honor before duty, as honor is everything
duty before glory, for mindless glory is but blood upon the blade.
glory before blood, for there are many paths to glory.
blood before water, for the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.
water before death, share your water so that more may live.
death before dishonor, better to die with honor than to live without.
Sif being an easily flustered and silly captain is interesting, but I think that even thinking about ramming the planet is a bit out there. Maybe it's her inexperience at command, especially when compared to another take on Wisteria's command, but she might be suited to classes first before actual live operations.
Peter here has an entirely different attitude that makes it feel like he should've been on Wisteria instead of Sif, and it feels slightly wasted on Callerya. He's rather oddly calm for somebody with a subordinate's corpse next to him, and I'm actually shocked he doesn't treat the fallen with respect. Maybe it's just adrenaline in the moment clouding his line of thinking? I could somewhat see that to prioritize what matters more over actual decorum.
it's more that he has seen so much death that it barely register anymore. that and the the corpse was supposed to have been clean up at least an hour ago, but yeah i should made much clearer
i would love write each branches own version, but I'm not sure what each branch doe's
on whole i wanted to do a teenage action/drama TV-series story (kinda like space battle-ship yamato) and a adult action/drama (kinda like M.A.S.H and DS9). while i believe what i wrote to be utter garbage, i'm still happy that i did it. ramming the planet, how did i fuck it up that badly
[x] Plan Initiate Bombardment
-[X] [Unit] All Regiments
--[X] Remain in place
-[X] [Unit] HMS Callerya
--[X] Andernia IV orbit
-[X] [Unit] HMS Wisteria
--[X] Orbital Bombardment (D4)
---[X] Saturation
Bright flares of light marked the engines of HMS Callerya hurriedly firing up to quickly be underway and withdraw from the ongoing conflict. With the serious damage it had already suffered, it was likely going to be out of the fight for a while, though the repair workers would try to do their best. In the meantime, that left only one ship to carry out the orders of House Iris.
HMS Wisteria, first ship of her class, was eager to avenge her sister's spilled blood.
As it slowly drifted into place in orbit, its primary missile battery began to turn to face the crimson ball below. A moment later, silo doors smoothly flipped open to reveal the payload within, the projectile computers receiving a final batch of targeting data from the weapon operators. Then, there was ignition and the missiles streaked off like a horde of angry bees aiming to sting the massive target before them.
A painful sensation if they make contact, but not an irrecoverable one for sure. Which meant that already, new missiles were being cycled into the emptied silos and prepped for rapid launch. This would continue on until either her active stocks were depleted, necessitating a small break to resupply the destroyer, or until the order to stop came. But until then, HMS Wisteria was the bringer of rain to the volcanic planet.
Tragically, a column of civilians fleeing from the Battle of Bastion was misidentified as a military convoy and subsequently subjected to rods of steel from above. By the time the mistake was identified and the order to cease fire was hurriedly given, it was already too late. The refugee column was transformed into a hollow shell of itself, flaming wrecks littering a cratered section of the highway. It was a haunting sight that normally would be a scandalous and horrific event to shock a greater galactic community, but in this desperate power struggle within House Iris, it simply was the consequence of a people at war with themselves.
Even as the facility around them shook from the nearby missile bombardments, Dorothea's eyes never once blinked while advancing up the final corridor filled with shooting grunts. Even though her armor's systems were helpfully chiming with warnings to get out of danger, she ignored them and simply fed energy into the circuits within her eyes to accelerate the way her pupils could pick out and track individual incoming bullets with near-pristine detail. It was almost like they were swimming sluggishly to her advanced eyes, allowing for easy predictions of their trajectory to know precisely how to avoid being shot. At which point, her armor needed only to enhance her speed to properly react.
To the average human eye though, it looked almost as if Dorothea was dodging the bullets themselves with inordinate grace. It was made even more terrifying when she showed no trouble or difficulty in firing back with a simple sidearm, the pistol somehow landing more hits than any of their rifles. After a few more futile seconds of resistance, the guards came to the unanimous decision to give up this fight and swiftly retreat elsewhere.
It meant that soon, Dorothea was the only one left still standing amid all the corpses left in her wake. She impassively scanned for any possible stragglers before turning to face her goal. A leg came up and circuits flared to give more strength, allowing for the resulting kick to knock the reinforced door straight off its hinges.
Radana waited until she was sure of who was there before removing her hands from covering her ear. "My, what a ruckus this all is," She commented and rose from her seat, taking only a moment to straighten out her attire. "But you have no idea how glad I am to see you. I can only hope your local experience was a little better than mine."
