Completed [LP] Bleed for your Kingdom, officer! Codex plays Guns of Infinity

[baud]

1

 

[Kalarion]

1

 

[Lithium Flower]

You find yourself almost beside yourself with excitement. After spending the better part of the morning having done nothing but polish your saddle with your arse and watch the courage of other men, you are most eager to ride into the fray yourself.

Now, you have been given the order. At long last, it is your turn to win your own share of the glory.

Only one question remains: how shall you deploy your men?

A green battalion facing a force of line infantry three times its size and a small force of riflemen about to be attacked by what you reckon to be at least three hundred Church Hussars. Both are crises of the utmost magnitude, and both all but demand the intervention of your last remaining squadron.

There is no time to ask Cunaris for orders or your subordinates for advice. There is no time to do anything but act.

1) Sixth Squadron shall aid the 5th of Foot against the Antari line infantry.
2) Sixth Squadron will move to support the Experimental Corps against the Church Hussars.
3) I'll split my forces; that way, I can see to both crises.

Personal Information

As of the Spring of the 611th year of the Old Imperial Era.

Sir Alaric d'al Ortiga
Age: 23
Rank: Lieutenant-colonel (Brevet)

Wealth: 304
Income: 15

Soldiering: 75%
Charisma: 43%
Intellect: 5%
Reputation: 20%
Health: 65%

Idealism: 69%; Cynicism: 31%
Ruthlessness: 39%; Mercy: 61%

You are a Knight of the Red, having the right to wear bane-hardened armour and wield a bane-runed sword.

You have no decorations as of yet.

Unit Information

Sixth Squadron, Royal Dragoons
Senior NCO: Staff-sergeant Hernandes

Discipline: 39%
Morale: 44%
Loyalty: 46%
Strength: 82%

 

[Major_Blackhart]

2

 

[Grimgravy]

Hmm. I like the experimentals more, but can we aid against the Hussars?

 

[LordTryhard]

Hmm. I like the experimentals more, but can we aid against the Hussars?

Well, let's run the numbers. The Experimentals have 200 men, you have 164, and there are 300 hussars. At Blogia it was about 80-120 men against 12 hussars, and most of your men were cut to pieces.

Spoiler

However, at Blogia your men were also exhausted and almost out of ammunition. Here, your men are more refreshed, and the hussars have the additional disadvantage of needing to cross a river on horseback and then charge uphill. Not going to spoil whether or not you can succeed.

 

[Kalarion]

1. The crossing is the fulcrum of the entire battle plan. It must be held at all costs, and one green battalion v 3 Line battalions will be a guaranteed slaughter, followed by a rolling up of the right flank and a possible defeat in detail. We put ourselves in this dilemma by carelessly spending our strength ahead of the crucial moment, at this point we've just got to choose the least shitty option and pray to God it's enough.

 

[Grimgravy]

1

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Kalarion has me convinced. 1

 

[Reinhardt]

1. Fighting against heavy cavalry with bane-crafted equipment head to head certainly is not our job so let's kill some infantry.

We put ourselves in this dilemma by carelessly spending our strength ahead of the crucial moment

I doubt we could do much even as full unit.

 

[baud]

2
Let's go get slaughtered against an obviously superior enemy!

Also a big group of cavalry can easily destroy our cannon batteries or the regimental headquarters, whereas the damage a slow-moving group of infantry could do is limited.

 

[Lithium Flower]

You turn to the adolescent officer. "Cornet, inform His Grace that my squadron moves to reinforce Second Battalion, 5th of foot."

"What about—will you detach men to aid the Experimental Corps, sir?" he asks hesitantly.

"I dare not divide my force any further," you reply. "It is damned chancy enough to go forward with only a single whole squadron; I should very much not like to manage it with half." You shake your head. "Major Reyes shall have to make do, somehow."

The young subaltern nods. "Very good, sir," he answers before hesitating for a moment. He takes a breath to steady himself and speaks again. "Might I have a few seconds before you advance, sir?" He steals a glance at your lieutenants assembled before you. "I would like a moment to tell Renard goodb—to wish him good luck."

"Yes, of course," you reply. "Quickly, mind you. We've not much time to spare."

The young officer is barely able to snap off a quick salute before pressing his mount towards where the elder of Cunaris's sons sits with an excited haste.

