Brutal Clans

>Nicholas, instead of going "muh honor" instead turns the Clans into a vicious SLDF analogue, keeping the same structure of "our" Clans, but pumping them up, and making them absolutely dickish.
To expand a little more on this, the Exodus Fleet, rather than going full draw down, instead swapped to a rotating reserve, meaning less people got uppity over being warriors with no wars. Their skills were honed, and so Nicholas had a large core of warriors to draw for his Clans.

Nicholas also decided that every Clan would have a specific “shtick.” The Horses and Ravens are pretty much as canon, but others specialized close to what they were in Canon, like the Jags being essentially a Clan sized Zeta Battalion, and the Spirits being one big Clan RCT. The Mandrills, still being dumb, were envisioned as being capable of deploying all at once and scattering to their objectives. Mostly they still acted like monkeys and flung shit at each other.

>Trials and Duels:
Nicholas still keeps the ideals of “Clan Honor” and institutes something similar to the Gunslinger program for every pilot, just the Clans are larger, so personal honor isn’t as huge an idea.

>Dead Clans in the main game matched the ones dead here. Reiteration:
The Widowmakers didn’t accidentally cap Nicky K in a duel, the Widowmakers instead *targeted* him, reasoning that as an enemy combatant, no matter how revered, he's a legitimate target.

The Wolverines were killed not because "lolrandumbplots" but because they were working on radiological and biological agents to wipe out opponents without having to fire a shot.

The Mongooses, rather than being politicians extraordinaire and getting offed for it, went full Black Ops. This means that rather than being wheeler dealers, their rep was trashed because trials and duels were getting canceled because Star Captain Biff would come down with Arkelian Death Shits, or a bad case of “limbs hewn from body.”

>Clan Invasion:
Fuck yo Revival Trials. Nicholas laid down a specific “We’re going to return in full force” Edict. The Inner Sphere that betrayed the Star League’s ideals was going to come back under its rule, by force if necessary. The Trials were for specific deployment orders, with the Wolves getting to be in Wave 1 regardless.

Clan Deployment in Wave 1:
Wolf
Jade Falcon
Ghost Bear
Smoke Jaguar
Nova Cat
Steel Viper

Wave 2:
Diamond Shark
Hell’s Horses
Snow Raven
Coyote
Fire Mandrill
Ice Hellion
Reserve:
Star Adder (Like in Canon, chose to sit out the Invasion, but were in Reserve if shit got really real)
Burrock
Goliath Scorpion
Blood Spirit
Cloud Cobra

Clan Honor:
So yeah, Dezgra means tacnuke to the face. This is really only applicable to IS powers, but the Clans weren't too picky about bombing the fuck out of each other with Warships *if* the situation called for it. The Pentagon worlds aren't as devastated here, so they can support a bigger industry, though civilian and industrial targets are still off limits.

Really the Clans here end up sort of hyper specializing, aside from the Wolves and the Falcons, the latter of which are pretty much Jeremy Clarkson if he was a few thousand Clansmen. This is what allows Focht to stop the Clans at Tukayyid without resorting to just nuking the fuck out of them (though this does happen in two instances)


IS Powers:
Hoo boy, this one will be long. Okay first, while the First Succession War was pretty much as read, the Houses quickly come to the realization that “blowing up Johnny Kurita’s factories means he’ll do the same to me. Let’s just raid them to knock this shit out of action. Also! Get Doctor Bob Weaponsdesigner under lock and key!” This doesn’t really stop Holy Shroud, but the IS can still produce mechs in quantity, if not quality. Also, every Faction has one shipyard capable of building four WarShips a year, but no new designs. The Lyrans have Alarion, which can build 8 a year, for reasons I can’t recall.

This means that the IS is still going at it pretty much as canon, just with a higher tech level. The Third Succession War is now a “We can’t keep this up forever, better start seeing how we can regain all this tech we blew the fuck up.”

Hanse Davion is late to the party, but is still the inventor of the RCT in the Inner Sphere. Also, “I give you the Capellan Confederation” remains hilarious, though the WarShip defenses around Sian give Morgan some trouble.

War of 3039 is a mash up of the Retcon and the original 3039. Hanse sort of had the troops, but was still exhausted logistically from the 4SW, plus the SLDF tech the Kuritans whipped out would have made the prospect a wash, as the League was already slamming into the Commonwealth border like a fat guy with his favorite hooker.

Clan Invasion from the IS perspective:
WRASSLEHOG? I’m sorry, but they got stomped. Hard. While Tyra’s sacrifice was still considered impressive by the Clans, and there was still the year of peace, the Clans just redoubled their efforts, and started having every WarShip get escorted by an ASF Binary.

