Asteroid Blues

Day 5 of the Asteroid Blues Campaign...and after three games at The Chimneys I definitely wanted to try something different. Michael was ready to field his Nomads against my Combined Army and since I had played Shas a lot lately, and knew that I needed som decent firepower, I went with Vanilla as well.

We decided to play Firefight at The Spaceport. I just love the Fat Yuan Yuan and Fusilier Angus too much as to not play that mission at least once. To honor the setting, we chose all the Bagkok Style terrain we could muster at the club and built a fitting scenery for the upcoming fight...which we were sure was going to be epic.

Michael is probably one of my most favourite opponents. He has improved his game a lot in the last year and our matches usually are pretty close and a lot of fun. His approach is rather fluffy and he is a superb painter...going fully painted is just soooooo much more fun. Eye-candy for sure!

Please forgive me, but I am just really bad in writing batrep fluff. Some of you guys do outstanding work, but mine always feels dull to me. My Wotan stories were a little too experimental for the common taste, so bare with me as I will stick to the crunch of things while throwing in some misplaced comments of dubious political correctness.

While you are here, why not take a virtual tour of Novyy Bankok's Walking Street to get to know this exquisite place for a night of all those forbidden pleasure, the prudish Pan0 authorities will never allow you to experience! Adult entertainment par excellance!

Pun intended! Beware...you are never safe!

Want to listen to some music? Go ahead and click on that video! And don't worry: it's not Die Antwoord...enjoy ;).

You know why they calle dthis place "The Red Ant"? They say that once you get involved with one of the "female" "employess" you might feel itches...like being eaten by a swarm of ants. Definitely worth a visit!

Firefight is rather a conflicting mission...Mnemonica (I can't believe I typed that in correctly on first try...) isn't really the way to go, Specialists should be sparse, but things are going to die. I went with an Anathematic Plasma Sepsitor for the dirty work in turn 2, Bostria was on board as well, plus tons of rather cheap stuff to fill the ranks. Dr. Journalist and a Shrouded AHD would have to cover objectives as best as possbile and a Noctifer was supposed to cover their rear ends. All lead by a Mentor.

Michael brought a loooooot of heavy stuff. Kriza and Intruder HMG are pretty much always set, but this time he fielded a set of Puppetbots additionally. Zeros, Bandit and Moran would prove to be a nuisance as well. Not that fluffy, but very intimidating.

I won the Initiative and decided to try my luck first turn. So deployment was mine as well. Only thing left was the question of who is who: I won the roll again and chose the Fat Yuan Yuan...of course you might say.

It is quite astounding, how expensive CA can be . I spread my units with template weapons all over the board as I knew there would be Morlocks incoming...Noctifer covered the long street. As I write this I realized that basicall every unit except Dr. Worm fielded a Template of some sort. Not bad. As the Anathematic and the Noctifer were both in hidden deployment, Michael was kind of worried what I might have held back...Gooooooooood!

Nomads on the other hands can field so much of the good stuff, it's barely unbelievable. 5 Camo markers outside his zone. As I asked if all of them could infiltrate, and Michael confirmed this due to ITS rules...well that thing on the roof was the Intruder for sure. That truely was a superb spot for the dude...and for Bob to accompany his old buddy from accounts. But there were other problems as well: the Moran and the Interventor basically blocked my Shrouded from doing anything right from the get-go. The Interventor in turn was very well hidden, so no real chance of getting him. Should have brounght a KHD...(note to myself: IDIOT). That Kriza and the puppets needed to be neutralized quickly as well. Luckily I had Fatty to wreck things...so off we went.

Michael blocked one of my regular orders in group 1, handshake, let the carnage begin.

All impetuous troops took a run (forgot that at first but it didn't have any impact). Then Fatty came down...right in the enemy deployment zone (which is allowed in this mission) in the back of the Puppetmaster. Michael's face turning bleak. We didn't realize that the Puppetmaster couldn't do any AROs, but in the end it didn't matter anyways...Fatty blew that guy in a thousand pieces with his Berserk D-Charge. Now that was pretty crucial as the Puppetbots would be out of the game. Fatty then went for the Kriza in a suicidal run and managed to plant a D-Charge as well, befor going down to a Heavy Pistol shot...BAAAAAAAM...Michael makes two of three saves. Not too bad, but not the optimum result. This rolling became some sort of habit I might add.

So that went quite ok, now BoB(!)stria was about to make his move. I thought that he could get LoF to that Interventor...but so I thought...and he didn't. Two orders wasted. Then the Intruder decided to react...and FAILED. This doesnt happen all too often and the Speculo placed two hits, on save failed. Perfect to score my Classified and take that dude out for good. Phew.

I coordinated to get my guys into slightly better cover and with my last order the Krakot flung his shit at the Moran, but the grenade missed. Dr. Wurm went into suppressive fire and that was it.

Retailiation incoming. All the Morlocks went straight forward so I decidd to pull my Noctifer ad the one furthest away came in sight on his second movement...missed. The second Morlock didn't make his Smoke Dodge but made ALL FREAKING 3 SAVES!!!

