Wieczorek's Archers mercenary unit and the Wyatt Militia

[ANS Kamas P81]

I tossed off the idea of making an all-Archer merc unit in the Fan Designs thread, and the idea gestated for a little bit.  I settled on the idea of a Lyran noble around the year 3000 discovering a Star League cliche under his castle, namely a hangar facility that partially collapsed in the 2800s.  What was inside?  A regiment of ARC-2R Archers, in various states of disrepair and damage from the collapse.

Most of the 'Mechs were only good for parts, though there were enough machines to equip two companies of ARC-2Rs.  The rest of the Star League era find went into providing spare parts and technological support for the two companies, which were organized into two independent combat units - one of which would rotate to active duty as a mercenary unit, while the other remained as the noble's personal guards.  A third company of Archer "Funnies" was put together after their missiles were removed as spares for the two main companies; these Funnies are equipped with a smorgasbord of alternate weapons and the company finds itself divided into two six-'Mech lances to support and bodyguard the main forces.

How does this sound as the origin of a force to you guys?  I don't think it's particularly munchy, even with a whole pile of Star League-vintage heavy 'Mechs.  It fits the Lyran "wall of steel" mentality, plus it lets me fight pirates and Mariks (same thing) through the Succession Wars, fight the Capellans in the 4SW, fight the Dracs in 3039, and get destroyed by the Clan invasion while being reconsituted from the home guard company to fight in the Jihad.

I'm looking for suggestions and questions, any ideas or things I should answer to help define this force.  As far as a planet to start from, somewhere in spinward Lyran space is what I'm thinking - that lets me fight the DCMS plenty, while being in the right place to fight the Clans when they come calling.  The planet would have to stay in Lyran hands when the FRR is formed, so that puts a limit on how close to the Combine border I am.

Pictured is Andzelika Wieczorek, the mercenary company's commander in 3028.

Edit: Title Change

[Iron Grenadier]

Sounds good to me!

I'd suggest Zoetermeer -
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Zoetermeer

Doesn't say what unit, but apparently had a SLDF garrison at one point.

Another option might be Erdvynn. It's closer to Marik and pirates, former Rim Worlds, but also had a factor for Archer's at one point.
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Erdvynn

[Taron Storm]

I second Erdvynn.  It allows for your concept and Zoetermeer is taken in the invasion.

[Iron Grenadier]

Well he does say get destroyed in the clan invasion  :D

[Taron Storm]

True

[Sir Chaos]

Well he does say get destroyed in the clan invasion  :D

But how can it get re-constituted from the home guard if the home guard is on a world conquered by the Clans?

[Iron Grenadier]

All it takes is a couple I suppose that made it off world with a heir.

[Dragon Cat]

This unit has me thinking up alternate Archers

[Taron Storm]

Take a look at the design board then Dragon Cat.  They already have a few designs.

[Dragon Cat]

Take a look at the design board then Dragon Cat.  They already have a few designs.

Oooo

[Daryk]

That many Archers in the 3rd Succession War are far too likely to draw House attention.  I can't really see a merc unit pulling it off without direct sponsorship...  :-\

[Taron Storm]

Barber's Marauaders
Cochrane's Goliaths

I think there is a couple more

[ANS Kamas P81]

Stream of consciousness coming, I typed this out as I had ideas and so it's very much a mix of thoughts and topics as it goes on.

Zoetermeer might be interesting, though I'm mixed on it falling to the Falcons in 3050.  Though, shooting down the idea is the comment that the Falcons were looking for a Star League depot, which was never found - in this case I've got a found SLDF depot that provided the stockpiles for my mercenary unit and keeping it in action.

Maybe they were looking for more than just a bunch of Archer spare parts, and the rest of the depot was lost to history.

Erdvynn I like better, though it ends up falling off the map for some reason.  It's not like it gets wiped out or anything, maybe it's a small, mostly unpopulated world with only a couple settlements.  I like the fact it has an Archer production line, that gives me a factory-level facility to do mods and put in things that don't properly go on an Archer.  The production is listed as "relatively modest" so it's not like I'm churning out hundreds of 'Mechs a year and building a giant force...maybe a half-dozen Archers each year for production to keep numbers low.

