Editing Pitcairn Legion

{{infoBoxMilitaryCommand
| image          = [[File:Pitcairn Legion logo.png|150px]]
| Designation    = Pitcairn Legion
| formed         = [[2581]]
| Disbanded      = 
| Previous Designation = 
| Nickname       = 
| Affiliation    = Mercenary
| Parent Command = Independent
| Sub-Command    = 
}}

The '''Pitcairn Legion''' was a mercenary unit in the employ of the Outworlds Alliance that was composed of active duty [[AFFS]] officers.

==History==
===Formation===
Formed in [[2581]] as a result of the secret [[Tancredi Accord]]<ref name="H:RWp110">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 110, "Alliance Preparations"</ref> between the [[Federated Suns]] and the [[Outworlds Alliance]], the Pitcairn Legion was a three-[[regiment]]-strong brigade manned by volunteers, most of whom were drawn from the [[Davion Brigade of Guards]].<ref name="H:RWp33">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 33, "Additional War Preparations"</ref><ref name="TSLp50">''The Star League'', p. 50, "Outworlds Alliance War"</ref><ref name="TP1ep37">''The Periphery (1st Edition)'', p. 37, "The Pitcairn Legion"</ref> The Pitcairn Legion was disbanded in [[2585]], and its legal status varied depending on circumstance; at times, the unit was actively described as a mercenary unit, while at others it was considered to be a line unit of the [[Armed Forces of the Federated Suns]].<ref name="H:RWp33"/>

When [[First Prince]] [[Alexander Davion]] called for volunteers to aid the Outworlds Alliance Elias Pitcairn was the first senior officer to volunteer. This not only earned him command of the brigade but also resulted in the majority of his former regiment, the [[2nd Davion Guards]] [[BattleMech]] regiment, to volunteer en masse as well as hundreds of other serving and retired personnel from the Brigade of Guards. The number of volunteers outstripped the requirement, and Colonel Pitcairn was able to pick and choose who would join the Pitcairn Legion; ultimately, he selected only those personnel who were either unmarried or whose families were no longer dependent on them. Every serving member of the [[AFFS]] selected to join the Legion tendered their resignation from the AFFS, and the Legion was provided with the best 'Mechs the Federated Suns had available.<ref name="H:RWp52">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 52, "Elias Pitcairn"</ref>

Active principally within the Outworlds Alliance during [[Operation UNION HOLD]], the Star League invasion of the Alliance, the Pitcairn Legion was responsible for handing the [[SLDF]] several significant defeats, for prolonging the war to conquer the Alliance by a considerable margin, and for personally frustrating the efforts of the first commander of the Outworlds Alliance Task Force, [[General]] [[Amos Forlough]].<ref name="H:RWp33+">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 33, "Pitcairn Legion"</ref>

===Outworlds Alliance Campaign===
====Sevon====
[[Sevon]] was the first campaign the Pitcairn Legion fought against SLDF forces, beginning on the 3rd of October 2581. Two [[divisions]] of Star League troops, the [[4th Royal Infantry Division|4th Division]] and the [[6th Royal Division]], landed on Sevon under the personal command of General Amos Forlough, only to be contacted immediately by Colonel Pitcairn in full Davion Guards uniform. With a Federated Suns flag flying over Sevon's capital, Pitcairn stated that Sevon was a Federated Suns protectorate and that the Star League forces should leave immediately. Forlough's response was to treat the entire production as an Alliance deception and attack, which led straight into an ambush by Legion and [[Outworlds Alliance Militia]] forces that not only halted the SLDF advance but then led to the Legion directly attacking the 6th Royal Division's landing zone in a day-long conflict that cost the Star League forces more than 200 [['Mech|'Mechs]] and tanks and 6 [[DropShip|DropShips]], reducing the 6th Royal Division to a shambles.<ref name="H:RWp115">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 115-116, "Sevon"</ref>

This first day of conflict was followed by weeks of raids, battles and skirmishes along with political interference from Alexander Davion and [[First Lord]] [[Ian Cameron]]; even when the SLDF forces managed to pin the Legion down, the conflicts turned into grinding battles that taxed the strength of both. It took the arrival of several regiments of the [[Galedon Regulars]] called in as reinforcements by Forlough to finally force the Legion to leave Sevon, and Sevon represented the first major defeats for the SLDF in their campaign for the Outworlds Alliance.<ref name="H:RWp115"/><ref name="TSLp50"/><ref name="TP1ep37"/>

