For one hundred thousand years, the Xenopods and the Machine Intelligence made war across the galaxy.
For twenty of those years, a feint on a secondary front pushed through the warp nexus point that led through the SOL system. In that feint of a secondary front, a minor battlefield was the third planet of the SOL system. As Jupiter was stripped for mass and Neptune burned, Earth was the site of moderate ground fighting.
99% of the human race died in six days.
Now, three centuries later, the battered remnants of alien and human forces alike emerge from the wasteland to see who it is that will be the one to rule over this savaged planet...
--- Armageddon Empires is an incredibly good turn based deck building grand strategy game about the conquest of a ruined planet! It also has expies for...everything.
"Well, sure, but does it-"
It has Evas. You can recruit Asuka. It has super mutants from Fallout, Mad Max, Cthulu, the Fremen, OGRE platforms, Terminator, xenomorphs and Warhammer 40k. And they're all trying to kill eachother! It owns!
RULES!
1) You will vote on what I do in the game, then I'll play it out until an important/interesting decision point comes up, then we repeat!
2) Write ins are okay BUT may be constrained by the gameplay
3) Anything too sensitive will be spoilered (sex, if it happens, mostly)
From the ashes of the old world arise four powers.
THE EMPIRE OF MAN
Summary: Formed a mere century before, the Empire of Man has spent decades in Bunker-9 preparing for operations in the wasteland. No mere army of fanatics, Imperial troops are well trained and have access to a wide array of armored vehicles - APCs, main battle tanks, combat walkers, powered battle armor and more. Their airforce lacks the long ranged killing power of the Machine Intelligence nor the regenerative capacities of the Xenomorph horrors, but makes up for it in flexibility. Their infantry is often outclassed by the brute killing power of enemy warriors - but this can be offset by cunning war-leaders, bold tactics...and advanced weaponry.
Faction Bonus: Imperial armies have a command rating of 3 - allowing them to have 3 units rather than 2 before requiring a general.
THE XENOPOD HIVE
Summary: Masters of biological science, the xenopods have long since abandoned whatever evolutionary roots spawned them in favor of a self selecting, self designed series of criteria. The basic Xenopod is a larval organism that parasitizes a host, transforming it into a fusion creature with squidlike tentacles and awakened psionic abilities. Their xenomorph infantry is backed up by non-sentient horrors known as abominations and by semi-sentient walkers that are a match for anything fielded by the the other powers known as biomecha. The most insidious power of the xenopods, though, is their teams of potent and terrifyingly effective psykers. Their airforce is limited in scope and relatively fragile, but easily regenerated.
Faction Bonus: Xenopods draw cards faster (2 AP rather than 3 AP.)
THE MACHINE INTELLIGENCE
Summary: An entire species of artificial intellects from the depths of space, the Machines are most notable for their ability to (if they wish) entirely ignore the insignificant bags of meat and water that cling to life on the planet's surface. Technology, material, energy, these are the only resources that the Machines require. Their infantry range from repurposed human cyborgs to deadly skeleframe walkers, drop infantry and spider drones, while their armored support include self driving autotanks and potent automecha, including the awe inspiring and devastating Colossus super unit. Their airforce has almost as wide a range of options as the human empire but their most astounding asset is they continue to have orbital interceptors. Nowhere is safe from the Machines.
Faction Bonus: The Machines can have 9 cards in their hand, rather than 8.
THE LEAGUE OF FREE MUTANTS
Summary: Created shortly after the first engagements on Earth by xenopods wishing to shore up their capacities in the face of the Machine's initial successes, the Mutants are a combination of human DNA and...whatever the xenopods wanted. Their triumph were the Giants - fifteen foot tall humanoids capable of using main battle cannons as sidearms. But unknown to the xenopod psychics, the mutants plotted, whispered among one another and dreamed of freedom. Then came The Master, a mythological mutant of incredible psychic power, who broke their chains and freed the Mutants from the xenopods and traveled into the waste. Mutant geneticists have matched and even exceeded the xenopods by the creation of dragons - sentient, flying reptiles who are their staunched allies. And also, T-rexes. Other than the dragons, though, they lack any sign of an airforce.
Faction Bonus: Their supply range is 5, rather than 4. (This is augmented by how many of their cards have commando, meaning they ignore supply entirely.)
--- Choose your Faction
[ ] The Empire of Man
[ ] The Xenopod Hive
[ ] The Machine Intelligence
[ ] The League of Free Mutants
Choose your battlefield
[ ] Normal wasteland (uncommon specials)
[ ] interesting wasteland (moderately common specials)
[ ] wild wasteland (very common specials)
General idea: With a strong core of infantry backed up by either giants or heavy dragons, their army is led enhanced by their generals (who focus on speed and good tactics.) Basic, but powerful. They have a strong stealth core in their chameleon and skinny core and can keep an eye on the map with them. They are sometimes mocked by other tribes as "trying to be human" in their composition and tactics.
General idea: A teeming mass of hordelings - suicidally brave mutants of diminutive stature - swam around a massively powerful frontline of giants, which are supported by mobile regeneration and supply facilities allowing them to stay in the field without supplies. Supported by rocket and conventional artillery, there is nothing subtle about the Helghont.
General Idea: Kerghat has a massive core of incredibly dangerous dragons, backed up by a few squads of infantry for combined arms attacks. The dragons do immense damage, disrupt enemy formations, and are excellent at flanking out enemies. Their ghost teams provide espionage and spying - but they don't have the same technological core as the other armies.
General idea: Dergath is built around one idea and one idea only - spawning, equipping, training, and then leading the most purestrain dragons there are, the drakons, which are capable of flying 150 kilometers, dropping onto an enemy fortification and then savaging it apart. They also have a small core for garrisoning their home and, importantly...a single pack launcher, capable of launching long ranged missiles at any target they want. Since Dergath is going to be focused on technology for augmenting their Drakon units, that means they may invent cruise missiles. Or worse.
--- So the way a deck works is that the deck represents all your POTENTIAL units - you draw them randomly and can only have so many cards in a hand at a time. You can spend resources to play them into the map - assembling armies and sending them out into the wastelands. Picking a deck won't garunete any particular card will end up in the game (you may not draw a hero you really want until the end of the game, after all!) It just gives you the shape of things to come
The wind blew, hot, gritty
and unfamiliar out of the west, as the sun hung low and brooding over the flat plains, sweeping out away from the Mutant Wastes. The forward scouts arrived by drips and drabs, their burly forms carrying everything they required with them - building materials for the stronghold, corrugated metal for crude roofing, shovels for digging into the ground, and more sophisticated machines and devices. Electrical generators. Solar collectors.
The parts for the vats.
The Wastes had been chosen because it had a community that already existed there - a collection of hovels and huts built around fresh water and arable land. Humans lived there, humans that had been approached, months before, by the first envoys from the mutant tribes. The offer was the same the League had given many, many times before.
You will be stronger.
Your children will live longer.
You will not need to fear the wastes, not anymore.
As had happened many times before - but not every time - the humans of the community had accepted, conditionally. They had allowed the first scouts to come, to settle, to begin to build their fortifications, to dig out irrigation, to improve access to the aquifer. These technical changes had been enough to allay their fears. But when the first Vat was built, and the first village elder was allowed to take the Dip, the murmuring of fear had changed to cries of awe as the ninety two year old man emerged, muscular and strong and young once more.
The mutants were glad. It was always easier when the first dip went well. It was never an...exact science, despite the best efforts of the League. Some humans had genetic problems or flaws that the Vats repaired and smoothed away. But some had hidden flaws or latent issues that the Vats made hideously worse. Those few honored dead were buried with great ceremony and solemn promises to carry their memory in the future.
In the end, the humans became mutants. Their home grew to include not merely the farms and fields, but mines and energy collection facilities. A geothermal vent, cracked open by some ancient bombardment, was tapped. Schools were mutant elders taught the young were built - and the people of the village learned what the League learned.
They learned the true history of the world - that it was not always this wasteland. That the nightmares they whispered of, of monsters from the stars that wore human flesh?
Those nightmares were true.
And the Dergath Tribe was here to make sure they never, ever, harmed anyone ever again.
***
You stepped into the central room of Derghome, the tribal keep that would serve as the headquarters for mutant operations in the theater. You had been on the road for months now, riding Kalath the entire way. Now she was being fed and watered in the stables, and you had a map to examine. Before you could even step up to the table, though, an advisor ducked her head into the chambers, smiling.
"Honored warmaster," she said. "The scouts are back with their first reports."
Good.
Very good.
You nodded to her. "Bring them in."
The first scouts were nothing like the mutant scouts you were used too - they were just the local humans who had been dipped a few months before, and knew only the most basic information about the lands beyond their homeland. But they were, like most wetlings, eager to please when they met an older mutant. You crossed your arms over your chest, nodding as the first of the scouts took a knee, bowing her head.
"My lord," she said.
"Warmaster," you corrected her, warmly. "I am not Lord. We're not humans after all."
She looked at you in confusion - not shocking. Not every human had heard of the Empire growing in the far off reaches of the world. The rumors about the Empire ran thick and fast among the tribes. You particularly liked the idea that they worshiped a corpse, but you didn't give it much credence.
"W-Warmaster," the young mutant said, bowing her head again. "We know of three major landmarks around our lands - to the northwest, there is a...a town. It is a place of ghosts, the legends say. No one ever sent there returns. To the northest, there is the crater. Some say it still glows in the dark. To the southwest, there is the strange desert - rumors are that beasts and monsters that talk like men live there."
This kind of superstitious murmuring was common. You turned back to the map. The Dergath forward scouts had done slightly more cartography than merely listing the odd things they had seen: You were nestled in the very edge of flatlands that themselves abutted against a mountain range - volcanically active mountain range to boot. That would shield and blind you in equal measures from any threats to the east: The mountains would slow any attacker, but make your own forces have to pick through them with the same plodding speed.
You rubbed your chin.
The Dergath tribe was still traveling and would only arrive in drips and drabs. You knew that General Pax, one of your finest leaders, was a bit of a contradiction. He was...annoyingly prone to enjoying the 'great outdoors' as he called it. He loved being in the wastes and the wild, where he could keep an army fed on bones and bits of dust. He could take a field far further than your supply lines would ever suggest - but he was also a genius when it came to long term strategy. If he was able to work with other tacticians in a well air conditioned barracks, buried about ten meters underground, then he could concoct war winning plans. However, he wasn't coming by himself - a platoon of drakkons, chameleonic stealth soldiers, and possibly materials for antitank weaponry and the mutants to use them.
Of course, none had arrived yet. Giving you time to think.
