This is the AAR following the exploits of the Mech Mercanary company, Bengy's Blobs in RogueTech (the complete overhaul mod of BattleTech). Earlier AARs can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7.
It is a bit unfortunate, but the Blobs need to pack and move out from the system of Vindemiatrix. Vindemiatrix was the perfect mix of danger and reward for the blobs, with a nice assortment of Clan battles to pick up some really nice high tech equipment and Mech shells. However, a little glitch with the RogueTech updates seems to have made a number of the contracts unselectable from the contracts screen.
So, with a few of the contracts being unplayable, it means that the Blobs will start to run out of income if the problem gets worse. So, packing up and finding a new location for the Blobs to call home for a little bit!
After some searching around Dromini in the Draconis Combine space (House Kurita) was settled upon for the temporary basing. A short singe jump away from Vindemiatrix means that only 14 working days are lost to travel, and a single jump makes the travel fee easy enough to absorb. Despite having a decent run of salvage and income from battles, the Blobs are in a phase of upgrading and transitioning to heavier and more advanced Clan Tech Mechs... which means that the buffer for operational costs is around 1 month. 14 days takes out half of that, and any more time spent travelling and not earning would mean that the Blobs will go insolvent and disband.
Dromeni is a slightly less rewarding sector at 2.5 skulls for average mission difficulty. However, that does mean that the battles will be easier. Time will tell if the salvage rewards are enough to cover the costs of dropping a heavy company though!
A Comstar and former Star League presence means that there will some access to LosTech and advanced Inner Sphere tech from salvage, and if I'm lucky there might also be the occasional Clan presence as well. LosTech is a step up from regular Inner Sphere equipment, but the real prizes are the Clan components!
A routine seek and destroy mission turns out to uncover some hidden Clan activity on Dromeni! Handy! Taking down Clan Stars is a little more difficult than Inner Sphere lances, partly due to the fact that the Clan Stars are 5 units strong rather than the Inner Sphere 4 unit standard.
However, the Clan Mechs tend to favour Speed and Firepower over Armour and Heat Capacity. So, they tend to hit hard and fast, but can overheat very quickly and be paper thin if they are hit.... generally, there are still many which are just Mech killing monsters. Still, trying to overheat them and smacking them when they are partially disabled or shutdown is the safest way to bring them down... much better than a straight up fight where I'm going to be outgunned.
In the after battle salvage division, the hardest thing is trying to figure out what to prioritise for the company picks. Getting some nice heavier OmniMech shells is great... but if you can't outfit them, then they are pretty much useless and just chewing up C-Bills for inventory expenses.
Weapon components are always a great choice, but they are worth less individually. Oddly enough, at the moment the thing that I'm MOST short of, is Clan Tech Double Heat Sinks! I've got lots of Inner Sphere ones, but they are incompatible with the minaturised Clan versions, Without the ability to sink away the heat from all these high heat Clan Tech weapons, my Mechs will just be sitting ducks as they shut down... or operating at less than optimal efficiency as they won't be able to use their entire weapons suite.
In the years after the initial invasion of the Inner Sphere by four of the twenty Clans, there has been appearances of the minor Clans that appear not to have been bound by the truce between the original invading Clans and Comstar. Hell's Horses is one of these Clans, and each Clan seems to bring some interesting variation of the technology that they have developed in the far reaches of the galaxy during their self-imposed exile. All the more reason to hunt them down and see what sort of new toys they bring to the battlefield!
This pitched battle against a large Cluster of Nova Cat Mechs initially started as a routine Assassination attempt on a Propagandist. Why a Propagandist would be piloting a Mech instead of being safe at home on an internet connection is quite beyond me... but he is out in the field and ripe for silencing.
However, after the drop... it became apparent that there was going to be MUCH more resistance than originally thought. With a full 3 Stars in defence.... ah well, the more the merrier... and more variety of salvage. However, the contract still did limit me to a certain number for selection. Unfortunate, given the likelihood of there being too much stuff to choose from! If I survived...
Fighting in forests does give me the distinct advantage of being able to set the whole area alight with Infernos and Hydra missiles. As mentioned before, the Clan Mechs tend to run hot... and having that additional heat from outside means that they will have to choose between running less efficiently (slower and less shots taken) OR run the danger of shutting down completely and become statue targets for me to poke holes in!
It turns out that I was able to shutdown quite a few of them, which made them sitting ducks for the concentrated fire of the Blobs company. Definitely some prize salvage there... with the heavy Ryoken (75 tons) Shell in the battlefield debris....
... and another nice find in some Savage Wolf shells, also weighing in at 75 tons fully loaded. These iconic Clan OmniMechs will make a great addition to the Blobs when they are repaired and reconfigured!
... but it doesn't come without a cost. Most of the damage was to armour and structure, with very little lost in the way of irreplaceable components. The C-Bill cost of repair isn't really too much of a worry, I can always sell shells and equipment to cover operating costs if neccessary. However, the time taken to repair at 17 days, is more of a worry. That is time where the Blobs are just hemorrhaging money and not working on contracts.
The Word of Blake is a faction of Comstar that is also operating in the sector. These fanatics rebelled against the stripping of mystique and ritual from Comstar's daily activities in the decade after the Truce with the Clans. They field similar advanced LosTech equipment, and I'm much less partial to negotiating with them than the regular ComStar forces. So, I see them as a faction which I don't need to keep on side...
