Editing Clan Invasion (section)

== The Battle of Tukayyid (AKA Space AT&T beat up larpers from beyond the sphere) ==
The Battle of Tukayyid was a massive Trial of Possession with not just Terra, but the fate of ComStar and the Inner Sphere as a whole up for grabs. ComStar designated fourteen objectives that they would defend on the planet of Tukayyid, which the Clans would be attacking. If the Clans took the majority of them, they'd be given free reign to finish the race to Terra and ComStar would willingly merge with the Clan who reached it first, forfeit the Inner Sphere's rights to any HPG Network usage and become administrative staff. But if ComStar managed to hold the line, then the Clans would have to agree to a fifteen year truce and conquer no worlds closer to Terra than Tukayyid. Given that ComStar themselves had offered the fight, pretty much every Clan was more than willing to jump onboard to fight under these rules, barring the ilKhan himself, who repeatedly cautioned that the Inner Sphere hadn't done this before and was suspicious as to why they'd suddenly be so willing to do it now. The other Clans, sick of Ulrich's bullshit, basically told him to mind his own business. Naturally, the bidding process got ferocious among the Clans, who saw fighting ComStar as taking candy from a baby, and eventually created an order of operations for the battle: Smoke Jaguar got to land first and attack the two largest cities on the planet, then [[Clan Nova Cat|Nova Cat]], then Ghost Bear, then Steel Viper, then [[Clan Diamond Shark|Diamond Shark]], then Jade Falcon and finally Clan Wolf, who would be given the "least glorious" task of beating whoever was left at two of the smaller settlements on the planet five days into the battle.

That was the plan anyway, but ComStar wasn't stupid. ComStar had their own plan.

Tukayyid wasn't chosen for no reason; it was an agricultural planet with lots of wide open, flat space that ultimately meant there were few places to hide, and fewer places to bunker down to repair and resupply, something that the Clan [[OmniMech|OmniMechs]] desperately needed. After months of analyzing the Clans' strategies and their attack patterns, it was discovered that Clanner warfare had a major weakness, one that only Clan Wolf had tried to learn from. Clanners attacked fast to try and end battles as quickly as possible in adherence to the concept of Zellbringen, to the point that none of the Clans had ever really fought wars of attrition, and that inexperience was exactly what ComStar was banking on to win the day. Further, with the Clans deciding to each attack their own objectives without networking, ComStar was at a significant advantage where Focht could basically lead the entirety of ComGuard from a single Bunker and coordinate his forces, making sure everybody knew their part in the battle before the bickering and posturing Clannerscum ever hit the ground. Just to make sure, most of the area around the objectives became a maze of deathtraps and pincer points, designed to drag out the fighting as long and as hard as possible before aerospace fighters and artillery could soften up the Clans just enough to enable ground forces to deliver the killing blow. Finally, Focht ensured that there were more than enough supplies out of Clan reach to keep the ComGuard going for over a month of sustained fighting.

How did it go? The easiest way to put it is that Focht played most of the Clanners like a goddamn fiddle.

