ARMEGGEDON EMPIRES (Post-Apocalypse Conquest Quest!)

TURNS TWENTY EIGHT - THIRTY TWO: Liberation and Sacrifice
Casica looked down at her orders. "Fuck," she said.

"What is it, ma'am?" one of her Rangers asked.

"We signed up with the side that said they were going to wind. And they gave us a mission...and the bastard isn't even wrong." She shook her head. "But it's going to be bloody hard."

Her Ranger chuckled. "We can handle it."

Casica snorted. She called together the two platoons. "Men. Women. You've known that the xenos have been a cancer on this planet for two centuries now. Their last headquarter, their last hive mind, is right to the northwest. This machine pod has vehicles that can get us all there with a single jaunt...if intelligence is right, defenses are light enough that we can get in there and ram a fission warhead up the hivemind's asshole and set the trigger." She grinned. "I know everyone's lost family to the xenos at some point or another. But I won't lie to you. They have defenses there. Psykers. Abominations. Their main army isn't in base, but that doesn't mean it'll be easy."

The Rangers glanced at one another.

"I know it's a lot to ask for some muties, but-" Casica started.

"Ma'am," a man said, stepping forward. "This isn't for the mutants. This is for us. We're in."

The other Rangers nodded.

Casica scowled at them. "Fine. Come on...we got one last ride. Then I'm quitting." She swung her helmet on and clicked it into place.

The Rangers mounted up on the stolen Machine Vehicles. Wheels spun and engines spluttered and spurted as the entire force ripped out into the wastelands, kicking up dust as packbeasts heading to the crashed troopship watched them go. Mutants on their back - sent from the tribal keep to take over manufacturing and operations in the troopship - watched them go and they began to cheer. The distant whoops and shouts of the mutants reached Casica as she bounced in the back of her truck and she snorted quietly.

Damn thing to be proud of.

The sun swept by.

The Pankotic wastes grew before them. They didn't even hesitate. Their treads and their wheels slammed over green overgrowths and swung around old, decaying human buildings. And ahead of them? The main hive structure. Casica slapped the side of her vehicle. "Slow us down, Pak!" she said as the driver played back on the throttle, having to wrench the unusual, machine designed controls backwards a few times before the vehicle actually came to a shuddering stop. Casica and her Rangers disembarked and Casica started to shout orders. "Fan out! We'll shoot them as they come out. No sense fighting in the tunnels unless-"

"Movement!"

Casica blinked as the reports, she saw, had been a little misleading.

It wasn't many abominations.

It was one abomination. A vast, rippling husk of flowing muscle, with four, serrated tentacles emerging from where its arms would be. Its maw opened and it screeched, beginning to advance towards the Rangers. Casica didn't need to give the order - particle beams began to bite and chew into the creature as it lumbered forward, moving towards Casica and her rangers with deadly, terrible grace and speed. She fired at it as well - but it didn't even slow down as it reached the first line. The tentacle swept and ten Rangers went flying. One was bisected so neatly in half that the blood didn't even spurt until the two halves hit the ground. Screams and cries of horror rang out as Rangers turned to run - but the monster was already among them.

Worse.

It wasn't alone.

Scuttling from the tunnels came low, spindly xenopods. And Casica felt the throbbing pressure of something press to her temples.

Unlike the mutants, Casica heard no words in the pressure.

In fact, in so far as humans went, Casica was as psychic as a sponge.

And so, while the xenopod psychics tried to instill confusion and fear and anger into the Rangers, Casica took a frag grenade from her belt, thumbed the pin away, waited for the PING and chucked it three football fields, thanks to the augmentation of her power armor. The grenade landed among the psykers and blew them into greasy stains - while the abomination continued to shriek. But even as men laid dripping and dismembered around it, more Rangers fired beams into the beast, until, at last, something vital was hit and the entire thing toppled to the ground with a crash.

Casica shook her head slowly as she regarded the casualties.

Half the Rangers that had left with her were dead or miamed.

The Wasteland Rangers would never be the same. SHe knew that in her heart.

"Fuck," she muttered. "Lets make it count."