Their exchange is short: a few whispered words between them, too quiet for you to hear. Suddenly, the younger officer throws his hands around the shoulders of the elder, almost pulling him out of the saddle as he envelops your Lieutenant in a tight embrace.

Only when the two brothers pull away at last do you turn forward again. "Squadron!" you shout. "At the trot! Advance!"

With a deft jab of your spurs, you push Thunderer forward. Behind you, the officers and men of Sixth Squadron lurch into motion, following you at long last into the fray.

-

The situation is not quite hopeless when you arrive at the position of the Second Battalion, 5th of Foot…

…but only just.

The Antari foot are already driving up the riverbank with a steady advance, their front ranks soaking up the casualties from the 5th's musket volleys, even as the rear ranks press on after them, stepping over the bodies of the dead, their fixed bayonets held steady with a steely determination.

Faced with such a display, your fellow Tierrans are wavering. The unseasoned orange-clad companies edge back, step by step, ceding the riverbank and their precious breastworks to the determined enemy advance. Bled, battered, and much fatigued by the morning's fighting against the Antari peasant levies, they exhaustedly give ground to this yet more formidable foe in the hope of keeping themselves free of the dire prospect of a bayonet fight against a fresher and stronger enemy.

Yet from your more detached perspective, it seems to you obvious what is going on: the Antari have no intention of closing with the Tierran Line Infantry. Instead, they only mean to win enough space to bring the superiority of fire offered by their numbers upon your countrymen. Already, the enemy column is unfolding into a line, spreading out like the wings of an eagle to envelop the flanks of their beleaguered foes. Within a minute, they will be able to pour fire upon the Second Battalion from three sides.

There will be no stopping them then.

-

Your only chance of salvaging the situation comes from the fact that the Antari are still in the middle of forming line. Disordered and distracted, you can yet save the day, assuming you move quickly.

With the enemy's flanks in disarray, a charge there could deliver a blow completely out of proportion to your relatively small numbers. Pursued with enough vigour, such a move might even be enough to drive the Antari to flight by itself.

The alternative is a rather more conservative approach: dismounting your men and adding the weight of your more accurate Dragoon carbines to your countrymen's infantry muskets. The added force of powder at the right place may be just enough to break up a section of the Antari line, forcing them to withdraw and regroup.

Both courses of action offer significant promise. The only question is, which one will you choose?

1) I commit everything to a flanking charge.
2) We ought to aid our fellow Tierrans directly by reinforcing their line

 

[Kalarion]

1. We have the horse, and no enemy cavalry to counter-charge. Let's use them.

 

[Kalarion]

I doubt we could do much even as full unit.

Debatable. My take is, if we still had Cazarosta we could send him against the Line Infantry (where his well-trained squadron would have wreaked pure havoc), while we took on the Hussars, trusting to having superior numbers and our singular ability to hold the line with our armor and soldiering skills.

We may never know!

 

[Grimgravy]

1 - charge!

 

[baud]

Usually I'd vote charge!, but I worry that our discipline is too low to try something like that, it's at 39% and like during the fight with the experimentals, our men might not follow. Whereas the higher morale might make a static defense possible. So 2.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

1

 

[Lithium Flower]

Yes, if you want to break the enemy, then there is no substitute for a properly directed charge. Yet you shall have to move quickly, before the Antari are able to reorder themselves.

"Squadron!" you shout. "Follow me!"

Quickly, you lead your men near to the edge of the filthy waters of the Kharan, the once-clear surface made a charnelhouse's gutter by the day's fighting, its bloodied and turbulent waters strewn with bodies already bloating under the rising heat of the day.

You have no time to dwell upon such matters. Not four hundred paces before you, the Antari force displays its open flank, exposed to you like a courtesan's breasts. "Squadron! Form column!"

Behind you, your squadron forms up into the narrow shape of a tight-packed column, devised to employ the momentum of the charge to maximum effect.

The instant your command forms up, you give the signal to advance. You begin slowly in order to keep your horses as fresh as possible, a hundred paces at the walk. Then, three hundred paces from the enemy, you order the trot. The air fills with the sound of hoofbeats, pounding against the ground with increasing speed and force as you thread your command through the gap between the retreating flank of the Tierran Line Infantry and their vacated breastworks, a gap now swarming with enemy soldiery.

Ahead, the Antari continue forming line, too preoccupied with the enemy before them to see the enemy about to fall upon their flank.

