Vostok Delivery
One of our locals, Eli, set up this very fun table for Jordan and I to fight on:
Overview
- Mission: ITS14 Frostbyte
- Forces: Jurisdictional Command of Tunguska versus Steel Phalanx (300)
- Deploy First: Tunguksa
- First Turn: Steel Phalanx
I’ve faced Jordan’s Steel with my ISS, now it was time to do it with Tunguska. It’s weird prepping two factions for a tournament, but here we are. I decided to take Perseus as my Master Breacher and have both a Grenzer MSR and Hollow Man missile in his link to cause trouble. The other link is the Grenzer Lt, Fiddler, and a Vostok as this list is also meant to cover Biotechvore. I took Sally because she’s beautiful, and then packed in two more orders.
Heavy Metal
GRENZER (Lieutenant, Discover [+3], Biometric Visor) Combi Rifle, Light Flamethrower(+1B) ( ) / Pistol, Breaker Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 28)
Fiddler FTO (Super-Jump) Contender(+1B), Drop Bears, D-Charges / Breaker Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 28)
VOSTOK Mk12(+1 Dam) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 44)
HOLLOW MEN Missile Launcher, Chain-colt / Breaker Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 33)
STEMPLER ZOND FTO (Super-Jump) Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 17)
PERSEUS FTO-2 (Super-Jump) Breaker Combi Rifle(+1 Dam), Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Heavy Pistol(+1B), DA CC Weapon. (0 | 33)
SZALAMANDRA Hyper-Rapid Magnetic Cannon, Heavy Flamethrower / CC Weapon. (2 | 72)
SZALAMANDRA PILOT Contender(+1B) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 0)
TRANSDUCTOR ZOND Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 7)
WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse ( ) / Stun Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)
9
2 | 5 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Army | Copy Code
Jordan tweaked his last list to have more guns this time
Lots and lots of guns.
Jordan (sprocketgx)
HECTOR (Lieutenant [+1 Order]) Plasma Rifle, Nanopulser, Grenades ( | TinBot: Firewall [-3]) / Heavy Pistol, EXP CC Weapon. (0 | 69)
MACHAON Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0.5 | 36)
MYRMIDON Chain Rifle, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 16)
MAKHE Missile Launcher, Zapper / Breaker Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 32)
Scylla FTO & Charybdis FTO undefined / undefined. (0.5 | 40)
PHOENIX Heavy Rocket Launcher, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / DA CC Weapon, Heavy Pistol. (1.5 | 35)
ATALANTA (Hidden Deployment) MULTI Sniper Rifle ( | TinBot: Discover [ReRoll]) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 40)
Deployment
I’m deploying first and going second again. I set up the Warcor to watch the catwalk system and used the Grenzer to watch under the catwalk system with Perseus and the Stempler nearby. The Hollow Man was out to fight the world, and I put the Vostok Haris on the right.
Jordan set up Phoenix in the center to control the catwalks and then hid Hector and Machaon on the left with Atalanta on a building in the back behind the Mahke and Scylla.
I set up the Szalamandra, and Jordan’s reserves were Phoenix and the Mahke.
Turn 1
Top of 1 – Steel Phalanx
We start things off with an even-odds Mahke missile versus Hollow Man missile fight. I’m in cover, he’s not, but he has mimetism, so we’re both on 13s. I win the face to face and the Mahke melts.
Jordan wants to move Phoenix, but he hadn’t been careful in setting up the Myrmidons and the Grenzer could see them. I offered to let him reposition, since LoF is open info, but he said he’d need to smoke to do what he wanted to do anyway, and just set up smoke with Machaon.
Phoenix then starts fighting the Warcor and the Hollowman. The Warcor somehow survives but Phoenix puts a wound on the Hollow Man, who breaks contact.
I’m still standing, so Jordan reveals hidden deploy Atalanta and takes some shots on the Hollowman, finally forcing me prone.
With the Hollow Man prone, this lets Hector and crew advance forward under the cover of Machaon’s smoke.
It takes him a few orders to set up the entire smoke field, but he gets it done.
Hector finishes off the Warcor (rude)…
and that link settles in to defend Jordan’s HVT.
Bottom of 1 – Tunguska
I need to get rid of Atalanta before I can go anywhere, so I send in the Szalamandra:
| 55.8 | 31.4 | 12.8 |
Somehow with those odds it takes something like 4-5 orders and two wounds to take Atalanta down.
This leaves very little in the way of orders for my Grenzer link, which I decide to use to set up shots on Hector with the missile and take on Phoenix.
I make good use of the Stempler’s tac aware to get me in position then I start firing. I figure if I can drop one of the Myrmidons I can take on Phoenix without his burst bonus. I make the attempt, hit the first one, which is in cover.
| 62.9 | 37.1 |
It goes prone after passing two ARM saves.
I try again on the next one, which is out of cover.
| 67.8 | 32.2 |
Same exact result. Hit once, pass both ARM saves. They’re both prone which means I have to challenge Phoenix directly now.
