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Ahmet: "METAACs, finish off those airskimmers. All other units, continue firing."

Ahmet focuses all his fire on one of the airskimmers this time, recharging maneuvers as he does.

Right HVM: 88 (612)
Left HVM: 77 (622)

Ivan simply watches as the battle unfolds.

Ahmet's two attacks hit dead on and shatters one of the last airskimmers, while its remaining comrades were finished off by slugs from the rest of the METAAC squads.


The five remaining Juggernauts however slashed into the 5th Infantry with their twin blades, and the carnage began as they scattered, cleaving through vehicles left and right. The company Captain immediately ordered all the infantry to scatter from their Dragoons, although not quick enough for some. Within seconds, the remaining Langskips of the 5th Infantry, 2 Pancery command carriers, 7 Dragoon IFVs, 1 engineering vehicle, and 4 supply vehicles all fell against the onslaught. Almost half of them died against the red Juggernaut who virtually went into a frenzy of cutting and slashing [Ahmet wish he has Knowledge(Martial) here]. Furthermore, with the Juggernauts now within the 5th Infantry's faltering formation, targeting was starting to become troublesome once again...

The Zamburaks of the 3rd artillery however managed to acquire another lock by holding back until an opportune moment and fired in concentration. Its volley managed to hammer through the shields of another Juggernaut and badly maim its right body. The remainder of the Juggernaut's body however, dove down towards the ground below, releasing smoke through both its damaged parts and active smokescreen. Other elements of the 5th and 6th Infantry also did their best, but their fire had become scattered and failed to deal decisive concentration for the most part. Although the Langskips of the 6th managed to heavily injure another Juggernaut by destroying its rear modules and right arm.


In the east, the trading of fire against the Sky Cruisers continued, and the three Cruisers finally brought about enough broadside guns for a focused volley that blasted apart one of the charging MBTs, although no secondary explosions were triggered.

Ahmet: "5th Infantry, scatter! Spread out as much as possible and get away from the Juggernauts. METAACs, advance normal speed towards the Juggernauts. All units, continue firing."

Ahmet takes a single move forward as he begins firing.
Right HVM: 67 (633)
Left HVM: 60 (619)

AC: 40
Touch AC: 34
Command Auras: Foebane Commander (Machines); Defensive Commander (+5 attack and damage against machines, +5 dodge bonus to AC)
Stance: Eye of the Storm
Pilot Bonus: +33
Designating the red mech as my Undefeated Legend opponent.

Ivan continues to observe quietly.

The METAACs managed to acquire another lock upon the enemy's leading red Juggernaut and fired, but only four shots seem to have made hits on the real one, which in conjunction with the damage dealt by the other units barely managed to penetrate the second shield bubble, and only managed to deal light damage against the right hip, although destroying another countermissile battery in the process.
[ Ahmet's shots: first misses, second hits ]

It soon appears that the 5th Infantry will not be completely destroyed, but only because they weren't the main targets of the four remaining Juggernauts still in action as they advanced through the crumbling right shield of the 3rd artillery. However before passing through, they destroyed an additional 2 Dragoon IFVs, 1 supply carrier, and the last Pancerny command carrier, and the Captain of the 5th infantry died as his command vehicle was cut in half and exploded.

The Juggernauts then crashed into the 3rd artillery. The enemy commander seems to have correctly guessed that the link between the artillery was the Pancery command carriers, as two of them in separate artillery double-squads, plus one supply vehicle (likely mistaken for a command unit) was destroyed quickly.

As the Katyusha MLRS at the rear of the 3rd artillery are still in the midst of reloading their massive salvos with the help of the supply vehicles and couldn't stop the process easily, this was quickly becoming a major problem for the 3rd artillery. In the meantime, the Zamburaks refocused their target upon the same Juggernaut the 6th Infantry was most successfully engaging, and a coordinated salvo between multiple vehicular squads managed to completely destroy the Juggernaut (the one injured, not withdrawn, last round).


On the other side the firing exchange between the Sky Cruisers and Imperial units continued. The right side cruisers was beginning to lose its forward turrets and take moderate damage from the concentrated Imperial fire that repeatedly hammer through its Incarnum shield bubble. But that didn't stop another MBT from dying to a focused volley, this time exploding violently as its fusion core blew, hammering the shields of its closest comrades.

