This will be the third and final battle report from our Mini tournament. Our mission set was:
Safe area
Firefight
Frontline
This will be for FRONTLINE
I used my safe area list relying on the large link team and variable options to get me through the mission. It would serve a dual purpose of getting many points up the board, while also murdering anything that gets in the way. The absolute swiss army knife that is possible with Druze makes this mission a breeze, especially with the baggage bots in the list for points backup. I’ve been really digging the options with Druze, and with the release of Ikari (took me a while to write this) and their “Special” link teams. I’m appreciative of the redundancy DBS can acquire.
My opponents list from memory:
CwBgjAPgzCIRoCkUlgEwgByIIRJSIulrvqhtnoQURbmlMg0WMMLlAOzJcsCchHGD7JhLKGlwA2ZCBlgQfSTm4xuCviKEBWUbrDpuAAQWjCBsIyGywRENt15dKfWjSUDo2xeNGgA=
(Army isn’t working)
Some assassin?
Tuareg AHD
Hunzkaut FO
4x Mutt
Barid KHD
Ragik Spitfire
Tarik Spitfire
FO bot
A few Ghulam HMG Djanbazan Warcor
My opponent was new and undefeated with Haqqislam, and ran a pretty streamlined list. The LT options were pretty varied, and he had a strong frontline; if limited on specialists that could get up and move. I once again won the roll off with my superior Brawler WIP, and choose to go second for the last ditch move onto the objectives.
I deployed on the edge where the photo is taken. You can see the little flower garden on the left. From behind that you can see ALL the way to his little flowers in the top right of the photo in his corner.
DEPLOYMENT
I deployed pretty spread out, with a good ARO net and my link team all ready to assemble and move depending on the situation. I knew an assassin was coming so I made a nice juicy target out of my sniper team, hoping he would go for it and I would be able to revive her. Sniper team goes left, with rest of link hiding behind boxes in an attempt at a defensive ARO. My bots go right in an ARO net, and my clipper hides to move out later on.
The way I deployed the link was really important for the game. I was forced due to terrain to deploy very heavily left, and in total cover. This also led to my initial link only being 4 members strong, with the initial ARO pieces (Clipper/MSR) being the core component of the link. I knew I was going to spend a Command Token to add in more members later, so the baited sniper trap wasn’t too big of a deal for me.
He deploys very centrally, with his Mutts on the front line. Tarik is reserve deployed (I forgot that was a rule and never even put mine down) in the middle, and takes a dominating position. His assassin falls for my sniper team trick and goes down right in front of my Brawler. His Daylami fails and goes WAAAAY in the back corner. His overall deployment seems bent on rushing into my side of the table and locking it down with his cheap direct template weapons/jammers. This really left his main components in the wind, and especially so if Tarik moved around too much. Tarik was really the lynchpin of his deployment, backed up by the Djanbazan HMG.
NARRATIVE:
My eyes had focused to a pinpoint, ears filled with angry shouting, I let out a breath.
“Oi mate ye knew it was occupied!” Stoneman had his hands in the air, his visor opened revealing his unkempt beard.
“It was a shit hole mate, they had moved!” Our sniper Dingo, still sitting with his rifle propped against the window looked down the sights of his pistol.
The man in the doorway was screaming in some African language, shotgun barrel sawed off just past the grip. Bad intel meant we were in his home, planning an overwatch on our final target.
“I need em out! Opfor on inbound!” Screamed Dingo
My knuckles tightened on my own sidearm, squarely pointed at the mans chest. His eyes wide with fear, mouth never closing as he continued shouting.
“What the hell am I paying you fo-” Priests comms disappeared in the roar of a shotgun blast.
The world entered slow motion. Stoneman turning his head back towards the man, his body being thrown away from him. My first round entered the man's chest just above the heart. The second catching him in the cheek. Dingos Desert Eagle turned the left side of the man's rib cage into ground beef with an explosive round. Pieces of ceramic armor, blood, bone, and metal sprayed into me. A shotgun pellet carving a furrow across the bridge of my nose, adding to the criss cross of scars already there.
I was at Stonemans side, his eyes already glazing over. The shotgun had turned his chest plate inside out, webbing and tissue ran together.
“Oi this is Dingo situation fucking solved, on overwatch” Dingo turned, already looking down his sights. “Oi, and watch that damn door”
As a heads up, this game went really fast so it might be a little less accurate.
Haqqislam turn 1:
The mutts all go crazy and run forward, a few fail smoke and one gets flash pulsed. His assassin then activates, shotguns my brawler (Not my sniper??) and knocks him unconscious. My sniper then kills him with a pistol.
He activates Tarik and super jumps around a bit, eventually super jumping into a weird route that brings him onto the lip of a staircase. This raises him high enough for a flash pulse bot, and a combi shot. Wounding him, and blinding him.
He lays down on the center buildings tippy top roof.
