Vote Results:
"Corporal, you're gonna hate me... " El Guapo begins, opening a private channel to AWS. "... but I need you to take a flight."
"What, where?" AWS asks, begins, somewhat bewildered. The hostiles are already on sensors, coming out of the tunnels in the small (hopefully evacuated) city where the fight will be taking place.
"Sending coordinates now, designated nav point epsilon." El Guapo continues. "Hyena got the Timber Wolf's engine flooded somehow. Captain Jafar will brief you when you arrive, but I need you over there now before the oxygen runs out in that cockpit, someone tries to do something stupid or the hostiles come back."
AWS sighs. Missing a fight sucks, but the Phoenix Hawk LAM's flexibility will be key to saving a mechwarrior's life. Not to mention a clan-tech mech. "On my way, Captain." The LAM's engine revs, thrusters holding it aloft while the arms and legs retract and fold, the wings extending outwards. AWS engages the afterburner, heading east, low along the ground - wouldn't want those orbital guys getting the wrong idea, after all.
It takes a few minutes to hook up a harness for the Timber Wolf, which is then hauled out by Leraje's Warhawk, which begins the long trek back to our dropships.
Meanwhile, El Guapo's mildly reduced command moves to block a force emerging from the tunnels. A perfectly normal day - no snow, no rain, no nothing. Just El Guapo/Dire Wolf, Cylus/Grasshopper, Thud/Hunchback, SgtSoldier/Phoenix Hawk, Freyland/Nova and Lich/Timber Wolf.
The first group of guys to come out of the tunnels are two medium/heavy mech lances, and an assault tank lance. Plus a couple of unidentified tiny sensor blips - Waddles, from the looks of it.
Round 1:
"Demolisher to the north." Cylus calls out, pinging the assault tank with the Grasshopper's laser and LRM launcher, fully intending to stay out of its range. A spare laser blast hits one of the Waddles which more or less shrugs it off. Stefan adds some LRMs from his Trebuchet, but the Demolisher keeps on trucking. Much slower, though.
A Savannah Master tries to swing in behind SgtSoldier as he moves his Phoenix Hawk along the western flank, but our mechwarrior doesn't care much for that and blasts the little tank to bits with a pulse laser.
El Guapo and Lich move their heavier mechs down the front, Lich engaging an approaching Thunderbolt with the Timber Wolf's lasers and LRMs - armor holds for the most part, except a single laser shot which nearly fries the heavy's head. El Guapo works on a Hatchetman to the north, scoring multiple hits but failing to breach armor - the Hatchetman's return fire is little LBX pellets against a 100-ton mech's armor. Lich's lasers and missiles would have hit too, but they go through an expanding debris cloud instead.
WestOrEast and an Enforcer exchange weapons fire, one our Griffin's lasers and the LRMs hitting in exchange for a laser blast from the Enforcer.
Round 2:
Seeing an Archer coming around the corner, and knowing there's also a Caesar and a Marauder (none of them light mechs), SgtSoldier fires up the Phoenix Hawk's jump jets and takes cover behind a building. "Some other time," our mechwarrior concludes.
While the Thunderbolt and Hatchetman take cover from El Guapo and Lich's firepower, a Demolisher tank isn't quite fast enough - El Guapo's lasers lay open the armor, at which point a couple of lucky LBX pellets make contact with the fuel tank, detonating the AC/20-equipped assault tank. Cylus and Stefan continue working on the other Demolisher, blasting it with a large laser and LRMs, slowly chipping away at the armor.
In the east, Freyland's Nova takes a couple of lasers from an approaching Grasshopper and two swarming Savannah Masters, one of which takes a (very lightly) grazing hit from WestOrEast's PPC as he swings the Griffin's right arm around.
Thud, meanwhile, opens up on an Enforcer that's approaching Freyland and WestOrEast's battle - an AC/20 round buries itself deep in the mech's left torso, leaving it open for further damage.
Round 3:
Cylus and Stefan have rattled their target Demolisher and move in to finish off - Cylus lets the Grasshopper's laser play over the assault tank's armor and hits paydirt - an ammo bin blows, scattering the tank's debris to the four winds and forcing the nearby Waddles to run for cover.
Lich's Timber Wolf rocks as a gauss rifle slug from a hostile Marauder impacts his mech's right leg. The return fire takes off a more substantial amount of armor from the hostile mech, but fails to connect with a Savannah Master that's zipped up to take a pot shot at El Guapo. El Guapo, meanwhile, is busy detonating the approaching Hatchetman's LBX ammo with pulse laser fire - the mech is equipped with case, so it remains kind of intact, but, as usual with Inner-Sphere XL engines, the loss of a side torso section forces the engine into shutdown.
SgtSoldier engages an Archer, taking two laser hits and landing a good number of his own - the heavier mech has to drop to a knee to compensate for the armor loss.
