Ranger Victory
Clan Ghost Bear set the greenlight on their charge just as the local star began cresting the hills outside of town, no doubt hoping that the glare would mess with our pilots targeting enough to allow them to slip through. Norbotten lance was a bit late to respond to the proximity alarm and found themselves only activating mechs and marching down the board after an extra few minutes. Nevertheless the rest of the defense was able to align themselves in wide formation the catch the approaching force in the jagged teeth of our blockade. Blitzkrieg took the advance position in order to make best use of their Urban style movement profile, Ehreschuld took to the east alongside Zeta in order to maintain overwatch along the boulevard and threatening the open sightlines. Meanwhile on the western front Paladin and Marigold took to the city streets in preparation to delay the heavier force alongside the reinforcements as best they could. Early in the engagement Ranger Minefields rained down along the important avenues Ghost Bear forces were funneling down, causing no direct damage but their hindrance of the enemies evasive movements did result in the utter annihilation of at least one Dasher.
Ehreschulds strong positioning allowed for them to quickly dispatch of the Hankyu that almost managed to slip by with such efficiency that it seemed to scare the Clanners into small regrouping before making a more concentrated push after the center line stars managed to maneuver around the minefields. This was of course "aided" by the grand wrecking ball that once was a Fire Moth, who demolished an entire building after skidding right through the large bay windows and somehow managed crumble the entire building to open up the firing lines in the eastern front greatly by bringing the entire building down, pushing back a couple ranger units worried about the new avenues for concentrated clanner fire. Ehreschulds powerful positioning allowed them to trade more fire downrange than they got back at us, and by the time Norbotten's Spartan had arrived to reinforce the position was almost entirely held cleanly.
Paladin, Blitzkrieg and Marigold on the other hand were barely handling the situation on the west. two mechs bled through our blockade, both mercifully handled by the rear guard Norbotten Lance alongside Marigold's Longbow who of course retreated to the backline early in the fight. The engagement itself went fine enough, with the exception a large contingent of unexpected battle armor being dropped right on our battle line, making quick work of the hip joints on our liason and tumbling the nightstar, leading to its eventual crippling. Thankfully My Marauder was present to recover the pilot and the mech can be repaired, but we were still unable to keep it in a clean state.
Marigold and Blitzkrieg focused on the heavier elements like the executioners that were attempting to muscle their way through the center and then took the time to finish off the loki that was attempting to occupy the courtyard of the skyscraper so that ranger forces may once again reclaim the firing lines available to the city streets as well as cleaning up what remained of the battle armor groups that were NOT decimated by the high concentration of explosive damage affecting the area. Paladin on the other hand took to chasing and blocking the alleyway to the west as best we could from the deluge of medium mechs, demolishing most of them.
Notably Blitzkriegs poor highlander took two consecutive engine explosions directly to the face when the enemy Summoner went critical, causing the Vixen only 30 meters away to also explode as a follow-up, forcing a shutdown as its right torso was completely destroyed by the massive explosion.
My Marauder had a similarly cartoonish amount of soot after a rather aggressive move wherein my subordinate barreled through a building as it was collapsing in order to hunt down an enemy Ryoken, which ended up destroying one of our arms, to sweep the legs out from under it. As a result from the fall the ammo bins blew and the reactor once more went critical, destroying the other arm from my machine.
In fact its no exaggeration to say that Explosions rocked the battlefield today, it is clear to this writer that at Ghost Bear maintenance SOP is lacking as no fewer than 6 mechs on the field today had their reactors go critical from rather normal sustained damage levels, causing great amounts of stress. Small parts of me believe there is either a labor dispute ongoing behind the scenes on this planet, or in fact Ghost Bear ROE doctrine is more in accepting of suicide bombing as a tactic than we first thought.
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Topic: WOTAN Mission 2 - 9/25/63 (Read 2128 times)