Can't help but notice...

[Okri Grungrunsson]

Clanners are turbo-autists that make horrendous tactical decisions and all their commanders are women. What did they mean by this?

[Imperialus]

Because you don't become a commander by being the best tactician. You become a commander by fighting other mechwarriors in one on one duels for the position. It may be you challenge someone of higher rank in a trial of position, or it may be you fight a number of other contenders when there is an inevitable vacancy. It means you are very good at killing other people, but there is no consideration given with regards to how good you are at ordering people to kill other people or paying any attention whatsoever to little details like logistics. It's one of the big reasons why the Clans lose in the end.

The female centric nature of the officers is because Sarah Weaver is the SaKhan (which means she is second in command of the entire clan) of Clan Smoke Jaguar at the time of the invasion.
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Sarah_Weaver

Galaxy commander Cordera Perez (who is male) is the commander of Beta Galaxy with a Galaxy being the largest organization unit within the clan 'org chart' consisting of between 200 and 300 mechs.
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Cordera_Perez

Your direct commander is Star Colonel Emilie Wimmer, the commander of the 362nd Assault Cluster. Basically a regiment or division of around 60 or 70 mechs plus support. They would be expected to operate pretty much independently, though in the case of the 362nd Sarah Weaver attached herself and her Shroud Keshik (which is basically her personal bodyguard) to the cluster because they were the tip of the spear when it came to the invasion of the Inner Sphere, she wanted to be there and no one was going to say no.
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Emilie_Wimmer

They are all characters with established backgrounds written back in the 90's. The plot of the game involves following their stories. What you are asking is be a bit like playing a game based on the Lord of the Rings and wondering why Galadrial is an important person.

[Harukage]

That is not... entirely correct.
After your first Trial of Position, the so called Blooding, you earn new promotions normaly most the time.
New Trials of Position are only invoked if your superiors do not think that you are ready, or if you find your superrior not pulling his weight, or when there are several candidates of similar value available to take position. But it is usualy looked down upon when in active war zone unless there is a heavy need for a change.

[Imperialus]

Originally posted by Harukage:

That is not... entirely correct.
After your first Trial of Position, the so called Blooding, you earn new promotions normaly most the time.
New Trials of Position are only invoked if your superiors do not think that you are ready, or if you find your superrior not pulling his weight, or when there are several candidates of similar value available to take position. But it is usualy looked down upon when in active war zone unless there is a heavy need for a change.

I could be mistaken. I was thinking back to some of the shenanigans that Joanna and Aidan Pryde got up to in "I am Jade Falcon", but I'll fully admit that it has been more than 20 years since I read it.

[swordsman422]

Nah, it's accurate. Unless you are promoted in the field, every promotion you earn requires you to fight anyone else interested in that slot for it. Even with field promotions, if it is to become permanent, you have to fight for it. That's the Clan way. It's not a smart way, as the best fighters aren't always the smartest strategists, and the Jaguars in particular suffer at the hands of incompetent and shortsighted leaders who were good at winning duels.

[Harukage]

All clans have different traditions. Jade Falcons are obsessed with purity and purging weakness, Smoke Jaguars are power maniacs etc..
For example Zelbringen. people somehow misunderstand that. First of all it was not created by Nicolai Kerensky, hence it is not an absolute law. It was formulated by Nova Cats khan of old somewhere at the start of the Golden Age of clans. To avoid casulties in civilian castes and destruction of infrastructure. However only like half of the clans agree to it. And some of them, like Wolves and Diamond Shark use very liberal aplications of it. usualy that means they follow it only if it benefits them.
Also novells like to overrepresent clans weird characterisation. To show readers how they are different to spheroids.
Now i ask you how many Trials of Postion did Phelan Ward fought before he became the khan of Wolf in Exile? One. The trial where he was adopted by the clan as a warrior and Natasha Kerensky had reentered the clan.

[talemore]

It's starship troopers.

Did you not notice that the women are driving the ships while the men are dying.

They use mech suits known as Marauder.

[Ninjafroggie]

The clans' lack of strategic acumen is how comstar won tukkayid. Like I've said in other threads, clan wolf was the only invading clan that took the intel received from the dragoons and actually bothered to learn from it, and they were a warden clan not crusaders. They learned that fighting a battle and fighting a war are two VERY different things, they learned about IS tactics and trickery, they learned the importance of having WAY more munitions that you think you need (something nearly every nation on earth seems to forget as soon as there is peace and has to re-learn the next time there's a major war), they learned about how difficult it is to occupy and pacify a population that does not want you there, etc. The crusader clans, however, were so arrogant in their superiority to the inner sphere that they didnt bother to learn much from the data at all beyond basic recon. The wolves brought up WAY more supplies and garrison forces than any of the crusader clans, and were widely ridiculed for their perceived fear of the great houses that would surely crumble in the face of superior clan warriors and technology as a result, but when guerilla uprisings, IS 'dishonorable' tactics, and the combat supplies needed to win against foes that refuse to just stand and fight with honor started screwing with the clans' timeframes, clan wolf was already prepared. That's why with each phase of the invasion after the initial penetration the wolves took nearly double the worlds any other clan did. That's why the wolves didnt bid away any forces for tukkayid and were consequently the only clan to score a 'win' there. Everyone else brought too little forces, too little supplies, and kept doing dumb s*** for honor's sake like stick around for a batchal when they should have been withdrawing or moving on to hit something vulnerable. The clans, in their isolation and arrogance, forgot that war is one of those situations where you win, or you die, 'honor' has no place on the battlefield. That if you find yourself in a fair fight, it means you made a bad mistake. They (the crusader clans) got so wrapped up in proving that the clan way made superior warriors that they forgot one very important detail: they were a few dozen worlds invading empires spanning hundreds of inhabited systems each, with all the accompanying population and manufacturing base that entails, and the inner sphere drowned them in a ocean of blood and buried them under a mountain of machinery just like the soviets did to the germans in wwII.

