Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH Part Twenty

Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH, Part Twenty:

(You would not believe how much time I spent trying to get a decent set of missions, after the end of last time and today. I never managed more than four Davion, and never more than three verses the Capellans. (On one instance, all seven missions were pirate...) In the end, I settled for what follows as it wasn't too awful and at least didn't have any escort or base defence missions...)

The library upgrade was completed. There was but one last thing they could build - a low-gravity pool, which Lynessa had Farah start on.

Darius eyed her. "You know the paladins are just going to use that as a place for sex, right?"

Lynessa looked confused. "What's your point?"

Darius opened his mouth, closed it again, visibly thought about what was going on, and then decided that this was probably a losing battle and gave up.

They arrived at Yuris. Just as the flashpoint expired - Lynessa sighed - and the new one was, of course, back the way they'd come.

There was nothing remarkable in the store - except that Lynessa could but the last parts to complete R90 and R60L UrbanMechs.

First up, a 3.5 skull Attack and Defend mission in an urban area.

This required some thought. In the end Lynessa decided to opt away from missiles and indirect fire (even though turrets were likely involved) and instead aim for concentrated damage dealing. So Natasha wen in the Decapitator, Poppy in the Fair Marauder, Shelat in the Bull Shark and Scarlet in the Annihilator.

The paladins landed in the city.

There seemed like quite a bit of time before the enemy reinforcements arrived, plus there was a supporting Davion lance (Javelin, Crab and two Trebuchets) protecting the base.

The first enemy lance was a Centurion, a Locust to start with. Poppy took a shot at the Locust, but missed. The rest of the lance sprinted forwards, right up next to the doubtless surprised Centurion.

The rest of the enemy lance was a Dragon and hoving into view and of much more immediate concern, a King Crab!

Fortunately, the Bull Shark was the Bull Shark.

Shelat's first precise shot with the Annihilator deftly headcapped the Centurion, an auspicious start!

The Locust went down next, leaving only the Dragon.

However, in addition to the three waves of reinforcements, there was apparently ANOTHER enemy lance defending the base...

This might get messy!

The Dragon went down to the second headshot from the Annihilator.

One lance down...

The first enemy that entered sight was a Javelin, which seemed to want to run away. Poppy shot it in the back.

Next were a Blackjack, Vindicator and Centurion. Poppy aimed for the head of the former, but landed both shots in the torso instead, so Shelat aimed there and finished it. Scarlet failed to headcap the Vindicator, but the allies knocked it down and Natasha CT killed it, leaving only the Centurion; Poppy and Shelat headcapped it between them.

That cleared out the initial defenders. Now came the question of where the enemy reinforcements would come from... There was still plenty of time., so the lance would hold position, Scarlet decided, maybe inch forward a little; the implication from Darius was that enemy reinforcements would come the direction of the base...?

No, they didn't, but Darius at least marked the point coming in so the lance could approach it before they landed.

Two Centurions, two Griffins. Poppy failed to head the first one, but Scarlet took it out with the Bull Shark. Shelat and one of the Trebuchets double-teamed the other, she blowing huge chucks out of it with the missed headshot enough the LRM salvo CT destroyed it. Natasha just settled for shooting the furthest Centurion with her large lasers to get its attention.

Poopy again failed to headcap it, but blowing its leg off was almost as good... Shelat knocked the other one down, and between the two lances, neither Centurion would be getting up again.

Two lances down!

As Scarlet had half expected, the next reinforcement point was back the other way, but never mind...

Wolverine, Griffin, Shadowhawk, Phoenix Hawk. (Scarlet needed to get the Shadowhawk, it was a 2D, they hadn't got one of those yet!)

Poppy headcapped the Wolverine as it tried to run past them, but Scarlet and Shelat both failed to headcap the Shadowhawk, though they both hit the head once. Then the allied Trebuchet fired, hitting the pilot in the head as well, and blowing off a torso and knocking it down and it died to pilot kill. Natasha shot the Phoenix Hawk to get its attention - the Davion lance had been shooting the Griffin.

