Accords12
04/19/12 09:52 AM
2.124.105.53
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Hello gentlemen,
I come to the sarna forums for advice, for you see, a few months ago we started a battletech succession wars campaign, and after several months and feats of violence, drama and the shock of being betrayed near constantly, we have managed to accumulate a large number of mechs through salvage or skullduggery (we Have gone from 8 Light to mediums to 31 of all varieties). Being that this is my first real experiance with the setting I was just hoping to ask for advice on how to form up our lances.
Here is what we currently have (the model will be non variant if not posted as such.)
2x Atlas, 1x Battlemaster, 1x Zeus, 1x Orion, 1x Hammerhands, 1x Archer, 1x Guillotine, 1x Thunderbolt,
1x Thunderbolt custom, 1x Lancelot (undergoing refit), 1x Catapult, 1x Shadow Hawk, 1x Gladiator(4R),
2x Wolverine(6m), 1x Dervish, 1x Hunchback, 3x Enforcer, 2x Trebuchet, 1x Centurion, 1x Vindicator,
1x Phoenix Hawk, 2x Jenner, 1x Raven (Custom), 1x Javelin, 1x Commando
So guys, can you help?
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Cray
04/20/12 08:26 AM
147.160.136.10
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Put together a slow, high-firepower lance (aka assault lance):
2x Atlas, 1x Orion, 1xHammerhands
Put together a lance of durable, faster, heavy units (call it line combat lance):
1x Battlemaster, 1x Zeus, 1x Guillotine, 1x Thunderbolt
Put together a lance of LRM units for fire support (fire lance; yes, it has 5 'Mechs):
1x Archer, 2x Trebuchet, 1x Catapult, 1x Dervish
Get those slower, durable mediums together as another line combat lance:
1x Thunderbolt custom, 3x Enforcer
Get those slower, durable mediums together as a third line combat lance:
1x Centurion, 1x Vindicator, 1x Gladiator(4R), 1x Lancelot (undergoing refit),
Form the speedier, mobile mediums into a cavalry lance that moves to reinforce problem areas:
1x Shadow Hawk, 2x Wolverine(6m), 1x Phoenix Hawk
And put together a scout / raiding lance (yes, it has 5):
2x Jenner, 1x Raven (Custom), 1x Javelin, 1x Commando
I might've dropped a 'Mech somewhere because I'm counting 30. But, anyway, the idea is to use the line combat lances to do most of the fighting. You get them onto the battlefield and let them shoot ****. The assault lance is brought up to deal with tough stuff, but don't expect it to move fast. The cavalry lance can be a heavy scout, a raider, or mobile reserve that can reach trouble spots rapidly, shoring up weakened line combat units. The fire lance is like the cavalry lance but doesn't have to move far - it parts behind a hill top and rains LRM joy on deserving bad guys who are troubling line combat units. The scouts are fast raiders and, well, scouts. They'd be great spotters for the fire lance.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Accords12
04/21/12 12:34 AM
2.124.105.53
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The hunchback wasnt put in but I see where you are going, just wandering why the gladiator is classed as slow, its a 5/8/5 medium.
And to specify refits and customisation (as I already should have) the lancelot had its ppc wrecked, and is as such being refitted with a trio of additional med lasers, a flamer and 3 tons more armour.
The Raven has two less heatsinks along with the srm 6 downgraded to a 4 and 3 tons more armour, and the custom bolt simply has no srm 2 and a ppc instead of the large laser along with a wierd reactive camo paint that allows it to be more slightly better at ambush work.
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Cray
04/21/12 11:36 AM
173.168.112.109
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Quote:
The hunchback wasnt put in but I see where you are going, just wandering why the gladiator is classed as slow, its a 5/8/5 medium.
Because I forgot its stats. 
Assign the Gladiator to the cavalry lance and put the Hunchback in the assault lance.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Accords12
05/02/12 10:30 PM
2.124.105.53
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Got an update, we have recently gained a number of mechs, due to a rather nice cleanup at the solaris circuit and an exibition show/trial of position thing in which we duked it out with a mad mix up of solaris champions and watched others fight for the chance to show off/ the glory of joining our ranks. After this we kind of simply subsumed a smaller merc company called the Dragons Phalanx, adding thier 6 warriors and 3 Mechs to our ranks.
