Operation Neon Tiger - episode 03

Intro

Fashas'di walked down the isle, watching his troops checking their gears and weapons. Knowing his bitter reputation of being a freshly appointed hothead lieutenant with friends in high places, he knew he had to say something to boost the crew's morale, and his too.

"My beloved brothers, lost heirs of our Mother Planet: rejoice! Tonight we leave this snowball to make good use of the information provided by the interrogation of the human Koseacasomov. But before we do that, we'll take the chance to spoil these alien supplies and cripple the logistic line of those monkeys, unworthy of the EI's enlightenment. For all our lost brothers, for the sake of freedom and vengeance: tonight we fight!" Hearing the screeches outside his containment pod, Anton shivered in fear. He thought the Shasvastii had kidnapped him because of his military knowledge, but they only cared about something else, something about his youth on Hlökk Station...

Mission and Lists

200 pts - Supplies ITS Season 13 Supplement
🐜 Shasvastii Expeditionary Force Vs 😼 Corregidor Jursdictional Command

 Classified Objectives

🐜 Shasvastii

😼 Corregidor

Deployment

🐜 Shasvastii win initiative roll and decide to go first. They then are forced to deploy first and thus spend a command token to keep two models in reserve.
Fireteam on the right flank with HMG holding the center and MSR covering the firing lane on the table edge. Aida, prone and advanced, deploys a viral mine near the central tech coffin. The taigha, taking advantage of the coverage of the MSR, is deployed almost at the limit of the deployment zone. The shrouded gets between the two techs on the right while the seed soldier stands alone a few inches from the tech on the left. After the opponent's deployment, I place the Caliban in support of the shrouded while the Speculo targets the Evader, estimating that he is the main threat ...

😼 Corregidor goes with first Fireteam on the right: Brigada peeking out from cover looking at the tech coffin and Alguacils in total cover watching the back; and second on the left: similarly the Evader in partial cover with some decent firing lanes and the Alguacils in total cover. The lonely Jaguar goes on a rooftop in the middle and the two Morans go in between the coffins with koalas in range of both coffins. Finally the Intruder HMG goes camping on a rooftop on the left, watching the back of the Evader. As a final move a command token is spent to put the Evader in suppressive fire.

Turn 1

🐜Shasvastii
Taigha advances with its impetuous order and then also spends its irregular order to further approach the Moran who reveals and deploys a second koala. On the other side of the board a Seed Soldier gets out of camo to surprise shot the Mobile Brigada with its panzerfaust. The Nomad HI reacts with a BS attack only to find out she is just millimeters out of the 16" mark 😓 -12 modifier is applied thus hitting on ones 😱 it would have been better to dodge! Dice are rolled and the AP+Exp shell sends the Brigada unconscious.

Galvanized by first blood, the xenos force the issue moving an unsuspected smiley face in silohouette contact with the Evader. The Nomad engineer has now to face a dreaded Speculo Killer close combat attack. The order triggers AROs from the Evader itself shooting in suppressive, from a koala boosting, from the Intruder firing her HMG and from the Jaguar hurdling a smoke grenade on top of the Intruder. The Speculo wins the FtF but the suppression -3 modifier is sufficient to negate a critical hit and the Evader survives the monofilament hit. The alien infiltrator is instead exploded by koala and HMG combined effect.

The seed soldier advances to shoot his last round of panzerfaust on the Evader, but goes unconscious in the attempt.

The taigha then spends a full order to berserk the now revealed Moran and successfully trades with the nomad infiltrator and its last koala.

The rest of the turn is spent to reposition the fireteam, crack the right coffin open and pick up the supply box with the Shrouded supported by the Caliban.

😼 Corregidor starts turn 1 in LoL, after secretly appointing the Intruder as new Lt. and burning all 3 remaining command tokens to turn irregular into regular orders, the paramedic attempts to bring the Brigada back into the fight. Ph roll is failed and she goes straight to dead 😑. 

The Intruder proceeds to strip a couple of orders from the Shasvastii's pool disabling both the Nox MSR and the Seed Soldier with her HMG. The Jaguar goes on an adventure and manages to chain rifle the Caliban and the Shrouded. The template leaves no way out and both EI's agents go down.

