© 1999-2000 Imminent Storm of NEWST.
It took a while to finally secure what was once North America, as we hunted down the last few bands of marauders, and the remnants of the New Paradigm and the Collective. NEXUS has been defeated, but we are still far from finished rebuilding the world; there are still the vast continents of South America, Europe, And Asia. We decided that Europe would be the next logical place to go, so we loaded up as many transports as we could spare and headed out over the Atlantic.
We landed on the coast of Portugal and set up several bases along the shore. We didn't encounter much resistance as we moved across Spain towards France. Generally, the factions in Spain accepted us, and we added their manpower to our own. The next goal was to sweep across France as we had done in Spain, but luck was not on our side this time.
Our first indication that we were dealing with a hostile force was when two of our transports were shot down soon after crossing the Pyrenees Mountains. When our forces reached the crash sites of those transports, something seemed wrong. The metal of the transports' hulls were not blasted like a SAM hit, but they seemed to be melted somehow; much like a Pulse Laser hit. This was our first encounter with what we would call the Stormbringer Laser AA weapon. We had to recover this technology fast.
The fighting came in short--but intense--battles as we approached Paris. The hostile force never identified itself, nor did it respond to any of our attempts at communication. Our break came as one of our teams stumbled on a Stormbringer nest outside of what used to be Caen. They captured the Laser AA sites easily, and at last, we had recovered this technology. The good news ended there as we entered Paris. It was now August.
The ruins of the city were heavily fortified. We sent in a force of 25 Gauss Cannon Vengence Tracked units of the 5th Armored Vehicle corps. The initial battle report was not good: they encountered Gauss, Scourge, and laser defenses; losing 5 units before it was over. So far no enemy units have been found.
Late on the night of August 20th, the attack came. The first wave of cyborgs were beaten off easily, but that was just a wake-up call. Soon, large tank-like units appeared in the distance through the ruins. Their design was unfamiliar, not like any of the Paradigm, Collective, or NEXUS bodies we had faced. When dawn broke, all hell broke loose. The new enemy tanks attacked from the front while light hover units and cyborgs attacked from the sides. The new tanks were HUGE, and RED. Stunned, the tank crews lost several valuable seconds as the large tanks approached. Their group commander immediately called for air support, but the Stormbringer amd SAM defenses were too thick for anything to get through; the tanks were on their own. The commander ordered 5 tanks to cover each flank from the light units, leaving 10 units to deal with the heavy tanks. The commander tried to take advantage of the enemy tanks' slowness by using a pincer move, splitting his forces and attacking from multiple directions. It seemed to work at first; two, then three enemy tanks were turned into smoking hulks. Our tanks, however, were not doing damage fast enough. Soon three, then four of our tanks fell to pulse laser and scouge fire. The commander, recognizing the bad situation he was in, ordered an immediate withdrawal from the battle, as his tanks were faster and the two lighter forces had been desroyed. Two more tanks fell in the retreat. the score so far: 6 enemy tanks destroyed, 1 badly damaged; 8 friendly tanks destroyed, 4 badly damaged, 2 moderately damaged. Then word came from Headquarters; the entire 3rd armored corps was weeding out the AA lasers and SAMs as they approached to give support. They would arive early the next morning.
