In which we meet our commander-in-chief, and, fight the Battle of Vasel.

It’s time for our briefing with Cpt. Varrot.
We’re send to the city of Vasel, where the Great Vasel Bridge was recently taken by the Empire. The drawbridge is one of the major transit lines to Randgriz and as such a primary target for both sides in this war. However, the imperial blitzkrieg-tactics work for Gallia in this case. The imperial frontline left its support and reinforcements behind, so the bridge is currently held only by a relatively small force. If we strike before said reinforcements arrive, we might have a good chance to take this strategic location back.
During the briefing, General von Damon shows up. Von Damon is commander-in-chief of the central Gallian force, which includes the militia.He isn’t convinced the militia can take the Great Vasel Bridge, calling our soldiers “just country mice” who wont be much help. I’d love to have had an interrupt button at that moment, but Varrot’s response more than makes up for this shortcoming: The general leaves, and Faldio confirms the theory that von Damon looks down on the militia: Damon comes from an old aristocratic family, and the militia, formed by common men, by draftees, is clearly way below him. We’ll see how long he can hold on to this attitude.
But back to the task at hand: Squad 7 will attack the western bank of the channel crossed by the bridge to establish a foothold for further operations. Other units are assigned patrol duty, with orders to stand by to assist in the assault on the bridge.

The imperial troops set up defensive positions in the center of Vasel, blocking our path to the bridge. They have to go.
For gameplay reasons, Squad 7 also set up camp in town. One half of our troops is responsible for defending this position, while the other will push along the riverside and take out the imperial positions. [I’d really like to see a game where the “good guys” fight under the red flag. Also faceless mook-uniforms.]
There are intelligence reports confirming the presence of imperial tanks in the city (one might remember the view of the bridge: probably a whole regiment). “Bring lancers”. We’re also told to take high AP-units, scouts or engineers, to the riverside. Which would be a good idea if we had a meaningful say in the compilation of the riverside strike force. The blue circles are pre-filled positions. Largo, as head of the lancers, is the only forced assignment in the city, and he is supported by another lancer, two shocktroopers and a sniper.
Contrary to this, three out of four positions on the riverside are pre-filled. Welkin in the Edelweiss, Rosie and Alicia. I followed the advice of Cpt. Varrot and took an engineer with me. In retrospect, taking another shocktrooper would probably have been the better idea.

Upon deploying, Welkin reads the plan once more, and Rosie and Largo each make a somewhat forced comment about the capabilities of their classes. They would probably feel less forced, less awkward, if the game hadn’t already said the same thing several times…
Action starts on the riverside. Alicia moves forward, spotting an imperial scout in the grass. She takes a shot, but doesn’t do any real damage. The Edelweiss is way more effective at this.After leveling the sandbags and taking out the scouts, the tank moves forward towards the ramp.The main reason for spending a CP on every soldier in the town is to get everyone crouched behind cover. The damage done during their action was… manageable. Rosie, coming after Alicia on the riverside, has better luck and takes out the scout.

The imperial turn starts with a scout moving down the alleyway, right into a hail of bullets. Frontal assaults on fortified positions with machine gunners are always a bad idea.
The shocktrooper from the other alleyway gets moving, soaks a bunch of bullets and throws a grenade into our position, destroying valuable cover. Adding insult to injury, he also shoots at our lancer. He isn’t impressed.Another scouts comes down the alley, taking cover behind the corner of the building. The last imperial move in this turn is the shocktrooper coming down the ramp in front of the Edelweiss. Tanks get reaction fire too, and the coaxial machine gun disposes of the suicide runner.

The Edelweiss starts moving again along the riverside, and shocktrooper Mica disposes of the bold Imperial who stands in our mid. Afterwards, he moves up to cover the alley.
The next map is a bit complex, but it really isn’t THAT hard: First, the Edelweiss moves forward, turns toward the enemy and rips a big hole in the imperial defense lines.
Then we move Nadine, the engineer we took with us, up the ramp, where she takes a shot at the scout at the other end of the map. Over this distance, the bullets don’t really hurt anymore, but why waste a free shot? We continue by moving Alicia and Rosie up the ramp. AP-wise, Rosie ends her turn about halfway up the ramp, while Alicia makes it to the ladder seen in the picture above. We climb up, surprise the imperial shocktrooper and somehow Alicia manages to dodge all of his return fire.One of my best ideas in this game was probably to have Alicia descent the ladder afterwards.
As our final move in this turn, we move Rosie further towards the action, have her take cover behind a bench and waste a whole magazine into… said bench.Lesson learned: If the “to kill”-counter isn’t shown next to the shots-counter, we’re going to miss. By the way, the “vsPers” and “vsArmor” indicators show the effectiveness against, well, persons and armour, with a circle for high effectiveness, the x for “useless” and a triangle for “somewhat effective”. “Area” indicates whether or not the weapon has an area of effect.

Did you notice the imperial tank on the map showing Rosie’s movement? I didn’t and was subsequently a bit confused upon seeing the tank’s engine noise during movement. I only knew that there is a tank, and that it must be in the courtyard of the library.
Two more imperial CP went into knocking at the Edelweiss’ front plate, and another brought the scout behind the corner (in the alleyway) towards his fallen comrade.

The riverside-team pushes forward with the Edelweiss exchanging 82mm pleasantries with the imperial tank and Rosie moving forward and gunning the scout down at point-blank range. No benches this time.Note that the main cannon is marked “somewhat effective” against soft targets while very effective against armour.Coby finishes the scout in the alley and takes position at the corner.Still working with the theory that there MIGHT be a tank somewhere in the courtyard, we move all the troops out of the base. Mica charges down the right alleyway, killing the scout positioned there. The lancers take positions on both sides of the library, getting line of sight to the tank in the process (not shown).
Marina follows up and tries to land a hit on the upper tanks radiator, misses, and takes another shot at the remaining scout.

The light tank already engaged with the Edelweiss misses by mile, the other tank……breaks through the wall, triggering a message from Cpt. Varrot that tanks can indeed break through walls, sandbags and trees. Thank you very much, we didn’t know. These two tank actions drained the imperial CP, and as the tank doesn’t do anything to follow up on the (probably scripted) breach, it is our turn again.

In which we bring down two tanks.
The last scout is taken out by the combined effort of Marina and Mica. Nils can now use the opening, move around the corner and literally kick the tank’s ass. The Edelweiss moves closer to the remaining tank, takes two shots at it and it’s done for.The last shot of round 4 is taken by Marina, who tries to get the imperial on the roof. There’s no map for it.

The shocktrooper on the roof is taken out by counterfire during the Empire’s turn, leaving two more units in the base. One eats a mortar shell, the other simply gets overrun. That’s basically it, so there wont be a map either.The experience gained is used to bring the remaining classes to level three and the shocktroops on the brink of level four. The last five XP came from another skirmish.We bring the money to the R&D, purchasing an upgrade for the anti-tank rounds (Anti-Armor Shell I) and the Reinforce Body I, granting a substantial boost to our armour.

And that’s it for today. On Friday, we’ll meet an old man selling knowledge and the press. See you around.