Board Thread:Fun and Games Forum/@comment-25906912-20150331202054/@comment-26809040-20150813143214

ReD: Yes, dregs are lowlifes and murderers, but thier rank also contains those of higher rank who have been docked and seek to prove themselves to acend once more. In other words they are 50/50 competent/incompetent. Either way, its not the quality of soldiers on a one/one basis that proves who is better than who. After all, there are usually one hell of a lot more dregs in an engagement than leigonaries. And it is not the quality of the dregs that carries the day, it is the ability of the captains and barons to utilize the forces under thier command to best the opponent.

Example: A squad of twelve cabal legonaries, three phalanxes, three psions, and a centurion advance into a congested golden age ruin to persue a fallen force of roughly equall size. The cabal force moves swiftly through a pair of hallways and into a large room. Sensing and ambush, the centurion orders his troops to form a line and hold it. Watching from the shadows, A captain begins to reveal his plays. He begins by sending most of his dregs through the two doorways at the end of the room, the fifteen scavengers losing a few of thier number and taking cover while sending a few volleys of shock rounds at the line.Then, before the cabal have time to advance or focus thier fire, a swarm of seven shanks darts from a nearby vent behind them, qucikly spreading out and harrasing them.

The centurion orders his men to form two groups, eight of the legionaries, the three phalanxes and the centurion advancing toward the dregs, while the other four legionaries and the three psions turn around to deal with the shanks. The captain then makes his next play. From the celing vents above the smaller squad of cabal, four vandals drop, They waste no time in taking advantage of being in the middle of the enemy formation, and lay into the cabal with thier shock blades. The "simple blades" prove far more leathal then expected, the force behind each swing and concetrated plasma cuttting field turning cabal battleplate into bulky tissue paper. The four legionaries fall first, taking one vandal with them by caving in its head with the butt of a slug rifle. The psions, reflexes lightnting quick, back up and gun down another vandal before being distracted by fire from the two remaining shanks. Seizing the moment, the two remaining vandals leap foward and finish the psions.

The centurion then notices that his rear guard had been killed and halts the advance, turning around with a few legionaries and blasting one of the vandals to bits with his projection rifle while the other scrambles for cover, and the shanks are swatted from the air. The captain then decides it's time to make his final move. From the shadows of a corner of the room, the air flickers as five vandals weilding shock rifles and the captain himself step foward and train thier sights on the cabal's exposed flank. When the first volley of homing shock bolts fells a legionary, the nine remaing dregs are reinforced by five more dregs and three shock rifle weilding vandals.

The centurion now begins to panic, his rearguard is destroyed and his squad is flanked and outnumbered. He orders his troops to fall back and redeploy via thier jumppacks, but the low celing prevents such a manuver. The captain, seizing the moment, bellows a warcry and orders his units to charge. The dregs and vandals in the front, now freed from the bulk of the cabal's fire, surge forward, eger to take revenge for thier slain comrades. The shock rifle vandals hang back to pelt the cabal while the captain charges himself. Four legionaries focus thier fire to bring down the captain before he reaches thier lines. The captain's shield is brought down to half capacity by multible slugs before he activates his teleporter, throwing off the cabal's aim and gaining more ground.

At this time, the wave of dregs reaches the cabal. The "weaker" aliens dart around the lumbering cabal, slashing with thier shock daggers and firing point-blank. The captain reaches the cabal with a third of his shields as the vandals cease fire and close the gap to join in the fray. The combat is a slow meat grinder, but the cabal are outnumbered and have no means of retreat. Legionaries bash in skulls or get lucky bursts of point blank slug rifle fire. Dregs crowd and bog down the cabal, bringing down the beasts by fighting three to one where they can. Vandals dodge and roll, proving incredibily difficult to hit unless they have no room to move. Phalanxes block and bash, thier shields providing a unique advantage.

The captain meets the centurion in the middle of the fight, and bellows a challange. The centurion, seeing a slim chance at victory if he can demoralize the fallen, accepts. Both combatants have thier shields down, but are realitively unharmed. The cabal commander sends a volly of projection rounds at teh captain. The nimble fallen dodges all but two, which tear at his armour and bruise his flesh beneath. The fallen leader hefts his shrapnel launcher and runs at the centurion, teleporting behind him to dodge the next volley of explosives. The centurion turns around to meet three blasts of the shrapnel launcher, which damage his chest plate and throw him off balance. The captain lines up another bures, but is thrown from his feet before he can fire as the cabal activates its jumppack, blasting forward, not up, and throwing both combatants from thier feet.

The captain barely gets up first, three broken ribs and the brusing form the inpact slowing him. The centurion picks itself up with some effort and notices thet both he and his opponent have lost thier weapons in thier fall. Both move to gather ther instruents of killing before thier foe does the same, the captain is fastser but the centurion is closer to his weapon. The cabal scoops up the projection rifle an fires off two shells that nearly knock the captain to its feet. The fallen rolls with the impact and scoops up his shrapnel launcher, realizing that he must end the fight soon. The centurion levels his weapon and fires twice before his ammo counter indicates that his mag is spent. The captain takes another hit and ether hisses out of the small wound in his chest where his armour is rent and digs into his flesh. The fallen notices the centurion reaching for another magizene and opens fire. The cabal thrusts to the side in an attempt to aviod the burst, but is not quick enough, and is instead spun around, mantining his balance but losing the fresh mag he held in his other hand.

The captain, fueled by rage and a desire to end the fight, charges the reeling centurion. The cabal sees the charge coming, and swings at the fallen, only for the scavenger to duck his swing and ram a shock dagger into a weakpoint in his chest armour. Black, oily fluid sputers from the wound as the centurion reaches up and catches one of the fallen's free arms in his grasp. With a sudden motion, he twists his wrist, snapping the arm. The captain howls in pain, but even as his arm is snapped, he presses the barrel of his shrapnel launcher up against the throat of the centurion and squeeses the trigger.

Hyperveloicity darts and explosives tear down the magnetic rails,through the light neck armour, and deep into the cabal's throat. The centurion's eyes widen as it relinqushes its grasp on its adversairy, and falls on its back clutching its ruined throat, trying to halt the spray of black oily fluid and thick blood as its suit depressurises and its mouth fills with its own blood. The captain looks down on him, cluching his own arm and the small rend in his chest. The fallen wordlessly raises his shrapnel launcher with one hand to the cabal's head, and ends him.

The victor of the challange looks around and takes in the rest of the fight. The fallen are mopping up the last two cabal. When they fall, eleven dregs, six vandals, and the captain are still standing. The fallen strip the cabal of thier armour and weapons and load the spoils and survivors on a skiff, and depart.

So there you have it, an engagement that the fallen won. Why? because the captain out-played the centurion. He got the cabal to engage him in an enclosed area, where thier jumppacks were near useless. He split up thier forces, divided thier fire, distracted thier attention, and then struck from every angle and overwhelmed them. All with a roughly equall force. And yes, I did kinda go overboard with the end fight, but the point is that a captain and a centurion are roughly equall. So again, who would win in a fight depends entirely on the rules of the fight. I could write a senario in which the cabal mulch the fallen just as easily. But the point is, the fallen arn't inferior to the cabal because a dreg isn't equall to a legionary. The victory goes the commander who can predict his enemy and adapt to he situation, not he guy with the "best" troops.