Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH Part Fifteen

Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH, Part Fifteen:

So, next mission would be a 3-skull escort mission for the Taurians (before their reputation dipped below the point it could be taken...)

Mylassta took the Decapitator. Scarlet grabbed the Fair Marauder and Pseekie subbed in for Summer in the Catapult Hammer. After some thought, Mylassta assigned Velina to the Stalker Barrage - she needed some practise if she was to be subbing in for Alarhan as was the intention.

Velina's first comment upon landing the tundra was to suggest maybe they could make some snow angels later. This was pretty typical of her...

First set of opposition was a 4G Hunchback, Panther, Locust and Jenner.

(Started out with Scarlet headcapping the Hunchback, but then the Jenner went and instantly killed one of the APCs, because of course it did. Reload.)

Scarlet shot at the Jenner and Pseekie ran forward to shoot the panther. The Jenner, of course, proceeded to hit her in the head, because of course it did.

Second try...

The Jenner, Locust and Panther went down (after being knocked over, the APCs managed to KO the Panther as it staggered up and stumbled away...)

As the APCs reached the drop point, a Shadowhawk, Kintaro and a Trebuchet showed up.

And hit Mylassta in the head.

She was used to this by now... She was sufficiently fed up, she ran run and straight punched the Trebuchet, taking out its left torso. Meanwhile, Velina, Scarlet and Pseekie team-up on the Kintaro, knocking it over with missiles and then taking its head off.

The Trebuchet was beaten to death by Mylassta (aside from one deft shot from Scarlet's AC to knock it down) and the Shadowhawk was missile'd to death.

Enough salvage to get a Hunchback 4G plus a Kintaro and Jenner to be sold.

Velina increased her gunnery to 5 and got Multishot. Alarhan increased her guts to 10, Summer her gunnery to 10, Lynessa and Mylassta their piloting to 9, She her piloting to 5 (to get Sure-Footed) and tactics to 6, Poppy her tactics to 10, Scarlet her gunnery to 8 and guts to 5 and Vey her tactics to 6. So quite a bit of training!

Next, back to Davion, ambushing a convoy of Taurians on Martian terrain. Alarhan took the Decapitator, Scarlet stayed in the Fair Marauder and Velina in the Stalker Barrage, but the damaged Catapult Hammer was replaced with the Phoenix Coil, as it was almost certainly going to be needed.

Great. Two Demolishers, a Marauder and a Grasshopper, and that was just the four elements Summer could SEE.

They took out the lead demolisher. The remaining force was a Manticore tank (which hit Summer in the head, because of course it did) and an SRM carrier, with the remaining mech being a Quickdraw.

On the fourth or fifth attempt at a precise shot, Scarlet finally got the Marauder.

Summer and Velina finally pegged the last Demolisher.

The lance managed to eventually knock down and head-cap the last two mechs.

Salvage was enough to complete a new Marauder, a Quickdraw AND a Grasshopper. All three were put into storage. The Grasshopper might make for a melee fighter (like the Shadowhawk, only with extra flamers, maybe), but for the moment, there was no point stripping anything down yet.

Velina upped her tactics to 5. Alarhan's piloting wen to 9, Summer's guts to 9.

That last mission here was for the Taurians, but against the Capellans, so that was okay a capture base mission, in the highlands this time.

With Lynessa, Mylassta, Summer AND Pseekie all down, Alarhan made a drastic change. She gave the Decapitator to Shelat - who was the last sensor-locker aside from Scarlet. Scarlet stayed where she was, and did Velina. Alarhan got into the Atlas...

...wWhere she could do some precision fire, but also some LRM fire as well, since the Catapult Hammer was still awaiting repairs...

This made a full 350-ton lance, rated a full five skulls!

The base was defended by four turrets and a Locust, Blackjack and Cicada. Alarhan's choice of pilots was sound, since both Scarlet and Shelat used their sensors first on the turrets and then on the enemy mechs to make it easier for them to be shot.

As they were dealing with the last two, reinforcements were detected coming in...

This was a pair of Javelins and a pair of Griffins.

Not a SINGLE mech taken out that wasn’t CT. Basically every head-shot missed entirely.

