Sugarcane

<<silently>>\n<<set $ActionChosen_DP_Battlegroup = "SupportRepubs">>\n<<endsilently>>\nYou order your forces to prepare to move in support of the Republican attack.\n\n<<if $ActionChosen_DP_AirForce>>\nWith your soldiers ready and communications with the Kracaw complete, it's time to put your plan into action.\n\n<<dynamiclink $ActionChosen_DP_Battlegroup "Move out.">>\n<<else>>\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_3]]\n<<endif>>

<<silently>>\n<<set $AirForce -= 10>>\n<<set $SpecialForces -= 4>>\n<<endsilently>>\nEllynwyr immediately directs her 'copters to change course, heading in support of the Rangers. \n\nOne of their transport 'copters is hit by a by a rocket on their approach to the bridgehead. The 'copter manages to crash land, but the attack on the bridge quickly intensifies.\n\nThanks to the timely reinforcement, your combined forces are able to hold the crossing, at first. The Special Forces are hard pressed to deal with Ixian Army tanks, however. A number of the elite soldiers are killed when the buildings they are using for cover are demolished by high explosive shells. They are in a dire position until Kracaw tankbusters can be scrambled to strafe the enemy armor, at which point the combined Special Forces quickly and easily secure the bridge once more.\n\nTaking the southern crossing is comparatively easy, taking you less than half an hour. Your armor and tank destroyer crest a shallow rise overlooking the bridge and wipe out the Ixian armor without taking a single hit, then pummel the rest of the defenders until they are forced to retreat. You don't suffer a single casualty.\n\nYour infantry rush forward to secure the bridge, and discover the span is rigged with demolition charges. Thanks to quick work by your combat engineers, the explosives are safely disarmed.\n\nThe 9th Division crosses the Méré after stationing forces to defend it later in the afternoon. \n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_3]]\n

The OB/KH-79 'Hammerfall' is a tank destroyer of Dwarven manufacture, notable for being the first vehicle in the world to mount an electrodyne cannon. While the Hammerfall was originally conceived of as an extremely long range artillery piece, problems during the testing phase convinced Dwarven engineers that it was unwise to electrodynamically accelerate high explosive shells. The original design was modified to accept heavier armor and a smaller cannon, repurposed as a tank destroyer. \n\nUndoubtedly the greatest strength of the Hammerfall was it's main cannon, the Titanforge TX-2 electrodyne cannon. It was not uncommon for bolts fired from the electrodyne cannon to penetrate clean through an enemy tank, or damage vehicles hiding behind entire buildings. \n\nDwarven military doctrine is based heavily on the concept of fighting hull-down in well-fortified positions, and the Hammerfall was no exception. Its frontal armor was made of thick, layered armor plates of sloped armor, while the sides and rear were protected by much lighter ceramic armor to save on weight. \n\nFirst Built: 199\nManufacturer: Titanforge\nWeight: 49 tonnes\nCrew: 5\nArmor: Up to 440mm, multi-plate (mithril-steel composite)\nArmament: 1 x 42mm TX-2 Electrodyne Cannon\n 2 x 10mm machine guns (one coaxial, one mounted near the commander's hatch)\n

<<silently>>\n\n<<set $MainBattleTanks = 125>>\n<<set $TankDestroyers = 40>>\n<<set $MechanizedInfantry = 48>> \n<<set $SpecialForces = 24>> \n<<set $CombatEngineers = 12>>\n<<set $AirForce = 100>>\n<<set $NinthInfantry = 80>>\n<<set $Republicans = 40>>\n<<set $RoyalGuard = 200>>\n\n<<set $ActionChosen_DP_AirForce = 0>>\n<<set $ActionChosen_DP_Battlegroup = 0>>\n<<set $ActionChosen_DP_SpecialForces = 0>>\n\n<<set $CAS = 0>>\n<<set $ACP = 0>>\n<<set $Bombers = 0>>\n\n<<set $ChaosFactor = 1>>\n\n<<endsilently>>\nG2 Games North Proudly Presents:\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n[ oooooo oooooo oooo .o. ooooooooo. oooooooooooo .oooooo. ooooo ooo oooooooooooo ]\n[ `888. `888. .8' .888. `888 `Y88. d'""""""d888' d8P' `Y8b `888b. `8' `888' `8 ]\n[ `888. .8888. .8' .8"888. 888 .d88' .888P 888 888 8 `88b. 8 888 ]\n[ `888 .8'`888. .8' .8' `888. 888ooo88P' d888' 888 888 8 `88b. 8 888oooo8 ]\n[ `888.8' `888.8' .88ooo8888. 888`88b. .888P 888 888 8 `88b.8 888 " ]\n[ `888' `888' .8' `888. 888 `88b. d888' .P `88b d88' 8 `888 888 o ]\n[ `8' `8' o88o o8888o o888o o888o .8888888888P `Y8bood8P' o8o `8 o888ooooood8 ]\n[ Decision Points ]\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Start New Game|Intro]]\n\n[[Quick Start|DecisionPoint_1]] (Current Game: 4th SBG)\n\n[[Encyclopedia (Requires Disk 2 in Drive)|Encyclopedia_NoLoad]]\n\n[[Help|Help]]\n\nQuit to Bootsys\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nGame Version 1.1\n©232, G2 Games

The infamous Ixian Royal Guard \n\n\n\n

It is a living nightmare.\n\nWhether it is the work of the tainted aura engulfing the city or their own passions, fighting between the Republican rebels and the Royalists intensifies into an all-out war. \n\nAll of Monport is in chaos; civilians trying to flee the city are crowding every available means in or out. Whether they understand what the magical aura signifies or not, it is impossible not to sense the impending doom in the air.\n\nThe only lucky break you get is thanks to some quick thinking by your logistical staff and aerial photography by the air force. They pinpoint the center of the aura as the Harrington hotel building in downtown Monport; smack in the middle of Royalist-held territory. That is where the blood magus is; the only way to stop the ritual is to find them and destroy them.\n\nOne option is an all-out assault on downtown. Driving your armor and troops up against the Royalists, surrounded on all sides by skyscrapers full of hiding places, would be a tactical nightmare. \n\nOn the other hand, a small force of infantry would be much less vulnerable to attack from the densely-packed skyscrapers than an armored column. Captain Ellynwyr volunteers to take her soldiers underground, avoiding the Royalist forces entirely to attack the hotel from the ground up.\n\nFinally, there is one last option on the table. A Kracaw bomber squadron is on its way to attack a Royalist base to the northwest of Monport. You could order them to carpet bomb the downtown area instead.\n\nDiverting the bomber raid would destroy a huge part of Monport's core, kill tens of thousands of innocent people, and likely shatter any hope the city has of seeing peace any time soon. On the other hand, it may well stand the best chance of killing the magus.\n\n<<if (($NinthInfantry * .8 + $Republicans * .5) + (.7 * $MainBattleTanks + .4 * $TankDestroyers + .75 * $MechanizedInfantry) - $ChaosFactor * ($RoyalGuard + 13 * 2.25)) gte 0>>\n[[Order an all-out assault with your armored forces and have them level the building|Ground_Raid_Success]]\n<<else>>\n[[Order an all-out assault with your armored forces and have them level the building|Ground_Raid_Failure]]\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if (($SpecialForces - $ChaosFactor * (13 * 1.4))) gte 0>>\n[[Order a commando raid on the building.|Commando_Raid_Success]]\n<<else>>\n[[Order a commando raid on the building.|Commando_Raid_Failure]]\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if ($AirForce - $ChaosFactor * 79) gte 0>>\n[[Authorize the Kracaw Air Force to level downtown.|Bomber_Raid_Success]]\n<<else>>\n[[Authorize the Kracaw Air Force to level downtown.|Bomber_Raid_Failure]]\n<<endif>>\n

Current Character: Brigadier General Len Dalton, 4th Special Battlegroup (Press Swap + C to change)\n\n----------------------------------------------------------\n4th Special Battlegroup \n----------------------------------------------------------\nNationality: Mixed (Vendigrandian, Dwarven League, Kracawan)\nSize: Battalion\nRole: Mobile Combined-Arms\n\nThe 4th Special Battlegroup was a combined-arms battallion assembled by the Vendigrandian Army shortly after the nation's entry into the Ixian Civil War, led by Brigadier General Len Dalton. It was comprised largely of units drawn from the 11th Armored Brigade and the 3rd Mobile Infantry, as well as a Dwarven tank killer unit seconded by the Dwarven city-state of Rasthold. At the time, these were the only mobile armored units in all of of eastern Vendigrand.\n \nShortly after the invasion helicopter-mobile VAS Special Forces and Kracaw Airborne Rangers joined the unit for the remainder of the war, bringing it up to full strength.\n\nGeneral Dalton and the 4th SBG were one of the first three-power units into Ix, and led eastern half of the advance to Monport. Later, they would play a pivotal role in the events of the 'Bloody Summer'.\n\nCaptain Merrin - Mechanized Infantry commander, A Company\n3 x Platoons of \n - 4 x Infantry Squads and their APCs (General Machines Mk. III)\n \nCaptain Toma - Mechanized Infantry commander, B Company.\n3 x Platoons of \n - 4 x Infantry Squads and their APCs (General Machines Mk. III)\n\nCaptain Strange - Armored Battalion commander, C Company.\n - 2 x Attached Armored Platoons\n - 5 'Antiax' Main Battle Tanks\n - 1 x Platoon of Dwarven Tank Destroyers\n - 4 'Hammerfall' Electrodyne Tank Destroyers & their support vehicles. \n \nCaptain Lockhart - Armored Battalion commander, D Company\n - 3 x Armored Platoons\n - 5 'Antiax' Main Battle Tanks\n\nLieutenant Gredel - Engineer commander, E Platoon\n 1 x Combat Engineering Platoon\n - 3 Squads of combat engineers and their vehicles\n\nCaptain Ellynwyr - Special Forces commander, F Platoon. \n 1 x Special Forces Platoon\n - 4 Squads and their transport helicopters\n\nDifficulty: Realistic (Press Swap + D to change)\nSettings: Historical (Press Swap + H to change)\n\n[[Continue with current settings|DecisionPoint_1]]\n\n[[Back to title|TitleScreen]]\n