So okay, for some reason Comstar loses track of Erdvynn - in 2822 it's on the map as an independent world, but falls off soon after.  Maybe there was an pirate attack in the early 29th century that left the place pretty heavily damaged, and Comstar wrote it off rather than looked closer at it having a chance to rebuild since it was so far off in the Periphery.  I'll go with "rendered too insignificant" rather than abandoned or depopulated.

Hell, maybe that pirate attack was Comstar itself trying to take out the Battlemech factory, sending enough troops to destroy the place and write off the world as a threat.  The Diplass factory was damaged, but not as bad as Comstar thought - they lost the Firestarter line, but the Archer production survived, and so did the population centers.

Now I have a nicely independent world that stays off the Battletech maps, fights off the occasional pirate, and has to survive on its own.  Say a total population of 20 million for the planet, mostly agrarian to provide for the planet's few population centers.  The capital city is probably centered around the rebuilt factory.

I'm liking Erdvynn more and more, so I'm retitling the thread to take advantage of the suggestion.

Militarily, I suppose Archers are going to be their replacement for tanks.  Maybe most of their armor was destroyed by the Comstar "pirates" and tanks were replaced by more capable handbuilt Archers, so their military is skewed from the norm.  There's three Guards Battlemech Battalions and several divisions of Home Guard infantry forces which act as a National Guard force, plus the Wieczorek's Archers mercenary company that gets hired by the Lyrans and provides extra income for the planet.

Wieczorek's Archers would be a simple heavy company of three lances of ARC-2R standard models, plus two ARC-THUMPER artillery units.  The unit is led by Force Commander Andzelika Wieczorek, and has transport by a modified Union-class DropShip which replaces its fighter bays with two more 'Mech cubicles.  This allows all fourteen Battlemechs to be transported together, keeping the unit as a single combined force.  This also allows for surprise deployments, where both artillery mechs would be dropped at a distance from a target before the main force is dropped on its objective.  With the enemy seeing only a single company attacking, artillery fire from the two hidden ARC-THUMPERs can provide an unexpected benefit.

The three Guards battalions would be patterned on a standard organization, with three companies of ARC-2R Archers backed up by a fourth company of ARC-THUMPERS.  That's a total of 144 'Mechs making up the Guards regiment, which is a lot for a single world but it's had a factory slowly ticking over making 'Mechs mostly undisturbed for two centuries.  ...At six Archers a year, that means I should have ten regiments of forces, urgh....maybe the factory was destroyed and wasn't restored until the late 30th century, so it's only been in operation for a few decades and the 144 'Mechs in the regiment (plus the 14 in the merc company) are the majority of its production; the rest of it is being put to use as spare parts and replacements.

The Home Guards infantry is built around 28-man platoons of Motorized Heavy Infantry, in squads of seven with Auto Rifles as their primary weapon and LAW rockets for a secondary.  Three divisions of infantry total up the Home Guard Corps, each division being made of three regiments of infantry.  I'm thinking of each regiment being made of two battalions of Motorized Heavy Infantry, with the third battalion in each regiment being Mechanized Field Artillery.  This gives each regiment 27 fighting platoons, nine of which come with Thumper artillery pieces attached.  That means all of my infantry is in wheeled carriers, giving good mobility in open terrain and urban fighting.  I'll add a Combat Engineer company to each regiment.

Any suggestions for organization or background or anything?  Things I should add to the infantry force for combat elements, or are they pretty workable as a realistic planetary militia as it is?  The infantry is pretty spread out divided between the three cities; there's a lot of them with each infantry base having a full division of troops.  Each city also gets its own battalion of 'Mechs, so...maybe I have too much infantry.  Thoughts?

I suppose 144 'Mechs on a periphery world is a lot, but typical garrisons on important worlds in the Inner Sphere have their own regiment of 'mechs (or more) as far as garrisons, and most of those worlds don't have a working factory on them.  Certainly if anyone goes looking close at Erdvynn they'd want to conquer the place, but the fact they're not on the maps means the big powers are likely to not know about them.  Pirates and raiders would be the main threat to the planet, while Wieczorek's Archers does their best to not be too mysterious like Wolf's Dragoons with their periphery origins. 

[Daryk]

Again, I think that many 'mechs will draw Great House attention... I don't know how long they can pull it off without being brought into the fold...