Only at a hundred paces short of the enemy do you order the gallop, and only then do your dragoons spur their mounts to the utmost, making the ground tremble and the air thunder to the accompaniment of the rising trumpet notes of the charge.

It is only then that the first of the Antari footmen look up and take notice. One of them shouts in alarm in their unintelligible tongue. More take up the cry.

Yet it is too late, you are already among them.

-

You charge home into the enemy with terrific force, but not all of your men strike with you. Your squadron's poor drill meant that its formation did not survive the last stage of the charge. Now, your squadron drives into the enemy not as a coordinated force but as a muddled swarm, its momentum rapidly failing, its men as disordered as the surprised Antari they face.

Worse yet, it is the Antari who rally first. Your abortive charge has made little impression. Soon, even those few who were sent reeling have set themselves back towards your still-scattered dragoons.

Now it is your men who are being assailed. Hedges of bayonets press in from all sides. Those men close enough to you fall back in the face of the enemy, while those too slow to withdraw or caught exposed are quickly overwhelmed through sheer numbers. Not even the frantic sabrework of your panicked dragoons can keep the enemy back.

The enemy press in with greater fury by the second, their bayonets stained red with Tierran blood. All is chaos and disorder. You look for your officers, for your Staff-sergeant, for anyone to help you rally your men, but all you find amidst the melee are fresh assailants pressing in from all sides.

You do your best to try to keep the enemy out of reach with wide sweeps of your burning longsword, but it is not enough. The enemy press in from all sides, and your blade cannot be everywhere at once. A bayonet point skitters off the fluted steel of your backplate as you ward off a thrust aimed at Thunderer's throat from the front. Before you can turn, you are staggered in your saddle by a teeth-rattling blow from the butt of a musket.

Already, your newest assailant is falling back as one of his fellows raises his own weapon, aiming not to thrust with the bayonet but to shoot you at a range too close for even bane-hardened plate to save you. With a desperate lunge, you strike the muzzle of your attacker's musket with the flat of your sword. Only with the greatest effort do you pull yourself back into the saddle. With one foot out of the stirrup, it is all you can do to avoid losing your seat entirely. By the time you regain your balance, your attacker is gone, disappeared into the melee.

Suddenly, there is a great groan from the enemy ranks. Ahead, you see the shape of a dragoon raising the blood-stained double-headed eagle of the Antari battalion standard high with a shout of triumph before casting it to the ground.

With renewed vigour, your surviving men fall upon the enemy, driving them back until at long last, they begin to run, at first bit by bit, and then as a body: the whole of the Antari flank fleeing for the far side of the Kharan.

-

The Antari right flank is in tatters, streaming across the river crossing in disarray. Some throw away their muskets and cartridge boxes to give speed to their flight. Others, panicked by the rout, misstep and tumble into deeper water, to be carried away screaming by the current.

Yet, your job here is far from done. Ahead, the centre and left battalions of the enemy force face the battered companies of Second Battalion. The smell of powder still fills the air. The thundering crackle of musketry yet assails your ears. You must carry your charge quickly, for every moment lost is another moment which the Antari might continue to bring their superior weight of fire to bear upon your countrymen.

"Dragoons!" you shout, raising your sword in the air to serve as a rallying point. "Dragoons! With me and forward!"

Still carried by the euphoria of victory, your men launch themselves into the now-exposed flank of what was the Antari centre. The enemy infantry, hammered by both fire from the front and now by cavalry from the side, begin to break almost immediately, the shock of the unexpected attack breaking them without the aid of a single bullet or sabre cut.

No sooner does the enemy centre rout do you turn your attention to the remaining Antari battalion, now cut off, outflanked, and attacked on two sides.

It takes little more to convince them to reverse their muskets, drop their colours, and surrender.

-

Some few of your orange-jacketed countrymen still have enough spirit in them to cheer as they move forward to accept the surrender of their Antari counterparts. Some even run right up to the riverbank, shaking their fists at the fleeing remnants of the other two enemy battalions as they ford the river. Most, however, simply collapse onto the ground, exhausted.

You suppose you must be in no better shape; covered in blood, sweat, and filth, with the thunder of the charge still ringing in your ears.

A cry from behind snaps you back into alertness. More shouts join it in quick succession.

"Welp," you hear Sergeant Campos quip from behind you. "There goes Prince Micky."

You bring yourself about just in time to behold a sight fit to make your heart leap, for the far side of the river is occupied not just by the fleeing remnants of Prince Khorobirit's army but the triumphant squadrons of Palliser's cavalry, sabres and lances raised high as they drive the last of the Antari from the field or into capture.

