Oh man genuinely all kinds of thrilled to see this quest back. I was super fond of how it like- made a genuine effort to make something novel like the EI/Nemesis feel native to the setting and how it tried to render the vast and abstract monstrosity of the Imperium in very human terms. Shit like the Inquisitor simultaneously mourning his lost men while also privately being glad that one of his subordinates has been radicalized by a deep and personal vendetta, a personal hate stemming from a personal loss, because it's the kind of character growth he's always thought the man needed.
Just the absolutely worst people you can imagine having incredibly mundane office politics and totally sincere feelings of camaraderie for each other as they try and prize the cyberbrain out of a teenaged girl after servitorizing one of her family in front of her.
[X] The Duelist's Stroke
Present a defense in depth. Quick bursts of skirmishing and retreat to string them out and rattle their communications, then a single, murderous stroke to the formation's heart. Their commanders might survive, but what of it?
The Imperium, I feel like, is just such a weird OpFor for Nemesis to deal with. Because it runs the gamut from like- "incredibly complex devastatingly powerful technology beneath the baroque gilding and filigree" to "your opponent is a psychopath with an entrenching tool and a death wish
good luck". Sometimes both simultaneously. While Nemesis itself is this xth generation warfare Special Operator Operating Operationally who doesn't
quite have a handle on everything.
But one of the things I think it's got supreme confidence in and pretty uncontested superiority in right now is being able to take up data from a multitude of disparate sources, compile and collate it, then issue orders. At a speed which only really the Mechanicus and an all-Skitarii could match, with Techna-Lingua and Binary Cant. And notably, iirc, the red robes contingent in the Inquisitorial retinue is being pretty recalcitrant and reserving their own forces for...their own, somewhat hazy, ends (which may just be personal dislike of everyone else in the Inquisitorial retinue).
Their communications are even stretched pretty brittle right now, since they've traded in servo-skulls and servitors for runners and messengers, which can't be hacked but are necessarily slower. So this would definitely hit them where it hurts.
(Not that I mind the Serpent's Head wining tho honestly.)
It's always the inquisition in these scenarios who make a bad situation worse, isn't it? I think Duelist is pretty appropriate, the Imperium fights in a way where every death a martyr-in-waiting, spurring itself on with every self-made failure.
It's gonna be
real exciting when we have to Redline shit with Deathwatch on our asses. There's a whole realm of bad decisions that only Astartes can really make.
Long term, we can't afford to let a hostile Inquisitor escape with meaningful intel. Short term, we can't afford to suffer too much damage to our ship with uncertain means of repair.
I'm actually really intrigued, because I figure with commitment we can get Balthiar himself, Head Asshole In Charge. But we're probably going to net whichever parts of his miniboss squad make it out as recurring antagonists. We've already got the Cadian commander way back when, so that leaves...
Lieutenant Carrai. Current acting commander of the Cadian forces, not keen on this whole deal. Her trust was in Hesh and we shot Hesh in the head so now she's giving Balthiar the side-eye. Probably not going to show up again, even if she lives. Since she mostly just seems to want to make good her losses, if possible. But salvage the remainder of her force from this Inquisitorial boondoggle above all.
Legate Nyx, nnnnnoot a great fighter, but a superb detective and analyst. Is probably only second to the Magos in their ability to actually figure out what the fuck we are, what we're doing and how we're doing it, and infinitely more likely to share. Could go either way since it seems like they have a bit of that ice-in-the-veins thing going.
Interrogator Khan, adjutant. Young but promising. We uh- murdered the shit out of his mentor, and might make a solid play for the skull of his mentor's mentor. I think if anyone's likely to make it out of this situation it's him. If only to take up the mantle of Insane Self-Destructive Vengeance.
And ofc Magos Skyre. Who is playing all his cards close to the chest, and seems less concerned with the Inquisitor's mission than...whatever the AdMech want In Particular with this ship and this whole situation. So pretty par for the course. Might be a dogged recurring antagonist? I think he's pretty likely to survive because like hell he's putting his neck on the line for people who aren't even devotees of the Omnissiah. Probably taking some solace in that this escalating Ordo Xenos fuckup will eclipse whatever the AdMech's
initial fuck up was and they can play a bit of a longer game.