Post profits it was decieded that we expand the company to full battalion strength with suitable ASF support and full dropship use. My char sent his mech back to his family, (the Gladiator) But we picked up a 2 Black knights (1 royal, 1 standard), we built the first (of hopefully many) Revanant REV-1APs, an additional Archer (called the ARC-2C it mounts LRM 15s, jump jets and 2 more heatsinks), A trio of Wolfhounds, a Dragon, 2 prototype Grand Dragons (5/8 ppc, 3 med lasers, lrm10 and 13 single sinks), an Awesome, a Jenner and a Panther. We also picked up 4 Corsairs and 2 Rievers, a pair more unions (making 3) and sold our old Leopard for a CV variant.
Back at our base we are also stockpiling an impressive amount in spares, armour and ammo, but thats another story.
So gents, taking the info from earlier posts and adding onto what we have now, how should I reorganise the lances ofthe Black Shields PMC?
Edit: forgot about picking up a second phoenix hawk, and a wolvie 6r
Edited by Accords12 (05/02/12 11:29 PM)
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His_Most_Royal_Highass_Donkey
05/04/12 07:31 AM
174.148.115.119
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Man, you are picking up a lot of equipment really fast.
When I have had a chance to play even the side that won they had less working equipment than they started with for a very long time. It took a long time to fix damaged mechs and to sell off what little was left of the destroyed mechs to have the money to fix the damaged mechs.
Why argue if the glass is half full or half empty, when you know someone is going to knock it over and spill it anyways.
I was a Major *pain* before
But I got a promotion.
I am now a General *pain*
Yay for promotions!!!
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Karagin
05/04/12 09:50 AM
178.76.140.186
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You could sell some of them off for parts and cash to upgrade your current mechs. Or keep a few as back up mechs in case one mission goes totally south on you. Or you could hire more warriors to pilot them.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Accords12
05/04/12 12:04 PM
2.124.105.53
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Currently we are thinking of using an active mech battalion with a reserve set of 2 lances of mechs to replace combat losses. And after our spending spree the company has 55 million cbills in the bank, we also have roughly 2000 tons of supplies in mixed parts, ammo and replacement armour and internal structure. I will be honest, the rapid growth came sort of out of nowhere, but in reality it was the culmination of owning a solaris stadium, setting up a tournament that we jokingly called our trials of position, in which independant mechwarriors can join our ranks, along with doing a few exibition matches, and then the crazy luck for our personal random jenned exibition match to be against the four horsemen of Duncan Fisher, Peter Dexter, Sam Coleman and another sol champ, we got kicked around but managed to lose without taking too much damage and take Dexter down with us.
The massed revenues of ticket sales and ebookings (due to the knowledge that four solaris LEGENDS were going to be rocking out there) made us a lot of cash, which we went nuts with. Also due to our... status with the Lyran government (cough FEDCOM cough) we were gifted with some wolfhounds to field test, as it ooc is the months prior to the 4th succession war, and select merc companies, (OT kell hounds and dragoons, but now with us too) have got a few examples of mechs to see what they get up to. Them and the Dragon, Jenner and Panther we got from absorbing in the Dragons Phalanx (they were the mechs that were in working order)
After this point though, we are going on contract with Corvatti on a garrison duty (agressive garrison apparently since the mission starts with planetary assault). After that IC my guy is thinking of trying to build a mercenary coalition to annihilate the Iron Bears PMC to break them before they cause any more problems for us (and because they are reprehensable monsters that give all mercs everywhere a bad name)
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His_Most_Royal_Highass_Donkey
05/05/12 02:05 PM
173.131.65.51
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Quote:
I will be honest, the rapid growth came sort of out of nowhere, but in reality it was the culmination of owning a solaris stadium, setting up a tournament that we jokingly called our trials of position, in which independant mechwarriors can join our ranks, along with doing a few exibition matches, and then the crazy luck for our personal random jenned exibition match to be against the four horsemen of Duncan Fisher, Peter Dexter, Sam Coleman and another sol champ, we got kicked around but managed to lose without taking too much damage and take Dexter down with us.