... the Blakist spy tries to make a run for it... but that starts to get difficult when I plant mines all around him, and the legs of his Mech starts to fail! Hehehehe.....
... a bit of fire for roasting, and before you know it, there are enemy pilots ejecting and leaving their Mechs mostly intact for integrating into the company!
This battle with the Blakists did end up highlighting one really irritating feature of this planet. The mountainous landscape makes for poor sightlines and slow advances... This is great if you are a light or medium weight company and need to use these features to avoid enemy fire. However, the Blobs have now grown out of this stage. The terrain is now dangerous for them as it allows the enemy to close without targeting, and it splits up the company as not all my Mechs are now jump-enabled.
The last straw for this planet's usefulness came in a near disastrous battle against Star Adder. It started easily enough, but a number of little mishaps made for a costly and lengthy recovery... at which time, I decided it was time to move to a new planet.
First up, was a miscalculation with heat management, which led to my Lineholder shutting down in the midst of a battle. Right in the middle of the two forces... This resulted in quite a lot of targeted incoming fire which left the Mech heavily damaged and requiring costly repairs afterwards.
Meanwhile, my skirmishing missile boat (Dervish) got into a bit of strife from friendly fire. The role of the Dervish is to close in fast and flank, using the vast missile batteries to unleash from close range. This can easily take out a Mech in a single salvo, even leaving heavier Mechs crippled after the onslaught. It can even knock many Mechwarriors off their feet and on the floor...
However, this particular occasion, it collected a friendly Gauss slug in the back which ripped through the thin rear armour and damaged internal structure. Thankfully, no components and especially lucky that the ammo didn't ignite... but a close call.
It did mean that I had to withdraw the Dervish from it's regular close up duties and nurse it through the rest of the battle.
So, time to move on... this system is a bit too difficult to fight in with the mountainous terrain, and the contracts aren't quite rewarding enough to keep the justifying the higher drop costs of dropping a heavier company of Mechs. So, keeping an eye on the various contracts at hand, I was definitely intrigued by this particular contract which would pay for the relocation of the Blobs... and the contract would result in the changeover of a star system to House Kurita! Something that they would be pretty happy and indebted to the Blobs for!
It turns out that Lauriston (the new system) is a two hop travel away from our current location. Seeing as House Kurita will pay for the travel, I only need to save up enough C-Bills to make it past the month's operating expenses.... and seeing as the last battle ended up with so much repair-work to be done, I don't have a battle ready company anyway! Best time to travel...
So, I accepted the contract and was soon on the way to a much more difficult 4 skull system... Let's see how long the Blobs can survive on this new planet system!
This specialised hero Stormcrow (55 tons) is a Sniper variant of the Medium skirmish Mech. I'm in two minds about restoring this one fully, or just scrapping the whole thing and selling it for parts. The base Mech is a fast running Mech that is well suited to close-in flanking and skirmishing, I'm a bit dubious about the utility of wasting all that speed on a sniper style loadout when a slower Mech packing a harder hitting configuration would be more lethal and effective.
Probably will scrap it... or have it ready to restore as a reserve unit. Thankfully, with the OmniMech modules, I don't have to equip it as a Sniper, but can instead refit it to whatever suits my needs. Still, at 55 tons, it is starting to be on the light side of where I want the Blobs to be weighing in at... and there really isn't that much left of the shell!
This Ryoken (75 tons) is a nice heavy fire-support Mech that unfortunately doesn't field OmniMech technology. This does mean that it has limited and pre-configured hardpoints which limits it's versatility. It still does have some of it's original loadout surviving, but it is missing the Fusion Core and a good chunk of it's left hand side!
The Savage Wolf (75 tons) is a prime candidate for restoring and refitting. OmniMech tech means that it can be equipped as needed with no regard for hardpoint limitations. The original loadout as two ERPPCs as the primary arm mounted weapons. These are hard hitting weapons that run hot and also scramble enemy targeting systems on a successful hit, and also can be used to clear minefields. I'm not entirely sure if I will end up using this sort of configuration, as the PPCs ARE REALLY HOT! On the other hand, my only minefield clearance is provided by a lowly tank... and I know from experience that being trapped in a minefield can have really disastrous consequences!
A 75 ton Penetrator is the one of the first of the Heavy style Mechs to come into the battle lineup for the Blobs. Equipped with a pair of ERPPCs and a suite of other lasers, it packs a Mechanical Jump system to give maneuverability (no heat compared to regular jump jets) and also finishes up using all the Clan Double Heat sinks that I have on inventory.
Unfortunately, when this variant had it's first test run... it ended up overheating and shutting down immediately! So, a big embarassing disappointment for what was supposed to be the new flagship of the company! It was later stripped of the hot ERPPCs, and replaced them with Large Pulse variants. Less fearsome, but managing to stay operational for longer!
This Assault Class Banshee weighs in at a whopping 95 tons and is now the heavy hitter of the company. Much of the weight is taken up with a stupendously heavy and expensive Fusion Core which allows the behemoth to close the range with the enemy. It is built around two large weapon systems. A LRM 20 in a Clan variant to allow it to keep peppering and softening up the enemy as it closes... and then the main Ultra AC20 Clan Variant. An AutoCannon 20 is THE monster of the battle field. A single hit will make even an Assault class Mech stumble... the Ultra variant fire two slug in quick succession... almost guaranteeing serious damage on any class of Mech! If you can get close enough and actually hit with the unwieldy weapon! Plus... it jams relatively frequently...
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