AP (ToaM) - Tales of the Arx Jericho - Season 1, Episode 07: Remember New Alamo! Part 2

Previously

A Mayzor raid in New Alamo disrupts the pilots' meals, and they gear up to deploy. Two Wormwoods have landed on opposite sides of the city, which is teeming with Swarms and Locusts, and Alpha Company must assist the military and Preservation Forces Robbies in driving them back and destroying them. Rick, Sarah, and Jason all focus on individual targets, blowing each one up one by one, while maintaining constant communication with AK-47 at HQ. Soon, however, the MetaTron begins exhibiting patterns of strange, static interference, until all communication with Operations is completely severed. Bravo Company should have arrived to the city by now to help out Alpha, but they're no where to be seen. Suddenly, two lightning bolts crash down from the heavens, and the Magnas Beelzebub and Thammuz are standing at the north and south ends of the city. Sarah gets caught in a boxing match with Thammuz, while Jason, Rick, Serena, and Strudel take on Beelzebub. Their last team attack fails, and Rick's and Jason's SAInts both take heavy structural damage. Strudel's SAInt is prone underneath Beelzebub's giant, ominous smog cloud, and he's in danger as it focuses its attention on him. Serena's SAInt takes damage too, but she's still up and ready to continue the fight. That's when she hears a familiar voice hailing her over MetaTron. It's still full of static, but Sarah can always recognize her brother, Allen, even by his telepathic voice. He's piloting a Robbie in the northeast sector and helping to fight off Beelzebub. He tells Sarah their parents are being chased by Swarm and urges her to come quickly and help. Sarah knows she has to finish Thammuz off quickly, but will she do it?

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Thursday, July 3rd, 2031 

16:00

Sarah takes cover again and pops out to continue her martial sparring match against Thammuz. He has about the appropriate number of limbs left that a normal, humanoid-shaped alien should have, though a statement like that holds no merit when it concerns the Mayzor. 

Meanwhile, Jason leads a coordinated, team effort to take cover and shield Strudel from Beelzebub's beams. With Rick and Serena's help, Jason is able to protect Strudel from getting killed, but his SAInt is disabled, and Strudel, who's fainted, has been ejected from his suit. It parachutes directly over the northeast outskirts of the city. Rick and Jason take this opportunity to repair some of their SAInt's damage, but the bio-mechanical, self-repair systems come at the price of raising the SAInt's Id or inner drive for senseless violence, much like the Magnas their design is based off of.

Source: Evangelion
http://tinyurl.com/psmpa4w

Sarah delivers a series of knife thrusts and shield bashes in quick succession which eventually disables Thammuz and activates his self-destruct mechanism. The ensuing explosion leaves a gaping crater in the south of New Alamo, but Sarah is long gone and racing toward the northeast sector to find her parents.

Rick and Jason cheer Sarah on for her epic, one-on-one victory. "Take that Oopsie!" Jason says and then addresses Sarah, "Stop cheering and send that backup you promised!"  Rick tells his sister to go help Sarah's parents out, and she starts running east.

Several Mayzor Swarm continue to chase after Sarah's parents, and an Archer, perched high on top of a tall building, is firing deadly shots off at a building right next to them. All the windows are shattered, and there's a fire spreading inside. There's heavy smoke pervading the air, and the building looks like it's about to implode and crush the parents. Sarah engages the Archer at Firearms (FA) range with her Giant Killer and annihilates it in time to save her parents from the crumbling destruction.

Getting back to Beelzebub, Rick leads a team attack, this time, and tells Serena to double back and provide cover fire. Jason supports Rick by engaging the Magnas, and Rick fires off several rounds from his stone thrower at Beelzebub's back, penetrating the smog cloud. 

The entire battle is extremely taxing, and Rick and Jason struggle to keep going, as their Ego is nearly depleted. Sarah regroups with them after ensuring her parents are safe and scooping Strudel up off the ground, and into her SAInt, along the way. 