The Rangers fanned out and began to enter into the winding tunnels of the Hive. The room was low. The air was tight and muggy. The sensors said that there were a lot of...less than friendly chemicals sputtering into the air. But still, Casica pushed on, her arm held up, her wrist light shining ahead of her. They wound forward - and her Rangers planted micro-fission charges here, there. Finally, they came to a large room. Sitting in the hollow were eggs. Thousands of eggs. And in the center of it, a vast, pulsating...thing. It rippled and trembled, a pustule of green flesh and focused hatred.

Casica nodded as her Rangers did not so much place as they did lob their micro-fission charges inside.

"All right. Back up, everyone!" she said.

Casica, the first in, was the last out.

She lifted her hand and gave the hive mind a singular salute: Right hand, second finger in. Raised proud.

Then she turned and sprinted out of the xenopod hivemind as the eggs began to hatch, larvel monsters screaming in impotent fury - the hive mind reaching out after the psi-blind humans. Its curses fell on deaf ears as the Rangers emerged from the tunnels - and behind them, the entire massive organic facility exploded in a spray of gore.

The Rangers work was not done. To the northwest, there was a vast city. Humans there had been penned into enclosures, and feedstock animals - xenopod creatures that had consumed human flesh and turned it into biomass - had worked day and night, taking the masses, the thousands that had lived in the city that now had no name. They had become mulch for the abominations.

Now?

Now the clamor reached the heavens.

Vats. Vats. Vats.

***
You breathed a sigh of relief as the grainy image of stilled xenopod biomecha played through the scout's camera.

"They're not moving, sir," a crackly voice came through.

You wished you could be as relieved by what Detar was reporting - as a veteran mutant, she still preferred to use carrion birds and messages, no matter how many radios and communication gear systems had been dug from the Crater, brought online by mutant factors, and tied into the Eye. Still. You had given her the order.

"Still no sign of her. Beyond her handiwork." She hissed as her camera footage played over the Ghost Town that had been one of the first battle sights against the Fist of the Wastelands - but now, rather than obvious Doombringers, it was clear that Diaboliqua had been here by the subtlety and brutality intermixed. Every mutant there, cut down before they even knew anything was wrong. Like an old human slasher movie. If she found the headquarters...

You shook your head as Mitoch walked into the main chamber.

"Dr. Vrull has brought his systems online," he said. "we have six platoons of Evicerator dragons - a full batallion of them. They lack the armored scaling and mobility of a drakkon, but they're known for their savagery and...well, they make the rest of us look like humans in how well they can live off the land."

You nodded. "If we organized them under a new general, then we'd have quite a force to use."

"Better," Mitoch said. "Another drakkon platoon has been bred up and dispatched to Pax - his army has three platoons now and, even more, they're carrying Dr. Vrull's dragon serum. They're stronger. Faster. Tougher. Improved reaction speeds." He grinned. "Better on almost every metric."

You nodded. "Fantastic...they could drop right on the Machines or the Imperials from where they were."

"With the new mutants we're getting from X-City..." Mitoch shook his head, his smaller self muttering 'stupid name'. "...our ranks are growing faster than they ever had before. We might even have enough people with the right X-C genetic combinations for gigantification."

You looked down at the situation map. "The war has reached a new turning point," you said, softly. "We have the men. We have the material. We have the supply. It's time to end this."

---
Xenopods are DOWN! Even better, you hvae liberated their feedstock pens! You're now getting a grand total of 3 human resources, 4 material, 7 energy, and 4 tech!

You ALSO have a 10 die geneticist (meaning he rolls 10 dice for every genetics challenge.) I took the liberty of just...giving Pax draconic mutagens because it was so easy to succeed and you had the raw material!

So, here's what genetic cards you can make!



So here's what they do. Agression Mutagen is a simple stat-buff for mutant infantry and giants. The Cobras give you a bonus to attack and shock attack, which means if you hit an enemy card, it gets tapped (unable to attack back.) Dragon mutagen is just a straight up stat buff, easy peasy (it's why all of your drakkon cards are now 6/6!) Endurance mutagen makes you faster on the battlefield. Regeneration mutagen means you heal ALL hit points at the end of a TURN (on the overworld), and 1 hit point at the end of a ROUND (in tactical combat.)

