Asteroid Blues

Another short one due to technical issues and the time limit! Fluff will probably end up on a forum post. Sorry, I've gotta sleep.

This was a teaching game for a player who came in from China! They've played before, so I aimed to run a list based around teaching them how to deal with heavy ARO presence as we played Frontline. Iiiit ended up slightly overkill.

Sorry Cloud.

OSS got turn one, I got deployment choice. He deployed pretty aggressively but, critically, made the Fireteam mistake. Multiple link members in line of sight, two within a blast template. He had them backed up by a TR bot and post humans, but it's a brutal mistake to make. He also lost one netrod to deployment.

I set up a pretty aggressive flash bot net. So aggressive, in fact, that I had to borrow a silhouette 3 marker from Polynikes because I fielded 3 famous and 2 Rafiq. I had a defensive Ghulams/Khawarij link overlooking his link team with a HRL, missile launcher, and two Panzerfausts as well as two out of three of my flashbots. My only offensive pieces were some Mukhtars and Carmen/Batard.

They're an ABH Biker and Tariq in the pictures. Don't question it.

OSS starts and I Overclock with a command token, he loses a dakini in the link, TR bot, Dart, a Yadu, and gets a Proxy blinded trying to deal with the ARO net. He manages to kill the Khawarij HRL, but that's it. My Mukhtar push up and kill a few Dakinis, the Proxy Mark Two, and a Dasyu before my FO Mukhtar takes cover, guarded by Viral Rifle, and my MSV2 Mukhtar stays on overwatch as a threat and bait.

He manages to take the Mukhtar MSV down via heroic effort with a Deva, which gets blinded but survives the ordeal. He pushed up a Total Immunity CSU and manages to drop another overwatch Ghulams with his Proxy 5 FO.

On my turn Carmen rushed forwards and drops the Mark 5 with 5 orders remaining to crush the backline. We call it there and review the game for lessons learned.

On my end, the Panzerfausts Ghulams were overexposed but otherwise my major mistakes (overexposing the MSV2 Mukhtar, for example) were part of the teaching game. My main issue was that I should have played a less overwhelming list, and mistook how reasonable it would be for a beginner to deal with the ARO presence thrown against them. My opponent did a heroic job of persisting as long as was reasonable.

Being two people is rather disorientating.

It's not impossible. Proxies are three, and are three rather more different people at once than V is at the moment. There's one on the field with them, even. A sniper and a gunner all at once, part of...whatever this is. A deniable assassination attempt? A retaliation for refusing to really leave the battery? Proof of that conspiracy the journalist's after?

That's not important. What is important is that V has a show to record, and a battle to win. Not in that order, admittedly, but things rarely are in that order.

Their larger self is roiling rage and burning anger and a barely restrained urge to hurl their hammer into the nearest target. It's counterproductive, but they let it loose as they gun their motorcycle. The Dakinis open up, rifle rounds ripping through the air, scattering against nearby buildings. Smoke rolls out, and they hear machine after machine fall apart as the Mukhtars do their work. Then they press fortwards, onwards.

Switch. They're big. Fast. Brutal reaction. Easy violence. Gunfire rips towards them, an artificial woman with an all-too-real gun. Roll. Dodge. Live. Easy.

Then they smell. Another one. Their counterpart on the other side.

The proxy.

They're the motorcycle again, Long thoughts and easy speed as they gun towards their target. He raises a pair of machine guns, trying to choose who to shoot at as both of him close. A gun drops, a nanopulser tube pops out of a wrist as he makes his call.

It's the wrong choice.

The hammer slams into his chest, picks him up and throws him bodily into, through a nearby wall as the other body crows in victory. V hears the Aleph forces sound the retreat with two sets of ears, processes it with two eyes, and fires a round into the air to salute their victory.

Then they call the march back to friendly territory.

After all, they have a video to record.