48 replies to this topic

[terrycloth]

Not until Oct 21st.

[IraqiWalker]

Catra Lanis, on 19 September 2014 - 04:21 AM, said:

When is it coming?

October 21st, if you had purchased MC ever, and September 23rd this year.
Source:
http://mwomercs.com/...21#entry3724421

[That Dawg]

WHAT?!!?!? I thought we got the very cool Cent Sept 23rd??
Its oct?
my cupcake is gonna get stale waiting for it

Quote

[color=#00FFFF]injected into eligible accounts on October 21st.[/color]

offs.......well, looking forward it...I think that weekend will be a medium nutters paradise

[IraqiWalker]

---

Part 1

---

"*static* ... bloo... hel... ha...ge... *heavy static* ... Ah, there, finally got this thing to work right.
This is the Log of Leftenant Zaid, of the AFFC 104th Regiment, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Company, the Roaring Lions, 1st Lance.
I gotta hand it to those Caps, some of their officers get great toys.
The current Centurion I'm piloting, should you find it in one piece, is one such toy.

Let's start at the beginning shall we?

My team has been on rotation with the Sarna March militias for a whole month now, trying to bring those guys up to snuff, training, and trading tactics.
The spirit of brotherly cooperation, and national preservation, and all that political drivel.
Truth is, we have people running around in mechs, they ought not to be in, either because the mechs need work, or the "pilots", if you call them that, are terrible.
Our job is to make sure they are good enough to slow down an enemy until a real force comes to their defense, before they all die.

*a loud sigh ... followed by a 4 second pause*

Yet, the pilots were eager, plenty were decent, and wanted to bleed red, blue, and yellow. All jumping for joy at real war stories, and getting excited about our drunken officers' tales of "valor" on the battlefield.
Some honestly needed to be used instead of ammo, or for target practice with live ammo, but we needed the numbers on that front, so they're there.
Our job was to "Promote the spirit of brotherly cooperation, and shore up the defenses on Sarna itself, in case of hostile operations"
at least that's how our Hauptmann General, whatever the hell that is, put it.

My unit used to have a proper Fedcom general, not whatever this namby pamby daddy's boy we have from the Lyrans is.
We're made of different stuff, the Lyrans in our regiment are decent pilots, but the higher up officers are truly awful.
Shouting orders while hiding in an Awesome 3 clicks from the front line is not the way to lead.
Real Davion commanders get stuck in with a big mech, with lots of lead going down range.
So yes, despite being "united" we're still not.

That might sound like a rant on the side, but it ties in to the meat of this lovely situation.

Our mixed unit is teaching these pilots different things, depending on which officer is in charge of drills today.

We tell'em to get close, keep moving, and twisting, and the Lyran officers tell'em to take aim, and rely on their mech's armor to protect them as they line up a shot.

Sure, that works when you're hiding behind nearly 16 tons of armor, but that's not what we get in our mediums, and lights.

Suffice to say, tensions were high during this little picnic of ours.


What really kicked things off into a proper fireball was a Capellan sneak attack on Sarna itself. Luckily, our main force was there.
The engagement started with alarms blaring becomes "somehow" a full third of our secondary supply depot was exploding, and on fire, with no apparent reason.
Next thing you know, we're getting marshaling orders, and all pilots are to launch immediately. Of course, that means our general will be showing up last, and probably after the fight is over.
I hopped into my Centurion, a nice, comfy CN9-D that I nicknamed Jackhammer, on account of it's LB-10X.

For a company made mostly of FedCom pilots, I was strangely the only centurion pilot, aside from Malcolm in the 3rd lance.
We start with a standard deployment, lances spreading out across the city. The entire 1st, and 2nd companies were sent to guard, and secure the main HPG station, thought to be the enemy's objective.

Now, I should mention, that at that particular point, none of us knew who was really attacking us. Best bet was on Capellans, but we still weren't sure, and didn't even know their force composition.

For all we know, it could have been an uprising from the local citizenry, since the administration has been "less than stellar", and some of the militia pilots really didn't help at all.

