In what way? In terms of landing: the role of destroyers is to screen troopships. We have two destroyers against, seemingly a wing or two of substandard aircraft.
They would have a chance if your fleet moved into their engagement range and they choose to intercept via a space battle. Plus side: if whatever wings they have decide to all commit to a space battle, your landing troops (if you had any raised) would get the chance to make landings unopposed. Cons: if they somehow manage to disable/force all destroyers to retreat, then the troop ships would be in danger themselves from whatever remainder attack runs the aircraft can do.
In terms of battle: We have anti-air weapons as our specialist weapon. The stats of our AA weapons aren't far off those of the Airframes we had - and ours were much better than the outdated ones she's got.
Finally, on a strategic level: I would put forward that it is actually best for us to strike before she can raise more Militia, and possibly before she consolidates her forces. Don't forget that, currently, her ground troops are split up. If she makes the mistake of not consolidating into the city, then we're going to only be fighting part of her ground forces.
If people do want to land outside of the city, I get that. I will ask people to please at least keep our troops in one group or else we potentially risk being defeated in detail in much the same way we might do to her.
It's just where the Airwings are based. Their effective range is already the planet+orbit so it's not really adding to the opposition directly. What matters more is if they have sorties available.
Terrain and their effects should be properly described and listed now. As you can see, they can range from pretty minor to significant battlefield dominance, which should definitely lead to some real fun situations or puzzles. And that's before considering the possibility of air taxis to open new angles of attack/fronts.
Pretty sure that Straight into Hell has it. A full blitz to just see if you could already have boots in the streets outside your sister's residence to really shake them up. The battle for Bastion is about to begin....
After we see how the destroyers secure the orbit, because your sister is not going to allow ships enter so effortlessly. I'll say that normally there would be a naval formation/designate airstrike phase before a space battle, but as it's likely just planes, it's probably just a single choice vote. Doesn't mean that the die won't make this possibly interesting however.
There was some token discussion, but the tactical staff made a swift recommendation: a full blitz assault on your sister's lone city. By having ground units already landing on the streets of her capital, it should hopefully shock and throw off the opposition. Some even hoped that it would be enough to perhaps terrorize the remaining forces into immediate submission, but you had your doubts about being so optimistic. Your sister may not be a fighter, but she was still a daughter of the Late Solar King. She, like you, could likely hold her own.
...which made it all the more odd, you considered with a frowning expression. While you did prepare for the possibility of Radana being taken hostage, you had expected it to be within the opening seconds without room for negotiations. But your sister had at least entertained and heard out your offer before drawing her blade, which hinted that perhaps there was something she knew that you didn't. A missing piece of the puzzle that has her feeling already backed into a corner and lashing out in frantic desperation.
Maybe it was something you could have Radana investigate the moment your hired mercenary teams sneaked in and freed her. But that required abilities and skills she didn't have. You considered it for a moment, then an idea struck that you smugly took glee in. "Dorothea. Kat."
"H-here!"
"Your orders?"
"I don't trust the mercenaries," You half-lied and sent the authorization codes via your armor. "Go with them to make sure Radana is rescued safely. Remember to protect her through whatever happens."
Your two retainers immediately assented and hurried to requisition a shuttle to take them over to where the hired knights were awaiting the go order. Meanwhile, you quickly drafted up and fired off a plaintext message to Radana, instructing her to make use of the incoming two subordinates to finally get direct access to your sister's systems. With any luck, perhaps she could uncover whatever ultimate truth or secret was beyond your grasp.
It'd better be a big one, you darkly considered over the sharp salutes and repeated transmissions to begin the assault. You stepped up now to the tactical holograms and crossed your arms, not caring for the looks being thrown your way about the scowl on your face. There was even some hushed whispering that you ignored, focusing entirely on the maps to watch how everything unfolded.
Meaning that you missed the slightly awestruck and admiring looks thrown your way from the ranks, many inspired by your seeming determination combined with regret about what was about to occur. It was almost like a clone of the Late Solar King in his prime, observing and directing the sequence of battles that shaped the fate of House Iris. You were unaware of it all, not noticing the continued popularity growth of your image among the armed forces, and wholly locked your gaze on the task at hand.
Soon, the blips representing your two destroyers lazily moved into orbit.