Then the Kriza went on his killing spree. Walked along the right flank of the table, took out a Daturazi on his way, killed an Ikadron and even the Noctifer. Now I had that porblem right in my deployment zone. He was hoping for a clear shot at Dr Worm, but the Tori just barely blocked the view. But still this had to be dealt with.

Last but not least, the Moderator on the left went for my Krakot, managed to hit once (saved) but rolled an 18 and thus died due to the hullbreach.

Long story short...what a garbage turn that was.

Krakot didn't move and the remaining Daturazi went into his death, talking a Morlock with him. Probably the worst trade off ever.

As the Kriza needed to go, the Anathematic unveiled and went for it. Two salvos on the way at the Morlock didn't do nothing, and it took me seven orders in total to put that last single wound on that Kriza...he saved TWO plasma hits...that's 4 rolls...he dodged...I missed...wtf? Finally that dude went down and I git the Datatracker. Back into TO.

to finish up the Doc sent his little halper to fix the Daturazi next turn.

Things got a little confusing at this point and I messed up taking notes of what happend on which order.

A Morlock went for the Anathematic, killed the little drone and finishied off the Daturazi, tossed Smoke, but didn't make it into basecontakt.

The Bandit FO went for the panoply and got himself some nice EM-grenades...but them Michael decided NOT to make use of them (why???) but instead moved up his Zero KHD, placed a mine next to the Anathematic and in turn got sepsitorized.

Then for the last orders the Moran moved up his Koalas and marked my Daturazi to get the classified...even though he wasn't even a Forward Observer ;).

They say 3 is the magic number...worst turn this game. I needed to take out a few more points and orders just to be sure...and there were plenty of opportunities...to fail.

Krakot went forward and dodged the Koalas. Then he jumped to get the Moran, because I thought that was a FO specialist...which he wasn't...but that didn't matter. Berseked him, no crit, he saved his roll. Krakot down. Brilliant.

Speculo went for the Moderator...Lean Over...in the back...hits only once (18s needed)...Moderator saves. Lean Over again...one hit again...Moderator saves the hit but goes down due to the hullbreach (rolled an 18 for shoot). WTF??? At this moment I realized my folly and lay down...but then there was the Bandit across the board that we totally overlooked...Michael chose the Glue Gun...Speculo still alive. Phew.

Ok...the Anathematic needed to survive, therefore the Morlock had to die. Dr. Worm took that burden to himself. Moved up...shot him in the back...missed three times...Morlock turns...Dr. Worm shoots again and missed twice...smoke dodge roll is higher...WTF?

One order left, I coordinated and moved the Ikadron back a little, the Anathematic doged the Mine and the Doctor got behind that advertisement panet. Probably would have been better to get prone behind that blue car. But that was it. A glorious failure of a turn.

My camera phone just sucks...the picture is so blurred, it's not any good.

I'll make it short, even if some rolls were quite hilarious:

The Morlock went at the Anathematic...who gladly took the DA hit as NWI might save his ass...and laid down the second sepsitor. Morlock succombed to the EI...WITHOUT a cube (!!!)...played that wrong. As we could resolve that, we played it as it was...just as the Moran FO.

Angus found his balls...and a panzerfaust in the panoply and then blasted my last Ikadron, before checking my HVT at "The Wild Dragon's Happy Ending".

Then the last Morlock took out Dr. Worm...that was a game that would sure be reaaaaaaaally close.

For the score:

Michael killed 158 points, I killed 161 (how close can this be???): 0-3
Michael scored 2 Classifieds, I scored 1: 2-4
We both had killed the Datatracker: 3-5
Michael had opened mre Panoplies: 4-5
We both had killed one specialist: 5-6

Final score: 5-6 and barely a win for Combined Army

So, what can we learn from this game? If your last turn works as badly as your first turn went well...that's not going to work! Bad shooting and a lot of saves.

I made one crucial mistake: I didn't read the rules for G:Puppets (or whatever). I though through the whole game, that the Puppetbots would be counted as killed...thus scoring two dead specialists and another 36 points. But Disconnected is not a Null state. Damn it.

I could have moved my Speculo more effectively...instead of shooting the Moderator, some shots at the Puppetbots might have been a good idea.

And against Nomads taking the Shrouded AHD wasn't the most brightest move. The KHD could have proved crucial as that would have been a nice hack against the Interventor.

All in all: a very tight game, that could as well have turned the other way. When we left the table, we had miscalculated the points and we thought I had won, so Michael was a bit consternated as the last turn really went in his favour. We tried to make things work afterwards...coming to the point where one situation makes the difference:

The Sepsitor againgst the Morlock: I could have put down the Nanopulser, but we couldn't recall the exact dice result. So basically we do not know what would have happened. We decided to count the kill, and counted the FO action as valid.

The kill score would swing by this one model...3 points either way.

Writing reports really helps to put a spotlight on such gaming errors.

The good sportsman he is, Michael was ok with me putting the report down like that, but for me, he definitely has won the game in terms of how it went.

Thanks for that great game and I really hope for a rematch!