Benjamin: January 22, 3026 On this date Col. Jaime Wolf, commanding officer of Wolf's Dragoons, a top-of-the-line mercenary unit five Mech regiments strong, received the Order of the Bushido Blade from Coordinator Takashi Kurita. They discussed a renewal of the unit's contract. Since then, the unit has been cut to 20% of its former strength by bloody warfare with House Kurita. What happened since that promising ceremony? What person or incident began the weakening of Takashi Kurita's faith in the Dragoons? Warlord Grieg Samsonov's envious ambition, with its consequences of verbal and supply-side harrassments? The failure of message equipment between the worlds where the Dragoons were stationed? ComStar's unexplained dislike of Col. Wolf? The difference in styles of military discipline between the Dragoons' demarcation of work and private life and the sacred duty of the DCMF? Samsonov early made it his business to make the Dragoons'position as difficult as possible, reassigning sympathetic- or even competent- liason officers, issuing arbitrary commands which violated contractual rights, and manufactured atrocities on the Dragoons' Kurita base world of An Ting which caused the population to attempt the wholesale slaughter of the unit. If in fact the unit's covert section is responsible for the assassination of Grieg Samsonov (and evidence suggests otherwise), who can blame them? In order to get the Dragoons' dependents away from Combine space without fulIscale war, Col. Wolf needed a diversion. He found it only by paying a deadly price. A formal challenge was issued: Send the best of House Kurita's forces to meet us on the barren planet of Misery. There we will duel, fighting force to force to decide this issue honorably. The challenge was accepted; the dependent non-combatants were dispatched to safety. The honorless Samsonov tried to have these innocents killed en route, but his own warriors' honor defeated his plan. On Misery, Wolf's Dragoons initiated a long series of 'Mech to 'Mech formal duels. Coordinator Takashi Kurita had added injury to insult by assigning the friendly Wolf-trained Ryuken as the Dragoons' opponents. Honorable men fought and killed one another, hating the necessity. At last, the Dragoons provoked an assault on a previously fortified position and the real war began. After a month-long blood bath, Wolf's Dragoons emerged as winners, but at the cost of half their 'Mechs and over half of their 'Mech pilots. Zeta Battalion, which had taken the most damage of all, was sent to ensure the noncombatants' safety. They left under protest. The Dragoons lifted from Misery, severely battered, but with honor restored. They left behind an old friend, General Minobu Tetsuhara. This commander of the Ryuken felt compelled to commit ritual suicide as an apology to the Coordinator for losing. Col. Wolf felt this as a personal loss. They were met on a base in the Harrow's Sun system by the agent of their new employer: Lt General Ardan Sortek, trusted advisor to Prince Hanse Davion. The Dragoons had entered the employ of the Federated Suns just as the Fourth Succession War was about to begin. Offered six months to refit and heal on Robinson, Col. Wolf requested instead a posting on the Kurita frontier. This broke two precedents - Wolf's Dragoons had never before returned to an employer (House Davion employed this enigmatic unit when they first appeared from the Periphery). And the Dragoons had written into their previous contracts that they not be sent against their most recent former employer. Wolf-watchers will remember that the Dragoons take care of their own. Remember what happened in 3015 when Anton Marik executed 28 Dragoons, one of them Col. Wolf's brother Joshua? That revenge ended with Anton dead, his forces scattered, and his rebellion crushed. House Kurita had killed Dragoon non-combatants, falsified the unit's reputation, and cheated on their contract. For Col. Wolf and his warriors, this was now a personal fight. Col. Wolf made it personal to Coordinator Takashi Kurita too. At the Davion-Steiner wedding, he returned Gen Tetsuhara's swords to the Coordinator, with a crushing - and public - comparison of the honor of Commander and vassal. Takashi Kurita's obsession with crushing the Dragoons was to cost him any chance of victory in the Fourth Succession War. The Coordinator had achieved a brilliant defensive alliance with Houses Liao and Marik. Instead of coordinating military forces with his two allies; in place of the hardheaded, economical use of his own forces which had come to be a hallmark of Takashi's generalship long before he became Coordinator; the head of House Kurita