(I briefly experimented with going to one of the flashpoints, was one day out of reach to see if accepting it would stop it from expiring. It didn't but it immediately respawned. Can deal with that later, then.)

There were a couple of travel contracts to the Arano Restoration. It was back on the way - to Ichlangis, which was a 1.5 skull Martian world (with a black market). Lynessa shrugged, after some thought - maybe a good place to build to a boatload more cash.

And a 1.5 skull Target Acquisition mission would be a good one experiment with, so off they went to fight Taurians.

As they headed out, the Argo was running straight towards some debris. But Lynessa had confidence in both Sumire's piloting skills and they had spent all that money on those fancy power systems for a reason. Her faith was well-founded, as they made it through with no problems.

They arrived at Ichlandis. In the regular store, there was a +AC/10 (+5 damage) which made it a headcapped, so Lynessa filed that away for future reference; in the Black Market, there were some okay bits (+++ SRM and LRMs were more or less the opposite of Lynessa wanted out of them), but there was a ++Heat Exchanger for 800k. After a check, most of the missions were against the pirates, so Lynessa figured she better spend now, before the price went up... She decided, frack it, and bought that, the +++LRM 10 and +++SRM 6 and a ++ Flamer (it was only 36k) for the hell of it.

There were a couple of options for where to put the heat exchanger (Lynessa also discovered they WERE cumulative, though), but she wasn't going to do that at the moment.

Velina increased her tactics to 6, for the first called shot bonus. Shelat increased her tactics to 7.

To business, then!

Lynessa took the Decapitator, Scarlet the Fair Marauder, Pseekie the Phoenix Coil and Summer the Shadow Punch - Lynessa had a feeling they'd need some faster mechs, so having the better pilots in those two with the +20% sprint might be important.

(Mylassta was meanwhile currently pre-emptively binging on ice-cream - she's already noticed there were TWO "B-Team" missions - while Poppy awkwardly pattered her shoulder...)

Okay. Eight rounds to place three artillery beacons. Well, no time like the present!

Okay, Summer and Pseekie would take the west two, and Lynessa and Scarlet would take the nearer, east one.

Lynessa, Summer and Pseekie reached their positions at the same time. This proved to be a wise move, since as soon as Lynessa had stepped into mark, the Taurian commander ordered all fire to be concentrated on the mechs in the marks. Fortunately, the enemy was only light vehicles this time.

Oh dear. The enemy would be continuously sending out vehicles from the below-ground motor pool until the artillery hit in two rounds... Well, it didn’t say they had to stay in position, so...

The lance feel back to towards the evac point.

NICE!

They had to get the evac point in the next three rounds though - would Lynessa make it?

YES! Just, on the third round, but yes!

Max salvage on this mission was massive waste, though, should have gone for max cash.

Mylassta, her expression carefully blank, but very dishevelled, stepped towards. Due to the Martian environment, she would take the Fair Marauder on this first of two capture base missions, with the ever present millstones of Guano, Pontoon and Stubble...

"Oh hey, it's our old friend Protagonist!," Guano enthused. "Look, she's so happy to see us she's crying!"

Mylassta noted with a sense of deep depression how FAR away the base was, at the speed of Pontoon's UrbanMech...

Lovely. The base had turrets. And they had no LRMs, or ability to get a sensor lock.

Mylassta gritted her teeth and went about it, using the three stooges to take the last turret out while she dealt with the coming reinforcements (two Locusts and a Javelin).

Ignoring Mylassta to shoot at the light mechs was both stupid (DEATH FROM ABOVE)...

... and suicidal.

Still, it was enough to complete a Locust salvage.

"Here we go again," Mylassta grumbled... Then - "OH COME ON! We literally just captured this one!"

At least they hadn't fixed the turret in the hour or so between missions...

This time, it was a four-mech lance of a Firestarter, Jenner, and two Commandos.

Again the enemy lance seemed hell-bent on attacking the idiots (Mylassta couldn't blame them really), which meant they took a lot of damage even as Mylassta tried to keep them out of the way while she killed the enemy one by one. The stooges managed to get the Jenner, but only after Mylassta actually missed a shot with the autocannon.

Still, one more part completed a 2B Commando for sale, so...

Lynessa noted they had enough cash to start on the ship's hospital, and they had plenty of contracts left. She had Farah get started.

