Part 27: Bloodbath

Somewhere, high in the frosty peaks of Patagonia, ex-Supreme Commander Twiddy looks out through the iron bars of his squalid cell and wonders where he went wrong...



Turn in your cards, all the cool kids are doing it:



Somewhere in this picture are over 100 new reserve divisions. Can you spot them?



A shake and a roll...



Brazen takes initiative!




At long last, Brazen troops in the Eastern US succeeded in their long-sought, hard fought, irrationally obsessive quest to unite all of North America under one flag.

Specifically, theirs.

Vynnlandi defenders in Central America were taken entirely off guard, having been distracted by the recent abrupt departure of all valuable Vynncorp executives and property from the territory, as well as the sudden and mysterious canceling of their life insurance policies.



From Alaska, Esteemed Gentleperson Herr Zwiebel ordered his grand new army, the product of a massive and haphazard rearmament program begun secretly at the meshwork's behest, to sally forth and run roughshod over the Lusitanian stronghold of Kamchatka.

Faced with a legion of 24 Brazen divisions steaming their way, Lusitania's defenders, now feeling suddenly undermanned and emotionally vulnerable, determined to nonetheless hold their ground.

The Brazen assault was a disaster.

Whole divisions of steam tanks, having been cast from melted-down dinner forks and loose change, and assembled at a furious pace by small children and elderly widows, proved prone in combat to severe overheating which, in tandem with the controversial practice of using wooden rivets, led to numerous spectacular and fratricidal explosions.

Newly produced steam crabs expressed a tendency to burst spontaneously into flames, which then caused them, due to an entirely unrelated programming error, to skitter frantically and tenaciously up the trouser leg of whomever happened to be nearby.

In the end, after much confusion, it was determined the best way to proceed was to fling the remaining steam tanks into the enemy's fortifications via a rickety ad hoc trebuchet, putting their volatility to utmost effect.

The invasion was ultimately a success, but came at a cost of half the Brazen army.



Absent their mechanized self-immolators, the remaining Brazen troops advanced the old fashioned way from Kamchatka into the Asian interior, with considerably more success.



Brazen takes Central America, Kamchatka, Japan, Mongolia, Irkutsk, Yakutsk, and Siberia!
BRAZEN CONQUERS NORTH AMERICA!




Deep in North Africa, Kamigonian forces noticed a strange, low rumbling in the earth, as of a great stampede far off in the distance.

The birds no longer sang, and soon flew away in great numbers.

Goats and sheep jumped their fences and ran into the desert.

Dogs barked hysterically for no reason...

Chickens drowned themselves in wells...

A chill wind blew from the west, and thick, dark clouds blotted out the sun...



Kamigonian officers stopped a fleeing caravan. "From what are you running, friend?" they inquired.

"Oh sir," came the nervous, trembling reply, "You must leave. You must run! Something.... something terrible is coming..."



The rumblings grew louder, and stronger. Inside the fort, dishes and glassware began to rattle upon their shelves. Lamps began to sway, and a sound as of a distant mighty thunder began to grow ever louder from beyond the horizon.

Racing atop the observation tower, the Kamigonian commander peered through his looking glasses towards the western horizon, and gasped.

"What is it, sir?" asked an aide, his voice raspy with fear.

"My boy," came the reply, "The judgement of the Lord is upon us..."



Marching as one, their numbers shrouded in a billowing cloud of dust, came the greatest armed force of free market capitalism ever to roam the earth.

Having seen share values soar at the defeat of the League of Nations, their coffers swollen with new investment capital, the Vynncorp board saw fit to furnish Chairman Pinchy an army to rival the legions of Caesar.

With a tremendous din, forty four fresh divisions of Vynncorp troops cascaded down upon the defending Kamagonians.

With no hope of retreat, they fought valiantly. But in the end, having run out of bullets and nearly exhausted their supply of hurlable blunt objects, the defenders succumbed to the massive human wave.

Their lone island of defense thus squashed, Kamigonian outposts throughout Africa were summarily crushed like mere eggshells before the unstoppable might of the powerful and undoubtedly quite virile Vynncorp army.

On that day, the world was changed forever...



Vynnland takes North Africa, Congo, South Africa, Madagascar, East Africa, and Egypt!
VYNNLAND CONQUERS AFRICA!




In a move almost certain to dramatically alter his relationship with alcohol, Most Peaceful Slaan put his drunkenly concocted plan into action, forming an enormous force of 25 Kamigonian divisions for a roundabout march on Australia.

The operation was seen as a complete success by those with very liberal definitions of the word, and the mathematically impaired, and it effected the defeat of a staggering slightly-more-than-half-as-many enemy troops as Kamigonian casualties.

For decades to come, Kamigonian veterans would tell their grandchildren, with no small amount of pride, that they had had nothing to do with it.



Kamigonia takes Ural and Afghanistan!




The smoke having barely cleared from their defense against Kamigonian assault, Lusitanian forces emerged from their holes for a quick scuttle through Europe and Africa, snatching up a handful of territories their opponents had just left laying around.



Lusitania takes Southern Europe, Egypt, and East Africa!


Summary











Risk cards are now worth 30 armies!

To be continued...