threw all of his attention and most of his best troops against the Dragoons in the Harrow's Sun system. By the end of May, the Dragoons were reduced to the size of a single battalion. They fought their way out of the system to rendezvous on the world of Crossing, where they would make their final stand. In September, 3029, the 5th, 8th, 12, and 16th Galedon Regulars, reinforced Wolf-fighters from the Harrow's Sun system, together with an elite DEST team assigned by Takashi Kurita himself, arrived on Crossing determined to eliminate every last Dragoon. Despite aid from their old comrades in arms of the Tenth Deneb Lights, the Dragoons were slowly forced back from one position to another. They played a deadly game of catch-me-if-you-can across this volcanic world until - well, remember Zeta Battalion? They received word (despite the ComStar Interdict on House Davion) of the flight from Harrow's Sun and decided that they had healed enough. Chartering ships with their own money, they streaked across Davion space to aid their cohorts on Crossing. They received the reward which history owes to brave men and so seldom pays. They were in time to join their comrades at the caldera of the extinct volcano Tartarus, reinforcing those bloodied fighters in the nick of time to win the last battle for the planet. The final battle of the Wolf-Kurita war was a 'Mech to 'Mech duel. Only the DEST team remained in the fight as Col. Wolf rendezvoused with Captain Kerensky. He came upon her dueling a DEST warrior known only as "the Ghost Lady". Kerensky's Warhammer seemed to be losing to the Ghost's Archer. Ordering a furious Natasha Kerensky to break off the attack, Col. Wolf engaged the Lady in an Archer to Archer duel. When her long-range fire crippled Col. Wolf's 'Mech, the Lady Ghost moved into closer range for hand to hand combat. This combat ended with her death, despite Col. Wolf's personal rescue of the warrior from her wrecked Archer seconds before it ex- ploded. The identity of this warrior will never be known. One week later, the last of House Kurita's forces had left the planet. Wolf's Dragoons had fought the Combine to a standstill. Decimated: Adjective form of the verb to decimate. Descriptive of an old Roman punishment where a mutinous cohort was stood to in parade formation, and every tenth man was pulled out and summarily executed. By extension, a decimated unit is one in which at least ten percent of the personnel have been killed or rendered unfit for action. --Chambers Military Encyclopedia, 3025 edition, Veda-Simmons Press, Highspire. Wolf's Dragoons have been described by the popular press as decimated. Their condition is much worse than that. Since they left their various assignments for Misery in 3027, and began their series of battles with Takashi Kurita there, in the Galedon District, and at last on Crossing, they have been reduced from five regiments to barely one. They have lost eighty percent of their personnel, most of them to death. Support and vehicle losses are proportionate. The Dragoons have been granted the planet of Outreach, in the former Tikinov Commonality for their base under the terms of their agreement with the Federated Suns (now to be called the "Federated Commonwealth"). We at BattleTechnology can only wish them a long rest and a good recovery. A noted journalist, Bob Carter become editor of BattleTechnology in 3028, just after the Fourth Succession War began. He serves as our editor-at-large, going whereever the action is. He admits to a fascination with Wolf's Dragoons. Bob Carter modestly claims that his Wolf's Dragoons scrapbook has reached thirty volumes. Simulator Data During the final battle on Crossing, an unknown female MechWarrior of the DEST company piloting an Archer upheld the highest traditions of the Dragoon. She had singlehandedly accounted for several of the famed Black Widows and seemed to be conquering Natasha Kerensky herself when Col. Jaime Wolf arrived. He ordered an irate Capt Kerensky out of battle and took her place. Archer to Archer, the duel continued, the Wolf and the Ghost Lady. Game Setup: Set two BattleTech boards end to end. The opponents start from either end and proceed till one is destroyed. Each board has five 2-hex hardcover positions; assign these at random or take turns in placing them. Defender: Col. Jaime Wolf: Piloting 1, Gunnery 1 Archer: ammo down 1/2 Damage: 1 point from head, 8 points from CT, 3 points from LA, 10 points from RL. Attacker: Ghost Lady: Piloting 1, Gunnery 2 Archer: ammo down 1/2 Damage: 4 points from RT, 4 points from LT, 3 points from LL, 10pointsfrom RA. 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