Next up was a 1.5 skull convoy ambush. Mylassta stayed where she was, and was joined by Scarlet in the Fair Marauder, Velina in the Catapult Hammer and Pseekie in the Phoenix Coil.

They ran into the escort almost immediately, which were between them and the convoy - two Locusts, a Firestarter, and a Spider.

Mylassta's attempt at another DFA went rather wrong, since she missed, at that would put the Decapitator out for a day.

A day later - as Mylassta wanted the Decapitator ready for the next mission - Mylassta was ready to undertake a 2.5 skull battle.

She was confident enough at this point, that she assigned Shelat to the Decapitator, took the Fair Marauder herself and placed Natasha in the Stalker Barrage and Velina in the Catapult Hammer. If she could manage with the three stooges, she could manage with three rookies in much better mechs...!

The primary target was a single 70-ton mech. That made things easier. The reinforcement lance coming in from the east was another issue, but as the first one was a 20-tonner, probably mostly light mechs again.

Was it really a SINGLE Locust? Looked that way...

Two tries, but Mylassta headcapped the 70-tonner - an Archer.

Then she remembered they were going for max money and therefore didn't matter (it was only 2/11 salvage at best, so...)

Oh, no, here came a Phoenix Hawk, the Locust wasn't alone after all. An Vindicator appeared shortly thereafter. But as they'd come in more or less one by one, the rookies and Mylassta easily dispatched them.

Wait, they'd gone for 1 salvage... So they got one Archer part and one Vindicator part. Eh, it was one Archer 2R part away from completing an Archer 2R, so...

Velina increased her tactics to 7. Pseekie increased her piloting to 9. Shelat and Natasha increased their gunner from 2 to 4 and Shelat her guts to 4 as well. Scarlet maxed her tactics to 10.

A 2-skull battle next (the pirates were really not happy with the paladin at ALL). Mylassta determined to do the same again.

This time, it was a Spider, a Javelin a Blackjack - and an Orion.

For some bizarre reason, the Orion took a dislike to Natasha, shooting her in the head. Well, Mylassta wasn't going to have some asshat pirate ignore her and shoot at the least skilled of her charges!

(Okay, apparently she was, as the RNG refused to let her hit it in the head.)

And the asshat continued to ignore her totally, and went after Shelat next. The pirate was SO arrogant, it ACTUALLY turned its back on Mylassta to punch the Decapitator. Mylassta fumed. Shooting this guy in the head wouldn't be good enough! Where the hell was Malexekor when you actually needed him, dammit?

The Orion continued to ignore Mylassta and go after Shelat, and the Javelin joined in, actually doing enough damage to get internals.

"Disengage, girls," Mylassta snapped as the Orion miraculously avoided the forth head-shot.

They did, and it still fired at Shelat.

It dodged the fifth headshot.

(So, at the moment, it's been hit 1/10 shots on 33%.

Game? I'm having that Orion.)

FINALLY, after there was no-one else in eyeshot the Orion shot at Mylassta.

Six.

On the SEVENTH ATTEMPT

Mylassta blew the smug vermin's face off.

(As best as I can determine the chances of getting two 33% successes in 14 attempts is about 2%.)

And only two pieces of Orion then.

Natasha, whole in the sickbay, increased her gunnery to 5 to get multishot (she was going down Mylassta and Poppy's route) and her guts to 4.

Next, a 2.5 skull escort mission. Vey took over from Natasha.

The first job was deal with the blocking force - a Jenner, Commando, Javelin and a Trebuchet.

They were dealt with fast and then, as the convoy started, there was the second wave - Javelin, Locust and Spider.

And after THAT there was ANOTHJER four light mechs - a Flea, a Javelin, a Panther and a Commando. Fortunately, they were far enough away that the convoy was never in danger.

Hopefully, that would finally be a damned Flea.

But the OpFor's uncanny accuracy meant that the Decapitator's arm was breached, so another say's repair. (Someone did not like that mech - or Shelat - today.)

Well! A new Flea, plus a new Commando, Trebuchet and Spider!

Interesting. The Flea had targeting baffles, which made them rather hard to hit. A shame they'd not that that a lot earlier.

