[Actual Play]: Noblesse Oblige

[Minerva]

I decided to start a RPG campaign set in BattleTech universe after a hiatus of being player in fantasy game by my friend.

I have wanted to run a campaign set in BattleTech universe for some some. During the hiatus I planned the game theme to be: young noble officers who join to elite regiment. The idea was that there is roughly 50% macho masculine military campaigning and 50% of living within society where everyone else was your frenemy.

I quickly got myself 5 players: Ari, Hendrik, Jari, Sari and Sonja. There is also Anna who can play intermittedly. There are also few additional players waiting in wings but I have decided to keep game going for few months with these players and then get more as necessary.

Focus of game is in noble families and thus the first thing was finding a good family to play.

House Kurita was first choice with its masculine pseudo-Japanese culture. However, playing it is truly awful to women so I dropped it immediately as unplayable. House Davion was next one to consider but everyone who knew anything about BattleTech burst to laugh at the idea immediately. Real problem with Davions was that they are so badly designed faction that it is impossible to play them with straight face without huge changes to family. House Liao was next but no veteran player wanted to play designated losers of game. Furthermore, I thought that playing the ideologically charged groups was too challenging to 3 totally new role-players in our group.

Periphery has three factions that were also quite unplayable in the campaign premise. House Avellar was my initial favourite but it was too boring to continuous and intensive military campaigning. House Calderon was quite playable mini state but again nothing much was happening there to support continous campaign. House Centrella was neck to neck with House Davion on most ridiculous faction prize. Periphery independents and pirates were either too unsavoury for women players or too ridiculous to play.

This left House Marik and House Steiner as actually playable factions (which they are) and there we had long discussion on what to play. Marik's real advantages lies that it was virgin territory as far as role-playing is concerned and it has complex political situation. House Steiner was best in terms of realm integrity and civilian-military balance. I finally decided to play Steiner because I was more familiar with it. However, if we had decided to play mercenaries thet Marik would have been easily best choice to play condottiere in John Hawkwood's footsteps (only possible way to play mercenary in BattleTech).

Official RPG system (A Time of War) was truly awful system. It was extremely bad design (attribute and skill levels, character creation system in general, complex and slow combat system to name few). Thus I had no choice but to use my own house system.

The next step was designing what unit to play. House Steiner's real elite formation is Royal Guards but we decided against it as such a unit is perhaps too squickly clean and way too well equipped and supported to actually lose in battlefield against anything but enemy elite formation. Thus the net had to be expanded for wider area. My friend Jari had been reading books about Wehrmacht Panzer units for some time and suggested me to play medium weight cavalry formation.

House Steiner did not have many of dedicated cavalry units so Winfied's Brigade came default faction. It was also situated against border of House Kurita which allowed combination of valour and horror in battlefield. Winfied was also old system of House Amaris which allowed me to add storylines from BattleTech history (and add historical pressure points locally). Winfied's Brigade had also history which Jari skillfully turned to character's history.

[Minerva]

I mentioned earlier that I got myself quickly 5 players. The secret in that is making a good pitch. Thus the second step in running campaign was making the pitch where I stated in some fashion what to play, how to play and how to handle things.

My pitch (what I told to prospective players) was following:
The game was set to a gaming universe of BattleTech somewhere between years 3000 to 3025 (in loose fashion). Characters came from Lyran Commonwealth (LC). LC was a rich cosmopolitan empire with 300+ systems. It's culture was Western European in outlook with paternalistic management tradition roughly similar to late 19th Century France or Germany. It has sexual and racial equality (rare in BattleTech universe in general) and people come from all walks of life. The setting was essentially science fiction without alien races. Faster than light travel was possible but universe worked in ways that people in modern life would recognize. Thus finding suitable role and background were easy.

The role for each player was to be a young noble officer in fashionable regiment. The rough time schedule was 50% campaigning in front lines and 50% plotting against your frenemies in regiment.

The real catch in game was that there is a rules system that social life within regiment gave advantages to character's life in peacetime and wartime. Characters were to be allies or enemies with each other.

The game used fixed gaming date (Thursday) and time.

The rules system uses my own custom system because official rules were horrible.

----

I didn't believe in quantity. Thus I asked everyone interested to first sleep over it and then think if they were really interested in. At the same time I asked players to ponder with this relatively thin information to ponder character's main driving concept. I deliberately avoided info dumps because they were typically misunderstood or waste of time.

The point I wanted to drive home were:
"Why is your character in this fashionable regiment right now?"
"Why would she risk her life in army that is in constant low intensity warfare?"
"What is her primary motivation?"

Then I left players to ponder these issues until the first session reserved for making characters...

[imperator]

What type of system are you using and how does it hook up to the tabletop?  Why do you think that the 4e is too cumbersome ?  I can understand for setting up characters but the system itself lends itself to interplay with the tabletop fairly well.

[Trent]

The rules system uses my own custom system because official rules were horrible.

How so?

[guardiandashi]

thats what I am kinda wondering also

I can see implimenting "adjustments" to stats based on a campaign like for instance
putting some ranks of vehicle there for a mechwarrior campaign
putting some ranks of wealth, title, and property for nobles
etc.

I can also see applying some campaign specific rules in place to reward or penalyze "out of line behavior"
examples clan honor
excessive violence or cheating in a solaris campaign (cheating may be ok if you don't get caught... but if you are ....)
things like that

[Minerva]

I used custom rules for RPG and tabletop (heavily abstractized and actually played with real world maps rather than hexes if at all possible) due following reasons:
-RPG rules were horrible (see above).
-Various boardgame rules were very slow to play and/or missing vital rules support and do not scale up at all (to battalion battlegroup scale I was looking for). There isn't real support to "soft factors" and C4I factors which I like to emphasize in games where people are officers in campaign. There were also no real rules support to play noble intrigues at all.

Thus when I need to do a lot of modding to make a game work I prefer to throw the badly working parts off (A Time of War, BattleTech) and mod what is salvageable (I have essentially used Quick Strike before invention of Quick Strike from BattleForce II in my previous campaign(s) to speed the play).

Easiest solution was thus use custom system from the scratch and use background data where necessary to set values to different units/groups.

[Minerva]

I personally believed (and still believe) that making characters immediately was very bad way for running a RPG campaign. My preferred method was to have one session where players simply learned about each other and chatted with me about what they liked to play. It was also important to make sure that everyone actually found gaming area (my house). We'd start going through the BattleTech universe after first cup of tea when everyone was at ease.

I believed that motivation should define character and thus we started to build up characters based on following issues: "Story","Primary motivation", "Background and family issues", "personality" and "family wealth" (at least in noble scale). Since players did not necessarily have much thought out we did work out together those issues. This increased player co-operation and generally gave out (to me at least) what made players tick.

Ari: Primary issue was ambition. His father was military officer with excellent record who died accidentally just before promotion to general. He had lived all his life at the shadow of his father's memory and thus he wanted to be general (whatever the cost). He liked to overlord his underlings and was ready to sacrifice them if necessary. His family was "poor". Mother did not support soldiering (wanted boy to stay at home) and his hobby was car racing.

Hendrik: Primary issue is freedom and sense of adventure. His family were rich bankers and boy rebelled against them by enjoying extreme sports. If it is dangerous and spontaneous, he tried it. He liked taking risks and preferred immediate action rather than cautious planning. He was also somewhat naive as he thought that his subordinates were actually his friends and entourage. He actually thought he was "one of the pals". His parents bought son to army in hopes that he'd grow up or die trying.

Sari: She was a socialite and also a immensely wealthy heiress from a military family. Her older brother was supposed to carry military tradition but unfortunately did not make it. He liked men in army but mechs and dirt were simply ugh to him. Thus his younger sister was pressed to serve. She was a socialite and a party girl who had no useful skills or knowledges beyond art studies, cultural history and looking really good and fashionable. Her hobbies are shopping, ballet dancing and men. Her papers from the military school looked good mainly because she was a woman of average modesty. Her parents were satisfied that she looked look in paper. She preferred to avoid work and do nothing if at all possible.

Sonja: She was highly intensive daughter from a military family of average wealth. She wanted to be a soldier from the start and knows little about boys and much about warfare. This suited parents well who wanted her to follow their foot steps. She was young, athletic, keen and somewhat naive about military (and life in general). Her hobbies included track and field athletics and falconry. Sonja was also righteous and hardworking which made her irritating to say the least to other officers. Everyone agreed that she'd learn eventually how military actually worked.

Jari: Player absolutely wanted to make clear he'd play character of his own age (over 40). Thus we made his background separately. It was to be a "path to redemption". Once upon a time there had been a ambitious high flying officer (and adjutant in guard regiment) whose wife had been killed in savage fighting against Kurita. Man searched solution from a bottle and was kept as a training officer of the regiment for decade. Now his old friends in high command have pushed solution to his drinking and personality problem: Make or break. Thus he took over a company over objections of just about everyone else in regiment. To make things worse, he has learned that his daughter wanted to serve in same unit as well. His family fortune was modest by noble standards so he saw military as his only calling. He was old, cantankerous and cynical about everything in military. He also knew well how military worked.

After characters it was time to ponder other serious issues like what players wanted to happen and what they did not want to happen in campaign. In general everyone wanted a fast-paced action and adventure where game does not stop to rules minutea. This was only natural given players background in playing modern board games. Success was not necessary by itself as long as everything was exciting. There were also some discussion with players on what they did not want to see in game such as describing small children getting hurt, sexual violence or truly awful torture and like.

Finally we adjusted the game time tables to match every player so we'd get maximum number of players as often as possible.

Following this we were fairly satisfied for what we wanted to play and what were the limits of game. The Noblesse Oblige could finally begin!

[Minerva]

First Session: Welcome to the Regiment

First Ideas:

This was the first session so goals were following:
*First, learning basics of BattleTech universe (how spaceships move, Steiner family)
*Second, learning basics of Winfield (socially diverse setting with plenty of undercurrents for and against Steiner family rule, Duke Winfield’s role)
*Third, learning basics of role-playing (do not be ass, take others to consideration and make sure having fun is objective number one, some basics of rules)

The “storyline” was that characters travel to Winfield, spend weekend in capital and then join Regiment and learn of their bosses and each other.

Actual Play:

Travel to deepest reaches of Steiner Empire was always going to take time and be exceedingly boring. However, Lieutenant Hendrik was willing to spice up his travel by taking a trip to Winfield in regular cargo vessel enjoying to see how other half lived. Needless to say, the other half (actually 99.99999999%) was stunned to see him enjoying smelly, ugly monotonous life aboard. Then again Hendrik was a man who liked living at extreme circumstances. Meanwhile other future officers enjoyed their trip in comforts of civilization of rather well equipped passenger space vessel.

Following highly uneventful (and seemingly never ending) trip (to great disappointment to officers who had been taught to expect bloodthirsty Periphery Pirates(tm)) the Jumpship eventually jumped to Winfield. The travel of satellite space vessel, DropShip, from Jump Point to planet and landing was also highly uneventful.
Following a trip to Winfield City the young officers found themselves in best hotel of the city (and thus system). They had all few days to kill and started to reorient themselves to Winfield in their very own ways.

Ari thought that best way to get ready for his new life would be sleeping in hotel bed and eating well. After all, after a long time aboard a ship he wanted to enjoy at least some luxuries of life. Besides, he wasn't going to screw up his first impression.

Meanwhile Hendrik left hotel as soon as possible to drink and merry in town. He quickly found himself in a local night club, and then he met people with similar interests in extreme sports. Ultimately he joined to a small group of youth (who were actually roughly his age) who were infiltrators. Their hobby was going to forbidden places and getting back unnoticed and then post videos of their deeds. Hendrik was immediately hooked up to idea and managed to talk himself to join the group for tonight’s fun.

Tonight’s target was some barbed wire obstacle (easily cut) in local military base. Thanks to good luck they did manage to find a hole in guard shifts. The next step was cutting a hole to the wire that they almost managed to do until alarm went off. Thanks to bicycles and good knowledge of the land they managed to vanish before alert patrol arrived to the scene. Hendrik loved every second. This was definitely his like of fun.

Meanwhile Sonja thought that touring the city would be good to her. Indeed she enjoyed seeing the old city centre and its brutalism concrete buildings. However, she was a bit taken away of the numerous statues left from Amaris era. They were all depicting naked heroes waving phallic symbols and having tons of quivering women pleading in their feet. She was even more amazed when she saw people waving Steiner flags and talking wildly in their local language (which she had no clue). However, she had always liked Steiners and had had huge Frederick Steiner fan poster in her room in military academy.  Thus she had absolutely no problem in following flags and nodding to whatever people were speaking and then marching on around the place. She smiled and looked around and then went back to hotel liking the weird and wonderful world outside carefully ordered surrealism of military life she had been subject as long as she had lived.

Unknown to her Lyran Intelligence Corps, the secret police of Steiner empire, had been photographing the whole event in secret. After all, one of their many tasks was following all kinds of extreme moments with widely different agendas. This had been one of the many rallies of pro-Steiner minority of the planet to show who really calls shots to those who still called Winfied as Treeline of the Amaris time.

Meanwhile Sari was sitting in best night club of the system and feeling hopelessly lonely and bored. All the men were certainly less than interesting, funny and nice friends she had had in Tharkad, the hard core of the Steiner’s realm. She even pondered if there was something wrong with her perfect taste of men and dresses but she quickly thought such ideas as impossible. Saddened by this desolate wilderness of no civilization she chose two good looking men as toys for evening, night and morning to come.

---

Few days after this Jari-Pekka’s working days were opening badly. First, there had been a sabotage attempt against Winfield’s Brigade. Some unknown hoodlums, very probably Kurita DEST special forces operatives, had tried to infiltrate to military base. Unfortunately security had not managed to identify any of the attackers. Needless to say, everything had to be checked for possible infiltrators, bombs and acts of sabotage.

To make things worse his few remaining friends in Tharkad had pulled some strings and managed to have him reassigned from safety and security of training desk to actual maneuver unit. He was to lead a company in newly formed third battalion of the Winfield’s Brigade. However, his first would be to babysit newly arrived officer cadet who had been pushed through chain of command to Third Battalion until actual TO&E would be established. This cadet arrived with her huge big eyes filled with enthusiasm of getting actually run actual BattleMech unit. Upon seeing him she immediately announced in her brightest possible mood, “Hi Daddy!”

Final Thoughts:

While on of my newbie players (Ari) was a bit slow in inventing things to do, the others (Hendrik, Sonja) were quite ready to get into action and thus cause all kinds of story lines moving. Having fun was number one goal because no one paid any money for this and role-playing was substitute to time players would otherwise do.

I never really had a chance to do info dump on Steiners as everyone was having too good time. That would be postponed to Session 2.

[Cerberus_02]

While one of my newbie players (Ari) was a bit slow in inventing things to do...

Yet seems like the one least likely to get into trouble in the morning.   8)

[Minerva]

Yet seems like the one least likely to get into trouble in the morning.   8)

The whole point of the campaign is that "Good girls go to heaven and bad girls everywhere."
a) Be "good" and keep your nose clean. This means that character gets no influence (vital in surviving military organization and tapering up mistakes) but no black marks (career killers) either.
b) Be "bad" and you get noticed earning a good chance to get influence yet risk black marks as well. This is the essence of being a high flyer in (any) organization.

[Minerva]

Technical Session: Building a Battalion

This session was actually an hour before second session between me and Jari. The goal was to build up a battalion we’d use in game. Since we had 5 players and Jari was older player who liked his role as a company commander (and knew background well) he was happy to be that. The 4 other players filled neatly two companies with one NPC company commander. Winfied’s Guards was elite raider unit so weight Medium was deemed natural. It was also standard weight in BattleTech universe until forces started to get serious bloat in later iterations and supplements. There would also be NPC Battalion command lance (naturally Assault according to Jari).

We started by taking up the Strategic Operations and rolled a Medium Battalion with one Medium Company and one Heavy Company. Jari had a firm vision of a cavalry in his mind so he wanted the Medium Company. Company lance and subsequently Mech weight bands were rolled randomly. Finally individual Mechs were rolled using the old MechWarrior 2 role-playing game book using its Steiner side of Fed-Com forces.

End result was a short battalion with medium weight and enough punch to survive against Kurita forces.

Another part of BattleTech is the sheer size and complexity of modern force. In my campaign Winfield’s Brigade is a BattleMech Brigade which fields one short regiment. However, this force is actually a nucleus to a Winfield’s Brigade Kampfgruppe, which has supporting arms enough to two BattleMech regiments (it's TO&E size). Thus typical BattleMech regiment fielded by all armies have roughly half of these forces. Naturally biggest difference is the money available so rich armies (like Steiner's LCAF) field more and heavier armored systems while poorer armies field somewhat lighter forces and less technical support (like ECM assets). Only reason Steiner hasn't claimed throne in Earth is that its army lacks the "X" factor that some armies have and others do not...

Winfield’s Brigade Kampfgruppe HQ (Type C) – Controls any number of Type B and A HQ’s
   2 Kampfgrupe HQ’s (Type B) – Can control any number of Type A HQ’s.
   8 Kampfgruppe HQ’s (Type A) – Can control any number of maneuver regiments.
   1 BattleMech Regiment
   12 Armored regiments
   9 Mechanized infantry regiments
   3 Airmobile infantry regiments
   1 Separate armored regiment
   1 Separate infantry regiment
   1 Separate airborne infantry regiment
      with 3 airborne pathfinder squads
   1 Separate air cavalry infantry regiment
   2 Separate cavalry regiments
   2 long range reconnaissance companies

There are also enough other assets to support this nominal force in modern battlefield in all possible circumstances...

[Minerva]

Second Session: This is Third Battalion of the Winfield’s Guards

First Ideas:

Second session built up on subject of teaching players how “future fantasy” armies work.
Many role-players have not necessarily gone through military service so telling how armies work and especially how they differ from real life armies was necessary. The idea was to give idea how a small cog a company works in a larger machine of Winfield’s Brigade Kampfgruppe. It was also necessary to make sure that Steiner family force was definitely manned as a status conscious late 19th Century army (unlike other armies that have mindset closer to mid 18th Century).

Second goal was teaching what BattleMechs are and how they differ from most common Japanese animation tropes. I thought that this was necessary to get idea that Mechs are massive tanks which are slow, clumsy and heavy beasts. They also had staggering level of firepower. They can project it kilometers away (just like modern tanks did).

Actual Play:

Weekend ended with Battalion dividing new officers to lances. Battalion commander started dealing a dilemma. She had two company commanders and only one first company slot. Her first choice would have been a boy wonder Janne but orders to reinstate Jari as a company commander had came from Tharkad. Since any command from Steiner’s military headquarters in Asgard is a Word of God it was politically expedient to set Jari as senior company commander. Needless to say, his associate (and NPC) Janne saw this as a bloody insult since he was totally better in just about anything. He’d get back at Jari on earliest opportunity!

Second dilemma was dealing with bright eyed cadet (Jari’s daughter) who was doing her summer work in Battalion. Normally such personnel would be assigned to training unit to avoid early deaths in combat zone but Jari had obviously cashed some favors with Personnel Department to have her assigned to same battalion. To keep both units from going head to head she gave Salomon’s Judgment by assigning this feisty young bright one (and future General) to Janne’s Company. His enthusiasm would be curbed by need to keep young girl from hurting herself (and himself).

As far as younger new officers were concerned the selection was done using fairest method of all: totally pointless and often falsified personnel reports. According to papers Sonja appeared very keen officer with strong military family background. Jari thus took her as his second in command. Janne selected Sari as his second in command as her papers were downright perfect. She appeared to be able to walk on water. The two men had less stellar papers so Jari pressed on his vision of cavalry tradition with notionally aggressive and initiative filled Hendrik. Capable Ari was thus obviously good for Janne’s heavier company.

As far as choosing the NCO’s as MechWarriors were concerned Jari stressed selection of seasoned old personnel. He wanted people who had been with Winfield’s Guards (as unit had been known in previous Archon Alessandro’s reign). Those were only people he could trust. Meanwhile Janne chose people who looked according to papers to be seasoned and capable. They’d support his inexperienced officers.

---

Monday morning started with company commanders greeting new officers and generally showing them the ropes of the unit. After curt welcome by Regimental Commander and Battalion Commander they met their Company commanders who started to interview and note down initial impressions of their new underlings in vain hope of finding the next General of The Armies of the Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces.

Ari: “This officer is eager, young to his age and has moral quality to admit he is ready to sacrifice everyone.”

Hendrik: “This officer is exceedingly eager and stupid.”

Sari: “This officer is bloodthirsty to fault and has raw talent for plotting.”

Sonja: “She is very young and extremely young officer with level of eagerness that makes her breed apart.”

---

After these disappointments life in Third Battalion moved on normally. Personnel were assigned, equipment distributed, medical check-ups and endless paperwork carried out. Any young officer’s main task in a modern military force was to train her troops to perfection. Subsequently there was a mountain of paperwork to do.
This was something that every young officer did with keen perfection. Hendrik thought that training of troops should have plenty of outdoors exercises and have healthy body for healthy mind. His new training program would increase this. Jari thanked him for his efforts and dropped the plan to bottom of his incoming tray. He’d send it forwards in next year – or probably never.

Sonja’s training plan was fearsomely different. She had actually added all kinds of new manuals and training circulars which he had been ignoring all his life as a training officer. After all, who needed change and all the bother with it? He rapidly copied all the relevant attachments to his own without reading so his papers would look good. Then he added Sonja’s plan to bottom of the tray so Brigade’s carefully balanced training regimen (which had been followed for decade or so) would not be unnecessarily changed.

Meanwhile in Janne’s company things were moving on same issues. Jari’s fiery daughter had been terribly lonely in company as Captain Janne had dismissed her eagerness by hiding behind mountain of paper. Additionally he did not want to deal with her superb ideas on reforming everything from color of walls (what’s wrong with ugly green?) to training. He did add her concerns out of courtesy and even sent them to Battalion HQ to be spiked by Battalion’s Operational Officer. It never hurt to aid someone who’d probably end up his commanding officer.

Meanwhile Sari did not have slightest interest of wasting her time in endless paper work. Given extra energy of cadet it was obvious that she would delegate it to her. This proved to be extremely easy as she noticed being subject to extreme girl crush by over eager cadet who walked with her explaining everything. Cadet was more than happy as Sari was everything she’d be when she’d grow up and become a real officer. Young, beautiful, smart, sexy, confident and obviously superbly trained blond knight of Lyran Commonwealth who’d crush Archon’s enemies with mailed fist like a valkyrie she was! Sari even gave her a real job in making a training plan all her own. Afterwards Sari did change the name in papers and send it up as her own plan. Company commander accepted it as it went.

Meanwhile Ari was doing his best to look good and do his job. His training plan was word by word copy of training plans they had done in military academy. It was letter perfect and actually quite good. It was so good company commander actually used it with Ari’s name on it (to show off he had excellent officer in the making).

---

At the end of the week they finally managed to get themselves learn basics of MechWarrior job in the regiment. Since Captain Janne down due flu Jari was ordered to take the whole battalion out (Battalion CO was too busy with paperwork) and see that the new officers knew how to actually use their BattleMechs. This was to be combined with live fire exercise as they had found out some ammunition was going old. This would happen after a safety lecture of course. Jari put whole day to it.

In the next morning battalion went out in full force. Theoretically BattleMech could be started from cold to full battle readiness in 15 minutes with sensor system resetting taking perhaps another 15 minutes for night operations but this time he had everything checked out twice just in case. Thankfully no one accidentally pressed weapon systems safeties off and things everyone did forget were more or less not terribly important in battle. BattleMechs were fearsomely complex weapon systems and practically every MechWarrior always forgot something. As far as Jari was concerned as long as you did not screw up sensors, weapon systems and communications everything else did not matter in emergency.

