Caving In (WinterFor vs. Bakunin)

While there were many things to do, it took some time to get a new game in. So close before N4 will drop, we planned to play some more irregular stuff. For this, AssaultUnicorn from the CB-forum has created two custom missions for the moment. To help a bit with playtesting here, we chose "Cave in", as it seemed quite funny to deal with Taigha Creatures emerging from everywhere. But before we go into the game, I have to admit, that the concept was a bit more complicated than a normal ITS-mission, so some things were played wrong and not read carefully.

Here is the mission-description:

 

My opponent for this was my local sparring partner. I expected some Aleph-stuff here, but since the mission requires a quite unique set-up, that did not matter that much:

 Cave in
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

10  
 VARG (Minelayer) K1 Marksman Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 30)
 VARG (Sensor) Combi Rifle, Heavy Flamethrower, WildParrot / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 26)
 ORC (Mountain Terrain, Climbing Plus) MULTI Rifle + 1 TinBot A (Deflector L1) / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 44)
 MAQUINISTA (WinterFor) (CH: Mimetism, Multiterrain) Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
 KNIGHT OF JUSTICE Lieutenant Spitfire / Heavy Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (1.5 | 51)
 LOCUST Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Breaker Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Shock CCW, Knife. (0 | 35)
 SIERRA DRONBOT HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)
 BØYG Mk12 / Heavy Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 55)
 FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
 FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)

 3.5 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

This time, DBS was no option. Since some D-charges are needed here and DBS have no great access to them, I switched to an other faction. I was not sure if I should play WinterFor or O-12 with some proxing, but in the end I went for Svalarheima, since I could field a fully painted list here. The core-team should be the multi-tool to close one hole, then stomping the cave and doing things with the civvies. To get some tools into this link, the Vargs are included. The Locust should rally for some more holes on his own and disable the Wardriver in the cave, so that it won't harrass my HIs on the way. The Boyg appeared as a nice back-up and strong hammer to change every problem into a nail.

 Cave In
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 6  
 MODERATOR Combi Rifle + Pitcher / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 10)
 MODERATOR Combi Rifle / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)
 MODERATOR Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)
 MODERATOR Spitfire / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 15)
 MODERATOR Spitfire / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 15)
 TASKMASTER Boarding Shotgun, Pulzar, CrazyKoalas / Heavy Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 43)

GROUP 26  / 1  / 1
 ZERO (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 19)
 PROWLER Boarding Shotgun, Grenades, D-Charges / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 31)
 PROWLER Spitfire, D-Charges / Pistol, CCW. (2 | 36)
 KUSANAGI Spitfire / Pistol, Shock CCW. (2 | 43)
 REVEREND CUSTODIER Hacker (Assault Hacking Device UPGRADE: Icebreaker) Combi Rifle + Pitcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 32)
 REVEREND HEALER Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, EXP CCW. (0 | 32)
 MORLOCK Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 6)

 6 SWC | 300 Points
Open in Infinity Army

No LI as it was supposed for this, what is a small bummer. That gives a flexibility, I miss in my list. So there were some tools to deny any area to me and to push forward in the same place, like the core-team and the Taskmaster. Three camo-markers should be able to deal with the mission and avoid attacks by some wild Taighas. The haris of Reverends was the tool for the cave here, even with the Healer and her exp-ccw as only opening.

With not much mountain-terrain on my opponents site, we gathered the normal terrain. The two towers in the south were quite tempting for some snipers but the DZ in general had reduced room to deploy a full core-link. The emergence-holes are displayed as consoles here.

Bakunin wins the Lt-roll and chooses to go first. I wanted to deny the sniper-towers, not thinking enough about a good deployment of my link, so I choose the south DZ.

The Moderator-core is deployed in the center with the haris in front of them between the bus and the cave. One camo markers starts on the left, two on the right.

My core-team scatters behind the boxes on the right, quite open. The mine goes a bit advanced to cover the Taigha. The Boyg hides on the left with the Locust next to the emergence hole on the tower. That is reinforced by both Fugazis.

