Asteroid Blues

Zhu Li’s team, sent once more for further training (especially after the recent failures in other exercises and the bar incident) this time against an O-12 rookie team.
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Note: Not many painted models and a lot of proxies, also since this was my first game that wasn’t a tutorial, we didn’t use the special campaign rules but still played quadrant. All walls, fences and shipping containers were assumed to be infinitely tall, to represent an indoor map.

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L= 8 points
P = 3 points

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Lists:
O-12
Profile – Name – Model
Alpha (Lieutenant, Strategos L2) – Astrid “mom” Bell – Brawler Hacker
Omega (HMG) – Jürgen Hessel – Swiss Guard
Epsilon (Multi sniper) – Senja “Epi” Nurmi – Epsilon (Multi sniper)
Sirius Hacker – Mia Lauren – Zulu cobra hacker
Siriusbot – Spot – Siriusbot
Kappa (Forward observer) – Alena “Jumper” Wells – Kamau Hacker
Kappa (Paramedic) – Holly Lynn – Fusilier (combi rifle) (female)
Kappa (Paramedic) – Mason O’Neil – Fusilier (combi rifle) (male)
Kappa – Tracy Anderson – Kappa (combi rifle) (female)
Kappa – Emma McKay – Kappa (combi rifle) (female)
Kappa – Calvin “Brig” Briggs – Kappa (combi rifle) (male)
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Hippolyta – Hippolyta – Hippolyta
Varangian (Submachine gun, 2 Chain-colt) – Kim “Rainbow” Dash – Valkyrie (Limited)
Varangian (Light Shotgun) – Charles Erickson – Myrmidon (spitfire)
Varangian (Light Shotgun) – Sue Lane – Myrmidon Officer
Kappa (Forward observer) – Olivia Nolan – Wardriver
Warcor (Sixth Sense L1) – Zoe Sykes- Bolt Paramedic

HVT – Thamyris – Thamyris

Invincible Army
Profile – Name – Model
Dāoyīng (Lieutenant L2 Hacker) – Zhulie – Dāoyīng Hacker/Camo Marker 1
Hǎidào (Sniper) – Taizong – Hǎidào Sniper
Zhanshi – Zheng Din (AKA Krieger) – Zhanshi
Zhanshi – Chang Ha- Zhanshi
Zhanshi – Yu Fan- Zhanshi
Zhanshi (Paramedic) – Xiaoyun- Zhanshi
Haidao Hacker – Fang Ren – Shang Ji
Zuyong (Fireteam Haris, Tinbot B) – Bo Chen – Hsien HMG
Zuyong (HMG) – Rai Chen – Zuyong Combi rifle
Haidao (Chain of Command) – Deng Fo – Gui Feng Xi Zhuang
Yan Huo (HRMC) – Dong Laung – Yan Huo (HMRC)

HVT – Yuan Shu – Free-Lance Stringer

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“So, you are asking us… to lose on purpose?” Zhulie asked Thamyris. “That is right. Their commander has beef with them, so we thought it would be hilarious if they actually end up winning.” “Also,” he continued. “about that drink you owe me –“ Zhulie quickly interrupts “Would have required me to agree to the wager, which I did not. If you want me to even consider this proposal of yours, you will damn well drop it. At least your friend last time wasn’t so rude!” Zhulie looked over, seeing the O-12 team running around, goofing about. At least they look sort of happy and might not be so damn rude. She would agree to this prank. This was boring anyhow and it allowed her something to lord over Thamyris to make him shut up if they met again in the future.
“But sure, I will give them the chance to show up their commander. We will try to make it believable” Zhulie told Thamyris. “Now, you better get back to your own team. Now.”

Zhulie and her team took up positions and began their advance. “Still sort of odd with that new guy. Zheng Din. He keeps asking people to call him Krieger and he is clearly not a native, so to speak. And he keeps dodging the questions of how he ended up with Yu Jing…” Immediately, Zhulie noticed some sort of “dog”-bot and fired upon it, disabling it. “Alright people, keep moving up” Zhulie commanded.
Dong Laung peeked and saw an enemy trooper standing in the window and immediately opened fire with his hyper-rapid magnetic cannon. God was that thing just satisfying to fire. The enemy trooper went down and rather than push his luck, Dong Laung moved back into full cover. Bo Chen, Rai Chen and Fang Ren were supposed to move up when Rai Chen grunted in annoyance. “I can’t move up, there is something constantly blinding me with flashes.” He exclaimed. Bo Chen tacitly replied with “Well, you have a big gun with a lot of shots. Have you considered shooting a lot of bullets in its general direction?” Rai Chen did as asked and unloaded towards the source. Clearly, he hit whoever it was but it must have only been glancing hits. And for some reason the person was still standing. “Are.. Are they cheating? I have hit this ***** so many times now and she is still standing using this flash pulse on me. Why hasn’t she gone down?” “Are you sure that isn’t a camera?” Fang Ren asked cautiously.
“Wait…” Rai Chen contemplated. “Is that their journalist? What a waste of bullets! Also, what the hell is she doing, helping them indirectly by blinding us!”

