Gamma-Striker moves in to engage the clan force. Hopefully we can get to our firing position before we take too much damage.
The allied units aren't that great - a Vedetee with an AC/2, a Pike support vehicle with three AC/2s, a Patton tank (a heavy with an AC/10 as its main gun) and a Falcon hovertank, which sticks to hiding behind a hill.
Round 1:
We engage with LRMs as laser, PPC and LBX autocannon fire comes our way from the approaching units. Our Griffin scores a hit on a Thor with some LRMs, as does the allied Pike - the Thor ignores the plinking and hits Cylus' Grasshopper in the right arm with its extended-range PPC.
Our Crusader takes a substantial number of laser hits from the Black Hawk, including a head shot but armor holds up for the time being.
Round 2:
Cylus jumps the Grasshopper into a nice little firing position, unloading with its laser array and LRM launcher at the approaching Ryoken. One thing that our mechwarrior has observed is that the clan mechs tend to use XL engines, so a good way of greatly reducing one's combat effectiveness is to hit a side torso section. Which is what our mechwarrior does, melting armor off the mech's right side and shorting out a pulse laser. The LRMs fly easily through the damaged armor, severely damaging the shielding on the bulky but fragile engine. The enemy mech's return fire blasts the armor off the Grasshopper's right arm, but it fired a bunch of pulse lasers - our mechwarrior smirks as its heat readings suddenly go through the roof and the mech turns sluggish.
The rest of our mechs focus fire on the Black Hawk, sending lasers, LRMs and SRMs its way. Our Hunchback comes over the hill, firing its AC/20, but its aim is thrown off by a PPC blast from long range, the impact throwing the mech backwards and forcing it to a knee, while our Crusader loses armor off its right arm as well to fire from the Black Hawk's rather impressively sized laser array.
Round 3:
The allied Falcon makes a move as the Ryoken that Cylus crippled pulls back into the cover of a nearby hill, zipping out to fire SRMs and its medium lasers at the Black Hawk. A burst from the damaged Ryoken's LBX autocannon takes the hover tank out, blowing its turret off.
Cylus' right arm goes limp when a slug from the other Ryoken hits it. We focus fire on the Black Hawk, but are not able to inflict much damage, only blowing out a single laser in its left arm.
Round 4:
"This isn't working." our lance leader calls out from the Griffin. "Fall back to secondary line."
"Too late." Cylus says over a private channel. "We're already overrun. Call a retreat, Lieutenant." The Grasshopper rocks as the right torso is repeatedly hit by pulse lasers from the nearby Ryoken that's gotten into out formation, with the Black Hawk helping out by blasting a chunk out of the center torso and damaging the gyro housing.
Our Crusader's right arm takes a gauss slug from a distant Thor, snapping back, then hanging loose, basically unattached at this point. Our Hunchback opens up with the shoulder-mounted autocannon, nearly blasting through the Ryoken's right leg armor, but it holds miraculously. This distracts said Stormcrow long enough for our Crusader to deliver a kick to the Black Hawk's right leg, snapping it above the knee and bringing the mech down to the ground. Still our mech's LRM launchers have both been disabled, along with one of its lasers, leaving just a laser, eight leg-mounted SRM tubes and a machine gun.
"Siddown." our mechwarrior quips.
Round 5:
"Striker five, pulling back." Cylus reports. Between a good chunk of the mech's heat sinks being gone and a number of weapons lost, our mechwarrior holds fire.
The rest of out units concentrate on the Ryoken running through our formation, although our Hunchback can't get a bead on it and instead lets rip with the AC/20 at the downed Black Hawk, gouging a large chunk out of its left torso. The mechwarrior breathes a sigh of relief as the Ryoken hits him in the back - while the Hunchback's left arm and right arm are disabled, the pulse laser that hits the ammo bin hits an empty one. The AC/20 gets crunched as our mech falls backwards, having taken hip damage as well from a distant Thor.
Our Kintaro opens up with large laser, SRMs and medium lasers at the Ryoken, removing most of the armor from the head with a shot from the large laser, while SRMs and a medium laser finish the job.
