A Fan of Damage
Game three of the tournament was versus Cole (Mooseman).
I also had the extra challenge this last round of simultaneously playing Adam (TheDiceAbide) on an adjacent table due to a drop in the tournament.
Overview
- Mission: ITS14 Biotechvore
- Forces: Imperial Service versus Haqqislam (300)
- Deploy First: ISS
- First Turn: Haqqislam
I’m playing the triple TR bot list from the first game,
but on a much denser table.
Qualified Immunity v2
GROUP 1
8
3
CRANE AGENT (Lieutenant, Sensor, Triangulated Fire, X Visor) MULTI Rifle, Nanopulser(+1B) ( ) / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (+1.5 | 46)
CELESTIAL GUARD Monitor Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 13)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)
GROUP 2
HSIEN Heavy Machine Gun, Nanopulser / Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (1.5 | 55)
ZHÀNYING (Hacker, Hacking Device) Breaker Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, D-Charges ( ) / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0.5 | 25)
CSU (Specialist Operative) Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 11)
HÙSÒNG Yaókòng Heavy Machine Gun / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 24)
DAKINI MULTI Sniper Rifle / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1.5 | 20)
TÁOWÙ (Counterintelligence) Nanopulser(+2B), Flash Pulse(+1B) / Viral Pistol(+1B), Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 25)
7.5 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Army | Copy Code
Cole is playing vanilla Haqqislam. He’s got some duos in here to get some efficiency for Biotechvore.
Cole (Mooseman)
GROUP 1
MUYIB (Minelayer) Rifle, Light Shotgun, Panzerfaust, Viral Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 26)
GHULAM (Lieutenant [+1 Command Token]) Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 15)
FASID Heavy Machine Gun, Grenade Launcher, Smoke Grenade Launcher, Shock Mines / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 53)
GROUP 2
SHUJAE Submachine Gun, Flammenspeer, E/M Mines / Breaker Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 24)
NAFFATÛN Rifle, Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 13)
NADHIR (Forward Observer) Submachine Gun, Flammenspeer / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 24)
5
LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 8)
DAYLAMI (Camouflage [1 Use], Infiltration) Light Shotgun, Panzerfaust / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 8)
BASHI BAZOUK AP Rifle / CC Weapon, Breaker Pistol(+1B). (0 | 14)
MUTTAWI'AH Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Breaker Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)
KUM Boarding Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, E/M CC Weapon. (0 | 12)
4 SWC | 299 Points | Open in Army | Copy Code
Deployment
Cole won the roll off and selected table edge, so I chose to go second in Biotechvore. I set up the Husong to cover various approaches to the midfield, and stacked the Hsien and Dakini links on my left with the Crane on the right. I held the Dakini in reserve.
Cole basically stacked everything up on the deployment zone edge, deployed a ton of mines, and put the Fasids on the far right.
I put the Dakini down watching the approach for most of his stuff, and I forget what Cole put down as his reserve.
Turn 1
Top of 1 – Haqqislam
Critically, I’m distracted by Adam on the other table and I forget to restrict Cole to one command token on his first turn. That was a huge issue that I totally forgot about. Cole starts things off with the Mutt which immediately dies to the Dakini while trying to get smoke out.
The Kum Biker tries next and manages to get smoke down in front of the Dakini. It goes down to the TR bot, but the smoke lands.
This lets Cole get pretty much everything out of the biotechvore zone, spending all of his command tokens to do so. I completely miss this because I’m problem solving on the other table. I don’t realize this till the end of the game, in fact, which is quite irritating.
Bottom of 1 – ISS
Things seem okay so far. The Nadhir and Shujae are in bad spots, the Nadhir particularly–it’s watching quite a bit of the board once I get out of the biotechvore zone, especially the rooftops, so I have to contend with that. I start by forcing one of the Fasids back into cover with one of the Husongs, but that’s not super helpful.
I eventually realize that I can just shoot smoke in front of the Flammenspeer guys, so I do that, freeing up the Dakini but not the rooftops. The Dakini starts pushing up and reveals one of the “Ghulam” as a Bashi by killing it. I’ll take it.
The Dakini keep shuffling forward and take out the Ghulam behind the Bashi.
The Kuang Shi easily make it forward opposite the majority of Cole’s forces, and I shuffle the Hsien’s haris forward to safety as well. The Hsien engages and takes out the Nadhir, and then I decide to push the Kuang Shi into a bunch of Cole’s forces, just chain rifling all the way.
The Kuang Shi keeps blasting, taking out Ghulams and other stuff like the Naffatun.
I keep pushing and get to the Muyibs, forcing sadly successful dodges.
I don’t have enough orders to get in range of the all important Ghulam Doctor who is tucked around the corner, and I decide to split burst to try and tag the Shujae and the Muyibs, but only manage to down the Muyib.
