MME Board Joint MekHQ Campaign - The Sanguine Samurai

Ye I'd be game for it.
Isn't the transport cost about 4 mill per way looking at total transport fee?

I've got 4 admins, 2 doctors and 3 mech techs, I'll post a picture of them when I get home

Say hello to our Support personnel!



We got lucky with our rolls and ended up with 4 veterans!

With that, I think the four of us are in agreeance that the Guerilla warfare contract could net us some awesome equipment! Let's go with that! I'll accept the contract and start updating you all later today. I'm a bit worried about salvaging to restock us while also salvaging to get good tech, but we'll see how it goes!

On January 2, 3039 we accepted a contract from the Lyran Commonwealth to conduct Guerilla Warfare against the Free Rasalhague Republic on Hyperion.

Techs did some maintenance on our mechs on the way there, quality stayed the same.

We landed on Hyperion on April 18, 3039 and immediately off loaded to conduct our guerilla warfare

The Rest of April stays rather quiet, no battles were rolled and we weren’t called to do much.



Treachery!

The beginning of May starts with us realizing we got bad information from our employer, resulting in a minor breach of contract on their part. Seems our next enemy morale roll will be a bit worse. Still, we can’t complain too much with getting another month’s pay without doing anything.

Techs keep the mechs running well.



Another week goes by without a battle, at this point I’m starting to wonder if there’s a bug with this build about generating scenarios…

But! Finally as Monday, May 13 rolls around we get news that two lances of vehicles are heading our way and should hit us on the 18. Looks like there will be a few tanks that are a better shot than others, but overall, this should be easy to handle. We suit up and head out to meet them. I’m not planning on rerolling any of the battles stats as I’m hoping the muddy terrain will keep some of their heavier assets out of position. Lot of long range on their side, so staying back and using our long range won’t be as effective as I had hoped.




Looks like Rasalhague Regulars should technically be stationed on this planet during this timeframe so I changed the opfor camo to roughly match their tan, olive drab, and green digital camo.



I’ll attach the gameoptions if you all would like, I’m using a few optional things such as extreme range, extreme temperature survival so you all don’t die without us having a chance to save you, floating crits, individual initiative, etc.


Deployment

We deploy on the south side, they deploy on the north side

Looking at the map, we’re going to deploy towards the right side and try to get them to come to us in the open ground as much as possible



Their tanks start moving towards us, quick on the draw (at least for our side this turn) Snake Eyes jumps forward to a forest area with partial cover in front of him to try to draw some fire from our slower units.

Igloo runs up to another spot with partial cover and woods, he quickly realizes this planet will be harder for our mechs to run in its lower gravity, but luckily passes his PSR and keeps his mech upright.
(Remember this... )
Seeing Igloo’s trouble running, Nomad and Omega dial back on the throttle some, with Nomad lining up to take some pot shots with an LRM or 2, and Omega fanning right to stay out of sight for now. Of course our friend in the Vulcan charges in yelling something about showing us how to kill some puny tanks.



Snake Eyes is too focused on not crashing his mech on the way down and doesn’t have a chance to shoot anything this time (target numbers too high).

Igloo takes aim at the AC/2 carrier targeting the Vulcan with one PPC, it’s a long shot and he doesn’t want to waste the heat for when the tanks get closer.

Omega catches a glimpse of the AC/2 carrier as well and takes a pot shot with his left PPC, he’s walking so he has a bit better chance.

Nomad tries to get some LRMs to give him a lock chime, but the tanks are just a bit too far out to guarantee a hit so he holds his fire.



The Vulcan takes a glancing blow form the AC/2 carrier, barely taking any damage. Everyone else misses this round.



Round 2

One of their troop carriers rush us. The AC/2 carrier backs off after feeling the heat a bit from the two PPCs that flew by him last round. Their Manticore moves slowly to one side to try to line up a better shot.

Igloo, feeling confident that he’s far enough away from most of their forces stands his ground this round in order to get off a better shot.

The Vulcan moves in to try to deal some hurt to the troop transport before they offload

Omega follows Igloos lead and stands his ground trying to line up some long range shots

Snake Eyes pushes the throttle down in attempt to support the Vulcan in destroying the out of position transports.


Igloo & Omega let loose both of their PPCs as the almost stationary Manticore in order to hopefully score some big hits.

Snake Eyes let loose all of his lasers into the transport, it’s moving fast and he’s having a hard time tracking it.