---
SITUATION MAP Green indicates supply - as you can see, it's easier to supply your forces in the plains, while the mountains make travel and supply different.
HAND
RESOURCES
1 human, 1 material, 1 energy, 1 tech (+1 of each per turn) All right! What's your initial plan, Warmaster?
[ ] Attempt to bring the Chameleons onto the board, organize them into scout parties, and begin scouting - focusing primarily on...
[ ] The towns to 2 hexes to the northwest
[ ] the crater to 2 hexes to the northeast
[ ] the desert of ghosts 2 hexes to the southwest
[ ] Circular pattern around your base, winding outwards
[ ] Get Pax recruited first and have him scout - this is dangerous, if he runs into any danger, but if he finds resources, he is the best at organizing extraction efforts.
[ ] Get the Drakon platoon online - and scout in force with them.
[ ] The towns to 2 hexes to the northwest
[ ] the crater to 2 hexes to the northeast
[ ] the desert of ghosts 2 hexes to the southwest
[ ] Circular pattern around your base, winding outwards
Scheduled vote count started by DragonCobolt on Aug 12, 2023 at 1:00 PM, finished with 6 posts and 5 votes.
The first few days of the base were spent preparing.
The vats were built up, and as mutants arrived from the homeland, volunteers were selected. To be re-dipped required them to be the finest and the best and the most willing, and those that were chosen tended towards the small and the clever. They were taken and dipped over a series of days under your supervision.
When the first emerged, he had gone from a mutant to a Chameleon: Scaled like a lizard, with narrow eyes and a slender face, tall and stretched. He was the same height he had been - seven feet tall, small for a mutant - but now, he was thinner and seemed to tower even taller because of it by sheer proportion. You nodded, slowly, arms crossed over your chest as he shook the vat slime off his body and was given robes by one of the technicians.
It took three days for the dipping to be completed - and by then, you had a small platoon of chameleons. They were organized into a hunting pack - designated Detar, in honor of the grizzled, skilled leader who would be guiding the rest of the chameleons. While she was no great hero of renown, respected by all the tribes, she was still competent and trusted enough to lead the pack.
And thus, they were sent west.
You would not hear back from them for some time.
***
The chameleons moved across the wind swept desert with swift, kilometer eating stride. Their packs were strapped down and kept low on their bodies, to be less noticeable as they loped along, their bodies shifting to match sky and sand alike, breaking up their pattern. They saw no other lifeforms as they wound around the heavily cratered terrain to the direct southwest of the Mutant Wastes, save for the occasional carrion bird or strange, tentacled creature that lived beneath the sand and emerged at night.
They were a motley lot - most were from the homeland, recently come to these lands, but three had been humans three months ago, and were reveling in their new transformation, laughing and joking with one another as they ran and ran and ran without tiring. When night fell, those three, the most rambunctious, went to Detar, the leader of pack, and offered themselves.
"We can fan out," the smallest of the chameleons exclaimed, her voice sibilant and hissing, her scaled hide flicking colors constantly in her excitement. "We can at least do preliminary scouting in the wastelands - so we know which way we're heading next."
The others nodded, two males. Detar chuckled. She leaned back in her stiltent - one of the last pitched in the encampment - and said: "Oh to be so fresh I'm still dripping wet from the vats. No. We're not going on at night. Who knows what's out there, up there..." She jerked her curved chin upwards, pointing with a single clawed finger. "All it takes is one clanker suborbital to spot something moving at night that's not wind, and they might drop a rod on our heads just to be safe."
The others stilled, the eager female's smile fading.
"Or worse. Say you run into some squids, and come back with a tadpole behind your eyes." Detar pointed at her ear, wincing. "We wouldn't know until it was too late and we were all biomech food. So. No. You'll set up your stiltent, and you'll do what new rebirths should always be doing."
"Sleeping?" The girl asked.
"...well, yes, if you're tired, I was going to say having a celebratory orgy," Detar said, amused. "You're mutants now, act like it."
"O-Oh."
It was an amusing fact that despite the changes, a Chameleon could still blush. Save their blush was faster, brighter, and covered their whole body.
In the end, the three newbies took quite a bit longer to get from their tents than the veterans would have liked. They didn't do much more than grumble and cuff them playfully on the shoulkder - and even that stilled when one of the scouts called out. "Detar! I see something!"
Detar loped over to the male, who pointed with one long, thin finger. She narrowed her eyes, shading her brow. Her eyes focused and she saw it too. The glint, wink, glint of metal. She grunted, nodded, then gestured. The whole group moved out, low and slow compared to their strides from before. They skimmed forward on bellies at some point, fanning wide around the glinting metal. They came up the building - ancient and desolate in the wilderness, the sign overhead in some dead language, the mysterious tanks set out front with desiccated rubber hoses and rusted metal spigots. Detar nodded, then held up her palm - changing the colors there to flash the signal to two of her men. They stood, unfolding the narrow stocks of their submachine guns. They weapons were wrapped in cloth and had vat-grown wood furnish replacing the old metal.
The two men stole quietly towards the building. No one called out or shot at them. One came to the front door, pushing it in. The racks were empty, and the skeletons were pale white, bleached to nothingness. He turned back to see his comrade holding up one of the spigots. He sniffed at it, then nodded. The first flashed blue, white, blue, full body to Detar, who waved her hand and the entire company advanced.
"What is it?" Detar asked.
"Biofuel," the first of her men said, while his comrade nodded. "We smell it in the tanks."
"Ahhh," Detar grinned. "Lets get to work."
The mutants searched, and it was one of the eager newbies who found the hatch that, once burst open with prybars and mutant strength, led to the underground tanks. The preserved fuel was dragged out as Detar poured out some message fluid from one of her canisters. It only took a few minuets for a carrion bird, drawn by the engineered scent, came down to start licking at the message fluid. Detar, who had turned nearly invisible as she waited, lashed out with her hand, grabbed the bird, and injected the message right into its brain. Barely aware it was moving, the bird shot up, and started to fly at max speed towards the Mutant wastes.
"Good work," Detar said, nodding to her mutants. "The tribe will need this."
"Will it?" one of the newbies asked.
"Oh don't worry. There's always a use for biofuel." Detar grinned. "Come on."
***
"Ghosts my naked ass."
Detar crouched beside her scout, frowning as he peered through the telescope. They were at the very edge of the sands, running right up towards a mesa that rose up and out of the blasted wilderness. It was a thick chunk of stone, carved from the surrounding desert as if by the hands of the Master himself.
"What is it?" Detar asked as the three newly changed mutants squirmed at the dismissive tone of the scout.
He rolled onto his belly, handing Detar the scope. She put it to her slitted eye, peering through it as the mesa bloomed into full rock before her. She saw what her scout had been peering at after a few seconds: Hard metal, worn and abandoned. As she scanned along the facility - the huge facility, she realized, as she saw just how much of the mesa seemed to be riddled with buildings and tubes and connective tissue.
"What those villagers thought were ghosts were...down, left..."
Detar hissed.
"Xenospit," she whispered, lowering the scope. "There's..." she looked again. "Five...twenty..."
"What is it, hunt leader?" one of the other scouts asked.
"The whole mesa's riddled with laser turrets," Detar said, shaking her head. "Three emplacements, heavy armor..."
"What do we do?" the new girl asked.
"We send a vulture back, obviously," Detar said, rolling her eyes. "Dripping wet, I swear."
***
You and Kalath looked over the missive from Detar. Your dragon huffed, smoke trickling from her nostrils. "So, it's some old world military base?"
"I've been checking the maps, Kal," you say, grinning. "It's not just any base. It's Black Mesa. It's the Black Mesa research facility."
Kalath snorted. "This means something to you human-derived stock. But my race memory is of sunning on a nice rock, not of some..." she paused. "A Black Mesa would be too warm anyway. White Mesa, maybe..." You ignored your dragon as you realized the possibilities...and the danger.
Black Mesa had been the premier Old World genetic research facility. It would be the single greatest place to set up a geneticist at - and that was only half of it. Rumors said that, before the Cataclysm, Black Mesa had been researching something...incredible. Something potent and world changing. It had only one reference in the old books you had.
Supermutagen.
That had to be of interest...
--- Did I lie when I said this game has everything? Black Mesa is protected by three turrets with 6 attack, 5 defense (augmented further by the mesa's natural defenses), which inflict the Disrupt flaw (which reduces your attack for a few turns.) So, it's not an easy nut to crack!
Orders for Detar
[ ] Scout the towns
[ ] Scout the crater
[ ] Write in
Plans for Black Mesa?
[ ] Backburner, for now. Those turrets look gnarly.
[ ] Focus entirely on building up an army to take it - get Slaughterers for their antitank abilities, General Pax to lead them, the whole shebang.
[ ] Write In
Oh, also, you have +4 energy resources thanks to the gas station!
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TURN THREE - EIGHT: Corpses, Shadows and the Gleam of Steel
You were roused from your bed and by restive dreams of your time in the slave pits, the sting of the xenopod's fingers crawling into your mind, by the door to your underground room thumping excitedly. You jerked your head up, blankets spilling down past your shoulders, puddling in your belly. You blinked fatigue from your eyes, then called out. "Enter."
"Warmaster!" The door opened - and your lower left hand, which you had slipped under your pillow instinctively, released its grip on the snubnosed pistol you kept under your pillow. The mutant who grinned at you was one of your aides. His smile was broad. "Pax has arrived!"
You stepped out into the harsh oranges and deep shadows of early morning, to find that a collection of mutants - the lieutenants and aides and support staff who helped turn Pax from one man into someone able to direct an entire army - swarming around as Pax took off his ornate, metal helmet. He had carved it himself, from the skull of a Machine general once known as Galactica, who Pax had trapped and destroyed during the Battle of Two Valleys. He was a handsome mutant, tall and broad shouldered and orange skinned, with a short shock of black hair and a fierce pair of chin-horns that accentuated the angles of his features.
"Ah, Warmaster!" Pax said. "I hope the water's working. My men are thirsty - it's been a long trek from the homeland."
You stepped forward, taking his hand. Pax wasn't the kind to test strength to strength by squeezing too hard - so clenching his hand was more companionable than anything else.
"It's good to see you, Pax," you said, nodding. "Come on, I'll get you up to date."
"Do you still ride that grumpy dragon everywhere?" Pax asked as you led him into the keep proper, out of the fierce heat of the day.
"Oh and that's a fine how do you do to you too," Kalath grumbled as you and he walked past her where she rested near the entrance. Pax chuckled.
"So long as you're watching out for this big oaf," he said, nodding to her as he offered his palm - Kalath sniffed, then bumped her curved head against his hip.
