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Jean Graves is the son of a traditional Davion military family from Bonneau. He progressed through military school, where he took advanced studies in strategy, to the Point Barrow Military Academy. At that controversial school, he worked hard to live up to the family tradition. As a result, he became a skilled Mechwarrior and an early selection for OCS.

Then the dreams started.

At first they were merely annoying. Jean resolved to ignore them, and threw himself into his studies with renewed vigor. But as time passed, the dreams became clearer and more vivid, waking him sweating at night. Or screaming.

It is a credit to Jean's persistence that he managed to keep up his performance in one of the Federated Suns' most demanding schools, graduating with honors to a commission in the Addicks Draconis March Militia. There, he was given command of a company, and showed what seemed to be an instinctual flair for tactics. His on-the-spot improvisations changed the course of many a skirmish, both simulated and real.

Little did anyone know, Jean was actually listening to the voices in his head.

As the visions continued to intensify, Jean tried to find distractions, as he had in school. He got involved in politics, taking Katherine's side just for the sake of school tradition. But that quickly proved to be even more troublesome, and Jean finally turned to drinking to calm his nerves. Eventually, his superiors noticed, and Jean was ordered to seek medical help during his unit's regular rotation. The doctors thought his problem was treatable; Jean hoped they were right.

As it turned out, they weren't.

The exact sequence of events is unclear, but historically, the base where Jean's unit was stationed was bombarded by artillery from the Davion Assault Guards during the opening stages of the FedCom civil war. Jean says that he doesn't remember what exactly happened, but his men say that he led them through the chaos as if he knew where every single shell was going to fall. Guided by Jean's uncanny instincts, the Dancers fought their way to their DropShip, lifted off, hijacked a Merchant JumpShip, and escaped Addicks.

For the next several years, Jean's company, Graves’ Dancers, was the terror of the Draconis March. Being a Davion unit stationed on Davion ground, the Dancers knew where and when to hit Victor's forces and DCMS invaders alike. And with the aid of other loyalists, they hit them hard. But in late June of 3066, a massive Allied task force landed on New Avalon. It seemed clear that both Katrina and the last Loyalist bastion in the Federated Suns would fall, and with it would fall the Dancers' cause. Jean's men say that he seemed utterly unsurprised at the news. And then he led them to the Chaos March, where they sought to take refuge from Davion retaliation until the war was finally declared over.

After languishing on Outreach for nearly six months, they had built up a mountain of debt, forcing it to liquidate virtually all of its salvage and hock its JumpShip and DropShip to local arms dealers in order to stay afloat. Jean was right on the verge of disbanding the unit when he was approached by a representative of the Word of Blake. The Blakist recruiter offered a simple deal: perform a highly covert, extremely dangerous deep-penetration data raid against a target in the Draconis Combine, and the Word of Blake would pay the Dancers enough to buy their transport assets back.

Seeing no choice but to take the contract, Jean dispatched the Dancers’ scout lance, which was transported by a series of Blakist-owned “civilian” JumpShips to the planet Tok Do. After being snuck onto the planet in the cargo hold of a Blakist Aurora, Hawkeye’s lance executed a tightly planned, textbook nighttime raid which immediately went wrong. Having sent in a squad of Achileus-equipped battlesuit troopers to sneak into the compound and steal weapons data from a remote Alshain Weapons testing site, the Dancers had been planning on simply dashing in before the corporate security forces could react and extract the advance team without ever having to fire a shot. But the battlesuit troopers were forced to fight their way out of the weapons facility, and the Dancers encountered a lance of corporate BattleMechs. After a fierce firefight in which the Dancers skillfully eviscerated the entire opposing force, the mercenaries managed to escape with all four pilots, and three of their ‘Mechs. Alshain Weapons, fearful of the DCMS cutting back its research subsidies as punishment, declined to inform the Combine government of the raid, allowing the Dancers to escape detection on their journey back out of the Combine.

Leveraging the guncam footage as evidence of his unit’s prowess, Jean managed to score a lucrative contract with Interstellar Expeditions, a private organization devoted to historical research and Spherewide archaeology. Hired on to essentially act as a troubleshooter unit with the option to accept additional contracts on the side, the Dancers were given generous salvage rights and compensation.