Nomad without a good target for his LRMs looses his 2 front facing medium lasers at the transport as well.


3 of the 4 PPCs at the Manticore hit! Lucky! Igloo dealt a lucky blow to the left side and did some minor damage, Omega hit the turret and Front section shaving off a quarter of the tanks armor in both places.

(I mean it when I say lucky, we needed 9s to hit!)


The Vulcan gets another lucky hit on the Transport barreling towards us, doing major damage to its motive system, reducing its MP by half and adding a +3 to all driving skill rolls

Nomad scores a glancing blow on the transport as well. So far we’ve taken no damage save the glancing blow on the Vulcan from round 1



Round 3

Igloo & Omega figure they have a bit more time to stand still to fire before a few more tanks are in range so they take that opportunity.

Nomad moves up to the next forest hex in front of him, frustrated that he isn’t getting any good LRM locks…

And watches in amusement and horror as the Vulcan fires its jumpjets and lands in a swampy area and gets stuck, luckily the swamp is in a lower area, so it should be safe from fire.

Snake Eyes moves up next to the transport to finish it off.


Igloo sees an opportunity to blow the AC/2 carrier away and fires both PPCs at it.


Omega stays on the Manticore also firing both of his PPCs


Archer yelps in joy as he sees his targeting system give a good tone for his LRMs and looses both flights towards the Manticore.


Snake Eyes again shoots all of his lasers into the side of the transport before looking up and firing a small salvo at LRMs at the Manticore as well.


An enemy vedette scores a glancing blow with an AC/2 on Snake Eyes right leg. Snake Eyes luckily shifted from the glancing blow and a PPC shot flies by his cockpit then his left and right torso is peppered by 6 missiles from the Manticore.


The AC/2 carrier scores two glancing blows on Nomad, dealing negligible damage.


One of Igloo’s PPCs connect with the AC/2 carrier exploding most of the carrier’s front armor and jamming one of the AC/2s


The Transports hits every single weapon on the Vulcan, but luckily it only deals about 11 damage spread across multiple locations.


Nomad hits the Manticore with 9 missiles dealing additional minor damage to the motive system.


Omega is quickly showing his aptitude with his PPCs, scoring two hits on the Manticore again! One scrapes the front and the other slams into the side of the Manticore dealing more damage to the motive system.


The Vulcan returns fire on the transport, immobilizing it with one of his medium lasers.


Snake Eyes only scores two medium laser hits on the side of the transport. In frustration his kicks the rear of the immobile tank, killing 14 of the troops inside and leaving the transport barely holding together.




Round 4

The troops and crew abandon the transport, spilling out into the battlefield.


Omega, in the zone, stays as still as a statue lining up more shots on the Manticore.


Nomad, watching multiple tanks now bearing towards the lance, backs up into another woods tile and fires off an LRM20 at the Bulldog


Snake Eyes jumps away from the disembarked troops hoping to make himself a hard target for the approaching Manticore and Bulldog who look angry. He fires off his lasers at the infantry as he jumps away hoping the Vulcan will mop of the rest.


Igloo takes a deep breath and focuses on hitting the approaching Manticore with both of his PPCs



Igloo, Omega, and Nomad all miss their shots. Snake Eyes hits two men with his large laser, then watches the Vulcan incinerate the rest of the platoon with its flamer.

We took no damage this round either though!


Round 5

Snake Eyes Jumps to the left, trying to split the approaching forces fire again. He fires off some desperate shots at the side of an approaching vedette as he lands.


The Vulcan finally frees itself and rushes into the middle of the enemy force firing at the AC/2 Carrier, the man is daft!


Nomads backs up a step before he realizes all of the tanks turned around to shoot at the Vulcan, he fire off a salvo at the Manticore hoping to get a lucky shot and finish it off.


Taking opportunity of the distraction, Igloo lines up a shot at the approaching bulldog, feeling good as it turns it turret around to shoot at the Vulcan.


Omega moves up a hair to get the Bulldog into medium range and lets loose both PPCs.


Whether by some miracle or by some deft piloting by the Vulcan, the enemy force misses, every. Single. Shot. Honestly, I was impressed, but then I watched him whiff all of his attacks except for one glancing blow on the AC/2 Carrier.


Igloo lands one hit on the Bulldog and the tank swerves a bit as the driver is injured from the blow.

Omega also lands a blow, leaving a sliver of Armor left on the front of the Bulldog.