[Taron Storm]

Find a buyer/dealer for the extra mechs.  You can also make money by building the parts for refit.  Start a sideline business of refit/refurb of mechs.  You can start shopping the frontier worlds to sell any spare mechs.  They should be overjoyed that someone has stuff for them.

As for the mercs, cycle mechwarriors through the unit and send them back home as trainers.  That way, you can have a solid cadre unit at home. 

On the issue of infantry numbers, go the Israeli route.  Mandatory 2 year service.  The reason is the pirate raids.  Hard to be a pirate when EVERYONE on the planet is shooting at you.

Once the Lyrans know you are out there, get a contract to garrison your own world with your own mechs.  This will provide stability in the region for the Lyrans and might get some more supply contracts out of it.  I can't find much data on the world itself, so you can be self sustaining for agriculture or a little more to trade with.

Biggest thing you are going to need is more off world transport.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Again, I think that many 'mechs will draw Great House attention... I don't know how long they can pull it off without being brought into the fold...

Hm.  You're right, honestly, the Lyrans will have something to say about it when the Archers show up with their own source of supply and repair.  A mercenary company is one thing, a merc company with all clearly new condition heavy 'Mechs that can keep them in top condition is something else.  Sooner or later they'll find out the origins of Wieczorek's Archers, which throws things out of canon and annex the place.  I was liking Erdvynn since it fell off the map and I could do whatever I wanted without affecting canon at all, since it goes ignored by the rest of the Inner Sphere.

Okay, step things down a bit with the Battlemechs - the factory doesn't produce any more new 'Mechs, but keeps the Archers it has in running condition.  It's more of a repair facility now instead of a proper Battlemech factory, churning out spare parts to keep a single battalion of Archers operational for the planetary militia and converting them into other variants like the Thumper carrier.  That way the Archers of the mercenary company aren't brand new machines, but patched up and refurbished older 'Mechs from the Succession Wars that can be explained as a salvage find in Rim Worlds territory.  They won't attract the attention of the Lyrans so much, especially considering how much battlefield salvage probably still exists from the Star League era.

As for that mercenary company, I suppose sticking with a standard company of plain ARC-2Rs in the early 3000s would be best.  No thumper versions for the mercs, at least not at first - maybe I'll find a way to do it as a field modification after a while, repairing battle damage.

Does this sound more workable as far as an origin story and keeping Erdvynn off the radar?  And is Erdvynn small enough that it can fight off pirates but isn't enough to risk its reappearance on the radar of the Great Houses?

Unit patch for Wieczorek's Archers is an olive drab Archer silhouette on a black circle.

[Daryk]

I think it would certainly work for a while.  Morrison managed to survive for a bit, after all.

[Dragon Cat]

I think a refit yard would work nicely, if they are sending salvage home from their merc company or dropping off when they return home, you could have one or two more rebuilt overtime just from salvage and the wrecks they started with without too much attention.

As the Clan invasion starts if the unit survives the first few rounds then the Lyrans probably won't care where they've come for if they are willing to sign up, they need the units.  The LIC might be looking into where these refurbished Archers are combing but get past the 3040s and a Merc unit with some Mechs isn't going to phase them if they are helping out.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Overnight/early morning stream of consciousness stuff again, banging out ideas and seeing what you guys think.

Erdvynn stuff:

Alright, if I assume a population of one million in 2822 when they were erased from the map, a population growth rate of one percent a year gives me a total population of just under six million in 3002.  That makes for a nice small world to work with, one major population center with a number of satellite settlements.  The capital city is located in the mountains, with a mining and ore refinement industry fueling a number of manufacturing concerns keeping local technology going.

Mixed among this industrial complex is the former Diplass Battlemechs factory; the facility is no longer capable of manufacturing new BattleMechs from its Archer production line.  Instead the former factory is now a repair and refurbishment center, keeping the Archers of the Guards battalion operational.  Other major military products built by the factories on the site are a wide range of small arms and light wheeled transports, as well as having developed Thumper-class tube artillery for the infantry forces.

The interesting thing about the Diplass factory on Erdvynn is that it made Firestarters as well, which means I'd likely have access to 210 rated engines as well - which lets me rebuild Archers as 3/5 pocket assaults, all on the same planet.

Problems:

Saving the above as potential notes to expand on, I keep running into the problem of falling off the map, really.  The question I really come down to is, how much interstellar trade and contact is a "hidden world" like Erdvynn going to have, even with the rest of the Periphery?

