Battle Report 30032008: the Therians vs. the Red Blok...again

For this gaming session, we decided to do something a little different. Being a new and growing group, we are still in the process of ironing out some of the rules for the game. We have all of the basic rules down (for the most part at least) but we have never played using reinforcement points. Most of the games we have played have also been these giant battles with two players running 4000 points to a side.

This time we decided to play the first mission for Operation: Damocles so that everyone could get a feel for all of the ins-and-outs of the game. Unfortunatly we were suffering from a lack of containers and maps (I didn't realize that the first mission needed seven containers and we had three sets of players; twenty one containers?!?) so we decided to only use half of the map and we also set the point limit at 1000 points.

We rolled to see who we would be paired off against and as fate would have it I wound up facing Tony and his Red Blok...again. And sure enough, there was Urod...again. *sigh* Ah, well...

We laid out our terrain and then Tony and I were ready to get underway. We rolled to determine who would choose to be the attacker and who would be the defender. Winning this roll, I decided to be the attacker. Since this was only a 1000 point game, this meant that Tony had to keep at least 500 points of his force as reinforcements, getting Urod off the table right from the start. This left Tony with a reinforced unit of Krasyne Soldaty and a single Sierp to face off against a full unit of Assault Golems and a base unit of Storm Golems. Here is a view of the board after Tony deployed his units.

Rolling for Authority, Tony won and choose to activate his units first so that he could give his Krasny unit the "Take Cover" and "Overwatch" combat drills. I followed this up by moving my Assault Golem unit onto the board, keeping most of them behind the cover of the container. The two exceptions were the Golems equipped with nucleus guns.

The Krasny opened fire on these two but the range was too great for any of the shots to hit home. Hoping to remove some of his cover, I opened fire on the two low walls that his troops were hiding behind. Both shots were solid hits but they failed to actually destroy the sturdy concrete barriers.

Tony responded by having his Sierp lob its mortar rounds at the one Golem that he could see and he was actually able to take out two of them in the resulting blast! No where near enough to ground the unit, but it was enough to be annoying.

To wrap up the first turn, I dashed my Storm Golem unit forward and I was able to capture control of the nanogenerator. This left the unit right out in the open, but considering the poor range of the RB weapons I decided that it was worth taking the chance. At the end of turn one, the Red Blok had 2 VPs and 250 RPs while the Therians had 0 VPs and 75 RPs.

Tony won the Authority check for the second turn and opened fire on the unit of Storm Golems with the Sierp, only to have both rounds sail wide of their intended targets.

My Assault Golems went next. Instead of simply controlling the objectives, I decided to change gears a little and deny Tony one of his. My three heavy weapon golems opened fire on the first container and blew it apart. This took away some the RPs that he could earn and it also killed a couple of his soldiers in the process.

To get them into a better position (meaning not on top of a container that I could easily destroy), Tony next moved his Krasny behind the first set of low walls (which were now on the ground) and opened fire on the Storm Golems that were right out in the open. Thankfully my plan paid off and even with the massive salvo that he was able to fire, I only lost one Golem.

To wrap up the second turn, I advanced my Storm Golems again on the left side of the board but this time I was able to get myself into a good position to shoot at the Krasny unit.

The two medics were able to save a couple of the soldiers, but in the end both the sergeant and the heavy weapon trooper were killed. The turn ended with the Red Blok advancing to 4 VPs and 450 RPs while the Therians still had 0 VPs and 225 RPs.

The next turn began with Tony winning the Authority check (again) and the Sierp openning fire on the Storm Golem unit advancing on its side of the table. Here you have a cockpit view of the action right before it fires both of its mortars and misses with both of them. Safe another turn...

Next, the same Storm Golem unit advanced to get right behind the container in the hopes of getting some safety from the Sierp and to gain control of the container and nanogenerator. As an added plus, they were also able to open fire on the Soldaty unit on the other side of the board. After a flurry of nano muntions flying toward them, the Soldaty unit emerged with only two more casualties thanks once again to the steely resolve of the Red Blok medics.