The Vulcan swings his leg and connects with the AC/2 carrier, stunning the crew for around. Hopefully we’ll mop that tank up next round.


Round 6

The enemy force encircles the Vulcan, hoping to pay it back for the kick it just dealt to their ally. Even a platoon of riflemen pour out of one of the tanks and starts firing at him. They must be really mad to walk in front of flamers. So Igloo stands still and lines up on the Manticore again


In a turn of bad luck (and I mean BAD), Snake Eyes rushes forward to get in the rear arc of the Bulldog, and pushes his mech too hard. Suddenly he is on his face and sirens are screaming that his right leg was blown off… It’s at this point I realized I forgot to give our mechwarriors Edge…
Jots down quick note to remedy that

*Note: It's at this point I get a bit too excited and start forgetting to take screenshots for 2 rounds, I didn't want Snake Eyes to die on the first mission!!



Omega joins Igloo in firing on the Manticore and Nomad lets loose two salvos of missiles at the AC/2 Carrier hoping for a lucky kill


Luckily, all the enemies fire on the Vulcan, seeming to miss that Snakes Eyes fell. Unluckily, the only blow we land this round is a glancing blow on the Turret of the manticore from Igloo’s PPC.


The Vulcan take some damage, but due to his narrow profile, most of them are glancing and his armor holds.


Round 7

As expected, the enemy tanks swarm the downed Grasshopper. One Maxim transport drives a bit too foolhardy and destroys one of their LRM 5 and damages their motive system. A platoon of foot troopers with flamers rush out of the transport. Igloo is screaming over the comms for Snake Eyes to Eject so the enemy won’t shoot up the mech and they can repair it easier. But the ejection fails. 

All Units move closer to cover the downed mech.


Snake Eyes, in a valiant effort to give himself room to eject, pushes his mech up with his left arm and fires his lasers at the AC/2 carrier destroying it finally!


Snake Eyes takes multiple hits. A large laser lands a crit on his left arm, hitting the lower arm and a heat sink in the arm. And SRM missile finds a chink in his Center torso armor and does two hits to his Gyro. An AC/2 finds his medium laser and shoulder joint on his left arm.


The manticore hits Nomad with a PPC on the right torso


Omega lands a PPC hit on the left side of one of the vedettes.


Round 8

Snake Eyes manages to eject! Although he takes a hit on the way out of the cockpit, but he stays conscious.


Every mech continues to move forward to support. Nomad rushes forward, trying to get close enough to pick up Snake Eyes and bring him somewhere safe.


Igloo & Omega fire at the Bulldog close to Nomad, Nomad fires down at the Manticore hoping to finish it.


Igloo & Omega Miss, Nomad hits with one Medium laser on the Manticore.


The Vulcan roasts the flamer platoon (ironic) leaving four men alive.


Nomad takes a hit from a large laser and a medium laser, his armor holds.


At this point, I'm on the edge of my seat. All the sudden we're missing left and right and we have an ejected mechwarrior on the field, but I pull myself together next round haha

Round 9

Igloo & Omega continue to move forward, Nomad turns left and runs towards Snake Eyes who is running back towards his lance.


Luckily, the Vulcan takes off some of the heat from Nomad and draws half the enemy fire while shooting at the damaged Manticore.


Igloo tries to cool off some and only fires one of his PPCs at the closest Vedette. Omega has a good shot and fires off both PPCs, but he’s feeling the heat.


Nomad fires one laser at one of the transports as he moves.



Nomad takes an AC/5 round to the right arm.


The Vulcan is dodging rounds left and right before scoring 3 medium lasers on the front of the manticore. That moment of pause allowed the manticore to hit him though. The Manticore fires back, its PPC blowing off the Vulcan’s arm, while a medium laser and salvo of SRMs hits the Vulcan as well. One of the SRMs finds the Vulcan’s head, injuring the pilot.


A PPC from Igloo connects with the vedette, immobilizing it.


The Vulcan took a beating this round, and got up to over 20 damage. The hit to the head must have thrown him off, as the pilot fails a relatively easy PSR and falls to the ground on its right side.


Round 10

The Vedette crew abandons the immobile vehicle. Nomad moves to pick up Snake Eyes and shoots his medium lasers at the bulldog hoping to blow through what’s left of its front armor. Igloo & Omega step up to take some damage and hopefully deal some to the manticore.