I'm starting to wonder if going the Zoetermeer route is a better choice; it's a proper Lyran world that had an SLDF garrison on it and lets me scratch the whole background into the original "recovered SLDF cache" origin story.  I can take the ideas I was kicking around for infantry construction and applying them to Zoetermeer just as easily, with much easier sources of supply for equipment.  Zoetermeer's fall to the Clans gives a good bone to pick with the idea of eventually returning to free their homeworld.  That it's an established world with connections to the Lyrans makes the idea of going mercenary and fighting alongside groups like Miller's Marauders for the Commonwealth a lot easier to arrange.

On that note of Miller's Marauders, they ended up with two full battalions of Marauders when they first showed up.  That makes me feel like a full battalion sized mercenary force for Wieczorek's Archers is viable and believable, and I can see Zoetermeer having enough spare parts from wrecked Archers in the cache to make a battalion together.  It'd also explain why the Falcons were looking for an SLDF cache on the planet and why they never found it; it was already plundered to form the mercenary force.

Solution:

So I'll scrap the Erdvynn stuff and instead focus on Zoetermeer as an origin, and be a part of the rest of the universe rather than a hidden world.

As far as Wieczorek's Archers go, I should also keep focused on that organization.  So the battalion was formed in 3012 by Major Andzelika Wieczorek.  I'm thinking she's part of a noble family, though not planetary leadership, a graduate of the Sanglamore military academy and an SLDF history buff.  She's probably the one that funded and led the expedition to find the old Star League garrison, and claimed ownership of the 'Mechs discovered.  A good chunk of the family fortune would have been sunk into repairing and refurbishing the find, with the intent to bring home a profit in the mercenary trade and serve the nation that way.  I picture Wieczorek serving a term or two as an officer in the LCAF, then going mercenary herself and joining a unit for a few years before striking out on her own and discovering the garrison's resting place.  Maybe the discovery led to her decision to go independent, actually, that makes more sense to me.

There's plenty of battles in the pre-4SW that I can throw them into, including things like the invasion of Alexandria in 3020 alongside a number of other mercenary forces.  Zoetermeer isn't far from Trell I, so I suppose I can be there for that as well, plus of course the 4SW...plenty of options to fight Kuritans and eventually the Clans.  That also puts them fighting alongside major merc units like the Twelfth Star Guard and Miller's Marauders, giving plenty of connections to expand on.

I don't feel as restricted with this particular background, even if I'd miss the factory/repair facility idea and organizing the infantry for Erdvynn.  I like being more connected to the Lyrans, and operating more openly, it feels like being more a part of the universe than it would otherwise.  As far as modifying those Archers along the lines of my Artillery Archer thread, well, I suppose I'll just have to figure something out later.  Maybe battlefield damage ends up being the cause of that.

Again, thoughts, suggestions, "just give up already" or whatever, anything goes.

[Dragon Cat]

I like both ideas

I think Erdvynn would depend more on your unit having its own transport and using that to connect it to neighbouring systems

[Iron Grenadier]

In regards to Erdvynn - if using this world, yes I'd drastically lower the number of mechs. The near destruction of it's factories and affiliated industries could be the reason it fell off the maps, along with perhaps an exodus of people living there. The original premise of finding a storage facility of Archer's is sound, again just reducing the number.

Transport is the biggest thing as mentioned, but I've always figured the "edge of the map" had enough traders and pirates that prowled around.

This really could be the mission of the Wieczorek's Archers company, selling themselves as merc's in the larger Inner Sphere to provide support for their home world. Perhaps a small garrison/cadre is left behind to provide protection in addition to the infantry/militia. Really you just need a ride to Son Hoa, about two jumps away, and you are connected. Erdvynn is close enough to be something along the lines of the Aurigan Reach I believe.

I also recall from the original TRO 3025 about the Archer something along the lines of there were so many variants of the Archer it could fill its own book. So I wouldn't worry if there are variations.

Rather than a Union carrying 14 mechs, I'd suggest a mixture of light vehicles/infantry in place of the aerospace fighters.

Though if you really want to stand out - use a Fortress dropship (in my head canon, I modify the Fortress to carry a reinforced 4 lance's of battlemechs and 4 platoons of infantry, extra space goes back to cargo). So you have the Archer's with LRM's, Thumpers and the possibility of a Long Tom!


