Azure Phoenix TBT: Alyina

Welcome back! Alyina has been protected from a pirate raid, now lets see how The Azure Phoenix made out!

Kind of a mess this time

I’m aiming to make this a normal structured thing, but I made a bit of a mess post contract here. I wanted to add new units to utilize both battle armor and tanks, while originally unsure on how to handle Olivia. So this time I’ll just be kind of hand waving things a bit and hoping it works out haha.

Finances

Even with messing up with my own bonus option in the last track, we made a good chunk of change. Before actual spending we have 4270 SP, which feels like a lot. Our repairs were covered, and Katana Jones was essentially free but not staying on. We also got a whole free mech! That feels like a ton of resources right off the bat for a new company. I almost feel like I screwed up with all this, but everything looks on the up and up. Here’s how I’m spending SP to bring that down without becoming OP.

  1. I’m hiring Olivia full time, I was a little iffy on this since she’s Solamha, but this will be fine. Her story feels like it should end in her death, but I need to not make decisions like this, based on game stuff, but narrative stuff.
  2. Our free mech is a Howler 6, nice little light mech, which we need, that has 2 SRM 6’s on a shoulder turret. Awesome and I’ve already started painting it.
  3. We’re also picking up a set of BA, 2 points of Elemental 3 AP Gauss BA in 4 man squads. This represents the guys we already used as BFA but getting some fresh armor and recruits.
  4. We also picked up a Maxim heavy hover craft (escort), it’s available in all the purchase tables we can access at the moment.
  5. We’re also grabbing 3 named pilots for these. 2 BA and 1 Tanker. I’ll go over their names shortly.

That should be it, and should cost around 2540 SP, leaving us with 1730 SP. Phew, lots of cash but I feel it was spent well and not unfairly. Let’s now go over our current roster.

The Azure Phoenix Roster

  1. CO: Miriam, Callsign “Headshot”. Main mech: Archer 4M2.
  2. XO: Olivia, Callsign “Old Bear”. Main mech: Marauder 5M
  3. Mechwarrior: Sven, Callsign “Little Falcon”. Main mech: Phoenix Hawk 9
  4. Mechwarrior in Training: Barnaby Smalls, Callsign “Smalls”. Main mech: anything light.
  5. Tanker: Archimedes Sanchez, Callsign “Bob”. Main unit: Maxim Heavy Hover Transport(escort)
  6. Battle Armor: Sgt. Wendy Tentflap, Callsign “Flame One”
  7. Battle ARmor: Sgt. Donker Yonker, Callsign “Flame Two”

Available Units:

  1. Archer 4M2 BV: 1742
  2. Adder (Puma) E BV: 1272
  3. Marauder 5M BV: 1471
  4. Phoenix Hawk 9 BV: 1244
  5. Howler (Baboon) 6 BV: 550
  6. Maxim Heavy Hover Transport (escort) BV: 835
  7. Elemental Battle Armor 3 (4sqd AP Gauss) x2 BV: 395 each

Other Info:

  • Warchest: 1712 SP
  • Reputation: 2
  • Total BV: 7904
  • Contracts Completed: 1

Next Contract

Now we head on back to Almotacen to look for some more work. Though first we’ll take a look at the scrap yard, available temp hires, and anything for sale. We’re not hurting for units right now, but it’s nice to have some good options either way. I’ll go ahead and make the rolls at my desk right now!

Almotacen Rolls:

  • Available Temp Roll: 10, Olivia. Well we already hired her, so we replace the roll with a veteran with a mech from the Lyran Purchase Table. Instead I have prepared a few named mercs to use. This first merc is meant for a possible story hook for a future custom campaign.
  • Merc: Patricia Darling, Skill: 4/3, Mech: Rifleman 9T. She’s originally from the Fronc Reaches, but her family fled when she was a baby. Her father had been a skilled Colonial Marshal and made many enemies amongst the pirate bands in the periphery. One pirate captain hired an assasssin to take out the Darlings, Patricia’s mother was killed when their home was attacked. Her father took baby Patricia and fled to the Lyran Commonwealth. There he became a merc and founded Darling’s Marshals. Patricia was raised amongst these lawmen for hire, and became a formidable mechwarrior herself. Recently her father’s enemies found them and raided their main base. Patricia was the only survivor, and she now seeks a new outfit to join and help her get her revenge. So, like Olivia, she’s anti-pirate, and will require that we fight them soon or she will leave. Her pay will be 50 SP per track, and 50 SP if we win the track.
  • Sea Foxes for sale Roll: first is a 6, second is a 3, Jade Hawk 03! I have a model for this but we can’t afford it damn.
  • Scrapyard Roll: 5, put us on the light mech table, 8 is a Valkryie QD1. Don’t have one, so nothing here.
  • MRC Purchase table Rolls: The MRC has some alternate tables for purchases in the hinterlands, so I’m going to roll on there real quick for a mech and battle armor options. Mech Roll: 11 which is a Black Hawk KU, I can use a nova for that, but it’s 1 SP more than we have haha. BA Roll: 9, Gnome Battle Armor, yup let’s grab these guys, I don’t have a real model for them quite yet, but we can proxy these for now, BA is even less WYSIWYG than mechs, so we’re good. – 431 SP, these will be in a 4 man squad I believe.
  • Last but not least, we’ll take a look at the normal Sea Fox BA and Tanker purchase table from the Hinterlands Update PDF, no rolling just a list of options, I’d like to grab an extra tank. We’ll grab a J. Edgar Light Hover Tank (xpulse), it’s 621 SP and it’ll be good for shoring up BV on tracks. We’ll use a Fulcrum as a proxy, hover tanks are hover tanks.
  • We’re also going to refit the Adder, Switching it to the E variant, costing us 18 SP. Pretty damn cheap for a pair of ATM 9s. Hell yea!

