Do-or-Die

Mercenaries cautiously pick their way through the woods before the shoot-out begins.

So, two defeats on the trot, down one commanding officer and with nothing left in the kitty to pay for repair bills, the Mercenaries are on their last legs and know another heavy defeat would render them completely combat ineffective. Rather than retreat to lick their wounds though, they decide to stake it all on one last roll of the dice, hurling their full strength at the local Word of Blake garrison (Camp Satanic Mills) despite failing to obtain any useful intel in the last game.

The lightly armoured Wasp goes down early, while the Blakists scatter to prevent the Mercenaries from concentrating their fire.

Due to the lack of recon, the WoB would be in greater strength and with better kit than hoped, but the Merenaries knew their backs were against the wall, and were willing to fight to the bitter end to try and snatch a victory. Knowing they were outranged by the opposition, the plan was to advance slowly through the woods before all breaking cover simultaneously to make it harder to pick them off one-by-one. The Blakists were content to allow this, and avoid being drawn into a struggle at close-quarters by going into the woods. At the last possible moment however, the Commando and Champion dashed forwards into close range to prevent the Mercenaries from concentrating their fire on one 'Mech at a time. Caught making its way out of the woods, the lightly armoured wasp was the first to fall as its light armour was swiftly broken through by the Blakists' guns.

Two 'Mechs down, the Mercenaries nevertheless press on with their heaviest units in the hope of turning the tide.

The mercenaries pressed on, with the Crusader hanging back to provide long-range missile support while the Wolverine and Cyclops . The WoB's range advantage was somewhat nullified by the close combat, and damage was quickly mounting on both sides. The Wolverine went down next, while the armour on the Cyclops was looking a little thin. 

With 3 mercenary 'Mechs down and 2 WoB in forced withdrawal, if all comes down to the Crab vs the Crusader.

Despite a good turn of speed for its weight and a powerful auto-cannon 20, the Cyclops's weaker armour gave way under the onslaught and it lost a leg, but not before first the Champion and then the Commando were driven from the field by heavy damage (the Mercenaries, knowing this was a do-or-die mission, were immune from this condition). 

A ray of hope for the Mercenaries as the crab takes a tumble under a barrage of missiles.

It was down to the last two 'mechs, an almost pristine crab and a slightly wobbly looking Crusader squaring off in the clearing between the forest and the lower slopes of the hill. Despite the range advantage of its PPCs, the Crab began closing the distance under a hail of long-range missiles from the Crusader. One particularly accurate barrage even knocked the mech off-balance, but the elite pilot recovered and closed in to short range. Even able to employ its impressive arsenal of short-range lasers and missiles, the Crusader was no match for the more advanced technology of the Crab and finally succumbed to catastrophic damage.

Despite everything, the Crusader goes down.

 Well, after 3 games and 3 defeats the Mercenaries are out of 'Mechs and out of resources. The campaign track I'm working on still has six more scenarios to go, so I'll be subbing in a new force from the Lyran Alliance, specifically the 24th Lyran Guards for you fellow anoraks. I've learned a bit how to work these Chaos Campaign scenarios as both a gamer (how to organise a fair fight) and as a player (trying to beat myself) now, so hopefully we will see a greater variety of results in the future.