"We've got some draken eggs brewing up, but we need veterans to guide any new ones that hatch," you say, seriously. "We've got a tough nut for you to crack."
Pax nodded. "Lets take a look."
You both headed into the planning room.
***
Rough terrain can slow even a Chameleon down.
Detar made the decision in the field after a day of picking her way through the rough hills to that jagged the ground to the northwest of the Mutant Wastes - she swung northward further still, towards flatter terrain, her pack following with her as they moved quietly together. It was good they used their chameleonic skin, though.
The village came almost out of nowhere. Emerging from the hills, the buildings were simply there: Old, wooden, built after the cataclysm. Some humans had crafted it, an echo of the old world. Detar held up her hand, nodding as she swept her gaze over the place - and saw the gleaming solar arrays perched on the flat plains to the east of the town. They were well made, but also clearly abandoned for years. Panels were cracked, dust had covered them, and several had fallen over. The only other landmark that was of interest was one lonely tower - metal and interlocked. A radio transmitter? Maybe. The top had been sheered off by a storm and had never been fixed.
"What are those?" the new girl - who had earned a mutant name of Quell - asked, nodding to the panels.
"Solar panels," Detar murmured. "But this town was abandoned for a reason." She crouched down, sniffing the air. "...smell that?"
Quell sniffed. Detar didn't need her advice or her confirmation. Detar already knew what she scented, and knew what happened to the town. But Quell needed to learn the tricks, as she was a Chameleon now, and a Chameleon she would stay. Quell's brow furrowed and she sniffed again. "It smells like...pungent. Like bad cooking."
"That's neurotoxin," Detar said - and Quell froze, her body turning even more identical to the sky and sand around her as she saw it.
The beast slithered from a building into the sun, tentacles writhing around the humping mass of its body. One tentacle lashed out - snatching a vole from the ground, swinging it into its maw. Chewing. Detar nodded, her voice soft.
"Those things must have found the village. Xenopod castoffs - failed mutations. Insane creatures the don't even try and control." She frowned, then called out. "Kalos! I want you to scout around the edges. We need a headcount."
Kalos nodded, then told off a few other scouts to come with him. The Chameleons - all veterans, as there was no time to teach when facing things like the tentacle beasts - crept forward. Kalos counted two dozen of the damn things before he got to the tower, but there, he clambered up to get a view above the town.
It was there he spotted the dish.
It was to the north, kilometers off. He peered at it with his telescope and whistled softly.
"It looks like a communication dish, maybe," Kalos explained to Detar as he and his scouts drank some water and crouched behind the rise that perched at the southern edge of the village. "Big."
Detar nodded. "We'll have something to check out once we finish scouting the crater. Come on."
***
More travel.
More running.
More nights. More days.
Then, finally, the Crater.
It hadn't been a crater.
It had been a city. The ruins of it were sprawled throughout the crater, the buildings smashed, the vehicles melted into slag, the ruins peppering the desert sands around the crater and in the crater. Detar and her chameleons glanced down at their giger counters - and heard them click and chatter. But not too badly. Detar grunted. "Was there legends of a city here?"
Quell and her other newbies shrugged.
"Must have been during the Cataclysm," Quell muttered. "A city to support the research lab we found? Hurm." She frowned. "Survivors traveled upwind to build that town. Then eaten by the xenopod castoffs." She sniffed. "Wasteland's a rough place."
The chameleons nodded. They began to pick into the crater. Walking through the ruins, the notes that Detar took for her next message grew more and more effusive. The half-wrecked factory, which could be repaired. The field of ruined cars, which could be picked apart for years. The micro-fusion power plant that had failed safe and just needed to be tuned into life. The fuel storage tanks that had survived luckily. The bookstores, which still had a few scraps of knowledge in them. The place was a treasure trove of everything...everything but people. And as the notes grew more effusive, Detar grew more suspicious.
Then one of her mutants heard it.
He flashed red stripes along his back - as he was taking point and the entire Chameleon platoon hurried off to the sides of the street they were walking down. Bodies turned gray. One wag with an exceptionally poor taste stepped into the burnt shadow of some long dead man and turned midnight black, filling in the burn mark. Then...the humans arrived. And Detar saw why this city wasn't thriving.
Burnt flesh. Sunken eyes. Withered husked bodies. They shambled, shuffling and moaning, their arms outstretched.
Rad zombies, Detar thought as the column shambled forward - on and on and on...
***
You and Pax and Kalath watched as the flight of newly hatched drakon's swept by overhead - each of the beasts was reddish, with four limbs, two wings, and a mean head. They streaked by as they followed the instructions of their drill instructor, an old crusty drakon that had come from the homeland named Merithak. "Come on, stay together. You need to be able to swoop as one - lash as one!"
"I think they're doing well," you said, nodding.
"I'm better," Kalath grumped.
"You always say that," you said, chuckling, while Pax frowned.
"At the moment, we can either breed up another platoon of them and equip them...or we can devote the resources into antitank weaponry. A slaughter platoon would be perfect for those turrets," he said.
"Yes, but they can't ride the drakons," you pointed out right back. "That is their weakness, Drakons have to be either all or nothing to manage those flight-attacks that make them so damn useful." You smirked. "Kalath nonwithstanding."
Kalath bumped her head against your hip.
"Warmaster, as ever, you-" Pax paused as a carrion bird flew from the sky and vomited out a lump of fibers onto the ground, then dropped dead from the message injection that Detar had slammed into it. You sighed, then called out.
"Aide! We have more for the recycle vat!"
A grumbling aid walked off, wincing as she held the carrion bird away from her arm and you unfolded the fibrous mass that had grown in the beast's stomach. Reading the things was always tricky, but you had a lot of practice. You frowned. "Remember the dish they spotted a few days ago?" you asked.
Pax nodded with a grunt.
"They've approached in stealth," you said. "It's an old stat-com uplink. And it seems to be working. She says it tracks something overhead - which means there must be an old human satellite up there the Machines didn't knock down during the war." You continued reading. "There also appears to be a small settlement of humans. Powered armor, no sign of Imperial allegiances. Led by a woman..." You chuckled as you read the twining strands that...you swore translated out too I want to dip her with my bare hands which was either a commentary on this human woman's beauty, or her conduct, you weren't sure.
"Human allies," Pax said, quietly. "They've been useful before."
You nodded back.
---
So, the scouts have found some valuable resources and laid eyes on a SATELITE UPLINK! That sounds useful! ...I know what it is, but I won't tell you since, like, you wouldn't know until you've played the game and know what it does. This is kind of a game where discovering shit is half the fun and going, "Oh SNAP!" when you figure out what a thing does is cool. But you do know this: Casca's Rangers are a set of two powered battle armored infantry, with strong recon, commando (meaning they don't need supplies) and baseline stands, led by Casca - a relatively good raider leader (she has Trickster 2, meaning she can retreat on the first round of combat and gives +2 defense to retreat rolls.)
If you offer her 5 human resources, 5 material resources, and 5 energy resources, you can hire her right out! Or you can fight her, beat her men, dip her, and take the satellite that way!
So!
Choose!
[ ] Build a 2nd Drakon platoon, then form them under Pax as an army. Jump attack into the Crater and claim the resources there to support the attack on Black Mesa.
[ ] Build a 2nd Drakon platoon, then form them under Pax as an army. Jump attack into the satellite dish and take it, then take the town, to get access to whatever the dish does.
[ ] Build Slaughterer antitank infantry, then pair them with a drakon platoon under Pax to attack Black Mesa right out.
[ ] Save up resources to hire Casca immediately
And, what will Detar keep doing?
[ ] Scout west
[ ] Scout east
[ ] Scout north
[ ] Finish scouting the areas immediately around the headquarters.
TURN NINE - THIRTEEN: Flights of Dragons, Fists of Warlords
Author's Note: I had to do some save scumming. During Turn 11, there was no garrison back in Mutant HQ - which meant a 2/1 xenopod scout unit with 3 hit points just walked in and conquered it, cutting Pax off of supplies and stranding him too far to get back in time before the game declared me a failure. Fortunately, I was able to reload enough to win the initiative toss off, get Pax back home, and thus force the scout unit to reconsider its decisions. That was scary! Now...on with the story...
***
Detar and her pack continued to range. Traveling north of the ghost town and Casica, they entered into the deep deserts. They had to slow, then - they were too far for supply raptors carrying food and water to reach them. Out here, in the wastes, that meant slowing to a comparative crawl, fanning out, to seek for water and food and even the blood of carrion to sustain them. But they were mutants. This was what they had been bred for.
"I...never thought I'd be glad to drink blood," Quell muttered as she and Detar took the lead for the day. Detar chuckled, quietly, her slitted eyes narrowed as she peered forward into the sands.
"Some people say it fires up the blood," Detar said, grinning. "Makes you eager."
"Mmm, not really," Quell said, chuckling. "Is it...strange I can barely remember being human?"
"I was never human," Detar said. "I was born a chameleon."
"...are...are we fertile?" Quell asked, blanching.
"Only when the egg heat comes," Detar said, casually, blank faced, her bare feet rasping against sand. Quell nodded, then did a double take, stopping her naked ass right in the middle of the desert, her chameleonic skin flashing red, then black, then red again.
"E-...Egg heat!? But we have...you have...we...that-" She stammered, hurrying to catch up as Detar grinned and let out a little hissing chuckle.
"No you gullible freshling," Detar said, poking her cheek with one clawed finger. "We have tits. Its just harder for a male's seed to catch, thanks to the mutations." She shook her head, then frowned as they saw the dune ahead rising, and falling...and then as they crested it, they saw, in the space beyond, something huge and glittering and terrible.
It looked like a metal mushroom, corrugated at the edges, gleaming in the center. Spars and struts thrust from the base of the mushroom, which struck into the air, while the cap of the mushroom was half buried in sand. The two mutants turned invisible and crouched - and Detar hissed.
"Clankers."
The rest of the pack formed up, and Kalos clicked his tongue as he swept his telescope over the metal mushroom. He nodded. "I count scourges." He said, quietly. "Machine shock troops. But I don't see any sign of the Intelligence's sigil. No communication uplink tower. No cargo drones heading off towards their headquarters. No supplies coming in, for that matter. And...ah, there we go." He said, quietly, his scope falling on an oblong spider with a humanoid torso, all gleaming metal. A human brain sat in a circular tank on the back, wired up. "It's one of their turncoat human generals. Looks like he turned coat again."
"You think they're independent?" Detar asked.
"I don't doubt it."
Detar nodded. "This is good."
"Why is it good?" Quell asked.