The griffin went down to CT destruction, but they didn't quite kill the Phoenix Hawk - and enemy reinforcements were almost there! But Natasha did punch its leg off. Poppy picked it off (it was literally at her feet) as the rest of the lances began to run back the way they'd come.

The last lance included a Locust (which immediately ran away at top speed), a Blackjack, a Dragon and a Cyclops.

Looked like there was only one way they could swat the Locust...

The Cyclops stayed up despite two attempts to knock it down - the Davion Javelin ran up an punched it for some reason - and the Blackjack resisted the Davion fire and Natasha was forced to chase after the Dragon to keep it from getting away.

The Blackjack ran up and SOMEHOW managed to hit the Annihilator in the head. It was punched to death by one half of the lance, while the other attempted to down the Dragon.

Perhaps the pilot had frozen, because the Dragon simply stood and entrenched.

The reason Scarlet had punched the Blackjack was so she had a good shot at the Cyclops, and the Bull Shark head capped it.

Shelat then moved to shoot the hapless Dragon in the back, bypassing its Guarded and CT-killing it. All enemy mechs down! To the enemy base!

There were no turrets, so it was a simply case of mopping up. The Bull Shark was ALMOST out of LB-X AC ammo, but not quite, but Poppy was sufficiently far ahead she levelled most of the base, with only some Ultra AC 5 and laser fire from the other mechs to do the job.

100% successful mission!

TWENTY mech kills and only one head shot for the trouble. Still if the enemy had not generally been almost suicidally interested in charging towards the base, it might have been much worse.

Three parts King Crab... Three parts Cyclops, because they didn't have 10-Q version either. Naturally, no 2D Shadowhawk parts on random assignment...

Shelat increased her guts for 4 to 6. Natasha raised her gunnery to 8 and piloting to 5; Poppy maxed out her piloting and was thus at maximum skills.

Flyswatter, 3.5 skull next. Poppy stepped back to let the others train up; Scarlet took the fair Marauder, with Vey swapping into the Bull Shark. For a bit more mobility, Zuranna dropped in the upgraded BattleSmasher.

The enemy guards were... A King Crab (!) and a Thunderbolt. And as the lance moved to engage, a 70 and 65 tonner linked in from the side. Zuranna closed to engage, and this turned out to be a Warhammer and K2 Catapult.

Luck refused to be with the lance. The enemy concentrated on the Fair Marauder (despite it being actually the most heavily armoured there) coming within a hair's breadth of knocking it over and IS-ing the right torso. The Thunderbolt died to CT destruction.

Scarlet missed the headshot for the third time, but now Vey could have a go and took the King Crab out. The Warhammer apparently wanted to play melee, but that rather suited Zuranna and Natasha.

Zuranna did some damage, but the hit she'd done previously to its centre torso meant that subsequent swing from the Decapitator punch took it down neatly. The Catapult, far too close, soon suffered the same fate.

Now all that was left was the enemy Cicada. It took Scarlet, Vey and Natasha, but they managed to headcap it.

Mission accomplished.

One part (plus one random) King Crab, a couple of Cicada (to complete one for sale), a ++medium laser (+10 damage) and one piece of Warhammer 4D.

The King Crab again suffered from the problem that lance didn't really have much to make the most if it with. It had a fairly restrictive amount of hardpoints - four missile, but all in one torso, four energy in the other, a single AC and two support in each arm, which meant it was really still suited to close to the standard twin AC/20 load. But without better quality ACVs (or better Ultra or LB-X ACs), that was arguably not better than the general "shoot for head" weapons the lance currently had. It might be better at CT killing most things, but that wasn't necessarily useful at this point.

The last contract here was a 3-skull urban capture base. Velina swapped in with the Stalker Catapult for this one, while Scarlet swapped in the Annihilator, while the Fair Marauder waited for repairs.

