The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 1A - Two Hundred Yards Of Nightmare

[MrAbdiel]

Your featherfall spell wasn’t meant for such an extended time in the air; and as you tumble at the whim of the Vult druid-line’s wind manipulation, you feel the featherlightness depart from you, the burden of your gear suddenly manifesting on your spinning body, and then a sickening two seconds of freefall.

You hit something. You are choking, and blind, and slowly your senses right to tell you that you are under water.

Spoiler: RP Considerations, and Rolls

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The water you’ve landed in is a little under five feet deep - or 1d8 feet deep, if you'd like some extra randomness to inspire your writing. If you’re particularly tall and beefy, you might painfully bounce off the sand as your mass carries you through the water. If you’re particularly small, you might find your feet can’t touch the bottom and you’ll have to swim. In the interest of not making you roll for every possible misfortune, these things are not hazards with a mechanical effect; but they’re the kind of things that might be fun to remark on in your post, as your soldier experiences the trauma and exhilaration of the defining moments of their life.

As you thrash your way to the surface and blink the stinging sea brine from your eyes, you see you’re surrounded by the madness of the main troop landing on Naphto beach. Behind you, light seacraft chatter away with their machine guns toward the shore and beyond a bank of fog flash the big guns of the UPA and Albinon warships. In front of you is thirty yards of choppy surf leading to a bank of shingle and a row of ten foot high concrete seawall the Vult have constructed all along the coast with strategic breaks, encouraging attackers to funnel through into the defender’s primary kill-zones. There are other breaks in the wall, where the big guns behind you have smashed open new gaps that are less hazardous, but slower going through the jagged rubble. Past that, you spot concertina wire behind the seawall running for miles up and down the beach; tanktraps made of welded steel beams; and two hundred yards of craters, hidden land mines, and open ground being raked with enemy fire. A hundred and seventy feet up past that is the legendary Defiant Wall: your own personal confrontation with one and a half thousand miles of defensive sea bunkers, trenches, and concrete malice pointing their weapons back at the Aquiteaux channel. Massive emplacement guns thump away in their extended duel with the allied battleships. It is a fight they are likely to win, for when the Kreigvolk munitions hit, they do intolerable damage to small craft and significant injury to battleships. But you watch a volley of naval shells that should split bunkers and rend stone burst harmlessly on a lambent purple field of energy that flashes visible only at the point of impact, and then winks back into hiding.

Spoiler: RP Considerations

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A visual reference, if it’s helpful; from a similar conflict. It’s high tide.

The merciless sea behind you, the carnivorous cliffs of Aquiteaux infront; and all around you to either side, the flower of Amcaran valor pushing through all the gunfire and horror. Other paratroopers from other companies of the Skyknives - Archer, Baldur, Corban, and Diver - are still crashing down into the water, spluttering and struggling to adjust to the calamity. Those are the luckier ones. A handful of the less fortunate take the twenty foot fall after their rings give out onto the hard sand, the vacated landing craft of the landing troops, or onto the seawall itself.

The faces of the men and women struggling out of the water near you are mostly not familiar to you. The majority are humble infantry, whose landing craft have gotten as close at they can to the shore before striking sandbars, and submerged obstacles, forcing the desperate soldiers to struggle through neck high water with rifles high over their heads, hoping they still fire when they get to the beach. With the drop having gone so terribly for you, there’s only two sensible priorities right now: try to survive, and try to regroup with Echo Company.

Spoiler: Objectives and RP Considerations

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You’re in an active warzone, but not technically in combat time yet. The concrete sea wall is preventing you from engaging the enemy and protecting you from them, once you scramble up on the shore. But every individual’s primary objective right now is to regroup with Echo Company. You’re all stranded in a sea of allied soldiers and cannot locate anyone else right away - but you’re entitled to “see” and move over to anyone else in the scene who has posted already. Thus, the first one or two people to crawl out of the surf will do so alone, and after that you should feel free to snowball together and heal, check gear, have a mental breakdown, or do whatever you like. Leaders should naturally be thinking about how to make lemonade from this particularly awful lemon of a landing.

[stanleyindraven]

Quickly finding a footing in the chest high waters, Bruce peers around for his team. "Sulphur!" he shouts, hoping the others can hear him over the water and gunfire. "Sulphur!" Bruce starts to push his way up to the shingle, atempting to help anyone he runs into along the way. He starts grabbing at the other soldiers around him and pushing them up the line, "No time to lag boys, those bastards aren't going to kill themselves."

[Awful]

The tiny vampire thrashed wildly in the water before she settled and sank. Finally there was sand underneath her water-logged boots and she could walk herself out the surf. Thank god she didn't need to breathe; activating your lifejacket meant you were an easy target, bobbing on the water, and not meant the weight of your weapons and equipment would drag you down to Davy Jones.

"Echo company!" Temperence shouted, "Echo company! To me! To me!"

The gods alone knew if any of them had lived. She added her voice to the clamour, trying to rally any of her wind-scattered forces.

In the general bedlam, she could hear a deep rumble she recognised. Nearby, the distinctive size of Pvt Rumble was shoving about soldiers. She staggered forward, still a little unsteady, feeling seawater aggravate her cuts. Nothing too deep; she'd live.

She focused her mind, and over the noise of battle, she spoke directly to Pvt Rumble's brain. Within his head, the sharp, hissing tones of Bathory's mental voice sounded:

"<Rumble! Over here! On your three-o-clock!>"

Taking the moment of respite, her crimson barrier flickered in and out of existence as she began recharging it. It had already saved her a nasty injury, if not her life, on the way down; she doubted any Volk bullets would be inclined to be kinder.