All that said, I think what you have for Zoetermeer is solid at this point.

[Daryk]

My vote is for Zoetermeer!  :thumbsup:

[Failure16]

...discovering a Star League cliche under his castle...

I'll contribute properly later--and I'm glad to see you being creative again, Kamas, but...

That is likely the funniest thing I have seen all day.

(And no, it wasn't a great day, in a First World sense, but that is still damn funny.)

[ANS Kamas P81]

That is likely the funniest thing I have seen all day.

I'm glad someone caught that gag.

Zoetermeer it is then.  I think what I'll do is set aside the Erdvynn Home Guard Corps as its own conceptual force, keeping the fluff I've written so far with a small population but spinning it off into its own project.  Thread re-titled to reflect the focus on Wieczorek's Archers, and the switch to working on Zoetermeer as an origin story.

Flipping through Sarna it seems the 164th Mechanized Infantry Division was stationed on Zoetermeer as part of its SLDF garrison.  As an MID they're formed of two brigades (six regiments) of mechanized infantry and one brigade (three regiments) of BattleMechs.  Add in a wing of 54 Aerospace fighters along with a regiment of artillery, so for 2764 they've probably got a Fort protecting the deserts of Zoetermeer.  Interestingly, the 164th would follow General Kerensky into the Exodus, and there's a 164th Phalanx Cluster in the Steel Viper's Rho Galaxy, so it's possible that the survivors of the 164th MID ended up as CSV.

Unfortunately for the idea of an SLDF cache, the unit would find itself sent off across the Inner Sphere to fight the (probably rimward) Periphery during the Uprising, so they didn't stay on Zoetemeer for long after 2764.  Somehow they'd have to leave a battalion of Archers behind...okay, here's my thoughts.  None of this is mentioned in canon, so I'm just speculating.

After the end of the Amaris Civil War in 2779, the 164th MID returned to its pre-war garrison on Zoetermeer and watched from afar the dismantling of the Terran Hegemony and the Star League.  So in 2784, the 164th decides to follow Kerensky, taking their hardware with them, but there's an earthquake just before they're about to leave that collapses an underground hangar of BattleMechs.  Believing the 'Mechs were wrecked in the collapse, and with little time to dig them out before they had to leave to meet with the Exodus, the facility was abandoned unchecked.  The truth was that the hangar only partially collapsed, leaving a large number of Archers and other military equipment still intact.

I suppose I'll make Wieczorek a native of Zoetermeer; I've lived in Vegas and Phoenix and I know how life in a arid desert can go.  Her discovery of the facility probably comes after searching through historical records and learning that the 164th left in a hurry with fewer transports than they would have needed properly, clearly leaving something behind.  I picture her joining the LCAF at 18 and getting trained as a MechWarrior and officer at Sanglamore.  After serving a hitch in the LCAF, she struck out as a mercenary in 3006, joining the Twelfth Star Guards and spending a lot of time with the unit historians.  Her interest in her homeworld and the SLDF led to her learning the history of the 164th, and discovering their hurried departure from Zoetermeer in 2784.  When the Twelfth elected to move to Federated Suns space in 3012 she parted ways with the unit, returning to her homeworld and using family money to fund the expedition to find the Star League cache.

That seems like a workable history, and doesn't change known canon as far as I can tell digging through Sarna.  Anything I should be looking at to consider?  I'm still debating on the overall size of the unit, I admit - a company is easier to work with, and more intimate as a force, while a battalion would actually give me enough combat power that the Archers aren't just an adjunct mercenary unit but capable of operations on their own.  Maybe I'll split the difference and make it two companies of Archers that are recovered, with the rest of the discovered battalion being salvaged for spare parts that get stockpiled for repairs.

So I have Wieczorek as overall commander of the Archers, in command of A Company.  I need a B Company commander, as far as personalities go...the command staff is made of various members of the Wieczorek clan, making running the force a family affair.  Add in some personnel from the Twelfth Star Guards that stayed in Lyran space in 3012 when the 12SG went to the Suns, and perhaps headhunting new recruits from Sanglamore to fill in the roster.  Idly, I suppose that means I end up with 28 'Mechs, one for the company commander on top of the two fighting companies and two for the CO and XO.  So each company is technically

Hey, since this is a noble family, what if they took some of the house guard troops and formed an infantry company for security and protection for where the unit is being barracked at the time.  That lets me form a full battalion of troops, say three platoons of foot infantry in light carriers that I'll stat up elsewhere.