Following a ponderous trip to firing zone the battalion opened up at targets as planned. Lots of waiting and frustration was finally paid off as entire world turned to a cloud of dust when fire started. Test Kurita units fell as planned (and it should have been no problems as simulated targets did not shoot back). Unit even managed to move to new firing positions according to plan.

The young officers were more than enthusiastic. Oh what a difference it all was as there were no instructors watching like hawks at every single step. “At last”, thought Sari aloud. “I was born to do this”, answered Hendrik. Ari was grinning wide and commenting brightly as targets fell down and he moved the cardboard enemy just as it should be. Jari’s daughter laughed, “Die Kurita Die!” Meanwhile Sonja was all quiet and shyly red as this was her first time ever…

---

Following all this there was the official formation of the Battalion. With plenty of flags and macho masculine pomposity so much loved by armies all over Inner Sphere the Third Battalion was officially started. The regimental ball in the Casino was stilted and boring yet everyone was enthusiastically talking about their experiences and talking what they’d expect year to follow to give them. The talk turned to professional matters and despite Jari’s rather excellent knowledge on all things BattleMech it were Sari and Janne who led the conversation. Everyone now thought that Sari had been obviously best informed officer around and she had impressed them all with her skills. “She obviously knew what she was talking about,” they mistakenly thought…

Final Thoughts:

This was the real first session with entire session dedicated to role-playing. Every player got along well and they remembered what their characters actually were all about. The interaction with other players’ characters and NPCs was still cautious but I thought it would get better. It was a start and I believed that most players got alongside well.

This was also the first time I used my influence game rules. The idea was that this way no matter what goes on those characters who do officially well (at least in public) get a chance to gain influence points to be used later as necessary.

Rewards:

Sari: +1 to influence for talking as if she knew what she was doing during the ball in Casino.

[Minerva]

Third Session: Alert Company Duty

First Ideas:

Original idea for this session was to force characters to be together and perhaps introduce a training mission where there is a possible sabotage (actually Steiner intelligence service Loki’s exercise) within unit. First there would be some time where characters would do whatever they really wanted to do in a military unit followed by short investigative period and then debrief followed by bombshell that this was all part of exercise to see if they were good enough for actual raid.

Actual Play:

Third Battalion was assigned to be on Alert Duty with its first and then second company to sit as alert company to deal with unexpected Kurita invasion if necessary. Thus there were no leaves as everyone in battalion would wait eventual alert exercise where alert unit would gather at designated point and then it would be inspected to see it was actually doing its job. Meanwhile everyone did wait.  To make things bearable the lances would rotate on 8 hour shifts sitting in coffee room of company barracks waiting for something to happen. In case of emergency their job was to jump to s jeep and then drive to Mech bunkers and wait for inspection and/or Kurita invasion.

Battalion went through its boring duty like a paralyzed opossum. Jari’s daughter went on and on with Sari explaining how she had shot up Kurita Mechs in her dreams/training and or did exceedingly exciting paperwork that was very important to ultimate victory of Lyran arms over its barbarous enemies. Meanwhile Sari pondered was she ever that excited over her own job? Naaah…

Bored Hendrik got a great idea. He had to stay on base but there was no reason for him to just sit idle. Oh no! Instead he’d take a challenge of doing something special, like climbing to the top of garrison’s massive Spaceport control tower. That was definitely something to do. Thus we took company’s jeep and went on his way.

Few hours later Jari smelled a rat. He hated babysitting young officers but he also knew that the moment they were not causing trouble was a sure sign they were going to cause trouble. Sonja was bored and going through glossy magazines and wasting her time in coffee room but missing Hendrik was definite sign that something was going on. Unfortunately LCAF did not issue dog collars with radar detectors for company commanders (something Kurita forces did according to his knowledge) so he had to ask military police to find out the missing man-child.

Thankfully to them Hendrik accidentally launched intrusion alarm on top of the tower so they were on case quite soon (although not until they secured the nuclear weapons storage facility just in case). Normally big, mean and brutal military police would simply beat up anyone they arrest but nobles were a breed apart and thus they politely escorted him back to company barracks. Meanwhile Jari waited for Hendrik just to tear him up a new one. After half an hour of use of voice on level that would have made opera singers green with envy he ordered Hendrik to do his last will and testament. Visibly shaken Hendrik did not understand that LCAF had a life insurance everyone serving in it no matter how thoughtless they were (and he had not done the paperwork necessary).

---

To make things worse Battalion commander ordered company commanders to unexpected meeting. Normally they had meetings all the time but unexpected meetings were always trouble. This time she presented her great idea. 3rd battalion would go to a training exercise after Alert Duty that would actually serve as a cover for a real raid on Kurita space! The target had been selected to be Verthandi, which was a minor system of no strategic importance. They’d also blow up a local factory.

The planning came in two stages. First the Battalion staff and Company commanders would make overall plan followed by ironing of details with all officers of the battalion. Battalion Commander was ready to sacrifice any level of secrecy for potentially realistic training. Both company commanders were horrified on idea but Battalion Commander had decided she’d make her mark as soon as possible and it was up to her officers to show their mettle…

---

The actual planning went forwards with firm goal posts at first. JumpShip commander was adamant that they would jump to Zenith point so jump would be as safe as possible to her multi trillion kronor vessel. No one was stupid enough to suggest a bandit point jump for risks of damaging vessel were too high compared to potential rewards. Furthermore Jari knew that arguing with polite but firm officers responsible for Steiner’s JumpShip fleet was like talking to wall.

DropShip officers suggested a combat drop to minimize dangers to multi billion kronor DropShips. Upper atmosphere would be tolerable but they preferred space drop to minimize number of Kurita air defense systems that could reach them. Jari and Janne both thought that to be totally unacceptable as they had very green companies whose skills in actual combat drops were totally untested. Last thing they wanted was a scattered drop in enemy system. Jari managed to convince DropShip officers that they would land on system with DropShips having right to abort should upper atmosphere having a single Kurita aerospace fighter. While Battalion commander was exasperated on visible cautiousness of DropShip officers that was the best they could do.

Argument over good tactics then moved to alternative safe landing zones. DropShip officers offered a landing few hundred kilometers away in remote farm field. Jari suggested more robust approach to few tens of kilometers away of target so time on ground –and thus Kurita response time- would be minimized. DropShip officers agreed to idea in principle but they wanted to land on a nearby island which would give them a natural protection from all but most best prepared enemy alert units. Janne liked the idea but Jari had no wish to walk under sea for lat few kilometers with a totally untested unit. After heavy arm twisting DropShip officers finally agreed to land on nearby farm fields which were uncomfortably close (merely dozens of kilometers away) providing they had full BattleMech protection for entire operation. Battalion commanders agreed to shield them with half of their forces.

The next step was selection of actual combat forces and tasks. The bad news was that there was a strong Kurita garrison nearby. The town itself had something like 150,000 inhabitants with perhaps 20-30 thousand more in nearby villages. It had airport and a Kurita regimental garrison. However, reports indicated that there was merely a single infantry battalion and smattering of supporting forces for something like 2,500 troopers rather than full scaled regiment between 5500 to 9000 men. They had also almost no armored vehicles and only a little bit or artillery. Unit was geared towards counterinsurgency work so their antitank capability was almost certainly low. Jari was definitely not trusting on that and made it clear to LIC liaison officer who was left fuming after his presentation.

Jari invented the first troop distribution plan for operation. One company (KampfGruppe Bertha) would form the shield between Kurita regiment and DropShips with lances set on strategic chokeholds alongside river. Certainly Kurita forces could crush through or bypass those points but it would take so long that entire mission would be over by that time. At the same time another company (KampfGruppe Adolf) would march local main road down to target area and blow up the concrete factory with their overwhelming firepower. After that they’d fall back to DropShips with KG A shielding the retreat against possible Kurita counterattacks. One lance would be strategic reserve and form close protection of DropShips against possible unknown threats.

Needless to say the argument over who should be leading charge at factory started immediately. Jari kept telling his plan but Janne completely blew up his fuse over the issue. All young officers were throughout shocked to see so senior (at least to them) go bananas and screaming on top of his lungs. This was all Jari’s plan but the heat got better of him and both company commanders screamed past each other until Battalion Commander stepped in. Janne had started it so Jari was right in her mind. Jari immediately buttered her by suggesting she would take command of KG Adolf while he’d lead the KG Bertha. Meanwhile Janne’s own command lance would be strategic reserve. It would also rather neatly take care of safety of his daughter too.

Newly minted officers were downright amazed on what kind of stuff goes on during planning. It did not look like anything they’d seen in training in Military Academy…

---

The trip to Verthandi was eventless. The boredom and sheer monotonousness of modern interstellar warfare came apparent during it. The glamour of war was essentially sitting aboard vessel (with walls either in greenish yellow or yellowish green internal protective paint) while not being able to do anything but sulk.

However, the new officers learned that whatever one might say about caution of DropShip and JumpShip crews they were definitely calm people who avoided speaking in loud noise. Everything was eerily quiet compared to normal huff and buff of garrison. Everything was also forbidden and time flew with everyone memorizing the plan (for lack of better things to do). Another hobby was listening to noises of different pumps and systems as highly complex (and expensive) space vessels hummed along just fine. Amonst better parts of life were dinners with JumpShip captain who seemed to have endless interest towards all possible news and gossip her guests could tell to her and the crew. Sexually frustrated Sari found out two things. First, JumpShip had lots of empty corridors to meet crew and get to know them better. Second, zero gravity sex just wasn’t as great as it had been advertised to be.

All and all it took a week to get to jump point. Then they jumped to deep space on some anonymous and uninhabited star system somewhere between Steiner and Kurita realms. After a week recharging batteries the lone Invader JumpShip finally emerged to Verthandi system. The three DropShip vessels undocked from JumpShip and then approached planet coming as close to each other as possible. This allowed them to present themselves as a single vessel of larger proportions: in essence, a lone fat and unarmed civilian cargo vessel so common in space.

The travel across Verthandi system was suspiciously uneventful. Entire Kurita deep space network seemed to be asleep. LIC had informed them that it had gone out of action some time ago due lack of spares and poor maintenance but no one had believed they would have not fixed it already. DropShip captains were pondering aloud some kind of Kurita trap but complete lack of pouncing AeroSpace fighters seemed to testify that things were going well. As a matter of fact entire Kurita deep space network was down and they had no idea what was going on.

It wasn’t until they broke to atmosphere that local air controllers started to ask what was going on. LIC prepared packages allowed crew to stall time on talking about identification failures and fooling local controllers how they had computer problems and would wait in orbit until things got cleared. Meanwhile the vessel went down and disappeared to ionosphere leaving local air controllers ponder if there was going on some kind of accident. Meanwhile the Lyran vessels screamed right towards their landing zones.

It wasn't until dropships were right on top of their targets when Kurita's alert fighters came screaming towards the area. Two Scholagars flew towards unknown potentially hostile but probably damaged own DropShip(s). however, this was exactly what Lyran CAP had been waiting for. With six Lyran ASF's zooming towards Sholagars Kuritans suddenly decided that running away was best course of action and bolted back to safety of their own air defense network. There would be no more aerospace fighting so Lyran fighters climbed up to orbit to wait for something to come forwards so they could kill it.

---

Leopard dropped off the few Mechs of Janne’s lance while the other 6 lances emerged from the two Union class vessels.

KG A and KG B went separate ways. KG A moved along the motorway towards the town overrunning such obstacles as parking lots of shopping centers and annoying traffic. On the other hand the KG B separated early in farm fields and each went through their own separate ways through forests and roads. Kurita forces were nowhere to be seen although that did not stop DropShip crews being extra careful about all imaginable hazards.

KG A moved the last ten kilometers to factory within an hour minding their moves to avoid any possible ambushes. Once there they opened up with all their weapons at the factory. It was a huge surprise to all new officers that there were no bright explosions, just huge puffs of greyish smoke after they hit something. Ultimately however, the factory caught fire and then they saw a very satisfactory black smoke.

The only ointment in seemingly perfectly going demolishing was a sudden ambush at Battalion commander's Atlas! Somehow some Kurita unit had managed to sneak up on them but no matter how furiously they scanned around the ambushing unit was nowhere to be seen. Little did anyone knew that it was actually Sari who had fired so enthusiastically that she had accidentally turned her mech to shoot at Battalion commander's lance. Meanwhile the dropShips' crews decided to take no risks and kicked off their jammers to full power. This caused entire town's electronics go off adding to general confusion to everyone around. Right at that time Battalion commander decided to call it quits and depart the factory as it was already burning very satisfactorily.

Meanwhile Jari was having his own problems too. While he and Sonja were in assigned positions Henrik was somewhat short of his position. Unknown to him Henrik had stopped the first truck and had started to interrogate through mech's megaphone terrified driver about Kurita forces. That was something Henrik had just conjured up due his excitement over the first mission.

To make things even worse the first Kurita forces from local garrison arrived to scene admist every long range sensor going haywire over overenthusiastic DropShip based jamming. Two kurita reconnaissance helicopters had been hastily called back in from nearby exercises and they were flying in blind without any kind of vectoring or idea what they were supposed to do. Jari caught both with his sensors and alerted both lances on approaching enemy.

When their vectors moved them right up to Sonja's lance he handed targets over to her. She followed both targets with same calm as if she had been in exercises. Sonja opened up with her Phoenix Hawk as soon as first helicopter got close enough to be within effective range. Target disintegrated immediately but second helicopter managed somehow to avoid the Lyran fire and run away.

Jari was pondering if this meant that next thing would be Kurita artillery bombardment on Sonja's positions so he ordered her to switch to alternative positions as they received very satisfactory call for returning to rendezvous positions. He also called in Henrik to hear him blathering something about trucks. He'd get to the bottom of it eventually!

Two hours of warfare and 6 weeks of space travel. That never happened in MechKrieger novels they all read and loved...

Final Thoughts:

Amusingly enough I did not intend to have the fast paced raid as part of this session but no one was really inventing anything their characters would do in decidedly boring Alert Company Duty so turning it to a charade for “intended” Raid preparations was necessary step to keep game flowing. Raid planning went well with Jari taking charge and other players giving input as necessary. The actual raid was also a success thanks to lucky roll on Kurita alertness (or lack of it) on approach to Verthandi.

I thought that it is vitally important for any GM to be able to throw out your entire plot if necessary and move forwards to “next phase” if most players mill around without touching the issue that hand. Thus it pays to have some beforehand planning and not push through things no one is clearly enjoying about. I had planned this raid before and thus it was easy to add to session.

I tried to stress that nothing ever goes according to plan in war. Kurita was caught completely unaware and thus their response times were realistic (15 minutes for fighters ready to scramble and 1 to 2 hours for unit in alert status after receiving orders to do so). In the similar vein ground military units did not make counterattacks based on hunches. They mobilized their resources and defend their home bases while waiting for orders. Such orders would have taken hours to process in real world.

Rewards:

Sonja: +1 to influence due killing Kurita troops.

Jari: -1 to influence due losing temper during argument with a rival company commander in public during battalion’s planning meeting.

[Captain Vlad]

I don't know why I feel compelled to know this, but...what kind of factory? :)

[Minerva]

It was a large forestry industry combine that produced first pulp and then paper in same complex.

[Captain Vlad]

Well.  That must've stank to high heaven when they set it on fire. ;)

They haul off any valuable equipment?

[Minerva]

Well, any factory that deals with chemicals burns in thick smoke when it catches fire.

Their job description did not include hauling off equipment. After all, they were perhaps 15 minutes to 30 minutes in factory area blasting it away. As far as hauling off equipment is concerned by raiders, it only happens in MechKrieger novels...

[Captain Vlad]

As far as hauling off equipment is concerned by raiders, it only happens in MechKrieger novels...

Some of those novels are likely based on actual incidents. ;D

Not being critical.  Just hoped they'd gotten away with something substantial after all drama in the planning room.

[Minerva]

Any hauling off equipment would have required entirely different set of planning parameters starting of pondering just how difficult it is to actually remove and carry in one piece factory equipment. (Hint: It takes a lot longer than some parts of a single radar.) It would have required professional manpower (and subsequently lots of infantry to protect them) and taken a lot of time on ground. This would have required planning different ways to deal with Kurita counterattack from forces on ground. (Hint: facing determined infantry regiment with real artillery support would have been a very bloody and risky business.) Pulling off constant CAP through that would have required more ASF assets and a new round of discussions with regimental HQ for additional DropShip support. In essense: more planning drama and more moving parts and interests at planning stage. Simple raid would have gone from testing battalion's skills to something far more complex and risky. Any GM should be very cautious on what one pulls off from one's hat because those small things mean lots of awfully complex planning and tricky execution to actually get done. Suggesting that they'd do that without said careful planning would have been pure MechKrieger novel nonsense.

"Gotten away with something substantial" was precisely what they got. Battalion commander showed off regimental HQ that her battalion is ready for serious combat. Jari got home alive and none of the troopers under his command died. His daughter is now officially first and only person in her class to have actual combat medal (from the jump) in her class. That is almost as high award as meeting Frederic Steiner personally (which she will gain in next session). Then Sari almost managed not to be exposed to be a poseur she actually is. Ari got through his first combat without screwing up proving himself to be a real man so to say. Sonja got actual kill. She is now officially hunter-killer who makes Natasha Kerensky pale in comparison (in her mind ast least). Henrik got ultimate adrenaline rush for being in a daring raid.

Thus they all got something exceedingly substantial: personal success.

[Captain Vlad]

Any hauling off equipment would have required entirely different set of planning parameters starting of pondering just how difficult it is to actually remove and carry in one piece factory equipment.

I'll chalk that up to the battalion commander placing the raid's training value and avoidance of casualties at a much higher priority than it's overall strategic or economic effect.  I can understand that she wanted what amounted to a riskier live-fire exercise for her green troops more than she wanted a substantial strategic victory.

(Hint: It takes a lot longer than some parts of a single radar.)

Hint:  There were other examples linked to, and I could easily find more. 

More than one 'raid' has netted the victor a lot of loot.  They didn't have to go after factory equipment, either;  had the BC decided she wanted this to be a smash and grab, she could've likely decided that transport vehicles, chemicals, etc, etc, etc. would be worth the time to haul off.

Not lingering around was a sound tactical decision;  not arguing on that point.  It just don't think the BC has enough of a piratical streak to satiate my personal larcenous impulses. ;D

(Hint: facing determined infantry regiment with real artillery support would have been a very bloody and risky business.)

Of course it would.  Did you assume that I didn't think that?

Pulling off constant CAP through that would have required more ASF assets and a new round of discussions with regimental HQ for additional DropShip support. In essence: more planning drama and more moving parts and interests at planning stage. Simple raid would have gone from testing battalion's skills to something far more complex and risky.

I think they could've added an 'obtaining' objective without too much additional risk had they really put their minds to it.  It sounds as if you're approaching the idea from 'what do we need to get x piece of equipment', when I'm thinking more in the 'we've already got this level of support, what can we grab using what's already been granted us'.

The Steiner folk have never struck me as being terribly good at that kind of thing, though.  The raid does seem very "Lyran."

(Hint, I am enjoying this thread, and I'm really not trying to start an extended argument).

Suggesting that they'd do that without said careful planning would have been pure MechKrieger novel nonsense.

Again, I think we're approaching the problem differently.

"Gotten away with something substantial" was precisely what they got. Battalion commander showed off regimental HQ that her battalion is ready for serious combat. Jari got home alive and none of the troopers under his command died. His daughter is now officially first and only person in her class to have actual combat medal (from the jump) in her class. That is almost as high award as meeting Frederic Steiner personally (which she will gain in next session). Then Sari almost managed not to be exposed to be a poseur she actually is. Ari got through his first combat without screwing up proving himself to be a real man so to say. Sonja got actual kill. She is now officially hunter-killer who makes Natasha Kerensky pale in comparison (in her mind ast least). Henrik got ultimate adrenaline rush for being in a daring raid.

Yes, they got all that.

But, putting myself in the mindset of your upwardly mobile crew,  it never hurts to have a little loot to show off the superiors, now does it? ;)

[guardiandashi]

one thing that I have seen in a lot of the fiction for battletech is lets say they take in a "typical lyran "heavy lance" on the raid, all 70+ tonners that can pickup 7-10 tons each walk into the facility and go... hmm that looks like an armor forming machine that weighs 25 tons I walk over to it with my atlas shove it (to sheer it off its retaining bolts into the floor) and we drag it onto the truck that can haul 100 tons, and while we are at it we grab the internal str shaper, and that crane off the assembly gantry.. the truck guys are telling us that they are up to ~90 tons so lets pick up that pile of armor slabs over there.

ok and I will pickup that box of heat sinks in the corner... ok lets go ....

some raids are about picking up anything that is not "nailed down" and if a battlemech can rip it out... its not nailed down

[Minerva]

Fourth Session: Adventurous Training

First Ideas:

This session was to be first session where Anne would be playing. The original idea was that Anne and Jari would be taking part a seminar for senior leaders and junior leaders would be sent off to an adventurous training.

Seminar would be used to introduce main villain against Steiner family rule: Frederic Steiner, a future pretender to the throne. This would be main meta-plot where he recruits angered regiments to support his eventual turn against ruler of Steiner Family: Katrina Steiner.

Adventurous training was some kind of group activity where lieutenants would plan their “holiday” on their own. This was essentially secondary concept of the session.

Actual Play:

With 3rd Battalion back in Winfield it was time to return to normal peace time service (Motto of LCAF was “Peace is Our Profession, War is Only a Hobby!”).

Everyone was somewhat surprised at latest news from Tharkad (Sonja: “apparently Melissa Steiner is going to be next Archon even though she doesn’t have one iota of military training … that’s crazy!” and Sari responded: “Look at those shoes Katrina is wearing and Nondi’s frock!”). However, the real big news was that Hero-Hunter-Warrior-Playboy-MechWarrior-Battle Captain(tm) Frederic Steiner was going to come to regiment to talk in Winfield’s annual military-industrial-complex get together. This was naturally all top secret but entire regiment knew about it in about less than a day. Sonja was entirely prepared to hurl herself to arms of her greatest hero alongside just about every woman (and male) officer of the regiment but this was not to happen. While real officers (everyone who was at company HQ and higher) would be there the lieutenants would be left behind to take care of the regiment. After all, someone had to guard and maintain the trillion kroners worth of hardware while every officer would be drunk as a skunk in a week long seminar/party…

After few seconds long pondering on logic of the idea of letting someone like Henrik responsible for few thousand megatons of nuclear annihilation it became self evident that calling LCAF’s reserves and retired to work as caretakers/janitors would be a good idea. Thus the next phase of plan was sending young officers away, preferably somewhere where they could not cause trouble. Hence adventurous training where they would learn co-operation and bonding and all that jazz.

Battalion was in full swing as they got new officer Anne. Jari got all his alarm bells going on as soon as he learned that she had been in same exclusive schools as Sari and even got in military academy at the same time. On the other hand she was intelligence weenie (“that’s not so bad”) but her hobbies included patriotic things like brainwashing others to blind obedience to Steiner family. Needless to say she also believed that whatever Katrina says goes (and anything Frederic says goes always). Noticing that he had a dangerous viper in his battalion Jari took precaution of avoiding her until she’d gotten more sense to her mind. “Perhaps being with Sari would make her less fanatical,” he hoped in vain…

The next problem was his daughter. If all officers were gone this little power puff girl would be in charge of entire battalion (and its nuclear launch request keys, entire cash register, unlimited credit card and all intelligence files). Thus he swatted two flies with a single swoop by making sure she’d be with him in party and thus seeing Frederic Steiner and battalion would be in safe hands by some random geriatric officer still playing the war.

The adventurous training got in a bad start. Sari was adamant that whatever they’d do they would certainly not be roughing it. Sonja thought falconry was such a noble sport they should do it and Ari thought that rally driving would fit the bill. After severe shouting match battalion’s adjutant came up with an idea that they sdhould go to see live volcanoes, “Perhaps one in Coldland and one in Warmland?” Naturally all loved plan (which they were supposed to come up on themselves in the first place). The idea was to visit Coldland first and then enjoy Warmland.

