A Shattergrounds battle report: Operation Patchwork

 His time away was very much needed. Colonel Kraznitsky was finally able to get to his home on Concilium Prima to see his wife and newborn sons. Although he would only be home temporarily, he made the best of it.

"Do you really have to go back there? It's in the middle of nowhere, right next to Helheim? Is it really THAT important" said his wife. She wanted him to stay. He'd been deployed to the Okolnir area for various missions for the past 6 months, and she wanted him home.

"Unfortunately dear, I must. It may not be mentioned here, but it's chaos out there. Our people in Okolnir need our aid. We can't just sit here and let our people get abused and mistreated in Okolnir; or at least that's what the current narrative is. I don't want to go back there. I want to go back to Dawn. But those ba-... aliens blew up the circular, so we're stuck." Kraznitsky was getting a little too worked up, he kept his voice at a tone pleasing to his son he was rocking while his wife nurses the other one to sleep, hopefully they'd take their third nap of the day.

"How much longer do you have on this deployment again? You've been doing this for over 20 years Dave. When's retirement?"

"I don't know dear. Our plan was to finish this out in 2 years, retire back on dawn, somewhere where the Antipodes wouldn't necessarily get to us easily. Clearly that's changed." Kraznitsky points upwards.

"I wonder how the other boys are doing back on Dawn. Merovingia is nice this time of year. I hope they're doing well." His wife places their son in his bassinet, snug as a bug. Kraznitsky puts the other son in the adjoined bassinet.

"I need to go pack dear. I'll be back in a week or two, depends on what the next mission is. I will let you know when I can. I love you."

Kraznitsky packs his duffel, makes sure the home rifle is where its supposed to be, and makes his way out his vehicle, saying goodbye to his wife and sons. It was a misty and rainy morning on that mountain, he knew he'd make it back from this one.

As he drove off from the humble farmstead he has on the side of a mountain northwest of Okolnir, his wife knew he'd be back as well, but she always worried when the taillight dipped over the ridgeline that that would be the last time she'd ever see them again.

###a few days later###

The insertion team hastily loaded up on their trucks, given an urgent mission to a relatively remote area north along the coastline from Okolnir. There was a network relay that's been throwing some concerning alerts that’ve been noticed by our network security teams and wardrivers, and we're being sent to investigate. Considering the proximity to Helheim, the relay had some pre-fab structures present should defensive actions be needed there. It's currently home to a handful of servers and racks of network equipment, initially used for scientific research, but saw a renewed life as a ground network and munitions storage facility during the conflict in Helheim.

We had a handful of SAS infiltrators, the same volkolak and rokots I've worked with before, another Polaris team in case things went sideways. Only thing that was weird was the assignment of some mercenaries tied to a Scots Guard I swear I've worked with before as well; had some varangians, their driver Irmandinho, and someone who looked a LOT like Denma Connolly. Weirdly enough as well was that the Scots guard didn't join us on the approach to the facility, he stayed behind and was last seen walking towards a paraglider.

Our trip was only about a hour or two outside of Okolnir, not too far out of the way, thankfully the roads were at least maintained so we didn't have to spend more time navigating an off road course. It rained the entire time, gusts of wind noticeably shifting the smaller scout cars before we got off the main throughway. The rain hitting the canvas top of his scout car was comforting. Him and his lieutenant, a young officer Sofia Medved, had a good chat while enroute to the mission, both about the mission, the campaign for Okolnir, what we know about the conflict around Concilim Prima, and little bit about life. She was easily the age of one of his sons back on Dawn; she had recently become an officer and had the veil naïvity still firmly atop her head. He hoped that she took everything he mentioned to her to heart.

The rain let up a little bit as the convoy approached the facility. Something definitely seemed off about it though, the described guards were present, neither were any of the technicians or scientists that's were expected to be here, just silence, rain, and the sounds of the convoy.

The convoy entered the compound from the eastern gate; the west gate was apparently experiencing operational issues. As the team dismounted and began to activate their trackers, Kraznitsky moved to the MAV and launched the surveillance drone to scout the facility. He quickly noticed figures further in that definitely weren't human.

The commlink buzzed "alright team, we got targets further inside the facility. Definitely not ours. SAS, you know what to do, everyone else, find some cover and prepare for a fight." 

The commlink buzzed again, a muffled, barely intelligible scottish accent coming through:

"Ah, it's colonel Kraznitsky! I thought I recognized that voice! Sfc Cameron here up in the paraglider, those varangians are with me. I'll drop in shortly after and fighting starts. I'll just need a ride home after! Hah!"

"Understood Sgt, good to know your on my side once again."

Kraznitsky's datapad went off, a new mission briefing:

The network intrusion seems to be coming from one of the devices within this facility. We have provided a method to determine which device is the source of the issue, and what other devices may be infected. Once determined, destroy those devices.

The colonel provided the info to his specialists. A few shots rang out. The engagement has begun.

