Tag Archives: NPCs

NPC: Technical Sergeant Luis Hernandez, U.S. Air Force

Luis Hernandez grew up in New Hampshire in the shadow of Mount Washington. Being able to see the peak with the reputed worst weather in the country spurred what would become a lifelong interest in meteorology. After completing his undergraduate studies at CU Boulder, he spent a couple of years working for the National Weather Service, but desk-bound work was eating his soul. When a co-worker mentioned that the Air Force had its own meteorologists, Luis skipped lunch to visit the local recruiter’s office. A line on a list of job options leaped out at him: “Special Operations Weather Technician.” It sounded pretty badass…

Hernandez was one of the few AFSOC personnel still operating in the European theatre by mid-2000. When Task Force Cobalt was being assembled, someone with stars on his collar decided the team might be able to use a shooter with some geek credentials. When things came apart in the days after the raid on Lodz, Hernandez found himself in a HMMWV with Cat Mitchell and two other survivors…


Strength C: Stamina D

Agility B: Mobility C (Paratrooper), Ranged Combat C (Rifleman)

Intelligence A: Recon C, Survival B (Meteorologist), Tech D (Communications)

Empathy C

Key Gear: comms and signals kit, M4A1

Languages: Russian (basic), Spanish (basic), Polish (fragmentary)

NPC: Spec/4 Henry Bell, U.S. Army

Before the war, Henry was a saxophonist in the U.S. Army Band, in it for the G.I. Bill benefits.  No one was more surprised than he when he was deployed to perform his original MOS as a signals intelligence voice intercept linguist.  He spent most of the war in a SIGINT truck behind the lines, trying to pluck Soviet transmissions out of the air.

Bell was captured after the Battle of Kalisz when 5th ID’s headquarters was overrun. He spent several weeks as a Soviet POW before seizing a chance to escape, which was when he encountered the team. Since then, he’s been filling in on a variety of support tasks for Ellis. He’s currently assigned as the driver for Comms, the team’s BTR-70K, though he’s both more adept and happier as a linguist and radio operator.


Strength C

Agility C: Driving D, Ranged Combat D

Intelligence A: Recon C, Survival D, Tech C

Empathy B: Persuasion B (Linguist, Musician)

Key Gear: radio; an AKM he’d rather not have to use

Languages: Russian (native), Korean (fluent), Polish (fluent), German (pidgin)

NPC: PFC Allison Ortiz, U.S. Army

Shit, man, I just wanted to get out of South Miami and get money for college. How was I supposed to know the Army was gonna have a war?

Alison Ortiz is a short, well-muscled Latina with intense eyes and a prominent burn scar on her left cheek.  Cuban-born, she came to Florida with her family as part of the 1980 Mariel boatlift.  As a teenager in South Miami, she split her time between the emerging street-racing culture and her parents’ Key Biscayne dive shop. 

Alison enlisted in the Army at 18 to earn G.I. Bill benefits.  Originally trained in supply and logistics, she took the opportunity to cross over to infantry duty when the Army opened up combat careers to women in late 1996.  She figured that if she was going to get sent to war anyway, her chances of survival would be better around actual soldiers than in the middle of a collection of clerks and jerks.  In retrospect, it may not have been the best idea, but it’s gotten her this far.

Alison was formerly a squad automatic riflewoman in 3-143 Infantry, one of the component units of the U.S. 5th Infantry Division.  She was captured after the Battle of Kalisz when her vehicle was struck by artillery fire and spent several weeks as a Soviet POW before the team liberated her. Currently, her usual assignment is driver for the expedition team’s 10-ton truck, Industrial Light and Mayhem.


Strength B: Heavy Weapons B, Stamina C (Load Carrier)

Agility B: Driving C (Racer), Mobility C (Diver), Ranged Combat D

Intelligence B: Survival D

Empathy C

Key Gear: RPK-74; M9

Languages: Cuban Spanish (native), English (fluent but accented), Polish (pidgin)

Clearing the Air: The Skysweepers

Originally posted to the CGL Battletech forums in 2021.