Ahmet: "Armored Companies, open fire with Langskips, tanks begin firing as soon as you are in effective range. All units, focus fire on that Juggernaut (indicates the least damaged one)"

Ahmet then blasts the indicated Juggernaut with both his HVMs.

Right HVM: 58 (662)
Left HVM: 57 (664)

AC: 40
Touch AC: 34
Command Auras: Foebane Commander (Machines); Defensive Commander (+5 attack and damage against machines, +5 dodge bonus to AC)
Stance: Eye of the Storm
Pilot Bonus: +33
Designating the red Juggernaut as my Undefeated Legend opponent.

The Ahmet's two hits led the METAACs' volley, which managed to burn through the Juggernauts' first shield layer.

Of the three remaining Juggernauts, two of them with three active energy cannons once again let loose with their beams, cutting straight through the 3rd artillery's position towards the reloading MLRS in the back and swaying the beam across multiple machines, while their blades continued their work. In another few seconds, ten Katyusha MLRS, nine supply carriers, as well as one more Pancery command carrier and two more howitzers were destroyed. One other command carrier actually managed to mostly evade the attack aimed against it, losing only its radar equipment to a grazing hit.

Afterwards, the three Juggernauts dove down towards the ground below, releasing smoke as they went. The red Juggernaut fired an extra salvo of six rockets from its back, each of which sprayed our large quantity of smoke with a high thermal signature in all directions.


The remaining units fired at the escaping enemy, and several hits were probably made (although it's impossible to confirm this), but overall the smoke plus the illusions was making visual targeting extremely difficult.


And the trading of fire against the Sky Cruisers continued...

[Note: If the armored companies were ~2 miles away at the start of last round, moving at full throttle they should be within around .7 miles at the start of this round, easily within another round's movement of the Juggernauts]

Ahmet: "MBTs, continue your advance and saturate that smoke with Shock Lance fire. All other units, continue firing."

Right HVM: 63 (661)
Left HVM: 53 (678)

AC: 40
Touch AC: 34
Command Auras: Foebane Commander (Machines); Defensive Commander (+5 attack and damage against machines, +5 dodge bonus to AC)
Stance: Eye of the Storm
Pilot Bonus: +33

The salvo of six smoke missiles was spread in a horizontal plane, the cloud of smoke was growing as it dispersed from unnecessarily high concentrations, making it hard to see towards the lower altitudes (which probably provided near-full cover against the 5th Infantry, 6th Infantry, and 3rd Artillery, and giving partial concealment against the METAACs and the armor reinforcements). Furthermore the smoke seemed very 'heavy' and the cloud was moving downwards rapidly.

The METAACs continued firing against the smoke stack that is probably the previous (least-damaged) Juggernaut, although without any confirmed damage.

The Juggernauts continued their dive at a sharp angle towards the ground below (although they were shifting vectors towards the east more), releasing smoke cover the whole way.

The MBTs do not have the speed to catch up once the Juggernauts accelerated and could only support via their light HVMs and the fire of their Langskip ADATS squads. Although it seems some of the fire managed to get through when a damaged module was seen flying out of the smoke stack of the previously targeted Juggernaut.


The firing against the Sky Cruisers continued, and the 4th MBT died as the Cruiser captains slowly but steadily picked off the charging MBTs with concentrated fire. However it was neither enough to stop the charge nor balance the fire exchange, and the frontal hull of the right Cruiser was beginning to take heavy damage as HVMs crashed into its forward compartments.

The three Cruisers then released their complement of airskimmers, twenty-seven total, which sped towards the MBTs.


[Spellcraft 31: The weather seems to be rapidly shifting as low and dark clouds began gathering from nowhere, which seems to be the middle stages of a weather control spell of sorts in manifestation]

Ahmet: "All units hold position and continue firing."

Right HVM: 64 (623)
Left HVM: 52 (673)

AC: 40
Touch AC: 34
Command Auras: Foebane Commander (Machines); Defensive Commander (+5 attack and damage against machines, +5 dodge bonus to AC)
Stance: Eye of the Storm
Pilot Bonus: +33


Ivan: "3rd and 4th infantry, shift fire to the skimmers. REDEINs, move to intercept them before they reach the tanks."

