Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH, Part Thirty-Six · 10:37pm Aug 10th, 2020
Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH, Part Thirty-Six:
(So, after a LOT of reloads to get some anti-Kurita contracts - not helped by the fact that my new BT toys came today and I got very distracted and was doing stuff like starting to get the profiles sorted in HeavyMetalPro - we were ready to carry on!)
The paladins arrived at Flintoft. There was nothing aside from a 0-ton arm mod in the store, so time to get on with the Double Agent flashpoint.
Marina Liao wanted the paladins to take Taurian contract to capture a Davion base, then betray the Taurians and turn it over to the Capellans.
(So, for the first time, I paused to look this up just a little. On the one hand, don't want to not do a flashpoint...)
Lynessa was a little dubious about this, but the Taurians couldn't hate them more than they did already and something about this didn't seem right.
This was a 240-ton limit, with a maximum of 75 tons per mech. Tricky.
Lynessa opted to send Summer in the Shortbow (Summer was still in high spirits, though Natasha had finally calmed down), Mylassta in the Fair Marauder, Alarhan in the Raven Fair and Zuranna in the Shadow Punch. 5 tons under the limit. No LRMs for turrets, but with ECM cover, hopefully they wouldn't need it. (She had considered and discarded using the Phoenix Coil and the Fireforce or Trebuchet instead of the Raven Fair and Shadow Punch, which would have fitted into the tonnage exactly.)
The base didn't look up to much; didn't even appear to have turrets. This was very suspicious.
As the lance approached, a Davion lance of two Vindicators a Griffin and a vehicle dropped in.
Darn, it was not going to be possible to leg-cap a vehicle - Lynessa had the medics on stand-by...
The lance fell back slowly, taking careful aim at the enemy's legs. It took a good couple of goes, but they finally destroyed the Griffin's legs. With some SIGNIFICANT effort and VERY careful fire, the de-legged both Vindicators. The last had taken a miss-aimed leg-shot both to the CT from Mylassta's first shot, so they had to be extremely careful not to CT kill it.
They did the best they could with the Manticore tank, Mylassta only hitting it with the large laser (her autocannon had been off while she carefully shot at Vindicator legs) so as to minimise the damage when she disabled it.
They reached the structure, but Sumire picked up it was sending some sort of distress beacon.
That was fairly easy, considering, had the paladins not been actively trying to take the mechs down without harm to the pilots, it would have been very easy... (All the pilots and crews survived, though it was touch and go for a couple of the vehicle crews.)
One Vindicator salvaged (and sold right back to Davion!)
Farah had disabled the distress beacon, and discovered the base was actually a secret Davion intelligence prison. Yang reckoned Davion must have captured a spy for either the Taurians or Capellans, which was why they were so hot to take it - most likely the Taurians.
No, actually, it was a CANOPIAN agent - though why Davion had been all down on her to the extent she was in such a bad state was... Oh, right, because people of Colonel Lees ilk existed.
So, the choice was to hand her over to one of the paladin's designated enemies for More Torture (and likely a death sentence under Liao) or send her back safe and relatively sound to the paladin's most spiritually close allies.
HMM. WHAT A DIFFICULT CHOICE.
So, Mylassta's lance would be running interference for the Canopians, likely against both Liao and the Taurians. The same tonnage restrictions applied, so they took the same lance out.
THIS time, they wouldn't be shooting to disable, either!
Both enemy forces would likely be attacking each other. Sadly, Mylassta's thought of being able to sit back under ECM cover and let them kill each other off were a bit dashed by the Canopians sending a lance to help. Irony, the one time they'd have been better without help. And they'd sent a Javelin, Locust, Quickdraw and Cicada, just to make it more difficult...
Oh well...
The lance swiftly encountered a Taurian Locust, Blackjack and Cicada, which took a PPC shot at the Canopian Locust. The Canopians had at least moved into the ECM field, but the Locust had sensor locked. Mylassta figured, then, she had better make the enemy Cicada the first target. She cursed as the autocannon missed, preventing her from destroying it in one hit. As Zuranna moved up to fire and deal some damage, she spotted a Vulcan behind as well.