Several more rounds of high-impact violence and strategized, team assaults later, Beelzebub's smog finally dissipates and flood the streets in ichor, while the alien-robot wasps completely break down. "This is for Strudel, you bastard!" Rick screams, as the pilots land the final blow. The Magnas's self-destruct core is triggered, and Alpha Company scrambles get away as far as they can so as not to get caught in the biggest explosion New Alamo has seen since the Wormwoods landed.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/pwonqe2

While helping the military quell the rest of the Mayzor, Alpha Company actually disables the Wormwoods in time before they can jet off into space with their lightning strikes. The military focuses on freeing civilians, while the pilots suddenly hear AK-47's thoughts reemerge on the MetaTron. The telepathic connection seems to be working again.

AK-47 tells the pilots that they don't know what happened with the MetaTron, but Operations saw the entire Magnas battle and are greatly impressed with how Alpha Company fared. She says to wait on standby as they initiate the retrieval protocol. 

Debriefing

Back at HQ, Rick, Sarah, Jason, and Serena help carry Strudel, who's coming to his senses, and they see Billy, Joanne, and the rest of Bravo Company who all share a look of self-disappointment. They say that they were supposed to provide A Company with backup, but somehow their deployment coordinates got screwed up, and they ended up flying to the West Coast. 

When Rick, Sarah, and Jason mention the MetaTron static and severing connections with HQ, Billy replies that all of Bravo lost contact with Operations as well. They could still hear each others' thoughts perfectly fine.

During the formal debriefing, AK-47 gives the pilots the same, lackluster response she's been giving them as to what happened. The Preservation Forces Officers still don't know what caused the static interference or loss in communication, but it's become high priority, and they will get to the bottom of it.

As AK-47 debriefs, Rick, Sarah, and Jason all notice Dr. Johnson's face crack several, subtle smiles, and they work together to figure out what his expression means. His poker 'tell' reveals itself every time AK-47 mentions the static interference or disruption of the MetaTron. After mentioning it to Billy, he reacts by revealing some surprising information. He tells Rick, Sarah, and Jason that he was sent on an errand, about a week ago, to deliver a folder to a Preservation Forces officer at HQ. Heading toward the monitoring room, Billy suddenly hid when he saw Dr. Johnson walk out. The doctor was alone in there and kept peering over his shoulder, paranoid, as he skulked down the hall.

Neither Rick, Sarah, nor Jason like what's going on. They're also starting to become paranoid, and they decide they need to investigate Dr. Johnson to figure out what's going on. What makes matters worse is that at the end of the debriefing, AK-47 publicly asks Serena to see her and Dr. Johnson right after. The rest of Alpha, especially Rick, are incredibly concerned.

Friday, July 4th, 2031 

It's the Day of Independence in America, though by 2031, the United States' freedom is severely threatened by an enemy far worse than the country, continent, or world has ever seen before. Still, the people of the US Zone, or the United States Territories, celebrate July 4th in remembrance of what they once considered a great, powerful, and prosperous nation before the First Invasion.

Rick, Sarah, Jason, and all the other pilots of Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie Companies meet for an evening of barbecued burgers and hotdogs, apple cider and lemonade, and a fireworks display that doesn't do justice to the destruction they witnessed, and helped cause, in New Alamo. 

Jason and Opsie get into their usual fight, after she gloats that Operations was all set and ready to deploy her alone to support Alpha Company against the Magnas, but it looked like they were able to handle themselves OK. 

When Rick asks Serena what the meeting with AK-47 and Dr. Johnson was all about, she replies, "Nothing." She tells him she can't talk about it, even to him, and wants to drop the subject for now.

