This is my quick entry to the Exode Federal Database Challenge.
I am basing my strategy on the rule that keeper pre-fabs are set up before the grabbers arrive.
Strategy
My strategy is based on the following principles:
- An isolated island is the most defensible terrain, especially in the absence of naval units;
- Mechanised Maneuver Warfare (as perfected by the Israeli Defence Forces in 1967 & 1973 wars).
- Maskirovka (Russian military deception) combined with the underground warfare of Hezbollah and the Viet Cong.
My Origin & Ship
Origin: Secret Agent (Stealth, Signals and can decrypt this Federal Database we have).
Ship: Fully upgraded Drachian Mantis (8 Crew, 4 Equipment, 8 Cargo & 6 Passengers) with Tacscan upgraded by and long range radar upgraded by Identification Matrix and Rimscan software, fully upgraded of course.
My Island Home
The most important consideration in formulating any military strategy is terrain and seeing as I have a whole Earth analog planet to choose my terrain from I'll have my expert pilots Tyron and Oskana be looking for an isolated island between 10 - 30 square kms in size and evenly shaped so that my 3 fully upgraded Automatic Turrets, based 400m apart in triangular formation in the center of the Island have the entire Island's ground and airspace covered in interlocking arcs of fire. The Island should be at least 50km from any other land mass or other island, like Diego Garcia, Guam, Wake Island, Lord Howe Island etc.
As Exode does not have any Naval units, the only way for an enemy to attack or get ground units to an Island is from the air. Exode Air units are not particularly powerful and, on my reading of the stats, none could penetrate such an air defence screen. These units will also be heavily stealthed (8 + Secret Agent Origin synergies) making them difficult to find from orbit.
My Armoured Fist
The Vanguard is by far the most heavily armed and armoured vehicle in Exode, so I'll have 3 of them providing both mobile air defence and ground defence. This is a platoon strength force of extremely powerful armoured vehicles commanded by the best.
The Rhino Heavy Attack Frigate is the only Starship equipped for ground attack and I serious doubt it can penetrate the overwhelming weight of fire that 3 Automatic Turrets and 3 Vanguards can bring to bear. In any case in this scenario both Keeper and Grabber ships are landing on the planet without fuel so according to the rules I don't think that ships can be used for attacks.
Each Vanguard will carry fully upgraded energy cells (300 energy) allowing almost 2 full days of constant combat.
These cells will be kept fully charged from the generator at the central base location within the Automatic Turret triangle (Central Base). Tanks will begin and end patrols and recharge before returning the underground garage.
Each Vanguards ground radar will be upgraded with fully upgraded Planetscan VX operated by a fully upgraded Tech Expert.
The crew of each Vanguard will be as follows
- Commanding Officer's Tank
- Alana Vos
- Military Pilot
- Kilbot
- Tech Expert (fully upgraded)
- 2nd Tank
- Oskana
- Space Federal Marshall
- Kilbot
- Tech Expert (fully upgraded)
- 3rd Tank
- Tyron
- Kilbot
- Tech Expert (fully upgraded)
Maskirovka
Central Base
At the Central Base will be:
- a fully upgraded Happy Five;
- fully upgraded TR -100 Generator;
- Shen, base commander
- Kumunicho
- Drachian Commisar
All secured and stealthed underground in one fully upgraded underground construction.
The Drachian Mantis will be landed 300 meters away also within the Automatic Turret triangle and its radars etc linked in to the Central Base network.
Tank Base Alpha
Approximately 800 meters away from the Central Base will be another fully upgraded underground construction with secure, stealthed garaging for 2-3 Vanguard tanks.
In normal daily operation only one Vanguard tank will be patrolling outside at any one time while the other two are stealthed and secure underground.
This will make any Grabber think that there is only one tank and prevent the two hidden tanks from being destroyed in the unlikely event any orbital bombardment can penetrate the air defence screen (which can also take down missiles and bombs).
If the patrolling tank is damaged it will go back to the underground garage and be repaired by its resident tech expert and another tank will roll out to join the fight.
In the unlikely event of the enemy landing strong ground forces on the Island, a blitzkriek of combined arms warfare from the tanks, Auto Turrets and dismounted Kilbots will use Maneuver Warfare to envelop and destroy the enemy.
Secret (Federal Data) Base Beta
At another, undisclosed location, well away from any other installations but within range of Auto Turrets and a quick dash from a Vanguard, will be a third underground installation (fully upgraded) containing:
- Tom Custom (fully upgraded) containing the Federal Database
- Energy Cells (fully upgraded)
- Secret Agent Origin (base commander)
- Ayumi
- Syndicate Hacker
- Mysterious AI
This crew will be working on the Secret Datacore of the Federal Database to extract its secrets and will not leave or go outside until their job is done. (Plenty of coffee will be pre-positioned at setup).
Vanguard patrols will discretely drop off food & water down a tiny blast proof shaft to the crew under cover of darkness as part of their patrol route, stopping only for a few seconds.
Patrol routes will have many locations where similar length stops are made to prevent any pattern recognition software determining the base's location.
Every effort will be made to keep this base completely hidden and secret.
My reading of the the rules is that food and water is in plentiful supply and is not poisonous on this Earth analog planet. In age of giant mammals there should be plenty of target practice and BBQ meat.
If this is not the case I'll sadly ditch an auto turret and replace it with a Soup & Cook in my cargo manifest.
Equipment
Everyone that can will wear an Arena Powersuit with radar upgraded by Planetscan VX (fully upgraded).
Those that can't will wear either Military Suits Class A (one Equip Set on Ship) or Drachian Suit or Spartan Elite (in descending order of preference).
People with appropriate warfare skills will carry a Judgement Day and Karper Heavy sidearm.
Shen, Tyron, Oskana, the Military Pilot and the Syndicate Hacker will carry a Tom's Survivor CO2 and Karper Heavy sidearm.
Everyone will have Party Ammo and Guided Ammo.
Everyone will have Syndicate Chips for synergies with Kumicho and so everyone is on the same team.
With the 2 remaining equipment set slots on the Mantis we'll have a Medical Bay (fully upgraded) and a set of Eisen suits, in case we need to do some science or an ice breathing dragon attacks us.
I think that's about it.
A bit of history
It is well recognised that amphibious landings against well defended targets are the most difficult task for an attacker in all of warfare.
It took the US 3 years to design from scratch and manufacture in large numbers the specialised vehicles used in the D-Day landing.
The rolling back of Japanese island conquests in the Pacific came at enormous cost in US casualties and that was with massive and complete US naval and air superiority. It was this massive cost in US casualties that led to the decision to use atomic bombs on Japan to end the war.
Without very substantial and powerful naval forces it is impossible for an attacking force to land on a well defended Island by sea. And Exode has no water units.
Airborne assaults against well defended targets with substantial air defences are complete suicide. No one has ever even attempted such folly. The closest real life scenario was the German airborne invasion of Crete in WWII, which despite Crete being weakly defended and having little air defence, caused such enormous casualties in the attacking elite German parachute Corps that it was unusable for the rest of the war.
Bring it on.