0 km/h
Jump Jets: Pitban LFT-50
Jump Capacity: 90 meters
Armor: Maximillian 43 Standard Armor
Armament:
1 Donal PPC
2 Martel Model 5 Medium Lasers
1 Holly Long Range Missile 5 Rack LRM-5
1 Zippo Flamer
Manufacturer: Earthwerks Incorporated, Majesty Metals and Manufacturing
Primary Factory: Calloway VI (Earthwerks), Dunianshire (Majesty)
Communications System: O/P 300 COMSET
Targeting and Tracking System: O/P 2000A
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Equipment Type Rating Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internal Structure: Standard 91 points 5.50
Engine: Fusion Engine 275 15.50
Walking MP: 5
Running MP: 8
Jumping MP: 3 (Standard)
Jump Jet Locations: 1 CT, 1 LT, 1 RT 1.50
Heat Sinks: Single 14 4.00
Heat Sink Locations: 2 LT, 1 RT
Gyro: Standard Gyro 3.00
Cockpit: Standard 3.00
Actuators: L: SH+UA+LA+H R: SH+UA+LA+H
Armor: Standard Armor AV - 152 9.50
Internal Armor
Structure Factor
Head 3 9
Center Torso 18 23
Center Torso (rear) 8
L/R Torso 13 18
L/R Torso (rear) 6
L/R Arm 9 16
L/R Leg 13 16
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Equipment Location Heat Critical Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Medium Laser RA 3 1 1.00
Medium Laser LA 3 1 1.00
LRM-5 RT 2 1 2.00
PPC LT 10 3 7.00
Flamer HD 3 1 1.00
@LRM-5 (24) RT - 1 1.00
Free Critical Slots: 33
Major Harleen “Harley” Davidson is the commanding officer of the Fighting Choppers Mercenary battalion. Born on Solaris 7, she is the daughter of a Mechwarrior and a Tech. She was born a bastard, the product of short dalliance between a minor champion and one of his ‘biggest fans’. Her very existence is a fact that always grated on the nerves both the wife and wife aforementioned champion. She was a minor Combine noblewoman, who had been unable to produce and heir, while his last name was ‘Kurita’, being a very distant relative of the Combine’s ruling family. Despite her illegitimacy, she was still his daughter and his only child, so he protected her.
For most of her life she was raised by her mother, but her father took responsibility for her, much to his wife’s constant irritation. She grew up on her mother’s knee, learning her trade as a tech, while her father ensured that she was properly taught how to pilot a ‘Mech, as was her blood right. Her idyllic life lasted until her 17th year, when her father was killed in the stadium, when his Shadowhawk suffered a blow to the SRM which caused the cockpit to be sprayed with fragments, crippling the mech and killing the pilot.
Much to the contention of the wife, Harleen was named her father’s heir. Soon afterwards Harleen’s mother was killed in a ‘freak ammunition explosion’ at the Mechbay where both of them worked. Harleen was not there, avoiding death due to a traffic delay caused by minor accident. Guessing that it was an assassination attempt, she went to ground and two weeks later his father’s wife was found brutally murdered in her own home. There was no evidence of forced entry or theft.
Soon thereafter, Harleen reappeared to collect her inheritance. She had her father’s house and mother’s condo both placed up for sale and left on the next Dropship to Galatea, taking her father’s battered Shadowhawk with her. The only delay in her exodus was to withdraw 15,000 C-bills from her bank account, which was paid to parties unknown.
Upon reaching Galatea she used her inheritance to begin the Choppers, using her insider knowledge as a tech to assemble a crack staff. She goes by her mother's name as her father's is somewhat... polarizing.
Harley is a pretty young woman who looks about as threatening as a playful kitten. She has long brown hair, a wide friendly smile, and an attractive figure. She rarely has a cruel word for anyone, and can make men twice her size shrink down in shame and humiliation with a strongly worded lecture. She is friendly, honestly kind, and seems to bring out the best in even the most hardened lowlifes and psychopaths. She seems to be the last person you’d ever expect to see in a Battlemech as much as commanding a half-mad band of hardened killers.
This appearance is quickly dispelled in combat. Under her soft and fluffy exterior she has pure steel. She is a superb Mechwarrior with a warrior’s sense of honor and strong grasp of tactics, who is as single-mindedly ruthless to her enemies as she is friendly to everyone else.
She still pilot’s her father’s old Shadowhawk, having replaced the SRM with a Zippo Flamer and using the additional weight, added an additional Martel Medium Laser to the left arm. Her AC5 was destroyed in a recent battle, and rather than find a replacement, she mounted a damaged Donal PPC salvaged off a wrecked enemy Warhammer along with a pair of additional heat radiators.