The way we found out, is when a lance of ravens stormed right past the advance militia force, and right into the city.

We quickly spotted those green emblems, with the golden borders, and realized what we were dealing with.

They were from the Lu Sann warrior house. Nut jobs even by Capellan standards, but well equipped, and dead hard in a fight.

---

Part 2

---

The engagement quickly devolved into a melee in the outskirts of the city. Until the enemy's artillery started to rain. Somehow, these guys managed to sneak an entire force onto the planet.

They had artillery, mechs, and ground vehicles. Even had a lot of VTOLs buzzing through the entire city.

At this point in time, the battle line is getting hectic and stretched. The order came from our Hauptman to regroup, and we started disengaging.
Though we were slow to do so, since we wanted to cover the militia pilots, who were dropping like flies fighting against hardened warriors.

Finally, we had to surrender the northern outskirts to them, and pulled back into the center. The HPG forces were apparently getting hammered by another force, most likely even larger than ours.
Of the original 12 mechs from my company, we had only lost one, a recon commando from Alpha lance. While out of the militia's starting 24 mech detatchment, only 18 remained.

So we set up in the center, and start operating in groups again, but we divided our pilots, so that no militia pilots were on their own.

I got strapped with 3 militia greenhorns for my lance, and we set out for the local broadcast station, to make sure the Caps don't take over the radio and media stations.

We had mechanized infantry support us, along with 2 harasser vehicles, they had lots of infantry squads, including jump infantry, and even one monstrous Behemoth tank.
They were doing their own thing, setting up traps in our blind spots, and trying to make sure we don't end up flanked and surrounded without knowing it.

Me and the 3 little lambs took point, and moved in a chevron formation across the streets. I made sure to be at the front, to make sure I can keep them alive longer.
In the mean time, the Behemoth was moving behind us, covering us, while we cleared a path for it.

It didn't take us more than 3 minutes to run into an enemy formation, 2 enemy mechs, clearly light scouts working in tandem.
The lambs immediately charged at full speed, taking poorly aimed shots at them. Luckily they stopped when I told them to, and just as they did, enemy artillery started singing again.

Shells were starting to land on our position, and we started back pedalling immediately. Yet those Capellan pilots chargded through, regardless. I tell you, they were crazy.

The 2 ravens immediately rushed past one of the lambs' Enforcers, and started hitting it from both sides, while the pilot was panicking. The others were too scared to fire, afraid they might hit their buddy.

You know, most people forget our mechs have hands. I'm in a Centurion, I never forget that. My left hand is always ready to punch something, or cleave it with a hatchet.

So I rushed that lead raven, and jammed my hatchet right into it's side.
It cut a nice gash through the side torso, and allowed me to pin the darn thing in place. Long enough for me to jam my LBX barrel into the cockpit and put a solid slug right through it, and the pilot.
The mech stopped moving, and fell limply to the side. One down, and easy to salvage too, cockpits are easy to rebuild, so kill a pilot, get a mech.

Apparently I killed a big shot pilot, or something, because the other raven stopped wailing on the enforcer, and charged me. The B@$tard actually RAMMED me. Face first! Would you believe that?

So I fell on my ass, Raven on my chest, and the lambs trying to aim without shooting me.

At this point in time, the behemoth deemed it safe to fire it's 185 mm Autocannons on the raven, despite it standing on my chest. Thankfuly, the shells hit the thing right in the sideKnocking it to the ground, and ripping half of it off.
Seems the pilot was either knocked out, or dead, because the mech stopped moving afterwards.
I got back up on my feet, and after some "advice" to my sidekicks, and a thank you to the Behemoth crew that almost killed me, we got back on track towards the broadcast stations.

This is actually where it got interesting. After getting to the broadcast stations, the infantry who went ahead of us told us that an enemy force is indeed heading for us.

It seems my lance has garnered the ire of some of those warriors, and they decided that nothing short of 4 mechs, 3 tanks, and 3 Warrior helicopters was enough to erase us from the battlefield.