Early in his training, Count Prasad Wickham realized he possessed two qualities that would be most unbecoming in a MechWarrior of the AFFS: total ineptitude for piloting and extreme physical cowardice.  His saving grace, however, was an equally strong aptitude for gunnery, honed by a youth spent winning sport hunting championships across New Ivaarsen.  Providentially, his ancestral ‘Mech was a Rifleman, which suggested a certain path toward safety without the appearance of dishonorable behavior…

Upon earning his spurs and being posted to the 1st New Ivaarsen Chasseurs, then-Sergeant Wickham was to be assigned to a line company’s fire lance.  He leveraged his family connections to  instead attach himself to the regimental command lance as a supernumerary.  The pretext was that this posting would enable him to learn leadership from Marshal Nicholas Stephenson while providing additional anti-air protection to the headquarters.  Stephenson seemingly accepted this at face value – then promptly began using Wickham as an additional aide-de-camp, tripling the young nobleman’s workload as an unspoken message that he’d seen through the subterfuge.

Not willing to risk reassignment to front-line combat, Wickham grimly suffered through his “learning experiences” until Operation Rat.  During the New Hessen offensive, he received his first taste of combat when a Capellan conventional fighter wing broke through the Chasseurs’ aerospace cover for a bombing raid on the regiment’s landing zone.  Wickham accounted for five fighter kills in as many minutes, breaking the Capellan strike before it could incinerate the regiment’s supplies.  Subsequent similar engagements on Alrescha and Yangtze proved that regardless of Wickham’s personal character, he actually was a superb air defense marksman.

On Hamal, Wickham’s luck in avoiding the front lines ran out when a scout company from the planetary militia caught the regimental headquarters in movement between positions.  BattleROMs of Wickham’s Rifleman ponderously attempting to flee from light ‘Mechs a third of its mass quickly made the rounds, forever stifling the man’s chances of further respect, let alone promotion, within the AFFS.  At the campaign’s conclusion, Wickham quietly resigned from the AFFS.  He then encountered a new problem: an obscure clause in his patent of nobility required him to maintain active MechWarrior status to hold his title and ownership of his Mech.  The framers had neglected, however, to require this status to be within the AFFS…

Wickham quickly announced that he was forming a new mercenary command.  Drawing on his demonstrated expertise (and expending no small amount of influence to bury the scandalous BattleROMs), he positioned this unit as an air defense specialist formation.  Not coincidentally, this enabled him – or, rather, his lawyers – to contractually limit the conditions under which the unit could be ordered into combat.

Wickham had intended to form an unhireable mercenary lance which would serve as a legal fiction for maintaining his title.  He was astonished to receive over two dozen applications from across the Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth, mostly fellow Rifleman and JagerMech owners who saw such a unit as a chance to preserve their own vulnerable ‘Mechs and their attendant social status.  This was, if not a chance at redemption, at least an unforeseen opportunity for prestige.  Despite his best efforts, Wickham had actually learned a fair amount about both martial leadership and unit management during his years at Marshal Stephenson’s side.  The unit’s resulting success was as much of a surprise to Wickham as it was to his many detractors within the AFFS. 

Today, the Skysweepers are a battalion-strength combined arms unit.  The full battalion has never taken a contract.  Instead, contracts attach individual companies or even lances to larger commands which need supplemental air defense capability.  Contracts still strictly limit the conditions under which commanders can order Skysweepers detachments into direct ground combat.  Few Skysweepers MechWarriors chafe under these restrictions, as they tend to join the unit because of its specialization.

To emphasize the Skysweepers’ unique role, Wickham styles his top-level formations as batteries rather than companies.  Each is a mixed force, with two BattleMech lances and a third lance of Partisan SPAA.  Over half the unit’s ‘Mechs are Riflemen and JagerMechs.  The unit’s sole assault ‘Mech is a Longbow, with a pair of Orions and an Archer rounding out the heavies.  The remainder, collected in Battery C for contracts requiring better mobility, are Hatchetmen, Blackjacks, and Valkyries.

One other asset not appearing on the Skysweepers’ combat TO&E is Company D.  This is a pool of techs, coolant trucks, and ammunition carriers which Wickham attaches as needed to deployed units.  This provides vastly-increased endurance to ‘Mechs and Partisans operating from fixed positions, allowing near-continuous fire in the face of sustained air attack.  Company D’s most recent addition is a trio of former fighter pilots, all medically retired, who can serve as liaison officers to a host unit’s own aerospace assets, hopefully reducing the chance of friendly fire.