In the distance, you see a small band of horsemen, Church Hussars all, as they ride hard from the field, hotly pursued by a troop of line cavalry. Even from so far away, you can see that the fleeing cavalrymen are in bad shape, the wings on their backs broken, their helms knocked askew, their cloaks ripped and tattered.

Yet above all else, you notice the great silken banner carried in the lead Hussar's hands, a brown bear rampant upon a cloth-of-silver field with a two-handed sword clasped in its hands; the personal flag of Prince Mikhail of Khorobirit, being carried off the field in ignominious flight.

Everywhere, the field is strewn not just with the bodies of the dead but vast mobs of prisoners, held in place by picquets of lancers and cuirassiers. To your left, entire battalions of orange-coated infantry storm across the Kharan, their minds occupied not with pursuit but the loot that awaits them at the vast and abandoned Antari camp.

At long last: victory.

-

Victory?

No, it is more than that; as the bodies are counted and the reports come through over the next two days, it becomes abundantly clear that the clash is already being called the Second Battle of Kharangia and was the greatest victory of the war.

The number of enemy losses alone justify that claim: eight thousand Antari dead, an equal number left maimed, and nearly twenty-five thousand taken prisoner.

Yet those numbers alone do not begin to encompass the whole of the Tierran victory, for not only has Prince Khorobirit been deprived of his army and his aura of invincibility, but most of his allies have, as well. His brother-by-marriage, Prince Ivan of Jugashavil, is now a Tierran prisoner, as is his cousin, Andrei of Noribirit. Joining them are dozens of other, more minor Lords of the Congress, and hundreds upon hundreds of Church Hussars. Most of Khorobirit's power base within the League Congress had followed him to war; now, they lie dead upon the banks of the Kharan or await ransom under the guard of the King's Army.

At a glance, only the narrow escape of Khorobirit himself could serve to tarnish the surface of what might seem like a near-perfect victory: Blogia avenged, Tierra's greatest enemy destroyed as a power both military and politically, the King's plans vindicated, and every officer in his army, from the lowliest ensign to the Duke of Havenport himself, hailed as joint-architects of the greatest feat of arms in the Unified Kingdom's one hundred and twenty-year history.

-

Yet even this near-perfect triumph has come at a terrible price. The King's Army has not escaped unscathed; it has lost nearly a tenth of its strength.

Corporal Marion died on the field, choking to death on his own blood. Staff-sergeant Hernandes joined him upon the pyre before midnight, succumbing to the terrible wounds that he had taken in the last moments of the battle.

They were not the only ones.

Lady Welles had been last seen leading a party of officers and men forward to stem a breach in the Second of the 5th's line. They found her body beside three dead Antari, her pistol empty, her belly punctured with two bayonet wounds, her throat slit by the remains of the broken sword still clutched in her dead hand.

Baneblooded officers and baneless soldiers, so separate in life, strew the field as equals in death, only waiting for the cremation parties to sort them out again. When they found Cedric Lewes's body among the remnants of the Experimental Corps, cut almost to pieces by a Hussar's sabre, they threw him into a mass pyre for common soldiers.

They did not even have the decency to burn him as an officer.

Such was the price of victory.


EPILOGUE
Wherein the CAVALRY OFFICER receives an EXPLANATION.

My Lord Alaric d'al Ortiga,

I fear that I must once again bring to your attention the issue of your family's financial situation.

House Ortiga's obligations to the diverse lending houses to which it is indebted include the maintenance of interest payments on these debts at a rate of four percent per year. While your lord father was nothing if not punctual and regular in the meeting of such demands, his death has left your house without an official head capable of legally delivering payment these last three years. As a result, your family's accounts are now dangerously in arrears.

I have, of course, explained to the men involved that your duty to the King's Army must supersede any matters of finance. However, given recent events, I am almost certain that such explanations shall not delay them for much longer.

As of this writing, your family's creditors have made the demand for the prompt payment of the monies currently owed as interest on your family's current ordinary debt of 10860 crown: a sum amounting to 1325 crown, 2 towers, and 9 pence.

I must urge you upon the strongest terms to return to Tierra without delay and make arrangements for the payment of the amounts owed. I have been advised that failure to do so within the year may result in your house's bankruptcy and the repossession of your family's estates by the aggrieved banking establishments.