Mylassta increased her piloting to 10 - and thus became the first one to max out! (Really, though, after suffering every B-team mission and every shot to the head, she damn well deserved it!)

One last mission to go here. Mylassta took a well-earned break, and Poppy took over the Fair Marauder. Pseekie grabbed the Phoenix Coil to substitute for Vey in the Stalker Barrage for this next mission, since it was a 2-skull convoy ambush.

For once, the lance was in a good position. Pseekie actually reached the destination point before the convoy appeared, so it was a case of working back.

The first escorts that showed up were a Kintaro and a Vindicator.

Poppy was on form, however... She shot the Vindicator dead immediately thereafter, and Pseekie and Velina worked their way down the convoy, destroying vehicles as they went.

The third vehicle was a Striker Narc, and it landed the narc pod on the Phoenix Coil - and the rear vehicle was an SRM carrier. Oh dear. Nevertheless, Pseekie managed to weather the storm - but the 60 missiles were enough to throw off her aim.

Poppy, meanwhile, made an honest-to-goddess hattrick of headshots, taking out the third and final guard - a Blackjack.

(DAMN, girl! I mean, after the pirate Orion guy, this was deserved, but DAMN! That makes her the first pilot to take out ALL the enemy mechs on a mission with one-shot head-shots!)

Turns out, 40 LRMs were enough to kill an SRM Carrier. So the Narc beacon didn't matter.

Sadly, there was only 3 selectable salvage. Poppy opted for three parts of the Kintaro (the heaviest) over three parts of a Blackjack that would have finished it.

So, on the plus side, the Arano Restoration was already really rather fond of the Paladin, despite this being the first world they'd worked, but the pirates now really hated them.

So. The next best spot did appear to be towards The Steel Beast flashpoint (3-skulls) on Herotitus. Perhaps thence towards Independence, but also with maybe a stop off on a system fought over by the Capellans and pirates (for some pirate reputation, as a little bit of buffer maybe?)

Payday.

They arrived at Herotitus with no issue. As the rest of the missions were 1 or half a skull, Lynessa thought it was to start with the flashpoint...

Alban Stieglitz-Bradford, the Steiner liaison, contacted the paladins. His nephew Arjun, had been killed by a gentleman terming himself the "Steel Beast," whose real name was Bogdan Tubbs. A Solaris VII gladiator, he'd tricked the chap into what was supposed to be an exhibition match and killed him. Not, like, accidently, as in "crushed the cockpit with his mech's claw" on purpose. (King Crab pilot...?)

So, the initial plan was to stomp all over the Steel Beast's retinue and supporters on film, than capture Ironwood Productions, an allied broadcasting company and issue a direct call-out to Tubbs to lure him out.

(Lynessa kicked herself for not transferring the Comm system or one of the range finders out of the Phoenix Coil or the Shadow Punch and put it on one of the heavier mechs she was using more now...)

This was a straight battle in the highlands, so she took the Decapitator, Poppy stayed in the Fair Marauder, Alarhan grabbed the Atlas and Summer hopped into the Phoenix Coil.

Darius said these people were grand-standing gladiators and urks, but they have a 70-ton mech with what looked like an active probe and were using combined arms - so he was probably wrong. As usual...

Ooh, it was a Cataphract. That was new...

As Summer missed the first headcap, the next job was destroy that LB-X Demolisher, which Alarhan and Lynessa did.

"Azurella's boobs, Poppy!" Alarhan yelped. (Azurella was a love/sex goddess, this sort of exclamation was actually pretty mild. Though, Lynessa reflected, it did suggest that her students had been around Hayalyn Haelariel a bit too much...)

So, Poppy was now four for four.

Still, three vehicles and one -ton mech was a bit of weak vanguard and... Oh, there was the reinforcements, with a Marauder two 65 ton mechs behind it at least. This turned out to be a pair of Catapults, one of each.

Poppy failed to make it five for five, but Lynessa managed to decapitate the K1 Catapult anyway.

Poppy DID however, manged to make to five of out SIX, as she deftly headcapped the C1...

The Marauder went down, sadly not to precision fire, but never mind, the lance had more mech parts than they could salvage anyway.

Damn, though, Poppy's deft head-cropping ought to put the wind RIGHT up the Steel Beast...!

