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[Jarl Dane]

Cattle die, and kinsmen die.

Thyself eke soon wilt die;

but fair fame will fade never,

I ween, for him who wins it.

In the dismal aftermath of the Clan Invasion and near collapse of all regular Rasalhague military forces, a new breed of wretched yet magnificent warrior emerged.

Defeated, cornered, and abandoned on a hundred different worlds these last surviving pilots, a bitter remnant of their once proud regiments, looked upon a battlefield filled with certain death and eager clansmen, and ran out to meet it all with manic laughter.

These pilots attacked with reckless, hopeless desperation and some sort of mad mirth that stunned the complacent clanners and bought their few surviving companions a chance at escape. Through their selfless, hungry sacrifice, they purchased hope dearly at the price of their lives and perhaps sanity.

Since then a mad-happy few have been willing to follow in the foot-steps of their Berserker forebears to master the training, mantle the madness, and proudly join the death-cult of the worshipers of 'W'.

It is a distinct honor to earn the Berserker Battle-Rune, and clan forces, fortified with all their vat-born mutations, shiver at the thought of fending off a host of these death-worshiping heroes.

___________________________________________________________________________

So you want to be a Berserk?
To charge without fear? To die without remorse?
To bring terror to the hearts of your enemy?
To bring glory to your name and the name of your unit?

It is no easy thing to become one of us. You must find the cautious voice, that well-evolved ancient speaker who whispers to you of self-preservation, and you must straggle it in the dark recesses of your mind. You must smother any hope for survival, any concern for your own well-being, any recidivist back-pedaling into unnatural timidity and lose yourself in the Great Death-Eating Hunt of Odin.

To be a Berserk you must come to terms with the fact that you are already dead.

And if you've accepted your own doomed mortality as a Berserker, what else must you do?

The Qualities of a Berserker

1. Be the First.
If a push is called, if a movement or maneuver is laid out, a Berserker is a pilot that always finds a way to be at the forefront of that action. Never satisfied to be stuck behind someone else, but ever jostling and clawing to be first.

2. Never Hesitate.
Regardless of what your brain might be telling you. Regardless of what happened to the last guy who went. Regardless to what you experienced the last time you did this; you go. You don't hesitate, you don't consider, you just go.


These are the qualities of a Berserker and you must prove them to your peers and superiors. You must demonstrate in trainings and actual battles that you will never hesitate and that you will always battle to be the very first in.

How to prove it:

In an RKA sanctioned Training you must be one of the first two mechs in a push three different times.

In an RKA sanctioned drop you must be one of the first two mechs in a push 9 times.


Once you've accomplished all these things, bring it to the attention of Mech The Dane or Coyote and you will given the title, server group and battle-rune of a berserker, so that no matter whose drop you are in the Drop commander and all the pilots around you will know exactly what to expect from you, and perhaps drop a little more soundly with that knowledge.

Edited by Mech The Dane, 03 February 2019 - 12:24 PM.

[Jarl Dane]

RKA List of Berserkers:

[Xannatharr]

***

22 January, 3060

Ten mechs of the Templars mercenary regiment, along with a pair of auxiliaries from other units, stood at the lava creek in the center of the Terra Therma battlezone. The group formed a firing line of heavy and assault mechs, facing across open ground toward the communications dish that Clan Nova Cat had ordered them to seize.

At the far edge of this killing field a few flickers of motion were seen as a long line of RKA battlemechs climbed a winding trail and took positions just below Templars' line of sight. One or two RKA mechs peeked up and across the open ground, receiving autocannon and laser fire from the waiting Clan mechs, unleashing a few volleys of their own in response then retreating back to cover.

The peeking stopped and for a moment all was still. Then radios suddenly crackled to life as several RKA mechwarriors keyed their radios on open frequencies and screamed "GANGA ALFREK!"

The RKA battlemechs came boiling up out of cover, led by a pair of fast-moving Victor assault mechs and followed closely by several Quickdraws, Warhammers and Marauders. They set out across the open ground in a reckless charge, spewing medium-range missles and autocannon shells at the waiting clan mechs, taking savage counterfire in return.

Surprised by the fury of the Rasalhague attack and unable to single out a particular mech in the charging mob, the Templars began to give ground. Smelling blood, the charging RKA mechs closed in, surrounding and swarming under two of the slowest Clan mechs, then turned their savagery on one end end of the Templar firing line.

When the crash of weapons and thundering of battlemech footsteps finally faded a few minutes later, broken and damaged RKA battlemechs were strewn around the landscape. But shattered and burnt Clan battlemechs dotted the battlefield in greater numbers, and the Templar survivors had retreated to their dropships and lifted planet.

***

I don't know if the guys who led that charge on wave 1 survived the push, but it was beastly effective. Our firing line was quickly broken and we got down on kills. As often happens in Domination matches, a lopsided wave leaves the loser scrambling to try to get a foothold somewhere in the circle without feeding individual mechs to the enemy. It's an uphill battle and one that the RKA forces won.

Much respect to the Beserkers!