Battle Mastery: clear all enemies within 4 turns
So our first sight is a group of Gespensts known as the S-Mirrors (Shadow Mirrors), led by a red-haired guy named Axel and a woman named Lemon whose hair is some sort of reddish brown. They're about to make a dimensional jump of some sort and a lot of their comrades have just been wiped out. Lemon talks about “Numbers” who've been sent ahead to make preparations for their arrival. Axel brings up concerns about “the first jumper” when the EFA (Earth Federation Army) special task force Beowulves arrive in more Gespensts lead by a Gespenst MkIII that looks remarkably like the Alt Eisen.
Axel charges off to hold back this enemy while Lemon and the others make the jump, and to trigger the TLI (Tesla Leight Institute) and Lykeios (the jump system) self-destruct after everyone leaves. He seems to have a grudge against the pilot of the Gespenst MkIII. The screen blows up and we go to a credit crawl.
It is now 187 S.E., six months after the DC War and the L5 campaign against the Aerogaters. Brian Midcrid is now Earth Federation President, and has revealed the existence of aliens in the “Tokyo Manifesto.” In addition, he has announced Project Aegis, a plan to rebuild the military and defend Earth against further alien attack.
However, remnants of the Divine Crusaders continue to resist the EFA, while factions within the EFA itself a working towards a military police state. In addition various shadowy factions are at work and new aliens known as the Einst are about to appear and throw the world into chaos.
And now we have the first sight of our heros: Kyosuke, Excellen, and Bullet are returning to Langley Base from a patrol or something. Bullet complains about the dull routine missions with no downtime between them.
The team is told to wait while a transport takes off, carrying Kusuha to TLI. Excellen teases Bullet about his relationship with her and tells him to wave goodbye with his mech or flash a peace sign. Kyosuke tells him to use a signal light: “B.Y.E.F.O.R.N.O.W.”
Then a Space Noah class battleship comes in to land, keeping the team waiting even longer. It's the Shirogane, finally repaired after being shot down twice in the last game.
Inside the base, commander Kenneth refuses to fix the ATX team's schedule, using the excuse that all the other pilots need more training time on their new Huckebeins (which in no way resemble Gundams). The new captain of the Shirogane enters, Lt. Colonel Lee Linjun (I would've used “Commander” for the naval touch, but I can see how that could be confusing), and Kenneth tells him that Kyosuke has been reassigned to his ship.
Lee's main personality traits are being an asshole, thinking he's better than everyone, being an asshole, never firing his ship's guns if he can help it, and being an asshole. There's a reason he's listed as The Scrappy on the YMMV page for this series. He announces that their new mission will be mopping up DC remnants in the Mexican plateau. It turns out that even Kenneth hates his guts and it's mutual.
On the mission map, an unidentified mech and pilot has crashed in some woody terrain. Its flight systems and radio are damaged, but it's ready to fight anyway. It's also off course and being pursued by those DC remnants, 8 Lion Fs across the top of the map. They are very fragile but have some ability to dodge, as well as a long-range railgun.
The mech is the Angelg, which originally appeared in Super Robot Wars Advance and it's an angel in pink armour with a very large bow. It's classed as a Super Robot, though it has good evasion stats and the Double Image ability that gives it a 50% chance to dodge any hit once the pilot's Will reaches 130.
So, I cast Guard (reduces damage received to 25%) and move northwest, shooting a Lion in passing with the Angelg's Shadow Lance, the only ranged weapon it can fire on the move. I really love the Angelg's song Dust to Dust.
Pilot: I have my mission, so I must kill you.
On turn 2, I cast Guard again and continue north west. The Angelg's tough enough that I don't really need to do this, but there's no harm in it.
Once two Lions go down, the Shirogane arrives with the ATX team: Kyosuke in the Alt Eisen, Excellen in the Weissritter, and Bullet in the Huckebein MkII. Lamia reacts strongly to the sight of the Alt Eisen and it seems to be part of her mission. Excellen wonders if the Angelg is related to the Valsione, another mech in the shape of a woman. I'm sure someone out there has written some slash with the two robots. Ryusei would definitely like this robot.
The Angelg pilot identifies herself as Lamia Loveless, affiliation... classified. The Shirogane bridge crew says its ID code is SMSC, an Isurugi industries prototype. Isurugi develops the Lion series, which the Angelg resembles about as much as a Gundam does a Zaku. Still, Isurugi has filed a test plan and the name checks out, so Lee orders Kyosuke to take out the DC mechs and secure the Angelg. It seems even he doesn't really like Isurugi, though.
