Friday, June 24, 2022

Operation Neon Tiger - episode 05

Intro

It wasn't difficult for Brother Hermann to obtain the necessary information from Koseacasomov. He certainly did not lack means of persuasion, even if not perfectly in line with the procedures of the Concilium.
After that, brother Hermann retired to his cabin in the Uluru, to record the information snatched from Koseacasomov into his personal log.

"That thing is an xeno archeotech artifact that allows to track down a place, but its technology is still shrouded in mystery. Koseacasomov was unable to explain how it works, but he was certain of one thing: that the artifact only works in right hands. "

Hermann has rarely found himself groping in the dark in his life. Uncertainty is not part of his person. Yet this time he feels he is out of step with his enemies. It is an unpleasant, burning sensation, especially considering the quality of the troops he has moved for this mission.

"If I have to stay behind - thought Hermann - at least those in front of me had to feel my pressure."

Thanks to this thought, he found a little determination, just enough to make a decision. 
He exited the cabin and headed for the Uluru control deck. Since the Sahs had disappeared from the Pano tracking systems, he gave the order to intercept and follow the Nomads ship . 
To Hermann's utter astonishment, the Quetzal was tracked down to a nearby spaceport. If itwas there, very likely, the Shas would be around too.



Mission and Lists

300 points - Looting and Sabotaging ITS Season 13 supplement
😼 Corregidor Jurisdictional Command VS 🦈 Varuna Immediate Reaction Division





Deployment

Corregidor wins the roll off and decides to go second as the mission seems to favor last turn tie-breaking actions. Maybe not the wisest of choices against the deadly Varunan marksmen who happily let the Nomads deploy first.


Gator on the right in total cover, Alguaciles pure 5 men link in the center Wolfagang and the Jaguars on the left. Jazz goes prone center-left on a rooftop and Digger behind cover center-right. The two Morans infiltrate close to the Panoplies together with their trusted Koalas.


Varuna responds with the two mixed 3-men fire teams covering each side. One ready to storm the control room and one looking forward to exploit the building vantage point. Mulebot, fusilier and warcor covering the rear and the rest in hidden deployment.

Turn 1

🦈 Varuna Immediate Reaction Division
The strategic use of a Command Token leaves Varuna with 6 regular orders in the main group. The fire team on the right climbs the stairs and the Kamau HMG gets in sight of the Alguacile ML. Weight of dice and mimetism easily remove the only Nomad ARO piece. The rest of the orders are spent to advance and take good position with both fire teams.

😼 Corregidor Jurisdictional Command
Turn opens with the Digger going on an suicide mission against the fire team with Patsy and Kamau HMG. Not the chain rifle template nor close combat attacks manage to generate casualties and the Digger ends the turn engaged with the Kamau HMG.

The Gator advances and takes long range shots at the other fire team. The TAG manages to kill a machinist and scare the HRL Kamau.

The disrupted fire team seems to be now more vulnerable: Amadeus and the Jaguars are sent in to inflict some damage. They cover their advance with smoke but once in the room they are met by deadly ARO fire and their template weapons are once again ineffective. The PanOceanian positions really are well defended!

To close the turn the Moran cracks open a Supply Box.   

Turn 2

🦈 Varuna Immediate Reaction Division
The fearsome silhouette of the Cutter flickers through its thermo-optical camouflage and it starts mowing down the best part of what is left of Corregidor's strike force.
The Gator goes down riddled by heavy HMG rounds.


The battlefield is now quite safe to move around and Varuna's troopers manage to even the supply boxes score and get good positioning for the last turn assault.

😼 Corregidor Jurisdictional Command
Nomads are left with ~40% of the army still standing but PanO's advance provided an opening for Sgt. Kowalsky to walk in behind the Cutter. She tries to glue the TAG down but fails repeatedly.


 
⚠⚠ rule error ⚠⚠ 
The first adhesive launcher attacks happened beyond 8" to benefit from the +3 range mod. Both shots missed entirely and we did not allow the Cutter to Alert! because we thought that to be eligible the model should have failed a save roll. This is incorrect as, in addition not to have had a valid ARO option during the order, it is sufficient to be the target of an attack. The following orders were all uneventful with the Cutter failing to dodge but passing all its PH-6 saves. However, if the TAG would have changed facing he would have shot at BS 12 instead of dodging at PH 8...) 
⚠⚠ rule error ⚠⚠
Running short of orders Carlotta dashes towards the AC2. She saves Patsy's SMG ARO shot and the Cutter misses with the Multi HMG at short range. The Tomcat hits the AC2 and destroys it as all 3 ARM rolls are failed!


