Gaining a Foothold

Bryant had three operational spaceports. The largest was located in the planetary capital of Brein, but Brein was a virtual fortress and the Company’s transports were not under contract to perform any combat-related maneuvers. Therefore, Colonel Ferrer chose the smaller and less heavily guarded spaceport in the coastal city of Kremwe, some 1700 kilometers from Brein.

Kremwe is located on the shores of the South Polar Sea and is well known for its fisheries which provide several delicacies enjoyed across the Inner Sphere. Because of the seafood exports, Kremwe had built its own spaceport to avoid the long transport to Brein. Scouting reports by recon infantry already on planet revealed that a company of conventional armor currently guarded the port as well as several gun emplacements. Charlie Company assault dropped from their Union dropship about five kilometers from the spaceport and moved quickly to bring it under their control.

After-Action Report

Although Charlie Company outclassed the conventional armor company protecting the spaceport, the four armored gun turrets sporting dual LB-X autocannons were a trickier challenge. While the rest of Charlie engaged the tanks, Lt. Rasmus and his lancemate Ricardo circled the spaceport buildings at high speed, pummeling the gun towers with laser fire. Eventually, they were able to bring all four towers down. Charlie company then crushed the remaining armor company with minimal difficulty, although the high-speed Galleon tanks proved a nuisance.

Damage to Charlie was fairly minimal except for Mechwarrior Girard’s Griffin GRF-1N. As a clan warrior unused to the limited capacity of single heat sinks, Girard overtaxed his machine with repeated alpha strikes. Eventually, the heat level was high enough to cause a catastrophic ammunition explosion that utterly destroyed the mech, although Girard ejected to safety.

Assault on Fort Stygia

Intelligence reports suggested that about a battalion of troop occupied the capital city of Brein, under the command of Colonel Hunt. After the Company spent three days unloading troops and supplies and fortifying Kremwe, it became apparent that Hunt would not attempt to meet them in the field. He appeared satisfied to hunker down in Brein.

Although the Bryant Regulars transport capacity was limited, Colonel Ferrer was concerned that the Regulars might reinforce their position in Brein. Therefore, leaving Charlie and Sierra companies to garrison Kremwe, he marched the the entire Company toward Brein to take the city.

Colonel Ferrer divided his forces into two task forces. The main task force would assault Fort Stygia, a large fortification near the edge of the city that was the center of Viscount Dvensky’s power. A secondary task force would secure the spaceport and with luck some of the Bryant Regulars’ transport capacity.

After-Action Report

The Company task force attacking Fort Stygia had the advantage of numbers, but the Bryant Regulars had seven heavily reinforced and powerful gun emplacements spread throughout the facility, as well as a full battery of sniper artillery, and an advantage in the number of mechs deployed. To counteract these threats, Colonel Ferrer commanded a divisionary group on the left flank that attempted to draw fire from the turrets and attention from the mechs, but then pulled back their attack. Meanwhile, the main attack force, screened by a full company of hovertanks, would attempt to break through the enemy lines on the right flank. At the same time, the flight of Pinto attack VTOLs would carry infantry behind enemy lines to take out the enemy artillery.

The plan worked well. A devastating barrage from the fleet Pegasus hovertanks, combined with accurate Arrow IV homing artillery quickly broke the right flank, and The Company flooded deeper into the base. The infantry assault on the artillery was bogged down, but did manage to keep the artillery units focused on them instead of shelling the Company. Colonel Ferrer’s divisionary left flank attack drew many of the defenders out of the line and severaly were crushed by combined fire. Seeing that any hope of containing the Company was lost, Colonel Hunt called for a fighting withdrawal and managed to limp away from Brein with just under a company of damaged vehicles and mechs. Reallizing the need to consolidate their gains, Colonel Ferrer did not give pursuit.

Taking the Brein Spaceport

While Colonel Ferrer assaulted Fort Stygia, Captain Salas led two companies of mechs and infantry against the Brein Spaceport. Intelligence reports suggested that the Bryant Regulars main transportation asset, a Leopard dropship was currently refueling on site as well as a Bucaneer cargo transport. The Company hoped to capture these assets before they could lift off.

