Commander lkor Larkinson's Gold Beacon hung back as the Avatars of Myth moved out in force.
As the original elites of the Larkinson Clan, the Avatars of Myth took on the heavy responsibility of eting the most powerful enemy ch units at the center of the battlefield!
Fortunately, the Design Departnt had not neglected the needs of the Avatars. Over the past five years, lkor slowly felt more at ease as his ch legion gradually obtained a small collection of powerful exclusive ch models that strengthened the identity of the Avatars.
The Bright Warrior ch line had always ford an integral part of the Avatars of Myth and lkor did not have the heart to diminish its importance to his ch legion.
"How are our Bright Warrior ch units doing so far, Colonel?"
The projection of Colonel Cardano Belsir-Larkinson displayed a brief smile. "They are fighting against the Fridayn in high spirits. Our Bright Warrior units turn out to perform particularly well against our chosen targets. Many of our chs are most at ho when they take the initiative, and it just so happens that the ch units of the 5688th Pima Defenders serve as convenient punching bags."
Commander lkor directed his attention towards the ch division that his ch legion had targeted.
As the na suggested, the Pima Defenders comprised of a new ch division that was explicitly founded to defend Pima Pri.
The new unit was supposed to serve as the first of several ho guard divisions that was permanently headquartered at the Kosic Ring.
There were several points that made it notable.
First, the Pima Defenders primarily fielded well-armored dium and heavy ch models. None of their machines stood out in terms of mobility and maneuverability. Many of them focused on lee combat in order to maximize the specialization of this ch division.
Second, the Pima Defenders received the highest budget among all of the ch divisions that were permanently stationed in Pima Pri.
The Gauge Dynasty allocated at least four tis as much money to the Pima Defenders than the Nidin Vergers!
Part of that could be explained by the vast disparity of weight classes of their chs, but the difference was so big that it was obvious that the higher-ups favored the Pima Defenders more.
The third point explained everything. A lot of highborn scions of the Gauge Dynasty just happened to comprise the majority of the officers of the Pima Defenders.
There were a lot of upper-class families in the large and powerful territory of the Gauge Dynasty back in the old galaxy that wanted to obtain a piece of the pie of the Friday Colonies.
It wasn't enough for them to occupy and develop new settlents. They were far-sighted enough to know that they needed representation in the military in order to make certain that their expensive colonial investnts received the protection that they deserved!
This was how the Pima Defenders ca into existence. It was set up to beco a nice, safe ho guard ch division that guarded the richest, most powerful and most well-defended star system in the Friday Colonies.
Theoretically, the chance of enemies coming to attack Pima Pri should be the lowest!
If this was the case, then the soldiers assigned to the ho guard ch divisions would be able to enjoy most of the prestige of being a part of the Sundered Phalanx while minimizing their exposure to actual combat as much as possible!
It was too bad these highborn sons and daughters never imagined that the Hex Army and the Golden Skull Alliance would be crazy enough to launch a direct assault on their port system!
As soldiers who had pledged an oath to their service and the Gauge Dynasty, there was no way they could shirk the responsibility of leading the Pima Defenders in battle against the invaders.
This ant that all of these pretend soldiers who thought they would only fight against simulated enemies and the occasional lost alien starship for the rest of their careers suddenly had to act like real soldiers!
Fortunately for the Pima Defenders, their highborn officers weren't incompetent. Each of them were designer babies who possessed superior learning ability and combat acun from birth.
The results they achieved in the ch academies or military academies were substantially better than those who originated from the lower echelons of the Friday Coalition.
No matter what, the Sundered Phalanx was still a highly professional organization that had always enforced its own rules.
The situation of the Pima Defenders ch division might be a bit special, but its hierarchy and structure were all sound. Its staff was considerably larger than usual to ensure that everything was managed properly.
The Pima Defenders also enjoyed other compensating factors. It fielded sturdy, expensive military chs that weren't easy to destroy. Many of them just happened to be piloted by veteran elites that earned plenty of rits during the Komodo War.
As such, the Pima Defenders should still pose a formidable threat towards its opponents!
Despite all of these factors, lkor wasn't afraid of the Pima Defenders at all. One of the lessons he learned from General Verle was how important it was for people's hearts to be united.
The analysts of the Larkinson Army had predicted that despite commanding the most powerful lee ch division of the local garrison, the officers were not that eager to stand out and take risks.
The subsequent actions and deploynt of the Pima Defenders aligned with the predictions.
Though the center battle line of the Sundered Phalanx did not advance that quickly because of being restrained by their slowest elents, the Pima Defenders truly hadn't shown any initiative to break the ch formations of their opponents.
The contrast between the Pima Defenders and the other elite Sundered Phalanx ch units beca quite clear!
The latter were quite familiar with the Hex Army. They knew that passive defense when the Hexers possessed an advantage would only lead to an inevitable defeat.
The best way to reverse a losing trend was to break the ga, and that was exactly what the more daring and courageous Fridayman ch officers attempted to accomplish!
"These Pima Defenders truly aren't in a hurry to move." Commander lkor cynically remarked as his Gold Beacon fired its custom luminar crystal rifle at an enemy heavy space knight.
