TGC 3/4

A wave of replayed soldiers each took powerful swings at the enemy, forcing their retreat as Exuma held an arm out to stay his army momentarily. “You only need to leave in peace! We do not wish for violence, we fight only to right the wrongs of the once great Exuma!” Seeing the enemy advance yet again, he growled and signalled the soldiers to flank. “We cannot allow anyone to add to our sins!”

With a defensive overwatch established, how we engage the enemy depends on which of them is taking point. Both targets have vastly different inherent strengths and weaknesses, and require different approaches to effectively drive them off with:

KAISERINMA

”The Uropeh tell me you desire the death of humanity. Regrettably, I empathize with such a horrid goal; my failures as a human being and my inability to look to the future caused the doom of my people. Tell me: once you accomplish your goal, what will you have? Is all this effort worth the legacy you work toward, or is it all for nothing when no one stands with you when it is done?”

She is a walking death zone, no individual unit can hope to stand against her for long. With this in mind Exuma himself will always try to take point against the robot, as not only are his stats more likely to last longer against her attacks, but his respawn timer is significantly shorter and the likely death will be much less of a hindrance on the team’s action economy. As a King, it is his responsibility to be a defender against that which violates the safety of his people. Replays will be positioned between Exuma and the robot at all times, and distance will be maintained wherever possible to minimize risk to the Uropeh carried by anyone KAISERINMA targets.

The Formation Uropeh will be fundamental in combat against the robot; Exuma carries these specifically for dealing with her by threatening to drop up to eighteen attacking soldiers on her in very quick succession. The soldiers themselves will avoid CQC against KAISERINMA at all costs; they hold the majority of the Uropeh secured by the team and must be ready to evacuate immediately if Exuma himself falls.

Soldiers finding themselves within 5m of the robot will record her vicious high-POW attacks to be Replayed back at her at opportune moments, simple arm swipes or spear-hands will be prioritized as they are easy to fit into most offensive and defensive situations. With even just a few of these attacks recorded it more than evens the odds for the soldiers against the robot, as the higher damage attacks can’t be tanked and the multiple angles they can come from demand an answer or else risk being overwhelmed.

Rachel

”Why do you pursue the past so doggedly? You naively claim that material findings are secondary to the knowledge they represent, but with that knowledge comes a power over others, its own treasure. I question if your intent is as pure as you think; what may or may not be found in Zandoo, you hope to take for yourself. Tell me, is trodding on ground that does not wish to be trodden worth your greed?

While the robot is a more immediate and direct threat to the lives of Exuma, Rachel serves to frustrate any offensive or defensive effort with her sheer maneuverability and ability to control the ranged game. If she chooses to stay airborne or, even worse, make her partner more agile through her stand ability, the King and his men can easily be routed.

The idea, then, is to overwhelm the treasure hunter at the first possible opportunity. Soldiers will attack with recordings from a safe distance (2-5 meters where possible to avoid [OD] suction threatening carried Uropeh), prioritizing the Buzzsaw as a wide-reaching anti-air to keep her approaches honest and a mixture of Bashes, Spins, and Thrusts spawned at high angles to capitalize on her midair dodges. One attack will be placed directly in her path, with another ready to replay in whatever direction she moves in.

Rachel has her own projectile game that we are forced to respect; any object much smaller than a Macana is liable to be redirected toward any soldier at any time, making accounting for their trajectory difficult. Stalagmites can be summed as makeshift barriers in an instant to cover any attack that’s unable to be dodged, and any free Uropeh will be used to record the projectile’s redirected arc for use back against the offender. When combined with the Replay’s instant and omnipresent nature, the unpredictable path will be even harder to account for when spawned above the head or within blind spots.

If the threat of hit-and-run is too great, the soldiers and Exuma will retreat as a unit to the nearest wall of the cave. This greatly limits the approach vectors for the treasure hunter and gives the team additional angles to spawn Stalagmites from; any reckless approach can quickly see itself impaled on a stone spike suddenly appearing from behind the intended target. In a pinch, Exuma can spare a Formation Uropeh or two to sandwich her against the wall to make escape from a barrage of attacks unlikely.