---

The trip to Coldland was fast with modern aerospace liner and officers soon noticed themselves looking at inhospitable and quiet rocky island. Sari had learned that it was actually filled with most excellent hot springs and its night club scene was lively. Her plan was to advertise herself by lounging in a spring followed by wild sex afterwards (possibly some clubbing too). Meanwhile both Sonja and Ari got out to town. They both went to local museum to see what life was like when this island was inhabited few hundred years ago. Henrik’s idea for fun was some extreme sports (hiking to a nearby steep mountain side). After one or two days of that they would hitch a ride with local passenger ship (Sari absolutely refused to hitch a ride with fishing vessel). The town had perhaps 300,000 inhabitants on island of 400,000 so it really was really all there was.

Sari was completely flabbergasted what actually happened. First, the clubbing scene had died in economic crash that had happened a year ago taking tourists away. Thus only people in 24/7 night club were actually one elderly couple (who were sitting there to pass the rain). Even worse, the hot springs had absolutely revolting stench that just didn’t match her mood and much less her bikini! Despite all she tried to go on with her usual holiday routine: First she’d drink two drinks, and then parade herself followed by a fresh change of clothes if there was no luck, then rinse and repeat until she got lucky (by getting drunk enough to lower her standards). Situation got so bad after half a dozen changes of clothes that she tried to get geriatrics to her bed (failing badly). Then she moved to take pills because hotel room bottle was now empty…

The next morning started with alerted hotel manager calling Sonja because there had been some kind of accident. Hotel cleaner had found out almost dead young woman (Sari) in her hotel room and ambulance had taken her to hospital. Needless to say Sari had given up the whole adventurous training there and then explaining with glassed eyes that she’d had a medical emergency and thus she would need to continue all this by going to a very expensive private clinic (somewhere in civilization with nearby fashion stores). Sonja accepted all that and decided that she’d take over the expedition and simply lead her group’s way through the obstacles to volcanoes!

---

Back in Coldland the passenger ship took Sonja, Ari and Henrik towards the volcano. Sonja was somewhat surprised about the fact that local inhabitants were fairly passive towards Lyran Commonwealth. She had expected someone to attack her. Henrik and Ari looked her as if she was insane (too much time with Anne?). However, they all agreed that speaking with locals was a problem. Locals did not seem to speak much German and what locals managed to scrape by just wasn’t German any of them spoke.

Generally Sonja and Henrik spent their time pondering on locals and enjoying the view of Coldland shores but Ari was more curious of the ship itself. He managed to talk to ship’s crew to get him a guided tour through the vessel. He was particularly interested in machinery in general and ship’s massive engines in particular.

After a few days later they managed to get to volcano which was black and forbidding. Thanks to (generously tipped) local guide the trip there was uneventful and views spectacular. While they flew to Warmland they pondered just how unlucky Sari had been for not being able to attend the spectacle of live black volcano.

Meanwhile Sari’s life had been saved and she was enjoying the tender care of most luxurious spa possible. Unfortunately she had to attend daily rehab sessions (10.00 to 11.00 ) where she skillfully played being so embarrassed of her accident and just hoping to mend her ways (once again). Enough crocodile tears ultimately paid off and she got herself a weekend of free time to go to civilization to buy herself clothes.

Three hour later Sari was ready to hit the best night spots of the city and to finally get herself a holiday romance. Her first idea was to find herself a target rich environment and then party hard enough to succeed. What followed wasn’t completely known much less understood but the wake up in hotel room with four men and hotel’s concierge relaying hotel owners hope that she’d leave immediately proved that she had had a blast. However, the bad news was that the next stop would be again the same spa she had arrived from. To make bad thing worse she had to sit there for the rest of the week her adventurous training (holiday). Sari was red in anger, “It is so wrong!” but staff was adamant as they showed her newspaper headlines like “Drunken Heiress Burns Down Exclusive Gay Club Shame”. Then all she did was smile shyly… 

Meanwhile Ari, Henrik and Sonja were in Warmland enjoying the hot sun, bathing costumes and extraordinary views. Henrik’s idea of fun was hiring a motor boat to take them to a tourist island with active volcano. It was even more of his idea of fun going out without local guide and got lost (he called it scenic route). Meanwhile Sonja and Ari were not amused. After some blind piloting and good luck in navigation they did manage to find the right island and the right tourist trap.

The active volcano was a spectacular sight to all. While Sonja was taking as much video as possible to their travelling report Ari was enjoying the warmth and power of volcano. After a joke by Sonja and Ari he decided that he just need to take a souvenir from the place. He immediately jumped down from the observation platform and ran towards torrents of liquid lava. Everyone was screaming his idiocy (including GM) but he managed to pick up a big black basalt stone and bring steaming rock to her fellow officers to show off. They were immediately banned from the premises of volcano sightseeing forever by authorities. The rest of holiday was thus sun, rest and sand...

---

Meanwhile Sari was in a world of hurt. It was not her hijinks in town (that was her own problem) but the fact that maintenance crew had fixed Battalion CO’s Atlas and found out that sabot round wedged to its back was actually Lyran ammunition. To make things worse the serial numbers had matched the lot of rounds distributed to Sari’s lance and computer simulation had proven out that she had fired Battalion CO. Given fact that Sari had papers from Military Academy that proved she could walk on water (according to them she was superb officer in the making) and no enemy in sight the Battalion commander was highly interested in how the hell did she shot her in the back?

Battalion commander started to talk first with Jari, the older company commander and only officer old enough to have served in Alessandro’s time. Her first idea was that Sari was some kind of Loki agent sent by Archon Katrina Steiner (or more likely her LIC flunky in Winfield’s Brigade HQ) to assassinate her. After all, like most of the old guard there was no love lost between old guard and Katrina. Jari noticed that this was indeed a serious problem. To make things worse at the same time Sari had been in drunken revelry in one fashionable metropolis a prominent local politician who had been openly questioning Katrina’s plans on having Melissa her Archon Designate had been in near fatal accident. Surely Sari had been on newspapers but it was far too obvious to be just a coincidence! Jari pondered idea of arranging an accident but such movement would be an open defiance to Archon’s rule so they decided to watch Sari like a hawk. Sooner or later she’d make a mistake and then they would get rid of her or use some other way to ensure her obedience until time would be ripe or she would be moved to another unit...

Shooting your superior officer in the back in combat was black mark at best and court martial offense at worst and Sari’s career was as good as over. Normally LCAF officer in general and LCAF noble officer in particular would have resigned on the spot or shot herself but Sari had different solution in her mind, just like in the days of academy when she had fixed every single problem. She moved right next to her Battalion commander and said, “I’ll do anything you wish…”

Final Thoughts:

This session again proved that no session plan survives contact with players. With Sari’s drug overdose and subsequent adventures on her own she hogged a lot of time and Anne and Jari were reduced to bystanders. However, we agreed to play seminar in the next session so that Anne and Jari would have their share of the fun.

Another problem was that players (and thus characters) could not agree on what they should do. This is quite rightly called “typical player passivity”. In order to get things moving I suggested the volcano plan.

On the other hand everyone had great time as action was thick and things went onwards.

Rewards:

Sonja: +1 for taking command of the expedition when Sari had gone to hospital.

[Captain Vlad]

She moved right next to her Battalion commander and said, “I’ll do anything you wish…”

So....

...did it work? :D

Seriously, though, a night out with Sari sounds more dangerous that the raid they wen...erm...the Third Succession Wa....no...the Jihad.  Yeah.  The Jihad would be about right for that level of destruction.

[Minerva]

Seriously, though, a night out with Sari sounds more dangerous that the raid they wen...erm...the Third Succession Wa....no...the Jihad.  Yeah.  The Jihad would be about right for that level of destruction.

Sonja thinks her body as a temple, Sari more like amusement park...

Seriously put Sari is essentially living her life roughly similar to great Restoration era rakes like Byron. And why not? Her family has more money than Croesus. Her vast estates are run by professionals. She doesn't NEED to do anything beyond appearing to her current job in uniform and keeping some kind of facade of professionalism (at least in paper). She can only engage in vices and follies because she can and need to carry on her infamous family traditions. She will eventually go down in flames or fly high above anyone else. There is no other road for her...

[Lysenko]

Privyet!

Definitely an entertaining read. :)

[Minerva]

Fifth Session:  Survival Training

First Ideas:

Survival training was a backup plan for seminar as Anne could not arrive to play. Thus I simply dropped the whole seminar concept for good and moved forwards. The survival training was intended to show players that life in colors was not always fun and that there were other people too in army. This was also excellent opportunity to add potential paramours/friends/enemies to mix.

Actual Play:

With the seminar behind everyone and Winfield’s Brigade returned back to normal state of affairs. This time the Brigade HQ had been particularly active (always a bad news) to train its troops to perfection. This time it meant learning survival in foreign (some would say definitely some currently secret Kurita system) flora and fauna. The survival course was something like a week of guided survival training in field followed by a week of avoiding dedicated hunter force. This was typical with a mixed group of MechWarriors and smattering of other fields as well as members of various commando units whose names and unit names tended to be somewhat fuzzy.

LCAF was quite aware that most (99%) of MechWarriors considered forests and flora and fauna as “green hell” and generally started to mentally collapse about as soon as they were alone in forest. On the other hand the personnel of various commando units were more than ready to live in forest for weeks to an end. Thus for interest of common safety the MechWarriors were paired off with commandos. Commandos would drag the MechWarriors through forest for a suitable time (the current standard was 24 hours) until ditching them to wayside as soon as hunter force would be in actual range. This ensured that MechWarriors would pass the test and commandoes would get actual training in dragging paraplegic in field conditions.

MechWarriors tended to have no real idea what they were supposed to learn over complaining cold weather and their general misery. Meanwhile Sari slept through most of the lectures (alongside commandos). The fire making, marching and bivouac building and other skills were best learned by simply playing helpless until commandos would be frustrated enough to do actual work. Especially Sari put her extensive survival training experience to good work making sure she had been paired with most muscular commando (he wasn’t that bad looking either and good company as long as he kept his mouth shut) whom she expected to do everything for her.

After a week of absolutely nothing learned the course moved to more dangerous part. MechWarriors were supposed to play situation where they would be surviving on their survival packs after having ejected from their BattleMechs. Commandos were supposed to have escaped from a prison camp so they would have nothing on them other than crudely crafted knives. A dedicated hunter force would give them half a day of time and then hunt them down.

Meanwhile the officers of the 3rd Battalion moved towards goal with their commandos. Ari had gotten himself a commando whose idea was that MechWarriors were excess baggage and Ari better keep his mouth shut and follow his lead. Ari was quite ready to do that.

Henrik’s natural instinct for action had made him friends with the commandos. Being ready to try out rough and ready things and having picked up a basalt rock he seemed to have qualities commandos appreciated alongside good nature to try out his best even in rain. Meanwhile commandos knew Henrik would not last to the end but he would definitely try his best.

Jari had paired himself with commando company commander who was here only because it allowed him to hide from endless paperwork. The longer he was in field, the more of the work would be done by his subordinates. Thus he was always in field. He was also as big drunkard as Jari so they got along quite well smoking cigars and drinking while walking at leisure pace.
Meanwhile Sonja had been paired off with commando officer who was quite smitten with her.

Sonja appeared to combine good looks and smarts and for a good catch to any young noble officer looking for fun. Unfortunately Sonja was so serious to pass the training that she did not understand his hints for flirting. Well, he knew that goal was well worth the wait. In the meanwhile he helped her when necessary and led the way towards the goal. After all, he wanted to win too.

Finally Sari had his commando carrying everything for her while showing off his atlas-like physique. She could hardly wait for the night to give him hero’s reward.

Unknown to all Jari had been determined to win the exercise so he had been drinking very seriously with leader of the hunter force in previous night. Professional MechWarriors like Jari were quite able to drink and relatively new officer under the table so in the morning the hunter force leader was in no mood to do his job. Instead he led the team to a quiet place in forest and ordered his men to wild goose in wrong direction (to find tracks just weren’t there) chase while he tried to improve his hangover in general and diarrhea in particular. As a matter of fact he was in so bad shape he refused to move from his sleeping place until next morning…

With no one to hunt trainees all groups ended the day in forest with commandos building bivouacs at routine skill. As the night fell and supper was eaten (MechWarrior’s survival packs were filled with easy food so no one needed to trap anything). As far as the night it went at perfect calm aside the natural voices of forest, i.e. the mating voices of Sari.

---

The second morning started with teams moving towards goals. Hunter Force was still moving at ease but it was obvious that some people were going to get caught today.

Jari was still drunk and caught a momentary bout of insanity. He was pissed off on idea of actually getting caught. Thus he decided to show off the commando captain that he could easily best them should he want it. Two hours of brisk march later he noticed that her bottle of brandy was empty and he sat to a tree stump to wait for hunter force. After few hours of waiting in rain and throwing his empty bottle at first hunter force dog to come to see him he surrendered.

Hangover was beginning to kick in too and it was downright horrible by the time he was brought to the interrogation tent. Since everyone in intelligence knew Jari was mean bastard they had decided to give interrogating him to youngest and most inexperienced interrogator.

Jari promptly insulted him for two hours and then whole interrogation was ended as fruitless.
The next one to fall was Sari. Walking in forest with man of atlas physique was one thing but walking in forest when it rained was quite another. He did carry all her gear but that did not make her mood any better. Still they managed to get to the third day with entire night spent in absolutely stunning sex. Hunter force had actually located her due noise but had not captured her due show offered. She was caught in the next morning when it started to rain for good.

Sari was feeling quite miserable in rain but the interrogation tent was downright warm. As the young (and cute looking) interrogator asked for her name to start it she answered, “anything you wish me to be…” The poor boy dropped to muddy floor on surprise. The following interrogation video was clearly material to be shown in Military Intelligence’s next staff party.

Ari had been doing his best to stay with the commandos but it was clear that he just did not have it. The weight and weather and general misery alongside scorn of the commando was wearing him down. Still he pushed himself to the limit and lost it as the dogs caught him.

Ari’s interrogation went surprisingly well. He managed to keep his composure for almost 15 minutes before he told them everything. He had simply been worn out. It took longer to make sure what he said was coherent.

Sonja was at excellent mood through her march. The commando officer was inspiration to her and she pushed herself until she saw nothing but red balls swimming in blackness instead of actual forest. He did help her but did not patronize her. He was actually a good companion and they would reach the highest Lyran military standards together today! Then the dogs barked and he vanished running away as she slowly but surely was left behind. The certainty of victory changed to bitterness of defeat in a matter of minutes.

Sonja was almost in tears as she was caught. It had been so wrong. She was furious at her failure to best this exercise. Thus she vented out her frustrations to interrogator even before he had managed to start the actual interrogation. It was like half an hour ranting later that she realized she had just told him everything she was and what she did. Then she went all very quiet and embarrassed. Naturally the interrogator had to give her coffee and comfort her. No further need to interrogate her.

Henrik marched as long as he humanly could but ultimately he heard the dogs of the hunter force and commandos left him behind as a bait to slow down trackers. Still they were not jeering him but had helped and encouraged him along the way. However, given choice between getting caught and trying to win it was clear that Henrik had to be left behind. Henrik had no regrets when hunter force caught him. He had given his best shot but it just wasn’t enough.

Henrik was tough nut to break, mostly because he was too tired to say anything but eventually the interrogator told him what to say. He had had a long and exhaustive day after been totally worn out by Sari’s unique defenses and he just wanted to finish it all off.

Since training had been a total fiasco from standpoint of both hunter force and MechWarriors it was simply better to agree that everyone was right and exercise had been a total success. Meanwhile commandos were laughing off at both forces…

---

Jari’s daughter had been ordered to be sent back to safety of Tharkad to continue her studies to be LCAF officer and a MechWarrior. However, before that she met all the other officers in the Battalion to tell just how much she had learned in her summertime in a Battalion. Jari was teary eyed but happy for her.

She also spent last of her time with her idol Sari telling how exciting it had been to skin a small mammal. Sari on the other hand thought such things were downright disgusting and told her that there was no need to do such things as long as there were men who’d do that for simple favors. As a matter of fact she could get anything done just like Sari did as long as she would give men and women small flirting and more.

Jari’s daughter was absolutely stunned: “Oh my God! That is disgusting …. Tell me more!”

---

The next step in preparations for total war was interview with officers to see if they were satisfied with the unit and ready for real combat. Battalion Commander bypassed the interviews with company commanders seeing them pointless. Instead she’d deal with younger officers. The question was: did they want to serve in this unit or did they want to cash out of it.

Ari was more than willing to be in service. Despite the fact that she could not remember a single thing he had done right or come out ahead of others she could not either recall any problem he had caused to her at all? Thus he was what could be described as “a good man”.  After all, given headaches of every other officer someone who came across quite sane was refreshing breath of new air. On the other hand it was his blandness that made it clear this man would be promoted according to regular promotion schedule, no slower or faster.

Henrik was quite enthusiastic about his service. He was so perfectly happy of everything and promised to carry on even more happily his service. It was a shock to him to hear that she was less than pleased. She was not terribly happy that he had been fooling around with some truck on road leaving a hole in defensive cordon against Kurita in raid. Kurita had not exploited it but they could have done it. The fact that Henrik had not noticed it only made it worse. This man was almost certainly NOT suitable to any position of responsibility.

Sonja was exceedingly happy for her service. She had been training to this all her life and despite failure at survival training (something Battalion commander had not even bothered to read about) she was ready to spill her blood for Archon Katrina Steiner. There was something utterly scary in her eyes. Battalion commander thought she’d make perfect officer in any of Archon Katrina Steiner’s personal bodyguard units. She also made note this woman would be quite good to promote as early as possible. Despite this she also had to prick Sonja’s ego just for her own protection. Thus Sonja was stunned as she left the Battalion Commander’s office. Her commander did not think her accomplishments so far (destroying reconnaissance helicopter) as equivalent of killing Lord Kurita’s personal champion in duel. It was SO wrong!

Sari was next the case. It was becoming obvious that this woman was NOT from Loki (or she was the best actress in the Lyran Commonwealth). Thus she received a more indirect approach. Perhaps she should go out in the next weekend to night club of the best hotel in Winfield? Perhaps she should come in and have a chat with her?

---

Sari went to best night club in Winfield (as always) and happened to go past restaurant table where Battalion Commander and shark looking lawyer were going over papers. It was nothing particularly special as any busy noble woman would often get a brief from her professional estate managers and family’s lawyers on things that were happening “back home”. She was the warrior while her husband was the business mind of the family. Sari just happened to meet her commander and thus business briefing was momentarily disrupted as lawyer went away to sit in bar for a moment as he better avoid listening any “girl talk”. She pushed to Sari papers to look at who took a glance at them for pure curiosity.

Battalion Commander’s family was planning a massive infrastructure project to move oil from cold regions to buyers in densely populated areas. It was essentially a solid investment but finance was tough to get. Public funding from Commonwealth and Provincial level infrastructure budgets was not going to come any time soon due priorities in war damage fixing. So far the private funding had been languishing in negotiations and haggling over fractions of percentages. As a matter of fact one of the financial institutions they had been negotiating with happened to be owned by Sari’s family. Quick and positive decision making on this delicate subject would be much appreciated. Sari was throughout relieved that she could simply pay herself out of it. It was something her parents and their lawyers did on routine basis (to save both her and her brother and parents and grandparents and cousins and like).

Then it was time for lawyer to pick up the forgotten papers as he’d go away and leave ladies to enjoy each other’s company. Sari had not really seen her Battalion commander out and it was obvious why her frock always seemed to be without batteries. Just about every ten minutes she said something bad. No wonder Jari had muttered in his weaker moments that Battalion commander was at her best when she was asleep and/or away. Steiner family was famous for either sulking or speaking out of order but they were Steiners and thus always right and thus her Battalion commander seemed to need a bit of a help.

Sari took the lead making sure that she was the perfect hostess. She arranged them men and made sure any of Battalion Commander’s abrupt comments were tapered over by her own languid mannerism. She did her best to lead the discussion and make sure Battalion Commander had all the attention she needed. The night went on and on and turned from wee hours to breakfast and subsequently time to retire. Sari whispered to her commander who just had about the best night out of the year:  “Perhaps we should seal the deal … in usual manner?” And there was whole weekend ahead of them…

Final Thoughts:

This session went more or less according to plan and there was lively role play as super competitive Sonja, super whore Sari, super happy go lucky Henrik, super by the book Ari and super drunk Jari. I thought this was the session where everyone played their characters to the hilt. We were having a blast.

I believed that this was the time when players got their characters to the level that we might have a good basis to start to invent actual skill levels and potential advantages and disadvantages to all characters.

The basic game mastering problem here was the rescue of Sari. Sari said she did not want to make a new character so cashiering her out of service was simply not going to happen. On the other hand simply tapering it under the rug was also highly improbable. Thus I invented concept where some intrigue would be put forwards.

Rewards:

Henrik: +1 for being most successful MechWarrior (at least according to everyone else) in the survival training.

[Vampire]

This is really good. The story was very entertaining and hilarious at times.  :)) I really like the plot and the characters, you are lucky to have such a gaming group. Please keep this up. Not only is a great read but very helpful for my own games.

I like very much the "Social General" theme of the story. Though I think the myth of Lyran military incompetence has been vastly exagerated, it helps explain why a a regiment can be rated as Green, and on the other hand, neither the Lyrans nor any other Inner Sphere faction are as professional as the Prussian General Staff. I like very much that in keeping with the setting military professionalism often takes a backseat to politics or noble birth. Generally speaking, the Great Houses armies are very much on par regarding military skill, or lack of it, and success is more having to do with superior forces than finesse.

Some themes I think you should address. First of all, Lyrans love money. You should show how corruption, mismanagement of funds, and war profiteering are rampant. Since Lyrans are businessmen at heart, you should stress how many individuals see the military as just another business venture.

Second, you should show the scavenger nature of the Successor States and that Mad Max post apocalypse survival, technobarbarian theme, with failing and scarce equipment, and the contrasts between advanced technology from yesterday being undistinguishable from magic and treated with reverence,  and in some cases technology in Battletech being so backward for things that today we take for granted. This could nicely tie in with the corruption theme, hoarding spare parts for private use is a court martial offense, but done anyway. I think your players need to be remembered that money is not everything, Mechs are. That their elevated social status is so dependent on their machines, and how fragile and precarious their position actually is since it rests on a fragile, mended, prone to breakdowns centuries old piece of machinery.


Third, finally, this is a war game, unless you and your players enjoy the peaceful and boring garrison life routine, players should be reminded that this is a time of war and their characters are going to get into harm's way sooner or later. It is all fun and games until someone gets shot. The Inner Sphere is not a happy place, is really pretty much a crap sack universe. Is like the Twilight 2000 setting, centuries after the Third World War... but not just on Terra, everywhere. The motto of the game is "Life is cheap, machines are expensive".  The Lyran military in particular at times has overtones of WWII Red Army style  brutality, and is not just the massed numbers and the firepower over subtlety, if you read carefully the sourcebook, the Lyrans sometimes resort in the name of expediency to brutality that would even make the Draconians balk.

I am not dictacting you what to do with your game, just offering some suggestions of what I believe are the fundamental themes of Battletech and wich I thing they should be included at one time or another, to a major or lesser degree in Battletech games. I left out politics, because I think they are just of average importance in a Steiner or Davion unit, compared to the extremes of unquestioning obedience and toeing the party line of Kurita and Liao, and the factionalism and infighting of Marik.

So summing it up, ideas you might find useful for your campaign:

1) Money, money, money, makes the world go round.

2) Pray to the Bomb, err, the Mech. Or, my kingdom for a spare gyro.