>COMBINE HONOR:
Yeah sadly here, the Combine got buttfucked, hard. Duels still happened, with the same result as Canon. And the Jags gave no fucks after Lincoln Osis got killed, and decided the IS was just a bunch of Dezgra fucks. So their battles sans Luthien involved dropping Galaxies and Clusters onto Regiments and Battalions and slugging their way out. Less nukings here, mainly that was the Bears' job. Wolcott happens mostly as canon, only I happened to be reading the Guns of the South at the time, so the Combine mined the Wolcott swamps with a massive explosive that guts the Jaguar trinary.

>FedCom Front:
Hanse got the shock of his life when crack RCTs were chewed up in detail by the Falcons, who acted like every Cavalry charge ever put to film, dropping into close quarters to put the hurt on to his best units, then bolting away after a few salvos. Victor manages to shatter the Falcon Guards on Twycross, shocking the hell out of the Clans along with Wolcott as canon, though less by mining the Great Gash and more by ordering a nuclear strike on it once Kai gets clear.

>Luthien
The Jags and the Nova Cats (Here, for lack of a better idea, are CAS specialists. A notable instance was one of my players managing to land hex perfect bombing runs in front of his mechs, with functionally no splash damage) decide that the Combine will fall best if Luthien is captured. As in Canon, Takashi refuses to leave, but unlike in Canon, has the entire FS border stripped of everything but token forces, realizing his honor will mean nothing if his people suffer for it. In response, Hanse does the same, but with a twist on canon, he sends the Wolf’s Dragoons and the Kell Hounds, along with the FCS Ian Davion, a FedCom Black Lion, and Hanse’s current flagship, repainted in the colors of the Kurita family.

The Battle for Luthien involved 10 Galaxies, 5 Smoke Jaguar and 5 Nova Cat, with 10 Warships devoted to clearing out whatever orbital defenses protected Black Luthien. The IS forces in response, are 20 frontline regiments of the DCMS, whatever militia they could raise from ripping open every mothballed stockpile they had (Around 4 regiments of trained pilots, plus the Izanagi Warriors), the Kell Hounds, and the Wolf’s Dragoons. Warships on the Kuritan side include the Ian Davion as well as the Minoru Kurita, the only Sovetskii Soyuz ever seen outside of the SLDF’s hands, along with the New Samarkand, an aging Samarkand class that sucker punches the NCS Vision Quest, namely by ramming it going full speed, and taking both ships apart in a misjump. Backing up the DCMS fleet of 5 ships (The SovSoy, the Samarkand, and 3 Narukamis) are 6 regiments (~324) of ASF, as well as the Ian Davion, turning the Hegira-less space lanes into a brutal melee.

The results of the battle are devastating. The Clans limp away with just over three galaxies between them, and are short 4 WarShips (the NCS Vision Quest, NCS Blinded by the Light, SJS Ebon Night, and the SJS Judge McGruder), while the IS forces are scarcely any better, having lost 5 of the 6 ASF regiments, 15 frontline regiments, almost all of the Militia, and the Kell Hounds and the Dragoons are out of the Invasion. On the WarShip side, the Ian Davion and the Minoru Kurita managed to pin the McKenna class McGruder between their guns, though the Minoru Kurita was destroyed, and the Ian Davion was functionally crippled. The Ian Davion would not be repaired until 3061. The DCMS fleet over Luthien was a total loss however, and their lack of presence would be missed for the remainder of the decade.

>Tukayyid:
Anastasius Focht was no one’s fool, both in Canon and here. He observed all of the Clans, and tailored Tukayyid to be the crucible upon which the Clans would break. The 6 Wave 1 Clans were challenged, as in canon, for one final bout to determine the state of the Invasion. Focht scraped up everything the ComGuard had ever mothballed, and turned the surface of Tukayyid into a war world.

For the Wolves, the most adaptible of the Clans, Focht had no choice but to get into a slugging match with them, turning the fields around Brzo and Skupo into bloody killing grounds. The 278th Division, as well as the 9th and 10th armies were no match for the Wolves, and were shattered by concentrated artillery barrages by Naga stars, with their own artillery too slow to match. Otherwise, the battle proceeds as Canon.

The Falcons acted out their campaign as canon (mainly because I wanted some Aidan Pryde doing useful shit action), except the Falcon Guards are supported by their dropships and manage to retreat, though heavily bloodied. Aidan Pryde is the only Falcon to gain any glory here, letting his legend grow as in Canon.

The Jaguars again, run as canon, only they are shocked and appalled when the ComGuards detonate nuclear weapons in the midst of their forces, wiping out the Jaguars’ unit cohesion and gutting the Clan of some of their best warriors.

The Bears run as canon as well, but the Bears begin nuking ComGuard positions as soon as they are notified of the attack on the Jaguars, and begin executing artillery crews from the CG.

The remaining fights run pretty much the same as canon, partly because of laziness, and partly because these fights just weren’t as important.