The engines of HMS Wisteria and HMS Callerya slowly dimmed and faded when they transitioned from cruising into tactical speed, the shift marked by a rapid shift in crew activity to battle stations. Sensors were dialed up to maximum and began to scan the planet below, the operators frantically going over every last detail to make sure nothing was missed. They hadn't even finished the first sweep when communications reported multiple incoming transmissions.
The first was from Bastion, from the control officers that angrily demanded these destroyers identify themselves or return whence they came from. This was promptly ignored. The next was from one of the mercenary shuttles in orbit, a basic acknowledgment of their presence before they began their own operation. Then came the one that had the bridge crews quickly raising an alert throughout their respective ship.
A single monotone and flat warning that should they not power down and prepare to surrender to local authorities, military force was authorized to disable the ships.
It wasn't long before sensors began to pick up unknown contacts rapidly approaching from the planet below. After a few seconds, positive identification was made: Hornet jets, coming out like their namesake to defend their home. There was no need to confer and discuss strategy when these were the only targets; both Wisteria-class ships simply moved with their escorts into a diamond formation to best overlap their anti-air zones.
As the Hornets drew closer, further identification was made that aligned with already-known information. This was the 92nd Intercessor Airwing, a unit that once achieved glory in the name of House Iris under the Late Solar King and was then retired before being reactivated in this squabble within the family. They flew Hornets because it was both the only craft they had and the only one they had ever known, for both rookie and veteran pilot alike.
For better or worst though, it was still a jet and it still could be a danger for either ship to take a hit straight-on. Steady eyes tracked the incoming contacts and final warnings were issued from the ships towards the pilots, only to be returned back with matching demands of submission. Neither side was going to back down, it seemed, and the point of no return came soon enough when the incoming planes split into their individual Squadrons to begin fast attack runs.
The moment the aircraft was in range then, there was no further hesitation and HMS Wisteria was the first to fire her guns in the opening salvo for the future of House Iris.
The Mage Turrets came alight, filling the space with blinding gunfire that clipped more than a few of the incoming planes. Perhaps it was the shocking realization that they were in real danger that threw the pilots off badly, many immediately firing their missiles off without proper locks. Such unguided projectiles were hardly a danger for HMS Wisteria and merrily zipped between her formation of escorts without any hits. Meanwhile, the more than a few Hornets were now sporting new bullet holes in their wings and hurriedly turning about to return to base.
However, the reveal that their opponents weren't going to be such an easy fight quickly faded and the senior veterans of Omega Squadron squared themselves with an eerie calm that could only be born from years on the battlefield. They braved the incoming anti-air fire coming from HMS Callerya and nimbly weaved their way through the escort formation, earning much dismay from the frantic gunners. This was only heightened when warning klaxons began to blare throughout the ship's systems.
Missile locks detected.
While the Hornet was dated, her armaments were not so far behind. This was proven when missiles nimbly launched from the hold bay and streaked the final distance. Horror was in the eyes of the bridge crew when they realized, almost too late, one was coming right for them! Emergency shutters were already raising, but it was too late. It managed to pass right between, moments before the opaque shutters slammed shut.
A muted detonation that couldn't be heard in space, but rather felt with how it shook those present. The crew of HMS Wisteria watched numbly while emergency panicked calls came in from their sister ship, all of them originating from lower ranking officers panicking with the sudden loss of their senior command. It looked bad, with the bridge being a total write-off and multiple other missile impact sites looking not much better. For a moment, one could almost imagine hearing the jeers and cheers coming from the enemy squadrons while they circled about one last time before turning back to the planet.
But in their triumph, they never noticed the small shuttles already breaking into the atmosphere, nor the troop transports soon passing by the wounded destroyer. A few soldiers peering out from the portholes when they passed silently took in the sight of the crippled ship, then stoically checked their weapons. They were going to make sure that there would be payback for this.
Battle Report
House Iris: HMS Wisteria: No damage. Combat Effectiveness 100%.
HMS Callerya: Heavily damaged. Combat Effectiveness 23%.
House Iris Separatists: Alpha Squadron (92nd Intercessors): Minor damage. Combat Effectiveness 83%.
Omega Squadron (92nd Intercessors): Minor damage. Combat Effectiveness 97%.
- Whoops, posted this in the wrong thread. Fixed now.
- Right, so initial system run is going actually good. A few things that I'm glad I'm testing now (like anti-aircraft interception actually probably needing to be buffed a little, like Mage Turrets Damage 2), but otherwise? I think this is going to definitely work over time, room for regular exchanges which have the ability to be highlighted into serious clashes.