A Taskmaster overwatches the left hole and I place the Sierra on the right with the same purpose.

Bakunin 1: Two Taighas emerge on the holes in front of the Bakunin DZ. The Morlock sets up smoke on the left hole, while the core-team approaches and clears out the right Taigha. A Prowler on that side needs two attempts to seal that hole, while an other Prowler on the left one does the job in one try. The Moderators advance and take out one Fugazi. A pitcher is shot in front of my KoJ. The Custodier tries to hack my KoJ, which resets and due to bad placing, is fried by the Wardriver in return. The Healer picks it up in the second attempt. The Taskmaster bodyblocks the left Taigha.

WinterFor 1: The left over Taigha fails to berserk the Taskmaster and is wrecked in return, while two new ones ermerge near my DZ. The Sierra clears out the right one. Now the Engineer crosses some distance and deploys D-charges on the right hole and the cave-entry. On his way he tries some shots against the Taigha and the pitcher. The pitcher is more sturdy than the Taigha, so it takes one order too much to clear them both. The core is reformed.

Bakunin 2: Kusanagi shoots down the Sierra and the Healer does one wound to the cave-door. By shooting at my KoJ the Moderator spitfire inflicts one wound but dies in return. A new Pitcher is set up there and the left over Moderators as well as the left Prowler enter suppressive fire.

WinterFor 2: Since the holes on my side are not sealed, two new Taighas appear. The left is taken out by my Orc, taking a wound in return. The flamer-Varg leaves the link to clear out the pitcher and the other Taigha, surviving the chain rifle. With his flamethrower he burns out two more Moderators and dies in return. I reform the link and the Locust cybermasks himself after detonating all the D-charges and doing one wound on the cave-entry.

Bakunin 3: The Taskmaster finally opens the cave and shoots the Wardriver. The Healer with her combat-heels has some problems with the mountain-terrain but manages to recover all civvies and guide them deep into the DZ.

WinterFor 3: Things are nearly done here, since I have to kill all the civvies far away to change the game. The Locust is not equipped for longer ranges and the right is denied by Kusanagi, so I choose the Boyg for a last try. He manages to shoot his way through the remaining Moderators, tanking several shots from the Prowler. Nearly in the enemy DZ, he forces the Taskmaster into cover and shoots the first civvie. With my last order I fail to shoot Kusanagi in the back and finally get shot in return by the spitfire Prowler.

With all holes sealed and one civvie killed, I loose 4-8. I wasted too many orders on the Taighas and the pitchers in special, which took me the opportunity to fry the Wardriver and maybe breach into the cave on my own. Together with the limited combat-group, that broke my neck here. Nevertheless the sturdyness of most of my units equaled for a nearly non-existing defensive play and the performance of the Boyg was outstanding. His shooting-abilities paired with hyper-dynamics is really useful to start some unexpeted rambo-runs. Maybe a Nisse-haris would have been a better choice here, backed up by a defensive core, a Locust and maybe a Nokken, since then I would have been able to deal with the Reverends more easily.

Regarding the mission, it was not really clear who owns which Taighas and how they should react. We concluded that everyone controls the Taighas emerging on the opposite side and that they only follow enemy models but ARO on everyone. Besides that it felt a bit imbalanced to close the holes nearly for free, while you need to take great efforts to crack the cave. With 3 STR and ARM 6, the doors are really sturdy. Maybe some reduction of ARM (to 4 maybe) would be great here. Nevertheless it was a nice experience and an very interesting game!

Good bye Qapu Khalqi I

Since N4 is coming closer on the horizon and the rumor spread that actually discontinued factions won'T get day one rules, I decided to take the chance of the last physical N3 games to play what got me into heavy gaming last year: Qapu Khalqi.

While most of my lists were build around some Yuan Yuans, the Djanbazan HMG and a defnsive Ghulam-core, I used my favourite units only a few times. So I wanted to create a list especially with such units now to give the sectorial a good break. Those units are the Kaplans as quite interesting mercenary troops but a bit overshadowed in QK and the Iguana as the heaviest hitter you can find in QK besides the Janissary HMG. Of course, it looks a bit squishy with his 2 STR and his costs, but if you stop using him as a center piece in your list and simply waste him in your alpha-strike, you can make great use of him. 

