Round three Quadrantenterror

Last week only the regular game for the current tournament was scheduled. It went against vanilla CA, piloted by a nice opponent I already knew from our regional tournaments. The mission was 'Overload', a custum mission mixing Highly Classified and The Grid to some extend. You really have to work for your OPs here.

REMtasy
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GROUP 1 8
PEACEMAKER Spitfire + AUXBOT_3 / Electric Pulse. (1 | 27)
AUXBOT_3 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (- | 4)
PATHFINDER DRONBOT Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16)
PATHFINDER DRONBOT Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16)
VALERYA GROMOZ Hacker (Hacking Device UPGRADE: Expel) Combi Rifle + Pitcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 21)
SCARFACE & CORDELIA TURNER . (1.5 | 78)
SCARFACE 2 Mk12, Heavy Rocket Launcher / AP CCW. (1.5 | 61)
SCARFACE Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CCW. ()
CORDELIA TURNER Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 17)
NASMAT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
NASMAT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
DRUZE Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Pitcher, D-Charges / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)

GROUP 2 6
SIERRA DRONBOT HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)
PATHFINDER DRONBOT Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16)
FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
BRAWLER Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16)
BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
KAMEEL Hacker (EVO Hacking Device) Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 25)

4.5 SWC | 299 Points

Open in Infinity Army

There is a exclusion zone, so I want to rely on fast units rather then on infiltrators in bad places. My Pathfinders should give me the needed speed to activate the consoles, while Scarface should open the path for Valeria then to score the needed classifieds. Except for the Peacemaker, everything else is more or less dedicated to keep them alive. The Peacemaker should be used to get rid of single targets in bad places.

Combined Army
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10 2
ANATHEMATIC Hacker (EI Hacking Device) Plasma Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0.5 | 88)
CHARONTID Lieutenant (Multispectral Visor L3) HMG, Nanopulser / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (2 | 79)
Bit Hacker (UPGRADE: Expel) Submachine Gun + Pitcher, Deployable Repeater + KISS! / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 19)
KISS! Adhesive Launcher / Electric Pulse. (- | 4)
Q-DRONE Plasma Rifle / Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)
ÍMETRON . (0 | 4)
KRAKOT RENEGADE 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 14)
MED-TECH OBSIDON MEDCHANOID Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23)
IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)
SHROUDED Boarding Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23)
DĀTURAZI Chain Rifle, Grenades, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 14)

4 SWC | 298 Points

Open in Infinity Army

With vanilla CA I feared something like Sheskin or a TAG, but we discussed before, that he was playing a not so well prepared LI-list without such nasty things. That made calculations quite easy, eventhough I was not aware of the Charontid and was wondering where all the other points may be gone into. Of course, those two hard-hitters should do most of the work with the Anathematics as beta-piece, while Krakot and Daturazi should cause trouble in the midfield. With Anathematics in hidden deployment and one camo-troop on the table, you may expect a lot of different things, opening the place for some mindgames.

Everything of this table was well known now, except for the fact that there are no places to hide a TAG properly. But I forgot about this by picking the south DZ after loosing the Lt-roll. The south DZ seemed better to defend and harder to access. My support units could be hidden easily in the backfield, while there were forwarded positions for all of my REMs. Only Scarface had some trouble.

CA went first and deployed first. The Daturazi and the Ikadron took the right side, while a camo marker, the Imetron and Dr. Worm got the center of the DZ. Q-drone, Bit and Kiss had the left with the Q-drone in a suboptimal position. The Krakot was placed in front of them there and something went in hidden deployment (could have been anything at this stage).

Scarface started as well hidden as possible on the left side of the salt-factory, Valeria a bit more advanced. One Fugazi and one Pathfinder supported them, while everything else went on the right to avoid the Q-drone. I deployed the Peacemaker behind the right silo, a Fugazi and a Pathfinder behind the vehicle and the support-stuff hidden behind the walls. The Druze KHD as potential scorer is placed in the center.

As expected, a MSV-unit was deployed on the right in shape of a Charontid HMG, while I delpoyed my Sierra on the left to cover that firelane and have an eye over the center. The Krakot was the CA-scout, I nominated Valeria.

CA 1: My REMs get overclock. The Daturazi sets up smoke and the Charontid shoots down the right Fugazi. The Sierra follows after doing one wound on him. Bit advances and activates the far left console (Test run), shoots a repeater between my two hackers and fails to hack one of them. The Charontid retreats a bit.

Druze 1: The Peacemaker shoots down the pitcher and Scarface blasts the exposed Krakot away. Now the Pathfinder on the left activates the near left console, while one Pathfinder on the right gets assisted fire and shoots down the Charontid and activates the mid right console (In Extremis Recovery). I shoot Kiss unconscious and overclock my REMs.

CA 2: The Daturazi sets up some smoke on the right and Dr. Worm, Ikadron, camo and Q-drone advance a bit. The camo tries to shoot my Pathfinder but gets critted. The Anathematics appears and shoots him unc L2, then scores IER on him after flipping the mid right console. Then he recamoes.

Druze 2: The Pathfinder on the left flips the mid console (HVT Designation), while the Peacemaker takes one wound from Anathematics and has to deal with the Q-drone now. He shoots the Q-drone unconscious and I make the big mistake of trying to shoot Anathematics now instead of wrecking the Q-drone with Dr. Worm next to it. In the course the Peacemaker is wrecked one time but gets repaired. Overclock on my REMs.

CA 3: Dr. Worm recovers the Q-drone, scoring Test run, while Anathematics activates the far right console (Follow up), scoring the classified on my HVT nearby. Dr. Worm, Anathematics and Bit entering suppressive fire.

Druze 3: I am back in everything for the moment, so I need to flip more consoles and everyone in the center to get a tie. No hope here to get more classifieds done this turn. To do this, I need to chew trhough a lot of AROs in the center, costing many orders. Scarface takes the first run, using the Daturazi standing next to Anathematics as target for the HRL. It took some tries before the Anathematics is burned, but the Daturazi is still alive. My Pathfinders manage to grab three consoles, while Scarface and Valeria advance in the midfield. Scarface clears out the Ikadron and the Daturazi is shot by the right Pathfinder. That is all I can do with my orders.

In the end it is a 6-3 loss for me. The classifieds give more points than more consoles in this case. 70 points survived on CA-side, while I have 274 points remaining. This may show quite clear, that I forgot to play the mission here, what may be true to some extend. But with two really strong units on the field, capable of killing my orders and flipping back my efforts, I saw no other chance than killing them first and score the classifieds later. The big mistake here was to keep the Q-drone unconscious while having an order left to change this. Not only it was an easy job now to score Test run, but also the Q-drone was covering the whole center again as a really nasty ARO-piece. Maybe a console in the center would have given me a better classified, instead of flipping empty consoles. My first doubts about the chosen list and the list at all when it gets against CA got proven wrong, as my defense is not deadly but strong and the Pathfinders are that much flexible, that there is no task to big, if the range is good. That is the only problem here: If I have no chance to get close, I need to trust in 3STR of Scarface to remove the thread and open the path. Here an exclusion zone limits the flexibility of the Peacemaker a lot in most cases, so that I can't reach snipers in good ranges in most cases.

Regarding the announced analysis and theoretical write-ups, they are still in progress. Currently I am reading through all the reports, trying to note the most important points for victory or defeat, just to point out the strength and weakness of Druze. From that point I want to build some strategical writings to overcome the problems and use the strong points better.