====Haynesville====
On [[Haynesville]] two battalions of the 3rd Pitcairn Legion landed on-planet on the 3rd of March [[2582]], two weeks after the [[37th Royal Brigade]] had arrived to conquer the world. With the assistance of an AFFS liaison, [[Captain]] [[Joshua March]], the Haynesville militia forces had been successfully disrupting the 37ths operations and forcing the SLDF troops to focus on the militia rather than attacking Haynesville's population and infrastructure. Under the command of [[Major]] [[Heather Moses]] the Pitcairn forces worked with March and the militia forces on a campaign to disrupt and deceive the 37th, staging multiple attacks with mixed units and hiding damage through cosmetic repairs to try and convince the 37th that it was facing a significantly greater force. This deception was entirely successful, and the combination of rising casualties, dwindling supplies and no sign of reinforcements convinced the commander of the 37th to surrender to the Pitcairn forces.<ref name="H:RWp120">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 119-120, "Haynesville"</ref><ref name="TP1ep38">''The Periphery (1st Edition)'', p. 38, "Strategy of Savagery"</ref>

This was a major defeat for the SLDF and a significant victory for the Alliance forces; it proved that not only could the SLDF be defeated, providing a valuable morale boost both to Alliance forces and those in other [[Periphery]] states fighting against the SLDF, but the surrender of a ''Royal'' unit was a significant blow to the morale of the SLDF forces, and the Alliance forces compounded this morale victory by retrieving two [[regiments]]' worth of cutting edge [[Terran Hegemony]] equipment, allowing them to field new regiments of troops.<ref name="H:RWp119">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 119, "Reverberations of Haynesville"</ref>

====Budingen====
The Legion fought on [[Budingen]] twice; the first time was from July to early September 2582, when the world was invaded by the [[4th Benjamin Regulars]]. The 2nd Pitcairn Legion fought a campaign under [[Colonel]] [[Samantha Milton-Jones]] that made full use of the hostile Budingen climate, fighting and fading back into the perpetual autumn storms and defying every attempt by the 4th to pin down the Legion base of operations. The Benjamin Regulars responded to this by attacking the population of Budingen directly, levelling settlements and killing or displacing the population, to which the 2nd Pitcairn responded by splitting their force, with one Legion battalion pinning down two [[DCMS]] battalions while the remaining Legion forces attacked the Regulars' base, damaging the Regulars' DropShips and reducing the camp to a shambles.<ref name="H:RWp120+">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 120-121, "Budingen"</ref><ref name="TP1ep37+">''The Periphery (1st Edition)'', p. 37, "Strategy of Savagery"</ref>

When the regulars retaliated by taking over a chunk of the Budingen capital city and evicting the native Alliance citizens, the 2nd found themselves rapidly constructing survival shelters in other settlements to give the thousands of refugees shelter from the winter storms, before finally withdrawing from the planet in early September to avoid being trapped by the harsh Budingen winter.<ref name="H:RWp120+"/>

Milton-Jones and her battalion returned to Budingen in February [[2583]] only to discover that the Benjamin Regulars had taken advantage of an early thaw to attack the civilian population, and by slaughtering animals, destroying towns and villages and killing hundreds of civilians, had broken the will of the population to resist occupation by [[Draconis Combine]] forces.<ref name="TSLp50"/><ref name="H:RWp122+">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 122-123, "...And Military"</ref> The 2nd Pitcairn Legion retaliated by assaulting the two major Benjamin Regular camps and inflicting significant damage before leaving the world shortly after.<ref name="H:RWp122+"/>

====Kennard====
As part of a series of strikes at SLDF- and Combine-occupied worlds, in January 2583 Colonel Pitcairn led the 1st Pitcairn Legion on a deep raid against the planet of [[Kennard]], which had been occupied the previous year by the [[18th Royal Brigade]]. The Legion forces arrived under the pretense of being part of a regular supply shipment, but soon announced themselves by striking directly at the 18th Royals' garrison within the Kennard capital city. That was followed by a two-week campaign in which the Legion struck at every major SLDF outpost on the planet while the 18th Royal tried desperately to pin the Legion forces down. When the Legion finally left Kennard, it left a battered, bloodied and embarrassed 18th Royal Brigade in its wake.<ref name="H:RWp123">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 123, "Pitcairn's Raids"</ref>

====Bad News====
Following the earlier raid on Budingen in February the 2nd Pitcairn Legion struck next at Bad News, which had been occupied by SLDF and Combine forces since [[2572]]. Facing a battalion from the [[3rd Dieron Regulars]] supported by two regiments each of infantry and armor, the Legion discovered that the [[DCMS]] forces had been terrorizing the local population. Colonel Milton-Jones concentrated her forces on the Dieron Regulars and a makeshift Kuritan depot refitting DCMS 'Mechs and equipment; over the course of three weeks the 2nd Pitcairn Legion all but destroyed the Dieron Regular forces, smashed every attempted counterattack, heavily damaged the Combine armor forces and ravaged the depot, only leaving Bad News when alerted to the arrival of a Combine [[WarShip]] in the local system.<ref name="H:RWp123"/>

