In which we adopt a mascot, finally meet the other side and fight a battle that feels suspiciously railroaded…

A word beforehand: this chapter felt extremely incoherent during play – and that shows in the write-up.

Before we start, let’s spend some more things. The Engineers get the 196XP-gap to level four filled, and we upgrade the Edelweiss, which now sports and extra magazine (+1 ammo, 1×2), a bulletproof visor (+5 accuracy, 1×1) and a hardened radiator plate (+50 crit def, 1×1).

The chapter starts one again with a briefing by Cpt. Varrot. The victory at Vasel pushed back the frontlines, forcing the Empire to gather its forces in central Gallia. However, this will be the army’s problem. The militia is ordered south.The Kloden Wildwood, a hilly woodland area, is already known to Welkin. Of course it is. He spent last year’s summer there, gathering soil samples, and he knows from experience that the region is almost impassable. What are we doing there, then?
We take this base, and the imperial troops in central Gallia will have a big problem. Prepare for woodland combat and await orders.

Faldio rightfully calls the prospect of woodland combat a nightmare. Troops move slowly, the environment can be disorienting, and there are oh-so-many places to hide. Welkin on the other hand…He goes on talking about the moondew, a carnivorous plant growing in the woods of Kloden, until Faldio interrupts him. It’s rather easy to sidetrack Welkin, and I hope he doesn’t leave the Edelweiss in the middle of the battle to take a look at this very interesting plant over there… It’s called “cover” or – even better – “not fighting in the woods”, but I’m pretty sure we wont have that option.

The next episode brings us into the imperial headquarters. We’ll finally meet our opponents, beginning with…And boy, this guy is pissed. A bunch of “mongrels”, and that’s his exact word, took the Great Vasel Bridge. How was this possible?
It’s simple. The militia crossed the river with a tank.But this can’t be, Gen. Gregor retorts. It was just plain luck, how else could a bunch of peasants outsmart the mighty imperial forces?
Gen. Jaeger is unimpressed – winning a war is not a question of birthright, otherwise it would an incredibly boring thing.
At this point, Gen. Bles decides to stop this diversion and bring the discussion back on track:One of the others – I have no idea who it was – agrees:The question of how to proceed ends in the hands of Prince Maximilian, the supreme commander of the imperial forces in Gallia.The troops in central Gallia will be reinforced, Gen. Gregor is to press north as soon as he’s ready. Gen. Jaeger will have to fortify the supply line through Kloden, while Maximilian will head to Barious, accompanied by Gen. Bles.
Yes, we will meet Gen. Jaeger again quite soon.

One relocation later, Squad 7 is deep in the woods. Rosie and Largo once again agree, this time that this is no good landscape to get in a fight in.
While the others discuss the situation, Welkin puts his knowledge to work and looks for a trail, eventually finding… something.He hands the stuff to Alicia, who makes a grave mistake: asking what it is. Longbeard goat droppings.Welkin ignores Alicias outburst and gathers the group: he has found a path of trampled grass, left by some animals. So if we just follow this trail, we’ll end up on the other side of… whatever? The only reason why this episode exists seems to be “let’s show off Welkin’s skill as a trapper”. It doesn’t even make sense. This trail might lead literally anywhere, including the deepest, most remote point of the forest. But for some reason, this is the point from where the attack on the imperial base will start. Oh well.

The next episode starts with Rosie.Alicia compliments her after she’s finished and insists on hearing the whole song one day – and maybe Rosie will actually put on a little show someday. We shall see.
Right now, we have more urgent matters at hand: something’s moving in the undergrowth. Alicia investigates and returns with……shoes and ships and sealing wax a winged pig. A porcavian piglet, according to Isara. Porcavian. I see what you did there. The poor thing’s mother was hit by a stray bullet, and is it wont survive on its own out here, there is only one solution.Squad seven now officially has a mascot.

