N4 Escalation League Part 1

With the release of N4, our local group started a small Escalation League with four participants and three rounds. For the three games, we gathered a force of Bakunin, one Shasvasti-team, our newbie with Winter Force and myself with Starmada, mostly to get in touch with the new sectorial and to avoid douple Winter Force, 

The following rounds were played:

• 100 points: Fontline
• 200 points: Hunting Party
• 300 points: Highly Classified

To create a little narrative frame, our Shasvasti-player wrote a short story, deriving from the Asteroid Blues-campaign:

Now that Novvy Bankok cooled down a little bit but a lot of troops are still deployed in Human Edge, the more unexplored asteroids around there get some attention from different powers. Covered by a more or less fictional Shasvasti-infiltration on one of this asteroids, a small O-12 party started the exploration, followed by panoceanian and nomad-ships. While those powers directly started fighting about their landing points, Bureau Aegis was more than surprised to really find some Shasvasti there and send out some Varangians. (brief description)

Round 1: Frontline

I really dislike those small games, since they are quite swingy and can be broken easily by some units or sectorials. We restricted ourself to not take any link-teams here. The first attempts for a nice list came down to a FO-bot and an EVO to boost it and simply gun things down on my way. The problem of hacking, the short rangebands and too obvious Lt-options in the end lead to a different list, even with a quite reduced order pool.

Since the mission is a little about killing stuff, I wanted to use the good old smoke-trick to extend, so the Epsilon and two Varangians were there, supported by a redfury Bluecoat as backup gun and toolbox with all the skills on him. Cho should be disguised as something nasty, since I was sure that my opponents won't see the problem of a missing Lt in my list.  

I had no clue what to expect from Shasvasti on 100 points, but four camo markers and two Nox were a quite good riddle. For Frontline, the Shrouded should make a good defense for the zones, while the Mentor can use his mimetism to shoot every target without bigger problems. Swanson with her FD saves valuable ressources in this small game.

We had to improvise a bit on terrain this time, since the papercraft terrain is quite flexible but in the end is a bit too flexible if you take some floor-tiles with it. I loose the Lt roll and deploy second in the south to utilize the bottle-necks around the center with my Varangians.

Two camo markers go on each side of the deployment, while the two Nox sit somewhere back.

Cho, disguised as something uninteresting, and the Kytta take the left side, while the Varangians take the right side together with the Bluecoat.

Aida appears on the central left and I place the Epsilon in the center, too, to utilize the smoke in the close quarters.

Shas 1: Swanson advances a bit, placing a mine behind the central building. Everything except for one Nox advances and Swanson enters suppressive fire with the advanced Nox.

Starmada 1: The Varangians advance in the center and set up smoke. My Epsilon discovers a Shrouded and forces him into total cover, then fails to discover the next marker. Everything advances a bit and the Epsilon, as well as one Varangian enter suppressive fire.

 

Shas 2: The Shrouded places a mine next to the other Varangian. While everything else advances further, the Mentor takes down the Epsilon.

Starmada 2: The Varangian without the mine rushes through the Shasvasti markers, forgetting about the mine and the Shrouded and goes dogged. That boosts is concentration, enabling him to kill the Mentor in CC, dodging the viral mine and critting Swanson with his SMG before collapsing.

Shas 3: Whatever able to advance advances.

Starmada 3: Everything left advances after clearing the last mine. The Bluecoat shoots down one Nox.

While I win 5-1, our newbie crushes Bakunin with a 10-0 victory, taking the lead in the league.

For now I am quite satisfied and a bit surprised by the capabilities of the Varangian Guard, while I also doubt the Epsilon as an auto-include. The smoke here is more a tool to get the Ariadnan guys to their destination or to cover the approach of my other units. But in the end, such small games only give a distorted view of the game.