I remain as always, your obedient servant,
Master Efraim Saundersley, Solicitor-on-Retainer to the Noble House of Ortiga

-

You feel yourself tense as you read the letter again, as the numbers written onto the page by your family's lawyer in far-off Fernandescourt swirl about in your thoughts like leaves in the gusting autumn wind.

You have always known your family to be deep in debt, but you had not known the whole extent of it until you received this letter, not a week before. Then you learned of the immense financial burden which your father, and his father before him, had laboured under: generations upon generations of accumulated debt, condensed into a single great sum. It is a debt which is almost as old as your family, a debt older than the Unified Kingdom itself.

Now, it is your responsibility to see to it, to prune and maintain the colossal obligation that is your legacy; a duty like any other, one which is likely to lay its burdens upon you until your dying day.

Yet it is the smaller number that grasps your attention the hardest, the sum which you must pay at soonest opportunity, lest your family's honour be cheapened by an inability to meet the obligations it had sworn to meet.

That amount, at least, is not beyond your means. The sum is far from meagre, but you are not without the funds to see the more pressing debt paid.

The King's great victory over Prince Khorobirit at Kharangia had won its victors shining glory and golden coin in equal measure. Your victorious countrymen had plundered a fortune from the remnants of the shattered Antari armies, only to win several fortunes more in ransom as the hundreds of captured baneblooded lords were sold back to their families. Unfortunately, Grenadier Square had knocked you back down to your permanent rank before allotting you your part of the bounty. Still, even as a captain, your share had been nearly a thousand crown. You have more than enough money to avert the immediate crisis.

Alas, there shall be no more such windfalls in future.

The war is over.

-

After the victory at what the Aetorian broadsheets are already calling The Second Battle of Kharangia, Antari resistance had effectively collapsed. Much of the war party of the League Congress had been killed or taken prisoner along the banks of the River Kharan. Prince Khorobirit, deprived of his army, most of his political allies, and much of his spirit, had quickly found himself beset not by Tierran bayonets but by his rivals within the League Congress itself;carrion crows circling around the newly enfeebled body of a once-mighty hunter.

With the League Congress fighting amongst themselves, the whole of the central plains of Antar was laid open before the King and the Duke of Havenport. One by one, the wheat-growing villages and market towns of the Antari heartland fell. The few settlements which tried to contest the issue were quickly broken, their walls battered down by Tierran cannon, their garrisons swept aside by Tierran bayonets, their populace made victim to the horror of Kharangia, repeated in miniature.

You remember the time as an endless procession of scouting missions, advanced patrols, and raids, each time driving further north into the belly of the League of Antar. You and yoursquadron were worked hard in those great and terrible days, but you were exposed to little risk, save for the occasional skirmish with a hastily mustered peasant levy or brief clash with a partisan band. At times, you did not even feel like you were at war.

Those were your last months with your familiar lieutenants. One by one, they bought their promotions to captain, leaving to take command of squadrons of their own, their places taken by new, unfamiliar faces as unsuited to command as their predecessors had been when you first met them in Noringia all those years ago.

Your new Staff-sergeant, at least, was a familiar face: Campos, the most senior enlisted man left in your command and the sole survivor of the six men you had commanded as a cornet so long ago.

-

That winter found you back in Noringia for the long-awaited judgement of Lieutenant-colonel Keane.

In the cold, dying weeks of 611, you were called to take part in a tribunal, alongside the Duke of Cunaris and a staff officer from Grenadier Square, as you met to decide your one-time superior's fate. As the officer who had to observe and face first-hand the consequences of Keane's breakdown, it was you that the other members of the tribunal would turn to for immediate accounts.

Keane himself presented a pathetic sight, a shadow of the melancholy but stern officer who had served Tierra well at Blogia and the two years that followed. Pale and dead-eyed, he refused to defend himself against the accusations brought against him, accepting every charge of cowardice and weakness with an acquiescence that was more resignation than grace.

Perhaps he knew that the match was weighted against him, as you did. The delegate from high command had made it clear that the tribunal was to make examples before your very first session. Though Cunaris had remained undecided in those days, your third fellow, unrestrained by bonds of personal and regimental loyalty, had not spared any measure in accusing your fellow dragoon of the worst possible failings.

As winter came to a close, the three of you finally convened to determine a verdict.