This chapter’s battle is the attack of the imperial supply camp, deep in the woods. The battle felt lengthy and tedious, due to a combination of uninformed decisions at the beginning, semi-optimal troop movement and the structure of the map. Also, the imperial phase is very dull most of the time.A new gadget is introduced here: mines. Anti-personell mines deal a huge amount of damage to soldiers but not to tanks, while anti-tank mines hurt the Edelweiss but aren’t triggered by soldiers. Engineers can disarm mines, so we better bring some. We’ll also learn about team attacks: sometimes soldiers positioned next to the currently active one open fire with him. This happens especially if the inactive one considers the shooter as a friend.
Victory condition: imperial base captured, and the usual failstates with a twenty turn time limit.The soldiers deploying on this missions are selected: What I would have done differently, had I known: no sniper in the upper squad, engineer in the lower. Bring another lancer, and move those lancers to the front.Movement starts along the paths the map let’s us use:  a trench-like path in the north, and the road in the south, which is completely blocked by fallen trees. While our troops can vault over sandbags, the trees are an impassable blockade.Here we see our engineer disarming an anti-personell mine using her magic bolt cutters. A bit further forward, in the imperial base, we find a scout and an anti-tank gun – this thing has to go before we can move the Edelweiss anywhere. No problem. Unfortunately, the whole thing blows up when it’s reduced to zero HP. I would have loved the opportunity to capture the thing and use it, but I’ll probably have to go back to CoH for this. The base is captured.
Also, across the lake we see a fence. This fence is a) bulletproof and b) withstands tanks. The amount of railroading on this map is just ridiculous, especially given the fact that the only ways to move on from here are along the lake towards the 1st Garrison or following another trench towards the base. The remaining four CP are used to move the Edelweiss and the shocktroops forward to the fallen tree, where an anti-tank mine is placed in our way.
That’s it.The shocktrooper that came around towards the 2nd Garrison is taken out by Vyse and Catherine, who subsequently tries to find a position to give fire support to the southern group. Two more CP are spent to move Nadine, the engineer, towards the Edelweiss to take care of the mine. The way back is another trench, so no shortcuts.The Edelweiss breaches the fallen trees carefully without detonating the mine and the northern shocktroopers play leapfrog.Nadine takes care of the anti-tank mine and gets back out of the way, while our sniper tries to move closer to get a clear shot. She fails, mostly due to the bloody fence.The Edelweiss moves in and knocks the tracks off the imperial tank, the shocktroopers follow up and dispose of the lancers. Ouch.Four CP get stuffed into Largo to get him to the front line and fire all the three shots he’s carrying into the imperial tank. Let me tell you this: keep your troops together. Don’t let someone fall too far behind just because you probably don’t need him right now. This decision WILL come back to haunt you. The tank is finally disposed of by the Edelweiss.The southern shocktroopers take point and out their imperial counterpart, and that’s it for this turn.The remaining scout in the 1st garrison takes a shot at Wendy, one of our shocktroopers. More unseen movement in the base.Rosie charges around a corner in the northern trenches and… steps straight on a mine. Together with some counterfire by the imperial shocktrooper brings her dangerously close to loosing consciousness.Vyse moves up, takes a shot and the Imperial evades.In a third try he finally goes down, and Vyse and Rosie apply Ragnaid generously – Vyse, having a first aid-potential, gets twice as much points out of a single dose.
Alicia starts running, catching up with the rest of the southern group, taking care of the remaining scout and point in front of the base.Finally, Nadine repairs the Edelweiss – again using her magic bolt cutter for it.Movement in the camp, and Alicia gets hit. Placing her this far up front wasn’t the best of ideas.Rosie and Vyse breach the camp’s perimeter, triggering a scripted event: Gen. Jaeger shows up in his tank, the Lupus, and oders everyone to grab everything and run.From here on, things get… weird. I’ll throw out the turns now, as it makes no more sense.
Alicia is gunned down while trying to find a way to reach the other AT-emplacment and gets evacuated a turn later. The Lupus moves forward and plants a mortar grenade in Rosie’s face, the AT-cannon finishes the job: she get’s evacuated.
In the following turns, we request two lancers as replacement for Alicia and Rosie, while the Edelweiss throws shots at the Lupus. The Lupus drives forward during the imperial turns, throws two shots at the Edelweiss, moves back again… and starts a complicated turning maneuver, exposing its radiators in the process:A maneuver like this should trigger a reaction shot…
At the beginning of every turn, the Edelweiss gets repaired by Nadine, and at some point we’ve dealt enough damage to the Lupus to trigger the imperial retreat. As I’ve said, this battle felt more like a chore. The highly linear, two-roads map design, the great distance to cover and the extensive and STUPID maneuvering of the Lupus form a totally unenjoyable scenario – maybe this is more fun with a better choice of troops, but the army you have is never the army you want…

We’re already 1k7 words in, but there’s not enough to come for a whole other post – let’s keep this chapter together, I’d say.
The final episode is a visit from Cpt. Varrot, congratulating us on our success – but Welkin makes it clear that this victory belongs to the animals of the forest, represented by a certain porcavian – who was named Hans in the meantime. Apparently because the trail showed Squad 7 the northern trench to the base. I have no idea. But the single most funny line of the game so far comes up at this point:With Cpt. Varrot’s permission, Private 3rd Class Hans is now officially part of the squad.

in between chapters, we once again spend ALL THE THINGS. Sorry. The aged gentleman at the War Cemetary teaches Welkin the Sniper Support-order, enabling us to have enemies sniped from somewhere off-the-map.
The Writing on the Wall has two more articles: one about the 3rd Regiment’s success in taking the Kloden base despite the intervention of Gen. Jaeger, which earned the militia praise from the whole country, and the other about another draft, targeting males between 30 and 45, to replace the losses in eastern and northern Gallia. Drafting more people in the military will put further strain on the already shaken economy, but Gallia needs those forces.
I thought long and hard about any reason why this draft only targets males while the militia was explicitly shown as a mixed-gender unit. The one reason I can come up with is that they don’t want to draft mothers. Maybe a better explanation shows up in the future, or one of you two readers has one…
The next report, featuring Welkin and Alicia, is available and will be covered on Sunday.
R&D gives us the Firepower Boost II for the machine guns and the lancaars, a grenade upgrade, and a new mortar and better steel for the Edelweiss.
Scouts, shocktroopers and lancers train to level five, and another new order becomes available: Attack Boost, which boosts a unit’s anti-personell attack power.

And that’s it for today. Thanks for reading, provided you came all the way down here.