###GAME TIME###

Sorry for that long winded intro, been enjoying these write ups more and more! So today I had an opponent I recently played back for a followup game at a theatre of my choosing, being Okolnir (OUR Okolnir!) this time around.

We drew our classified objectives, I selected Sabotage, as I had loaded up on D-Charges anyway, considering the mission for Okolnir has the Arsenal add-on, so nothing is truly disposable! My opponent, playing Morats, drew and selected the same exact classified objective he drew last time: Predator.

LT roll off occurred, Kosmoflot won, and I immediately selected to keep Initiative and go first. My opponent had me deploy first on the right side of the table.

I deployed my forces like so (top to bottom), all are deployed prone:

Denma Connolly

Irmandinho

Volkolak/rokot core team

Camo markers up the table

Bear

Double varangian

Another camo marker

Polaris Controller

The Scots guard is a parachutist in this game because of terrain total.

Morats declared his Überhacker after deployment was done; not the one he wanted to be it, but it's what he had.

Denma rolled a +6BTS for metachemistry (after the reroll), not likely to be used.

Irmandinho rolled Grenades for Booty, a little more useful.

Morats used a Command Token to remove 2 of my orders from Group 1.

Turn 1: Kosmoflot

So that kaitok is a problem with its HRL, so the impetuous  from the irmandinho had him double move forward. The varangians moved as well. Denma stayed where he was, forgoing his impetuous phase.

First order was the irmandinho’s irregular order flinging smoke to block LoS from the kaitok and where I wanted the volkolak to be. After I realized I oopsied that placement, irmandinho cautious moves around to avoid being shot by the Yaogat, spends his irregular to move and drop smoke. It hits, woo. No trading blows with a kaitok AND Yaogat at the same time today! Irmandinho used his irregular order to move up to a particular build I chose before the battle started, and slapped a D-Charge on it. The building now has a hole in it, turns out to be a storeroom full of rations! Who would've thought that would be here! Classified achieved! Last order was to spec-fling a grenade at the oznat, oznat dodges, but the gaki (coincidentally fireteam leader that I didn't realize was there) didn't dodge, and failed his save! 

Time for group 1, where my left-most camo token moves and reveals to be an SAS Forward Observer, who boops the button on the antennae while outside of the smoke and discovers the Rogue AI server, the far left one in this case from my PoV. Unfortunately, I did reveal and got shot by the Yaogat in smoke thanks to MSV 2. I fail 1 save and he goes down. Still activated the antenna though!

Next orders were the volkolak and team moving up and engaging the Yaogat with missiles. Through a series of me sometimes not stating the firing mode (meaning hit mode and not blast), I eventually take the Yaogat down, while also dropping the Anyat behind him with the only blast-mode shot I used, which did break the fire team. Last orders were the fireteam with the rokot paramedic moving up, reviving the SAS with the paramedic gun, and then the team readjusting again to let the volkolak be the lead, and having the rest of the team cover various angles. This is the opponent where I've had to fight against numerous parachutists before, so I'm paranoid about it.

I used a Command Token for O-12's Prestige at some point, but I don't recall where.

Turn 1: Morats

Command tokens were used to move 2 units to group 1. Now all them gakis are irregular orders and
not regular, thank goodness! The gakis did their impetuous moves. Oznat moved forward, volkolak flung 2 missiles, one being a crit! Oznat dodges, also with a crit! Nothing going down there! Irmandinho dodged to scoot to the wall and see the possible oznat approach. The Oznat sent in a Gaki to try and dissuade the disposable Irmandinho, who let his explosive personality (hah) turn the gaki into mush. Until the oznat flung a grenade from its smoke grenade launcher, and landed right next to the irmandinho, where the other antennae happened to be. Irmandinho dodges to back up a little bit. This is when a Dropsuit Taryot tries to ruin his day, as it could land and hit the irmandinho and the Uxia McNeil camo token, woops! Would've Been worse, but he failed the PH roll and had to deploy in his deployment zone, lucky me! Next few orders are Taryot running forward to boop the antennae, to which my middle objective had the arguably Rogue AI on my side, irmandinho is able to dodge twice and body-block and approach to the middle without him needing to be dealt with . And the last few orders result in gakis charging the irmandinho and the right-most SAS who had attempted a dodge with the Taryot and failed, other SAS did some dodging around to get prone on some stairs, and Uxia had dodges around the antennae thanks to the +2" on that girl's dodge! Irmandinho and Gaki traded lives, a D-Charge being put to use there, with a another D-charge handling the other one from the SAS, who made its saves from the gaki. The taryot moves up to watch the alleyway between the antennae.

Turn 2: Kosmoflot

And here's where everything goes down. 

Volkolak team activates, volkolak spend 4(!) orders slinging missiles at the Kaitok to just take it unconscious. Better than nothing though! That cleared 2 big lanes that were hampering my advance, and let me do the following.

