Just a note, I'm happy to try and answer specific questions before IC posts but I don't want to tell you what's going on directly...

Sticks is going to start shooting everyone not wearing a DeepWatch uniform pretty soon

I think the runners working with you might get a tad upset about that...

We have enough dead that we can take a patch off their uniform and throw it on them
problem solved.

@sabs
I'm all set to head into the tower now: I think at the least we should investigate the ward on level 3, then join up with the other group. I'll wait for you to say so before posting

@sabs
I'm all set to head into the tower now: I think at the least we should investigate the ward on level 3, then join up with the other group. I'll wait for you to say so before posting

That's why runners are called "disposable assets"... or is that "deniable assets"... oh well, either way. Better safe than sorry. Runners are a security risk. =D

Would I be jumping the gun to write a post of us touching down and disembarking?

Not at all...help yourself, will save me doing it

Ok, cool. Blackhat, are we headed for the school or the base of the tower now then?

My understanding was you were heading for the school as a clear open space not directly at the tower

it's about 750m to the tower from there but you will have to decide to either swim the lake (doesn't seem likely...) or go in the front door. You have sat footage so you can see the lightwells in the Hobbiton area but probably don't know their significance and certainly don't know that there's a way into the tower through there...

You could land on (or near) the helipad on the tower island but it has a smoldering helicopter on it

No thanks, then.

I think the plan to land near the schoolhouse and make our way on foot still seems wisest.

Well thats pretty interesting. I want one!

As far as the wards go: "I have a cunning plan, My Lord" (I trust you have all seen Black Adder).

Quick summary:

Sticks: You are in microwave comms with DW Squad 1 (what's left of them), you have full matrix comms back to the Sultan & your Nimrods via the fibre optic spool - there's plenty to reach deep into the tower, you are using LOS laser comms to control your rotadrones and I assume (given that hand signals seem unlikely inside the Horseman) you are using your microwave comms to speak to the rest of your squad. You may need to give verbal communications to the runners as they don't have the microwave system.

Gash: The power matrix seems to be some sort of awakend algae in the water that is allowing a current of mana to flow through the building...what it's doing is anybody's guess

Cpt Roberts & Bryn: You have full matrix access via your satlink and don't need to worry about jiggery pokery with leaving men behind (unless of course I've made you sufficiently paranoid yet?!? )

Oh gawd!!!

Roberts was a bit paranoid before he got here.

Can we move or position the skytrains so that we believe they are out of LOS of the tower? (Perhaps setting them behind the schoolhouse building)? Obviously, if we see that a sniper took down a drone from that distance, we will either want to back them off, or keep them covered and guarded. So far, we seem to have air superiority, so it might not be a bad idea to load up our pilots and a few men to guard them, and have them fly downrange and wait for orders or signal flares to come pick us up when the job is done.

Aria, we had 5 dead/severely wounded guys near the Sultan. We could easily have scrounged up hardware for them. if I had known they didn't have any, I would have made that a top priority. These guys are in here with us, we're not leaving them behind, and we're not leaving them cut off from communications.

I had assumed they would dust off rather than sitting like big fat targets They have plenty of fuel to hover outside the known jamming range and so shouldn't need guarding...

Ok, duly noted, that's why I posted OoC rather than IC You have microwave comms for all moving inside the tower and sufficient to contact Sultan and the wounded too...

Well I do magical threats. You know toxic spirits, insect spirits, shedim... I've never had to worry about algae before. My algae-ology is weak

I'm assuming we are standing outside a door that is warded. I was going to attack it, but actually why don't we just walk in. I will stay outside. That way any magical threat responses (summoned spirits, mages etc) will be going to the other wards and not this one.

Of course you can, it's just they don't get the benefit of astral recon first...up to Sgt Sticks I guess

That's why we got drones! Bitches!

Uh I mean.. Is this a locked door?

My first impulse would be, Joshua, open the doors, one of my rotodrones flies just inside the room and does a quick looksie.

There's a maglock but the indicator is green

@Blackhat: How are you intending to reach the tower? There's an enclosed bridgelink from the structure on the shore...or you can swim...

If mister_joshua has ideas, I am open to them. if we're going to swim, we should test the water and make sure its safe. Swimming would probably be less expected. Does the bridge look automated/retractable? My guess is that the LAV had to take the bridge (unless its some kind of hovercraft), and it must have made it across, so it could be safe - but if it can be retracted, we might lose a lot of men that way.

Of course, the lake could be filled with drone-sharks, too.

How waterproof is our gear? I doubt we're all SCUBAd out, so would we need to leave a significant portion of our equipment behind if we went through the water?

How far would we have to swim? Ican't help but feel that 80 folks swimming a distance is a bit of a duck shoot for anyone who can see us. We'd have to do it squad at a time, and that might take a while. Alternatively, if it's only spitting distance then we may as well.

Are those our only 2 options then?

It looks like it would be quite a bit of a swim (about the width of the tower itself). I'm leaning towards the bridge, but how we go about it may depend on any details we can glean. For example, if it looks like the bridge can be retracted, we will want to cross that in groups, too, or see if we can access the electronics from our side (even if we have to cut into it) to secure the thing before trusting it.

I guess if the bridge retracts, you've just been forced to swim, so its probably not a lot worse than deciding to swim in the first place.

Bridge sounds like a win to me. Maybe send one squad over first with an engineer or someone of that ilk to see if they can jam the gears?

