I currently run an ATOW campaign set around the end of the 4th Succession War, just as the Andurien Succession and their joint invasion of the Capellan Confederation with the Magistracy of Canopus takes place. My group of players control a mercenary unit which has just formed from a variety of 4th Succession War veterans and other odds and ends. The unit, with a placeholder of Kent's Cavalry is either an over sized company or a undersized battalion with a combined arms format. There's Battlemechs, Aerospace Fighters, Armor and Infantry and even enough Dropship transport to carry over half the unit. What they didn't have, was much of a war chest.
In our first session the players passed on a majority of the contracts available - mostly low paying jobs being offered by the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth in managing their new conquered territories. The players wanted bigger money but their lack of a solid reputation pretty much left them few avenues of doing so - at least in the regulated mercenary market. Taking a risk, they took the plunge into the underground mercenary market and found a job they figured was up their more to their liking. An agent working for an unspecified power was offering a decent retainer contract for a period of three to five years, with a small cash advance to settle their affairs and access to a line of credit for parts and labor to bring the unit to full readiness, and arrange for a line of supply for the unit's needs. The employer would transport the unit and give it full independent command but the players weren't to learn of the employer and the auxillary contracts until they were underway. They accepted the contract, made some repairs and bought ammo and got prepared to get under way. At that point, one of the players was approached by an agent of the Lyran Commonwealth and was told who their potential employer was - the Oberon Confederation - and that the agent would appreciate being kept up to date on the details of their mission when the opportunity for a small cash incentive...
As Kent's Cavalry was picked up, the officers of the unit were brought onto the Jumpship transporting and informed that their employer was the Oberon Confederation and that King Oberon was assembling a number of small mercenary commands in order to suppress and destroy the nests of piracy near the Confederation or defend the Confederation from attacks and reprisals while other other units went on the offensive. The players unit, being one of the biggest of the newly hired merc units would be put on offensive duties right away. Along the way to Oberon IV their transport stopped in an uninhabited system near Coventry, and took another dropship but were kept in the dark about who or what it carried. A couple of players, including the one who's under the Lyran agents payroll, was suspicious or curious enough to try to find out and sneaked into the other dropship, finding out it was filled with 2,000 tons of spare parts, ammo and replacement weapons and enough small arms and light vehicles to outfit a regiment of infantry as well as a lance sized merc unit of mechs calling themselves the 25th Recon.
(to be completed later)