- What happened with Callerya was just truly tragic bad luck, that's all I can say. She rolled the very worst critical effect, then also rolled nasty on additional damage. I suppose that balances out Wisteria being able to evade everything.
That was an unfortunate update. Just a quick question and a possible buff to Mage turrets. You mentioned the hornets were firing missiles but Callerya used armour to resist. Maybe they could still use their point defense to hose down the missiles?
That was an unfortunate update. Just a quick question and a possible buff to Mage turrets. You mentioned the hornets were firing missiles but Callerya used armour to resist. Maybe they could still use their point defense to hose down the missiles?
Design-wise, I actually want to lean on and have Armor still be an important ship stat for resisting most damage. AA already provides a chance to strike first and shoot down incoming planes, so I don't want to make that the full "ignore aircraft" strat. I could maybe see a hull variant or something that has that special ability of using AA instead of Armor to calculate damage as well, for fair drawbacks that lean it towards specialized AA duty.
Narratively-wise, probably could write about how planes can hold off on firing until in closer range which is when AA is less effective.
The good news is that, compared to the damage output of their air wings, the AA weapons we have on the Andernian Guards are kinda terrifying. 4 damage minimum and a +15 to attack rolls. They have 2 damage minimum. They might have better stats on ground attack than their naval attack but I wouldn't bet on it. Our defense isn't great but we do have the medic kits at least. We also have 8 battalions to their two air wings.
Obviously the rolls might distort things but I am otherwise relatively confident that their air superiority isn't something we should be worried about.
On the other hand I really struggle to see the use case for destroyers. If they don't have AA then they're sitting ducks to enemy interceptions whilst they're guarding invasions, but then their lack of armour means they suffer massively from critical blows (and roll completely average defense against enemy guns or air wings). I honestly think a variant of destroyers that had two defense slots would be better, if it ever becomes available.
Heavy cruisers however seem kinda great - if you give them armour and mage turrets. Particularly if you outfit them with an air wing and a gun emplacement. You can send the ship itself against enemies that don't have armour, whilst the air wing can punish ships without turrets. Divide and conquer.
As a side note, if battalions can fire "through" allied battalions, then our choice of long ranged weapons will be even better. If they can't it still allows us to focus fire on disabling one unit at a time. Same kinda reason ranged units can be very strong in rts games. You don't have to worry about pathing.
You can withdraw Callerya back to Andernia IV for repairs at the end of each Subcycle (so you'll need to move her at the start of next Subcycle first).
Also I'm not quite sure there's even a case to pursue on prosecuting the enemy pilots. That was a military target and even the commander of the attack on Pearl Habor Mitsuo Fuchida didn't get anything stuck on him.
Why? Because they succeeded in their attack? That's stupid, absurdly petty and Violet would never go for it. The ships were 100% a military target and in any case - they gave us the official warning, we ignored it.
You can withdraw Callerya back to Andernia IV for repairs at the end of each Subcycle (so you'll need to move her at the start of next Subcycle first).
Also I'm not quite sure there's even a case to pursue on prosecuting the enemy pilots. That was a military target and even the commander of the attack on Pearl Habor Mitsuo Fuchida didn't get anything stuck on him.
Technically it isn't unheard of. But at the same time the 'technically' was basically warcrimes due to said cases being soldiers basically exacting 'revenge' on prisoners of war. 😅
There is a reason why it just doesn't happen outside of dealing with non-state actors/terrorists/rebels.
I think the bigger issue here is why were the bridge blast doors not sealed going into combat in the first place? As space opera as the setting is, exposed bridge crew is serious problem. Internally-centered CIC facilities much safer for valuable officers.
Still, as rough as it is, they opened the way for the troops to land and we're putting the enemy on the defensive. So long as we don't let those colony ships become a surprise militia fleet without warning, we should be able to adapt and overcome.
I think the bigger issue here is why were the bridge blast doors not sealed going into combat in the first place? As space opera as the setting is, exposed bridge crew is serious problem. Internally-centered CIC facilities much safer for valuable officers.
I can see your point, it definitely does feel like a very serious defensive flaw narratively. However, I can offer that these ships do have no armor component and that they're also fairly fragile ships already in the scale of these things. I think that my design for cruisers would stress having one forward observation bridge, then one CIC bridge that's probably nestled/situated in a better location. Probably the larger the ship, the more command rooms for observation/analysis and decision-making.