Ok, so ATX charges north with Focus (hit rate and evasion +30%), except for Bullet who doesn't have it. The Shirogane follows, but expect nothing from that asshole. Kyosuke and Bullet team up to take out one Lion, while Excellen dents another.
Turn 3: All units continue northwest, taking out Lions as they go. The last few Lions are defending, which reduces damage by 1/2 , but they'll go down eventually. Lamia ends it on thurn 4 with the Phantom Phoenix, a really powerful energy bow shot that turns into a flaming phoenix in flight, and that's the first Battle Mastery in the bag. The cut-in for Phantom Phoenix seems to show that the original Angelg has a slightly more restrained bustline than the version in the anime.
Once the skirmish is over, Lee orders the mechs to be retrieved and opens a line to Isurugi, where a generic rep confirms that the Angelg is one of their mechs and passes on a request from CEO Mitsuko Isurugi that it remain on the ship for live combat testing. You'll be seeing a lot of her later, and I think a male Isurugi was blown up in the previous game. Oh, and Major General Kenneth Garret has already agreed, leaving Lee no choice but to accept, though he can't guarantee the safety of the mech. And he takes the chance to be an asshole to Kyosuke, overriding his concerns about the incident even though Lee half shares them.
Down in the hangers, the ATX guys finally see Lamia out of her mech and discover her speech impediment. Excellen asks if she's from Wonderland, which makes Lamia wonder if her cover's been blown. And then Excellen notices that Lamia's bust is even bigger than Garnet's before Kyosuke orders her to stop playing around. He makes a round of introductions and Lamia is very surprised to find another Browning.
Ah, half-covered faces, the traditional SRW method for half-hiding plot points. One is very obviously Lemon's hair discussing a report from “Rose” in Alabama, North America with some green-haired guy. They talk a bit about teleportation, the potential side effects on “her,” and finding some third guy who's on their side but got lost.
Ok... and now we're finally at an intermission screen. This is a New Game Plus, so I have cash and Pilot Points to spend. First up, a round of SP Regen for everyone except Lee who has all of 5 PP over something like 3 runs, whereas everyone else has at least 250. I LOVE SP Regen in the OG games since it lets you basically have everyone use focus every turn and never worry about running out of SP, and it also makes fighting three bosses in a row much less frustrating.
Next, a round of Attacker for everyone since these four are all frontline fighters and the 20% damage boost is very useful. I'll leave Bullet with that for now since I don't use him quite as much as the other three. Incidentally, if Bullet can get 45 kills and achieve level 18 by stage 14, I can acquire the Shishio Blade, a powerful melee weapon. However it is a very large weapon that makes it difficult to equip anything else, so I don't plan to go for it.
Excellen has some interesting choices. She has 4 open skill slots and I've filled two. Gunfight would be a natural choice, as would Offensive Support. Her Will gains are a little wonky (seriously, she gains 3 points for missing a shot and gains none for hitting), but I've never had issues with it before. Combo Attack goes well with Off. Support, but I really want Gunfight. So I'll go with 4 levels of Gunfight to start (+1 range to all ranged weapons and some extra attack power) and one of Off. Support.
Kyosuke gets four levels of Infight (+1 movement range, and melee weapons are more powerful) and Ammo Save since the Alt Eisen's weapons all use ammo and having 3 extra shots of Revolving Stake is always good.
Before I get to Lamia's skills, I want to talk about a secret mech. If Lamia gets 55 kills by the end of stage 24 (and I do some other stuff to be mentioned later), I will have one of two secret mechs: the Vysaga or the Ash Saver. The Vysaga is a ninja equipped for melee combat, while the Ash Saver is a shooty little thing. I plan to go for the Ash Saver and keep Lamia in the Angelg, mostly because I really like that mech and because the Ash Saver can be piloted by anyone. With that in mind, Lamia only has one open skill slot left, and it's a toss-up between Gunfight and Hit & Away. I'll go with Hit & Away for now since long-range mechs have a tendency to get left behind otherwise.
So Lamia has 9 kills right now, well on track.
Finally, I'll just fully upgrade the Angelg, Alt Eisen, and Weiss Ritter because I'm a cheesy bastard and I intend to use these mechs the entire game. When a mech is fully upgraded, it can get one special bonus, like extra armour or mobility, or something unique. The Angelg gets 10% Energy regen, the Alt Eisen's built-in weapons get S performance on all terrains, and the Weissritter gets +2 ammo for all built-in weapons. This takes about a million credits out of 5 million I started with, but it's a game-long investment.
The Huckebein MkII just gets some energy and mobility points; its full upgrade bonus is more space to equip weapons. Most Huckebein series mechs share this bonus, and there are better ones available later.
I'll be upgrading some weapons eventually, but not until I have to kill a boss for a BM or secret.