3) Life is cheap, machines are expensive. Lyran variant: Don't bother about collateral damage



 

[Minerva]

Sixth Session: Regimental Intelligence Raid

First Ideas:

BattleTech universe was essentially one of warfare. A major campaign was always something in my mind.
The campaign background is that Frederic has goaded Winfield to lash out against Kurita. Since Winfield is veteran of major deep raids he will launch a major raid to Kurita system. This makes entire Kurita defensive network go full alert through the border and completely derail any peace negotiations Katrina had in her mind.

Results were following. Winfield feels he has accomplished hurting Kurita badly. Frederic just proved his point that peace with Kurita is impossible (just what 99% of LCAF officers believe). Katrina (and subsequently her peace loving sister Nondi) had been proven to be wrong. Eternal war did continue.

My campaign plan went as this:

First session would be landing and initial raids to hurt unprepared Kurita forces.

Second session would be of unit moving to Kurita heartland for further operations.

Third (and fourth) sessions would be about making daring raids in low to medium intensity battlefield.

Fifth and subsequent sessions (1-2 more) would be about major operations with Winfield’s Brigade and An Ting Legion fighting medium intensity battlefield. Nuclear weapons would not be used but chemical weaponry would definitely be used.

Final session would be about Winfield’s Brigade either retreating or recycling out of campaign with emphasis on prisoner exchanges, looting and scorched Earth and other sundry issues.

Unfortunately my campaign plan went haywire the moment I had to postpone my gaming day from usual Thursday to Sunday. Only Jari and Henrik were available so I decided to run my first session as a company raid. The raid followed system of maintenance column with protective cordon of satellite hover tanks and some infantry.

The total time allotment was roughly two weeks which covered nicely the initial phase of moving massive number of Lyran forces to battlefield and fortification of Dropship landing areas.

Actual Play:

After administratively important (yet completely pointless) survival exercise the Winfield’s Brigade had filled off important post. They were now officially totally ready to be sent against Lord Kurita’s forces for real. This time they would be sent to face An Ting Legion rather than local militia.

Regimental forces started to make preparations for something big. Winfield had created a “Team B” to revalue all LIC strategic intelligence information on Kurita intentions with a clear goal to prove that LIC analysts had missed vitally important clues on impending Kurita invasion towards Trellshire region. Winfield had decided beforehand to go with a Team B and launch a full regiment sized intelligence raid on his own initiative. It was well within his quite vaguely defined responsibilities “to act according to situation if necessary” as a strategic reserve unit of Trellshire region.

Meanwhile LIC was adamant that their analysis was right because Kurita troops were badly supplied, forgotten by high command in Rasalhague and worn out by constant bandit raids (exhorted by LIC themselves). Any simulation showed that Kurita forces were quite incapable of mounting multiregimental invasion at single or many systems any time soon (without massive mobilization effort which would be detected by LIC strategic intelligence network). Thus normally cautious LIC commander suggested Winfield should have a throughout discussion with other regional senior commanders at least and preferably get a decision from Tharkad (signed by Archon herself).

However, thanks to machinations of Frederic Steiner and Winfield the entire command structure was in disarray. Duke of Tamar was currently unavailable as he was in a working holiday (that means sleeping with his mistress somewhere far away from prying eyes and media). Trellshire commander had been talking about the idea with Winfield and Frederic Steiner and was currently moving back to his HQ and thus could not be reached in time for quick answer. To make things worse Winfield had already started a full mobilization (under pretext of regimental maneuvers) on his own initiative. His troops would on their way (and moving across uninhabited systems making response impossible) by the time staff geniuses in Tharkad would react to doctored intelligence data and bold plan.

---

To make long story short some time later the Winfield’s Brigade had landed on New Caledonia. The Kurita troops had been caught totally off guard since they had had absolutely no strategic intelligence that Steiner family was on war path (according to latest intel Archon was currently enjoying ballet). Even worse, none of their sources had indicated any increased planning activity in any imperial or regional headquarters. The march of entire Winfield’s Brigade to New Caledonia had been totally a bolt out of blue for them (and entire Steiner military too).

The landing had gone by the book. There had been standard diversionary nuclear detonations in space and upper atmosphere to spoof Kurita radar network alongside dropping sophisticated decoys to every continent to provide wild goose chases to local forces. Meanwhile Kurita had been mobilizing and calling for help while LIC sabotage units had started their regular terror campaign hinder Kurita efforts.

Winfield had chosen his target well. He had steered away from the most important industrial heartland well protected by Kurita troops and local forces. Instead he had decided to choose a major raw material producing island (actually a small continent) as his target. The island was large enough to have considerable strategic importance. Its agriculture and raw extraction supported major industrial concerns so destroying or hindering them would certainly hit planetary economy hard.

He had more ambitious plan in his mind as well. Island’s pleasant climate meant many prominent local noble families had manors and playgrounds there. Burning and looting those mansions would hurt their purse and thus loyalty to Lord Kurita. It would also increase political pressure to send Kurita forces to face Winfield’s Brigade. Normally Lord Kurita’s forces did not care about local sentiments but local nobility was entirely different matter. Especially since An Ting Legion was poorly supplied and relied on local gratitude for its efforts to remain viable force.

Eventually Kurita forces would react and their movement to Island would require ships and a complex transport operation. That would all require a lot of time that allowed Lyrans to evaluate situation. They could simply fall back or face the An Ting Legion. Since island terrain was mostly plains (and some dry areas up to deserts) it would be perfect battlefield for mobile warfare that Winfield’s Brigade had perfected. Winfield had strong support and two battalions on ground (Elite 2nd and Green 3rd) while An Ting would field two Regular battalions and one green battalion). Scales were well within Winfield’s side. The local forces had also BattleMechs but no serious training for large-scale operations. They would be cut down like grass when faced by any LCAF BattleMech unit.

Winfield was more than happy. Unknown to all he also had a secret trump card that none of his subordinates yet knew. There would be blood for battle that would not be for those of weak of heart…

---

The hive like activity in LZ continued as 3rd Battalion Commander ordered Jari to carry out their initial raid on North-West. There was a string of 5 raw material extraction related targets centered by a huge strip mine some 1000 kilometers of dry lands and desert away. Meanwhile most lances were protecting DropShips or in other missions (Janne’s Company was cutting a swath of destruction across North-East). It was exactly the kind of cavalry operation Jari had been trained to do.

He counted 3 days to target and 3 back with perhaps a day between each target counting on maneuvers necessary to avoid enemy. Two weeks of supplies to be on safe side. One platoon of infantry and one of hover tanks to protect the logistics column. He counted some 8 hours marching per day and 2 hours for startups, shutdowns, recalibrations and management. Meanwhile logistics would fix every Mech at the same night. He started preparations to make sure unit was amply stocked with amphetamine to push through it. He was also experienced enough to know that unit needed a ton of window wiper fluid for its infantry (“distill it through gas mask and then mix it with amphetamine for a good kick”).

Then there were the infantry. They called themselves as “Thogs” and Jari was experienced enough to know they could not pronounce “thug” anyways. Infantry lieutenant (a tired looking ex-prison guard woman who was in charge of this bunch of oversized ADHD children) made a big speech for their future mission. Anyone who went to fight with a MechWarrior or touched any woman would be made to crawl with NBC suit on around the camp for all day every day (after she had personally kicked his ribs in). Thogs screamed back something that vaguely sounded “okay” to Jari.

To make things interesting a local LIC representative (and one Jari had not had argument yet) told him that he’d have a little extra task. For the first day he’d escort a vehicle moving a small commando force out to a mission somewhere in West. Commando Lieutenant was vaguely familiar from survival training as Jari remembered he had been paired with Sonja. His merry band of cut throats had their own supplies and concerns. He was a just a taxi driver here and that fit Jari just fine…

---

Trip through the dry plains went without a hitch.

Commandos left at the second morning after a night when they all pondered what the Winfield had in his mind for New Caledonia. Jari had no opinion, Infantry and tank commanders pondered that this was first phase for an invasion as they had arrived with way too much troops and supplies for a quick intelligence raid. Commando Lieutenant was quite quiet too, perhaps he knew or at least guessed too much? Thogs approached Commandoes in the evening too, wanting to touch their “X-Caliburs” (i.e. Thorvald & Koch Magnum Macho 3000 rifles) to feel their power. Gun wankery reached such level that Henrik had to leave...

Kurita local forces were definitely out of their element as Jari’s company plowed deeper and deeper through dry steppes and then to deserted inner region. Their entire response was to give alert to local anti-guerilla forces and mobilize defenses in mansions and cities. Meanwhile Steiner forces laid waste through economy of the island hitting anything from milk dairies to cattle ranches to bridges to sheep stock to small town workshops. During all this Commandoes slipped to do their own dangerous derring do.

A day later they met their first Kurita unit. It was a lone soft skin vehicle doing reconnaissance. Too bad it met Steiner hover tanks that blew it up in a matter of seconds. Thogs then peppered the burning wreck with their small arms fire and finished off possible survivors before getting closer. Upon inspection they did found out some documents but they were written in enemy language English (mongrel language only spoken by few card carrying Davion villains and worst mercenary scum of the 31st Century). Jari managed to deduce they were definitely military maps but that was about it. Perhaps military intelligence could decipher them when they returned?

---

Few days and highly uncomfortable ride later the Jari’s small company hit its first target. Approach of eight mechs in loose line was quickly observed and mine defenses were up. 4 Scorpion tanks were in line trying to oppose approaching Steiner wall of steel. They also fired first as Jari was doing his best to keep Henrik in line and not to shoot him or charge to his line of fire. Situation was highly confusing but in the end Henrik managed to saw one of the enemies and then kill one of the four stationary tanks. Meanwhile Jari dispatched the following three with his lance.

Then it was a matter of burning down every single piece of equipment with massive fire power. It was definitely a job they did well. Kurita’s makeshift anti-tank unit tried its best to disrupt Lyran force but Jari had been experienced enough to put one of his Mechs forwards to observe possible sneaking patrols. With two patrols destroyed the Kurita unit had rescued its honour (and could throw away its arms and its personnel flee with the mine personnel). After shooting everything to fire at safe distance it was a matter of combing the streets and killing whoever had been stupid enough to stay in area. A couple of rifle rounds were fired back but it was about it. There had been no cohesive resistance whatsoever and firing a couple of missile volleys to approximate direction of fleeing miners was enough. That mine would no more support Lord Kurita’s plans for next few years (if ever).

During evening the mechs moved to rendezvous with the column and then unit moved to their next night lager before next assault. Thought the night Mechs were repaired and maintained for next day of war. However, in the night Henrik was jubilant for his bravery and kept on explaining all how he had single handedly killed off dangerous tank. Then his libido got much over his sense and he started to court lieutenant of the Thogs (only woman in the unit) with all his MechWarrior Charisma(tm)”. Much to surprise with everyone except Henrik she actually accepted. Jari suspected that she had earlier drunk way too much that window wiper fluid to her loneliness…

---

The next day raid was as deadly as the first one. This time they leveled off a desert bridge whose guard detachment (infantry platoon) had ran away about as quickly as they had seen approaching mechs. Their only trouble had been approaching train that had been bringing more infantry to supplement now fled garrison. To make thing even worse Jari had himself positioned in such a way that stopped train was too close to be engaged properly with his PPCs. Thankfully Kurita unit had been as surprised as they had been at this and were wiped out with few volleys from Henrik’s lance. Still Jari cursed heavily on himself, he had been way too complacent! He would NOT repeat that mistake anymore.

Thus the next three days were shining example of bravery and skill of Lyran forces against completely overwhelmed enemy forces. Standing at longest possible distances from unarmed workers and rifle equipped local militia forces Jari’s unit destroyed a railway junction and depot, then small airstrip and finally another railway bridge with their long range fire. It was not until enemies had fled that Jari’s forces approached the targets to shoot whatever was still standing. All and all they were in no danger and they got the job done. Jari thought it had been excellent work!

---

Return march was entirely different matter. Hovertanks providing reconnaissance had been quick to report that they were shadowed by a Kurita response unit. They were approximately a company sized force of mechanized infantry and tanks. To make things worse quickly requested (and received) air reconnaissance warned that they were going to get more reinforcements. He pondered about an idea of turning back and giving pursuers a bloody nose but decided against. There were simply too many risks in tackling with Kurita infantry with Mechs, especially if they’d lose their supply column by some other Kurita unit roaming in area.
After a tense night they carried on their march towards the Steiner lines but Kurita pursuers were in no mood to fight against Mechs and they eventually turned around rather than tackled Winfield’s reconnaissance and cavalry screen.

---

Then it was time to carry out some reflection of mission (as there was no threat on their backs anymore). Archon Alessandro Steiner (The Great Military Reformer) and uncle of current Archon had initiated multiple reforms to increase fighting power of LCAF. One of these was reflection where unit was shown results of their missions to watch and learn what they had seen. They were essentially gun camera pictures.
With everyone high on something (brandy for officers, window wiper fluid for thogs, amphetamine for techs) they watched the highlight reel of best kills laughing their asses off at carnage applauding to mutilations (and especially beheadings) that modern high tech weaponry causes to people that are on receiving end of Mech’s firepower. With everyone’s mood at sky high the film flipped “accidentally” to show night vision camera view of Henrik and infantry lieutenant in sleeping bag. The level of screaming would have awakened even the dead.

They arrived to Steiner lines in next morning as Jari had not wanted to arrive at night for fear for blue on blue incidents.

War in New Caledonia had started for good.

Final Thoughts:

The first thing in my mind was should there be a game when many/most players are not available? I usually postpone game but this time I decided to run it (and modify my campaign to fit). Small numbers were not as bad in a military campaign as in many other campaign styles. This is because you can generally half of the nominal unit were away (in reserves, in another direction, doing something else, sick, etc etc) during missions.

The raid went pretty well with introduction of following new element called thogs, which were essentially orcs. As my Jari put it well, “they have both charisma and intelligence as sink stats.” Thogs were fun and players liked to interact with them.

The second idea was the maintenance. However, I failed to convey much of them beyond their existence. I do think that the end result was entirely realistic since pilots generally ignored at best and spat at worst the maintenance crews.

Rewards:

Henrik: +1 for killing actual Kurita enemy (Scorpion tank). +1 for entertaining Thogs (and entire 3rd Battalion).

[Vampire]

Awesome, this is simply awesome! Keep up the good work and continue the tales of your game.

I laughed hard at this  >:D

With everyone high on something (brandy for officers, window wiper fluid for thogs, amphetamine for techs) they watched the highlight reel of best kills laughing their asses off at carnage applauding to mutilations (and especially beheadings) that modern high tech weaponry causes to people that are on receiving end of Mech’s firepower.


You really caught the mood of how callous and bloodthirsty people in the Inner Sphere are... and I mean the civilians. The military are even worse. #P


Minor nitpicking: I suppose its your game and deviations from the canonical setting are possible, whatever floats your boat, but I found a bit jarring the stuff about nukes and chemical weapons would be more in line with earlier stages of the Succesion Wars. By 3025 no one bothers with poison gas (vastly overrated and underwhelmingly ineffective anyway) and nukes are gone, though very rarely an occasional nuke is found in a cache, but most commanders would rather dump the atomic bombs into space rather than use them. The Kell Hounds scenario pack had one scenario about illegal nukes held by a Marik unit.

Other than that, I give you high marks for giving due credit to Alessandro Steiner. He was truly the brain between the improvements of the Lyran military in the early 31st century, not Katrina, and Concentrated Weakness strategy was a bold and innovative idea, he just was unlucky.

[soshi]

They are like that when it's to someone else!!! 

[Minerva]

Seventh Session: Manorial Attack

First Ideas:

The manorial attack was the properly run second phase of the campaign. Steiner forces had established their landing zone and were now moving their forces closer to inhabited Kurita areas for quicker roundabout between raids.

The idea was that characters would march some 500 to 700 kilometers (about 2 days) and attack relatively isolated manor with few tanks and static defenses. They’d also meet few random encounters to liven up the march there.

Sari was not playing so her character was fighting in some other capacity.

Actual Play:

Winfield’s Brigade had done a series of lightning raids at Kurita targets blowing up mostly economical targets across the smallest continent of New Caledonia. However, those raids were merely a foretaste of things to come. Now the concentration of Steiner military would turn towards things that would really hurt: the sumptuous manors and retreats of powers that be. Their task would be to lay waste along their way and take over one fortified manor which promised to be a perfect launching pad for further incursions in rich lands at continent’s coasts.

3rd Battalion would move towards one rich city with 4 lances at vanguard to establish a new base. Operating base would also allow recycling raids at those lands at considerably faster pace than long-range raids from safety of deserted wastelands. After all, a Mech company with 5 targets in one week and then spending another week in maintenance cycles is considerably less effective in causing a memorable reign of terror than a Mech company with 1-2 targets per day indefinitely.

---

Battalion commander’s plan was conservative and customarily cautious. 4 lances would go to take over the manor while 2 would serve as a diversionary troop blowing up few ranches and homesteads somewhere else to confuse the Kurita forces. She made sure Sari would be in diversionary force, after all she was her goose laying golden eggs and getting Sari killed over something trivial would make her look bad (and incur wrath of Sari’s family). Her own lance would stay with DropShips to serve as an emergency reserve in case of something totally unexpected would happen. Jari would fill up the details for his KGJ (Kampfgruppe Jari) and she’d accept the plan assuming it was adequate.

The intelligence information showed that Kurita was mobilizing their regional forces. So far no one had seen any BattleMechs beyond city but quick dash was always a possibility (although military intelligence doubted it). There were plenty of platoon and company sized formations moving about and regrouping to fathom next Steiner move. On the other hand Lyran forces were also moving about and situation room expected daily weather of small skirmishes and ambushes by both sides. The bad news was that Kurita was preparing to move their mechanized reserves (heavily reinforced Regiment) to battlefield but it would take perhaps a week until it was ready. In the meanwhile they would possibly need to deal with its reconnaissance forces.

On good news the main city hall and many of its office workers had been recently blown up by a car bomb and that Kurita nobles were getting rattled by rumors of someone fermenting a slave revolt. While younger officers were elated by this yearning of freedom Jari suspected that LIC had their hand in it.

Jari’s own plan was suitably conservative for notionally bold cavalry work. It was essentially a raid force of 4 lances, a company of hover tanks and company of thogs for mopping the enemy base. There would be two days of careful marching and then a night for setting troops ready for actual assault. Logistical tail was heavy but not too heavy so they could lick their wounds should something go wrong. Jari also named Sonja as his second in command in case something would go very wrong. He also made it clear that she’d retreat immediately all the way back to DropShips should he fall in fighting. Jari would not admit it but he had started to think that Sonja was far too valuable to die in some stupid act of heroism before she’d be the next true defender of the Commonwealth.

---

KGJ left their starting line in the morning right on schedule and then moved forwards their target. However, at about noon the hover tank screen reported of Kurita sensor and communications activity ahead. This was no surprise to Jari who had been expecting Kurita forces to do their work as professionally as LCAF. After all, both sides used the same 300-year old Star League Defense Forces’ Regimental Battle Group Tactics, Procedures and SOPs Manual as their bible. The real question was how to react now?

Jari was in no mood for combat. There was no telling how large Kurita force was but encrypted communications and lack of noticeable heavy sensor activity pointed towards high level of professionalism. There were no forces in continent in direct service of Lord Kurita so the force ahead must be top regional force, probably ready to engage in moving ambush to wear down any Lyran forces stupid enough to take the bait. Killing Kurita was essential part of war but actually carrying missions was far more important. Thus his solution was to seek a way around this possible enemy formation (and especially lucrative ambush position ahead).

The rest of the day went on with his force circling around most obvious ambush spots and then letting his screen to peel off a small ambush force to take out the most bold reconnaissance unit following his force. Kurita forces fell to this trick and lost expensive and sophisticated sensor reconnaissance vehicle and few soft skinned wheeled reconnaissance vehicles. With ambush failed Kurita forces decided to give wide berth to KGJ and move their troops to easier targets that night. This created its own sensor foot print that made sleepless night for Lyrans who remained in alert for possible Kurita night attack (that thankfully never materialized).

---

Second day of the attack appeared uneventful. There were no reports of Kurita activity ahead of them.
However, Jari’s nerves were soon rattled when they received a Commander Message from Regimental HQ. After tense moments of decrypting the message it became clear that he was to carry on his current mission but also extend all aid to a commando unit working in area. His task was to escort and protect them for next few days. Jari cursed as he knew he also had to peel off forces in this protection detail and someone to lead it.

Ari was in another company and thus Jari did not know him well enough to trust him. Ari appeared solid but appearances could be deceiving. Henrik was eager but special operations and eagerness was a poor combination. That left only Sonja as least bad leader but she was too young and too inexperienced in case something did go wrong. His decision was sealed when he went to end of the orders. Sonja had been mentioned by name as officer to lead it. (“What the Hell? Was Sonja somehow related or allied to someone in military intelligence/LIC/Loki/Lohengring/Steiner family? I thought Sari was?”) He would need to follow Sonja more carefully in future in case she was enemy of the Winfield family…

Sonja was literally trembling in excitement for getting this kind of militarily vital secret mission she could never tell anyone about (until her memoirs). She memorized all the procedures and recited them to nervous looking Jari. (“It must be vital to future of entire Steiner Family!”) Meanwhile Jari prayed she would not accidentally blow up the commandoes thinking they were Kurita forces in heat of her eagerness.

Much to Sonja’s disappointment the actual mission was nothing like MechKrieger novels she had devoured in her youth. After about an hour of marching to meeting point she saw a nondescript looking civilian soft skinned vehicle. A familiar looking (“Oh! It’s that Commando Lieutenant!”) man in civilian clothing signaled her that everything was alright and asked her to escort them to join Jari’s company. The escort had also been uneventful. It appeared that everything was like a training mission in Nagelring in Tharkad.

Back in the unit the commandoes revealed what they had in store. They dragged a Kurita officer from their cross-country van for Jari. His task was to keep him in safe for next few days. Jari was on top of things and made sure commandos would have him (so Thogs would not rape and murder prisoner for fun) alongside all the (admittedly few) military police troops he could muster. Meanwhile Lieutenant was already busily explaining to Sonja what a bold heroine she was for coming to help him in his hour of need. Naturally Sonja again saw that her mission was actually something out of MechKrieger novels…

---

Next night went again sleeplessly. KGJ was busily making final preparations. Commandoes received extra supplies (they seemed to raid through explosives materials like kids in a candy store) and for that they were ready to aid Jari’s force. They did have some intelligence on manor and that there were clear steps that it was being abandoned in nearby future. They’d also help some more by providing few men to aid thogs in scouting the target and escort Jari in case he wanted to scout the target personally. Jari was more than glad to agree to this and instructed logistics people to give commandoes anything they’d want. Oh, and Lieutenant wanted to have totally smitten Sonja as his liaison officer.

Scouting revealed little new but gave Jari ideas how to proceed. His final attack plan was slightly altered to take into consideration the fact that they had excellent chance of achieving a total surprise. There was also no minefield (given fact that lawn around the manor walls was perfectly maintained). Henrik’s lance would provide indirect support while Jari, Sonja and Ari would charge at what appeared to be the weakest link in the defenses: one particularly nasty looking static fortification. Few hover tanks would move about and shoot from all directions as a diversion while most of them would cut roads and serve as screen in case there would be Kurita counterattack. Thogs would simply pepper anyone trying to escape the fortifications. Commandos would stay back with their prisoner alongside logistics personnel. Jari made certain they would take over should worse turn worst and both Jari and Sonja fall in fighting.

---

The attack started just at morning twilight with company rolling forwards like a train. Then again, the fortified towers put up a real resistance. Just about all young officers were stunned to see that their targets would actually shoot back. Furthermore, each tower had plenty of access to cooling and could easily equal to twice the firepower of ordinary Griffin Mech. If there was one thing that was not affected by it, it was Henrik’s rather massive indirect fire volleys that landed right on court yard and household staff packing the trucks.

