Durian Inspection Unit

"At last," thought Hsien Yue Fei, "proof that the Walruspode we encountered in the New Hypatia docks was not the last of its kind."

Durian Investigation Unit forensic biologists had pieced together the evidence carefully after the original incident. The chain of events was now well established. An Ariadnan Bearpode had fallen in an attempt to storm the blockaded freighter Agile Chipmunk, Hypatian crustaceans had swarmed on the deck, spawning in a breeding frenzy catalysed by the heat of engine fires and consuming the Bearpode carcass. In turn, local Hypatian walruses had gorged on the glut of Megalobsters, and the Ariadnan cuckoo virus had transformed at least one of them, making it balloon in size and ferocity.

Now, evidently, there was more than one of them. Some fool had captured one, brought it off world to Shinju and named it "Bubbles". Who knew how many Walruspodes were out there now, kept in the private menageries of the Sphere's secretive Megabeast collectors? It must be miserable being a Walrus on a desert planet, but these 'podes were supernaturally tough and could shrug off almost any damage, as long as they were fed enough.

He had to admit it would make a perfect guard dog, as long as you had a way to get past it.

"Regrettably, I still can't join you, we can't afford a delay," Hsien Yue transmitted to the team taking up position. "Adil has the instructions to knock out the beast, and we've located the drugs you need in a locker nearby. You have what you need to get whatever Ruby Monday is hiding."

"I'm delegating local control to Celestial Zhou," said Yue Fei. "Latency is too high for me to take direct command. This shouldn't take long, do not engage the Walruspode, just sedate it and get what we're looking for."

"Yeah, about that. I already see Kestrel Colonial Force coming up on us," whispered Major Lunah. "And they seem to have brought a giant, pin-headed goon with them. Don't worry, I've got a line on him already. He's not even wearing a helmet."

[ Mission: The Megabeast Sleeps Tonight ] [ Kestrel: JJVJ ]

[ ISS: YueFei23 ]

[Kestrel set up to go first, with Racerbots on both flank, Maximus near a Panoply containing Night Night Gun supplies to knock out the walrus. and a central Bolt and Blocker combination designed to slow enemy access to the Walruspode.]

[ISS set up with Adil and his Kuang Shi fairly well hidden on the opposite flank from Maximus. An ABH sniper projected some table control, with a Koga hacker hidden away and her decoy providing an extra threat next to Lunah's camo token.]

"Ok, that musclebound dork is advancing," said Lunah. "Augustino, shout as soon as you see him, and we'll light him up together."

Maximus stomped forward, his screen-ready hair glowing on top of his chiselled face, poking out of the top of his comedically oversized body armor. He levelled his HMG as the trap was sprung, and...

Shot down Lunah, coming through completely unharmed from the sniper fire that hit him.

"Lunah, you there?" panicked Augustino, but not for long, as a second salvo from Maximus silenced him.

A racerbot zoomed down the right flank, dropping a mine and skidding to a halt as the Koga hacker revealed itself and isolated it before it could get close enough to threaten Adil's link.

With the snipers down and a clear path to the slumbering Walruspode, Kestrel's Sacha broke cover and crept up behind the beast. She heaved on a duffle-bag full of some mysterious xenotech, almost waking the 'pode and failing to pull it loose. On her second attempt, the bag came loose... landing on the ground with a thump. The Walruspode's eyes flicked open, searching for the interloper, and the Sacha froze on the spot, afraid to move.

Maximus took this opportunity to pull a Night Night Gun from the panoply in front of him, and put the Walruspode back to sleep. A second Racerbot on the left flank ran forward and threw out two para mines just in front of the Walruspode. The Blocker fired his pitcher twice, hiding a repeater behind the Walruspode, and putting another a little closer towards the Yu Jing lines.

[Turn passed to YJ, with Kestrel having grabbed one xenotech treasure, but it wasn't yet in their extraction zone, which had been placed a little further back to make it easier to defend. ISS had placed their extraction zone right against the Walruspode, judging that boxes would drop into it if anything happened to the scoring units.]

Risking everything to prove his adoration for the State Empire, a Kuang Shi charged forwards onto the two para mines. The mines detonated, but mattered little, as DA rounds from the Bolt Sniper's rifle also hit him.

Sforza muttered a prayer and stepped out to flush out a Helot, which he expertly put down with a viral round.

Adil popped up, and fired a discoball covering the approach to the Walruspode, making the way clear for a Yu Jing dragonlord to stealthily approach it and took a couple of attempts to pull out a crate of Xenotech, landing it right into the extraction zone and waking the walruspode again. Luckily, he was already in the right place.

The Longwang vaulted up on a crate and was able to see Maximus, putting a wound on him and forcing him back into cover. The Longwang stayed up in position to guard the extraction zone.

With Maximus out of the picture and Adil's discoball blocking the path to the bolts, Sforza took on a mission to kill the scoring Sacha, killing a second Helot on the way. The Sacha died, wracked by viral rounds, and leaving the xenotech treasure on the ground. The Koga concealed itself again.

[Not a bad response for ISS turn 1, Sforza had set back the kestrel scoring effort, and we'd also been able to score and lock a box in our extraction zone.]

Maximus and the Bolt Sniper exchanged some fire with the LongWang, damaging it a little, but it held its ground well before ducking back down. Adil also took a wound and hunkered back down behind a wall.

Maximus put the Walruspode to sleep again, then the bulleteer advanced and killed Sforza with a quick burst of spitfire rounds.

With the path now clear, the minelaying Racerbot zoomed over and picked up the xenotech, parking itself in Kestrel's extraction zone.

[After two turns for Kestrel, we both had the same amount of xenotech in our extraction zones. The LongWang's heavy armor had held up well and slowed Kestrel down. With one load of xenotech left to extract, ISS could steal an advantage if they could pull it to their side of the Walruspode.]

If the Dragon Lord moved to drop the xenotech it was holding, it would wake the Walruspode again. Realising it was a critical moment, the Koga Hacker crept forward into the extraction zone, making use of her camouflage. Maximus discovered him as he dashed the final yard into repeater range, gambling his life to pull another crate of xenotech loose as Pilot-X and the Bolt Killer Hacker sent countermeasures through the repeater at him. Success, as the crate came loose and landed in the zone, and the Koga fell unconscious, smoke pouring from her hacking device. Feeling really groggy now, the Walruspode woke up again.

A Kuang Shi from Adil's team advanced far enough to take out the Bulleteer with a chain rifle, but couldn't kill the Racerbot and repeater... making it worse, the Racerbot reset itself and managed to dodge covering Adil's approach. Thwarted from covering the flank, Adil hung back out of repeater range, leaving Kuang Shi for Kestrel to deal with.

The only way for Kestrel to get more xenotech would be to pry it out of the extraction zone and the Dragon Lord's extremely burueacratic hands. The LongWang set up in suppressive fire covering the extraction zone.

[The stage was set for a gripping finale... could Kestrel take one of our xenotech tokens back in their final turn?]

The recently restored Racerbot tried an opening gambit against the LongWang, zooming around the corner and hitting it with a Riotstopper. The TAG broke suppressive fire to dodge, staying out of the glue. Fortunately additional help was at hand, as the racer had strayed inside the megabeast's reach. With an angry roar and blast of fetid halitosis, the Walruspode smashed the little remote with one of its tusks.

Maximus would have to finish off the tag himself. Pushing up the left flank, he managed to knock it out, then moved further until he could see the DragonLord and shot him. Then successfully shot the Walrus with a last dose of Night Night Juice.

With the clock running out, the Blocker ran as fast as he could past the sleeping walrus. Remembering all he'd been taught in Blocking Academy about lifting carefully from his legs, he knew he'd just have one chance to pick up one of the xenotech crates. He'd show those Yu Jing fools how good he could lift. This would be his day! Block Party!

Then, slipping on a puddle of viscous Walruspode drool, he fell on his ass, fumbling the crate completely.