GM Notes

Like my other units posted here, The Skysweepers are more of a niche concept and plot device than a viable unit for actual play.  This entry doesn’t give a specific date for the unit profile but my assumption is the late 3030s.  The Skysweepers will likely be around through the 3040s and vanish in the inferno of the Clan Invasion before they can invest in Ultra and LB-X upgrades.

As indicated in the main text, Skysweepers detachments will typically be encountered in defensive roles.  This isn’t to say they’re assigned only to defensive contracts, though.  As their founder demonstrated in Operation Rat, offensives need AAA cover too.  They typically protect regimental or RCT headquarters units, drop ports, logistics hubs, convoys, and other targets that might attract ASF, atmospheric fighter, or VTOL attacks.  They’re rarely assigned to cover front-line units, a contractual limit that is likely to cause constant friction with those units – especially if they sustain losses from air strikes.

The TO&E isn’t actually that interesting, so I haven’t spelled it out in great detail.  At the GM’s discretion, the Skysweepers may have a cozy relationship with Kallon, Bane of All That Flies.  In this case, they could be early recipients of prototype Rifleman, JagerMech, or Partisan upgrades in the 3040s if it’s appropriate for a scenario or story.

Skysweepers MechWarriors tend to align with Wickham’s skill set: mediocre pilots but excellent gunners.  Particularly in the unit’s founding years, everyone who joined up did so because they enjoyed the social status of being MechWarriors but didn’t want to risk their lives (or Dispossession) in front-line combat.  In some cases, this was cowardice; in others, somewhat-realistic recognition of the limits of Kallon’s designs outside their intended niche.  As production increases throughout the 3030s and 3040s and the social distinction of owning a ride implicitly lessens, these personalities will be increasingly out of touch with the Inner Sphere’s mainstream noble and martial culture.

Four Operators #4

Closing out the series after Brass, Fix, and Crashcart. Final thoughts about the team at the bottom.


Blank Path (Gaius Zimmerman)

Blank Path is a man of faith. What that faith may be is currently undefined, because I had no idea where to go when the dice gave me a Clergy background for my final operator, but this dude definitely believes in something strongly enough to be a militant street preacher of his particular truth. Moreover, with Voice of the People giving him Pop Idol 2, he apparently has a substantial following among the city’s underclass. Of the four characters I rolled up, he’s mechanically the least effective, and the most frustrating from a characterization perspective – a pure face with a cause. But I find myself surprisingly interested to see where he goes.

(Of the four, he had the objectively worst attribute rolls. The combination of a rolled CHA 7 and Clergy background pretty much obligated me to spend an edge slot on Prodigy to make him an effective man of the cloth.)


Attributes: STR 11, DEX 11, CON 8, INT 10, WIS 14 (+1), CHA 18 (+3 from Prodigy)

Skills: Lead-1, Perform-1, Stab-0, Talk-0

Edges: Prodigy, Voice of the People

Foci: Diplomat 1, Pop Idol 2

HP 6; attack bonus +0; saves physical 15+, evasion 15+, mental 12+, luck 15+

Contacts: see below

Equipment: Fashionable clothing; reinforced clothing; basic smartphone; sword; knife; trauma patch; $30 cash


Voice of the People and Pop Idol combine to give Blank Path access to a motley collection of the faithful (or those who are just entertained by his message). However, his inner circle contains a few regulars:

Athanas Kuroki, Gaius’ distant cousin, is a well-known counterculture musician and rabble-rouser under the stage name of Zen Bomb. They’ve worked together on occasion when the job called for their combined social and networking skills, and are frequently found enjoying the attention of their respective groupies. Despite his own fame and influence, Athanas thinks Gaius is the one who’s really going to make it big. His extensive network of fans feeds him all kinds of information, but he’s best at working those connections to find people who don’t want to be found.

Arlen Baggio is Gaius’ oldest acquaintance and first follower of the faith. Their friendship began when Gaius rescued Arlen from a gang fight, killing their childhood bully in the process. Today, Arlen works as an outlander smuggler under the handle Slice, and he can occasionally provide transport or loaner vehicles.