"If they were imperials, they might recruit Casica. And I wanna dip that girl," Detar purred. "Imagine what a tight Cammie she'd make." She licked her lips and grinned. Quell snorted and Kalos chuckled.
"Don't count your girlfriends till they're green," he suggested.
Detar turned green and laughed.
***
You stood on the balcony of the lookout tower and watched Pax stand before his army. The Wings of Pax had taken time to assemble, train, equip. Each dragon had two muscular forelegs that could claw and slash, but they took material too - they weren't just biomass. Part of that was for their rigging and armor. But the other part was for their gear. Each drakon was equipped with modified assault rifles that they could carry and reload with their nimble, flexible claws. The newly hatched ones were rowdy, the veteran ones were grim, and Pax was in discussion with his aides and his chosen mount, a burly drakon male named Rikal.
"You wish you were going with them?" Kalath asked, quietly, her body sliding up against your side.
"I always do," you said, quietly, reaching down with your lower left hand, petting her head. She bumped her head against your palm as Pax swung up onto his dragon, then let out a war cry that echoed out across the war camp, then took to the wing. Their leathery wingbeats filled the air with thundering force, and they soared up, and up...and were gone.
You stood on the balcony for quite some time.
***
Pax crouched low on Rikal, watching the ruined city and the crater ahead of them. His platoon, the first platoon of the Wings, formed up on his flanks, their wings beating and thumping as they soared forward. He put binoculars to his eyes, his other hand on the horn of his saddle. Rikal laughed. "I see them!" he rumbled, while Pax swept his view over a massive swarm of zombies. He lowered his binoculars, then lifted his hand.
Form up.
He spread his fingers.
Attack.
And Rikal knew what to do. His wings fanned out and he swept down. The other drakons of the platoon formed around him - and they dove in staggered wings. Pax gripped tightly as Rikal roared, his claws bared...and they swept just above the ground, wings rustling, and tail, claw, and sheer mass smashed through row after row of zombies. They hit the ground with a crunch, and Rika roared and bellows as his tail lashed left and right. Pax, his pistol in hand, blazed away. The heavy bore shells slammed into the irradiated corpses that hadn't known it was time to die. To his left and right, other dragons were roaring and slashing around themselves.
In a single second, the zombies in this block were dead and smashed.
"To the air! To the air!" Rikal bellowed as Pax made his hand gestures - and the whole platoon took to the wing before more zombies could spill around the corners. They flew away as zombies lurched into the area they had been in - and the second platoon, seeing the dispersed zombies were not good for the same attack as the first platoon, flew at about rooftop height. Assault rifles roared, bullets slamming into the ground. Zombies dropped - but many of them continued to lurch forward.
The only problem was dragons needed to land. To rest. To drink water.
To reload.
The first platoon found a building that was reasonably sturdy. Rikal landed and Pax sprang off his back. Several dragons, crouched at the corners, propped their assault rifles and aimed them down at the streets. Zombies lurched towards them as burst fire ripped out. Pax watched as zombies started to drop, blown apart by high bore rounds. He grunted, then put his finger to his radio, turning it on. "Lieutenant Vakash, how are you?"
"We're on the ground, sir," the bassy rumble of a female dragon's voice came through the radio - along with chattering and hammering of assault rifles. The distant, tinny pop pop pop of their gunfire came from across the city. "We're almost ready to take wing again - there are zombies coming out way, but we've popped each before they got close."
Pax nodded, then turned to Rikal. "Rikal, we give Vakash, say, a minute or two to draw the zombies to them, then flank?"
Rikal grinned toothily at the smaller mutant.
It took five minuets for almost every zombie left in the city to be drawn towards Lt. Vakash's platoon - which was collected in a four way intersection, her dragons formed up into a classic hedgehog defensive position: Dragons laying prone at the front, dragons back on their haunches, all firing assault rifles into the the shambling hordes. Short, controlled bursts - while the rookies sometimes needed a quiet roar and bat from a wing or tail to keep from 'going rock and roll.'
But as the zombies collected, Pax and Rikal's platoon formed into three seperate wings...and then Vakash shouted.
"Hold your fire!"
And the other dragons swept down - and the zombies did not seem to even recognize the shadows falling upon them from behind.
The next twenty minuets were shooting zombies with broken legs, crushed spines, and severed limbs.
Pax watched it all, grinning as he did so. "Excellent work, my dragons," he said, slapping Rikal on the shoulder.
Rikal sniffed at a zombie, then sighed. "Can't even eat them..."
"We don't eat people," Pax said, frowning.
"Squiddies are delicious, though," Rikal said, grumbling.
"I said people."
***
Detar's languid pleasure - her slender, muscular body pressed against the ropy strength of Kalos - was interrupted by the tent flap of her stilltent whipping open. She sat up and saw that one of the new human males - who had earned the mutant name of Lazo - was peering into the tent, then turning red as he saw the way she was entangled with the other male. She smirked. "We're naked all the time, Lazo, what is it?"
"It's different!" Lazo stammered. "A-And, uh, the forward scouts for the food hunt, they found something."
Kalos sighed. Detar finished sliding herself away from him, the warmth of his touch leaving glowing orange patches on her body before she stood, and stretched, and wiped her thigh with her fingers. She stepped past Lazo, and he guided her to where the forward scouts were, as the rest of the miniature camp was struck.
Something was, at first, an overstatement.
What the forward scouts, led by Quell, had found was a shack in the middle of the wilderness.
"...it's a shack," Detar said, slowly.
"Wait for it, ma'am, wait for it!" Quell said, holding up her hand.
Detar waited, trusting Quell.
The ground shifted. Sand shifted, metal swung, and then an entire elevator slid out near the shed. Sitting on it was an ancient, old world armored vehicle, parked there, surrounded by men and women in blue jumpsuits, green body armor, with bright yellow 13's on their backs and chests. Identification markers. Detar and Quell crouched even lower, watching as the tank rumbled away, and the men stepped out as well. They were heading towards the north.
"Well. That's interesting." Detar said. Then she nodded. "I need the best sneak." She turned back. "Zim...you're up."
Zim nodded. Zim didn't say much. She stood and stretched - even for a Chameleon, she was skinny and flat chested. Her eyes closed and her skin shifted so perfectly that even the other Chameleons had a hard time seeing her. They had to watch the footprints as the tank and men continued off to the north and the elevator smoothly slid back into the ground. Zim came to the shack, slipping inside quietly as could be.
Everyone waited.
Quell's feet thumped on the ground as she waited. Waited. Waited. Detar remained patient.
The sun started to dip.
Then, suddenly, Zim was there again - her skin flickering as she shifted and became visible again. Every mutant jerked, even Detar.
You were watching as the first of the new Chameleons came from the vats. The first of them - a tall, rangy man named Letash - would be the leader of a new pack. The more eyes you had, the better. They would be scouting the immediate area around the headquarters, to make sure that you didn't have any unpleasant surprises. The reports from Detar were...troubling. You turned back to the map. To the far north, there was a Vault, one of the survivor vaults created in the near mythological days before the Cataclysm. You weren't sure, from your reading, if they had been built as people saw the Xenopod armada disassemble the mythic planet of Neptune for raw components, or if it had been built when the first Machine bolide-weapons had blown Venus into the second asteroid belt...or if they had been built before the aliens had even arrived in the solar system, if they had been crafted to defend from purely human threats.
Either way, most had failed. But this one...Vault 13...it had survived. And it had become paranoid. Vicious. They hated mutants, from Detar's scouting, and had prepared for any mutant, any xenopod, any machine encroachment by the construction of tactical nuclear weapons. They couldn't blow a city off the map, but they could completely annihilate even the most powerful dragon with a single shot.
Troubling.
Very troubling.
But that was only half of it. According to Detar's scouting, they were just due south of a heavy duty facility. She had only the sketchiest of reports from there - but she had seen powered armored infantry to match the most powerful reports from the distant empire. Armor piercing chainguns, thick armor, muscular enhancement, vision augmentation, long ranged jetpacks. You were fairly sure if any army got within visual range of that place, those power armored troops could simply drop on them. And considering Vault-13 was sending tithes to this warlord, according to Detar, it was almost certain that this warlord was extremely aggressive.
"And I thought one human Emperor was bad enough," Kaloth muttered.
You snorted. "Indeed." You said, watching as the other Chameleon's emerged. "I wonder what they'll find."
You grinned - and felt your heart grow warmer as you saw the first pack animals arriving. Beasts with heavy packs, full of fuel tanks, salvaged materials, tools, and technology.
"I hope so."
***
Letash had a lot to prove. He wasn't a veteran like Detar - he was a newly born Chameleon, given command due to his excellence in the trials and the tests all new mutants were put through. He had an experienced, grizzled veteran under his command, ostensibly an aide, but Letash knew that he was there to make sure Letash didn't...well...fuck everything up.
So, Letash didn't push his men too hard.
He didn't rush heedlessly into danger.
And, best of all?
He listened to his scouts.
"At least thirty of them, sir," the beautiful woman from the forward scouts said, her body - generously curved for a Chameleon - gleaming with sweat. She had sprinted back to the camp with her comrades, flickering red and black to alert everyone that she was coming back with good news. "They're moving slow, and they're hunting as much wildlife as we can tell - that means they're not in supply."
Letash nodded, slightly. He'd never seen a xenopod creature in his life. But the description matched what he had been taught: Four legged, low, fast. They were critters...scout creatures. Crafted by the xenopod hive as their eyes. Their ears. He rubbed his chin, and saw his grizzled second, Gorax, watching him intently. Letash didn't think long. He nodded curtly. "All right, mutants. Lets poke out some squiddy eyes."
Gorax grinned.
That had been the right call.
The critters were completely unaware anything was the matter. They were around some wild beast that they had hunted down, tearing it apart, while others sniffed for water. They looked like wild beasts...but they moved with the eerie coordination of a hive mind. Like parts of a single hand. But not a single one scented the Chameleons as they fanned out, creeping forward - taking up positions. Letash popped up into a crouch, his submachine gun propped against his shoulder. He aimed and fired in the same motion - the silenced weapon bucking against his shoulder. Bullets stitched across the ground, and three critters squealed and then collapsed, their bodies bursting with green blood.
Other Chameleons opened up - and more critters died. They squalled hissed, and sprinted away, rushing as fast as they could.
"After them!" Letash shouted - but the critters could run when they needed.
They were over the horizon by evening...
And as they fled, Letash found something far, far...far more interesting.
He, Gorax, and the rest of his scouting pack stood on a rise.
"By the Master," Letash whispered - with the fervent faith of a new convert.
