Mission 012 Report: The Patient Hunter
We’ve got respondents from a few different experience levels writing in this time, so we’ve got thoughts on recovery from failure, patience, and a whole guide to TO camo!
If you only take one thing away from this mission, it’s to be patient with your TO camo. You paid a lot to take it in your list and thought hard about where to deploy it. Don’t throw it away in ARO unless there’s a truly juicy shot for it like with a Noctifier or a boarding shotgun or something.
Thanks to everyone who wrote in! random.org has chosen… Isaac to win a blister of his choice! Thanks, Isaac!
Isaac (xammy)
Erik (Zelaponeepus)
Sometimes that 10% chance of it going pear shaped happens, and you lose your TO model to a lucky ARO. Let’s see how Erik recovers!
WiseKensai
Nathan (Jhokalpus)
Here is a report were I totally messed up TO Camouflage and Hidden Deployment.
Patience is a key part of TO use. Revealing in ARO against a high burst weapon is very dangerous.
WiseKensai
19.69 34.67 45.65
Another small mission with TO, this time using the Spektr. This mission used him much better.
John
Played a game using my Tunguska this past weekend. My Spektr sniper was able to kill two members of a Janissary link team and basically lock down 3/4 of the board from a really strong rooftop position. Even giving the Janissary team +3 for being a 5-man team, and having surprise shot negated by Sixth Sense L2, the Spektr was able to have a huge advantage because he was able to pop out while they were in bad range and out of cover. Hidden deployment is such a huge advantage because they can’t even plan around a marker to position against.
The biggest thing to focus on, for me, when it comes to using a piece like that is making sure to use them as a scalpel rather than a buzz saw. They are certainly a finesse piece that requires discipline. It can be very tempting to want to pop out in the reactive turn to try to hit a member of a fireteam that can’t fire back. Unless you’re looking at a very soft target that happens to also be the only specialist in the link or it’s their last order, it is rarely worth it.
My best experiences with the Spektrs is having them around to dig my real heavy-hitter (the Kriza) out of a tough spot. For this, I’ll often use either a KHD Spektr (when it’s a hacker trying to isolate/immobilize Kriza) or the boarding shotgun Spektr (for when a link team is all lined up behind a building while one model is waiting for Kriza to activate. In my active turn, having a Spektr pop out of hidden deployment to punish an opponent who may have over-extended, or left their cheerleaders undefended makes them worth every point. Spektrs in a vacuum are very fragile and may not be that effective, but when they compliment a piece like Kriza, they can really deliver.
This is a great example of the power of positioning and timing in a game. It takes a lot of self discipline to not take that “juicy” shot at the trailing link team member, as well as knowing when to reveal to punish an overextended piece(s). I really should leverage the Spektr MSR in my own games more often.
Your discussion of the Spektr(s) supporting a Kriza is an example of something that I missed in my initial writeup for the mission. At first glance, you could do the same thing with a fast unit like the Zondnautica, or a similar (to the Spektr) unit like the Heckler. However, it’s the hidden deployment that really matters here. Either you can bait them into overextending to attack your seemingly overextended Kriza, or you can exploit a hole in positioning they might not have left against a visible unit.
I think my missing of this Spektr/Kriza (and similar in other factions) support interaction is a nice related point to yours about Spektrs in a vacuum. It’s important to evaluate units in context, not just in a list, but within a game. Thanks for writing in, lots of good examples and hooks for further discussion.
WiseKensai