Jari was at forefront (it was his duty after all) and proved to be a real PPC magnet. He marched forwards exhorting his lance (and thus officers under him) to follow his lead. If there was something he had learned in his time in Royal Guards it was that a lot was expected from a leader and doubly so from a leader in Royal Guards. Besides he also knew that as soon as he’d stop the entire attack would falter and stop. Then they would be milling in a killing ground while superior armor and coolant would run the day. He also had little confidence to abilities of Sonja, Ari and Henrik win the day. Thus he did just grit his teeth and went forwards. Sonja and Henrik were definitely nervous but followed Jari’s lead (just like in training).

Their fire was highly effective (or at least it went to right direction). After the slower than thought dash they were right next to wall and mighty tower. Jari’s mech was closer to Swiss cheese but it did what it was intended to do. It had gotten his makeshift assault force right to the wall of the manor wall. On bad side of things, they were getting creamed by tower’s relentless firepower. It was time for something unforeseen. He simply kicked on his Mech’s jumpjets and flew right to unknown to get himself to manors court yard…

Meanwhile the fighting continued outside walls. Finally Sonja’s (lucky?) shot managed to disable the tower turret and they started to overcome walls by climbing and jumping. On the other hand no one had any clue whose fire had actually destroyed the battery thanks to confusion, flames and smoke. Ari and Sonja were both pouring fire at Kurita and Jari’s lance. Ari was so eager to show his martial prowess that he rushed forwards headlong to capture the manor all by himself. His eagerness made it all look like it was his effort that had disabled the tower (even if Sonja had some private reservations on subject).

Jari’s bold jump had landed him right on a court yard and actually on top of one of the tanks. This accidental hit proved to be death from above to light Scorpion that broke under his Griffin’s weight. To make thing better could and did shoot at other towers from this blind spot behind them. This combined with destruction of one of the towers proved too much to Kuritan defenders. The defensive fire died, especially right after rest of the Mechs arrived to seal the fate of the fortress. Once gates crashed down the infantry could storm the opening and flush out the surrendering dazed defenders.

After fighting had died Jari opened the hatch and lit up a victory cigar. He looked at burning trucks, dozens of dead household servants and slaves and troops littering the courtyard and screaming of wounded. He also looked the incredibly heroic smoking cigar in the battlefield and showing his best side against the morning sun. (This is the so called Blue Steel gaze carefully trained in Royal Guards.) To make thing even better the young officers were hero worshipping Jari. His jump had been something right out of MechKrieger novels. Jari savored the moment like a fine wine (“God! This is what I live for!”).

---

Collapse of the Kurita resistance was sealed when Lady of the Household arrived to court yard with her children in tow. As soon as the firefight was over and troops were surrendering she took over the remains of her mansion to Lyran commander Jari. According to chivalric code he graciously accepted her surrender and immediately accepted (well actually he pondered issue for a moment) her plea for protection for her and her family. Jari accepted this on behalf of Duke Winfield (then he muttered Lady Steiner so quietly no one heard it).
She and her family were escorted back to her bedroom (after it was checked it had nothing that would aid her to do anything silly) and she was assigned a Lyran tank officer of equal noble rank to work as liaison between her and her new protectors (Jari was too busy to do that personally). Meanwhile infantry officers would make sure Thogs would not loot too much (or burn the place accidentally down). The rest of the household was pushed to animal pens for time being to be toys of Thogs.

Then it was time to do the official conquest. With Jari now commanding the fortress they pulled down Lord Kurita’s cruel dragon and mansion lord’s standard. Thogs pulled up first the proud battle standard of Steiner family. The iron fist that showed their barbarous enemies that they were ready to push it into their butt should they dare to defy Lady Steiner’s iron will. Below it came the proud battle standard of Winfield’s Brigade to show which regiment had won here today. Somewhere in background Jari made it clear that mansion lord’s standard would go to Winfield as war booty (and to decorate Duke Winfield’s manor to show his martial prowess) and his valet would use Kurita flag as a rag to shine his combat boots from now on (“Proper respect above all”).

Sonja watched that proud ceremony with a hard lump in her throat. She recited the national anthem and all sworn statements she had always recited while tear fell down her cheek. She had taken part in conquering a fortress for the first time in her life. It was the proudest moment of her life (at least until she’d be General of the Armies and married to Frederic Steiner – and she wouldn’t invite Sari to her wedding just to make Sari green with envy).

---

That night they all went to see their prisoner. He (Kurita has only males as real officers unlike Steiner who employs men and women) was part of Rasalhague Regulars (the occupation army of Lord Kurita in Rasalhague space) Sonja approached this obviously satanic figure with knife in her hand (just in case). She was surprised that it did not have any hooves or horns. It must have hidden them with some kind of Kurita treachery and trickery! However, it was natural that it did not have any pitchfork as commandos would have certainly taken it away. She stabbed him (“only a little bit”) with her finger just in case to see if it was like humans are. She staggered back in sheer terror as she noticed its skin was warm and it reacted to her touch (“Dear God! It can mimic us humans!”).

Henrik was easily the most liberal minded and he actually pondered (in his mind at least) that not all servants of Kurita are inheritably evil and that they are almost all humans. However, he was not bold enough to say such bold statements to rest of the highly educated and obviously very open minded Lyran noble officers (if they had been part of notoriously blood thirsty and religiously fanatic horde of Lord Davion they would have burned this Kurita heathen/devilry at stake already).

Ari was a man of both action and science and thus he wanted to empirically test what devilry lied behind this mask of humanity. He pulled with two hands face of screaming prisoner angry that the face mask did not go off. However, his mind calmed as Jari took over as the most senior officer present calming minds of all involved. “Do not be worried! I know that spawn of Kurita clan are themselves satanic devils but they treacherously employ misguided wretched as their mindless minions. However, I also know they can be reformed in LIC’s re-education camps to ultimately rejoin the humanity.” Ari nodded with solemn severity. It must be so because more experienced officer had said so.

---

Later that night the curious young officers went to see war booty. Especially captured Kuritan Scorpion tanks were interesting. Much to Sonja’s surprise they were almost identical to Lyran Scorpion tanks (besides different language name plates). This was hardly a surprise as both were produced and sold any customer by Lyran manufacturer Defiance (aka Merchants of Death par excellence).

Final phase of the very busy day was a dinner at the mansion hall. Unfortunately ladies did not had chance to get changed to evening gowns but such adversity was acceptable in perilous field conditions. Same went to fact that cook working under command of lady of the manor (and under watchful eyes of thogs) could not make perfect roasted beef.

Sonja was in her element explaining to lady of the house finer details of keeping hawks. Still it was admirable that lady of the house had taken that noble sport as her own. No matter how humiliated the New Caledonian lady was Sonja kept on explaining again and again how to do it in her own (and much better) way. After all, falconry was a serious business and Sonja was only offering her best advice. She finished off at about 0600…

Final Thoughts:

Rather surprisingly everything worked just as I had planned. The two random encounters I rolled were: Ambush and Intelligence Report.

Ambush was essentially a Tank battalion ambush with three companies and U shaped kill box. Jari’s excellent rolls meant they got wind of it beforehand and he avoided the trap by taking detour. Naturally Kurita knew their ambush had failed and thus moved to shadow the Lyran unit moving ever deeper to their areas.

Intelligence Report was originally thought out to be merely additional data on Kurita forces in area but I decided to use it to reintroduce some commandos met in previous times (See Fifth Session). I naturally had to choose Sonja’s paramour as commando leader to get some good roleplaying interaction.

Rewards:

Jari: +1 for insane Jump Jet stunt. +1 for looking cool as hell when smoking cigar.

Ari: +1 for heroic attack against Manor (at least according to others).

[Lysenko]

Blue steel gaze, huh? I'll have to remember that. It reminds of a more mellow form of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBksHaTQCbU

Or maybe this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKZb1ALEGX4&feature=related

[Captain Vlad]

Jari: +1 for insane Jump Jet stunt. +1 for looking cool as hell when smoking cigar.

So far the crew I GM has never attempted to get XP for trying to look cool, though one did an extra reward once for a gunfight scene ending up like something out of a western.  Congrats to Jari's player on getting his influence point due to a careful selection of lighting and backdrop.;)

Funny thing, he seems downright cautious as a commander (in a good way, though) but exceedingly aggressive when actually in combat.  Not a terrible combination, actually...

Question:  I looked through the older posts, but I never saw what kind of Battlemech's the players are piloting, with the exception of Sonja's PXH and Jari's Griffin.  What kind of steel are they driving?  (Henrik obviously had something with LRMs, and Sari's got an autocannon...I was picturing Henrik in a Hunchback for some weird reason though).

[Minerva]

Question:  I looked through the older posts, but I never saw what kind of Battlemech's the players are piloting, with the exception of Sonja's PXH and Jari's Griffin.  What kind of steel are they driving?  (Henrik obviously had something with LRMs, and Sari's got an autocannon...I was picturing Henrik in a Hunchback for some weird reason though).

3rd Battalion of Winfield's Brigade

Command Lance
  Atlas (Battalion Commander)
  Banshee
  Archer
  Thunderbolt

1st Company
  Griffin (Jari)
  Archer
  JagerMech
  Centurion

  Phoenix Hawk (Sonja)
  Centurion
  Whitworth
  Wolverine

  Marauder (Henrik)
  Whitworth
  Assassin
  Trebuchet

2nd Company
  Zeus (Janne)
  Zeus
  Quickdraw
  Assassin

  Rifleman (Sari)
  Quickdraw
  Thunderbolt
  Cicada

  Thunderbolt (Ari)
  Phoenix Hawk
  Dervish
  Commando

[Minerva]

Eighth Session: Blind Boxing

First Ideas:

The original idea was to carry on momentum for getting advanced base amidst Kurita heartland in Island. Thus my idea was that two companies would carry on competitive raids and players could compete on which company gets better results.

Following that there would be a second session for these kinds of raids and bragging rights for winner.
This was a case when entire regular player cast: Jari, Sonja, Henrik, Sari and Ari were present.

Actual Play:

Regimental Raid in New Caledonia was turning from nuisance and chance for glory to deadly serious business as far as Kurita was concerned. Steiner forces were busily mobbing their forces to bases and number of raids, assassinations, ambushes and attacks was steadily increasing. To make things worse there had been raids on slave pens and number of freed slaves had hit a scythe of vengeance across the richest countryside of the New Caledonia. An Ting Legion commander had been forced to come up with campaign plan to get rid of the Steiner forces.

Meanwhile 3rd Battalion commander was honing details of her target list. She’d start with Jari and Sari leading their respective companies on nearby targets. Janne was escorting captured Kurita officer and Lady of the Mansion to DropShip landing zone for safe keeping so Sari was now responsible for attacks. Meanwhile she’d be busy directing the massive circus of moving few tens of thousands of Steiner troops to their new base area. Two new commanders went about their task with their customary ways.

Jari asked for logistics support and supplies for his KGJ. Unfortunately automated field computer network system did not work immediately so he accidentally asked for three times the logistics support necessary for company raid. AI routed the request to three different logistics companies that started to demand and deliver same supplies in triplicate and requesting additional material to match the reserved and unavailable demands that other companies had already drawn. Soon the poorly designated base area was swamped with too many men, supplies and orders.

Sari smiled and agreed to command and ordered KGS to get prepared for impending raid. She somehow managed not to add necessary details to necessary paperwork and as a result of completely vague orders nothing was really done. As soon as logistics managed to get an idea that raid was actually being planned the material requests were drawn based on whatever managers came up with. Sari gave back answers until the stress of dealing with constantly alerting communicator made her close the damn thing. Then she went to see some added comfort with this super hunky Commando sergeant who had been with her in exercises before. Certainly things would get better by the time as her subordinates would use their own initiative to fix things.

---

At midnight it was becoming clear that something had gone terribly wrong/nothing was being done.
Ari had been trying to rise to the challenge and had been fixing problems. One thing he had managed to do was equip all mechs with ammunition but his knowledge of logistics plan and routing were weak at best. Unfortunately he had no clue what the actual plan was (due Sari’s somewhat open wording) and thus his answers were only slightly less vague than Sari’s.

Finally Sari had calmed down and got back to work. She answered a batch of questions to best of her (admittedly meager) knowledge in running company raids. Just as she had sent few hundred answers her communicator vomited few thousand more questions. Noticing that she was getting ever more questions, most of which she had no firm idea, Sari got really depressed about it and deleted the rest of them. Then she got back to muscular arms of her super lover for comfort.

Meanwhile Jari was dealing with problems with his own style. His sergeant major would beat up with stick any enlisted who dared to approach him while he screamed on top of his lungs to all officers that they were “incompetent fools” (previous description has been cleared by LCAF “speak flowery today for your subordinates”-day censorship board). He was also drinking heavily to help with his nerves. End result was that no one dared to ask him anything for the whole night.

---

Morning came with heavy cold rain that damped moods even more.

Jari finally figured out that he had accidentally asked three times the supplies he needed. This also meant that he could simply start to clear up the mess by sending two unnecessary logistics units away and tasking the last one to get rid of all the unnecessary gear. That meant clearing every single vehicle of everything and calculating everything again. Sari also came to see how her company was getting ready to combat. Seeing the massive number of logistics people moving about she came into conclusion that things were finally going well. Then she continued all day agreeing to any question given to her to build confidence to her troops.

Meanwhile Battalion Commander came to see the mess but was busy enough not to look too carefully. As far as she was concerned the activity meant that battalion was working and she could deal with tanks and thogs and huge mess of getting everything working while his unit was in skilled hands of Jari.

---

At the afternoon weather continued as bad as in the morning with cold rain pouring in.

At noon Sonja came to see Jari for some clarification. She had been working all night just as she had been ordered yesterday for getting her unit ready for combat. Her lance had been ready for Jari’s inspection since 0400 and she had been standing (with her lance personnel) in the mud in her coolant vest and super fashionable swimsuit (just like heroines in MechKrieger novels) and it was now 1400. Sonja was blue lipped and trembling in hypothermia. She was almost in tears as she asked when they’d start marching. Jari fluently lied to her that they’d leave very soon.

Just as Jari was returning back to his logistics nightmare fixing the Battalion commander had finally noticed that something was amiss. While there were right number of logistics assets there were also mountains of gear in mud. She came to ask from Jari if he knew what was going on. Jari’s explanations and evasive comments were not impressing her and fact that whole time table seemed to go right to hell (just as she was going to brag to Winfield how her forces were tearing up Kurita assets) did not go too well. She went ballistic…

---

Just as raids were turning to a total fiasco the intelligence came with another bomb. Air reconnaissance had seen Kurita regional forces moving forwards to challenge LCAF for combat. It was as if they had waited for this opportunity to hit Lyrans just when the reinforcements were either moving in or in disarray. To make things worse Brigade HQ had moved entire Luftwaffe to entirely different sector. Battalion Commander had just been given orders to stop Kurita mechanized combat force and destroy it with additional forces just being moving to area. She might have hated Jari’s guts at that moment but she also needed his skills to come up with the plan.

BC’s decision was that they’d hit Kurita on the move. Essentially the idea was to stop Kurita forces by forcing them to fight a battle away from base area. This would allow reinforcements to come up at later time with minimum of problems. They could also use their firepower without having to worry about own forces. Jari and BC both knew that Kurita was at their strongest when they were attacking and weakest when they were changing their formation from movement to contact to frontal assault. Jari came up with an idea that they should attack when Kurita was rotating in place. BC thought they’d offer bait that would force Kurita to respond and then Mechs would attack rotating regiment to cause chaos that would either lead to full retreat or long time when unit would be reorganizing self.

All they now needed was the bait. Any junior officer would do.

---

The mind numbing wait of the raid was turned to supercharged full battalion attack plan briefing by Battalion Commander in an instant.

The battle plan called for a Mech lance to attack flank of Kurita unit causing enough havoc to look like a company or preferably a full battalion. Kurita would react to BattleMech forces by turning to face it. This would take perhaps 30 minutes to an hour. During this time second lance would attack rotating Kurita forces to cause confusion as it would force them to change again their posturing. This would be made by Battalion commander herself. With any luck the Kurita force would be in state of total confusion and thus highly vulnerable to third blow.

The third blow would come with a full Mech company (led by Jari) who’d strike at Kurita rear at this time. It would lead to whole regiment to either fall back or disintegrate allowing Lyrans to kill plenty of Kurita tanks and troops in confusion. Then, Lyrans would fall back and let armour regiments to wipe out the Kurita units moving about blindly. Finally one lance (tasked to be Sonja on Jari’s insistence) would go to Kurita rear services and quartermaster units during all this to cause further confusion.

It was a fine plan and right out of MechKrieger novels. Jari was awfully quiet as he knew it would be a death ride. Battalion Commander said that the lance leader who is responsible for the first attack would be rewarded with a medal immediately. Ari snapped to attention before anyone else could react. This was his chance for glory. All Ari could thought about was a medal in his chest. He’d make his family so proud!

Battalion commander shook Ari’s hand fully knowing that this was probably last time she’d ever see him…

---

Everything indicated that Kurita forces were moving forwards eagerly and getting ready to meet Lyran forces in encounter battle. They knew that Kurita troops had well earned reputation for aggressiveness and these regional forces were living it up to the hilt. Then again the Kurita troops were on very busy time table as they knew that every hour brought in more and more Lyran troops. There were no alternatives for Kurita regional forces as political pressure to do something from New Caledonian nobles was overwhelming. The attack was calculated risk.

Battalion’s battle plan unfolded just as it should and for once Lyran military intelligence had correctly predicted Kurita actions. BC and Jari had made a carefully synchronized timetable for their three strikes aimed to stop Kurita troops on their tracks.

Perhaps 30 minutes before trap was launched BC gave one last pep talk to Ari to remind him to make sure that everything depended on his action to make his small force look like a Steiner main force. Ari was very eager and extremely nervous at the same time. Everything would depend on his heroism now. In the meanwhile BC tried to remember good things to say about Ari’s performance to his family…

---

Battle commenced with Ari’s lance storming forwards from South. Thanks to almost complete failure of Kuritan
reconnaissance his lance ran right at the side of mechanized company serving as a flanking force.

Ari’s unit managed to blow up the enemy with the ease of being in exercise field. Ari was so excited about being part of a real fight that he completely forgot to notice enemy fire (and actually lead his lance). Thankfully the surprised Kurita force was interested in retreating to north. He was eagerly reporting something of a vague report which experienced Jari could surmise as a total success.

Ari’s savage assault caused huge shock amongst Kurita regiment. Total surprise and collapse of the screen made it obvious that Lyran Mech forces were out in force. Doctrinally they should have rotated to meet Lyran forces but the lightning speed of Ari’s assault had made regimental commander worried his force could not do it in time. Thus he ordered the columns to stop in place and get ready to meet what seemed like a massive Lyran force storming from the South.

Anti-tank battalion would be put to forefront to meet the armored fist while regiment’s reconnaissance company (now moving far ahead of the regiment) was vectored to probe and harass Lyran force from the east. He also made sure the Headquarters Company would move to North to get to a safe position so he could command the battle. All and all, it promised to be a bloody day.

BC decided to call in his heaviest force to batter Kurita forces she was expecting to be moving to South to meet Ari’s lance. Lyran artillery would give series of devastating barrages in areas where Kurita forces would go through. Too bad that Ari was going to move in same area but such were fortunes of war…

---

The next phase of operation was BC’s attack from East to West at Kuritan flank which should have been protected by their regiment’s reconnaissance company. However, with reconnaissance unit slipping to South and entire regiment sitting in place there were no forces protecting Eastern direction.

Thus Battalion commander moving through smoke screen (which she had ordered to cover her attack and make her lance look stronger force) hit empty area. With nothing to see she merely plowed forwards (the actual positions of friendly and enemy forces in trackers were always suspect due heavy deception jamming both sides always used in the battlefield). She decided to kick more speed to her Atlas and get deeper and deeper to West to meet the enemy flank. It would be perfect start to kick in third phase which Jari was still holding despite time table slips.

Meanwhile Ari went right to the barrage and smoke that was supposed to hit Kurita troops rotating to meet him. He saw no reason to suspect that things were not going according to plan as he was following his orders to the perfection. Orders had been to attack with a savage spirit at Kurita force. (“I’ll do that – eventually!”) Artillery explosions rocked his Mech but Ari could not care less of cluster munitions tearing up his Mech’s armor. He thought they were Kurita ground fire. He was now trembling with excitement of hunt. He was going to be Knight of Commonwealth for sure!

In the meanwhile Kurita battle plan was being executed perfectly. HQ was moving to a tight circle in North and whatever else were going on the fragmented reports from battalion seemed to indicated that things were doing well. Only problem was lack of Lyran forces ahead. Reconnaissance Company was drawing blank sensor readings. (“Perhaps Lyran forces were moving slower than expected? That would allow his anti tank battalion more time to get to a position and wipe out whoever was coming from South.”) Kurita commander saw no problem whatsoever in his plan. He’d use this sudden slowness of LCAF to his advantage…

---

With Ari reporting that he was heroically marching through Kurita fire (and being inside smoke cloud) it was becoming clear to Jari that it was time to launch the third phase of their battle plan. His KGJ was composed of Henrik’s lance in west and Sari in the East with him in the middle. Jari decided to march at running speed to hit the Kurita force from on its back while moving from North to South.

His first idea that things were going well was when he saw a circle of vehicles, all sporting wild variety of antenna arrays. (“Enemy HQ ahead! Kill it!”) Ten seconds later every single senior officer of the Kurita regiment were killed. Perhaps few survivors could be found but it would be thogs job (especially if you offered them real booze for prisoners in trade). Then it was time to go deeper into South.

---

Ari finally emerged from the smoke clouds to see what was ahead on North. He had never seen so many Kurita troops in same place (and that included regimental live firing exercises). Whole regiment was neatly arranged to a defensive position with anti tank battalion set as anvil to stop his lance’s attack. Then they opened fire.

Ari’s Thunderbolt BattleMech was reduced to a hulk in a matter of seconds. As he ejected into a cloud of tracers the other Mechs of his lance were obviously making him company. At least his Platoon Sergeant’s Phoenix Hawk appeared to have a huge hole where its cockpit was supposed to be. Then everything disappeared to a blackness of unconsciousness as he finally hit back the dirt…

---

In the East BC was moving towards what appeared to be Kurita reconnaissance unit. She charged forwards relying on shock effect to fragment Kurita forces. However, the unit she was charging was actually the vanguard of Kurita regiment that had stopped to defend against enemies coming from South (and East). BC’s charge took her Mechs right on top of Kurita forces but much to her annoyance they did not budge but stayed stubbornly in place suffering deadly firepower of her assault Mech lance.

Ultimately her charge took her to heart of enemy defenses (where she fully expected to meet enemy battalion HQ and blow it up to cause chaos). Kurita battalion commander pondered idea of retreating because his forces were obviously being attacked by much stronger Lyran forces. However, regimental HQ was not in the air so he tried in vain to get permission to retreat before his entire unit would be overrun. To buy time he ordered his anti-tank unit and reserves to meet the Lyran Mech attack…

---

Meanwhile Jari’s makeshift company was charging southwards to meet enemy column on the move. Jari was exceedingly eager to use situation to his advantage and was totally surprised to see that enemy was not on the move but had arranged itself to a neat defensive formation. To make things worse their tanks had moved to North of the column (to serve as counterattack reserve) and his company was about to charge enemy tank battalion (that had moved to serve there as a Regimental reserve). Jari’s company was now getting to a serious fight. Surely he could fight through enemy tank battalion but he did not want to lose a whole company in the process. Thus he called BC for advice and change of plans. (“Things just couldn’t get worse.”)