And hte NT-7 Venom Ammo is just fucking evil! If you hit an enemy with it, they take 6 toxin damage (which is reduced by an invisible Resistance check, so, between 0 and the Resistance score of the unit) and then they ALSO take 4 nerve gas damage, which is reduced in the same way. That means you're doing between +0-10 bonus damage to any biological unit you hit with this thing, weighted towards 7-10 because most units have shit for resistance. It's...GNARLY.

However, it can only be used by mutant infantry and it's piss useless against Machines. Still! Lots of fun stuff here.


Your current hand! As you can see, lots of hero choices...



Tyrosina and Kinase are both generals. Ty can push units farther and faster than normal (+1 hex of movement) and retreat easily (trickster 2.) Kinase makes movement through rough terrain easy (Pathfinder 3) and can use tactics cards free of charge (Tactical Genius.)

So, what's your plan for Diabolique, Warmaster?

[ ] Hunt her with Nod
[ ] Bring in Morphos and give him command of Detar's pack, then hunt her.
[ ] hunt her with Morphos AND Nod!

And what's your plan for your surfeit of dragons?

[ ] Give them to Kinase
[ ] Give them to Tyrosina
[ ] Keep them as garrisons for the dragon stables, your most vital genetic research facility now

And finally, what do you do with your armies?
[ ] Send Pax to attack the humans
[ ] Send pax to attack the machines
[ ] wait for Pax to get more troops - better, bigger dragons, improved with technology
 
[X] hunt her with Morphos AND Nod!
[X] Send pax to attack the machines
[X] Keep them as garrisons for the dragon stables, your most vital genetic research facility now
 
I think we've got the best Econ by a long way now and the opponent best placed to hurt us is dead, so we don't need to rush anything or take any wild risks.

[X] hunt her with Morphos AND Nod!
[X] Send pax to attack the machines
-[X] but don't take any big risks, we've got the resources and time to reinforce if a fight looks tough.
[X] Keep them as garrisons for the dragon stables, your most vital genetic research facility now
 
[X] hunt her with Morphos AND Nod!
[X] Send pax to attack the machines
-[X] but don't take any big risks, we've got the resources and time to reinforce if a fight looks tough.
[X] Keep them as garrisons for the dragon stables, your most vital genetic research facility now
 
Is three votes enough when I'm blazing with eagerness to play more AE?

When I'm FILLED with ENERGY!??!?!

I say yes.

The worst part of this quest has been forcing myself to stop playing Armageddon Empires to let you vote, lol
 
TURN THIRTY TWO - FOURTY SEVEN: The Battle of Five Legions
Detar was picking some meat from between her teeth when she found her command taken from her. Morphus, one of the best scouts in the entire Free League, stepped up to her as her and her mutants rested in the tribal capital of the growing empire. He looked down at her coldly, and said: "I'm here for your pack."

"...what?" Detar asked, standing up. "On who's orders?"

"My own reputation is enough, I think," Morphus said, his voice serious. "I have been dispatched to find the Machine Intelligence assassin, Diabolique."

Detar scowled at him. "We've been hunting her-"

"Unsuccessfully, I note," Morphus said, as a truck carrying supplies from the distant troopship trundled by, mutants riding on the back as the material bounced and crashed. "With my experience-"

"Experience!" Detar grumbled.

"And skills, I believe we will find her. Now...Detar..." Morphus stepped up, glaring down at her - his long, limber, green body growing taut as he glowered at her. "Will i need to make my command more evident?" His hand dropped to the knife he had slid into his belt. Detar hissed, stepped back, bowed excessively.

"Of course not, Lord Morphus," she said, sarcastically.

"Tch..." he snorted. "You will eat your sarcasm soon."

They set out that morning, the whole pack following at Morphus' punishing speed. They came to the crater, to find that it was abandoned. Morphus sniffed at the ground, and decided to swing eastward. They ran for days - the hardened, experience Chameleons keeping pace. Detar ran with Quell, who muttered to her between gasping, panting breaths.

"Do you think we'll find her?"

"Oh, I'm sure. It's so easy to find a single invisible machine in all these wastes," Detar said, not trying to keep her voice down.

Morphus glared over his shoulder.

And on they ran.

Sure to find her someday.

