Situation: Breakthrough! The mercenaries won the initial meeting engagement and are pressing towards the massive DCMS logistics hub located onworld. The privileged mechwarriors of the 2nd New Samarkand Regulars reluctantly put down their surfboards and leave the K-pop concerts to take to the field to protect the necessary materiel for successive waves of invasion!
Terrain: (per scenario rules, attacker picks terrain pieces, defender places them). Mercenaries and Kuritans met next in battle at a corporate campus located far enough from heavily urbanized areas and in pleasant, rolling and wooded terrain. Its location on the local road network made it an easy massing point for roving DCMS forces. The Wadi Dogs aimed to drive through the DCMS pickets there as putting the strongpoint of Kuritans there in retreat would collapse the entire perimiter around Ponce de Leon and threaten the stockpiles there of materiel for the invasion of New Avalon!
Per scenario rules, the defender sets up before the attacker comes on-field. 2nd New Samarkand fielded 4 mixed lances of mechs and tanks. 3 lances were linked with each other by C3, a 4th lance had its own seperate C3 network. LRM Carriers and Schiltron Artillery parked amid the buildings of the corporate campus, and the rest of the forces fanned out around that center, with emphasis on covering the right side.
Enemy units approaching!
The mercenaries proved to outnumber the Kuritans, 6 lances to 4, and had uncontested control of the skies above! The mercs focused heavily on crossing the field behind cover of hills on the right, but saved some small, light, fast forces for the left to keep the Kuritans honest.
Fire For Effect!
The advantage of boosted C3 was overwhelming, especially when coupled with indirect fire from linked LRM carriers as well as having a double Arrow IV'd Schiltron fire support tank. Initially the mercenaries were able to use the terrain to present rotating targets so that no single unit was hammered two turns in a row, but the damage spread out over the force ended up accumulating. A decisive moment was when he forced an Angel ECM carrier down the Kuritan throat, catching the Hatamoto-godai in its radius and shutting down the entire company network. It took much of the Kuritans fire to destroy that Firestarter, and that volume of fire not directed elsewhere allowed for a mass rushing forward across the board.
After the C3 network came back on line, the Kuritans put BC3 Saracen hovertanks amid the surging mercenaries and mowed down most of the lead elements closest to completing the breakout despite the Mercenary's most dangerous unit, a Clan-spec Blood Asp came out of cover and full into view. Led by the Blood Asp's example, the mercenaries too began to drop Kuritans huddling for cover amid the campus buildings.
But the tide had turned. Not enough Kuritans had been taken out of the fight, and only a single mercenary Cougar made it across enemy lines. The remaining mercs were too slow to rapidly cross the killing field without facing sustained C3 guided fire. Kuritan and Mercenary commanders faced off in an open field duel, with the Blood Asp downing the Hatamoto-godai. Revenge fire from the Kuritans finished off the Blood Asp, killing the mercenary pilot before she could eject. Likewise the Saracen hover tanks were turned into pillboxes by motive hits.
Although the mercenaries were making progress across the battleline, the accumulation of damage was taking its toll and most units were stripped of armor and many merc units were within a few points of forced withdrawal. Despite the loss of the company command unit, 3 seperate lance C3 networks still existed and threatened to cross the point of critical mass and threatened to quickly double the mercenary losses thus far. The Kuritan 2nd in command offered the mercenaries the opportunity to withdraw before the Kuritans began losing additional units of their own, and the Mercenaries agreed to withdraw, ceding victory and control of the field to the 2nd New Samarkand Regulars.
The Butcher's Bill:
Kurita: Hatamoto-godai destroyed and unsalveagable (idiot pilot survived ejecting tho). Owens destroyed but salvageable, but pilot killed. Both Saracen Mark II crews WIA. Heavy damage to Avatar and MRM Demolisher, and significant damage to No-Dachi and Akuma. On the plus side, claimed a Firestarter Omni and the impressive Blood Asp as repairable battle salvage!
Mercenary: Blood Asp, Firestarter, Wolfhound, and one other mech I don't recall all destroyed on the field of battle. Only one mechwarrior survived the destruction of their mechs, and ended up captured by DCMS security teams. 3 squads of Battle Armor also killed serving as ablative armor on their taxi Omnis. 3 or 4 more mechs crippled. A Cauldron Born and Warhammer both nearly crippled. Lots and lots of damage to other mechs. On the upside, his Rommel and Myrmidon tanks as well as all his ASFs came though without a scratch!
My opponent definitely didn't have a good time in this battle. His thoughts can be seen
here.I'll reiterate here that I think it was a costly mistake for the mercs to not take out the LRM carriers early with their airstrikes. I think it may have been a mistake on my part to allow the mercs to withdraw without further fighting.. had we kept going I was guaranteed to lose my hovers (the crews of both tanks ended up WIA as it was) and I surely would have lost my Avatar as well had the fight gone another round. I probably would have lost my Akuma and Naginata and both LRM carriers if it went 2 more rounds. But, with two more rounds of fighting, I probably would have killed or crippled half his units on the board. Such savage bloodletting would probably have come out to my advantage in the long term for the campaign, but I cared more about preserving my remaining C3 masters than massacreing the mercenaries. Plus, had I been on the other side of the table, I wouldn't have had any fun playing out seeing how many of my doomed units manage to escape death.
The valorous samurai of House Kurita have sent the mercenaries reeling, but the upper hand in the campaign won't truly be determined until after our swords clash again in open field battle! Thorvidar and I used the expanded repair rules in ASC and determined we have 7 days worth of rest and repair before either side manages to force the other into a battle. We shall see if 7 days is enough time for the mercenaries to make the Kuritan offer turn out to have been a mistake.
Lessons learned: Take out the artillery/LRM carriers! Although the mercs could have used their air strikes more effectively, even had they taken out my LRM carriers I'm surprised that ceding complete control of the skies didn't bite me harder than it did. It's all about game duration.. Interceptors can begin air strikes round 2 and then wheel around every turn thereafter, but they're interceptors. They're so unthreatening I never even had reason to shoot at them, not with more dangerous things to shoot at on the ground! And heavier units won't get a strike in until round 3, and then every other round thereafter. If the game goes as long as 5 rounds, a big scary bomber is still only getting 2 attack runs in. Game has last 7 rounds before it gets its 3rd attack, and I don't think many AS games will last more than 6 rounds.
Oh and I don't care how "In Character" you begin feeling in the heat of battle. Never, ever go "Come at me bro!" with your Company C3 master. It's just never a good idea.
As a separate lesson that may prove later to be learned: I may end up being made to rue the decision to allow so many damaged units to withdraw. But ensuring I keep enough C3M master units in fighting shape for future battles is what drove that decision.