The Moran on the right flank advances, engages the unconscious Seed Soldier, completes the "in extremis recovery" classified and then hides in a corner surveilling the coffin with his boarding shotgun.

Last but not least the Shrouded succeeds in its regeneration roll and stands back up on his feet holding the supply box.

Turn 2

🐜Shasvastii
Order count is a little low and Nomads hostiles infest the midfield and control a couple good firing lanes. The fireteam advances in the middle and Aida removes the Jaguar with precise bursts of her SMG and taking the Intruder's reaction. She keeps pushing, shooting the Intruder with her booty'ed Multi Sniper Rifle but the merciless Nomad put her down in the process.

Then the fireteam activates again with the HMG advancing to deal with the Intruder but cover and mimetism play in favor of the Nomad elite trooper. The Shasvastii paramedic is not better than its Nomad colleague as it also fails to heal its comrade.  

😼 Corregidor

The situation is in a stalemate with the remaining Shasvastii camping in the middle in a garden of suspicious looking camo tokens. The Moran has to spend 3 orders to crack the coffin open and go hiding with the supply box. The Evader engineer finally strides forward. The intention was originally to deactivate the mines but the Moran inefficiency calls for a selfless exposure to the alien explosive devices. The viral mines go off and the brave specialist falls. 

The last order is for the Alguacil paramedic to advance and get shots at the Shrouded but she also gests the worst of it and goes unconscious.

Turn 3

🐜Shasvastii
With 3 orders (2+Lt.) left there is only one play that can save the game: the Nox Lt. starts running towards the Moran to put it in Null state and prevent supply box scoring and at the same time also securing the HVT. It seems to be its destiny to succeed as it survives 2 unopposed HMG AROs in the open and a Koala exploding in his face... the Moran however passes his dodge roll and is able to reposition and meet the Nox with a boarding shotgun burst as it gets line of sight. The alien's good luck is over and +6 range bonus and mimetism put an end to the Shasvastii's dreams of victory.

😼 Corregidor

Not many orders left for the Nomads as well. The Intruder climbs down the roof and takes a walk to get in silhouette contact with the unconscious Paramedic. After putting down once again the stubborn regenerating Shrouded she also Casevac the Alguacil completing the second classified.

Before the game ends the Shrouded has another chance to regenerate and once again succeeds!

Final score: Shasvastii 2 - Corregidor 4.

Debriefing

🐜Shasvastii

What a shipwreck! I didn't expect things to go this ballistic but that's a good lesson for underestimating that nasty camo token of an Intruder and overestimating the Speculo's durability. My first mistake was probably making a list with too much open information to properly scare my opponent. Coming from OSS I also have to sharpen my waiting game, resisting the temptation of striking when I can to indeed strike when it hurts more. Props to my opponent who splendidly managed to get out a devastating first turn in LoL and score the perfect match 👏

😼 Corregidor

The game started uphill with my Lt. exploding first order of first turn. That really pissed me off! I am however happy I was able to remain focused and perform a decent turn in Loss of Lt. playing the classified objectives. In the end, also thanks to the bad luck with the Moran's WIP rolls, the classified proved to be fundamental in breaking the tie.

The game was good and open until the (literally) last regeneration roll! The desperate 3 orders run of the Nox Lt. was pretty awesome as both of us were actually cheering for it to succeed, it would have been quite epic and reminded me of a Mindwipe game we played in which Perseus destroyed the server last turn after a deployment-to-deployment jog.

Also good to see the Intruder do well at this game size. I brought her to mow down the squishy Shasvastii LI with mimetism and did it quite well. The camo surprise effect was also successful but I am pretty sure my opponent will not be tricked again.

Outro

Forty-eight hours later, the Sonic Blues is entering the Brísingamen Asteroid Belt. Apparently a cargo ship for metal alloys, the Sonic Blues is in fact a disguise for the Shasvastii to get around in the Human Sphere undetected. Deep inside the vessel, Fashas'di is still recovering from the injuries generated by his mistakes, watching over and over the record of the firefight to fullt understand what happened in those feverish moments where many of his trusted troopers lost their lives. His leadership is shaken, but the mission keeps his whole team focused on the next step: getting inside Hlökk Station.