EPIC: early career fight

[Keggy]

I would like to start off saying I've had a slow start to the expansion. Started a new career mode game, with very weak mechwarriors . Maybe 14-16 battles in and I still dd not have a second medium mech. Even my mechwarriors were just getting their first abilities and I was repairing everything when I jumped to my new planet.

Well I choose a mission where they tell me to take out some old warriors, their mechs may be unkept but they can still kill you.....

I launch with a---
Jenner
Vindicator
Panther
Firestarter

the only enemies are 2 BIG mechs at 75% armor! a
Thunderbolt TDR-5SE
Orion ON1-K

They beat me up pretty bad so I only got only piece of salvage each but GOD that was fun. Most of us get so used to being outnumbered. This mission was the most fun Ive had in a while. Even if I couldn't get Head shots for extra parts

 

[mjbroekman]

Those unexpected heavies definitely make things interesting...even when in horrible condition.

 

[Keggy]

There is something about taking a 4 man group to tackle a 2 man opfor that is just fun as can be/..

 

[Jade_Rook]

I love unexpectedly difficult missions. Ones where I get surprised by the reinforcements or the enemies end up a bit tougher than expected.

Some of my best experiences:
Running a Firestarter after a convoy (including a Manticore and a couple medium tanks) and trying to quickly stomp them without getting blown apart because the entire rest of my lance was either delayed by the guards or too slow to reach them.
Having a surprise Jagermech spawn behind my lance and out of sensor range while I tried to take out a convoy with a couple Demolishers. Had to keep backing up out of the Demolisher's range without leaving my back exposed to the Jagermech.
A capture base mission in the jungle against two lances of unexpectedly tough mediums. Had to balance advancing enough to get kills while backing up enough that the turrets couldn't shoot me.

 

[Nakkivene]

Sounds like I need to start career mode. I've faced one 2-man lance as a diff-5 mission when I'm running 4 assaults and unless my memory is really, really short, one enemy was a Locust and the other a Cyclops.

 

[Jonathan8883]

I got that exact same combo. I was running a medium lance and had just gotten Tactics 6 for a few of my mechwarriors so... 3/3 Orion parts and my first heavy. I had a double heat sink from an event, so I put that in, dropped the LRM15 boat anchor, and bumped the missile payload up to a couple of SRM6s and. I also threw on the TTS +1 ballistic that I picked up from the flashpoint.

 

[stjobe]

Sounds fun

Reminds me of my second drop (with four Locusts) in my Plague of Locusts campaign, where the opfor contained a CN9-L... That got real messy real quick.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

From its very first description by HBS, I knew I was going to like Career Mode.

But here I am, four-days past FLASHPOINT release and nearly 90% of my gaming time is monopolized by the addictive gameplay of Career Mode!

Great Mode, Epic Fights... and always with an eye toward the Calendar when it comes to Mercenary Outfit Management Decisions!!!

Do I run this next fight with Internal Structure Damage to two of my Mechs? YES, do NOT waste days in Maintenance!

Do I run this next Mission with 3 of 4 MechWarriors being from the B-Team? YES, do NOT waste days in the MedBay!

Do I run a full 12-mechs and 8-MechWarrior, with an explicit goal of someday soon being able to complete all of a world’s Missions on a single day? YES. Earning Cbills is a Career Mode Evaluation Criteria... fiscal responsibility and conservative growth of one’s Mercenary Outfit (other than not going bankrupt in the process) is not an evaluation criteria.


Are there risks?

Yes.


But I estimate that I’ve saved more than 60-days in this first 350-days of the Career Mode by taking and succeeding at such risks.

So. Very FUN! : )

 

[Fallenkezef]

I love how random the game is. Went into a mission against a scout lance, turned out to be 2 WVR's, Griffon and a Trebuchet with a Thunderbolt, grasshopper and a hatchetman as reinforcement.

Two missions later I went hunting for a pirate in a heavy to find a Jagermech and some speed bump lights I never even noticed when I killed them.

It's a great game!

 

[Prussian Havoc]

I love how random the game is. Went into a mission against a scout lance, turned out to be 2 WVR's, Griffon and a Trebuchet with a Thunderbolt, grasshopper and a hatchetman as reinforcement.

Two missions later I went hunting for a pirate in a heavy to find a Jagermech and some speed bump lights I never even noticed when I killed them.

It's a great game!

If Military Intelligence were EVER perfect, I'd not have had a 23-year Career in it.

HBS got the vagaries and variability of the World of Intelligence Dissemination just right, in my opinion.

This is not an Intel Collection, Analysis and Dissemination SIM (though I would buy or Kickstart the Hells out of such a game app!), so HBS's portrayal of Military Contract Intelligence as sometimes more "Miss" than "Hit," to me effectively conveys the heart of a subject I have learned, practiced and in my time, taught.


So yes, I am a fan of Darius, my ARGO XO and would-be Intelligence Professional. Though I too hope he gets it "More Right Than Not" next time too. : )




5-minute EDIT: Though I am greatly pleased that Darius not only makes use of, but cites Orbital Imagery whenever possible. : )

 

[jj284b]

fighting 2 heavies in shady condition is easy.. facing 8 lights where some of them are Firestarters is a lot more dangerous... they get a lot of evasion and o plenty of damage... against heavies, you can just use terrain and initiative advantage...

 

[stjobe]

I just remembered another doozy; that "four old mercs never got the message that the war is over" mission. Dropped it with my lance of CN9-A, Shadow Hawk, Panther, Jenner. Came up against a JagerMech, Grasshopper, Dragon, Catapult. All with 75% armor.

I made it, but had to idle in orbit for about three months afterwards.

 

[mjbroekman]

While not epic in terms of fighting heavies, I just ran a ** 1.5 ** skull battle that kicked my butt...
My lance:
* Vindicator
* Panther
* Jenner
* Jenner

OpFor:
* Vindicator
* Trebuchet
* Wolverine 6K
* Wolverine 6R

OpFor was fully armored...

I ejected one of my Jenner pilots after it took a couple hits in the CT that left it with 2 structure left.
I ejected my Vindicator after it had it's PPC blown off and 11 structure left in the CT.
My Panther pilot died when the OpFor Vindicator punched him in the cockpit.
And the other Jenner was a one-armed (and one side-torso), one-legged, bare-chested mess when I finally put down the Vindicator for the victory.

This was on a desert map with a valley in the middle and a rise in the valley with a mineral field around one of it. The enemy Trebuchet was the first one to come in visual range and we hammered the daylights out of it. But the round after the Treb went down, I ejected my Jenner pilot.

A few rounds later, I chose discretion over valor and ejected my Vindi pilot.

The Panther and Jenner played a LOT of hopscotch to take out the 6R and 6K, but both were hurting. And then the Vindicator ran up the side of the valley, through 3 dots of tree cover and planted a left hook through the Panther's cockpit (killing the pilot). And then the Jenner was in trouble. It had already lost one side torso in the process of killing the 6K and lost the opposite leg engaging with the Vindi, but moving maximum distances between the mineral field and the nearby woods kept it hard to hit and it was able to take off the left torso of the Vindi before getting a good left flank firing solution and finishing the job.

I picked up the last Trebuchet piece I needed for my second medium and then spent 300k starting repairs. I was able to find a nice little backwater called Independence to travel to and get my lance repaired (and pilots recovered) to the point where I can do ANY contracts. And now I need to see where / how to go from here. It's definitely not a game breaker but wow it's a lot tougher now.