Ward War (Storyline)

Storyline:	Ward War
	The story line tracks a war between Los Zagales and Brave Star.
Type of Storyline:	Era
Repeatable:	Unique
Era of Storyline:	Ward War
Minimum PL:	5

The following jobs may be part of this Storyline:

• Counter-punch (ally with Los Zagales to attack Brave Star)
• Double Gambit (assassinate two LZ leaders)
• Eastwind Raptor (ally with Brave Star to attack Los Zagales)
• Penthouse Con (skyrise mission to hack a terminal)
• Sophistication Net (solo hack to steal meeting details)
• Shadow Seeker (solo hack to locate BS archives)
• Against the Star (LEGWORK: find a gang contact to ally with)
• Decoy the Decoy (LEGWORK: set trap for LZ leaders)
• Ineffectual Stalker (LEGWORK: pretend to kill a courier)
• Into the Fire (LEGWORK: meet a secretive contact)
• Just Another Soul (LEGWORK: spy on a Los Zagales safehouse)
• Looming Shadows (LEGWORK: locate BS archives)
• Under The Wall (LEGWORK: set traps in smuggling tunnels)
• Wanna Snitch? (LEGWORK: find snitches in the ward)
• Multiple proc-gen missions of both old (siege) and new types (combat bodyguard, rescue crashed hover operative)

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Trivia:One of the Missions in the Ward War storyline is named Eastwind Raptor. This is a reference to Operation Eastwind Niner in the original Cyber Knights Classic game. Eastwind Niner is the only Operation to make it into CKC, a series of investigations and events which is the equivalent of a major Storyline in Cyber Knights Flashpoint. Eastwind Niner followed the trail of a runaway citizen of Mars Corp.

Walkthrough

Reveal/Hide SPOILERS

Overview

The story line starts with a Los Zagales contact requesting you to join an attack against Brave Star. You can give the information to a Brave Star contact who will request you to join the other side. You can get missions from both sides, raising a conflict score for each, until one side reaches 100% and declares victory. Each side has a short story line which is launched to consolidate the victory.

Scoring

As you progress through the era multiple events can occur to change the conflict score. The timeline history (left arrow from start of timeline in the safehouse) has an entry for each change so you can review.

• Score starts at 1% for each
• Intro mission: raise ally score by +18%, lower enemy score by -4%
• Missions: each side offers missions (see section below). Each LZ mission grants +6% to ally score and -1% to enemy score. Currently (April 2026) each BS mission grants +5% to ally score and +4% to enemy score.
• Influence breaks: contacts on both sides get large amounts of influence; an ally influence break usually has a choice to raise the conflict score. This grants +5% to the ally.
• News breaks: there will regularly be a popup from your Face character announcing some off-screen attack by one side or the other. There is no interaction. The winner of the attack gets +5%.
• Legwork: each side has several repeatable legwork missions (see section below). Each one adds 5% to the ally conflict score and -1% to the enemy.
• Other missions: pre-existing mission types that are offered by any BS or LZ contact also raise the conflict score by +4%. Currently (May 2026) this is not mentioned anywhere in the pre-mission stages, but afterwards, a popup will appear to announce the change in conflict score.

Contacts

As normal, each mission is introduced by a named contact. In some missions, the *target* is also a named contact who must be killed to succeed at the mission. The contacts may or may not be already on your contact list, but you may be familiar with some from previous playthroughs. For example, B-Tuna can be a target, regardless of whether you have Blur on your team.

There is a "no-kill list" of contacts who are critical to other story lines; for example, your corrupt Brave Star contact is required for follow-ups of the Carnivore storyline so they will (no longer) be a target. We don't know the exact list. B-Tuna is not on it.

In addition to existing LZ and BS contacts, there are several new contacts for each side. All of them have standard base level services.

• Abhanna Arcadia (BS)
• Capo Ibara (LZ)
• Derik Johans (BS)
• Left-Hand Gerrin (LZ)
• Manta Moisyva (BS)
• Thomas Hale (LZ)

When the conflict score for either side reaches 10%, a popup event occurs where a new contact from the faction introduces themselves. This can happen for both sides; in particular since BS missions increase the LZ score significantly, siding with BS will probably grant you a new LZ contact.

Intro missions

The intro missions are fixed, and you must choose one. If you complete one, the timeline entry for the other is removed.

The LZ mission is Counter-punch. The BS mission is Eastwind Raptor. Each one affects the conflict score as shown above.

Both missions are two stage pure combat. The first stage requires killing all the enemies on a map. The enemy gets reinforcements, but also there are ally troops on the map. The body count will be a little higher than normal siege or alpha strike missions.

In the LZ mission, there is a mid-mission reinforcement which is a hover dropped BS tank; in the BS mission, the stage starts with one active LZ turret. Both of these were nice "surprises".

The second stage is a hard target kill mission. The target may be a named contact, but it is randomly selected and may be a "generic" enemy.

LZ missions for conflict score

All the LZ missions are pure combat siege missions which affect the conflict score as shown above. Reinforcement groups will appear for both LZ allies and BS enemies. The BS enemies drop in from hover craft with the standard landing animation.

These missions have no loot boxes or matrix terminals, so you will need to mix in other mission types in order to gain any influence or upgraded weapons.

BS missions for conflict score

The BS missions are also pure combat but there are several interesting twists. There are two new proc-gen mission types.

