I think a big that that they were forced to learn (mostly by watching the Clans as a whole get a mudhole stomped into them) is that while the Clans spent 300 years play-fighting and ritualizing combat, the Inner Sphere spent 300 years actually fighting tooth and nail, and are made up of some of the hardest, meanest, and toughest Mofos in the galaxy, which is only heightened to a berserker sheen of carnage if you threaten their families.<br/><br/>There's a reason the ELH is still around; Not because they're a former SLDF unit, not because they're the biggest, or the best Merc unit in the Sphere. But because they Define Tenacity. They will fight until both sides are broken, battered, and barely standing, and they'll keep fighting until the job's done right. (Now, if only the canon storyline will stop shitting on them, yes?)