You order the commando raid immediately. \n\nGiven how intense the fighting is around the downtown and the threat from antiaircraft autocannons, Captain Ellynwyr rules both group and air assaults impossible. Instead, she leads the bulk of her troops into the sewers underneath Monport accompanied by your combat engineers and a small group of sanitation workers sympathetic to the Republican cause. Meanwhile, sharpshoots Kracaw Airborne Rangers infiltrate downtown under their own wings, and set up sniper's nests in line of sight of the hotel. \n\nAfter explosively breaching the underground parking lot of the skyscraper, your special forces confirm the presence of bloodcult activity beyond any doubt. \n\nYour soliders make progress rapidly, until they breach the 11th floor of the hotel. An ambush by bloodcult suicide bombers injures and kills a number of your commandos, but they press on and let the infantry behind them secure their wounded. \n\nThe first squad to make contact with the Slaughtermage is obliterated by his sorcery. Soon, the floors of the hotel being to fill with summoned demons, and things go from bad to worse. Squad after squad drops out of radio contact, torn apart by the demons.\n\nThe raid is a failure. The last thing you see is a flash of red light bright enough to blind you...\n\n[[Continue...|Lose]]\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $ChaosFactor = .95>>\n<<set $SpecialForces -= 3>>\n<<set $NinthInfantry -= 3>>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 2>>\n<<endsilently>>\nYou order Captain Ellynwyr and her troops to assist in securing the 9th Infantry's perimeter. \n\nThanks to their assistance, they are able to weather the next three days without taking as many casualties as before. The only blight on the record is a suicide attack on a checkpoint by a Royalist die-hard, which kills three of your elite soldiers. Another is accidentally wounded by friendly fire when soldiers from the 9th mistake the sniper for an enemy soldier and fire mortars into his nest.\n\n\nX X X X PRIORITY MESSAGE X X X X\n\n\nThe next morning, you awake to discover the air around the city has taken on a sulfurous smell and a red glare. You aren't sure what to make of the development when a magus on General Hyster's staff teleports into your command bunker unannounced. \n\nThe magus explains the growing aura is a telltale sign of blood magic being worked. Worse, given the size and power of the aura, it seems the magus is working a ritual of apocalyptic power right underneath your feet. He thinks it likely the entire city is being targeted...\n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_6A]]\n\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $NinthInfantry -= 11>>\n<<endsilently>>\nIt takes the better part of three days for Captain Ellynwyr and her soliders to plan the raid, but you have to admit they did they homework well.\n\nEllynwyr and her commandos make their move in the dead of night, after leaving behind their non-human squadmates and disguising themselves as vagrants and beggars. By travelling in small groups, taking side streets and being exceedingly careful, they are able to remain undetected until they make their way to the government district. Just of the security cordon, they make their way into the sewer system and enter the palace from below.\n\nAfter breaching between sewer lines with explosive charges, they search clear palace from the bottom up, clearing every room with silenced weapons. By the time their presence is noted, they're already exfiltrating back through the sewers.\n\nEllynwyr reports back in the morning, disappointed and desperately in need of a long shower. The palace was far more lightly guarded than you had been led to believe. Unfortunately, the King, the royal family and their advisors were nowhere to be found inside. Contrary to popular opinion, it seems Izthar the 9th fled Monport some time ago.\n\n\nX X X X PRIORITY MESSAGE X X X X\n\n\nThe next morning, you awake to discover the air around the city has taken on a sulfurous smell and a red glare. You aren't sure what to make of the development when a magus on General Hyster's staff teleports into your command bunker unannounced. \n\nThe magus explains the growing aura is a telltale sign of blood magic being worked. Worse, given the size and power of the aura, it seems the magus is working a ritual of apocalyptic power right underneath your feet. He thinks it likely the entire city is being targeted...\n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_6A]]\n

G2 Games North Proudly Presents:\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n[ oooooo oooooo oooo .o. ooooooooo. oooooooooooo .oooooo. ooooo ooo oooooooooooo ]\n[ `888. `888. .8' .888. `888 `Y88. d'""""""d888' d8P' `Y8b `888b. `8' `888' `8 ]\n[ `888. .8888. .8' .8"888. 888 .d88' .888P 888 888 8 `88b. 8 888 ]\n[ `888 .8'`888. .8' .8' `888. 888ooo88P' d888' 888 888 8 `88b. 8 888oooo8 ]\n[ `888.8' `888.8' .88ooo8888. 888`88b. .888P 888 888 8 `88b.8 888 " ]\n[ `888' `888' .8' `888. 888 `88b. d888' .P `88b d88' 8 `888 888 o ]\n[ `8' `8' o88o o8888o o888o o888o .8888888888P `Y8bood8P' o8o `8 o888ooooood8 ]\n[ Decision Points ]\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n<<timedgoto "TitleScreen" 4.5s>>

[[Start Computer|Start Game]]\n

The Mark III

You order the ground assault immediately.\n\nEvery unit you have under your command is sent out on the attack, backed by the support of the 9th Infantry. \n\nBefore you even reach downtown, rocket fire and prepared mines wreck havok on your armor and APCs, but desperation pushes your forces forward heedless of the losses. When you finally get in sight of the Harrington building, the red glow of building magic is bright enough to read by.\n\nRoyalist forces surround your troops and cut you off from the north of Monport. You order every gun under your command to ignore them as much as possible and concentrate fire on the building.\n\nDemons spill out of the hotel from the ground floor and leap through the glass windows, attacking all sides of the battle indiscriminately. They engulf your armor and soldiers, and then start tearing the Royalist forces apart. \n\nThe last thing you see is a flash of red light bright enough to blind you...\n\n[[Continue...|Lose]]\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $NinthInfantry -= 24>>\n<<endsilently>>\nYou rush your entire battlegroup to the defense of the Rangers. \n\nYour armor easily blunts the Ixian counterattack, driving them back across the river without taking any losses. The few hits the Ixian tanks score on your heavy armor fail to penetrate the thick plates on the Antiax, while your shots land with deadly effect. It takes your tanks a little less than half an hour to force the Ixian army into a full retreat, much to the relief of the besieged Rangers.\n\nNot expecting the Ixians to crumble so quickly, you quickly refuel and cross the river, to move and support the 9th Infantry. But your armor is slowed by the presence of minefields just off the main roads, and is forced to travel at a snail's pace. By the time they reach the crossing, the battle is long over.\n\nThe 9th Infantry reaches the southern bridge in afternoon after an arduous march, and begins their attack immediately. It takes them until the evening to take the crossing, and they suffer heavy losses from emplaced autocannons and tanks in the process. It takes a massive barrage from the 9th's heavy artillery to destroy the well-prepared defenses.\n\nShortly thereafter, the 9th is forced to fend off an uncharacteristically ferocious counterattack by the Ixian regular army. It soon becomes apparent that this was a delaying tactic, to keep them from noticing the crossing had been rigged with demolition charges.\n\nThe hasty sabotage fails to destroy the bridge, but the blasts kill nearly a hundred soldiers instantly and injure hundreds more. Finally, the worn and bloodied 9th is forced to spend all night rigging up temporary repairs.\n\nGeneral Roseland has a few choice words for your sudden change of plans, which she broadcasts over the regional wideband. \n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_3]]\n\n

"I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting — its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers ... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation."\n - General William Tecumseh Sherman, Letter, May 1865\n\nThe battle for Monport was won, but at a terrible price. \n\nTHE END

<<silently>>\n<<set $ActionChosen_DP_Battlegroup = "SeizeBase">>\n<<endsilently>>\nYou order your forces to capture the Ixian supply depot.\n\n<<if $ActionChosen_DP_AirForce>>\nWith your soldiers ready and communications with the Kracaw complete, it's time to put your plan into action.\n\n<<dynamiclink $ActionChosen_DP_Battlegroup "Move out.">>\n<<else>>\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_3]]\n<<endif>>