====Lushann====
The world of [[Lushann]] was important to the Alliance due to its level of industrialization, and became even more so after Cerberus was occupied in 2583. When the SLDF [[15th BattleMech Division|15th Division]] landed on Lushann in March, the President of the Outworlds Alliance had no choice but to charge the Pitcairn Legion with defending Lushann at all costs. Colonel Pitcairn led the 1st and 3rd Pitcairn Legions to Lushann in April, where they immediately engaged the 15th Division directly; the 15th promptly made pinning the Legion forces down their first priority, keeping the Legion troops in place while General Forlough continued a campaign of highly damaging raids against other Alliance worlds.<ref name="H:RWp124+">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 124, "Battle For Lushann"</ref> The Legion continued to contest the world against the 15th until July, when the Chairman of the Outworlds Alliance Militia deployed the Alliance [[4th Armored Division]] to relieve the Legion so that the Legion could lead an ambush against the SLDF forces on Tellman IV.<ref name="H:RWp124">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 124, "Day of Vengeance"</ref>

====Tellman IV====
In some ways, the Legion battle on [[Tellman IV]] was almost a repeat of the initial engagement fought against Star League forces on Sevon. Having received intelligence indicating that General Forlough was going to strike the mining world of Tellman IV with three brigades of SLDF forces, Chairman [[Welkens Nordd]] extracted the 1st and 3rd Pitcairn Legions from the battle on Lushann and deployed both plus the 2nd Pitcairn Legion, the [[Santiago Carabiniers]] and two regiments of infantry to Tellman IV in an attempt to check Forlough's forces. Arriving in-system ahead of the SLDF troops, Colonel Pitcairn was able to deploy his forces in hiding, and to keep the scouting SLDF forces under covert observation from the day they arrived.<ref name="H:RWp124"/>

In what became known as the [[Day of Vengeance]], Colonel Pitcairn waited until the SLDF scouts had brought the bulk of the main SLDF force onto the planet before leading a strike against the scouts and then into the SLDF landing zone; in a maelstrom of fire and vengeance, the Legion and supporting Alliance forces rampaged through the SLDF lines, attempting to destroy as many 'Mechs and tanks as possible while they were still unloading. As the SLDF DropShip crews began to panic they fired indiscriminately at anything moving, damaging friend and foe alike, only to compound the damage already done when several DropShips — including Forlough's Command DropShip — made emergency liftoffs, damaging units around them with their drive plumes.<ref name="H:RWp124"/>

Although the Legion and Alliance forces lost a hundred 'Mechs with another hundred badly damaged, they caused the SLDF twice as many losses, along with several DropShips and two thousand casualties, reducing the combat strength of [[V Corps (Star League)|V Corps]] by a third.<ref name="H:RWp124"/><ref name="TSLp50"/><ref name="TP1ep38"/>

====Cerberus====
After the battle on Tellman IV, the Pitcairn Legion spent the remainder of the war fighting on [[Cerberus (system)|Cerberus]], contesting the SLDF attempts to completely occupy the world; the Legion was still on Cerberus when peace between the Outworlds Alliance and the Star League was declared on the 1st of August [[2585]] in accordance with the [[Treaty of Cerberus]].<ref name="H:RWp126">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 126, "Year Five: Peace In Our Time"</ref>

===Disbandment===
====Taurian Concordat Front====
The final task Alexander Davion placed on the Pitcairn Legion after the Outworlds Alliance campaign was to deploy in support of the Davion corps supporting the Star League campaign against the [[Taurian Concordat]]. General Amos Forlough had been removed from the Outworlds Alliance theater in [[2584]] and placed in charge of the Taurian Concordat war by Ian Cameron and the SLDF Commanding General, [[Carlos Lee]]. In sending the three regiments of the Pitcairn Legion as his contribution to support the assault on [[New Vandenburg]], Alexander Davion was sending a clear message to Forlough, who reacted in an entirely predictable fashion. His hostility towards Colonel Pitcairn and the Legion resulted in a tense standoff between the Star League and Federated Suns fleets orbiting New Vandenburg as Forlough issued orders for the immediate arrest and detention of the entire Legion.<ref name="H:RWp52"/><ref name="H:RWp90">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 90-91, "Charon's Express"</ref>

With the disbandment of the Pitcairn Legion, Elias Pitcairn provided reinforcements for the Davion Brigade of Guards forces; the appearance of the Legion on the Taurian Concordat front led to the end of Forlough's military career in short order, as his tirades demanding the arrest and execution of Colonel Pitcairn and First Prince Alexander Davion combined with the cost of the Taurian campaign waged under Forlough's command made his position untenable.<ref name="H:RWp90"/>

====Aftermath====
After the Pitcairn Legion was disbanded many of the volunteers rejoined units within the Davion Brigade of Guards on the Taurian front. The lessons handed to the SLDF by the Legion during the Outworlds Alliance campaign were a factor in the complete transformation in how the SLDF would be organized in the future.<ref name="H:RWp52"/> The Legion's colors are on permanent display within the [[Fox's Den]].<ref name="H:RWp33+"/>

==Officers==
{| class="wikitable"
|- 
! scope="col" width="220" style="background: #dedede;" | Rank
! scope="col" width="220" style="background: #dedede;" | Name
! scope="col" width="220" style="background: #dedede;" | Command
|-
| colspan="4" style="background: #efefef;" | '''Commanding Officers of the Pitcairn Legion'''
|-
| [[Colonel]]||[[Elias Pitcairn]]||[[2581]] - [[2584]]
|-
|}

==Tactics==
Unknown.