[Harukage]

That is not the entire of the story. Clan Wolf purposefully ommited the majority of intel, only giving other clans the very early reports from Wolfs Dragoons. While they themself had a full picture. Never underestimate Wolves "honour".
Also when it comes to Tukkayid it is worthy to mention that Ghosr Bears also earned victory. Technical but victory. Exactly because of the cautious nature of their clan. They simply took all the ammunition and resources they could with them, and were the first clan to create full production lines in IS. And when they met ComGuard on Tukkayid, they took their natural defensive stance probing enemies first, finding weaknesses, instead of rushing head on. While Jade Falcons earned a draw through pure ferocity. They just killed so many ComStar goons there were no one to fight them on open ground anymore, however Falcons themself were not able to take any of the targets alocated to.

[talemore]

Defeating the periphery is not the same as attacking the Great houses or inner sphere since the great houses were unaware of the clans.

They were thought to be: mercenaries.

And the clans weren't much for winning wars. They wanted to defeat the rulers of the great houses and found great battles to be important. The defeat was to psychological make them all surrender.

The warrior is neither the instigator or the concluder who end the conflict.

The clans greatest defeat was caused by a man who understood what makes the clans tic. He realize that the clans are never going to stop until someone hunts them down by never let them alone, always cause distractions of creating warcrimes knowing how the clans felt about civilians. It is how he broke the clans. For every victory, people had to be mass murdered by constantly sending the battle into cities. And that is why the batchall was about conquering a city since he knew the clans with their weapons would destroy the city down to the ground and there be no victory songs by the dead people they have killed.

If one lesson learn from tukkayid, the clans who joined and agree the winning conditions, they learned nothing from Edo.

In fact the crusaders were stopping all other clan members to join since they wanted to become supreme rulers.

They saw turtle bay justifed. It didn't meant that what makes clans tic was changed.

One man was enough to break the clans since he was heartless.
His name was Anastasius Focht

[Ninjafroggie]

Originally posted by Harukage:

That is not the entire of the story. Clan Wolf purposefully ommited the majority of intel, only giving other clans the very early reports from Wolfs Dragoons. While they themself had a full picture. Never underestimate Wolves "honour".
Also when it comes to Tukkayid it is worthy to mention that Ghosr Bears also earned victory. Technical but victory. Exactly because of the cautious nature of their clan. They simply took all the ammunition and resources they could with them, and were the first clan to create full production lines in IS. And when they met ComGuard on Tukkayid, they took their natural defensive stance probing enemies first, finding weaknesses, instead of rushing head on. While Jade Falcons earned a draw through pure ferocity. They just killed so many ComStar goons there were no one to fight them on open ground anymore, however Falcons themself were not able to take any of the targets alocated to.

Ghost Bear did not score a win, they took Spanac but failed to take Luk as they had to call off their assault just as it entered the city's suburbs in order to protect their vital ammo supplies from a comguards counterstike at Spanac. Comstar offered Ghost Bear a 'minor victory' if they withdrew because comstar lacked the forces needed to push them out of Spanac, and lacking the remaining force needed to take Luk in the face of the forces redeployed after other clans' defeats, they accepted. Though they called it a minor win due to the disproportionate losses inflicted by ghost bear, by the terms of the batchall that comstar issued to the clans they only scored a draw because they only took one of their targets.

Jade Falcon was hurt badly in their advance to, and crossing of the Prezno river, though comstar took horrific casualties in the defense of the river crossings. Then, before they could regroup, the jade falcons were thrown back across the river by a massive comstar counterattack, and had to spend a while letting their aerospace assets bomb the enemy as they were unable to breach comstar's defense of the crossings in a frontal assault. They ended up sacrificing a star of mechs to create a breakwater downstream so they could cross there and flank the bridges' defenses. They then spotted the comstar trap at Olalla, didnt fall into the planned ambush, and took the city. Comstar then launched another raid at the bridges to destroy the jade falcon repair depots established there with 2 divisions, and sent the other 1st army divisions and the entire 4th army to retake Olalla. The falcons succeeded in holding the city, but the repair depot was bombed and the falcons were forced to withdraw in the face of lack of supply and repairs. The withdrawl was the bloodiest phase of the jade falcons' whole experience, the com guards threw the remains of 6 entire armies at them, trying to prevent their escape or at least maul the clanners as badly as possible. Aiden Pryde and his dezgra falcon guards sacrificed themselves as a rearguard to allow the rest of the surviving falcons to escape. Because they had taken Olalla, they were awarded a draw as well.

Clan wolf was the ONLY clan to take both of their objectives and score a win.