Nomad hits with both lasers! Destroying the rest of the armor on the front of the Bulldog, sadly his second shot goes high and hits the turret instead. He takes a lot of heat this round, but his armor is holding, however his right torso is down to 3 armor and he luckily rolled a no effect on a critical hit there, he passes his PSR from the damage and stays standing.


Igloo and Omega deal some damage to the Manticore, but it still doesn’t go down. Although, they managed to jam its turret and deal more damage to its motive system.


Nomad Picks up Snake Eyes at the end of the round! Time to haul ass back behind the Warhammers!


Round 11

Sorry for forgetting to take screenshots the past few rounds! I’m getting way too excited haha


Nomad races back, pushing his mech a bit too hard in the gravity, but luckily he makes the PSR.


Igloo & Omega, both back up slowly to protect him and give better targets.


Omega Fires off both PPCs and SRMs at the vedette(meant to do the bulldog ☹), hoping to finish it.


Igloo fires one PPC, 2 medium lasers and a small laser at the Manticore.


Nomad manages to sneak two medium laser shots between Omegas legs at the Bulldog.


Omega manages to immobilize the Vedette, Igloo manages to Immobilize the Manticore. But both take a beating in return, the damage knocks Igloo over, and he takes some damage in the fall. But with those two tanks immobile, the rest turn to flee finally. We call Victory.


PHEW!

That turned into a shitshow, REAL quick. This planet is going to be rough to fight on, it’ll be tempting to run faster than we normally can as it’s such a low PSR to do it. Just piloting skill! I think we just got EXTREMELY unlucky with Snake Eyes mishap.


I’m going to give Immobilization kills as kills to the potential mechwarriors as Megamek doesn’t currently do that haha



We’re going to salvage the Manticore and one of the Vedettes to strip the armor and weapons off them



We end up with a LOT(23) of prisoners because of how many platoons were on the field. I put the ones (9) willing to defect in the infirmary and ransom the rest for an easy 97,500 cbills. Igloo & Snake Eyes are in the infirmary as well, but only for minor lacerations (lucky again!)


I have the Regular mechs replace all the armor the 3 mechs still standing today so they’re ready if need be. I forgo loading ammo on Omega’s Mech until we have more time, as we only used two shots of SRM ammo.


Now onto the Grasshopper. The shoulder on the left arm is trashed so we have to replace the whole arm. We salvage what we can and replace it. We can also just reattached the left leg as it was blown off! (yay!) It takes our Veteran tech two tries and two days, but by Monday, May 20 he has the leg back on.


We hire a green mechanic to start pulling off components from the tank, hopefully we can snag a better mechanic before she breaks something.


We also get news that there will be another attack on the 24th. Giving us only a few days to get the Grasshopper operational. Our Veteran Tech manages to get the Arm back on the Grasshopper on the 22nd and the mech is fully operational on the 23rd. Talk about skin of our teeth, but all mechs are fully operational!

Slightly worried about the next battle… But maybe the light mechs will go down easier to PPC fire than the tanks did. Igloo will also be going into battle still injured, but unless he gets hit more it should be okay. We’ll need to remind everyone to not push their mechs as fast as we technically could in this gravity…


Shoot, alright, I’ll try to do the next battle before new year’s. I’ll also try to get better at reporting the battle! I know I got too excited because of Snake Eyes fall and forgot to take some screenshots haha

This is fun

Right? Definitely makes me rethink the tanks I've bought in the empires campaign haha. I didn't actually add them up, but I think it soaked up like 8 PPCs plus other damage

Hoping to salvage a Panther & maybe Javelin & Jenner if we've killed enough by the time reinforcements come to handle them

Yikes, talk about bad luck! Still, at least the leg was blown off with a crit so it was easy to reattach. This stuff is why I play with gravity changes off in my ATB campaigns, even the slightest difference from perfect earth normal can cause huge changes. Still, interesting to see it in action! Salvaging the Manticore is I think a great call. We can use its LRM and SRM ammo, a spare PPC is good, plus its armor, and as a fusion engine tank once we've stripped it of the stuff we want the remainder should still sell for a reasonable amount! Out of curiosity was the gyro of the 'hopper able to be repaired or did you end up installing a spare?

