Asteroid Blues

Space debris tattered hull of a mighty ship, that penetrated space at an incredible speed. Engines ablaze, the Dong Peyote gunned for Novyy Bangkok, where Bromads fought bravely against the odds...

Fear not Human Sphere - Dong Peyote is here!

Due to personal stuff I was about to skip the event entirely, but dayum! Things are too exciting to pass by and not drop a single report in support of my beloved Bromad brethren in the struggle at Novyy Bangkok. This time around no narrative story, just plain report with some highlights. Hope you'll still enjoy it.

Cheers!

Here's an idea: "How about we both play Limited Insertion TAG lists?" This more or less was the premise of the game. That, plus "fully painted". We agreed to play for fun, but also high stakes - The Gorge Nomads vs Yu-Jing, the winner takes it all!

My opponent is an experienced player, who just recently added Invincible Army to his collection, thus we agreed to use my personal miniatures as proxies, so that we both play fully painted lists.

Engineering Deck being a scenario for The Gorge phase 2, I decided to switch my usual table for a more enclosed Boarding Action variant with "infinite walls" and some other thematic features. Setting up this game was hell of a challenge (rescheduled on more than one occasion), thus both lists might seem a little off. At least we both had some anti-tank firepower to shoot through dense corridors :P ...

The Game:
My opponent beat my mighty roll of "6" with his even mightier "7" at a roll off and decided to keep the deployment. I decided to go first as deploying first and going second seemed like a rather suicidal strategy against Invincible Army.

Deployment wasn't easy. With only two specialists I had to go aggressive. I deployed Interventor on a left flank near the console, with a Securitate Fireteam for support. On the right flank Engineer covered another console, backed with a Szalamandra TAG and a sneaky Heckler parked a bit forward.

Leszczyk responded with a drop of entire Zuyong fireteam faar across the Szalamandra flank, while all the other troops covered my left flank, with Mech-Engineer being close to the console.

Reserves followed: Zondnautica in the middle of my depzone, followed by Guijia covering a nice long firelane and one of my consoles.

First turn started and I went full aggro...

It didn't took me far. I wasted most of my orders trying to dig out enemy Engineer with dismounted Zondnautica crew. Guy dodged out of harms way too many times. In the end I wasn't able to take him out and tried to deny him Console opportunity by engaging a Zondbot into CC instead. Imagine my shock when we figured out that Electric Pulse makes D-Charge CC mode hit without a -3 MOD penalty :P
With rest of the orders I readjusted some troops positions to better cover fire lanes. Tried to grab consoles but failed spectacularly. Ended up advancing Heckler into ZOC range towards Zuyongs and behind a wall, putting some dudesmen into suppression and taking out a single Warcor. I expected retaliation to be bloody...

...and it Was! Zuyongs advanced getting one of their kind Isolated in return. One order later they took out Heckler and went for my Engineer, who died soon after. On the left flank I screwed up and let Camoed Daoying sneak through Szally and linked ML Grenzer. He then moved behind Zondnaut and took him out leaving my RoboZondFriend disconnected. Daoying re-camoed and went for a high risk - high reward prey - Suppressed Interventor LT. I was pretty sure the game is done at this point - but to my surprise the Interventor landed a single hit on a "4", while not being hit himself (two rolls of "16" for Daoying!). The aggressor in the other hand, was blasted into space by a combined firepower of almost entire Securitate linkteam...

With a final Order a daring shootout took place. Guijia being kept pinned by Supressed Szally and linked Grenzer moved to full cover and sprayed the two with an HMG burst. Both responded with fire. When smoke subsided, a large crater filled with debris was all that marked the Guijia's last stand.

One TAG failing so spectacularly made it abundant clear that the other was about to wreak havoc. Cuz you know - TAGs either die instantly, or stay up whole night to get some - and I felt like Szally will get some and then some more. I went on a rampage, gunning for Zuyongs and throwing most of my orders at them. I gorged in carnage, taking on two Zuyongs at a time, knowing well that my opponent would be in Loss of Leutenant next turn. In the end most got teared to shreds, while Szally took two solid hits and wen't Supressed behind a piece of cover. I used remaining orders to advance the fireteam closer to the Objective Room and keep an eye on enemy Engineer in case he would like to do some shenanigans...

Yu-Jing turn was a struggle against LOL and a very limited order pool. With Nomads covering most firelanes, the Invincibles wen't berserk throwing themselves at Szalamandra. Bodies popped when hyper accelerated rounds went through them - only a single Zuyong from among the entire squad was left alive to tell the tale. Far from heated combat the Engineer clicked a Console thus applying pressure to my otherwise smooth game plan.

Last turn I advanced most of the Securitates fireteam to the Objective Room, using Veterans to open up the doors and set up an impenetrable defense perimeter. The rest of the turn was a gamble - Interventor rushed for the Objective room. With a final order he rushed in and grabbed a Console for the team.

Yu-Jing's turn ended up in Retreat. At this point nothing could be achieved, as we both had very unfortunate Classyfied Objectives.

The game was great and we both were very excited to see some TAG on TAG action. Limited Insertion is hell of a fine format and addition of Tactical Awarness on TAGs really shines when your order pool is scarce.
Overall it was hell of a fun.

Glad to be part of the campaign. Don't be a stranger and let me know in the comments on what you think about Tactical Awarness on TAGs and how you like the Campaign so far ;)

Have a great rest of the campaign!
Cheers!