Round 6:
Our Hunchback struggles up, backing up off the field while the rest of our combat effective mechs run interference.
The guy in the Black Hawk decides to bail out, meanwhile. But, the two Thors hang out on the other side of the hill, firing their powerful long-range weapons with deadly accuracy. The Crusader takes multiple hits, completely losing its remaining arm as well as basically all torso armor. The mechwarrior delivers a kick to the nearby Thor's chest, crunching some armor but failing to penetrate.
Round 7:
"Striker lance, pull back. Striker-Two, you're with me. Allied units, pull back as well." the lance leader orders.
Cylus breathes a sigh of relief as the Grasshopper has almost gotten clear, and then the mech suddenly powers down and pitches forward. Seems one of the clanners held a grudge. The remainder of the lance fires on the offending Thor, forcing it to a knee with a lot of light autocannon and SRM fire.
Round 8:
The crew of the Pike are undoubtedly relieved, as a gauss rifle blast just barely misses them. Our lance leader takes a PPC hit to the torso, our forces returning fire on the Thors, but their armor is damnably thick. That, and we don't really have any big guns left on the field to punch through the heavy armor - AC/2s, SRMs and LRMs don't really cut the mustard for that kind of thing.
Round 9:
Our Griffin takes a hit to the gyro from a Thor's PPC, lurching and falling to the ground, though not before breaching the enemy mech's left arm armor. Our allied Patton takes some fire as well, but it's a well-armored tank.
Round 10:
The Patton tank opens fire on one of the Thors, its left arm suddenly exploding as an AC/10 round hits the gauss rifle. The mech stumbles and drops to a knee, returning fire with SRMs to ding the tank's right-side treads. Our Griffin is able to get up and stagger west.
Round 11:
Our Griffin continues retreaing west, at which point one of the Thors nails it center of mass with an extended-range PPC, the blue lightning going out the back. The mech slowly falls backwards, coming to rest in a cloud of dust.
The other Thor's left arm explodes as the stored autocannon ammo is detonated by one of the Kintaro's medium lasers. A spare LRM from our 55-tonner kills an approaching battle armor trooper, but to our mechwarrior's horror, the Thor simply keeps lumbering on, even with its arm shattered.
Round 12:
With our Kintaro being our last mech on the field, it begins to pull back as well. The Thor that just lost an arm to the Kintaro's weapons fire gets in behind our mech using its jump jets and blasts through the rear armor, destroying our mech's large laser and cracking the gyro shielding.
Round 13:
The Kintaro doesn't make it out - even as the allied tanks combine autocannon on one of the Thors to disable its left torso section and send it to a knee, the other one stays on the Kintaro. Our mech stumbles, then a PPC shot through the rear armor detonates one of its many ammo bins, scattering bits of the mech to the four winds.
The remaining Lyran units make their way off the battlefield as the remaining Thor (and its battle armor buddies) stand guard.
The guy in the Kintaro is able to hitch a ride on one of the allied tanks, watching its treads flap as the battlefield receds. Cylus and the lance commander driving the Griffin don't report in. That makes it three mechs lost and two crippled. For once, the Lyran forces (mostly) survived, probably because all they had was AC/2s.
---
"Where's Major Pappathanassiou?" Marshal Steiner asks after receiving Zenn7's overall status report.
"Currently indisposed." Our mechwarrior replies. "Her Warhammer was destroyed and she sustained severe injuries during the ejection. The summary is that we are down to about 33% operational aerospace fighters, and about 50% operational battlemechs. We never really had too much in the way of ground armor, so that's more or less all gone - we have two hovercraft and a couple of VTOLs left, but those are search and rescue units. At the current rate, we have one more day of combat left, and then we stop being combat effective. We have spare mechs, but our mechwarriors are dropping out - casualties and MIAs."
Zenn7' grip on the Awesome's armrest tightens as he looks at the video screen. "If we had a couple more days, we could probably patch up a few more of the mechs and aerospace fighters, but it looks like the Jade Falcon goons are going to be making another push in a few hours - our sensors already show them moving their forces around."