Some more stuff shuffles around and he passes turn.
Well that went a lot better than I expected. Tarik getting blinded was a really easily avoidable mistake, and cost him a lot of his early game killing potential. I now had free reign of the board, and only had to manage my ending positions to respond to any Tarik Rampages.
DRUZE TURN 1: Teampro goes up.
I start off by rifling a mutt with my Hunzkaut on the left.
I then link the Druze together with the clipper and start trucking. We find out the clippers range is like 90 inches, so it explodes the daylami all the way across the table.
I HMG a mutt away and move into the center of the board with my link team.
My pathfinder walks up and triangulates his Hunzkaut. She fails a dodge and explodes from the clippers missile launcher.
I moved up into a strong central position with the intent to provide multiple ARO’s. Mostly from the HMG, but also from the clipper. Despite this being a dangerous position for both of them, I felt confident in taking out his points cost models versus mine. Expecting Tarik to try to do a massive lucky 1’s shoot out with my link team. His main members were going to be the Djanbazan, and Tarik and both of those were very heavy points wise.
NARRATIVE: “Go” Fatimas voice hissed over the comm net.
A short bus pulled out into the street, taking a sharp left turn blocking the road. Our target vehicles rolled to a halt. The turret gunner on the front truck rapidly swiveling and yelling at nearby civilians. I could see the bus driver through my binoculars shouting and making hand gestures back; as our locals exited out the other side; rifles and various weaponry clutched to their chest. The other vehicles in the convoy began piling up behind the first, our target car trying to turn around.
With a bang a pickup truck slammed into the target car, bouncing off the side and rear ending a gun truck. The gun trucks turret immediately firing into the drivers cab spraying it red. The pickup trucks 50cal chewing the opposing gunner and rear cab apart in a hail of armor piercing rounds. We could hear the concussive rounds from our position. I watched as the locals we had hired began to firefight with the IDF convoy, small arms fire ringing across the desert town as the IDF dismounted at short range.
Dingo began quickly speaking into the comms. “Oi, target outbound catch on, catch on”
His rifle cracked, an IDF member spinning to the ground. I reached into the bag near Dingo and threw a handful of micro drones out, pinging our target car as it pulled away from the ambush.
I rushed down the stairs to our tracker vehicle, the back already weighed down with the heavy weight of the larger Druze, his heavy machine gun resting on the roof.
Dirt kicked from the tires as we sped after them.
Haqqislam turn 2:
He waffles on bringing on the Ragik. Eventually deciding on NOT bringing it in.
Mutts run forward and chain rifle my HMG, he survives, and shoots the mutt dogged.
It’s a little foggy, but I believe Tarik just throws 4-5 grenades in a row to 0 effect. Warcor stands up.
Djanbazan shoots clipper, knocking it unconscious, but he goes unconscious from my HMG Druze.
He regenerates him and moves him prone.
Druze Turn 2: I think I know who his LT is, so I advance up further on the left flank. I repair the clipper and bring it back into the link team. I then shoot his FO bot, Warcor, and the last mutt with a combination of MSR sniper and HMG.
I try to EM his ghulam on a roof but she dodges. I try to triangulate Tarik but give up after a few orders.
I put a few bots into suppressing fire.
I then crawl my EM lgl Druze onto a roof and kill his Djanbazan.
Then Walk her over and shoot the Ghulam on the roof as well.
I end my link team inside a building on the far left of his deployment zone, with one member on top. All of their weapons except the hmg are in good range bands, and they can easily move into either the middle band, or his band.
This was a case of “my opponent is hiding, and I don’t want to get caught with my you know what in the wind”. I just set up defensively and played the long game. I knew he had some kind of AD, so tried to minimize this. My link team was now solidly in his little building, and could move to secure his farthest zone. Or his middle zone if I felt like I needed to overwhelm Tarik. I had to deprive him of a few orders incase that AD did come on, and putting a guy on the roof of the building gave me a good overwatch for the AD.
Narrative:
Car horns honked as bullets whipped by us. The larger druze’ long knotted hair flowing in the wind as he steadied his heavy machine gun on the target vehicle ahead of us. Our hired guns sat impatiently, knowing they had no chance of hitting it with unguided weapons. Weapons firing sporadically out of it’s windows the armored SUV swerved in between traffic going well over 120 kph. The Druze methodically loaded the belt fed machine gun, eyes never leaving the vehicle ahead of us. I peered over the side, a large fruit truck coming ahead of us. Fruit precariously balanced all over it, with a half dozen men riding in the rear. As soon as the Druze clicked the ammunition belt into place, he began to fire.