 

The list I first came up with was designed to fit our current group, playing mostly around 10 troopers. So I wanted to go with this.

 Qapu Khalqi
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

9  / 1  / 1
 WILD BILL Rifle / 2 MULTI Pistols, Knife. (0 | 27)
 KAPLAN (Fireteam: Haris) Combi Rifle, Adhesive Launcher, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 24)
 KAPLAN Spitfire / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 28)
 DRUZE Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Pitcher, D-Charges / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
 DJANBAZAN Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 27)
 KAPLAN Engineer Combi Rifle, Adhesive Launcher, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)
 NASMAT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
 NASMAT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
 SHIHAB REMOTE HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)
 SHIHAB REMOTE HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)
 IGUANA HMG, Heavy Flamethrower / . (2 | 75)
   IGUANA OPERATOR HMG / Pistol, Knife. ()
 YUAN YUAN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 9)

 6 SWC | 298 Points
Open in Infinity Army
 

The Iguana here should simply go on rampage as early as possible and collect enough damage in the process to fire the pilot somewhere in relative safety. After this, the Kaplans can take action to finish the job. The main weakness here is the Lt and the low number of specialists. If there are more buttons to be pushed, things get difficult. The Druze KHD starts a bit advanced and is simply there to get some use of the Iguanas repeater. As there is nothing really build for defense in the other units, two Shihabs should raise some pressure and deny some paths. The Kaplan engineer is not supposed to repair the Iguana, but mainly should keep the Shihabs shooting.

After a first test-game, I switched the Lt and the Druze to get a bit more flexibility into the list:

 Abschied
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

9  / 1  / 1
 YUAN YUAN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 9)
 SHIHAB REMOTE HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)
 SHIHAB REMOTE HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)
 IGUANA HMG, Heavy Flamethrower / . (2 | 75)
   IGUANA OPERATOR HMG / Pistol, Knife. ()
 KAPLAN Doctor (MediKit) Combi Rifle, Blitzen / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)
 KAPLAN (Fireteam: Haris) Spitfire / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29)
 WILD BILL Rifle / 2 MULTI Pistols, Knife. (0 | 27)
 KAPLAN Engineer Combi Rifle, Adhesive Launcher, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)
 NASMAT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
 LEILA SHARIF Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Shock Marksman Rifle, D-Charges / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 20)
 MOBILE BRIGADA Lieutenant Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 33)

 5.5 SWC | 300 Points
Open in Infinity Army
 

Leila seems to be a good replacement to the Druze, since she offers me more flexibility in the Kaplan-team, has more WIP and is cheaper. The Brigada is there mostly because I needed a Lt and had many points left but not enough for the Janissary. At least he is sturdy enough to have a look at his deployment zone.

My opponent took a well known Tunguska list:

  Jurisdictional Command of Tunguska
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 9  
 INTERVENTOR Hacker Lieutenant (Hacking Device Plus) Combi Rifle, 1 FastPanda / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27)
 HOLLOW MEN Spitfire, Chain-colt / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (2 | 36)
 HOLLOW MEN MULTI Rifle + Pitcher, Chain-colt / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 35)
 STEMPLER ZOND FTO (Super-Jump) Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 18)
 REAKTION ZOND HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 26)
 TRANSDUCTOR ZOND Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
 SPEKTR (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 32)
 SECURITATE Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
 VERTIGO ZOND Smart Missile Launcher / Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 18)

GROUP 24  / 1  
 SECURITATE Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
 SECURITATE Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
 CLOCKMAKER Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
 MARY PROBLEMS Hacker (Forward Deployment L1) Submachine Gun + Zapper, Pitcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 30)
 ZONDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
 ZONDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
 WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3)

 5.5 SWC | 296 Points
Open in Infinity Army

The main plan here is to spotlight things and grenade them to death and if that won't work, shoot everything with the Hollow Men and the Spektr. 

