Thank you Big brother [TCAF] and favourite first cousin [GS]

The Community Warfare side of MechWarrior has shown clearly that CCAF leans heavily on the Tikonov Commanlity Armed Forces [TCAF] made up of mainly Russian speaking mechwarriors. They are focused, intense and very good at what they do: which is to win planets and smash opponents; mainly House Davion. Additionally, in the competitive circuits (community run events) - TCAF are also active and competitive. They are, in short, the most active and most competent House Liao unit. No offence is meant to all the other units that I know of but I see TCAF everywhere, most importantly on the planet tags and I am very glad for it. I fully understand that new ceasefire windows help TCAF enormously due to their time zones.

TCAF leads the way for the CCAF!

A shout out to The Order of the Golden Skull [GS] who have come back to House Liao after their contract with Clan Jade Falcon had ended. No doubt, bringing some new perspectives after fighting for the clans. They have been active in the renewed CCAF surge - House Liao now seems to be most active in the Euro Timezone due to these two units.

However, as per the forum thread on MWO - I have made it a point that from most of the Inner Sphere houses, the CCAF units (all mainly quite small) tend to work together quite well if not always successfully. Unlike some other houses, dominated by large units - CCAF relies heavily on TCAF but then works hard when scratch CCAF units are cobbled together and thrown into the fray. A CCAF pug unit is probably more effective than any other House pug unit; at least that it what I have seen and experienced in the months of CW drops that I have been involved in.

Being the smallest House and with a small attack window, House Liao was initially on the defensive as House Davions's AFFS stormed into confederation space and over-ran the CCAF defence time and time again. With House Davion being distracted, the situation has been reversed where we are simply more active when required. Though our numbers remain the same comparatively speaking. On the majority of times, I have always dropped with mixed CCAF units. My unit [LlAO] is a ticker for ingame purposes, there is no coordination outside of the game and I belong to House Liao in it's totality. A bit like WH40K's Black Legion who follow Chaos undivided...

Anyway, this weekend had many successfully drops with House Liao handing the FedRats their arses on most occasions. Whenever we land and see the enemy composition is made up of a variety of unit tickers; we know that we would most likely win the battle and march one step closer to evicting the hated Federated Suns off another Liao world.

Even if the Davions have some elite units in the defence, it might not be enough. In one drop on  the outskirts of Menkib city, it was held by a mixed Davion unit made up mainly from one of their more rated mercs: Praetorian Legion [PL]. House Liao dropped with her own mercenaries in the form of the The Order of the Golden Skull [GS] and they soon put the Davions and their lackeys to the sword.

Stomp?

When the defenders are a mixed bunch of AFFS and mercenary units, the results are more definitive - this is when the same House Liao unit continued to march towards securing Menkib, this time moving onto one of the defensive installations in the desert. The initial wave accounted for almost half of the Davion regiment defending the gun installation before a combination of defence turrets, defence missile batteries and second- and third-wave reinforcements forced the CCAF to call in reinforcements. The result was a solid push through the base and we smashed the last wave of AFFS reinforcements as soon as they left their dropships.

GTFO this planet!

So it is a good time to be fighting for the Celestial throne but I do detect a slight slowing down in our progress..certainly with the recent acquisitions of additional mercenary units by House Davion (namely, [CI], [-MS-]) and a slight slackening of the pressure from House Kurita in the north, I can see the AFFS shift some units down to their border with us in the South and South-West.

May the fight be full on and merciless. 

Public Queue is R n R

A typical PUG drop...

Last two nights I decided on switching back to the public queue and dropped with other House Liao friends. I didn't have the time to invest in Community Warfare as I had only 15-20 minutes availability at a stretch. It was with some pleasant surprise that I was with a bunch of monks from Warrior House Ma-Tsui-Kai [WHM] and Warrior House Kamata [WHK]; the former having grown in numbers since I last dropped with them.



So it was great to be in the same drop with Modred, Thor1, StarbuckBSG and others. All cursing, cussing and jawing as they do. Great stuff.



We even had a 12-man made up of mainly Warrior House pilots, one Draconis Combine refugee and a couple of Marik pilots. However, even with shared voice comms - this bunch was mashed in the initial stages as our team work and coordination was terrible though we gradually improved and ended up with a couple of convincing wins.



Still, the public queue is fun and competitive and the best place for new warriors to learn their craft. Pity that there isn't a 'solaris' league or planet to practice on. These 12-man matches also allow the introduction of Clan tech to the mix, so it can get one-sided pretty damn quick.



Anyway, am hopeful that we will see more of the Warrior Houses participate in taking back the House Liao worlds; I think they are pausing and waiting for the map reset when all things.....reset. This will wipe out a lot of the planetary gains that House Liao have made lately.

We're House Liao

House Liao's current resurgence is as much to do with House Davions unfocused and demoralised play as it is to do with much improved coordination amongst the more numerous small CCAF units.

Dare I say it that House Liao has more active units on the House Davion front now than the FedRats? Yup, I have been in three Ghost-drops on their worlds where there were no House Davion mech units to defend their cities and infrastructure. This is in marked contrast in the early months of CW when we were outnumbered by House Davion 3-, 4-, 5-to-1 with us defending only about 1/5 of the attacks. The other 4/5ths would land on our planet(s), only to be opposed by static laser batteries and missile pods. House Davion would crow that it was down to the their skill and coordination but in reality it was down to the their numbers. Now, the situation, at least tactically has changed: House Liao has relative numerical supremacy (though I am sure that we are still one of the smallest groups around) due to all active units being, well active and coordinated.

