Colonel Bayard Crowe was a renowned MechWarrior of the Inner Sphere and most famously the commander of the mercenary company known as Crowe's Bloody Buccaneers from the tail end of the Third Succession War all the way through to the end of the Clan Invasion in 3052.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Born to a pair of corporate middle managers on the Federated Suns world of Rowe in 2996, like many young boys living under the rule of House Davion, Bayard grew up with an infatuation for the military. Of particular interest to Bayard were the MechWarriors and their hulking BattleMechs, feared and respected by all on the battlefield and whose tales of legendary bravery and valor were countless. Learning all he could find about every known 'Mech in the Inner Sphere and spending his days playing make-believe MechWarrior out in the local parks with his schoolmates, it seemed inevitable that Bayard would eventually join the ranks of the AFFS.
However, this did not sit well with Bayard's parents. Not keen to see Bayard involve himself in the endless warring of the Great Houses, his parents urged him to instead follow in their footsteps and pursue a quieter and more comfortable life of gainful employment with Melcher Meat and Animals Limited. When Bayard turned 14 and was eligible to sign up with the company's young workers program, they encouraged him to meet with a company recruiter and apply for a clerk position at one of the corporate offices. When Bayard agreed to meet the representative, they were thrilled, but their excitement soon turned to anger when they learned that he had instead applied to be a heavy machinery operator at a meat packing plant. Incensed, they gave their son an ultimatum: go back and change his application, or leave the family home and live in the packing plant's dilapidated on-site housing. For Bayard it was an easy decision; and so, he packed his things and left.
Despite being assigned to operate an automated meat packaging machine, Bayard made it a point to befriend the small group of pilots of the Buster HaulerMechs that were used to load enormous packages of freshly processed meat onto transport trucks. This quickly paid off, as in only a few weeks time he had one of the pilots agree to stay behind after work hours to teach him how to operate the 'Mechs. A naturally adept pilot, Bayard learned quickly, and in only a few more weeks he could load and unload pallets faster than anyone else at the plant. When he was eventually caught practicing by management, rather than reprimand him, they were impressed by his skills and he was reassigned as a HaulerMech operator.
Now making a decent sum of money as a 'Mech operator, Bayard was able to save up a considerable amount of money in a relatively short amount of time. After only three years working at the plant, Bayard had successfully saved enough to send himself to Sakhara Academy for formal training as a MechWarrior.
Sakhara Academy[]
Personality & traits[]
Like many young MechWarriors in the Federated Suns, Bayard was fiercely patriotic as a young man. However, unlike many of his noble-blooded peers, this patriotism was backed up by a combination of burning ambition and fiery will. This ultimately served to make him unfit for traditional military service in the AFFS. He proved too strong-willed and independent to follow orders to stand down in the face of a foe and objective he felt strongly about taking on, defying orders to fall back during the Battle of Ensirion in order to come to the aid of the battered Vandrel's Buccaneers. However, this brashness was backed up by a rare degree of skill in 'Mech piloting, and was tempered by a keen tactical mind. And, as the surviving Buccaneers would correctly assess when they agreed to offer him a spot as their new leader, these traits would help to make him excel as a mercenary commander.
But pursuing life as a mercenary would prove to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Bayard would achieve success beyond his wildest imagination while serving as the commander of the Bloody Buccaneers, but on the other hand, he was now exposed to cruelty, inequity, and corruption of the Inner Sphere as never before, especially in his homeland of the Federated Suns. While he would never stop identifying with the values espoused by the Federated Suns, it did not take long for Bayard to see them for what they truly were: deeply nepotistic, hopelessly unequal, and violently imperialist. This would for a time drive Bayard into the arms of another supposedly democratically-minded Successor State, the Free Worlds League, until he realized that they too only practiced their values selectively at best. Meanwhile Bayard's humanistic outlook would be gradually ground down over the course of over three decades of constantly bearing witness to man's cruelty toward his fellow man. All of this combined would slowly drive Bayard deep into alcoholism. By the late 3030s Bayard had all but stopped personally interacting with most of his clients except when absolutely necessary, partially out of disgust for them and partially because he found himself increasingly unable to maintain his sobriety when outside of the cockpit. Bayard's absence as a father due to his drinking during his son Halvorson's troubled adolescence would also come to be a source of tension in their later adult relationship.
Yet his skills as a MechWarrior and a leader would never falter. The Bloody Buccaneers would see ever greater success and renown under his shrewd leadership, gradually increasing in size and strength. Bayard would even successfully lead the Bloody Buccaneers through the initial Clan Invasion, harrowed but mostly intact despite several direct engagements with the technologically superior forces of the Clans. Bayard and his personal lancemates would all receive Elite status with the MRB in the wake of the Fourth Succession War, and would maintain it all the way through to their respective retirements. Even after 15 years of retirement from real combat, in his final battle Bayard would manage to fell a number of state-of-the-art Word of Blake BattleMechs in an obsolescent BL-7-KNT Black Knight before finally being killed.