Three pieces of Cataphract and one +++Medium laser were all the decent salvage they were getting, though.

This was a consecutive deployment, though. None of the mechs had taken more than armour damage, so it was fine. Onwards!

The next task was to capture Ironwood Productions. Darius said it was supposed to be quite well guarded, so it was quite likely that General Kerensky and all of the Exodus had returned to protect it, if Darius' usual level of helpfulness could be expected...

The enemy base was close by and defended by both turrets and mechs. Without a lot of missile support (should have brought something other than the Atlas...!), Lynessa had the lance fall back to draw the enemy mechs out from under the turret guns.

The Javelin in front died first - Poppy figured no sense in wasting a headshot when the torso would do fine... Behind that was a Rifleman. that went down - after Poppy and Lynessa missed - to an AC/20 headshot from Alarhan. There was a Vulcan and a 65-tonner behind that next. Poppy head-capped the Vulcan (though it was only one random head hit away from death anyway, it'd taken two, one aimed and one from Alarhan's missiles). The last mech was a Catapult C1. That was killed by torso destruction, as everyone missed its head, but never mind.

Then began the slow and debilitate process of eliminating the turrets through Sensor Lock and long-range fire.

They then approached the facility, which warned them not to mess with them. Darius noted they had pint-defence turrets, with his usual level of complete uselessness.

"No, Darius," Lynessa said with a sigh. "We've already destroyed them."

"... Oh."

There was the sound of hand against flesh over the comm, as Mylassta smacked him upside the head.

Exactly as Lynessa had expected, there was a wave of enemy reinforcements coming in - Warhammer and three vehicles, most like a pair of Strikers and a Demolisher, from the tonnages.

Poppy once again took the Warhammer's head off, albeit this time after they'd all had a go and it was a bit battered. Lynessa was right on the money with the vehicles.

A precise shot from the Decapitator was enough for the Demolisher (an LB-X version) the Strikers were easy kills.

Ginger Jankowski of the Ironwood Productions yielded at this point, and were quite willing to help call out the Steel Beast. (Because money and pay-pre-view, obviously...)

Two bits of Rifleman 3C and one of Vulcan. Given that Lynessa hadn't been able to negotiate the contract, this was okay.

Tubbs was apparently not very far away, since the lance got an almost immediate response.

("It is me, or does he look a bit like a fat pigeon?" Poppy whispered to Velina in an undertone.)

He was quite crude, and spoke exactly like the stereotypical wrestler-types Lynessa knew about through cultural osmosis. (None of the paladins were particularly interested in wrestling themselves.

...

Well, not THAT sort of wrestling, anyway...)

He wanted to challenge their best to a dual to the death.

("'Most notorious welterweight champion?'" Mylassta repeated, giggling. "What a complete doofus!")

A challenge against a MEDIUM mech? Well, that was surprising. Lynessa agreed with Farah, she'd been expecting a KING Crab, not just a Crab.

"Dammit, we're Paladins, we're going to have to fight fair, aren't we?" Summer grumbled.

"Yes, dear," Lynessa said. "Well, I will accept the challenge myself - yes, I know you're technically the "best" at the moment, Mylassta," she said cutting off the other's protest. "But if something DOES go wrong, you can take over from me. You're very much ready."

"But-!" Mylassta started.

"IF, my dear," Lynessa said. "I assure you, I have every intention of shooting Mr Tubb's fat head off and coming back victorious. But a good leader knows when to make sure she has back-up plans - and I'd never forgive myself if anything happened to any of you, my dears."

It had to be the Hunchback, of course, but that still played to Lynessa's strengths.

Oh, Mr Tubbs was definitely compensating for something, yelling about his "big steel claw." Lynessa just let him bluster.

Lynessa's first salvo only clipped his head.

And he HAD brought reinforcements. Two mechs and two vehicles, too. Well, what a mean little - ah, extremely fat and pigeon-like man.

Tubbs got off a salvo which did quite a bit of damage to the Hunchback, taking out one of the heat sinks.

This time, Lynessa did blow his head off, mid-posture.

(Tragically, the camera placed behind some trees, so you couldn't even see it...)

