Asteroid Blues

Infinity

A Rude Awakening

300 POINTS
Tohaa
Sarael
VS Ariadna
komkorWladimir

"...the 35th Company is hereby ordered to establish a covert reserve cell at the remote Human station of Novyy Bangkok, to be recalled or dispatched as needed. Signed,..."
Gao-Rael Specialist Sarael squinted, re-reading the orders he received such a long time ago. He sometimes felt as if his company was just forgotten, written off as casualties of war against the Enemy. The more time went on, the more he got suspicious of the entire situation - what kind of rank is "Taagma" anyway? And those scraps of chatter their Kaeltar could discover, telling a tall tale about Daedalus Gate falling - what could have happened?

"Commander! We are picking up comms on our frequencies! The ID match is for the Black-White Batallion, and they appear to be under fire!"

"The heck? They are supposed to be on Paradiso frontline! What the hell is going on?", Sarael felt unreal. First weird orders, now, after months of waiting, there is a Trident combat group fighting on this Three-forsaken rock?

"No idea, sir, but it seems they are calling all combat-capable units to their position, claiming that the Chain of Command has decided to 'throw us to the wolves', to borrow the Human phrase.", still somewhat panicking Specialist, Kaeltar, judging by her insignia, answered.

"...Well. They do say troubles come in threes. I think we should link up with that Batallion and get an update on the situation. We have waited for too long." Sarael stood up. "Get me all awake forces, we have to move as fast as we can. Initiate unfreezing procedures on those still in deep sleep, they should be ready ASAP."

Engagement zone (photo of the table)

Please note: For some reason the photos are uploaded in the reverse order in each gallery. For the correct sequence, please look at them from the end.

OOC Info: The game was played on the 18th of September, 2019. We decided to count this game for Ammo and Equipment Module, but using the mission from Xarak Battery Field (Acquisition). We decided to build the table to reflect combat on the surface of the asteroid. I lost the Initiative Roll, and my opponent decided to go first. The deployments are as shown below:

First turn, Ariadna:
I used a Command Token to remove two orders from my opponent's larger group. He then decided not to cancel the Impetous moves of his Irmandinhos and moved them up, staying out of sight of my AROs.

Then a terrible, terrible thing happened. Remember that Kazak Spetsnaz on the roof? Well, he could clearly see my Kosuil, all alone in the open field with no cover. It was supposed to be an easy win, 4 dice on 15s vs 2 on 6s (a triaded Panzerfaust ARO)...

Impending DOOM!!!

...but then THIS happened!

(white JSA dice are mine)

The Spetsnaz did not survive the crit, failing both remaining armor rolls (if he did succeed, there was a 112 in the wings, but...). Both of us players were baffled. Then my opponent decided to try again, this time attacking the Gao-Rael with his TankHunter, and winning this shootout in two orders.

Peek-a-boo, I kill you! (Tankhunter is hiding behind the rock pillar)

The rest of my opponent's first turn went his way pretty easily. He used one of his Irmandinhos to run up to Makaul Triad and Chain Rifle them. He took one down, but died to 4 HFT templates of ARO.

After this he went to free up his Uxia from my mine by moving one of his Grunts up (killing the Liberto in the process, I decided to try and stop him with a LSG shot). But this sudden battletoad/fish/man/thing startled the Grunt so much, he failed to kill the mine for three orders, two HFT shots and a blast from his shotgun (that heroic little mine kept making ARM saves). The nearby Metro decided to pick up the slack and finished the mine with his rifle.

That freed up Uxia to wreak havoc on my backline. She moved up, killing Kamael Sniper in the process, and then tried to tackle the Sakiel triad throung the little hole in the iceberg. She got a HFT spray and a burst from Viral Combi for her troubles and got killed very, very dead, taking Makaul with her as a compensation.

After that a Chasseur moved across the little gap behind the Tohaa HVT, easily winning the shoot-out with now-Triad-less Kosuil, and dropped a mysterious Camo marker near the Tech-Coffin in the middle.

My opponent finished his turn by unCamoing his Cateran and finishing off my Sakiel Datatracker by critting with his T2 Sniper rifle.

(pictured above: Commander Sarael's reaction)
First turn, Tohaa:
After losing about half the combat power, I was understandably puzzled for as how to proceed. Finally, I decided on the last hurrah, merging all my troops into one group (spent all Command Tokens on that) and rushing forward and trying to hold the layered cliff in front of my Sukeul Triad. But to to that, I had to remove the overwatching Cateran, which I barely managed to do, catching a wound into my Sukeul HMG. After that I took the Chaksa in front of my Triad and intuitive shot the mysterious Camo marker on the cliff to the left (it turned out to be a mine, which burned very well). Then the brave Chaksa marched forward and bravely went to put a Flamethrower into a Kazak (he might have not been the LT, I think I made a mistake with the deployment writeup) and another Camo marker. That Camo turned out to be a Chasseur that chose to Engage the Chaksa. She succeeded, while Kazak burned. Then I moved the Sukeul Triad up, on the middle rock, and took a few potshots at the Tankhunter (he made ARMs) and a Chasseur near the Tech-Coffin (she died).

Second turn, Ariadna:
My opponent used his Irmandinho's Impetuous Order to run up and put a wound into my K1 Combi Sukeul LO (and die in process). Then he moved the Camo'ed Liberto to finish the K1 Sukeul off, but died to a Breaker Pistol shot from the HMG Sukeul. He then activated the Tankhunter and easily killed K1 Sukeul, but then lost the shoot-out with HMG Sukeul.

My opponent ran his 112 up to the Tankhunter and successfully reanimated him. However that took the rest of the orders from his 2nd group. With the first group he just moved up the cheerleader backline, taking a few potshots at my Chaksas along the way (and managing to kill three of them, no -6 ranges due to the mission helped him a lot). Along the way he moved his Liaison Officer Volunteer forward and his Metro into base contact with one of the Antennas, by including them in the Coordinated Orders.

And then his brave Caledonian Volunteer Eloiza marched up to the Sukeul, put a double dose of shotgun slugs into her, then did the same with poor Makaul (survivng a HFT ARO in process), and then moved up, double-tapping both Sukeuls along the way, demonstrating her barbarity.

Second turn, Tohaa:
I started the turn in Retreat. Due to that the Makaul Triad fell apart and I got two Impetuous orders for them. With that I first ran up with one and successfuly smoke-dodged Eloiza's ARO, and then moved my second Makaul up. Then the second Makaul (with Viral CCW) moved up to the Volunteer and managed to put her down with only two orders remaining (one regular, one irregular from the Kaeltar). That one regular order was just enough for the Makaul to move into base contact with the Tech-Coffin, securing the Tohaa victory. My opponent did move his Liaison Officer Volunteer up, so he was able to get another OP by succeeding on his WIP Roll.
The final score:
Tohaa 3-2 Ariadna.

(disregard the left Makaul in base contact with the Antenna, I thought Kaeltar had Courage, but the order was Irregular)

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