[With their last order, Kestrel had one chance to pick up the crate... and missed the specialist's WIP roll. This game came down to a knife-edge; if the Koga had failed his WIP check OR the Blocker had made his, the result might well have flipped! ISS had time to investigate their Panoply on their turn. ]

[ Imperial Service 7 - Kestrel 3 ]

[ Mission: Black Box ] [ ISS: @YueFei23 ]

[Starmada: Astromechy] [ NOTE: This game was a training game, as Astromechy is a pretty new player, but we took it as a chance to be a part of the narrative campaign and try scoring in a pretty complex mission. This list is short by a few points. ]

Sun Tze posted Adil and his Kuang Shi team to recover the medical research data on the left flank, and took the right flank with Sforza, Major Lunah and a hidden Kunai, along with a Celestial Hacker to hit the data consoles there. O-12 arrived first, setting up a fireteam with kludger specialist opposite Adil and a Prime, Yellowjacket hacker and Strider opposite Sun Tze.

The Torchlight Prime moved out first, but was forced to split his hmg fire between Lunah, a surprise Kunai and Sforza's Albedo return fire. He took a couple of viral hits, but his armor's heavy Bio-Technical-Shielding kept him safe. Partially out of view behind the security office, he decided to freeze and not risk being hit again by Sforza.

The strider walked past the Prime without being discovered and found a safer spot to hide, tucked in behind the security office.

The Silverstar Rover led his fire team behind the research lab and levelled his hmg against the Kunai. A teseum round from the Kunai's T2 thunderbolt hit him in response and he fell down unconscious. The kludger doctor was distracted from his job in the research lab, and came back to provide some emergency medical assistance, getting the Rover back on his feet. With little time to plan before the ISS response, the two kludgers and the Hellraiser cautioulsy moved into the research lab, careful not to cross the Kunai's line of fire but unable to get to the console. [Turn passed to ISS, the Kunai's surprise appearance robbed Torchlight of early momentum to either objective and left the kludger fireteam over-extended inside the research lab. Sun Tze jumped into Adil's group to provide 3 extra orders.]

Sforza, reasoning that any more Viral Ammo would just bounce off the Prime, stepped forward and gummed it up with his Adhesive Launcher.

Adil jumped down and used his spitfire to kill the Waverider, the two kludgers and the Hellraiser from the research lab, taking a wound from the hellraiser's shotgun. Judging that there wasn't time to get into the Research Lab safely, Adil and the Kuang Shi advanced forward to hide around it, and waited for the security system to be bypassed.

[Most of the orders were spent in the first pool, and dealt a fairly crippling blow to the Torchlight army.]

Adil had forgotten something in his attempt to cripple the Torchlight offensive - the HMG Silverstar Rover wasn't just a gunfighter, he was also a specialist operative.

With a very efficient play, he stepped back from the research lab corner, gunning down the Kunai as he went. Realizing it was now or never, the Strider took the chance to duck into the security office, neatly disabling the security system in exchange for getting isolated and glued by the Bounty Hunter's riotstopper. As the wounded Rover ran into the lab and pulled the research data from the console, Adil and a Kuang Shi dived around the door, levelling their guns at him. Amazingly, he managed to retreat through a hail of bullets and chain rifle slugs and then jump up onto a nearby bridge where he dived prone out of sight.

[This was a pretty brilliant recovery, given the beating Torchlight had already received. They were able to pool the few remaining orders, use the Strider's NCO AND the Rover's tactical awareness orders to hit both objectives. Turn passed to ISS, who with minimal casualties and Sun Tze's leadership had a lot of orders to respond.]

Adil covered the path across the table with discoballs to stop the Prime from seeing his advance, and stealthily ran up behind the Silverstar Rover. With the superior martial arts training of the Imperial Service, he paralyzed the Rover, then decapitated him with a monofilament slice, recovering the research data.

Sforza and his bounty hunter companion advanced into the security office, trying to finish off the Strider, who dodged out of the glue that had been holding him in place.

Ignoring the Strider, the ISS hacker popped into the Security Office and dropped a data erasure routine into the console, removing all traces of the ISS mission.

[The research data was recovered and all evidence of the ISS involvement was erased. Adil was in a tough spot to reach, so torchlight only had a couple of moves in response.]

The Yellowjacket hit the console to wipe out evidence of O-12's involvement. At least this mess wouldn't make it out to the press.

Adil ran the research data all the way back to the ISS deployment zone...

Leaving Sforza to finish up with target practice on the Strider and Yellowjacket. He was really starting to enjoy his work.

[ 8-2 ISS Victory ]

"Gǒu, run the numbers on quantum anomalies for me. We barely have four LHOSTs left from Jīyuán Unlimited's last batch," Hsien Yue Fei commanded his robot companion. "These unexpected accidents must be costing them a fortune." After a brief pause, and without a word in reply, a graph appeared in Yue Fei's HUD. Summary text underneath it blinked at him:

QUANTUM ANOMALY ESTIMATED AT 0.051%

Acceptably low probabilities for Shinju, though the rightmost bar on the chart showed a small spike, probably a temporary blip.

"Ok, let's proceed. Shŏuhùlóng, we've narrowed this down to five possible intel carriers. Open a path for us." The Lóngwáng moved towards the crowd of dancing civilians, who laughed and danced away from it. An incongruously cheery cartoon durian winked from the thick plate of its four-foot-long riot shield. In a lengthy missive about "hearts and minds", public relations experts from Jīyuán Unlimited had insisted that the unit mascot would help Yu Jing citizens feel safer shopping for fruit alongside tactical armoured gear. Good relations with Yu Jing's corporate interests were a critical resource for the Durian Investigation Unit, and the ISS encouraged a level of cooperation and flexibility. Today, an executive had requested that the Lóngwáng attend his son's birthday party, and Hsien Yue had humoured the request. At least it was back in the field now.

[ Mission: Raid the Kazureibu ] [ ISS: @YueFei23 ]

[ Kestrel: @JJVJ ]

[ ISS units fanned out to take first turn in a fairly disciplined deployment, with a Wu Ming covering the crowd from a rooftop and the TAG preparing to sweep forward. Miranda and a Koga minelayer set a perimeter around Hsien Yue. Four areas of "disco lights" obscured LoF in key areas.]

[ISS gets first turn. Two civilians on the right flank are designated Intel Carriers with the Bouncing Intel rule.]

"Enemy Jackal sighted. Engaging!" reported the Lóngwáng pilot, as she advanced the TAG to the corner of a central building. Instead of the expected HMG fire, a series of whooshing noises came from the TAG, followed by an explosion.

"Damage received. TAG still operational." Reported the pilot. "We, uh, still had a t-shirt launcher selected as our main armament. Enemy panzerfaust hit us, but minimal damage sustained."

Incredulously shaking her head behind the scope of her Rocket Launcher, Wu Ming #23 could see the Jackal's position behind a barricade covered in several bright white t-shirts, each emblazoned with a winking DIU mascot. [ The Jackal crit his first shots of the game, putting a wound on the Long Wang ]

"Unacceptable. Re-engage immediately!"

Another salvo of whooshing noises indicated an unsuccessful attempt to change weapons. The Jackal was unhurt by a direct merchandise hit and ducked down, cradling an empty Panzerfaust.

"In case I wasn't clear, use lethal ammunition. Please engage the Black Air, then proceed to scan the designated Intel Carriers."

With a show of careful competence, the Lóngwáng placed her Shàngdiào Ancillary on the ground, double checked her HMG, and shot the Black Air unconscious.

The Shàngdiào happily ran through a cloud of sparkling glitter towards the first civilian. As it broke cover to contact the first Intel Carrier a Yamabushi revealed itself and ignored the TAG to shoot a Panzerfaust at the ancillary.

With her ability to scan any intel carriers removed on the right flank, the Lóngwáng shot the Yamabushi, then took up a position to guard the nearest intel carrier inside an impenetrable cloud of glitter. The Zhanying shot out a pitcher to block the Hetkari's advance. [ Turn was passed to Kestrel. Without any obvious cc threat on the flank, I'd hoped that the TAG would be safe in eclipse smoke. I'd knocked out a few key models, but failed to score. The Yamabushi made the right call, if he'd shot the Lóngwáng and died, I'd have walked through the eclipse smoke and scanned 2 intel carriers.]

Unfortunately the camo token closest to the Lóngwáng turned out to be DART, and she'd brought E/M grenades to the party. She hucked two of them over the crate into the eclipse cloud, immobilising the TAG.

