Fang and Claw
I wanted a little more practice before the Best of the Pacific Northwest 2020 Tournament with my lists, so the game night right before Adam was kind enough to help me with that. We both really liked the catwalk and mountain table that we set up for our last tournament…
…so we sort of replicated it on game night.
The components on this table are from Death Ray Designs (the MDF) and from the twisted mind of TheDiceAbide (the mountains). The MDF catwalks are super fun looking, but very open on the ground floor, so we added a bunch of scatter and walls and such to break up the LoF.
Overview
- Mission: Countermeasures
- Forces: Ariadna versus Shasvastii Expeditionary Force (400, Tactical Window)
- Deploy First: Ariadna
- First Turn: Ariadna
Do Stuff 2.1
GROUP 1 |7
1
1
GROUP 2 |
VASSILY Lieutenant (Forward Observer) T2 Sniper, D-Charges / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (1 | 35)
TANKHUNTER Portable Autocannon, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 34)
CHASSEUR (Minelayer) Rifle, Light Flamethrower, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 20)
EQUIPE MIRAGE-5 . (2 | 71)
DUROC 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades, Smoke Grenades / AP CC Weapon. (34)
BRISCARD (Forward Observer) Marksman Rifle / Assault Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
ZOUAVE (Sapper) Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 25)
DYNAMO (Forward Observer) Rifle / Assault Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 29)
SCOUT (Forward Observer) Ojotnik, D-Charges, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30)
ISOBEL McGREGOR T2 Rifle, Flash Pulse, D-Charges, E/Mauler / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 26)
DOZER (Traktor Mul Control Device) Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
TRAKTOR MUL (Total Reaction) Uragan MRL / Electric Pulse. (1 | 18)
UXÍA McNEILL (Covert Action) (CH: Limited Camouflage, Superior Infiltration, Specialist Operative) Boarding Shotgun, D-Charges, Smoke Grenades / 2 Assault Pistols, AP CCW, Knife. (0 | 27)
8 SWC | 400 Points | Open in Infinity Army
I took a pretty eclectic collection of Ariadna stuff, focusing primarily on board control and objective coverage. I’m also trying to do the current Bromad Academy challenge, mostly because I’m a glutton for punishment and also to walk the walk, so to speak. You can check out the current challenge here:
Shasvastii Expeditionary Force
GROUP 1 |GROUP 2 |
SPECULO KILLER (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenades, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Monofilament CCW, Knife. (1.5 | 39)
MENTOR Lieutenant Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22)
NOCTIFER Missile Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32)
CALIBAN (Chain of Command) Submachine Gun, Pulzar, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife, CC Weapon. (0 | 29)
CADMUS-SOLDIER Hacker (EI Killer Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 24)
Q-DRONE HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 26)
GWAILO (Multispectral Visor L2) Heavy Rocket Launcher / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (2 | 43)
MED-TECH OBSIDON MEDCHANOID (Journalist L1) Submachine Gun, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22)
E-DRONE Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 28)
IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)
SHROUDED (Minelayer) Boarding Shotgun, Dazer / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 24)
SEED-SOLDIER Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
8 SWC | 400 Points | Open in Infinity Army
Adam (TheDiceAbide) and Obadiah (Nehimiah) collaborated to come up with the above monstrosity, which is somewhat lacking in long range firepower but more than makes up for it in filth. Adam informed me post game that he was planning on double Noctifier, double TR bot, double Speculo, but settled on this instead.
Deployment
I won the rolloff and decided to go first, figuring I could get an early lead on objectives. I decided to be cheeky and attempt to land a Chasseur Minelayer on the parts of the catwalk that were just outside of Adam’s deployment zone, but I flubbed the roll and that Chasseur ended up on my left. I found a suitable hunting ground for my Tankhunter on the roof, and then scattered my HVTs across the table just inside the exclusion zone where the belong.