Two Hatchetmen, Kintaro, Blackjack - the bad news was, the lance ran into them where the turrets could take shots at them, and once again, being denied headshot kills from the get-go significantly reduced the lance's effectiveness. (Since kills upped the resolve counter.) This was clearly evident as soon as the first Hatchetman went down, and the Blackjack soon after p- the other two fell within a couple of salvos.

The enemy turrets were the first heavy turrets the lance had seen.

As the lance approached the last turret, the command crew helpfully informed them that a) the base was defended by mechs and b) the base was defended by turrets.

This information was followed a short silence and a sigh from Lynessa, and then by the sound of Mylassta smacking several people upside the head.

Then the paladins carried on as if nothing had happened.

With the turrets down, as the lance approached the capture point, Darius ACTUALLY usefully informed the lance enemy reinforcements were incoming.

The first into view was an Assassin, followed by a Highlander leaping in. The latter took a shot that damaged the Annihilator’s leg structure - before two precise shots took it out.

The other two enemies were a Hatchetman (3F, rather than 3X) and a Thunderbolt. Scarlet was not having any luck with her headshots today, as she once again failed to headcap the Hatchetman. Dropping the Thumper on the it and the Assassin took the latter out, and the Hatchetman went down to the combined fire. The Thunderbolt, however, did some serious internal damage to the Annihilator’s centre torso and right side (Scarlet had taken several turret hits). Scarlet misses its head AGAIN, but Vey and the Bull Shark headcapped it.

As they'd been basically fighting from inside the capture point, they were done.

Well, good thing it was the last mission here...!

One part one each of the Hatchetmen (enough to complete the 3X!) one part of Highlander (enough to complete that!) and two parts of Thunderbolt 5SS. Not bad!

The Highlander again was something that they couldn't really use (or at least, didn't do something that already did better) right now. It could fit four missile launchers, but it would only have achieved what the Stalker Barrage did with very slightly more armour and an odd distribution of hardpoints. So to storage it went.

Disappointingly, the Hatchetman was a 4-speed mech, so slower than both the Phoenix Coil and the Shadow Punch, which it would have been good to replace. This wasn't terribly useful on a mech really designed for melee, especially one that would be ideally used in running down light mechs - it was strictly inferior, then, to what the BattleSmasher could do; the hatchet only brought it to 5 points below the BattleMaster's base damage.

(I must be thinking of the 3050 version, which... No, apparently that has an XL engine, but not a bigger one. Huh. Okay, then...)

Zuranna upped her guts to 8 and got Coolant Vent. Velina raised her piloting to 7, for the extra sprint boost. Scarlet maxed her guts. Vey's piloting increased a staggering 4, from 3 to 7, allowing her the extra sprint bonus as well. Natasha made the piloting 7 triumvirate, raising hers up from 5.

Time to move on!

Mendham next, in Davion space, were there was a flashpoint.

(Now, given how phenomenally many Capellan contracts there were in Capellan space, there had better be some sodding Davion ones in Davion space...)

The Capellans did NOT like the paladins now (-53), but Davion, at least really did (82).

Lynessa ran into Llana (Strider), feeling a bit lost in the library. Llana was a little uncertain about being so green comparatively to the rest. Lynessa suggested she read the technical readouts (after all, that was what they were all here for...) and have a chat with Pseekie, Velina, Natasha and Shelat. Before very long, Liana had got a solid grasp on the technical details.

The repairs were finished, so Lynessa took the chance to upgrade some gear; the Archer got a second +++LRM 20 and its old ++LRM 20 went to the Atlas - which also got its small lasers upgraded to +++ versions.

Payday:

They were going to need some cash soon; while the last couple of stops had been profitable for new chassis, they hadn't made a lot of money there.

(Hahahahahaha, no, BT just hates House Davion absurdly much!

On about the fifth attempt, I got four Davion missions - two verses Kurita, one verses Liao, one verses Taurians, two of which were base captures and two battles at 3.5 and 4 skulls. That'll do.)

They arrived at Mendham. Not much in the shops (unless Lynessa wanted to start buying Rifleman or Shadowhawk 2D parts), but she bought about three very cheap arm and leg modes.