Meanwhile BC’s lance had gotten itself trapped by Kurita anti-tank units and was taking serious damage. The smoke and confusion offered excellent chances for anti-mech infantry to attack Lyran mechs that stopped to deal with this suddenly very target-rich environment. Sooner rather than later she noticed that there was much more Kurita troopers than a mere company. The plan had obviously gone wrong but she had difficulties knowing exactly what was going on due smoke and jamming. Then everything started to burn thanks to inferno rounds being fired more or less randomly in heat of battle by Kurita fires support that was mercilessly pouring fire where they thought there might be Lyrans.

In the heat of battle BC completely forgot to run the battalion in the heat of battle as she was now dealing with far more important issue of survival and thus completely forgot to answer Jari’s urgent plea for quick battlefield conference...

---

BC’s Atlas hit by particularly lucky anti-mech infantry attack (steady flow of missile fire did not hurt Kurita chances either). With rest of the lance protecting fallen and burning Mech (that tried to rise up again) Jari ordered Sari to rescue BC by any means necessary. Her lance was heaviest and closest. Sari immediately turned to quick march her lance to BC’s expected position (which had nothing to do with BC’s actual position). However, thanks to massive smoke generated by inferno fire her unit survived despite Kurita heavy fire. However, she had not foggiest idea where BC actually was…

---

With BC being (hopefully) rescued Jari thought it was perfect time to call it quits for the day. Henrik’s lance had so far been been giving a punch above its weight (i.e. had not screwed up yet). Jari gave him orders to keep on fighting against enemy while he made sure there would be enough smoke for them all to retreat. At the same time the sheer weight of fire started to turn against Lyrans and Henrik lost his first mech as Assassin started to sputter smoke and finally fell down under cloud of tracers.

Meanwhile Henrik was downright flabbergasted by the fighting. He had never seen so much happening at the same time. He was shooting on recycle and generally having real problems ordering his lance about in large scale combat. Jari cursed him to lowest hell. Henrik’s fire was enthusiastic to but also extremely ineffective but he did not have time to dismount, walk to his mech and then show Henrik by hand how it is done…

It was a crunch time amongst the inferno fire. BC lost her entire lance in extremely determined (and downright suicidal) anti-tank assault. She was now all alone amidst the Kurita forces. Things looked pretty grim but right at that moment Sari’s lance stumbled from the smoke…

---

The whole tide of the battle was turned in a minute with Sari’s fresh lance essentially shooting anything and everything moved. Their fire may have been inaccurate but it was the volume that counted. Finally Kurita vanguard lost its enthusiasm and broke.

Situation was too chaotic to allow anything resembling a recovery or destroyed Mechs so BC simply ordered Sari to cover her retreat. Then she started to command the battalion again. Things would change as soon as she’d return with two tank regiments in a matter of days…

With BC out of fight she contacted Jari who told her that he had been forced to stop assaulting due very heavy enemy fire and that his and Henrik’s lances were getting seriously damaged. In essence he wanted her to order a retreat ex post facto. This would also save Jari’s neck in a very possible inquiry on what happened that day. BC agreed to it and called a general retreat. They’d had enough killing for a day…

---

However, somewhere outside of the bloody day was Sonja whose lance had been enjoying the sunny day, blue skies and picturesque landscape where she and her lance had charged across a field of flowers amidst Hurrah shouts at retreating Kurita quartermaster units…

In this field of honour she showed superb professionalism and contribution to battle far beyond her duty as she had been machine gunning unarmed office workers trying to run away.

However, at the back of her mind Sonja had to admit that she was disappointed for not being in the heart of a big exciting battle. What exciting stories of heroism and courage her best friends could tell her when they’d meet again in tomorrow...

---

The fate of the Kurita battle force was sealed at nightfall. Regrouped Lyrans used their artillery and Luftwaffe air strikes to maul the battered force with few hours of bombardment. Finally the coup de grace came when two Lyran armor regiments smashed into Kurita force and battle standard of New Caledonia became one more prize of Winfield family.

Mech units had also reason to cheer. Ari had been found in battlefield when thogs had been combing it for Kurita troops. Certainly he looked having gone through hell but so too was entire battalion. Price of victory had been dear.

Final Thoughts:

Thanks to some truly amazingly bad die rolling neither company managed to start their raids. Thus time and momentum moved to Kurita forces. I pulled off planned counterattack by making Kurita force heavily reinforced Soviet mechanized infantry brigade (in late 1980’s) and marching across plains. Kurita also mimicked some of the Soviet tactics.

Jari made excellent plan to kill the force and it should have gone exceedingly well with force caught by surprise and thus routed. However, things did not go like that at all. Truly formidable staying power (morale rolls) of Kurita forces and completely failed tactics rolls by Lyran forces alongside fog of war led to battalion almost gotten overwhelmed. They did severely maul the Kurita force but casualties were quite heavy.

My players liked the fact that the situation was changing all the time with both sides fighting dynamically and making mistakes and trying to deal with a confusing situation.

Rewards:

Ari: +1 for taking part of a major battle. +1 for volunteering to be the bait.

Henrik: +1 for taking part of a major battle.

Jari: +1 for taking part of a major battle. +1 for planning the mission.

Sari: +1 for taking part of a major battle. +1 for rescuing Battalion commander.

Sonja: +1 for taking part of a major battle.

[Minerva]

3rd Battalion of Winfield's Brigade

Command Lance
  Atlas (Battalion Commander) - heavy damage
  Banshee - destroyed, pilot MIA
  Archer - destroyed, pilot MIA
  Thunderbolt - destroyed, pilot MIA

1st Company
  Griffin (Jari) - damaged
  Archer - heavy damage
  JagerMech - heavy damage
  Centurion - damaged

  Phoenix Hawk (Sonja)
  Centurion
  Whitworth
  Wolverine

  Marauder (Henrik) - damaged
  Whitworth - damaged
  Assassin - destroyed, pilot MIA
  Trebuchet - heavily damaged

2nd Company
  Zeus (Janne)
  Zeus
  Quickdraw
  Assassin

  Rifleman (Sari) - damaged
  Quickdraw - damaged
  Thunderbolt - heavy damage
  Cicada - heavy damage

  Thunderbolt (Ari) - destroyed, pilot rescued
  Phoenix Hawk - destroyed, pilot KIA
  Dervish - heavy damage
  Commando - destroyed, pilot MIA

[guardiandashi]

this is getting more interesting.

reading the story of the battle I was remembering the truism "No plan survives contact with the enemy"

and on a more amusing note.... as I was reading the battle action I was seriously getting the impression that it was a bunch of people that were almost pulling "3 stooges levels of incompetence on both sides" and yet in some ways the lyran forces through "luck" accidentally completed some "objectives"

[Captain Vlad]

Man, that went south real quick, didn't it?

Somehow love that Sari was the one to rescue the BC and essentially turn the tide.  With her, it seemed like an accident, yet she does seem to have the knack for showing up at just the right time...on the other hand, the battle might not have happened had she managed to get her raid going.;)

[Lysenko]

Heh. Battletech: The Future of Warfare, indded!

[Minerva]

Ninth Session: Acts of Valour

First Ideas:

The original idea of moving from major fighting to attack against Kurita city were postponed because battalion was in no shape of mounting urban assault. Therefor I decided against “combat” and ponder on something else. I originally decided to do a boring raid but my friend suggested on concentrating on repercussions of the major fight.

Thus I concentrated on the single most important issue of warfare to any soldier past and present: looking good while doing it. There were medals to be distributed and regular showboating to go around but this time there would also be a chance to get really famous (which would have definite consequences later when survivors return to garrison).

This session was built around three players: Ari, Henrik and Sari.

Actual Play:

Acts of Valour: Act I - The Setup

It all started with perfectly innocent alert through grape wine that Winfield was more than satisfied with the results (or at least the version that had come up to his ears). Battalion had thoroughly wiped out Kurita’s regional reserves and thus allowed his regiment to properly lay siege on major enemy cities while regrouping for inevitable future confrontation with An Ting Regiment of Lord Kurita’s military. There would be tough fight ahead.

But for now it was time for everyone to feel good about themselves. Winfield himself was coming to see his troops and distribute medals which are ultimate object in every military man’s mind. To make things even better there were also propaganda unit present so there would be great chance to look good and score points for promotion.

Thus Battalion commander started by removing any and all possible military problems of her badly mauled outfit. Friction between Jari and his father-in-law Winfield were well known amongst officers so she decided to deal with this potential minefield by giving Jari strict orders to “Get Lost”. Jari immediately took this as a chance to disappear to nearby village and get seriously drunk for next few days (or possibly weeks depending on how quickly military police could find him).

In the meanwhile second company commander was escorting the local noble family to Winfield’s camp (for future ransom) so Sari would be in command of mech forces in remote case something would happen or something would need to be done. She wasn’t perhaps the best platoon leader but it was clearly obvious that her other strengths (visual effects) would play well with propaganda people.

Then it was time to stop her officers doing stupid things before they would happen. She informed totally surprised Ari that he was going to receive a medal for being a volunteer. With Ari happy beyond his wildest dreams (well perhaps less happy than he would have been if he’d been given a rank of general) he immediately turned into a waddling puddle of joy and tears that would have looked bad in video (and perhaps prevented showing it in public consumption). Ari was screaming through his gritted teeth in joy (yes, I know this is nominally considered to be physically impossible but characters in novels I read do that).

Then she arranged a surprise dinner for Winfield so they could all get their little (and not so little) requests to him and make Winfield feel good in general. It was also a chance to brag to propaganda people and thus increase chances of getting immortalized in next news cycle (to be forgotten in less than 24 hours).

---

Winfield arrived in next day with VTOL to battalion. Everything looked remarkably well as he was driven with jeep from VTOL landing pad to mansion through row of battalion’s fighting ready BattleMechs showing that it could move on moment’s notice to any eventuality that Winfield had in mind. There were also visible scars in Mechs showing how battalion had turned from green outfit to experienced and battle hardened fighting machine.

This time there was no need to fake minor battle damage on battalion’s surviving mechs as they had all been on receiving end of actual fighting. However, the really bad damage was covered up with camouflage nets. It all made it look like unit was being covered against enemy air raids (despite the fact that Luftwaffe had been master of the skies ever since they had been landed) and “silently professional” in a way that every MechKrieger novel reader (and writer) would recognize.

Battalion Commander had also extremely well ironed and starched uniform and perfect hair to make her look that she could keep up the grooming standards even in rough life in field (while being supported by a nearby manor at least). Sari would deal with protocol and in general make sure Winfield felt good about himself. Sonja would have been her first choice but unfortunately she was away patrolling plains (and probably burning small villages). Unfortunately all horses of the manor had been killed so they had to escort Winfield with jeep rather than white horse of victorious warlord but such were rigors of war.

---

Winfield’s speech about crushing Kurita like cockroaches and medal distribution to Ari (who looked good on Camera with his steely gaze) went remarkably well with suitable amount of pomp and Ari strutting like any real military hero should do. Meanwhile Sari made such an impression to Winfield that he thought she could be considered his acquaintance, perhaps even receiving a new year’s card.

Winfields trip all went according to plan until late at the dinner (just when Battalion Commander wanted to discuss with Winfield her future career options) when he dropped a bomb on their lap. The heroic combat and excellent results had led them to discuss with Michael Firth, a prominent movie director/producer (perhaps best known for mega popular Total Annihilation movie series) who had been with troops during this reconnaissance raid and had signaled interest in turning battalion’s battlefield success to a movie which would be called “Acts of Valour”. As a matter of fact he would ask Michael Firth to come to battalion with his team next thing tomorrow after he had returned back to HQ…

---

Acts of Valour: Act II – The Confrontation

Michael’s team went right to the bottom of things in their fact finding mission. First he explained his views on movie: “This will be all about ordinary people who do extraordinary things.” Then he pointed out that these first interviews with officers would not be softballs: “We are going to look for unvarnished truth about our men and women in uniform who are real Lyran heroes we should all respect and worship at all times.” Then things started to spin out of control.

Henrik explained just how his heroic actions had turned the tide of fighting. Only his wall of fire had saved everyone as he had himself destroyed a tank battalion. He explained that he could be considered the very embodiment of valor but he had a fatal weakness that he was far too modest and thus could not fully explain all of his exploits. He was simply the best MechWarrior of Inner Sphere.

Sari concentrated on human side of soldiering by describing relations between officers. For one there were some members of unit who were quite promiscuous (she told enough gossip material to write movie “This is Not Acts of Valour: Part XXX” to be released under different distributer for entirely different audiences) and some lived very roughly on field, especially her fellow officers. On the other hand she had problem of trying to overcome her shyness, not to mention body image issues and these had plagued her through her growth to womanhood and finally becoming considerate and conscious Lyran officer. For her future she was still looking for that right one and saving herself to him. For future she hoped there would be universal peace and prosperity in Inner Sphere. She loved kittens too (and shoes).

Ari meanwhile pointed out that he was a hero because he is a hero because he has a medal. “See, can you see my medal. I am a hero. I have been under fire. I am a hero.” When talk turned if they could take some test photos of him and his Mech he refused as some of his Mech’s equipment was classified and thus could not be shown to civilians. Instead he could show them one of his lance mate’s mechs.

Best of all was that Michael Firth believed every word. Now he wanted to see his heroes in action!

---

Acts of Valor: Act III – The Resolution

Impromptu raid was in order but unfortunately almost none of the Mechs was in marching order. Thus Battalion Commander ordered Sari, Ari and Hendrik to escort Michael Firth and two of his fact finders to see something, anything that could not shoot back. Intelligence suggested a small village that had been used by Kurita as a workshop and perhaps had half a dozen broken down vehicles. It was naturally the very next “daring reconnaissance raid” that battalion would do. Battalion Commander went along with it and made sure she was wearing her Coolant Vest and gold rimmed sunglasses when briefing the mission just like heroines in MechKrieger novels.

---

The macho MechWarrior talk went on and on during the march to target. Sari started by pointing out that Henrik’s Mech was practically unharmed while he had lost a Mech and pilot. On the other hand her unit was fully manned and ready to fight. This made Ari suddenly very quiet about the fact that he was moving with only Mech of his lance left (after having kicked off its MechWarrior first).

The raid itself went surprisingly well. Intelligence had been perfectly raid and few infantrymen that Kurita forces had defending the village were no match to three Lyran BattleMechs. After half an hour of killing empty vehicles, mostly unarmed mechanics and few assorted locals the fight was over. Then it was time to head back.

---

Sometime along the march back through forest it became obvious that the forest was crawling with Kurita BattleMechs. They started to see tracks of 3-Mech patrols. Sari continued furiously to zigzag between Kurita patrol lanes and ultimately got lost deeper and deeper in forest by running their unit in circles and seeing more tracks (they had themselves left behind in the first place). It wasn’t until few hours later when Henrik came with a bright idea that perhaps they should stick one direction and move forwards until they had actually left the forest as Kurita patrols never seemed to catch them? Meanwhile Michael Firth was taping excitedly his experience in taking part in this raid with its furious combat and skilled avoidance of enemy patrols and generally seeing LCAF showing every bit of its reputation of ineptitude as a crude exaggeration at best and bald-faced false and hostile Kurita propaganda at worst.

---

During the trip back Henrik explained to Michael Firth (and everyone else) some facts of life of what veteran MechWarriors like him actually do in combat. His awesomeness came from simple fact that he could visualize Kurita Mechs around him. As a matter of fact his “situational awareness” was only a part of the equation. More important was fact that during Mech combat he could clear his mind from the enemy. Without any enemies to distract him he would then enter a state where world would slow down to a crawl. He called it: “Bullet Time”.

Michael Firth was awestruck. It was just like the heroic action in his movie “Total Annihilation 7!” Sari also nodded in perfect combination of jealous awe and bimbo mode. Henrik must have described some mission where she had not been in. If only she had been there too so she would have seen it…

---

When raiders returned back to Lyran lines it was becoming obvious that movie had all makings of super hit. However, one thing remained. Who should be the title name holder? Battalion Commander with her heroic pose and keen tactical mind, shy and beautiful Sari who had left her life of luxury to serve House Steiner, Henrik who was the ace pilot of the unit and capable of superhuman feats with his BattleMech or Ari who was very embodiment of a Lyran dream to follow footsteps of his father to become officer and a hero with a medal given by divine Archon for his efforts? Perhaps he should ask more background information from one missing officer of the unit, Jari…

Final Thoughts:

Single most important fact of the session was that the three players all managed to make film crew convinced that they were super heroes. Unfortunately they did not manage to convince them enough to look much better than others. Therefor jockeying for best position within the movie is still an ongoing process.

The actual fight where unit took film crew to see how LCAF fights DCMS (or more precisely local forces) was pure comedy of errors but once again the rolls were good when situation appeared worst. Lady luck seems to rule the day.

Rewards:

Ari: +2 for being actually a hero (and having a medal to show it)

Sari: Battalion Commander thinks you are her friend! Winfield thinks you as his acquaintance.

Henrik: +1 for being the first non-author fiat MechWarrior of the BattleTech universe with Phantom Mech skill…

[ckosacranoid]

i am not sure to laugh or cry about how much the charaters sounds like morons......very funny reading though. much less miss super slut has to very funny though.

[Minerva]

Tenth Session: Deep Reconnaissance

First Ideas:

This time Ari and Jari were present. Thus the plan had to be changed to move from city fighting (my original idea was that they’d take over major Kurita city) to bringing forwards threat of a Kurita Mech regiment being in present. This would allow players to feel that Kurita threat would increase and they would face them off in a major showdown.

My idea was that Winfield’s Brigade would march to face Kurita and during this march the available players would do a reconnaissance mission to confirm location of Kurita forces (for a major showdown in next session – the 11th one).

Actual Play:

Military police had found out Jari that arrived back to unit after hearing that BattleMechs had been deployed. In the meanwhile he had somehow managed to find a VW Kleinbus painted with flowers and was there dressed as a PimpMaster General serving in proud pink service colors Brothel Corps of Avalon Hussars of Armed Forces of Federated Suns. He had no clear collection how it had all happened during “Weekend of Peace and Love” and Battalion Commander was far too experienced field commander to put him on a drug test first.

---

After shower and pot of coffee it was also clear that he would do Jari’s first assignment for the day. Interstellar movie director/producer Michael Firth was visiting the unit and he had especially asked Jari to help him. He was going to make a movie of exploits of the Battalion in recent battle. It was her future career and potential book deal on line there was no way she’d let Jari risk all that by refusing to be interviewed. Jari would go to court martial if he refused to co-operate with him as he was now working for a Propaganda unit. Jari promised to talk with him in same good spirit as he would to any other officer in his company right now.

---

(Following comments has been cleared by LCAF Video/Audio Liaison as the least offensive language version fit for MechKrieger novel readership.)

“Listen boy. Situate yourself below the wind right now.  You stink of metrosexuality to me and since when has LCAF allow semi civilians to serve in front lines?”

“Finally. When a REAL Mechwarrior officer is drinking his coffee it means that you will stand in attention until relieved. Is that clear?”

---

Then it was time for Battalion Commander to have some “robust small talk” with Jari as she had almost got fit over Michael Firth’s description of his initial contact with Jari. She made it clear that he would answer every single question he would have and some more or he would get to explain his behavior with Regimental HQ (and Winfield who would tear him a new hole in ass for this). Meanwhile Jari’s hangover was getting worse and worse.

---

Q: “You have served before in Royal Guards?”

A: “Yes.”

Q: “Can you tell some kind of a story about Steiners. Public loves to hear more about Royal house.”

A: “I’ve slept with Archon.”

Q: “What?”

A: “The older one. The Real One.”

Q: “Eh…”

A: “Here in my cellular you can see a picture of him asleep in in one of his hunting lodges in Mountains next to Nagelring. Archons go there to get drunk whenever they got too pissed off on clowns of Estates General. See him and a bottle of Leberkleister. He could, BTW, drink us all under the table.”

Q: “Ehh…”

A: “I guess I’ll mention about telling this thing to you the next time I see LIC Counterintelligence Officer in Regimental HQ.”

Q: “We can’t use this interview at all. Palace, LIC Propaganda and LCAF Liaison will never allow it!”

A: “Tough luck. Now I need a drink.”

---

Then it was back to business.

Winfield had decided to change his battle plans. The raid part of devastating countryside and harassing towns and generally burning down the enemy positions was going to be over as more and more soldiers of An Ting Legion were being shipped to meet Winfield’s Brigade. Kurita movement was cautious and they were obviously not letting LCAF any free empty flank to attack them. Recce units had found out that Kurita troops had enough supplies for a major battle. In essence they were fighting by the book.

LCAF on the other hand had two choices: First, they could retreat now in good order having devastated large region of countryside (even if major cities were not taken). It was a good result and mission had been by all accounts a success. Second, they could face Kurita. This was risky as Kurita had superior numbers and enough supplies to burn out Lyrans in a massive meat grinder if maneuvering did not work. If fight failed the Winfield would have no choice other than fall back quickly and leave in disorder losing supplies and giving Kurita at least a propaganda victory. If it turned to a victory the eastern part of continent would be Winfields for few months more.

Mood in Regimental HQ was tense as they listened alongside other officers on new plan. Winfield had decided to stay in system and fight An Ting Legion. He would maneuver his forces north so there would be a salt flat with marshes between DCMS and LCAF. As both sides were troops of their respective royal houses their firepower and mobility were obviously better than local forces that would give An Ting much needed numbers and soak up Lyran equipment advantage.

As units moved from devastating southern parts of Continent to meet DCMS forces Jari would be leading one of the many small patrols necessary to carry out terrain reconnaissance. He’d work with some engineers (and secret operations people) protecting them while they’d look for a route through salt marshes good enough to tracked vehicles if it became necessary to carry out counterattack.

---

Secret operations people suggested a mission profile. Jari’s Lance (Griffin, Archer, JägerMech, Centurion reinforced with Ari’s lance (Dervish) ) would be doing normal escorting for Lyran unit moving up towards Salt lake. They would spend 4 days as part of column of armored forces and then slip towards Salt marches approaching it through series of low hills for roughly a day. The route reconnaissance would take perhaps 2 days and hurried return home for a day more. Jari and Ari suggested that they would be transported via air directly to area but intelligence nixed that based on their fear that Kurita surveillance would get suspicious of transports to seemingly “empty” area.

Meanwhile special operations personnel would dress up like thogs to make things a bit more difficult for Kurita reconnaissance patrols that were sure to infest the area. Jari had no expertise to comment on that even if privately he pondered if they could ever believably simulate dull look of engineers and their overlong orangutan hands (from too much carrying of antitank mines). They’d definitely be exposed if they’d be lured to speak.

Thankfully the travel within convoy was highly uneventful beyond engineers fooling around by throwing a piece of explosives one to another over a fire and generally fooling with special operations people when talking about best places Mechs to to blow up its ammunition and kill a MechWarrior. Somehow Jari and Ari did not find it nearly as fun as they did.

---

Two of Jari’s Mechs were still badly damaged from previous battle but JagerMech had its sensor package working and it was enough to Jari. He was in no mood to engage anything and most probably Kurita would not engage Mechs without Mechs of their own. Jari’s plan was simple. They’d move across hilly terrain (giving good terrain masking against Kurita sensors). JagerMech would form surveillance and early warning while Ari and his Dervish would go to check out any dead angles and masked terrain before engineers would follow them. In the meanwhile his Mechs were in overwatch to support Ari in case something went wrong.

Jari’s plan was all bread and butter of reconnaissance unit movement in terrain where contact with enemy forces were possible but not necessarily certain. He was essentially sleepwalking the march he had done dozens of times before but this was all new to super overeager Ari who was certain to meet An Ting Legion Mechs behind every hillock.