At the forefront of that formation was a Centurion mech, much like my own. Painted in green, and yellow, with the number 01 on it's right shoulder.

At this point in time, we really were in a pickle, to tell you the truth, I didn't think we had a snowball's chance in hell.

They were barreling down on us as one big death ball of guns, and all I had with me was 3 rookies, one big tank, and not enough infantry to do much of anything.

[Part 3 incoming soon™]

Edited by IraqiWalker, 04 August 2015 - 11:36 PM.

[FlipOver]

IraqiWalker, on 04 August 2015 - 11:29 PM, said:

You know, most people forget our mechs have hands. I'm in a Centurion, I never forget that. My left hand is always ready to punch something, or cleave it with a hatchet.

So I rushed that lead raven, and jammed my hatchet right into it's side.
It cut a nice gash through the side torso, and allowed me to pin the darn thing in place. Long enough for me to jam my LBX barrel into the cockpit and put a solid slug right through it, and the pilot.
The mech stopped moving, and fell limply to the side. One down, and easy to salvage too, cockpits are easy to rebuild, so kill a pilot, get a mech.

Apparently I killed a big shot pilot, or something, because the other raven stopped wailing on the enforcer, and charged me. The B@$tard actually RAMMED me. Face first! Would you believe that?

THIS! ^^^

Words can't begin to describe how much I feel the need for something like this in the game!

Great job IraqiWalker and also great job OP! Stuff like that should be on the description of mechs when we go out to purchase them!

[IraqiWalker]

FlipOver, on 05 August 2015 - 01:06 AM, said:

THIS! ^^^

Words can't begin to describe how much I feel the need for something like this in the game!

Great job IraqiWalker and also great job OP! Stuff like that should be on the description of mechs when we go out to purchase them!

Thank you. I'll hopefully crank out Parts 3 and 4 later today/tonight.

[IraqiWalker]

So .... I got carried away a bit, and wrote up through part 6. For now.

---

Part3

---

"Well, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't panicking at that point in time. No one wants to die, so I was trying to do my darndest to delay that eventuality from happening.

Command responded to my requests for back up with a "we're doing what we can, and will allocate resources when available". Which is officer talk for "you're on your own, and we can't be bothered to help you"

So, I asked the infantry guys to get on the top floors of the broadcast buildings, that should give them a clear line of sight on this entire engagement, and a nice shot at the helis when they arrive. The Behemoth parked behind a parking structure at the rear, while we stood guard in our mechs at each of the entry corners for the streets the enemies would use.

Some would question the sanity of parking a 100 ton tank in the rear lines, while our fragile (comparatively) mechs took the front, but I didn't argue with the crew, since they could just as well drive their tank away, and leave us on our own.

The hostiles used open comms to broadcast a challenge aimed at me, because apparently the raven pilot I vaporized was some big shot's cousin or some such, who knows how those Capellan warrior houses work.

Suffice to say, I switched to open comms as well, even though that was against protocol, but I could excuse myself with "tactical prerogative", or some other excuse, IF I survived the night. I mainly threatened them, goaded them, and used a few other niceties to get them in a good and angry mood.

Angry people make stupid mistakes, like driving their tanks over a nice line of plastic explosives, and mines that proceeded to reduce two of their tanks into flaming paper weights, and the third into a big honkin' turret.

The helis decided they should avenge their comrades by storming by quickly, and they did pass us without our mechs being able to shoot them. The banged up Enforcer was the first thing they started to rain fire on, and the guy started panicking, and running around like a chicken with it's bloody head cut off.

Thankfully, the infantry were in position, and a few of their Anti-air missiles flew out singing through the sky. First of the Warrior helis dropped in a burning pile of slag, and fire.

The second heli was taken down by one of the rookies while it was zipping after the panicking one. He was in a blackjack, and finally figured out how use his Autocannon 2s properly. However, that wasn't enough to save the panicky guy from the last heli, which managed to land a full salvo right into his back, and his mech fell down immediately afterwards.

