Joining the wrong neighborhood [DBS vs. CA]

Even if it went very quite here, I have not quit playing Infinity. Nevertheless, we joined some other systems (Dystopian Wars, Dropfleet Commander, Zona Alfa and even some W40k) and get back to some more relaxed Infinity. So there was not that much to report over the past 365 days.
But since I am back to some more competitive play and also back to DBS and QK, there again is something to report and share - And of course I need some training for this years online-campaign!

For this game, I left my local meta and joined the community of Bremen, now that travelling by train is temporarely cheap as hell. The mission was Acquisition and I knew he is playing CA, so I was planning for Avatar, Sphinx, Taighas and Speculos. First I planned on playing QK, but the available tools to face the given challenges did not convinced me, so I switched to something different.

List DBS:

Druze Bremen
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1  3  / 1  / 1
 YUAN YUAN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 8)
 SAITO TOGAN (Specialist Operative) Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, EXP CC Weapon. (0 | 37)
 FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 7)
 KAMEEL  (Hacker, EVO Hacking Device)  ( ) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0.5 | 15)

GROUP 22
 BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 12)
 PEACEMAKER Spitfire / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 26)
   AUXBOT_3 Heavy Flamethrower / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 4)
 SCARFACE Loadout Gamma & CORDELIA TURNER undefined / undefined. (1.5 | 81)
   SCARFACE Loadout Gamma AP Spitfire(+1B), Panzerfaust / DA CC Weapon. (1.5 | 64)
   SCARFACE Boarding Shotgun, Grenades / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (- | 0)
   CORDELIA TURNER Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, D-Charges / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 17)
 FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 7)
 DIGGER Chain Rifle(+1B), Grenades / Pistol, AP CC Weapon(+1B). (0 | 14)
 DIGGER Chain Rifle(+1B), Grenades / Pistol, AP CC Weapon(+1B). (0 | 14)
 BRAWLER (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper Rifle ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 27)
 DRUZE (Lieutenant) Combi Rifle, Chain-colt / Viral Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 24)
 DRUZE (Hacker, Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Pitcher, D-Charges ( ) / Viral Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 28)

 4.5 SWC | 300 Points
Open in Infinity Army

I did not follow all the changes to DBS in the past , to be honest, but with some toying around with Beasthunters in QK, I fianlly got into the TAG-Raid profiles and the changes they brought to DBS. Diggers are all we wished for and Yuan Yuans are now a thing here, which is a great buff, too.
Full defensive core-teams are not really a thing at the moment, as I believe, but in this match-up, the Brawler MSR is one of my only tools to engage the Avatar or Sphinx. The fillers are just some ressources and anti-hacking put somewhere safe, protected by the Diggers. Scarface should do the heavy work by just throwing around some dice and hopefully stick around long enough. To have something like a roadblock, I included the Peacemaker. Hoping for some reduced capacity on the order pool, the Yuan Yuan should be the tool to take out cheerleaders, while Saito Togan should pop up at the objective in turn three, or should shredd something valuable crossing is hideout.

List CA:

 
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 / 5  / 5
 GAKI AP CC Weapon. (0 | 4)
 GAKI AP CC Weapon. (0 | 4)
 GAKI AP CC Weapon. (0 | 4)
 GAKI AP CC Weapon. (0 | 4)
 GAKI AP CC Weapon. (0 | 4)

GROUP 21
 ÍMETRON . (0 | 4)
 ÍMETRON . (0 | 4)
 SHROUDED (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 23)
 Q-DRONE Heavy Machine Gun / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 25)
 DĀTURAZI Chain Rifle(+1B), Grenades, Smoke Grenades / Heavy Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 14)
 CALIBAN (Engineer, Deactivator) Submachine Gun, Pulzar, D-Charges ( | GizmoKit) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 28)
 Bit (Hacker], Killer Hacking Device [UPGRADE: Oblivion]) Submachine Gun, Pitcher ( | Deployable Repeater]) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 21)
   KISS! Adhesive Launcher, Pitcher(+1B) ( | Deployable Repeater) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 6)
 ZABUK Submachine Gun, Adhesive Launcher(+1B), Flash Pulse / Heavy Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-9). (0 | 15)
 AVATAR (Lieutenant [+1 Order, +1 Command Token]) MULTI Heavy Machine Gun, Sepsitor Plus / DA CC Weapon. (2.5 | 118)
   STALDRON Flash Pulse / CC Weapon. (0 | 0)
 SHROUDED (Hacker, Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Shock Mines ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 27)

 5 SWC | 299 Points
Open in Infinity Army

My opponent is a big fan of Ghakis, so they in addition to the Avatar - to distract from the Ghakis as the real thread - are the main thing of the list. Everything else besides the Q-drone are cheap and useful units to score points or backing up the Avatar, once the Ghakis are gone. On the one hand I was happy to finally face an Avatar, since he is really scarce in my meta, on the other hand, how happy can you be to face such thing?