Their first job, a corporate revenge raid against some warehouses just outside of Keid’s primary spaceport, was a resounding success. Jean personally led the Dancers on the mission, a surgical strike made under the cover of an intense blizzard. While the raid was not a particularly notable one, it did the mark the beginning of a recurring trend among the fledgling mercenary unit: striking their target in the midst of impairing or extreme weather conditions. It was a tactic they would continue to hone as time went on.

Upon returning to Outreach, Jean began to use the Dancers’ newfound largesse to finance the expansion of the unit, beginning with a lance of Pegasus hovertanks. Though this lance would eventually expand to a full company, its baptism of fire was in the Temptown Uprising on Outreach. Hired on the spot by Blackwell Industries to escort a high-ranking corporate executive and his entourage out of the urban-center-turned-warzone, the Dancers fought off a large detachment from the rogue 51st Dark Panzer Jaegers and shepherded the Blackwell convoy to safety. Soon afterward, Jean became convinced that Outreach was no longer a safe base of operations for the unit, and convinced their employers to transfer them to Galatea, the famed “Mercenary’s Star”.

Time spent on Galatea gave Jean the opportunity to expand the Dancers even further, adding another two lances of hovertanks along with a team of crack mechanics specializing in combat hovercraft repair. Those new assets were immediately put to good use, when the unit was subcontracted by Earthwerks Ltd. for a retaliation strike against a Capellan competitor on Styk. It was another resounding success the netted the Dancers two salvageable BattleMechs and another hefty chunk of C-bills. As ever, Jean reinvested a portion of those earnings to enlarge the unit, adding another lance of ‘Mechs and Mechwarriors. He also reshuffled the unit slightly, giving Eric McClair command of his own C3-eqiupped force.

A quiet garrison assignment in the northern tundras of Acamar promised to be a period of rest and recreation for the Dancers. But as per the mercenaries’ usual luck, a roving band of pirates showed up in-system just a week after the Dancers’ arrival. Landing near the mining complex the Dancers had been tasked with protecting, the so-called “Lafayette Legion” clearly intended to loot the mines for the extremely valuable refined germanium they produced. But the would-be raiders never made it near their targets. Almost immediately after they disembarked, the Dancers smashed into them in a massive cavalry charge. The pirates were overrun and killed to the man, and the Dancers managed to salvage a dozen ‘Mechs and another lance of hovertanks. This salvage, along with a particularly fruitful recruiting run on Galatea, allowed Jean to expand Eric’s new lance into a full company. Newly-minted Captain McClair immediately began putting the force through its paces, and the latest additions to the Dancers quickly began to show a great deal of promise.

Those new recruits got their chance to prove that their training together had paid off just a few weeks later. Shortly after arriving for a new assignment on Skye babysitting an archaeological site, a Free Worlds League invasion force jumped in-system at a pirate point, landing forces on Skye before defenders could respond. While most of the Leaguers dropped outside of New Glasgow, a small detachment of unidentified mercenaries took control of a deserted LCAF airstrip and began running bombing missions against the planetary capital. With Skye’s regular forces committed to the defense of New Glasgow, Duke Robert Kelswa-Steiner contacted the Dancers with promise of a handsome reward if they would neutralize the airfield. Jean led both ‘Mech companies through the swamp just outside the air base’s southeastern perimeter. Waiting until most of the mysterious mercenaries had powered down their ‘Mechs for maintenance, the Dancers rushed out of the swamp and swept through their foes like a thresher through wheat. The C3-equipped Striker Lance was particularly devastating, using their deadly-accurate firepower to dislodge a force more than twice their number from an entrenched position. Only a handful of the unknown invaders managed to escape, and though the Dancers’ ‘Mechs took a great deal of damage, all of them were able to leave the field under their own power.