Initially I wanted to test some other terrain-elements, like special clouds with low-vis and saturation zones, but since it was one of few games at the moment, we reduced it to the basics.

 

The mission was frontline and I won the Lt-roll. Since I had no reasonable options to avoid spotlights and smart missiles, I went first and got the south DZ, where I had a good view on the midfield.

The Kaplan-team took the left, together with one Shihab, the rest took the right side, since I saw better vectors for the Iguana on that side.

The Hollow Man started on the right behind the building. On top of it the Interventor hid. The center was overwatched by the Missile-REM and the FP-bot. One Securitate and the Warcor had a look from the left building. On the far left, Mary Problems started.

The Hollow Men were grouped nicely on the right, so I calculated good odds for my heavy flamethrower and deployed the Iguana on the right,

A TO-marker went on the left behind the silos. 

QK 1: The Warcor and the Missile-REM disturb my path towards the Hollow Men, so I drop the Yuan Yuan in the right center. The plan is to force the spitfire in cover, smoke the center and let the Iguana burn down the enemy-DZ. Unfortunately, the spitfire could not be wounded, why I switched to the Yuan Yuan. He fails to set up smoke and gets flashpulsed. The Iguana recieves one crit-wound from the Hollow Man, while it drops the missile-REM unconscious 2 and retreats.

Tunguska 1: The Clockmaker repairs the TR-bot in the second try. Now the Hollow Men roll out, dropping the Yuan Yuan and deploying a pitcher in front of my Iguana. All resets fail, then the dodges, so that the pilot drops wounded in safety. A second pitcher changes that and he is grenaded unconscious. Mary Problems advances a bit and one of my Shihabs is shot by the the spitfire.

QK 2:  The Shihab is repaired and the haris tries its luck on the left. The Spektr surprises the Doc while he revives the Iguana pilot. With some coordinated shots from the rest of the link, everyone tries to get into good positions and shoot down the Spektr. To avoid new spotlights without further investment, the engineer shoots the existing pitchers.

Tunguska 2: Without Leila in an advanced position, Mary Problems easily deploys two new pitchers on the left . The spotlights are set up without any problems and a crit ends the life of the Iguana pilot, followed by the Kaplan spitfire. On the right, the Hollow Men approach a little bit.

QK 3: The most important thing now is to get as many points into the center as possible. With most of the pitchers shot, only the FO-bot on the right is a real threat...Besides the spitfire on the Hollow Man. The Engineer sneeks up as far as possible and survives a shot by the Hollow Man. Unfortunately the Brigada is shot while climbing down the building. The right Shihab advances to cover the Hollow Man spitfire and fails to wound it. Wild Bill fails to drop Mary Problems but secures the center.

Tunguska 3: The Clockmaker advances into the center, Mary secures the nearest sector and the Hollow Men critting through the Kaplan and the Shihab, also securing the center.

With this unlucky third turn I loose 1 to 4. I clearly played my first turn totally inefficient and opted for quite swingy stuff with the Yuan Yuan. Of course, some wounds on the spitfire would have been nice. Forgetting about the TO-marker on the left costed the whole link and having Leila stuck on the roof of a building gave free reign over the infowar and for the missiles. That the Iguana was killed completly by crits was okay, but the crit on the PH-6 roll for the Hollow Man facing my ADHL hurt. 

Missing visors here was a real disadvantage, since it even was to risky to go for the FP-bot with my Kaplan spitfire, so the aproach on the left was blocked and the right path was gone with the Iguana. Some more investment into infowar, only to slow down the smart missiles would have been nice, but especially against Tunguska this may be not the best way to deal with such a list-type. Nevertheless it was a fun game and some better game with the Iguana and the Yuan in turn one would have changed a lot.

Teaser round 3 European Team-TTS-Event

Two days ago, the second round of the Team-Event was finished. After intense fights in mysterious riots, forces started to hunt each other to gather new information about what was going on in the Sphere. Meanwhile the Qapu Khalqi detachment Ulusun Dislileri was targeted by a remote-sepsitor attack during their interogations with the caught civilian. 

