The Chinese Bandits have served with the Free Worlds League for a longtime. Enlisted by Samuel Marik in 2926 following their estrangement from the Lyran Commonwealth, the Bandits are fairly typical mercenaries—moderately greedy, marginally courteous, and reasonably loyal (as long as the paycheck arrives on time). When originally signed by the Captain-General, the Chinese Bandits consisted of two regiments of BattleMechs and a regiment of heavy AeroSpace Fighters, mostly Chippewas and Stukas. The Marik desperately needed competent, battle-hardened troops, and the unit was immediately hurled into combat on the Capellan front. It suffered heavily over the next few years, causing a reorganization of the Bandits into the single regiment they possess today.
Like most mercenary units, the Chinese Bandits have had trouble replacing personnel and equipment. In 3014, however, the Bandits received a substantial bonus less than two weeks after the rebellion of the Mariks brother, allowing Captain-General Janos Marik to place them immediately into the fray.
The Bandits consist of one heavy battalion and two light battalions. Erin Viola, the commander, is a bull-headed, arrogant woman, with an opinion on every subject. She ardently dislikes LAMs, and refuses to use the hybrid Mech design. Among her fellow commanders, she is not taken lightly, having acquired a reputation as a hard-nosed fighter who will stop at nothing when booty is involved.
In September 3057 the Second Bandits of Smithson's Chinese Bandits were decimated by the Woodstock Reserve Militia while the veteran First Bandits lost two-thirds of a regiment to the Nanking militia. By December, the Woodstock Reservists had wiped out another company of the First Bandits and pinned the rest down in an industrial complex. The Black Cobras, arriving as reinforcements, died in the air when their sabotaged DropShips exploded. In the end, the Bandits’ four Overlord DropShips managed to evacuate three companies of Bandit MechWarriors, along with one thousand tons of scrapped ‘Mechs, back to the Free Worlds League.
Thomas Marik refused to rebuild the Bandits, stating that the group’s contract did not require him to replace ‘Mechs claimed as salvage by victorious forces. However, he did agree to pay his legal debt to the Bandits in new technology—precisely, more than three hundred tons’ worth of field upgrade packages and some XL engines. And so Colonel Ada Gubser led the Bandits to Outreach, where they began the process of rebuilding.
The Bandits first traded one of their Overlord DropShips to the Dragoons for two companies’ worth of Inner Sphere advanced-design BattleMechs, another company of Inner Sphere OmniMechs and some C-bills. Forced to turn away almost one hundred of her MechWarriors, Gubser divided most of Marik’s upgrade packages among them, helping to ensure that each would find another mercenary command to take them in.
The Bandits employ a green with gold striping color scheme for their machines. The unit insignia is painted on the upper left legs and right shoulders of the unit’s ‘Mechs.
[Back to the Mercenary Units of the Inner Sphere]
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