Though in my head there is a definite roguish charm to characters being able to visually see the space battle taking place right in front of them.
Radana disguised a look at her hidden gauntlet with a polite covering of her mouth when she yawned, allowing her to discretely reread the message from her best friend. She lowered her arm and began to absently tap her fingers against the plain bed she sat on in the security cell. "Try to find out what your sister is hiding...a rather tall order, don't you think?" She whispered to herself with a furrowed brow. "No rest for the wicked, it seems."
Any further musings were cut off at the sound of a door opening to the security cells and the guards posted at her snapped to attention, hastily stowing away their entertainment devices. They remained ramrod straight when an individual in Guardian armor strode past and turned to face the imprisoned diplomat. Then, an arm rose up and crossed across their chest in a salute and respectful bow. "Lady Radana. How are you faring?" They asked through their helmet's speakers and the woman politely nodded back. "Do you require any additional accommodations?"
"Not that I am aware as far as I know, thank you." She paused, then gave a teasing smile. "Unless you could happen to supply me with some armor as well on my way out."
There was a single chuckle from the warden. "Much as I could, I'm afraid I cannot. But rest assured, so long as you do not attempt to escape, I will make your stay here as bearable as possible." They seemed to sigh, thinking on something "I am ashamed that we lack any such better quarters for an honorable Brilliance Knight of your standing, and that we are not able to properly demonstrate our respect for you by posting the best of my brothers and sisters to stand guard instead of these regular personnel. I hope you do not take offense to our lackluster reception."
"None taken," Radana smoothly replied, lifting a finger to press against her lips in a gesture of consideration. "But my, I must say, I am slightly confused. While I understand the ladies we serve are respectfully very different individuals, I had expected at least an equal number of dedicated followers between."
She had to choke back a laugh after that, the perpetually confused and agonized face of her best friend surfacing whenever the follower counts were brought up. "I'm not exactly subtle about not wanting to deal with constant ratrace for the heir position, what's going on? I'm not going anywhere big, leave me alone!" She had ranted previously, not understanding that those who backed Violet d'Iris didn't do so because she could have a possible line to inheriting House Iris. Neither was it because of suspicions about her unknown parentage that had her half-siblings on edge.
Rather, it was because they had seen mysterious fortune spring up for those around her, those who she seemingly favored, and decided to follow regardless of what could happen. A trust of faith and not much else, which sounded illogical but somehow kept working out, ridiculously so. Radana alone knew that this was all because of Violet's constant scheming and conspiracy that brought about such inexplicable luck, all that unseen work and effort resulting in prosperity for her, and some extra that her followers could pick up in her wake if they had behaved.
A lot extra, in hindsight.
She refocused on the present and it seemed to be at the right time, as the warden seemingly finished considering what was safe to talk about. "There have been more...disagreement as of late regarding what my lady has chosen to emphasize. A single dedicated focus on becoming self-reliant at all costs, as if we were the last of our kind. Hence the name of the city, 'Bastion.'" A roll of the shoulders to suggest a shrug. "I'm not quite sure why, but it has trickled down and conflicted with many of those who have grown accustomed to a certain lifestyle. We are not afraid of hard work, but we do wish for such work to be recognized and awarded so instead of more duties."
"You mentioned 'we.' Would you happen to share such disagreements?" Radana sharply pointed out, earning the briefest of flinches from her conversation partner. "Is this why you're here, and not at her side?"
"...unfortunately so. Light duties are apparently the best 'break' she can afford us for now, which apparently means guard duty." Their armor sagged, just a bit. "I would not be surprised though if these are all her remaining original followers, the others having departed for elsewhere. I have no idea where given our situation."
I do, given our situation. Ugh, you should've stuck to rehabilitating stray cats Violet. "One final inquiry, if you would sate my curiosity," She politely offered with a warm smile. "Why have you stayed then while your brothers and sisters are gone?"
To that, the Brilliance Knights drew themselves straighter, perhaps slightly prouder. "Because if nothing else, even if the entire universe has perhaps abandoned her, I will stick by my lady's side until the end. She deserves that at the very least, a companion to at least carry her along the way. Though perhaps that lover of hers...hm. I will have to test him to see if he is worthy because I can pass the mantle on."
