#scumsetting

[oshlet]

'B team', part of a larger mercenary force sent to the coastal city-state of Sunlanding on contract to break the offensive of Könist Hydropower's military branch, the River Patrol, which seeks to take Sunlanding to consolidate the corpo-state's power over the river and surrounding wetlands.

Lohan Scott light mechs are the second most common type on Sond, and by far the most common in use by mercenaries. Different models vary wildly between each other, and B team uses one of the more stripped down models, the 60: Easier to maintain, which suits their usual mission profile of only limited external support.

Their main armaments are semi-automatic 80mm cannons - common on rebel light tanks during the revoloutionary war, they function well enough against mechs and light vehicles, although fare poorly against main tanks. The leftmost mech is armed with a 25mm smartcannon instead. Smartcannons are odd weapons - by all means the ubiquity of LPDs (Laser Point Defences) should render them useless, but in ambushes and in protracted combats where fragile laser emitters can suffer damage, they still remain a tangible threat.

[oshlet]

Three CRM light mechs (two snow-dopes, one snow-dope heavy) on patrol in the flats of Sond's north pole, acting as a show of force in response to increasing ice-pirate activity in the region. The North Pole watchpoint maintains a garrison of 15 light mechs at all times, alongside a host of transport and utility vehicles and experimental units undergoing testing in the isolated region.

The Snow Dope is a fairly standard light mech, featuring a head mounted point defence laser, back mounted choke-grenade launcher and normally equipped with an autocannon rifle and shoulder-mounted single-shot laser array. The Dope heavy is almost identical save for additional support servos on the legs, a waist mount for a heavy weapon and its ammunition, a second shoulder mount and a bulked up cooling system.

Most models of heavy dope have no additional armour compared to the standard and are thus marked as priority targets by enemy combatants. Their extra weight and size also makes them less manoeuvrable, making them unpopular to pilot. That said, the additional firepower is always respected and the rest of the squad will usually make efforts to defend their heavy.

[oshlet]

So much for regularity, took a bit longer than I thought.

System-11 Heavy Aquatic Mech, modified for ground use in Sond's North Pole. HAMs, and heavy mechs in general, are a rarity on modern battlefields: their size and sluggishness makes them vulnerable to tank-fire, although they still retain a niche on especially rough terrain where such vehicles struggle to be deployed.

[oshlet]

Bandit-piloted revolutionary era P-Man A model. Over half a century old, the machine was discovered in a forgotten weapons cache and restored to functionality by cannibalising other machines for replacement parts. While formidable back during its introduction, with its impressive terrain traversal abilities and long range, the A model is sorely lacking in the modern battlefield.

Of course, Bandits would avoid pitched battles anyway, and the machine is tooled more for intimidation and raiding. Thick ERA bricks help provide some supplemental defence to the already decently thick plating on the 'Man, while the flamethrower makes the machine a terrifying prospect to any lightly defended villages it comes across.

The 9 eyes across the torso is in reference to the 9-eyed heavy mechs of the devastation era. Equipped with tactical nuclear weaponry to crack through each other's armour, they laid waste to several planets and sundered humanity. Even 9 dots arranged in a grid pattern is thought to bring bad luck and only the most misanthropic of pilots consider the 9 eyes as decoration.

[oshlet]

Lohan-Scott 'Vagabond' MBT, a refit of the chassis, swapping its 120mm gun for a high-energy laser instead. With energy storage becoming ever more powerful, several larger militaries have refitted some of their AFVs with energy weapons. Although lacking the indirect fire and multiple ammunition types of conventional guns, lasers are exceptionally precise and also remove the risk of ammunition cook-offs.

While unable to match the all-terrain nature of mechs as well as their agility and variable profiles, tanks are still widely used due to their ability to fit more armour and firepower on a platform for a cheaper price-point. Head to head, a tank is normally the favoured combatant, but a mech's strategic mobility allows it to find effective vantage points for ambushing such vehicles. Across open plains however, the tank still reins supreme.

[oshlet]

'Fairy' Light Mech. A design originating from the more piracy inclined spacer tribes of System-11. It pulls double duty as the favoured mech of spacer mercenaries operating on Sond and a means of amping up muscle on ship and station raids. The ground and space types vary in propulsion systems, with one of the more noticeable changes being the swapping of the wings for large radiator elements, but otherwise the variants have enough commonality between them that one can be converted to the other without the need for sophisticated maintenance facilities.

Spacer technology in general is moderately more advanced than Sond natives, and spacer mercenaries operating planet-side are eager to flaunt this, usually painting their mechs in bright primary colours to show off. Their higher technology isn't insurmountable however, and a number of mercenaries have lost their lives showboating before forces they were convinced were of no threat.

[oshlet]

'Tresspasser' Gunship, workhorse of the System-11 rebels. A good deal smaller than the scorpion, but slower and less agile. These are old school rotary wings, dug out from colonial caches or sold on the cheap by spacer black marketeers. The designs predates ubiquitous pd lasers on vehicles, so the rebels had to jury rig a bulky unit on the right side, and an accompanying cooling system on the left. The modifications make handling awful, but it beats getting nailed by smart-munitions.

The 20mm cannon on the bottom is only really effective at shooting soft targets and unarmoured vehicles, which the laser can also pull double duty on. Later in the conflict, they ended up being filled with choke rounds instead to break up sightlines and blind targets in preperation for rocket strikes.

Although its not a great flyer, the excellent visibility afforded by the bubble canopy and roomy interior means that while its not a beloved machine by pilots, its certainly not hated. Mechanics love the thing, though - colonial equipment is famously rugged and easy to work on (although the laser mount is a bit more of a pain to fix).

[oshlet]

War Ape Spacecraft-Mech. Scattered across Crossroads like cockroaches, they vary wildly in form aside from the standardised pattern of four limbs, and the brain-stem linking system which allows suitably augmented pilots to control the machine as if it were their own body. The system is incredibly crude, especially compared to NuHuSoc's mastery of bioengineering.

Crudeness aside, the system's relatively safe aside from the dangerous installation process of the body hardware required for interface. It still has a reputation for being a killer because of the abilities it offers the pilots. Heightened awareness from a body studded with cameras, the incredible power of the rocket motors. The transformation from meat to machine is addictive, and pilots frequently push for extended hours, usually ending in their demise as mistakes happen and systems fail.