Sonja Porsche is a corporate middle manager whose ambition once led her into crimes against Gaius’ faith. Gaius spared her life and she’s still trying to make good on that (a random roll which suggests she may have undergone conversion at swordpoint). Perhaps Gaius spared her because of their childhood friendship (really, dice?). Her current job is in her corp’s government liaison office, and while she won’t betray her employer (yet), she has no qualms about siphoning off government data or getting official paperwork rubber-stamped or lost.


So is it a viable team? Well… I haven’t played CWN, which means my capacity to judge is limited, but it looks like the dice gave me a fairly balanced group of hacker, shooter, healer, and face. The only cyber on the team is Brass’ cranial jack and they lack any big-ticket vehicles or drones, but that seems to be the intent for starting operators. Fix will definitely have to carry the team in combat for a while, though.

I still have no idea WTF to do with Blank Path’s faith, though, or how to integrate that into being an operator. I have some vague idea that it’s a syncretic faith that appeals to operators in particular, and that demands action against the market forces that control society. That would impel him to action – and would make him a major target for corporate retaliation if he ever started getting real traction.

As I was writing up these characters, it occurred to me that CWN’s random creation system doesn’t yield much in the way of PC backstory. The brilliant one-roll generator for contacts implies a lot of shared history, so that’s one way to find those hooks, but I also found I had more writing prompts for the contacts than for the PCs themselves. If I were actually going to do something with these characters, I’d’ve invested more time in profiling them, but this really was just an urge to use the random creation mechanics that I needed to get out of my head.

Four Operators #3

Continuing the series after Brass and Fix


Crashcart (Olga Novotny)

Crashcart is a former employee of the city’s largest emergency medical corporation. Originally trained as a physician’s assistant, she shifted career tracks to paramedic while studying for her cybernetician credentials. Her last few years of work saw her on the high-threat detail, where driving and marksmanship can be as essential as medical skills when it comes to keeping a patient alive long enough to reach a higher level of care. She wound up on the outs with the corp and working as an operator through an unspecified set of circumstances (unspecified because the character creation arc didn’t suggest anything really interesting).


Olga’s closest social connection is Marie Wallace, a corporate security agent who freelances in operator circles (under the handle Ice Bee) and remains a great source of insider info on their former mutual employer. Marie owes Olga a large unspecified debt, though Olga is too polite to bring this up when sober. They knew each other before Olga exited corporate employment, but didn’t really socialize outside work. That changed when they ran into each other at a club after Olga went freelance, and they’ve since worked together on occasion (and partied hard afterward).


Attributes: STR 11, DEX 14 (+1), CON 12, INT 16 (+1), WIS 13, CHA 11

Skills: Drive-1, Fix-0, Heal-1, Lead-0, Shoot-0

Edges: Focused, Masterful Expertise

Foci: Authority 1, Cyberdoc 1

HP 1; attack bonus +0; saves physical 15+, evasion 14+, mental 15+, luck 15+

Contacts: Marie Wallace (corporate security officer, described above) (friend)

Equipment: cyberdoc kit; light pistol w/ 2 magazines; ordinary clothing; reinforced clothing; basic smartphone; trauma patch; $25 cash


Every team needs a good medic and the rolls for Crashcart came out pretty well, with one glaring exception. That’s her sole, lonely hit point. Keeping her out of combat will be not only a priority but an absolute necessity until she has a few levels under her belt.

Four Operators #2

Continued from the previous post


Fix (Olaf Janssens)

Back in the day, Olaf Janssens was just another juviegang kid on the city’s streets, solving problems with applied violence. The corp recruiters said they saw potential in him – they just didn’t bother to tell him that he was a potential meat shield. He figured it out after a few years, though, and got out before he could be expended. Without many marketable skills for civilian life, he sidestepped neatly into the ranks of the city’s operators.

Outside his usual team, Fix’s closest associates are Nebo Ojeda and Vince Nakashima, the two other survivors of his juviegang. Nebo never really left his former life, moving up into a mid-level enforcer position in the organized crime syndicate that used the juviegang and others like it as a farm team. Today, he manages the syndicate’s safehouses and can make them available for a price. Vince got out of the city, more or less, turning his hand to pirate radio. He operates in the badlands just outside the reach of city services, broadcasting to an audience of badlanders, ruralists, and survivalists, and can tap that network to move things in and out of the city.