 

Upgrade for Pano: The new messenger-REMs

Since I am reworking my PanO-troops for the moment and integrate some Svalarheima-forces there, not less than three boxes of the new messenger-REMs landed on my table. If you have read some of my battle-reports, you may have noticed that I am a big fan of Fugazis and Pathfinders. Svalarheima with AVA 3 on Fugazis and AVA 2 on Pathfinders and Sierras fits there quite well.

Building the old sculpts was not that funny most of the time, since pieces did not fitted together and the antennas were quite fragile. So there is a good hope for the new sculpts to solve these issues. After unpacking and cleaning the content of all three boxes, the following picture appeared:

The body still is separated from the rear antennas and the legs still are made from two crossing parts. If you already have build some REM-boxes, you will find well known arrows on the legs so that you know what fits together and in which direction the body should go. Then you simply glue the body on top of that and finish things with the antennas. You need to be a bit careful here and while taking them from the sprue, since you can bend them a bit to easy and alter the position of the sticking-points. Nevertheless that can be corrected without any problems. The pins there are well made, so that they fit perfectly into the body and stay them without any force! Just make sure you put them there the right way round! The weapons are seperated as seen before and have a sticking point on the side of the body with a good fit. I build three Fugazis, since that is a solid choice most of the time, one Sierra and one Pathfinder, since that should be the set-up used together most of the time. One REM was magnetized so that it can be played as Clipper, Sierra and Pathfinder, if needed. I used small rare earth magnets here and drilled a round and deeper hole into the body part and replaced the sticking point of the weapon with the magnet. That system is already tested on my Haqqislam-REMs.

Just to be complete, here is a comparision between old and new sculpts.

After building them, the fun part of painting them was done. I batch-paint a lot recently and decided to put all REMs together to make sure they are looking familiar. So you can also see a Bulleteer, three Auxbots and an EVO Mulebot.Now only some snow needs to be added on the bases to fit in the look of the other Svalarheima-forces.

Looking for Europe (test)

Only some weeks left until N4 drops and you could feel the exitement for it everywhere. Nevertheless, I am not stopping playing for the moment. Unfortunately, most of the games are for the European Team Event and I don't want to spoil tournament-lists of my opponents. That limits things to report for now to some casual games.

The last one was a game of Hunting Party against Invincible Army. I played my tournament-list since it performed okay in the actual game and I wanted to test it again, just in case.

HPLSLI
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

9 1
BRAWLER (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 28)
DRUZE Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Pitcher, D-Charges / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
ARSLAN Lieutenant MULTI Rifle, Light Shotgun / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 36)
SAITO TOGAN Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, EXP CCW, Knife. (0 | 39)
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)
VALERYA GROMOZ Hacker (Hacking Device UPGRADE: Expel) Combi Rifle + Pitcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 21)
PEACEMAKER Spitfire + AUXBOT_3 / Electric Pulse. (1 | 27)
AUXBOT_3 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (- | 4)
SIERRA DRONBOT HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)
NASMAT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
HUNZAKUT (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)

5.5 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

This list served me quite well in a previous TTS-event, where the potent tools without any glamour around work good with classifieds and can deal with a broad variety of threats. The reduced core-team is just enough to slow down some rambos with Arslan as great toolbox for turn two and three. Scarface does most of the hard work after the Peacemaker is destroyed and Saito solves unforseen problems. Here, the list should also serve for Looting & Sabotaging, where Saito is the only reliable option for DBS to score some points. In Hunting Party the number of characters save a good number of glue-guns, while unnecessary specialists are avoided.

Invincible Army
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

10
ZHANSHI Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11)
ZHANSHI Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11)
ZHANSHI Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11)
ZHANSHI Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 16)
HǍIDÀO (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 37)
DĀOYĪNG Lieutenant L2 Boarding Shotgun / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 21)
HAC TAO (Executive Order) HMG, Nanopulser / Pistol, DA CCW. (2 | 69)
MÓWÁNG (NCO) Red Fury, Akrylat-Kanone / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (1 | 52)
ZHĒNCHÁ (Forward Observer) Submachine Gun, D.E.P., Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 34)
LIÚ XĪNG (Specialist Operative) MULTI Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 38)

6 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

The core-team explains itself, while everything left is simplay a great collection of pieces to win Hunting Party. The Lui Xing clears things not that easy to reach, while the Mowang and Hac Tao shoot things down and glue some points together. The Lt is well hidden under a marker.

