Asteroid Blues

A regular night at Harry's, loud and busy as usual but with a bit more tension in the air. The patrons having not yet forgotten the events of the last few days here where Angus unintentionally became the talking point of the Sphere. A group who just stopped inside the door, wearing Haqqislam insignia, whispers among themselves.

'I'm telling you, it's him. I'd recognize that hat anywhere.'

'You might be right. Wonder what he's doing here though?'

'Let's ask him. We go way back. All very hush-hush though.'

'You know him? That sounds likely'

'You don't trust me? First round is on you, when I prove you wrong. Watch this'

Our speaker steps out from the group and shouts 'INFIDEEEEEL' toward a man in a lovely trench coat and a cowboy hat who's close to the bar. The mood suddenly shifts and all conversations stop. The man slowly turns around, with a stare that promises pain and retribution. For a minute, everything is still. From the group at the door, a man in the same uniform as the speaker on the floor, starts whistling a simple tune. As the whistling goes on, eventually a smile cracks on our cowboy's face.

'Infidel? I'll have you know that I'm an apostle of the Cult of Aristea! You should join! Now! Repent your sins and let entertainment become your new religion!'

'Entertainment might be great, but not great enough for us to convert. Will you settle for a free drink from my starstruck friend over here?'

Our cowboy, now clearly identifiable as Wild Bill, our famous Aristos, looks over to the group.

'Free drink? Sign me up... and you might as well tell me what on earth, or asteroid in this case, you're doing over here, Mo.'

'Drinking?'

'You're a bit heavily armed for that, my friend'

'Well, we might be our here looking for something related to the incident a while back'

'Please don't trash the bar before I get my drink'

'Of course not. We would not want to damage this den of scum and villany'

As the group starts dispersing out in the bar, they are becoming aware of some hostile intent from a group of Yu Jing soldiers.

'Bill? Do you want to help out a bit over here? Seems we have a bit of a brawl incoming?'

'Never turning down a good brawl. I'll go soft on them though, don't need any bad publicity right now'

Mo just smiles 'Never change, Bill. Never change'

Report:
My opponent needed to practice for a tournament and asked for a run of Hunting Party. Since it's not a preferred mission for any of the locations, we decided that it would be in Harry's Bar. We also decided to play EXTREME classifieds, which was the first time for me.

List construction was equal parts fluffy reasons (play WILD BILL! and fat Yuan-Yuan) and the fact that QK has a fair amount of linkable troops with glue guns or veteran status. Not having played QK for a while, I went for a 5 man Ghulam link to protect my Lt in and a 3 man haris of Bill and Kaplans to do aggressive glue action. Chuck in some robots, a Djanbazan (MSV Glue!) and 3 Yuan Yuans. Also, playing 2 Engineers is not something I do often but thought I wanted to try it for hunting party (Spoiler, they were both good).

I pulled my classifieds. The first was the choice between Capture or HVT: Identity Check. I took Identity Check for two reasons: I don't like Capture (end of game stuff is easy to screw up) and I had a sensor robot which felt like it should be able to complete Identity Check. Second choice was between Experimental Drug and Nanoespionage. For once, I play without doctors so Experimental Drug is out. Nanoespionage is not bad though. Since it's Hunting Party, I might be able to glue a specialist in place and complete it. I'm quite happy with my choices, at least I have the models to do them which sometimes doesn't happen.

I win the roll and agonize over going first or second. I only know I'm playing against YJ at this point and my opponent quite often play high order count lists. I have a problem going first though, my army is quite static and if he hides his LT, I'm very unlikely to be able to glue it. I chose to take deployment, I got a decent ARO placement for my Ghulams and a good hiding place for my LT.

After my opponent has deployed all but his reserve, it looks like he deployed very heavily on one flanks with 4 camo markers there. Luckily, it's the opposite side of where I want to hide my LT. I'm quite happy going second after I can see his deployment, I don't think he can damage me heavily enough to cripple me. His reserve of Hsien HMG Lt is a problem though, I have access to a fair amount of smoke but I can't really deal with him. His HVT is placed quite central and up the board, I deploy my sensor robot close by, ready to scan and identify it.

