Intro
Batth'o Ubelin did not like the cold. As he stared at the empty space extending outside the window of his cabin on the Flying Carpet, he thought about the transcript of a conversation sniffed from the crew of CJC boarding shuttle Mandillo, "[...] an ideal, pitch black heat sink ready to squeeze every Wh out of you to fizzle it into entropy along its relentless race towards 0°K [...]". It was just an irrelevant Nomads engineers trash talk but he kept thinking about it. Same as the Nomad shuttle and many other vessels in the area, the Flying Carpet was racing towards the Rigoletto cargo ship. He was officially after a silk shipment of his and all the others also had equally good official reasons to be there. In reality, everybody was there for the Mothball.
He closed his eyes and tried to bring back the feeling of the scorching hot Burak sun on his face, then the door opened and Lt. Presh Inse'ah got into the cabin.
- We are ready to start boarding operations Captain - she said.
- Lieutenant, we got confirmation that all life support systems on the Rigoletto are out of service. It is cold down there. I am giving you all the armor a humble silk trader can afford...- he paused for a moment to give the Ghulam officer a meaningful look - but please, please keep yourself and your team warm and in one piece. There will be more work to do, this is just early game and we are in for the long run...-
Lists
🤖 Vanilla Aleph
"Having never tried vanilla Aleph before, I look forward for its wide range of capabilities. My expectation is to have Hawkwood stay behind after handling the major threats, letting Dawons sprint forward. I feel confident about my hacking network, with three hackers and two repeaters.
I look forward a lot to Penthesilea and the K2, while the Thyreos being just Naga on steroids don't excite me much before playing the match."
🦂 Hassassin Bahram
"I decided to embrace the mission concept and put together a list with as many HI, TAGs and REMs as possible. Quite unusual for HB and most probably not all-round competitive but still fun to play I hope. I also recently painted my Shakush and I am quite eager to give it a go.
As the mission requires to push for the exclusion zone I am bringing a TR bot and a Sunduqbut for ARO duty. The Ayyar should take care of specialized gunfighters and/or mimetic troopers. The Bokhtar can do many classified and is also lots of points easy to bring to the exclusion zone thanks to border skirmishers. Finally a minimum Ghulam-Barid-Barid fire team because the list is quite vulnerable to hacking and needs some infowar coverage."
Mission and Deployment
Mission is Frostbyte from ITS Season 16-part 2. A mission about activating heating units to survive the killer cold and dominate the exclusion zone.
We played the mission within the framework of our Unofficial Infinity Global Campaign - The Mothball Incident. Visit the page, join the campaign, download a free STL miniature and interact with 100+ players on the Mothball Incident Discord server!
Aleph wins initiative and opts to go first. HB decides to deploy second.
🤖 Vanilla Aleph
Aleph's deployment is affected by the assumed threat of impersonators and cheap warbands. Two Lamedh on rooftops in the center and on the right. Penthesilea in the middle. On the left John Hawkwood linked with two Dawons guarding the Asura. Deva and Netrods close to the table edge. Warcor on a rooftop to the left. Two Thyreos one in the middle and one on the left pushing as far as allowed by the exclusion zone.
Reserve drops are the Posthumans: the FO infiltrating be right and the engineer in the backline close to the Dawons.
🦂 Hassassin Bahram
HB responds with the Shakush and Sayiq duo on the left behind a building, next to the Kameel EVO and the Shihab on a roof. In the center fireteam with Ghulam NCO and two Barids. On the right the Ayyar hidden deployed on a bridge and the Ghulam Lt hiding prone on a roof.
For HB the reserve drop are the Sunduqbut and its decoy, deployed in front of the Shakush.
Both reserve speedball. HAZmat Ops are Penthiseleia and the Barid HD.
TSOs are assigned to the same troopers: reroll mission skill for Aleph and a Gizmokit for HB.
Classified objectives
🤖Aleph:
- Vigilance
- Combat Support
🦂 Hassassin Bahram
- HVT: follow-up
- Vigilance
Turn 1
🤖 Vanilla Aleph
Penthesilea zooms forward. Hawkwood puts the TR bot unconscious and allows the Amazon Warrioress to push even further towards the central console. She flips it and turns on the heating unit in the Aleph DZ. Then she places smoke on her right to cover the proxy advance.
On the left Thyreos advances and flips the other console turning on the dead zone heating unit.
There are not many targets and decision is made to drop the K2 Auxiliary near the Shakush. It jumps over a crate to place an E/Marat template over the light TAG. Its electronic systems miraculously resist (rolled a 5 and a 1) while the REM is shred to pieces by the Sunduqbut. With the last order the proxy FO tries to flip the last console but fails.
