Pandemic Protocol 2: Round 1 (QK vs. CA)

After all the european events, it was time to get a bit back to the locals. So I started orgaizing the 2. Pandemic Protocol. With 16 players from Germany, we started right after ITS 12 was released, all happy to have new tournament-rules and all sectorials available. For that reason, I listed myself in the crowd with Qapu Khalqi and their new wildcard-links.

The first round of the tournament was Capture & Protect and I had the 'luck' to play against the number three of the last ITS season, WorstC4se. Instead of his beloved Nomads, he is playing vanilla CA in this event. I have to admit that some of his battlereports, focussing on odds and decision making, really influenced my way of playing and may have inspired me to write my own battlereports. So I was really curious how this may turn out!

I wrote that list before I knew about my opponent and only made slight changes. The plan was to get the beacon secured with one Yuan Yuan, while the other one secures the path for him. Everything else should be distraction and defense. The double MSV-sniper in the core-team covers a lot of space and is able to damage a lot of things. In addition to this, two snipers allow me to have one on the ground and start moving to pick juicy targets actively. The Sekban is included to use the NCO. It was an advice of AssaultUnicorn here, who is a real fan of them in a core-link, so I gave it a try.
While the Hawwa FO should be a back-up for the Yuan Yuans, the two snipers should cause some headache on my weaker ARO-spots. One should team up with the Fanous, while the other one should have a look at the Azrail. The Azrail itself only was there to move up a bit and enter suppressive fire in cover, being as hard to remove as possible. With Rahman there, everything should be revived as often as possible.
As slight change towards CA as opponent, the Bashi was included. One Speculo would be there for sure and if I get the chance, the Bashi is a good tool to simply pin it down. For the case that it is clear that there won't be a Speculo, he can stay in reserve and maybe pick the beacon. Who would really rely on a Yuan Yuan?

Everyone would have expected the typical Avatar-list, but WorstC4se deployed the opposite: One hidden Sphinx to steal the beacon and a bunch of annoying terror-pieces to stop my attempt and secure the retreat of the Sphinx. Daturazis are a good secondary option to recover the beacon or to close narrow corners. The Haiduk may be included due to the map, which was quite dense, so that long-range AROs are not super efficient. Flash-bots are always a good thing to add some more cover to this. Since most of the important units have Terrain (Total), the Dazer of the Shrouded paid twice. On the one hand, my attack-potential was limited and on the other hand everything else gets faster by moving through the difficult terrain. Sounded like a good plan!

For this game, I chose a recent map from the White Noise-collection, made by Cabaray (thank you again for this, man!). It used the new Micro Arts terrain and had a lot of narrow and not so long corridors. Two longer firelanes were there - one on the right from one DZ to the other and one in the north half from the center to the right side. We agreed to not deploy on the rooftops with the solar panels.

I loose the Lt-roll and deploy first in the south. To not have to run my Yuan through things that advanced into the midfield, I chose to go first. My decompression zones go in front of the enemy-DZ to make the advance a bit more difficult, but leaving enough gaps for my Yuan Yuans to get the beacon out. This is done a bit too obvious, so the planned path is closed by an opposing zone. The last one blocks my major exit of the DZ.

My core-team starts on the right around the long street. Fanous and Hawwa overwatch the right edge, while the EVO hides in the back. The center is overwatched by Rahman and his flash pulse. I saw the left side to be better suitable for the Azrail in suppressive fire, so he and his Hawwa-buddy take the far left. My FO-Hawwa also takes the left but more centered to catch things in the close corners.

The beacon is overwatched by the Haiduk, both R-drones and two Daturazis. The Nexus hides behind them. Bit hides on a rooftop on the left, together with the sensor-drone, while Kiss is down in the streets. A third Daturazi securs the far left side and the right is quite uncovered. All camo-markers start in the center, so that the Dazer coveres the central left.

Since there is no Speculo deployed yet, I choose to not deploy my Bashi Bazouk. A Speculo is deployed in front of my core-team on the first storage of the building.