Attributes: STR 12, DEX 15 (+1), CON 14 (+1), INT 15 (+1), WIS 8, CHA 12

Skills: Notice-0, Shoot-1, Sneak-0, Stab-1

Edges: Hard to Kill, On Target

Foci: Assassin 1

HP 5; attack bonus +1; saves physical 14+, evasion 14+, mental 15+, luck 15+

Contacts: Nebo Ojeda (gang enforcer, described above) (acquaintance); Vince Nakashima (public personality, described above) (acquaintance)

Equipment: heavy pistol w/ 3 magazines; knife; armored clothing; basic smartphone; ordinary clothing; 2 trauma patches; $51 cash


With acceptable physical stats and the Soldier background, Fix was unlikely to be anything other than a combat-focused character. This build leans into that, with his edges making him more durable and more accurate – fairly straightforward. The Assassin focus suggests a bit more finesse than a basic infantry grunt, though, and makes it easier for him to carry out his default team role in non-permissive environments.

Four Operators #1

I recently acquired my dead tree edition of Cities Without Number from the Kickstarter campaign reward drop. While I am not a huge fan of OSR games in general, CWN’s predecessors have a lot of GM tools, so I went into the KS expecting something similar for the cyberpunk genre and was not disappointed.

Coincident with this, I started listening to the second season of Tale of the Manticore, having recently finished the first. I usually can’t stand actual play podcasts (Two Past Midnight being the main exception), but Tale works for me because it is solo play. As such, there’s none of the usual annoying uncut table talk and in-jokes, and it flows very well. While I have neither bandwidth nor inclination to do a solo campaign right now (let alone, ye gods, podcast or blog it), Tale‘s S2 character creation episode inspired me to roll up a team of PCs using CWN’s random creation options. I used Behind the Name for all character names and Fantasy Name Generators for operator handles.

I don’t know that I’ll ever do anything with these folks again, but here’s the first one.


Brass (Jacinta Dumont)

Brass is a second-generation hacker. Growing up in the city’s crumbling low-income quarter, she spent most of her free time and cash in Tybee’s, the corner arcade, which was something of a safe haven for the neighborhood kids who were on the outside of gangs and other social structures. Her interest in how the games worked caught the attention of the owner, Tybee, who ran the place as a cover for their less-legitimate work.

Under Tybee’s mentorship, Jacinta grew into a skilled coder, going so far as to serve as a subcontractor for some of Tybee’s last jobs before they exited the business. Tybee, still well-known under their operator handle of Surveyor, finished Brass’ training and pointed her at her first few jobs before setting her loose to fly on her own.

In her off hours, Brass is something of a gym rat. It started as a way to convince the neighborhood gangers to leave her alone, but she’s found that weight and bag work are a good way to let her mind chew over a persistent coding problem. She’s never benefited from formal training, though, so she’s overspecialized in strength work at the expense of cardio.


Attributes: STR 16 (+1), DEX 10, CON 8, INT 15 (+1), WIS 8, CHA 8

Skills: Fix-1, Program-1, Punch-0, Sneak-0, Talk-0

Edges: Focused, Hacker

Foci: Safe Haven 1, Unarmed Combatant 1

HP 3; attack bonus +0; saves physical 14+, evasion 14+, mental 15+, luck 15+

Contacts: Tyler “Tybee” Biondi (formerly Surveyor), watchful neighborhood elder as described above (friend)

Cyberware: cranial jack

Equipment: scrap deck with cheap VR crown; ordinary clothing; basic tools; basic smartphone; armored clothing; light pistol w/ 2 magazines; $25 cash


The initial rolls for Brass left me scratching my head a bit. How to reconcile a Coder background with that STR score? Well, okay, lean into it and play against type. If I were using the optional Shadowrun-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off material from CWN’s deluxe edition, I’d make her an orc decker. Here, she’s an atypically-physical hacker who isn’t completely useless for fieldwork. The “watchful neighborhood elder” roll for her friend suggested a hacker mentor and the detailed d4/d6/d8/d10/d12/d20 one-roll flesh-out confirmed a lot of those details.