<<silently>>\n<<set $AirForce -= 30>>\n<<set $SpecialForces -=5>>\n<<endsilently>>\nThe ride towards the southern bridge is quiet, save for the frantic radio chatter from the besieged Rangers. \n\nThe Ixian counterattack is brutal. The Rangers didn't drop with heavy anti-armor weaponry, and find most of their defensive positions demolished from beyond their range of engagement. The Kracaw Rangers are nearly overrun before their air support finally arrives. Avian aircraft sortee around the clock until the counterattack is broken and the Rangers throw the Ixians back. After they secure the crossing, the Rangers call in a bombers to carpet bomb the fleeing army, effectively wiping it out.\n\nYou try not to think about how much ordinance was expended on and around that bridge. It would be a miracle if it could support a horse and cart, let alone a tank.\n\nIn contrast, taking the southern crossing takes you less than half an hour. Your armor and tank destroyer crest a shallow rise overlooking the bridge and wipe out the Ixian armor without taking a single hit, then pummel the rest of the defenders until they are forced to retreat. Captain Ellynwyr and her special forces land on the other side of the river to finish securing the bridge, killing and capturing a group of Ixian soldiers preparing to blow the crossing.\n\nThe 9th Division crosses the Méré after stationing forces to defend it later in the afternoon. \n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_3]]\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $ActionChosen_DP_Battlegroup = "DestroyRoyals">>\n<<endsilently>>\nYou order your forces to pursue and destroy the Royal Guard unit.\n\n<<if $ActionChosen_DP_AirForce>>\nWith your soldiers ready and communications with the Kracaw complete, it's time to put your plan into action.\n\n<<dynamiclink $ActionChosen_DP_Battlegroup "Move out.">>\n<<else>>\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_3]]\n<<endif>>

You order the commando raid immediately. \n\nGiven how intenses the fighting is around the downtown and the threat from antiaircraft autocannons, Captain Ellynwyr rules both group and air assaults impossible. Instead, she leads the bulk of her troops into the sewers underneath Monport accompanied by your combat engineers and a small group of sanitation workers sympathetic to the Republican cause. Meanwhile, Kracaw Airborne Ranger sharpshooters infiltrate downtown under their own wings, and set up sniper's nests in line of sight of the hotel. \n\nAfter explosively breaching the underground parking lot of the skyscraper, your special forces confirm the presence of bloodcult activity beyond any doubt. \n\nYour soldiers make progress rapidly, until they breach the 11th floor of the hotel. An ambush by bloodcult suicide bombers injures and kills a number of your commandos, but they press on and let the infantry behind them secure their wounded. \n\nThey continue onward, again advancing rapidly. On the 71st floor, they make contact with the blood mage.\n\nHalf of a squad is obliterated instantly by sorcery. Soon, the floors of the hotel begin to fill with summoned demons, and the progress of your squad slows to a crawl. They fight their way all the way to the summit despite the demonic forces clawing towards them through every floor and ceiling, protected by a constant stream of sniper fire from the avian rangers supporting them.\n\nSuddenly, you hear a lone voice cut through the frenetic radio chatter. \n\n"I've got a shot," it says. Every other voice on the channel goes quiet in seconds.\n\nYou snatch the transmitter from your radio operator and shout "TAKE IT!". Startled, he falls out of his chair. \n\n<<if ($SpecialForces gte 20)>>\nAs the bloodmage works to complete the fel ritual atop the summit of the skyscraper, a Kracaw sniper by the name of Dennis Ashwood takes aim at him from the roof of a building eleven blocks away.\n\nThe eagle's first shot strikes the bloodmage in his chest; the second his head. In seconds, the red glow around the city begins to die down.\n\n<<else>>\nAs the blood mage worked his fel magic atop the summit of the skyscraper, a Vendigrandian special forces commando named Jess Wateroy rushes at him and his thralls. Covered in the blood of her dead comrades and hemorrhaging herself, she has strapped her entire slaughtered squad's compliment of demolition charges to her back.\n\nFire and glass rains down on the streets below as she sacrifices herself. The magus and his followers are killed in the ensuing explosion.\n<<endif>>\n\n[[Continue...|Win]]\n

...\n<<timedinsert .1s>>A:maindir:g2games:warzone-war.run<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert .5s>>Running war.run...\n\nWAR ZONE<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 1s>>Patent #232-67012, G2 Games\nDON'T RISK YOUR DISK! \nProgram copying is ILLEGAL!<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 2.2s>>Loading config.tex... done!<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 2.4s>>Loading settings.tex... done!<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 2.6s>>Loading keymap.tex... done!<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 2.8s>>Loading players.tex... done!<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 3s>>Lauching game<<endtimedinsert>>...\n<<timedgoto "TitleTransition" 5s>>\n\n\n\n

<<if $ACP>>\n<<silently>>\n<<set $Republicans += 30>>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 17>>\n<<set $MainBattleTanks -= 3>>\n<<set $MechanizedInfantry -= 1>>\n<<set $AirForce -= 2>>\n<<endsilently>>\nYou immediately order the fighters attached to you to provide cover to the Republican forces. They are engaging the Royal Air Force within the hour, and the radio chatter from the Republicans explodes with jubilation as the birds swat the slow moving planes strike planes from the sky. A handful of Ixian fighters take off to challenge the raptors in the sky, and are destroyed with equal haste. Antiaircraft fire from the airfield downs a single fighter, but the pilot manages to eject safely and is picked up and treated for minor injuries on your way to the airbase.\n\nWithout fear of reprisal from the air, you order your battlegroup to make a beeline for the airfield. Your armor smashes through the Ixian's defensive line, and routs the remaining defenders with the help of the emboldened Republicans. Royal Air Force strike fighters scramble to flee their fallen base, where they are picked off by waiting avian fighters. \n\n<<endif>>\n<<if $CAS>>\n<<silently>>\n<<set $Republicans += 20>>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 11>>\n<<set $MainBattleTanks -= 6>>\n<<set $MechanizedInfantry -= 3>>\n<<endsilently>>\nIt's a long ride over rough and rugged ground to the airfield. On the way, your attempts to establish some radio contact with the Republican forces are hampered by their haphazard command structure. The first Republican field commander you manage to reach is abruptly cut off when a Royal Air Force strike kills him and his entire entourage.\n\nNot wishing to suffer the same fate, you detour to the northwest, to strike the airbase from the opposite side. As you head back northward, you're able establish a clean radio link with the Kracaw Air Command, and order an airstrike of your own on the Ixian airfield. The slow-moving tankbusters put their heavy cannons to devastating effect on the Royal Air Force jets lined up to take off, while their heavy armor and redundant engines keep them flying even after taking heavy fire from Ixian flak emplacements. \n\nSoon after, your armor smashes through the Ixian's defensive line, and routs the remaining defenders with the help of the emboldened Republicans. A hasty airstrike by the Royalist planes inflicts some nasty damage on D Company's third platoon, but with a clear view of the runway your armor is able to pick off most enemy jets as they taxi for takeoff. Even more are destroyed in their shelters when your tank destroyers join the battle.\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if $Bombers>>\n<<silently>>\n<<set $Republicans += 20>>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 20>>\n<<set $AirForce -= 10>>\n<<endsilently>>\nIt's a long ride over rough and rugged ground to the airfield. On the way, your attempts to establish some radio contact with the Republican forces are hampered by their haphazard command structure. The first Republican field commander you manage to reach is abruptly cut off when a Royal Air Force strike kills him and his entire entourage.\n\nNot wishing to suffer the same fate, you detour to the northwest, to strike the airbase from the opposite side. As you head back northward, you're able establish a clean radio link with the Kracaw Air Command, and order an airstrike of your own on the Ixian airfield. \n\nYou're still approaching the airfield when the bombing begins. The Firewings are so high up you can't even see the boomerang, 'flying wing' shapes through your field glasses. But you can certainly feel the blast waves from the 2,222 kilogram bombs detonating, even at this distance. Shockwaves buffet your command APC as you watch the bombing devastate the airfield, annihilating row after row of Royal Air Force planes in their armored shelters as well as the airfield's fixed defenses.\n\nThe base is completely destroyed by the time your forces are in range. \n\n<<endif>>\nThe Republican forces in the area quickly converge on the ruined airfield, elated by your sudden intervention. You and your Captains have to politely decline several requests to join your unit from the ebullient rebels. They are eager, but even the rebels who defected from the regular army seem disorganized, poorly equipped and sorely in need of decent training.\n\nThat evening you up every Republican commander who looks like they are worth their salt for a conference. After the traditional Ixian coffee and hashish is consumed (which you politely decline), you appraise them of just enough of the war situation to make their movements more useful. \n\nDuring the conference, you learn why they were so keen to taking the airfield. It seems it was home of some the Royal Air Force units responsible for the infamous midsummer firebombing.\n\nYou prepare to move out in the morning, towards the capital. \n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_4]]\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $NinthInfantry += 20>>\n<<set $MechanizedInfantry += 2>>\n<<set $MainBattleTanks += 2>>\n<<set $SpecialForces += 1>>\n<<set $TankDestroyers += 1>>\n<<endsilently>>\nYou advance on the Ixian supply depot, and are surprised to find it completely abandoned and unguarded. Boxes of mines, ammunition and dragon's teeth lying near the road leading to the base speak of an abortive attempt at setting up defenses before your arrival.\n\nAfter having your engineers sweep the base to make sure no booby traps have been left behind, you have your soldiers rest and re-equip themselves from the base's stores. Then, after fixing the hastily-sabotaged radio, re-establish communications with both your Command and the 9th Infantry, informing them of the undefended base. You suggest to Roseland she make her way to the depot and avail herself of the stores to replenish her own supplies. \n\n<<if $CAS>>\nYou only get scattered contact from your air support through the day. You don't find any targets worth marking for an airstrike in any case, and eventually the wing detailed to you is re-assigned.\n<<endif>>\n<<if $ACP>>\nYou only get scattered contact from your air support through the day, and when you do the fighters don't report much activity. The Royal Air Force seems unwilling to challenge the avians in the sky, which suits you just fine.\n<<endif>>\n<<if $Bombers>>\nYou only get scattered contact from your air support through the day. You don't find any targets worth marking for bombing in any case, and eventually the wing detailed to you is re-assigned.\n<<endif>>\n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_4]]\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $MainBattleTanks -= 5>>\n<<set $MechanizedInfantry -= 6>>\n<<set $TankDestroyers -= 9>>\n<<set $NinthInfantry -= 5>>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 29>>\n<<set $AirForce -= 10>>\n<<endsilently>>\nYou order the bombing strike to commence an hour and a half after your feint, hoping that is enough time.\n\nAdvancing in plain view of the enemy, your tanks and mechanized infantry draw heavy fire from the shore of Monport before they can dig in and find cover. As ordered, your tanks and tank destroyers open fire, but deliberately avoid exposing themselves to any fire.\n\nAs the battle rages, Royal Guard armor and infantry cluster on the opposite shore. You forces also come under attack from rocket artillery, mortars and even a lone strike fighter. As ordered, they have dug in deep, and are protected from most of the enemy fire. As enemy artillery starts taking its toll, you wonder if your feint was too effective...\n\nThen, precisely on the arranged time, a series of massive explosion ripple across the bridge as the Kracaw bombing begins. \n\nIn minutes, the massed defenders and their fortifications are obliterated. \n\nYou immediately order an advance on the Fairwall Bridge. The defenses arrayed on the bridge are impressive and take time to dismantle, but appear to be sorely undermanned. It is yours in thirty minutes. \n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_5]]\n