[Cavir]

Sgt Ladaran Xiloscient
2nd squad, 3rd Platoon, Echo Company, 101st Skyknives

Splash! The tumbling into the water disoriented the elf. With flailing limbs he finally found where the water wasn't and up righted himself. It took a few moments to get the water out and air in but the overwhelming sounds of gunfire and explosions quickly put him back into focus. I'm on the wrong side of the fight! This was a situation never thought of. He swore to himself in Dwarvish as he took in the situation. Keeping his head barely above water to be less of a target he waded to the beach while calling out. Many were around him but known that he recognized. "Skyknives! Form on me! Skyknives!" Skyknives or not, Sgt Xilo gave a quick hand to those around him who stumbled in the surf. The more that made it forward the better for himself too. "Up to the wall. Go Go GO!"

"Skyknives! Form up!" He didn't care which platoon or company they were from. He just wanted more competent soldiers around him. He heard the call of Sulphur! out to the right. He looked and saw Pvt. Gamble herding the line forward. Xilo kept moving forward as he used magic to contact him. All of Echo company knew his and the LT's ability and their voices through it. "I'm off to your left. Don't care what company they are from, bring any skyknives. Meet at the wall in front of me. Move!"

Xilo kept moving forward and calling out. Hitting the shingles and looking left he noticed a much smaller figure moving in a familiar commanding way. He shifted in that direction some to get within range of his magic. "LT, looking inland I'm off to your right. Found one so far. Meet you at the wall." With the surf not hindering him anymore he surged forward to the wall to take cover. From there he alternated between belting out orders to the waves of troops behind him to move forward and calls for seeking out more skyknives.

[JbeJ275]

Salamir got a head start on cursing compared to most, doing it pretty much as soon as the jump started and continuing without pause or repetition until he slammed into the shallow water, freezing cold saltwater jumping up into his nose and mouth. Stggering forward, he drew out pipe and shield emitters from his interior webbing, quickly forming a protector mode eldritch cannon and binding its legs around his left arm.

He slams his other arm into the controls a few times, staggering forwards until the saltwater isn't getting into the intakes and a silvery bue shied emerges around him and any nearby incoming soldiers protecting them from the long range small arms fire as a few other soldiers unload into the surf. Now with a moment of calm he catches sight of the vampire Lt and pitches towards them, limping up to her and allowing ttheir respective shields to overlap, giving an island of relative safety on a beach of nightmares.

"Hey. LT, I'm here. Where we going?" He shouts as he stumbles forwards towards the seawall.

[MrAbdiel]

Your small group of four coheres behind the concrete wall. Ones and twos of the grunts dragging themselves to the shore gravitate to the seawall too, as quickly as they can; their squads pooling around them as they arrive. They're hesitant to move up in tight squads, and you know why. A grisly marker twenty feet to your group's right tells of a lesson learned by all who watched; six men from the same squad dead or dying in a halo around an exploded mine, just as they emerged from the transport. Another is weakly crying out for his mother, as the remnants of his squad drag him, riddled with shrapnel, into cover.

With your group's members shouting over the din and trying to pull elements of the platoon, or company, or hell, anyone else in the 101st to yourselves, you find limited success. You must have men scattered up and down this beach - or gods, you hope so. You pray those you can't see have landed well, and out of the firing line, and that they're grouping and making something of this disaster too.

Finding their way to your patchwork squad are a human and an elf from Baldur company, whom you recognize loosely but do not know by name. On the battlefield, 'private' will do; and they look over the squad in dismay as they find no one they recognize well themselves. Along with them are three from your platoon who splashed down close enough to be caught in your orbit: Corporal Spade, the warforged from first squad; Private Jukebox, the kenku from second squad; and Private Tristain Ordo, the human from third squad. Spade is dented and oozing what his people have in place of blood, but seems alert and combat ready. Jukebox, the little bird-man he is, has one badly broken arm and is shivering as the adrenaline overpowers the shock of that injury. He has the hand of that arm, his left, stuffed into the webbing of his uniform in an extremely crude replication of a sling immobilizing effort, and has his pistol in the other hand. Private Ordo, a paladin by trade and rifleman by training, has been Doc Helmholtz's typical offsider for medical interventions; and being the closest thing the squad has to a medic now, he takes it on himself to reorganize Jukebox's attempted sling into something more functional.

You hope more of your brothers in arms will arrive, but this seems to be it for now; and a more immediate problem is arising. The landing troops are pooling up against the wall near you, the normal flow out into the field of fire to find improvised shelter and to push the offensive line forward having staunched. "We can't bottle up here, we're going to get strafed by that *^%&ing dragon!" screams a nearby sergeant of the 62nd Infantry. "Go! Go!" And leading by example, he surges through the gap in the wall along with a dozen young Amcarans who had dreams, and families, and friends and sweethearts they had promised they would see again. They make it about thirty feet past the opening, and then a raking blast of machine gun fire scythes left at leg height. They all go down, some crying out for moments before going silent; others destined to cry out for hours to come. Their attacker, you see as you peek out of cover after the burst, is a pillbox that sticks only two feet up from the sand, with a narrow slit out of which two side-by-side machine guns traverse seeking new prey. The concrete bunker is about a hundred feet out from where you are now, and must mostly exist underground. Presumably, its purpose is to do just this - to pin down allied forces long enough for high yield weapons to hit the clusters. And it's doing that job very well. Behind you in the surf, the answer to this problem vanishes as quickly as it manifested; an allied tank, modified for amphibious assault with air bladders and a water-screw propulsion system, suffers some kind of malfunction and sinks bubbling into the water. Its crew scramble, drowning, to the surface, and like you, begin to adapt to the dynamic reality of war fought on terms other than those they'd anticipated.

Spade's deep voice, perspicacious, brassy and strong despite his injuries, raises the question everyone's already asking. "What do we do? We don't even have a full strength squad, let alone a platoon. And our objective is on the other side of the Defiant Wall - the sabotage of which was our purpose. And retreat is..." He looks back pitifully at the beach; a graveyard of broken and discarded landing craft, more and more accumulating behind them. "...Impossible."