However, we are in danger of letting the string of victories go to our heads. We have a ceasefire with Marik, that has held despite some false-flag operations and we are amicable with House Kurita and F.R.R. - to me, the real enemy are the Clans who are taking planets from the Draconis Combine, Lyran Commonwealth and the FRR.

What has made House Liao and the CCAF more competitive?

CCAF has one active, competitive and elite unit that regularly field 12-man units (a 'company' in MechWarrior parlance) and this is the famous Tikonov Commonality Armed Forces [TCAF] and they have been a bedrock of the CCAF through thick and thin. The next comparable units are either the House Liao Gatekeepers [HLGK] or the 4th Tau Ceti Rangers [4TCR] and both can field a company's worth of mechs (rarely) but usually I only see an augmented lance of these warriors. Other sub-company units include the Warrior Houses: Ma-Tsui-Ka [WHM] and Kamata [WHK]. There are pilots in both groups who I know and respect, having dropped with many of them prior to clan invasion.

The next group are the semi-regular CCAF units:

[PMP] - Always need our Pimps.
[LURM]
[SRAL]
[GDVC] - haven't seen these guys in an age and potentially, these could be as big as The Gatekeepers, The Rangers or even the TCAF as they have almost exclusively, pilots from SAR and China; a huge catchment area.
[FYSK]

The final group are the lone-wolf types who have no long-term unit affiliation. This is where the 'Green Machine' [LlAO] has been created to at least give these House Liao affiliated pilots a unit ticker if they so wished. Makes coordination a bit easier ingame too.

However, am absolutely sure the tide will turn against the CCAF and we will start to lose planets and I wonder what will happen to the high degree of coordination, morale and activity we're seeing right now? House Davion had the services of some very fine mercenary units and they formed the thrusting tip of the Federated Suns' spear into the heart of the Cappellan Confederation. They left for the clan front (or took money off the clans and fought against IS) but some of these mercs are now coming back, lured by money, fame and fights. They include Comstar Irregulars [CI] who have held Frazer successfully from repeated CCAF attacks over the last week - in fact, the CCAF attacks have now gone around Frazer, leaving it a pocket of House Davion instability inside a sea of green tranquility.

I dropped with a bunch of small CCAF units and while I have already praised the general utility of the smaller CCAF units: their ability to coordinate, work together and then largely succeed in securing a victory. Against a full company (or two) from one competitive and cohesive unit - the shortcomings of an ad-hoc team, as good as individuals/lances were, was shown in sharp relief. This CCAF invasion was completely smashed on arrival. The entire drop team of 48 mechs (essentially a mixed regiment) was blasted to scrap - scoring only a modest 6 enemy mech kills and some damaged gates.

Most of the top tier competitive units are Mercs and the CCAF will be facing them once more.

So, Frazer still is under the [CI] ticker and will probably remain so for the time being.

Meanwhile, up North [TCAF] continues to grab Davion planets and we recently landed and occupied the iconic world of Tsingtao. We then took Heligoland and currently assaulting Matsu. We are trying to drive northward and retake Planet Liao off the Davions. For those not following the maps, Planet Liao has changed hands between House Davion and House Marik at least twice in both directions.

However, the mercs are here and they are hungry.

We're onto Kaifeng but public drop was horrid - have lost my mojo

After House Liao loyalist forces led by [TCAF] captured Bacun and Wrentham, attention shifted North once more to Kaifeng. However, due to some time zone changes I found no House Liao units available to drop so switched over to the public queue.

Man, it was horrid - I died ignominiously in all five drops. In one, I decided to wheel out my Atlas-S who was then promptly left behind and was destroyed by a lance of enemy mediums. I didn't even get a chance to hit anyone. I wanted to switch around and grabbed my Jagermech-DD, complete with x3 UAC/5s as I still love the Dakka.

Well, I managed to squeeze off a few shots but was destroyed by a rain of missiles as my other lance mates, all got themselves killed in increasingly silly ways. I can't be blameless, I should have stepped in and used the in-game voice to at least focus fire..

Another three more drops and yes, my MOJO had definitely left the building, if it was with me to begin with.

Oh well. I took that as a sign to retire for the night. However, Kaifeng tomorrow for sure. Gonta from [TCAF] has also made a proposal to help pave the way for House Liao to move northwards towards the Clan front and it looks like House Marik has now agreed.

Good times. On to Tsingtao now!

Captured Shaunavon and Bacun. Now onto Wrentham

There's been much discussion on whether House Liao should start to look Northwards and march towards the iconic planet that has the name of our beloved House: LIAO.

Currently, it is back under House Davion control after it was very recently snatched from them by a lightning raid by House Marik. Either way, no matter who owns it, Liao will be back amongst the Capellan Confederation.

Instead, the CCAF has been heading eastwards: we took Shaunavon and Bacun in rapid succession and now dropping on Wrentham. House Liao units have been mixed and effectiveness nonetheless. Apart from [TCAF] - I have never been in a near-homogenous strike team where every pilot has been with one unit. So, we had to make do. Smaller lances need more coordination and surprisingly, this has worked. House Liao has no egos - probably because it was battered out of by House Davion in the first horrid month of CW.

The boot is now on the other foot but for how long? With the rumoured map reset gaining strength - House Liao may lose all they have gained.

Who knows?

Regardless,  House Liao is taking House Davion scalps. Good times.

House Liao has been reclaimed from the Davions....by Marik?

Am in two minds about the liberation of planet Liao from the clutches of House Davion. House Marik attacked and took hold of planet Liao yesterday after a short firefight and now, the purple flag of the FWL flies over the capital city of our ancestral planet.

Meanwhile, our attacks are heading eastwards, we recently took the planet Ashley off the rats and now moving on towards Shaunanvon.

House Liao - why we are special