Although the support of the audience did not directly affect the battle strength of the combatants in any way, it still had a substantial influence on morale.
The Larkinson ch pilots beca a lot more buoyed when they saw how extensively the fans and viewers around them rooted for their victory.
Even if many of the Larkinson ch pilots didn't fight for glory, right now they couldn't help but beco caught up in the competitive fever!
As long as they won the next match, they would beco fad and celebrated warriors in the Red Ocean! If nothing else, they could brag about reaching the finals of a big and important tournant whenever they entered a bar!
Of course, they still needed to win. All of their dreams and hopes would beco dashed if they weren't able to beat the Urthinans.
As the countdown started, the ch pilots of both sides tuned out the massive live audience and only focused on what was important.
The arena battlefield turned into a highly unusual environnt this ti. The surface of the arena turned into a flat, arid terrain that offered no cover or obstacles of any kind.
A battlefield like this would have been completely boring if not for one complication.
A light sandstorm swept throughout the entire battlefield.
The sand particles that were largely blowing in a uniform direction were mixed with a light proportion of tal and exotic materials. This caused the sandstorm to generate a moderate amount of interference.
Although the sensor and communication systems of most chs still remained effective in a range of a couple of kiloters around them, it was quite troubleso to reach any further without the use of chs acting as relays.
Still, this was not that big of a deal. Neither the Larkinsons nor the Urthinans enjoyed a significant advantage this ti. At most, they needed to roam around a bit more in order to locate each other's chs.
What did bother them was the fact that the sand could sneak into all kinds of holes and crevices. While the blowing sand wasn't powerful enough to grind down solid chs in a short amount of ti, they could easily aggravate the injuries of any chs!
As long as a ch suffered an armor breach and exposed its internals to the environnt, all of that sand blowing into the interior compartnts could easily interfere or wreak havoc on the functioning of the chs!
The implications were clear to the Larkinsons.
"Avoid getting hit." Commander Casella instructed her n. "If you get struck by a lance, it likely won't matter as much, but if the enemy ranged chs manage to breach your armor, try to orient your chs so that the hole doesn't face the wind."
This would only slow down the deterioration process. The asures the chs had to take to stall their end also impose considerable limits on their subsequent actions.
However, Commander Casella could work with this. In her judgent, the current battle environnt provided a slight advantage to the Larkinson Battalion.
Whereas the Urthinan lancer chs needed to pull off a successful charge in order to breach the armor of their targets, most of the Larkinson chs didn't have to go through so much trouble!
Casella took one more look at her entire battalion. The ch roster for this battle was a significant departure from what the Larkinson Battalion had fielded before.
This ti, the Larkinsons did not bring any Transcendent Punishers.
The Eye of Ylvaine wasn't happy with this strategic decision, but the Larkinson Battalion simply couldn't afford to bring so many burdens to the battlefield this ti.
The Transcendent Punishers worked best against opponents that were slow and could not overwhelm the Larkinson lines. The aggressive, charge-oriented ch doctrine of the Glory of Urthina Battalion happened to be one of their worst nightmares!
No matter whether the Larkinsons brought 20, 50 or even 100 Transcendent Punishers, each of them would get demolished in the first five minutes when a torrent of lancer chs swept across their positions!
Lancer chs just loved to skewer their lances through big, fat immobile targets like heavy artillery chs!
It was largely self-defeating to bring a large amount of knight chs to protect the heavy artillery chs.
The enemy lancer chs would just wipe out the knight chs first before moving on to demolish the heavy artillery chs shortly afterwards!
This was also the reason why the Larkinsons did not bring any Eternal Redemptions this ti. While Penitent Sister cannoneer chs were more maneuverable than the Transcendent Punishers, they were still sitting ducks against their current opponents!
The Larkinsons made a bold but risky change in strategy for this match. Instead of fielding a rounded and balanced assault force, the Larkinson Battalion instead switched out all of their lee chs and slower chs!
The Bright Warriors in knight ch configuration and swordsman ch configuration were entirely absent this ti. The Valkyrie Redeers were still allowed to remain, but their numbers had been reduced from 120 chs to 80 chs.
The remaining 420 chs of the Larkinson Battalion consisted entirely of Bright Warriors in rifleman ch configuration!
Many of the ch pilots who fought in the previous matches had been replaced by other ch pilots who specialized in ranged combat. The clan still had plenty of ch pilots that were readily available to participate in this competition.
The extre shift in force composition ant that the Larkinson Battalion could no longer use the sa fighting formulas as before. The Larkinsons needed to employ a radically different approach in order to win with so many mobile ranged chs!
While the Valkyrie Redeers could fight both at range and up close, they clearly weren't equipped to collide directly against the assault forces of the Glory of Urthina Battalion.
For now, their lee capabilities weren't important. Commander Casella had strictly instructed the Penitent Sisters to maintain their distance for the ti being.
"Before we can go on attack, we need to blunt the enemy's assault." She reminded everybody. "Stick to the plan and force the Urthinan lancer chs to waste their ti chasing after our chs."
As the Larkinson chs all soared into the air and built up speed, the first Urthinan offensive chs had already begun to appear from the sandstorm.