So, time to start the House Divided Flashpoint. (And upset the pirates even more...)

Lady Sukio Nakano, of House Nakano, and minor house of the Draconis Combine contacted the paladins.

The long and the short of the problem was that their eldest daughter Mariko was basically now a bit of a brat, in with the wrong crowd and spending money like water. and a pirate personage wanted to pay a load of money to be allowed to set-up shop at the family estate on Yoril and the good lady was a little bit miffed about it.

Lady Nakano didn't want the paladins to off her daughter, just this Corina Luthendorff. Considering she was kind of a war criminal for the Third Succession war, Lynessa really didn't have any issues with this.

So, this was a badlands (sigh) convoy ambush, 2.5 skulls. Well, that wasn't really too bad.

The line-up would stay the same, except that Pseekie would be taking the Phoenix Coil, replacing Velina.

Luthendorff's convoy was mostly light vehicles, guarded by a Locust, Firestarter, Blackjack and Centurion.

First order of business was dropping a thumper shell on as many of them as possible - which took the Locust right out.

Naturally, enemy concentrated fire damaged the Decapitator's arm (again)...

Aside from this minor irritation, the enemy forces went down in very short order.

Salvage enough for a 9L Centurion for sale.

And now Mariko wanted to talk with the paladins. SOMEHOW Luthendorff was killed in the attack. And now this meant that Sukio would be going after Luthendorff in a BattleMech. And Mariko said that their house needed the money Luthendorff brought.

She did not want Luthendorff killed but she also really didn't want her mother killed or hurt.

Lynessa had this wild idea that, instead of hiring mercenaries, maybe mother and daughter should like TALK TO EACH OTHER instead. (Really it was a good job relationship counselling was a thing the paladins good at.) So they called up Sukio to hash it out.

Mariko was apparently trying to keep the house alive by making key payments to make alliances and basically playing politics. But her mother didn't listen, because she was all "honour, honour, honour," and basically was forcing this into a fight.

Lynessa sighed. So now they had to choose between helping a person who murdered civilians to help keep a house from falling apart, or a crazy woman obsessed with inflated personal pride to the point of wilful stupidity.

(It must be noted that Azurella was not a big fan of "honour," frankly, as it almost always lead to bad relationships and her paladins - especially her titular order - tended to feel the same.)

But supporting Mariko would require them to break their contract with Sukio (which was kind of bad form generally) and meant Lynessa would have to somehow try to not kill a lady in a BattleMech.

(Can you even DO that? Would the game notice if you had to leg-cap instead of pilot/CT kill...?)

Lynessa gritted her teeth. Well. Much as she didn't like it, it seemed that a family made poor was still a family ostensibly alive, whereas a free war criminal was more dead people down the line. And breaking a contract would not really do the Paladins much favour.

Sukio it was, then. With duress.

Still, they could stall a day to get the Decapitator repaired.

This was a 2.5 skull badlands battle. Lynessa elected to go for maximum money (it was nearly a full payday's worth, and if there were additional goals, it would be a good bit more) and she felt that was more likely to get them cash than salvage parts would.

Zuranna and the BattleSmasher subbed in for Pseekie.

Lady Sukio arrived with the lance of a Locust, Panther, 7K Trebuchet and Grasshopper. Goody.

Luthendorff's forces were a Zeus, a Thunderbolt 5SS (of course, when Lynessa couldn't salvage it...) and a Phoenix Hawk.

Despite some careful aiming by Vey, the Zeus died to CT destruction. Zuranna punched the Phoenix Hawk to death; the Thunderbolt didn't last much longer.

Really, though, how much honour was there in eight to three odds...?

Okay, so Lynessa had gone for max salvage instead of max cash by mistake apparently. Oh well.

Three mechs, so one piece of each, since that was all that was left. It, admittedly, completed a Zeus and a Thunderbolt 5SS, but that wasn't pennies in the pocket...