"I see." the Marshal replies, tapping her fingers on her chin. "We've taken catastrophic armor casualties, and our aerospace is basically gone, but our mech forces are still in good shape. The good news is that Clan aerospace activity is way down. If we can wear their mech forces down, all they'll have left is those toads." She smirks. "Then, we'll just have to figure out a way to beat those warships they've got up in orbit."
"What I'm going to do is propose a classic flanking maneuver. Concentrate your remaining forces here, here, here and here." She points out four areas on the map, in the path of the clan advance. "While they're engaged with you, I'll take my mechs around here and Mitch... " she pauses briefly. "... will take his mechs around this pass, cutting them off. We'll hit their dropships, cut off their resupply."
Zenn7 sighs, thankful that his comms are currently muted while the Marshal talks, as his opinion of the plan isn't very high. And also thankful that it's a video call and not an in-person conference, as he's been living out of the mech for the last two days. Our command staff's opinion is that we're basically being fed into the meat grinder. Although, if the clanners see the strategic-level flanking maneuver coming, then we won't be the only ones. As much as we're taking a beating, we're actually holding our own.
---
October 5, 3050
Zoetermeer Invasion Day 3
Alpha company's Ranger lance is down two mechs (plus the one we borrowed from the reserves), while Guru is unable to operate the Thug due to being in the med bay. Of Alpha's aerospace fighters, only one Lucifer is flight worthy, and it's missing one of the small lasers - not really a big deal - the Shilone's still missing half its armor and guns, while the other Lucifer's engine is still being worked on. As for tanks, we've got some more (not so great) chassis we can throw at the problem, but what we don't have is qualified drivers and gunners. We have our techs pull a mech from mothballs for Cujo, who's still combat effective. Her main schtick is SRM/6 launchers, so we'll pick out a mech featuring that weapons system. We've got five options for a replacement ride -
[] Wolverine WVR-6R - standard Wolverine. 55 tons. Good armor, mediocre firepower, almost never overheats. Good speed, jump jets. Basically the same as her original ride.
[] Trebuchet TBT-5S - short-range Trebuchet. 50 tons. Average armor, excellent short-range firepower, requires heat management. Good speed, no jump jets.
[] Hunchback HBK-4SP - 50 tons. Heavy armor. Instead of the giant AC/20, it packs multiple medium lasers and SRM/6 racks. Requires heat management. Average speed.
[] Javeln JVN-10N - 35 tons. Light armor Just the two SRM/6 launchers. Requires heat management, fast, jump jets.
[] Champion CHP-2N - 60 tons. Modified version of standard Champion to remove the small lasers and upgrade armor instead: medium armor. AC/10 for a main gun, two medium lasers and SRM/6 launcher for backup. Fast, no jump jets.
Isgrimnur's Urban lance has been rotated to the front lines, but at this point we're pulling out all the stops, so he's got three additional mechs with him (starting with the Hatchetman, Blackjack, Grasshopper and BattleAxe), while the rest have been rotated for a shower, meal and quick nap:
[] El Guapo's Marauder
[] Fury's Guillotine
[] Thud's Awesome
[] Bass's Griffin
[] Ostroc
[] Cujo's replacement ride
Alpha Company is still operating in the mud bath area, which is a swampy, muddy, slightly hilly but otherwise barren area.
We're still able to hook up some allied ground support. Due to the nature of the terrain, minefields and infantry aren't going to be effective, while air support is extremely limited. Given how fast the enemy mechs are, tube artillery is pretty ineffective as well:
[] VTOL: 5 - crap firepower, weak armor, super fast (e.g. Warrior VTOL)
[] Light Hovercraft: 4 - good firepower, weak armor, fast (e.g. Pegasus hovertank)
[] Medium hovercraft: 5 - good firepower, medium armor, fast (e.g. Drillson hovertank)
[] Light armor: 4 - light firepower, light armor, fast (e.g. Skulker scout tank)
[] Medium armor: 4 - medium firepower, medium armor, medium speed (e.g. Vedette)
[] Heavy armor: 5 - good firepower, good armor, slow speed (e.g. Manticore)
[] Assault armor: 7 - extreme firepower, extreme armor, basically stationary (e.g. Demolisher)
[] Air support - 3 points (partially repaired Lucifer)