The table turned out to be quite symmetric with one firelane from one edge to the other and the left side more open then the right one.

I loose the Lt roll and should deploy first in the south. I decided to go second, since I did not want to advance and be surprised then.

The Peacemaker took a spot on the left flank with Scarface and Gromoz behind, leaving a place for the Sierra. The center is left empty and the core-team took the right side with the MSR a bit behind and the Druze watching the back. Cordelia overwatched the left blind spots in my DZ, just in case. Saito is deployed in HD on the right flank to catch attackers there and maybe access the DZ from that side. The first push there should be done by the Hunzakut.

The Zhanshi-core took the high building on the left with ML and Haidao on overwatch. The Mowang is deployed on the right and two camo markers went on each flank.

My Sierra now better takes the center, reinforcing my Brawler, since the initial spot now is covered by the Haidao and wasn't that nice as thought, too.

IA 1: A TO-marker appears in the center and advances towards my Sierra. The Hac Tao reveals, dropping the Sierra. Now a Lui Xing drops behind my Brawler. He survives the explode and the Lui Xing survives the starting gunfight. In the end Cordelia and the Brawler are unconscious but the KHD manages to glue the Lui Xing. The Mowang advances but takes the route towrds the center.

Druze 1: To engage the Mowang with Saito, I need to get through the right camo-marker. Arslan discovers the Zhencha, which drops a mine. Some shots are traded, but the Zhencha and the mine are killed by the Chef. Saito starts and takes out the Mowang completly in one order, then recamoes.

IA 2: The Hac Tao enters my DZ after forcing Arslan in cover. His ADHL then glues down Cordelia and the KHD.

Druze 2: The Peacemaker wounds the Hac Tao once, which falls back into full cover. Arslan has to cross the table and manages to kill the Hac Tao with the last order.

IA3: The last camo marker retreats behind the link, while the rest decides not to move or expose more.

Druze 3: I can't do my classifieds since everything is dying straight, I can only activate one console and can't glue down anything now. So a tie is the best result here. First the Hunzakut fails to activate the right console, then the Peacemaker cuts through the core-team to force its way towards the HVT and secures it.

With more specialists glued, I loose 2-1. While there were many games decided by dice, this one was quite even for both sides with only two crits in total. The drop of the Lui Xing behind my core-team in LoF to my KHD was a risky action which paid out quite well. I had hoped to glue him before he manages to drop Cordelia, so that I won't get into the bad situation without an engineer and immobilized specialists. In addition to this, the Zhencha and his mine slowed Saito down to much, so that it was not possible to also engage the Hac Tao. So this tough soaked up my complete second turn, limiting my potential for engaging the Lt. or to do other objectives in turn three.
Maybe one word to Scarface here: In some games, he is quite valuable since he can take a wound and keep going while killing stuff. But whenever there is a full linked heavy weapon crossing his path, his potential is limited. If he can attack from less than 24", things are okay with no further vis-mods. But with mimetism or longer ranges, his journey ends. Nevertheless he can hide a turn and wait for things to come close and break through then. This role as back-up big gun was very valuable in some games now.


For the moment, that will be all to report. I want to make some games with QK in the last weeks of N3, just to enjoy the Iguana and the sectorial a bit before it leaves for a few months. Meanwhile there are two games left for me in the Team event. After that is finished, I will report all the games here and maybe have some discussion about the general performance. For the moment, I feel more limited by my unability to build lists without shooting myself in the foot than by the sectorial itself. Things are turning out quite well with close losses and some wins for the moment, so we will see, where the team will end. Unfortunately the event started before Tao Wu was added, so I will test him first in N4, I guess.