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You order the bombing raid immediately.\n\nThe sound of the massive Kracaw 'Firewings' flying over the city is a hellish roar, somehow worse than the crimson glow of building magic. They're low enough you can actually make out the flying wing shapes of the heavy bombers.\n\nYou watch mutely as 2,222 kilogram bombs pound the heart of downdown Monport to dust, leveling a dozen skyscrapers... and the people that had been using them for refuge. \n\nMuch of Monport's infrastructure is run through downtown. The force of the bombing cuts power and water to 95% of the city. Flying glass and dust from the collapsed skyscrapers wounds and kills even more. And then the gas lines under the streets start to detonate in a chain reaction, and fires start to spread...\n\nAs you survey the hellish carnage of the bombing, the red glow of magic disappears from the city. \n\n[[Continue...|Draw]]\n\n\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $ActionChosen_DP_Battlegroup = "RaceForCap">>\n<<endsilently>>\nYou order your troops towards the capital with all haste.\n\n<<if $ActionChosen_DP_AirForce>>\nWith your soldiers ready and communications with the Kracaw complete, it's time to put your plan into action.\n\n<<dynamiclink $ActionChosen_DP_Battlegroup "Move out.">>\n<<else>>\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_3]]\n<<endif>>

It is the morning of the 8th. The campaign to liberate Ix is now a day old.\n\nHaving linked up with the 9th Infantry in the morning, you're given the task of helping them seize a crossing over the Méré. The Méré river- or the Mighty Méré, as it is more commonly known- divides the northeastern Ix heartland from the rest of the country. There are numerous crossings at just about every city and village along the river, but the Ixian regular army is likely entrenched at every one of them. \n\nGeneral Roseland and you are assigned to take one particularly choice bridge, which spans the Méré to the south. Radio communications with Command are spotty, but you learn that a platoon of Vendigrand's finest- VAC commandos- are on their way to support your attack. With your armor leading the way, taking the objective should be easy.\n\nJust as you are about to order your battlegroup onto the road, an emergency transmission comes through on the 9th's longband radio. It's a call for help from a small unit of elite Kracaw Rangers, who dropped across the river in the middle of the night and took one of the northern crossings. It seems the birds are facing a determined counterattack by the Ixian army, and the Vendigrandian 1st Armored is behind schedule reinforcing them.\n\nThe northern and southern crossings are separated by almost 30 kilometers; you'd going to have to split your forces if you want to support the Rangers and fulfill your original objective. From the radio chatter coming through, it's unlikely they're going to make it by themselves. \n\n[[Stick to your orders, and race to take the southern crossings. The avians can fend for themselves for now.|DecisionPoint_2_Ignore]]\n\n[[Head towards your original objective immediately with your current forces, and order Ellynwyr and her commandos to support the Kracaw Rangers.|DecisionPoint_2_SmForce]]\n\n[[Order Ellynwyn and her commandos to the northern bridge. Also send a small detachment of armor and mechanized infantry to support her and the Rangers. Press towards the southern crossing with the bulk of your forces.|DecisionPoint_2_MdForce]]\n\n[[Let the 9th take the southern crossings by themselves, and send your whole battlegroup to support the Rangers.|DecisionPoint_2_AllOut]]\n\n

It is the evening of the 8th, and you're preparing for the next phase of the campaign. With the Mighty Méré behind you and crossing secured, you have almost total freedom of movement. \n\nNow, the vast, arid, nearly empty interior of Ix stands between you and the densely populated southern coast. Your standing orders are to move on to the capital as quickly as possible to isolate the Royal government, but radio contact with other forward units has appraised you of a number of possible targets you could move on during your advance. \n\nForward reconnaissance units report an isolated Ixian supply base lies in the desert to the southwest, almost directly between you and the capital. Seizing it would mean denying war material to enemy forces while giving your own troops a chance to rest and resupply. If the base can be seized intact, it would provide a phenomenal staging area for the 9th infantry behind you. You have no intel on possible defenses, however.\n\nRepublican forces appear to be trying to stage an attack on a Royal Air Force field far to the west. The rebels badly equipped and disorganized compared to the defenders, and they're being pummeled mercilessly from the skies. Going to their aid would likely bring you and the rest of the coalition a great deal of gratitude from the beleaguered Ixian rebellion. However, taking such a long detour would put you at least a half a day behind schedule.\n\nLastly, there are rumors of massed Royal Guard armor in the area not far to your northwest, hiding in the shadow of the Pyrathimus mountain range. The Royal Guard armor have been taking an unmerciful beating from Kracaw tankbusters whenever they fight in the open, and seem to be lying low for now. If you can strike a blow against them while their backs are to the mountains, you'll force them into a fight they can't easily run from.\n\nIn addition to Ellynwyr's special forces, a squad of Kracaw Rangers detach to your unit after they are relieved, and put you in touch with their Air Command. \n\nIt seems the birds are still working on establishing a forward operating airfield in northern Ix, but you're well within range of their air superiority fighters and heavy bombers operating flying out of Vendigrand. There is also a small detachment of four-engined close support tankbusters operating in the area, taking off and landing from the rough airfields used by Ixian crop dusters. \n\nThe avians offer you your pick of a support package, but because you're currently operating near their maximum range they're going to have to sortee the planes well ahead of time. Radio contact will likely be spotty, too.\n\n<<if not $ActionChosen_DP_AirForce>>\nWhat sort of support should you ask from the Kracaw Air Force?\n\n[[Close air support; a flight of tankbusters.|DecisionPoint_3_CAS]]\n\n[[Air combat patrols; a fighter squadron.|DecisionPoint_3_ACP]]\n\n[[Heavy bomber support; a squadron of 'Firewing' flying wings. |DecisionPoint_3_Bombers]]\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if not $ActionChosen_DP_Battlegroup>>\nWhat are your orders for your battlegroup, General?\n[[Support the rebel assault.|DecisionPoint_3_SupportRepubs]]\n\n[[Take a detour on your way to the capital to seize the supply base.|DecisionPoint_3_SeizeBase]]\n\n[[Pursue and destroy the Royal Guard.|DecisionPoint_3_DestroyRoyals]]\n\n[[Follow your original orders and rush to the capital.|DecisionPoint_3_RaceForCap]]\n<<endif>>

