Asteroid Blues

Sun Tze and a small delegation of the State Empire's finest were visiting the Jiyuan Open Pit for a ceremonial tour. As the cameras gathered to begin the press conference, emergency klaxons began blaring, and a breach was detected in the mining pit. Temperatures began to drop almost immediately and measures needed to be taken to get the heater back online.

As the workers were preparing to head out to manually start the heaters, Sun Tze stopped them. The great general was suspicious of the timing of the failure and decided to investigate personally. As most of his force was still on the transports headed for Novvy Bangkok, Sun Tze pressed into service a Guijia Squadron, more accustomed to photo ops than warfare, to be his main escort.

As Sun Tze was directing his forces to surveil the mining equipment, his suspicions were proven right, as a Maghariba Guard came lumbering into view, its old servos giving away its position. This was all the notice that Sun Tze needed. He immediately sent his newly acquired Guijia Squadron to strike first!

Battle Report:

I won the initiative roll and decided to go first against Jeff's Ramuh force. Knowing that I was definitely going up against a TAG, and most likely a jump troop, I knew that I wanted to go first and try to remove as many orders as possible.

Sun Tze brings so much to the battlefield now, and with the total immunity changes, is an absolute terror to take out. Going first, means that i deployed first, but with Strategos lvl 3, I get to hold 2 back, and Jeff has to deploy everything, which gives my Guijia a good opportunity to strike without facing multiple aros.

Another turning point in the deployment phase was Jeff failing a infiltration roll of his assault hacker.

Turn 1 the Guijia immediately attacks his Maghariba Guard, and though it is a little risky, I am able to do 2 wounds on the first attack. The Maggy guts into total cover which opens up my ability to challenge two of his Ghulum in the 5 man Tariq fireteam. In successive orders I'm able to take out his forward observer and the smoke grenade launcher.

After clearing out the two Ghulum infantry, the Guijia is able to walk up and challenge the wounded maggy. Winning another face to face I'm able to put the TAG into unconscious state. Spending another order to destroy the maggy outright, I spend the rest of my turn moving the Guijia back to my deployment zone, and setting up as many ARO's as possible to deal with Tarik on his attack run.

Sun Tze who I set as my Datatracker, walked forward to take a long shot at the revealed assault hacker, but since I needed 3's I missed altogether.

Turn 1 went very well for the StateEmpire, taking out a potent attack piece, and taking away the 4 and 5 man fireteam bonuses.

Ramuh turn 1 sees Tarik diving right in and attacking the Guijia. Tarik hits twice and the Guijia fails both armor saves. Classic. The Guijia guts into total cover to try to live an fight another day.

Tarik then super jumps onto the 2nd level and attacks Sun Tze who I dumbly left out of cover. I lose the face to face roll, but only had two hits against and luckily I'm able to make the two armor saves and guts into cover. Tarik continues to move closer to get into good range, but on the second order Sun Tze wins the face to face, but Tarik shrugs off the flash pulse.

Tarik's bloodlust is now unquenchable as he rushes forward to try and get into cover, but this triggers 4 ARO's, as Major Lunah, Bounty Hunter and the Flash Pulse Bot join Sun Tze in taking shots. Unfortunately Tarik falls to the viral sniper of Major Lunah and all of the StateEmpires forces are unscathed.

Yu Jing Turn 2 is pretty simple, the hidden Ninja walks up and turns on the back heater to keep my army warm. After re-camoing, the Ninja walks forward to red rum the enemy assault hacker and succeeds.

The biggest threat to both Sun Tze and the Guijia is now off the table, and the ninja re-camos yet again and walks back to the mid-line of the battlefield.

I spend the rest of the turn re-positioning my forces to prepare for the Ramuh second turn.

Ramuh turn 2 doesn't go well. Because he is in Loss of Lieutenant, Jeff decides the best bet is to take a risk, he brings his jump troop on the board edge looking to put some damage into my back line, but unfortunately is in the sight of the Guijia who doesn't flub his shot, and that attack is stopped before it gets started.

He then spends the rest of his turn trying to hide is datatracker a bit better.

Turn 3 I decide to jump my Tiger Soldier into his back line and because the dice gods are with me, I stick the landing. Walking past a engineer bot and the 3 other back line troopers, it takes the Tiger soldier 3 orders to deal with the little bot.

The Tiger soldier finally free of the bot, proceeds to take out both the datatracker, and the last member of the original fireteam.

Seeing that the game is well in hand, I move Sun Tze into the exclusion zone to secure it. And end my turn.

Jeff's turn 3 is in retreat with 2 models left. The Monstrucker, and HMG TR Bot. With nothing to do, he just ends the game and lets the cold envelope his survivors and take them home.