By the end, most of the pilots' Egos are pretty low, though Rick's is surprisingly high, despite the alarm about his sister. It's about time for a summer vacation, and the pilots look forward to the end of the summer term and a week-long break next month.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/kuqknsv

Next Time

End of the summer term equals a whole week of summer break! Two, new SAInt pilots join Charlie Company, making it a full, five-person team, only these pilots come in a dual package. The pilots pack their sunscreen and bathing suits, as they head for the beach! Check out the soothing, hot springs and warm, gentle sand; the salty aroma of the blue, wide ocean; and what the hell is that island doing rising up like that? What? That's not an island! Too bad Opsie's not here to show off her top-notch pilot skills, although one, freshly recruited duo came prepared for action. Whatever you do, just don't ever say you MendiCANT.

End of Episode 07

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Director's Commentary

Part 2 of the Mayzor raid in New Alamo went really well, and there was a lot of cheering at the end when Thammuz and Beelzebub were finally destroyed.
Edit: I added a snapshot of the New Alamo battlefield map from our game that I drew.

Battlefield map I drew with an irrelevant
dice tower doodle to the far left. 

I got a reply from +Russell Collins  concerning the question I posed about Engage vs. Change Distance in battle, and he gave a really great response, which I'll just quote directly from the ToaM Community. +Robert Ruthven, who plays Rick, has it down as well:

Robert:   

Change distance, if I understand correctly, only lets you shift by one range increment. Engage, on the other hand, allows you to maneuver to the range of your choice. 

Russell: 

Robert has it right.
If it helps to compare to other systems, Engage is the "initiative" roll, when the player takes control of the situation trying to give herself the advantage. It's used to begin combat against an enemy but once they are exchanging fire or blows, it isn't rolled again, until she picks a new target. Remember, she can immediately Attack an enemy without an Engage action but has to leap into their preferred range. Engage lets her avoid the danger zone.
Change Range actions are for when the pilot is in the thick of it and needs to maneuver to deprive her foe of the advantage; backing away to a safe range or charging in to use a more powerful weapon. Because the enemy is already "locked on" the pilot can only move by one range increment with each action. Since she has to roll for it, you could compare it to "attacks of opportunity" in D&D. Everyone is running around all the time but to make a significant change in position she's got to exposure herself to attack.
I had considered rules for hiding out from a foe. Changing range to HB and then Take Cover to break off the engagement but it got boring when I tested it. (Everyone kept Engaging, running away, coming back, running away, etc.) You can try that in a more strategic, cat-and-mouse combat if you like but its not the way that Locust or Magnas "think." Maybe against human enemies . . .
Now I'm thinking about submarine battles.

Anyway, suffice it to say, I shouldn't run into any more problems with Mayzor battles. Introducing a Mendicant and a potential, Mayzor navy battle are a whole different story!

That submarine thing was just coincidental, right?

Thus, we've hit the middle of the season. Many relationships have developed over the course of the past, several months; seasoned pilots have died, new pilots have joined, ranks have switched, and companies have been promoted; Rick still hasn't seen his father; we're learning more and more about the Apostle Project, the P-Class Saint, and Opsie's connection to all of it; AK-47, the CRC scientists, and Dr. Johnson especially are all hiding something important; Serena's being pulled into the chaos; Jason's mother has been abducted; Sarah's were almost killed; and we'll meet some new extras tomorrow who will bring a whole, new equation to the mix.

Perhaps I'm throwing too much out at once? :) In all seriousness, this entire campaign started out as a play test, and I've become much more engrossed in it than I ever imagined. I'm purposely trying to explore as many different things this game has to offer as I can, while we're all still able to meet on occasional Thursdays to tell a story of a really fun and awesome anime series. 

+Robert Ruthven, +David Andrews, +Wolfie Fang, I enjoy running this game for you all, so thank you so much for playing, and I greatly look forward to the second half of the season!

+Russell Collins, many thanks to you as well for writing this game. It's definitely been a enjoyable ride, so far. If you still plan on running your own Hangout campaign, save a slot for me, please. I'd love to see how you run it.