Scots guard pops out from the sky by the stairs on my left flank. Activates his camo, moves up, reveals and flings a panzarfaust at Kornak, wounding it. He already has cover and is religious, so I go to scoot up, shoot, and retreat again, he tries a dodge. I hit higher than him by 1! (He rolled a 2, I rolled a 3!) Kornak dies, and with it goes 3 orders too! Strategos L1 with +1 Lt order is WILD! LoS view from the scotsguard to the left.

With those two down, I send Uxia up the left flank to go poke some mad buttons with a D-charge on that Rogue ai server, after I deal with a Dartok Hacker hanging around nearby. Uxia pops around the corner, dumps 2 shotgun slugs into the Dartok who fails a dodge and eats both. Skips Dogged, and straight to dead. Uxia scooted further, blew up the server with the AI. Last order was a varangian moving forward on the right flank.

Turn 2: Morats

With only 3 orders to start (vanguard, oznat, and taryot on the table), impetuous was waived and a Zerat Hacker dropped down. I had a rokot and the volkolak within good ol Sixth Sense range to attempt a dodge on the landing to see them, to which the rokot made it, but the volkolak failed. Rokot turned to see the parachutist, which really foiled his plans of Impersonating, a mock ARO fight had the Rokot kill the Zerat on first ARO shooting. At this point, my opponent conceded, but agreed to just fast-play the last few actions for turn 3. I.E. we did turn 3 in about 5-10 minutes, tops.

Turn 3: Kosmoflot 

Uxia ran over, killed the vanguard, and blew up the last 2 servers with her seemingly endless Arsenal (HAH!) of D-Charges. A varangian snuck out, killed the oznat with an order from Group 2. Next order had him move over to try to get into Silhouette contact with the Taryot, which dodged after thinking he would shoot his chain rifle at him. Dodge failed. I would've been a millimeter short, but I stayed back far enough to use my next regular order to Berserk into the Taryot for funsies. We both died in melee, giving Morats their classified at the end! Uxia's rampage of server destruction to the right.

Turn 3: Morats

Nothing. Infiltration and cyber team killed to a man (and gaki).

End of Game: 232 VP To 0 VP

Kosmoflot: 10

• Destroy Enemy AI server: 3

• Destroyed more servers: 2

• Keep my AI server alive: 2

• Keep ALL my server alive: 1

• Activate a console: 1

• Classified (Sabotage): 1

Morats: 2

• Activate a console: 1

• Classified (Predator): 1

This was a wild fight where it would've been a lot different if rolls went a certain way. My opponent mentioned after the game he realized he didn't bring as many specialists as he thought he had, which was rough! The gakis could've been able to handle the servers, but they were able to fit close enough. Not to mention the bear didn't even move (first time I've had one live!)

This, to me, was a good redemption from our last game, where I brought TAK vs his Morats in Capture and Protect and I got to have the smoke game played against me!

###back to the story###

Col Kraznitsky was genuinely impressed with this team again. The infiltrators progressed into the facility and we're able to immediately get necessary Intel on where the source of this infestation is, along with deploying a smokescreen to protect the rest of the team as they got into better overwatch positions. Downside was that the operative was seen and shot, but not dead, thankfully. The heartbeat monitor for him didn't go completely flat. He heard the telltale signs that the volkolak found a target as the repeated explosions from the missile launcher he was toting around. The engagement was impressively fast, and with minimal casualties. Two of the mercenaries that had accompanied sergeant Cameron are KIA.

I learned of a side mission Sergeant Cameron hadn't mentioned earlier. Apparently there's a building, a storeroom specifically, in this facility where local techs were storing some decent chow from up north, like actual food and not just our field rations or whatever O-12 saw fit to send to us. One of the explosions earlier on was the irmandinho finding it! Something good comes out of this yet! Those wulvers back at base will be excited for sure.

The SAS operatives did phenomenal work today, locating and destroying the infected towers and taking down anyone in their way. From what some of the pict-feeds showed, looked like Combined Army agents, command will love to hear this one.

Damage to the facility outside of the infected hardware was, say, minimal for the expectation if we had enemy contact. A single facility truck was essentially destroyed, and 2 buildings took slight structural damage, but there were mainly offices/desks and not the critical hardware needed to run the show.

We called for the tartary relief team to come in, they had some of the off-duty workers come in and ensure everything was running as smoothly as it could after what had happened. With the total elimination of opposing forces, the relief team was going to stick around and used the temp house on site until a proper security detail was provided; those kazaks sure are different, as we know the boonies temp housing is an old cot if you're lucky.

As they loaded up to return to base, Kraznitsky's datapad lit up, an immediate mission, but not super urgent, just a notification. He would be personally leading a team to skirmish with some Bakunin operatives for a scenario he had just gone through. Full on haptic suits, something he'd only ever done a few times, normally it was paintball. He smiled as he loaded into his scout car to head back to Okolnir. He thought about who from this immediate team would be good use for him for this mission, and he wasnt required to be on the ground, just the one forming and leading the team.

Oh yea, and they definitely raided that storeroom. Them O-12 rations wrap your gut around an axle and squeeze if you ain't careful, and the food them techs had was a sight for sore eyes.