A river of pounding, green-blue water, flowing through a long valley, pouring from mountains to the south, running to some distant land. Despite the scorching of the world, the water still flowed, and it looked eminently drinkable. But what was even more spectacular, even more awe inspiring, was what the water flowed through.
A dam.
A massive, concrete dam.
"Letash...do you know what hydroelectric means?" Gorax asked, quietly.
"Yes, I learned it during the trials," Letash said, quietly.
Gorax nodded.
"I just never knew it could mean...that," Letash said.
--- HOO BOY a lot fucking happened! But first, admire your new resource stations!
Materials, Fuel and Tech, in that order!
And take a look at your first sight of your first true enemy...Xenopods!
Can I just say I fucking love the art in this game? It's so...evocative! And cool!
So, here's your updated map - with notes so you can keep track of everything.
Our hand is current hero heavy and really bottlenecked by human resources, since you only get 1 human resource per turn and you have no additional human resources.
So, immediate choice: what to attack next!
[ ] Send Pax to take Black Mesa
[ ] Send pax to secure the abandoned town and the ghost town
[ ] Take Casica by force - she's too valuably placed to extend supply into the northern reaches for us to wait five turns to be able to recruit her.
[ ] Write In
The scouts are going to be scouting in the same general directions as you gave again - with Letash heading west, and Detar scouting the mountain range to secure things, unless you wany otherwise.
[ ] That's fine
[ ] Write in how you want to scout
You stepped in through the front doors - which had been forced by the simple expedient of a single clawswipe from the dragons. Pax walked in with you, shaking his head. "Three casualties in total...Private Birak took a wing hit that will put him out of the fight for a few days, but two dragons, Private Galk and Corporal Carik? They were killed by the turret weapons." He hissed. "I'd almost feel better if the damn things had been operated by people, but this place was abandoned, it looks like."
You nodded as other mutants walked past you - some carrying weapons, others carrying flashlights. Kalath grunted and sniffed at the air.
"Smells stale."
Black Mesa was a big place. You and Pax ambled through it together as you reflected on the past few days - Letash's pack had tracked down and annihilated the last of the xenopod critters in the area. You didn't doubt there'd be more - the xenopods were nothing if not capable of replacing their losses. Still, for now, they weren't in the area. The fact that the critters had been surviving off the land was also promising. It meant that their supply lines didn't stretch nearly so far as you might have feared.
You walked past ancient laboratories. You saw no sign of skeletons, and the ancient computers were shut down. You strode to one, brushing dust from it. "Think we can get the power online?" You asked, and Pax chuckled.
"Better be able too - those turrets weren't shooting bullets." His thumb lifted up, to a furious burn along his forearm. Pax always did love to lead from the front when he was in the field. You smirked - and then heard a crackling on your radio. You tapped it on as Kalath sniffed at one of the abandoned seats.
"This is the warmaster," you said.
"Hey WM!" the chipper sound of your best on the ground engineering, Tak-Tak the Hordeling, came through the radio. Hordelings were suicidally brave and able to fit into the same areas that humans could - they were the smallest mutant breed out there. You wondered what life might be like for her, as the computers and chairs of the laboratory looked like the gear and equipment left behind for children, while you and Pax towered like adults over it all.
"What is it Tak?" you asked.
"Found a big generator - it's on secondary power. Want me to bring it online?"
"Do it," you said, then you and Pax watched as the lights in the facility warmed up - lights shining down on dust and musty, old computers...which, as one, began to warm up. You grinned and crackled your knuckles. "Lets see what they were doing around here."
In the end, it took several days of searching through the facility for keycards and computer codes. There were a few short, sputtering run ins with old turrets, but the dragons had already taken care of the worst of the exterior. Your mutants found a string of heartbreakingly sad correspondence, terrified humans leaving behind their final notes as the world burned around them. You had them sent back to the headquarters, so they might be shipped to the homeland, to become a part of the mutant historical records. While humans and mutants did fight, there was a sense that mutants should remember what the past had been.
After all. You weren't here to repeat them.
But all of that was secondary.
You, Tak-Tak and Pax watched as the screens played out the data.
"Now, I'm not an expert geneticist," Pax said, slowly. "But that looks...promising."
"It won't work with our dragons," you say, quietly. "They don't have enough human DNA. But a mutant? A giant? Oh they could definitely use that augmentation."
"It looks like we've got three hundred, four hundred vials of this stuff," Tak-Tak said, excitedly. "The hard part's going to be retreiving them from storage and keeping them secure at the base. If we just leave them here, though, we should be safe. So long as, heh, no one takes the place from us. Also, the genetics lab here is top notch - better than anything we could build in short notice."
You nodded. "When the geneticists arrive from the homeland, we'll set them up here," you said, confidently.
"The only question is which way do you want my Wing to go next?" Pax asked. "We can jump right on that dam - the extra fuel and energy we can pipe from it would be incredibly valuable, purely for logistics purposes. But...we can also drop into the ghost town to the north." He rolled a shoulder. "I can set up resource operations there - then do a quick blitz from it to the crashed mothership. My dragons can take a single Scourge platoon - not easily, but we can do it. Then...we'll have the mothership. If that is a standard pattern Machine Intelligence mothership, even if...ten percent of its systems are online, it can be a perfect supply base for operations to the northern deserts."
You nodded. "But what of this...Fist of the Wasteland?"
Detar's latest report had been somewhat chilling. They had been scouting along the mountains and, thus, had seen the image of an unknown party traveling in the wastes - only for that party to be set upon by a thunderbolt out of a clear blue sky. It seemed anything near the mysterious warlord that Detar had nicknamed the 'Fist of the Wasteland' was fair game to platoons of power armored infantry dropping from the heavens and opening fire on everything they saw. If you wanted to be able to move anything but a chameleon north of the Omec Desert, you'd need to deal with the Fist, you were sure of it.
"There's also reports that the Clan are sending Mitcok soon," Kaloth said.
"Oh lovely," Pax grumbled.
--- Okay! Black Mesa is ours. It provides no immediate resources, but it has three super mutant mutagen enhancements. They give +1 attack, +1 defense, +2 HP, and +4 resistance (resistance is rolled versus psy, bio and nuclear attacks) to mutant infantry and giant units, but not to dragons. The facility itself also provides +2 dice for future genetics research! Noice!
Now, Detar's observations (given by me save scumming because I realized I had forgotten to re stealth her while she was exploring), any visible army within 3 or 4 hexes (it's unclear because she was 3 hexes, and you've had units visible 5 hexes away, so the 4 hex range is as of yet undetermined) gets an entire Fist of the Wasteland war party dropped on its fucking heads: Incredibly gnarly Power Armored Infantry that would massacre Chameleons and have a good chance of butchering your dragons currently.
So, it seems you have a few options for Pax...
[ ] Send Pax to the dam!
[ ] Send Pax to the ghost town, then take Casca by force
[ ] Send Pax to the ghost town, then take the crashed mothership.
[ ] Write In
As a note, the mothership is outside of your supply range, but Pax is raider 2, meaning his supply counts as 2 hexes further, which means...he can hit the mothership without being out of supply! Your scouts are gonna keep scouting!
Now, you have FOUR heroes in your hand! Morphos (put him in charge of a chemelon squad and they're going to be EVEN BETTER scouts.) Nod is a deadly, powerful assassin (he gets even 1 success on a kill challenge, the target instantly dies, no matter how much HP they have.) Mitoch lets you have more cards in your hand AND makes drawing them cheaper! Tyrosina is a general who is best at making an extremely mobile army: He adds +1 movement speed and allows you to retreat on your first round of combat (with the enemies getting -2 to their "shoot you in the back" roll.)
Oh, a detail: Morphos can scout by himself really well, but he augments Chameleons a lot. Master Scout adds +2 to their scouting roll (so they're more likely to see stuff) and Bounty Hunter 2 means he has a much easier time capturing or killing enemy leaders if he finds them wandering alone.
[ ] Bring a platoon of slaughterers online - then pump them up with your super mutant serum to make them extremely deadly warriors.
[ ] Recruit Morphus and put him in charge of Detar's pack.
[ ] Recruit Morphus and put him in charge of Letash's pack.
[ ] Recruit Morphus and keep him independent - three scouts are better than one.
[ ] Recruit Nod and immediately have him hunt for the enemy's headquarters to begin...thinning out the opposition.
[ ] Recruit Mitoch and keep him home!
[ ] Recruit Tyrosina - and plan to give him an army later.
[ ] Write In
Letash's pack stood around the fissure in the earth, Letash kneeling next to it, grinning as he watched the steaming smoke spurting from the ground. "Geothermal vent," Gorax said, nodding as Letash stood.
"If we cap it, we can tap it," he said. "That, and the dam, there's enough energy to run the whole world!" He grinned fiercely at Gorax. "I'll like to see Detar beat that."
***
Hundreds of kilometers away, perched on a mountain pass, Detar lowered her spyglass and clucked softly. "Well, I'll be fucked," she said, softly. "See that?"
"The mine field?" Quell asked, curiously. "...who marks a minefield?"
"People who know what minefields are for. You want people to see them, then not try and cross them. They force people to slow down. Pick their way around." She clicked her tongue slightly. "That mine field protects the pass that leads right to that, though." She pointed at a rocky outcropping, where a base emerged from the sands, all harsh metal angles and rough lines. Several heavy turrets sat around it. Another example of the old world, protecting its secrets. SHe shook her head slowly. "How the hell do I keep finding these things?"
Once more, Zim was sent forward. She walked towards the turrets, moving with the graceful slowness that she had learned in her long practice. They didn't even swing her way as she walked up to the very wall of the base, then clambered, hand over hand, overhead and into a small office. When she found a working computer, she found also, a skeleton humped over at it, the side of the skull blown out, the long disused pistol left beside the hand. She didn't disturb the dead. She just blew dust of the glowing screen.
She frowned.
"You're sure?" Detar asked.
"Positive," Zim said.
Quell, who had been listening to the two women, glanced back and forth as the sun started to set over the horizon, bringing darkness to the wasteland. "What's an...Ore?"
"O.R.E," Zim said, slowly. "Not...Ore."
"What is it?" Quell asked.
"I don't know," Detar answered. "But that facility is a weapon's testing range. It's full of defense turrets. And Zim says there are a few massive looking bunkers inside. I bet it's a weapon system."
"War O.R.E," Zim added.
Detar nodded. "I think we found ourselves another toy." She grinned, fiercely. "I bet Letash is finding something even nicer out west, eh?"
***
There was only problem with Pax's glorious vision of sweeping down on this mysterious dam and setting up business. And it had everything to do with food.