Spoiler: Lieutenant's Considerations:

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It looks pretty bad. In a situation like this, your training would be to get back in touch with command - but Specialist Vivienne Pierce is nowhere to be seen with your radio, and the one strapped to Cpl Spade's back is no doubt ruined by the impromptu baptism you all took. Your soldier instincts tell you, however, that you can always abstract your mission up a left, and up another if you have to - from Platoon, to Company, to Battalion, to Division, to Corps. And it's the purpose of the U.P. Army Corps here today to take this beach, to move up regardless of the danger, to disable the enemy defences as much as possible so those landing soon will have an easier time than those who have already landed. If any elements of the 101st landed on mark, they'll be trying to accomplish their original objective. The best you can do for them now is add to the pressure the Vult are feeling from the front, so they aren't inclined to look too hard behind.

[stanleyindraven]

"What do you say I take this bomb and plant it in that bunker? Gets these men through," Bruce shouts over the munitions at his superior officers. He looks forward trying to gauge just how far he can run before he'd have to launch the bomb to get it in place.

[JbeJ275]

Damn. Ordo at least someone made it. Shouts Sal, trying desperately not to think about where the rest of his squad is. Then turns his focus to the issue at hand, leafing through his webbing for exposives and trying to remeber the tricks the rest of the company could pull. He was no born tactician but he was an engineer working with miliatary kit and that requires you be a problem solver.

"Hey Lady!" He cries, something which in a more rational our he'd of been even the slightest bit more diplomatic about as he was talking to a superior officer. "Reckon you can fog the bunker? Then Brucey and I can crack the bunker and we can bloody die in the tunnels rather than on the beach!

[Heavenblade]

James looks towards the bunker I can hold a position in the front. If Ill get close enough, my blessed bullets are sure to live a mark on anyone who tries to pop up and shoot us - and I might have something more serious at store, just in case...but even with the blessing of the almighty, their bullets will eventually find their mark into my shell. So, I can give cover if you need the space for a few seconds

[Cavir]

Sgt Xilo finally pulled out his M1 as he responded rapidly to Cpl Spade so that they rest of the unit could hear too. "Our mission hasn't changed. Get to the acolytes and break them. Just a few more obstacles to get through first. Look around you. We aren't alone. They aren't skyknives but they're here and have the gear so they'll do for now. Who knows, maybe the tunnels get us past the Wall, or we kill all the Vults while they're too busy shooting at the beach. Plenty of options left."

"Fog will help. We can blow this section of wall first or use a grenade to blow the wire on the other side. What'll it be LT?"

[MrAbdiel]

The other skyknives nod in slow assent and then more firmly in resolve. Corporal Spade eyes the goliath and the tiefling, as they begin to concoct their reckless and possibly necessary charge. "Suppose we can't let these foot-boys keep all the bullets. Gamble, you're not a subtle target. You're going to risk eating a lot of lead out there. It's probably better that you cut right with anyone brave enough to pull fire and Sal goes left with anyone who can keep their head low. A pillbox that compact doesn't have enough room to get a charge through the slit; you'll need to get close enough to wedge it, or it'll detonate externally and it'll be for nothing. It could work; it's just...louder than we like." The warforged looks to the Lieutenant, quietly hoping she has a better idea that 'try not to get shot', which is the best advice he can offer.

"Hey! Skyknives! You lost?" Striding through the battlefield that makes most present instinctively hunker and crouch is a stupendously athletic tiefling with skin so dark a red it straddles the border between burgundy and black. He's a lieutenant of the 62nd Infantry Battalion, and looks to have stepped down out of a recruiting poster to lend a hand. Tall and broad shouldered, with the sleeves removed from his uniform to reveal snaking white lines of stylized tattoos that remind you of fire, and smoke; with his helmet - customized to thread over his horns, as all hellions require - perched smartly on his head, unbuckled chinstrap swinging. He addresses your group in a voice that drawls with the winsome smoothness of the princedom of Kin-Tah-Ki. "Hey, are you gonna to rush that pillbox? They're all the way up and down this part of the beach, far as I can see; but I've got boys and girls all around here waiting to rush their own guns. Might as well go all at once, seeming as there's only so many rounds in the air at a given moment, so I figure." He pauses breifly, eyes flashing with some interior fire, and he swivels at the waist to reach up into the air and makes a fist in a moment so sudden it seems like he is attacking an unseen aggressor. Then he opens his palm, drops the bullet he caught to the sand, and shakes out his wrist to banish the sting it apparently caused. "If you give a signal, we'll all bumrush; but if you got something more pressing, we'll go up without you."

Spoiler: OOC: The Bumrush Proposal

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The pillbox is a hundred feet away from you, though you have to cross atleast ten feet of shingle (difficult terrain, half speed) and barbed wire (potentially damaging and entangling, if not successfully negated) to get into the open. That's atleast one turn at a standard double move of 60ft; and then the next move action would get you a further 30ft and have you 20ft away from the pillbox - close enough to throw things, not close enough to plant explosives if you want to be sure they wreck the pillbox. Throwing from this range will be a ranged attack roll at disadvantage. But if you can manage to get within 5ft of the bunker, you can just drop the charge without so much as a roll, as long as you have a plan to get out of the blast!

I'll give the LT a chance to read this stuff and respond!

[stanleyindraven]

"Well, no time like the present guys. Let's get some!" Bruce pulls the Weasel bomb from his pack, turns and sprints full speed up the beach at the pill box. Never let it be said he was a coward when the time came to be a hero. Bruce goes into a rage and continues along his path.

[JbeJ275]

"Frackin Idiot!" Is about all Sal has time to bark as Bruce begins the charge, before he starts moving in the same direction, then realising he's moving in the same direction. Then remebering about a thousand reasons why this is a terrible idea only after he's already started sprinting over sand. Unwilling to try and take the lead on Bruce's charge he instead just focuses on staying vaugely within shielder range, then hitting the sand prone whenever he reaches the barbed wire and clearing that out the way so the goliath can hopefully at least reach he bunker before biting it.

