Background
With the ComGuard enjoying a comfortable 6-4 lead over the Clan Invaders, mid-May saw Clans Nova Cat and Steel Viper demonstrate unprecedented levels of cooperation following a lengthy period of quiet manoeuvring—both Clans launching offensive operations against the ComGuard within hours of dawn. Operating within neighbouring battlefields and led by Khans Severen Leroux and Natalie Breen, respectively, the move caught the four ComGuard armies assembled against them almost completely off-guard, the early warnings given by ComStar observation points proving vital in organising a hasty defence. Highly experienced against Inner Sphere militaries, Khan Leroux's Nova Cats fired the opening shots in the simultaneous battles, the Clan's Alpha and Delta Galaxies (commanded by Khan Leroux and Galaxy Commander Karl Devalis) using long-range sniper tactics against an eclectic but judicious selection of targets throughout the early morning before shifting towards more conventional attacks. Less experienced than their Nova Cat counterparts but fighting in terrain that favoured mechs to an even greater degree, the Steel Vipers' Alpha and Beta Galaxies (led by Khan Breen and Galaxy Commander Jonathan Mercer) proved far more aggressive, the Bernheim mountains seeing Steel Viper mechs moving across their peaks at speed.
Well-entrenched within the neighbouring regions but badly caught out by the simultaneous but studiously independent attacks, ComStar's Fifth and Sixth Armies under the overall command of Demi-Precentor Jacob Evans—assisted by elements of the Seventh Army—and the Seventh, Eighth, and sections of the First Armies—under Demi-Precentor Wambui-Košar—sought to have their foes break upon their defences. Well aware that the terrain of both the Tallow Creek Canyon and Bernheim mountains favoured infantry and mechs over conventional vehicles, all four armies had been heavily stocked with spare parts, equipment, and war machines, and much work had gone into preparing for a drawn out siege that would force the Clans to expend materials and MechWarriors. A plan that would take advantage of ComStar's ability to shuffle troops and equipment around as needed and the Clan's demonstrated refusal to work together in close cooperation, the sudden change in tactics demonstrated by Khans Leroux and Breen concerned many at the time.
Battle
On 14 May, the Nova Cat's Alpha Galaxy launched an early morning attack on the Salem resort city (and victory point), the settlement serving as both a supply point for frontline ComGuard units and a gateway into Tallow Creek Canyon's interior. Supporting the Galaxy were air-mobile Elemental Stars, VTOL gunships, and OmniFighters from the Clan's Delta Galaxy.
Initially, the Nova Cats attacked Oakland and Lansing, two small ecological tourist camps about 5 kilometres southwest of Salem. The settlements were defended by multiple divisions of the ComGuard Seventh Army under Demi-Precentor Miryam Wambui-Košar, and various combat automata purchased from throughout the Inner Sphere—though most notably from the Helghan Republic. Well prepared despite the surprise nature of the attack, the entrenched ComGuard units successfully held off the attackers, suffering only minimal losses during the hours-long engagement and easily able to resupply due to their proximity to Salem. However, during the nights of 13-14 May, the 1st Nova Cat Guards had secretly gathered on the southern bank of the Tallow Creek north of both campsites and observed the layout of ComGuard defences and the routes taken by resupply convoys. So informed, and with ComGuard forces unknowingly located at the crux of two pincers, the Nova Cats launched a second attack on the townlets at 02:00 on the 15th, both campgrounds seized in under an hour and ComGuard units forced to withdraw to Salem for protection.
Demonstrating a keen understanding of elan, the Nova Cats disdained garrisoning either hamlet in favour of harassing the retreating ComGuard as they fell back towards Salem, the ComGuard commanders forced to sacrifice multiple units fighting rearguard actions. Though the ComGuard proved able to save the majority of forces defending both outlying settlements, the withdrawal's rapid pace had seen a substantial quantity of material left behind, and the losses sustained during the retreat had impacted morale disproportionally to the casualties sustained. In addition, while ComGuard units withdrew to the defensive lines around and within Salem, the proximity of Nova Cat forces to retreating units prevented them from meaningfully integrating into the defence plan before the Nova Cats began their attack on Salem.