With a spate of successful missions under their belt, the once-fledgling mercenaries were now flush with both victory and profit. Little did they know of the tragedy that awaited them in the deserts of Solaris. Sent once again to guard an archaeological dig, the Dancers detected the breakout of fighting in Solaris City and mounted up in their ‘Mechs to safeguard the site in the event an enterprising gladiator decided to get nosy. But what happened next was what they least expected. A combined-arms battalion from the Word of Blake’s 18th Division swept in out of the desert wastes to strike at the mercenaries with devastating force. While the Dancers finally managed to force the Blakists to retreat, they did so at the cost of three of their Mechwarriors and serious damage to almost all of their ‘Mechs. Only the generous salvage rights granted by their contract with Interstellar Expeditions allowed them to make a profit from the endeavor, and it came at the cost of a serious blow to the unit’s morale. Since their career as mercenaries had begun, the Dancers had managed to make it more or less unscathed. But the deaths of three of their comrades pierced their sense of invincibility. Jean made a stop at Galatea to repair their BattleMechs and hire three new Mechwarriors to fill the empty slots, and then continued on to their latest destination: a two-month rest period on the Lyran world of Tomans.

Or at least, what they’d assumed would be restful. Stationed near a beachfront IE research complex, the Dancers were the closest force on hand when the enigmatic Green Ghosts launched a snatch-and-grab raid against the campus. Graves managed to get four ‘Mech lances, including the command lance, into the field, and proceeded to fend off the pirates. But just when the Dancers were on the verge of forcing the Ghosts to retreat, they were struck by a Trinary of Jade Falcon OmniMechs. The Falcons, who’d landed on Tomans to test the mettle of some of their newest warriors, nearly dealt a crushing blow to the Dancers; it was only Jean’s leadership and the Dancers’ skills that allowed them to carry the day, ultimately turning the Falcon forces back and taking several bondsmen, including a Bloodnamed Star Captain, Anna Pryde. Most of the salvaged Clan technology was sold to Interstellar Expeditions and the LAAF for an astronomical profit; only a largely-intact Night Gyr was retained, in order to prevent undue strain on the Dancers’ technical teams. However, the damage the research complex sustained during combat, while not enough to reduce the Dancers’ payment for their contract, left Interstellar Expeditions very unhappy with their employees, and they declined to renew the Dancers’ contract at the end of August.

Eric McClair, still back on Galatea with the rest of the Dancers, had not been idle while Jean and the others were away. A virtual hiring spree, combined with the massive payout from the conclusion of their IE contract, allowed for the expansion of the unit to a full combined-arms regiment. Composed of a BattleMech battalion, a tank battalion and a third battalion made of airmobile battlesuit infantry, the Dancers were now starting to get attention from major employers, Great House and megacorp alike. With the chaos erupting around the Inner Sphere making reliable mercenaries such a valuable commodity, Graves’ Dancers were able to score a choice contract with the Free Worlds League. Attached to an FWLM assault force tasked with capturing Giausar, a key Lyran border world and major logistical hub for the LAAF, Jean knew that the Dancers were in for some heavy combat. The entirety of Graves’ Dancers lifted off of Galatea almost immediately after Jean’s return, headed for their new assignment.

The fighting on Giausar was difficult – two more Mechwarriors were killed in the fighting – but it was also a highly profitable venture. The final push to drive the Lyran mercenaries known as the One-Eyed Jacks off Giausar resulted in nearly two companies worth of salvaged ‘Mechs and the capture of the Overlord-class Royal Flush. Jean sold off the vast majority of the salvage upon the Dancers’ return to Galatea and then invested some of the resulting profits into replacing his trusty Penetrator with an incredibly expensive customized Mad Cat Mk II from the Diamond Sharks. He also decided that the Dancers as a whole needed a break after the constant action of the last few years. For the following year, he rarely dispatched more than a company at a time from the Dancers’ new home on Galatea. He took the time to expand the logistical arm of the Dancers, making sure they were able to handle the increased size of the unit and the Clantech and other advanced technology that appeared throughout the unit. He also slowly began to form a fourth company for the Dancers’ First Battalion, along with filling out the crew for their new Overlord.