* '''Smoke Jaguar''' had gotten reamed, as you no doubt already know, and were more than eager to try to regain their lost glory, but in the process of bidding to be first on the ground, they had reduced their forces by 33%. Further, they thought the two Galaxies that were left were more than enough to attack their two designated target cities. By the time they had found that the initial attack was a cover for two whole divisions to crowd the valley that the city was in, it was already too late. They spent their time getting suckered into bad loss after bad loss (starting to see a pattern?) until the ilKhan called them off. One Galaxy saw the writing was on the wall and left without incident, but the other was so incensed by what they thought was Clan Wolf cowardice that they vowed to fight to the death. It didn't come to that, but managing to avoid dying during what amounts to a rout is hardly a victory. While they "only" lost 32% of their forces, Smoke Jaguar lost 78% of the materials they had brought to the planet in order to win what they thought was going to be a pretty easy fight. Ironically, they came quite close to ruining the entirety of Focht's plan as a Cluster almost found his bunker, but were quickly krumped before they could reveal its location. The Smoke Jaguar leadership was also crippled, if not functionally destroyed, with their Khan MIA and both their saKhan and Loremaster dead.
* '''Clan Nova Cat''''s strategy of dive-bomb into position with DropShips, dump all the troops from atmosphere without the use of a drop pod was countered hard by Focht basically ensuring that the DropShips couldn't get near the planet surface, and their Alpha Galaxy was almost completely taken out by a pilot going on a suicide run to blow up their principal DropShip, forcing most of Nova Cat's landing into a quagmire of minefields and surprise attacks. Nova Cat would finally begin to push against ComStar's stoic defense, getting tantalizingly close to the targeted cities and managing to get some much needed supplies... only to find themselves attacked by the entire garrison in one of the cities in a brave gambit, forcing them and all the other Nova Cat forces off the planet by hammering them as hard and as fast as possible, giving the win to ComStar.
* '''Ghost Bear''' was the first Clan to actually gain some real ground against ComStar, as they'd been fighting in [[Free Rasalhague Republic|Rasalhague]] space for a while and were more than aware that the Inner Sphere probably didn't give a shit about the Zellbringen code, telling their troops to advance slowly and just attack both cities they were expected to face at once. While the fighting was fierce, they were able to take one, but then ComStar closed ranks and turned the other city into an impregnable fortress. Both sides sieged the other, battering and bruising each other until Focht offered the chance to call it a partial victory, since the defeat of other Clans on the surface meant that any of her not-broken down lances and divisions could be moved elsewhere. Ghost Bear, a conservative Clan that was more than willing to stop fighting if it meant they didn't have to expend any further resources, took the agreement happily and left the planet, satisfied with their small victory.
* '''Steel Viper''', a hard and fast Clan, got to fight in a not-so-open space, getting stuck in the worst toxic mudpit on the entire planet. While they naturally tried their damnedest to not go through the pit, ComGuard artillery eventually forced them into the mire and when they began to slow down, ComGuard's trap was sprung; forcing them into the mudpit had ultimately negated all of their advantages in technology and speed and ComGuard's positioning was like that of a beartrap. Just before they considered retreat, the Precentor in charge got on Xbox Live to tell the Viper Khan that her mother was fat and they should fight about it. Not taking that lying down, they tried to divebomb into ComGuard territory with further resolve, but had their supply lines cut off and had to expend almost all of their reserve Galaxies' work to fight their way across the mire... right into the arms of two untouched divisions who had been waiting for them to show up. Both of their Khans were wounded in the attack, but the Vipers took plenty of ComGuard down on their way to their defeat, killing two for each dead Viper. They suffered the least losses of all the Clans that fought on Tukayyid, which isn't saying much, as they still lost a quarter of their forces. The Khan resigned after the battle.
* '''Diamond Shark''' had shown up late to the invasion and were desperate to show that they meant business (especially their Khan, who was basically a Smoke Jaguar <s>born</s> grown in the wrong Clan). However, they had also chosen two of the cities that were closest to each other, meaning that their defense might as well have been one gigantic megacity with a road between two districts. While Diamond Shark took their time setting up, ROM spent their time making sure they knew exactly what was coming and it had disastrous consequences for the Clan; while they put up a grand old fight, their leadership made the critical mistake of focusing on one division that had insulted them, leading to them being completely overwhelmed when the forces that had finished up fighting Ghost Bear and Steel Viper showed up as support. The resulting melee was so devastating and so destructive to Diamond Shark that their Warrior Caste was decimated in the fighting, leading to their Merchant Caste gaining much more influence.
* '''Jade Falcon''' managed to get a higher kill-death ratio than the ComGuard and briefly captured one of their two objective cities before overwhelming reinforcements pushed them back. With the ComGuard focused on taking on Clan Wolf, the Precentor Martial was more than willing to declare the match a draw. Ironically, while the Jade Falcons had won, it was due to a disgraced unit led by a maverick Star Colonel by the name of Aiden Pryde who managed to think outside the box. Unfortunately, he wound up dead covering the Jade Falcon's fighting retreat, but not before killing many of the ComGuard in the process. This also turned him into a fucking legend in Jade Falcon and the Clans as a whole.
* '''Clan Wolf''' <s>[[Mary Sue|Mary Sues of Mary Sues]] that they were</s> were fed up with their brother Clans basically telling them to kick rocks, even though they were the only Clan doing any actual winning by this point, and decided that they would bid to be last in line to see what ComStar did. It worked out fantastically for them, as they basically beat Focht at every possible turn, easily grabbing their two designated cities. In a twist, this would make them into victims of their own success, as Clan Wolf now had an excess of young warriors, mostly of Crusader leanings, being effectively barred out of advancing in ranks with the current old leadership surviving and managing to hold onto their positions, and would become one of driving reasons of the Refusal War and the splitting of the Clan.