If I can give some constructive feedback, I'd appreciate a few more zoomed out pictures of the battle. Early on I had a hard time knowing how close the enemy was getting since all the pics were closeups of the player lance's location. Getting to see the enemy's disposition is really helpful for understanding the situation as it develops. Also regarding images, I don't know if it's just me but they're pretty small on my screen; is it possible to take larger pictures in the future? The few zoomed out shots we get, for example, are helpful for the above reasons but they're small on my monitor and a larger one would make it easier to make out exactly what units are which.

On the positive side, I really liked the little details you give to the actions of the characters! It adds to the immersion and gets me into their heads as the action happens, it was quite fun to read Oh, and likely the reason we had a couple weeks without battles is that the game makes a roll for each deployed lance each week. The percentage chance of a battle changes depending on the contract type, with Raids having the highest probability of battle per lance and Garrison the lowest iirc. So if we have maybe a 50% chance of a mission being generated per lance, and we have one lance, it's entirely possible to go a couple weeks without a fight.

Speaking of which, the next one looks like it could be quite dangerous! That's a lot of stuff to throw at our force, even if we are a heavy lance. Thankfully the Green enemy rating means no veterans among them. What's the mission parameters btw? The win condition and combat conditions?

Cool beans. So there's a full company of enemies, meaning we need to mission kill 6 of them, or 8 once the reinforcements arrive. Hopefully that goes well; the Whammy's MGs might actually some in handy against the pair of infantry platoons, that could be two easy kills right there. Just gotta watch out for that Saladin, nasty hovering AC/20.

Sadly iirc hovertanks don't set off mines. Still something to consider, especially as last I checked Princess doesn't take mines into account. So if you put them in the enemy's path they will 100% run right over them. Active mines would work against hovers and jumping mechs, but I don't think those are LRM-deployable.

Well done igloo for getting through that relatively unscathed, all things considered. It looked like a tough fight, and the shadowhawk provided a surprising amount of assistance.

Good job team overall, and horay for the panther salvage. That's a nice extra mech to have to assist a heavy lance.

I wouldn't worry too much about the kills on nomad. I've always found lrms to be pretty lack luster at anything but armour shredding. At least it's thick armour is doing a great job of keeping him alive!

What's the money situation right now? An infantry platoon for fluff purposes seems fine to me, and the j 27 is a neat vehicle to have for similar reasons.

That panther item is also likely a good option. So far so good I think.

Nice battle. Particularly like the bit where we didn't let Omega get massacared 😄

The zoomed out pictures were much better. Could really follow the fight.

I think I will save the XP for Omega to boost gunnery. The PPCs will mostly be used at medium range so the to-hit reduction will super useful. Plus you seem to use the Warhammer like me; cautious approach from the rear lines where piloting is not really called on too often.

I like the HQ unit idea too. I also like the fluff J-27. Can make for a bit of fun if your rear lines are attacked at some point.

If we can make the rolls to find it in game, I'm down to modify

Good to know about the grade of refit required there. I'm not aware of the complexity of alterations to mechs, may have to grab myself a copy of the tech manual. Out of interest what are considered easier alterations?

I know this is a can of worms, and typically I'm very much in favour of keeping things cannon in terms of mech loadouts.

I suppose its all down to what igloo considers acceptable in field/hangar alterations.

Looks like MekHQ agrees on swapping weapons around to different places haha. Apparently this would take 60 minutes Shoeless haha

For refits, it basically goes from easiest to most difficult:

Switching a weapon for another weapon of the same type (energy, ballistic, missile) of the same or fewer crit slots
Switching a weapon for another weapon of the same type of more crit slots
Switching a weapon for another weapon of a different type

Pretty much any weapon swaps are doable in a mech bay, while something like changing a PPC for a large laser is doable in the field without any extra tools, and takes very little time. Changing rear mounted weapons to forwards mounted also takes basically no time. Changing heat sink type and engine rating are both more difficult but iirc can be done in a mech bay, and engine rating changes along with musculature/internal structure require access to a major facility/factory.

That's the general basics, though MechHQ itself does not I believe have any restrictions on what refits you can do where, those have to be handled on the player's end. So if Igloo wants to let us swap from a 300 fusion engine to a 370 XL engine with DHS while on a raid and also change to Endo Steel, it can be done. Though do not that generally the more extensive the refit, the longer it will take. CASE is surprisingly quick despite by RAW needing factory facilities, but internal structure changes will take *months.* So saving big refits for after a contract while we travel for weeks or months is often a good idea, rather than taking a mech out of action in the middle of a campaign for a significant period.