Following their little argument, smoke suddenly erupted next to Zhulie and a Varangian charged her but Zhulie was faster, stabbing the Varangian with her rubber knife, but the Varangian managed to hit with her rubber axe. “You know that the smoke usually indicates where you are coming from, right?” Zhulie whispered from her now prone position. Zhulie couldn’t really see how the battle fared, as she was now blinded by a completely unreasonable amount of confetti and glitter.

Rai Chen was suddenly surrounded by some very colourful smoke and immediately was wary of where the attack would come from. Aaand it didn’t do him any good, as he got hit by what he had to assume was an HMG “Oh damn that actually hurts quite a bit. Well, I am not out yet!”
This was immediately followed by Dong Laung’s increasingly unenviable situation, as Hippolyta moved up closer, eventually getting into melee and stabbing Dong laung with her rubber sword. “Oh well, time to lie down on the ground, I guess. Not really that easy in this suit.” He thought to himself. “Was the glitter really necessary though? It seems sort of… humiliating.” His melancholic state was ended with him getting up thanks to Xiaoyun and Dong Laung immediately took to righting the wrong that was the glitter on his suit, opening up with his HRMC. Hippolyta kept dodging and the shots kept grazing her though, even throwing another of those ridiculous glitter grenades. This was until Dong Laung repositioned and with his final burst, he shouted “DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT WILL TAKE TO REMOVE ALL THIS GLITTER?!” With that, Hippolyta finally went down, throwing more glitter and confetti up in the air, laughing almost maniacally.

On the left flank, the humorous trio had their brief respite interrupted by another smoke grenade followed by a Varangian, hacking at Fang Ren with his rubber axe. Meanwhile, Dong Laung’s victory was cut short, as an unseen hacker had moved in and proceeded to hack both Dong Laung and Taizong. Suddenly, they were unable to move.
“Well this sucks. I wonder if I can still browse Maya with the visor though” Taizong pondered, knowing no one could hear him.
This was quickly followed by a series of rapid HMG shots taking out both Taizong and Dong Laung. At least they could stop standing now.

“Alright guys, we gotta move. Now!” Zheng Din (AKA Krieger) shouted to his Zhanshi compatriots. “Remember, Zhulie said to make this convincing” he reminded them. That said, it was sort of “not cool” at this point. But it was also not really probable that they could turn it back. “Well, the show must go on” he thought to himself. The moved up and tried to end the Varangian in melee with Bo Chen, but unfortunately, they hit Bo Chen rather than their intended target. “Ah well, no one will notice. Hopefully.”
The Varangian then used this opportunity to move into melee with Rai Chen, exacerbating the already problematic situation further. The Zhanshi under Krieger’s command moved into the building in an attempt to secure the enemy High Value Target and shot up the hacker in retribution for Dong Laung and Taizong.
Then. Then came the siege. After a red smoke distributed amongst them, one after another, his Zhanshi brethren fell around him. His resolve steady, he arranged the bodies around him to fortify his position. His “downed” comrades could not help but laugh, but this was Krieger’s final hour and he would not sell his life for cheap!
The Varangian that downed his comrades looked to see if she could melee Krieger, but Krieger used the time-honored tactic of “using a dead person as a shield” in his little fortress of dead people, making that impossible. So, the Varangian tried to shoot him. Which failed. Repeatedly. “Stop it!” the Varangian exclaimed in the midst of laughing. “I am sorry are you addressing me?” Krieger stated calmly. “Because your authority is not recognized in FORT KICKASS!”
This failure may have been due to a laughing fit on the Varangian’s part, or the SHEER VALOUR of Krieger’s heroic last stand. The repeated attempts were followed by Krieger bellowing like a beast of legend “YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN FORT KICKASS!”
Even the enemy Alpha could not strike Krieger down with her nanopulsers, as Krieger, channelling the spirit of Zhuge Liang himself, appeared as a legend among lesser beings holding the glorious defence of Fort Kickass!

And with that, the exercise was over. Zhulie knew this wouldn’t look particularly great on her record, but she had kept her bargain with Thamyris. Now, she could hopefully get him to shut up and back off. Krieger for his part received a commendation for his impressive resolve and quite frankly glorious defence. He at least seemed useful if a bit odd and clearly foreign. It wasn’t a total defeat, as some objectives had been secured, so the reprimand Zhulie got was at least a light one. The O-12 journalist came over later and handed the Chen brothers some pictures of them that, to be fair, had them looking rather awesome whilst firing. The team was pretty sure this episode of their weird show wouldn’t be aired in the Yu Jing Mayanet though. People would misunderstand the events without the full context after all.