***
The Machine Intelligence's heartland - the Machine Wastes - was a greasy smear in the distance, industrial pollutants rising into the air. And within fifty kilometers, drakkons were at work with shovels and picks, their mutant support crews throwing up the shadow of a hidden gord as the bio-engineered creature did her work. Pax watched it all while next to him sat the still bound and furious Staff Sergeant Karr.

"Impressive enough," she said, sniffing. "But do you really think you can take out the Machines with claw and machine guns?" She smirked. "I doubt it."

"Right now, we're growing a pack of Maulers in there," Pax said, chewing some meat from his ration-pack. "They're going to be selectively augmented by Dr. Vrull to be even stronger. Even tougher. They will be joined by a fourth platoon of drakkons. That will give us a mobile army...and...that." he nodded.

Several pack beasts - camouflaged from the air by cunning patterning in their fur from the air - advanced. They were dragging with them camoflagued burdens, burdens that left deep furrows. The first low trumpeting howl of a birthed mualer rang out, and Pax stood. "Come on, Tej," he said.

"Staff Sergeant Karr," she muttered.

"Come on!" Pax walked her towards the tents. "You know you're the last one who hasn't chosen the Dip yet."

The human woman snorted, her nose wrinkling. "Maybe this is just me, but it takes more than a few honeyed words from you to get me to turn my back on my species."

"We're the same species," Pax said. "...mostly. It's just longer life, stronger body, heartier mind..."

Karr snorted again. Loudly.

The first of the maulers were growing rapidly within the gord. By Pax's estimation, they'd be ready within a few days - maturing from their awkward adolescence to their full growth. By then the supplies would all be ready. Fortunately, one part of those supplies had arrived, for it was why he had quietly been speaking with his captive audience. Karr watched with a frown as the turret was dragged into the gord's underground, mutant technicians working to check it over for any damage from its long trip. Her jaw hung open in shock and she stammered. "T-That's a MoVB-VII Elephant main battle tank's secondary turret!"

"Technically, it is a mutant knock off of the same," Pax said, casually. "Maulers, when they're full sized, carry two of them with ammo to spare." He turned to her. "The best mutants ride and fire them while the Mauler uses their strength, speed and skill to place themselves, just as you would a turret on a tank. And...well...we need the best mutants we can to fire the guns."

Karr scowled. "You're going to turn those guns on my Emperor."

"Only if he fights back, Tej," Pax said, quietly. "This will be a world ruled by mutants. We are the future. Not humanity." He chuckled. "But to be fair...all it takes for one to become the other is a dip in the Vats."

Karr scowled. Harder.

And together, they watched as the Mauler cubs stomped around, shaking themselves dry and beginning to ravenously devour the grains and vat-grown meat laid out for them.

***
Two weeks later, and Pax's Wing was on the march. Arranged into a formation where the Drakkon platoons would screen the huge Maulers, tey advanced openly. Brazenly. There was no chance to hide this much mutant power on the march - and Pax knew it. The outer edges of the Machine Wastes were populated by factories and material collection sites, and there was no sign of human habitation. That only made sense. The Machines...had little use for biology, beyond turning them into cyber-slaves. Pax was not on Rikal, as he normally would have preferred. Instead, he was sitting on one of the Maulers, which was named Pollax. The massive beast looked somewhat like a long necked dinosaur, with a broad flat back. The head was where the lookout crew were situated, while the back had the two turrets built onto either side of it. The main guns could fire a full two miles over open sights with near pinpoint accuracy. They had shells. They had crews.

Pax glanced over at his prisoner. Karr was still undipped.

Maybe she'd change her mind.

Pax's radio crackled.

"This is Lt. Gerish! We've got incoming!"

The eastern fringe of the battle lit up. Pax put his binoculars to his eyes and grunted as he saw that the drakkons soaring and swooping over there weren't fighting anything on the ground. Instead, machine fliers were taking to the air, screaming jet-pack clad infantry that had been called Revnant platoons. Beam fire and bullets started to lash the air. Then Pollax let out a mournful hooting noise - while his lower mouths, situated on the back of his neck, said in perfectly understandable English: "Behemoth, five o clock. AP."