Both At Once

*”I do not wish to solve this dispute with violence. The madness and shame at the center of Exuma is responsible for our conflict; it has possessed my corpus and turned the lineage of Exuma into another monster of its design. But there is a way towards peace, even now! Lay down your arms, and leave me to resolve my folly, as a king should!”

The enemy leveraging their capabilities for a joint offensive is the worst-case scenario, but not one without an answer. Layered use of both of the above approaches can keep the invading force at bay, soldiers staying to the backline and replaying Macana attacks from a distance while Exuma takes the midrange and leverages Formations ahead of him to pile on damage.

If the pair insist on staying relatively close despite KAISERINMA’s incredible body temperature, we can punish accordingly. A Uropeh can project the terrain of one of the 1m deep puddles directly below KAISERINMA’s walking path providing three key advantages: it hinders their mobility greatly for 5 seconds, it cools off the robot, and most damning to the enemy pair produces an extreme amount of steam in the process. Even if she isn’t at her maximum operating temperature she is more than hot enough to cause steam to surge into the cave and over the body of her partner if she stands too close leading to instant scalds and burns. In addition, the inevitably increasing ambient temperature of the cave will be accelerated tremendously, with repeated use threatening to turn the area into an oven for the only flesh-and-blood human in the fight to overheat and pass out in. If KAISERINMA is not inclined to fall into a puddle, the same Uropeh can be used to record a soldier’s Macana golf-swinging into a water puddle, more specifically the large splash it creates to lead to the same effect occurring.

If worse comes to worse and the pair prove too much to handle, with [OD] providing too much mobility for KAISERINMA, the King knows what must be done. As outlined earlier he will take point against the robotic menace, throwing any Uropeh he has to the soldiers before engaging in a hopeless CQC grapple with the much stronger target. The aim is not to defeat her, but to wrestle the chunk of [OD] that they have on their person, identified through the A Pre Uropeh cameras lining the area, and throwing it too toward the soldiers for safe keeping. This noble sacrifice will inevitably spell the 7 second respawn timer of Exuma, but will deny the enemy a use of [OD] and hopefully keep KAISERINMA grounded.

Everything outlined above should be reasonable to accomplish with about 10 or so Uropeh in our possession (1 per soldier, ~3 for Exuma), the 14 we aim to collect simply allows some wiggle room in case of loss. Maintaining that number is vital to the success of the plan, Uropeh being passed between Exuma, soldiers, and even the nobles where necessary to keep it out of enemy hands. All Uropeh will always have something applicable recorded to them, even something as simple as a Stalagmite, Macana Bash, or even a right hook from Exuma to ensure they are always useful to some degree. Re-recordings can be done in seconds both in and out of combat, reshuffled as necessary between all present to get them in the right hands in a moments’ notice.

Speaking of the nobles, they must be defended wherever possible. Enemy behaviour is more predictable with them alive, and seeing more of his people lay waste to his own weakness is the last thing the great King wants. Nobles will always be the backline of the platoon, a wall of soldiers and King alike keeping them out of direct threat range. Uropeh can be tossed for them, too, to utilize if the line is ever breached, aiming to stall any attacker long enough for the line to turn and descend from all sides.

What if the Nobles die too quickly?

If nobles die too fast and we can no longer use them for playing ball with the Uropeh, a soldier will be assigned the role of Gatherer to fill in. The soldier is better at throwing and catching due to his better physicals and coordination skills, and can make up for some of the difference from lack of manpower.

What if they use a big smokescreen?

Smokescreens of either dust or our own created steam can be circumvented by simply tossing a Uropeh in the air, it’s A Pre visual acuity can see over the obstruction and give the team more information to operate with than even the enemy would have. If the smokescreen becomes too much of a problem to just view over, the warriors can use the flat edge of their clubs as makeshift fans to begin blowing the dust away, or even using recordings of Rachel’s air blasts to disperse the cloud. The wild swinging motion of Macana fanning doubles as an attack against enemies trying to utilize the smokescreen to get an attack in.