The scary surprises weren't over. A beast hunter jumped down towards Miranda, triggering an E/M mine on its way.

Fortunately, this wasn't Miranda's first time getting singled out for attention at a rave, and she shot the Beasthunter with her combi rifle, knocking him unconscious without missing a beat.

The beast hunter's tripping of the mine cleared the way for the Redeye to commence an attack run, and it started by peppering Wu Ming #23, who took a wound and was forced to duck down and hide. This freed up Dart to scan the two intel carriers on the right flank.

The Redeye buzzed down the right flank, determined to knock out Miranda and push as far as it could. Fortunately, it over-extended itself trying to see her outside cover and had to split fire against an Shenji's thunderbolt , Miranda's E/Mitter and a Koga, who immobilised it with his E/M carbine. Miranda was knocked unconscious.

Braving the dangerous battlefield in little more than a bikini, a Tech Bee tried to run forward and fire her gizmokit at the Redeye, but the long range shot was too far for her.

[Brilliant, thought Hsien Yu, at least I have the visor I need to shoot down that damn Redeye. And the eclipse zone shifted on top of it. Kestrel scored 3 points in the first turn. The Intel Carriers shifted to the central and left near flank for ISS turn 2.]

The Koga scanned the leftmost Intel Carrier, and a Ninja appeared in the center to scan another. Wu Ming #23 stood up, and incinerated the Tech Bee with heavy rocket fire, also forcing the Hetkari to duck back into cover.

The Shenji engineer ran from left to right flank, hoping to reboot the bricked Lóngwáng. The reboot attempt failed, and the TAG failed its reset attempts.

[ With two NCO orders, tac awareness and an irregular ready to spend on the tag it seemed worth the gamble to recover it, but with hindsight there might've been a better way to spend those orders. Annoyingly the immoblizied but invulnerable Redeye blocked me from scoring the Intel Carrier on my flank. The Ninja was set up to score in the center, but out of camo at the start of Kestrel turn 2.]

Dart emerged from a cloud of glitter and shot down the Ninja with her smg, securing and scanning the central objective.

A Banshee hacker walked in on the ISS left flank, trying to pulzar Hsien Yue, who deployed his own nanopulsar in retaliation, knocking it down.

The Hetkari shot Wu Ming #23 unconscious.

The Jackal, cheekily wearing a brand new DIU t-shirt, stood up behind his barricade with a reloaded panzerfaust.

[ Turn passed for the final ISS turn, with the last intel carrier guarded by 12 points of Jackal. Kestrel had an immobilized Redeye, and basically only the Hetkari and Dart left to attack with, so this looked reasonably straightforward.]

The Shenji showed off Yu Jing's superior engineering ability on her second attempt, successfully rebooting the Lóngwáng.

Hsien Yue Fei strode forward, firing twice into the Redeye and destroying it. Just as well, as it flickered into life with a successful reset as the last salvo took it out.

The Koga ran forward and secured the last packet of intel, looking around for a safe place to hide. Now to secure it, we would have to get the TAG or Yue Fei himself, past the jackals.

The Lóngwáng vaulted onto a central building, lined up for a salvo at the Jackal, and was hit head-on by a panzerfaust shot.

"Sir, a second Panzerfaust from the same jackal hit us. Systems damaged, request orders. That E/M chucker is here somewhere too."

[ Dart was in the way, and that damn Jackal had crit the TAG a second time! Realising I had just two orders to get something into the zone of the last intel carrier, it was time to shift focus. The Hsien had to do it himself.]

"Stand overwatch, I'll do this myself," said the Hsien, striding towards the objective.

QUANTUM ANOMALY DETECTED. PROBABILITY 98%

"Quiet Gǒu, I have this under control."

His armour resplendent, and with perfect targeting telemetry and aim, he sent a fusillade of deadly shots [11,12,13] towards the Jackal. Who hit him square in the chest with his last panzerfaust shell [14, crit!].

[ On his fourth salvo of the game, the Jackal landed his third crit. Not bad for a 6-point model! With the hsien gone, the Koga climbed and hid with the last order. ]

Dart ran past the smoking remains of the DIU commander without being discovered by the Lóngwáng, scanned the intel carrier and unloaded her smg into the Koga.

Prologue

"DIU command, this is Codename Pípíxiā. My infiltration route through the Tohaa settlement is stalled. I'm pinned down between two sentry guns and taking heavy fire from a mimetic sniper wearing a porkpie hat. Requesting urgent assistance!"

"Pípíxiā, this is Hsien Yue Fei. We have a plan to get you moving and we're on our way to you. Let's go!"

The Durian Investigation Unit has been infiltrating undercover resources onto 1777 Du-ε. One of the infiltrating agents has blundered into a Tohaa sentry position and needs fire support, but a shadowy individual has chosen to exploit the situation to plan an ambush and counter-infiltrate their own agent. The identity of the mimetic sniper turns out to be all too familiar.

Overview

This is a game against my long-time narrative campaign opponent Obadiah, who has played as noir cube detective Jager Nadim in Wotan, Asteroid Blues, Durgama and Shattergrounds.

Mission: Blockade Runner

Forces: ISS (YueFei23) versus Tohaa (Nehemiah) (300 vs 340 w/ BAMS reinforcements)

Deploy First: Tohaa

First Turn: ISS

ISS List in Army

This is a fairly straightforward list, with three 3-man fireteams. The Deva, Taowu and Celestial guard make up one really fun little team that carries an MSV spitfire, smoke grenade launcher and template/viral surprises. Taowu disguised himself as Adil Mehmut. Hsien Yue Fei had a choice of a bounty hunter sniper, CSU and Xi Zhuang to link, depending if he wanted to defend or attack. The Dakini and pheasant offered chain of command in case the Hsien went down and some solid firepower.

Tohaa List in Army

We decided to play all the BAMS extras, and Nehemiah made the unconventional (to me) choice of playing a Tohaa 340pts reinforcements list against my 300 points of ISS. This would leave me with an early lead trying to steal the central console, but a dangerous counterpunch to deal with later in the game. To toughen up his main group he included a couple of Kaeltars with Symbiobombs and Symbiomates.

Deployment

Nehemiah chose deployment and I set up to go first with my Dakini set up on the left flank and Hsien Yue Fei on the right flank. Both flanks had some madtraps (foreshadowing!) and the ninja hid in the middle to score the console. The Deva team set up in the center to be able to put smoke where it's needed, attack and score centrally and hopefully alpha strike something juicy.

Nehemiah counter-deployed the Dakini link with LeMuet, buffed for surviveability with a Symbiomate and a Kamael Paramedic in case he went down. The Dakini don't have visors and LeMuet ignores their mimitism, so the risk of engaging him directly with would be too high. A libertos guarded the central avenue with a mine covering the console and a hidden clipsos. On his right flank, a team with an MSV spitfire Gao Rael, Sukeul and Makaul threatened an attack run. On his left, a Kerail Preceptor was primed to run down the flank and pick up his HVT. After reviewing what was on the table, I also learnt about the nasty surprise that would land on me mid-game - a Draal, Igao and some nasty template slinging buddies.

Turn 1

"Le Muet, is that you in the hat? Stand down! This is Hsien Yue and the DIU. We can place you under retainer again if you cooperate with us." "Hrh, No! Lou says he'll give me a record contract if I work for him again. Everyone will hear my songs. You can ���� off!" <Several DA rounds slam into the wall by Agent Pípíxiā>

"Get me out of here, I felt that last one!"

Top of 1 - ISS

Xi Zhuang and the Pheasant Agent deploy madtraps into the midfield, breaking and reforming the Dakini link to avoid fire from Le Muet. A TO camo token shuffles carefully around the obvious mine in the midfield. The defensive turrets spin around to discover it, activating the madtraps and glueing themselves out of the game.

Hsien Yue Fei discovers an antipersonel mine laid by a Libertos. The Deva shoots it away as her haris team takes a path to the right of the central church building, into a smoke cloud prepared by Celestial Monitor Zhou.

"Le Muet engaged, his Symbiomate is dead at least."