The Imperials firing against the Juggernauts did not gave chase. As the distance broadened and the smoke spread, the accuracy is expected to drop more and more even as the vehicle gunners fired into the smoke using nothing more than intuition and blind predictions.

The Juggernauts however dropped until they nearly touched down on the ground, then began heading eastwards. In the final stages of the descent their leader fired out another salvo of rockets that blanketed the barren steppe plains with smoke.


In the east, the fire exchange between the Imperials and the Cruisers continued. Within a minute, the front hull of the right flank Cruiser had been battered to a wreck, with only one twin turret remaining and functional. It turned towards its side to bring its rear turrets into broadside action once again. The small airskimmer force was also hammered apart by long-range HVMs and REDEIN missile volleys before they could incur any decent damage on the MBTs, with the REDEIN wing only taking a few losses in the missile exchange.

As the fire exchange continued, one of the HVMs amongst the launches seems to have penetrated the ship enough to bring down its shield generator(s) [which seems to be somewhere along the midsection of the ship]. Without the reinvesting of its shield generator to negate the damage of the continuous volley-fire, the Sky Cruiser were quickly ravaged by Imperial fire. Within seconds, it began losing altitude as the engines started incurring serious damage, then started plummeting rapidly down towards the ground below as multiple critical component failures piled up. It didn't take long before it crashed hard onto the ground below and blew up in a massive explosion.

The fire then shifted towards the central Sky Cruiser of the original formation, which immediately began taking hits in the front hull, beginning with the loss of one rail turret. The loss of firepower amongst the enemy force was already severe enough that they could no longer bring down MBTs with a single concentrated volley.

The 3rd armored company leading the charge however, had already lost nearly half its tanks - 15 MBTs. They still had around 90 seconds before entering firing range.

Ivan: "MBTs, if you get hit fall back to the rear of the formation to avoid further fire."

Ahmet looks around to try to see if the damaged Juggernauts that landed are still around, and to try to gauge how widely debris from the battle is spread.

Major Bayreuth: "Falling behind a bit in the formation isn't going to change the enemy targeting. It be a different matter if neighboring tanks can shield the damaged ones once the enemy start focusing fire. But going at full-throttle as they are, that kind of maneuverability isn't doable for them lest they slow down."

Major Soissons: "But we need to finish this quick."

Major Bayreuth: "However, our MBTs' charge will soon set them in good accuracy range of their second Cruiser force. Should we continue to press the charge ?"

Comm. Officer: "Message from the Berezina. They've detected a large Moharan ground force coming up from the southwest. They aren't sure of exact numbers yet, but ranging around two to three hundred landbound vehicles. However, they won't reach our position for at least two hours."


Meanwhile, the fire exchange was continuing...


The Juggernauts' rough landing areas are both marked and heavily obscured by smoke, although the thermal signature of the smokescreen was decreasing. It appears that those that landed are rapidly heading east at almost surface level. The debris of those that are destroyed are scattered widely given the altitude, and would be rather difficult to locate given the low ground visibility (remember that it's late night and the weather is relatively cloudy).

Ahmet: "All units, meet up with the main force to join the battle against the Sky Cruisers."

Ivan: "MBTs, continue the attack."

The 5th and 6th Armor companies turned around once more, along with the 3rd Artillery and the 6th Infantry. The 5th Infantry is requesting more time to reform their structure and ranks.

The focused fire was piling damage upon the front hull of the Central Cruiser, knocking out its turrets one by one.

The charging MBTs then came within range of the second Cruiser group. Although their volley had a remarkably low hit ratio and only damaged an MBT, it would only improve as the range decreased. Although, it doesn't seem like the two Cruiser groups are coordinating their targets, merely focusing fire between the same group.

The MBTs then reached maximum effective plasma shock lance of the Cruisers and began pouring their plasma beams into the central Cruiser one by one, popping its shield in a second and cutting into its hulls. The damage accumulated rapidly and the central Cruiser soon began smoking.

Successive volleys by the second Cruiser group seems to have shown better accuracy as a previously targeted MBT took several critical hits and began plummeting from the skies, the remainder of its crew bailing out of the failing vehicle. With this, the 3rd armor company has lost over two-thirds its MBT complement.