By Capo.Paint

Overview

• Mission: Unmasking
• Forces: Starmada versus White Company (300)
• Deploy First: Starmada
• First Turn: Starmada

Deployment

I am struggling a bit with the placement of my link, since the ML should cover as much space as possible, but everyone else should be as safe as possible. So I drop the ML in a open gate in the center and place everyone else in the nearby room. The multi-Crusher starts in a horrible place on the left, while the two LRL-Crushers take the center and the right, since I saw more potential for their LRL there. My designated target is stuck on the left in a dead end, where nobody can land behind it, while one decoy is placed in a similar place on the left. I forgot about the position of the other decoy.

The left sees a camo-marker, a Bulleteer, a Nokken KHD and a Nisse HMG supported by a Varangian together with a Danavas Hacker in the back, while the right is covered by a Fusilier-core with a Haidao MSV2 MSR overwatching the center. It is supported by a Fusilier HMG and protected by a HSG Peacemaker, guarding two HVTs, while the third one is on the central objective.

I place my Zeta covered by the cargo-truck on the right, while a second Peacemaker with HSG appeared next to the first one, hinting a trap or a valuable target there.

My right Crusher is nominated as datatracker, since he can reach each HVT, while the Nokken KHD gets the other datatracker.

Turn 1

Top of 1 – Starmada

I start with repositioning the Zeta, dragging him into the center and dropping the Haidao in one shot. He takes a position behind a wall he can see over and overwatches now nearly everything. The central and the right Crusher advance, fail on each console once and retreat. I take a second attempt on the right one and succeed, discovering a decoy among the guarded HVTs on the right. The Crushers and the Zeta enter suppressive fire.

Bottom of 1 – White Company

The Varangian sets up some smoke on the left, which is used by the Nisse to gun down my datatracker and force my Zeta into better cover. The Fusilier-link is refilled, but the HMG also fails on the Zeta. Everything retreats a bit and the Nisse enters suppressive fire.

Turn 2

Top of 2 – Starmada

My Zeta manages to climb the high building on the left without any problems and starts blasting the Doc and the Varangian from this elevated position. To proof the designated target behind the Peacemakers, the mid Crusher activates the console and check the decoy next to it. Everyone retreats and goes back into suppressive fire.

Bottom of 2 – White Company

Everything evolves around the Zeta, which finally gets his first wound from thy Nisse HMG. The Bulleteer advances, taking him down but is wrecked by my ML Kappa in the progress. Before this happens, a CSU and the Fusilier HMG are shot by the Zeta. Finally the Nisse takes revenge and drops my ML.

Turn 3

Top of 3 – Starmada

I am in good shape, but I need to score some points here. The mid Crusher finishs the Decoy in the center and reveals the designated target by clicking the left console. For this, he needs a ton of orders, so I am down to one regular order. The Santiago drops behind the Peacemakers, outside of hacking range and with the last order, I land one BSG shot on the designated target.

Bottom of 3 – PlayerB

Quite uncovered, the Santiago is fried by the Nokken KHD, which also drops my central Crusher. He manages to activate the left console to discover the Decoy on the left. There is no way now to get everything valuable done, so the game ends.

Post Game Analysis

With my datatracker off the table, my opponent scores one OP, while I score seven. Over the course I rolled some crits and got lucky with the saves of the Zeta, which shrugged of really a lot with his Arm 8. Here my position in the center, overwatching nearly everything, added up to a really tough spot for my opponent, from which he can’t recover properly.

My list-plan totally worked out and the Zeta performed outstanding. But also three Crushers are something to consider, since they will perform if they are deployed properly. If that point is done successful, there is not much what could be problematic for them. Even if something had managed to go for my link-team, the Bluecoats should have been able to reduce the damage by gunning it down. 

My opponent was quite limited by the map here, since it had no places to deploy the second Peacemaker reasonable. A more dense one would have restricted my potential a lot and increased his tools, since his Varangian would have gained more use and the Peacemakers could simply sacrifice themselves for my Crushers in close quarters. Maybe the Guilang on the left could have gone for that Crusher and later eat through my order pool. But that only would have limited my actions by leaving him in a pinned position.

The KHD was a high paying risk here. If he would have failed his roll, the designated target would have been alive with how the rest of the turn turned out. Being a KHD is a bit of a downside here, since you not only have to look out for LoF, but also for hacking zones, which sometimes limits the available space a lot. Since he has no tinbot, it would be a real shame to have him pinned down by hacking directly. Generally I am a big fan of Santiagos and of AD troops, too. But maybe I need to reconsider his position as AD hacker here.

In general I took a high risk with the Santiago in this list, since I need to drop him without being a parachutist as well, but can’t include the EVO in this list. For the moment, I have not really understood how the ARO-interactions with controlled jump may work, but in the end, that doesn’t really matter for me in this case. The Santiago has reasonable PH, so it is likely to turn out as planned. What not worked as planned this game was the order-scarcity before dropping him. If I failed the roll, I could have deployed him on the edge of my DZ and take three orders to get him to his original designation. At least in turn three. But these orders were consumed by the Crusher here. But with the dispersion gone, a bit of planning safes not only the points for the EVO, but also minimizes the risk of the whole AD troop, since you can deploy him in a controlled environment and get him to a good designation.