Special Operations: Story So Far

Chapter 1 – Attack

• Date: September 6, 2042
• Location: Mojave Desert

Your mercenary unit was hired by the ISD (an international security organization overseeing the legal mercenary groups) to investigate a Clayburn Industries facility deep in the Mojave Desert, which suddenly felt silent. You find the facility abandoned, save for a mysterious group of assailants, led by a man who introduces himself as Magnus Holter. While investigating the area, it becomes clear that the mysterious enemies are trying to loot it for chemical weapons. Despite your best efforts, Magnus Holter escapes with enough chlorine to wipe out an entire city.

Chapter 2 – Pursuit

• Date: September 15, 2042
• Location: Panama Canal

The mysterious mercenaries from Mojave escaped with the chemical payload, but you are hot on their trail. Summoning an ISD-provided transport ship equipped with a Zubr landing craft, you pursue the assailants to the Panama Canal only to find the sluices blocked and protected by the same forces that previously attacked the Clayburn Industries plant. You defend the Zubr while opening one sluice after another in order to allow it to pass through while looking for clues. You find out that the mercenary ship you are pursuing made its way through the canal without any trouble on its way to Jamaica, only to be ambushed by Clayburn Industries security! Could the mercenaries be actually working with Clayburn?

Chapter 3 – Threat from the Sea

• Date: September 17, 2042
• Location: Port Antonio, Jamaica

Arriving at Port Antonio, you find out that the area is occupied by two unmarked enemy warships. The Zubr landing craft drops you off at the far side of the town but you soon find that the beautiful, tropical beaches of Jamaica are far deadlier than anyone would have thought. The town is occupied by mercenaries who not only have considerable forces stationed in the area, but also operate sophisticated equipment never previously seen on any battlefield, such as anti-aircraft lasers. The Zubr craft is taken out, leaving you only one way – forward. It turns out that the plan of the enemy commander, Magnus Holter, is, for reasons unknown, to destroy the town using a warhead made using the chemicals from the looted Clayburn facility.

You take the city after a tough fight and now it is the enemy commander who is left with no choice but to evacuate to a nearby island where the last of the mercenary forces are seemingly entrenched. In the midst of a heated battle to take the AA positions on the island, you see three Clayburn Industries fighter jets arrive and take out the enemy warships, followed by a forced landing of a Clayburn Industries kill team. It’s clear you’re in for the fight of your lives.

Chapter 4 – Exfiltration

• Date: September 17, 2042
• Location: Port Antonio, Jamaica

By a strange twist of fate, you find yourselves on the side of your former enemies with a Clayburn Industries kill team having arrived to wipe you all out in an attempt to leave no witnesses alive. It’s now clear that there is some deeper connection between the enemy commander and Clayburn Industries – something the corporation definitely doesn’t want you to find out.

The Clayburn forces quickly overrun and rout Magnus Holter’s forces, leaving only pockets of stragglers. Desperate to get out of there alive, you gather whatever’s left of your former enemies, saving one of his top lieutenants, Andrey Zaytsev, in the process. Pushing towards the Clayburn Industries landing, you take out an entire armored company sent against you and commandeer one of the massive Zubr hovercrafts they arrived in. Desperate to stop you at all costs, the entire Clayburn force descends at you as you realize you’ve just become an enemy of one of the most powerful corporations in the world. Following the battle, Magnus Holter welcomes you to his side and starts to explain his past in Clayburn Industries...

Chapter 1 – Meeting in Batumi

• Date: September 14, 2041
• Location: Batumi, Georgia

A year before the events of the Caribbean Crisis, Magnus Holter, then a commander of the Clayburn Industries security service, was sent to the capital of Georgia, Batumi, on a mission to resolve a situation where valuable cargo was allegedly damaged by Clayburn forces. Georgia, once a teeming holiday resort with all the attraction a discerning tourist might crave for, was hit hard by the events of the 2030s, becoming a nest of rogue mercenaries, criminals and wannabe revolutionaries. Even so, the mission was expected to be nothing more than a formality – after the Corporate Wars and the enormous influence gains during the Seahawk rebellion, Clayburn assets were all but untouchable.

Holter and his small escort arrived in Batumi to meet his contact in a nearby seaside hotel. His colleague and friend, Aleksandr Cortez, the commander of the Black Eagle mercenary company (at that time in Clayburn service), was in the meanwhile dispatched to the other side of the city to guard the cargo. The hotel turned out to be a trap. The place was empty but Holter’s guards were attacked by unknown mercenaries. Holter quickly found out that the entire city had been emptied and fortified – something very wrong was going on. To top it off, Cortez came under attack by the same mercenaries and was having a hard time repelling their assault.

