OBT Forum

Yeah they just would trust them Six to manage the extra equipment and personnel.

Next up are the Benjamin Regulars who are the first District force covered in the Field Report. Nothing much new to report here. Just a rehash of what we already knew. I will say I'm disappointed in that because there is plenty different here. The Algedi and Ashio Prefectures for example which gives the District 7 total Prefectures by far the most. This isn't even touched on and here again you get the feeling that this is a 3025 product being shoved in the 2700s with no explanation. Just except it and move on. Nothing to see here. In one Battlecorps story we had mention of an Algedi Regular unit and this book could have been a good spot for them. Take 3 Prefectures (Algedi, Ashio, and say Proserpina) and you could easily form a 5th Military District. That would match Rasalhague's 3 Prefecture District but not even a glossing over to why such an arrangement ever happened. Plus with 19 regiments and three realms to face off against the Benjamin Regulars seem weak compared to their flanking Districts which have 7 and 10 more regiments to play with. So what was written in the report about the Benjamin Regulars is fine but uninspired and lacking. Maybe I'm being to rough. What do you think??

Interesting FirstStarLord, can you site the source for this information?

From the disappointing Benjamin Regulars I go to the biggest surprise of the Field Report and may I say it is a pleasant one. I found the story of the Dieron Regulars to be outstanding. Reaching back into ancient BattleTech history for a planet that was at first seduced by Shiro Kurita only to learn they were being played by this would be Warlord. Dieron left the Alliance of Galedon for the expanding Terran Hegemony but before it did several volunteers and loyalists had already joined the Dragon and vowed to never leave. Top marks here gang. Love the back story which drew upon old canon texts and the drive to one return Dieron to the fold is an outstanding goal. My only nitpick is calling them Regulars isn’t quite right to me, I would have preferred something Alshain Avenger style. Warriors or Legion perhaps may have better described these exiles. Regulars makes me think of a District Force which clearly they are not. If TPTB wanted to go that route they should have kept the Dieron District as a rump state for the Combine and go from there. However this idea I will be pleased to add to the BTSD universe as it really fits on so many levels.

You could also site the Proserpina Hussars and the Arkab Legion as well as their homeworlds are within the rump Dieron Prefectures.

Also the Galedon Regulars who are next up are really featured as the main body of the DCMS and to some extent this is true as the Draconis Combine grew out of the Alliance of Galedon. With nearly 30 BattleMech regiments it is the Galedonians who come in just behind the Sword of Light regiments as the DCMS elite. Well at least in thought as their Mechwarrior elite tend to look down on conventional forces as standard Drac cannon fodder policy at this time. Again there is no big surprise here in this write up as it follows known information. I guess the size and importance of the Galedon Regulars somewhat alarmed me to begin with but it does make a certain amount of sense.

FSL, I think you may have misread the entry.

It talks about the 4th SOL Brigade going to Breed and then talks about what the 3 regiments of the brigade, the 10th, 11 and 12th SOL did there and where they went after.

This is where I got the idea that the SOL was/will be comprised of 15 regiments in 3 regiment brigades.

However, the quote in ER 2750 seems to have this organization completed too early, of the DCMS had hidden units in hand for the SOL already.

For the answer about what the writers intended on SoL organization, I direct you to the following threads:


http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,19103.0.html

http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,35899.0.html

Combine that information with the line from the FR saying that the SoL was a collection of a dozen mech and armor regiments until the reorganization of the 2740's and the answer becomes much clearer. The ideal number of Sword regiments was twelve, and that could be attained by having some of them organized as tank units during times it was legally impossible to organize all of them as mech units (i.e. the implementation of the Edict of 2650). Only five of those regiments represent the pillars of Combine Society, the others must have titles related to other concepts.

We don't know the full composition of the DCMS of the 2720's, but we know that the Fourth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Sword of Light were all mech regiments at that time. By 2765 only the Fourth is still on the active list and the others disbanded, if only temporarily, while the Combine continued to secretly expand it's military.

Dieron left the Alliance of Galedon for the expanding Terran Hegemony ....

A slight nit, Dieron was so close to Terra that it would have remained in the Alliance after the Outer Reaches revolt and the Terran abandonment of all worlds more than a jump from Terra.

Correct CJvR, Dieron is within the 30, ahem, 22 light year single jump radius of Terra and therefore was not really given up by the Alliance. Owing to canon statements that Dieron and Altair were free however there is an unwritten story of independence in BattleTech history. If you look on maps of the time Dieron is free. I'd love to hear what happened to Dieron but since the whole story is contradictory already I think the current PTB will leave it alone.

Well it isn't hard to imagine that the isolationist regime in the Alliance at the time wouldn't insist to violently to a system determined to go it alone, particularly not if it broke away before the fallout from the ORR had settled into a new status quo.