Week of November 4, 3022: The invasion of the Lyran Commonwealth’s critical border world of Tamar, capital of the sector commenced as multiple Draconis Combine forces land. Among the invading forces is the mercenary company Phoenix Armament, recently contracted to assist in the attack.

The Combine picked an opportune time to stage the assault with defending forces at an all time low. To help turn the tide, Lyran Commonwealth officials led by the Duke of Tamar himself, recruited the Daunt’s Fusiliers mercenary company.

Upon their dropship’s descent, the Phoenix Armament’s deployment was discovered and despite their intention to operate and strike clandestinely, they came under attack from a scout lance of the Fusiliers.

Seizing the initiative in the opening stages of the conflict, the Fusiliers move their lance in under strict orders to recon the enemy, capturing scans and imagery of their supplies, and escape back to their base of operations.

Led by a Trebuchet, the Lyran-contracted mercenaries move in swiftly, scanners picking up three possible locations that the cache may be located. Light mechs, a Spider and Cicada, charge ahead of the Trebuchet and the Phoenix Hawk.

The cicada moves to the first reading that is a bit further West of the other two. The spider provides additional backup but cannot close to confirm the readings so it’s all on the Cicada, with the enemy closing around fast. With little to no close support, the Cicada is able to confirm that the reading is genuine and grabs several pictures of the cache, then moves to disengage.

The Spider and the Phoenix Hawk jump into the fray while the Cicada peels back, causing mayhem and damage but the PA Mercenary Force mechs do not suffer too greatly. Unable to match speed, the Cicada breaks free while the furball carries the action into an open field near the lake.

In the final stages as the Cicada completes its withdrawal to successfully finish the mission, Fusilier mechs manage to score a lucky shot to knock down the Combine Raven, then scoring a crippling kick to the center torso that secures the secondary objective in favor of the Lyran Commonwealth mercenaries.

With no hope of catching the Cicada and preventing its data from falling into the enemy commander’s hands, the Phoenix Armament lance withdraws, leaving behind the ruined Raven.

With this important data in hand, the Fusiliers will look to form a better strike plan in a follow up battle next week. He sets about formulating his plan for attack…

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A few things led to my decisive victory here- most notably that upon scanning the first of the three objectives, I found the one I was looking for. So by doing that, waiting a turn to photograph and running away immediately, meant I didn’t need to waste at least 1-2 turns moving to and scanning the other objectives. It was very fortunate.

The defenders (Phoenix Armament) lacked overall mobility which their commander insists cost them but I think it was a combination of bad luck and perhaps poor planning on the objectives in general. He saw the Phoenix Hawk and Spider as extremely agile mechs, which I needed and kept moving fast so it was very hard to hit them, but thought his own force lacked that sort of mobility.

Which it did, but I don’t think he needed the mobility that I needed when it came down to that mission.

Check out the next episode of the Tamar Campaign here:

BATTLE 2: BREAKTHROUGH CONQUEST

The second week of action sees the Daunt’s Fusiliers mercenary company following up on their major victory in the Tamar Inlet Peninsula.