Following a contract on Benjamin that dealt devastating damage to the Dancer force due largely to the precise application of Arrow-IV homing artillery by the defending 6th Ghost Regiment, Jean decided to spend a large portion of the unit's built-up warchest to expand his Dancers even further. He rearranged the 'Mech battalion so that it included a separate battalion command lance, bringing the total number of BattleMechs to fifty-two. He also added a fourth company to Second Battalion, equipped with a two lances of Manteuffels (one lance configured as MBTs and the other as Arrow IV carriers), along with a lance of Myrmidon Type 2s, giving the Dancers a powerful new tool in their bag of tricks.

Unfortunately, those tools were not enough to save them from the fate in store for them on Donegal. Contracted by the Lyran Intelligence Corps to rescue some VIPs from the rapidly deteriorating situation on that planet, Jean dispatched a mixed battalion led by Hawkeye, confident that such a relatively large concentration of force would deter any enterprising pirates or marauding Blakists. But even the veteran Captain Hawkins was unprepared for the cyborg supersoldiers of the Manei Domini. Meeting on the vast Nag’s Head Plains, the Dancers sold themselves dearly to give the VIPs time to escape before they too fled in the face of the nearly unstoppable Domini. The toll on the Dancers was high: twenty personnel were killed (three ‘Mechwarriors, sixteen tankers and a battlesuit trooper), largely in brutal battlefield executions as they were dragged from their machines by Domini infantry. Six ‘Mechs and a full lance of tanks were also lost, and the forces that managed to escape took severe damage. As always Graves’ Dancers would rebuild and regroup, but between the disaster on Donegal and the fighting on Solaris two years prior, the Word of Blake had garnered a new and deadly enemy. Jean and the Dancers’ swore they would avenge their fallen comrades by littering the Inner Sphere with Blakist dead.

That thirst for vengeance was only deepened by subsequent events on the Blakist Protectorate world of Kalidasa. Mister Askai, a broker who had come to prominence in the merc world in recent years, hired the Dancers to collect a bounty on Precentor Timothy Mayo, newly-assigned head of the Kalidasa HPG garrison and former CO of the Word of Blake Militia’s infamous Third Division. Colonel Graves assigned the newly minted Fourth Company, under the command of Captain Peter Takeda, giving them a chance to prove themselves as a unit outside of training exercises for the first time. Striking while Mayo led a portion of the garrison force through exercises at the local weapon range, Fourth Company sought to catch the Blakists off-guard, but the Blakists quickly rallied and forced back the numerically inferior mercenaries. Captain Takeda ultimately chose to withdraw rather than lose the entire company, and a full lance of ‘Mechs and one Mechwarrior were lost in the process. Upon his return to Galatea, Takeda immediately offered his resignation, which was refused by Colonel Graves. Instead, Graves directed the entire regiment to begin training relentlessly in anti-Blakist tactics; he was certain the Jihad was far from over, and knew that it was only a matter of time before they would face the fanatics of the Word again.

It was ironic, then, that the Word of Blake would be responsible for exactly the big break the Dancers needed. In spite of their misadventure on Kalidasa, Mister Askai came to them yet again with an extraordinarily lucrative contract, this time assisting in a planetary assault on Sian. Askai claimed to be representing the Federated Suns, contracting mercs for a retribution strike for the Capellan assault on New Syrtis. Colonel Graves hand-picked four Mechwarriors who accompanied a lance from the Dragon’s Breath mercenary regiment in a diversionary assault on Beilin, a port city south of the planetary capital. They were dropped from a converted Mule in the midst of a furious tropical storm, their objective to delay some picket forces from the Red Lancers and keep them from reinforcing the defenders at the Forbidden City. Instead, they stumbled across two lances from the elite 3rd Canopian Fusiliers and another from the legendary Death Commandos. Reacting quickly, the Dancers split into pairs and began a series of rolling ambushes through Beilin’s warehouse district, using their superior mobility to draw out their opponents and destroy them piecemeal. They used these tactics until less than half of the original ‘Mech company was standing, then surrounded the survivors alongside the Dragon’s Breath lance and crushed the remainder in a final overwhelming blitz. All four of the Dragon’s Breath ‘Mechs were destroyed in the charge, and the Dancers, fearing reprisal from the Death Commandos, hunted down and killed every ejected Mechwarrior. While far more brutal than the Dancers’ normal conduct, the fearsome reputation of the Death Commandos was well known and the mercs had to be sure they could not be connected back to the raid. They exfiltrated under the cover of the hurricane and escaped the system under a total communications blackout to avoid detection. It was only upon their return to Galatea that they discovered the supposed Federated Suns assault was actually a Word of Blake operation. Colonel Graves confronted Mister Askai, furious at the deception; Askai claimed that he too had been deceived and offered a large bonus on top of the already enormous sum paid out for the contract. Grudgingly, Graves accepted the money; a sizable portion was immediately re-invested into a massive upgrade for Third Battalion, replacing the Achileuses and Pumas with modified Elemental and Salamander battlesuits acquired through the same Diamond Shark connections that the Colonel had used to obtain his customized Mad Cat Mk II. Another half-dozen ‘Mechs throughout First Battalion were substantially modified to increase their effectiveness as well.