Even though his ch rifle possessed a lot more power than the weapons equipped by ordinary Larkinson chs, the Gold Beacon's shot did not even impact the heavy shield of the enemy ch.
Instead, a powerful energy shield fully resisted the energy beam!
lkor almost grew sick at the sight. The defensive power of the enemy ch was a bit high!
As the legion commander swept his gaze across the lines of the Pima Defenders, he noticed that many other enemy chs exhibited the sa phenonon.
No matter whether they were space knights, spearman chs, swordsman chs or striker chs, their energy shields never failed to resist incoming attacks!
Though Commander lkor had already grown familiar with these chs due to practicing against them in the MSTS, to see the Pima Defenders exploit their disgusting defenses in reality made him feel sick!
Aside from a few early successes when the Pima Defenders hadn't gotten their act together yet, hardly any of their chs got destroyed during this ti!
The reason for that was because the vast majority of ch models fielded by the Pima Defenders were equipped with HiCap shields!
The chief ch designer responsible for providing the Pima Defenders with so many resilient chs was Master Zenie Bonakane, otherwise known as 'the Bubble Man'.
His amusing moniker referred to his main specialization, which was developing his own brand of high-capacity energy shields.
By raising and maximizing the damage-absorbing capacities of energy shields to an incredible height, Master Bonakane opened up new possibilities for defensive ch warfare.
One of the most basic ways to take advantage of chs equipped with the Bubble Man's HiCap shield was to send out a wall of heavy space knights out front and allow them to resist incoming damage with their HiCap shields.
Once their HiCap shields started to beco unstable, the initial group of defensive chs would rotate out while another group of fresh defensive machines would take their place!
This way, the winded chs that retreated to the rear could calmly wait to restore the condition of their HiCap shields back to full capacity before rotating back to the front again!
It sounded simple, but it could truly work as long as their opponents weren't able to overload their HiCap shields at once!
Neither Commander lkor who piloted the Gold Beacon nor Colonel Cardano who presided over the command center back on the Gorgoneion found it easy to break this sche.
"It is not a coincidence that the Gauger military leadership has chosen to deploy the Pima Defenders in the exact center of their lines, sir." Colonel Cardano noted. "While the Pima Defender chs might not be doing much to defeat their opponents, they can still play an essential role as an anchor and an immovable obstacle to other friendly ch units. They serve as the closest thing to a defensive fortification on the frontlines."
lkor wearily nodded. "As long as they keep rotating their shielded chs back and forth, they can last as long as their energy reserves last, which inevitably takes a long ti since they are all big boys with lots of room for energy cells."
The most egregious ch of this kind was the Modal Firmant.
Chiefly developed by the Master Bonakane, the Modal Firmant was a pretty straightforward heavy space knight.
Compared to other heavy space knight models, the Modal Firmant was actually lighter and less massive. This was because the Modal Firmant sacrificed armor and internal structural strength to make room for a more powerful HiCap shield generator as well as a larger array of energy cells to support its functioning.
To put it in a different way, the Modal Firmant put much more emphasis on its HiCap shield and significantly less priority on its armor system for its defensive needs!
As the ch model that adopted this strategy to the extre, the Modal Firmant was tailor made for the defensive rotation strategy!
"The Modal Firmant is a big problem, commander." Colonel Cardano noted. "As long as their energy shields last, there is no easy way to overco their defenses. Perhaps the only way to disrupt their rhythm and rotation arrangents is to outflank them, but there isn't much room for that since they are surrounded by other friendly ch units in every direction. We can only attack them frontally."
Commander lkor already anticipated this. "Are we able to obtain artillery support?"
"No, sir. The Eye of Ylvaine already has its own mission. It is rather wasteful to expend their firepower on the Pima Defenders because the Modal Firmants will just tank the damage and rotate out when they are nearing their limits."
"What about battle formations? The Swordmaidens and the Penitent Sisters still have them in reserve."
,m "General Verle is saving them up for later. It is not wise to employ them at the start because all of the chs involved in them will lose their battle effectiveness after they are done. Besides, the Gauge Dynasty isn't stupid. They have personally suffered from our battle formations in the past. You can already see that their ch units are further spaced apart than normal."
"So it is up to us, then, right?"
"It is not impossible for us to obtain support from other units, but that will take away help that is sorely needed elsewhere. It is best if we are able to handle the Pima Defenders ourselves."
"Understood."
The Larkinson Army drafted many different battle plans, of which many of them were variations of the sa approach.
It would have been at least two tis easier to break the Pima Defenders if they obtained ranged support!
However, the offensive power of the Pima Defenders was so unimpressive that the higher ups deed it fine if the Avatars of Myth achieved little results for a ti.
This did not fall in line with lkor's intentions. The Avatars of Myth needed to show its strength as the premier assault legion of the Larkinson Army.
"If we can't overco a relatively ta opponent like the Pima Defenders, how can we possibly keep our heads high?"
The Pima Defenders must fall in order to et expectations that everyone placed on the Avatars!
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