It was a bit touch-and go. Lynessa lured the reinforcements as much as she could, as she no jump jets only middling speed, her right side was quite badly messed up by the time she took the last mech out - a locust (the other had been a Panther). Had the reinforcements not been in such a pitiful state armour wise, it might have gone very badly indeed...

"Cheaters never prosper and Azurella favours the righteous," Lynessa said, mostly for the cameras.

Little salvage, aside from a few middling ++ items.

Though apparently they had gotten Tubb's crab. (Woo?)

Darius, meanwhile, was making out like a bandit, having record this and Ironwood Productions were very keen to get the holo recording.

The other rewards were a heat exchanger, a ++LRM 15 ( that was earmarked for the Stalker Barrage, an arm mod a basic rangefinder. Neat.

And the Big Steel Claw was not, in fact, a normal Crab, but a straight up FrankenMech. Lynessa supposed she should be surprised, after all, it was from Solaris VII.

A ton under weight too, apparently.

Lynessa was not overly impressed. Another fast 50-tonner... Aside from the amount of improved equipment, it didn't really offer the lance much new in capability. With a sigh, she stripped out the gear and sent it to storage.

(After doing a quick save, since apparently at one point putting the BSC in storage fracked things up... Nope, seems fine, it was supposed to be fixed in 1.4, but it never hurts to be careful...!)

Okay, next up, half-skull mission for the pirates against the Capellans, just for all of 3 points of rep. (Sigh.)

Poppy would be on this one, in Fair Marauder, with Shelat in the Decapitator, Natasha in the Stalker Barrage and Zuranna in the Shadow Punch.

Javelin, Commando, Locust, Jenner. Shouldn't be too hard...

Well, aside from one of the hitting Shelat in the head and a Marik Firestarter and Javelin turning up...

(For a frozen second, I wondered how the hell the Jenner could destroy the Decapitator's arm with one shot then realised it had just shot the Marik Javelin I couldn't see that was right in front of it because of the camera angle...!)

The only significant damage, other than to Shelat, was a bit of armour damage to the Shadow Punch when Zuranna did a DFA on the Firestarter and took it out...

Oops, forgot to screencap that mission screen...!

Half-skull battle against the planetary government - might as well...

Vey took over from Shelat in the Decapitator.

Locust 1M, Commando and two vehicles. Speed-bump...

Next, a 1-skull convoy ambush (sigh) for the Canopians verses the Capellans.

Zuranna swapped into the Phoenix Coil for this one, in case they needed the speed, it was in the highlands...

Two Panthers and a Jenner. The four wheeled APCs gave Zuranna some slightly issues - one of them manged to run out of sight one round before Natasha could blow it apart with missiles - but it went down the next anyway.

Salvage gave the paladins a Panther to sell.

Zuranna increased her piloting to 6. Velina increased her tactics to 8. Alarhan maxed her piloting to 10 and became the second pilot to max out. (Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Alarhan had been solidly reliable the whole time.) Summer follow after, with her guts at 10 maxing her out. Shelat increased her tactics to 8 and gained Master Tactician. Poppy maxed her gunnery and increased her guts to 6. Lynessa maxed herself out to, with the last point of piloting. Vey raised her tactics to 7 and finally raised her guts to 5 and took Bulwark.

The other missions were all for the planetary government, and Lynessa didn't see the point. She finally elected to head out to Independence and the lead on the Dobrev.

Maintenance - the Stalker Barrage replaced one of its LRM 15s with the ++LRM 15 and two heat sinks with another exchanger. Lynessa experimented with a further couple of heat sinks and an exchanger, but that wasn't quite as good.

The Shadow Punch's ++ Rangefinder was replaced with a regular one. The released system was put into the Catapult Hammer.

Another 0-tonnage stabilisation arm mod was added to the Decapitator.

The Hunchback loss six heat sinks, but gained heat exchanger and a ++ heat exchanger, lowering heat output by 30%. This dropped it from 30 points of overheat to 18, which was a fair drop.

The hospital bay was completed! And Lynessa had enough cash to get started on mech bay 3 as well, and still have enough Darius MIGHT not moan about it...

