The drone wall is basically a junk pile that has been stacked in the reception area...emerging from it you can see an Ares Cerberus (a big brother to the Steel Lynx - ie light tank!!!), it has had bits of junk welded to it to disguise its profile. There are a couple of manservant drones and possibly some ferrets or similar, all to disguise the main beasty though...

I'm not sure you'd have anything too exotic with you as you were on a base defense mission, however you are free to convince me that you would have some specific anti drone tech with you...

...you will certainly have AV rockets or possibly mini missiles on one or two of your troopers, you just have to get them to close range of a tank...but you didn't want it to be easy did you?!?

Just to clarify, the white suits are anti static rather than full air supply suits, sorry should have made that clear - it's more likely to be sensitive electronics than horrid bugs...

I think we should go into the lab and see if there's actual evidence. It's warded, that makes me suspicious. And, lets be honest, we DO have a mission we're vaguelly trying to accomplish.

I'll assume that Gash & Joshua are holding fire before plunging into the core then...

@ Mr J: Considered your PM, can't find anything on emp grenades but you can have 8 zapper rockets, 4 per platoon...that suit you?

That sounds good to me!

Can you amend your post (or do a new one...) to tell me how many of these you intend to fire at the tank?

Stats wise it's about the equivalent of a Mitsuhama Cinpora (spelling?!?) from WAR! so big and nasty!!!

Body 4 Armor 14. It probably won't take more than one or two good hits to kill the thing, but it'll have to be a solid hit to clear its armor, at all. I have no idea how many rockets we have to spare, or how skilled the soldier are, but I would suggest firing 3-5.

By raw, these rockets are going to scatter all over the damn place, and no amount of success will keep them on target. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

Instead, we need at least 1, but probably 2 hits that do 15 or more physical damage. If we have anti-vehicle rockets, all we need to do is hit. If we have fragmentation rockets, we need to hit with like 3-4 extra successes, and if we have high explosive rockets, we probably also only need to hit the thing.

So the real question is how likely we are to trust that our soldiers will hit the target? By RAW, rockets have dangerous scatter, and if the drone is rigged, or has defensive autosofts, we might need a handful of successes to actually hit the thing. (Or target the ground at its feet, and abuse a loophole in the rules).

Also, if we end up dying here... at least it took a milspec drone with availability 30F, which is worth over half a million nuyen.

As long as we have AV rockets, we'll do okay. How many rockets and/or missiles do the 2 troopers have to spare? This probably won't be the only armored drone we meet.

As for why we might have more exotic equipment (like EMPs or directional jammers), I'm cool if we don't have them, but it might make sense for Captain Roberts men, since his background involves his specialty being cyberterrorism. If you go up against cyberterrorists, an EMP will do you a lot more good than an AV rocket (especially after the hacker hacks into your launcher and detonates the rocket in the chamber).

Well we've got the zapper rockets mentioned above. Will they help?

I said loosely based! It's an Ares prototype drone rather than a cutting edge milspec one...it'll certainly (er might...) not have all the extra software stuff...

Zapper rockets should knock it offline for a couple of seconds allowing more serious damage to be done to it. As Blackhat pointed out your AV rockets will almost certainly kill it with a single hit, but it is a walker drone and a tad more agile than your average tracked tank...

Rockets scatter? Really? Let's just say you have competant soldiers with smartlinks and a tacnet and at more or less point blank range they aren't going to miss...much

Well one or 2 should do it then I'd hope. Maybe even one and then hold off on the second to see if it's needed. I've not used invisible castle for roles before, so for the most part will roleplay actions that avoid taking them I don't know the stat lines for the troops, or what sized DP they will have for firing a rocket

Ah well. I am looking at Gash's mighty technical skills... nope not finding any . I think my technical skills are limited to bad sci-fi TV (not even sim sense). On bad TV they looked like a rerun of Outbreak.


You are quite right sabs: we should go to the room and investigate. Unfortunately due to a mistiming or my inattention to detail (I have been using a smart phone for 2 days, and its kind of hard to read never mind post) I missed that post, and have headed in. So has Joshua.

I think Joshua and I/We are pretty much committed to the fight with the troll and elf. I think you should order us IC to come back... (Gash/Legundo is pretty much going to just head on down and find the others unless you give us some orders otherwise: one of the many disadvantages of possession).