Unit Commander: Major Andzelika Wieczorek (Veteran) ARC-2R Archer
Unit XO: Captain Ricard Wieczorek (Regular) ARC-2R Archer
A Company "Jan's Hussars" Commander: Captain Jan Fokker (Regular) ARC-2R Archer
1st Lance Commander: 2nd Lieutenant Gerhardt Elster (Green) 4x ARC-2R Archer
2nd Lance Commander: 2nd Lieutenant Aisling Chen (Regular) 4x ARC-2R Archer
3rd Lance Commander: 1st Lieutenant Jakub Wieczorek (Green) 4x ARC-2R Archer
B Company "Night Furies" Commander: Captain Elizabeta Wieczorek (Green) ARC-2R Archer
1st Lance Commander: 1st Lieutenant Eva Rodriguez (Regular) 4x ARC-2R Archer
2nd Lance Commander: 2nd Lieutenant Samantha Milliome (Green) 4x ARC-2R Archer
3rd Lance Commander: 1st Lieutenant Guy Le France (Regular) 4x ARC-2R Archer
C Company "Garrison Gorillas" Commander: Captain Mikolaj de Klerk (Veteran)
1st Platoon Commander: 1st Lieutenant Sven Murasame (Veteran)
2nd Platoon Commander: 1st Lieutenant Lotti Laurier (Veteran)
3rd Platoon Commander: 2nd Lieutenant Duncan Roord (Veteran)

[ANS Kamas P81]

And now I have the question, what about DropShips?  An Overlord would be the easiest thing to transport stuff around in, but they're scarce in the Succession Wars.  I'm thinking of modifying a Mule class with several BattleMech bays among its cargo space, plus of course three Infantry Bays for the foot platoons.  (They'd get too comfortable with quarters.)  I could leave transport up to the LCAF for moving around to garrisons, but I'd like to have the access to a repair bay for the customization and obviously post-battle repairs.  It's a shame there's not something smaller than the Mule; I only need 4,300 tons of cargo space to haul my entire force around in bays.  Where to get the 'Mech bays is another question, but I think I'll just handwave that.

Two Unions would work, if I remove the fighter bays and replace them with 'Mech bays.  That'd give me my 28 'Mechs, plus enough cargo space to put the infantry aboard them as well as their vehicles (4.5 ton APCs) as cargo.  No Aerospace support, which is a potential problem, but it gives me plenty of 'Mech cubicles to work with and makes for a solid headquarters when on a contract.

Two lightly modified Unions or a heavily modified Mule?  I'm leaning towards the latter; while adding weapons "probably" requires a shipyard (per this thread) the simpler explanation is that there aren't any rules for modifying DropShips (at least as of 2013) and it's up to the GM to decide what to do.  As I have no GM, I assume the role, and give myself permission to mod things.  A bonus point of going with the Mule is that I have the tonnage to handwave the question of just how many people I'm carrying aboard it at full load, and how much provisions and life support I'm carrying on deployments.

Just thoughts, it's after midnight and I just had dinner.  Should be turning into a cocoon in a few hours to achieve gremlin status.  ...there's a thought, naming the DropShip the Gremlin.  It's a big round cocoon that hatches nasty things, after all.  Plus it's the Succession Wars, everything is on the edge of breaking down.

[Failure16]

I am a major fan of a 14-'Mech Union to the point I feel it should be a standard conversion/submodel. But then, I run 14-'Mech companies, so I guess I would think that.

The zoomies can find their own rides, thank-you-very-much. Besides, it's easier to subcontract out the air-support so your command staff can focus on running the part of the business that makes them dat phat cash.

[ANS Kamas P81]

In this case it works out by luck, since I'm actually running 13-'Mech companies with a separate pair of command units.  I'm thinking maybe of following the standard Battletech format of having the battalion commander also be a company commander as well...that would let me shuffle things up a bit and make each company more independent.  Break the current company commanders down into company XOs, and make the battalion commander and XO each commanders of their own company.  You'd have an organization like this:

Battalion CO/Company CO
Company XO
Lance CO
Lance CO
Lance CO

Battalion XO/Company CO
Company XO
Lance CO
Lance CO
Lance CO

If I do that, I give my company commanders more responsibility, but they've also got a wingman to assist with that extra work and a bodyguard in the field.  The infantry company reports to the battalion CO, but it's mostly a site-security force rather than anything for sending out into the field - this is a understrength 'Mech battalion that happens to have its own noble family house guards attached.