The Deva team shoots Le Muet from inside the smoke, though he's saved from real damage by throwing his Symbiomate under the bus. Getting rather ambitious, "Adil" moves outside the smoke cloud to prepare to threaten the Kerail Preceptor. Disturbed by the nearby gunfire, a Kaeltar Specialist pops up and aims a boarding shotgun at him. As the Deva is still visible to Le Muet, this locks the fireteam in an annoying position.

Adil breaks out of the fireteam and dodges to get back in the smoke, revealing that he is Taowu... which triggers a Symbiobomb attack from the Kerail. [ A cunning dodge-reset fork! Agh! Taowu is put dogged and somehow the Kaeltar manages to dodge prone again. The Deva shoots LeMuet unconscious, leaving herself and Celestial Zhou in a very exposed position as the orders for the group run out.

Hsien Yue's Haris reforms to include the Bounty Hunter Sniper. The Pheasant's Dakini team also reforms and gains assisted fire on the sniper from the EVO Pangguling.

A Ninja dodges out of camo to score the central console.

Bottom of 1 - Tohaa

Annoyingly, Le Muet is successfully revived by the Kamael Paramedic.

The Gao Rael & Makaul team advances towards midfield to shoot at the Ninja. The Ninja manages to survive, dodging and using the console to block incoming fire from the triad.

There's nowhere good to hide though and the Liberto manages to lay a mine and kill the Ninja with his shotgun.

The Surda, Libertos and Kerail surround the Deva and Celestial Guard. Moving through the building the Libertos is sent dogged by a shot from Celestial Zhou but knocks her unconscious in return. As there aren't many orders left, the Deva manages to survive the Surda's pulzar by failing guts into contact with the dogged libertos, judging that it's less likely to kill her than incoming shooting from the Kerail.

A Clipsos reveals itself by the central console and kills the Bounty Hunter Sniper with a surprise shot from a combi rifle.

Turn 1 ends with a tie, we each scored 1 point on the central console.

Turn 2

Top of 2 - ISS

Shuffling around a little on top of his perch, the Dakini Multi Sniper guns down the Gao Rael.

Reforming his fireteam with Xi Zhuang, Hsien Yue Fei takes the table center, ignoring the mimetism on the Clipsos and the Sukeul Commando and removing them from the game.

In a textbook bit of police work, the Deva shoots the Kerail's Surda and moves back to the table center, successfully convincing Agent Pípíxiā to follow her.

Hsien Yue Fei, Xi Zhuang and the CSU drop a madtrap and take up a position around the central console, worried about comms chatter they're receiving about incoming reinforcements.

ISS score a second point on the central console, though Nehemiah's reinforcements team is about to drop.

Bottom of 2 - Tohaa

Silently appearing from tunnels and rappelling down from holes in the cavern ceiling, a second group of Tohaa appear around Yue Fei and his team in the midfield, attacking as soon as they appear.

A Kauri midget starts by firing tiny nanopulsers at Yue Fei, Xi Zhuang and the CSU, immediately getting covered in a gluey hug from the madtrap. Yue Fei dodges gracefully and drops prone [as key ops he dodges on 17s ] but Xi and the CSU are knocked out by buzzing nanobees.

"Ahaha, it is I! Artichoke Lou! At last, I step out of the shadows of the food service industry to claim my rightful place as the saviour of the Tohaa race!"

Laughing maniacally, Artichoke Lou, Draal Saboteur plants a dazer on the roof of the central building.

The movement on the roof tips the Deva off that an Igao is creeping up on her and she rounds the corner to stare it down.

The Igao charges into combat and the Deva just has time to fire off he nanopulser before getting sliced in half. The Igao is incapacitated by prickly nanobots.

As her rescuer goes unconscious and a nanobot field slows her movements to a crawl, Agent Pípíxiā starts to wonder if she's going to get out of there alive.

Utilizing what remains of the orders in the first group, the Kerail Preceptor runs down a flank and shepherds a strangely familiar-looking CSU towards the ISS deployment zone.

Lou climbs down from the building and spends a couple of orders shooting at Hsien Yue Fei, who takes a wound, but makes impressive use of his Key Ops bonuses and dodges onto the central console. The Kerail makes a dash forwards shooting down a Kuang Shi on the right flank and Yue Fei hits it with a Multi Marksman shot, but only succeeds in killing another Symbiomate.

ISS score a third point here, with the Key Ops on the console.

Turn 3

Top of 3 - ISS

The situation is dire, with a wounded Hsien surrounded by Draal and Kosuil. Yue Fei in a position to score a classified and rescue Agent Pipixia, but if he moves off the central console or dies he also gives away that fourth point. Doing nothing would be the smart choice.

First, a Kuang Shi tries to run up and deal with Lou, but he misses and is flash-pulsed by a Kaeltar. Pheasant Wang advances his Dakini team on the left flank and gets a bead on Lou outside cover with the Dakini hmg. Unfortunately, Draal are excellent at dodging and Lou avoids all the shots, zipping into cover out of LoF of the Dakini. The Kaurii triumphantly shakes itself free of madtrap glue and is promptly executed by fire from the Dakini. At this point, Hsien Yue Fei places glory before prudence and tries to shoot the Draal himself. He fails to wound Lou and goes unconscious to a shot from the Kosuil's boarding shotgun, forfeiting the last point for holding the console.

Bottom of 3 - Tohaa

A Makaul pops out of the coffee shop on the left flank and burns both Dakini Tacbots with his flamethrower. Revealing admirable presence of mind Pheasant Wang neatly puts a boarding shotgun round between the Makaul's eyes.

The Kosuil does something incredibly vigilant near the table center.

Adding insult to injury, the wretched Draal Saboteur runs to the downed Hsien and attempts to steal his cube. Not so fast, Artichoke Lou!

Pheasant Wang levels his shotgun a second time and puts a single critical shot into Artichoke Lou, knocking him out. Tinbot Gǒu makes Hsien Yue Fei's cube secure and the ISS perform a tactical withdrawal before anything else can go wrong. For a second, Pheasant Wang is confused that one of the Corporate Security Contractors appears to be wearing a new fabric pattern on her miniskirt, but assumes it must be some kind of mimetic color shifting fabric and congratulates her on her survival.

Tohaa secure the HVT, pick up the Vigilance Classified, held the console in turn 1 and pick up 4 points for getting their HVT to my DZ. 7 OP to my 3.

Tohaa wins!

Tohaa 7 OP, 113 VP remaining - ISS 3 OP, 47 VP remaining

Post Game Analysis

It will take me a few games before I figure out an effective way to defend against a reinforcements counterattack with ISS. I regret not sending a lone CSU to take the central console in turn 2, which perhaps could have kept Hsien Yue Fei relatively save for turn 3. My poor strategy aside, if the Dakini or Kuang Shi had been able to tie down or shoot Artichoke Lou on turn 3, I might still have been in a good spot to tie or win this game. Hsien Yue Fei was in a position to take me to 7 OP, which all went south when he got hit by the Kosuil. Rather than infiltrating Agent Pípíxiā into Dewey, she was left staggering around in a Dazer field. Meanwhile, the Tohaa managed to counter infiltrate a totally not suspicious CSU into the DIU. I hope that doesn't cause any trouble.

Epilogue

"Hsien Yue, please accept this delivery, with compliments from your friends at the Jīyuán Unlimited corporation. Further instructions will be given once your installation and pairing process is complete," said the recorded voice of the Deva, her disembodied head and shoulders hovering superimposed over his view of a military baggage remote hauling a large crate into his quarters. The package was obviously heavy, as the Pangguling's suspension jumped up a couple of inches when it dropped to the floor. Like a stag beetle on roller skates, the chunky Yáopú remote popped onto a set of wheels and rolled off quickly down the hallway, no doubt on the way to another errand.

As Yue Fei approached closer, his Geist quickly stepped through a multi-phase cryptographic signature exchange and made a tasteful victory chirp. A seam along the centre of the crate cracked open and the heavy, plastic sides opened like a butterfly to reveal a compact, wedge-headed remote with short quadrupedal legs folded underneath a stocky, armoured body. The armour panelling on the remote's exterior matched the uniform colours of his unit, but also sported a couple of non-standard markings - badges belonging to the Yue Minerals and Jīyuán Unlimited corporations.