Despite the setting, the Lycoris Knight still could feel the edges of her lips tugging upwards. "Just an errant bullet here or two, what's a little firefight between friends?" Then she grew serious when a report came in from the mercenary allies. "Ah, it's going to be a very loud one soon. Seems like those Brilliance Knight captors of yours are finally coming into play and we've got an intense standoff between traitors."
"Of which side?" Radana mused before shaking her head. "My armor, where is it?"
"With Kat, she isn't far behind." Dorothea checked the hallway one more time before glancing back. "I'm sorry to rush, but I'll need to make sure that whatever happens, we still have a way out of here. Stay put until Kat gets here with your armor."
"Naturally," The diplomat amicably agreed and watched her colleagues hastily move to try and help their hired allies. True to her comrade's words, the Hyacinth Prism soon appeared with her specialized suit that could easily carry the sacred armor about. Radana nodded thankfully to Kat and began to reverently put her armor on, only to flash a small smile at the fidgeting Prism. "While we could stay in place, how about we go a little deeper and try to dig through their databases?"
"I...um…But….." She fumbled over her words and then gave in, as expected of her nervous persona. Or at least what her best friend claimed would happen. "One...look couldn't hurt. R-right?"
"No, but we better hurry then. I'd like to have a sneak peak before Dorothea comes back and drags us both to the evacuation shuttle."
REPORTING BASTION
Enemy Battalions detected in the following locations:
- Sector 1: B2, C5
- Sector 2: C4, D6
- Sector 5: E7, F5
- Additional enemy units may be in Reserves.
Strategic Objectives Located! - 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! - Protect Refinery: Having captured a critical resource producer for Bastion, it seems the loss is being felt very keenly with belts needing to be tightened across Bastion to keep up the current combat tempo. Keep holding Sector 2: B4 to starve out the enemy. This objective is worth 5 Bonus Victory Points.
Alert: Incoming Transmission from Knights of the Last Bloom
"Why do flowers shed their petals? To make way for new life."
- Eesh. Saturation got doubles, which means you got unlucky while doing damage. Really unlucky in fact, it was a pretty bad roll on the severity as well. Ironically though, in this closed setting, the event is self-contained and doesn't do much mechanically. Narratively? Well, we'll see.
14 hour moratorium to come up with a battle plan.
- Eesh. Saturation got doubles, which means you got unlucky while doing damage. Really unlucky in fact, it was a pretty bad roll on the severity as well. Ironically though, in this closed setting, the event is self-contained and doesn't do much mechanically. Narratively? Well, we'll see.
- Protect Refinery: Having captured a critical resource producer for Bastion, it seems the loss is being felt very keenly with belts needing to be tightened across Bastion to keep up the current combat tempo. Keep holding Sector 5: B4 to starve out the enemy. This objective is worth 5 Bonus
Now the way I see it, there are two options. Either we drop the 2nd Guards into Sector 2 and pretty much lock down any chance at the refinery, or we do another drop assault into Sector 5 and try to deal a crippling blow by taking the Frontier HQ off the board.
While the first has the advantage of being sure, the second has a high reward value - and consider that all our units (except Last Bloom) have anti-air weaponry. I have the gleeful hunch that the Foolish Princess is going to throw in her reinforcements directly into AA range and her Pelicans will get blown out of the sky.
If a Pelican gets shot down, what happens to the transported units?
ah. i think they have suicid troops. Dying to give birth to new life. this is bad.
also the civilian casualties are terrible,and could have the largest longterm impact of this war. even if we try to conceal it, i cannot imagine a quest where the qm wouldnt just give this info to our enemyies via fiat. its way to juicy as a weapon.
They will have to endure a free attack based on the AA weapon that hit them. Infantry AA is very good, I should point out, but probably because it fits being a defensive unit well.
The main targets were the air field the fighter wing had retreated to, and a militia position. Looks like we have barely scratched the paint on the first, completely missed the second, and slaughtered a column of refugees (and our chances to have the population unequivocally on our side) to boot.
- Eesh. Saturation got doubles, which means you got unlucky while doing damage. Really unlucky in fact, it was a pretty bad roll on the severity as well. Ironically though, in this closed setting, the event is self-contained and doesn't do much mechanically. Narratively? Well, we'll see.
From a player perspective this bombardment was just deeply unfortunate. In-quest we should do... something, about this. Conduct an internal investigation. Hold a ceremony to apologise to the families of the victims and give them support. This will come after the war but it must happen. It is kind of the bare minimum on a fuck up like this.
Do we know if the bombardment still hit the enemy forces? Or at least suspect? 12 damage across the board is nothing to laugh at. In fact I think that would almost take their air wings out of commission altogether now.