Welcome to the War Zone, General Dalton.\n\nThe 4th Special Battlegroup crosses the border into Ix without incident early on the morning of the 7th. Your first objective is to find and destroy or drive back the Royal Guards, which has undoubtedly been mustering near the border in anticipation of your attack.\n\nYou pass a deserted Royal Guard outpost near the border, empty save for a handful of looters and the burnt-out wreck of an IFV. The highways are jammed with refugees fleeing into Vendigrand, forcing you to order the battlegroup off the roads. Your vehicles crush field after field of cucumbers, tomatillos, potatoes and other crops rotting, unpicked, in the sweltering heat. \n\nAfter passing by the border town of Pernez, you receive a message from Command notifying you that air reconnaissance spotted a large force- possibly brigade sized- of the Royal Guard entrenched less than twenty kilometers from your position. Photographic analysis confirmed the presence of Ixian tanks, including DS-4 'Suzerain' heavy tanks.\n\nReviewing your satmap, you see that they've chosen a very good place to hold out. The area is hilly and covered with brush that could be hiding any number of troops or vehicles with ease. There isn't much in the way of cover for your own forces on the approach save for a small town named Marknyha lying at the bottom of the foothills, which hasn't been reconnoitered. Digging the Royal Guard out of the area could be very difficult, but they are guarding one of the main highways into southern Ix from the north. \n\nIt is early afternoon. Right now, you are the only Coalition ground force in all of Eastern Ix. However, the 9th Infantry Division of the Vendigrandian Army is mustering near the Ixian border under Brigadier General Roseland and will most likely be in position to support you by early evening. The 9th Division includes three full batteries of heavy field artillery and a battery of mobile rocket launchers, but they aren't fully mechanized and thus much less mobile than your battlegroup.\n\nWhen asked for advice, your Captains are split along Company lines. Captains Merrin and Toma of the mechanized infantry think that a direct assault on a prepared position would be suicide, and recommend waiting for reinforcements. Your armored commanders are less pessimistic, but about as uncertain as you are. As a compromise, Captain Strange suggests the possibility of sending out a small scouting force protected by his tank destroyers, which likely outrange and outgun anything the Ixians have with their electrodyne cannons.\n\nWhat are your orders, General?\n\n[[Wait for reinforcements, then attack the Royal Guards with the help of the 9th after an artillery barrage.|DecisionPoint_1_Wait]]\n\n[[Have your armor set up near the foothills. Then, order a small force of infantry to take the town at the base of the hills, and try to lure the Royal Guard into an ambush of your own.|DecisionPoint_1_Ambush]]\n\n[[Make an end run around the hills and try and cut the Royal Guard off from the highway, and then either engage them when they try and escape or crush them with a pincer attack from both sides.|DecisionPoint_1_EndRun]]\n\n[[Order a small number of your mechanized infantry to dismount their vehicles and scout ahead, after positioning C Company's tank destroyers so they have a clean line of fire to any likely Royalist positions.|DecisionPoint_1_CarefulAttack]]\n\n[[Order an all-out attack on the Royal Guard position with your armored units. Have your mechanized infantry cover your flanks, but prepare to repel any counterattack or follow-up if the assault is successful.|DecisionPoint_1_AllOutAssault]]\n

It is late morning on the 10th of lansummer. The capital of Ix, the great metropolis of Monport lies before you.\n\nMonport sits on a massive chunk of rock half-split jutting out from the ocean just off the coast of Ix. The rock forms powerful waterbreak, forming a natural harbor across the whole of the coast. It is a true metropolis; the cultural, political and economic capital of Ix. Its pre-war population was 2.2 million, making it far and away the largest city on the entire continent.\n\nAs the traditional capital of the Royal Court and seat of power for the Kingdom of Ix, it remained a Royalist stronghold throughout the civil war. But that seems to have changed since the intervention. Republican partisans are ambushing Royal Guard armor in the streets and fighting the city garrison building by building, block by block. From a distance, you can see smoky fires billowing out of the towering skyscrapers across the channel. \n\nYou have been given the task of securing a crossing into the isolated city before the rest of the army can catch up with you. Two bridges provide the only means of entry and egress into Monport overland. Due south of your position is the older of the two; the 8-lane Easterlin Bridge. To the northwest is the brand-new Fairwall Bridge; a massive, double-decker bridge with ten lower lanes and eight on top. You could probably make do with one of them if worse comes to worst, but any damage to the bridges is going to seriously limit your ability to bring reinforcements into the capital in a timely fashion. \n\nFighting in or near such dense urban centers is not what your battlegroup was built to do, but thanks to the ongoing Republican insurrection in the city you have a chance to isolate and neutralize the bridge defenders before they can be reinforced. They are likely going to be very difficult to dislodge from their defenses, though, and they must know you are coming. But there may be an indirect way to take the bridges, without risking a frontal assault. \n\nA subway tunnel runs underneath the channel. It's too cramped to move vehicles through, but it would be possible to send infantry through. Your infantry commanders do not seem to be enthused by the possibility of having to fight in an underwater tunnel, but Captain Ellynwyr seems to like the idea.\n\nCaptain Toma suggests you move into a city with a decent-sized port- a city named Manalá looks like it would fit the bill- and land your infantry on beachheads behind the bridges. Your troops have only practiced an amphibious landing once before and it wasn't exactly encouraging, but it would probably be the last thing the Royal Guards would expect. Weather and water conditions are ideal for ships; there isn't so much as a breeze in the air.\n\nThe only support you have in range are the Kracaw Air Force's flying wings, but you couldn't call them in without risking the collapse of the bridges. You can't risk it... or could you?\n\nWhat are your orders, General?\n\n[[Capture the port and seize transportation vessels. Then, make an amphibious landing behind enemy defenses and attack them in the rear.|DecisionPoint_4_Landing]]\n\n[[Stage a commando raid on the southern crossing through the subway system, and then advance your armor once they can tie down the bridge's defenders.|DecisionPoint_4_Subway]]\n\n[[Lay siege to both bridges with your heavy armor. Order your gunners to avoid damaging the structural integrity of the bridges at all costs.|DecisionPoint_4_LaySiege]]\n\n[[Feint a concentrated attack with all of your forces on the Easterlin Bridge, and then destroy it with an airstrike once Royalist forces converge on it. Then swing to the north and take the Fairwall Bridge.|DecisionPoint_4_Trap]]\n\n

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You order your forces to immediately move towards the capital. \n\nThe journey through the desert is an arduous one. You have to stop for your engines to cool every few hours.\n\n<<if $CAS>>\n<<silently>>\n<<set $MainBattleTanks -= 12>>\n<<set $MechanizedInfantry -= 4>>\n<<set $TankDestroyers -= 10>>\n<<endsilently>>\nIt makes your battlegroup a sitting duck for a strike wing from the Royal Air Force. Rockets and chaingun fire from the Ixian aircraft knock two of your tanks out of commission, blows up one of your irreplaceable tank destroyers and inflicts terrible casualties on a platoon caught near the targeted armor. Despite a hail of fire from every heavy machine gun your vehicles can bring to bear \n\nYou only get scattered contact from your own air support through the day. You don't find any ground targets worth marking for a strike run, in any case, and eventually the squadron detailed to you is re-assigned.\n\n<<endif>>\n<<if $Bombers>>\n<<silently>>\n<<set $MainBattleTanks -= 12>>\n<<set $MechanizedInfantry -= 4>>\n<<set $TankDestroyers -= 10>>\n<<endsilently>>\nIt makes your battlegroup a sitting duck for a strike wing from the Royal Air Force. Rockets and chaingun fire from the Ixian aircraft knock two of your tanks out of commission, blows up one of your irreplaceable tank destroyers and inflicts terrible casualties on a platoon caught near the targeted armor. Despite a hail of fire from every heavy machine gun your vehicles can bring to bear \n\nYou only get scattered contact from your own air support through the day. You don't find any ground targets worth marking for a bombing run, in any case, and eventually the flight detailed to you is re-assigned.\n\n<<endif>>\n<<if $ACP>>\n<<silently>>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 9>>\n<<endsilently>>\nWhen you're about sixty kilometers from the coast, a Kracaw air command plane warns you of the incoming air strike. They vector your fighter support towards the incoming aircraft. \n\nYou never see the battle in the skies, but the scattered radio traffic you hear tells a very one sided story. The supersonic Kracaw jets destroy the fighters escorting the strike planes, and then wipe out the defenseless ground attack craft with contemptuous ease. The Royal Air Force planes crushed by the avian fighters without claiming a single allied plane during the dogfighting, and your journey through the desert is unmolested.\n<<endif>>\n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_4]]\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $ChaosFactor = .90>>\n<<set $SpecialForces -= 1>>\n<<set $NinthInfantry -= 5>>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 2>>\n<<endsilently>>\nOver the next three days, your special forces kick down doors and storm Royalist safeguards throughout the north of Monport, killing and capturing a number of partisans. One solider is killed and other loses his legs to a booby-trapped explosives cache. Still, you're able to secure a huge quantity of weapons and material that would likely have been used against you in the coming battle for Monport, and consider the action a success.\n\n\nX X X X PRIORITY MESSAGE X X X X\n\n\nThe next morning, you awake to discover the air around the city has taken on a sulfurous smell and a red glare. You aren't sure what to make of the development when a magus on General Hyster's staff teleports into your command bunker unannounced. \n\nThe magus explains the growing aura is a telltale sign of blood magic being worked. Worse, given the size and power of the aura, it seems the magus is working a ritual of apocalyptic power right underneath your feet. He thinks it likely the entire city is being targeted...\n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_6A]]\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $ChaosFactor = .75>>\n<<set $NinthInfantry -= 11>>\n<<set $SpecialForces += 3>>\n<<endsilently>>\nInvestigating murder in a war zone sounds like irony itself, given what your unit has seen over the last week. But something doesn't sit right with you. Something about the case gives you the chills.\n\nIn the following three days, your special forces uncover a dozen mass graves in the city totaling nearly a thousand victims. What is even more shocking is that the victims seem to have no connection to either the Royal government or the Republican rebels. They are, as far as you can tell, entirely innocent victims. Were it not for the ongoing war, there is no way such a crime could possibly have gone unnoticed.\n\nYou pass the information up the chain of command. Later that evening, a magus on General Hyster's staff teleports into your command bunker unannounced. \n\nThe magus explains the state of the victims is a telltale sign of blood magic being worked. Worse, given the number of victims and the way their bodies were positioned, it seems the magus is working a ritual of apocalyptic power right underneath your feet. He thinks it likely the entire city is being targeted.\n\nGeneral Hyster detaches his special forces squad to join your investigation, but it seems time is not on your side. The air around the city has already taken on a sulfurous smell and a red glare...\n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_6A]]\n

