Operation 4: Mission 4...
I'm going to call this one an ass kicker to be honest. I could not use the same tactics I used when using clan tech. As desribed in my last post, I send a scout to destroy the western bridges which forces the enemy to go the long way around. I normally cross my main forces and then have the scout mech blow it.
So I tried different ways to approach the mission and was overwhelmed to say the least. I believe I had two Awesome, one catapult, and three or four Centurion's, and one repair truck. One of my failures, I was down a few battlemechs, and the two Loki's/Thor's showed up... it was pitiful to say the least.
So I discovered that if you do not rush in and capture the industrial complexes they will not attack them until very late in the mission. So I would go to the center bridge and have my forces go to the other side. When the star of Hunchback IIC's was on the bridge, which lead with three W's, I would destroy the bridge on both sides and take them out. It is a nasty trick, which works flawlessly, make sure you destroy the two J's in the back first so they don't rush and jump on you.
I then would move toward location 1 on the map, after getting so close I would repair, mainly for ammo. All you have to do is get within a certain range and every Firestarter will rush out to attack you. To help things, I would split my groups into two, though they often targeted my Awesome W. This way you could switch targets rather easily, and each group would have range on another.
Repairs would follow, and you could get close enough to Location 1 to visually see the two Thor's. Using the large artillery strike, I would hurt if not severely damage one of them. This comes in handy because they are evil in close range. After disposing of them, repairing, you have to take out a few battlemechs coming from the north, after doing so rush in and take out the tanks, but watch out for those bulldogs getting close range.
There are a few more battlemechs, some Loki's, Hunchback IIC's, and Firestarters that will come from the north. Once destroyed I would capture all the resource buildings and then capture the industrial complexes.
A warning, if you wait to long to go to Location 1 and destroy the forces they will start destroying the factories. I would recommend not capturing them until you have cleared the area, they will not attack them until very late in the mission.
At the end of the mission I had lost one centurion, pilot ejected safely. The Awesome W lost all weapons, which I was not sure how but his almost entire internal structure had been hurt, but there were no rear damage and the frontal armor was still intact, very weird. Another Centurion had lost an arm and all the weapons, a guass, 1 autocannon, 1 laser. Other then that, things went well once I got the feel for the mission.
One thing I wish you could do, and maybe if someone tackles a future mechcommander mod or something, is being allowed like mechwarrior to place the weapons in locations manually. I find it annoying when one of your mechs loses an arm and you have lost all weapons... I know in mechcommander 2, you can manually do this with the battlemech files, it is like having a spreadsheet like in the tabletop games, but you just have to manually do all this.
And like I said before, the Centurion has been a work horse for me. One guass, 1 autocannon, 1 laser for a nice punch. Or for closer range, 1 heavy autocannon, 1 large pulse, though this has to be supported by others to be successful.