Before Radana could try her luck and ask for more details, they suddenly tilted their head, apparently listening to something coming through their helmet. She knew then before they spoke that the conversation was over. "It appears the end may draw near. I must attend to the defenses, but do I have your sworn word that you will not attempt to escape?"
"I will not leave this cell until the doors are opened for me," The prisoner promised, putting on a mask of concern and patience. The warden nodded, checked one last time with the posted guards, then departed. Only when they were gone for sure did Radana let the sly smile bloom on her face. "Not that I will need to, if Dorothea and Kat are truly on their way now. But best I let Violet know she has a free ticket into Bastion without serious Brilliance Knight opposition."
REPORTING BASTION
Enemy Infantry Battalions detected in the following locations:
- Sector 1: E4, F4
- Sector 2: F4, F5
- Sector 5: E7, F5
- Additional enemy units may be in Reserves.
Strategic Objectives Located! - Bastion Airstrip. A prepared flat runway has been detected in the northern outreaches of the city. It is suspected to be housing hostile Airwings. By capturing the hangers in Sector 1 E4, F4, we will be able to ground some of the planes and force whatever others to waste time relocating to friendly locales. - Frontier Headquarters. A mockery or tribute to those who had braved the unknowns of space, it is difficult to determine. But it is known to be central to the coordination and cohesion of the auxiliary soldiers that make up the bulk of the Frontier regiments, so removing all enemy forces from Sector 5: E6, E7, F7, F6 will surely deplete enemy morale of these auxiliaries.
Tactical Objective Located! - Secure Refinery. The city of Bastion has much of its industry relying on extracting the valuable metals from the sea of molten magma is sits against. Shut down this industry by securing the extraction unit in Sector 2: B4. This objective is worth 3 Bonus Victory Points.
Alert: Incoming Transmission from Knights of the Last Bloom
"May our blossoms cleanse our ignorance. We have arrived."
- The stats for your mercenary Brilliance Knights are as follow:
Strength: 40 Armor: 0 Movement: 6 Main Weapon: LL-A4 Martian Battle Rifle (Mk1) Specialist Weapon: Circuit Blades. Range 1. Attack +5. Damage 4. Is an additional attack that gains +15 Attack in CQC Phase. Cannot be used against Armored troop type. Utility: Vow of Roses. When rolling to dealing damage, this unit rerolls each die below three (3) once. It must accept the new result whatever it is. Specials: This unit is counted as Infantry when moving through tiles. If this unit has moved this turn, this unit gains a +10 Evasion modifier to mitigating damage.
- Whew, these take a little bit. But at least I can then save them as templates for future usage. I figured it's best to future-proof and divide air element into its own plan for readability and to also represent inter-branch cooperation. Oddly fitting that.
- As all your units are right now in orbit, you'll need to use Pelicans to take and deploy them to the battlefield. Remember that they cannot make their regular movement when travelling by Pelican. And yes, yes you can absolutely choose to drop/deploy them right on top of enemy units. You currently have five Pelicans available, choose wisely.
- Should you choose to strike before civilian evacuations are complete, the enemy battalions will be scattered out of position and definitely caught off-guard. But by then, it's too late for them and they have to work with whatever sealed orders I've already made.
- Having more units than an enemy in a Sector nets you a single victory point for reference. So five points naturally on the map, and then a bonus few via the tactical objective. Score more than your enemy in a round to claim a victory for that round.
- Remember that this is absolutely the testing and learning stage for both you and me. I'm absolutely down to see or tweak how stuff works to have it be even more fun in the future.
14 hour moratorium to come up with a ground battle plan.
I quite enjoy the quest so far. But I will say I'm severely confused on why these outdated fighters so easily can kill us.
Mainly I don't understand the mechanics of mitigation on the fighters. Why did they have 0 on the first damage roll but 6 in the second? Was it dependent on their attack roll?
Further, what exactly are these fighters specialized in? Are they interceptors, generalist, or anti ship? They seem oddly tanky in first impressions. Just seems odd they took near no damage while near destroying a destroyer in one hit.
Okay so this is a little intimidating but let's just try and get into it. It is very cool if nothing else. I will start with a couple of questions to Celeshiro if I may.
Do we know yet if all these units are Militia?
The Brilliance knights are noted as having an armor score of zero, despite presumably wearing Guardian armour. Will it be possible to give infantry an armour buff or is that a permanent feature?
Our troopships were screened from enemy air wings. Does this mean our pelicans are unable to be intercepted for the start of the battle?