His heads up display showing the trajectory of his bullets even before they left the barrel. His stream of munitions found their mark 150 meters in front of the target vehicle. Fruit began to explode as the rounds stitched their way down the hull, clutching his shoulder a man in the rear of the vehicle fell off only to fall under the wheels of a car right behind it. The vehicle tilted, shifted, then jerked as it’s tires gave way, careening into the dense part of the highway. With a sound like a bomb going off the large transport vehicle slammed into a smaller SUV and jackknifed onto its side. Fruit, pieces of metal, and glass scattered across the highway. Smaller vehicles slamming into each other in voided attempts at escape.. Our target vehicle had no time to react, slamming directly into a smaller sedan, it’s rear end almost going vertical.
Haqqislam Turn 3:
He begins by shuffling some dudes forward, attempting to enter his closest zone. A tuareg reveals in the center zone (This could have been huge for him earlier)
His barid shoots a pitcher at my KHD, and tries to KHD her. I KHD back and we tie.
He finally brings the Ragik on, it moves up and shoots out with my KHD. My KHD viral pistols his ragik.
I mean, he tried? He was in a really bad spot. I think Tarik would have been a better option. Potentially running amok in my now Link teamless DZ versus a bunch of baggage bots. The Barid was a smart move as the Druze KHD was the only thing that could have seen the Ragik, potentially leading to a massacre. But it instead sucked his orders up. And the Ragik just died LAB anyways. I wish he had brought the Ragik on somewhere else and used it to contest my closest zone. Or had just rushed tarik for a massive nanopulsar on my link team. He could have easily points traded Tarik for the Druze.
Druze turn 3: I run baggage bots up, shuffle around to the zones. And end my turn. He owns the middle zone by 1 POINT, and plays an intelcomm card worth 30 points. I play my intelcom worth 32 points and win the middle zone. Kind of troll, but I was in the lead of the tournament by a large margin and didn’t need the classified points.
Narrative:
Glass crunched under my boot as I approached, weapon at the ready. Our guerrillas had already surrounded the vehicle, civilians continued honking their horns at the sudden traffic jam. With the groan of metal and breaking glass, an armored door exploded off the side of the SUV. Spinning away it caught one of our locals in the side of the head, pulverizing him against a nearby vehicle. Before I could even breath a figure slid out of the vehicle firing a weapon on fully automatic. Our locals immediately started to fire back, their drug addled hands sending bullets flying. Civilians abandoned their vehicles where they were and added to the chaos. I ducked behind a car with no windows as a guerrilla fell over the hood in front of me, a sucking chest wound marking his demise.
Farsi broke out over the communications as our Druze agent tried to pin down what was going on.
I leaned around the corner of the vehicle to see an IDF agent and our target slowly leaving the other side of the vehicle. I rose, my rifle automatically ranging in it’s frag rounds. My first burst caught the IDF soldier in the hip and lower abdomen, sending him to the ground in a pile. My other bursts going airborne as an enormous force barreled into me. I looked up to see my legs above my head as my back slammed into the ground. A beast of man sat 10 meters away from me, smoking light machine gun in one hand, a large blood soaked machete in the other. My vision blurred as machine gun fire stitched its way across the ground near him, a round going through his arm. Turning he immediately set after the source of the fire.
I reached out but couldn’t find my rifle. Automatic fire now completely drowning out any other noises. My eyes focused on our target, she had recovered and was limping away from the downed vehicle. I set off, barely keeping my balance as I raised. The sound of gunfire increased tenfold. IDF reinforcements had arrived on scene, their jet wash blowing a small sandstorm into the area.
Our eyes met as my shoulder connected with her upper back. Her briefcase flying away from her as we slammed to the ground. Bullets zipped over us as I grabbed her by the hair, a muffled cry the only resistance. Her face met the hard asphalt with a satisfying crunch and a trail of blood leapt up as I rose and chased after the briefcase. Grabbing it in my one good hand I slid behind a car, our comms net overclocking with activity. A truck full of dark skinned men with rifles pulled up next to me, the biggest one motioning for me. With a small measure of hesitation I leapt into the rear, and with a bang on the top of the cab we were off. Looking back at the scene, an explosion rising from the area of the crash. The IDF drop ship circling, light machine guns firing into the mix of vehicles and fighters below.
“Priest, this is Mac, objective secured”. The adrenaline cleared my voice for the first time in years.
Game review:
This went really well for me :). I think he really messed up with Tarik, it could have changed the whole flow of the game. As well as missing that Taureg and Ragik orders the whole time. I also had very good positioning with my Druze link team in the midfield and his eventual side of the board. It was a relatively open area and his lack of sneaky dudes meant he couldn’t get around to me all that well. Which lead to the weird Barid KHD attempt. I think I played this game very well, only improving on my deployment which can always be better. These tables at the tournament were very sparse in the deployment zones, leading to some weird spaced out link teams, and poor HMG positioning. If the table was more clustered or closer together his mutts would have destroyed me. But three big lanes (Including the ridiculous 68 inch Clipper missile shot on his Daylami) shut him down. I’m surprised the mutts were in a separate smaller group, they just couldn’t get enough orders to throw effective smoke grenades down.