Turn 2
Top of 2 – Haqqislam
I’m feeling pretty good, especially when Cole informs me that he’s in loss of lieutenant. Unfortunately, the Fasids one-shot the Hsien that I forgot to put prone, and then take out both the CSU and the Zhanying.
Well that’s super bad. The Ghulam Doctor brings back the Muyib that went down, and then it’s back to me.
Bottom of 2 – ISS
Well that is… super bad. I throw another Kuang Shi under the bus to fight the Shujae and the Daylami. It doesn’t work and the Kuang Shi goes dogged.
Then I put a “Dakini” in the path of the Fasid. I know this is bad, but I’m doing it for the memes.
The Fasid throw shots at the “Dakini,” who actually turns out to be Taowu who throws a full four nanopulsars at them.
Of course, of the 8 saves that are made only one is failed. I push the dogged Kuang Shi forward to detonate all the mines that the Muyibs dropped at some point. I’m trying to ice the doctor but it dodges.
I then scoot the Celestial Guard into range of one of the Fasids and carbonite it successfully.
Turn 3
Top of 3 – Haqqislam
The Ghulam Doctor goes to work picking guys up, and then the Shujae tries to get capture on a downed TR bot but the other two and the Dakini MSR delete it.
The Kum Biker sets up to plug the gap, and that’s Cole’s turn.
Bottom of 3 – ISS
I attempt to get Mapping with the Celestial Guard but fail the roll as it gets shot in the back by the Fasid.
I do manage to get the Crane in range of the HVT to secure it, so I’m not at 0 points.
And that’s game.
2-5,132-206 Haqqislam Victory!
Post Game Analysis
Well that was not great. This game really came down to me just being too focused on throwing the Kuang Shi into the meat grinder. I got some value out of it but wasn’t able to take down the Doctor. More importantly, I lost the ability to really get the Hsien and its friends to a place of safety, which is really what I think cost me the game.
I think this game also really shows the pressure that you can be under when playing two games at once. I was already reeling from the last game against Erik where I got Achilles’ed pretty hard:
I was sort of replaying that game in my mind so I was already distracted, and then Adam was making things difficult for my Tunguska on the other table. MIssing the ability to dock command tokens was pretty huge, that let Cole get a bunch of stuff out of the biotechvore zone that he otherwise wouldn’t have been able to. You can also see that I took less pictures than I usually do this game because I was also distracted. There was also such a grab bag of stuff on my right that I was just sort of chain rifling mindlessly because it was low cognitive load for me.
I had really expected the Hsien to be able to handle itself, but just straight up going off the table while in cover was a little unexpected. I do think that I played the game a little too aggressively in general. I don’t have a problem so much with my deployment, but I think I just didn’t fully understand my tools. I could have used the celestial guard smoke grenades to much better effect, letting the Hsien really dominate the high ground. I think I had enough Kuang Shi on my right to blunt whatever attack Cole threw at me–maybe I lose the Crane but I’m still in the fight.
Really the big thing that I didn’t do was properly prosecute the Fasids. They were the real threat. I wasn’t able to get the Celestial Guard into the right spot because I was too busy trying to be cute and avoid the Flammenspeer with prone movement when I could have just smoked my way past it. I’m so used to playing without smoke because I find it a little passive sometimes and I’m generally outranging threats with a sniper, but that doesn’t really work with Biotechvore.
In any case, I think what should have happened on my first turn is:
- Get the Crane/Kuang Shi link to safety, setting up smoke on the way.
- Dakini does what it did, but then posts up watching the long way against all of Cole’s stuff near the Kuang Shi to help out.
- The smoke probably leaves me enough orders to get the TR bots to good positions to help.
- Then I sink the rest of the orders into the Hsien’s group and try to carbonite at least one of the Fasids.
The second turn then has two hackers there to help, and then I have to see how much damage Cole can do. I probably lose the CSU and Zhanying again, and maybe even the Crane with his counterstrike, but it’ll cost him with the TR bots and so on. It turns into much more of a meat grinder of a game, but I still have the Hsien and Taowu up.
That’s the other thing, I definitely misused Taowu here. Even with the turn the way it was in the game, my second turn should have been hack the Fasid to carbonite it, then viral pistol it down, rinse and repeat. Burst 4 viral pistols will hopefully get enough failed saves through, even on base BTS 6. At that point, the left side of the able is definitely mine, and Cole has to fight through a linked Dakini MSR with a bunch of rifles outside of 16″. I make the Hsien the Lt if the Crane dies, and then do as many classifieds as I can while taking shots with the Dakini and using the Kuang Shi’s impetuous to do damage if any are still alive.
I think I win on classifieds at that point, but it’s not a very high scoring game. This particular game was just disastrous. It all fell apart because I couldn’t get the damage to stick and had just enough things left vulnerable. It is what it is, well fought to Cole and thanks for reading!
