Assault Craft

Combat role

Pacific Union naval infantry platform — 14 HP hull with Range 2 fire that lands marines and menaces every coastline it can reach.

Lore

The Pacific Union is the only faction whose entire territory is a coastline. Its member states — island chains, archipelago republics, seaboard cities — share no land border and one strategic truth: whoever controls the water between the islands controls the islands. The Assault Craft is that truth with a hull number.

Part gunship, part landing platform, it carries a marine company trained for the Union's signature operation: appear off a coast at dawn, suppress the waterfront from Range 2, and put troops on the shore before the defender's reserves finish forming up. Its crews are archipelago-born; they navigate strait currents the way steppe cavalry once read grass.

Continental navies call the doctrine reckless. The Union's reply is its campaign record: an archipelago is not a defensive position — it is a highway network, and the Assault Craft owns the highway.

When to use

Lead amphibious offensives with it: Range 2 suppresses coastal garrisons without retaliation and 14 HP survives the approach. Pair with Landing Craft to capture what it softens, and keep Fighters off its back.

Counters