Upon having his forces search the hotel thoroughly, Holter decided to go to the regional Clayburn HQ not far from the hotel. The HQ was emptied as well – it looked like everyone had left in a hurry. The approach to it was, however, heavily fortified with the mysterious mercs fighting Holter every inch of the way. Upon seeing the scale of the enemy mercenary presence, Holter decided to unite his men with Cortez and wait for extraction on a nearby beach. But he was too late – before he could get to him, Cortez’s units were overwhelmed and captured. The cargo itself was destroyed. Fighting off yet another wave of enemy mercenaries, Holter was successful in holding the beach until a Clayburn landing craft arrived to pick his forces up. Holter decided to report the incident to the CEO of Clayburn Industries, Sebastian Grimm. An investigation into what had happened was launched.

Chapter 2 – Tkvarcheli Siege

• Date: November 5, 2041
• Location: Tkvarcheli, Georgia

As Holter had predicted, Grimm was furious. He wanted the culprits found and punished. Clayburn Industries’ intelligence network found them rather quickly – the mysterious mercs were a local band called the Evocati. They were known for taking pretty much any job, no matter how dirty, although no evidence of anything illegal had ever been found – the Evocati didn’t like or leave witnesses. Under the Bordeaux Treaty and the Orleans Treaty, they were legal, but just barely.

The Evocati had a base in an old mining city of Tkvarcheli. Tkvarcheli was a relic from the Soviet era, its golden days long gone following the decline of its coal mining industry – a perfect hideout for a group of mercenaries who were supplied by the few locals left living in the area in exchange for “protection”. Their leader, Douglas O’Reilly, had a well-deserved reputation for ruthlessness and brutality.

Grimm tasked Holter with leading an invasion to teach the Evocati the price of crossing Clayburn Industries. The whole operation was technically illegal – such faction wars were specifically prohibited by the Orleans Treaty, but Clayburn Industries was an influential company and it made sense that it would get away with such an (arguably justified) breach.

It turned out that the Evocati controlled a vast amount of manpower and vehicles. What was supposed to be a small-scale punitive operation turned into a massive battle, the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the Corporate Wars, involving dozens of armored vehicles and heavy artillery. The Clayburn Industries forces advanced on the city center where most of the Evocati mercs were holed up. Halfway through the battle, Holter was contacted by badly wounded Aleksandr Cortez, who alone was able to escape captivity in the chaos. Cortez tried to warn Holter of something and told him to get out of there, but he was interrupted by radio jamming.

The Evocati forces were finally pushed to the brink of annihilation when the Clayburn forces received an order to withdraw from an unknown source. Holter and his closest allies were left stranded along with the surviving Evocati. Just as the fighting was dying down, the entire area was suddenly surrounded by ISD forces led by Fedor Volkov, declaring the operation illegal. Additionally, Douglas O’Reilly, clearly allied with the ISD, arrived in his AC-130 gunship. The regular Clayburn forces retreated from the area, leaving the blame solely on Holter’s shoulders.

Chapter 3 – Tkvarcheli Trap

• Date: November 5, 2041
• Location: Tkvarcheli, Georgia

The International Security Department (ISD) was a multi-lateral body, established following the end of the Corporate Wars to oversee any large-scale mercenary operations across the world so that such a major conflict would never happen again. The Orleans Treaty that ended the fighting specifically prohibited such aggressive corporate assaults.

However, the whole world also knew that some parties to the Treaty were more equal than the others. The ISD would never do anything that would openly cross the interests of Clayburn Industries and was effectively a corporate puppet, existing to give the semblance of lawful oversight to the masses tired by constant warfare.

The fact the ISD forces conveniently appeared in Tkvarcheli just as the fighting was almost over only meant one thing – they acted with the consent of Clayburn Industries.

Fedor Volkov, commanding the ISD operation, was an old acquaintance of Holter’s back from the days when the ISD and Clayburn Industries had cooperated on regular basis. From his intercepted radio transmission, Holter learned that he had been stripped of his Clayburn Industries security commander rank and that he was to be taken – dead or alive.

Realizing what that meant, Holter refused Volkov’s appeal to turn himself in and a battle ensued with the ISD forces. During the battle, Douglas O’Reilly supported the ISD forces with his AC-130. He was ultimately shot down by Holter’s forces, but not before revealing that Sebastian Grimm, the CEO of Clayburn Industries, was behind the order to throw Magnus Holter to the wolves. Hearing that, Fedor Volkov realized it was all a set-up and pulled his battered forces back to regroup, allowing Holter half an hour to escape...

Chapter 4 – Stronghold

• Date: November 6, 2041
• Location: Gori, Georgia

Instead of running, Magnus Holter and his remaining forces decided to make an aggressive move and assault the Clayburn Industries regional headquarters in Gori, some 60 kilometers north-west of the old Georgian capital, Tbilisi, hoping the catch Sebastian Grimm, the Clayburn CEO, off-guard.

