So long as they weren't careless enough to fire their weapons onto the backs of friendly mechs, they could still add a bit more pressure to the fight!
Yet when the counterattack from Herzog Kadan commenced, the leaders and soldiers of Macky Incorporated were taken completely by surprise!
That was because Herzog Kadan not only deployed the modest amount of mechs they still held in reserve, but also sent out over 200 copies of the Auto Heretic!
"How could they have acquired so many Auto Heretics?!"
Macky Incorporated clearly made a major intelligence blunder as it had failed to detect the clues related to Herzog Kadan's secret buildup of Carmine mechs! Given how many Auto Heretic Version C's the old tyrant deployed at once, it was clear that the company had been planning to take Macky Incorporated by surprise!
It was a pity that this plan fell through when their archrival commenced its attack first,
but Herzog Kadan still saw an opportunity to turn the ongoing battle around!
The conflict took place at night when there was less chance of causing civilian
casualties.
The lack of light did not bother the mechs too much as each of them were able to observe their opponents well enough by employing their sensor suites.
Even so, the complete lack of real combat experience from all of the Carmine mech pilots led to a lot of messy situations!
Whenever a Carmine mech confronted a conventional mech, the latter won out at least.
9 out of 10 times due to the huge disparity in skills, tactics and decision-making. This disparity became even worse when the numbers on both sides increased. Although Herzog Kadan made sure to pair their new Auto Heretics with amateur players of virtual mech simulation games in order to make sure they understood the fundamentals of mech combat, real combat was much scarier!
The realization that they could die or at least lose their qualifications to pilot their bonded mech forever caused them to exhibit a lot of fear and hesitation at first.
"What are you dallying around for?! Remember who gave you those mechs and what we are fighting for! Are you going to let these off-worlders take over our planet and drain the wealth from our economy? Besides, Herzog Kadan goes down, you and your newfangled Auto Heretics will go down as well! Fight! Fight for your home planet! Fight
for your right to pilot a mech!"
With that encouragement, the inexperienced Carmine mech pilots quickly got their act together and started to fight more vigorously.
After initially getting their butts kicked by the much more experienced and disciplined mercenaries and retainers of Macky Incorporated, the Carmine mech pilots of Herzog Kadan soon discovered the correct approaches.
One tactic that worked was to accompany a bunch of conventional mechs piloted by
professionals who knew what they were doing.
The latter not only provided direction and leadership to the Carmine mech pilots, but also took away the pressure from the most dangerous enemy units.
Another tactic that proved useful was to simply rely on their numbers to heavily
outnumber the enemy troops!
One of the consequences to Macky Incorporated's blitz attack was that it had to spread its combat assets across multiple different locations. Even the addition of a mercenary
force did not alleviate this problem all that much.
This meant that before the mechs of Macky Incorporated could converge again, Herzog Kadan was able to outnumber some of the isolated enemy troops with its Auto Heretics! If the numbers on both sides were equal, then the Carmine mechs would definitely suffer a horrendous loss. This was not just due to their inferior mech pilots, but also due to their weak and outdated tech and materials. However, the Auto Heretic was never designed to fight in equal numbers against the
enemy.
Herzog Kadan discovered this first-hand as their Carmine mechs easily began to overrun troops of conventional mechs by relying on their vastly greater numbers!
For example, a swordsman mech piloted by a skilled mech officer got mobbed by 5 Auto
Heretics attacking from different directions.
While the swordsman mech managed to hack down two of the annoying Carmine mechs in quick succession by relying on his superior weapon skills and clever maneuvering, it was unable to fend off the repeated strikes coming from behind and the flanks!
The mech went down just after the mech pilot decisively chose to eject his cockpit!
"This is a travesty! How can I get beaten by a handful of amateurs who rely on their Als to fight?! Fight me fairly next time if you dare!"
"Hah! Fat chance! We're not stupid enough to accept your challenge, mercenary! If you want a rematch, then you are welcome to fight 10 of us next time!" Compared to the professional mech pilots who took honor and discipline seriously, the
Carmine mech pilots distinctly lacked these qualities!
From their perspective, there was nothing wrong with relying on their HALMs to do
most of the fighting and ganging up on outnumbered enemy mech units! "We can win this battle if we keep going! Let us eliminate as many of these raiding forces while they are still spread across the planet!"