Asteroid Blues

Game 5 for the Asteroid Blues Campaign and this time I would be playing with Schmiddy, aka MrTapir. We have not played for about 6 months so we were really looking forward to this. We went for Limited Insertion lists as we wanted to have some tought units crash. So after about 2 hours of setting up the board we were ready to have Yu Jing fight it out against my Shas...good times incoming! Schmiddy doesn't participate un Asteroid Blues so he let me choose...I was tempted to go for the Spaceport, but the Chmineys just seemed far more interesting for the Fluff I had in mind.

Click down below if you want some interesting music ;).

As we are playing Daedalus Falls atm, we chose Robotrain...I really like this mission as it is well balanced and offers the chance to gain solid points even if you are losing. So to honor the BoW campaign we built a huuuuuuuge underground freight station, with lots of cargo and storage facilities. Really nice. Battlesystems is probably the bestterrain to be creative, but also the most annoying to put those ideas into reality.

Robotrain basically has a simple set-up:

For the lists: I chose to go almost full camo...only my trusted Plasma Q-Drone would be a target. For the units I went with the bare minimum of specialists as I assumed that this could be decisive in the end. Lost of aggressive deployment: Minelayer, Killerhacker, Speculo...almost every unit would be exposed from the start.

Schmiddy chose a 300 points, 0 SWC list...zero! 2 camo trooper and 3 TO...plus Sun Tze...well this was for sure going to be interesting.

Novyy Bankok is full of these dark places, where secret businesses flourish outside of anyones notice. Freightstation 726 was nothing less than that: linking to the spaceport, the tracks still were branched enough for most people never even noticing that particular tunnel that lead there. Perfect for anyone wanting to let a few containers disappear. It was a place where contraband was stored and traded...slaves...weapons...drugs...and in some case more unique and exotic things.

Of all possible officers, it was Sun Tze, that took command of this particular mission. Highest authority for highes risks...if the plans of the State Empire were to be revealed to the public...not to mention O-12, all hell would have broken loose. The Jade Throne has always been a save haven for refugees, and it never fell short of pointing that out. Still these refugees were different. Generosity would be only one term to describe this recent turn in politics...fratenization was another.

Sun Tze walked up to the container on the train, giving a nod to one of the Krakot Renegades. These were fine worriors and very capable fighters...desperately needed units against an unknown enemy. Down the tunnels they had set-up a traing camp for these ape-like creatures and of course the supreme commander of the State Empire knew, that a hungry warrior might prove to be uncontrollable. Food was needed...

One of the Krakot approached the container, reacheing for the opening touch pad. Sun Tze quickly gave him a slap on the hand, which was not well recieved by the hulking beast. "Alright...I guess that your service has earned you a little snack...but only one"...

A happy Krakot reached into the container and picked up a yellow fruit.

"Dear goodness...they will tear this train in a thousand pieces once it arrives at the camp...glad we have some security backup in place."

Little did Sun Tze know that his backup would be needed dearly, as the tunnels were already full of moving shadows...the EI wouldn't let it's "property" be used like toys...they would be executed for their treason...in public...blown into space in front of the lenses of all journalists on this filthy rock...suffocating for everyone to see...or at least, they would have to starve in the darkness of the Chimneys.

I won the Initiative and chose first turn...Schmiddy announced Strategos Level 3, so it was all in for me deploying first.

My plan was solid: get everything done first turn and block his attempts to counter. Easier said than done. Two Caliban were to take the gangways and protect the train from above, Shrouded would cover midfield togethter with the Q-Drone, while the Malignos was destined to be the train driver. Noctifer giving cover...plus there was this one guy there at the tracks...a friedly guy that nobody really knew...a train mechanik proBOBly.

Schmiddy spread his troops all over the board to prevent me from alpha striking. I knew that there were some nasty things missing.

So I went for the train. First a Shrouded KHD checked the console and opened the train doors...KILLER hacker one might say. To proceed further, one of the Krakots had to go, so the Caliban to the left took quick care of that and in coordinated manner, my troops advanced to secure the train. Especially that mechnik really wanted to help the Yu Jing forces by moving to the other train wagon.