A company of Bryant Regular mechs and vehicles defended the spaceport, with assorted infantry support.

After-Action Report

The company was able to draw the Bryant Regulars attention and allow the Karnov VTOLs to land infantry units near each refueling dropship. The infantry were able to board each dropship and commandeer them prior to their departure. Once they realized that the transports were compromised,The Bryant Regulars attempted to destroy them rather than retreating. The Regulars were able to destroy the Leopard class dropship before being eliminated almost to the last man.

Into the Storm

Once the Company had taken control of Brein and regrouped, it became clear that no further attack was imminent. With the major source of transport destroyed, it appeared that the remaining Bryant Regulars were satisfied to maintain the status quo. Interestingly Viscount Dvensky was nowhere to be found.

After two weeks of garrisoning Brein, the Company’s intelligence networks secured some very important information. The Bryant Regulars had indeed discovered a star league era stockpile in the storm-ridden interior of Bryant and had been recovering material from it for weeks. The contact, a local tech speculator, was even able to pinpoint the exact location. Apparently, the site was guarded by a company of Bryant Regular mechs and a Mule dropship was on-site to deliver equipment, although it often had to wait weeks for clear enough weather to lift off.

Colonel Ferrer weighed his options and decided to send a task force of four mech lances into the interior on foot to take control of this field site and eliminate resistance. It would be a difficult slog as the task force would need to proceed across the storm-wracked landscape on foot.

Captain Salas led the task force. It was a slow and arduous journey. They were often forced to stop when the storms became too dangerous and had little time to rest and maintain their vehicles. Ocassionally, they would pass through the eerie skeletal remains of Star League era cities or traverse old and broken highways. Finally, after almost two weeks of travel, they neared the site and prepared for combat. As they closed on the site, a storm brewed overhead and they were hit by a torrential downpour and fierce gusts of wind.

After-Action Report

Captain Salas led three lances in a direct attack on the site, while the fourth lance engaged in a flanking maneuver. As the two sides sighted each other through the storm, they exchanged long range fire through the scattered woodlands, but both sides had difficulty inflicting much damage at long range in the storm.

As the flanking lance crested a hill, several of the Regulars troops diverted off to meet this new threat, while the main bodies marched closer to one another in the driving rain. The battle devolved into two separate affairs. On the right flank, the heaviest mechs faced off against each other. At first, they exchanged fire at long range, but then the Company mechs moved forward en masse to close the distance. This bold action caught the Bryant Regular forces off-guard and they were placed on their back heel. When the commanding officer, piloting a vintage Star League Thug went down from combined fire, the remaining forces broke and ran.

Meanwhile, on the left flank, the jump-capable Company units played a dangerous game with the attacking forces, attacking quickly from one position before jumping to another. With their quick maneuverability, they were able to get the upper hand and slowly whittle away their opposition, until they too broke.

With nowhere to retreat to in this desolate landscape, the remaining Bryant Regular units surrendered. As his troops consolidated their victory, Captain Salas investigated the Star League site. It was a small depot built into the rocky walls of the canyon, partially hidden by a waterfall. Nearby was a stationary Mule dropship. Given the difficult weather, it made no attempt to flee and the Company was able to take control of the weaponless vessel easily. The depot itself had mostly been cleared of supplies, but the Company did find four vintage Star League meche stored in the Mule dropship as well as several pieces of advanced weapon technology, including several gauss rifles.

Second Battle of Brein

Captain Salas was eventually able to get a status message out to Colonel Ferrer during a brief lull in the weather. Colonel Ferrer was pleased to hear of the success of the task force, but now confronted his own challenge. Viscount Dvensky had returned in-system, apparently from a recent raiding operation and burned hard from the nadir jump point aboard his Fortress class dropship with a Mule class transport in tow.