To the east, Thud continues pounding on the Enforcer, avoiding incoming weapons fire.
"What the hell are those things?" WestOrEast calls out.
"... computer says designation 'Alacorn'. It's a uh... gauss rifle tank. Get in close." Freyland responds.
And so we do, although WestOrEast's Griffin takes two gauss slugs (one to the head, but thankfully both were grazing blows) as it jumps in. As does Freyland's Nova, one slug blowing out a laser from the right arm. Freyland's counterattack slices the offending Alacorn to ribbons, while WestOrEast doesn't quite finish the other one off - Freyland gives it a kick to one of the gauss rifles, causing sparks to crawl along the magnetic coils.
Round 4:
El Guapo continues his reign of terror, stomping forward and turning the Dire Wolf to the left. The Marauder fires back, supported by an Archer further back, but the reverse-jointed 75-tonner's gauss rifle explodes under the Dire Wolf's withering laser fire, which causes its engine to shut down. Our 100-tonner takes a gauss slug and a PPC bolt, but armor holds.
"XL Engines, eh?" El Guapo asks nobody in particular with a smirk.
Lich finally gets a good bead on that obnoxious little Savannah Master, evaporating the tiny hovercraft with a good laser blast. Between all the explosions, Stefan takes the time to laser one of the many Waddles running around while flattening another one - Cylus and El Guapo join the "stomp the power armor" club as well.
To the east, Thud continues letting rip with the Hunchback's autocannon, engaging a nearby Grasshopper as the Enforcer has pulled away. Autocannon rounds and pulse lasers strip the 70-ton mech's armor as it lands, then an errant pulse laser detonates the streak SRM ammo, shattering the heavy mech from inside out. Thud's Hunchback is knocked around a little by a gauss slug impact to the arm from a distant Alacorn, but the mech is all right.
To the west, SgtSoldier continues pecking at the Archer, disabling an LRM launcher with one of the Phoenix Hawk's lasers.
Round 5:
Alarms blare in SgtSoldier's Phoenix Hawk as the Caesar finally comes out of hiding and blasts his mech with both a gauss slug and a PPC shot. The Caesar takes a beating from Cylus' Grasshopper in return. SgtSoldier's heat woes are exacerbated by the fact that he put two pulse lasers and a large through the back of the Archer, detonating its ammo bin and sending the mechwarrior for a flight. The Archer's last laser shots take out both our Phoenix Hawk's right arm weapons, however. With the two mechs smoking and about to to fall over, they both decide that that's enough and disengage.
Lich moves forward, baiting the Thunderbolt to move behind him, which exposes it to El Guapo's laser fire - its right arm goes limp, while one of the pulse lasers travels upwards along the right torso and makes contact with the already damaged head, evaporating it, and the mechwarrior.
WestOrEast's Griffin takes a gauss slug to the back from the Alacorn, but that's the last shot it fires - Freyland immobilizes the tank with a good amount of laser fire.
Round 6:
With only two mechs left, the Waddles' grenade launchers continue to ping rounds off our mechs, but it's not enough - El Guapo fries an entire squad, while Stefan repeats the performance with another.
The Caesar pulls back, battling it out with Cylus' Grasshopper, while the Enforcer engages WestOrEast, Freyland and Thud, to some success - it only loses some armor while getting a good hit on Thud's back armor.
Round 7:
Cylus and the Caesar continue pounding on each other as the 70-tonner successfully manages to avoid both El Guapo and Lich's firing arcs - Cylus loses a right arm laser and the shoulder actuator, while one of the Caesar's leg actuators is fried, which forces it to drop to a knee.
The Enforcer's adventure comes to an end as Thud sinks pulse laser blasts into it, one set disabling the LBX autocannon, the other fusing its hip actuator, and the third simply ripping through the fellow 50-tonner's left side, disabling its engine shielding. It gets one last shot off, frying one of Thud's pulse lasers, but that's about it.
Stefan spends some time hunting down the last Waddle squad, frying the battle armor with the Trebuchet's lasers. While they do have good sensor baffling mechanisms, you don't really need a full target lock to fire a laser at point blank range.
Round 8:
[camera feed disrupted]
"Last one on the field, mechwarrior." Cylus tells the guy in the Caesar over the general frequency. "Might be time to give it up."
"For me, probably yeah." comes the reply. "You'll have your turn soon enough."
The Caesar opens up with its PPC and pulse lasers on Cylus' Grasshopper once again - the 70-tonner's right arm sparks and goes limp while the medium laser on the left arm blows its capacitors, frying the hand actuator. Cylus shrugs, directing the Grasshopper's torso-mounted lasers at the Caesar as Lich makes his way around the hostile machine's back - the large laser goes directly through the cockpit. For a moment, the battlefield is clear, with the exception of two infiltrator suits waddling at a surprisingly rapid pace away to the south.
To be continued...