At 10:00 on the 15th, the 449th Assault Cluster crossed the Tallow Creek at the southern end of the city's airfield and came under intense fire from hidden ComGuard positions surrounding the extensive transit hub. Facing unexpectedly fierce resistance despite the factors of surprise and momentum, the Nova Cat cluster halted to reorganise for a more determined assault, and additional air-mobile Elementals were dispatched to assist the Cluster at the behest of Khan Leroux. After requesting air support from the Clan's Aerospace element, Delta Galaxy OmniFighters launched daring assaults against anti-armour emplacements located during the initial aborted engagement, and the 449th resumed their attack shortly afterwards.
Heavily resisted despite the defenders suffering highly accurate fire from Nova Cat sniper and artillery mechs, fire from the airfield's strong points initially inflicted heavy casualties on the advancing Assault Cluster; however, the rapid use of artillery-delivered smoke rounds soon hindered the ability of the ComGuard to deliver accurate fire while doing little to prevent the bombardment of static positions. However, as the 449th's vanguard approached these defensive positions, a southerly wind drove the smoke away from the ComGuard's guns, and they came under fire from infantry, automata, self-propelled guns, and entrenched PPC carriers—the latter largely unaffected by the earlier aerial bombardment. Despite the fire directed against them, Nova Cat Elementals continued forward and knocked out the strong points with high explosives and SRMs, forcing the ComGuard to withdraw from their positions.
Separately, the 489th Assault Cluster, to the right of the 449th Assault Cluster, attacked up the city's unnamed main road but became separated from their supporting VTOLs thanks to the heavy presence of anti-air artillery and surface-to-air missiles in and around Salem. Soon after, the Cluster was forced to pull back by artillery-delivered mines and heavy defensive fire from the northern side of the airfield and nearby houses.
Simultaneously, Striking up from the south, the 1st Nova Cat Guards attacked the outlying Emerald Mountain Retreat, a luxury resort co-located with a crossroads and a handful of private properties. Moving quickly, the Nova Cats cleared the houses and secured the crossroads but found the resort defended by power-armour infantry equipped with long-range Petrusite weapons. When initial attacks by Elementals and Mechs were repulsed, the Nova Cats turned to long-range bombardment to resolve the issue, a rolling barrage seeing the ComGuard snipers driven out, though not before heavy field gun fire from the airfield and artillery fire from Salem halted any further advance for the day.
On 16 May, the Nova Cats' 449th Assault Cluster continued to mop up around the airfield, most of which they held. Likewise, the 489th Assault Cluster resumed its attack on Salem, mine clearance equipment deployed against the minefields created the previous day. Working under the threat of constant fire and guarded by Elementals, Nova Cat engineers cleared numerous landmines and booby traps from the main road and its sidings until they succeeded in punching a hole wide enough for the Cluster to pass through, Salem's outskirts playing host to numerous Clan formations. South of both units, the 1st Nova Cat Guards engaged in a series of running battles with skirmishers from the Seventh Army, the elite Clan unit enduring losses to suicide drones launched during each of the engagements and failing to make progress against the city, but successfully repelling the ComGuard's probing attacks.
With the airfield captured, the offensive to seize Salem's inlying suburbs and central business district began on 17 May. Attacking down the resort city's main road, the 489th Assault Cluster pushed towards Salem from the east. Supported by numerous seconded Elemental points, they again encountered heavy resistance from the ComGuard defenders. Meanwhile, to the south, the 1st Nova Cat Guards were contesting the Lynn district on the Marblehead Tuya overlooking Salem, with over a thousand artillery strikes on the ancient Volcano's slopes alone. The Nova Cat attack, which had broken the ComGuard defence by the morning of 20 May, threatened the forces defending the region's second victory point with being outflanked.
By late afternoon on 20 September, the Clan's Warriors were well inside Salem, with the 489th Assault Cluster having captured the city's historic Church of St Thomas Aquinas and the 1st Nova Cat Guards overrunning several units defending the two-hundred-year-old Hawthorne Hotel. In addition, Salem had been the site of over 1,200 artillery strikes and an estimated 200 aerial raids, and 90% of its buildings had been razed. Recognising that the defence had been lost, Demi-Precentor Miryam Wambui-Košar established a defensive line north of the Sheridan River with units from the Eighth Army to support a retreat from the city starting at 19:30 the same night.