YJ Turn 1:
During my opponents first turn, he kills my Djanbazan with the Hsien (my mistake, I though I had placed him out of LoS) and also some of my flash pulse robots. His Libertos goes up, gets a mine close to my Al'Hawwa but fails to discover it. My Al'hawwa has nerves of steel and just dares my opponent to spend orders to kill it. Aida and a Monk advances up on my opponents 'weaker' flank.

QK T1
During my turn, there is not a lot to easily attack. First, the Yuan-Yuans arrive. I sacrifice one to trigger 2 glue bots and close enough to a camo marker for it to blow up if it is a mine. Turns out it isn't. My YY will try to discover it later but fail. Second, Aida needs to die. Being a character, she has a glue gun and a credible chance to glue my LT. Thankfully, I have a grenade launcher in my link team and Aida is just within 16. I spec fire, half to get rid of a mine she has placed but get lucky and shoot Aida to unconscious. I try to use a Kaplan to kill a Kuang Shi but it turns out he can be seen by a camo marker that turns out to be Lunah (Aristea! Showdown). My Haris breaks, Will Bill climbs down to get a bit closer to my opponent. I feel my turn is going ok, I've blunted a bit of my opponents attacks. I decide to try to do my HVT Identity check. I spend an order to get into position and then I spend my remaining 5 rolls failing to roll 1-7 on a die. Ah well, crap happends, but now my robot will probably die.

YJ T2
My opponents second turn, he completes a classified (Extreme prejudice on 2 Yuan Yuans). He then decides to go for a run up to the antenna (with his doc) which is next to the unconscious Aida, with the intent of both resurrecting her and tagging the antenna. Karma is a harsh though and he fails 2 or 3 rolls to connect the antenna. This also has the side effect of him running out of orders to try to get Aida back up (he could get there but not move away which would have given me easy template attacks against them). There is some shooting, Libertos fails his discover again but it feel like I have a bit of a plan.

QK T2
On my turn, I manage to kill a monk that's running around in the middle of the field. With that gone, Wild Bill can glue the doctor standing next to the unconnected antenna from halfway across the board which my opponent hadn't realized could happen (WB shoots people in cover on 10s with his glue gun up to 32 inches away). One of my engineers (the Kaplan one), runs up and fixes my sensor bot which had been shot to unconscious. He also moved more midfield where he can fix a flash pulse robot. With the last few orders in that pool, my newly repaired sensor robot manages to Identify the HVT and I've got a classified. I also position my other engineer to be able to make a run for the antenna on the side where all his camo is.

YJ T3
Thanks to my gluing of his doc, I'm suddenly in a winning position (3-1 in points atm), My opponent has a lot of orders left since I've killed almost nothing and now unveils the troop that has to do it all (Daofei hacker). He goes up to the closest antenna, fires away at my engineer and wild bill. Wild Bill takes a wound but my engineer is fine. He tags the antenna but decides that he doesn't want to risk being flash pulsed by my robots and spends orders running around the house to attack my sensor robot with glue. The Libertos has finally managed to discover and shoot the Al'Hawwa which is no more (straight to dead). This opens up a path for the Daofei to come and glue my sensor robot. He also kills Wild Bill. His LT stands up to make it harder for me to move across the board, I don't really want to engage it at the distance it is at.

QK turn 3
I'm now in a losing position (1-2) since he took an antenna and glued one of my specialists. I can think of a lot of silly plans to score tons of points (IF they work). He's put his LT out in the open but with Wild Bill dead, I don't really have anyone I want to try to glue him with. In the end, I decide to just smoke it up around my glued robot. My engineer that survived the Daofei runs into the smoke and removes the glue. This put me back in a winning position (3-2). I have 6 or 7 orders left at this point but everything I do has a small chance to lose me the game so I just call it there.

Comments:
Neither of us has played Hunting Party very much. I liked the scenario and Wild Bill was quite nice in it.
The Ghulam NCO is a beast (I knew that, on paper, but experience is always better).
Fat Yuan Yuan made an apperance but sadly died before he could kill the doc.