These chs quickly relayed the news to the other Urthinan chs. More and more powerful enemy lancer chs, offensive knight chs and light skirmishers erged from the raging sands.
"Slay the infidels!"
"Run them down!"
"Glory to Urthina!"
Just like they did in the previous matches, the Urthinan assault force did not bother to deliberate its choices. They imdiately committed to a full attack, trusting that their strength was more than enough to sweep their opposition!
Their religious fervor and devotion to the goddess Urthina caused all of their ch pilots to beco extrely focused on reaching their opponents before crushing them with pure montum!
Yet as the Urthinan lee chs surged forward, their ch pilots found to their dismay that the unbelievers didn't group up in a single, large formation.
Instead, the Larking ranged chs all split up into different ch companies that all flew in directions!
The grand charge of the Urthinans soon yielded no result. No Larkinson ch was stupid enough to stay in the path of the advancing lancer chs.
While the previous lineup of the Larkinson Battalion wouldn't have been able to move aside so easily, the current makeup was different!
With no slowpokes to slow the Larkinsons down, the Bright Warriors piloted by the Avatars and the Valkyrie Redeers piloted by the Penitent Sisters easily managed to dance around the main enemy formations before firing their potent luminar crystal rifles at the exposed enemy machines.
Hundreds of energy beams concentrated on a dozen targets. The warnet automatically coordinated the actions of the different Larkinson chs so that groups of them always concentrated their firepower on specific targets.
The Urthinan lancer chs possessed quite a lot of armor. They not only relied upon it for protection, but also needed the mass to better build up their montum.
Now, all of that armor was quickly being dismantled after the unlucky targets got hit by forty different energy beams at once!
"Ahhh!"
"My ch is going down!"
"I have shad Urthina!"
Most of the energy beams accurately hit their target. Much of it had to do with the relative inflexibility of the enemy lancer chs, but the Avatar ch pilots had all invoked the Golden Cat at this ti.
By borrowing the superior marksmanship skills of superior ch pilots such as Commander Casella Ingvar, every ch pilot controlling a Bright Warrior in rifleman ch configuration had begun to echo her level of skill!
In addition, a strange connection ford between Casella and the Avatars while the latter borrowed from her skill. She felt a little bit more connected to her current subordinates. Although this did not lead to anything drastic, she faintly felt that her battle awareness had extended even further.
Her eyes narrowed at the distant lancer chs. "You might fight in the na of the goddess Urthina, but we have the Golden Cat on our side!"
The luminar crystal rifle was one of the strong points of the Larkinson Clan. This exclusive tech granted the average Bright Warrior ch model a considerably more powerful offensive punch!
Although one of these rifles already posed a threat against the enemy Urthinan chs, a ch company's worth of them could easily tear apart any ch even if half of the energy beams missed!
One of the more interesting tactical decisions the Larkinson had made was to employ multiple luminar crystal attack phases at the sa ti.
The slicer beams fired by so of the Bright Warrior chs possessed high penetration power and easily drilled tiny openings through the frontal armor of lancer chs.
The kinetic beams fired by a number of other chs forcefully expanded these cracks and made the weak points larger.
The barrage of positron beams that were fired at the sa ti could not only soften up the armor even further, but could easily burn through the openings and inflict a huge amount of damage to the internals.
When these different energy beams were employed in isolation, then their effect wouldn't be as good.
However, the Larkinsons had learned long ago that using multiple types of energy beams at once produced a wonderful synergy effect that allowed them to breach through enemy armor considerably faster than usual!
While it was difficult to realize this advantage on a smaller scale, the current battle was just big enough for the hundreds of Larkinson ranged chs to take advantage of this potent synergy effect!
The Glory of Urthina Battalion weren't happy with seeing their prided lancer chs getting downed one by one, though.
Their commanding officer soon ford the correct response.
"Split up and chase after the enemy ch companies! They can't evade all of our charges as long as we pincer their formations!"
The Urthinan lee chs split up into companies as well, but they did not chase after all of the Larkinson ch companies.
Instead, 2 Urthinan ch companies both split up and chose to approach a single Larkinson ch company from two different directions.
While this left a large amount of Larkinson chs unattended, it was fine as long as their targets were taken out quickly. All that mattered was that the Urthinans had to reduce the number of opponents quickly in order to reduce all of the attacks whittling down their lee chs.
Yet even as the Urthinans executed their pincer strategy, the Larkinsons quickly enacted their own response to this change.
"Split up into fireteams spread out!"
The targeted Larkinson ch company did not dare to confront the two charging Urthinan ch companies head-on. Instead, it dispersed into smaller groups of 5 chs that each moved away from each other at a rapid pace!
The Urthinan pincer attack was rendered ineffective now that their original target had faded away like a dispersing bee swarm.
anwhile, those split-up Larkinson elents continued to fire their luminar crystal rifles at the stymied Urthinan chs!
It was as if the Larkinsons were taunting at the inability of the Urthinan lancer chs to skewer an opposing ch!
Yet even as the Larkinson chs continued to dance around the Urthinan lee chs, a flood of shrapnel overwheld a couple of Larkinson fireteams!
The Urthan ranged support had finally taken their place at the center of the battlefield and begun to support their beleaguered comrades!
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