92nd Intercessors (Alpha Squadron):
5 damage (Wisteria Intercepts)
5 damage (Bastion Airbase destroyed)
6 damage (Critical effect)
12 damage? Leaves them at 28 damage, not counting possible crit. effects we didn't see. Our planes have a chassis value of 40. If we assume they have as much chassis as ours, which they probably don't because they're out-dated, then they're still on their last legs.
92nd Intercessors (Omega Squadron):
1 damage (Callerya intercepts)
5 damage (Bastion Airbase destroyed)
12 damage? Leaves them at 18 damage, not counting possible hidden crits. Omega squadron is holding up much better, so even in the best-case scenario the enemy still probably have a half-a-wing at decent strength.
In regards to the battle plan:
The airport doesn't appear to be an objective anymore, so I don't really see a point in trying to hold it. I see the value in trying to take the militia HQ; it would seriously weaken the enemy forces, most importantly their reserves. But I don't think that leaving the second front unsupported, or supported only by the Brilliance knights, is worth it. Divide and conquer. We can hit two of their regiments with up to seven of ours, whilst also securing a tactical victory for this round. I do kind of want to do that objective to find out what the mechanical effect of objectives like that is, but that isn't a good enough reason to convince me in this case.
I'm a little split on what to do with 1st Royals & Easters, but I think marching them out of sector 1 makes the the most sense to me. They can reinforce sector 2 in the next round, whilst we might use the Pelicans to redeploy the rest of the troops. This one has many, many different ways it could go. Do we want to maximise speed in our retreat from S1 or do we want to punish them for trying to retake the fort (assuming they do). Do we want to try and go for the encirclement in sector 2 or do we avoid close combat as much as possible? This is the plan I'm feeling now but I've posted the links to the images for my other ideas below it.
Key:
Green Arrows: 1st Black Roses redeployment Purple/Blue Arrows: 2nd Andernian Guards Deployment Blue lines: 1st Andernian Guard movement. Circles mark off each tile they enter.
If all goes according to plan in Sector 2, the enemy in C4 will attack the objective, whilst I am guessing the enemy in D6 is going to move up to C4. We will then surround B4 such that when the enemy there loses to the Brilliance Knights, they will either surrender or our Guards will get a free attack on them as they retreat through their space. Either way that's a plus for us.
If we lose in C4, then our men should retreat to E6 (hopefully) and we still have them encircled. If we win, then we still have the enemy in B4 encircled. If the enemy aims for a tile other than C4, then it's a bit of a coin toss on whether we win that fight or not. But, this is the best I could come up with whilst trying to account for enemy movements.
In Sector 1 I'm guessing the enemy will move to retake the fort. This is a real guess. It isn't really the best play for them, but I just... have a feeling it's what they're going to do. I could well be wrong and if you think so then I'd suggest moving the easters to H4 instead, and the royals to F8 so they're closer to the action in sector 2 whilst still in some measure of cover.
The main targets were the air field the fighter wing had retreated to, and a militia position. Looks like we have barely scratched the paint on the first, completely missed the second, and slaughtered a column of refugees (and our chances to have the population unequivocally on our side) to boot.
Do we know if the bombardment still hit the enemy forces? Or at least suspect? 12 damage across the board is nothing to laugh at. In fact I think that would almost take their air wings out of commission altogether now.
They were hits, that was the flat damage applied to all units at D4, no mitigation. It did pretty fine damage, and I still say the aircraft are almost now just a write-off with what they have left. So you did nail enemies, just that civvies also got hit.
The one issue with your plan is moving the regiment off the refinery, which leaves it open. Yes, the knights are being Pelicaned in to replace them, but I'm just a bit worried about the militia attempting to charge in during the Move phase. Then again, the knights would make mincemeat of them, but something could go wrong.
Sorry, there's a second slight issue. 2nd Easters should go to D5, not A3. Urban cover is superior to Suburban.
So wait, a column of refugees was heading... Towards a military strongpoint? Literally charging into a Legitimate Target? I wasn't following the discussion well, but I was of the impression we targetted a military base with no civilian assets present. And yet there was a bunch of civilians charging over there?
Are we sure this wasn't a psyop by one of Paranoid Sister's agents to paint us as the supervillain here in order to gain the High Ground again? By tricking a bunch of refugees to run into a killbox and then blame it on us?
So wait, a column of refugees was heading... Towards a military strongpoint? Literally charging into a Legitimate Target? I wasn't following the discussion well, but I was of the impression we targetted a military base with no civilian assets present. And yet there was a bunch of civilians charging over there?
Are we sure this wasn't a psyop by one of Paranoid Sister's agents to paint us as the supervillain here in order to gain the High Ground again? By tricking a bunch of refugees to run into a killbox and then blame it on us?
Our goal was to take out the airfield, but we did saturation fire rather than a tactical strike across the entire hex. So it's not necessarily true that they were heading towards a base.
