Doublemint JOTUM
If you read my last battle report…
I reference having to “deal with double JOTUM” a lot which distracted me from that game… Here’s the game in question! Like the other game, I was fighting with my ForCo on the big tower table. This time though, I’m fighting Joel (Paladin_Eks) and his Svalarheima.
Overview
- Mission: ITS14 Cutthroat
- Forces: Foreign Company versus Svalarheima Winter Force (300)
- Deploy First: Foreign Company
- First Turn: Foreign Company
I’m taking the same list as I took against John:
List A
GROUP 1
7
1
1
SECURITATE (Lieutenant) Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 13)
CSU (Specialist Operative) Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 11)
BOLT (Multispectral Visor L1) MULTI Sniper Rifle ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 31)
AVICENNA Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 27)
VALKYRIE Heavy Shotgun, Grenades / Heavy Pistol, EXP CC Weapon. (0 | 35)
GROUP 2
CHIMERA Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Eclipse Grenades / Viral CC Weapon, Pistol. (0 | 19)
2X PUPNIK DA CC Weapon. (0 | 2)
ZERO (Hacker, Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Shock Mines ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 24)
FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 7)
PATHFINDER DRONBOT Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 15)
CROC MAN MULTI Sniper Rifle, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 32)
BEASTHUNTERS (Surprise Attack [-3], Camouflage, Forward Deployment [+8″]) Heavy Flamethrower, Panzerfaust, AP Mines / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 15)
WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse ( ) / Stun Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)
6 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Army | Copy Code
Joel’s list is pretty straightforward. Double JOTUM, a pile of cheap orders, and then two Nokken and Gunnar.
Joel (Paladin Eks)
JOTUM (Lieutenant) MULTI Heavy Machine Gun, Heavy Flamethrower, Panzerfaust / AP CC Weapon. (2.5 | 87)
CRABBOT Flash Pulse / CC Weapon. (0 | 0)
NØKK (Forward Observer) Boarding Shotgun, Panzerfaust, Flash Pulse / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 25)
GUNNAR MULTI Rifle(+1 Dam), Chain-colt / Pistol, Trench-Hammer, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 34)
FUSILIER Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 10)
MULEBOT (Deactivator, Repeater) ( ) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 8)
This really isn’t the list that I want to fight in a game of Cutthroat! How am I going to kill a JOTUM, much less two? Woof.
Deployment
Joel took deployment to give me table side (thanks again Joel). I wouldn’t be able to do this multi-game-simultaneously thing without at least this level of cooperation from my opponents. I’m really really thankful that these guys are so chill and patient, too. Jeff was also appreciative that he didn’t have to play so he could run the store.
Anyway. I hid my Securitate Lt aaaall the way up on top of the tower, meaning Joel would have to get all the way up there. The CSU guarded the ladder, and I left the Feuerbach out to ARO the right half of the table. The Fugazi and Pathfinder were hiding but watching the left board edge and the middle ladder, respectively, and then I piled my Bolt link on the right in total cover. I wanted to engage on my terms, not on Joel’s.
I put the Zero FO on the left, the Beasthunter in the middle, and the Zero Hacker on the right, just evenly spaced, 12″ apart, not knowing what I’d need. I figured one of the JOTUMs might end up on my right given the terrain height. The Croc Man went by the crates near the Zero Hacker to take shots across the board if it was relevant, and the Uberfall were my reserve.
Joel put all his bots facing backwards, having been Rasyat’ed by me in the past:
The two Fusiliers were on different catwalks in the midfield, which was somewhat concerning, they could take on my CSU and take out my Lieutenant if the Bolts went down and weren’t watching the catwalks, then the Nokkens counter deployed my Zeros.
One JOTUM was on the left behind the tall containers, and the JOTUM Lt was behind the tower complex in the center of Joel’s deployment zone. I put the Uberfall on my left to be able to just push hard on that flank given there wasn’t much in the way.
Turn 1
Top of 1 – ForCo
Okay. Here’s the plan: Don’t let Joel have two JOTUMs, and try really hard to take out some orders, keeping the Uberfall and Bolts alive. I have an easy advance on my left with some smoke to protect the Uberfall from the JOTUM lieutenant. The Nokken fails to take out the Pupniks on their way in…
and I sacrifice one to take out the Nokken while the Chimera looks on.