QK 1: I loose two orders in my first group and skip my impetous phase. The defense around the beacon is lined up quite nice, so I try to wipe them out with my Yuan Yuan. Controlled jump activated, Yuan 1 lands in the enemy-DZ with an HMG. Using some smoke, he places a template over Haiduk, both R-drones and the Daturazi, only to be engaged by the Haiduk and the Daturazi and everyone dodging the shot. This takes the whole first group. On the left, Azrail advances and enters suppressive fire, while the Bashi Bazouk enters the field in my DZ and advances towards the Speculo, blocking the ladder he would have to take to engage my link.

CA 1: The sensor-bot crawls into the center on the walkways and discovers my Hawwa FO. Since the hacking-thread is non existent now, the Spinx appears, burning him down and grabbing my beacon under smoke from the Speculo. Meanwhile the Daturazi shredds my Yuan Yuan. On her way back, the Sphinx engages my Hawwa and Azrail. One heavy pistol-crit causes two wounds on the TAG, while Azrail also takes a wound in the process. Under heavy fire, the Sphinx manages to retreat into a safe corner of the CA DZ.

QK 2: Since controlled jump is still active, the second Yuan Yuan and his motorcycle jump in the back of the Sphinx and dropping it in melee. To avoid any camo-engineering, the TAG gets coup-de-graced, but then the Yuan Yuan is a bit overstrained and gets stunned on the way towards the beacon. In my DZ the Bashi finally pins down the Speculo, while my core-team advances into the center, gunning down one R-drone. The HRL uses the corpse as a target, but the Daturazi and Haiduk again manage to dodge the template. Azrail re-enters suppressive fire and the right Hawwa sniper advances on the rooftops to pin Bit down, if she tries to get the beacon.

CA 2: First a Liberto tries to engage my link and Azrail but dies in the progress. Of course the light shotgun manages to knock the Azrail out. Then the Shrouded followed his path but is gunned down by my link, followed by one Daturazi. This guy manages to take out one sniper and the normal Hafza before he dies. A smoke template covers Bit, who climbs down the building, but the beacon is taken by the far left Daturazi after killing the Yuan Yuan.

QK 3: I have no option to get to the beacon, so it is simply about denial now. The remainings of my link advance towards the left. A pointless shootout between my sniper and Kiss, followed by an R-drone, let my sniper advance unharmed on the far left side, so that he can gun down the Daturazi. Rahman uses his Nasmat to revive the Azrail, scoring Experimental Drug.

CA 3: The last Daturazi covers the center in smoke, so that Bit can easily grab the beacon.

With this, I loose 1-9. After my 'alpha-strike' failed completely, my pointless deployment closed the coffin. The Azrail did more than everyone would expect to stop the Sphinx, but in that moment things were already lost. WorstC4ses' plan was too good here. I failed to access my DZ right here and went with my snipers in the long but uninteresting firelane. If I would have placed them more on the left and maybe switched the Azrail to the right, I would have gained more flexibility and a better defense of my beacon. On the other hand that would have simply had a switched focus of the opposing attack...

Nevertheless I am quite satisfied with this list and QK in general. The added Sekban in the core-link increased the order-efficiency singnificantly. It may be not necessary in a purely defensive link, but once you want to use it more aggressively, you are happy to have this added order. To invest into a more expensive core-team of Djanbazans also was a good idea. Not only that two MSV 2-snipers are always great, but also the high arm and the regeneration on PH 13 makes decisions more easy. The mos present thread to such links are DTWs, but in this case this can't be a problem. If they get one wound, they simply stand up again on their own or are revivied by Rahman, so you can always shoot and kill the stuff attacking you.
This also was my second game with two Hawwa snipers, teamed with an other ARO-piece. If you manage to team them with something else, the sniper rifles becoma a real thread and gain good value in your advance, even with BS 11. But you have to place them in a way, that they see the opponents attackpieces in a spot they don't want to be seen by one additional unit. Unfortunately, this takes most of your space in the list, if you already have a full core-team and two Yuan Yuans. Maybe one here is enough then. That maybe would have allowed me to invest in a better offence in form of a Kaplan spitfire or maybe a cheap haris around a Sekban spitfire. This will be tested in the future.