Maelstrom’s Edge Battle Report: Bloodthirsty Minnows
The final act?
, real world the rest.
Introduction
Mission and objectives
I’m trying to develop a sort of ‘introductory mission’, using small forces and a smaller play area. This mission uses the Territories and Decimation objectives (and the faction objectives).
Terrain
The board is 3’ by 5’. All terrain was assigned cover value 2. The woods are area terrain, the buildings, crates & barrels and the walls are obstacles. We didn’t use the actual building rules, so units couldn’t enter.
Deployment
Pitched deployment was rolled for. The Karists bid 3STs to be attackers. Deployment is as shown.
Epirian Deployment left, Karists right. The Territories objectives are three energy terminal markers spread in a line across the board. All Karists are deployed on the move, all Epirians are deployed pinned.
Karist force (49 pts)
Kaddar Nova Myro;
4 Troopers with a Ripper Grenade Launcher;
2 Tempest Elites with Ravager Vulcan Pulse Cannons (with 3 deployment STs);
4 Angel Minnows.
Epirian force (49 pts)
Journeyman Bot Handler Bacaro;
4 Contractors with 1 grenade launcher;
4 Spider Drones with Cutter light machine guns and an apprentice handler;
Scarecrow with Maglock Railrifle and Clingfire sprayer.
Turn 1
Note that I’ll be ignoring the Epirian Automated Uplink Relay activations: it contributed its victory point the first couple of turns and added some command points later on. Also, my flash trigger battery was empty so the pics are a bit sub par, and also I didn't take any notes so the report as a whole is a bit iffy.
1st activation: The Minnows charge into the lone Scarecrow. After defensive fire, CQ fighting and reactive CQ fighting, the Minnows are 1 down and have gained a pile of STs, whilst the Scarecrow has suffered an injury and has also taken some STs.
2nd activation: The Scarecrow gets his bot protocols activated and moves away from the Minnows to get a clear shot with the clingfire sprayer. All but one Minnow go down.
3rd activation: The Contractors take the objective near the woods and loose some shots at the Nova’s shielded unit.
4th activation: The Tempests advance and fire at the Scarecrow, destroying it.
5th activation: The Spider Drones Advance & Fire at the Nova unit. The dice are on fire, generating a bunch of extra hits through the Cutter machine gun’s burst ability. A Trooper snuffs it and the unit gets a pile of STs.
6th activation: The Journeyman launches his air strike at the Nova’s unit, to some but not too great effect: the Nova takes an injury.
7th activation: The Nova has enough willpower not to be too impressed by the pile of STs on his unit. He advances to the secret cache objective, switches his reactor to gauntlet overload and returns fire at the Contractors, taking one down. He then shakes off some of his suppression, whilst overload suppress sprinkles STs on the nearby Epirian units.
Turn 1 ends with 2 points for the Epirians, claiming one objective and utilising the uplink relay, and zero for the Karists. Note that this is the first time we used the Territories objective and we forgot that you keep getting points even after you move away from an objective. Not sure if this impacted the game much, but we’ll need to get it right next time
. The Karist player destroyed the depleted Minnow unit.
Turn 2
The Epirians get priority and generate 4 command points, whilst the Karists generate 3 CPs. Both bring back a unit: the Minnows and the Scarecrow.
1st activation: The depleted contractors lob a grenade shell at the Nova and fire their assault rifles, trying to render the unit ineffective through suppression.
2nd activation: the Tempests advance and fire at the Journeyman, who is lucky to escape without a scratch.
3rd activation: the Minnows Dash back in to contest the objective.
4th activation: The new Scarecrow came on the board and fired at the Tempests to very little effect. Which is as well, because we forgot the Scarecrow had to fire wild due to the Railrifle’s ‘heavy’ ability.
5th activation: The Spider Drones take an order and dig in in the woods, shooting the Minnows as they go, piling on STs.
6th activation: The Journeyman executes a tactical retreat to get into order range of the Scarecrow.
Somewhere in this turn the Nova unit probably shot some Epirians, I think the Drones?
At the end of turn 2 the Epirians take a point for their uplink relay and the Karists a point for their secret cache.
Turn 3
Epirians get priority.
1st activation: the Scarecrow gets an order and with hold and fire manages to put an injury on one of the Tempests.
2nd activation: The Nova unit spreads out a bit and attacks the drones, piling on the STs. One Drone turns into scrap.
3rd activation: With a bunch of STs and the Minnows near, the Spiders are forced to retreat to the board edge.
4th activation: The Minnows fail their discipline check, but due to ‘bloodthirsty’ they get to charge the Contractors, who die.
The Tempests and Journeyman obviously did something as well this turn which I can’t quite recall, probably fire into the Drones or Contractors and Minnows respectively.
At the end of turn 3 the Epirians take a point for their uplink relay and the Karists a point for their secret cache (the Minnows cannot score objectives due to their ‘kill mission’).
Turn 4
The Epirians bring back the Contractor unit as a reinforcement.
1st activation: (this shot was taken later): Tempests dash to the objective and probably fired wild at the scarecrow.
2nd activation: The Spider Drones are given an order and their protocols are enabled, after which they dig in in the woods, firing wild at the minnows.
3rd activation: Contractor reinforcements Dash ahead and put some STs on the Tempests.
4th activation: The Kaddar Nova leaves his unit to claim an objective.
5th activation: The Scarecrow is ordered and puts more pressure on the Tempests.
6th activation: The Journeyman puts more STs on the minnows.
7th activation: (same image) The Minnows get another charge in and destroy the remaining bots and Handler.
8th activation: The Troopers take position in order to fire at the Contractors. They are well dispersed and hidden beyond the crates, so the damage is limited.
At the end of turn 4 the Epirians score 0, whilst the Karists get three: two terminals and the secret cache.
Turn 5
The Epirians bid 6 command tokens to bring back the Spider Drones, but the Karists counter with 7. The Epirians are now really outnumbered.
1st activation: The Scarecrow keeps shooting the Tempests, who are now properly suppressed.
2nd activation: The amount of STs and proximity of the Contractors now forces the Tempests to retreat.
3rd activation: The minnows keep taking advantage of their bloodthirsty ability to attack new targets. This time, the Journeyman falls to their Cybel maws.
4th activation: The Contractors take an objective.
5th activation: The Troopers move to claim the center objective.
6th activation: The Nova Dashes to the objective. Final image.
The Karists get more points for having over half the territories at the end of the game and for having taken out one third of the Epirian forces, making them the clear winner.
With a few modifications to the points given out by the objectives and a little more terrain I think this will do nicely for an intro mission. The forces are only small, but with the reinforcements mechanic the players need never be out of stuff to work with, and the game should about fit on a normal sized table.
I recall when I first read the rules how I worried Maelstrom’s Edge would give a limited gaming experience, given the max of 5 turns and smaller forces. I could not have been more wrong. Every game you immediately get into the thick of it and every activation is interesting. 5 turns is plenty. A handful of models is plenty. Just make sure you have enough terrain on the table.
Having played a couple games now and seen a few more, the rules are starting to click nicely. The big thing with this type of game is always the special unit and weapon abilities. To get a good idea in your head of what units can do just reading the rules is never enough, you need to see them work to really get that feel. In this game the Minnows’ bloodthirsty ability was a bit of an eye-opener. I never thought of it as a big thing, but it means they are a threat even when utterly suppressed because they keep coming at you and have a big charge range. Cool stuff.