Alright that was a lot of stuff. We have a new temp cowgirl with us, some stocky battle armor, and an extra tank for when the maxim explodes or we need something cheap. Now, let’s get some work, I have a great contract all ready to go!

Hot Spot: Graus

Now, you’re probably asking, where in the book is this hot spot? Well, it’s not in the Hinterlands book, but Graus is in the Hinterlands, just a quick hop skip and a jump from almotacen. Hot Spot: Graus itself comes from Shrapnel #26 just released last month. When i got mine digitally, I was excited to see a hot spot in there, and doubly excited that it was in the Hinterlands! Not only that, but if you played mech warrior 4, you’ll be happy to hear that this contract is based around an independant group, the White Orchid, as they finalize their newly refurbished Hellcat factory. That’s right, the weird mech from MW4 is front and center here, we can either help the While Orchid defend their factory, or work for clan Sea Fox and help defend their ownership of production rights on the Hellcat.

So, looking over both sides of the contract, the Azurer Phoenix hit a snag. Miriam is all for standing up for the little guy and wants to work for the White Orchid. Sven on the other hand, isn’t super happy with the White Orchid wanting to provide Hellcats to the Jade Falcon Remnant. He’s not a fan of his former clan, and really not a fan of “khan” Jiyi Chistu and, while how he was a passive opponent of Malvina Hazen, when he could have stood up and rallied those who opposed her. He’s mostly just not wanting to help anyone calling themselves Jade Falcons. Olivia and Miriam end up convincing him to take the White Orchid contract. They offer better pay and salvage rights, the mechs and money convince him to be cool.

Terms

  • Base Pay: 110%
  • Support: Straight/100%
  • Transportation: 25%
  • Salvage: 50%
  • Command Rights: Integrated

Alright, so these are pretty solid, The command rights kind of suck, but the rest kind of make up for it. So, we’re going to take this at scale 2, we may be kind of poor, but we can handle it. We have a reputation of 2, so we can bump up 2 of the terms by 1, and then drop something by 2 to bump up one other by 1. Let’s bump up base pay and salvage both by 1. That should do it, I don’t really want to drop support, and transportation isn’t high enough to help. so here’s our new terms.

  • Base Pay: 120%
  • Support: Straight/100%
  • Transportation: 25%
  • Salvage: 60%
  • Command: Integrated

And we’re off! Just a single jump to Graus, costs 100SP but we only pay 75, score! Monthly pay and upkeep make us 100 more SP. We still have a few weeks in the first month, so we’re training with the White Orchid and learning about their operation and planning out defensive positions, waiting for whatever force the sea foxes send out way. We can also roll for a mech to buy each month, which we want to do since we can grab a hellcat this way! First roll is an 8, so we have one mech available to buy, now we can make a second roll to see if it’s a hellcat. Another 8, damn, just short of that hellcat, let’s see what it is then, this is just a roll on the Lyran Commonwealth purchase table. 15! That’s a Warhammer 9s, too pricey so we gotta pass.

Month 2! Pay and Upkeep puts us up 200 to 960 SP. We roll for mechs and BAM we get the Hellcat, Specifically a Hellcat P is now available for us to buy until the end of the contract for 1600 SP. So we’re going to hold off for now, we don’t need to go into debt atm. Track 1 is also this month, so we’ll make some extra cash, hopefully, and pick it up after.

Track 1 is a Meeting Engagement as the Sea Foxes hired mercs launch a probing attack on the White Orchid factory. We’re going with scale 1 for this track, we need cash but this is just a small probing force, no need to bring out the big guns just yet. For a mapsheet, it looks like volcanic or savannah. I don’t have either of those packs, I just grabbed grasslands, city and desert, almost got savannah but nope! We’ll roll for something that I have, looks like Hilltops from the Clan Invasion box, not bad. Now we just need complications and the OpFor. OpFor is easy, I rolled those up already, track 1 has us against a Warhammer 5L and a Grasshopper 8K. I recently realized that I have 5 warhammers, so this OpFor is going to be a painted warhammer and an unpainted warhammer as the grasshopper. Ok, complication, since we’re integrated we get a +3 ugh, 2+3 is 5! Looks like the Orchid’s final testing for the Hellcat has screwed up out missile supplies, meaning our SRM ammo bins are half empty and we can’t use alternate SRM ammo for this track…great.

Last but not least our force, I want to take the refit Adder, so that’s in with Sven behind the wheel. Our BV is a little awkward for scale 1 right now, so we’ll have Patricia join Sven in her Rifleman, so we don’t make the temp sit out on track 1 again. Also let’s try out a tank, it has to be the J. Edgar, Archimedes Sanchez needs some SP. Ok so here’s out track force:

  • Sven: Adder E BV: 1272
  • Patricia Darling: Rifleman 9T BV: 1503
  • Archimedes Sanchez: J. Edgar (xpulse) BV: 621

and the OpFor

  • Warhammer 5L with a 3/4 pilot named Karl Franz BV:1896
  • Grasshopper 8K with a 4/5 pilot, no name atm BV: 1754

Ready….FIGHT!

Ok, that was long but we’re finally ready to go! I gotta go play this game, and I’ll see you in the BatRep!

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