Meanwhile, even as the fight for Salem entered its early stages, the bulk of the Nova Cats' Delta Galaxy's clusters were being carefully positioned to strike against the Templeton Crossroads—an intertwined complex of canyons that served as the second victory point and a vital route to otherwise inaccessible parts of the canyon that served as ComGuard supply depots. Roughly comparable to the Clan's Alpha Galaxy in size and skill, the Nova Cat's Delta Galaxy had been purposefully oversupplied with jump jet-equipped mechs and other mobile assets by Galaxy Commander Karl Devalis, the Clan Warrior having experienced battle against Inner Sphere militaries numerous times before and recognising ComStar's intent to constrain their range advantage and freedom of movement with their choice of battlefield. Undertaking a long-distance flanking manoeuvre over normally impassable terrain so as to avoid detection and maximise surprise, the Galaxy reached the first phase line on the afternoon of the 17th.
At dawn on 18 May, Delta Galaxy's five clusters, commanded by Galaxy Commander Devalis, set off from their bivouac towards the crossroads. Highly mobile compared to other forces on Lyndon, Devalis aimed to attack the crossroads proper—where supply convoys bounder for Salem were funnelling through—and cut off the flow of expendables to the city's defenders with little regard for traditional Clan tactics. In addition to choking Salem of much-needed supplies, the capture of the Templeton Crossroads would also serve to cut off elements of the Eighth Army that had already been dispatched to aid the Seventh in its defence of the city, preventing reinforcement from joining them and placing the ComGuard commanders in the unenviable position of having to choose which personnel to save.
Stripped of multiple units by the need to defend Salem, ComGuard units in and around Templeton were positioned rather thinly, with automata from supply depots used to plug the gaps between the more capable human units. Aware of the crossroads' vulnerability to plunging artillery fire, the Eighth Army's commander also made use of his stock of landmines and other munitions to booby trap likely artillery sites, automata deployed alongside the explosive to add a range threat to the mix.
The attack began just after 7:00 am with an attack from Devalis towards the central crossing. Claiming to be guided by a vision witnessed in a campfire the night prior, the Galaxy Commander ordered his Warriors to ignore traditional Clan honour rules in favour of destroying opposing forces as swiftly as possible, units forbidden from engaging in the semi-formal one-on-one duels that were occasionally still being fought by individual warriors. Simultaneously, Devalis cautioned his officers against deploying artillery on those hills Demi-Precentor Kerim Meyers had ordered mined earlier, the bulk of Delta Galaxy's mobile artillery avoiding the Demi-Precentor's traps as a result.
Faced with a highly mobile foe pushed to eliminate their opposition as quickly as possible backed up with artillery and air support, the Eighth Army units remaining in the crossroads could not hold against Devalis' forces and were soon dislodged from their positions. Sustaining heavy losses due to the Nova Cats' unexpectedly effective assault, many defenders were forced to retreat into the gorges that crisscrossed the area and effectively removed from the battle. By midday, the 4th Nova Cat Guards had taken control of the Templeton Crossroads and defended against a push by Eighth Army reserve forces that cost the ComGuard greatly. Despite desperate holding actions, the Nova Cat's momentum had pushed the remaining units of the Eighth Army out of the Crossroads by 09:50 on the 18th, and the Demi-Precentor had been forced to retreat from and destroy his headquarters to avoid capture.
With the Templeton victory point lost on the 18th, Salem falling on the 20th, and Clan Steel Viper on the verge of incontestably controlling one of their victory points by the 21st thanks to the distraction provided by the Nova Cats, Precentor-Martial Focht—who had, until this time, avoided interfering—ordered his commanders to seek Hegira. Submitting to his authority as overall war leader for ComStar and being reluctant to expend resources unnecessarily when they could be put to better use against other Clans, Demi-Precentors Evans and Wambui-Košar did as they were bid, the Steel Vipers and Nova Cats agreeing to allow local ComGuard units to retreat unopposed along with their remaining supplies. Though ultimately leaving the Clans with a 7-7 draw against the ComGuard, the decision to allow Hegira saw all four armies leave the region in good order and redeploy to other battlefields across Lyndon.