🦂 Hassassin Bahram
The Shakush moves to engage and destroy the flashbot guarding its flank. The Ghulam NCO places smoke to restrain Hawkwood LoF so that the Bokhtar can then chute in and proceed to blast the Proxy FO with her boarding shotgun splattering her wetware on the console's screen. She then takes cover behind the console.
On the other side the Ayyar shimmers into existence and targets Penthesilea. Despite careful triangulation he's not fully effective and after multiple engagements the Amazon manages to dodge out of lof with a single wound.
The Sunduqbut repositions to get better firing solutions and as with the last order the Barid khd stands up and dusting of memories from basic military training aims her rifle to Penthesilea. She used to be best of her class at the firing range but then decided to specialize in infowars. Two crits and a hit neutralize the Aleph operative but leaves the brave hacker in the wind...
Turn 2
🤖 Vanilla Aleph
Hawkwood has plenty of targets and proceeds to activate pushing the linked Dawons as far into the zone as the fire team coherency allows. First target is the Ayyar that manages to dodge back into cover unharmed.
Then the Barid meets her fate put down by K1 rounds. With a shrug of impatience the Asura sets in motion and crosses the board to retaliate. She isolates the Ayyar, melts the brain of the remaining Barid and puts down the Ghulam NCO. She tucks into a corner and activates Cybermask, with this last order the Ayyar manages to reset!
🦂 Hassassin Bahram
The Sunduqbut is moved to the main group and then the Shakush duo activates. The Sayiq climbs on a building to get LoF to the unconscious TR bot. He tries 2 times with the gizmokit but only manages to inflict one more wound to the REM...
Back to the Ayyar then, the Asura is a priority target that needs to be dealt with. There is a path to get LoF without getting into hacking area and the Ayyar lands 4 hits on the android, three unsaved wounds are too many even for her augmented body..
The Sayiq tries one more time and finally manages to bring the TR back up. With the last order the EVO bot activates assisted fire on the TR bot.
Turn 3
🤖 Vanilla Aleph
Scoring the exclusion zone is going to be a problem but first things first. Hawkwood once again shuts The TR bot down (didn't I fight this guy already today..?) and then the Thyreos goes on an adventure. It marches deep in HB DZ, climbs on a roof and starts emptying SMG magazines into the Ghulam Lt. Once again the quality of Haqqislam line infantry is put to the test and it takes almost all orders in the pool to kill the Ghulam. Without orders to go back to an heated area, the Thyreos is doomed..
🦂 Hassassin Bahram
Last turn in LoL but still enough orders to dominate the exclusion zone and complete the Vigilance classified objective.
6-3 minor victory for Hassassin Bahram!
Debriefing
🤖 Vanilla Aleph
I wasn't ready to win the initiative roll but when I did, I knew going second would have been better in order to have an advantage on the zone score.
Yet, since I was going to face HB, I considered the following:
- Assassins
- lower regular order cost
- should have less REM & HI than me
Those three elements pushed me in going first and protecting my Asura, even if it wasn't my lieutenant.
Since there were no assassins and he wasn't short on HIs, my reasonings were proven wrong.
But what I especially regret was overextending my Asura on Turn 2. I should have probably focused on the Ayyar while leaving the braid hacker alone but I miscalculated the capacity of the Ayyar to pose a threat while avoiding my control zone and bad rolls forced me to burn orders that would have greatly helped in this regards. Maybe I should have gone in suppress rather than cybermasking, but that's how it went 🙂
🦂 Hassassin Bahram
My opponent was caught off-guard by my odd list building and gave up on the advantage of going second in a mission like this one.
My strategy worked ok, in the sense of what I had planned and expected from the units I brought but there have been at least 3 events in which I was utterly lucky and for sure had a major impact on the final outcome: saving the Shakush from the E/Marat, one shotting Penthesilea with the Barid KHD and one shotting the Asura with the Ayyar.
With that said, I am happy about the way I played, the target prioritization and the overall decision making. The only regret was not to manage to get rid of Hawkwood but the Ayyar was the only one having real chances of engaging the sniper with some advantage and he wiffed pretty badly..
Outro
Batth'o Ubelin felt like when stepping on manure with cleated soles. It was going to take a lot of effort for a result far from satisfactory.
Aleph again! After that maniac Uncle Pentium obsolescent quantum computer, now this other neo-Pytagoran splinter cell. Why couldn't he face more normal opponents...? Even the EI was easier to understand, he could definitely see why Achilles and his friends had decided to move on.
The mission had been a success although all the Ghulam and Barid operatives were being resurrected at the moment. Hopefully the intel they had gathered from the field operation would have filled in some of the gaps. They had pushed back Aleph but had not gained anything spectacular.
Could all this Mothball thing be just a scam..?
No comments:
Post a Comment