The mutant headquarters had vast stockpiles of meat and food - and for a drakon to soar a few hundred kilometers and drop from the air with enough energy to then fight a pitched battle, they needed to gorge themselves on specially bred and vat grown meat, rich with additional energies and combat enzymes. And the issue was that while Black Mesa was a fantastic place for research, it lacked all the facilities one would need to actually extend supply from. There were no general purpose storage areas, no tunnels to dig into the ground, no places to put vats. It was highly specialized in one thing: Genetic research and the storage of super mutagen. That was it.
And so, The Wings of Pax didn't set out on the wing.
They set out on food.
Drakons did not mind loping along the desert sands at an easy pace. They didn't mind it. Pax minded it. He sat back in his saddle, riding with Rikal and fumed that he couldn't just drop on the dam like an unwavering thunderbolt from a clear blue sky. Rikal laughed, feeling his rider's fury. "We'll get there when we get there, Pax. Never you fear."
Pax snorted - and then, almost before he knew it, a scout ahead roared out a warning. The dragons perched up on the edge of a ridge, looking down at the dam. Pax swung off Rikal, grinning fiercely. "Look at that...we run an electric line to the mutant wastes and we'll have power for..." He trailed off. "What the hell?"
The dam doors opened. Men in blood red robes stepped out. They carried with themselves censors, smoke drifting into the air. The dragons, instinctively, went belly down. Pax crouched his head, watching as more red robes emerged. In their center? A human woman - a beautiful human woman, unblemished and unmarked. She had her arms bound behind her wrists, and her mouth stuffed with white cloth. She was pushed forward by two men with muscular frames and red robes, their hoods thrown back to reveal sunken eyes and rotting flesh. They were like the rad-zombies of the crater, but given fell purpose. The woman writhed, then was shoved forward, onto what Pax had taken for a bench for tired people to sit.
Only by seeing it in context with the woman did he realize it was an altar, sized for a human body, not a mutant rump.
The woman was strapped down as another robed figure emerged, holding a dagger in his hand. The men with the censors began to chant.
"Morpheus! Morpheus! Bringer of water! Master of the blood! Morpheus! Morpheus!"
Morpheus walked to the nude woman, who writhed and squirmed and kicked. She definitely didn't want to be here.
Pax frowned. "Rikal...I think it's time we joined the ceremony." Pax turned and gestured to the other lieutenants in the formation. The drakons nodded and Pax swung up - and a squad formed around him as Rikal leaped up, silently. His wings were kept close to his body as he dove down the canyon - then at the last moment, Rikal snapped his wings open. He slammed onto the ground before the altar, the cultists gaping in shock...well, save for the rad zombies, who stood stolidly.
The dagger clattered to the ground.
Rikal grinned, fiercely, and growled. "Bringer of water? You do seem awfully juicy."
And he swept Morpheus up his claws and bit down on his upper torso while Pax sprang off the dragon's back and fired his pistol, the heavy bore weapon roaring as one rad zombie burst apart. The other lurched towards him - only to be snatched off the dam by a swooping dragon and then dropped into the water below. Lieutenant Vakash roared overhead.
"Sir! More zombies!"
Pax turned away from where he was wrenching chain out of stone with his bare hands. The nude woman yanked her gag out, coughing, gasping, while the twitching legs of Morpheus went down Rika's throat and into his gullet with a muffled shriek. The zombies came spilling out as drakon's landed between Pax and the entrance. The zombies filed out into gunfire - but there were so many of them, and the cult had gone so far as to equip them with body armor.
It didn't help.
They filed onto the dam and drakons, working in turns, would sweep at just above the dam's height, their claws and tails smashing through the tightly packed formations. Soon, the dam's entrance was awash in blood and gore and Pax was able to yank the last of the chains free. He smiled, slightly, then turned to look at the woman. She glared at him.
"What the hell are you?" she snapped.
"I'm a mutant," General Pax said, frowning.
The woman looked at him skeptically. "How'd you get so tall? Most muties I've met are stunty ugly things." She sniffed, her arms crossed over her breasts. Pax, who towered a solid three feet over her, snorted and crossed his arms over his chest.
"Most mutants aren't dipped like we are," he said. "We have vats. that makes all the difference."
The woman glanced at the drakons, then at the zombies, then at the slain cultists. She smirked. "...the name's Nyra." She said. "Tell me about these vats."
"First, tell me where you came from," Pax said, quietly.
Nyra narrowed her eyes. She craned her head back, to peer up at him - but this only reminded her of how very tall Pax was. And...something else. She flushed and looked away. Pax repressed a chuckle.
"Fine."
***
The first villager to see a Chameleon was a boy getting water from the well - and he only saw Letash when the Chameleon's skin rippled and turned from a perfect illusion to green and red and gold. Letash grinned as the boy screamed and sprang backwards, while the other villagers gasped. Gorax and the other Chameleons appeared and the villagers murmured to one another.
"We come bearing news of your princess, Nyra," Letash said. "We have saved her - and Morpheus is no more!" He held aloft a small crescent moon - the holy symbol of the cultist that had kept the village in fear. Then he tossed it down.
The villagers began to whisper in awe.
The village elder hurried forward. "We must repay you...but...the only belongings we have, the ancient gods, Morpheus declared them idolatry." He led Letash to the large building in the center of town, then brushed aside an old cloth, revealing a burrow that concealed the old gods from Morpheus. Letash, trying to think of the best way to tell the villager that the old gods were as useless to the mutants as they had been to Morpheus, stopped dead when the first old god was removed. It was a snub-nosed, shoulder mounted weapon with a forearm grip and a box magazine on the back - currently empty.
Letash opened his mouth. Then closed it.
"How many do you have? Of the old gods?" He asked.
"There were many," the villager said. "We used to have two for every household. We only have a hundred and twenty now."
Letash nodded, then took the 'god' and read on the side.
FG-2 Flechette Gun.
"Do you want to live for centuries?" Letash asked, curiously. "To turn invisible, as I do? To live in the wastes without fear of disease or death?"
The elder frowned. "We've been promised similar things before, by Morpheus."
Letash bowed low. "I assure you...we are not lying."
The elder considered. He considered his small village - then he considered the mutants that had come to him. He decided...he would like to take a risk.
***
"We've made a meeting with Casica, the wasteland ranger," Mitoch said. He was freshly arrived from the Homeland - come carried on a massive beast. That same beast was now being used to carry out the poles for the electric cables that were bringing power from Pump Station Zeta and the Dead Marshes, and from Black Mesa. Other pack beasts were bringing in material by the wagon-load, while mutant technicians were at work manufacturing the rocket launchers for the new collection of mutant infantry that had been birthed from the vats. As you watched from the balcony, a burly, four armed woman was dragged from the vat, her body gleaming with moisture and dripping with green slime. She laughed as she flexed her new arms, admiring her transformed body.
"And?" you asked, turning to face Mitoch.
Mitoch was one of many mutants that had not quite come out as a physical paragon. He was a shriveled being - a dual being. A second brain, a second set of lungs, a second set of arms grew from his chest. But despite his deformities and his curious split attention, Mitoch was the most brilliant administrator that League had ever seen, so much so that he had traveled from tribe to tribe, clan to clan, working with each in his own way. Now he was here, in the most important field that the League would ever face.
"She runs a satellite operation," the smaller Mitoch said, while the larger nodded. "It requires extensive support staff to run it. We could send that support staff, freeing her Wasteland rangers to work as auxiliaries or..."
"Or we smash them, capture them, dip them, and keep all the...human resources..." you chuckled.
"And the material too," Mitoch's larger self said. "I believe we can get the satellite dish running without forking over the material and tech that Casica is asking for. But she wants her charge to be...secure, yes."
You frowned.
This was one of those choices that you had been elected to make. Warmasters had to make the call, did they not?
Pax was in range. He could either bring peace. Or he could bring war.
You looked out at the vats, frowning.
--- Pump station zeta, the big dam, is yours! You're now making 4 energy PER TURN. Wild.
The slaughterers have been built - and with the super mutant mutagen and FG-2 flehcette guns, they have a bonkers attack capability! They have Antipersonal +2 and Hyperkinetic +2, which means the do +2 damage against infantry, but -1 damage against tanks, and +2 damage against tanks, and -1 against infantry! Or, in short, they do +1 damage to everything. And have double attack. And 8 damage dice. And you still haven't fully trained them, you can give them EVEN MORE BULLSHIT if you want.
Now, narratively and visually, Nod is a dude. But what if Nod was actually the hot mutant endpoint of Nyre, the sacrifice victim in Morpheus's cult! That sounds fun! But big choice...the squatter village Letash found (a one time event, you can only tap them once) netted you FIVE human resources! That's enough to buy Cascia in one go!
The drakons prowled forward, moving through the wastes. Towards Casica. With them were everything that Casica had asked for - materials for repair, mutants to operate the building she had been protecting her whole life. It seemed the Wasteland Rangers had once been a part of a larger independent faction, one that had been destroyed by the Fist of the Wasteland. Pax snorted at the thought. The idea of an independent faction that could be a threat to anyone save local savages was...still rather impossible sounding to him. Rikal, though, cocked his head.
"Do you hear that?" he asked.
Pax frowned. "I do..." He said, as the dragons paused. The ghost town that they were moving through was old. Abandoned. It was the one that Detar had scouted - the one that had been near the town haunted by tentacle monsters. Abandoned, castoff mutants. Rikal grinned, turning his head.
"I smell that," he crooned.
And the first tentacle beast lunged from one of the buildings - clearly thinking to snatch up a drakon private. The private leaped up above the grabbing tentacles, landed, and started to eat the tentacle beast.
"Go on hunt," Pax said, casually, as Rikal laughed.
The tentacle beasts...
Were very delicious.
Pax was regarding the map, considering his options...when the first scream came from the sky. He lifted his head - and he saw the black shapes dropping, straight towards his formation. "Incoming!" he shouted as Rikal grabbed him bodily, threw him onto his broad back, and sprang away just before something heavy and dark smashed into where Pax had stood. It was as tall as a mutant, but gleaming metal, with a green faceplate that barely concealed the human within. They had a forearm mounted gattling gun, which spun up and started to spray bullets after Rikal. Other power armored figures dropped into the area. More of them. More than Pax had ever expected. There were thirty in the town proper, but he saw chevrons of them dropping outside of the town - moving into flanking positions.
The mutant civilians knew what to do. They sprinted for cover as drakons snarled and stood between them and the sudden attack from the sky. One of the power armored men was grabbed and thrown through a building by a drakon - only for four other power armored infantry to come leaping overhead - their jets streaking through the air. Bullets blew through the dragon, who shrieked, then died, falling and bleeding to the ground.
Pax's voice cut through the panic and the shouting.