His mech collapsed right into a building, and basically skid across the first floor of it, causing the whole thing to drop on top of his enforcer. I'm pretty sure the pilot was squashed to death.

This has left me, the Blackjack, a Clint, and that big tank that was doing all of nothing right about now.

This was actually around the time when the Clint managed to drop the third heli with a well aimed shot. Well ... he fired 4, one of them eventually hit, but I'll give the kid credit.

In the midst of all the excitement we had forgotten about the 4 enemy mechs, who were standing literally right in our faces all of a sudden. Centurion, and 3 griffins. Suffice to say, we were in a not so enviable position, but the infantry did their job with those traps, and the helis, and we still had that big tank with us, a tank they didn't know about.


Thankfully, they were very miffed about my earlier remarks about their dearly departed, and some of what I insinuated about their mothers, so even though they traded blows with the rookies, they were really cutting their path towards me.

The tank crew finally decided to hear my cries for them to get off their asses and stop sightseeing. Boy when that Behemoth rolled out, those mech pilots sure had a brown stain between their legs real fast and in a hurry.

The Behemoth opened with a really nice salvo. Both AC 10s boomed and while one shot missed and slammed into an apartment building -you coud practically hear the "oops" from the gunners-, the other caught one of the griffins square in the left shoulder. Then the SRMs popped up, and they all scattered. The griffins jump up trying to avoid the missiles, and I would love to say those missiles hit something good, but they didn't. Unless "good" means our blackjack's left arm, and side torso.

That blackjack immediately fell on it's side, and the enemy centurion pilot didn't waste a second putting a few slugs right through it's back, and then drove the hatchet in.

Out of all 4, he was clearly the dangerous one, and we're now 2 mechs, and a tank, against the 4 of them.

The griffin that was hit by the tank earlier, along with another one decided to dance with the tank, and keep it occupied, and they did a bang up job of it during the fight. While me, and the enemy's centy squared off against one another, the Clint and the third griffin went at it as well.

I gotta hand it to that Clint pilot. He sounded shaky, and was probably 2 more calories away from passing out, but he still charged the griffin. Wrong move usually, but hey, it beats freezing in place, and getting blown up.

There's something to be said for new pilots and not knowing how to move a mech "properly". Most of us experienced pilots move in a particular way, we try to cut out unnecessary moves, we try to be very direct, shortest distance between two points, and all that. New pilots still don't know how to do that properly.

This guy was running, jumping, and practically doing cartwheels with his clint, which confused the hell out of all of us, even my own fight paused for a few seconds as we looked at that magnificent b@$tard bouncing around. His moves were strange, but they worked for him, the Griffin was just as confused as the rest of us, and had a hard time landing a shot. Especially with his SRMs. So he just used his lasers.

Fun thing about lasers is that they deal damage all over the place if you can't hold your aim right, which considering how the Clint was moving, was just the case.The clint was landing his shots well apparently, and that was aggravating the Griffin. However, I couldn't keep track of them as me and the other Centurion got into it.

This guy moved very well. It was scary, I couldn't believe he was in a centurion with the way he was dancing between my shots and swings. I caught him square in the chest once, and he just stopped there, right before returning the blow, with his own hatchet.

I then noticed his mech was actually different, my computer finally notified me that I was fighting a CN9-AH, not a D variant like mine. So apparently, the big gun he was packing was actually a class 20 gun, not like my LB-10X. I don't need to tell you, that at this point I was breaking into a hot sweat. Only reason my mech was still walking is because the guy wasn't firing his gun at me. I was hoping there was a jam or the ammo feed took too long on his mech.

At this point, I realized what I needed to take out was his AC 20, or him. Neither of which was going to be easy, considering I was basically fighting a boxer, except weighing in at 50 tons, and made of endo-steel and big guns.

---

Part 4

---

I lunged for his gun with my hatchet, but he not only moved it up dodging my slash, he actually slammed it back down, and damn near knocked my hatchet out of the mech's hand. Thankfully, I think he smashed one of the claws into the handle, and that kept it in place long enough for me to get a better grip.