I will blast the Elf: I've given three rolls which is about 1 and half rounds (I forgot I only get 2 actions a round...used to being astral and getting three).
Results: http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2948376/ which is 6, 8 and 4 successes. The base electric damage is 6S(e). Hopefully she will fail her body+willpower saves, or go unconscious. I have no great desire to kill more crazed cultists.

If you need an initiative roll it's: http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2948382/ Oops I left "roll three times on". The first is the initiative roll with 4 successes: initiative 16.

Can I see the spirit that is concealing them ? Assensing roll http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2948384/ Probably not...1 success.

I should be back tomorrow evening to post

try not to get killed

Well I know as a soldier I should shoot him...

But well...he did ask nicely...

Can I perceive any immediate threat to back up the warning of the hologram? Where is the rotary gun you mentioned?

Captain, any ideas on how to proceed?

With caution?

Like you said, we need to look for any immediate threat, and neutralize it, if we can find it. If we can't, we need to proceed, as planned, but now that we know they are aware of us entering through the front door, we need to be that much more careful. We seem to have the physical advantage, but I have no doubt that they have the technical advantage. I would also advise that we destroy any sensor equipment we encounter (including innocuous drones).

This latest threat is actually less of a declaration of war than when they sent their (our) two nimrods to intercept our skytrains. I don't think it really changes our mission at all, and if I read the last IC correctly, our men took down the big drone.

I thought that but I weren't sure, with the spinning up of a rotary gun, whether we're about to get peppered or not.

Hmm, maybe. I read that rotory gun as belonging to the drone, and I read the two rocket attacks and 'splashing electronic guts" as saying we killed the drone.

That said, I expect them to find something else to shoot at us with.

Yeah, the rotatary gun was the drone's main weapon...

...and of course they will find something else to shoot you with

...as to the hologram threat, that seems to be empty...so far Will try and IC later this afternoon...

Can we hear anyof this from 2 floors up?

Nope

Probably a silly question but what about spell drain? Can I have one for the first spell at least, I think she might object before you get a chance to cast more... EDIT: colour me confused, you don't have lightening bolt so is it your spirit casting it?!? Do you therefore need to track services (1 for posession, 1 for defeating the elf?!? etc)

Gash is renowned for not following orders

@Seth: please can you make either an athletics test to retain balance or some sort of strength test to resist (I know you get Legundo's force added to your stats...). How many services does your spirit owe now and can you remind me of his current force please?

@Big Fella: appologies for not IC'ing the start of your fight yet but I'll try and get something to you tomorrow, in the meantime if you get to post first I'll let you attack first...he's unarmed so you have +1 reach on him...

I have an embarrassing admission: I am possessed by Bobangu not Legundo. (I went back and looked through the posts. I am sure I had summoned my guardian spirit, but the last post I can find is my guidance spirit)

The last post I can find

Perhaps I need to do some name changing in the IC post

I have 3 services. 1 will be magical guard. I will be "possess me" and the other one is spare.

Bobangi is force 6


Fly you fools! <--------Has to be said

I guess raw strength is the thing to roll on: 4 successes Gash is strength 3, and Bobangi adds 6.

Shall I go back and correct the names in the previous posts?

I probably won't have access to the boards over the weekend, so feel free to put the Cptn on autopilot. I'll try to get one more IC post in tonight before I leave, but it may not happen.

Sorry to ask, but what does STC stand for?

Soveriegn Tribal Council - the NAN, whose territory you are currently invading

Don't worry about changing anything, provided Legundo has the lightening spell just do a retroactive summoning OoC, if you could let me know which services you are using that would be great!

OK ... I'll do that after work.

Ah, makes sense. I figured it was something like this. I tried to fit Salish Shide into that acronym, but couldn't remember what it stood for without looking through the book again

Cheers

Ok Big Fella, let's see some combat rolls so that Feather can pummel you into pulp...yeah, I know that's not really likely...

Seth, I'm sorry to say you don't plummet to your doom so your quote will have to wait

Been having fun writing up the Wolf Pack NPCs...you'll all be meeting more of them soon

I'll chase up BigFella and post myself when I see him tonight.

No! I wanted my quote!...no wait...that means I live! OK I can deal with that

HI again all.

OK All set to bash feather. I'll do it OOC, get the results, and post IC tomorrow.

Initiative 6, 5 and 2
Damage base is 13 . Str 15/2 + 4
If I hit him, I will use finishing move to finish him off

I've included some defence rolls incase they are needed:

Defence: reaction 8, reakt 2, blades 4 = 14die
5 http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2954249/
4 and 3 http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2954252/

Soak vs impact 6, 7, 7

I'm guessing that by 'initiative' you mean attack? The link seems to be broken Your initiative is higher than his...

