Asteroid Blues

Deployment:
Upon arriving at the mine, The Toad Brigade encountered a detachment of Varuna soldiers who had constructed a temporary base on a nearby drilling platform. Seeing this as an opportunity to, as 1-Up put it “kill two birds with one stone” (Getting paid and harming PanOceania) the Brigade secured a nearby mine command center and launched their assault from there. The drop in temperature of the area was worrying, but the Captain was confident that his team could reach the consoles in the mine and activate the area heater.

Turn 1:
Daisy led the charge straight at the PanOceanian Sierra dronbot, and was able to successfully confuse the bots sensors with a well placed smoke grenade. While Daisy made her move, a unit from the Yuan Yuan group “Paragoomba” dropped in behind enemy lines. Her partner unfortunately dropped too early and ended up running in alongside the Brigade. From here the problems began.
Now covered with smoke, the Brawler sniper Luigi stood up to engage the enemy’s Kamau sniper. Varuna must have sent their best marksman on this mission, as she managed to not only pierced his armor, but the rending shot took Luigi for the remainder of the battle.
1-Up, being heavily armored and especially resilient to damage moved up to take the sniper on at closer range. Unfortunately he was not able to get as close as he’d like, but he was still able to get within range with his Multi marksman rifle. The team Doctor, Leaf, followed close behind with her data pack and medikit, ready to patch up any wounds 1-Up received. 1-Up has a history of running in without regard for any personal injury, so Leaf tends to stick with him whenever she can. Unfortunately whatever allowed the Kamau to pierce Luigi’s armor worked just as well on Daiyokai armor, and 5 bullets managed to riddle through his armor, he causing him to fall, and resulting in Leaf falling back.
While this was happening the HMG member of the Toad Brigade with full support from a his link opened fire on the Sierra Dronbot, in an attempt to shut down Varuna’s control of that ally, but it seems like this Dronbot had the same magic bullets as the sniper because again a shot cut through the Toad and he fell. Following the fall of his comrades, Captain Toad repositioned himself so he could see the Sierra and fired his missile launcher. Once again the Sierra’s bullet seemed to find the weakest point in the Captain’s armor and injured him. The captain opened fire once again, and finally managed to take the hated Sierra down.

After this initial assault some Zulu Cobra’s started to creep their way up the field towards us. Both Daisy and Goombella attempted to use their chain rifles on the male one but to no avail, and both were injured in these attacks. After this, he moved into an ally and started laying down suppressive fire at the command center. The other Cobra meanwhile made her way to the center console of the mine and used it to activate one of the heaters inside the impromptu Varuna base.

Turn 2:
Paragoomba moved in to try and take out the Zulu Cobra laying suppressive fire. He was able to lay down smoke and get within chain rifling range, however it once again the shards of the chain rifle bounced of the Cobra’s armor. Rui Shi unit B.1.R.D.0 moved into the smoke cover and finally put the Cobra down with a volley of spitfire shots. This left the ally leading to one of the consoles unprotected, and our unit hacker, the Blue Toad, moved up alongside with the Karakuri. At this point Captain Toad ordered the hacker to scan the unconscious Zulu Cobra in hopes of discovering some Intel about what Varuna was doing there. While he was scaning, the Karakuri continued along her path to activate the heater of the command center, insuring the relative safety of our surviving units.

Dr. Leaf crouched down and readied herself for a coming attack, but unfortunately she was not prepared for what came next. A Bulleteer armbot rounded the corner, and unleashed a volley of Heavy Shotgun shots, taking out Leaf in spite of her attempts to dodge out of the way. The Armbot then made its way to the Rui Shi and Blue Toad, and gunned them both down, The Toad falling to hack, and the Rui Shi missing her reaction shot. It then made its way to the Karakuri’s flank and pierced her defenses, knocking her down. While this was going on, the Paragoomba was taken out by the remaining Cobra.

Turn 3:
In a heroic attempt to salvage the operation, the engineer Diddy Kong ran after the remaining Cobra in an attempt to take her out, and remove the enemy’s data tracker from the field so Varuna would fail in their mission; however he was gunned down before reaching her. In the end we were forced to evacuate our troops, or in some cases just their cubes.

Final Analysis:
I don’t know what caused their bullets to be so deadly, and their armor to be so resilient but we were unfortunately bested by Varuna this time. Once the bruised and battered remnants of the team returned to base we analyzed the data scanned off the fallen Zulu Cobra, our only small bitter victory in this sordid affair. We did learn something interesting however: The Cobra in question wasn’t listed as an actual Varuna agent. While we couldn’t pinpoint his military history, we were able to determine that he was in fact Japanese. That combined with him not being an official PanOceanian trooper are certainly raising some eyebrows here at our Head Quarters
It seems more and more likely that in future engagements I will have to get involved personally. I am also considering requesting the aid of… an unsavory ally. While I don’t enjoy working with the pig of man, he does get result, so long as he is being paid. I will have contact Warioware Inc. and see how much the pig wants to fight for us.

Yours Truly,
Lady Toadstool, Myriostoma LLC CEO and leader of the Toadstool Company
Peach