My Uragan covered two of the HVTs, backed up by its Dozer, and then I found a suitable perch for Vassily, backstopped by the Zouave. Most of my specialists went in the middle, particuarly my two Briscards and Isobel. I put my Dynamo there to help them out with some smoke, and then put my Scout all the way on the right. My second Chasseur Minelayer covered my Briscards from the inevitable Speculos that were going to show up.
Adam put his Noctifier down to cover my knot of specialists, and then set up a band of camo specialists and other utility in the band just before the exclusion zone. He stuck his Mentor in the back left, just to get it out of the way and covered it with an Ikadron in case I decided to drop in an AD troop.
His heavy hitters were on the catwalks, including the Gwailo and Q-Drone. Doc Worm hung out next to the Q-Drone to keep me honest, and an E-Drone rounded things out.
One annoying thing that happened was we both forgot that you can’t cover a camo token with a mine, so that’s exactly what Adam did. He put one of his Speculo minelayers just outside my deployment zone and covered the Briscards and more importantly my Chasseur with the Speculo’s mine! What a cheater!
Once he was done with his cheaty deployment (I’m just giving him a hard time, I totally forgot too, in fact he reminded us of the mistake near the end of the game), I plunked Uxia down right next to his Q-Drone and crit the PH+3 roll. Phew! Of course, because we had forgotten about the whole situation with mines and camo tokens, he covered Uxia with the Speculo’s gun and mine. Booooo.
Turn 1
Top of 1- Ariadna
- HVT: Identity Check
- HVT: Inoculation
- Rescue
I was pretty happy with the list of objectives, so I just left them. I figured the Briscards could to the HVT things and then maybe I could get Rescue off of something. Seemed fine. Adam started by taking two orders from Uxia’s pool.
First things first though, I needed to get rid of the mine covering everything! I brought in Duroc on my back table edge and ran him forward, failing the dodge on the mine and taking a wound. Not an auspicious start to the game. Adam set up the table, so it has bad 風水. Just gonna blame everything on him this game.
I needed to get rid of the Q-Drone, so I decide to use my Lieutenant order to get Vassily into a position that he can see it out of cover. As I’m moving there, Adam reveals a TO camo token which delays against Vassily’s camo token. I keep moving instead of taking the shot, and break LoF to the Noctifer. My bad luck continues, and I spend two orders killing knocking Vassily out. If we look at the actual odds though, even with surprise shot it’s not great.
| 55.41 | 22.83 | 21.76 |
I forget that Vassily has Dogged so I could’ve kept shooting with him. Ah well. I decide to use another of my tools and walk on Margot in total cover, and then move her closer to the Q-Drone. I’m hoping that I’m in 16″ and I can spec-fire a grenade onto the Q-Drone that covers the Speculo’s mine to rescue Uxia. Of course, I’m at 18″ and spend a few orders attempting this and failing on a 5. Sigh.
I need to recover the turn now, so I end up having to send in Uxia to take care of the Q-Drone. I had planned her placement so that with one short skill move I would be able to cover both the Q-Drone and Doc Worm with a boarding shotgun template, which is exactly what I do.
Unfortunately, between the Gwailo’s HRL and the mine, I lose Uxia. I do crit the Q-Drone and put a second wound on it, which is great, but Doc Worm passes both ARM saves. Damn you Doc Worm, you’re my nemesis!
I want to deal with the Noctifer as well, so I use my DataTracker order to attempt do it with the Briscard Paramedic. Adam had been thinking about Dazers and Noctifers and I hadn’t, which meant I was informed of that fact that I was now shooting through a saturation zone, and that I had started out of 24″. Greaaaat.
| 22.63 | 26.31 | 51.05 |
Everything up to now, aside from the Speculo Minelayer thing, has just been minor issues. I misjudged 18″ to be 16″, I had some bad rolls that I probably shouldn’t have even attempted with Vassily, but this is my first straight up mistake. The good news, at least, is that the Noctifier is exposed now, so I can attempt to take it out with the Scout, which has Shock ammo. I split burst between the downed Q-Drone and the Noctifier with the scout. I’m on 6’s and the Noctifier is on 3’s, and we both whiff. The good news is that the Q-Drone is taken off the table!