The mutants at the guns started to slam shells into the multi-barrel breaches. The guns elevated then roared - but as they roared, one of the factories in the Machine Wastes crunched inwards and a Behemoth autotank came rumbling out. Twice as big as any Mauler in the platoon and bristling with weaponry. THe forward guns roared, blooming smoke as shells screamed past Pax's head. He was more worried about the trio of smoke-trails that spurted behind hissing rockets that the Behemoth had launched. Explosions roared to the left and the right of Pollax. The guns roared again and Pax watched.

The Behemoth and the factory it had been using as cover exploded all at once. But as the smoke roiled around it, he saw a shell rebounding away, and gleaming white dents in the thick armor.

"No penetration!"

"We have another sir!" A voice cracked over his radio and Pax swung his gaze around as Karr hurried to the flank, watching as a second Behemoth trundled out of cover. Rockets began to scream into the air - while the drakkons swept down to take cover in the ruins between the Behemoth autotanks and the Maulers. Pax saw why a moment later.

Scourges.

Dozens of them came out -rushing through withering fire from the Drakkons. They rushed towards his Maulers - but the mutants were ready. Pollax lifted his immense foot and brought it crashing down onto a dozen scourges at once, while pintle mounted heavy beam turrets began to sweep around. More rockets blew up as they thumped into the ground - and Pax bellowed into his radio.

"I want that Behemoth down! Get it down, Lt. Vakash!"

"Got it, sir!"

Drakons took to the skies, sweeping through a battlefield rifle with beams and bullets. A few fell - but others managed to swoop low over the damaged Behemoth. Pax didn't see what they did - but he did see that less than he wanted took off, corpses draping the back of the immense autotank, and traceries of weaponsfire chasing them. But then the entire Behemoth blew from the midsection upwards. Chunks of metal screamed into the air as he grunted with relief. THen a small hand grabbed his wrist and jerked him down - seconds before a pulse beam whipped through the air. Pax shook himself - and saw that while the Maulers were smashing Scourges, that didn't mean all of the nimble, tentacled robots were down. He drew his heavy bore pistol and tossed it to a shocked Karr, then stepped forward and snatched up a gaffing hook.

He brought it crashing into the side of a Scourge that had boarded the Pollax, while other crew members used cutters and short ranged shotcannons to blew more of the clankers off. Karr got into it, springing to the railing and shooting down at the Scourges that scuttled along the Pollax's legs. The immense dragon bellowed furiously, while the guns leveled and fired again - roaring, deafeningly loud.

The other Behemoth vanished into the factories before the shots even came close.

"Lt. Rikal, how is it looking up from up there?" Pax asked.

"We have another legion flanking us - that's two Legions in the air, three on the ground, sir." Rikal sounded winded. "They have artillery, but...shit!"

Pax didn't know it, but at that moment, Rikal and his platoon were kept away from the Shade class mobile artillery - which crept forward on articulated spider legs - by an ambush screen of Skull Probes. The small, spider-limbed bots were normally just...scouts. But they had been well entrenched and prepared, and their light laser guns spat death into the sky, forcing Rikal and his drakkons to break away...and giving the self-propelled, sentient artillery time to open fire. Shells screamed overhead and exploded around the Maulers and Pax winced as he saw one burst directly under Telja, the female on the far right. She reared up, bellowing...

And then the Behemoth they had lost track from emerged from a completely unexpected pile of rubble and fired, nearly point blank, into Telja's side. Gore exploded as the penetrating explosive shells ripped through the dragon's ribcage. Her crew leaped off, screaming, as fires swept along her body, and she crashed to the ground.

"AP!" Pollax boomed.

HIs turrets boomed shortly later. But the Behemoth had slipped back into the smoke and ruins.

"Are we winning or not?" Karr snapped.

"We're winning until I say we're not," Pax snapped right back. "Rikal?"

"Yeeeeh!"

Rikal's war scream came with the sight of a full platoon of Drakkons sweeping down to the east. Pax watched as a quartet of spider-limbed artillery tanks, realizing their screening was gone, tried to back away. They didn't have a bloody chance. Gunfire. Explosions. Tearing metal. Then Rikal boomed over the radio. "We have em! But sir, there's a Cyclops platoon coming right up the center around that last Behemoth.'

Pax nodded, then gave the order. "Drakkons, cover us from the Revenants. Maulers! Lets finish this."

