Asteroid Blues

As part of my learning, I incorporated units I've never used before into this list: the Kumotail and the Kerail Perceptor w/ Surda Symbiobeasts. Everyone else is something I've practiced with either when I began Tohaa or in Spiral Corps.

As usual, I lose the Lt. roll; opponent chooses to go first, so I get to choose deployment. I pick where I think I have better vantage point over the contested consoles.

Nomad Data Tracker: Bachelor Gecko
Tohaa Data Tracker: Draal

Because this is Unmasking, we each get a Wild Bill. We also each forget to print his statline, so we spend a lot of time going back and forth to the computer to verify. The Nomad Wild Bill is a replica from Vaudeville; the Tohaa find a malfunctioning YuJing knockoff which Keesan hacks into.

In rare occassion, Einhorn's Intervention Force is only one group. On loan from the Spiral Corps is Anti-Shasvastii specialist operative Aelis Keesan.

My initial triads are
1. Keesan, Makaul, Kumotail
2. Gao-Rael Sniper, Sakiel Lt., Kaeltar

Symbiomates go on the Gao-Rael and the Draal. This is a mistake because I meant for one to go on the Kerail Perceptor, but it happened because I kept the Kerail in reserve.

Defending the drinking holes of the Japanese Bottom, the Tohaa get into position to receive the assault of the Nomad Bachelor party.

Tohaa spend the Command Point to deny Nomads two orders thanks to the last minute shuffle of adding Wild Bill to the party.

The rightmost Zondbot attempts to take paparazzi photos of the Tohaa Wild Bill knockoff (hereafter referred to as ChinaBill). It dodges both attempts adroitly.

The Jaguars in the middle move forward and throw smoke to create cover for the Intruder HMG. A shootout takes place between it and the Gao-Rael sniper; two hits go in, both saved by the Symbiomate. The Intruder fires again and this time crits with two additional hits – one of those goes through and the Gao-Rael goes down.

The Moran moves forward and sets its CrazyKoalas to strategically block one of the consoles.

Bachelor Gecko advances and enters a panzerfaust shoot out with ChinaBill; both miss. Although he honestly should be dodging, Wild Bill gets into another shoot out with the remaining panzerfaust shot and gets taken down in a spray of pirate circuitry.

This whole turn belongs to the Kerail and its Surda Symbiobeasts. It advances in smoke before giving up and just going in for the attack. One of the Surda goes straight for the Gecko and goes down, but a mixture of lucky SMG fire and nanopulsers take it down. The Surda which superjumped on the roof takes the opportunity to large template the Nomad ARO pieces and succeeds at removing the Intruder and VaudeBill. The turn ends with the Kerail ducking into cover and the Sakiel Lt. revealing himself to inch forward with its special order.

With Wild Bill gone, the Nomads move the second Zondbot back into Group 1.

The Jaguars peek out and shoot some confetti chain rifles at the Surdo, but it dodges.

The Bachelor pilot jumps out of the Gecko and opens up with pistol fire up to the Surdobeast, finally taking it down. (I forget that they have Dogged.)

The Pilot hunts out the Kerail, finishing off the team, then activates the console. It reveals the closest Tohaa HVT decoy as a fake and then takes out the fake.

The Draal enters a firefight with the Moran, taking it down but seeing no way yet around the CrazyKoalas.

Aelis Keesan and her group run forward into the open middle and engage the Jaguars with a cascade of viral fire. Aelis’ team gets into position, finally presses the button, and reveals the real HVT of the Nomads… lurking in the most annoying corner of the map, past the Koalas. There’s no way we’re reaching that, so we’ll have to find another route to victory.

The Nomads spend all their remaining command tokens here on several coordinated assaults. The Jaguars and Ringleader Lupe surge forward. The Sakiel Lt returns fire while Kaeltar Einhorn provides cover with flash pulses. Jaguars continue to advance with chain rifles and eventually go down, but smoke covers the field and Aelis goes down.

There’s only one path to victory, and that’s activating the last console defended by the CrazyKoalas. The Draal is our last specialist in range, so the Sakiel Lt takes it upon himself to run forward and take the hit. In a conflagration of yakitori sauces, the Lt. goes down and the chain of command falls to Kaeltar Einhorn (screaming into his hands). The Draal uses the second-to-last order to get to the console, where it battles against a flash pulsing Zondbot to claim the win.
With the final order, we try to Regenerate Keesan, which surprisingly succeeds.

Nomads killed more enemy decoys: 1pt
Tohaa activated more consoles: 2pts
Both designated targets not killed: 1pt ea.
Tohaa Datatracker survived: 1pt

4-2 Tohaa!

- I forgot again that Gao-Rael are MI and could get Forward Deployment L1 this season. Literally just realised it writing this.

- I really need to be very careful of straight lines when trying to avoid templates.

- The Kerail is an amazing value at 28pts only! Holy crap these Tohaa dogs are the most satisfying troop profile I’ve ever played with, even if I have to learn to smoke weave better and even if Dodge at 18 is still essentially gambling. What’s the AVA of these? I need all of them!

- Nomad stag parties are brutal.

Go read Desanges' linked battle report for more anthropological data on Nomad Bachelor Parties!