First swing is blocked (just) and he ripostes hitting you with 6 successes. Your defence rolls are full defense so lose 4 die off the end for simple dodging (1 less success)

So first hit that's 9P with -3AP (nasty adept)! with either 1 or 2 net successes depending if you want to go full or not...so I make that 5 Stun or 6 Stun. Edge could come into play to help you block or resist now...lemme know! Will continue the combat after that...

Right, just checking before I post. The security doors that are grinding closed. That's the way we wanna go, right? I mean, they are the main entrance where we are heading, and we'll need to get them open...?

They seem to lead deeper into the tower...there's another door to one side but that seems to lead into a reception desk type area with no view beyond...

Of course there's a lot of crap near them, they might not manage to close all the way...

Yeah, I think that is the way we want to go, but we also want to make sure we can get back when we're done. We could either stay on our side and try to keep them open long enough to disable and/or re-open them, or we could move some engineers through so we have men on either side (in case the mechanisms for controlling the door are accessed easier on the other side - which is likely). However, we then run the risk of splitting off a smaller team which may be ambushed while working on the door.

Aria, sorry about being a bit brain addled, it's been a crazy crazy week of no sleep.
But it's monday now and things should be much better.

It looks like Gash and Joshua ran forward ahead of us?
*grumble* We're going to jam the airlock door open. That way, the other door just can't be opened period, and nothing/noone can come out of that Electronics lab and bother us. Then we'll double time it to catch up to them, I'll send a rotodrone ahead.

Well, we could split into 2 big teams, and it'd only be temporary, but tbh I prefer the idea of staying together. My first reaction would be to order the first squads to push the stricken Cerberus under the door and hope it is enough to wedge it open long enough to override it

Sorry, I misread the first IC post and thought it had already closed shut

It's fair. Bang to rights... we should have waited for orders. But this is so much more fun

I do think that the area we skipped should be dealt with

I am dealing with it I'm blocking the airlock.
If you can't open the inner doors while the outer are open. We jam the outer doors, and then nothing can come in. Going into those is suicide. It's not worth doing right now.

How heavy duty does the door look?

EDIT: Sorry, our door that's closing. I realise that we are all talking about different doors and there may be confusion

It looks fairly robust and is certainly an addon from the original structure. You could cut or blast through it but it would take a while...of course it hasn't shut quite yet...

Ok cheers. To slightly rephrase then does it look really heavy, like it will crush anything in it's path, or do I think in Bryn's opinion that a reasonably solid object should stop it closing? If I can't tell I may try and block it anyway

It's what might be termed a 'blast door' but something hefty (like a destroyed mini tank) would probably block it (as it only needs to block the motor really and it isn't slamming home)...

Aria, I'm really confused about what's going on. Can I get a quick summary of whats' going on on level 3?

Level 3

• Sultan is parked up, wounded soldiers outside forming a 'matrix' link via fibre optic
• A powerful ward has appeared around the tower and there seems to be some sort of ruthenium cloak scales that have appeared from nowhere too...
• Squad 2 have advanced inside, found a lab and blocked the outer airlock door
• Gash and Joshua have rushed ahead to the main stair core and are fighting 2 opponents (1 of whom has just been thrown off the stairs)
• More weird sh*t that I'm not telling you about

Level 1

• The platoons have moved inside and destroyed a combat drone and used it to block a blast door
• They are having a conversation with a hologram (just between you and me it's the bitch that has been ranting at you about her home...)

Elsewhere

• Squad 1 are floundering around trying to get out of Hobbiton...

Hope that helps!

Seth/Big Fella

So, spending edge, going full defense? Taking all that damage? Let me know and we can IC onwards

Checking Invisible castle
Initiative 5 http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2954244/ (sorry about the broken link)
Attack rolls. I cannot find them on invisble castle, so I guess we go with the 6, 5, and 2

Can I just check a rule thing?

With melee defence you get reaction + skill, so I think I was just rolling normal defence. If thats the case Feather hits for 8AP -3 (as you say a nasty fellow)

So the soak roll looses the last three die, and is currently 5 successes. I will spend an edge and reroll failures 3 successes ) That makes it 8 successes in all...or 8 stun soaked.

I've done an initial post, but I will add to it when the rest of the fight is determined.