You order the bombing raid immediately.\n\nWaiting for the planes to arrive is sheer torture; bad weather seems to have delayed them.\n\nThe sound of the massive Kracaw 'Firewings' flying over the city is a hellish roar, somehow worse than the crimson glow of building magic. They're low enough you can actually make out the flying wing shapes of the heavy bombers.\n\nBut before they begin their attack, the red glow suffusing the city flares up into a blindingly-bright light...\n\n[[Continue...|Lose]]\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $SpecialForces -= 8>>\n<<set $MainBattleTanks -= 4>>\n<<set $MechanizedInfantry -= 3>>\n<<set $TankDestroyers -= 1>>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 8>>\n<<endsilently>>\nCaptain Ellynwyr plans the attack with you. Because of how cramped the subway tunnels are, you both agree its best to have her commandos lead the way while the rest of your infantry waits to advance when passage is secured.\n\nThe commandos infiltrate the subway in the dead of night, killing the posted sentries with silenced weapons and capturing the subway station.\n\nThen, the unthinkable happens. \n\nA series of explosions rip through the subway as the defenders detonate prepared charges, flooding the underground tunnel. You immediately lose radio contact with the assault force.\n\nThinking Ellynwyr and her soldiers lost, you plan to mourn them later and prepare for a direct assault on the bridges. But amazingly enough, you learn that Ellynwyn and two squads of special forces had already made it through the tunnel when it was destroyed. She makes contact with you in the small hours of the morning, shortly after planting demolition charges around the Easterlin Bridge's defenses.\n\nThe powerful explosives destroy the emplacements and tanks, giving your armor a chance to roll over the Easterlin and attack the Fairwall from the shore of Monport itself. Caught by surprise, the defenders are unable to put up effective resistance, and both crossings are yours.\n\nLater that night, Captain Ellynwyr suffers a nervous breakdown. The hardened soldier is fine by the morning, but the regret in her eyes that night is haunting.\n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_5]]\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $ActionChosen_DP_AirForce = "CAS">>\n<<set $CAS = 1>>\n<<endsilently>>\nYou send in a request for on-call close air support from the Kracaw Air Force. \n\n<<if $ActionChosen_DP_Battlegroup>>\nWith your soldiers ready and communications with the Kracaw complete, it's time to put your plan into action.\n\n<<dynamiclink $ActionChosen_DP_Battlegroup "Move out.">>\n<<else>>\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_3]]\n<<endif>>

<<silently>>\n<<set $MainBattleTanks -=4 >>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 23 >>\n<<endsilently>>\nAgainst the vehement protests of your Captains, you order an all-out assault on the Royalist position with your main battle tanks, supported by your tank destroyers. \n\nOnly Captain Strange seems enthused by the idea, and agrees to lead the attack. He decides to park C Company's tank destroyers on a distant ridge overlooking the hills, while advancing his heavy armor over the roughest section of hill the 'Antiax' can handle. This would have him approaching the probable enemy position from the northwest, and taking fire away from Lockhart and D Company as they advanced from the highway to the northeast.\n\nThe Dwarf's plan is executed roughly, but succeeds masterfully. The Royal Guard are caught completely unprepared, allowing Strange's tanks to open fire at short range to devastating effect.\n\nThe Royalist forces fall back quickly, but the rough terrain effectively traps them now as well as it once protected them. C Company's tank destroyers and the advancing D Company pick off more enemy armor as they try and flee. Eventually, last remaining crews abandon their vehicles and surrender, giving you the distinction of capturing your first prisoners of war.\n\nIn the aftermath of the victory, the mood among the troops is one of excitement and revelry. You dress a few of your tank crews down as a prophylactic measure against overconfidence, but it's hard not to feel embiggened yourself. \n\nAfter posting pickets, you encamp back in the town for the night, to meet up with the 9th Infantry in the morning as planned. \n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_2]]

You order the ground assault immediately.\n\nEvery unit you have under your command is sent out on the attack, backed by the support of the 9th Infantry. \n\nBefore you even reach downtown, rocket fire and prepared mines wreck havoc on your armor and APCs, but desperation pushes your forces forward heedless of the losses. When you finally get in sight of the Harrington building, the red glow of building magic is bright enough to read by.\n\nRoyalist forces surround your troops and cut you off from the north of Monport. You order every gun under your command to ignore them as much as possible and concentrate fire on the building.\n\nDemons spill out of the hotel from the ground floor and leap through the glass windows, attacking all sides indiscriminately. The sheer weight of your massed firepower is the only thing keeping them in check.\n\nFinally, shelling from the 9th Infantry's heavy guns begins to take a toll on the building itself. The roof and the three stories below it collapse after being hit by a barrage of explosive shells, and abruptly the red glow suffusing the city begins to die away.\n\n[[Continue...|Win]]\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $ActionChosen_DP_AirForce = "Bombers">>\n<<set $Bombers = 1>>\n<<endsilently>>\nYou send in a request for on-call bomber support from the Kracaw Air Force. \n\n<<if $ActionChosen_DP_Battlegroup>>\nWith your soldiers ready and communications with the Kracaw complete, it's time to put your plan into action.\n\n<<dynamiclink $ActionChosen_DP_Battlegroup "Move out.">>\n<<else>>\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_3]]\n<<endif>>

<<silently>>\n<<set $AirForce -= 2 >>\n<<set $TankDestroyers -= 4 >>\n<<set $MechanizedInfantry -=3 >>\n<<set $MainBattleTanks -= 2 >>\n<<set $SpecialForces += 6 >>\n<<endsilently>>\nSplitting your forces up in such a fashion makes you feel uneasy, but it seems necessary given the circumstances. You send two platoons each of your mechanized infantry and tanks under Captain Lockhart to support the Rangers, seconding the rest of Lockhart's tanks to C Company. \n\nLockhart rushes towards the northern span just in time to blunt an attack on the Kracaw Rangers by an Ixian tank detachment. The two armored forces slug it out across the river while your mechanized infantry and special forces link up with the besieged rangers. \n\nThe battle to the south is just as intense, dividing your attention. Your armor and tank destroyer are able to use a shallow rise overlooking the bridge to protect themselves as they engage the enemy from afar, but take a few hits from direct-firing artillery and tanks in the process. \n\nAfter the big guns are silenced, your infantry rush forward to secure the bridge, and discover the span is rigged with demolition charges. You lose an entire squad to a demolition charge with a faulty fuse that shorts. But thanks to quick work by your combat engineers, the rest of the explosives are safely disarmed. \n\nThe 9th Division crosses the Méré after stationing forces to defend it later in the afternoon. \n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_3]]\n\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $MainBattleTanks -= 3>>\n<<set $MechanizedInfantry -= 9>>\n<<set $SpecialForces -= 2>>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 16>>\n<<endsilently>>\nManalá is completely undefended and unguarded, to your surprise.\n\nThe looks you get from the residents of the city when you drive your battlegroup into the city are, to say the least, quite chary. But when you inform the city council you're only there to commandeer their shipping, you receive eager and wholehearted cooperation. Even better, the captains and crews of a tugboat, a container ship and a number of tourist ferries volunteer to sail your forces across the channel.\n\nYour first wave of forces sails into a harbor and walks onto Monport soil before the Royal Guard forces defending the bridge even realize they are under attack. They soon fall under heavy fire from a unit of IFVs and tanks, but refuse to budge from their beachhead. After two more successful landings, it is apparent that few of the autocannons, artillery pieces and other heavy defenses arrayed to cover the bridges can target your infantry or the ships they're landing with. \n\nThe fighting is fierce nonetheless, especially since your infantry are forced to operate without the support of your own armor. Special Forces armed with demolition charges make an audacious attack while Captain Strange takes personal command of his tank destroyers and concentrates their electrodyne cannons on the defenders. Soon, both crossings are yours.\n\n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_5]]\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $MechanizedInfantry -=1 >>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 7 >>\n<<endsilently>>\nYou decide to put your tank destroyers to the test, as Captain Strange recommended.\n\nAfter the 'Hammerfall' tank destroyers set up on a distant ridge with a good view of the hills, dismounted soldiers from A Company's first platoon scout ahead. The troops are ordered to move slowly and use the cover as best they can, and are able to spot several Royal Guard tanks in camouflaged trenches. \n\nThey report, much to your surprise, that it seems like their crews are packing up to move out. Crews are busy packing up their netting and entrenching tools right then and there!\n\nYou give the order to open fire immediately. \n\nWatching through your field glasses with Captain Strange, you have a perfect view of the ensuing battle. The Hammerfalls have some difficulty zeroing in on their targets, given the extreme range of the engagement. But when they do, their electrodyne cannons strike with devastating effect, often blowing clean through both sides of the enemy tanks. \n\nStrange hypothesizes that the Suzerain's thick armor is mostly made of spaced reactive armor designed to defeat rocket attacks. They are effectively defenseless against the penetrator bolts launched by your tank destroyers. Three enemy tanks are destroyed or disabled before they can complete their withdrawal.\n\nYour main tank force rushes to engage the fleeing force, but is forced to halt at the approach to the hills when your forward scouts run into a large minefield. One of your squads takes heavy casualties from a bladewhip mine.\n\nAfter posting pickets, you encamp back in the town for the night, to meet up with the 9th Infantry in the morning as planned. \n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_2]]

