A Shattergrounds battle report: Operation: Out-of-Band
###Prologue###
It's been a few days since the completion of Operation Patchwork. The team has been able to get a few days of R&R, considering the upcoming training operation with our Bakunin allies. The rain squalls finally broke and gave a few days of partially cloudy weather. Enough for the training yard to dry out a little, great to not do PT in a shallow bog or inside.
Col Kraznitsky was able to get a few odds and ends together to send a care package back home. Some of the food they'd gotten from the tech storage, postcards, a few kids toys from one of the shops in town that the boys might like, and some other Ariadnan-made knick-knacks for the house; it was missing the charm that the home on Dawn has in some places, and hopefully the little things he sent can help where possible.
He also sent the letter he'd been keeping in his desk to command. Official Request for Retirement to be reviewed after this crisis has been deemed concluded. He's hopeful, but he still has a few year left on his run, but the worst they'd do is deny him the request. He'd consider delaying it until he could guarantee he could get back to Dawn to retire and have the Command cover the moving expenses, not cheap to move from planet to planet with actual cargo and hauling crates.
He was thankful to finally get a photo to put on his "office" desk of his family. It really helped him get through the grind of mission deployments, travel, and the time waiting in between. He had friends in the service, but they were few and far between, most of them either on Dawn, stationed elsewhere on Concilium, or are no longer with us. The Durgama crisis took a handful as well.
###Day of Operation###
We got to the training site early, both sides had the luxury of seeing the AO for the training environment to strategize beforehand. Weather would be cloudy, chances of drizzle appearing later in the day, well after the training mission had concluded hopefully. Our operatives perused the battlefield using the provided drones, which had a minimum ceiling height to give us some detail, but not too much regarding terrain details. We formulated a plan for either deployment side of the AO. This should be a breeze, but we know the Nomads are wily, especially those Bakunin. The flowing cloaks of the Reverend mixed with the wild and chaotic movements of other like Morlocks or Chimeras are a cause for concern for our team, but we will address this in time where possible, either at our own leisure, or against it.
##Deployment and Pre-game decisions##
I deployed my LT on top of the building with a server and the camo rokot prone in front of the building; Denma and Varangians in a Haris guarding the middle server, the Polaris Controller and bear on the right flank. Two SAS were up the board in camo state on my left flank and front & center. Uxia sat atop the building on the right flank. Everyone started prone except the Bearpode. Ariadna deployment to the upper-right.
I drew my classifieds and went with HVT Reverse Engineering. My HVT was off to the left. The other option needed a Hacker, which I left both a Hacker and engineer in the other list, neat.
While rolling metachemistry, the Denma for Nomads rolled up Dogged and Immunity(Total). Mine rolled No Wound Incapacitation.
I used a commander token to remove 2 order from Group 1.
Turn 1: Nomads
The Impetuous phase was wild, 2 Morlocks found some razor scooters or Grom minimizes, which ran forward and threw smoke. Cool. Denma ran up and hung out behind a wall. One of the smokes landed next to my central SAS, who didn't move.
To that SAS' dismay, the morlocks used its irregular order to Intuitive Attack the SAS, which failed its dodge and went unconscious. The bear was able to dodge from this, moving ever so much closer to some new "friends."
The Morlocke on the left flank that sprinted forward (and rolled up super jump for MC), attempt to chain rifle my Varangian crew, which fired back, because we "trust" our armor. Denma went NWI (nifty), varangian passed its Arm check, and the mlMorlocke ate chains and died. The bearpode ended up dodging successfully, moving up the board.
A Zero revealed eventually, went over and activated the console, with Nomads rolling a 20(!) and choosing the AI server as my central server. The Zero walked to the other side of the table to (eventually) place a mine behind the smoke, he was seen by the bearpode and the bear dodged closer.
The bear ended its last dodge outside of smoke, woops. The Reverend team in the back activated, moved forward, and shot the bear with a MULTI-rifle. Bear dodged (I think) 1 die, other 2 hit, and he made 1 save. Still alive though!
Turn 1: Ariadna
Down 1 SAS, oof. Other SAS activates, moves over to the console and activates it while the morlocke flung some smoke, which I use later on for some tomfoolery. The server with the Rogue AI was the one on my left flank, convenient for my SAS.