I dump the rest of my orders into trying to take out the Noctifier and fail. Begrudgingly, I pass the turn, disheartened. What I didn’t do was save a spec-fire order on Margot to fix her positioning, and I also didn’t save an order on the Scout to recamo him. These are, again, relatively minor but I could have and should have done it.
Bottom of 2 – SEF
- HVT: Identity Check
- HVT: Inoculation
Rescue- Telemetry
Adam decides he doesn’t want Rescue and cycles it into Telemetry. Margot is a big thorn in his side, but he doesn’t want to over-invest. Instead, he moves his Speculo to set up for smoke. Margot and some other things that can see manage to discover the Speculo into IMP-2 state.
As the Speculo keeps moving, Margot delays while the Tankhunter discovers successfully again.
The Speculo sets up smoke, and then Adam starts moving the Gwailo around in his backfield. The Tankhunter can see and takes a shot against the Gwailo’s HRL and does a single wound.
The Gwailo can see the Uragan through the smoke after it breaks LoF to the Tankhunter, so it tries to deny me an order. The Uragan manages to dodge out of the way, shockingly.
The exact same thing happens to Margot, who manages to dodge out of LoF of the Gwailo. Adam moves a Caliban to maybe shotgun Margot, but I remind him she has an LGL and might catch another camo token under the template if he tries anything funny. At the very least he wasted an order.
Adam needs to get some points on the board, so he sets up smoke with his Speculo, hatches a Seed Soldier FO, and grabs Telemetry off my downed Briscard Paramedic. Thankfully, the Zouave and Tankhunter can both see this and turn the Seed Soldier into paste, denying Adam an order and a specialist on his next turn.
Adam’s at a bit of a loss for what to do next. He can’t get any other objectives, but he wanted to set up for next turn. He rolls in the Gwailo again and this time takes out the Zouave.
After hiding the Gwailo on the catwalk on the other side of the main central building, Adam passes turn.
Turn 2
Top of 2 – Ariadna
- HVT: Espionage
- HVT: Identity Check
HVT: Inoculation- Sabotage
I can no longer get HVT: Inoculation, so I opt to throw it out. I’m also in loss of lieutenant, which is pretty terrible.
Duroc jumps up onto the central building with a move-move super jump, tanking a missile from the Noctifier. Duroc then dives into the central building and grenades the Gwailo into unconsciousness.
I want to get rid of the Speculo, so I send in Margot. Even though I’m on 17s and the Speculo is on 14s, Margot loses the face to face and goes unconscious. 10% is still 10%!
| 66.77 | 23.17 | 10.06 |
I spent two orders (using a command token for the second one) on the Scout, and finally take out the Noctifier.
I’m really concerned about the Speculo near my Briscard and how it will probably gank my Briscard, so I climb the ladder and make it into the central building, killing the Gwailo along the way to make sure there aren’t any shenanigans for that f$*king Dr. Worm to pull.
Isobel drops an E/Mauler, the Uragan trundles into its original position, and I move the Dynamo forward, intending to body-block the Speculo and hopefully drain enough orders to give Isobel a chance of surviving.
Bottom of 2 – SEF
- HVT: Espionage
HVT: Identity Check- Predator
- Sabotage
Adam discards Identity Check and drops in a Cadmus KHD, sticking the landing even though Isobel attempts a Hack Transport Aircraft. The Decoys clear a mine, the E/Mauler, and reveal a Chasseur which flamethrowers the Decoy.
The Tankhunter can see the Cadmus’s position if he stands up, so that ties up the actual Cadmus. Adam decides to go after Sabotage and shuffles his Caliban engineer (the same one that wanted to go after Margot) towards the objective. My Chasseur discovers and my Dynamo fires a mine to cover the gap the Caliban will have to go through to get to my table side.