Now both of the Nakanos were wanting to talk again. To each other. And... sort of reconcile. Mariko was upset that they were now going to be broke, but very glad her mother wasn't hurt. And Sukio was happy to have her coming home (and not disowned, and Mariko feared) and was going to make more of an effort. So... happy ending? For everyone except the mutual bank accounts?

The reward was actually 900k, so actually not too bad. Most of the reward pieces were kind of mediocre - but they including two Quickdraw 4G parts - enough to complete one, so that was, at least three more mechs ticked off.

Scarlet increased her gunnery to 8. Vey upped her gunnery to 8.

Next up a 4-skull tundra battle against the Taurians. Lynessa regretted not swapping over the Laser Knight's comms system to the Annihilator, since that seemed to be generally a better option. for the moment, Velina would take the latter out this time, with Natasha, Scarlet and Very staying in their respective machines.

The first enemy to appear was a Quickdraw (5A). A salvo of AC shots from the Bull Shark (which missed the head) and a fusillade of lasers (not aimed) from the Laser Knight CT'd it also right away.

The other mechs came into view - another Quickdraw and two Victors.

(The RNG REALLY did no want me to have any head hits at ALL today, nearly EVERY single headshot I've tried tonight has missed.(

The lance manged to blow the first victor to pieces, but only after destroying both torsos.

The enemy managed to hit Velina in the head.

(SURE, game.)

FINALLY.

A pretty miserable mission, otherwise. Only one enemy out of four headshot, despite a lance specifically set up for it.

Even the headshot apparently wasn't, it must been CT kill as well, since there was only one piece of each mech. At least enough to complete a Quickdraw for sale.

Velina upped her guts to 8; Scarlet her piloting to 9. Natasha maxed her tactics.

Next, a 4 skull battle in the lowlands, wiping out an elite Capellan lance. Shelat hopped into the Annihilator for this one.

The enemy appeared on sensors - two 90-ton and two 08-ton mechs.

The first 90-tonner was a Cyclops Z. Scarlet failed to headcap it.

(Game, we're gonna start reloading in a minute, this is being ridiculous.)

The second was a Highlander.

That was more like it.

The other two were both Victors.

Everything shot at the Fair Marauder to the exclusion of everything else.

About. Freaking. Time.

(Yeah at the point I did a DFA and the game said "no, you miss," I said, "no, I didn't," because I'd had enough of the RNG's crap today.)

Natasha still only manged to CT-kill the last Victor.

Salvage was one part Victor 9S (to complete it) three parts Highlander (to complete one). There were no less than three TTS systems in the loot (not that they had all that much use at this point) and the paladins failed to get any of them.

Shelat upped her guts to 7. Vey increased her guts to 9.

And that is where we shall leave it for today!

Comments

[Skywriter]

Always liked Davion; I only ever played BT during the days of the brief Davion/Steiner alliance, and I suspect that's several lifetimes ago related to the "now point" of modern campaigns.

[Aotrs Commander]

5304705

I got started via the cartoon, so the FedComs was, like, the default for me (clans too). Steiner and Davion being split apart never seems to fit right with me ever since.

I think the furthest edge of continuity is about a century later than the clans, from what's on Sarna.

It gives me a little glow that Adam Steiner made it to Archon of the Lyran alliance and died of natural causes at 97 after leading a period of the greatest peace and prosperity for the Lyran Commonwealth for generations, according to Sarna. Dude did damn well, in the end. About as happily ever after as you can pretty much get in the BT universe, really.

Really, what does it say about the BT as a fandom that what could have easily be an uncanon character from A Cartoon For Children not only got mentioned (along with others) in the novels and series, but became such a prominent character.

Heck, the cartoon ITSELF was canonised, both in a broad sense and unusual as a show-within-a-show; in universe, it's a dramatic retelling of the actual events for propaganda. That's SO much more than you get in a lot of fandoms, where you'd sort of expect it quiet gets uncanoned. (Mind you, BT the cartoon did a good job of being faithful enough to the source material, unlike some I could mention. *cough*thatStargatecartoon*cough*