Mylassta came to Lynessa. Velina had been playing around with some sort of improved cooling technique, and was trying hard to get Mylassta to help her with it, since Mylassta as such a big protagonist and all... Lynessa gently suggested that Mylassta handle this - she was a prospective leader after all. Mylassta did, and came back feeling quiet pleased with herself. She'd protagonist-blagged her way into getting someone to look at Velina's idea (with help from Alarhan, being a sort of cooling expert, really) and the people they'd talked to had found it very promising.

Day 600 payday:

They arrived at Independence on day 601.

We shall leave them there for today!

So. We are at the half way-point (601/1200 days). Now seems like a good time to look and see how Lynessa's done!

Current Score: 186322 (Out of a potential 616012 and this difficulty level.)

Morale is up to 50 (but only just).

Reputations:

Ten mechs ready in the bays; one light, four medium, two heavy and three assault, plus sixteen light mechs completed in storage, fourteen medium and five heavy.

A good chunk of the Argo's upgrades done.

And, of course - the MechWarriors.

Zuranna "Barbarian" Ruby
Gunnery: 4 Piloting: 8 Guts: 5 Tactics: 4
Deployments: 3 Mech Kills: 2 Other Kills: 2 Injuries: 0 Ejections: 0

Velina "Flower" Mistmoon
Gunnery: 5 Piloting: 5 Guts: 3 Tactics: 8
Deployments: 8 Mech Kills: 7 Other Kills: 9 Injuries: 0 Ejections: 0

Alarhan "Frostwitch" Tyanar
Gunnery: 10 Piloting: 10 Guts: 10 Tactics: 10
Deployments: 76 Mech Kills: 77 Other Kills: 47 Injuries: 5 Ejections: 0

Summer "Hurricane" Glow
Gunnery: 10 Piloting: 10 Guts: 10 Tactics: 10
Deployments: 72 Mech Kills: 44 Other Kills: 30 Injuries: 11 Ejections: 1

Pseekie "Mechanic" Rala
Gunnery: 5 Piloting: 9 Guts: 4 Tactics: 9
Deployments: 36 Mech Kills: 24 Other Kills: 24 Injuries: 5 Ejections: 0

Mylassta "Protagonist" Spiritweave
Gunnery: 10 Piloting: 10 Guts: 10 Tactics: 10
Deployments: 83 Mech Kills: 177 Other Kills: 27 Injuries: 15 Ejections: 1

Shelat "Psion" Valcorel
Gunnery: 4 Piloting: 5 Guts: 4 Tactics: 8
Deployments: 12 Mech Kills: 9 Other Kills: 2 Injuries: 2 Ejections: 0

Poppy "Quiet Fury" Blossom
Gunnery: 10 Piloting: 4 Guts: 6 Tactics: 10
Deployments: 45 Mech Kills: 55 Other Kills: 13 Injuries: 3 Ejections: 0

Scarlet "Red Devil" Kaxatari
Gunnery: 8 Piloting: 4 Guts: 5 Tactics: 10
Deployments: 32 Mech Kills: 31 Other Kills: 9 Injuries: 1 Ejections: 1

Lynessa "Serene" Fair"
Gunnery: 10 Piloting: 10 Guts: 10 Tactics: 10
Deployments: 84 Mech Kills: 110 Other Kills: 53 Injuries: 15 Ejections: 0

Vey "Shatterpoint" Lataylaern
Gunnery: 6 Piloting: 3 Guts: 6 Tactics: 7
Deployments: 12 Mech Kills: 6 Other Kills: 7 Injuries: 1 Ejections: 0

Natasha Spellshadow "Spellshadow" Dawnbright
Gunnery: 5 Piloting: 2 Guts: 5 Tactics: 4
Deployments: 5 Mech Kills: 5 Other Kills: 2 Injuries: 3 Ejections: 0

Mylassta is clearly in her element here, with an astonishing amount of kills (all those B-team missions, clearly!) Even more than Lynessa's combined (and Lynessa spent a goodly chunk of the first half of the time being the principle vehicle-killer in the Enforcer.) Mylassta has averages 2.5 kills per mission; Lynessa's is only 1.9 and Poppy (who has done very well considering) is at 1.5.

Both Lynessa and Mylassta have been injured an inordinate amount; once every 5 missions. (Though poor Natasha is indeed Jinked being wounded three times in five missions!) Alarhan, with almost the same mission count, has breezed through like true trooper, and Summer has fallen somewhere between.