The Speculo throws smoke and then gets thrown under the bus to clear the mine, fails its dodge and dies.
The smoke does break LoF to all my scary AROs (namely the Tankhunter) and the Caliban does his thing, blowing up a meaningless wall for the glory of the Evolved Intelligence.
He does Protheion Margot though, which is annoying. Mostly for morale reasons. The remaining Speculo moves to try and fight Duroc, but nothing happens.
Turn 3
Top of 3 – Ariadna
- HVT: Designation
- HVT: Espionage
Nanoespionage- Predator
Duroc is too… big boned? to fit through the door, so I super jump him out the second floor window and behind the Speculo that is standing in the doorway. The Speculo dodges and I chain rifle it unconscious.
I can get all three objectives on the table, so I give it best shot. The Dynamo and Isobel burn all my orders in the second pool failing to get either HVT: Designation or HVT: Espionage, so I’m forced to use my Briscard FO to grab HVT: Designation. Duroc CC’s the Speculo off the table, leaving me with just enough orders to get Duroc to the Cadmus…
and bonk it into submission, giving me Predator.
I would have preferred to get all three, but two out of three in a turn isn’t bad!
Bottom of 3 – SEF
- HVT: Espionage
- HVT: Retroengineering
- Net Undermine
At this point, we’re tied 2 to 2 on objectives. Adam’s just got to get his chain of command model to my side of the table for Net Undermine, then get his Caliban engineer to my HVT without either dying to the Tankhunter.
I manage to discover the chain of command model, but it recamos behind a low wall and grabs Net Undermine successfully.
Adam’s winning, but he goes for the last classified with his Caliban, ending just a hair out of base to base with my HVT, choosing to dodge the Tankhunter since he can’t get the objective. My Tankhunter bursts the Caliban like a balloon with an autocannon round, and the game is over.
8-2 Shasvastii Expeditionary Force Victory!
Post Game Analysis
I had a pretty miserable start to my first turn. Lost Vassily, lost my DataTracker Briscard Paramedic, and had Margot out of position and vulnerable. I recovered reasonably well by ensuring Dr. Worm couldn’t pick up the Q-Drone, and set myself up as best as possible for Turn 2.
Adam’s turn 1 went similarly poorly for him. Nothing terrible happened, but the only real damage he did was to take out my Zouave and reposition a few things.
I was very happy with my loss of lieutenant recovery turn. I took care of the Gwailo and the Noctifier, and then set up for turn 3. I didn’t get to do everything I wanted to do, but I was at least repositioning smartly and clearing bad AROs.
In retrospect, I think going after the Q-Drone with Vassily was a bad idea. I should’ve used the Zoauve, which would have put the Q-Drone at -9 due to positioning (cover, camo, range). I didn’t check LoF but it turns out I had it. Vassily is just such a tempting tool to use, but I had him too far up (intending to use him as an FO if necessary), meaning I couldn’t get the Q-Drone into -3 range.
I also want to draw attention to the fact that this game started terribly, I was in loss of lieutenant in turn 2, and things were going much better for Adam through most of the game. I stuck to my objectives and fought my way to a potential draw. Basically, this game turned from a draw into a loss on the single WIP roll on Net Undermine. Adam wouldn’t have had a second chance to go for that because Duroc and the Tankhunter killed the model trying for Net Undermine.
It’s really easy to lose focus when you’re in a really bad losing position and all your plans and attempts to get out of it are a failure, but just take a deep breath and focus on getting points on the board, which is exactly what I did. In retrospect, I think I should’ve made Isobel my DataTracker, which potentially could’ve gotten me HVT: Espionage with another order.
In any case, a really challenging game against a very experienced opponent with a punishing list. That Dazer + Nocitifer combo really ruins everything. All in all, I was pretty happy with this as a practice game for Best of the Pacific Northwest! Thanks to Adam for the assistance with that!
