Dominating infowar

To proof my argument about good hackers in Druze, I had a game against Bakunin today. The mission was firefight and we chose the hard classifieds, as green is for newbies... :D

I played the same list as against IA:

 Druze Bayram Security
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 7  / 1 
 HUNZAKUT (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
 DRUZE HMG, Chain-colt / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29)
 DRUZE (X Visor) Combi Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher (E/M and Nimbus) / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27)
 DRUZE Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Pitcher, D-Charges / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
 BRAWLER (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 28)
 BRAWLER Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16)
 BRAWLER Heavy Rocket Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 18)
 FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)

GROUP 21 
 HUNZAKUT (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
 SAITO TOGAN Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, EXP CCW, Knife. (0 | 39)
 KAMEEL Hacker (EVO Hacking Device) Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 25)
 KAMEEL (Minesweeper, Repeater) Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
 FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
 PATHFINDER DRONBOT Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16)
 BRAWLER Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Submachine Gun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 17)

 6 SWC | 300 Points
 

Open in Infinity Army

Everything needed to be done by Saito Togan and my core-link, hopefully leaving nothing to worry behind. Everything else just should hold as long as possible and leave opponents hitters in unfavourable situations. I was crying about direct combat lately, so this was the perfect time to show, what is possible here.

Bakunin showed up with a variety of what I already knew, so no big suprises here.

 Jurisdictional Command of Bakunin
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

9  / 1  / 1
 MODERATOR Combi Rifle + Pitcher / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 10)
 REVEREND CUSTODIER Hacker (Hacking Device Plus) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 33)
 REVEREND HEALER Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, EXP CCW. (0 | 33)
 KUSANAGI Lieutenant Spitfire / Pistol, Shock CCW. (2 | 43)
 TASKMASTER HMG / Heavy Pistol, DA CCW. (2 | 49)
 TASKMASTER Red Fury, Pulzar, CrazyKoalas + TinBot A (Deflector L1) / Heavy Pistol, DA CCW. (1 | 53)
 ZERO Boarding Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 17)
 ZERO Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 21)
 BRAN DO CASTRO Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 33)
 MORLOCK Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Assault Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 8)

 6 SWC | 300 Points
 

Open in Infinity Army

The table was set up quite dense with a few longer lines, but nothing to complain.

I lost the Lt-roll and could pick the deployment, while Bakunin went first. I took the south zone, where my sniper had a great spot and because the whole side was harder to approach.

Bakunin deployed Kusanagi and the two other Reverends centered on the left side of the building, with a camo-marker on the left panoply. Behind that building, a single Moderator hid. The Taskmasters went on the middle right, a Morlock on the far right and a second camo-marker on the right panoply.

My link was wrapped in the center, together with the HRL to take the place of the dying MSR. This guy took his prime-spota bit more left from the other link-members, supported by the Pathfinder. A camo went in front of them. I scattered my Fugazis and placed the Kameels hidden on the right side. The AHD was hidden on the far right behind the building and a second camo-marker went near the right panoply.

A third camo-marker infiltrated on the opposite side of the wall on my left, where I remembered this special-nomad-ape. I placed Saito in hidden deployment behind the middle left building, to support my MSR and catch Kusanagi, if she goes too aggressive.
Nomad-datatracker was the Reverend Healer, I nominated my AHD again.

Bakunin 1:
My REMs were overclocked. The infiltrated camo-marker jumped over the wall and gets discovered. Bran then tried to blast my Pathfinder and the MSR-Brawler, but got critted from my Pathfinder (he had a 60% chance of success here...). Plan b saw the Taskmasters advancing and the HMG getting stunned by my MSR (40% against 30% for me). So the better plan b got plan c. The left camo approached my MSR, got discovered somewhere and placed a mine between my MSR and HRL, then died. The Taskmasters changed action, advanced further and forced a shot from my MSR and my Fugazi. The MSR tried to kill the HMG unopposed, while the Fugazi should stun the redfury. Both happened as planned, but the MSR ate the mine and died (as planned). The last orders saw the Reverends advancing a bit, with the Custodier trying to provoke some AROs from the tower-staircase on the left.

Druze 1:
Kusanagi was advanced, so she needed to die now. Saito should show his martial arts here, but I needed some smoke for this first. As always, he failed the smoke-dodge against the Custodiers combirifle and went unconscious. My Hunzakut on the left set up a mine-trap for the link and placed a repeater next to him, too. My KHD then shut down the Custodier with a hacking attack and Kusanagi dodged the mine. Now I played not very clever by trying to spotlight Kusanagi with the AHD, to improve the chances of Hunzakuts shotgun. This failed everytime, so the Hunzakut tried it on his own and failed, too. He retreated a bit to set up more AROs on Kusanagi. I created a new core with my Lt-Brawler, the HRL and the three Druze, after one order was left for trying a speculative EM-grenade on the last Taskmaster.

Bakunin 2:
The Morlock tried to shoot my right Fugazi with his assaultpistol, but got stunned. The Healer got the Custodier back into life and Kusanagi shot down the Hunzakut, then approached the HRL and got critted by his rocket (63% against 6% for killing her). The remaining Taskmaster entered suppressive fire, which is used by my second Hunzakut to deploy a repeater with the Taskmaster and the HVT in ZoC, but also with the remaining camo-marker.

Druze 2:
I wanted to get my classifieds (HVT: Designation, Datascan), but noticed, that the Custodier could melt my AHD with the repeater nearby. So the KHD needed to shut him down first. This time, this was not successfull and the KHD got blasted by the Custodier and the Zero KHD on the right panoply. I needed to reform my link, since I couldn't get up Teampro with all the repeaters there and switch to direct action. The HMG started and put two wounds on the Taskmaster (16% for two wounds here). Now the second Hunzakut first shot down the Morlock, then blasted the Zero. We called it here, since the left Reverends could not take back all this losses. I would have been able to scan an unconscious Taskmaster and forward-observe the HVT twice with my remaining orders.

So I won 7-0, since I scored both classifieds, had more Lts killed and more army points. Both datatrackers were alive and wie tied on specialists.
Three things won me this game:
1. Critical hits. Knocking out Bran that fast, then killing Kusanagi in one shot...Without this, my aggressive potential would have been reduced a lot. Reviewing my last five games, most of the results were heavily influenced by critical hits, which brings my to the point, that this mechanism needs to be changed in order to keep things balanced. Normally, I said that this is part of the game, but this changed now. Reducing the impact a bit (not taking one wound directly, but have a success and getting a normal save without ARM or BTS), would keep things better in line and still keep criticals beneficial. At least, I have no real fun, if a game is changed only by the amount of critical hits.
2. Thought through deployment. I checked the zones first and checked the firelanes, so I knew, where my units had to go to shine. Then I could deploy my support-units around this to limit negative impacts by a successful alpha-strike. The sniper pinned Kusanagi, but was harder to access by other threats, so orders were drained and bad paths were forced. In addition to this, I could choose my paths for attack.
3. Most of my tool-boxes worked well and interacted great. I don't want to speak about Saito here... But the interaction of the AHD, the Hunzakuts, the KHD and the EM-launcher was so useful here, or could have been useful if needed. If I had played the spotlight-game against Kusanagi better, I would have placed an additional mine there, what would have screwed here totally. And my opponent always had to think about all this indirect threats.

But you need to be careful with your repeaters. In turn 2, I was pinned down by my own repeaters, since my network was opened to too many enemy hackers and for this situation, a WIP 13 KHD is no reliable solution (except for PanO). Play the hacking-game, but play it carefully!