The Caliban on the right took some time to kill one of Schmiddies infiltring Guilangs, but in the end was successful. To further drain some orders, the Noctifer took a shot at Schmiddies Drone, but failed. So the Malignos dropped a mine, went into the train and manipulated the autopilot. One short skill too much maybe. To end the turn, Both Caliban, the Malignos and the Q-Drone went into suppressive fire.

I was quite happy with turn 1...I would have liked to get some more wounds on my Caliban but well...we'll see.

Schmiddy first needed to clear the way...his Krakot jumped towards my Caliban Engineer...both died. He tried to move his drone to trigger the mine, which didn't work, but instead got blasted by the Noctifer. Then he coordinated some troops and had Sun Tze dodge a mine so that a Ninja was free to hack the console as well...the door slid oped next to Bob. Then from the shadows a Hac Tao KHF became visible and started to take care of thing. First he shot my second Caliban, then my Q-Drone. Bastard...Last order Schmiddy sent both Killer Hacker back into TO.

Both Caliban dead...great. That was my classified..,both D-Charges gone. Plus: that was 2/3 of my firepower gone. So I needed some time to assess the situation and decided to pop a mine with the Shrouded Minelayer. Then the second Shrouded Minelayer moved forward to shotgun the Hac Tao, only to find himself in view of a delaying TO marker...fantastic...just go back and shoot that thing...which then uncloaked to be another Ninja Killer Hacker. Unfortunately in my onw Dazer range it was only one shot each order...none of them hit. To finish up this useless turn, I coordinated all my Shrouded back into Camo state. Great...well done...fantastic.

So Yu Jing leader took matters into his own hands...staring suspiciously at Bob. When he finally had discovered his true indentity, that dude disappeared in smoke...phew. The Hac Tao then went in for the kill, took a wound from the mine and stormed into CC with that Speculo. Daring move but his odds weren't all that bad. 16 vs. 17...Speculo hit, he saved the armour roll. As his odds were worse afterwards, he decided to move his second Ninja and dodged another missile from the Noctifer...that wouldn't have him anyways.

Last turn and again i had to assess the situation...decided to test my luck with the Speculo in CC. Rolled a 3...Hac Tao rolled a 9...Speculo died to the DA weapon. Nice.

Last chance: the Shrouded KHD went for it...luckily wasn't discovered by Sun Tse on the way and hack-attacked the Hack Tao. One order of Maestro later and that big dude was lying there unconscious. At least that had worked.

The Shrouded tried again to kill that Ninja...well...only to die himslef. Nice.

Second to last order I coordinated my troops to get up and at least gain some field of vision, while the Noctifer shot the last Missile at the Ninja...and missed.

To protect my specialist, the Shoruded KHD went into camo state again and that was it for me.

Last turn for Schmiddy...7 orders left. The camoed Ninja needed 3 of them to get into the train, and another 3 to successfully hack the autopilot. With one order left there was nothing he could do, as his second Ninja could only get LoS to my Malignos, but would have gotten a -12 mod...impossible to hit, so we left it at that.

For the score:

We both had activated the consoles: 3:3
We both had hacked the autopilot: 5:5
We both controlled the autopilot: 6:6
I killed 2, Schmiddy killed 1 spcialists: 8:6

And a win for Shasvastii...even if that win was only partly successfull.

Overall, this game was really great fun. Schmiddy doesn't take things to his heart and is a great guy to play with. I really enjoyed that.

In the aftermath we made some mistakes...of course you might say. I popped a mine with that Malignos while moving and checking the autopilot...so no mine. Schmiddy forgot that his Monstertrucker was irregular...so 3 orders more for him. Nothing all too serious, so we were fine with that.

He could have dropped a repeater with his second Guilang to get his Ninjas to go at the Malignos...that would have been a gamechanger. Luckily he was unlucky with his last rolls so no more options for him. Great game, great fun...thanks buddy!

Of course you will have to live with the certainty that because of your failure, your Krakot
friends would suffer from getting no bananas and will probably turn on you soon...just to starve down there. Don't worry...we will hunt the last of them down, once they cannibalized your troops first...and then themselves. Being the bad guy really is fun....muhahahahaha........