[Cavir]

"Dammit!" Xilo swore in Dwarven then switched to English. "Sir, there's your signal. Send'em! Must be tunnels connecting them all."

Short of his own LT cutting in he continues. "Cover fire! Don't hit friendlies. Aim for the guns themselves." He sticks his head and rifle just over the wall enough to starting firing.

Spoiler: OOC

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Two shots, one at each gun in the bunker ahead of us. Within regular range of 150/600.
Attack1: (1d20+10)[12]
Damage1: (1d8+5)[13]

Attack2: (1d20+10)[17]
Damage2: (1d8+5)[9]

[Awful]

Lt Bathory
HP 30/32, ARCANE WARD 15/15, THP 11

As the bedraggled squad had dripped into place around her, Bathory had raised her voice.

"We're not being paid for a beachside holiday, ladies and gentlemen: we push!"

As the tiefling came over, she gave him a tight smile.

"Thought we'd drop in for a visit, but they're being terribly rude to guests. We'll help push: if we get close we'll blow the damn bunker. I can block its sight with fog, might help a-"

Without hesitation, the oversized private let out a merry cry and charged. None could accuse him of cowardice; neither could they accuse him of intelligence. The tiny vampire let out a frustrated noise.

"Hell's teeth - consider this the signal! Push, push!"

She cupped her hands, and within them a tiny red sphere appeared. She crushed it, and crimson fog burst out in front of the bunker, blocking its sight lines. At least now they had some kind of cover.

Spoiler: ooc

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Yup, casting Fogcloud in front of the bunker to block its sight.

Didn't have time to actually read the DM's post before people acted so I guess let's just wing it, heh.

[MrAbdiel]

With Bruce scrambling up the remaining shingle and around the gap in the wall, and with Lt. Bathory making the decision to back that reckless play, everything snaps into motion. The tiefling officer wheels around and lets out a bellow with thaumaturgically enhanced volume:

"Makin' a MOVE!"

This howl-to-action ripples out up and down the beach. It triggers off a a number of Magic Mouth spells embedded in the rank insignias on the NCO's up and down the beach, repeating the making a move command across the battlefront at the speed of sound. The collective response from a tens of thousands of Amcaran throats is so loud that for a moment it drowns out the gunfire, and the pained screams, and the persistent growl of this hell-on-earth.

"HOO-AH!"

Pvt Gamble is out in front, first off the rank in the beachwide push. With him go just two soldiers, making the split second decision to be part of the pincer that is likely to attract the most enemy fire for reasons of their own.

Corporal Spade stumbles after Bruce, struggling to haul a crumpled wad of red, white and blue silk from the pack he is otherwise ditching. He has just enough time to rig the top corner to the bayonet lugs of his rifle, and to grip the bottom corner pinned in his fist on the stock. All thy Skyknife corporals have one, packed with the intention to fly them over bunkers they'd seized on the Defiant wall as they closed in to kill and capture the faltering defenders. For the battered warforged from first squad, that seems a forlorn hope now; but he honors his unfurled young valor as he runs in Bruce's wake, colors held high in the storm of lead.

Spoiler: Young Valor

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Young Valor has gone through a number of iterations, since the principalities of the new world banded into their alliance and grew to a host of fifty represented provinces. But the form has remained largely the same - a bed of red and white stripes, with an overlaying intersection of blue and white stripes and a shield emblem.
A white silhuoette of the Amcaran eagle, one talon gripping a bundle of arrows and the other gripping a branch of the olive tree, spreads its wings just as a coalition of young princedoms shook off the ancient and inscrutable pacts and grudges of the old world. It is a fact of great spiritual contemplation that the free princedoms would fly this flag at the forefront of their effort to deliver the old world from the very whirlpool of dynastic violence they fled two centuries prior.

After the goliath and the warforged goes private Jukebox. He is a short bird, and his race was made to fly before they were cursed to walk; so when running the hinging of his hips makes his gait into a bobbing waddle that is far from elegant. But when the order is given, he goes from shivering and cradling his broken arm to following after Cpl Spade. As he goes, he emits a mimic-sound that serves as his verbal component for a thaumaturgy cantrip - a sound like a record player's needle skipping to find its groove. Then he begins mimicking, with his preternatural mastery of the his people's curse blended to his bardic gift, the sound of the 22nd Infantry's marching band and mens' chorus, that entertained the soldiers and their families before they shipped off to Albinon. The sound is fine, and loud, and heard far up and down the beach from the salient of the push; at once too cheerful and upbeat for the moment, but also creating a mobile island of hope to push back the slamming waves of despair the scenario creates in so many.

Spoiler: The Sound Of Freedom

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Naturally, you might imagine our version contains some slightly altered lyrics; but the heart of it's there.

Lt Bathory, Sgt Xiloscient, and Pvts Ordo, O'Hara and Malichinni make their move shortly after, bending right as the flag group bends left. From out of the crimson fog, the murderous pillbox wildly fires across the immediate front, though blind in the effort and losing much of their focus.

But the first hitch in the plan comes about as Kreigvolk troops make a counter-move of their own. A stuttering series of pops, more like fabric giving way to tearing under pressure than like gunfire, ripples across the beach. With each burst comes the sudden and unwelcome manifestation of a pair Kreigvolk Grabenkämpfer.

Spoiler: Arcana, DC 10:

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This is unexpected. The conventional military wisdom is that using teleport spells on a large scale is impractical because of how resource intensive it is and the possibility of catastrophic failure. But Kreigvolk arcane warfare has focused more on defensive uses of teleporting, leaving aggression to their warmachines and fighting men in coordination and precision of the martial kind. The embedded trenchwarriors here must be issued with dimension door scrolls to be used to rapidly redeploy in just such a case of a coordinated rush, wildly multiplying the amount of firepower available to pour on attackers who are exposing themselves to harm. Wherever they came from, it must be within 500ft; thousands of soldiers suddenly appearing to turn this charge against static defences into a charge against static defences AND an entrenched opposing force. They're appearing in twos, which means they're making full use of their resources. It's likely that they're issued one scroll to a soldier, so they can probably do this once more - maybe to fall back and escape if the defence fails.