Ditching most of their heavy equipment in order to make the best time possible, Holter’s forces made it just in time to be welcomed by all the Clayburn forces Grimm could muster, including a whole tank company Scores of Clayburn Security Forces men (soldiers in all but name) took their positions around the city, armed to the teeth with anti-tank guided missiles. The mission seemed hopeless but, seeing no other option, Holter decided to launch a desperate attack anyway. In a private radio conversation, Grimm told Holter of his motivation, how Holter had become too powerful and popular for his own good, threatening Grimm’s position – he had to be removed, but not before being discredited as a rogue mercenary, a war criminal who had broken the Orleans treaty.

Advancing under the cover of a snowstorm that grounded the local squadron of assault helicopters armed with guns and rockets, Holter and his forces fought their way to the base dominating the city, defeating platoons of Clayburn tanks and clearing one street after another of enemy combatants.

The snowstorm cleared halfway through the battle, allowing Grimm to reinforce his faltering units in the city with helicopters and long-range artillery strikes – but to no avail. Magnus knew about the base’s weakness and disabled its external power supply before breaking down the gates and entering the base itself.

Searching one bunker after another while evading constant enemy strikes, Holter’s forces reached the top of the base only to watch Grimm escape in a fighter jet, powerless to stop him. The situation seemed hopeless – dozens of remaining Clayburn armored vehicles were amassed outside of the base and were readying themselves to re-take it. Clayburn helicopters pounded what was left of Holter’s men to oblivion. In desperation, Holter called out to an unknown ally – a choice he knew would come with a hefty price tag in the future. A stealth bomber with previously unseen cloaking technology was dispatched to drop an EMP bomb over the entire city, knocking out the power in every vehicle on the battlefield. In the chaos that ensued, Holter was able to escape the encirclement.

And so ends Holter’s story of how he became a “war criminal” – betrayed by the man he had trusted and left for the ISD to deal with. Extending an invitation, he is ready to welcome you amongst the ranks of his followers.

Chapter 1 – Plant in El Arish

• Date: February 26, 2043
• Location: El Arish, Egypt

More than five months have passed since you met Magnus Holter in Jamaica and defected to his side to fight Clayburn Industries, now a dominating force in the mercenary world. Sebastian Grimm, the CEO of CI, used the fallout from Holter’s attempt to destroy the CI base in Port Antonio using chlorine gas. Painting Holter as a war criminal and worlds’ biggest threat, Grimm used his influence to withdraw from the treaty of Orleans that had, years prior, ended the Corporate Wars that had been ravaging much of the world. He spent most of late 2042 consolidating his power, taking over one competing enterprise by another, both peacefully and by force, while the rest of the corporations, ever suspicious, bickered bitterly amongst themselves, withdrawing their support from ISD one by one.

Magnus Holter’s forces, on the other hand, were ravaged in the clash with CI and he spent much of the past half-year to rebuild his strength and to recruit new followers with promises of freedom from corporate oppression, revenge or – in most cases – money. Luckily for Holter, Clayburn forces overextended themselves and Holter’s intelligence corps reported one of the CI processing plants located in Egypt was left temporarily vulnerable. In a twist of fate, the security was also provided by another organization from Holter’s past – the Evocati PMC, now fully in CI service. Magnus Holter decided to take the opportunity to strike at his old enemy.

Your unit participates in the strike under the call-sign “Steel Breakers”, supported by Holter’s elite units, call sign “Willow” and a hired local mercenary flight, the Hawks. You fall upon the plant like a whirlwind, quickly overrunning the outer defenses and forcing the Evocati tanks into a desperate counterattack, which you crush easily with the help of Hawks’ bombers. Even understaffed, the plant seems remarkably well defended, a fact that doesn’t escape Holter’s notice.

As you press forward into the facility, you notice a train ready to depart as well as a large number of trucks evacuating the premises – Clayburn Industries have been warned of your strike and are removing the most valuable assets. Clearly, this plant is more than it seems, you realize, as a large contingent of Evocati arrives to reinforce the reeling defenders. After a pitched but victorious battle, the Willow unit commandos take place of a bunker hidden beneath the plant, full of chemical weapons and the cargo that had allegedly been stolen from Batumi – finally a proof that Clayburn was involved in some very illegal operations.

Holter realizes that even this evidence is not enough to bring the combined might of the world down on Clayburn forces. He hatches a daring plan – to force Douglas O’Reilly, the leader of the Evocati, to testify against Grimm, he must first be captured. Fortunately for Holter, one of the captured Evocati officers knows where O’Reilly’s hiding – the port city of Basra.