Do you realize how many hundreds of Trillions of C-Bills a Solaris stadium would be worth? It could cost billions just to get the permit to build it since all of the other stadiums would do what ever they could to stop you. The last thing the current stadiums would want is another stadium to steal away their business. It would have been a lot more believable if you had your stadium in any other solar system.
A football stadium was built a couple of years ago that cost 1.3 billion dollars. A battle mech stadium would require about a thousand fold amount of space just for a tiny one. A football field would be about one hex wide and four hexes long. A battle mech map has 256 hexes in it and when ever I played we used for maps for a small area to fight the battle. A battle mech stadium could easily take up hundreds of square miles of land.
Going by mechwarrior 2 rules you can have a title of no higher than baron and a baron would make somewhere around 100,000 C-Bills a year. If you where a owner of a mech stadium you would be a very minor partner of one of the tiny unknown stadiums out in the boondocks of Solaris lll.
Why argue if the glass is half full or half empty, when you know someone is going to knock it over and spill it anyways.
I was a Major *pain* before
But I got a promotion.
I am now a General *pain*
Yay for promotions!!!
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Accords12
05/05/12 04:24 PM
2.124.105.53
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Look man, I had no place in the aquisition of the stadium, the company got a hold of the thing due to a rigged solaris bet, the stadium itself is an abandoned quarry and attached storage areas that got repurposed as a small scale arena with appropriate stands attached, and a mechhanger that feeds into the arena floor. Not one of the PC's actually own the thing, its company property, and a lot of the money made from the event (75 percent) went into the various sponsors the company.
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Cray
05/06/12 09:21 PM
173.168.112.109
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Quote:
Do you realize how many hundreds of Trillions of C-Bills a Solaris stadium would be worth?
From the media revenues, yes.
Quote:
It could cost billions just to get the permit to build it since all of the other stadiums would do what ever they could to stop you.
The Solaris VII material indicates there's some cutthroat business on Solaris VII, but not that.
Quote:
A battle mech stadium could easily take up hundreds of square miles of land.
The published stadium maps are quite a bit smaller. Like, one or two maps.
Quote:
If you where a owner of a mech stadium you would be a very minor partner of one of the tiny unknown stadiums out in the boondocks of Solaris lll.
It's not your game. If Accords and his gaming pals are having fun, don't be such an armchair quarterback. Let them have their fun.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Accords12
05/06/12 09:51 PM
2.124.105.53
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Thanks guys, but hopefully back to topic, how should we restructure lances to fit with new materiel? We are planning to field a battlemech battalion and place two lances of mechs in our home hangers, and always try to bring the ASFs around on the Leopard CV.
What mechs do you guys should we bring and what should we leave in the reserve? and advice on lance formations would be appreciated.
Heres what I came up with, comments welcome
Black Shields TO&E
1st Battalion
A Company *Major Lukov*
Lance A
Black Knight (Royal) Lancelot Archer (2C) Thunderbolt
Lance B
Revenant Atlas Atlas Battlemaster
Lance C
Phoenix Hawk Wolfhound Wolfhound Raven
B Company *The Duchess*
Lance A
Zeus Guillotine Archer (2R) Centurion
Lance B
Dervish Trebuchet Trebuchet Catapult
Lance C
Jenner Jenner Jenner Javelin
C Company *Captain Feng*
Lance A
Thunderbolt (9S) Dragon Wolverine (6M) Wolverine (6M)
Lance B
Shadow Hawk Wolverine (6R) Enforcer Enforcer
Lance C
Hammerhands Vindicator Panther Enforcer
Reserve Mechs (no Mechwarriors, required to replace combat losses)
Hunchback Grand Dragon Phoenix Hawk Orion
Black Knight Grand Dragon Wolfhound Awesome
Aerospace Support
A Squadron
Lance A
Corsair V12 Corsair V12
Lance B
Corsair V12 Corsair V12
Lance C
Riever F-100 Riever F-100
Dropship Fleet
3 x Union x 3
1 x Leopard CV
Edited by Accords12 (05/07/12 06:26 AM)
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Accords12
05/10/12 06:26 PM
2.124.105.53
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News just in, the company having just being deployed to guard corporate materiel from more piratically inclined 'militia' units on Halloran, and in the fighting both engaged the 'militia' inflicting heavy casualties in a rather savage ambush, and at the same time capturing the salvagable trio of commandos (2D) and a Dervish (who took a cockpit crit in the first shot fired) and a few tanks/hulks (I think around 20-30 afvs were destroyed and a few more captured when the crew got out of the tanks and surrenderd) and after that we went to engage an outright band of brigands established a few (30-50) kilometers away capturing a champion, a locust and a panther