Thousands of them appear along the beach, blocked to support the pillboxes and dropping right away into trenches beside the emplacements previously concealed by sand-covered tarps. Near the box you're targetting, there appears four troops now entrenched to the waist on each side. Their great coats drape over heavy plate armor, their faces covered by stylized skull masks rigged into their distinctive Kreiger helms. As the tide of Amcaran troops rushes into the teeth of danger, the enemy take their shots at the color party, and test the mercy of the gods they serve.

Then it's Hi! Hi! Hey!
The Army's on its way.
Count off the cadence loud and strong (TWO! THREE!)
For where e'er we go,
You will always know
That The Army Goes Rolling Along.

Spoiler: OOC Rolls, and the Combat's Hazards! Please Read!

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Firstly: you all get Inspiration from Cpl Spade's Young Valor; use it wisely. Additionally, Pvt Gamble gets a D6 of bardic inspiration from Pvt Jukebox. He's a college of creation bard, so you get a http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/bard:creation that appear revolving around you as a small, five pointed white star that you instinctively know is Greater Carolean's star on the flag.

Your immediate field of danger contains 1 Pillbox and 8 Grabenkämpfer soldiers. The soldiers get the drop on you because they had prepared actions to dump them into the combat after they were given an order to do so, and then their turns go off. They move into the concealed trenches either side of the pillbox, clustering to the edges so not to be engulfed in fog, and open fire. One fires at Jukebox, One at Spade, and Six at Gamble. The combat begins in earnest here, just as you all clear the sea wall, with 100 ft between you and the enemy. The first 10ft are shingle, which will cost double movement to cross under normal conditions. After that 10ft, there's a barbed wire obstacle (Athletics DC14 to leap over mid stride). Contact with the barbed wire deals 3 damage, and will Restrain you if you fail a DC 10 Wisdom save not to thrash about like an idiot and make it worse than it needs to be under pressure. At any point in crossing this intervening space, you can throw yourself prone behind tank traps to gain cover; but you'll have to stand up to move again when you decide it's time. Finally, for every 20 ft you traverse through the intervening ground, I need you to roll a d100. Try not to roll a 1.

I'm going to use average damages to expedite some of these larger combats. Enemy actions:

1. The pillbox fires blindly at everyone. It's a DC 12 Dex save, or take 15 Piercing Damage; save for none. You all get advantage on this save, because of the very helpful fog.
2. A shot at Pvt Jukebox (AC 14). (1d20+5)[18] for 9 piercing damage, or 14 on a critical hit.
3. A shot at Pvt Jukebox (AC 17). (1d20+5)[21] for 9 piercing damage, or 14 on a critical hit.
4. 6 shots at Pvt Gamble, one from the Grabenkämpfer sergeant, (AC 20):
(1d20+5)[19] for 9 piercing damage, or 14 on a critical hit.
(1d20+5)[6] for 9 piercing damage, or 14 on a critical hit.
(1d20+5)[13] for 9 piercing damage, or 14 on a critical hit.
(1d20+5)[6] for 9 piercing damage, or 14 on a critical hit.
(1d20+5)[8] for 9 piercing damage, or 14 on a critical hit.
(1d20+7)[21] for 11 piercing damage, or 16 on a critical hit.

Edit: 20AC is a hell of a drug.

[stanleyindraven]

Bruce clears the shingle and leaps over the barbed wire. His pace has not slowed, he crosses the sand like an Olympic runner and charges straight at the pillbox. Bullets fly all around him as he is grazed by one of the new drop soldiers. His focus unchanged and his courage bolstered by the magical inspiration. He carries himself ever closer to his destination, seemingly unconcerned with his wellbeing.

[JbeJ275]

Ducking under the spray of enemy fire Salamir initially took the foremost position in the rightenmost group, at the end of his run he threw his shield barrier cannon towards Jukebox and Gamble and they carried made their advance, it's small crablike legs sending it scuttling over the low dunes as waves of silver blue light are emitted, reinforcing Gamble's shield and reforming Jukebox's. Turning his head from his advancing companions he then sets at work with shears and ferromagical spools to clear away the barbed wire quickly.

Spoiler: Rolls

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To try and clear a patch as I don't have the movement to lay a grenade then get clear: (1d20+8)[15]

(1d10+5)[12] to Gamble and Jukebox

In a voice that's barely audible between cracks of gunfire and the rolling explosions of mines and artillery he makes some attempt to report to the officers present.

The crack volkies can't do that again, we got them BOOM sared this time. Gut the guys who came in guns in hand and they should have some scrolls for us, plllus their forward barracks can't be more than five hundred feet out.

[Cavir]

"GOoo!" Fully embracing the new plan Sgt Xiloscient leaps into action, literally. In two bounds he is past the shingle and over the wire. With elven fleet of foot and athleticism he takes the lead, leaping through the air again to avoid a possible mine. Pulling out a grenade, he chucks it at the closer group Kreigvolk Grabenkämpfer to give them something to focus on other than shooting accurately.

Spoiler: OOC

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Rolls made here. All rolls to get through terrain were successful.
Grenade
Attack: (1d20+8)[16] (Dex +5, Proficiency +3)
Damage: (3d6)[7] piercing, (3d6)[8] fire

[Heavenblade]

oh no, you don't O'hara mutters to himself and sprints forward, loading his blessed ammo into a heavy submachinegun, and starts unleashing burning heaven on the enemy.

