In which we deal with periodic sandstorms, marine biology and strange, probably Ragnite-fueled magic.
And the other half of the ongoing battle, of course.That’s the situation. The upper half of it.Catherine retreats, together with the lancer who isn’t Largo. Retreating Largo would actually cost us a valuable command point – we would get it back once we called him back into the field, but somehow this seemed like a bad idea at the time. So, in accordance with what I called “a good idea”, he moves forward.
Our new arrivals, supported by the Edelweiss, start pounding the first imperial tank. They’re not as effective as I hoped they’d be.
At the end of the turn, there are still three tanks and an unknown number of imperial infantry left.

Literally everything else was unseen enemy movement.
And you know what? This doesn’t make much sense. What is going on in the remaining battle is a barely coordinated assault against a bunch of imperial snipers and very few shocktroopers. There’s no interesting tactical stuff to see. I don’t have a map where everything would fit on. So here’s the short-ish version:

We fail hilariously -and again- to knock out an imperial tank. Catherine re-enters the battlefield and dives for cover.
The Empire start its sniper-onslaught, but due to the long distances involved most of them miss.
We still don’t manage to take a tank out and burn a bunch of CP on sniper-counterfire – without much effect either. We also draw all our troops towards the front lines.
Imperial snipers concentrate on O’Hara and deal a good deal of damage, but don’t manage to turn her into a medevac-case.FINALLY the first imperial tank turns into a rapidly expanding cloud of debris. We use the now open gap in the imperial lines to move the Edelweiss forward, triggering a cutscene in which… Isara explains to Welkin the lower visibility in sandstorms, and that we can use it to our advantage. On the one hand I like the fact that the devs didn’t shove a tooltip straight into our face here, on the other hand this feels incredibly silly. Our nature freak who doesn’t know what the fuck a sandstorm is, can do, and how to use it. In command.And as we can easily see, we can’t see much. And as you might already have guessed, I totally didn’t use the opportunity to cross the field. Well, Rosie did.Remember: if an imperial soldier reaches our fallen first, they’re done for. I’ve no idea whether the Imps didn’t act on in because Rosie is a major character or they still cut us some slack, but they left her for dead.
A combined effort takes another imperial tank of the map, and Mica heroically charges to get Rosie evacuated – only to get incapacitated himself. Damn.
His evacuation is initiated by the Edelweiss, which proceeds to press forward and takes a perfect shot.Followed by some more. After all, a tank is a one-size-fits-all-tool to solve problems, and the current problem are imperial snipers.The base is now empty, but the bloody tank can’t occupy anything. We need a foot soldier. Who is promptly gunned down by a remaining sniper on the other side of the map and the reinforcement sniper who arrived at the beginning of the imperial turn.
The newly arrived sniper is quickly disposed of – now we still need someone in the base. Remember what I said about the engineers? A better gun, and they would make excellent shocktroopers?  The clear bonus, or rather the lack thereof, is quite noticeable. I really wasn’t willing to clear up – but I probably should at least try in the future.

One might wonder what this is. Most of Squad 7 do, with the obvious exception of Welkin, who has seen a structure like this before…
Luckily Faldio is out here to explain – he is an archeologist, after all.This is the dialogue mentioned in the last post, where Faldio talks about the sudden appearance and disappearance of the Valkyrur, as well as their technology and their presumed divine might.
And after Faldio is done with his lecture, Welkin finally remembers:A marine cephalopod (in this Europe, land-based ones seem to exist) that lives in shells resembling this building. Is there any connection? Maybe we will know one day…
But now let’s take a look inside – we still have no idea why Prince Maximilian came here, and hopefully we’ll find an answer.

In the last chapter of this episode, we follow Prince Maximilian and Gen. Selvaria into the Valkyrur structure. And they are looking for some kind of ancient power. Who would have guessed. Wait, we already know that. Right. Maximilian is looking for a Valkyrur weapon, and somehow Gen. Selvaria with her Strange Blue Glow(tm)-ability is able to gain information from the structure.I have the strange feeling we will see the capital besieged in the very near future. No, wait. We will see the capital FALL in the very near future, as it would be totally pointless to not give The Weapon to The Enemy. His Grace will set his eyes on Randgriz, so we too will return there in time. I guess. I have no idea. But Gen. Selvaria has another question: who shall carry the lance once it is found and taken out of the royal palace?Did I mention already that I really like His Grace’s dialogues?

Upon returning to the headquarter, we level up the shocktroopers, upgrade some more weapons (and find out that there are SO MANY MORE upgrade options than the four initially seen) and drop by to read the Writing on the Wall. Ms. Ellet has two new articles ready:
The first is about the operation in the Barious Desert and speculates why the Empire came here in the first place. The most popular theory seem to be that they’ve found an as-yet-unmined ragnite deposit.
The other foreshadows a visit of the ambassador of the federation and planned talks regarding a possible alliance – as well as the fear that the Federation will simply swallow Gallia as a source of resources.

There’s also another report ready, but that’s a story for another day.