The other party on the silk road

 Still a lot to do at the moment, but at least one game was squeezed in:

Aquisition vs. Bakunin. Since there were only two themes this week, I wanted to adress both of them in this game: Playing an discontinued sectorial with corona-flavor:

Qapu Khalqi
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GROUP 1 6 2 2
YUAN YUAN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 8)
YUAN YUAN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 8)
IGUANA HMG, Heavy Flamethrower / . (2 | 75)
IGUANA OPERATOR HMG / Pistol, Knife. ()
FANOUS REMOTE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
FANOUS REMOTE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
FANOUS REMOTE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
SHIHAB REMOTE HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)
LEILA SHARIF Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Shock Marksman Rifle, D-Charges / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 20)

GROUP 2 6 2 1
YUAN YUAN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 8)
WARCOR (Sixth Sense L1) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3)
KAMEEL Hacker (EVO Hacking Device) Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 25)
KAMEEL (Minesweeper, Repeater) Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
SHIHAB REMOTE HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)
NAJJARUN Engineer Rifle + Light Shotgun, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 17)
NASMAT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
NASMAT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
DJANBAZAN HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 35)
GHULAM Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)

6 SWC | 299 Points

Open in Infinity Army

The basic idea came up by AssaultUnicorns QK-thread in the official CB-forum, exploring the whole aggression-potential of QK and skipping the defensive Ghulam-link. Since there are mostly remote-units, it fits to the corona-team. Fanous' only get other kinds of viruses.
The idea is mostly to throw the Djanbazan and the Iguana onto whatever is in LoF and hope there is nothing left to shoot back. And when something sneaks around, a Fanous will be there to discover it for the next Shihab. I really want to exploit the smoke-trick here and use the utilities of the Iguana as that are two drawbacks in Druze: Tools to modify my odds in FtF-rolls and a simple good gunfighter for long ranges and short ranges. Scarface is not capable of dealing with a linked ML, while the Iguana has some better options there.

Jurisdictional Command of Bakunin
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10
REVEREND HEALER Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, EXP CCW. (0 | 32)
KUSANAGI Lieutenant MULTI Rifle + Light Flamethrower, E/M Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (+1 | 44)
REVEREND CUSTODIER Hacker (Assault Hacking Device UPGRADE: Icebreaker) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 30)
RIOT GRRL Combi Rifle, Blitzen, Stun Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 29)
RIOT GRRL Boarding Shotgun, Stun Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)
RIOT GRRL Spitfire / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 34)
RIOT GRRL Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 33)
ZERO (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 19)
ZERO Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
BRAN DO CASTRO Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 33)

5 SWC | 299 Points

Open in Infinity Army

The other side of the table saw mostly bad mooded girls with guns and some camoes. The Riots should shine where simple power is needed, while the Reverends should do the tricky stuff. Zeros to slow things down and soften my defense.
Since I only have two guys capable of dealing with Reverends and Riots, good plans were needed to wreck most of them without getting damaged too much.

It is quite new terrain and all the small scatter-stuff was deeply burried in other boxes, wo we only set up what was availabe, lacking some smaller cover. There is space for one or two more buildings to fill both DZs, but it felt quite interesting and not too shooty most of the game.

I won the Lt-roll and went first - bad for the mission, but the only chance to access the major threads with full force. I got the south, quite open DZ.

My left side was barely covered, only by my Warcor and a Fanous, while I centered most of my force with a nice view. Lt, both Shihabs and a Nasmat on the rooftop, two Fanous and a second Nasmat around that building. Kameels, the engineer and Leyla on the right. Iguana hid on the right, too.

Not only the Reverend-link went on the right, even the Riots took the right side, while three camo-markers were set up on the left. The Reverends were quite advanced.

This should be exploited by my Djanbazan, deployed advanced on the far right. As expected, a camo-marker infiltrated next to him. My datatracker was the engineer, Bakunin nominated a Riot.

QK 1: With two orders missing from group one, my Yuans rained down. The first entered on the right and was shot by Brando, as planned. The second landed out of LoS to Brando to set up smoke and the third landed in the center to back things up. Brando needed to go, so Leyla gave it a try but failed (bad idea at all). The right Yuan smoked out Brando, then shuffled around the corridor between the two buildings on the right, setting up as much smoke as needed. The Djanbazan shoots down the Healer, then oversaw LoF to the Custodier and had to deal with Kusanagi and the Custodier. A crit from the Custodier and a arm-save of Kusanagi ended my best attempt of winning the game. The centered Yuan in group two used some orders to shift on the right, smoke out the Djanbazan and threaten Brando. The Djanbazan regenerated to death.

Bakunin 1: The central Zero starts and shoots down the first Shihab, then the ML-Riot blasts the second one together with the Nasmat on the roof. The Riots advanced a bit, killing the left over Yuans, Kusanagi entered suppressive fire and Brando finished Leila.

QK 2: The Iguana was shifted in group two, because he was the only one knowing how to handle a gun here. Some orders later, he was quite advanced in the center, but had killed the Zero, two Riots and Brando. I pushed forward the centered Fanous' to have them at place for the mission and to guard the Iguana a bit more.

Bakunin 2: This turn was a gift for me: The Custodier advanced and tried to hack my Iguana - without success. A critical reset and support of my EVO saved things here.

QK 3: If the Iguana would be able to take a turn left and kill some stuff, I could clear the left antenna and secure the tech-coffin without leaving ressources to get rid of my Iguana then. The Iguana got gotcha'd while leaving ZoC of the Custodier, what was repaired by my Engineer. Heading forward, I baited out the last Zero, but couldn't kill it. With the last order for my Iguana, I entered basecontact with the tech-coffin and flaming the Custodier. This resulted in a possessed Iguana and a living Custodier. One Fanous stunned the Zero and entered basecntact with the left antenna.

Bakunin 3:
The Iguana shoots down my Fanous.

I lost 0 to 5 with some bad luck and some not so well planned actions. My smoke in turn one was set up inefficient and if I would have checked for the Custodier, all Reverends could have been killed easily by the Djanbazan. That would have left enough space for the Iguana to slay the Riots in the next turn. What made it quite difficult in the end was the lack of guns. I know this from Druze, but there is at least a Pathfinder somewhere and not only Fugazis and Warcors...If you are limited to flashlights in your ARO, you experience the importance of deadly bullets. Speaking of deadly bullets: The Iguana is great! He has everything I wish for (big guns, good stats, flamethrower,...) for 75 points. Compared to Scarface and the possible roles on the battlefield, the Iguana is so much more usefull and reliable. I needed him to deal with the ML-Riot. Something Scarface can't do, at least without smoke-support.
My feeling says, that again my drawbacks in Druze could be confirmed. With smoke and MSV 2 on a HMG many problems can be solved with the only problem of setting up smoke well. A real TAG as sturdy gunfighter to simply solve your problems makes plans more reliable and easy to set up, too. In Druze, everything needs to be thought through and well executed. There is nothing failsave.