Over the Top

**Brief** | Orders are given to counterattack enemy positions, granting greater damage and speed but also lower range and more damage from attacks.

*"Half a league, half a league,"*

*" Half a league onward,"*

*"All in the valley of Death"*

*" Rode the six hundred."*

*""Forward, the Light Brigade!"*

*""Charge for the guns!" he said:"*

*"Into the valley of Death"*

*" Rode the six hundred."*

- Opening stanza of the poem "Charge of the Light Brigade"
A battle can be won with a single stroke, as has happened many times in the past. Supervisors must be prepared to be bold, to take advantage of weaknesses and make risky decisions. Decisions that can make or break an entire campaign. Over the Top, a deceptively simple strategy, is one of these choices. With the issuing of such a simple command, the foundation of Combine military strategy is turned on its head. Gone are the traditional ways of trench warfare. Every tank, every soldier, upon receiving the order, is to abandon any defensive position they are currently holding, and move with all speed at the enemy front. Combine soldiers are trained to ignore all dangers and casualties when under this command, charging at the enemy in large formations in plain sight. Vehicles and tanks switch to dangerous and volatile rounds, overcharge their engines and ignore most safety protocols. The result is absolute devastation. Combine units are able to tear through unprepared opponents with ease, inflicting death and destruction on an enormous scale. A single swift counterattack designed to utterly decimate a weakened force before they can regroup.

Yet the repercussions could not be more severe. A single misused instance of the command against a prepared foe, and the Combine army could be walking into a death trap. Many such charges ordered by inexperienced Supervisors, either in desperation or overconfidence has lead to the complete loss of an entire battalion, or more. Such well trained are Combine soldiers, that even in the face of imminent defeat or death, they will not turn around. Company after company of soldiers will continue to funnel into the same firesack, and company after company of soldiers will fall. Those few who disobey and turn back are strictly reprimanded and then promoted for their competence in the face of incompetent superiors. Over time, this tactic has become scorned upon, even taboo. Supervisors who order such wasteful charges are often reprimanded and demoted. A single command that could decide the fate of the Supervisor for the rest of his or her life. With success stories few and far between, many lack the courage to issue such an order and simply pretend the command never existed.

Yet there remain a few bold and capable men who are willing to take the leap of faith, to lead the charge against the enemy front, to put their reputation, the battle, even the entire campaign on the line in the hopes that their men will be able to bring honor and victory. They are aware that in such an order they will be fully responsible for the blood, of their own men or of the enemy's, in their hands. Only they have the courage to say, and their men to act upon, these four words:

***"Attack with All Abandon."***