Post by forgeking on Sept 20, 2017 3:12:35 GMT -5
The brilliant stupidity of our captain truly struck me and for the first time in my lineage's history I laughed in the midst of combat. For once I could afford to. I wondered what those who would carry on my lineage and peer back through to see this affair would make of it, alone and locked in brutal close range combat with a Xeno Carapace - but despite 5 connected punches from a Leviathan and 2 direct hits of the Carapace's natural weapon, neither of us had taken any damage. For any Templar, taught through the combined years of their lineages' knowledge of the dangers of Xeno at melee range and the power of the massive Leviathan mechs this fight, this whole operation was absolutely comedic and against everything my lineage had known.
Not hours ago, we had received information that the city of Tundeer had been lost to the Xeno invasion of Galantia Cross. Our captain ordered a return to the Spear Cutter for a small reprieve, regearing as he went over the intel. The siege would be a bloody affair, Xeno forces having captured both tactical points within the city, a substantial tunnel network running under and all of the city's great gates open to the surrounding hordes. Shalun would not take defeat or cowardice so easily and neither would the memories we passed on but a Templar prefers a glorious life to a glorious death and our captain loathed marching brothers to their death in the name of victory. To this end his assaults were rapid, carefully planned and crazy, seconds away from a Leviathan's shutdown amidst a horde and or having suits shredded so badly you wondered if they were even armored to begin but never a Templar casualty. It would be impossible in the city however. There was simply too much ground, too few chokepoints, too many Xenos already deployed.
As always, he walked out with a plan. This one was nothing like his previous with their calculations of heat and distance, available firepower and weapon ranges, known tunnels and entrances. It was simple and unmistakeably crazy in complete opposition to his trademark methods. Gone were the lightweight suits, advanced armaments, offensive specialisations and rapid movement, with precise positioning behind our lone vanguard commander. He'd comandeered the heaviest, most defensively oriented Leviathans. Then, at cost of not only our ranged weapons but our heavy melee tools too, the highest quality armor and deflection systems were placed on them. Lastly, he ordered a full respecialisation to defensive training in both talents and statistics.
Before we knew it, we were dropped at the gates of Tundeer. A hydra, engineer and our captain stood alongside me. We marched through the gates and where I would have normally called a rallying charge and blazed the tactical point with an ancient plasma rifle, I prepared a defensive stand. Our captain rallied our spirits, Engineer Harvoth activated a power field and Hydra Nikolus laid down a blazing field of promethium ahead of us. Where we would have normally cleared the tactical point and its defenders already, we were left facing the claws and spit of 2 brood mothers, a brood lancer, 2 hunters and 2 scitterlings. They rushed us through the flames, relatively unfettered due to the light flamethrower Nikolus had equipped and I blocked the first two blows. But the third, fourth, fifth and sixth, two from hunters claws that had torn through my lighter armor before, hit square and the status readout of the cockpit -
Showed no damage. None at all. I found an opening to shake them off and fired off 2 bursts from my Assault Mk8, barely killing the hunter and one scitterling as I cursed not having my plasma rifle, which would have killed them all. But I was alive and unharmed though surely surrounded and my end would arrive soon. Until I thought to look around and saw all my brothers similarly unharmed and surprised. And so the cleansing of Tundeer began. A slow slog of an operation but perhaps the easiest I had ever participated in. We marched not as grim reapers of death, not even as glaciers but as garbage compactors, unstoppable but not able to enact mass destruction, rather slowly compressing and pushing the lines back. As I remembered my rifle would see better success against the Carapace's thick hide and blasted it apart, I heard Nikolus on the comms, alone in a gatehouse on the other side of the city engaged against a scitterling and hunter for the past 3 minutes in a similar manner. Unable to accurately hit them with his incinerator or cripple them with his fists, he was essentially basking in their claw strikes and fire as he waited for his missed shots to slowly cook them alive.
I hope the siege and cleansing of Tundeer would serve an excellent lesson in new methods and tactics, no matter how stupid they seem to those who would inherit my experiences of it and of an increased appreciation of powerful defences in the right situations.
Not hours ago, we had received information that the city of Tundeer had been lost to the Xeno invasion of Galantia Cross. Our captain ordered a return to the Spear Cutter for a small reprieve, regearing as he went over the intel. The siege would be a bloody affair, Xeno forces having captured both tactical points within the city, a substantial tunnel network running under and all of the city's great gates open to the surrounding hordes. Shalun would not take defeat or cowardice so easily and neither would the memories we passed on but a Templar prefers a glorious life to a glorious death and our captain loathed marching brothers to their death in the name of victory. To this end his assaults were rapid, carefully planned and crazy, seconds away from a Leviathan's shutdown amidst a horde and or having suits shredded so badly you wondered if they were even armored to begin but never a Templar casualty. It would be impossible in the city however. There was simply too much ground, too few chokepoints, too many Xenos already deployed.
As always, he walked out with a plan. This one was nothing like his previous with their calculations of heat and distance, available firepower and weapon ranges, known tunnels and entrances. It was simple and unmistakeably crazy in complete opposition to his trademark methods. Gone were the lightweight suits, advanced armaments, offensive specialisations and rapid movement, with precise positioning behind our lone vanguard commander. He'd comandeered the heaviest, most defensively oriented Leviathans. Then, at cost of not only our ranged weapons but our heavy melee tools too, the highest quality armor and deflection systems were placed on them. Lastly, he ordered a full respecialisation to defensive training in both talents and statistics.
Before we knew it, we were dropped at the gates of Tundeer. A hydra, engineer and our captain stood alongside me. We marched through the gates and where I would have normally called a rallying charge and blazed the tactical point with an ancient plasma rifle, I prepared a defensive stand. Our captain rallied our spirits, Engineer Harvoth activated a power field and Hydra Nikolus laid down a blazing field of promethium ahead of us. Where we would have normally cleared the tactical point and its defenders already, we were left facing the claws and spit of 2 brood mothers, a brood lancer, 2 hunters and 2 scitterlings. They rushed us through the flames, relatively unfettered due to the light flamethrower Nikolus had equipped and I blocked the first two blows. But the third, fourth, fifth and sixth, two from hunters claws that had torn through my lighter armor before, hit square and the status readout of the cockpit -
Showed no damage. None at all. I found an opening to shake them off and fired off 2 bursts from my Assault Mk8, barely killing the hunter and one scitterling as I cursed not having my plasma rifle, which would have killed them all. But I was alive and unharmed though surely surrounded and my end would arrive soon. Until I thought to look around and saw all my brothers similarly unharmed and surprised. And so the cleansing of Tundeer began. A slow slog of an operation but perhaps the easiest I had ever participated in. We marched not as grim reapers of death, not even as glaciers but as garbage compactors, unstoppable but not able to enact mass destruction, rather slowly compressing and pushing the lines back. As I remembered my rifle would see better success against the Carapace's thick hide and blasted it apart, I heard Nikolus on the comms, alone in a gatehouse on the other side of the city engaged against a scitterling and hunter for the past 3 minutes in a similar manner. Unable to accurately hit them with his incinerator or cripple them with his fists, he was essentially basking in their claw strikes and fire as he waited for his missed shots to slowly cook them alive.
I hope the siege and cleansing of Tundeer would serve an excellent lesson in new methods and tactics, no matter how stupid they seem to those who would inherit my experiences of it and of an increased appreciation of powerful defences in the right situations.