"Pairing process initiated," said the Deva's voice, cuing him in on the laundry list of further checks scrolling down his HUD as the remote unfolded all four legs at once and stood up, looking a little like a pit bull with it's head stuck inside a yellow shoe box.

"To complete the pairing process, please choose a name for your new remote," requested the voice.

"Gǒu", said Yue Fei without thinking too hard, unsure if naming robot dogs was a valuable way to spend his time.

"Congratulations Hsien Yue, on receipt of your new stochastic monitoring remote,"  said the Deva, appearing once more over his vision. "Your enthusiastic sponsors at Yue Minerals and Jīyuán Unlimited are happy to provide this cutting edge mining remote chassis to facilitate your return to active service. In addition to an up-to-date suite of Tinbot firewall software, your remote has been fitted with extensive tools to aid in produce inspection and contraband tracking. Most importantly, Aleph has added a set of bespoke monitoring algorithms to check that your activity does not continue to adversely interact with the Quantum Anomaly on Concilium."

"With this monitoring system in place to warn of adverse Quantum Entanglement scenarios, you have been cleared to lead an investigative task force to a cluster of planetoids in the Human Edge. There, you are to establish a staging area for Yu Jing forces on inhabited planetoid HuEOS 289 and use it to map and infiltrate a suspected mercenary base on planetoid 1777 Du-ε."

玉京帝国榴莲服务调查组 YU JING IMPERIAL SERVICE DURIAN INVESTIGATION UNIT My esteemed Yu Jing commanders, this is Hsien Yue Fei, Commander of the Durian Investigation Unit. Once more, I must ask you for your help.

Confused allies and new recruits sometimes ask why the Emperor of Yu Jing would place a Hsien Warrior of the ISS, one of his famed Immortals, in charge of a mundane task like fruit inspection. For those of you unfamiliar with our work, the origin of my unit is simple. The Emperor and his storied family have always enjoyed Durian, regarding it as the emperor of fruits. Of course, it would be a relatively easy matter to cultivate and provide this specialty food for the Emperor's table. What other nations don't understand, is that Yu Jing is a benevolent and egalitarian society. Our Emperor decreed that all our citizens, no matter how far-flung across the galaxy, should all have access to the same treat that he loved. This necessitated a huge, interplanetary agricultural project, with containers of the finest grade Durian frozen and continuously in transit through circulars and shipping lanes to every corner of our population. This is the reality of Yu Jing, misunderstood by other nations, our people come first and we provide for them all.

With this vast, interplanetary Durian trade, came opportunities for the smuggling of contraband. We've found Shasvastii seed embryos, contraband Xenotechnology, terrorist bio-weapons, and invasive alien species, all of it masked inside refrigerated Durian containers. Nations with less refined sensibilities often regarded the smell of spoiled Durian with some distaste and overlooked these serious threats to humanity traveling through their ports. Thus it was necessary for the Emperor to appoint a special unit of the Imperial Service, skilled in rooting out criminal smuggling conspiracies and unmasking impersonators. My Durian Inspectors have taken a leading role in defending the people of Yu Jing at many of the recent crisis flashpoints - most recently at Novyy Bangkok, Durgama, and New Hypatia.

Reckless figures want to make a scapegoat of the entire Tohaa race. It is with some disgust that we witness Ariadnan commanders rounding up Tohaa civilians into internment camps as if their women and children were all complicit in the destruction of Concilium Prima. As always, when callow politicians persecute scapegoats, their loose words are turned into violence by their lapdogs and used to distract from their own incompetence and lack of initiative. The O-12 and Pan Oceania's government desperately wants to use these scapegoats as a distraction from their own failures.

The events of the Concilium Debacle go deeper than that and we have brought our unique set of skills to bear, unraveling the schemes of the Taagma and unmasking a network of Greif operators like the one pictured above. Tracking down the Spiral Corps is the real task for us, along with the fools or spies in Concilium Coordinated Command who hired them to secure the very thing they wanted to attack. Even now Pan Oceanian generals talk about "holding Cameliard" during the Durgama crisis, when we all know that Yu Jing secured it against a Combined Army attack in the face of Pan Oceanian incompetence and would never have been foolish enough to put double agents in a position to attack it.

The newly founded Yu Jing Concilium Security Crisis Committee, of which I am a member, now needs you to provide all available military resources to protect our people as we evacuate them from the Quantum Anomaly Zones. I will release further information soon, proving another Spiral Corps plot to attack the Master Clock in Huaqiao. If this clock falls, it will disrupt interplanetary travel for all nations attempting to save their people on Concilium. We are going to come under immediate attack from the Spiral Corps and their allies, and the cost if we fail will be terrible.

Hsien Yue Fei Durian Investigation UnitImperial Service

Knock... Knock... Knock! 

The sound of polite, yet assertive, knocking rang on the door of cargo container.

"Hsein Yue, this is Candy Double and you're live on Mayacast! Please can you tell our viewers why our informants tell us you've been hiding out with a Wu Ming squad in a Durian shipment in New Hypatia Dock #619 for the last two weeks while the crisis of Brutus's blockade continues to roil New Hypatia."

The heavy door of the container creaked open and the incandescent eyes of a Hsien's multispectral visor glowered out through the door.

"Miss Double, you are jeopardising our operational security and placing yourself in considerable personal liability by broadcasting our location. I must ask you to cease broadcasting and leave the area immediately."

Candy Double dramatically rearranged her long, blonde hair, thrust a comically oversized, pink microphone at the Hsien's face and turned to give her speech to a hovering camera remote.

"Don't worry, I'm accompanied by my personal security detail, the Candy Corps! There's nothing on this dock that could possibly put a dent in our Maghariba Guard! We've even contracted Oktavia Grímsdóttir to keep an eye on the local Walruses, and she's told us that they all look like totally boring, mundane, marine mammals. Now, it's obvious that you're using ridiculous Walruspode disinformation to conceal some murky, repressive, Yu Jing secret agenda! Please could you tell our viewers all about it?"

As she finished her speech, she noticed that the Hsien seemed to be staring past her into the distance and ignoring her. She could just hear the muffled reply he made into his helmet mic.

"Message received. All squads, take your positions and proceed as planned. If the Candy Corps jeopardize our mission, you have full license to take appropriate punitive measures."

He turned to look at her. Ignoring a loud splashing noise behind her, she looked straight back to confront him for the camera. She refused to be intimidated by the Imperial Service and this should play well for the audience at home.

"Miss Double. Your lack of belief in the critical importance of my unit's mission to safeguard Yu Jing fruit supplies is extremely misguided. If you need to see things with your own eyes to believe them, I suggest you look behind you. Then run. Leave us to handle this."

As she span around, a gargantuan, flippered animal as tall as a two-story building erupted from the water of the docks, waving cruelly hooked tusks in the air. It turned to look right at them and let out a deafening roar. The Walruspode was here.

[ Mission: Hungry, Hungry Walruspode ] [ Theatre: Dock #619 ] [ ISS: YueFei23 ]

[ HAQ: Camerones ]

[ ISS won the initiative roll and opted to go first, planning to put damage into the walrus as soon as possible. A Wu Ming core link deployed on the left flank, where they were later joined by an Impersonation Marker. A Celestial Guard monitor deployed centrally, with Hsien Yue Fei himself as Walrus Hunter in a haris with a Zhanying and Crane on the right flank. ]

[ Haq counter deployed, naming Oktavia Grímsdóttir as Walrus Hunter, a Maghariba Guard in the backfield and the Nazarova twins ready to zip down both flanks.]

[ Initially the walruspode started in the table center. It projects a huge 16″ ZoC and has Guard, which forced a lot of the deployed units towards the table corners. While it has no active turn, it can dodge 2″ and fail guts ... which gives it some options for taking cover and moving towards units attacking it. ]

Wasting no time, the Celestial Guard Monitor put some smoke down to cover Hsien Yue Fei. He tested the explosive “walrus hunter” rounds in his HMG by deleting the Candy Corps Total Reaction remote, then fired a sustained fusillade into the Walruspode. As he did this, Crane Wang crept behind a billboard to secure the closest battlefield territory. [ Hsien Yue Fei had some bad luck with his first roll against the Walruspode and it was able to make two dodges and a guts move forward into cover, where it threatened Major Lunah and the Sophotect with it’s huge ZoC. After about 5 orders, the Walruspode took 6 wounds, enough to safely secure 2 OP. ]

The Wu Ming on the left flank had been biding their time on the Walruspode stakeout by playing cards with a local dock worker, who had introduced himself as Bob.