==Legal Status==
The legal status of the Pitcairn Legion during the [[Reunification War]] was highly muddled, and probably deliberately so. All of the Pitcairn Legion personnel were members of the [[AFFS]], but all had resigned or been transferred to the AFFS reserve rolls with the formation of the Legion. All of the Legion equipment was from AFFS sources, and for accounting purposes all of their equipment was recorded in a special holding account; this holding account was also where any supplies seized from AFFS sources during the course of the Reunification War were recorded as being held.<ref name="H:RWp114">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 114, "The Pitcairn Question"</ref>

Both Elias Pitcairn and Alexander Davion described the Legion as either a part of the AFFS or an independent mercenary unit depending on the question being asked. When the Legion fought SLDF troops, beginning with the battle on [[Sevon]], the Legion claimed to be an official AFFS unit and claimed the world in question was a protectorate of the Federated Suns claimed on behalf of the Star League. When the Legion was initially formed, the call from Prince Davion was for volunteers to join a mercenary unit to assist the Outworlds Alliance. Whenever Prince Davion was challenged on the status of the unit within the confines of the [[Star League Council]] he claimed that the Legion were deserters and outlaws, but maintained the claim that all of the Legion personnel were citizens of the Federated Suns and could therefore only be prosecuted and tried by courts in the Federated Suns.<ref name="H:RWp114"/>

==Dependents==
While those personnel selected for the Legion either had no families or had families who were no longer reliant on them for support, the bounty posted on the head of Elias Pitcairn by General Amos Forlough and the declaration that Pitcairn was an enemy of the state resulted in attempts to reach him through his family on [[New Avalon]]; Prince Alexander Davion and the Brigade of Guards were directly responsible for ensuring the safety of both Pitcairn's family and the families of other Legion personnel. In the case of Elias Pitcairn this protection continued for the rest of his life.<ref name="H:RWp52"/>

==Support==
The Pitcairn Legion was supported at least in part by the [[AFFS]], although some supplies were evidently seized in "raids" as a part of the political machinations surrounding the existence and purpose of the Legion.<ref name="H:RWp114"/>

==Composition History ==
===2581===
'''The Pitcairn Legion''' (3 Regiments)<ref name="H:RWp141">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 141, "Outworlds Alliance Front"</ref>
:'''First Pitcairn Legion''': (BattleMech Regiment)
:* CO: [[Colonel]] Elias Pitcairn
:'''Second Pitcairn Legion''': (BattleMech Regiment)
:* CO: [[Colonel]] Samantha Milton-Jones
:'''Third Pitcairn Legion''': (BattleMech Regiment)

- The Pitcairn Legion had full AeroSpace support.<ref name="H:RWp110"/>

==Rules==
<div class="gamerules">
* Pitcairn Legion units gain a +3 bonus when rolling to determine Random Experience Levels.<ref name="H:RWp182">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 182, "Pitcairn Legion"</ref>
* Pitcairn Legion units gain an additional +2 bonus when rolling to determine the availability of advanced components, equipment and replacements.<ref name="H:RWp182"/>
* Pitcairn Legion units may field double the normal limit of advanced components per lance.<ref name="H:RWp182"/>
* Pitcairn Legion units may customize combat equipment as if it is an SLDF Royal unit.<ref name="H:RWp182"/>
* The Pitcairn Legion may Bank Initiative.<ref name="H:RWp182"/>
* The Pitcairn Legion may utilize Overrun Combat.<ref name="H:RWp182"/>
* If playing as the attacker, the Pitcairn Legion player has a 50% chance of selecting one quarter of the maps to be used in the battle and of selecting its home edge.<ref name="H:RWp182"/>
* When two or more Pitcairn Legion lances are operating together they gain a +1 Initiative bonus.<ref name="H:RWp182+">''Historical: Reunification War'', p. 182, "Davion Brigade of Guards"</ref>
</div>

==References==
<references />

==Bibliography==
* ''[[Historical: Reunification War]]''
* ''[[The Periphery (sourcebook)]]''
* ''[[The Star League]]''

[[Category: Federated Suns Commands]]
[[Category: Mercenary Commands]]