Observations on the battle front:
Even if we try to fight our sister everywhere she is, we still have her seriously outnumbered.
We have little to no reason to contest any sector besides 5 and 1. Sector 5 in particular has two of the three objectives. Once we take all the objectives, then her remaining forces will hopefully surrender but even if they don't, we can them defeat them with our improved advantages.
If we only contest sectors 1 and 5, we can fight her at a more than 2:1 ratio. We can also potentially encircle her, using our superior range to pour in damage from every Guard Battalion at once. This will also make us more victory points per round, at least from claimed sectors.
Not letting civilians evacuate was noted earlier as a warcrime. Don't do it. Let them leave. Don't forget as well, these are our people.
The enemy in sectors 1 and 5 are in forts. This gives them +10 cover, presumably only against attacks from outside of their tile, and stops any unit that moves next to them or moves around whilst next to them. I assume after it takes the movement. So you can't charge a fort from your max movement away. They get at least one turn of shooting you unless you drop on them.
My overall suggestions:
Four units of Guard in sector 1. Possibly danger-close to the enemy positions. E7 and F7 seem like good spots for two battalions. They are next to the highway for ease of movement, have simple firing lines, and should be outside of our enemy's range. For the other two I don't know whether we should drop on their heads, or take up more shelter. e.g. H4 and D6. I'm leaning towards head-dropping.
Four battalions of Guard plus the knights in sector 5. It's a more valuable sector, in fact controlling just sector 5 and the refinery gives enough victory points to draw a tie with every other sector combined. To that end I'd suggest knights to F5. Then guards to D4, E6, and F6. Final guards unit to either E4 or E7. Possibly B4 to immediately secure the objective plus provide supporting fire on the enemy in E7. In this sector I'm hesitant to engage the enemy in bloody melee on more than one tile at a time, since we do have some specialists as well as the ability to take really good cover right next to them. We can't take cover adjacent to the enemy forts in sector 1, which is part of why it might be better to come out of the gate swinging up there.
Depending on circumstances we may also wish to place a unit along the highways from sector 2 to sectors 5 and 1, to minimize the enemy's ability to rapidly redeploy when they see how unfavorably the forces are deployed against them. The highway between 1 and 2 in particular since they are neighbour's rather than being a sector apart like 5 and 2 are.
EDIT: Upon a little reflection I'm seriously inclined to drop like, one unit of guards just inside sector 4, along the highway, then concentrate all of our forces in sector 5. Meet them with an absolute hail of lead using our superior range. How does a 4:1 to ratio sound? Particularly if we cut off her retreat then she should only have 4 units left, or four and two that are very badly mauled if they break through our lines or manage to escape via Pelican. Then we only need to control one other sector to be consistently making victory points. If she wants to contest us then she has to have one unit it each sector. Two at most if the sector 5 guys make it out alive. This would leave her as much if not more open to being defeated in detail. It means we don't get to disable some of her air units, but it might be a better choice. It will mean that we're far less vulnerable to a single engagement going poorly, or a single unit getting mauled.
Mainly I don't understand the mechanics of mitigation on the fighters. Why did they have 0 on the first damage roll but 6 in the second? Was it dependent on their attack roll?
It's because of the Evasion roll. Alpha Squadron failed to evade any AA so they couldn't mitigate their damage. Meanwhile Omega squadron did and rolled well on how much they reduced it by.
Further, what exactly are these fighters specialized in? Are they interceptors, generalist, or anti ship? They seem oddly tanky in first impressions. Just seems odd they took near no damage while near destroying a destroyer in one hit.
Fighter craft in the setting are usually multi-role if not specialized. They can do a variety of tasks that just requires different armaments to be loaded. As to the damage numbers, it's again because of the dice. The AA damage on Alpha Squadron dinged them but didn't do anything too seriously. But Omega Squadron?
They got a really high damage roll which passed the critical threshold. Then Callerya failed her crit check. Then she rolled the worst possible critical effect. Then she rolled nasty bonus damage for it.
It's literally like a Swordfish smacking Bismarck, that's what happened.
I was confused when I read this. Then I checked and oh man I made a mistake.
The Tactical objective is in Sector 2, not Sector 5. See how the description talks about an extractor next to lava. I apologize and have fixed that. I want to address it now before making more replies.
