Erroneous Evasion
The Tabletop Throwdown crew needed someone to be an opponent for Alpharious this last Sunday, so I was happy to oblige.
Clint selected a pretty dark map, so we brightened it up a bit to make things more visible. Funnily enough, it turned out to be a mirror match, right now to pretty much the lists!
Overview
- Mission: Unmasking
- Forces: Jurisdictional Command of Corregidor versus Jurisdictional Command of Corregidor (300)
- Deploy First: Corregidor
- First Turn: Corregidor
I took a pretty similar list to the previous game, as that was a game in preparation for Tabletop Throwdown.
Clint (pseudonymmster) and Tim (Chainsaw) have been doing this thing where they suggest a pair of missions and randomly choose the one the participants will play the day of. They keep the opponent’s faction and map secret, to sort of simulate the environment you might see at a tournament instead of this hyper-optimized TTS environment we’ve been seeing lately.
Looting and Unmasking v2
GROUP 1
8
1
1
MOBILE BRIGADA Heavy Machine Gun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 40)
EVADER (Engineer) AP Spitfire, D-Charges ( | GizmoKit, TinBot: Firewall [-3]) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 34)
VALERYA GROMOZ (Hacker) Combi Rifle, Zapper, Pitcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 21)
JAGUAR Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 10)
GROUP 2
JAZZ Hacker & BILLIE undefined / undefined. (0.5 | 24)
BILLIE Flash Pulse, E/M Mines / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 6)
McMURROUGH Chain Rifle(+1B), Grenades, Smoke Grenades / AP + DA CC Weapon. (0 | 27)
ALGUACIL (Lieutenant) Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 10)
TRANSDUCTOR ZOND Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 7)
SOMBRA (Hacker, Killer Hacking Device) MULTI Rifle, Light Shotgun ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 41)
MORAN (Repeater) Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse, D-Charges, Crazykoala ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 17)
CARLOTA KOWALSKY Breaker Combi Rifle, Light Flamethrower, Adhesive Launcher(+1B), D-Charges / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 30)
6 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army
I ditched the camo Morans and moved to the repeater Morans, dropped the Bandit, and threw in another Jaguar. I wanted to try out the Jazz and Billie combo, so I did that instead as well. Alpharious took a very similar list, but used a Tsyklon instead of a Brigada HMG and opted for a Bandit instead of a Sombra. He also threw in a Vertigo with the SWC savings by taking a different Lt and not taking the Brigada HMG.
GROUP 1GROUP 2
VERTIGO ZOND Missile Launcher / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1.5 | 17)
BANDIT (Hacker, Killer Hacking Device) Light Shotgun, Adhesive Launcher ( ) / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 25)
TSYKLON Feuerbach, Pitcher / PARA CC Weapon(-6). (1 | 36)
5.5 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army
Deployment
I won the rolloff and elected to go first, figuring that I didn’t want to deal with getting Carlota’ed or McMurroughed straight off. I deployed my link defensively to protect against Carlota, and then foolishly stuck my Alguacil Lt off by herself. I’ve been not deploying the Koalas on the Morans, mostly because I’m trying to get myself to use them more aggressively. I think that was a mistake in this scenario though. The Morans and Sombra went as far as they could forward to be near the HVTs, and then I put Jazz and the Transductor on opposite sides of the table.
Since the table was mostly symmetric, Alpharious elected for a similar deployment, although he did deploy his Koalas and used his Brigada Lt and Vergito very effectively to protect against Carlota.
Turn 1
Top of 1 – Corregidor
This map has a lava pit on it, which is just about a 10″ jump across, so I elected to smoke the landing zone with McMurrough and get him across the gap. No one really thought that would work, least of all me, so I’m a little stuck as to what to do next! I decide to go after Jazz, as she’s in the link. If I can spec fire a grenade on her, that will drop the +3 BS bonus from the link and thereby let me intuitive attack the Tsyklon and Transductor on better odds. The first attempt fails…
as does the second…
So I just start chain rifling stuff. McMurrough goes after the Tsyklon and Moran. A ton of stuff dodges, but a Jaguar chain rifles and does a wound to McMurrough. The Tsyklon whiffs its shot back and the chain rifle drops it. Sadly, the Koala passes its ARM save, and the Moran successfully dodges. I do manage to put the Jaguar dogged though.
I jump McMurrough off and try to clear out the Vertigo Zond in an attempt to get Carlota on the table, but that fails too.
I lose McMurrough to the return fire, and don’t manage to take anything else out. Very sad. As Tim says…
I try to salvage the turn and send in the Sombra, taking out the Transductor, the Jaguar Panzerfaust, and finishing off the Tsyklon before going prone on the rooftop.
I spend an order shifting a Jaguar to the right to protect against Carlota, and that was my turn.
Overall, I killed the Tsyklon, two Jaguars, and a Transductor. Not very good, especially in light of a much better plan:
- Super-Jump across the lava, as before
- Blow the orders on the Sombra moving to the central objective and getting the console flipped, revealing the HVT next to the McMurrough
- Kill the HVT in close combat with McMurrough, which was pretty obviously “the one.”
- Spec-fire smoke onto the Tsyklon and CC it down
- Trade McMurrough for Jazz
That would’ve been a much stronger first turn.
Bottom of 2 – Corregidor (OpFor)
As it stands, I didn’t get anything useful done on the first turn, and immediately lose the Sombra to a surprise Trinity from Alpharious’s Bandit. Sigh. Dumb. I had tried to clear the way for Carlota on the first turn by activating a Moran (which I didn’t need to do) and failed to shoot a Transductor in a low-viz zone, so I could’ve had an order to recamo, which is pretty important. Anyway.
