As morning dawns, your forces are drawn up for the grand battle. Your left flank, anchored by a tiny oasis, is held by the Mechanon forces. The center is defended by the masses of Edestekai pike. On the right, strung out over a long front, is the all-too-thin skirmish line of the Eorna.
Supporting the Eorna are a small group of Megasaurus; the Eorna have captured some of these beasts during your absence and implanted control devices in their brains, turning them into at least partially controllable fighting
cybots.
The Ul-Mor cavalry, evenly distributed along the line of battle, are in reserve. The hidden Kurabanda are ready to leap from the ruins above to soar over the enemy forces, dropping hand grenades on them. The Kurabanda will then land and pour archery fire into the rear of enemy units.
You, also, have been requested to stand by in reserve, ready to provide crucial help as the battle develops. You can sense the tension rising in your allies as they wait for the attack. In distance to your far left and over a small ridge, a brilliant flash of sunlight reveals the gleaming body of a Sathar warbot! The Battle of Volturnus has started. Your first request for help comes in from the
Mechanons on the left flank. There is just enough time to get to the Mechanons before the warbots hit them.
Here is the battle strategy map:
The first encounter is the bottom of this strategic map (marked "1").
As you arrive at the left flank, the Mechanon forces are about to be heavily attacked all along the line. A strange new Sathar automatic cannon is wreaking horrible damage among the Mechanons. This gun must be destroyed, or the Kurabanda air troops will never be able to join the battle; the cannon would massacre them in the air!
To take out the cannons, you take a small force of mechanons with you. The terrain is desert, with the occasional cactus and rock. You get within 200 meters and have the advantage of height looking down.
Your forces are:
4 security robots
4 maintenance robots
1 recoilless rifle
1 heavy laser
(You might remember recovering these last two when saving Slave City One)
The Sathar guarding the cannon are:
2 warbots
4 combat robotss
2 cybots
1 robot brain
2 Sathar
1 Automatic Cannon (both anti-air and ground attacks)
Your options are to kill all the enemies or destroy the cannon they guard, thus forcing a retreat.
For the sake of keeping this moving, I'm going to give you the statistics regarding their forces:
SATHAR FORCES
· 2 warbots
(MV 120m; IM/RS 8/80; STA 500; ATT 80; DM 5 heavy
laser shots for 20-200 per shot, 10 machine gun bursts
for 10-100 per burst)
· 4 combat robots
(MV 120m; IM/RS 7/70; STA 100; ATT 70; DM 20 laser
rifle shots at 4-40 per shot)
· 2 cybots
(MV 90m; IM/RS 8/80; STA 100; ATT 80; DM 10 gyrojet
rifle shots at 3-30 per shot)
· 1 automatic cannon
(MV 60m, treat as light vehicle with 60 structure points, manned by 2 Sathar crewmen; ATT 70, fires once per turn; DM 24d10 in square hit, characters in adjacent squares must make STA check or be stunned for 1-10 turns, Robots are never stunned)
The automatic cannon may not move and fire in the same turn. The Sathar crew must be present to fire the automatic cannon. The crewmen are slightly exposed, and should be treated as a hard cover target. The crewmen are also armed with laser rifles with one full clip each.
· 2 Sathar
YOUR FORCES
· 8 robots/combots: (MV 120m; IM/RS 7/70; STA 100; ATT 70; DM 20 laser
rifle shots for 4-40 each)
At least one player character must man the heavy laser and the recoilless rifle if they are being used.
Discuss a battle strategy. The outcropping of rocks will allow about 3-4 people at a time to move from cover to cover up to the front of the lines where the cannon is.