The map:

We played from left to right. The map is defined by a higher, but very usable central formation and one bigger elevated platform in each DZ. I am not that used to suchcomplex scenery, where some odd firelanes can appear, but using different height-levels of a map is also out of my comfort-zone, so it was a nice challenge. There was one defining firelane in the north to the right DZ, while the south part was more difficult to oversee, but has the better ARO-spots for both sides.

I lost the Lt-roll and my opponent decided to go first. A little relief for me regarding the mission, but a clear sign that I would have to deploy properly to have something alive for my own turn. The right side seemed to be better to defend and with easier access to the antennas, so I deployed there second.

The Ghakis are scattered over the whole zone, ready to engange. The right side sees the Daturazi, Bit & Kiss are deployed in the center, while the Zabuk sits in the left corner, accompanied by one Imetron. The second one falls a bit off, but hidden behind some stones. Four camo-markers secure the center-line.
To get Scarface out of LoF, he needs to be deployed on my left flank behind the stones with the core-team on top of them. To not clump everything behind the rocks on the plateu, they are spread a bit on and behind the bridge. One Fugazi on the left, one on the right side. Behind the shallow building on the right, the EVO Kameel and the ABH wait for their time to shine. The ABH gets a panzerfaust, the Diggers an ODD and an ADHL. Saito starts next to the right antenna, since I expect the Avatar to come that way.
A Q-drone joins on the left, vice versa to my Brawler MSR and the Avatar takes the estimated place on the right. My Peacemaker is deployed on the far right, too.

CA 1: Slightly useless, but from here I need to hope - I take two orders away from the Avatars group. The Ghakis approach, the left one gets stunned and on the right one dies to the Peacemaker. The remaining ones wreck the Peacemaker, then it is time for the Avatar. First the Fugazi is shot, then it becomes clear that my deployment sucked, as the TAG gets LoF to the KHD, the Digger AND my Lt. Only the Digger survives what comes next, but the link is broken and I will start in LoL. Unfortunately, my opponent decides to switch to the center, not crossing Saitos path, to shoot down the Brawler. On the central structure, he enters suppressive fire.

DBS 1: With strict calculated command tokens, there is not that much to do for me here. The Yuan Yuan waits for the controlled jump, drops next to the Zabuk and Imetron and destroys the Imetron with his fancy light flamethrower while the Zabuk dodges. On my right flank, the ABH fails to do any damage on the Ghakis, so Cordelia and Scarface change positions for a better defense, then enter suppressive fire. A grenade thrown by the left Digger fails to get rid of the left Ghaki.

CA 2: On the right, a Caliban approaches and activates the antenna. The same is done by Bit & Kiss on the left, but also some repeaters are thrown in front of Scarface without further consequences, after the Ghaki there jumped into death. Meanwhile the Ghakis first eat the ABH, then berserk the EVO to death, which in return tasers both of them.

DBS 2: The only option available now is to keep enough ressources alive for the third turn, on which I plan to steal one antenna, clear it and take the tech-coffin. So Cordelia tries to minimize the coming risk for Scarface, but takes too many attempts to clear out all repeaters. With the remaining orders, Scarface can land to wounds on the Avatar. It decides to stay in suppressive fire, but I manage to engage it in 25".

CA 3: A Shrouded minelayer places some mines next to the Avatar, while the remaining Ghakis tear apart one of my diggers. The Daturazi secures the tech coffin, while the Caliban in camo-state sits next to the right antenna, Bit on the left.

DBS 3: The way the orders are distributed now won't allow me to clear the right antenna and control the coffin. Also the classified (follow up) does not fit into the current agenda. Saito is switched to the main-group and starts gambling with the antenna and the Caliban. I get a free chance to activate it, fail and then have to deal with both things in the last order. The decision is to activate the antenna and risking a free kill, which is what I get. While I would have been able to get 3 OP in total, killing the Caliban in CC would have gained me 1 and 2 for my opponent. With this case, I took 2 OP away from my opponent, potentially 3 if Saito would have survived.

The game ends with a 6-2 for CA. Even without my silly deployment, it would have taken only few orders more for my opponent to gun my down completely. An active use of the Avatar in the following turns would have put the last nails into the coffin. But even without that, the CC-abilities of the Ghakis combined with my thinned (and weak from the beginning) defense were enough to keep me away from threatening the scenario. In that way, the original plan of my opponent, distracting myself with the Avatar while the Ghakis do the job, turned out to be solid.
After this game, I probably will build the list differently and pay more attention to the midfield, also by including one or two more irregular troops. Also it would be a good idea to read the opposing profiles carefully. I thought the Avatar to have at least a nanopulsar or any kind of DTW of major importance, but that is not directly the case. So dropping the Yuan Yuan next to him and make him blind would have been an option. In general the changes to DBS added all the solutions to those kind of difficult situations, but they need to be figured out properly, which will be an interesting task for the future.