SAS re-camo'd and moved forward. A few short orders later, the SAS revealed, slapped the server saying how many Rogue AIs this baby could fit, slapped on a d-charge for good measure, and voided the warranty on the rack. Points for ariadna!
Last order(s) were moving the varangians around to get better lines of sight for the next turn.
Turn 2: Nomads
The morlocke on the left runs back and the SAS goes down. See right.
Regular orders time. First onto Denma, cause the bear needs to die (apparently). Non-berzerk attacks, bear lives. Next order, swings, bear hits slightly better, and with his claws he drops denma. As the bear I'd still Dogged, attention turned elsewhere.
End of Round my bear goes to sleep. Thankfully this is just training.
Turn 2: Ariadna
Impetuous phase seeing a varangian throw smoke. Denma and the other waive the phase.
All but 1 order goes into my good sneaky friend Uxia. Uxia crawls into the back arc of thw Morlocke, stands, and assault pistols akimbo into its back. Neat. Uxia climbs down, re-camo'd, ran across the battlefield hurdling barrier Assassins Creed Style, to slap the D-Charge onto another server.
Last order is for Denma to readjust for shenanigans later.
End of turn 2 state
Turn 3: Nomads
Last ditch effort was the last morlocke run forward to chainrifle Denma, Rokot, and a Varangian, to which rokot and varangian dodged and Denma said *uno reverse.* Denma chain rifled back, made his own save, and the morlocke failed his and died. Denma also survived the mine that went off. After some brief contemplation, and due to my LoS being wildly efficient for where people were, there wasn't much of a way for the überhacker to in ZoC range to try and break a server. Game over.
End of Game
Ariadna won 10-1 due to HVT and all mission objectives. Nomads only score was activating the console.
###Epilogue###
Just like Patchwork, the team did a fantastic job executing this mission. They do a particularly good job with asset destruction, not so much on retrieval. We had medics on sight, including a strannik from my older days, Sgt Kryznitz; skilled in what he does. Got the bear and our SAS up right in the knick of time. We got a call to return to our FOB north of Okolnir to assist in a med-evac situation, the medical facilities at the FOB were equipped to handle some recently inductees, and the teams capable of transporting them using the rapid-response craft needed to be cycled out, as they were on watch. We loaded up who we would, and shoved off.
The Ariadnan command staff had their own security detail anyway, which would gladly put up a fight if the visiting Nomads tried anything. There's some resentment among that specifically staff corps for Nomads after what happened at Durgama, or at least that's the phrase they say often enough in passing.
The rain had picked back up on the drive to the FOB. Nicely maintained pavement turned to dirt, gravel, and driving slats as we approached the FOB. Apparently the evac was serious as they left the skeleton crew on watch. We immediately got the watches rotated out, the skeleton crew were able to go rest. The rain had picked up again, but our early-warning systems were still active, and with the fighting not being near this specific FOB, the 30-minute watch change wasn't terrible; not ideal, but not terrible.
I had talked to the FOB commander at the time, Lt Tibnor, another name I recognized from prior missions, and he mentioned what the emergency was about:
Off in Lorena, we had a crew pulling watch on one of our launch facilities at the Leirot Airport. Some sort of interference may have screwed with the sensors/components/implants of some Nomads, and they inevitably attacked a Tartary team think them as enemies. Numerous Nomad and Ariadnan casualties were recovered, several in shocked states, while others were dead or dying. Our casualties were dropped off by a Nomad transport, Considering we rely on them as we don't have any put this way commonly.
I asked why they didn't send them to Bhai, given how skilled the Haqqislamite doctors were. The response was Bhai is off limits considering current engagements in that region, access was given in an ad-hoc fashion, and mainly for civilians or volunteers. No military folk needing aide.
That was all news to me, but I never considered how the crisis' ever-changing conflicts would affect access to areas we would want to go to.
I asked if I could see the mission data, considering that one of his next deployment missions could always end up being to Lorena.
The mission's debriefing was called Operation Slingshot. The file contained several videos of the pict-feeds from the area, along with a transcript that was clearly hastily composed. I would read through this entire briefing, noting the potentiality that the interference of the Nomad tech could've been caused by the QAZ nearby. I'd have to ask our hackers and engineers how likely this would be; cause a change in display/IFF sure would be odd and rather concerning.
Anyway, I'll have my thoughts on the report layer on. Apparently one of the survivors is still on post, so I'll consider chatting them up in the meantime until we're relieved before the next mission.
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