If you have read the New Total Chaos book or have been reading Ben Rome's series about putting Total Chaos together, then you've seen some of my latest writing.
When the requests for pitches went out among the authors, I pitched for all three mercenary units. And when the units were assigned, I ended up getting Gannon's Cannons. It was then I realized I had been given a great honor. Because Gannon Derer isn't just a mercenary commander, but a brave and strong little boy.
Bill Derer, Gannon's dad, is a Catalyst Games agent, one of the small band of dedicated people who demostraite Battletech and the other games in CGL's line. He's active on the official Battletech forums, as Slade the Gray Fox, and from the few interactions I've had with him, he's a nice guy. (And Bill, if you read this, my Dad's family's from Norristown!)
More than a year ago, Gannon contracted leukemia. It's bad when you get news like that, but when you're six-years old? But they caught it early enough and Gannon had good doctors and a strong family to help him through this rough time.
Well, word got out among CGL's freelancers and agents. And being the great people they are, they contributed in their own way -- they sent Gannon battlemech minis painted up in his favorate color scheme. Soon, Gannon had his own battalion of BattleMechs and vehicles. Sometime during this period, "Gannon's Cannons" was born as a name (I kind of remember hearing about how that happened, but I'm not sure if either my memory or the story is right, so I won't repeat it here at this time.)
The Cannons made their first apperence in Field Manual 3085, under the list of mercenary units working for the Lyran Commonwealth. But when Ben Rome decided to included new mercenary units with Total Chaos, he decided from ther start that Gannon's Cannons would be one of those units, in honor of Gannon.
Gannon is now free of his leukemia and is working on becoming a clever Battletech player. I was honor to given the chance to flesh out the unit and give it life. The artwork for the unit is magnificent, and I hope you like what I did.
I'll explain my process about creating the Gannon's Cannons in my next blog post.
Craig
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