The bridge link is a covered building - effectively an extension of the tower so there's no possibility of it retracting or anything like that. You do have to go inside the entrance building to get to it though and so it is effectively a choke point (allbeit a corridor some 10m wide...). I guess in theory someone could blow it up while you are crossing but as far as you know it's their only way in and out too...

The LAV (Low Alltitude Vehicle / Thunderbird) flew to the tower and landed on Lvl 3

You could always split in half (becuase that worked really well for the first group ) and land one platoon from a skytrain on the island whilst the other one comes across the bridge...

I had been reading LAV as Lightly Armored Vehicle, and figured it was ground transport. Good to know.
I was also thinking they came in on the ground, so our path would be relatively clear until we caught up with them. Sounds like that is not the case - but I think we can handle it.

Is lvl 3 the same thing as saying "the third floor"? If they're only two stories up, do we think we could scale the building to where the LAV is (maybe send some scouts or something)... you know, if we were on the other side?

For that matter, could get on top of the bridge-link (which would allow us to use it to cross, but not get funneled in through their main entrance)?

Check out the diagram of the tower (you can follow my sig link to GM stuff or look at post 1 of this thread), it's an exploded view but will give some idea of where people are.

Lvl 3 is second floor (UK) but this isn't a case of 3m per storey - the level is 20m above ground level so scalable but not easy. Yes you can get on top of the bridge

I think we should be ok just walking up the bridge, given this info

If we keep in teams and move carefully we should be fine

Agreed. Roberts will use his small unit tactics knowledge skills (buying a couple of hits, or is a roll necessary) to come up with a reasonable strategy for crossing the bridge in teams. We probably won't be able to scale up to level 3 with everyone and all of their equipment, for now, let's try the front door. Clearing the building from there may also give us better odds at having a route of egress ready if/when we need one. Even if we could get all 80 men up the wall to level 3, we wouldn't be able to quickly get them all back down again.

Joshua and I are just outside the central core and planning on kicking the door in and investigating it.

In order to help our IC post: what does the access look like: is it a class one military defensive door, or a corporate fire door? Is the central core the equivalent of a stairwell and lift, or is it a mini-complex within a complex?

Do you wanna do the IC for the team moving forwards then. Bryn is quite headstrong and a lead from the front sort of person, so I don't mind heading up with the first few squads if you wanna sit back and oversee.

I imagine us discussing all this over comms IC, which pleases me.

Feel free to do the IC post. I'm a bit busy at work this morning. I also imagined Roberts hanging back (strategicly, not cowardly - I swear!) and Bryn leading from the front with balls of steel, so that seems fine with me.

Ok. I'm off home in a bit, so I'll post the advance IC tomorrow morning

And of course strategically. I never thought anything else, Sir!

I might get some free time to post before tomorrow morning (depending on your timezone), so I might post a little something, or Aria can feel free to advance us as necessary.
It sounds like we at least have our plan worked out.

I'm UK, so it's 3:30 here

Where about do you live Mr Joshua? I'm in the UK too.

I think the core is a bit more than a simple stair and lift - [probably a helical 'spiral' stair with 3 glass lifts in the centre). Ordinary automatic fire doors leading to it, no locks.

Sabs, are you clearing every room you come to or sticking to the main circulation etc? Just to get a feel for the plan...

To Mr J and Blackhat...I'll assume you are going in the front then

Is this the area that is warded? or is that a room off the central core

It looks to me life the central core is designed to be a sniper place!

We're clearing every room on the way. It'll take longer, but the last thing we need is to get attacked from behind.

I'm in uttoxeter, staffordshire

Never been there...Burton is the nearest I think. I'm based in Harrogate. Anyway nice to meet you Mr Joshua!

You brits and your village names crack me up

I spent a few months at saxmundham. I used to commute through "the wallops". Upper wallop, Lower wallop and my very favourite Nether Wallop. Then there is the old favourite of upper and lower Slaughter. The nearest pub used to be the Pick at Wick.... there are some good names, my kids make of point of looking out for them

No, the area that is warded is the lab (see the IC post) - the core could be sniped onto from outside it as there are large areas of glass but it would be difficult to snipe down its length (height?!?) as the stairs more or less fill the space not covered by the glazed lift shafts which are in a triangle in the centre. It certainly wasn't designed for sniping - this whole place is a former holiday resort!



Ok, noted...rather than make this a D&D crawl, if you don't mind I'll gloss over the odd store room etc and concentrate on the rooms that might be significant or have something that you might want to see (ie pretty blue astral water running through the middle) ...Gash can always stick his head through most of the doors and rule out any that are uninhabited or dull...

I like this idea I hadn't read your comment about the snipers when I posted: I can see I am being too paranoid .

Sabs...do you think we should head into the labs (its warded) or head on down. As Big Fella/Joshua said, it's not looking like a server room: you don't need the decontamination stuff for that. Any of the hard shells should be able to go in, but I wouldn't like to release the zombie apocalypse virus, or VITAS 17 just on a whim?

If you want to, lets go in, otherwise lets head on down!

You never know we might come to that drone barricade from behind

Ok, the drone wall that we see. You said they appear to be alive? Are we getting any readings off them?

Also, what kind of grenade loadout does the team have? Any EMP Pulse etc. Anything for taking out drones? I'd suggest it's best not to take the chance by approaching them and frag out from a distance while they're still semi-dormant