The surviving Maulers thundered forward, heavy footsteps crashing down as they sprinted towards the center of the machine wastes. The enemy had drawn back, without artillery support and, as the last Revenant crashed into the ground, without air cover. The Behemoth trundled backwards, while the Cyclops walkers - two legged, swift automecha with chin and dorsal mounted kientic weapons - fanned out to cover it. Drakkons swept down, dropping munitions and opening fire with their assault rifles, while Pollax and his surviving Mauler brothers fired a mixture of AP and HE into the field. Roaring, bursting shells choked everything with smoke as the Behemoth fired one last time - shells screaming past Pollax's head.

Then...

The dragons smashed forward, grinding the last machine into the dust as they advanced towards the oblong egg that was the crashed troopship that the Machines operated from.

***
It took a week to sort everything out - and after the honors were awarded, and the Machine Wastes had been turned over to sending their supplies back to the Mutant Wastes, and after the new dragons started to arrive to fill in the holes in their ranks. Pax watched it all from the only halfway livable room in the troopship - what had once, as far as he could tell, had been a performance evaluation chamber for subaltern units. The bed...well, okay it may have been a projection tank. Whatever. The bed was comfortable enough if you threw a blanket over it. He was considering the Warmaster's planned next move.

The scouts had brought word that Erik Mai, the highest general of the Empire of Man, had taken a massive force from his base to investigate the former Fist of the Wasteland's headquarters.

They must have suspected the Mutant army was here - but they couldn't know that they had just defeated the Machines...and that they had the ability to reach their headquarters. Thanks to the work by Dr. Vrull, new augmentations were being injected into the Maulers, increasing their speed and endurance. He could bypass the human army and-

"Ahem, General?"

General Pax turned to face the entrance. One of the guards at the door was peeking his head in. "Yes?" he asked.

"The, uh...the human is here," he said, then blinked as Staff Sergeant Tenja Karr strode in, glaring at him.

Pax looked down at the slender woman. "Yes?" he asked.

She glared at him.

"...if you don't institute enforced dipping," she said, her voice fierce. "And if you at least try and respect the Emperor's sovereignty...I could see about...possibly..."

Pax arched an eyebrow.

"...well?" Karr glared at him.

Pax's chuckle was quite satisfied.

"Don't make me fucking regret this," Karr scowled.

***
Detar and Morphus walked slowly down the culvert walls of the unnamed mountain range. They came, to a stop, finally, at the site of Diabolique. She stood, perfectly still, her body frozen midstride. Detar poked her with a finger. The machine assassin slowly crashed forward, hitting the ground with a THUMP.

"We got her!" Quell said, cheerfully as Detar and Morphus glowered down at the dead machine.

"Suicide switch when the base got taken," Morphus said.

"Well. What can I say. You did find her." Detar spat on the dead machine. "Eventually."

Morphus sighed.

In the distance, they could see the glint of dragons on the wing.

***
When you stepped, for the first time, into the Imperial Palace - with the flags of the Emperor torn down and mutant banners flying - you had to admit that you were impressed. The Empire had not simply sought to cleave from the world a place to survive...they had made something to thrive. The building was beautiful, with flying columns and vast gardens wrung from the desert ground through careful work. You had heard that their geneticist, Milton Jrick, who had been captured midflight when the dragons pounced on the base and slashed their way through the garrison, had been better at making roses than he had been at breeding monsters.

On the whole?

You rather respected him for that.

What you did not expect, though, was what you saw as you came to General Pax, his new second in command, and the Emperor of Mankind himself. The Emperor was flanked by the general who had tried to defend against the sudden and overwhelming attack...and you considered, for a moment, just how things might have gone had you been slightly less lucky, slightly less aware. Without scouts keeping tabs on xenopod movements, you'd never have freed the Pankotic Wastes. Without those new mutants, you'd never have taken the Machines - and their Five Legions would never have been crushed...and without the Eye, you'd never have known General Mai was five hundred kilometers from home right when you needed him gone the most.

Still.

You were surprised to see the Emperor.

He was no god. He was maybe fifty, sixty years old, with a salt and pepper beard, a balding pate, and a weak chin. Despite all of that, you could see a driving passion in his gray-gray eyes, one that made him seem taller and stronger than General Honor, who stood to his left. She was a buzz-cut sharp looking woman with aviator sunglasses, clad in Imperial pattern combat power armor, with a bullish expression that said I should have won this.

