SESSION 3. Bandits, Ginseng and PPC in AlpheccaSeveral PC and several dozen NPC were having a major hangover morning while Captain Curd and the major staff (lieutenants and up) were discussing the options for a new contract. One of the Lieutenants was puking in the bathroom for most of the discussion and didn’t say much. The other PC and NPC looked at the options.
A. Deniable target destruction. A merc unit wanted another mercenary storehouse to suffer some kind of damage. Reasons why undisclosed.
B. Escort duty in Galatea. Some mech parts needed to be delivered intact to the purchaser, and they were having trouble with another mercenary unit. It smelled of “trap” from miles away.
C. Problem with some bandits in Alphecca, a backwater Lyran planet 1 jump away from Galatea. The local militia (2 mechanised formations in dire straits) refuses to deal with the problem since it includes at least one mech, probably more and the threat is not THAT massive to the local population. Their only attempts to deal with the problem resulted in several armour assets and some VTOLS destroyed. Since the bandits are not a threat to the major industries or cities of the country, they let them be.
D. Continue with tests of weaponry and remote control for Defiance Industries in a Galatea shooting range.
Being a usual gamer group, option D was discarded in the first 10 seconds of discussion. A and B were interesting, but both were in Galatea, and they wanted to go abroad. Galatea duty is not top notch in your CV in their opinion (I disagree, but hey).
So we played an adventure created by
abou, a fellow forum member. You can find it in this link:
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=57579.0The players decided to do “adventure” D as well, so they left some resources behind at Defiance Industries’ firing range. This is an excuse to run 2 adventures one after the other if they fancy it :) They agreed to ask Defiance to help repair the Vindicator as part of the payment. 4 Lions, 2 ferrets and an infantry platoon were dedicated to this.
So they went to Alphecca. They landed in Rubekka, one of the island continents of the planet and were met with a local liaison of the continental government (the ones paying for it). He had a grudge with the planetary government not dealing with the problem. “We also pay our taxes, you know”. Given that the central government was not paying, the local population had put forward the resources to hire an external unit. Money could only pay for a mech-less force like theirs, but they hoped that they could still deal with the treat.
The players deployed 6 Lions, 4 Hunters, 2 ferrets and 2 Warriors, 1 infantry platoon in hovercraft, 2 HQ skulkers and 2 Saracens as well as several supply vehicles. The mountainous area was not well suited for hover operations, so they acquired several unarmored jeeps for recon and infantry transport and mounted HMG and other small weaponry on them.
We played a multi-character adventure here. Having 40+ people in the field it seemed strange that the high command echelons would be the ones doing legwork for example, so the players played characters fromn the infantry/recon units as well as the Lieutenants in charge of the operation.
Apparently the bandits had at least one mech. Asking for more specifications it appeared to be a shadow hawk, but some other reports talked about what seemed to be a locust as well.
The infantry and recon unit were used to do legwork and finds out stuff about the bandits in the local area. They did not seem to be abusing the local population THAT much, but were still a pain in the ass. Basically they were going after supplies coming from the mountains in pickups and armed with small weapons. If the local population did not cow in front of bully tactics they would send the mech (or mechs) to do damage to infrastructure. Most of their activity seem to be off world, though. Lately they had also started asking for protection money, and here is where the local merchants banded together to get rid of them.
The HQ were directed to an old Japanese merchant. Supposedly he had info on the bandits, but they were not able to get past the pleasantries phase with him.
In a bar, a trio of the Irian infantry grunts (Allard, Bernard and Carlyle) had a fistfight with a pair of thugs “protecting” the place, and they managed to get information from one of the workers. With that info, there was a successful recon of an old mine complex, where it was determined that there was a significant bandit presence. The tanks were called in, and an ambush was set. The bandits had pickups and a VTOL. Those were destroyed rapidly. After that the identified a Shadow Hawk and the Locust emerged from the premises and there was a scuffle with them. The Locust managed to escape towards the mountains, but it was tailed by the Ferrets at a sensible distance. The Shadow Hawk put up a significant fight and smacked a Lion towards the refit yard, but was badly mauled. The techs are not sure if they can salvage it after the amount of missiles and PPC hits it took.
At this point, the players did something unexpected and instead of sending all their assets in to finish the bandits, they sent a Ferret with speakers and a message of “join us” for the bandits (with the implicit “or die” as a cue). I made them roll for it. 12. The bandits agreed! They found that the bandits had an operational Locust and Stinger. They might get a lance in brief! Both mechs were in need of heavy overhauls, and the pilots did not look like real PROs mechwarriors, but those are 2 mechs! Light and badly aged, but 2 mechs! The rest of the pirate band were around 40 people. They suspect that Captain Curd will send them packing since they look like troublemakers, but hey.
And they headed back to Galatea the merrier.