1) I tried to convince the others to show as much mercy as possible.
2) Keane deserved sanction but not the destruction of his life; I argued for clemency.
3) I had no sympathy for cowards; I demanded that we make an example of him.

Personal Information

As of the Autumn of the 613th year of the Old Imperial Era.

Sir Alaric d'al Ortiga
Age: 25
Rank: Captain

Wealth: 1754
Income: 15

Soldiering: 75%
Charisma: 43%
Intellect: 5%
Reputation: 24%
Health: 65%

Idealism: 69%; Cynicism: 31%
Ruthlessness: 39%; Mercy: 61%

You are a Knight of the Red, having the right to wear bane-hardened armour and wield a bane-runed sword.

You have no decorations as of yet.

Unit Information

Sixth Squadron, Royal Dragoons
Senior NCO: Staff-sergeant Campos

Discipline: 39%
Morale: 44%
Loyalty: 46%
Strength: 57%

 

[ERYFKRAD]

2

 

[Kalarion]

2.

 

[baud]

2

 

[Grimgravy]

2

 

[LordTryhard]

Okay, so if anyone is interested in how the potential outcomes of that battle work...

Spoiler

There are five potential casualties:
-Hartigan
-Marcus
-Lewes
-Lady Welles
-Sergeant and Marion (counting them as one casualty/character death for convenience.)

So basically, at various points in the battle you are given the option to deploy a Squadron to aid somebody. If you don't send aid, that person then dies. Because you deployed both of your squadrons early on, you were able to save Marcus and Hartigan. But this meant that in the end you had to choose between saving either Welles or Lewes.

However, if you had 50 Intellect and had managed to secure the barges at Mhillanovil, you would have been able to take a third approach: suggest that Cunaris use the heavy guns to support either the 5th of Foot or the Experimentals. Whoever you choose to offer artillery support will automatically survive, and you are then sent to aid the one who didn't offer cannon support. Unfortunately, this wasn't an option, so it means the unit you didn't personally arrive to save was butchered.

So, you rode to aid the 5th of Foot. Previously, I thought the mere act of doing so was enough to save Welles. However, your unit stats were so low that she died anyway (I genuinely didn't know this was possible.)

As for Marion and your Sergeant, they die automatically if you only brought your own Squadron with you (if either Caius or Garret had still been with you, then neither Marion nor Hernandes would have died. This of course requires the sacrifice of either Marcus or Hartigan.)

As I understand it, the most amount of characters that can die here is 4, and the lowest amount is 1. You lost 3. So it's not the darkest possible outcome, but it's still pretty grim.

Also if your reputation had been higher you would have received twice as much money.

Also, I vote 1.

 

[Tigranes]

1.

The war is over, and much might be forgiven once victory is won.

 

[baud]

Okay, so if anyone is interested in how the potential outcomes of that battle work...

Spoiler

There are five potential casualties:
-Hartigan
-Marcus
-Lewes
-Lady Welles
-Sergeant and Marion (counting them as one casualty/character death for convenience.)

So basically, at various points in the battle you are given the option to deploy a Squadron to aid somebody. If you don't send aid, that person then dies. Because you deployed both of your squadrons early on, you were able to save Marcus and Hartigan. But this meant that in the end you had to choose between saving either Welles or Lewes.

However, if you had 50 Intellect and had managed to secure the barges at Mhillanovil, you would have been able to take a third approach: suggest that Cunaris use the heavy guns to support either the 5th of Foot or the Experimentals. Whoever you choose to offer artillery support will automatically survive, and you are then sent to aid the one who didn't offer cannon support. Unfortunately, this wasn't an option, so it means the unit you didn't personally arrive to save was butchered.

So, you rode to aid the 5th of Foot. Previously, I thought the mere act of doing so was enough to save Welles. However, your unit stats were so low that she died anyway (I genuinely didn't know this was possible.)

As for Marion and your Sergeant, they die automatically if you only brought your own Squadron with you (if either Caius or Garret had still been with you, then neither Marion nor Hernandes would have died. This of course requires the sacrifice of either Marcus or Hartigan.)

As I understand it, the most amount of characters that can die here is 4, and the lowest amount is 1. You lost 3. So it's not the darkest possible outcome, but it's still pretty grim.

Also if your reputation had been higher you would have received twice as much money.

Spoiler

So the only thing that change depending on our choices is who dies, there's no bigger impact on the battle itself? I'm a little disappointed. Still thank you for taking the time to write this.