Closing the turn Jazz spec fires a couple of repeaters and what remains of Corregidor's army braces for impact.

Turn 3

🦈 Varuna Immediate Reaction Division Varuna immediately extract one more supply box (unfortunately having to spend a few extra orders).


Then Patsy tries to dislodge Jazz from the nearby rooftop lobbing grenades at her but many orders are invested without  return on the investment. With the last orders Patsy finally dashes for the AC2 but as soon as gets into Jazz's hacking zone she is isolated.


⚠⚠ rule error ⚠⚠ 
We totally forgot that Patsy had stealth so she could have just walked to the AC2 without triggering AROs as Jazz was prone on the roof without LoS. The only hacking opportunity would have been the moment Patsy had attacked. It was almost 2 a.m. and we acknowledge this is a complex game. Unfortunately this was pretty big and could have changed the game result. We like to learn the hard way and it is now extremely unlikely we will forget about stealth...
⚠⚠ rule error ⚠⚠


😼 Corregidor Jurisdictional Command
The Nomads manage to tie the supply boxes count and the last standing Moran tries to go for the Sabotage(!) classified but once again the Cutter's ARO fire leaves no way out. 

Final score: Corregidor Victory! 8 - 0

Debriefing


😼 Corregidor Jurisdictional Command
The game was good and with a very cinematic ending, unfortunately flawed by two major rule mistakes. It could have easily been a draw or a Varuna victory.
My army did quite bad overall: the core fireteam, the Gator and the Wolgang+Jaguars haris were out-shot in all FtF contests both in active and reactive turn.
The usual suspects kept me in the game: the Morans who got me the two panoplies and slowed down the opponent's advance and Jazz who provided a table-wide hacking threat.
It was the first time I played Kowalsky and she actually (together with some lucky dice rolls) won me the game.


🦈 Varuna Immediate Reaction Division
Both the Haris fireteams proved to be as versatile as I expected. The Cutter has confirmed itself as a war machine that is unrivaled (except for the adhesive laucher, which run shivers down my spine).
The crocman minelayer is a profile that I have always underestimated, but which in this circumstance has proved to be quite useful.
The defeat was partly determined by my serious forgetfulness (Patsy's stealth) and by a not always optimal management of orders. Too many "ifs" are symptomatic of a match that I could have played better, perhaps bringing home a draw.  

Outro


Withdraw!

Brother Hermann was surprised: not only it was the first time his squad had received such instructions but the order also came from his own mouth. Despite his disappointment, his actions paid him well: the headquarters later informed him that his prompt de-escalation was well received by the station's authority and that the Ariadnan politicians took the opportunity to welcome the PanO intervention both to piss Nomads unions off and also as a leverage for the return of Anton Koseacasomov, their diserting weapon designer. 

Hours later, the whole PanO team was off duty, celebrating the positive outcome of the day despite all odds. But Hermann was unable to enjoy the exotic leisures of the asteroid belt: 

"This is luck, but not the one I need!" 

As if he had spoken to anyone but himself, someone took the empty seat next to him, casually commenting: 

"Looks like you need some luck..." 

It was a tall woman with a thick Ariadnan accent and a cybernetic arm. The military insigna pinned on her jacket's collar placed her somewhere between the high rank officer and the scientific expert, but Hermann had never seen them before. 

"... and you may have just found it. Let me introduce myself: I am Irina Kowalsky, Anton's former supervisor officer."

Bonus track!

As stated in episode 04 battle report, We had already decided to play this mission in order to have some fun with our TAGs, when Loss of Lieutenant announced their monthly challenge for June featuring...TAGs!
So, as prompted by their post, here are our two cents about the two Tactical Armoured Gears used in this report:


🦈 Varuna Immediate Reaction Division

What to say about the Cutter? In two games he proved to be solid as rock and incredibly efficient at removing opponents of all kinds. Deals heavy damage and rarely takes any. The gap it manages to create in terms of shooting stats is hardly filled by its targets. Continue to fully convince me and I’m quite sure we we’ll see him again…



😼 Corregidor Jurisdictional Command
With natural born warrior the Gator is probably the best TAG to get into the thick of the action. In this mission it unfortunately met his nemesis: the hidden deployed mim-6 Cutter TAG.
In hindsight I could have been more aggressive in my turn one pushing it forward looking for sideways firing lanes as well as leveraging its dual shot mine dispenser. I have been definitely mind gamed by the hidden deployment and I was more concerned about the left flank which was guarded by Wolfie and the Jaguars. My TAG was still a big threat for my opponent who had to spend several orders to get rid of it. Finally, it might have underperformed because pissed off to be proxied with the Szalamander model 😬.

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