12th Star Guards

Twelfth Star Guards
Formed	2785
Disbanded	3052 (Destroyed)
Previous Designation(s)	Twelve Stars Guards
Affiliation	Mercenary
Parent Command	Independent
Sub-Command(s)	Guard Primary First Regiment ("Rivers Gamblers") Second Regiment ("Ohell's Heavies") Third Regiment ("Paget's War Ponies") Fourth Regiment ("The RattFraggs") Fifth Regiment ("Lescouflair's Landsknechts") Sixth Regiment Seventh Regiment ("Scovy's Ironmen") El Magnifico

The Twelfth Star Guards was a very large mercenary unit with a long history dating back to the Star League era. Along with the Eridani Light Horse, it was one of the oldest mercenary units in the Inner Sphere. The unit served admirably for its employers up to and including the time of the Clan Invasion, when the unit was effectively destroyed as a fighting force.

Unit History

The Twelfth Star Guards were created in 2785 from regular Star League Defense Force units. Two regiments of the SLDF—the Forty-second Striker Regiment and the Tenth Heavy Assault Regiment—chose not to follow General Aleksandr Kerensky on the Exodus and instead banded together to form a mercenary unit. Originally employed by the Capellan Confederation, the unit guarded twelve star systems and was called the Twelve Stars Guards. Eventually, that evolved into the more recognized name for the unit, the Twelfth Star Guards.

The unit's size fluctuated over the years from the original two regiments up to seven in the Second Succession War. During that war, the unit lost two regiments: one due to lack of pay, and the other was abandoned via deception by its then-employers, the Draconis Combine.

Third Succession War

At the beginning of the Third Succession War, the unit moved to the Federated Suns. During an attack on a Davion world, two battalions of the Sixth Regiment defected and joined the Kurita attackers due to ongoing pay issues. The remaining battalion was merged with the Seventh Regiment. The unit then moved to the Lyran Commonwealth in 2967. Unfortunately for the Guards, an unscrupulous liaison officer embezzled vast funds destined for the unit.

In 2970, the Twelfth Star Guards raided the Kurita world of La Blon, destroying several ammunition dumps. They also guarded Loric in 2971, but mechanical failures in the Guards' equipment allowed the Regulan Hussars to take the world.

In 2978, Loric was the subject of a significant battle between Lyran and Free Worlds League forces; defending Loric alongside the Twelfth Star Guards were the Eridani Light Horse, and both units found themselves in the middle of the battle. With the Eridani Light Horse in urgent need of relief, the Twelfth Star Guards managed to break through the main Marik lines at Digger's Pass, but stalled at an ad hoc defensive formation of assorted League units along a river line, with the Marik forces keeping the Eridani Light Horse cut off from reinforcements. The Twelfth Star Guards tried using Condor tanks from one of their supporting regiments, the Thirty-fourth Provisional Dixie Armored Regiment, to breach the defensive line without success, before finally breaking through by using their engineering company and their Engineering Vehicles to cut through the river banks and prepare the river bed for 'Mech movement. This was after attempts to build pontoon bridges failed due to heavy artillery bombardment and attacks from Marik aerospace fighters. While the Twelfth Star Guards did manage to ford the river and relieve the Light Horse, the action cost them most of their engineering cadre and three out of their four engineering vehicles. The actions of the Third Battalion of the Thirty-fourth PDAR in attacking disorganized Marik formations on the other side of the river, despite being cut off, and then holding a beachhead by destroying incoming ground forces, were critical in giving the Star Guards time to ford the river.

The unit then moved to the Federated Suns in 3012 with the hope that their financial situation would improve. The unit managed to improve their situation slightly and decided to sign back up with the Lyran Commonwealth in 3024. The unit's financial situation improved further under the Lyran contract.

In late 3020, the Lyran Commonwealth launched what would become an extended campaign to recapture Alexandria from the Draconis Combine. The LCAF deployed a substantial force in the effort to liberate the planet, including several regiments of the Twelfth Star Guards leading a mercenary task force that consisted of a number of other mercenary units including Snord's Irregulars.

The Second and Third Regiments were the descendants of the original SLDF regiments that formed the original mercenary unit. The Guards regiments were stationed on various planets around the Ryde Theater in the Isle of Skye. Their headquarters were on Lyons (which later became a base for the Kell Hounds mercenary unit during the Fourth Succession War). The Guards moved from Lyons during the initial thrusts by the Commonwealth into Combine territory during that conflict.

