Most ground commanders had a command vehicle, and a staff.

Vivisector, at the moment, had a helmet and a bit of empty room. This was not untypical, actually; aside from the use of the occasional Distant Thunder as a riduclously oversized APC, many Aotrs commanders simply didn't need one. Vivisector had a portable holo-projector, an uplink to the Aotrs battlemanagement software and several centuries of experience.

The battlecrabs would pass under the shield. Orbital shields by their nature, did not interact terribly well with the ground unless in carefully prepared positions, but their main job was really just to stop any passing starship from trivially murdering ground forces with weapons as trivial as point-defence weapons, let alone anything else, since they simply didn't MISS.

Terrain, as always, thus determined the shape of a ground battle more than technology.

Vivisector deployed his forces to cover the approach to the ruins.

The Hammers of Hatred and Stormcleavers, being physically hardest to hide behind cover due to their height, formed the backstop. In the absense of dedicated missile vehicles, the platoon of three Storm Cleavers would be fulfilling that role as best they could with the dozen SU-5G Skulls they had between them. 

The Hammers of Hatred positioned ready to roll-up to hull-down positions to hit any battlecrabs that came into thei interlocking lines of sight, and the armour company's company commander Revenant Spear was set near the Storm Cleavers out of the way.

The two platoons of three Revenant Spears were at the front, behind preparted hull-down locations as well, but their conventional height meant these positions could be on the leading ridgeline, where they would have a good line of fire.

The War Droids were going to be taking the brunt of the fighting, from the two companies (one more biased to infantry droids than armour droids). Two companies worth in this case meant a total of two platoons of Mk 1 Enragers, positioned in the dense wooded zone to the left flank, supported by a squad of size Hunter Drones to track the battlecrabs. It also meant a dozen Enragers Mk 2s in four platoons of three. These were positioned where the could move out and attack, using their superior ability to maneouvre in the broken terrain, again in an interlocking web.

The Mk2s would start the engagement once the battlecrabs got within sight of their coldbeam gaze beams. The Revenant Spears would then roll-up to hull-down and fire, and when they began to take damage or the crabs got too close, they would roll back down behind the ridge and re-deploy along the paths Vivisector had pre-planned to their back-up hull-down positions, near the Hammers of Hatred and the Storm Cleavers.

The battlecrabs didn't immediately seem to be coming with infantry support. Which was, if so, was a potentially a fatal mistake. Even with sensors, infantry in prepared positions were notoriously difficult to spot; which was why the platoon of Line infantry was carefully positioned on the reverse slopes past the first six Enragers. If the battlecrabs got that far, they would have the unpleasant surprise of being shot in the back by the Aotrs.

However, War Droids were less adept in this situation. Two War Droid companies between them gave Vivisctor eight sqauds of six War Droids and another two squads of six Hunter Drones; one in reserve, one positioned on the right flank to likewise watch and scan. The foot War Droids wouldn't likely be very useful in this engagement. Their short-range weapons were quite powerful, and a possible threat to poorly-armoured tanks if in the rear or behind, but how much effect they'd have on the battlecrabs was debatably even under those conditions. Nevertheless, they might make for some cannon fodder and they were fundementally a disposble assest, to Vivisector had dispersed them through the frontage. If infantry showed up, they would perform their usual job of pinning them down (either by making the enemy take fire or stop to destroy the War Droids) and then Vivisector would play it by ear if he had to.

Killstorm was, to her annoyance, NOT part of the battleplan. She was simply too important to risk, and her mana was better conserved for ensuring they could get out.

The plan was, ultimately, disable and repulse more than destroy. Vivisector only needed to buy time and he was on the defensive, which meant the enemy would have to at least SOME time trying to work out where his forces were. For all that sensors abounded, the ground battlefield was still dominated by lines-of-sight.

Now all he could do was wait until the battlecrabs got into that line of sight - and hope they would take them out.