Summer jumped to the maximum extent of the ECM field and destroyed the Cicada, leaving Alarahn to take a shot at the enemy Locust.
And then the Capellans arrived.
A Spider, two Assassins and a Wolverine. Fortunately, the Taurians were as keen to shoot the Capellans as everyone else, and the incoming Capellans were functionally fighting 12 to 4. Zuranna picked the leg off one of the Assassins, already damaged. The allied Cicada and Quickdraw quickly moved in and picked it off.
(To my surprise, the allied AI seemed to ACTUALLY actively be keeping inside the ECM bubble, too.)
Mylassta, not having any luck at all, failed to CT kill the spider, and Summer didn't do much better with a regular salvo - but it allowed the Canopian Javelin to down it, so that was fine in the end.
Except that the Javelin was now exposed to a lot of enemy fire. To try and draw some off, Zuranna broke the ECM field to run up at punch the Wolverine. Naturally, NOW was the point the Taurian Blackjack decided to start shooting - at the Javelin, too.
Summer elected to core the Assassin.
Mylassta took a shot at the Blackjack, but failed utterly to headcap it.
The Canopian Javelin wisely ducked back into the ECM field and hid. Not massively helpful, since the Taurian Locust ran into the field.
Naturally this meant the Javelin died due to the Vulcan apparently blowing both legs off.
(Dammit. Not much I do have done about that; only Alarhan could have acted and I don't think shifting position would have helped and at close range, the Raven can't one-shot a Locust with two MLs and an LRM 10.)
Zuranna ran back and tried to shoot the Locust but totally missed. The Canopians turned their attention to the Blackjack, so Mylassta smashed the Locust apart with a melee strike. The Blackjack sensor locked the Raven Fair - a bit pointlessly, since there was no-one left to shoot it. Summer spun about and blasted the Wolverine's left side off, dropping it. Alarhan chipped away at the Blackjack.
Zuranna and Alarhan turned back around and shot the Wolverine's other leg off. Summer shot off the Blackjack's left leg (unintentionally, she'd been going for a head shot and expecting a CT-kill). Mylassta plugged the Vulcan in the head.
The Canopian Locust ran up and kicked the downed Blackjack. which was hilarious, not very effective. More usefully, Alarhan blew its crippled right leg off. The area was clear!
The paladins extracted the dazed (and embarrassed) Javelin pilot, so at least there wasn't a fatality.
Wolverine and a Blackjack salvaged.
Ana Marie Centralla was very pleased with getting her agent back.
The rewards was nothing special a few mech parts (one of which was an Awesome so would have been exciting at the point 2.5 skull missions were the lance’s limit), but what the hey.
Right, time to do more damage to Kuritan reputation!
First off, a 4.5 skull mission to assassinate a Kuritan smuggler at the poles.
Zuranna took the Decapitator, Mylassta the Awesome, Alarhan the Bull Shark and Summer the Annihilator.
Two sets of guards... Mylassta headed the lance off east to attack the reinforcements first.
No use. Both lances still converged on them. An Orion from the west lance and Quickdraw from the east - both in poor shape - acted as spotters and seemingly everything had ace pilots or was only heavies, since the entire enemy force took shots at Zuranna before the lance could do anything. Mostly via indirect fire, so the damage wasn't too bad, but even so.
Well, Summer wasn't having any of THAT. She headcapped the Quickdraw. Alarhan followed after by doing the same to the Orion, the efforts aided by the appalling state of the enemy armour.
Mylassta and Zuranna took some pot-shots at the next Quickdraw Alarhan's viewfinder had exposed.
The enemy moved in. In addition to the Quickdraw, the eats lance had an Assassin and a Catapult; from the incoming fire and the tonnage, it was likely the west lance was a Rifleman, Catapult and Orion.
Seeing how weak the enemy armour was, Alarhan moved forwards towards the west lance, where she could hit all three - the 65-tonner was behind a ridge, but Mylassta had guessed right about the other two. Her thumper didn't kill any of them...
