Two Unpalatable Battle Plans

In summary, Golden Skull Alliance was able to field around 10,000 mechs.

The enemy strike force should have brought around 6000 mechs.

That was a substantial disparity in numbers, but Ves did not take pleasure in enjoying a numbers advantage. He knew quite well that around 3500 mechs that belonged to his clan were basically cannon fodder!

The disparity in quality was too big. The Valkyrie Redeemer was valued at around 400 million hex credits, while a typical Princess Jecka sold for 59 million credits.

The old adage of 'you got what you paid for' applied here. The feeble second-class commercial mech models in the hands of the Larkinsons might be sufficient to fend off space pirates and ordinary riffraff, but they were quite inadequate against the crack troops of the Friday Coalition!

What was even worse was that the Golden Skull Alliance was badly behind in terms of expert mechs.