His rebuttal came swiftly in the form of his own hatchet hitting my right shoulder, and it damn near cleaved through the whole thing. Somehow, my mech stayed in one piece, despite the damage.

I pivot on left foot rotating clockwise, and slashed horizontally, aiming to catch him in the torso, but that missed, and just as I was back on my feet, I found his foot right in my chest, knocking me right into a building. At that point, I was making my peace with the world, and preparing to kiss my ass goodbye. However, two explosions happened, that caught the guy's attention. The Behemoth managed to pop one of the jumping griffins right through the chest, and dropped him, and the other one was in the distance.

The Clint pilot was on comms, and he was breaking up, and out of breath, as he said "I got him". After that, no more contact from him. I assumed he either died with the guy, or passed out.

Now it was me, the behemoth with practically no guns at this point, a busted up griffin, and this damn near fresh centy. If he got past me, that's the end of the behemoth, and who knows how many more casualties.

There was only one thing I could right now: Make a play so stupid, so idiotic, that he has to go for my throat, metaphorically speaking, hopefully and that's when I can catch him. After all, best time to kill a tiger is when it's busy killing something.

So I'm pressed against the building, don't have much wiggle room, and this guy has his gun aimed at me square in the face. I immediately propped my gun arm up pointed straight at his gun, which caused him to slam it down. He couldn't swat it sideways, unless he wanted me to shoot his gun's barrel at the tip. However he didn't count on my left arm going under his leg, and stopping my gun right at his knee joint.

I popped that sucker with a solid slug straight through the knee joint. His mech lost balance as the leg was torn apart, Myomer, and steel being ripped, mangled, and torn. His gun blasted two shells, the first ripped the left side of my cockpit, and almost got me, and the second landed right into the building close to it. If he had pulled the trigger 2 seconds earlier, he would have vaporized me, and the cockpit. Luckily, he only got a chunk from my cockpit's side.

I don't need to tell you this, but losing a chunk of your cockpit tends to cause some "instrument failure" in your mech's functions. Luckily, my left arm was still working fine, the controls on my legs weren't, though. My right arm is working too, but it's not that useful when crawling. However it was enough to get me on top of this guy's mech, and I propped my mech up on the LBX barrel, right as I shoved that hatchet into the cockpit.

I caught the top half of it, shattering the glass, and pinning the guy into the ground. Proud people tend to really lose control when you spring a surprise on them like that. He was probably turning crimson red from rage at his mistake, and so he flailed at me, instead of making aimed shots.

His SRMs hit me in the side, and one of them actually caught me square in the cockpit fracturing my glass. His AC 20 popped a shot into my left torso, and then he jammed his hatchet into my right shoulder, severing my arm clean at the joint. However, he had too much rage in there, and he drove the hatchet deeper into joint that necessary, causing it to get stuck.

While he was doing that, I was squirreling my way out of my mech. Thank you Fedcom 4 point harness for being so quick to disengage. I managed to get out of my mech just as his salvos stopped.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 06 August 2015 - 02:36 AM.

[IraqiWalker]

---

Part 5

---

I made a quick run to the top of my mech's head, and jumped down onto the AH's chest, my gun fell out of it's holster and slid down the mech, so I kept on running headed for the cockpit. He saw me jump, and started unbuckling his seat harness, but not quickly enough. I jumped into his lap and started punching him. My hands are still twitching from the pain of smashing into his face so many times. heh, I can still feel the break of his bones as we fought. He still had one attachment point stuck, and couldn't get a full range of motion, but he was scrappy, and truly lived up to his house's reputation.


He managed to wrap his legs around my neck, and one arm, in some kind of wrestling choke-hold, and he squeezed. Hard. I could feel the lights going out in my brain, but I kept on squirming, hoping for release, somehow. That's when that stuck harness came into play. He lost a bit of his grip on me as I pulled hard to my right, but he pulled me back and started squeezing again.