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Accords12
05/23/12 11:14 PM
2.222.232.55
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Well, things have got worse in the last couple weeks, it seems that us taking a public contract on a border world has come back to bite us, as it set an open signal flare to every sucker in the area that has a problem with us. So, after a raid gone nightmarishly bad (we lost 4 mechs with no ability to recover any of them and gained no salvage) and a few weeks of repair time (in which a second company of friendly mercs called Carsons Dragoons showed up deploying a company of mechs, a company of armour and a pair of thumper field guns) we noted that the system moniters picked up the drive wakes of jumpships and dropships burning bright into the Halloran system most of which bore rather starkly Capellan IFF signals, one ship even burning bright with the idents of a warrior house. At this point we tried to contact the Worlds Militia, who didnt bother listening to us, barring a third merc unit, called Blanks Coyotes who deployed 9 more mechs alongside us.
The first wave of dropships hit dirt about a week later (giving us time to rig up a nightmare of mixed defences across the complex we are defending, including deploying over 50 AC/5 Turrets (in 5 gun clusters) as an anti asf screen, rigging a horrifically large number of incendiary charge traps in the service tunnels, (we rigged 25 tons of inferno srms into IED's and scattered them into multi ton charges)) and mining some potential landing sites. The first wave deployed over two battalions of mechs (and a dozen long tom field guns, and support gear etc.) bearing the colours of our most hated foes, the Iron Bears, who it turns out were after the hefty price on our heads (courtesy of the cap con) and the chance to settle some old scores in a sea of blood. Knowing that the second wave of drop ships was roughly 36 hours away, we deployed to counter, leaving the Coyotes to defend the base against breakthrough units, and sending the Dragoons Mech company (made up of mainly mediums along with a single awesome) to hit thier flanking force (consisting of two lances of fast mid/heavies and a lance of locusts) while we dragged the main force (5 companies of mechs) into the thick forests a few kilometers north of the facility. Then, having our friendly thumpers bombard the enemy companies with smoke shells, and using our friendly neighbourhood raven to cause havoc with thier sensor suites, we started a savage game of stalk and ambush, unleashing hellish volleys of accurate long range fire on our enemies. We managed to disengage with no casualties while so far killing over a dozen of thier mechs (it was 14 of them last count)
It turns out the bears were expecting us to use older tactics (a berzerk rush followed by a brawl in which we would likely lose due to attrition) and were thrown when we decieded to use much more sneaky mobile war tactics, they still follow us, thier objective has always been us, and not the facility, and we have dispatched our lighter mechs to go and kill thier now lightly defended artillery, as we pull back to smite thier flanking force from behind, thier primary strike seeming to regroup and give chase to us (while still being bombarded by smoke shells to confuse them further).
Now the table has been set, we know that over 3 enemy mech regiments are hitting the planet (4 battalions of Iron Bears, a battalion and a half of House Ijori (the other half not there because we bled them at an earlier date, and the rest are now here to settle scores), the 4th Confed Reserve Cavalry, along with a few mixed lances of Independants and small fry merc companies) and thier supporting armour are coming in to hit us and we are acknowledging that reinforcement is not coming for several weeks, barring survivors of local militia (from what I know a pair of Aircraft carriers and possible mechanised infantry stragglers are heading our way to get in and hold as best they can) and our current only advantage is that they want the massive oil refinery (several km across) we are defending, and that any kind of heavy bombardment/ airstrike will torch the facility they want so badly, while we can still hit anyone doing a direct assault with impunity, which is going to make this conflict devolve into horrific meatgrinder in the dense woodland to the north and in the maze of roads in this refinery system as we fight our lives.
Now the point I am desperately trying to get to is this, is there any advice from the members of the board to aid in the survival of our units till reinforcements arrive and we can get to the task of tearing these capellans away from this world?
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