I have two attempts:
| 48.2 | 28.0 | 23.8 |
Both fail.
I do have the Hollow Man in position though, and I reform the link after repositioning Perseus with his Master Breacher order.
Turn 2
Top of 2 – Steel Phalanx
My link is kind of exposed, and I’m not happy about it, but it is what it is. Jordan punishes the positioning by engaging the Stempler with Machaon and removing it.
Machaon then shifts to the other side of the building and engages the Hollow Man and drops it.
Phoenix then engages the the Grenzer and drops it. It at least took two orders. Ugh. So irritating.
With all of that, at least Jordan doesn’t have enough orders to possess the Szalamandra. He does push the Charybdis forward to try and get a repeater in range, but I just nope out of there with a dodge. Phew!
Bottom of 2 – Tunguska
Okay, all my SWC guns are gone or in real trouble. The Szalamandra has one wound left… it’s Vostok time. I start off by challenging the Myrmidon that Jordan left corner-guarding the approach to Machaon and critting it with my Grenzer Lieutenant.
I then roll Fiddler and the Vostok up and land two mines behind Machaon. Both mines cover Hector and Machaon, and Jordan decides to dodge Hector directly away, judging that the dodge will be just outside of mine explosion range.
I get Fiddler onto the roof of the building as the Vostok challenges Hector just outside of 8″. We measure the mine trigger radius and we see that both will hit both Machaon and Hector, so both dodge. Hector makes his dodge against the mines but takes a wound from the Vostok while Machaon stumbles and is deleted by the mines.
This does let Hector fail guts around the corner into cover, so I move the Vostok around the other side of the building with the Grenzer behind a rock staying safe and gun Hector down while he’s out of cover.
That’s pretty much all of the orders, so I use Perseus’s order to try and down the Charybdis but can’t crack BTS.
This at least covers its approach to the Szalamandra, which I spend its Tac Aware order scurrying far, far away.
Turn 3
Top of 3 – Steel Phalanx
I’m feeling pretty okay at this point, but Phoenix one-shots the Vostok.
| 9.5 | 50.7 | 39.9 |
It’s pretty high likelihood of dropping the Vostok at 23.7% but to fail three wounds in a row is only 13.8%. Pretty high still.
Jordan can’t push forward at all because Machaon (his Master Breacher) and Hector are both gone, so he settles for throwing the Charybdis in the zone.
Bottom of 3 – Tunguska
I just need to secure the center zone and get some classifieds. Perseus takes out Scylla…
then her ‘bot, clearing the zone.
I get smoke in front of Phoenix, then flip a heater on to make Fiddler and the Grenzer safe…
then retreat FIddler to the strip of the table with heating to keep her alive. I try to Gizmokit the Hollow Man but whiff.
Perseus grabs Net Undermine…
but I’m too far from Jordan’s HVT. I don’t have smoke over there and no heavy infantry to stay alive next to the HVT. With that, we call it at
8-2, 168-67 Jurisdictional Command of Tunguska
Post Game Analysis
I felt like that game got away from me pretty quickly. I made reasonable decisions on my first turn but the dice really did not want me to succeed. I am pleased with the power of the Vostok/Fiddler combo. I’m not really sure what I was supposed to do regarding Phoenix differently than what I did, although perhaps disengaging might have been a better plan to fight Machaon. That’s probably the real thing I should have done.
If i had climbed the Grenzer off its perch then Phoenix has to advance to engage, and then I can get in under 16″ with Perseus or even engage with the Stempler, that seems pretty good. That’s probably the main lesson here, I over-committed moving the Grenzer MSR up, and that almost cost me the game were it not for having a fourth backup gun in the Vostok. I’m also really lucky that I was able to drop Machaon with the mines–I was pretty sure I could just pour enough orders of Mk12 into Hector to drop him, but I just didn’t have the right tools to engage Machaon short of rolling Fiddler in there and hoping for the best.
So yeah, this was probably a pacing issue. First turn I push the Szalamandra as I did to remove Atalanta, then I break Perseus out of the link on his own and cause some trouble. He can take Scylla, I think, and then I force Phoenix and or Hector to over-extend. Still, I thought I had a good plan in removing two orders by acing both Myrmidons, but hey, the dice can’t give you everything. Had I kept the Grenzer and Hollow Man where they were, I think I would have been in much better shape. I probably fight Phoenix with the Szalamandra if it didn’t take so many wounds, but Scylla is right there and I don’t want to spend orders retreating so aggressively.
I do think that Jordan over-extended Hector and Machaon unnecessarily. That was the big mistake that cost him the game especially with the Grenzer/Vostok/Fiddler team right there. Maybe even swapping Machaon with the Myrmidon to protect the approach might have been better–I probably lose the Grenzer there, and that’s catastrophic. Anyway. I’m pretty dissatisfied with my execution this game–it worked out but I think I outlined how it could be better. I’m also not sure I like the list, but it’s not awful… definitely a great practice game though. Thanks to Jordan for that, and thanks to you for reading!