Dvensky immediately headed for the Kremwe spaceport which the Company had deserted after conquering Brein. He then used his dropships to ferry the remaining Regular forces from the continent of Altario. Colonel Ferrer considered a quick strike to eliminate the Viscount before his forces could assemble but was concerned about being caught in the open and outnumbered if he failed to arrive in time. Instead, the Company hunkered down and prepared for the inevitable assault.

That assault came in the early morning hours of January 20th. The remaining Bryant Regulars forces, numbering almost two battalions of mechs and conventional armor, directly assaulted Fort Stygia.

After-Action Report

The Bryant Regular forces charged in toward the Company’s position, but pulled up short when faced with the gun emplacements of Fort Stygia. Concerned about charging into concentrated fire, Viscount Dvensky pulled most of his troops back to snipe at the enemy gun towers while his faster units made sorties against the enemy lines.

Although the Regulars lost several units in these sorties, this approach might have worked well were it not for the Company’s artillery. The shells fell amongst the Regulars heavier rear units and did considerable damage, while the Company conducted sorties of their own with hovercraft and VTOL units.

With his forces dangerously close to losing their shape, Viscount Dvensky ordered all units to surge forward, hoping to overwhelm the Company with numbers. This charge was abruptly halted, however, when Colonel Hunt’s Striker mech went down under combined enemy fire from the Company mechs entrenched in the hills over Fort Stygia. The Regulars were mostly planetary militia and with the loss of their nominal commander, many broke. Seeing that the objective was unattainable, Viscount Dvensky called for a fighting withdrawal. Once out of the line of fire, Viscount Dvensky raced his troops across the frozen tundra back toward his dropships in Kremwe.

Tundra Showdown

After briefly re-arming in the field, Colonel Ferrer sent almost all of his capable mech and armor units forward to pursue the retreating Bryant Regulars, leaving his infantry and slower and damaged armor units to guard Fort Stygia. He also ordered the Karnov VTOLs to load up four platoons of infantry and attempt to reach Kremwe before Viscount Dvensky to take control of his transport assets.

As Colonel Ferrer marched his forces in pursuit, he received a communication from Captain Salas. Captain Salas’s task force had finally seen a brief period of blue skies overhead and had used the opportunity to lift off in their newly acquired Mule dropship. Seeing an opportunity, Colonel Ferrer redirected the task force to land outside of Kremwe.

After landing, Captain Salas unloaded his forces and marched on the Kremwe spaceport, where he was able to get the dropships to stand down after a few warning shots. Leaving the arriving infantry to secure the spaceport, Captain Salas then turned his task force toward the approaching Bryant Regulars. His job was to hold them long enough for Colonel Ferrer’s forces to catch them from behind and finish them off.

After-Action Report

Viscount Dvensky charged the Company’s position, hoping to break their lines before the bulk of the Company caught up to him from behind. Captain Salas’s units were hard-pressed and suffered extensive damage, but were able to slow down the charging units long enough for the remainder of the Company to catch up. At that point, the Bryant Regulars discipline shattered and they attempted to sprint through Captain Salas’s line in order to make it to their dropship. A few units did make it through, but many were destroyed in the chaotic rush.

The Company coming up from behind focused their fire on Viscount Dvensky’s Pillager. When his mech was finally disabled from a Pegasus SRM volley, he was surrounded and captured by the Company’s swift hovercraft. He then ordered his remaining units to stand down.

Thus ended the tyranny of Viscount Dvensky. He was put in the brig in order to be shipped back to New Home and stand trial for piracy. The Company allowed the remaining Bryant Regulars - a little under two companies of mechs and armor - to remain free as a planetary militia. However, they did insist on taking their transports to prevent any future return to piracy.

The Company’s attempt to take the dropships ran into some bureaucratic issues. They were approached by members of the civil government who insisted that the dropships were property of the Bryant planetary government and any attempt to seize them would be considered an act of piracy which would be reported to the MRBC. After several communiques to Outreach and back, the Company was able to negotiate a settlement. Because the Fortress-class dropship and one of hte Mule dropships had been engaged in piracy, they were considered a fair prize, but the Company would have to leave the remaining dropship in the hands of the Bryant planetary government.