NPC: Léonard Pan

Léonard is one of the player-contributed NPCs who was resident in Ponikla when the PCs arrived. He got some “screen” time after the black Volga incident, so this seems a good time to post his profile.


Occupation: Logistician/Administrator

Organization: MSF (aka Doctors Without Borders)

Skills: Filing paperwork, bills of lading, organizing work, passable tennis player, competent fisherman


Léonard was involved in humanitarian relief in and around Warsaw before the nukes went off. He fled with other refugees to the south, originally heading towards Lodz and then Wrocklaw. Wherever he ended up settling down, it was overtaken by Soviet troops recently and he and the few folks in his group that stuck together and were still alive were taken captive and put in a holding camp until they could decide what to do with them. 

The camp was hit by locals and NATO remnants. The attack was technically thwarted and the attackers withdrew however the Soviets were were beaten badly enough that several of the captives escaped. Léonard was one of those individuals. He arrived in the village about 3 months ago.


Strength C

Agility B – Driving D, Mobility D

Intelligence B

Empathy B – Command B (Logistician), Persuasion C

Aerial Recovery Solutions: Hail CSAR!

Originally posted to the CGL Battletech forum in 2017.


WELCOME TO THE MRB UNIT DATABASE.  IT HAS BEEN 74 DAYS SINCE YOUR LAST LOGIN.

QUERY>> PERSONNEL RECOVERY

... WORKING ... 331 MATCHES IN 6 CATEGORIES:

1: FIELD MORTUARY SERVICES
2: VIP PROTECTION AND KIDNAP RECOVERY
3: SPECIAL OPERATIONS
4: COMBAT SEARCH AND RESCUE
5: BATTLEMECH REPOSSESSION
6: BOUNTY HUNTING

SELECT>> 4

... WORKING ... 18 MATCHES.

SELECT>> 1

... RETRIEVING MATCH #1: AERIAL RECOVERY SOLUTIONS

“Life is cheap but BattleMechs aren’t,” is the modern strategist’s universal axiom.  The discerning commander, however, knows that personnel are his or her unit’s most precious resource.  Experienced leaders and veteran troops are essential to success both on and off the battlefield.  Nothing is certain in war, though, and the turn of an unfriendly card can lead to the capture or loss of even the most adept warrior.  Since 3003, Aerial Recovery Solutions has been the Inner Sphere’s leaders in combat search and rescue (CSAR) operations, stacking the deck to give your soldiers the best possible chance of returning from the field.  Continue reading to learn what Aerial Recovery Solutions can do for your next operation!

QUERY>> UNIT HISTORY

In 3002, Aerial Recovery Solutions’ founder Vasiliy Ignatov was an officer in a light aerial reconnaissance squadron attached to the 15th Marik Militia.  The 15th was part of the FWLM’s action on the Lyran world of Loric, during which it sustained grievous losses.  Over the course of the Battle of Tromoth, then-Lieutenant Ignatov distinguished himself by saving seven ejected MechWarriors from certain capture or death – including the daring recovery of Baroness Captain Sonia Vitari from cephalopod-infested coastal waters, a maneuver which was captured by an embedded Irian News Interstellar correspondent.

Following the Loric operation, Lieutenant Ignatov recognized the need for CSAR expertise to ensure the continued service of veteran MechWarriors – and to preserve the leadership of the nobles who comprise so many of the MechWarrior class’ ranks today.  Generous rewards from Baroness Sonia and several of the other survivors of Loric enabled Lieutenant Ignatov to make his vision a reality.  Since Aerial Recovery Solutions registered with the Mercenary Review Board in 3003, its aviators, troopers, and surgeons have recorded over 500 “saves” on 29 worlds.

QUERY>> VASILIY IGNATOV
... REDIRECTING: UNIT LEADERS

Lieutenant Colonel Vasiliy Ignatov

A veteran of the FWLM’s heliborne reconnaissance corps, Colonel Ignatov is the founder and commander of Aerial Recovery Solutions.  He has over 14,000 hours of flight time and is rated as an instructor pilot on all three airframes operated by the unit.  In addition, he holds academic degrees in avionics engineering and post-Star League interstellar relations.

