Intro
Velma logged into the sector's Arachne node and went through the area scan reports. The sector had been evacuated with a fake radiation alert and the Tunguska Security team had just deployed to investigate into some suspicious readings from the surveillance system. The Interventor had seen action before and she did not like the situation, nothing was clearly wrong as you would expect from common criminal activities and yet not masked in a way you would expect from human sphere super powers.
Velma kept close to her fireteam, the back up of trusted marksmen and cold blooded hacker made her more at ease, remotes and cyber-psychopaths were for sure valuable (and expendable) assets but she would have never come to fully trust them...
Suddenly, all alarms went blipping, smoke and white noise interference appeared and few moments later she heard the doors of the safe room opening with a hiss. There were no doubts, they were under attack and once again she had to do the dirty job to protect secrets of people who would have traded her life without thinking twice if they had considered it convenient.
Now that she thought about it, this whole operation might just be a rigged game...
Lists
🕷Tunguska Jurisdictional Command
The list includes:
- Vostok+Fiddler+Cheerkiller haris.
- Puppet Master and two Puppetbots
These are supposed to be fast and resilient attack vectors that can benefit from EVO hacker buffs including specialists. - 5 men linkteam: Securitate Feuerbach + Grenzer MSR + Rounder Red Fury + Interventor KHD + Interventor Lt. HD
This is meant to provide some ARO and long range firepower. Then a smaller fireteam led by the Rounder can detach and go on adventures leaving the Interventor Lt back. - EVO HD bot
This is a kind of auto-include for the mission as it provides an additional order and buffs the REMs attack pieces. - Denma and Zellenkriegers
Classic impetuous warband goodness with smoke and good CC. Also STR based so could be patched up by an Engineer.
🦐 Shasvastii Expeditionary Force
The list includes:
- Sheskiin+Jayth+Victor Messer Haris
Solid attack and utility link team, tasked to storm and hold the objective room. - Ikadrons and Taighas
Cheap trade pieces with effective CC and template options - Haiduk
classic MSVL2 MSR - 2xCaliban
CoC failsafe and specialist to contest the room mid/late game - Q-Drone and Speculo
Good Shasvastii pieces, good in all lists
Deployment
Shasvastii win the initiative and elect to go first. Tunguska then opt to deploy second.
A command token is spent to keep two troopers in reserve, the Speculo and one of the two Calibans.
Sheskiin haris in the middle ready to breach into the room, one Taigha and one Ikadron on each flank, Haiduk and Q-Drone guarding the center.
Tunguska respond with big linkteam on the left, Puppetbots and Vostok haris in the center. One Zellenkrieger covers each flank and Denma reinforces the center. Metachemistry rolls are MOV 6-4 plus superjump and PH+3.
After some careful deliberation the Speculo does not infiltrate and goes to provide smoke support to the breaching team.
Last nomad drop is the Interventor Lt., seeing no suspect enemy impersonator hanging around the deployment zone, she joins the big team for that +1 BS.
🦐 Shasvastii Expeditionary Force - Turn 1
After impetuous movements, the first turn is mainly spent in careful maneuvers to get into the room. Smoke + White Noise neutralize any ARO option and allow Sheskin, Messer and the Jayth to get to the room, position and place some mysterious deployables. This requires almost all orders and last ones are spent repositioning the Q-Drone and the Haiduk.
A lucky roll from the turret ARO (critical hit on a 7) sends the Haiduk unconscious, and this is first blood for Tunguska and the end of Shasvastii turn 1.
🕷Tunguska Jurisdictional Command - Turn 1
Zellenkriegers surge forward with impetuous orders. The one on the left is shot down by Sheskiin's ARO, the other on the right moves towards the Ikadron and successfully drops smoke. Unfortunately 8'' are not enough and it does not really affect the Q-Drone line of sight. Denma forgets the Q-Drone is total reactions and goes down as well.
We overlooked the fact that Fiddler could have healed Denma, that could have made some difference!
Salyut runs assisted fire on the AP Marksman Puppetbot and they go to assault the room. Sheskin returning fire keeps them at bay also inflicting damages. The combined threats of Sheskiin and a HD+ are too much to face for the Puppetbots so decision is made to trade the remaining Zellenkrieger with Messer. This also cleans up some of the mines in the room.
The Puppetbots get back into the fight sacrificing themselves to no additional avail apart consuming some more deployable resources. Sheskiin and the Jayth are still standing and Group 1 has no more orders!