If I may also ask, does range 1 mean "CQC only" or "CQC and adjacent tiles". I had assumed the latter. This would also reflect on what range 2 and 3 mean etc. Range 2 would be "this tile and adjacent tiles" vs "tiles that have one tile between them and this tile, and every tile within that range".
The Brilliance knights are noted as having an armor score of zero, despite presumably wearing Guardian armour. Will it be possible to give infantry an armour buff or is that a permanent feature?
It's because Guardian armor is more like the power armor from Starship Troopers than the more bulkier depictions such as in 40k. It's less about full protection than it is about assisted movement and actions, remember that it began as an EVA hazard suit.
They do have "Armor" in the form of an near-permanent Evasion buff that does help in their mitigating damage roll, but does not push them to be vulnerable to things such as the Blowpipe Anti-Armor launcher. However, if you want to increase their Armor more, I'd definitely say there could be Vows (utilities) for that
Yes and more critically, the Hornets have no sorties left. They cannot intercept the landing at all, Callerya really did take one for the team. Imagine if those crits had hit the troops in orbit.
It's just all tiles adjacent to them. Range 0 technically would be only the tile the unit sits on, but as the mechanics of the CQC phase lay it out, opposing units on the same tile just brawl it out until one of them is forced off. I did edit in a bit of clarification to the Circuit Swords in CQC after I made the first post, they are a bonus attack in that stage in addition to being able to strike adjacent tiles in regular combat.
That's a lot of attacks if they are dropped straight onto enemy forces. Your elites or at least this variant of them really stresses the "Platinum Games protagonist murder blender" aspect.
[ ] Plan Spring is Coming
-[ ] [Battalion] 1st Black Roses
--[ ] Sec 1 E4 - Pelican
-[ ] [Battalion] 1st Tigers
--[ ] Sec 1 G4 - Pelican
-[ ] [Battalion] 1st Panthers
--[ ] Sec 1 G3 - Pelican
-[ ] [Battalion] 1st Easters
--[ ] Sec 2 C5 - Pelican
-[ ] [Battalion] 1st Royals
--[ ] Sec 2 B4 - Pelican -[ ] [Evacuation] Permit evacuation of civilians and wait for the battlefield to clear.
We only have 5 pelicans, so we can only deploy 5 units to begin with. A downside to dropping straight on their heads. I believe it is at least cancelled out by the benefits, if not beaten. This plan focuses on the airport to ensure we can deploy the 2nd Guards with relatively little interference. Probably on the 3rd turn. The Knights are set to their best work - to blenderize the enemy in their forts whilst the Big Cats of 1st Guards draw enemy fire due to their proximity and weaken them for the Cats to drive them out next turn.
Royals seize the refinery for those sweet, sweet VPs whilst Easters take max range shots from outside enemy range. They'll probably move into the urban jungle next turn but for now this suburban deployment will actually let them shoot without being shot at. Which is much better than an extra +5 cover.
This plan is based on combat being able to start immediately after deployment. Basically treating deployment like a normal turn that skips the move step. Celeshiro can confirm if that's accurate or not.
Key:
Yellow Dot - 1st Black Roses
Blue Dots - 1st Andernian Guards Battalions
EDIT: Honestly I can totally see a case for dropping a Battalion of guards onto the other airport tile to gamble that we will be able to bring in the rest of the troops next turn. May as well use that number advantage. This kind of situation/tactics is definitely where having some shock-drops would help. This is the kind of warfare the "drop pods" utility + high power short ranged guns would excel at. Mind you, teasing the enemy out from fortified positions with our long range rifles would be exactly what Lily Guards excel at.
Basically the kind of warfare I'm planning isn't to the strengths of the Guards units, but I believe it is still the best plan. I might prefer to drop one of the sector 1 units onto the airfield itself however.
EDIT 2: Actually, in an ideal situation our 1st wave would still have medkits, but we'd use the drop pods for the 2nd wave or if the enemy had declined to challenge our fleet with their air wing. Guns are kind of ambivalent. It would still be good to have a Battalion or two with the higher-attack guns for CQC and seizing objectives. Martian BR is still cool though. Particularly against forts.
EDIT 3: If you do see this Celeshiro, could I ask when do we get buffs from Violet? I believe you mentioned that leaders buff their units, depending on their Martial as well as other factors such as being the leader of their faction/house. Currently we've only seen Violets leadership affect our Stratagem income. She also rallied the Brilliance Knights, but that didn't seem to be what you meant.