Thankfully the combination of Ari’s eagerness and JagerMech’s sensor package found out anomaly in sensors. Ari went forwards to check it out and they noticed that they were facing a small Mech force of two lances well hidden under camouflage. At least one of them was Panther. He also managed to get back without alerting enemy while suddenly awake Jari weighted his options. This was definitely not good. Unfortunately they could not get Luftwaffe to give Kurita a lesson in proper camouflage as ASF’s were busy dealing with ever more bolder An Ting Legion ASF’s and hordes of atmospheric fighters of local nobles that were working together to wrestle air superiority away from LCAF. Jari decided to cancel the recce mission and return back. It was obvious that they were weeks if not days away from a major battle.

---

Winfield’s Brigade HQ was receiving more and more reports like this and big picture was being pieced together. They were facing 3 battalions of An Ting Legion face to face across salt marches just they were supposed to do. That gave Lyrans advantage in quality even if numbers were on Kurita side. March flats would even out most of the auxiliary forces as wheeled and tracked vehicles would have serious problems crossing that obstacle. Both sides had roughly equal numbers of hover systems that would effectively cancel each other out. Winfield had put his Second Battalion of Winfield’s Brigade to meet those three battalions.

The bad news was that there had been some Kurita forces infiltrating through hilly terrain to their left flank. Jari’s patrol had not been the only one in area and now intelligence was piecing together a picture that there would be roughly two battalion worth of Mechs in hidden in gullies and lurking behind hills. There would be one battalion made of local nobles eager to show Lord Kurita their fighting power and loyalty (not to mention wish to avenge losses on their mansions and lands). They would be supported by a second battalion of landsknechts, mercenaries from many nations with many crimes. Neither battalion had much cohesion. Probably they were no match to LCAF regular forces under good commander. Unfortunately Third Battalion of Winfield’s Brigade had had more than enough of casualties and was green.

It seemed that An Ting Legion had trapped Steiner forces once and for all…

Final Thoughts:

Deep reconnaissance was one of the few sessions where things actually went like I wanted them to do. Random encounters happened to work in such a way that player unit met some Kurita forces yet Ari managed to get advance warning so Jari could study the threat and make right conclusions. They also managed to retreat without problems even if mission was ultimately not successful).

Some actions for Sari happened because she played what she would be doing during this mission (being invisible for action as she was away). This was because I allowed in next session players to “retell” what they had been doing on their absence and thus contribute to general activity within unit.

Rewards:

Jari: +1 for receiving Critic’s Choice Award of the Year for cancelling “Acts of Valour” movie prematurely.

[Vampire]

 ;D Keep up the good work! Thanks very much for sharing, I love your wicked sense of humour, an the antics of your players.  I just read it again from the beginning and is even better than I remembered!

Initially I was a bit taken aback by your talk of "nuclear launch codes" , since nukes are outlawed in the Battletech universe, but now I realize is just one of your tongue in-cheek jokes.

It's a bit hard to figure out who is who, since the players (or it is the characters?) names are Ari, Jari, and Sari and is hard to figure out who is who, and because the Battallion Commander is a woman, so it is confusing at times,  given those names  I guess you are from Finland, and you have been in the army.

I must also congratulate you for roleplaying the routine of garrison life and make it enjoyable, and for the thought and effort put in describing the military campaign. I am impressed because for those who have not been in the military, it is hard to gamemaster a campaign, and it is reduced to the set up of Battletech scenarios, leaving the grand scheme of the campaign as GM fiat.

I liked this so much, I posted the link in another forum.

[Minerva]

I liked this so much, I posted the link in another forum.

I hope you could post a link to that forum.

[Vampire]

My apologies, is a small unofficial Spanish language forum, so I do not think you will find it useful, but here you go

http://puntonadir.foroactivo.com/

[Minerva]

Eleventh Session: Nuclear Warfare

First Ideas:

Nuclear warfare is culmination of my vision what BattleMech combat in 31st Century is.

All sides are heavily armed and armored and trained and primed to fight continuously around clock. Battlefield itself is widely dispersed due firepower and fear of enemy nuclear attack. Units move either continuously or stay in heavily fortified and protected bases.

This particular battlefield is roughly 500 kilometers wide and 300 kilometers deep. This makes sense given fact that Winfield’s Brigade is effectively size of a small army with two modern army corps. This means that Winfield is fielding perhaps 150,000 men (two army corps) with some 100,000 additional men under Brigade HQ handling additional support and logistics. An Ting Legion has probably one Army Corp worth of troops and perhaps similar number of troops supporting additional local battalions. Given fact that they can support this force with additional contingents of forces collected from this continent they probably match Winfield in sheer numbers. There should be roughly 10,000 armored vehicles (mostly APCs) in both sides.

Since both sides have excellent NBC protective equipment and equally excellent nuclear (hundreds of warheads) and chemical offensive weaponry (roughly 25% of battlefield munitions will be chemical) they are engaging in situation where both sides know either side can create a real holocaust on a matter of minutes. Biological weapons are also cool but neither side has plausible scenario to field them as nuclear counterstrike would wipe out any disease advantage other side has.

Theoretically deterrence should hold with neither side wishing to go nuclear but every fight is fought under shadow of mushroom cloud and both sides know they are taking major risk going head to head…

Players present are: Ari, Henrik, Jari and Sari

Actual Play:

Atmosphere in Winfield’s Brigade was getting supercharged as it was becoming obvious that both sides were preparing for a major battle that would be the culmination of the long campaign. The most obvious first decision was determining if to fight it as a tactical nuclear battle or choose a non-nuclear variant and hope for the best. Winfield announced to her staff his intention to upgrade nuclear readiness to be ready for First Strike nuclear as he stated that he was afraid that his force would be overrun in a conventional battle.

Whole regimental HQ (especially Nuclear Weapons Officer, LIC Counterintelligence Chief and his own XO) were downright stunned at this decision. Yes, they did always train (and plan) for both nuclear and non-nuclear combat but taking them actually to use without any intelligence that Kurita was preparing to go nuclear first? There were standing orders (and enough warheads) to retaliate should things go nuclear but there was world of difference between Launch-Under-Attack and First-Strike decisions. What about Retaliation Cost analysis? Did he have Archon’s permission to do this (preferably in writing) since no one in staff seemed to have heard of this? Winfield simply smiled wolfishly stating it was all part of the plan.

First, the nuclear and chemical munitions were taken to higher readiness. Both sides had so far held a standard 5% readiness for nuclear retaliatory strike but now it was increased to 20% of all nuclear capable forces. Lyrans went there first and Kurita followed immediately. Kurita had been caught off guard as they had not expected Winfield to take things up to brink. Troops of both sides knew things were going to get very serious as emergency dispersals started in earnest.

Second, both sides had to revise their plan. Kurita planning was done for 5% situation and it had called for dispersal of forces followed by synchronized assault on weak point and then wide dispersal to Lyran rear. It was standard battlefield tactics intended to deal with nuclear weaponry and warship orbital artillery fire and had been bread and butter of all modern armies since days of fallen Star League. 20% solution meant same standard as in nuclear holocaust days of First and Second Succession Wars. Neither side could not concentrate on a narrow window as any slip in time table (there were always slips even in peace time exercises) would make them sitting ducks to a middle sized nuclear package of dozens of warheads hitting simultaneously.

20% solution was to fight entire battle in dispersed manner. It was nightmarish stuff where better leaders and small units would call the results of the day. In essence units would move forwards as companies (even lances) and simply go forwards and support each if necessary/possible. Defender on its own side would have her forces in widely dispersed manner as well trying to call nuclear strikes on fast moving targets and fighting what would be effectively a fighting withdrawal. Skilled defender could trade space for time and then call in multiple attacks on flanks and rear of moving units to disperse and hurt them even if nuclear strikes would not be possible due overrun weapon systems of simply running out of warheads. The side with better leaders (and since when DCMS officers were worse than LCAF officers?) would win the day so it was acceptable tactics for DCMS. However, Winfield was known to be redoubtable leader and his unit had caused stinging defeats to cocky DCMS regimental commanders before. Fighting dispersed promised to be a bloody whirlwind where both sides would lose command of their troops but it was acceptable risk as he could replace his losses while Winfield could not.

20% solution would also effectively devastate the countryside for years and no one wanted to do it on their own land. Then again, this was salt marsh and desert. Then again, there were all local nobles and their holiday areas in this continent and no one wanted to go to Rasalhague (or Luthien) to explain why they had devastated a system for a hunch that Lyrans might do it. Alternative to waiting for Lyran strike was to do First-Strike first. He pondered the idea of possibly saving few hundreds of thousands of his troopers and hundred or so Mechs and trillions worth of military equipment (not to mention local environment) but he decided against it. Lord Kurita reportedly did not like subordinates starting nuclear wars for the fun of it and no one became regimental commander in DCMS by having any kind of thoughts about defying Lord Kurita.

For commander of An Ting Legion there was but one choice, keep nuclear weapons on hair trigger yet forbade their use unless he sent personally an express order to do so. In the meanwhile he’d attack in dispersed manner and not rely on nobles and mercenaries to do anything more than tie up few LCAF troops. They would patrol aggressively (mercenaries would probably do so anyways to find something to loot). With any luck they would draw first Lyran nuclear volley.

Meanwhile Winfield was describing his nuclear battle plan. He wanted Second Battalion to defend in widely dispersed manner and draw Kurita lances and companies deeper and deeper to Lyran area and towards carefully preplanned nuclear strike zones. To make Kurita feel uncomfortable he needed a diversion and Third Battalion would do it by going offensive. It would tie up the Kurita auxiliaries by attacking in dispersed manner to make Kurita think this was the main effort of Lyran battle. There would be supporting chemical attacks to tie up any Kurita infantry and generally slow down Kurita offensive while they were buying time. He did not want to go nuclear immediately but made it sure that there would be readiness “to launch all birds simultaneously if necessary.”

Winfield smiled wolfishly: “Alright. Let’s Get Straight to the Biscuits. Succession War Three! The Kurita are Making Their Mark on Commonwealth. Takashi Kurita Wants to Take the Universe and Keep it all for Himself. Kurita’s Days are Numbered Because Winfield’s Brigade are on the Case.” No one in Winfield’s staff was bold enough to defy Archon’s (current and previous) favorite commander so they all went along praying they’d come through this alive. Winfield finished off his briefing: “Oh yes, as always: KILL KURITA!”

---

Battalion Commander gave nuclear briefing to officers of Third Battalion. Her voice was trembling and it was becoming obvious that she had lost her nerves. Things were not going well so Jari had been earlier assisting her on making out some details on chemical and nuclear strike planning. The briefing made it clear that they would use initially some 50% Gas/HE mix to get a good result in neutralizing infantry. Chemical injectors had been distributed before (with more than few thogs already in hospital for trying them on themselves and other thogs). Jari made sure that LCAF would use chemical weapons to “smoke out the cockroaches once and for all.” Henrik admitted that it looks a bit bad that battalions are just 2 to 5 so some others may try to steal his Mech kills (Battalion Commander just stared at Henrik’s cocksure strutting with her face ashen). Battlefield effects depended on how strong Kurita response would be. Sari knew it was all a bluff. “Kurita is too cowardly to use nuclear weapons first as they know our retaliation will kill them all. And if we use them first, Kurita is defeated once and for all so there is no retaliation.” At that point Battalion Commander pointed out that HQ’s official (optimistic) estimate of friendly casualties was merely 50% of battalion’s strength. She also briefed officers on rendezvous points for both companies where they’d be regrouping after that attack and ready themselves for next maneuvers.

Then it was time to look at attack plan. Battalion Commander’s Command Lance (she alone) would take the left flank that was furthest away from RPs. She would attack at assault Mech company and go through it. Second unit challenging mercenary battalion would be Sari’s lance reinforced with Ari’s lance (one Mech) would be on her side. They’d tie down a heavy and medium company.

Then there would be Jari’s unit that would attack noble’s battalion it was supposed to have Heavy, Medium and Light companies (Jari was certain that intelligence on strengths and positions were fanciful fiction). His lance would take on heavy and medium companies while Henrik would go through remaining light company.

Finally Sonja had been tasked to move her lance away from the battlefield to serve as a strategic reserve of the Winfield’s Brigade. If An Ting Legion’s Mech regiment plowed through Second Battalion her task was to destroy Kurita Mech regiment in a violent counterattack.

They would attack at night. They believed that it would maximize confusion and thus work on their side. Given the fact that An Ting Legion had excellent night vision gear would probably make no difference but since landsknechts were always skimming of maintenance, training and skill they would probably have the edge in battle.

---

During afternoon it was becoming obvious that thogs are at unease. Jari patiently waited for thog embassy to come to see him. As angriest and prickliest officer of the battalion it was obvious that those hopeless misguided children would see in him the natural leader of Saturday night gutter fights to turn for comfort and advice (and often loans and tips on dealing problems varying from dealing with venereal diseases to pilfering supplies to hiding criminal charges).

Seeing that embassy was becoming large enough to be taken into consideration Jari went right to the counterattack to explain things to thogs before panic would spread out. He made it clear that wearing a cap (preferably over their NBC suit) would protect them from after effects of nuclear strikes. Cap’s shade would give them protection from nuclear strike flash. Nuclear radiation was also not dangerous at all since it was invisible (and thus not dangerous) and headache would not be different from normal Monday morning hangover.

However, troops had something else in their mind. It was well known that Natasha Kerensky is a pinup girl who makes her fortune out of porn pictures. “However, is it true that she is also a MechWarrior? It is all so d..d…di.. ehh..” Jari helped, “Difficult.” Looking at dull hazy eyes of confused thogs Jari was almost moved to tears. He picked up his personal porn stash to show his best Natasha pictures and point out that those toned abs are impossible unless you are a MechWarrior. “No, I shall not sell you that picture.” It is for his personal use only. Furthermore, He was certain that in twenty five years later some miserable (and phony) hack will try to make her some sort of a proto-feminist and in those dark times he’ll be holding memory of that picture.

---

The attack started at night just as it was supposed to go. Surprise chemical strike on detected and suspected Kurita’s positions layered battlefield in chemicals. Upon learning it Kurita fired back their own chemicals while ground forces moved forwards as quickly as they possibly could. Then both sides started to use electronic warfare (laced with few diversionary nuclear strikes in upper atmosphere to really mess sensors and communications equipment) for real. Meanwhile nuclear forces on both sides went automatically to super-ready status but these had been no reports of surface or air bursts yet.

Both sides had well planned and at least theoretically well-rehearsed maneuvers. However, execution of night combat without any communications or real sensor support soon started to make its toll. Minefields, delaying tactics and utter confusion of changing status from attack to defense to avoidance of nuclear strike to back again started to make its toll. Troops shot occasionally own forces and or simply pushed pass enemies they weren’t supposed to bypass. Without functional communications it seemed that leaders of both sides could only wait for reports when it was all over.

Third Battalion’s attack went roughly as well as An Ting Legion’s attack too. Battalion Commander simply disappeared to battlefield. No one had slightest clue other than that everyone seemed to firing anything and everything around them. Sari walked right to an ambush (or was it simply a Mercenary lance changing its position?) and got separated while maneuvering from Ari who skillfully (or accidentally?) bypassed the kill zone and just somehow went away. Meanwhile Henrik and Jari danced through their own sectors without being in serious firefights at all.

---

After the ambush/encounter battle/delay/withdrawal (choose one) the firefight was finished just about as quickly as it had stared. Sari had (again?) gotten completely lost in battlefield but soon picked up what looked like a Lyran Mech lance moving to a gully protecting it from possible nuclear strike. After an hour or so in there she noticed that there were actually twelve Mechs in that gully. This was more than in their battle group so she (rather sensibly) decided to slip out from that unit. Mercenaries did not notice or care since they were also a hodge-podge collection of bravos and landsknechts from dozen different units. (Note: This unit was actually called a Random Mercenary Force.)

After some more time of moving what looked like a right direction (actually it wasn’t) her unit stumbled to a next Mech unit. (Note: This second unit was actually called Mercenary Force Random.) This unit had again a full company of Mechs so she moved her lance to their end and goose stepped all that way to their next hiding place (and there turned tail and moved her unit off). Meanwhile mercenaries rather sensibly assumed that it was some stray unit that had accidentally got to them. Unfortunately they were too busy preparing to hide itself in that gully to actually care what stray unit it was.

Finally Sari’s unit stumbled to a third unit in that night. It was also a full sized company so she thought this could not be a Lyran unit either. (Note: This third unit was actually called Force Random Mercenary.) They also looked at Sari’s force and came (after long pondering) into conclusion that this was definitely NOT a Kurita unit. Thus it was obvious that they had just been fooled and mercenaries opened up violently but inefficiently at Sari’s force that ran away from them. Mercenaries pondered the idea. Perhaps they’d get some high born noble prisoner out of it. Prospects of a bounty made following Sari’s force definitely well worth doing…

---

At sunrise it was obvious that attack had gone well. Both Jari and Henrik had managed to get to their RP without a problem. Furthermore, the sensors did not indicate radiation (even if there were some latent chemical alarms) on surface or in wind. There were also some indications that Kurita jamming was subsiding (perhaps Luftwaffe had blasted away their jamming center(s)?).

Jari tried to contact Regimental HQ and Battalion Commander and got nothing but static in return. He decided to go to next RP and thus collect whatever was left of the battalion and then try again. If neither call was successful, he’d patrol the RPs and kill any Kurita forces that would enter there according to previous plan. If any Kurita force they’d encounter was strong, then he’d had to improvise. But first he ordered Henrik to follow him and they started to march to next RP and Battalion Commander.

---

Early in the morning Ari was in his own RP where he, Sari and Battalion Commander were supposed to have arrived. Much to his surprise the only thing he saw was a platoon worth of reconnaissance troops in soft-skin vehicles. They had driven during the night through Kurita lines without having hit anything. But they did report plenty of firefights (probably done by Jari and Henrik?). Ari thought things over for a moment. Could it be possible that he was the only survivor of the Battalion? Certainly Sari had gotten herself tangled in a firefight and no one had any clue where Battalion Commander was.

He had no clue what happened but decided to take over things. He informed recce platoon that he was now the Third Battalion of the Mech Regiment of the Winfield’s Brigade and he’d form a battle group of its assets.

Ari closed his eyes. He, the Commander! Now he would show them all what he was made of. He’d continue orders and skillfully fight any Kurita forces until there would be relief from Winfield’s Brigade. It would mean a new medal, promotion, perhaps even a Battalion of his own and…

Then Jari’s radio check for him while Jari and Henrik were arriving to RP completely ruined all his dreams of martial glory as Jari and Henrik arrived to take over the Battalion, his Battalion...

---

Jari did not definitely like the status of his battle group. They had fired more or less in vain almost all of their ammunition last night. They had no clue where and when supply would arrive or where they’d fall back for supplies. Kurita jamming was definitely low now given the fact that they could use radios to talk to each other. Glance to sky told him that Luftwaffe was taking on Kurita air assets and both sides were definitely bleeding out there. There were also high pillars of smoke in direction of An Ting Legion. This generally meant either particularly savage battle or that An Ting Legion’s main logistics base had been wiped out in nuclear strikes. Battalion commander’s absence was worrisome but planned. Sari’s absence was normal. No doubt she had gotten herself into a mess.  Ari’s report on confused night fighting made it obvious that she would probably be seen next time when they’d have a prisoner exchange with mercenaries.

---

Jari’s thoughts of gloom and doom during much of the morning were interrupted when sensors finally indicated that there were column of armored vehicles, probably BattleMechs, coming to their direction. This was NOT looking good. It was rather obvious that they were in no shape to fight so all Jari through was how to sell their skins as expensively as possible.

However, after a few blue-on-blue volleys it became clear that what they saw were actually Lyran BattleMechs. These Mechs were not from the Second Battalion that had been hard pressed against An Ting Legion during the last night. Instead they were from First Battalion that had not taken part to campaign until now.

Winfield’s Brigade’s most elite unit and its commanders arranged a quick powwow with Jari and his officers on subject of killing Kurita as quickly as possible. First Battalion had not been used during the campaign so far and its commander quickly filled in Jari what had been happening. Winfield had ferreted First Battalion during frequent supply runs during the months on raid and left battalion sit on far side of the moon. Once An Ting Legion had been committed, Winfield had simply called them to help and dropped right on top of An Ting Legion’s HQ and logistics area. Needless to say they had slaughtered everything in a total surprise and had marched through night and morning blasting supply convoys and machine gunning administrative staff and especially secretaries who had tried to escape in vain running in high heels.

Their scythe of devastation had effectively paralyzed the An Ting Legion and its forces were probably regrouping (running away) the best they could. Meanwhile they intended to attack the side of nobles to kill whatever was left of Kurita supporters on planet and generally cause a generation worth of backstabbing as surviving relatives would slug it out over who would be clan leaders. Mercenaries were no big deal. They’d switch sides quicker than Sari switches knickers.

Surely Jari would show them the way?

---

Sometime in late afternoon Sari was running for her life. Mercenary company her lance had stumbled before had finally managed to get their gear together and mount themselves to hunt for her lance. The direction she had taken took them actually right to the Noble’s battalion who naturally saw Sari’s lance as a spearhead of Lyran assault. They were fairly certain that last night’s fighting had been merely a probing of their positions. Furthermore, thanks to jamming and confusion they saw mercenaries hunting Sari as part of Lyran force. Surely they had been betrayed by those landsknechts! They opened up on mercenaries who suddenly realized that Sari’s lance had actually been a bait to lure them up to a Lyran ambush. This was promising to be a long and bloody day for both mercenaries and nobles.

At that point time was running out of Sari whose lance was effectively sandwiched between company as a hammer and a battalion as an anvil. She did her best to hide on a gully (where her Mech was shot to pieces thanks to enemy Mech maneuvering to empty all its barrels on her Rifleman’s back) while the rest of her lance was being shred to pieces too.

---

However, the cloud of tracers and discharges of energy weapons were exactly what First Battalion had been looking for. They saw it as a beacon to charge at.  Jari’s Third Battalion was left in back to protect their rear (and it was quite obvious that Third Battalion was so shaky formation that they could not be given any more demanding tasks either). It was time to kill. Winfield switched nuclear stance from 20% to 5% releasing aerospace assets and battlefield missiles to pummel Kurita forces for good while First Battalion was encircling what appeared to be major part of Kurita Battalion ahead of them.

By nightfall the bloody day was over and while battle continued it was no longer business of Mech units that were moved to rear for maintenance and repairs. Winfield’s Brigade had been all but destroyed but so too was An Ting Legion. And it was Winfield’s Brigade that held the battlefield and its lucrative salvage while DCMS had to pull back and lick its wounds…

Final Thoughts:

Thanks to rolls neither side went nuclear even when situation appeared perilous to them.

Players themselves all dealt with prospect of nuclear war rather well. Some denied its possibility while others took it seriously. I also had to give players a crash course on how nuclear warfare is fought with tactical nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons and threat of their use can be taken for granted to anyone who has been in military or playing strategy games in 1970’s and 1980’s when threat of nuclear war was order of the day. Unfortunately current crop of players seem to be quite irrational about them and deny their use as distraction, jamming or demonstrative purposes. This is probably due lack of good references.

Battalion Commander’s fate came from the unfortunate die roll that she totally lost her nerves upon hearing that they would actually go nuclear and it was part of actual planning. This was all part of Winfield’s bluff to force An Ting either disperse very widely or go immediately nuclear. Kurita lost their nerve as they did not want to initiate a tactical nuclear war that could have escalated to planetary level one in their own soil (especially with every local noble strongly against it). Thus An Ting Legion was so widely dispersed that they could not mount effective counterattack when Winfield pulled off his trump card, the First Battalion that had been secretly deployed to system.

The big thing that most players (although Jari had a good guess) had no clue before this session was that Winfield had planned to confront An Ting Legion before the campaign (I had actually planned it). Thus Brigade had dropped 2nd and 3rd Battalions to raid planet just they were supposed to do and had held 1st battalion as a strategic reserve waiting in space for An Ting Legion to arrive in force. Once Kurita force had been committed it was simply a matter of dropping a whole battalion right on top of Kurita Mech regiment’s HQ. Then this fresh battalion would kill An Ting’s leadership and disperse its logistics.