"So..." the Emperor said, his voice fierce and intelligent. "You are the Warmaster, eh?"

"That is, am, Emperor," you said, spreading your arms and bowing your head politely. "My administrator, Mitoch, will be arriving shortly, to discuss incorporating human lands into Dergath territory."

The Emperor's lip curled. "You mean dipping us..."

"Only those that wish," you said, then smiled. "I think...there's actually a lot that your Empire and ours can learn from one another." You gestured to the garden. "These flowers, for instance..."

You were sure if Kalath had been there, she would have been rolling her eyes like they were going to pop out of her head.

You thanked the Master she was not.

And so, you and the Emperor of Man walked into the gardens, to talk about what happened...next.

MUTANT VICTORY


Fhew!

You did it! Your plan to wait, build up, then attack led to a MASSIVE brawl - four Drakkons and a Mauler under Pax versus Tyrannicus leading two Scourge Platoons and Two Behemoths (which, by the way, have CRITICAL DAMAGE, so they do x2 damage), which were then followed up by four other Legions, one after the other (I've merged them into one fight narratively for "making it cooler" factor.) Revenant platoons! Spider constructs! Cyclopses! Artillery! It was wild!

And, that's why Pax's army ended up looking like THIS:

If the Imperials or Xenos had fought as hard, then they definitely would have attained Legendary. Ah well! ...and to be fair to both of them, they HAD huge and scary armies! We just had this MASSIVE intelligence and mobility advantage that let us just cut around their forces and attack them where they were weakest.

one thing I've learned is while Drakkons are fun, they just do not have the weight to do much against late game units, and you lack the ability to buff them. A shame, since air assault units kinda have to work with other units to work...

Still!

I hope you enjoyed this AE quest!

Maybe I'll do another someday with one of the other factions?

Some day!

<3
 
Did not expect to win that much. Definitely interesting to have the Super mutants being portrayed as the better option then the humans for once. Anyways really fun quest.
 
Did not expect to win that much. Definitely interesting to have the Super mutants being portrayed as the better option then the humans for once. Anyways really fun quest.

Don't let survivorship bias confuse you.

If the xenopods had beaten Casica...or if the imperials had found any of the neutral bases to the south, or even if the Fist hadn't been assassinated by Nod (like, if we drew her later in the game), then we'd have had a REAL HARD TIME.

Nice ending! Mutants rule!

So, are you planning on doing a World of Darkness quest ever?

A hint...

 
Amazing as usual DC.
I've never even heard of the game, but your characterisations were fantastic and I really enjoyed the quick paced feel of the story.
 
Don't let survivorship bias confuse you.

If the xenopods had beaten Casica...or if the imperials had found any of the neutral bases to the south, or even if the Fist hadn't been assassinated by Nod (like, if we drew her later in the game), then we'd have had a REAL HARD TIME.
Na, that part checks out. We fought part of the Xenos hivemind and a machine splinter. Then we just beat the human empire, not just some warlord or a major victory on a front we fully collapsed them and got their leader.
 
Na, that part checks out. We fought part of the Xenos hivemind and a machine splinter. Then we just beat the human empire, not just some warlord or a major victory on a front we fully collapsed them and got their leader.

Yeah, sorry, they moved their army out and I just took their HQ - it had two marines and a mecha defending it and that was it. It was easy!
 
I loved this! Thanks so much for writing it, it has been really fun!

Your production speed is incredible and your writing is *chef's kiss*. I was really sold on these characters being post apoc soldiers and leaders, and I loved Pax having their hardcore general moment and their swashbuckler moments with their raiding.
 
Look, all you have to do is have the local machines accidentally be taken over by Skynet's alternate timeline good clone (you can tell they're a good AI because their profile has a mustache) when they investigate an anomalous signal and have the rest of the game be GoodNet trying desperately not to die after somehow ending up in a timeline even more screwed up then their home timeline.

...Or at least that's the funniest idea that comes to mind after a short think.
 
You could also just make a Machines deck that doesn't use humans at all. It's very possible to just avoid the cyborg cards and thus avoid the nasty idea of using human beings for spare parts.
 
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