Combat bodyguard

For this mission, you get a standard VIP with standard sidearm in your starting group, and you need to cross the map to an exit zone. All the enemies start suspicious.

At the start of the mission, a group of yellow "VIP hunters" appear, who will beeline towards the VIP. The hunters appear *on your exit square* which gives focus: you can't out run them to an exit, you have to go through them. Also, after 1-3 turns randomly, the hunters announce that they have broken through the quantum interference generated by the CK; all enemies go to alerted and all your mercs go to hunted.

These missions do have loot boxes. Once the interference is broken, the tally turns off although all the security devices remain active. This combination makes an interesting "hybrid" of normal and pure combat types.

Crashed hover

This is a variation on the exfiltrate mission. The contact says that a hover has been shot down in the ward, and a VIP must be rescued. In this case, the crashed hover is shown on the map, and also there is a reinforcement group of allies with the VIP.

Legworks for conflict score

Each one is repeatable and affects the conflict score as shown above.

• Against the Star (LZ): find a gang contact to ally with. The game chooses one gang faction and grants a new contact plus conflict score. The possible factions include Fenian (Fianna Silver) and Blue Ox (Wendigo).
• Just Another Soul (BS): stake out a Los Zagales safehouse. This introduces a new LZ contact as the result of the stakeout. Currently (April 2026) this contact has 0% trust which means you can use their services and choose their influence breaks.
• Under The Wall (LZ): set traps in smuggling tunnels
• Wanna Snitch? (BS): find snitches in the ward

Related shadow sites

At some threshold of conflict score (35% as of May, 2026), a contact will reveal a new shadow site. It should be possible to get both, by taking missions and raising the conflict score for both sides. The format is the same as other shadow sites; the first stage simply involves crossing a map. The second stage has a large number of loot boxes and a "shopping list" of five high level blueprints.

For BS, the contact explains that they have discovered Rook Tech is shipping prototype weapons to LZ. The shadow site mission is against Rook Tech.

For LZ, the mission is against standard BS enemies.

Ending

Shortly after the conflict score reaches 100% for one side, one of the contacts will pop up to announce that victory is in sight, but one more objective needs to be accomplished. There is a short story line for BS with custom legwork and missions, and a short story line for LZ. The missions have some loot boxes, but there is no specific loot from achieving the victory. The best loot opportunity comes from the shadow site mission mentioned above.

BS ending

The BS contact gives a long speech about a plot which needs to be carried out. We need to create a convincing invitation for the LZ to a "peace meeting", and then kill off the LZ leaders when they arrive. The game chooses a megacorp contact to organize the plot. There are multiple possibilities for this contact; one possibility is Taylor Streizek, either before or after she has changed sides from Matsumoto to Rook.

The first step is a legwork "Ineffectual Stalker", where the selected merc is assigned to attack a BS courier. The idea is that LZ will be watching the courier, and if a real attack occurs then LZ will believe that the courier is carrying valuable information. The attack occurs "off screen", it is only a legwork.

The second step is a solo hack mission "Sophistication Net" to steal meeting details.

The third step is a legwork "Decoy the Decoy"; LZ is sending false couriers and we need to pull them in the right direction.

The final step is a two stage mission "Double Gambit". Each stage is a hard target assassination. It is highly likely that one or both of the targets will be named LZ contacts.

LZ ending

The LZ contact gives a long speech about a plot which needs to be carried out. We need to access the BS archives and show all their records of corrupt behavior to the public. Then the UNA and other megacorps will hurt BS badly.

The first step is a legwork "Into The Fire", to meet a secretive contact. At the end, the game chooses a syndicate contact to organize the plot. There are multiple possibilities for this contact; one possibility is Isla Flatline, a Que Milieu boss. The contact is concerned that a megacorp is behind the BS forces, and it would be bad for business if the megacorp became angry at Que Mileu.

They offer a legwork and a solo hack mission; you can do either one. The legwork is "Looming Shadows", the mission is "Shadow Seeker". At the end of the mission or legwork, the merc assures the contact that BS and UNA are acting on their own; no megacorp is involved.

The contact then gives the final mission, "Penthouse Con". This is a two stage skyrise mission. The first stage is a hardened target mission. As usual, try as hard as possible to keep the sec level low on this stage since the sec level carries over to the second stage. The second stage is a hack mission on the skyrise map. Look out for moving cameras and stun fields; the distance to the terminal may be high.

Once the hack is complete, the BS archives are released to the public. This will cause BS enough damage to prevent any further BS action in the wards. ("You can't stop the signal", iykyk)

"Echoes" after ending

After one side wins, there will be ongoing popups showing after-effects or "echoes" from the conflict. These appear to be organized into positive and negative results relative to the victor. For example, if BS won, then a positive effect will buff BS contacts, while a negative echo will debuff LZ contacts. Currently (May 2026) after 3-4 echoes of a type, there will be another popup saying "this is the end of the negative echoes", but after that negative echo popups will still occur. It is not clear if this is "forever" but it seems to go on for multiple in-game months.

Positive echoes include:

• Every (winning faction) contact gets +50% influence, resulting in many influence breaks
• One selected contact may gain the trait "generous" or "bellicose"
• One selected contact may gain the train Indebted
• One or more contacts may need to be rescued, and may grant Favors if successful

Negative echoes include:

• Every (losing faction) contact gets +60% exposure, resulting in many exposure breaks
• One selected named (losing faction) contact is killed, due to specific action by one (winning faction) named contact