This would mean that any fighting Kurita unit would have no logistical support (nor even any kind of coherent leadership) to deal with a marauding Mech battalion in their communication zone. This caused individual Mech battalion commanders to cancel their own assault and entire regiment stopped on its tracks. When confusion and chaos spread the newly minted commander decided to withdraw (more politely called “regrouping”) in a safe location and ponder again his options.

Given huge number of Mech casualties it seemed pointless to challenge Winfield’s Brigade directly so more defensive pattern was chosen while waiting for additional regiment to arrive from Rasalhague. Winfield from his own part knew he had not enough forces to really pursue Kurita so he took loot and salvage for what he got and was satisfied that Kurita Mech forces were inoperable for at least a month and possibly several months.

Future campaigning moved as following. With the major battlefield victory Winfield would have two choices now: He could order his unit to carry on a long term campaign across the continent (which he had no supplies) or simply collect plenty of look and salvage and then leave the system in good order before additional forces would arrive from Rasalhague. Winfield’s choice was rationally second. He was after all, only doing a reconnaissance and did not have supplies for a year-long campaign over a planet. Of course before that they would thoroughly loot and pillage the area they currently held including the most important cities. Thus the next session had to be a city fighting one for a major strategic target.

In more distant future there will consequences on strategic level. Winfield might be Archon’s favorite golden boy but playing nuclear hardball (without consulting superiors) has its consequences. Neither Lord Kurita nor Archon Katrina Steiner liked what happened (Winfield did everything on his own initiative – or did he?) and there will be hell to pay when campaign is over…

Note: this was the first session where players could really affect what had happened in previous session and other players could “retell” what happened to their own characters during previous session(s). This became very handy later when Sari was away multiple sessions during unit’s stay in Tharkad. It also explains how her activities often happen on her own rather than with other characters.

Rewards:

Ari: +2 for taking a part in a major Mech battle.

Henrik: +2 for taking a part in a major Mech battle.

Jari: +2 for taking a part in a major Mech battle.

Sari: +2 for taking a part in a major Mech battle.

[Minerva]

Twelfth Session: Dinner with Kurita

First Ideas:

My original idea was to present players how modern siege would go on followed by a daring commando raid deep into a Kurita city with a commando unit they had had been with earlier. I originally thought they would approach from relatively unprotected sea and then strike with commandos to capture very distant relative of Lord Kurita.

This mission was idea I invented mainly for Sari and Sonja. I wanted to introduce Kurita people and culture at the level of their peers. If raid had been successful it would have allowed them to experience horrors of urban combat followed by discussion with actual Kurita noble. If it had been a failure they would have ended up Kurita prisoners and thus would have been brought to this Kurita noble.

However, things again did not go to that direction at all…

Actual Play:

After the battle it was clear that both sides needed some time to lick their wounds. Sari had been found out (although she was in hospital for checkup after her Mech had been blasted to bits). Her Mech’s Battle ROM had given Lyrans valuable data on locations where mercenaries had been hiding and thus kept Luftwaffe and artillery units busy for next few days.

Landsknechts had given up eventually and switched sides and then stormed on their former allies praying the weak. Yet Winfield knew they’d switch sides just as easy should Lyrans show any sign of weakness.

Then it was time for new orders. The First battalion had been divided to companies and it was doing its best to harass and annihilate whatever Kurita forces were still in deserts and salt marches and generally making regrouping of An Ting Legion as difficult as possible. Third Battalion had been attached to a powerful battle group of six regiments of tanks and mechanized infantry that were readied to storm second largest city on continent. In the meanwhile Second battalion was doing same duty with the largest city. This fit Jari quite well as he was regrouping the survivors of his Battalion to a coherent unit.

Third Battalion licked its wounds and got itself a new organization. Jari was made a temporary Battalion Commander (the real Battalion Commander had disappeared and no one knew what had happened to her) for time being. He would get a permission to ask and plan for a nuclear strike but not authorization codes launch on his own (not that Winfield had ever actually distributed the authorization permissions below regiment’s HQ either). He would get access to top secret files of Battalion’s personnel as well as LIC intelligence on enemy units. On more mundane yet important role he also had access to Battalion’s cash register and money should he saw it necessary to buy things in field.

Henrik was made temporary commander of First Company (since Sonja seemded to be half of her time attached to either special operations forces or regimental HQ). Ari would get command of second company (whose commander was never in unit and had gotten him attached to First battalion). Jari made it absolutely certain that should either officer have any fanciful ideas that he’d take them to his aid in planning nuclear operations they were sadly mistaken. Herik took his new task with enjoying himself and strutting how he had become a veteran company commander. He made it clear to everyone that he had “Taken a Level Up”. Meanwhile Ari did his best to look at papers of Sari. Much to his surprise her information (especially interesting ones like weight, strategic measures and official pictures) were classified higher than regimental nuclear launch codes. What a pity…

Meanwhile Sonja was seeing Sari who was enjoying herself (she could get herself more morphine whenever she pressed the button) while resting in a medical DropShip. Sonja wanted to like Sari who was without doubt cutting edge in fashion, behavior and results. Sonja could not believe dirty rumormongering that Sari had somehow gotten scared and hidden herself during battle against whole Kurita Mech Battalion. It must have been some kind of misunderstanding. While it was true that Sari embraced life fully (and was perhaps somewhat promiscuous) she was still a Lyran officer and honorable one for certain! She did thus her best to comfort Sari who seemed to be too high on pain killers to fully realize where she was (until doctors would send her back to unit).

---

Jari cursed his bad luck when both Sonja arrived to unit. Sari would not certainly run a unit (not without any Mech to speak off) but Sonja was battle ready and eager to please. Furthermore, Jari thought her to be actually best officer in Battalion. While Jari was pondering on idea of replacing Henrik with Sonja, fate changed things again.

Local infantry commander had received messages from special operations patrol(s) working inside city that they had seen wife of heir planetary ruler (and thus a distant relative of Lord Kurita) there. Special operations people had found out (no doubt due capturing and torturing one of her servants) that she had been on a holiday in city and decided to stay there as a show of confidence of Lord Kurita for Lords of New Caledonia. Needless to say, with An Ting Legion’s fiasco she was now trapped to city. Furthermore, it was also obvious that capturing her would bring huge rewards. Infantry commander’s idea was that they’d use special operations patrol in city to storm her summer palace while Jari’s BattleMechs would provide diversion and support. VTOL would arrive then to bring back special unit and their prisoner while Jari’s Mechs would extract themselves the same way they had arrived, byu using harbor and undersea travel.

Jari was stunned. First his unit had no experience about operating with special operations people (no, escorting them does not count). Second, wasn’t the numbers (perhaps squad strong team versus perhaps a weak company sized garrison) a bit too steep (yes, they had surprise and pound for pound were probably ten to one in quality but still). Third, did they have any idea what kind of harbor defenses Kurita had in city (no, they are probably not going to run away)? However, since he was now subordinate to Infantry commander it was obvious that he had to plan and carry out mission that promised to be a suicide one.

Enter The Sonja. She could not believe her luck when Jari told her that she had been selected to do a special operations plan for capturing a prominent member of Lord Kurita’s clan. Jari had it all figured out. There was no chance Sonja could come out with a plan quickly enough for fleeting opportunity and even if she did, it would be a disastrous plan and he’d cancel it again and again until time would run out. Naturally Sonja did not get the hint and tried and tried harder to come up with a new plan.

Sonja did shed few tears and occasionally had truly miserable time coming up with yet another new plan that fixed problems and errors that Jari had mercilessly found out in “Murder Board” (manned by Jari) it had to pass before operation could be undertaken. While working day and night and then hearing Jari say her work was rubbish. It felt bad to be sent back to write but she knew it was all because Jari was such a veteran commander who knew how to run special operations and it was her chance to prove herself.

However, it were also the darkest hours of the night when Sonja felt tears coming to her eyes as she watched yet more red pencil marks and she thought that perhaps she just wasn’t good officer enough?

---

In the meanwhile it was becoming obvious that sooner or later they were going to storm the city. Engineers were digging closer and closer while detonating barbed wire fences, anti-tank obstacles and minefields under merciless fire of troops on city walls. Lyrans were supporting their effort on their own side by firebombing the city from air and supporting it with artillery fire to kill civil defense personnel to hinder their work. More or less randomly fired scatterable antipersonnel minefields did their best to make everyone’s lives miserable. Few assassinations and random bombings on restaurants spiced the life in a city under siege.

Lyran conventional planning was getting ever more advanced and it was clear that they would eventually storm the city. Thus it was only natural that their efforts would be distracted by Comstar that was suggesting a mediation and ceasefire and perhaps surrender of the city so bloody and brutal assault and subsequent sacking of the city with loot and pillage could be avoided. Comstar had its own reasons to support this as well. Few thousand Comstar personnel had already died in savage fighting across the continent as bystanders so reducing civilian casualties would be best for humanity (not to mention what remained of civilization).

Comstar was interstellar organization that has strong wish to support pacifism as well as tolerance between nations and peoples of humanity. They were also dedicated to preserving technology and maintaining history of once great Star League so brutal warlords of modern day would have at least something to look upwards. While almost every member of nobility had someone within Comstar (to keep one in safety in case others died in war or family infighting). Due its neutral nature and attempts to keep up flame of civilization in these dark times the Comstar was much respected organization that gained much of its income from estates that many nobles would gave them in inheritance as well as generous grants (which some evil tongues might call bribes).

Ari had always loved and respected Comstar. Their technical books, works to restore and regain what was left of Star League and especially its technology were great things to do. He could spend hours watching in fascination videos where those experts explained life and achievements of great Star League and how miserable current chaos was.

Henrik never really cared about those people. After all he never had really cared about anything. He thought that perhaps they were doing cool stuff but those Comstar chicks were supposedly way too cold and preachy.

Jari did not think much of Comstar. AS a rule he remembered how her third cousin’s estate had gone to them rather than to his family (due inheritance) and that made them evil. They had stolen what was his! They were probably in league with evil Kurita too! Bastards!

Sari had never given Comstar any thought beyond recognizing that they were rich and well into banking business and her mother had dealings with them all the time.

Sonja did not think much Comstar. Sure they were talking this and that about returning to Star League but as far as she was concerned the best way to get back to those days was final victory of House Steiner over its enemies: Barbarian House Kurita and Chaotic House Marik. Sure they could then come to support House Steiner but before that they were best to stay away from battlefields.

However, as far as Winfield (and other high ranking officers) was concerned any Comstar attempt to mediate this conflict was a serious one to be dealt with. They might actually get locals to surrender which would cut down butcher’s bill. Thus they would meet Kurita in a mansion owned by Comstar that was few hundred kilometers away from city and thus well away from both sides.

Battle group commander would go there as well as Jari. Jari would make it look as if they had lots of Mechs and thus could storm city at any time. Main goal was, however, to make a deal (and humiliate Kurita as much as possible within the deal).

---

Comstar had arranged that they would meet informally over breakfast and then go to negotiations once ice had been broken.

Breakfast went surprisingly well. Lady Kurita was at her best and clearly curious of Sonja. She had seen those Lyran women in videos where they were always horrible strumpets who betrayed men to their dooms. However, Sonja did not appear to be a strumpet, more like a proper noble woman. She understood immediately that she enjoyed falconry. Thus she let Comstar know she would be curious to see more of this … “Sonja” creature.

Meanwhile Jari was trading insults with two Sword of Light officers. It was quite clear that they should go to a duel right now. They might also invent a reason to it afterwards. However, Comstar super diplomats were working overtime to distract three MechWarriors going to blows over something as trivial as eternal hatred with each other.

Jari went downright ballistic when he heard both officers had been serving in Steel Dragon (Second Sword of Light) when her wife had died in a campaign. It wasn’t that they were gloating over that, merely the lack of Steiner’s martial prowess (which by extension included any man stupid enough to follow Steiner family). Jari made not so quiet vows to deal with them both as soon as possible. His counterpart in Sword of Light made it quite clear that he agreed as well. As soon as they’d see each other in battlefield, they’d duel, to the death. Second Kurita officer was a quiet one, a kind of volcano waiting for right time to erupt. He was merely looking at Lyran MechWarriors while concentrating to agree to his (senior?) brother in arms.

Somehow Comstar people managed to arrange new plates to arrive before three officers would go to the wire right there and then. Lady Kurita’s comment on humanity of Comstar did the rest.

---

Negotiations had only a limited number of people so Ari, Henrik and Sonja were left out of the room. Meanwhile Lady Kurita went to enjoy the garden protected by younger of two Sword of Light officers. She would not be disturbed by lowly negotiations and other related issues. She ruled, not haggled.

The negotiation promised to be a long one. It all started from fact that Jari was essentially questioning the fact that Kurita could be trusted at all. It took just about all verbal foils in Comstar’s Precentor’s arsenal to deflect Jari and turn things from mutually assured destruction to something more constructive.

The main goal of Lyrans was to take over the city. Meanwhile the only thing in Kuritan delegation was safety of Lady Kurita. It wasn’t that she happened to be member of Kurita royal family (at least not directly) but even distant family members were also extension of the Dragon by blood. As such they were direct descendants of virtuous and holy Dragon (manifested by Coordinator Lord Kurita himself). This holy union of blood meant that she was a holy spirit (kami) as well and essentially brought Fortune and Goodness by her presence alone. The idea that she would fall to hands of Steiner family was simply not acceptable so should the negotiations fail and she face dreadful fate in hands of barbarian Lyrans she’d commit suicide first. Then they’d bury her and seek vengeance at House Steiner. Everyone knew that because Order of Five Pillars had said so.

Once both sides had what they really wanted in sight it was obvious that they were going to have a deal. Comstar would deliver protection to Lady Kurita to eternal gratitude of local Kurita people while handing a multimillion people city (and most probably second as well) for Steiner as a war booty to richly reward Winfield for his campaign of sword and fire. Faustian bargain perhaps but what else you can expect in a violent society where the best bargain Comstar had itself achieved was an agreement that barbarian war lords would not torch their priceless interstellar communications network or loot their monasteries and libraries?

---

Lady Kurita mentioned something and SoL officer next to her so he became noticeably less confrontational. He moved himself between Lady Kurita and threats of Ari and Henrik. However, he started to talk and kept discussion in weather, without doubt due orders from Lady Kurita. He did occasionally give a spiteful glance to Sonja. Internally he was aflame. Women, they were the bane of any true Samurai. He wanted to close his eyes and ears from Sonja’s voice and moves. He was physically ill but the iron hard discipline of Lord Kurita’s bodyguard regiment kept him standing like a ramrod. He’d deal with all three Lyrans eventually and this Sonja temptress particularly. He’d beat her to a bloody pulp and then burn the body with gasoline. The idea made him happy.

In the meanwhile totally oblivious Henrik and Ari traded pleasantries with Kurita. Henrik was particularly clever as he praised House Kurita’s advanced technology. “For example you look just like a human even when I know you have hidden your hooves.” He continued. “I wouldn’t know the difference unless I knew it beforehand.” Then he and Ari started to talk about dividing the loot they’d get in when taking the city right in front of him. SoL officer was fuming but orders were orders. He’d deal with these two clowns right after Sonja.

However, Lady Kurita took interest in Sonja. She tried to break the ice, “I have studied home economics in a wife school.” Sonja agreed, “Sounds really interesting isn’t it actually very boring?” Lady Kurita was not entirely certain if Sonja actually knew what wife school did. There was without doubt slight difference in her school which taught her macroeconomics of planetary household and city schools that taught cooking methamphetamine (like those Lyran women did in videos). Thus she decided that discussing latest kimono fashions (here’s a hint: feminine and elegant) were perhaps not suitable way to continue fight now.

However, Sonja was a bit intriguing creature to her. After all, given fact that she was a noble lady it was a bit strange that she was not working as a secretary in the meeting? That is after all what noble ladies who finished training in Kurita Mech regiments do until they get married and start a family. Sonja on the other side was keenly adamant that she actually liked to serve in a front line unit in combat. Sonja was also a bit surprised that Lady Kurita did not have any skulls as jewelry. She seemed to be a nice woman, if only a bit too domestic. Sonja also surprised Lady Kurita that she was not engaged yet. Sonja really wanted to be a serving military officer too and liked her unit and had taken part in combat (which was really exciting).

They soon went to other equally important things like what they really liked. Discussion thus moved to hobbies. Sonja was more than happy to explain finer details of falconry while Lady Kurita did enjoy describing how to mix different kimono colors to match seasons. It was welcomed change to endless clap trap about BattleMechs that she usually had to listen when being with soldiers.

---

With agreement all but in hand the discussion turned to next part. Just how far House Steiner could humiliate House Kurita. With Jari inventing all possible kinds of ways to make things difficult they agreed that the first text of the agreement would be in English (used by Comstar) followed by Japanese and then German. On the other hand, following Comstar precentor’s signature there would be Lyran signature first followed by Kuritan signature.

“And it must be Lady Kurita’s signature or no deal,” Jari added. More hours of haggling went on…

---

The final deal went something like this:

Lady Kurita returns from her Summer Palace to her home to take command of her household. She is protected by number of unarmed regional troops as well as all DCMS personnel in the area. All said personnel agree to protect her during her stay in the palace for three months.

(Translation to thogs and MechKrieger novel readers: Lady Kurita will not be ransomed. For that All DCMS personnel (this includes ISF) will leave and stay outside the fighting as long as current campaign is fought. For this Winfield’s regiment will get intact all equipment DCMS and regional forces currently have in city as war booty.)

In the meanwhile Colonel Winfield of LCAF will take city to his protection and hold it at mandate of Lady Kurita for the duration of no longer than three months.

(Translation to thogs and MechKrieger novel readers: Winfield and his forces can hold the city for three months and loot it as much as they wish as long as they not burn it to the ground, hopefully.)

---

Ultimately when sun was falling the deal had been achieved. Lady Kurita was invited to seal the agreement with her signature seal (hanko). Sonja had had excellent time with Lady Kurita and was sad to see her go away. Jari made it clear to Sonja that they had won over Kurita and it felt good inside. Sonja doubted it a bit, “But she was like me and you, I mean she was pretty…”

Jari was absolutely flabbergasted. Sonja had backstabbed him! That whore! He was barely able to control his breath as he made it certain he’d make Sonja reads LCAF tutorial material “House Kurita – Reign of Terror” and have her write an essay to make sure that she had done it. If only her mother would know that! She’d wash her mouth with soap for that!

---

However, the main goal had been achieved. The City was now theirs…

Final Thoughts:

Thanks to Jari cleverly throwing smokescreens and bureaucratic barriers my original plan had to be ditched completely. However, rather than forcing raid or headlong assault I invented an idea that Kurita position was so precarious that they were ready to negotiate fate of their city.

This made me to introduce a new element called Comstar. It is BattleTech’s equivalent of Medieval Catholic Church that strives to restore some kind of order in perilous universe. It main goals are pacifism, tolerance and restoration of Star League by prodding violent Successor Lords towards their unique vision. This role was amply presented by peace negotiations where Jari’s best plans to sabotage negotiations were dealt by Comstar’s expert diplomacy.

I run Comstar in 3025 as Church that tries to preserve its status by negotiating new balances whenever necessary with barbarian war lords. Since Comstar is a moral authority yet unarmed and helpless its influence comes from fact that many noble families have tutors from Comstar and/or send their offspring there to be in safe keeping from violence of wars.

Comstar itself has multiple thrusts it attempts to do:

First and foremost it strives to seek contact in Periphery and it sends missions to civilize Periphery areas. It strives this mainly in major Periphery States (Outworlds Alliance, Taurian Concordat and Magistracy of Canopus) but it has met violent resistance from multiple independent small systems and violent Periphery Bandits. These efforts are supported by money drives as well as aid given to most hard hit areas of Inner sphere States as well.

Second, it strives to retain technology and humanism via monasticism. Comstar’s mansions and assets serve with dual purpose that actually is at odds with each other. On one side it strives to fight against mysticism and superstition with teachings on technology and history and humanism to public at large. On the other hand it sees high technology as a dangerous asset used for further destruction by violent barbarian war bands fighting over carcass of once great Star League. Thus it seeks also to isolate and suppress spread of harmful aspects of technology and history. This dual role has made Comstar actions seem duplicitous to few and currently (in 3025 era) one (Archon Katrina Steiner) privately is at odds with Comstar.

Third point is Comstars slowly but steadily growing influence over every-day life in Inner Sphere. Its reputation and role as guardian of Star League memory has made it de facto moral guardian of civilization and humanism. Thus it is natural that many good people support Comstar generously with grants, inheritance and praise. This growing influence has proven difficult to accept for war lords who see it as a drain to money that should go support their colossal war machines. This is major point of contention between Comstar and power magnates as they eagerly use their wealth to influence Comstar yet chafe its wealth and influence as well.

Another “new” element here was House Kurita and its realm called Draconis Combine. Player characters had interacted with it earlier over their gun sights but this was the first time they’d interact with Kurita personnel without trying to kill each other. Thus it became necessary flesh out Kurita realm. I started it from basis of Edo-era Japan (I did briefly think a bit of Heian-era Japan but I decided that such society should be limited to describe inner workings of Court in Luthien during Star League period).

I thus made Draconis Combine a caste society where one’s position is solely determined by one’s birth. The social structure is elaborate and everyone knows their place in it. Since some third of Combine systems are ruled by someone of Kurita family (with similar power and status of Daimyo) it was easy to use it as basis. This creates a state that is fragmented (as it is by its very nature feudal) yet also strong (as clan structure of Edo-era makes clan heads extremely powerful and lower rungs impotent and subservient).

Major difference from Edo-era Japan is the Order of Five Pillars. I made it the main glue that holds the Combine together. It works according to principles of Marxism-Leninism in form of Democratic Centralism (and it is really de facto single party). The idea is that O5P is actually the ideological discussion room that determines what is appropriate for Combine to do. It also sets tone that Lord Kurita is best to follow. Yet the massive O5P has also rigid party discipline (and it works within system is strict tradition) so it can be expected to move at glacier pace. Thus everyone in Combine’s upper social layers is both a member of O5P yet O5P seems to do nothing except talk endlessly. It comes across as a true nomenclature during stagnation of Brezhnev’s rule in USSR with marked aversion for change.

Lord Kurita thus enforces his will through feudal system of Daimyos, direct commanding local military commanders (as part of chain of command of Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery) and utterly ruthless political police called Internal Security Force (which enforces status quo set by O5P). Outside these public channels there are also criminal organizations (commonly put under title Yakuza) that are used to suppress local population and attack political enemies within and outside power structure. However, so far player characters have not met either ISF or Yakuza so I have not elaborated those elements.

The Sword of Light is Lord Kurita’s household guard unit that serves same functions as armed political units of modern revolutionary regimes (for example Waffen-SS served as a spearhead armed support of national socialist ideology). Its Lyran counterpart is Royal Guards that shares same outlook of their enemies. These units enjoy lavish equipment issue and top pick of the personnel (in both good and bad). The two officers I invented to game serve as two sides of the coin. The first person is a Samurai warrior that differs little from Jari. The second one is more bestial side that shows samurai ethics horribly corrupted. His Lyran counterpart was introduced a bit later in Tharkad (called Janne).

Sonja and Jari truly shined in this session as they both role-played their characters to hilt. While Jari was seething pure hatred of Kurita Sonja took a daring leap to actually talk with them. This was nice thing to see.

This turn of events also led to next scenario being one where they actually have to rule the city. What could possibly go wrong?

Rewards:

Jari: +1 for preventing destruction of Company in a stupid unworkable raid.

Sonja: +1 for very excellent roleplaying and for starting to doubt wholesome goodness of Steiner family.