Following the notification of Candy Corps meddling, Wu Ming #27 turned, and gave Bob a very long stare. Something didn’t seem quite right... #27 decided Bob had been winning more than his fair share of hands, which was more than enough justification to fire a full burst of multirifle fire at him. Bob threw off his cunning disguise and revealed himself as Hussain Al-Djabel by hitting #27 and #38, the squad’s Heavy Rocket Launcher, with some kind of nerve gas shotgun blast.

Salt water must’ve got into #27′s multirifle magazine, because none of the rounds penetrated Al-Djabel’s armor. The Fiday had been taking proper care of his ammo, and it killed #27 outright and knocked #38 unconscious. [ The dice were crazy here, Al-Djabel was hit 3 shock rounds, including a crit... but made his four armor saves. The Wu Ming failed five saves in a row! OUCH! ] #12 decided he was in too close to use his HMG, and pulled a pistol on Al-Djabel, but wasn’t able to shoot him down.

Despite the Walruspode breathing down her neck, Major Lunah bravely moved her position forward to see Zamira’s bike. Luckily the Walruspode dodged, freeing her to gun down the criminal biker.

The Hsien dropped prone to avoid possible incoming fire from the Maghariba Guard and used the opportunity to send a salvo into the Kameel, blasting it apart. [ ISS made solid progress by wounding the walruspode and stripped two enemy orders and a warband, but losing two Wu Ming to Al-Djabel was a bit of an unwelcome surprise. ]

Though badly wounded, the Walruspode turned and roared as the Candy Corps Beast Hunter fired his Panzerfausts into it’s rear, without wounding it. Oktavia shot a couple of missiles at the Walrus, then the Maghariba Guard moved up and put a wound on it. Between the various missiles and heavy shells, it somehow managed to dodge forwards and threaten to gore the Maghariba. An Ayyar also ran out and tried to hurt the Walruspode, which turned and gulped down one of his holo-echoes. The Ayyar laughed and opened fire, but it turned out his breaker rifle couldn’t hurt the beast at all.

[ Once the Maghariba was in the Walruspode’s ZoC, it became very risky to move the TAG... so Oktavia just had to do her job and try to bring it down. ]

With the Maghariba locked down, Oktavia reloaded her Harpoon Launcher, looked the Walruspode in the eye, and fired until she brought it down. If she properly files her claim to the New Hypatia DIU Field Office, she is eligible for a sizable cash reward as well as getting her ammo expenses paid in full.

[ Haq’s last order of the turn went into knocking the Walruspode Unconscious. The Maghariba didn’t have a chance to reposition, which left it in a pretty tricky spot. ]

Not taking any chances, the leader of the Durian Inspection Unit immediately put a salvo into the Walruspode, making sure it was quite, quite dead. [Though we left the model on the table, for dramatic purposes, at this point we ruled that it stopped blocking LoF. At the end of Turn 1, both sides held two table quarters each, scoring no OP for table domination.]

Major Lunah could now clearly see the Maghariba Guard, where it had been locked down outside cover by the Walruspode’s threat. She put several viral sniper rounds through the pilot’s compartment, rendering it just as dead as the Walruspode.

With some careful maneuvring, Wu Ming Forward Observer #42 managed to pop up with his boarding shotgun up and get revenge on Al-Djabel, making sure to relieve his corpse of surplus card game winnings.

A Garuda dropped in on the right flank and shot Zuleyka Nazarova dead. Good police work has to carry on, even during crisis operations, and it’s a solid accomplishment to take both the criminal Nazarova twins off the street at last. [ Turn 2 ended well for ISS, removing the Maggie, Al-Djabel and Zuleyka removed the most immediate threats and we still solidly held the table with Major Lunah projecting a good ARO threat and a Garuda threatening the right flank.]

Haq responded with a moderately cunning move by the Ayyar, who holo-echoed up and moved to surprise shot Major Lunah with a custom-painted Panzerfaust. Major Lunah correctly guessed which holo-echo was the Ayyar and sent a viral shot at it, though neither shot hit home. The Ayyar decided to re-holo and take a second shot, this time Lunah dodged... and got hit by a panzerfaust shot, killing her outright. [ I admit, I’m rusty playing against holo-echoes and missed my chance to delay my ARO. Ooops! ]

The removal of Major Lunah’s cross table fire lane unlocked a route for Fiddler to zoom forward. She advanced and sent her two jackbots climbing up the right flank where they could shotgun two of the Wu Ming team. Both Wu Ming took a single wound, but failed to kill the Jackbots... leaving them covering the link with vulkan shotguns.

[Haq turn 2 ended with both sides holding two table quarters again, though fiddler’s jackbots were a menace and would need to be removed.]

Hsien Yue Fei popped up and removed one of the Jackbots with a cross table shot. This let the Sophotect use a Yudbot to heal #38 with her Heavy Rocket Launcher, the perfect tool to take out the holo-echoed Ayyar. The somewhat tipsy beast hunter managed to stagger out of the inferno unwounded, though #38 was not quite careful enough to avoid an ARO from the remaining jackbot, which knocked her unconscious again.

Helpfully, the Yudbot zipped up again to help, but this time the Sophotect couldn’t revive #38, muttering something about a missing cube. Wu Ming #88 gave his Tinbot a rough kick in frustration, then shotgunned the last Jackbot, wishing he’d thought to do that before #38 stuck her head out. The Garuda had plans to move forward and shoot a Rafiq, but strayed inside range of an Al Hawwa hacker and got isolated.

Hsien Yue Fei and his haris advanced into the quarter in front of them, carefully gunning down the beast hunter. 

The Chaiyi Yaokong ran forward and dodged to place it’s repeater in range of the Al Hawwa. Crane Wang attempted, unsuccesfully, to isolate it and positioned himself to defend approaches to the Hsien.

While this was going on, Hsien Yue Fei had time to find a safe spot behind a billboard, where he had time to meditate on the rich diaspora of business activities in Dock #619.

[ ISS turn 3 ended with a couple more enemy units dispatched at the cost of some or our own. They still had strong dominance over the closest table quarters but had failed to press forwards into the enemy table half.]

The Asawira finally jumped into the game. Pushing towards the ISS it engaged Crane Wang, gunning him down. Then it cruelly demolished the Chaiyi Yaokong. Despite some formidable firepower, one Asawira couldn’t dominate the table on it’s own and the DIU negotiated a ceasefire. Hsien Yue Fei granted Candy Double an exclusive after-action interview, attempting to repair diplomatic relations with Haqqislam before word got out about this unfortunate friendly fire incident.

[ Final result: ISS 3 - 1 Haq. ]

“So Hsien Yue, it seems like Oktavia Grímsdóttir single-handedly killed the Walruspode and saved New Hypatia’s shipping from a voracious new predator.”

“Miss Double, having witnessed the real threat of the Walruspode, I don’t doubt you will now faithfully relate the tireless hours our Yu Jing forces have put in securing Dock #619 to track down this dangerous beast.  In fact, while we politely thank you for your help, I think we could have managed quite well without the distraction of your Candy Corps. As a responsible journalist I’m sure you’ll share your footage of my Heavy Machine Gun fire hitting the Walruspode.”

“That all sounds very exciting! Let’s go to Oktavia to hear what the Human Sphere’s premier Harpooner has to say about her career crowning victory...” “Vill einhver ykkar vinsamlegast borga mér? Ég er orðinn leiður á bullinu þínu.”

Epilogue...

The DIU has no record of an operation on the O-12 Battleship Halmeoni. Any photographic records purported to show such an incident are the product of generative AI and certainly fake. [ A 150 pt game of Highly Classified was played against Steel Phalanx player @talkkno. We used the Red Classified Deck in practice for the Rose City Raid]

A Dao Fei certainly did not get caught in the open and get shot by a hoplite.