But they had very little armour left!
Summer shot the leg off the Catapult and Zuranna finished it off. Mylassta headcapped the Quickdraw.
Quite astonishingly, the enemy force severely damaged BOTH legs of the Bull Shark with the massive barrage of fire.
(I really didn’t think it'd taken THAT much damage, but it was down to 50% armour, pretty much, by the end of the second salvo. That's INCREDIBLY annoying - it even has 1480 armour now and was the most heavily armour mech on the field.)
Alarhan turned and dashed back out of line of fire. If the enemy stayed close, maybe a second Thumper would splortch them anyway...
Summer CT-killed the Assassin, clearing the eats flank. Zuranna and Mylassta moved to a new position, the other side of the rock outcropping that was covering Alarhan, hoping to distract some fire. This may not have been the best idea, since the enemy Orion managed to IS the Decapitator now.
(SERIOUSLY?)
Alarhan stayed where she was - the Thumper had reloaded.
And that was that.
Summer stepped up to shoot the last mech - a Thunderbolt, not a Catapult - and the escorts were cleared, but at an unusually high cost.
OH. The smuggler was in a Cyclops HQ! No WONDER everything was going before the lance was, despite them bringing their own. Fully undamaged too.
That mattered little, though, as Summer and Mylassta's headshots hit it almost at the same instant.
Ouch. The Bull Shark was down to 60% IS on both legs. Alarhan was lucky she'd not gotten an ammo explosion.
(Oh, and haha, this mission reward was AWFUL; the cash max was about 600k if I'd gone for that and the best salvage (which I did) was 3/15.)
Cyclops HQ for sale, along with a Quickdraw.
The next mission was a 4-skull assassination mission, dealing with another Kurita insurgent. Hopefully this one wouldn't be as costly. Zuranna switched to the Overlord and Alarhan to the Shortbow - since they needed a new spotter, as the Bull Shark was out. (Lynessa had not quite decided to pause to repair the damaged mechs yet.)
Again, two sets of defenders. But this time, the reinforcements were at the opposite end of the Operational Area from the lance - so it would be as well to go straight for the nearest ones.
(DARN IT! Give the enemy initiative, it looked like ANOTHER force with a Cyclops HQ or something lurking around.)
This time, the lance spotted a Dragon, a Shrek and another 80-ton vehicle to start with. Again, they had poor armour. Fortunately enough.
Alarhan blasted the Shrek apart with one salvo without even having to aim. Mylassta and Summer headcapped the Dragon.
This was better, at least the lance wasn't getting fire from umpteen enemies before they could react this time.
Mylassta destroyed a second Shrek moving down the mountain to the west.
Zuranna ran forwards to lure the last Shrek - for that was what it was - into Alarhan's missiles. One lot down.
The lance started towards the primary target - it looked closer than the reinforcements - but a Phoenix Hawk appeared at extreme range first. Summer blew it apart.
This left its Catapult, Thunderbolt and Quickdraw friend to blunder into sight range.
Summer knocked the Catapult over by destroying a leg; Mylassta headcapped the Quickdraw; Alarhan destroyed the Thunderbolt by ammo explosion. Zuranna managed - though not before it got up and shot at the Shortbow - to blow off the Catapult's other leg.
The enemy Cyclops - it HAD to be a HQ Cyclops - was just entering range now. Alarhan jumped it to shot at the head. No, it was a Cyclops Z, like the Decapitator, which was nearly as bad. Alarhan damaged the head and badly destabilised it, allowing Summer to knock it over and blow the torsos off, which left Mylassta to finish the head.
There, that was a bit better...
No notable salvage, just a few mech parts (3/4 of a Cyclops Z for one...)
Next up, the final foray against Kurita here, a 4-skull polar capture of a manufacturing base.
Shelat swapped in for Zuranna on this one, and Mylassta snagged the Rocket Shark.