"Fall back into the center square! Use the rockets! I want squads prepped for interception duty!"
Drakons flapped into the air and snaked around the center of the village, while the power armored infantry that had dropped into the center found that once surprise wore off...dragons were not to be trifled with. Once weight of muscle was tested against strength of metal, the enemies that had come into their midst so suddenly, so shockingly, found themselves lacking. Badly. Pax, who had made it to the secure center, ducked low as bullets whined and clipped off their cover. Civilians were at work throwing down sandbags from their kit, setting up metal sheeting for armor, while the drakons shot back with their rifles and, when the enemies tried more sky sorties, leaping up to smash into them and bring them down. The enemy might be able to fly - but the sky belonged to them.
"Okay," Pax said, turning to the terrified looking man, naked save for a black chemise and a string of connector ports along his spine. "Who the fuck are you? Imperials?"
The man laughed, the bravado laugh of someone who had never been in battle before and wanted to be brave. "Those running dogs of the false god-emperor? No...we are the Doombringers. We shall bring peace and order to the wasteland. The Fist is all, the Fist will be all."
"Great," Pax rumbled. "A maniac." He lifted his head up, then turned and stalked to Lt. Vakash. "What's the situation out there?"
"There's at least twice as many of them as there are of us. We've killed them in the village, but that's fine - they're surrounding and they're going to blow every building here into powder with those damn-" a bullet didn't ricocheted. It blew through the building they were hiding behind, then hit a building on the far side of the building. "-armor piercing gatling guns."
Pax made the decision.
"We have to pull back," he said.
"Back where?" Vakash asked, snarling. "Those guys can chase us for miles."
Pax considered. "Well. Casica did mention she wanted to join our faction."
Vakash blinked at him, then snorted.
The dragons kept firing back at the Doombringers as they prepared for their advance into the encircled town. They had stopped their flybys, and they were beginning to advance in staggered rows, their forearms locked and blazing with streams of bullets as they laid waste to the town, kicking up dust and blowing through multiple walls at a time. A building collapsed in a spray of splinters. But then the dragons, as one, swept up into the air, their wings beating as they soared up and away from the streams of bullets. Mutants clung to their backs, and they carried material in their claws - soaring up and over the shocked Doombringer's heads. They caught the thermals ahead of them, then beat their wings furiously, shooting towards the north.
The Doombringers were left in their dust.
***
Casica was, as Detar had said, a beautiful woman. Short, stocky, with black hair and epicanthic folds, she was dressed in a rugged jumpsuit, and had a white fist pinned to her shoulder, and looked absolutely furious as she watched the mutants at work.
"You brought Fisk into this?" she asked. "That muclebrained moron?"
"I take it you know him?"
"Oh, I know him," Casica snarled. "This used to be the Republic of Bivara. We had a fucking shot at making something new. Vault-13's survivors spread out, to the base up in the north, old Majata they called it. It was full of power armor and weaponry and nuclear bombs and shit. The question came, what to fucking do with it. My Rangers, we were given some of the scout suits. The President was thinking of building us an army - an actual army that could protect us. Then General Fisk decided maybe HE should be in charge." She looked away, frowning. "That was five years ago. Ever since then, it's been The Fist of the Wastelands. Vault-13 pays him tribute and all the old Republic's attempts to make anything out of anything has gone to shit. We've lost contact with everything to the east of us, we never even got south, let alone north or west." She spat on the ground.
Pax nodded. "Well, his ability to attack, is...alarming."
"Oh, it gets worse."
Casica led him through the facility - then stopped dead as she saw what the mutants were doing.
Casica and her rangers lived in a collection of bunkers and habitats that had been set up near a massive set of satellite dishes. The dishes were hooked to a series of wires and cables - but those cables were being severed by mutant workmen and women, while the bunkers? Casica gaped in horror. "What are you-" she exclaimed, moments before a bunker exploded. The bunker collapsed inwards, and mutants hurried forward to start scattering bones around it - blackened, humanoid looking bones.
"The Fist can see this place," Pax explained. "I took executives action to make sure when the Doombringers show up, they won't find shit."
"You're insane," Casica spluttered. "That's my house! My teddy bear was in there!"
Pax sighed. "We removed the teddy bear."
When Casica saw the Gord, she was a bit less furious. The Gord was a mutant specialty - a living tent, grown in the vats. It grew outwards when it was planted and fed, and soon, it had created a climate controlled dome big enough to hide an entire base in - and it did so by slowly burrowing into the sand, using its muscles to spread and expand the material. Add in metal sheeting, material from the technological base of the mutants, and some ferocious digging? You had an underground, invisible supply base within a few hours. But the thing that impressed Casica the most was when they came down into the basement, the cool and dark place, and found that several mutant technicians were finishing setting up the rectangular table that they had found in the satellite uplink.
A day later, a doombringer patrol soared overhead.
They didn't even notice.
***
"Well, well, well," you said, with great, great satisfaction. "Would you look at that."
Mitoch and you stood beside a table made of plastic, metal and glass. It had been fashioned by the finest mutant artisans in the wastes, and it would match anything that the Empire could throw together. Maybe a bit bigger, a bit more ruggedized. But what it did is it took the data coming from a buried wire of fiber optic cable that led from the wastes, through several ruined villages, and ended in the Omec Desert. From that cable came...
This.
The table came online and glowed, showing a vast display of desert wasteland - mountains. Fields. Dead cities. And many, many, many glowing dots. You tapped one and got a top down view of several boxy human armored personnel carriers, kicking up dust as they trundled through the wastelands.
"We have an entire team analyzing the data as it comes in," Mitoch said, while his smaller self burbled happily. "The observation satellites aren't perfect. Enemies can hide from them, as easily as our Chameleons can. But you know what?"
"It's a fuck of a lot better than anything they got." Your grin was fierce. "Oh but it is."
You tapped the display, and began to plot your next move.
--- WELL WELL WELL!
We had some spice today! Doombringers don't fuck around - they're 8/5 units with shock attack who do +1 damage ontop of whatever their dice rolls.
Now, i took a bit of an executive action because Casica's Rangers and Pax's Wing were both in SERIOUS danger from the Fist. So, I deployed a card I had just drawn: The hidden gord! this gives everything on that hex 7 camouflage dice. So, it's essentially invisible to the Fist (and to anyone else passing by.) This means that an entire enemy army can blunder past the base and HOPEFULLY not notice it!
The situation map and all the data from the sat-net uplink.
General Fisk, formerly of the Republic - now, would be Fist of the Wasteland.
A doombringer.
The satellite pictures of the Fist's stronghold shows he's made some...changes to the area.
Casica Tayu, leader of the Wasteland Rangers, survivor of a fallen Republic, now sworn to an uncertain future with the Free Mutants.
The independent machine, Volitus, and his crashed troop-pod, sitting to the northwest of your new forward base. Will he be an enemy?
Your current hand! So!
What's your plan, Warmaster?
[ ] Deploy the third Drakkon platoon and TAKE VAULT 13! Its defenses will shelter you until you can prepare to destroy Fisk ONCE AND FOR ALL!
[ ] Wait until you can deploy your Mauler dragons. Yes, they're slow, but they're worth it. Then? Take the Vault, then take down Fisk!
[ ] Leave sleeping warlords to lie - so long as you stay 4 hexes away from him, you're safe. Swing Casica's rangers wide around the crashed pod, then use their commando ability and their speed to blitz out of your supply range and right into the Xenopod mothership, which is VERY weakly defended!
[ ] Why fight a brute fight? Dip Nyra, let her be reborn as Nod. Then kill Fisk the smart way: in his bed, with a garotte.
[ ] Write In
You stood beside the human woman, your voice quiet.
"Are you sure about this? We don't force anyone to take the plunge," you said, quietly.
The woman woman - Nyra - rubbed her shoulders. She had come to the tribal keep in nothing but a shift and scrap sandals, riding one of the beasts that, even now, carried material and fuel pods in from the collectors to the west. Those supply lines were what now drove the entire Dergath tribe's logistic success - pack animals had been joined by a growing fleet of land vehicles. Not suited to combat and driven primarily by hordelings and the smallest dragon species, those trucks and cargo haulers and hummers were buzzing across the wastes, from the Crater to Black Mesa to Pump Station Zeta. It was how you were able to accomplish as much as you could...but it was all nakedly vulnerable. You knew, thanks to the Eye (what mutants had taken to calling the orbital spy sat that Casica had bequeathed the tribe) that no one was close...at least...no major army.
But you weren't sure if the other factions that were vying for the wasteland could match the drakons you had fielded. If they couldn't, then you could rest easy. If they could...
Well.
Then you'd worry.
Nyra nodded. "I'm sure," she said. "I'm tired of being weak."
You nodded back to her. She walked towards the vats, where mutant technicians waited. You watched as she walked to the metal scaffolding, then cast aside her shift. She stood, naked, before the gleaming vat, and then stepped forward into it. She plunged and then the technicans sealed it. You took a clipboard, checking - she had chosen the 9-Drill variation of the mutagen. It was a risky one - there were more proven mutagens, but 9-Drill had a chance of going far beyond the more stable mutagens. You nodded slightly.
It seemed Nyra was playing for keeps. You supposed that made sense.
You turned back, leaving her to her change - and went back to collect the data that Letash and Detar were sending home.
***
"You...weren't exaggerating..." Letash muttered as he put the binoculars to his eye, while Gorax knelt beside him. THe Chameleons were parked right at the edge of the xenopod heartland - the Pnakotic Wastes. The wastes here weren't the same thriving mutant ecology that Letash had grown to love. Instead, spindly green pods emerged from the ground, semi-transparent and covered with small horns that thrust off in each direction. Thick green webbing spread between them - and as Letash watched, he saw that there were human settlements among them. He swung the view over one of them. Corrugated metal, rusted and left to decay in the sun, with half a dozen humans laying about. They looked emaciated, their eyes blank. But they still breathed. As he watched, a beetle-like green thing scuttled into the village, flanked by several xenopods.
A xenopod stood at about six, seven feet. Rippling muscle. Green skinned. Long tentacles, emerging from their face and occluding their mouth. Their skulls were elongated, as if to contain all the malign intelligence in their bodies. They carried bone-weapons, like someone had carved hooks and spikes from some massive beast's discarded ribs. As Letash watched, a pair of xenopods hooked a human body, then swung it onto the back of the beetle thing - heaping it up. Another checked a human woman, then waved his hand. The woman stood, then walked away - jerkily. Letash was glad to not see where she ended up behind the ruins.
"I can't wait for Casica to get here," Gorax growled. "Humans don't deserve this."