Teaser round 2 European Team-TTS-Event

Long time no see, but things are going on nice! The first round was finished yesterday with 14 teams fighting all over the sphere. Mysterious riots broke out everywhere and let several odd constellations start their journey to find out what is the cause and how you can gain profit from this. Two teams left the first round undefeated, while the midfield is intensively fought.
For everyone interested, the narrative can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p0k_2H7u-YGPY0oKcWDZMbsteQmSQdnLL-S-Jmhw8HQ/edit?usp=sharing

 

Behind Svalarheimas mountains

To break the normal ITS-play up a bit and to add some new flavor to Code One for the veterans, our local group tried a small campaign with Code One rules. We took the scenarois from Daedalus Fall, Data Recovery, Exfiltration and Breaking and Entering with 20, 20 and 25 points. The classifieds were removed, while everything else fitted Code One quite nice. The CivEvac was taken from N3. Since we had only three rounds, the experience-options were removed. To give some more redundancy, everyone could nominate one of his troops as SpecOp before each game. Each SpecOp got an extra order, similar to Tactical Awareness.

Unfortunately we were only three players, so round one saw YuYing vs. O12. The winner had to face PanO in the second round, while the last round was YuYing vs. PanO.

Round one, Data recovery:
During the intense fights between the forces of White Banner and the Svalarheima Winterforce, a civilian aircraft was damaged and got lost somewhere in a remote area. Since noncombatants were involved in this accident, O12 forces were sent to secure the left overs. Arrived on the crash site, they found not only the wreck of the aircraft, but also some YuYing troops, searching for something. It didn't took long until the first shots were fired to prevent each other from downloading important data from the aircrafts blackbox and carried data storages. All of the sudden a Hac Tao appeared, forcing the Gamma Leutnant and the nearby Psi-Cop in a dangerous shoot-out. While the Hac Tao went down in a cloud of nanobees, YuYing forces were able to download some important data and upload them to their high command. Luckily the Delta-trooper could use the attack of the nearby Epsilon-unit to also download the data and let the Razor upload them to independent servers. With several losses, YuYing troops had to retreat.

Round two, Exfiltration:
Among many unimportant data, some hints of an high ranked corporate consultant illegally captured by PanO troops could be found. The local O12 mandate covered those kind of recovery-missions, so troops were sent to the estimated location. A bit dumbfound, local security troops needed a moment to organize their defense against the infiltrating Razor-unit but managed to keep them away from the hostage. The Orc specialist finally took the momentum, disabling the orbital tracking device and call the airlift. This forced the Gamma Leutnant to set everything on one card: He advanced through the center of the station, covering everything moving with bullets and cut the path of the messenger remote escorting the hostage. A desperate try of a nearby Fusilier paramedic to shoot him down ended without success and the hostage could be freed.

Round three, Breaking and Entering:
While O12 focussed on the hostage-situation, YuYing hackers could extract some information of a secret seasonal used research-facility. Due to the ongoing conflict on the planet, there was no way for PanO to get the original defense-force into position to defend the facility, so a replacement group had to break into the own facility to avoid a YuYing-raid there. A short lead of PanO troops granted them a break through into the YuYing deployment with severe losses, while the own specialists could disable the power generators of the defense system. Under heavy fire of a Yan Huo, YuYing specialists also disabled the defense systems and managed to activate the elevators to the inner levels of the facility. It was the Guilang hacker finally entering the inner levels and sending all the necessary access-codes to the arriving support-group, so that PanO forces had to retreat from their position and leave the facility to the State Empire.

All in all we managed to do all three games in six hours, including lunch, some breaks and setting up and discussing the missions. So with some preperation and alteration, the existing N3 campaign rules can be used for Code One also and grant a lot of fun and depth, even for the limited rule set. This limitations makes it very easy to focus on the mission and not got overwhelmed with rules and things to do. The extra SPecOp-order made things a bit easier, but everything could be managed with 10 orders in the beginning. We skipped 15 points here, since it was obvious that the needed cuts in those small games would have impacted the performance a lot. All games were fought on 48x48".