A benefit of the organization as it stands currently...well, each unit commander only has three subunits to care for, which is the "proper" number of subordinates.  Nobody is double-hatted, either; the battalion commander directly controls all three companies (two, really, the infantry is there for base guards and site protection) while each company commander has three independent lance commanders underneath them.  I dunno, F16, what do you think about the 13-unit company?

[Daryk]

Another option: two regular companies and a Command Lance...  ^-^

Dropship-wise, how about the Mule and a Leopard?  The Leopard brings your proper cubicles for maintenance without fuss...  :)

[ANS Kamas P81]

Further thought on the origin story, and finding a way to bridge the literal two worlds together.

Instead of finding the Archers on Zoetemeer, I'll keep that as the Wieczorek family homeworld but the Star League facility that was found on that world was abandoned...instead, a database containing a map of the Inner Sphere is discovered, which has the location of Erdvynn on it.  It's public knowledge that there was a Diplass BattleMech factory on the world, and so Andzelika organizes an expedition to go visit the place and find out why it fell off the map - and see what can be salvaged.

They arrive, and hit paydirt - the world is abandoned, depopulated during the 1st Succession War and lost to history.  There's sign of a major attack, which happened to be Comstar sending pirate forces to shut down the factory there.  The factory itself is heavily damaged, but still intact, and a number of Archer and Firestarter 'Mechs and parts are found in various states of assembly.  The Wieczorek family gathers what it can, with sixteen intact Archers along with a dozen more that were incomplete with empty torsos.  No intact Firestarters were recovered, but a large number of parts and spares were loaded into the DropShip and returned to Zoetemeer, along with as much factory tooling and equipment as could be carried.

Eight of these incomplete Archers would be finished with Firestarter engines, giving them a slower top speed but a dramatically enhanced payload capacity.  After the unused portion of the discovery was sold off, a number of artillery pieces were acquired, and fixed to the underpowered Archers to make them viable fire support units.  Enough spare parts for Archers were acquired to bring the rest of the force up to fighting capability, and newly self-christened Major Wieczorek began her recruiting efforts to hire on pilots for her new all-Archer mercenary force.

That ties both worlds together nicely, and gives a good reason why the find remains in private hands - it's privately salvaged from a world outside the borders of the Lyran Commonwealth.  It also gives me plenty of opportunity to modify 'Mechs, and still have a standardized BattleMech in the unit to hang their hat on like Miller's Marauders.

So with that organization, I've got sixteen ARC-2Rs between two lances in both companies, with the third lance in each company being made of the ARC-THUMPER twin artillery carrier.  Each of the four command 'Mechs were also finished as ARC-2R versions instead of the Lyran-made ARC-2S; the decision was made to keep maintenance and logistics simplified by standardizing on a weapons fit.  Why the heavy focus on artillery?  Wieczorek's a historian, and knows the Star League's propensity for artillery in its fire support role, and decided her fire support 'Mechs needed fire support.

(Thanks for all the comments and suggestions on this thread, by the way; I'm hammering this out as I go and it's a relief getting feedback on where to go with things.)

Another option: two regular companies and a Command Lance...  ^-^

Dropship-wise, how about the Mule and a Leopard?  The Leopard brings your proper cubicles for maintenance without fuss...  :)

Two regular companies and a command lance...that's probably the organization Wieczorek learned under with the LCAF and Twelfth Star Guards, and would likely apply to her own mercenary force.  It fits the standard BattleMech organization (within some flexibility) and doesn't throw wrinkles of needing weird command organization.  Dropship-wise, it works well - the command lance gets the Leopard, while the rest of the unit rides in the Mule.  Hell, the Mule would have enough cargo space to provide actual quarters for everyone involved in the unit, transport the 'Mechs as cargo and still have 6,000-plus tons of cargo.

[Iron Grenadier]

Just throwing out another dropship option - a Triumph, modified of course to carry mechs vs vehicles.