Asteroid Blues

After the spaceport was secured High Command transferred Romiras and his group to defense of Xaraks Battery. Hassassin’s intelligence suggested that this installation was infiltrated by shasvastii, which endangered all of Novyy Bangkok. The contingent of Ariana soldiers with mandate from O-12 was incapable to contain this threat so the Sword of Haqqislam moved swiftly to take control of the Battery. Now their duty was to hold it against all enemies.

Romiras was having a briefing with his officers Suheil (sekban commander) and Selim (hafza) when they all heard some strange sharp sounds in the distance. “What is this?” — Suheil was definitely puzzled. Romiras was ready for shasvastii infiltrators, for kazaks assault and even for brutal morats. But this… this was unexpected. He sighed. “These are bagpipes. Caledonians sound those when they march to war. Get to your posts gentlemen, we are under attack!”

Initiative.
My opponent won the initiative and chose to go first. I chose the deployment zone and let him deploy first. I spent a command token to remove an order from each of his two command groups. Also I spent a second command token to activate Overclock on couple of my fanouses. My datatracker was djanbazan HMG. Opponent chose William Wallace as his. My liaison officer was al’Hawwa and Caledoans chose SAS as theirs.

Also thanks to special rules of the mission I left a harris of sekbans off the table, to use them as infiltrators.

***

Round 1.
Caledonia.
First turn was a complete chaos. Highlanders rushed forward, trying to cover their approach by smoke and my 2 fanouses (flashlight bots) and 2 shihabs (TRbots) and a warcor did what they could to stop the blue tide. The exchange was brutal. I’ve lost my warcor, both fanouses and one of the TRbots. But at the same time managed to take out a couple of highlanders and both cameronians. SAS managed to activate one of the antennas (took him 3 orders!) and moved forward into my deployment zone. There he tried to fulfill his classified, but failed and placed himself to see the edge of the table. A powerful strike by sons and daughters of Caledonia! But I survived. Whew.

Qapu Khalqi.
Enter yuan yuans. 2 came from the edge of the table near the position of volunteers link with AP HMG highlander grey and cateran sniper. Third one successfully jumped closer to William Wallace. One threw a smoke grenade near cateran and Djanbazan HMG made a short work of enemy sniper. Then he noticed one of the highlanders in the distance and killed him as well. Second one chainrifled volunteers and took out one of them but was killed by ARO. Third yuan yuan ran toward William Wallace and managed to wound him and one of the wulvers. She died in the process, but died as she lived: reckless and proud, surrounded by wounded enemies! And last (but not the least) sekbans came out from the table edge. Unfortunately I could only bring them out in my deployment zone. For that they killed the SAS.

Round 2.
Caledonia.
The Scots suffered some serious loses but their spirit was not broken! Highlander grey wounded djanbazan HMG and my guy went down. Wallace and wulvers went to the second floor of the building near them. They saw a sekban with spitfire and killed him. Volunteers killed my last yuan yuan. Highlander grey tried to put down TRbot, but was killed by a crit. Whoops. Volunteer paramedic tried to heal cateran sniper but killed him instead. Whoops 2.

Qapu Khalqi.
My djanbazan HMG regenerated (yes they can and yes he did!). He stood up and killed wulver who killed my sekban. Revenge! Djanbazan went prone afterwards. Just in case. Al’Hawwa went on and activated one of the antennas. Afterwards he became a marker again. EVO hacking device moved closer to my TRbot.

Round 3.
Caledonia.
The last Highlander (there can be only one!) ran towards my marker and stood near him in a smoke. Wallace raced to tech coffin but was killed by TRbot. Volunteer paramedic tried to heal Highlander grey but killed him instead. At this moment I began to seriously consider the possibility that he was actually one of the hassassins who infiltrated an enemy team. Then Highlander and a link of volunteers tried to kill my marker. Al’Hawwa dodged or saved like 4 chain rifles (I didn’t know they can do that!) but finally he went down. In the process TRbot killed a volunteer paramedic (just in case) and a volunteer.

Qapu Khalqi.
EVO hacking device buffed TRbot with marksmanship level 2. TRbot killed two last remaining volunteers. Djanbazan HMG (datatracker!) went towards tech coffin. He only paused to go to the opponents part of the table to complete my classify and then went back to secure the tech coffin. Djanbazan with shock marksman rifle turned out to be my hafza lieutenant and he went on to secure one of the antennas. My liaison officer successfully passed his WIP throw.

***

Romiras carefully held a large two handed sword in his hands. A claymore forged of teseum. A terrible weapon capable to wreak havoc in skillful hands. A symbol of power. A great trophy.