Last night was my first visit to our club's new venue, and it actually has decent lighting which means I'll be able to get some decent photos of our games!
The game we played was mission 103 from Paradiso, as there were 4 of us playing rather than 1 300pt list we each took a separate 200pt list but were working together as 2 teams, so we each had our own Lts but could doctor each other's troops and shared objective points.
I took my trusty Haqqs with Yu Jing allies against 2 small but elite dastardly Aleph forces, unfortunately because there were so many of us I didn't catch the army lists beforehand and once the game started the action was so bloody and dispersed I didn't catch many details outside of general carnage all over the battlefield!
I took a Qapu Khalki list with a 5 man Ghulam link, a Ghulam Lt who was there to replace the first inevitable casualty and keep the team at fighting strength, an Azrail, Najjarun and Djanbazan
HMG. I was facing off against a small force including Achilles(!), a couple of Myrmidons, a hacker-something, and a couple of tacbots.
My Yu JIng buddy had a smattering of Shaolins, a Guilang, a Shang Ji, a
JSA engineer, and a variety of Zhanshis, against a Naga, Asura, a couple of tacbots and something with
TO and a combi rifle who was a massive thorn in our sides!
Deployment pics:
Haqq deployment
Yu Jing Deployment
Aleph Deployment
(3 models were inside the building)
Aleph had the first turn, which consisted of my opponent's hacker sprinting for the target zone, smashing through the door and disabling the security system while Achilles swaggered forward swishing his hair about. The other Aleph force spread out at a slower pace, gunning down my ally's Guilang.
In our first turn, my Ghulam link team advanced towards the target zone, the missile launcher taking the lead. Rockets went flying everywhere, driving Achilles back into cover and exploderising a tacbot and myrmidon sheltering in the large building (although we later remembered the tacbot had mimetism, so the rocket would have just missed. I should have felt bad, but he took Achilles so screw him
) before taking cover around the target zone and surrounding barricades. Nothing much else happened with me, a few exhanges of fire with no real results. The Yu Jing began advancing, one crazy monk getting sniped immediately, while the rest spread out and blazed away at the Aleph. A wound was caused on the Naga, but that was about it I think.
Our first turn was really hampered by the mix of
ODD and generally ridiculous
BS and PHYS of the Aleph troops, but we'd managed to take some ground.
Achilles flipping burgers where he belongs.
In Aleph's second turn Achilles mercilessly gunned down the Ghulam Missile launcher, taking a wound himself from a lucky shot, but was distracted by his reflection in a nearby mirror and couldn't finish the job. The hacker sealed itself in the target zone after taking a shot through the open doorway last turn (yeah there's no rules for it in the scenario, but we figured a
WIP roll to close the door was fair). The other Aleph force contented itself with butchering any Yu Jing troop that dared show its face.
In our turn 2, the Ghulam medic revived the Missile Launcher who resumed blasting Achille's Burger Bar with missiles, but couldn't beat his ludicrous
BS and was downed in
ARO herself. The
HMG Ghulam took her place as Chief Achilles-Botherer but couldn't get through his armour. The Najjarun made a run for the nearest RAS console and managed to extract the data, but was now stuck in a position where any movement towards the target zone would earn him a shot in the back from Achilles. The Azrail tried to nail Achilles through the other window, but took a wound himself and ran away with a failed guts roll. On the other side the Yu Jing force had taken heavy losses but was managing to wittle down the Aleph troops, aided by my Djanazan downing the Naga with long range
HMG fire. A tacbot and Asura also went down, leaving the Aleph force with few troops against an equally battered Yu Jing force.
The reckless engineer...
The shaky-handed hacker.
Aleph turn 3 started with Achilles mowing down the poor Ghulam
HMG, followed by the hacker in the target zone failing 4 straight rolls to stabilise the target in an attempt to win the game. The lack of troops was really hitting home at this point, as the other Aleph force was reduced to the
TO-and-combi-rifle troop (the crouching guy) by lucky
AROs from the Yu Jing, though not without inflicting more damage on the conga-line of unconscious Yu Jing troops.
At the start of our turn 3, we were even at 2 Objective points apiece. My Najjarun couldn't get to the access point without getting shot in the back by Achilles or taking a nanopulser to the face from the hacker, and the
TO Dasyu was holding off the Yu Jing who just couldn't get a good enough shot to chance firing, being at -12 across the board (range, cover,
TO), but had an engineer in a position to run for the second RAS console but not without taking at least 2
AROs from the Dasyu. He had 4 orders, I had 7 but no-one who could achieve an objective...
Figuring it was death or glory time, my Ghulams stacked up against the edge of the target zone, then as one sprinted into the open spraying the Dasyu's hiding spot with bullets. The Dasyu took down one as they left cover, then another as the advance faltered, before the last Ghulam managed a crit to the face with my last order, wiping out the Aleph force on that side. The damage had been heavy, but the route was now clear for the Yu Jing engineer to saunter over to the second RAS console and extract the data, giving the Yu Jing and Haqqislam alliance the victory!
All in all a fantastic game, apologies for the lack of detail but with 4 players it was hard to keep track of everything without slowing the game down too much. To be fair, if the Aleph hacker hadn't totally fumbled stabilising the target, helped by a diminishing order pool, we would have been stuck braving
ARO after
ARO trying to break into the target zone to scrape a loss or draw, but equally my heroic Ghulam link team kept Achilles from having too much influence on the game by keeping him pinned in his burger bar instead of butchering my squishy troops.