<<timedinsert .1s>>Attempting to load .tex from disk<<endtimedinsert>>...<<timedinsert 2s>>failed to load file from disk.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 2.5s>>\nThe Encyclopedia .tex file is located on the disk 2. Please insert the disk into your drive tray and click 'Reload'.\n\nIf disk 2 is in the drive tray, it may be dirty or damaged. Take the disk casette out and clean it with duster spray or an antistatic swab. \n\nIf the disk still fails to load, please contact G2 Games customer support by telephony at: 75-0296\n\n\n[[Back|TitleScreen]]\n\n[[Reload|Encyclopedia_NoLoad]]\n\n<<endtimedinsert>>

Monport was ripped from this plane of existence that evening, along with the the million souls trapped there. 4th Special Battlegroup and its commander were never seen again.\n\nIt was a terrible end to a war that had seen more than its share of the horrors of war. \n\nTHE END\n\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $MainBattleTanks -= 22>>\n<<set $TankDestroyers -= 9>>\n<<set $MechanizedInfantry -=3 >>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 11 >>\n<<set $NinthInfantry -= 3>>\n<<endsilently>>\nYour armor advances into position and opens fire on the bridge's defenders. \n\nThe battle is long and arduous, both of your forces slugging it out in plain view of one another. There is no elegant maneuvering to be done, no subtle tactics behind the battle. \n\nYou lose a tank destroyer and four of your main battle tanks to enemy cannon and artillery fire, but manage to slowly overwhelm the enemy defenses on the Easterlin Bridge. Afterwards, your armor crosses the bridge and attacks the Fairwall bridge from the shore of Monport itself. The defenders are ready, but unable to put up effective resistance with their emplacements facing the channel, and soon both crossings are yours.\n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_5]]\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $ActionChosen_DP_AirForce = "ACP">>\n<<set $ACP = 1>>\n<<endsilently>>\nYou send in a request for on-call fighter support from the Kracaw Air Force. \n\n<<if $ActionChosen_DP_Battlegroup>>\nWith your soldiers ready and communications with the Kracaw complete, it's time to put your plan into action.\n\n<<dynamiclink $ActionChosen_DP_Battlegroup "Move out.">>\n<<else>>\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_3]]\n<<endif>>

<<silently>>\n<<set $MechanizedInfantry -=1 >>\n<<set $MainBattleTanks -=2 >>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 9 >>\n<<endsilently>>\nThe disposition of the enemy indicates an obvious ambush. You aren't going to take their bait, but maybe they'll take yours.\n\nShortly after troops from B Company enter Marknyha, they come under cannon fire from the hills. Though the enemy tanks don't advance into your trap, the firing gives their positions away long enough for your own heavy armor and tank destroyers to rush into position and open fire. Meanwhile, protected by the stone construction of the old town, your troops zero in fire while enemy shellfire smashes ineffectually into nearby buildings.\n\nThree Ixian tanks are quickly knocked out by your long guns. Their counterfire is wildly ineffective, either missing or bouncing off the thick plates of your Antiax MBT's. The Royal Guards quickly withdraw under the cover of a smoke screen.\n\nThe whole battle lasted less than five minutes. \n\nThere is a lingering sense of unreality to your battlegroup's first engagement, but the troops appear to be in high spirits. The victory was bought cheaply enough; your total loss is zero casualties, one APC and one tank's hydraulic system.\n\nAfter posting pickets, you encamp back in the town for the night, to meet up with the 9th Infantry in the morning as planned. \n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_2]]\n

War Zone: Decision Points is a historical simulation game, based on the events of the Ixian civil war. In this game, you take on the role of one of the pivotal actors in the events that followed. You will be faced with the same decisions they did, but you do not have to make the same choices. \n\n[[Return|TitleScreen]]\n\n\n

You order the battlegroup to try and force an engagement the Ixian armor. It doesn't take long to find them.\n\nWith your heavy armor leading the way, you head straight up towards the Pyrathimus range. Your forward units find the enemy's flank and catch the outer pickets completely off-guard, destroying several tanks and LAVs before the enemy can mount a defense. Your armor slugs it out with the enemy, backed up by supporting fire from C Company's Hammerfall unit, until a move on your western flank and forces Captain Strange to maneuver the tank destroyers to counter them. \n\nThe battle turns even more chaotic when enemy infantry start to encroach on your tanks, damaging several with well-aimed rockets on their weaker side armor. You immediately order A and B Company forward to protect your tanks and push back the enemy. The scrubland near the mountains don't offer much protection to the troops; the fighting is fierce and bloody. But the counterattack is halted in its tracks, and your armor grinds the enemy tanks down slowly but surely with their superior armor and weaponry.\n\nThe Royal Guard armor falls back towards the western valley, protected by a fighting retreat from their infantry. \n<<if $CAS>>\n<<silently>>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 35>>\n<<set $MainBattleTanks -= 7>>\n<<set $MechanizedInfantry -= 6>>\n<<set $TankDestroyers -= 2>>\n<<set $AirForce -= 6>>\n<<endsilently>>\n\nAs they fall back, your allies in the air strike. The ungainly, four-engined tankbusters fly so low and slow you wonder how they can stay aloft, but their effectiveness is undeniable. The tankbusters' heavy autocannons rip through the thin armor atop the 'Suzerain' tanks. Thrown into a panic by the air attack, the rest of the brigade make for easy targets. It is a slaughter. \n\nBy the time the fighting is over, it has effectively ceased to exist as a fighting force. Your command APC drives past the shattered remains of one Royal Guard unit; five tanks all cut down by the same strafing run. The smell of burning petrol and fur is sickening. \n\nThe Kracaw planes, hunting for the armored unit's fuel trucks, come under heavy antiaircraft fire a few kilometers past the remains of the Royal armor. The skies fill with deadly puffs of flak; you see one strike fighter take a shell through the cockpit and crash hard. Breaking off their attack run, the strike planes warn you of another division-sized force waiting in ambush for you behind heavy entrenchments and prepared defenses.\n\nSo advised, you order the battlegroup to break off the attack. There is no way you're going to be able to effectively assault such a well-prepared position without artillery. But it matters little; without tank support they are going to be hard pressed to mount an attack of their own.\n<<endif>>\n<<if $ACP>>\n<<silently>>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 18>>\n<<set $AirForce -= 10>>\n<<set $MainBattleTanks -= 15>>\n<<set $MechanizedInfantry -= 8>>\n<<set $TankDestroyers -= 6>>\n<<endsilently>>\n\nYour main battle tanks race ahead in pursuit, exchanging scattered fire with the fleeing Royal Guard. Strangely enough, the infantry protecting their retreat seem to have broken off contact.\n\nSensing the trap, you order a halt to the advance. You're almost fast enough.\n\nYour forward armor is struck by a barrage of antitank rockets, destroying two of them instantly and badly damaging a third. Sheer luck and a timely smokescreen cuts your losses. But shortly thereafter, an APC in the rear of your formation runs over an antitank mine that kills the crew and badly wounds most of the soldiers inside. Trapped between the thicket of defenses before you and the minefield in your midst, you have no choice but to order a general retreat.\n\nYou withdraw to the south under heavy fire from the Royal Guard. There is no way you're going to be able to effectively assault such a well-prepared position without artillery. With few other options, you and your Captains decide to bypass the position and call it into Command once you re-establish radio contact with them.\n\nYou only get scattered contact from your air support, and when you do the fighters don't report much activity. The Royal Air Force seems unwilling to challenge the avians in the sky, which suits you just fine. But you're able to get in touch with your Command through a Kracaw air command plane late in the evening and inform them of the Royal Guard position.\n<<endif>>\n<<if $Bombers>>\n<<silently>>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 50>>\n<<set $AirForce -= 10>>\n<<set $MainBattleTanks -= 15>>\n<<set $MechanizedInfantry -= 8>>\n<<set $TankDestroyers -= 6>>\n<<endsilently>>\n\nYour main battle tanks race ahead in pursuit, exchanging scattered fire with the fleeing Royal Guard. Strangely enough, the infantry protecting their retreat seem to have broken off contact.\n\nSensing the trap, you order a halt to the advance. You're almost fast enough.\n\nYour forward armor is struck by a barrage of antitank rockets, destroying two of them instantly and badly damaging a third. Sheer luck and a timely smokescreen cuts your losses. But shortly thereafter, an APC in the rear of your formation runs over an antitank mine that kills the crew and badly wounds most of the soldiers inside. Trapped between the thicket of defenses before you and the minefield in your midst, you have no choice but to order a general retreat.\n\nYou withdraw to the south under heavy fire from the Royal Guard. There is no way you're going to be able to effectively assault such a well-prepared position without artillery. With few other options, you and your Captains decide to bypass the position and call it into Command once you re-establish radio contact with them.\n\nLater that evening while mustering to move on the capital proper, you're finally able to establish radio contact with a Kracaw air command plane in the skies. They link you to your Command as well as the bomber detachment the Air Force assigned to you. \n\nWhen the bomber wing commander takes in your description of the massed Royal Guard units, he immediately escalates the target priority. Within the hour the every Firewing bomber in the operating area is sent to converge on the area.\n\nYou watch the spectacle from afar. \n\nBefore the bombing begins, Royal Guard antiaircraft artillery fills the skies with blazing tracers and smoky clouds of flak. Despite the tremendous barrage lighting up the sky, the bombers are so high up you can't even see the flying wings through your field glasses. \n\nThen, the bombs begin to fall. Thunderous explosions rake the mountainside as an unholy rain of destruction falls from the sky, slowly converging on the massed Royal Guard in the valley. Even from the distance, you can feel the ground under you shake with each blast. \n\nBombs are still falling when you have to order the battlegroup back into gear. You can't see anything past the cloud of dust and smoke thrown up by the bombing, but you seriously doubt anything in the valley survived.\n<<endif>>\n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_4]]\n

