Raymond's Roughnecks - What we know so far

Irisz,

You asked me to do some digging into these re-emerged Roughnecks. This is the best that myself and the others you put on job were able to put together. I admit there’s a fair amount of speculation in filling in the gaps, but I think it’s solid enough.

Raymond’s Roughnecks were employed by the Word of Blake during the jihad. The unit was functionally destroyed in 3075 in combat with the Irregulars. Nina Raymond, the unit’s then commander, died in single combat with Annika Magyari. Colin Raymond, her older son, was captured; Bruce Raymond, her younger, survived and escaped with the rest of the command. From there we lose track of them, but conventional wisdom holds that they remained in the Word’s employ and were merged down into another command before being finally destroyed during operation SCOUR. (The MRBC’s claim that all the units that worked for the Word were destroyed has since been proven erroneous)

From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

Dirty tricks are a part of the mercenary trade. No unit can stay ‘clean’ forever, and sooner or later you’re going to have to do something a little dubious to get your way. And sometimes, it actually ends up that you’re doing the right thing, even if you’re going about it in the least ethical ways possible.

Case in point, what we did to Devon Wainwright. We’d had concerns about him ever since we landed on Ashburton, based on the information we’d been provided on his family’s involvement with the pirates. He had a clear motivation too; overthrow the government and restore the planetary monarchy with his family at the top, and go back to how things had been for the last few hundred years before the Jihad.

Ashburton National News, 12th December, 3145 (Extract)

Hambone: We begin tonight with startling developments coming out of parliament in Batman. The government was shocked today when opposition leader, Devon Wainwright, revealed that he and his Re-Monarchist party had been actively aiding the various pirate groups that have been responsible for numerous attacks across the planet. For more information, we cross to our political correspondent, Rachel Drew.

Drew: Thank you for that, Brian. This move on Devon Wainwright’s part was not only completely shocking but also unexpected. Wainwright had called a press conference for this afternoon when it was expected that he would make a major announcement with regards to the pirate issue. Instead, he delivered a prepared statement that nobody expected.

Stalking the Wolf

From Mercenary Campaigns of the 32nd Century, Galatea Free Press

The arrival of a Wolf Empire unit on Ashburton in pursuit of Magyari’s Irregulars was not an entirely unexpected development. The mercenary unit had clashed with the Wolf Empire three times in the last year on worlds they occupied, and in each case come out victorious.

The first was on Keystone, where the Irregulars sized a considerable store of Clantech parts while disrupting production of the Tomahawk II OmniMech. Not only did the Irregulars brush aside a Kappa Galaxy tank force, but they also used the clans’ own honour rules against them to outmanoeuvre and escape a frontline unit from Beta Galaxy. The second of these saw them raid Kalidassa, again disrupting BattleMech production on-world. In the process they destroyed or disabled a number of Theta Galaxy BattleMechs; furthermore, unconfirmed reports claim that they destroyed a prototype OmniMech.

From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

The last twenty-four hours did a fantastic job of upending this entire campaign in a number of different ways. I shouldn’t be surprised that Assault Lance was in the middle of all of it either.

First of all, the Wolves. Okay, so we have done a good job of annoying them, granted, and I kind of understand why they would come after us. First we humiliated them on Keystone, stole a huge pile of parts and disrupted OmniMech production. Then we repeated the process on Kaldiassia, including destroying a prototype OmniMech. Finally, we started a rebellion on Shasta, destroyed half a cluster and sent the rest into a tailspin of crashing morale. I suspect that the Wolves that followed us here to Ashburton are the same ones that were burning towards Shasta as we left.

Journal Extract 75324-Rho

Remember what I said about the kids being walking security leaks? Well, if anything, I seem to have underestimated the risk they represented.

Jessie isn’t that stupid. Hopelessly naive, in over her head and being pushed way past her capability because of her parentage, yes, but not actually stupid. And let’s be honest here, she’s far from the first child of a mercenary commander to be promoted simply because of her parentage. In a family run unit like this, it’s inevitable; you just have to hope that the child is up to the task. In Jessie’s case, the answer is ‘no’, and I can’t see any way that she would ever run the unit on her own.

Ronnie is that stupid, but that’s another matter.

Journal Extract 75323-Rho

[Honestly? Between them the kids are walking security leaks. If not for their parentage, they would have both been discharged long ago or otherwise ‘retired’. Then again, they’re far form the first idiot offspring of mercenary officers. At least one of them might not be a problem too much longer]

When (deleted) the Major first found out about the Ashburton government hiring mercs, she was furious. Then when she found out who they were, she was strangely okay with it, which is rather strange what with our past and all that. She figured that we would lie low for a while and get a read on the Irregulars, their full capabilities and what they were doing, and then make her move.  She was even okay with them taking out one of the pirate bands, though it ain’t like they’re exactly a big loss to begin with.

So the Major had the idea of luring out one of their lances into an ambush. The plan was to use recon lance to act as bait to draw them in and then have my lance to take them out. Seemed simple enough, right? We even had a fallback escape route into the canyons should things go bad. ‘course, none of it went even remotely right to begin with. (Deleted) (deleted) frig it, trying to keep this professional sounding Scout lance managed to bait one of the units looking for us all right, but it was a freaking heavy lance. So they weren’t just running towards us for the trap but also running for their lives, and Scout Lead was screaming like he allways does when he gets in over his head (happens a lot too).