Surgeon-Commander Silas Kokinos

Force Commander Dr. Silas Kokinos is the executive officer and medical director for Aerial Recovery Solutions.  A distinguished graduate of Delphi Medical Institute on Canopus IV, Dr. Kokinos served in the MAF’s Second Canopian Cuirassiers for eight years before entering mercenary service.  He is an expert trauma surgeon and a qualified aviator, with 800 flight hours in the Ferret.

Force Commander Marijn Lauwens

Force Commander Marijn Lauwens oversees Aerial Recovery Solutions’ recovery troopers, who combine jump infantry capabilities with prehospital medical skills.  She is a veteran of the LCAF’s 11th Arcturan Guards with extensive small-unit combat experience against Periphery bandits.  Like all of Aerial Recovery Solutions’ recovery officers and NCOs, she is a certified Grade IV Emergency Medical Provider (EMP-iv) through the ComStar Medical Extension Bureau.

Captain Konrad Winogrodzki

The commander of Aerial Recovery Solutions’ maintenance and helibase personnel is Captain Konrad Winogrodzki, a “mustang” officer with 32 years of experience in the famed Narhal’s Raiders.  Captain Winogrodzki’s background is in finance and personnel administration and he is currently pursuing advanced certifications in airframe and turbine maintenance.

QUERY>> TROOPS
... REDIRECTING: UNIT COMPOSITION AND DEPLOYMENT

For ease of classification under MRB standards, Aerial Recovery Solutions is organized as a combined arms battalion.  Our TO&E is composed of three VTOL squadrons, a company of recovery troopers, a base support company, and several small specialized formations.  However, we pride ourselves on the capacity for flexible deployments to meet any operational challenge and to fit any budget.  Contact our contracting office today to discuss the force package that best fits your needs.

White Squadron – The White Scarves

Aerial Recovery Solutions’ workhorse airframe is the Ferret Light Scout VTOL, a high-performance design with the speed to insert a recovery team on any battlefield.  Under Captain Mabon Lewis, Gold Squadron operates ten Ferrets.  These aircraft normally fly in the standard configuration but can be stripped to a “slick” configuration for greater cargo capacity if operating in a secure environment.  Under normal operating conditions, each Ferret carries a squad of recovery troopers and can accommodate a single recovered casualty.

Green Squadron – The Jolly Green Giants

When long range and a heavy payload are the order of the day, Aerial Recovery Solutions offers the eight Karnov URs of Captain Kristina Hagen’s Green Squadron.  These aircrews specialize in extended missions and recovery of multiple personnel in a single lift.  Three of Green Squadron’s Karnovs are equipped with K5 Aerosystems’ Dromedary Gold equipment package, which offers a secure communications relay and aerial refueling capabilities to extend the reach of any Aerial Recovery Solutions mission.  The other five operate in standard, unarmed configuration and typically carry two squads of recovery troopers with medical support for up to eight combat casualties.  For medical evacuation and disaster relief work, each Karnov can accommodate 42 litter patients with a single recovery trooper squad to provide maintenance-level medical care during the flight.

Red Squadron – The Red Wolves

While lifesaving is Aerial Recovery Solutions’ mission, the “C” in “CSAR” means we may have to fight to get your people home.  Red Squadron, led by Captain Shiori Katou, operates eight Warrior H-7A2 attack helicopters to escort the recovery aircraft of White and Green Squadrons.  The Warrior-A2 is Lockheed/CBM’s newly-released variant which stretches the fuselage to add a second seat for a gunner/observer, providing increased situational awareness and reducing aircrew fatigue and workload.  Aerial Recovery Solutions is proud to be the first unit outside the LCAF to receive Warrior-A2s.

Blue Company – The Blue Skies

Force Commander Lauwens recruits the recovery troopers of Blue Company exclusively from the Inner Sphere’s premiere jump infantry regiments to ensure superior qualifications in airmobile operations.  Before becoming qualified for duty, each trooper must attain at least EMP-ii certification, with EMP-iii credentials required for promotion to corporal and EMP-iv for sergeants and above.  This ensures that any member of Blue Company is a combat lifesaver whose aid bag is as essential as his rifle.  Furthermore, each platoon specializes in a particular environment.  First Platoon under Captain Sebastien Leitzke is expert in urban environments.  Captain Heidi Mori’s Second Platoon focuses on coastal and aquatic work.  Captain Abidemi Botha leads Third Platoon in mountain, arctic, and high-altitude theatres.  Fourth Platoon follows Captain Manuel Jarvis into the Inner Sphere’s most inhospitable jungles.