You order your soldiers to stand down for the time being and wait to link up with the 9th Infantry. They arrive at the rally point shortly after the sun begins to set. \n\nBrigadier General Roseland and her staff confer briefly with you. She agrees that an artillery bombardment is likely the best way to route the entrenched defenders without exposing your forces to unnecessary risk, but decides to keep the 9th's rocket artillery in reserve for the time being. \n\nThe barrage begins in earnest. The earth beneath your feet trembles as the heavy artillery thunders, pummeling the hills where the Royal Guard are holding up. The deafening barrage continues until late at night, by which time the barrels of the long guns are glowing red and it's impossible to see the hills through the haze of dust, smoke and ash covering them.\n\nYou order a general advance on the hills led by your armor, as starlight shells bathe the scorched, cratered ground in lumine light. Surprisingly, it is soon apparent that the Royal Guard holding the position retreated earlier in the day, leaving nothing behind save for a handful of half-dug latrines. \n\nAnd thus, the first day of the campaign comes to an unsatisfactory end.\n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_2]]

"...there is an attitude not unknown in the crisis against which I should particularly like to protest. I should address my protest especially to those lovers and pursuers of Peace who, very short-sightedly, have occasionally adopted it. I mean the attitude which is impatient of these preliminary details about who did this or that, and whether it was right or wrong. They are satisfied with saying that an enormous calamity, called War, has been begun by some or all of us; and should be ended by some or all of us. To these people this preliminary chapter about the precise happenings must appear not only dry (and it must of necessity be the driest part of the task) but essentially needless and barren. I wish to tell these people that they are wrong; that they are wrong upon all principles of human justice and historic continuity: but that they are specially and supremely wrong upon their own principles of arbitration and international peace.\n\nThese sincere and high-minded peace-lovers are always telling us that citizens no longer settle their quarrels by private violence; and that nations should no longer settle theirs by public violence. They are always telling us that we no longer fight duels; and need no longer wage wars. In short, they perpetually base their peace proposals on the fact that an ordinary citizen no longer avenges himself with an axe. But how is he prevented from revenging himself with an axe? If he hits his neighbour on the head with the kitchen chopper, what do we do? Do we all join hands, like children playing Mulberry Bush, and say 'We are all responsible for this; but let us hope it will not spread. Let us hope for the happy day when he shall leave off chopping at the man's head; and when nobody shall ever chop anything for ever and ever." Do we say "Let byegones be byegones; why go back to all the dull details with which the business began; who can tell with what sinister motives the man was standing there within reach of the hatchet?' We do not. We keep the peace in private life by asking for the facts of provocation, and the proper object of punishment. We do go into the dull details; we do enquire into the origins; we do emphatically enquire who it was that hit first. In short we do what I have done very briefly in this place."\n -G. K. Chesterton, "The Appetite of Tyranny"\n\nThe battle for Monport was won. General Dalton and his troops were forever remembered for their bravery and sacrifices by the Ixian people.\n\nTHE END

"It is as though the whole of the Ix has fallen to madness. Cities have turned into battlefields, brothers and sisters into enemies, and a once-flourishing civilization into a war zone."\n - Senator Gandell Tothril, Speech to the Rasthold Governing Council \n\n<<timedinsert 5s>>\nAfter months of trying to suppress popular dissent with force, the Ixian aristocrats found themselves faced with a full-blown revolt by midsummer. After being ordered to march on their own people, units of the Ixian armed forces began deserting en masse and taking their weapons with them. While the elite Ixian Royal Guard and most feline army units remained loyal to the king, they found themselves hard-pressed to suppress a population many times their size. Desperate to retain control, they began resorting to more and more brutal measures. Meanwhile, every act of terror they inflicted drove more people to the nascent Republican cause.\n\nEvents came to a head on 22nd of Midsummer, King Izthar the 9th ordered the Royal Air force to strike the Republican-held cities of Kesner, Ikmar and Navaport with incendiary bombs. Worst hit was the city of Kesner, which had been experiencing drought conditions prior to the raid and was targeted by a second wave of bombings designed to knock out its electricity and water to hamper firefighting. Over 90% of the city burnt to the ground in the ensuing firestorm. \n\nTotal civilian deaths from the bombings over the day were between 90,000 - 140,000, with twice that number injured. \n\nThe sheer horror of the atrocity shocked the conscience of the northern powers, who had been watching the unfolding civil war until then. Vendigrand, Rasthold and Kracaw signed the Three-Power treaty three days later, and together threatened King Izthar with invasion if he refused to step down. \n\nHe refused.\n\nOn the 7th of Lansummer, the first Vendigrandian forces advance over the border into Ix.\n\n[[Continue...|Review]]\n<<endtimedinsert>>

It is the 14th of lansummer. The north of Monport has been liberated. \n\nJust under a quarter of the city is under your control, and even then it's a tenuous hold at best. You've only established security in your sector by literally walling off streets with heavy armor and stationing every sniper and marksman under your command in a high building. \n\nReinforcements from the eastern front have been delayed by a Royalist holding action. Only the 9th Infantry and parts of the 1st Infantry under General Hyster have made it into the city with you so far. The rest of the 11th are having a hard time moving into the city thanks to the flood of refugees trying to flee across both directions of traffic.\n\nAll of your regular infantry are tied down trying to maintain order in the chaos of the city. Distributing food and medical supplies to the beleaguered metropolis, fighting off ambushes and attacks by Royalist partisans and trying to protect your engineers as they work to restore power and water to the battered city is grueling work. It certainly doesn't help that blistering propaganda broadcasts from King Izthar the 9th are constantly issuing forth from the palace. As the days pass, they are slowly becoming rambling, incoherent and detached from reality, which has the ironic effect of making them more discomfiting than ever.\n\nCaptain Ellynwyr and the special forces under her command are the only troops you can spare for the moment. They could be useful in a any number of areas; the hard part, as always, is deciding where to concentrate them.\n\nGeneral Roseland is requesting help securing her sector. Her troops could badly use the support of your Special Forces on their perimeter, especially the keen-eyed Kracawn Rangers. \n\nEllynwyr herself requests permission to try and hunt down and assassinate or capture King Izthar the 9th. It's a very risky venture, but if the mad feline can be neutralized it might bring the war to an end overnight. \n\nOne of your logistical support officers is demanding that you send soldiers to investigate a string of bizarre murders that he thinks he's uncovered across the city. You can hardly spare the manpower to deal with civilian crimes right now, but the nature of the murders- slow exsanguination- is chilling enough to stick in your mind.\n\nPerhaps a more pressing problem are the Royalist arms caches hidden throughout the city. Your soldiers stumbled upon a room filled with enough explosives and antitank missiles to level a block in the basement of a children's hospital last night.\n\nWhat should you order your Special Forces units to do, General?\n\n[[Infiltrate the Government district, attempting to kill or capture King Izthar the 9th.|DecisionPoint_5_King]]\n\n[[Secure Royalist arms caches in the city.|DecisionPoint_5_SecureArms]]\n\n[[Investigate the murders.|DecisionPoint_5_Murders]]\n\n[[Support the 9th Infantry's perimeter.|DecisionPoint_5_Peacekeeping]]\n\n\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $RoyalGuard -= 3 >>\n<<endsilently>>\nYour battlegroup is built for maneuver warfare, and you intend to put that to good use. You order the 4th to swing around the hill country and cut off any avenue of retreat for the Royal Guards, with the intent of closing the noose once the 9th Infantry can support an attack.\n\nIt's a long way around the hills, so you sending your main tanks ahead to serve as a spearhead in case you encounter any unexpected opposition. Much to your surprise, in the late afternoon they spot the Royal Guard battalion you were trying to encircle already far down the southern highway. The distance tells you they must have begun moving out of position almost as soon as you began your maneuver. \n\nThey are too far to engage with the 111mm guns of your Antiax tanks, and your tank destroyers are outside of visual range. But acting out of orders, a gunner in D Company takes a wild shot at the fleeing column. The shell penetrates the rear armor of a distant enemy tank and disables it. The rest of the platoon to opens fire ineffectually in the ensuing confusion before Captain Lockhart can restore order. \n\nThe two of you spend some time deciding whether to punish or commend the impetuous gunner, before deciding to settle for both. She receives latrine duty and a gunnery commendation.\n\nThe thought of driving all the way back to your original rally point with the 9th is depressing enough you issue a change of orders and encamp off the highway in a pepper field.\n\n[[Continue...|DecisionPoint_2]]