Carlota comes on and gets spotlit. I had thrown my Lieutenant into suppression on the last turn, but fearing getting shot in the butt by Carlota, I dodge out of suppression to be able to fire back instead of having to dodge at -3 against Carlota Climbing+ up the building and shooting my Lt in the back. As it turns out, my opponent hadn’t really thought of that, so that was definitely the wrong choice. Ah well. I guess I overthought it. I certainly would have pulled that trick if I could.
Carlota does a lot of prone-crawling, taking out the Moran and the Transductor…
before taking out my Lt. Sigh.
Alpharious’s McMurrough advances, and Carlota settles into a safer position before he makes an attempt on a console with the Bandit, failing with two failed WIP rolls!
Turn 2
Top of 2 – Corregidor
I’m in Loss of Lieutenant, so I just start my recovery turn. I move Carlota into the first group. I need to retain link coherency, which means the only gun I have that’s usable is Valerya’s. I get lucky and manage to take down the Bandit with a combi-crit.
The Evader gets into view of McMurrough, and I spent two more command tokens to put a wound on McMurrough while getting the Brigada closer to Carlota. Out of command tokens, I spend the Evader’s order, breaking the link and take out McMurrough, finally…
and the Brigada has no trouble taking down Carlota thanks to Targeted.
I foolishly advance Jazz, figuring that I will get her into the fight, and try to land a pitcher with Valerya, but fail the roll. I don’t have much else in the way of a turn, so it’s back to Alpharious.
Bottom of 2 – Corregidor (OpFor)
Alpharious chucks a pitcher on top of Jazz with his Jazz…
and spends about 3-4 orders on his linked Jazz to fight my Jazz. I actually crit him with Trinity once, but he passes both BTS saves. Eventually it works out for him and I lose Jazz.
His Evader’s on a building now though, and splits burst between my Evader and my Jaguar Panzerfaust. My Evader crits Alpharious’s Evader, but his Evader crits my Jaguar. Complicated! My Jaguar takes a wound as does his Evader.
The Evader is still up there in overwatch, and neither of us have flipped any consoles… not great.
Turn 3
Top of 3 – Corregidor
This is still salvageable. Here’s my plan:
- Brigada uses Lt order to kill the Evader.
- My Evader gets to the center console (away from Jazz) and flips the console.
- Carlota comes on behind his link, and snipes the HVT.
- My Evader kills his Lt, putting him in LoL on bottom of 3, and then I’ve got a pretty good chance…
Step one goes great. Evader down!
The rest falls apart, as I fail THREE WIP rolls on the console with my Evader. I bring Carlota on, and throw out a Koala with my Moran, and hope for the best.
Bottom of 3 – Corregidor (OpFor)
It goes horribly. Alpharious clears the Koala with his Brigada BSG.
His Moran flips a console in one roll. I shoot at it just in case he fails with my Brigada, but whiff. Doesn’t matter anyway.
Jazz spotlights and then missiles happen to take out my Designated Target, and that’s game!
A much closer game than it really had any right being, especially after a shite first turn for me. Pretty disappointed in my piloting first turn, and really there was no reason to not protect my Algaucil with a Moran’s Koala. I wasn’t thinking too hard about it, but I guess in practice I’ll only really throw one out a game anyway. In any case, a very well played game by Alpharious, and thanks to the boys at Tabletop Throwdown for their great commentary!
7-0 Corregidor (OpFor) Victory!
Post Game Analysis
I really threw away the first turn on this, and my previous game with Corregidor. I think McMurrough is a bit of a mental trap–you get him across the table and then there’s just so many order-intensive options for you to do stuff, most of which are actually pretty bad odds. I think I need to think carefully about either having a specific target or task for him, or better yet just delay a turn and do something more productive. I think spending orders hunting specific things with the Sombra might have been a better use of my time on the first turn, and/or advancing my link into a better position. I could also have just thrown pitchers out to go after Jazz too, that would’ve been an excellent use of orders.
In any case, Tim had the great comment I alluded to earlier, which was that I should’ve just assassinated the HVT with my McMurrough, and then used my Moran to retreat my HVT to safety in my deployment zone somewhere, for fear of his McMurrough doing the same jump across the lava trick. I don’t think I had a coherent plan for the game and was just sort of responding the situation, which is insufficient when playing at this level.
So, in terms of areas for improvement:
- As always, play to the mission. There’s a bit of fear knowing how strong Corregidor is that you have to do some damage, especially with McMurrough on the table, but I don’t think that’s true.
- Put the brakes on McMurrough. Wait for the situation to develop, and then control the midfield with him.
- Advance the link more — I had a long conversation with Tim after everyone signed off the discord about this.
Regarding that discussion, my primary complaint about 5-model links is that I have such a hard time settling on the positions of the 4th and 5th members of the link. It’s generally just so cumbersome. Coherency is also difficult to maintain amongst 5-members. I’ve long been much more comfortable as a vanilla player, so I’m going to just force myself to use links more aggressively in games to figure them out. It took me awhile to figure out JSA, and it was quite uncomfortable doing so. I imagine a similar process to really dive into links.
To be clear, I’ve had plenty of games where I’ve gotten a lot of work done with links, win or loss, so it’s not like I can’t leverage them. I just want to get to a point where I no longer actively frown when I use them, if that makes any sense. They’re a powerful tool to be wielded, and I want to really get more comfortable with them.
In any case, I think Alpharious stuck to the game plan better than I did, and managed to achieve the Lieutenant snipe when I could not. Alas. Congratulations to him on a game well played!
Pingback: Koala Space Program – MERC Recon