Within these hallowed marble halls we may take our leisure, eat, drink and speak of manly things!
Within the last 96 hours the 101st Legion has repelled four seperate incursions on JJA's western hemisphere; two by the Malvernis and one each by the Ritterlich and Adonese. We conducted a reconaissance in force based on SIGINT and HUMINT indicating that the Malvies had put down a couple dropships about five kilometers west of the abandoned refinery. I had my command platoon out getting some seat time anyway and were closest so we headed over for a little look-see. Sure enough about nine hundred meters out we picked them up. A Rhino, a Revenant, a Spectre and a Puma along with some supporting infantry. The Malvies must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel to be running all that old legacy equipment but there it was. Paint indicated it was one of the Fist of Khardullis units so we slid up easy like and told them they were trespassing. We got a missile barrage from the Rhino as a reply so I told the boys they were weapons free. To make a long story short that Rhino didn't have a chance against my two Hawk 6's and Hawk 5. They burned it down pretty quick and the rest of those Malvies just kind of folded.
What was left of the infantry skeedadled but brought back some help. They hit us again and shot up one of my Hawk 6's pretty good but by this time I had some Hunter teams flown out to help some Wolf tanks that showed up deal with a platoon of Banshee's. I managed to get a flight of Harpies out to help me clean up their CAV platoons.
In the right terrain there's no doubt in my mind the Thunderbird is the finest Super out there. The Hawk 6 is the most bang for the buck you can get and that new Hunter warhead for the 5's is absolutely amazing.
Couple days later the Ritterlich came nosing around and they got spanked pretty hard. Their pilots' interogation transcripts are available in the S-2 shop. Two Mastadons are scary but manageable. They just don't have the volume of fire we do so don't be affraid to take a shot from one or two of them for the chance to take four or five of your own. Tigers are to be respected but they aren't that scary when they appear 100 meters in front of your Thunderbird's muzzles. A Rhino is always scary but I'm here to tell you Starhawk 6 drivers, you and your wingman jam the throttles to the stops and let fly with everything, you have a way better than average chance of taking him out and coming back to brag about it.
The Adonese decided they'd stick their noses in and showed up with two Sultans and two Challengers. About sixty seconds later they no longer cared about a whole lot.
Here's some basic tenets:
1. No one fights alone. A platoon is a team, coordinate your movement and fire.
2. Mass your fires. Two on one is good, three or four on one is better.
3. Cover is your friend.
4. Disperse to move. Artillery and IFM's can't hurt you if you as bad if you spread out. On a small battlefield do the best you can.
5. Have your Thunderbird hang back a little. Draw his fast movers out trying to kill it. For some reason they forget about those big ol' PBG's. If they don't try to come and kill it, great. Make them pay for that with IFM's.
6. Missiles/Run-n-gun every turn you can with a Hawk 6. You've got a wizzo, let him earn his keep.
7. Be flexible. No plan survives the first five seconds of contact so get used to that.
8. Attack. No defender ever won a battle. If you hang back and wait for him to come to you, he'll do exactly that. And it will hurt. Even in the defense, don't think of it as defending. Think of it as prosecuting a battle near something important to you.
9. Strikes are a crutch. Don't rely on them to carry the battle for you. They're nice if you have the points to spend but a Thunderbird is way better than 5 artillery strikes.
10. Gunships are cool, but fragile. Don't drop points from armor platoons just to put some in.
So, was that sufficiently preachy?
Before anyone get's all bent out of shape about the acronym, it really is the UTFF. UFF is the term most used on Earth but to everyone else we're the UTFF. Anyone else have stories that start "there I was.." to share? 