He looks around, trying to make contact with the ally who has the best chance to bring the charge all the way to the pillbox. He raises his hand and shouts with the blessing of the almighty...send these bastards to hell

Spoiler: OOC

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Rolls for combat zone
Athletics
(1d20+5)[6]
Wis saving throw
(1d20+7)[15]
Dex saving throw
(1d20)[2]
(1d20)[13]

Casting sacred flame on one enemy soldier. They must make a DC 15 dex saving throw or suffer (2d8)[9] radiant damage.

As a bonus action, casting sanctuary on the ally who will need to make it all the way to the pillbox

[Awful]

Lt Bathory
HP 30/32, ARCANE WARD 15/15, THP 11

"Go on! Go! Go!"

Bathory began to run, hopping between the stony debris before throwing herself down by the barbed wire as enemy soldiers teleported in. Machine gun fire snarled at the sand but didn't come close.

"Keep their heads down! Grenades if you can!"


She aimed along her finger, cocked like she was doing fingerguns with her left hand. It was almost comedic: her actual handgun remained holstered on her hip.

A brief, bright beam connected Bathory and one of the enemy soldiers, a burning ray of fire that lasted only for a second. There was a sharp crack of superheated air - not all that different from a pistol shot.

Spoiler: ooc

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Passed my save, 18 to hit and 13 damage.
Maintaining conc on fog cloud.

[MrAbdiel]

Spellfire and gunfire zips to and fro as your unit closes on the pillbox, and the entrenched Grabenkämpfer soldiers. The engineer's skittering little construct draws up into line with the color squad, and blooms is defensive protections over them again, restoring what was lost to earlier glancing impacts and insuring them somewhat against the coming attacks. Sal shears through a segment of barbed wire, and the other Skyknives barrel past him through the way he's made clear for them. Far to the left, there's a loud prakk! of shaped explosion, as one unlucky soldier charging the pillbox adjacent to yours steps on a landmine that blasts him instantly into a scattering, crimson mockery of the bugbear he was moments ago. With every step, each of you fear you'll suffer the same fate - but not yet, it seems. Jukebox and Spade keep running after Pvt Gamble, but are now 20ft behind him because of his olympic stride. Ordo runs, fumbling for one of his grenades as he goes, and prepares to toss it next turn.

Xilo's grenade bounces and skids into the Grabenkämpfer trench on the left side where the majority of the Skyknives are heading. There's muffled shouting from them, and you see them move away from the grenade as best they can; but amazingly, they both remain within the blast radius and seem less damaged by it than you would have hoped. The plates under their coats are sheared and pocked, the coats punctured and ragged, but some combination of specialist equipment and specialist training leaves them bracing their weapons to attack, despite a host of flesh wounds on all four in the trench. One of them barely ducks as the gold-gleaming tracing rounds from O'Hara's machine gun whip through the air where his head was a moment ago; and popping up when he thinks the danger has passed, he instead rises up into the oncoming firebolt from the Lt Bathory's hip-shot. That one soldier, now grenaded and firebolted, reels back from the battering, but the soldier beside him steadies him, and rallies him to put his final energies into their duty. These trench warriors are sterner creatures than the common Kreiger soldier; and it's just your foul luck that they're your first encounter with the enemy directly.

They marshal a response. One of the troops in the grenaded trench rips off his mangled and blasted mask, revealing a rugged spill of russet waves, keen green hunter's eyes, and the pointed ears of an elf. He seems to be in charge of the squad; and calls orders to them as his hands spin in the air and produce a wash of blasting wind that shears away the crimson fog from the pillbox - unmasking your approach to its guns. The order seems to be to focus fire on the goliath approaching with the satchel under his arm like a slamball - yet as six of the troops level their rifles at him, four seem to be unable to bring themselves to pull the trigger on their approaching target. They slip their sights to other targets not so supernaturally warded; Lt Bathory, Sgt Xilo, Pvt Spade, and Pvt O'Hara! The eighth and final Kreiger in the trench tries to focus on Pvt Gamble, struggles, and manages to point the bayoneted rifle at the goliath before a flickering violet lance of energy snaps from the undermounted blade, and strikes him in the forehead; the invading power striving to lock up his muscles and arrest his heroic approach in the middle of the kill zone.

Spoiler: Roleplaying Considerations, and rolls!

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This may be the first time your character has encountered someone from the Kreigsvolk. Masked, they are the skull faced killers you expected them to be; but unmasked, the one soldier you can see now looks just like a wood elf you might otherwise know back home; just wearing an enemy uniform, and fighting to take your life. Does this rattle you? Or have you already come to peace with this horrible element of nature of war?

First things! Pvt OHara would see all guns trained on Bruce, so the Sanctuary goes to him, forcing four of the soldiers to spread their fire elsewhere.

One manages to cast Hold Person on the rampaging barbarian however; so before resolving attacks, he needs to roll a DC 15 Wisdom save or be paralyzed. In the event that it's a failure, those who are firing at him will have advantage.

1. The pillbox fires at everyone. It's a DC 12 Dex save, or take 15 Piercing Damage; save for none. The leader of the trench warriors is using a gust of wind spell to disperse the fog, so no help from it this round.
2. Two shots at Pvt Gamble, possibly with advantage.
(1d20+5)[10] (Advantage roll (1d20+5)[17]); 9 damage on a hit, 15 on a crit.
(1d20+5)[7] (Advantage roll (1d20+5)[7]); 9 damage on a hit, 15 on a crit.
3. One shot at Lt Bathory: (1d20+5)[19], or (1d20+5)[19] (disadvantage to shoot her, because she's prone). 9 damage on a hit, 15 on a crit.
4. One shot at Pvt O'Hara: (1d20+5)[13] 9 damage on a hit, 15 on a crit.
5. One shot at Pvt Jukebox: (1d20+5)[12] 9 damage on a hit, 15 on a crit.
6. One shot at Sgt Xilo: (1d20+5)[23] 9 damage on a hit, 15 on a crit.

Your turn again! Don't forget, a 1d100 roll for each 20ft you move.