The fire team gets on the move leaving the Interventor Lt. behind. Led by the Rounder they first removes the turret (with 2 orders) and then clear the room. It takes all orders in the group and the team ends up quite exposed.
Scoring is 0-0 at the end of Turn 1.
🦐 Shasvastii Expeditionary Force - Turn 2
New turn and new assault to the room. First problem to solve is the fireteam on the left. The Ikadron advances and some sub-optimal ARO choices from Tunguska end up with both the Grenzer and the Interventor KHD killed.
Now that the link team lost its burst bonus, Shasvastii move back into the room removing the Rounder in the process. Caliban, Speculo and Q-Drone (yeah, we missed the "narrow gate" silhouette limitation..) end up in the room.
🕷Tunguska Jurisdictional Command - Turn 2
Because most of casualties were impetuous, irregulars and Puppetbots, group 1 still has a decent order pool also considering that the Interventor Lt is moved to group 1 with the use of a command token. It is now time for the Vostok haris to do some work. It engages the Q-Drone but fails to damage it thanks to amazing armor rolls. The Interventor Lt has then to move up and immobilize the Shasvastii remote before the Vostok can finally shred it to pieces.
The lonely Securitate with Feurbach tries to get a shot on the Speculo hiding in the corner of the objective room but it fails to get line of sight to its target.
Fiddler and team then try to get in the room but the Ikadron flamethrower mercilessly burns them to death (continuous damage and bad armor rolls are a bad combo). The Caliban goes down as well as the Speculo.
Turn closes with the Speculo succeeding its regeneration roll (!) and securing 2 points for Shasvastii.
🦐 Shasvastii Expeditionary Force - Turn 3
At this point the order pool is really slim. Not much to do apart from extracting a Panoply and brace for impact.
🕷Tunguska Jurisdictional Command - Turn 2
The Securitate finally puts the Speculo in the crosshair and turns her in red mist. With the room cleared the surviving Interventor Lt and the Cheerkiller walk in and extract two panoplies making it a 5-2 victory for Tunguska!
Debriefing
🕷Tunguska Jurisdictional Command
The list worked well and had plenty of redundancy. It managed to assault the room two consecutive rounds and consume all the opponent's resources.
Dice did not roll too well apart that turret critical hit on the Haiduk.
In terms of decision making I am happy I was able to remain focused and play the hacking game against the Q-Drone while I messed with handling the Ikadron against the fireteam. I should have accepted I had lost the Grenzer and trade him straight away instead of dodging and ending up losing both the Grenzer and the Interventor.
Mid of Turn 2 I thought I could win, then after the horrible end of Vostok and Fiddler I was sure I had lost. I ended up winning in turn 3 thanks to a fatter end game order pool.
Nice game, close until the end!
🦐 Shasvastii Expeditionary Force
I was so close to make the meme work! Jayths could really perform in The Armory but my opponent had too many expendable pieces for me to handle. Despite the buff granted by bringing the EVO hacking device I was always short on orders and, more importantly, faced an efficient enemy list with more fireteams/peripherals and orders. Every time I secured my position, my opponent could take the time to back its frontline, damping my ability to get out of the objective room to get a bite in cc. Strategies that worked: I believe it was a good idea to take a step back with the Speculo and use it to smoke the room and fire lanes providing access to it. Strategy that didn't work: holding fire with Sheskiin against the Vostok was a mistake. Dice were on my side and I had enough orders to send it unconcious, forcing Fiddler to spend resources repairing it. In the heat of the moment, I could only see the negative outcomes and opted for a more conservative approach, ultimately giving my opponent a full first turn. It's hard to say better luck next time with so many crits from my side but you get what I mean ;)
Outro
Velma stood in the safe room surrounded by the mauled bodies of Nomads and Shasvastii, thin curls of smoke rising from the charred remains of the Vostok remote.
The few survivors met her in the room and started to investigate the bodies of the enemy and what had been extracted from the safe room.
As she looked into the data storage modules, her lips twitched in a bitter smile, deep inside herself she had hoped they were fighting to protect precious encrypted information but reality was those data were garbage. Just a bait, a minor event in a much larger game that was being played. Velma knew she was a pawn but having it so crudely remarked still hurt.
Without spending more words she nodded to her team mates and walked away, that action report was not going to write by itself and she'd rather be quickly done with it...
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