Andrew Giggins

Andrew Giggins
Personal
Affiliation	Federated Commonwealth; Federated Suns
Profile
Rank	Leutnant-General
Profession	MechWarrior
Family
Spouse	Yes
Children	Three Children

Andrew Giggins was the commanding officer of the Fourth Crucis Lancers between 3050 and 3062.

History

Giggins was a tenth generation Federated Suns officer, and found himself torn between duty to the Federated Suns and to the Lyran Alliance planet of Giausar—the planet had been his home for the previous decade and he had a wife and three children native to the world. He had no wish to see the hell of the FedCom Civil War come to his home. When he received a personal invitation from General of the Armies Nondi Steiner for him and his family to visit Tharkad, he knew he was out of options. He quickly met with his command staff and informed them of his decision to openly declare the Fourth Crucis Lancers for Victor Steiner-Davion, which he did on 31 March 3064.

After Giggins declared the Fourth's support for Victor Steiner-Davion, his unit, the Fourth Crucis Lancers saw serious combat. The Loyalist Second Donegal Guards, led by Delmar Voss, faced them landing one week later. The Fourth withdrew into the dense forests of Giausar and conducted hit and run raids. This pinned the Second Donegal to the world and prevented them from reinforcing other Loyalist units. Soon the Seventh Donegal Guards reinforced the Second Donegal, and the pressure on the Fourth Lancers increased. The Lancers shifted their focus, attacking the supply depots of the Donegal Guards as well as isolated units. This worked, but reduced the Fourth's combat strength. The Com Guard 167th Division left their post and landed on Giausar to reinforce the Fourth Crucis Lancers. Unfortunately the Seventh Donegal killed most of their command structure before the 167th broke contact and linked up with the Fourth Lancers. The Fourth took command of the 167th's survivors, this being accepted by Precentor Slurpea Kuzi. Soon after this, the Second Donegal lost their headquarters to a Fourth Lancers strike.

Giggins' combined forces continue to harass the Loyalist forces until mid-August, when Giggins decided to stand the unit down for a few days, as fatigue and damage were becoming serious problems. Unfortunately for the Allied forces, a Boomerang spotter plane identified both the Lancer's camp at the base of Monte Diablo and the position of the HQ company, and General Daniel Voss-Steiner from the Seventh Donegal Guards launched a swift attack against the Allied camp. The attack surprised the Allied forces, and the senior Guards officer leading the attack, Hauptmann Susan Reeves, was able to focus her forces on downing Giggins' Sagittaire before attempting to kill him as he retreated on foot. The Guards' focus on Giggins allowed the Allied forces to launch a savage counterattack, and Demi-Precentor Demetria Loris deliberately put her 'Mech between Reeves' massive Fafnir and Giggins, decapitating the larger 'Mech with a PPC strike and buying time for Giggins to be rescued and evacuated from the battlefield.

Buoyed by the victory at Monte Diablo, the Allied forces went on the offensive, scoring a number of victories against the Loyalists, culminating on an attack on the HQ Company of the Second Donegal Guards, which a scout company stumbled across on the 9th of September. The scouts attacked the HQ forces, destroying various support trucks and the mobile HQ from which Delmar Voss was operating. Although Voss wasn't killed, he was badly injured, and had to be medevaced to New Munich, unable to continue to take a part in the campaign. As bitter as the loss of their CO was, the Guards were enraged further by the accidental destruction of a Donegal MASH unit, caused by a downed aerospace fighter crashing into the complex, prompting a bitter, furious campaign against the Allied forces.

Although Voss was a drunk, he was also a tactical genius; with him out of the picture, command disputes within the Second Donegal Guards hampered Loyalist operations, culminating in the Second withdrawing to New Munich in November, leaving the Seventh to fight alone. The increasingly vicious battle had marked Giausar permanently, but with the Seventh no longer on the field, the tempo of the campaign dropped back to a pattern of raids and counterraids that finally came to a conclusion on the 11th of December with the arrival of General Caesar Steiner. Caesar was both the former commanding officer of the Second Donegal Guards and the liaison between the LAAF and the SLDF. Caesar called for a ceasefire, and all of the commands on Giausar complied - much to Caesar's surprise. He openly acknowledged the bravery of the units, and announced his intention to take command of the Second Donegal to fight against the Free Skye rebellion currently in full flow, while the Seventh Donegal Guards would limp back to Launam, and would leave Giausar in the hands of the Lancers. Precentor Martial Gavin Dow disowned the surviving elements of the 167th, leaving them to be incorporated permanently into the Lancers.

BattleMechs

Andrew Giggins piloted a SGT-8R Sagittaire.

Bibliography

• 20 Year Update
• The Battle of Monte Diablo (World Wide Event)
• FedCom Civil War
• Field Manual: Federated Suns
• Objective Raids