The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4271

As Ves continued to observe the unfolding battle from many different perspectives at once, he noted that Lanie was doing pretty well for herself.

The only problem he had with her decision making so far was that she attracted way too much attention with her actions.

Out of all of the Lucid Rages that the Avatars deployed into battle, hers was the only one that had been able to disarm the heavy mechs of the Pima Defenders left and right!

By stripping over two-dozen powerful mech weapons from the hands of the enemy machines, the Pima Defenders most certainly took note of Lanie's abnormally high skill.

Even if she wasn't an expert candidate herself, it was absolutely worth it for the Fridaymen to dispatch an expert candidate of their own to stop Lanie from stealing more weapons.

Ves only glanced at her Lucid Rage briefly before setting aside his concerns.

As a mech champion, Lanie did not pilot an average mech. Her Lucid Rage received multiple upgrades and modifications such as a strengthened cockpit, reinforced tonfas and other minor improvements.

He had already told Commander Melkor to pay a bit of extra attention to Lanie during her debut battle. If she ever got into trouble, the nearby Avatar mechs would not idly stand by and allow the enemy to threaten her life!

Seeing that the duel between the Lucid Rage piloted by Lanie and the Favored Son piloted by an enemy expert candidate turned into a stalemate, Ves no longer paid any attention to Lanie's performance.

As much as he cared about her, there were many other clansmen that also deserved his notice.

Besides, the other fights were much more exciting!

For example, the Penitent Sisters and the Swordmaidens had teamed up to pressure a different section of the enemy battle line. _{ƒгeewebnovёl.com}

What was curious about the Sundered Phalanx units was that they clearly developed a healthy respect towards all of the mechs that were known to be able to launch a powerful battle formation attack.

Every time a large enough formation of Penitent Sister, Swordmaiden or Glory Seeker mech approached the enemy battle line, the Fridaymen set a predetermined plan in motion.

First, the melee mechs that were most at risk of getting caught up by a massive area attack dispersed as much as possible without compromising too much of their own lines.

The spread out in such a way that the mechs in the front remained stuck while the ones at the rear had distanced themselves from each other as much as possible!

Ves found it kind of funny how scared the enemy reacted to just the hint of getting targeted by a battle formation.

Obviously, the Sundered Phalanx still suffered from the trauma of losing lots of mech pilots as well as the entire crew of one of their deep strike fleet carriers in a single extraordinary attack wave!

Acting spooked was not the only response that the Fridaymen had formed against the possibility of getting swept by a giant wave of death energy.

Ranged mechs mostly hailing from the Blackened Reapers directed drastically more firepower towards the Swordmaidens and Penitent Sisters!

This made it a lot more difficult for mechs such as the Second Swords and the Valkyrie Redeemers to do their jobs!

The only consolation was that the Blackened Reapers had to give up attacking other targets, thereby giving the Hex Army more room to press their own attacks.

"This is too annoying!"

"What are our ranged mechs doing? Those Blackened Reapers need to be shot down."

"It's as if the Fridaymen have nothing else on their mind but preventing us from grouping."

The only way the Swordmaiden and Penitent Sister mech units could escape widespread suppression was if they dispersed their formations and spread themselves out across the battle lines.

Surprisingly enough, not a single enemy ranged mech bothered to shoot at the mechs hailing from the two infamous mech legions when the option of launching a battle formation attack was taking off the board.

"It's as if the Fridaymen are training us not to employ this trump card." Ves concluded with a perplexed expression.

In fact, neither Legion Commander Sendra of the Swordmaidens or Legion Commander Valerie Chancy of the Penitent Sisters wanted to resort to their strongest measures so quickly.

Though the Sundered Phalanx presented plenty of target-rich environments to the Larkinson Clan, the effect of killing a lot of mech pilots and disrupting an entire chunk of the enemy front was not as great as it sounded.

"It's like a nuclear option to put it in simple terms." General Verle explained to Ves when the latter requested clarification. "The threat of employing a weapon of mass destruction is generally more useful than activating it. Just look at how much the movements of the Swordmaidens, Penitent Sisters and Glory Seekers disrupt the arrangements of the Sundered Phalanx. Our enemies have to implement far more changes than us in an attempt to mitigate the damage if we ever decide to resort to this measure. If we want to make the most out of our battle formations, then we should save it for a later time."

"How much later should we wait?"

"It depends, sir. You should already be aware that the mech pilots participating in such a massive movement will become too tired to retain their battle effectiveness. While they can still fly back to their motherships and hand over their machines to our reserve mech pilots, all of this takes valuable time that we cannot afford at this time. Besides, it is impossible for the enemy leaders to be so complacent towards the threat posed by our battle formations. My gut feeling says the Gaugers are more prepared than we think. The Black Cats are currently working hard to find out the enemy's measures in advance, but we will eventually launch our strongest attacks even if we haven't obtained any further information."

Now that General Verle mentioned it, Ves also found it odd that the Sundered Phalanx wasn't working harder to negate the threat of his iconic battle formations.

Compared to the past, the Larkinson Army fielded a lot more mechs these days, and that meant that the spread and damage potential of its battle formations had grown as well!

One of the problems that the Larkinsons had discovered as of late was that the difficulty of aligning the mentalities of over a thousand mech pilots at once became a lot harder.

Though their mechs weren't as exciting and exotic as that of the Larkinson Clan, their machines were designed for war and could always be counted upon to gain advantages on the battlefield.

Most notably, their ranged mechs did not fall too far behind compared to their counterparts in the Larkinson Clan.

This was notable because the inherent tech and sophistication of the Crosser energy weapons fell significantly further behind compared to the latest generation of luminar crystal weapons.

Even though Ves was only a part-time energy weapon developer, the considerable advantages granted by luminar crystals gave his ranged mechs a powerful advantage on the battlefield.

Ves previously thought that Master Benedict might have made a mistake by rejecting the generous offer to adopt luminar crystal weapons.

"There is no need for us to make use of alien technology." Benedict told him at the time. "I do not deny that your guns are powerful, but there are more ways to achieve the same outcome. Perhaps it is my ego talking at the moment, but I do not think my work is any worse than yours. It would be a travesty if a mech designer of my level cannot even keep up with your mech designs."

Today, Master Benedict definitely proved that the ranged mechs of his design were able to carry their own weight!

They were not noticeably tougher than normal. They did not move any faster than normal.

What they did excel at was firing considerably powerful energy beams at a persistent rate!

In order to catch up to the firepower of the Rifle Warriors and other Larkinson ranged mechs, Master Benedict simply scaled up the weapons of his own ranged mech designs!

Scaling up the weapon was the simplest and easiest way to increase its power, but doing so also came with tradeoffs such as increased energy consumption and higher heat generation.

While these were definitely problems to most mech designers, Master Benedict just happened to excel in these areas!

By taking advantage of his specialty, Master Benedict mitigated these downsides, thereby allowing his ranged mechs to punch just as hard as their Larkinson counterparts!

"Well, that's certainly a way to solve a problem." Ves remarked.

There were pros and cons to both approaches. Ves' mechs were not only smaller and more efficient, but also a lot more versatile.

The machines designed by Master Benedict packed more raw power and might even be able to keep firing a bit longer as well.

"It would have been nice if we could combine our strengths." Ves idly thought. "If we could combine my luminar crystal weapons with his energetic mechs, we could probably design a powerhouse of a ranged mech!"