That would turn out to be money very well spent. In late 3070 the Dancers were contracted by a corporate consortium of Suns and League origins, tasking them to eliminate the defenders of Sheratan, the mercenary unit Grim Determination. Colonel Graves wasted no time in seizing the initiative and throttling it: after jumping into a pirate point that allowed the Dancers to be within Sheratan's atmosphere in less than twelve hours, he kicked off their assault by personally leading an audacious combat drop directly on top of Grim Determination's main airbase. Although the Grims put up a stiff defense, the attack ended with most of Grim Determination's aerospace assets captured intact and the Dancers in an immediate position of air superiority. It also resulted in the capture of Major Anne Martinez, commander of third battalion of the Grims' 'Mech regiment. The following day, Major Purcell's hovertank company came across a mixed company of light and medium 'Mechs from the Grims while conducting recon-in-force. Though outgunned and outmassed, Purcell refused to retreat, instead leading a series of high-speed cavalry charges that left a lance of Grim 'Mechs smoking wreckage and forced the rest of the company into retreat. Pressing forward, Purcell's company discovered nearly two battalions of Grim 'Mechs and tanks preparing to launch a counterattack against the Dancers' LZ. Armed with this information, Major McClair made a lightning strike against the bulk of the force with a reinforced mixed battalion while Hawkeye led his 'Mech company on a flanking maneuver through the city of Daggaknott, just east of the main Grim encampment. While Hawkeye's company annihilated twice their number in 'Mechs and tanks, McClair's forces crashed head-on into the core of the Grim task force. Leading the task force was Grim Determination's XO and chief intelligence officer, Major Byron Smith. Used to battling the low-level insurgencies that plagued Sheratan, Smith believed that only overwhelmingly-concentrated firepower could cow the Dancers at this point. To that end, Smith kept his 'Mech bunched up into tightly-clumped formations. This proved to be a fatal mistake when, at the outset of the battle, the Dancers' twin Stukas swooped in and dropped over three dozen cluster bombs on Smith's company. Within moments, Smith was dead and nearly a company of 'Mechs were crippled or destroyed on the spot. The remaining Grims never had a chance; the rest of McClair's attack force swept over them like a tidal wave, with only five 'Mechs managing to break away from the Dancers and return to their comrades.

In the end, the fall of Grim Determination was something of an anti-climax. Colonel Oliver Haarhar led the last of the Grims in a headlong charge against a mixed battalion of the Dancers headed by Jean Graves himself. Pinpoint artillery fire brought down the Grims' heaviest 'Mechs, while Captain Surikov and Captain Takeda's companies encircled and tore apart the rest. Colonel Haarhar tendered the unit's surrender shortly thereafter, trading the entirety of their transport division for the return of their POWs and passage back to Galatea. Seeing the opportunity to finally alleviate the major transportation headaches that had plagued the unit ever since its initial expansion, Colonel Graves sold the vast majority of the Grims' DropShips and JumpShips in order to finance the purchase of an entirely new fleet and hired on much of the Grims' former spacer and technical corps to crew and maintain them. This greatly softened the blow when, shortly after returning to Galatea, the Dancers discovered that they had once again been deceived; the so-called corporate consortium that had hired them to take down Grim Determination was merely a smokescreen for the Word of Blake, who had incorporated Sheratan into their burgeoning Protectorate days after the Dancers left the system. Looking to finally even the score with the Blakists, Jean took a contract with the Solaris Home Defense League, and the unit mounted up to free the Game World from the Word's tyrannical grip.