Gold Company – The Gold Standard

When lives are on the line, aircraft and personnel must be prepared to launch at a moment’s notice.  Captain Konrad Winogrodzki’s Gold Company ensures that Aerial Recovery Solutions’ assets are 100% mission-ready.  Gold Company has four maintenance platoons, two base service platoons, two platoons of base security troops, and a platoon of Scimitar-PC hovercraft (typically offered for contract with Blue Company’s Second Platoon).  In addition, it includes one lance of BattleMechs for deployments where force constraints may prevent the employer from providing heavy security to Aerial Recovery Solutions’ helibase.  Sergeant Kinsley Rake’s Rifleman secures local airspace while MechWarrior Kamryn Rake’s Blackjack, MechWarrior Rajiv Gupta’s Fire Javelin, and MechWarrior Armand Morel’s Vulcan defend against ground threats.


GM Notes

This is not your typical BattleMech company.  I envisioned Aerial Recovery Solutions as a plot device.  With only eight combat VTOLs and four ‘Mechs (three of them kind of crappy), it’s not really a workable unit for a traditional campaign.  I see it more as a background feature of a roleplaying campaign, a force attachment to put on the tabletop for a special mission objective, or an off-board abstraction for personnel survival during a campaign.  It also could serve as the focus of a roleplaying mission or full campaign if you wanted to get a little off the beaten path.  GMs who want to run this sort of thing are strongly encouraged to read up on the US Air Force pararescuemen who are one of the major inspirations for Aerial Recovery Solutions.

The writeup here is factually accurate as far as the TO&E goes, but I wrote it as in-universe marketing fluff, so it has some deliberate exaggerations.  In particular, Ignatov’s performance on Loric vastly exceeded his orders and resulted in the destruction of two of the four Ferrets under his command.  This is why he’s no longer in the FWLM.  The commander bios also omit the facts that Kokinos fled the Magistracy to avoid being killed by his then-lover’s jealous wife and owes his current position to his marriage to Ignatov; that Lauwens is a high-functioning alcoholic to cope with her multiple cybernetic replacements; and that every single member of Gold Company and about half the rest of the unit loathes Winogrodzki with the fury of a thousand suns.

This profile is current for the cusp of the Fourth Succession War, my preferred era.  During this time, Aerial Recovery Solutions typically works both sides of the Marik-Steiner border.  A slight majority of its work is subcontracting for other mercenary units rather than house troops, through Colonel Ignatov likes pursuing house contracts because they’re more lucrative.  The unit derives a critical portion of its income from “rescuing” opposing officers and ransoming them back, so snatching a noble off the battlefield results in bonuses all around.  Every unit member’s contract specifies that 50% of any personal gratuities from rescued personalities go back to the unit, which helps cut down on lone-wolfing (Ignatov does learn from his mistakes).

Rank inflation in Aerial Recovery Solutions is very real.  This is a deliberate move on Colonel Ignatov’s part.  Because the full unit rarely deploys, it’s not uncommon for the senior officer on a world to be a recovery platoon leader.  Making these individuals captains rather than lieutenants (or even breveting them to Force Commanders) ensures they have a little more weight in saying “no” to assignments that violate the contract.

The ‘Mech force is a recent addition after a LCAF screw-up nearly got a helibase overrun by enemy tanks.  Ignatov was still a little freaked out when he hired the MechWarriors and the rest of the command group is not unified about the decision.  Kokinos thinks it brushes up against a violation of the unit’s mission as lifesavers, Lauwens is worried about employers trying to commit the ‘Mechs to combat, and Winogrodzki is frantic about the massive maintenance burden that’s just been dropped on him.  For their part, the four MechWarriors are delighted to have found a billet that allows them to sit around a base and not risk their ‘Mechs – and, more importantly, their status – in offensive operations.

The Warrior H-7A2 has identical game stats to the base H-7A, save for a two-person crew (TRO3039 fluffs it as a single-seater).  The Scimitar-PC is a personnel carrier variant that drops the SRMs for two machine guns, a half-ton of ammo, and 1.5 tons of cargo/infantry space.