The Soldaty activated next and Tony moved them forward to try to get a better shot against the Storm Golem unit. Assault rifles chattering away, the Soldaty were able to hit the Golems but the simply could not penetrate their armor.

Next the Assault Golems advanced while firing on the Sierp in the hopes of damaging it. Even with the heavy firepower of the nucleus guns I was only able to inflict one point of damage on the frame of the Sierp. Even so, I was able to gain control of the last container on the right side of the board with their superior numbers, giving me precious RPs and more importantly denying Tony the last few that he needed to bring Urod into the game. The turn ended with the Red Blok at 6 VPs and 450 RPs while the Therians were at 0 VPs and 325 RPs.

Having finally surpassed the 266 points that I needed to bring in my remaining Storm Golem unit, I hastily added them to the activation sequence. Tony still could not bring in Urod so there was still a chance that I could win the game. The third turn began with Tony moving the Sierp around the container that it had been behind so that it could get a good shot at the Storm Golem unit. At such short range it was nearly impossible for him to miss but thankfully he was not able to wipe on the unit.

When the smoke finally cleared, one final Golem remained to contest the control of the container and the nanogenerator.

Next Tony moved his Soldaty back toward the container in the hopes that he could inflict enough casualties to regain control of it. Even at such short range, the poor peneration of the assault rifles was too much to overcome as only a single golem fell. In response, the Assault Golems charged forward and as they clambered on top of the low wall two of them were even able to engage the Soldaty.

Both of the golems managed to hit their targets but unbelievabily they failed to pierce the thin armor of the Red Blok troopers! (must tell my golems in the future to attack with the edge of the blade, not the flat...).

As his golems moved to engage the Soldaty, the Assault Golem overseer (who was also the platoon commander) took advatage of the confusion to reconstruct one of the fallen Storm Golems again denying the other two objectives from the Red Blok.

The turn ended with my second Storm Golem unit dashing onto the board and taking up position behind the Assault Golems. Now the Red Blok were at 8 VPs while I was still at 0 VPs but I had again managed to deny Tony the objectives so he was still only at 450 RPs, close to what he needed but not quite enough.

The fourth turn started with Tony winning the Authority check again (need to work on my die rolling in the future...) and the Sierp taking the first action. The mortars managed to hit the Storm Golems but neither of them was destroyed. In a fit of rage, the Sergeant on board the Sierp then charged forward to crush the morphos beneath his giant metal feet. Unfortunately morphos are quite nimble even when they are lying on the ground and he managed to miss both of them.

The Assault Golems moved next, advancing toward the Sierp and ignoring the Soldaty completely. Their only goal was to hit the walker with everything they had in the hopes of destroying it but it proved to be in vain as none of the shots managed to pierce its armor.

Tony then moved his Soldaty forward to try to slow down the newly arrived Storm Golem unit but in the end they were not able to move far enough forward to keep the golems away from the container.

The Storm Golems dashed forward to engage the troopers but again the medics proved their worth saving their fallen comrades. With this turn drawing to a close, we realized that though the Sierp had failed to destroy the Storm Golems when it tried to trample them, it did force them far enough away from the nanogenerator that they could not contest it anymore. The Red Blok was now at 550 RPs, a mere 20 points away from bringing on Urod and effectively ending the game.

The fifth turn, I was finally able to win the Authority test (after investing a hunk of my LPs to do so) and I moved my Assault Golems closer to the Sierp while I transfered one of the regular golems into a heavy weapon golem. Even with three nucleus guns I failed to damage the Sierp and with time running out I decided to concede the game. There was simply no way for me to keep Tony from getting the last few points that he needed to bring in Urod and once that monster was on the board there was no way to keep it from wiping out what was left of my force.

All in all, it was a great game. There was a lot of tension there as I struggled to keep Urod off the table but in the end I just could not keep it from happening. Perhaps next time I will just blow up all of the objectives on the other side of the table... Until next time, may all of your dice come up Dragons!