Jean still drinks, and still dreams. But he has come to terms with his madness. His skills are sharp, his instincts are scary accurate, and his growing unit is highly effective. Only time...or Jean's visions...will tell what the future may hold for the Dancers.

The unit logo of Graves' Dancers is a skull surrounded by red roses. The Dancers' ‘Mechs are painted black, and decorated with individual motifs of roses and thorns, cavorting skeletons, and similar macabre images. The Dancers wear Davion-style uniforms and equipment, with their own personal touches.

Dragoons Rating: A* (179)


TACTICS
The Dancers use mobile raiding tactics, in the tradition of units like the Eridani Light Horse. Their battle plans are often improvised on the fly, according to whatever is guiding Jean's thoughts at the time; the Dancers have learned not to question their Colonel's quick judgment, and follow his orders to the letter.

A few tactics, however, have become trademarks of the Dancers since their transition to the mercenary lifestyle. They have become quite skilled at fighting in adverse weather and lighting conditions, and often time their raids to coincide with storms or blizzards in order to impair the ability of their foes to detect them. In the same vein, the numerous ECM suites the unit deploys are often used to put up a screen of electronic interference in advance of the main force.

[Abilities: Graves’ Dancers have the Maneuvering Ace SPA (AToW, pg. 223), and may use the Hidden Units rules (TW, pg. 259) unless a scenario specifically disallows it.

The Dancers have become adept at using foul weather to their advantage. All units receive a -1 modifier to all Gunnery Skill rolls when the battle takes place in non-standard weather or lighting conditions, so long as those conditions cause their own to-hit modifiers.

Since Major Kovelevsky’s sister was killed by the Word of Blake in April 3070, the Major has been putting his battalion through endless exercises in anti-Blakist tactics, drilling them to be just as merciless as the fanatics they face. Whenever battle armor units from Third Battalion are facing Word of Blake opponents, they receive a -2 to-hit for all Swarm and Leg attacks.]


SUPPORT
The Dancers started with a Merchant JumpShip (the Toorna Prophet) that they hijacked during the civil war, and a Union DropShip (the Charon) that they used when they were an AFFC unit. Their rapid expansion, however, left them unable to transport more than a small portion of the unit at once, leaving them heavily dependent on their employers for travel from system to system. This was alleviated to a degree when the Dancers captured the Overlord-class DropShip Royal Flush from the One-Eyed Jacks in late 3068, but they were still forced to rely on their employers for the transportation of their 2nd and 3rd Battalions. After crushing Grim Determination on Sheratan at the end of 3070, the Dancers were able to finally expand their fleet to carry the entire unit. It now centers around twin Tramp-class JumpShips, the Nostalgia for Infinity and the Gnostic Ascension; both are equipped with lithium-fusion batteries. The Infinity carries the Dancers' troop carriers: the Conquistador-class Sancho Panza, which serves as the regiment's command vessel; the Colossus-class Hyperion, which transports the remainder of the ground troops; and the Mammoth-class Malyshka, which hauls the regiment's support staff and supplies. Meanwhile, the Ascension carries a powerful assault force, centered around the Excalibur-class Pocket WarShip Thunderchild and rounded out with paired Overlord-A3s, the Tizona and Colada. Standard doctrine calls for the Gnostic Ascension to jump into a target system first, clearing the jump point or immediately jumping back if opposing naval forces are too heavy for even Ascension's strike force to challenge.

Graves' Dancers have 100% tech support; being a graduate of the hands-on PBMA, Jean fully understands the value of self-sufficiency, especially in a guerrilla raiding unit.