layed a 3000 point game,
MI vs. Bugs. Fednet will no doubt use this Battle Report as a recruitment tool.
Here's the Highlights.
Priority level 2 vs. Priority level 2 armies. That meant we were both playing "Hold" as our mission. We would get full victory points for destroyed enemy squads, but lost twice the victory points for any squads (even one member of an enemy squad) that were in our deployment zone at the end of the game. So as a bug player my only goal was to overrun his deployment zone. Should be easy.
Unlike
40k or other wargames, opponents don't have to show eachother their army lists before the game in Starship Troopers. As long as your army list is kosher after the game, everything is cool. This means that you can't prepare for certain wargear or such before the first turn, making the game more "realistic" and chaotic, and allowing me to preemptively set up an excuse in my battle report for losing so horribly.
<ins>Bugs, PL2 3000 points, Probe Tactics</ins>:
45 Warrior Bugs (5 Carrion)
6 Blaster Bugs
10 Firefries
6 Hopper Bugs
1 Plasma Bug
1 Tanker Bug
3 Control-bugged Skinnie Militia
1 Infiltrator bug
1 Brain Bug
1 Ambush Bug
1 Camoflague Bug hole
1 Nest
3 Tunnel entrances
4 Tunnel Markers
<ins>MI PL2, 3000 Points, Probe Tactics</ins>:
1
TAC UAV
1 Cougar Exosuit LT w/ SICON training
1 Cougar Exosuit NCO
2 Cougar Exosuit Sgts
2 Cougar Exosuit Troopers
1 Maurader M9 LT w/ SICON training
1 Maurader M9 NCO
1 Maurader M8 Sgt
1 Maurader M8 Trooper
3 Pee-Wee Nukes We rolled off for first turn/first deployment and Dan won. He said I'd set up first and go first, which pretty much made my choosing "Probe" tactics unecessary (in Probe tactics you can keep 1/2 your army off the board to come on as reserves in the first turn -- making sure you don't get wiped out on the first turn if you go second -- my brain's been nuked before). We had the "Encounter" setup (table corners).
I filled my table corner with bugs, even with 1/2 my army off the table and a bunch of bugs underground.
Dan just put a couple squads on the board. One from the Maurader Platoon and one from the Exosuit platoon (he also chose Probe tactics, he's been on the wrong end of a plasma bug more than once).
My first move, as expected, was to rush all my bugs forward. Hoppers flew onto the board and hid behind trees, while the warriors scrambled over all the cover to move toward the exosuits. The Plasma bug sadly missed with its plasma shot. The Brain Bug activated its psychic shield and then went underground.
Then all my firefries jumped out of the NEST to shroud the exosuits in flame. Firefries are by far the best Exosuit killers. Cheap,
d10 attacks, Flame. But only one Exosuit was taken down due to the small fire zone the Firefries create vs. the spread out exosuits forcing me to split fire (when this worked before the exosuits were closer together). The poor Firefries then ate a lot of reaction fire from the survivors.
The
MIs turn then came. The first order of business was to fire the first nuke of the game. I knew Dan would take a nuke, possibly two, so I was emotionally prepared to lose my Plasma bug to a nuke. Turns out, I lost my Plasma bug to a nuke. While losing a big bug to a nuke is a blow to the bug army, it is very expensive for the
MI as nukes cost 300 points each (as does a plasma) and that means he spent that many fewer points on exosuits and mauraders. The rest of the exosuits made mincemeat out of the firefries.
The reserve Exosuits then jumped on the board and shot their firestorm missiles and rotary cannons into the appraoching horde of warriors. The other Mauraders just walked on and fired javelins into the horde.
Their were plenty of bugs left though (though no firefries), and my infiltrator bug was getting into position.
Then Dan did something I didn't expect, he brought on something in the air phase! A Tactical UAV soared over the board and fired its rotary cannons into the bugs and bug-controlled skinnies in cover (skinnies have constrictor cannons, which are good exosuit killers). This was infuriating to me, as I am used to my hoppers owning the skies.
In the bug turn I used the coordination ability of the Brain bug and rushed the tanker forward underground to pop out of the camoflagued tunnel entrance I had marked the position of before the game. My Tanker took down an M8 Maurader and tried to crush an exosuit but the stupid "Get out!" save (re-rollable dodge) saved the Cougar Exosuit NCO's bacon.
And then my Infiltrator burst from his friendly disguise to rip an exosuit apart. A major rule I follow when playing bugs is to make sure that when moving multiple squads into position is to time it so at least 2-3+ squads get into attack position at the same time. My plan when placing the camo hole was to attack with the tanker and infiltrator at the same time, and it worked.
After the rest of my bugs moved forward (and my Hoppers flew into the air), Dan did something not totally unexpected, but disturbing. He jumped his Exosuit squad forward and from the sergeants Firestorm missile launcher he dropped a nuke point-blank onto the Tanker! With the shooting from the rest of the squads, the Infiltrator was also caught in the destruction.
Nevertheless the bugs were still coming and were just outside the
MI's deployment area. I was still confident that I could overrun his
MI and my tunnelling bugs were on their way.
In the air phase we rolled as to who would go first (you roll every air phase if you both have units in the air) and I won. So my Hoppers soared forward in a wing formation (the green circle thing is just to keep them together) and ripped the
TAC UAV to pieces.
The rest of my bugs rushed forward, taking plenty of reaction fire as they had to move through some bottlenecks on the way.
Nevertheless, in the last turn all my tunneling bugs popped out of tunnels in his deployment zone, including a unit of carrion bugs, and the hoppers landed, leaving big bunches of bugs in his deployment zone that would easily survive his reaction fire and expecting to claim victory for the bugs.
Then Dan pulled out his Joker card. He had taken the maximum number of nukes, and spread them around his army. Looking at the carrion bugs all bunched on a tunnel entrance (they'd get +2 to thier saves and could re-roll them!), along with the squads around it, and the hoppers nearby, he made a game-winning move. He nuked them all.
My special bugs can't survive nuclear fire, no matter what special upgrades I give them. I didn't expect three nukes. That's 900 points of nukes. Sheesh. After that devastation, his mauraders had no problem mopping up the stragglers.
At the end, his deployment zone was a radioactive wasteland, but it was totally clear of bugs.
Final Score:
Bugs = 645
MI = 1075
MI Victory! Join up now and Do Your Part!