The right trench's soldiers are unharmed; one is possibly maintaining the Hold Person spell. The left trench's soldiers are battered, one is maintaining a gust of wind, and one of them is badly injured, close to casualty.

[Cavir]

Sgt Xiloscient continues his sprint to the trench. He's hit by the return fire but his flak jacket absorbs stop the bullet and his adrenaline boost absorbs the remaining impact. He eyes the unmasked leader in the trench as he moves. His teeth clench but he continues his run still risking setting off a mine along the way. As he closes the final feet to the trench Xilo uses the mass of his M1 to help his leap up and over the Grabenkämpfer. Landing just on the other side, safe from the pillbox, he stops and turns back. He aims his rifle at the wood elf and speaks in Elvish. "You are about to be swept aside. If you wish to live to see another dawn surrender in the moment left." He was giving a fellow wood elf one chance to show wisdom. It was all he could afford.

Spoiler: OOC

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OOC: Dodged the pillbox shots.
9 damaged absorbed by temp hp. 2 temp hp remaining.

Dash move including a jump over the trench.
Are we using flanking? If so the idea is to provide flanking for those following me for 1-2 of the enemy.

Mine check (1d100)[13].

[JbeJ275]

Salamir kept his head low and continued to sprint up the field, pulling his own weasel bomb from the inside of his webbing as he approached the bunker, panic and gunfire driving any attempt at conversation into futility.

[Awful]

Lt Bathory
HP 30/32, ARCANE WARD 15/15, THP 11


Bullets plucked at her barrier, causing the protective crimson coating to crack again. She held up a hand as more rifle rounds clawed at it, reinforcing it briefly. She shot back, but it was a difficult **** with bullets throwing up the sand nearby, and the bolt merely made a patch of molten sand elsewhere.

[MrAbdiel]

With the Hold spell taking effect on Pvt Gamble, that half of the pincer's advance is halted; though OHara's protective enchantment makes it mercifully hard for enemies to target the exposed and paralyzed goliath. Spade and Jukebox catch up, and hunker as low as they can behind the private's huge shield; the attack halted just twenty feet from the enemy trench and the blazing guns of the foe. Hearing the Lt's order, Spade diligently produces and whips a grenade into the nearby trench, for a detonation that produces harm but not dissolution of the enemies within - damaged, but not deterred. Jukebox, still conjouring stirring song from his open beak, conjours an extra dose of the bardic arts and imbues Pvt Gamble with the Owl's Wisdom - a potent clarification of the mind which begins to loosen the enchantment holding him in place...but not finishing that process. All the goliath can do is growl through gritted teeth and sweat as three of the enemy soldiers pour fire onto him, while three others pick their shots at alternate targets - two at Ohara one at Sal. And the pillbox continues its murderous interjection, relentlessly filling the air with lead.

Spoiler: OOC: Dakka Dakka

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Shot at Pvt Gamble, at advantage(1d20+5)[12] or (1d20+5)[11]; 9 or 14 on a crit.
Shot at Pvt Gamble, at advantage(1d20+5)[16] or (1d20+5)[20]; 9 or 14 on a crit.
Shot at Pvt Gamble, at advantage(1d20+5)[14] or (1d20+5)[23]; 9 or 14 on a crit.
Shot at Pvt OHara, (1d20+5)[6]; 9 or 14 on a crit.
Shot at Pvt OHara, (1d20+5)[19]; 9 or 14 on a crit.
Shot at Pvt Malichinni, (1d20+5)[11]; 9 or 14 on a crit.

Once again, the pillbox fires at everyone! DC 12 Dex, or take 15 Piercing!

On the left approach, as Sal prepares his charge and dashes ahead, Pvt Ordo hurls a grenade at the Lt's direction, and it goes off in the trench along with a radiant flash of Ohara's blessed rounds striking home - one of the soldiers slouching out of sight with the blast despite their impressive resistance to the blast. Bloodied now, one cheek slashed and oozing from the grenade, the elven leader of the Grabenkämpfer looks up at Sgt Xiloscient, standing over him in the trench. "Fool that you are," he replies to the offer in elven, thickly impacted by his Kreigvolk heritage, "To make such claims. You wage war not on mere mortals, but on the advance of nature herself!" With that, he makes a wildly impressive standing jump and heel kick, landing with palms together and turning the torrent of blasting wind on the other elf.

Spoiler: OOC: Elfo a Elfo

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The elf is making two shove attacks with his action, though each of them will have disadvantage because he's attacking someone standing over him in the trench. That's the heel kick - if he succeeds at either, he'll knock Xilo prone. So Xilo will have to oppose these rolls with Athletics, or Acrobatics to remain on his feet.

Shove One, Athletics: (1d20+5)[15] or (1d20+5)[20], whichever is lower.
Shove Two, Athletics: (1d20+5)[11] or (1d20+5)[15], whichever is lower.

Then he uses his bonus action to turn the gust of wind of Xilo - that's a DC 14 Strength save or be punted back 15 feet along the ground. That'll put Xilo 15 feet into enemy territory without support and, importantly, will trigger 2 more d100 mine rolls. Good luck!

The assault started well, but is starting to falter - and then, when it seems nothing could make it worse, the squad witnesses one of the supporting flyers - a Tempest fighter craft - swooping low to lend a covering strafe to the advance, only to be smashed out of the air by concentrated anti-air fire. The carcass of the plane roars down and detonates further down the beach, enveloping a close skirmish of allied and enemy soldiers in the wreck entirely; but one wing sheared off by the enemy rounds scythes down toward the immediate combat, making landfall in the mess of barbed wire near Lieutenant Bathory - and then exploding as the wingtank is torqued open and exposed to flame.

Spoiler: Calamity on the LT!

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You drew the short straw, LT. Part of a wrecking plane explodes near you with the force of a fireball. That's (8d6)[24] fire damage, Dex 13 for half.

