Company B MC2 Strategy Guide - M2 Op 13 - Remote Assault: Eclipsed

Here is another good mission to build a B Team and push combat skills. Below is a table from another campaign, showing various rankings at this point:

Pilot	Gunnery	Piloting
Longshot	80	74
Dagger	66	80
Flash	63	80
Shadow	61	80
Steel	65	69
Meat	63	61
Claymore	63	58
Jinx	57	80

As you see, four Pilots are perfect navigators but need some gunnery practice, so I start using them in "Hold" formations. Longshot needs some piloting to push her to Ace level. The rest of the team needs practice at both. So I'd select among the B Team for this Op as ambush shooters and Longshot and Shadow for the runners in this mission. Dagger and Flash are a bit short on Gunnery and might not make Ace by Op 17, so I'd push Longshot hard in order to have at least one Ace Sharpshooter by the Honor Guards mission.

[You get no salvage on this mission and no RPs so take mechs with max damage in mind. You do get access to several Repair Bays though. You also get to face "brilliant Clan warriors" so um... pretend to tremble or something so as not to hurt their feelings, 'k?]

Head immediately Southeast until you see the slope rising up to the lunar plateau. Go up it until you just reach the top. You'll see an Airstrip, with several fuel pods at its' end. Approaching it, you'll hear the powerup of two mechs - a Thor and a Ryoken; you'll also hear the Clan blowhards on the vidcomm. It's almost idiotically simple to use the fuel tanks sitting everywhere to cook these silly gooses. Wait til they mindlessly charge you, get the fuel tanks between you, and let 'er rip. So much for "brilliant Clan Mechwarriors." You'll hear a message from their ejection pods, and they become part of your team (i am so thrilled)

Grab the Repair Bay and the Weapons Facility C, gaining Clan Gauss Rifle tech. If the Davion Dropship wasn't cooked in your encounter with the Clan mechs, destroy it now. Then grab the Sensor controls for an excellent TacMap update.

Go back down off the planteau the way you came until you can see your Dropship. From there, proceed North along the Shield Wall that divides you from The Dark Side of the Moon, staying just outside sensor range of enemy units.

A pocket there in the Northeast, just outside the first Gauss Turret installation, makes a perfect base-of-operations. It leads behind the enormous Shield Wall and makes excellent cover for moving your team North.

Now, play a game with the Uller and Partisan patrols: send the Anubii racing to the turret controls before the Ullers can turn back. There's nothing better than watching an Uller getting his own Gauss fire back, unless it's watching the Ullers blow apart their own turrets! You might use a Sha Yu or Wolfhound in this position for their heavier armor, depending on how good you are at running and jumping, but nothing slower; you must be faster than the Ullers (97 kph). It also helps to approach the Gauss cannons at awkward angles to mess up their aim. Warning: if several of them can hit an Anubis even once, it's bye-bye; the only thing that helps is if you have a Light Mech Specialist to do the running/capturing.

Capture these four Turret Installations, curving North. If your timing is right, you'll run into very little opposition (use those captured sensors) and you will own the entire Northwest side as a safe arena to do some serious carnage. You may run into small patrols of Uller pairs; it all depends on where they are in their patrol circuits when you start your run. Generally, though, they are all on the other side of the craters and you are shielded from their sensors.

When you reach the end of this series, you'll see a Sensor Tower on top of a deep crater. Inside the crater are two Wolfhounds and two generators. Blow the Sensor Tower and the 'Hounds will probably run out of the crater after you. You may also attract the attention of another Uller team. When you have dealt with the mechs, blow both generators, which power all the turrets protecting the HPG-Uplink stations.

Circle Northeast and around this crater, or hop through it with jump mechs and out the other side and capture the East Repair Bay installation, a handy thing to have. Then go due west to the Relay Station at the edge of the crater that holds the HPG-Uplinks. Depending on what you find there, like an Enfield or two, deal with it, then hop into the crater and destroy the HPG-Uplink transmitters.

From this crater, you can choose to assault the Weapons Facilities to the West and South of you. Your approach here all depends on how you've dealt with all the Uller patrols and how many functioning captured Gauss turret installations you have. If you take Facility B, then A, you can hop the crater wall at the convenient rise and go right to your Dropship and Extract.

Take your team back along the crater rim past the last turrets you captured, and you'll see a big ripple in the surface. Along this axis is a good place to jump into the crater below. Depending on what you've encountered before, you'll find various combinations of Enfields and Ullers and some mean Storm PPC tanks. Since Enfields and Ullers can't jump, they'll have to run around to the entrances... which are covered by your captured Gauss turrets.

Once things are firmly in hand, destroy the HPG-Uplinks then get out of the crater and head back along your original path on the NorthWest side of the crater complex, keeping inside your captured Gauss turret cordon, until you are outside the crater that holds the Weapon Facility A. Another Enfield and a Storm will greet you. Say hello, and capture the Facility for Clan LRM tech.

Now jump into that crater, and follow the deep trenches South and East, past the destroyed Uplink towers. By going this way and staying in the shadow of the crater's rim, you avoid the other curve of Gauss turret installations on the Southeast rim, which are harder to capture from the outside. Follow the trench until you come to "the Bones of the Whale" and Weapons Facility B, which grants you Clan Ultra Autocannon tech. There's an Enfield and a Jagermech there; when you tangle with them, you'll probably stir up another patrol pair of Ullers and a pair of Enfields, all depending on what patrols you ran into on your Gauss turret expedition. The trenches become your friend here, funneling enemies right into your waiting lasers.

One thing to beware of: at this installation you will encounter at least 20 or so Powered Armor units. They can seriously hurt you in this number if you don't pay attention to them, so while most of your force is smiting Enfields, Ullers and whatever, have at least one mech targeting these vicious little curs.

When it's all over, go back along your path once more, Northwest down the trench and up the grade until you are outside the crater at Weapons Facility A. Then just lope across the lunar surface back to your Drop Ship and the Extract Zone, and buy the Thor and the Ryoken when you get the chance. Enjoy your pretty Liao medal (ooo! shiny!)