Asteroid Blues

VIRD vs Ramah Task Force

Playing with the extraordinary WIP of Panoceania, the Ramah Task Force win the initiative roll without surprise. The Haqqislam army choose the deployment, so VIRD opted for the first turn.

The plan was quite simple. The Kamaus MSR and HMG had to clean the way for the infiltrating specialist (Croc-man FO and Zulu KHD) to grab 2 boxes. Then, everybody retreats behind the line of sniper, mines and jammers.
The Echo-Bravo would drop turn 2 or 3 to either grab the last box or hunt the guy carrying it.
The VIRD force deploys a fireteam of Kamau/Fusilier in the center, with line of fire on 2 objectives. Then the camo infiltrators and mines are dispersed close to the 3 objectives. A couple of Helots are finally placed to covers the coffins at best.
The Haqqislam team then deploys quite aggressively with 3 fireteams (core/haris/duo). Despite being quite forward in the open, almost all of them are out of sight of the PanO trooper, thanks to different layer of terrain.
VIRD T1
The fist gun shot comes from the Kamau sniper. She’s able to find a spot from where she can paste Leila Sharif at long range.
The main plan is then activated, with the Croc-man FO and the KHD Zulu-Cobra sneaking to the coffin in marker state. The Croc has to shoot down a Khawarij in the process. They both recover the boxes (after a couple of attempts, you know, PanO WIP…), re-camo and fall back as far as possible behind VIRD lines.
Ramah T1
The Kamau sniper has to fall, as she prevents any action around the center of the board. The Al-Fassid gets into position and opens fire to avenge Leila. As it ALWAYS happen when my Kamau sniper attempt an ARO, she gets critical hits in her face. And this time, 2 critical hits, just to be sure (it is getting worse every game). Leila is avenged!
But vengeance is an endless cycle of violence. The Al-Fassid is unfortunately in sight of a Helot LRL. Even if the super soldier is able to beat the top-tier sniper, the barely-competent fishman hits the heavy trooper. Fire is hungry today and the Al-Fassid is consumed to death by the ball of flames. The same fate falls upon a Ghulam nearby, but nobody seems to care. War is cruel.
The Helot is then vaporized by the Ghulams, but he can die happy, knowing he gave a huge advantage to his brother inarms (well, let’s say “friends” or something).
With the sniper gone, Tarik and his fireteam now have a path to the center line. They rush to their left, where the last coffin remains. There is just a PanO camo marker to deal with nearby. The Naffatun approaches it under smoke cover, ready to burn it with intuitive attacks. But a mine doesn’t care about all her hopes and dreams, and shocked her out of life.
Short on order, the Haqqislam troops search for good positions and wait for the counterattack.
VIRD T2
The left flank being watched by the Haqqislam missile remote, the PanO efforts concentrate on the right flank.
Happy of the result of his deadly gift, the Croc-man appears from nowhere and shoots a Gulham who was watching the side of the board.
It opens an intrusion vector for the Echo-Bravo paramedic, who is able to rush toward the last coffin. He grabs the 3rd box and retreat behind friendly line. He also leaves a small surprise in the back of Tarik’s fireteam: a little Wild Parrot ready to freeze them if they breath too loudly!
Ramah T2
Pinned down by the Wild Parrot, Tarik yells at the Khawarij to do something. It just a bird, and not even a real one! So, the enhanced troopers go bird hunting and remove the Parrot from the streets.
Now the way is free, so Tarik rushes next to the Croc-man minelayer, engages him in close combat and transform him in some kind of red/purple poisoned-mass on the ground (in short: dead).
He then tries to move toward the Echo-Bravo and his juicy box, but a Zulu-Cobra jammer forces him to resets. Without enough order to avoid this new menace, Tarik has to restrain himself and wait for a better opportunity.
VIRD T3
The enemy is really low on order now, so it’s time to try something, let’s say, interesting (who said dumb?!).
The Zulu-Cobra KHD transfers her box to her jammer friend, camo herself and begin a long trip across the board. An annoying Ghulam is watching her paths, so the Kamau HMG helps her by “removing” him. She finally reaches the building she was aiming for, and she can map the building, scoring a classified objective (the “mapping” one, without surprise). She then tries to shoot Tarik in the back, but let’s say she is better with the map stuff than with the gun stuff (She prefers if we can never speak about that again).
Ramah T3
Now really low on order and without any good options to recover the boxes, the Haqqislam army tries a couple of moves to pierce the panoceanian lines. The Ramah troopers must unfortunately accept the reality, there not enough time to achieve anything more.
With promise of revenge (Again?! We already saw it is bad! Bad!), Tarik and his troops leaves the theatre of operation and the precious supplies (no pizza tonight!)
And it is a 9-0 victory for VIRD!
An alpha strike seems a bad option for me, regarding the situation (fireteam everywhere, direct template also everywhere and squishy VIRD troopers). So, I elected to grab 2 boxes as fast as possible and bunker my army, as VIRD is so good at it.
I worked well (except my usual “Kamau MSR dies to crit”), and my opponent had trouble guessing what was under each token. With a low order army, he had to adapt to every twist I imposed to him, and was thus unable to strike my boxes’ carriers.
It was a fun game with an awesome partner!