I had enough breathing air now, and his lock on my throat wasn't as solid as before. That's when I saw it. His gun was still holstered, at his thigh, and so I reached for it with my free hand, and yanked the holster down along his leg. He saw that, and panicked, tried to undo his locked legs, and pull away, but I was having none of that. My left arm was wrapped around his leg, and clutching that holster, while my right went up in time to stop a kick aimed squarely for my skull.

After much struggling, and more bruises to me, I managed to get the gun out, and rolled back, unholstering it, and pointing it straight at the guy in his seat. He was mad, oh he was really mad now. The left side of his face was smashed, and tenderized, courtesy of yours truly, and now I had a gun to his face, while he was still strapped to his seat.

I yelled at him to surrender, and just then the Behemoth managed to drop the other Griffin. Apparently, it had lost all it's weapons, or maybe ran out of ammo, so the crew did the logical thing, and rammed the 55 ton mech at full speed, right into a building. Then proceeded to run over it.

I tell ya, seeing that tank roll over that mech, and smash through a building was scary as hell. They practically carved the right side of that griffin out using their tank as a chisel.

The Cap pilot used those 2 seconds I was distracted by the tank to smash his foot right into the console, and activate what seemed to be the self destruct sequence. I think that's what it was, since red lights popped out, and the console was saying weird things in their language. I really wanted to capture the guy, but once he did that, my reaction was to immediately put three bullets right into his chest, and one in his face, to make sure.

I hit that button again, and thankfully, it stopped the sequence, saved my behind, and that of everyone around us in a several block radius.

Once I kicked his corpse out of the cockpit, I got in the seat, and tried to move the mech. It was still very responsive. Aside from that blown right leg. To my eternal shame, most of the systems were still in perfect condition, too. I didn't really land many hits on it, or any, actually, up until that suicidal shot to the knee.

While in contrast, most of my brand spanking new CN9-D was in pieces right now. So I slid from under my previous mech, and tried to stand back up. Even seen a one legged mech try to move? I bet it looked funny to that tank's crew, and to the infantry guys cheering from the top of that rooftop, once I announced it was me that survived the fight.

Remember that tank that was crippled, and couldn't move because it's tracks were melted? Well, I didn't. Apparently I was standing square in it's sights, and the sure popped a proper shell right into my side, knocking me down again. I can't tell you what happened afterwards exactly, because I blacked out.

---

Part 6

---

I next woke up in the infirmary, where I was being treated for some minor injuries, including a nearly dislocated right arm, 3 broken ribs, a black eye, and a headache that felt like a nuke was going off in my skull.

My commanding officer told me that me, and the Clint pilot survived. My Centy was getting scrapped for spare parts, and I was give the green and gold AH that I captured. (they used the right leg from my previous centurion to replace the one I destroyed on the AH).

The Behemoth needed some serious repairs, but considering the forces we were dealing with. I'm happy we lived through it.

*long pause*

That was 4 days ago. Now we're in the thick of major fighting, and I gotta say. Those Caps sure have some nice toys. Apparently this thing comes with a nice big XL engine, the AC 20, one SRM4, and one SRM2, and loads of ammo for both, with as much armor as a centurion can get. Downside is that it has no lasers, so once I run out of ammo, It's my hatchet and that's it.

Well, now we're being called for full assembly. Our Lyran general, or whatever his rank is, managed to survive the fight while leading from behind three full lines of armed forces, and he has a "plan" on how to fight back while waiting for the rest of our regiment to arrive from the neighboring planets.

Why couldn't one of those stealth armored Capellan mechs plant a hatchet into his cockpit, why? I bet it would be the first recorded case since the dawn of mankind where morale in a unit went UP after their commander died on the field.

I'll come back to finish this later, if I survive the briefing, without strangling that blonde twerp where he stood. Who knows, he might have a good idea. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then, right?

Leftenant Zaid out.

[To be continued]

Edited by IraqiWalker, 06 August 2015 - 02:38 AM.

[IraqiWalker]

Any feedback folks?