Relationships[]
BattleMechs[]
Bayard piloted countless 'Mechs throughout the course of his long career, but a favorite three would ultimately gain both fame and infamy: the BattleMaster "Hellhammer", the Atlas "Deathblow", and the Black Knight "Mordhau". These 'Mechs would eventually be passed on to each successive Crowe who took command of the Buccaneers, with all three still in use by Adam Crowe at the dawn of the ilClan era, albeit extensively modified from their original forms.
"Hellhammer"[]
"Hellhammer" in 3044, during an engagement with pirate forces in the Periphery March.
The wrecked BLR-1G BattleMaster that would become "Hellhammer" was originally salvaged by the newly-rechristened Bloody Buccaneers in the aftermath of the Battle of Ensirion, having previously served as a command 'Mech in the 22nd Avalon Hussars RCT. For the first few months of his tenure as the Buccaneer's commander, Bayard would pilot an old TDR-5S Thunderbolt until the wounded BattleMaster was restored. Once it was, the now-named "Hellhammer" would immediately begin serving as Bayard's personal 'Mech.
In 3043, Bayard would have "Hellhammer" refit with various improvements, specifically CASE, double heat sinks, and a Kinslaughter H-class ER PPC salvaged from the cored-out wreckage of Xavier Mikhailov's MAD-2R Marauder, as well as adding an additional half-ton of machine gun ammo and an Artemis IV fire control system to the SRM-6 launcher. Eventually Bayard would pass the venerable 'Mech onto his 18-year-old son Halvorson in 3049, just mere weeks before the start of the Clan Invasion. "Hellhammer" would from then on serve as Halvorson's personal 'Mech throughout the invasion, with one notable exception: in March of 3052, Bayard took control of "Hellhammer" one last time for his fateful final duel with Charos Ikeda.
"Deathblow"[]
"Deathblow" deployed against Capellan forces on Sakhalin in 3029.
One of several BattleMechs taken by the Bloody Buccaneers from the private collection of turncoat Lyran noble Otto Steiner-Braunschweig in 3020, Bayard jumped at the opportunity to claim an example of the fearsome Atlas as his own. Equipped with nearly twenty tons of armor and enough firepower to single-handedly level a small city, the appropriately-titled "Deathblow" would be Bayard's 'Mech of choice for particularly tough jobs as well as for getting up close and personal with the enemy.
Like "Hellhammer", "Deathblow" would be refitted with several improvements in 3043, replacing the two rear-mounted Defiance B3M medium lasers with Defiance P5M medium pulse lasers and adding Artemis IV fire control systems to the SRM-6 and LRM-20 launchers, alongside adding double heat sinks and CASE. "Deathblow" would serve as Bayard's primary 'Mech throughout the course of the Clan Invasion, and when Bayard retired shortly after its conclusion he would pass "Deathblow" down to his son Halvorson.
"Mordhau"[]
"Mordhau" strides into battle against Kuritan forces during the War of 3039.
Just like the Atlas that would become "Deathblow", the 'Mech that would become "Mordhau" was originally a pristine BL-6-KNT Black Knight found in the private collection of the very same traitorous Lyran noble. Named for a German word meaning "murder-stroke" and referring to an old medieval Terran technique of holding a sword by its blade and striking with the hilt and crossguard to better deal with foes wearing armor, "Mordhau" was a particularly deadly BattleMech indeed. With its LosTech intact, "Mordhau" was undoubtedly one of the last fully-functional and intact examples of the BL-6-KNT operating in the Inner Sphere in the first half of the 31st Century, outside of the Star League-era arsenals of the Com Guards.
The rarity of the endo steel used in the construction of the Black Knight's Technicron 1L chassis necessitated thrifty and creative repairs on the part of the Bloody Buccaneers' MechTechs, with salvaged endo steel scrap being custom machined and welded when it was available, and conventional steel being grafted to the frame when it wasn't. Between this and managing to avoid any significant damage to the 'Mech's irreplaceable Beagle Active Probe, the Buccaneers would manage to avoid ever having to fully downgrade "Mordhau" to BL-7-KNT spec, but by the early 3040s the 'Mech's frame was a veritable Frankenstein's monster of metal, as well as a monument to the technical ingenuity of the Bloody Buccaneers' support techs.
In 3043 "Mordhau" would be refit alongside its sister 'Mechs, not only restoring the chassis to its factory state thanks to new-production endo steel, but also upgrading it with double heat sinks and a Kinslaughter H-class ER PPC (again stripped from the wreckage of Xavier Mikhailov's Marauder, which "Mordhau" had in fact felled), additionally using the saved weight to upgrade the arm-mounted Maxell DT medium lasers to a pair of Defiance P5M medium pulse lasers. Like "Hellhammer" and "Deathblow", Bayard would pass "Mordhau" down to his son after his retirement. However, after being offered a job as a BattleMech instructor at the NAIS College of Military Science, he would purchase a now-obsolescent BL-7-KNT, painting it in a similar scheme to "Mordhau" and upgrading it with double heat sinks and a Fusigon Longtooth ER PPC. This downgraded "Mordhau" lookalike would serve as Bayard's trainer mech during his tenure at the NAIS, and it would ultimately be the 'Mech in which Bayard would meet his end while fighting Blakist invaders at the outset of the Jihad.