"Yeah, I-" Letash paused. "Shit. Shit! Shit!"
"What?" Gorax asked.
"There!" Letash pointed and the two Chameleons peered - Letash handing Gorax the binoculars.
"Shit," Gorax hissed.
Through the binoculars, the Chameleon could see it: A pair of figured, immense, striding across the grounds in a patrol. Both were gleaming green, covered with armored carapace, and between twenty and thirty feet tall. Thick tentacles emerged from its back, carrying immense weaponry. Anti-vehicle spore guns. Anti-infantry misters. Automatic bone launchers. And the only thing worse than the first biomecha was the biomecha behind it. Swarming around it were xenomorph warforms - burly xenopods carrying biolaunchers. Several had even larger brain-cases than the others. And behind them were bioforms that had quadrupedal frames, with bony barrels and heavy testicular carrying harnesses full of hideous green orbs.
"Devastator, Corruptor, brute infantry, spore launchers, and I think a psyker squad," Gorax grumbled, quietly.
"Can Casica take them?" Letash asked.
"Not a chance in hell." Gorax sighed. "We need to get the message back to the Warmaster."
"Wait, wait, wait," Letash said, pointing.
The village was showing signs of motion. Something...vast and hideous was there. Bulbous. Egg-sacks, straining on the edges of a soft, sluglike body, with a faintly humanoid torso rising from the center, spined, bladed claws reaching from it...from her. Groax hissed, softly. "It's one of their queens," he said, quietly. "They don't direct the hive - their intelligence is a gestalt. But the queen is loaded with the biological information that helps to guide their eggs. The Queen makes sure that eggs grow up into big bad monsters, not into simple thralls or...us." He chuckled, grimly.
"...how many do they have?" Letash asked, frowning. "On this planet, I mean. Not across the, uh, galaxy?"
"One, why?" Gorax asked.
Letash stood, turning to his Chameleons. "We have a chance, mutants," he said, firmly. "To pull a major fang right out of the Xenos. It'll be dangerous...but we have the chance. So, we're going to do it. We sneak in close - then we unload everything we have into that Queen. Then we fade and we fade fast."
Gorax was looking at Letash with a wide eyed expression. Then the old mutant did the same math that non-commissioned officers had done since well before humanity knew the lights in the skies were other stars. He weighed the plans of his officer, and he chose between clubbing him to death to save everyone in the platoon's life, and following the orders. Gorax grunted, then bellowed. "Come on, 'lons, lets get invisible!"
The first sign that something was wrong for the Queen came when a psyker bodyguard's neck burst open, blood streaming into the fetid air of the Pnakotic Wastes, as Gorax drew his dagger across its green throat. Two more psykers were dropped by similarly brutal means - as other Chameleons stepped past prone, empty eyed humans. Letash was the first to step out and find himself unexpectedly close to the Queen - who was busy implanting a hissing, wriggling larva into the body of a half-dead human. The Queen turned her gaze upon Letash as Letash froze. A psychic boom echoed inside of the mutant's mind.
One of the traitors. Kneel.
The booming voice rebounded inside of Letash's mind as he froze - the other Chameleons around him standing perfectly still, their eyes widened. Letash tried to move his finger - but it felt as if his finger had become steel, trapped inches from the curved trigger of his submachine gun. The weapon was toylike and small in his hands - but it was the only thing in the world that might save him. He trembled as the Queen started to slither closer.
Your kind thinks you're free...but submission is in your very genetics. You are of the Hive. You are mine. Kneel.
The voice hit Letash like a hammer. His finger twitched as he trembled...and if he had carried a weapon made for a mutant, he might have died. But the submachine gun was an ancient human kind, barely able to fit into his massive hands. A small twitch of his finger went further than it would have gone for a human - and so his submachine gun chattered and rattled. Five bullets thudded into the Queen's chest, green blood spurting. The psychic command became an audible screech as the Queen reared backwards and Letash found himself able to move.
"Open fire!" He shouted and twelve other Chameleons started to fire. Bullets thudded into carapace and tore into flesh. Green blood went flying and the claws sparked as the Queen lifted her hand to try and protect herself - but one of her fingers clipped in half as more and more bullets thudded into her. The last shriek made Letash's nose bleed as his submachine gun went dry, clicking loudly.
But the Queen laid on the ground, shredded into a green-red smear of gore.
"...fuck," one of his Chameleons muttered.
"I think we got her," Letash said, slowly. "Master's balls, we fucking did it."
A distant siren howl echoed out across the Pnakotic wastes. Letash lifted his head - and saw the two distant biomecha were turning towards their direction. Letash turned invisible, his skin shimmering as he matched the surrounding landscape.
Without a word, the Chameleons loped away.
***
You watched as the hand emerged from the vat. You tensed, not sure what else would come. Then, with glistening slowness, the woman who had once been Nyra emerged - not as a human, but as a mutant. Broad, rippling shoulders, long arms, slightly elongated head, orange-red skin, and fierce yellow eyes. She was as naked as she had been in the vat, and dripping with vatslime, as she swung herself out and over, then dropped to the ground before you. She stood and came up to your height, her hands brushing through her sopping wet black hair. "Oh that feels good," she said, laughing softly.
"I'm glad you came out," you said, dryly, offering her a towel. She took it. "The mutagen you chose was risky."
"Maybe for others. I have more willpower," she said, smirking.
"Lets see what you can do," you said, quietly.
"Oh, I know what I can do," she said, her smirk growing deeper. "I want to earn my name, Warmaster."
"Oh?" you asked, quietly.
And Nyra laid out how she would earn her mutant name.
And you had to admit...
She had ambition to go with her shoulders.
***
The mountain base of the Fist of the Wasteland loomed in the center of all - and from the carved balcony, General Fisk watched as his dreams came closer and closer to fruition. His grin grew across his craggy feature as he placed the heavy gauntlets of his power armor rested on the railing. He remembered the first time he had donned the Mark-2 Annihilator class suit, constructed centuries before to try and stem the onslaught of not one but two alien factions bent on exterminating all life on Earth. He smirked, his goatee rustling in the wind. His Doombringer regiments had cast aside the last of the old Republic's stupidity and short sightedness, and with Vault-13 under his command, he could begin to expand.
His vision was to the east. Always to the east. The Emperor of Man sat in his palace, doing the busy work of tricking every human that he could that serving him was worthy - his tanks and his armies roved further than their actual abilities could truly allow. He had already obliterated a few of them with lightning strikes from his vastness.
Yes.
Yes.
The Fist had it all. He simply had to reach out and take it.
He grinned, slightly, then winced slightly as something winked from the wasteland. He frowned, peering out at the deserts, wondering what it was.
He was still wondering what it was right at the moment a spinning, high caliber round struck his left eye. He ceased wondering in the infinitesimal moment between his eyeball rupturing and the back of his bald head exploding behind him. His body twitched, and the WALDOS in his power armor took those twitches and magnified them - sending his entire two ton carcass hurtling over the side of the balcony, where a Doombringer regiment was doing parade practice in their power armor. He didn't squish so much as he clanged and the Doombringer stood perfectly still.
Laying on her belly, a mile and a half away, the woman who had been Nyra tucked her rifle back onto her back and smirked.
If I know cults, she thought.
The sounds of gunfire started.
And I do, she thought. I'll give it...three days?
And so, three days later, she stepped in through the unguarded front doors of the Fortress of the Fist and found Doombringer bodies, some daubed with makeshift insignia, some shot in the back, scattered here and there. She came to the Fist's throneroom, where a Doombringer sat on the throne, feaverish and manic. "General Trevor...you'll send the forces to Vault-13...tell them! Tell them I'm in command!" the Doombringer said, frantically. "I...I didn't kill General Trevor, did I?" He was looking at a body who was sprawled on the ground, shot in hte back. "I'm in command! I'm in-"
His head snapped back as Nod, her name well and truly chosen, shot him with her rifle.
The fourth to last Doombringer pitched forward - the other three having fled into the wastes as convulsions of war and strife consumed their little would be empire.
Nod shook her head. "That's why you wear a fucking helmet. Dipshits." She spat on the ground.
--- Well! Good news, bad news! Good news: YOU DID IT!
Nod's slayer ability means she kills on 1+ wound, so, yeah, rest in pepperoni General Fisk. (His backstory is entirely made up by me to explain why he's here.) Normally, he sets off an atomic bomb when he's defeated, but, uh...if he's assassinated, he doesn't. Making this victory card EXTREMELY sarcastic.
Meanwhile, Letash saw a chance and took it. See, the AI (and sometimes, me, the player) will send an unescorted hero out. They're easy to move (1 AP, 3 movement speed) and they can build resource collectors! It's NOT a bad strategy if you think you can get away with it! ...the Xenos just didn't know Letash was RIGHT THERE. Sooooooo
This won't cripple the Xenopods, but it does vastly reduce their supply lines AND when they evolve an egg unit, it rolls 1d20 for what kind of monster it is. Well, without the Queen, they don't get a +4 modifier to it! Which is good for you, a 20+ roll result gets an Abomination, which can 100% solo entire armies sometimes.
Unfortunately for easy victory plans, Letash also found that the they had a much stronger army than anticipated (this is because Letash rolls 5 dice for observation, not just the 1 die of the Eye.) Still, without the Fist, you're free to operate in the center of the wastelands.
What are your plans, warmaster?
Homefront plans
[ ] Get the biggest dragons on the field, then get the best technologists on the field, and start buffing the hell out of them.
[ ] Focus purely on Drakkons to maintain our air supremacy - but also, get the best technologists on the field and start buffing the hell out of them.
[ ] Write In
Field Plans (Choose as many as make sense)
[ ] Take the Dragon Pens with Pax
[ ] Take Vault-13 First with Pax
[ ] Take the Air Field with Pax
[ ] Use Pax for defense/resource operations
[ ] Take the dragon pens with Casica
[ ] Take Vault-13 with Casica
[ ] Take the Air Field with Casica
[ ] Use Casica for defense/resource operations
[ ] Write In
Oh, and what's Nod going to do?
[ ] Hunt human leaders
[ ] Hunt machine leaders
[ ] Hunt xenopod leaders
[ ] wait patiently - no need to risk her neck yet.
(See, hunting leaders in a headquarters can be kinda dangerous, if they have scouts there, since they can hunt you and find you. Sometimes, the best time to assassinate someone is when the generals' on the march - but of course, the hard part is finding htem.)
Fun fact, though!
Say an army has, like, 5 units and a general. If you assassinate that general, every single unit's stats are HALVED because the max units you can have on a stack is 2 without a leader! (3 if you're human.)
Your scouts are gonna keep scouting! 