A Shaolin definitely did not lose in close combat to a Thorakite. The chances of such an unlikely event are rated at only 5.1% by our statistical models. Far more likely that this event did not take place.

A Cube Jager paramedic certainly wouldn’t attempt to use a medikit on an unconscious Shaolin. Why would he need to do so? This simply did not take place.

The usage of units described as “Kuang Shi” is absolutely and categorically denied by the Durian Inspection Unit. Pay no attention to these units. They certainly would not be used to attempt, even unsuccessfully, to achieve any kind of classified objective.

As the Azure Dragon circled the deck of the Ariadnan mega-freighter, roiling smoke clouds revealed that someone had deliberately re-ignited the engine fires that had been carefully extinguished on the Durian Inspector’s last visit to the Agile Chipmunk. Even the Pan Oceanian forces had seemed to want the fires out, so it seemed some other crisis actor must want to reverse our work, fanning the flames and pushing the fecund Hypatian Megalobsters back into a breeding frenzy. The optical system’s of Yue Fei’s visor let him scan for clues amongst the cargo strewn across the deck, even through the thick smoke clouds. Adult lobsters were still present in their hundreds and fresh smears of white eggs were plastered near the engine fires, continuing to hatch small, slimy, lobster larvae in the heat.

They weren’t the only local fauna in evidence, two blubbery Hypatian Walruses had managed to get onto the ship and were greedily gulping down lobsters, larvae and clumps of eggs as fast as they could. Despite the huge amounts the walruses could eat, it looked like there were now so many lobsters it would hardly made a difference.

Where the young lobsters could find food they were already growing fast. The side of a shipping container marked with a cartoon hamburger had been torn open somehow and the floor inside was a writhing mass of orange shells, claws and legs amongst empty food packaging.

Elsewhere on the deck, what appeared to be the skeleton of a huge bear had been picked completely clean. Dirty white bones propped up a few armor plates, twitching creepily as two adolescent lobsters almost a foot long tried to untangle themselves from shreds of bloodied camo fatigues. The Ariadnans had been here, for sure, but crazy as they were they wouldn’t want to destroy their own ship. Then, as he scanned over to the far side of the huge ship, he spotted something. The giant, hulking silhouette of an old model Maghariba Guard TAG was jutting out behind a tower. Strange — Haqqislam command had assured him they wouldn’t be anywhere near Dock #619. A couple of Brawler lookouts on a nearby building provided the answer: these were mercenaries. Dahshat Company most likely, and almost certainly one of the groups on Brutus’s payroll. If anyone was going to start fires and profit from the chaos rather than put them out, it was these guys.

Dahshat brought some very heavy armament with formidable visor-equipped shooting power in the form of the Brawler link and Rui Shi. Fiddler looked more than capable of zooming into the midfield and causing trouble with the engines. The tendency for retired Invincible Army units to freelance as mercenaries is disturbing, though it is official policy of the ISS to always track down and cancel their military pensions if they’re caught fighting against us. Bad news for this Hulang, almost certainly.

Invincible Army liason Daoying Li handled a quick debarkation of the Yu Jing forces onto the ship. Crossing the Agile Chipmunk and getting through the smoke to the fires had proved that sniper rifles and multispectral visors were a winning combination, so every mercenary sniper in the DIU’s books had been packed into this task force.

The DIU’s new Su Jian was sent to escort Krit and keep walruses off his back as he put out the fires. Le Muet and Knauf staked out a building on the right flank with some long firelanes across the battlefield and Lunah concealed herself close to a Long Ya, trying her best to look like a mine. A Haidao took the left flank, keeping an eye through the smoke on a Rui Shi, which would obviously cause trouble if it could close to an effective Spitfire range.

[Dahshat chose first turn. Yu Jing set up four snipers, three of them threading angles across the table to force them to be dealt with before putting out engine fires. Knauf was kept prone for now.]

He doesn’t talk much, but 5% of the time, Le Muet earns 1000% of his fee, and this was one of those days. The engagement opened with the Brawler sniper lining up a shot against him. He calmly responded by putting an explosive Double Action round right between their eyes. [“Game got hard”, commented Dahshat’s general.]

The unexpected death of the Brawler Sniper threw the Dahshat plans into some disarray. Le Muet commanded a long firelane across the table and could prevent Fiddler and the Hulang from making it forward to their objectives. A Ghulam fired some smoke grenades to cover off a Long Ya’s sightline, then with a clunking gait, the crablike form of the Maghariba Guard started to cross the table, confident that it could survive some shooting from Le Muet while getting to an angle to engage the Haidao.

[Moving the Maghariba seemed reasonable, but the “mine” in front of the central Long Ya was actually another sniper...] The Maghariba hadn’t reckoned on a second visor sniper - Lunah revealed herself and damaged it with a viral shot.The crab tank was now effectively pinned down between two master snipers and unable to effectively shoot back through the smoke.

Trying to find a way to unlock the deadly sniper overwatch, the Evo Pangguling set Assisted Fire on the Rui Shi and it stepped out to engage the Haidao at bad range. The first shot was reasonably lucky, putting a wound on the Haidao.

Breaking cover to get to closer range turned out to be another unlucky move though, as the Haidao made his second shot and knocked the Rui Shi out of action. The Maghariba pulled back to cover and Lunah damaged it again. Valerya shot a pitcher into the backfield and Fiddler repositioned. [The game had been hard with the Brawler gone, but with the Rui Shi down and the Maghariba pinned in place, it was looking pretty impossible. To make matters worse, the Rui Shi’s unconscious body blocked the path forwards for the Maghariba. The Maghariba had one STR remaining and couldn’t get to a spot out of LoF of the snipers. MSV snipers also covered all the alleys for enginees to get to the TAG. First turn passed to Yu Jing.]

Le Muet quickly garnished his reputation by wrecking the Maghariba Guard through the smoke, putting it well past the point where an engineer could repair it. Listening carefully to Daoying Li, Krit and the Su Jian ran out bravely in front of the Walruses and extinguished two of the fires. 

The Su Jian found a nice angle to fire a Panzerfaust into Valerya Gromoz and made sure the Rui Shi was not going to get repaired, then the two of them ran back to a fairly safe spot behind the sniper curtain. Knauf decided there weren’t enough long range threats to cower prone and took up position on the roof of Le Muet’s tower. [Yu Jing turn one ended in a stupidly strong position, with 4 snipers and two Long Ya criss crossing the table with AROs and all the Dahshat snipers and hmgs dead. 3 points were locked in for the mission.]

Dahshat thought out an impressive sequence of hail mary saves, then started working through them one by one. One of the diggers ran forward impetuously and was extremely lucky to survive a critical hit from the Su Jian’s last panzerfaust shot. Miranda Ashcroft decided to catwalk through Knauf’s line of fire, and got shot for her fashion choices. Probably not for the first time. The Rafiq then spent quite some time lining up a triangulated fire shot at extreme range on one of the Long Ya remotes only for both of them to find out that it was over the maximum range on their weapons. Realizing the Long Ya didn’t have it pinned down gave the Rafiq a chance to reposition and shoot at the Su Jian, which was armored heavily enough not to care and simply repositioned out of sight. [Dahshat weren’t able to turn the tables back much in turn 2]

[Yu Jing turn 2] The Haidao moved forwards and shot a Ghulam and the EVO Pangguling, then got a line to put a wound on the rogue Hulang. Unfortunately, that last rather aggressive positioning put him in the line of fire of Fiddler’s two jackbots, who managed to gun him down. A Kuang Shi moved up and knocked out the Rafiq. The Shang Ji set up in suppressive fire, to make approaching the Yu Jing console almost impossible. [Dahshat turn 3] Without many options to get to the Yu Jing console, Fiddler made her way forwards, carefully, and dodged through fire onto the Dahshat console. The Hulang killed the Kuang Shi threatening it and fiddler repaired the Rafiq.

