Jump to content

Batrep 08/31/21. Dumb decisions or how to lose your army in 7 easy turns.


Krugerannd

Recommended Posts

So we got our second game in today. Tactical mistakes and poor dice rolls were the order of the day.1.thumb.jpg.d65a1e147eab2ea11862535bd7c27af1.jpg

The Specialist Squad of the 5th Regiment. Butcher B, Revenant, Specter B and Shadow.

 

 

 

2.thumb.jpg.bf057725e740e3116f2f83f36cc4667e.jpg

The initial deployment. You can see great care was taken to gain maximum tactical advantage. My opponent (who has pictures of his models on Facebook, mine don't do him justice) Has a pair of Centurions Mk. 2 and 4 Sabre recon tanks. He gets 2 initiative cards and I get 1. This was my first mistake. The recon squad allows him to move my card from just flipped to the bottom of the deck. Ergo I go last every turn as I have no Recon squad to counter it.

3.thumb.jpg.6f57c94cc235d6217c9560a95498eb60.jpg

The first turn for my army. The Shadow stealthily takes position in the stand of trees and target locks one of the opposing centurions. The Revenant and Butcher B move forward and have no targets. The Specter B takes advantage of the target lock on the Centurion and lays a salvo of Rockets right on the Sabre recon vehicle instead of the target locked Centurion. Mistake #2.

4.thumb.jpg.6b9ef0aec6181bb047b13edacda67680.jpg

My opponent is unimpressed with my opening gambit. The damaged Sabre moves behind the temple/statue thingy by the curve in the road and advances the rest of the squad forward alongside the Centurions.

5.thumb.jpg.df67089016edb93d3bab00b72584f220.jpg

Turn 3. Those of you who have been following along and paying attention may notice something missing from this picture. Can you guess what it is? Why the Shadow is missing from the trees. That's because Shadows don't react well to target locked Heavy MAC cannons. They also don't like critical hits and Medium Guided Missiles either. Apparently light cover and chameleon will not save you from a determined enemy. When asked why so determined the reply "Well I remember all the nasty crap you can do with a recon model so I wanted it gone A.S.A.P."

The Butcher B decided staying together to concentrate fire with the Revenant was a suckers game and left on a run up the side to try a flanking maneuver. Me and Bonaparte right? 2 Tactical geniuses in a pod.

 

 

6.thumb.jpg.d363ed18b396716ded56edb04658c4ab.jpg

Here on the next turn my opponent decided the Specter B had to go. The Heavy MAC's missed but the Medium GM's forced a pilot roll which I promptly failed.

7.thumb.jpg.1802140aae398ffb48fc41eee51a633c.jpg

Right so on this turn the Butcher B has doubled down on the whole Flanking move/Lone wolf ploy. We rev up our mighty MRAC's and....snake eyes. Dammit he was right all along these things suck. Fortunately re-reading the rules shows that after you roll snake eyes you roll a d6 and on a 1 or 2 only are the cannons jammed. The cannons did not jam. They didn't hit, but they didn't jam. The Specter B decided it does not like being the center of attention and moved to hide behind the Revenant. The opponent's Sabers are readying to Dukes of Hazzard it over the hilltop and the one Centurion hasn't moved a inch from it's position on the hill. It just stands there calmly scanning for targets to target lock and blast into oblivion.

8.thumb.jpg.104feab0a4b3226680faff9b958325f8.jpg

The Sabers, instead of going over the top like I would have, decided to act wisely and scooted around the hill. The Specter B torso twists, grabs a target lock and blasts one with it's Guided Missiles. Upon doing so on the next turn all 3 surviving Sabers activate ECM to stop target locks. I again lament the passing of my Shadow which has now caught fire and is burning merrily in the forest. The second Centurion is apparently very scared of my Butcher B (or the funny sound the guns were making last turn and moves to join it's comrade. Time is also taken during the busy war to make repair rolls to fix the dent I put in the Saber hiding behind the temple/statue thingy by the curve in the road. The Revenant moves forward in an attempt to engage something with its MACs before it's too late. Sadly both shots go whizzing down field, hitting nothing but air.

9.thumb.jpg.000371a830ec33168e33b3b37678c280.jpg

The Saber harassing the Specter B drives behind it and hoses it down with its Light MRAC actually plinking it for damage. the remainder engage ECM again and hold position. The Centurions shift fire to the Revenant and start cracking armor. Return fire is ineffective and the Rockets fired from the Specter B miss badly. The Butcher B opens up with the MRAC's again but having had to move coupled with no target lock means failure.

10.thumb.jpg.f0b4696251c0a9c1ec9a444b14dc7b4c.jpg

The observant among you will note the billowing cloud of Black smoke coming from the Revenant which lies broken on it's back. Crit's hurt. 2 Crit's don't' bear thinking about. The Specter B contemplates a new line of work as it drops a volley of rockets to make a crater for some future infantry squad to hole up in. The Butcher B moves forward and tries to take the Saber hiding behind the hill and manages to choke again.

11.thumb.jpg.fe708992ea2e48a4ddba4c3cbb37283d.jpg

The second Centurion decided to leave the safety of the temple/statue thingy and starts taking pot shots at the Butcher B with it's brother. However this time they all missed. Slaughtering everyone else apparently took it out of them. The Sabers, deciding it's too late in the war to risk their lives. scatter after receiving some damage from the surviving Malvernis forces. I can't help it, they were all I seemed to be able to hit.

12.thumb.jpg.ac951698cdcf2029c366d8ac0b22060e.jpg

The final picture. Malvernis lost a Revenant and a Shadow and had a damaged Specter B. Templar lost 1 Saber. I was hoping to show better using a State of the Art Malvernis force. Unfortunately the Art was Pottery in this case.

Final thoughts

1. Hanging the Shadow out where it could be seen that early in the game wasn't smart. It especially wasn't smart when I knew the opposition had long range weapons and the means to use them. a simple target lock gives a Centurion +3 to direct fire attacks. that will offset range penalties and cover bonuses nicely.

2. The Specter B was not used well. Either I should have kept it back and used the rockets or moved up and used the Guided Missiles, not flip flopped between them. But then again having ECM bubbles everywhere does limit the options.

3. The Revenant and the Butcher B should have been side by side and concentrating fire on those who opposed them. Starting with the Sabers to get rid of the ECM. MACs and MRACs don't care about ECM. Then get the target locks and hose the Centurions 1 at a time.

 

Oh well, there's always next week.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fantastic writeup.

As you noted, starting by eating their recon is a solid play. The Shadow does not need line of sight to target lock (and share that lock), so could have stayed behind the pillar for Blocking Cover if the enemy was close enough for it to make use of EST from there (otherwise, I agree that the forest was the place to put it). If you could remove the Sabres from the table, he would have lost their squad card AND the recon card, leveling the deck.

The only other things I'd say to consider are a: that you can deploy to flank with the squad weighted to the left edge with a member on the right edge (if you choose that route) and b: that low hill is cover. I would absolutely not have moved into the open field to fight, but would have covered ground as fast as I could to get within 1" of it for that bonus. Even if that -1 doesn't make them miss, it's still like having an extra point of armor on the MoS, so take it.

Most importantly, it sounds like you had a good time. Thanks for sharing.

Edited by Dave.C
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...