Mylassta lead the lance east, across a ridge, so they could look down on the enemy base - no turrets, surprisingly. Alarhan spotted a Kuritan JagerMech standing guard. Summer put some AC rounds into its head before the pilot even knew what killed him.
The lance moved along a little further, and the JagerMech's lancemates - a Marauder, Centurion and Griffin - walked out into view, wondering what happened.
Summer, Mylassta and Shelat knocked the Marauder over and destroyed it in short order.
The Griffin disappeared into trees out of sight, and Summer, not aiming properly, didn't kill the Centurion. Mylassta and a Shelat knocked it over, though and Shelat's second salvo CT-killed it neatly. Summer made up for her previous error by headcapping the Griffin.
The lance moved along the ridge towards the base. Reinforcements were inbound - but the lance had a nice little sniping spot.
Hatchetman, Orion, Wolverine. Orion first, Summer figured. She didn't kill it, though, so Mylassta and Shelat knocked it over with LRMs.
A Victor joined the party and the Wolverine and Hatchetman got close enough to Alarhan to start shooting at her. Mylassta quickly hit the Orion again, CT-killing it before it could get up.
Summer made short work of the Victor.
Alarhan jumped down and cored the Hatchetman. The Wolverine was unable to stand up to the full fire of the lance, though it ended up dying due to leg-loss, since head shots were much less likely with all the missiles.
The base was easily captured.
+3 hit defence gyro and an impressive Victor, Centurion, JagerMech AND Griffin for salvage!
So. There were other contracts in the system, by Lynessa really needed to pay attention to the reputations now. The flashpoint back in Capellan space was for... *sigh* the Draconis Combine. It was also only 2.5 skulls with a "rare weapons" as a reward. No hurry, then. Lynessa considered going to another Black Market world - so maybe missions for pirate reputation...? There was a Davion 5-skull desert escort fighting pirates (pass), a 4-skull mission for the pirates with VERY generous salvage and if she went one off max, it was still 6 selectable pieces and the rep would take them to neutral. But it had a restriction of 60 tons per mech, and Mylassta was really NOT keen on the idea of fighting a 4-skull operation with the mediums (since she had no 60s); the other pirate mission was a 3-skull attack and defend, which would require max rep to be worth it...
So, no, Lynessa abandoned that idea.
Instead, they would head for 4-skull Carmichel, which only had Kurita/Taurian/Davion presence, and thus hopefully a better chance of getting decent anti-Kurita missions.
The Bull Shark would be repaired; the Decapitator too, but while it was there, two 0-tonnage stability damage arm mods were replaced with +10 damage ones. Those mods removed went on the Phoenix Coil; the Marauder Fair got a few more stability damage mods and the last of the mods (and a replacement upgrade) went on the Atlas.
As they set out for Carmichel, Ayasha Hadley attempted to contact them. Attempted being the operative word, since Lynessa did that thing where when you get a spam call, you just put the phone down and walk away (while it cost them money) until they give up an go away.
A new flashpoint appeared; 4-skull and all the way over in Marik space. (Against Steiner, because of course...) But for LosTech rewards. 300 days until it expired, though so that was more time than they had...
Onwards.
And we shall leave it there for today!
We will be back Thursday, like as not (as I suspect tomorrow I will be starting my next Rules Thingy in having a more concrete go at my BT houserules as well as sorting out all my profiles and stuff for my new toys!
Honestly, I think BT is being a bit of retail therapy for me at the moment, it's not like there's much else to look forward to.)
I'm pretty sure that's the only way anybody ever cleared that particular Flashpoint. Seriously, anyone who chose to do a mission called "Double Agent" would then be the type to pull a triple.
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I always find a problem with this sort of side-quest - more in RPGs, particularly - in that in that my approach is completionist and "this is content, I want to expereince it." regardless of roleplaying concerns. I want to get as much out of a game as possible - and many times I only play a game once through or once every ten years or so or something - so KI find "you cant just not do this quest" to be an option that... Feels like it probably only should be included as a "quit out of conversation so you can leave the game because it's time to go out" or something, rather than a true decision,