Chapter 2 – Hunt in Basra

• Date: March 5, 2043
• Location: Basra, Iraq

You arrive at Basra only to find the city in a state of lockdown – getting in won’t be easy with the streets being guarded by the Evocati elite along with all the auxiliary forces they could muster. Holter was, on the other hand, able to gather only limited support in time – the Hawks have arrived to support your advance, gleefully bombing one Evocati unit after another. The other support units, call-sign “Maple”, were, however, overwhelmed by the Evocati and are fighting for their survival somewhere in the city.

You fight your way through the outskirts, your commandos searching one building after another, until they capture an Evocati officer who knows where O’Reilly is holed up – in a warehouse across the Shatt al-Arab river. Rescuing what remains of the Maple forces, you traverse the bridge to the hiding spot and find that the information provided by your prisoner is true – the place is crawling with Evocati elite. Your commandos storm the place while you hold off the merc reinforcements. Taking heavy losses, they finally manage to capture Douglas O’Reilly for interrogation. He will be delivered to Fedor Volkov, the commander of the remaining ISD forces. There would be no escape for O’Reilly or Grimm this time...

Chapter 3 – Latakia Breakthrough

• Date: March 20, 2043
• Location: Latakia, Syria

After his capture in Basra, Douglas O’Reilly was transported to Latakia to an ISD base for interrogations. This turned out to be a mistake as the base immediately came under attack by a Clayburn Industries expeditionary force – Sebastian Grimm clearly doesn’t want O’Reilly to talk. Fortunately for Fedor Volkov and his ISD troops, you and Magnus Holter’s remaining soldiers also made the trip and weren’t caught completely off-guard.

After defeating the initial wave of attackers, Volkov has O’Reilly loaded into the best protected ISD tank they can get their hands on and, under your protection, they drive to downtown Latakia while you fend off constant attacks from the Clayburn forces. Fearing for his life, Douglas O’Reilly realizes he has nothing to lose and promises to tell Fedor Volkov about a secret Clayburn Industries base where Sebastian Grimm awaits – but to do that, you have to get him out of the encirclement alive.

What follows is a fierce battle, in which Magnus and you manage to break through the enemy blockade and board one of the commandeered landing craft left on the beach in order to get to safety. Being true to his words, Douglas O’Reilly finally confesses and starts talking about Grimm’s plans.

Chapter 4 – Olavsvern Takeover

• Date: March 27, 2043
• Location: Olavsvern, Norway

Douglas O’Reilly finally disclosed the location of Sebastian Grimm’s secret base where he’s hiding from justice – it’s located in Olavsvern, Norway. Your forces uneasily watch the wrecks of derelict ships littering the misty shores as you make your landing at the head of a large naval armada. Once again, Magnus Holter and Fedor Volkov are working together – if only for a short while.

As you disembark Holter’s landing ships and take first orders from Volkov, Magnus Holter reveals his true colors and – more importantly – his intention. Volkov’s goal is to capture Sebastian Grimm in order to put him on trial for Clayburn Industries’ crimes, but Holter has another fate in store for him – a cold, icy resting place six feet under the frozen soil of his own base.

Shortly after the beginning of your missions, you will have a choice to make – either you can join Fedor Volkov and bring Grimm to international justice, or side with Magnus Holter, allowing him to finally enact his revenge and kill Sebastian Grimm, decapitating his world-spanning corporation in one fell swoop. Regardless of your choices, you are in for the toughest fight of your career as you punch through an entire battalion of enemy troops desperately defending every inch of their precious facility. Eventually, you manage to overcome their resistance and reach the base’s port, only to find out that Grimm is on board of his own private destroyer and is bent on slipping under your nose again, taunting you along the way.

The outcome of the battle reflects the choice you made – if you sided with Fedor Volkov, he will try to convince Grimm to surrender and face an international court, revealing that the ISD is no longer a Clayburn puppet, but a reformed organization fighting to bring peace to the post-corporate-wars world. Grimm mocks the proposal but his ship is eventually sunk by air strikes and the concentrated fire of your forces. Grimm is then taken into ISD custody to await his trial.

Siding of with Magnus Holter, will, however, reveal the story of how Grimm ended up controlling Clayburn Industries – him and Magnus Holter murdered Clayburn’s former CEO and founder at the height of his power, taking over one of the most powerful corporations in the world and growing it even further. But Sebastian Grimm, a former mercenary commander himself, became drunk on power and corrupted – instead of bringing the corporate wars to an end, he started obsessing over territory, control and money, betraying even his closes friend Magnus Holter in the process. Magnus, however, is not the forgiving type and instead of listening to Fedor Volkov, he has Grimm’s vessel bombed and sunk, leaving Grimm to die on his doomed ship.

So ends Magnus Holter’s story – but which ending is the correct one?

We leave that up to you to decide, commanders. We will take a look at the statistics of Chapter 4 and the majority choice will become the canon ending. Now’s a good opportunity to influence the future of Armored Warfare storyline – are you up to the task?