In which we even the odds, face the first game over and leave our home behind.

 Welkin hits the ground running and charges back home…
…where two Imperials trespassed and are now threatening Isara and Martha. They utilize the basic set of verbal abuse, calling Matha fat and identifying Isara by her shawl as a Darcsen, a member of Europa’s oldest indigenous race. Because no evil invading army would be complete without racism. But the two overlooked something very important.Isara does a roll towards the gun, grabs it, and starts to threaten the Imperials, urging them to leave. The soldiers are not overly impressed.Tension is rising and it feels like bullets start flying every second now when Welkin charges in, armed with a fence post. He takes a swing at one of the soldiers, taking him out cold.His superior (it has to be his superior as he isn’t wearing a face guard) is – much to our surprise – not happy about this kind of behaviour. He threatens Wilken, and then we hear a shot.The Imperial goes down cursing Isara. He shouldn’t have turned his back to the opponent with the gun, I guess.
Having disposed of the immediate danger of getting shot in their own house, another problem looms over our protagonists: the situation caused Martha to go into labour. Getting a pregnant, nearly due woman out of a war zone would have been ugly enough, but removing a woman in labour from the front lines will be even more difficult – especially without any means of transport.
Luckily, we have some.The “Legacy of our Fathers”, as the episode is called, is stored in the barn. Yep, our fathers left us a tank. THE tank built by Theimer for and driven by General Gunther. The Edelweiss. And it’s still functional. Isara enrolled in a maintenance course given by the military to be able to follow in her fathers footsteps – or at least keep the Edelweiss running. Besides that, the tank didn’t need much in terms of maintenance or alterations: all Isara did was fitting a new engine, which is the single most trivial task in tank maintenance.
Furthermore,
I can’t find any hint when the First European War took place, but the wiki says that tanks where the new hotness towards the end of it. I could start a long rambling discourse over how the amount of firepower and mobility attributed to this machine are a bit hard to believe, but then all this is set in a not-quite-historical Europe. Let’s just go with it. Tank combat is fun.
While the two discuss how to go on, we learn that Welkin once took the armoured vehicle course. In high school. Why was I never offered a course in tank warfare at school? They decide to take Martha inside the tank, pick up Alicia and try to get out of town. Isara will drive, Welkin will do everything else. Usually I’d say that a tank is the least proper place for a woman in labour, but as we’re shown Martha can lie down inside. And there’s still place to spare. This Ragnite engines must be really compact.
Welkin mans the commander’s cupola, Isara takes the wheel, and on we go.

Briefing time:We start once more on the lower edge of the map. The imperial army comes from the upper edge and is trying to break through the town’s gate. We have to stop them. The objective is the destruction of the imperial tank, the fail states are the death of the Welkin or Alicia and the gate getting breached. There’s also a twenty turn limit.
There’s a new kind of unit on the field: shock troopers. They can take and deal more damage.
And finally we learn some more about the mechanics and equipment. Grenades are formally introduced, as is the Ragnaid first aid kit. The former is our common grenade and can be used to destroy sandbag barriers, the latter gives a health boost to a wounded unit.

My first plan was to charge forward and throw a grenade between the soldiers standing around.I forgot that units can fire at enemies entering their field of fire.Bad idea.

On the second try, Alicia stormed up the hill on the other side of the building, threw a grenade in there and started running back. Then we needed another command point to get her all the way back behind the sandbags, allowing her to take a shot at an imperial shocktrooper behind the rubble.
One of the guardsmen uses Ragnaid on Alicia, the other bolts forward some several meters, takes his shot and hurries back behind cover.
The imperials troops move forward during their turn:
The tank positions himself square on the street and gently raps at the gate while the soldiers start charging. One of the scouts doesn’t make it: he is gunned down on his way.The stormtrooper has better luck and reaches a seemingly safe position behind the sandbags. Adding injury to insult, he throws a grenade at the gates.Alicia runs straight into the fire of the stormtrooper to drop a grenade behind the sandbags. Upon her return, she receives another dose of Ragnaid. Our other guardsman takes out the scout coming over the right side.During the Empire’s turn, our gate eats another shell and another grenade – Alicia is really concerned whether the gate will hold. Reaction fire finally takes out the shocktrooper next to the gate, but the next is already on his way.On the following map we already used a CP to heal Alicia. We had six at the beginning of the turn, in case some of you do the math and miss the sixth point.Alicia tries taking out the incoming shocktrooper with a grenade. The important lesson learned here is that grenades don’t bounce. Damage done: none.Tank time: we invest the two CP necessary to activate a tank, breach through the fence in front of us and move forward as far as we can, which isn’t that far. Tanks have rather few AP to begin with and they pay extra when turning. In terms of weaponry, the Edelweiss comes equipped with an 82mm main gun against tanks and other armoured targets, a mortar as an area of effect weapon against infantry and a coaxial machine gun as point defense weapon. The latter is immediately used against a scout hiding in the corner.Another two CP flow into the tank, moving forward further and missing the imperial tank. Maybe it wasn’t the best of ideas to target the engine – the most vulnerable part of the tank, where even infantry weapons can do some damage – over this distance.There wasn’t much movement during the last part of the battle. The tank kept pounding the gate and the stormtrooper hit our infantry pretty hard, but in the end… Finally I got to show some screens with the comic sound effects. There are way more in the game – tanks “rumble”, guns and grenades go “BLAM!”… it really fits the tone.We stalled the Empire and bought Bruhl some more time to evacuate. We also welcome a new citizen on this digital earth: Martha gave birth during the battle. The look on Welkin’s face says it all. I wont comment on this any further.Having left the city, Alicia and Welkin take a break atop a hill near Bruhl, looking over the smoking ruins of their home town. Alicia doesn’t take it too well. Although she knew that “war” means people, even and especially innocent people, dying, she wasn’t quite ready for this.Welkin starts talking about his observations of nature, about how animals cooperate in order to survive. He hopes to find a pattern, a master key to coexistence and cooperation, and he wants to become a teacher to pass this knowledge on to coming generations. “Even if we can’t completely eliminate war, at least we might learn to live together as one people”. I don’t see any reason for not completely eliminating war in a human society that acts as one, but that’s not the point here.
The chapter ends with Isara and Martha’s newborn, a new life that came to us in war, to whom Welkin presents Bruhl. His hometown. One day, when all this is over, all of them will return…