"El Magnifico" was the code name for the Twelfth Star Guards' engineering unit, which employed some of the best engineers in the Inner Sphere. The tale goes that the unit actually built New Rome in a day but, not wanting to show off, tore down part of the city and rebuilt it the next day.

While between contracts and badly in need of spare parts, the Twelfth Star Guards landed undetected on Talon to regroup and assess the damage they had taken. Unknown to the Guards, they had landed 600 kilometers from an encampment that two companies from the First Crucis Lancers had arrived just two weeks earlier to train in the moon's polar regions. Two weeks after the Guards' landing, a Crucis recon lance containing a couple Ostsols spotted a group of unidentified 'Mechs and thought they were part of the training. Unfortunately, it was a Guards lance, and when the Lancers discovered this, it was too late. The Lancers assaulted a Guards Archer and crippled it after an intense fight. That destroyed the Guards' morale, and they routed, retreating to their encampment, now aware they were not alone.

The brigade remained in Federated Commonwealth employ following the combination of its component nations.

Clan Invasion

The Twelfth Star Guards were effectively destroyed during the Clan Invasion. Stationed in the Tamar March of the Federated Commonwealth, the four Guards regiments garrisoned the worlds of Steelton, Toland, Icar, and Bensinger.

On 20 March 3050, the Third Guards regiment was one of the first Inner Sphere units to encounter the Clans when Clan Wolf's Fourth Wolf Guards dropped onto Icar. Colonel Hannah Caitlin's aide would later write an account that captured the initial shock and devastation wrought by the Clans upon their unsuspecting opponents. The regiment was mauled and the survivors forced to surrender after a failed attempt to escape off-world.

The First and Second were nearly destroyed on Steelton and Toland, but were able to withdraw to Wotan. Clan Jade Falcon destroyed the survivors of the First and Second Regiments there. Bensinger was captured by the Falcons, but the Seventh Guards Regiment under Colonel Len Bouncer didn't take part in its defense. Instead, they participated in a guerrilla conflict for several years.

The Seventh was defending Bensinger when Clan Jade Falcon assaulted that world in their first wave of Operation REVIVAL. As the mercenaries were engaged in wargames near the Dravinna Vale they were unable to participate in the main defense of the world, and so Colonel Bouncer and his troops subsequently mounted guerrilla attacks upon the Clan occupiers. The Falcons eventually hunted down and annihilated the unit, although Bouncer and the command company were not accounted for.

The Guards' former chief tech, Felifious Bander, would eventually found Bander BattleMechs along with other former mercenary techs, a firm specializing in refitting BattleMechs with new technologies. By 3055, the firm would be large enough to introduce its first original design, the Bandersnatch.

Officers

Rank	Name	Command
Commanding Officers of the Twelfth Star Guards
Hauptmann-General	Mitch DeChavilier	3025
General	Mitch DeChavilier	3038 – 3050

Tactics

Different per Unit.

Units of the Twelfth Star Guards

• Guard Primary
• First Regiment - destroyed 3050, Wotan
• Second Regiment - destroyed 3050, Wotan
• Third Regiment - captured 3050, Zoetermeer
• Fourth Regiment - mutinied and became independent, 2860
• Fifth Regiment - destroyed by the AFFS, 2861
• Sixth Regiment - largely defected to Kuritan service, Third Sucession War
• Seventh Regiment - destroyed 3050, Bensinger

Color Scheme and Insignia

The Twelfth Star Guards used a variously green-shaded "splinter" camouflage.

• 

  Behemoth tank in Twelfth Star Guards livery and insignia

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Notes

• Era Report: 3052 (2010) identifies Charles Carranza as the commanding officer of the Twelfth Star Guards in 3050, though this is clarified in Combat Manual: Mercenaries (2016) that he was really the CO of the First Regiment.

• Special Command Abilities for the brigade and its sub-command regiments can be found on pages 66 and 67 of Combat Manual: Mercenaries.

Bibliography

• Combat Manual: Mercenaries
• Cranston Snord's Irregulars
• Era Report: 3052
• First Succession War
• House Steiner (The Lyran Commonwealth)
• Technical Readout: 3025
• Technical Readout: 3025 Revised
• Technical Readout: 3026
• Technical Readout: 3026, Revised Edition
• Technical Readout: 3050 Revised
• Technical Readout: 3055 Upgrade