Operation Golden Ratio: episode 01

In episode 00, a tactical unit of Tunguska's operatives tried to breach a PanOceanian research facility on Space Station Donacimiento. The Nomads were welcomed by a quick response unit from the Station's main client: Aleph...

Aleph stalks Tunguska's raiders, leaving Space Station Donaciminento on board of three tactical dropships. Protecting level 1 information was not enough: the menace must be neutralized. Tunguska's hideout is located in the wreckage of a luxury ship once belonged to a silk trader, drifting in a nearby field of asteroids and debris. The bio-visor shows no traces of life: another mark of Nomads' proficiency in hacking. Ready to face any risk, all three of Alephs tactical dropships board the wreck...

Meanwhile, Anastacio and the rest of the board are interrogated by Alisaa Mudlock, the aspect of Aleph in charge of obtaining clear answers or to take over the project...

This 300 point mission was Mindwipe, from ITS season 12 supplement. 

Tunguska was trying to load its malware into the breached server of one of the dropships, while Aleph was trying to shut down the ship's reactor while investigating on the Nomad's mole inside Space Station Donacimiento, since Aleph's classified objective was HVT: Designation.

Here's how it went down from Tunguska's perspective.

I won the Initiative roll and decided to go first.

I anchored the right flank with the big Securtitate link trenched in a high building, Hollow Haris link with Grenzer NCO and Perseus aggressively deployed in center left ready to dash forward, Puppettless Puppet Master in the left rear laying a Camo token next to one of the servers and Clockmaker on the right. I kept Mary P. aside and deployed her last, fully exploiting the 4'' forward deployment to get closer to one of the two consoles.

On turn one I had two orders stripped from the big link combat group so I did what I could, luckily the MSR Grenzer started strong and shut down both the Dakini and the Yadu HMG, unfortunately no confirmed kills. Then I used the other Combat Group's orders to advance the Haris link and Mary P. towards the consoles. I decided not to go too offensive and placed some smoke to achieve better positioning. Mary P. shoot a repeater to threat the Proxy hacker managing to only send it to NWI. Finally she hacked the console and I rolled a 19 so I could pick the server/dropship! I chose the one on my right.

In my first reactive turn a Garuda was dropped in the middle of the Core fireteam, I failed all useful dodge rolls and remained exposed to dangerous close range Spitfire. After several orders were spent and a non-statistical amount of ARM roll was passed, when the dust settled nobody was hurt and the Grenzer MSR was prone hugging cover. 

The Sophotec brought back the Dakini and the Yadu HMG was still on NWI so back to square one there. The Haris link was hammered and both the Grenzer and the Hollowman (my designated UberHacker!) went down. Some tough retaliation was to be expected, all in all I can't complain as I was able to limit damages.

In the beginning of turn two I got too excited and missed the opportunity to re-shuffle combat groups, I'll remember it for next game!

First things first I needed to get rid of that Garuda. Perseus placed some smoke to block the HMGs LoF to the Grenzer and the big team shoot down the lightly armored REM. Then I moved to placing my Air Cavalry and Raoul Spector landed in his shining HellCat jumpsuit close to the objective. I swiftly moved him in silhouette contact and started to smash with its DA CC weapon. I spent all remaining combat group's 3 orders but once again statistic failed to apply and zero damage was dealt. Maybe Raoul was distracted by the close range HMG rounds that peppered him and despite the -9 mod a wound was finally inflicted so Raoul ended the turn hiding behind a corner in NWI. 

With remaining big link orders I managed to put in null state a couple more enemies, thinning down the order pool of my opponent for the next turn.

In my second reactive turn Raoul bit the dust, hit by a MSV Lv2 Deva, while the rest of OSS advanced on my left flank, hacking the other console to reveal the server/reactor they had to blow up. Luckily, it was the one I had conveniently rigged with a mine.

With turn three I had to blast the server so Perseus ran through half of the table to reach the server/dropship and completed the mission. With my final orders I had Mary moving to prevent the enemy lieutenant from scoring points on my HVT.

On the last reactive turn my opponent only had six orders and two lieutenant orders. These last two were used by the Asura to spotlight my HVT and secure their classified objective. The Asura succeeded but met her end by Mary Problem's trinity. All the remaining orders (six!) were spent by the Sophotect to reach their final objective: it was Aleph's only chance to win the game. By cautiously moving, the doctor-engineer came six inches from the objective without triggering any ARO...until then. Overriding her self-preservation protocols, the AI made her jump towards my mine and under the Grenzer fire with loaded D-charges in her hands. A huge explosion shook the ship. I feared for the worst, but when dust settled down the server/reactor was still standing with one structure point while the Sophotect had been neutralized by Grenzer's bullets.

What next?

The rest of Aleph's forces fell back to their dropships, unaware of the malware loaded by Tunguska into their own systems...