The one issue with your plan is moving the regiment off the refinery, which leaves it open. Yes, the knights are being Pelicaned in to replace them, but I'm just a bit worried about the militia attempting to charge in during the Move phase. Then again, the knights would make mincemeat of them, but something could go wrong.
Sorry, there's a second slight issue. 2nd Easters should go to D5, not A3. Urban cover is superior to Suburban.
In regards to your first point, I fully expect them to charge into the refinery. In fact I'd say it's their most likely move in the whole battle. I want to minimise the number of times our guards have to fight them in melee, and I want to have the knights be in CQC as much as possible. Dropping the knights onto the refinery is a happy way to achieve both of these. You're right something might go wrong, but the Knights have a much higher chance of ensuring we're still holding onto that tile at the end of the round.
In regards to your second point, it was necessary to drop them onto to A3 in order to surround B4. If their units fights our Knights in B4 in CQC and loses, then they have to retreat or surrender. If they surrender, then they've lost that whole unit. If they retreat, then units that have nowhere to retreat to have to retreat "through" encircling units, giving them a free attack. If we don't put troops onto A3 then they can just retreat there no worries, and we don't get a free attack. Celeshiro will have to confirm but I think encircling might be required/make it more likely for a unit to surrender outright as well.
EDIT: The fact that orbital bombardment does damage WITH NO MITIGATION is kinda cracked. Like, in a good way though. There are a lot of ways the enemy can stop you from being to bombard them. The two most obvious are to beat you in a fleet battle, or to beat you with their air wings in orbit. If their fleet is parked in orbit around their planet then they could even do both at the same time. Then even if you are able to bombard them they can take shelter in a city to increase your chances of warcrimes. But if you actually take the bombard, you can get up two free rounds of fire on them. Or one if they're in a city since sat bombing a city is a guaranteed warcrime. Pretty goddamn good. I know it would be a niche tech but I hope we can research like, "precision bombardment" to give us a reroll on avoiding hitting innocents, because orbital bombardments are really good. Also good to have a ship with your highest damage/to hit modifier as a bombardment truck. Maybe we can research a specific kind of destroyer that has buffs to orbital bombardment?
I'm going to stick with it and try and make some good plans regardless, but I do think ground combat is going to become a lot to handle once we get up to three or more regiments per side. Particularly in terms of keeping track of which battalion is in which tile.
EDIT: I should clarify, it's an interesting and engaging challenge. It's just going to become a more complex one, and one with a lot of plates to be spinning on the QM's part.
I'm going to stick with it and try and make some good plans regardless, but I do think ground combat is going to become a lot to handle once we get up to three or more regiments per side. Particularly in terms of keeping track of which battalion is in which tile.
EDIT: I should clarify, it's an interesting and engaging challenge. It's just going to become a more complex one, and one with a lot of plates to be spinning on the QM's part.
It's one of those things I do think and consider about, with a possible solution being a force limit that depends on the battle size (so appropriately large and critical battles get the true attention they deserve). But for now, this is fine, and I do have the one great thing that makes it all possible!
Another possible solution is that, as force sizes increase, some parts of the battle become abstracted down to relatively simple die rolls, whilst the quest controls the centrepiece. An alternative is that a single battle will have multiple sub-sections or maps within it. That would still be a lot but it might be easier. I don't know.
[X] Plan An Appropriate Quantity of Clever (Hopefully)
We may need to deploy a stratagem that decreases the number of militia units sister dear can recruit next turn, because the right spin on that bombardement could have partisans coming out of the woodwork to fight us.
"to my knowledge, there has been no such incident, and while i promise to investigate, it will be done after the war."
-the office of solar princess Violet D'Iris
i believe this should be our go to response if we are accused on targeting civilians on purpose.
is it cold? yes.
can we afford to give our sister free ammunition? no.
should we strive to make sure it doesn't happen again? yes
do we have time for it now? no.
conclusion: put it aside for now, finish the war, then make reparations to their next of kin.
I know Violet is an intrigue based character, but I would not favour lying in this case. Either ignore it until we want to address it honestly, or address it now and stress that it was a mistake. If there is a memo or speech released like that one, I would not want it to come from us.
Hm, here's an idea: maybe limit how many move orders per regiment, like three/two moves per regiment. Something to consider, but only if people like the idea as we begin to scale up in combat. And I'm not married to these ideas, I'm more than willing to test and redo more.
Well, I'll drop the sealed orders for the enemy here then.
1st Pioneers Convoy Move to Sector 1, G6
2nd Settlers Move to Sector 1, F7
1st Militia Move to Sector 2, B4
3rd Militia Air Taxi to Sector 2, A3