[YJ Turn 3]

Lunah and Knauf were able to shoot Fiddler off the Dahshat console and Krit had a brief conversation with a High Value Target. Victory went to Yu Jing, and Le Muet received a hefty performance related bonus. My Liu Xing dropped into my own deployment zone. [Le Muet’s unreasonable good luck at the start of this game put it on a very unequal footing that snowballed fast. IceCream is a fantastic general though, hanging in there and attempting to wring everything out of her models to stop me from scoring. We both think the mission would be more fun if the exclusion zone was a lot smaller, it pretty much cripples the normal midfield game and reduces options for countering snipers]

Yu Jing 10 - Dahshat 0 Yu Jing 365 VP remaining Dahshat 133 VP remaining

The Agile Chipmunk once more under Yu Jing control, Hsien Yue Fei took a moment to inspect the surly Hypatian Walruses. It seemed prudent to leave them to consume as many young lobsters as they could manage, with a little luck they could limit the numbers that spread to the rest of the straits.

Yue Fei leapt the last couple of feet from the Azure Dragon's cargo bay, the boots of his Hsien armor absorbing the impact and squashing several bright, orange lobster larvae against the green steel of the Agile Chipmunk's deck. The two members of his corporate security detail followed, flanking him on each side. They were a little twitchy from the cocktail of brightly colored drugs he'd seen them discreetly swallowing on the dropship, but they still managed to avoid treading on the slimy lobster larvae with their expensive shoes.

As they'd made the final descent, he'd captured a picture of the surreal site in his mind. The Agile Chipmunk, the first of the massive Ariadnan cargo ships attempting to breach the blockade at New Hypatia's docks, billowed thick, oily smoke from its burning engines. The automated defense cannons of the blockade had unleashed incendiary fire, igniting multiple fuel fires. However, this only set the stage for the bizarre spectacle that followed. Excited Hypatian Megalobsters had swarmed around the fires, depositing thick slurries of off-white eggs in a gluey mucus that had solidified in the heat. The staff biologists had provided him with their analysis, suggesting that these alien lobsters had adapted to breeding in the presence of volcanic vents' extreme temperatures. The earliest-laid egg clusters had already begun to hatch, and thousands of soft-shelled larvae, measuring only an inch in length, were now falling onto the deck, starting their search for food. It was evident that this would pose a significant problem.

At the best of times, the Durian Inspection Unit task force deployed on New Hypatia found Hypatian Megalobsters a nuisance. They grew incredibly quickly and a hungry, young Megalobster in a fruit shipment leaving the straits could reach adulthood in the week or so it would take for the cargo to travel through the circulars. In their adult form, they were two feet long, armed with formidable claws and an aggressive disposition. One had caused quite a scandal several years ago when it gravely injured a 53-year-old fruit packer in Tian Di Jing market on Shentang.

Ordinarily, the Durian Inspection Unit's regular schedule of draconian inspections and careful enforcement of cargo-packing rules made sure that no Megalobsters made it onto the landing pads and out of the system. Unfortunately the last few days were far from ordinary, Brutus's blockade had caused a massive backlog of colossal cargo ships outside the docks, laden with their goods. Damaged vessels had lost containers overboard, and the available food for the newly hatched brood posed a looming threat of an angry crustacean infestation within a matter of weeks. If left unchecked, all the cargo stranded by the blockade could be destroyed.

To protect the citizens of Yu Jing and the human sphere, they would have to put out these fires. Fast.

The blue silhouettes of a number of Pan Oceanian troops appeared across the superstructure of the ship. Amplified shouting carried through the smoke of the engine fires.

“Tis I, Sir John, hero of Cameliard! If you don’t leave this area forthwith, foul pirates, I shall be forced to charge you on my trusty steed and put you to the sword!”

“Sir John, this is Hsien Yue Fei. It is a pleasure to meet you again, we remain indebted to you for opening the Cameliard gates for our Durgama task force. We most respectfully ask you to stand aside as we have important duties to perform here.” The diplomatic phase of the engagement ended swiftly, as several Feuerbach shells punched large holes in a nearby wall.

Losing patience with the delay, Yue Fei stepped forward and opened fire through the smoke cloud, quickly killing a Kamau sniper and wounding the Orc with the Feuerbach, forcing him to take cover.

This opened a gap for the Lu Duan’s holo-echoes to rush forward across the ship. A confused helot delayed for a second, then chose to target a hologram with red-fury fire, giving the combat remote a chance to gun down a Fugazi. With the cover of smoke, Yue Fei dispatched the Helot, freeing the Lu Duan to advance.

The Lu Duan advanced and poured heavy flamer fire onto Patsy Garnet and her machinist colleague. Patsy’s threw a grenade in response, which landed on the Lu Duan and failed to penetrate it’s armor. The hacker in her haris failed to boot up his hacking device in time to do anything. The Lu Duan advanced further still, singing Sir John a little but failing to incapacitate him.

[Editor’s note: Hmm, the Lu Duan looks like a Rui Shi. Must be a malfunctioning holoprojector. Yu Jing turn 1 ends with five enemy dead and the Montesa, Kamau Hacker AND Orc under a heavy flamer template.]

Sir John impetuously swung his heavy bike around and onto the Lu Duan, disabling it with a crunch of servos and managing to avoid the worst of the gout of fire it shot his way. Confident in his abilities as a one man army, he pulled the data core from the Lu Duan [scoring In Extremis Recovery] and prepared to head towards the smoke clouds and Yu Jing forces.

As Sir John swerved into the open, Major Lunah broke her cover and cracked a shot in his direction. Unable to track his erratic driving, however, the shot went wide.

Then, stunned in disbelief, Lunah held her fire, as Sir John decided to help the Yu Jing cause and put out one of the engine fires.

Sir John gunned his engines and headed straight towards Hsien Yue Fei. Lunah decided to suspend her temporary ceasefire and fired off another shot, bringing Sir John down feet in front of Yue Fei, unconscious under his bike and caked in slimy eggs.

The Orc with the Feuerbach seemed upset by this, and responded with a savage volley that badly damaged Major Lunah’s LHOST. She had to sit the rest of this engagement out. With Lunah down, Fusilier Bipandra stood up and tried to fire a couple of medikit shots into brave Sir John, but missed wildly. [Varuna’s turn 1 ends. A shame about poor Lunah, but worth it to save the Hsien]

Following some speculation over comms that it might be important to maintain plausible deniability in case any war crimes were to happen, the Celestial Guard fired a smoke grenade to cover Hsien Yue Fei and Sir John. Coincidentally, stray bullets hit medic Indigo Bipandra seconds later and the unconscious Sir John flailed around haphazardly in the smoke and managed to slash himself quite badly on Yue Fei’s sword. An unfortunate accident, certainly, and definitely not the chivalric duel Sir John had been hoping for. Some suppressive fire from the Hsien’s direction was able to convince the Feuerbach Orc to drop the ground second time.

With the Pan Oceanian “hard defense” temporarily softened, the Sophotect and Su Jian both rushed forward, waded through cakes of megalobster eggs and managed to extinguish the remaining two engine fires.

Once the smoke from the leftmost engine fire disappeared, the Su Jian and Motorized bounty hunter were able to engage and kill a helot and Zulu Cobra, who had been guarding the flank.

[Varuna were pretty badly mauled heading into their turn 2, with just six orders remaining.]

To gain retribution, and with limited troops left to do so, the Orc left his vantage point and brought his fusilier team down to secure the midfield. His feuerbach was brutal in this role, and he was able to kill the Weibing remote, Su Jian, the Celestial Guard Kuang Shi controller and the Motorized Bounty Hunter. The Sophotect was able to dodge and drop the last member of the fusilier team with a combi rifle shot while the Orc’s attention was on the Su Jian.

[Yu Jing Turn 3: Ouch, watch out for Orcs with Feuerbachs!] The Orc’s shooting had left it in an extremely exposed position, leaving Hsien Yue Fei in position to attack the rest of the fireteam. The remaining fusiliers fell first, then the Orc’s heavy armor finally cracked under a barrage of HMG shots.

Hsien Yue Fei walked across the battlefield, taking up position by the bridge control console with his CSU escorts. Two Kuang Shi and the Sophotect stepped back to safeguard the other console. The remaining Kamau and Fugazi decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and hid in a pile of lobster eggs. All that remained was the chore of taking some samples for the staff biologists and harvesting some additional adult Megalobsters to go in the hotpot back at the DIU field office. 9-1 ISS Victory