Now the moment of truth–can I Total Control the JOTUM with my Zero Hacker? Because the solution to a JOTUM is… another JOTUM.
I start pushing the JOTUM backwards, pouring fire into the lieutenant JOTUM.
It takes all of my orders in the second pool to do two wounds, and I end the run with my stolen JOTUM in base contact with the back table edge, out of cover.
I’ve got an order left on the Bolt MSR, so I do the last wound necessary and take out the JOTUM lieutenant while setting up shots on the stolen JOTUM.
In this case, definitely use AP, because ARM 8 is the break point of AP versus DA, basically.
Bottom of 1 – Svalarheima
Joel is in loss but not because of Cutthroat, so he starts off by trying to get the JOTUM out of there. He splits burst against a linked Bolt ML, a linked Securitate Feuerbach, and a Warcor, all outside 32″. I mislabeled the Bolt ML in the photo below but you get the idea.
Somehow, the JOTUM survives with 1 wound. The remaining Nokken tries to take on my Zero Hacker, but I dodge away to force the Nokken to see the Bolt ML if he wants to challenge my Zero.
Joel throws a Fusilier under the bus to try and take out the Securitate Feuerbach, this is a pretty dangerous proposition:
| 58.5 | 25.1 | 16.4 |
It does not go well. The JOTUM has a go of it, also outside 32″, and this goes much better for Joel. I choose AP+DA here so I can actually hurt the JOTUM:
| 16.9 | 35.5 | 47.6 |
I hit but do not damage the JOTUM, which is more than acceptable given board state. Gunnar challenges the Chimera and her remaining Pupnik, and this goes very poorly for poor Gunnar in CC.
Joel then commits to taking out the Zero Hacker, because he doesn’t want to have me possess the JOTUM again. I lose the Zero against slug mode shots from the Nokken MSV, but the Nokken evaporates after being hit by a pair of missiles from the watchful Bolt ML.
Joel then pushes the JOTUM into the open, but within 32″, and that makes all the difference against the Securitate:
| 13.4 | 22.0 | 64.6 |
The Warcor, needless to say, does not survive the following order.
With that, it’s back to me.
Turn 2
Top of 2 – ForCo
Well, all I have to do this turn is kill the JOTUM with my KeyOps (Valkyrie) and then I’ll be good to go. The JOTUM does hit her with a flamethrower and does do a wound… but an explosive crit on a single-wound JOTUM is enough.
We call it here at a
10-0, 250-32 Foreign Company Victory!
Post Game Analysis
Well, against double JOTUM I’d ordinarily advocate for killing all the orders and not trying to directly fight the JOTUMs… but if you can use one of the JOTUMs to damage the other… do that! It was absolutely silly to fire a full burst of HMG fire on BS 15, DAM 16, and do zero damage for a few orders,
| 43.1 | 36.9 | 20.0 |
but eventually I got the lieutenant JOTUM out of cover and within 16″:
| 63.0 | 25.0 | 12.0 |
I think Joel lost this game because he put the non-lieutenant JOTUM too far forward. Having the JOTUM in the back behind some cover but not visible to my Bolts would have been far safer. I would have had to attack his orders then, instead of pursuing the strategy that I did. Total Control is not as awesome as you might think, but as you’ve heard me browbeat Adam on stream constantly about, 30% is a HUGE chance:
| 29.9 | 70.1 |
Really that’s the entirety of the game. Joel made one major mistake in deployment (and the Fusilier shot on the Securitate was suspect), and then it was incredibly hard to recover because I had the right tools to deal with TAGs. Thanks to Joel for his patience and for a great game as I darted back and forth between this game and my game with Erik!
And as always, thanks for reading!
I used a double J list myself two times, both went well, but in the last one I do the same error, postitioning one Jotum to close to the middle, I not got hacked but with a bit of bad luck, my the Jotum was unconcious, but I managed to repair him and take out all the bad attack pieces of my oppenent.
So – the list above lacks a bit of support for the Jotum. Always inculde a Mechanist and a EVO Hacker!