[JbeJ275]

As a bullet slams into the side of his enhanced armour the construction holds firm leaving Sal free to cover the final twenty yards to the pillbox, posting a weasel bomb into the crack and doing a quick and dirty job of rigging it to detonate. The second it's firmly wedged in Sal leaps over the back of the bunker, next to the rear lip of the trnch to take cover from his own exposion and jams his hands over his ears bracing for the blast.

The Shielding unit skitters for further cover over the sands, sending it's shielding pulse o those arond 20ft from the trench then skittering forward towards the trench to aid as the soldiers press into close quarters combat.

Spoiler: Rolls

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Dex Save Against the Spray of Bullets: (1d20+2)[19]
Shielding Pulse: (1d10+5)[14]

[Cavir]

The Grabenkämpfer elf makes an impressive leg sweep from inside the trench. Sgt Xiloscient sees it coming but the sand beneath his feet does not give him the expected control and down he goes. Instead of resisting he goes with the sweep and uses that momentum and the gust of wind to go into a back roll away from the trench even with all his gear on. Ending up in a crouching position, he fires at the delusional elf then tosses his other grenade into the trench. "So that's the poison they are feeding their minds." He looks to see how the rest of the squad is doing.

Spoiler: OOC

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OOC: Resisted the Gust, failed the foot sweep. Avoided the mines.

Roll/step back to be clear of a grenade blast in the trench. Fire a shot at the elf then toss a grenade.
Shot: (1d20+10)[28]
Damage: (1d8+5)[9]

Grenade: (1d20+10)[25]
Damage: (3d6)[11] piercing, (3d6)[13] fire, Reflex 13 for half

[Awful]

Lt Bathory
HP 30/32, ARCANE WARD 3/15, THP 11

Another wave of machine-gun fire swept over the officer's head, which was bad but missing, right up until a plane exploded on the vampire. Able to force herself as far into the ground as possible, her ward flickered madly as flames washed over it from the flaming wreckage.

She grit her teeth and ground her fangs together.
"This," she growled low to herself, "Is getting on my nerves."

She pulled out a bullet from a spare magazine for her pistol, tossed it into the air, and as it span in a lazy arc-

"Bang!"

The bullet exploded into three, a trio of shots that unerringly flew to strike the elven enemy officer.

Spoiler: OOC

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Cast magic missile to inflict (3d4+3)[10] force damage as an automatic hit

[MrAbdiel]

Sal's weasel wedges in the firing slit, and as soon as it's placed, the gun tracking left and right stops moving.

The elven squad leader of the Grabenkämpfer takes a slug to the gut from Xilo's point blank shot, and growls as he tries to focus his spell more intensely on his opposite number. Sgt. Xiloscient feels the gust's intensity kicking up, threatening to lift him off his feet. Then the wavering thread of Pvt Ohara's machinegun fire, and Lt Bathory's mystical missiles, crash into the back of the enemy leader; cutting off his spell and leaving him standing, perforated a half dozen times in the body and once through the back of the left side of his jaw; standing idle in that state of dead-but-not-knowing it. The soldier beside him grabs the patch on his shoulder, rips it open to reveal a leather scrap of scroll integrated into his uniform, and begins to cast some kind of spell, but then Xiloscient's grenade goes off. The Trench Warriors are resilient to such blasts, and have will to match their hardiness; but even they cannot withstand repeated detonations at point blank range, and the four in that trench are left ruined and blasted, elven leader and all.

In the other trench, rightly detecting how badly things are going, cut their losses; two of them tear patches from their uniforms, grab the other two by the upper arm, and with a mystical snap they are ripped from the field of battle to some place of refuge. This does not solve the immediate crisis completely, but it's a relief of pressure; and you see up and down the beach that units of Grabenkämpfer are pulling back in the same way.

A deadly stripe of fire, bright with tracer rounds, stitches down from the cliff and begins chewing up the sand around Pvt Gamble, still locked in place with his bomb under his arm.

Spoiler: Machine Gun Fire!

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Heavy Machine Gun from the bunker down at the group. It's firing three shots; two at the paralyzed Gamble, one at a random additional target in the cluster. 1 for Jukebox, 2 for Spade, 3 for the Shield Construct. Disadvantage on 1 or 2, since they're taking the dodge action this turn! (1d3)[1].

1st Gamble: (1d20+5)[24] or (1d20+5)[24]
2nd Gamble: (1d20+5)[16] or (1d20+5)[20]
3rd Random: (1d20+5)[6] or (1d20+5)[11]

The Kreig HMG does 14 damage on a hit, or 25 on a crit.

Then Sal's bomb goes off. There's a tremendous explosion, a shower of concrete chips and sand and deafening sound; and confined blast shreds the barrels of the pillbox's guns, and pushes up on its lid so hard it splits the concrete and drops it in shattered chunks inward into its hollow; the device well and truly inoperable.

Spoiler: BANG!

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Wisdom save to protect one's ears in timing with the blast. DC is 10, you get advantage because it's a friendly's explosion; but the penalty for failure is that you're deafened for one minute! Sal gets a free pass, because he set the device.

Jukebox: (1d20+2)[21] or (1d20+2)[9]
Spade: (1d20+2)[15] or (1d20+2)[20]
Ordo: (1d20+5)[13] or (1d20+5)[14]

The trench warriors retreated, and the pillbox busted, your immediate targets are gone; but the danger has not passed. Pvt Gamble remains frozen in the open by a nefarious spell now being maintained by a caster who has quit the field. Jukebox and Spade hunker behind the shield of the frozen giant, not willing to abandon him but powerless to snap him out of it. The trenches are now vacated for your use; and ahead of them is a hundred yards of suspiciously clear ground before the base of the cliff wall, and the beginnings of a track that winds right up a narrow ramp up the cliff face; just wide enough for one tank, or a squad of soldiers abreast. There's two machine gun points on the length of it, each of them hosing away at the troops below from relative safety, but who could easilly turn their fire down the ramp at enemies moving up the slope with nowhere to hide.