Gluecops vs. Camo and dogs

By trox

Overview

• Mission: Rescue
• Forces: Vanilla O-12 versus Tartary Army Corps (300)
• Deploy First: joox / Tartary
• First Turn: trox / O-12

Deployment

Note that TAK wanted to deploy first and go second to fulfill one of our escalation league’s bonus challenges. In order to do that, he would have to also win the game! It looked to be a tough road ahead, but would he ultimately be successful?

Tartary: The Tankhunter would hold down the right side firelane, and the Frontovik Line Kazak Core fireteam would take care of the left side. Attacks would come in multiple waves: first, the camo tokens, antipodes and dog-warriors would take out as much as possible, followed by the Irmandinhos. On turn 3, the double Spetznaz could come down and mop up objectives or survivors. Everyone on rooftops was deployed prone to help weather the alpha strike

O-12: I figured the Raptor team could maneuver with Cybermask and take out enough stuff to grab the 2 rightmost civilians, and book it back to the DZ. The left side was thoroughly overloaded with the Zeta, which came out in reserve. On the first turn, the Varangian would toss smoke on the Epsilon, who would then promptly go to town with that HMG and MSV2 from the high ground on anything he could. The Zeta was held back in reserve to further overload that side, and outshoot anything else. One Gangbuster failed infiltration and was relegated to protecting the approach to the Epsilon, but the other would serve as a massive speed bump with his madtraps. The Warcor has been an ARO MVP in recent games, so he was tasked with overlooking the approaches to the civilians. The Raveneye brought more non-lethal weaponry to bear.

Turn 1

Top of 1 – O-12

Tartary zaps 2 orders from the larger combat group, which is offset somewhat by double NCO troops. As planned, the Varangian poked out, threw some smoke in front of the Epsilon so he could choose his battles. Right off the bat, he climbed to the highest point on the map, finding a sight-line to the leftmost Line Kazak on the roof, knocking him unconscious. The fireteam-provided 6S had little impact as he only had a rifle, after all. Epsilon discovered and took out one of the three Antipodes down the long firelane towards the top right, but couldn’t see much else. Frustrated, he patiently remains as a threatening ARO for now.

The Raptor team moves up with the help of NCO, and Cybermask.

Bottom of 1 – Tartary

With only a few attack pieces removed, Tartary did well to survive T1. In the impetuous phase, an Irmandinho moves up, Discovers and later deactivates the deployed Madtrap; the Antipode moves up, but allows the infiltrating prone Gangbuster to place another Madtrap within the Dog-Warrior’s activation range, also body-blocking the Antipode in camo state from coming in close.

Unphased, the Dog-warrior moves up, succeeding against the PH-6 save against the madtrap, but is blinded by the Warcor’s flash pulse. ARO MVP strikes again!

Finally, the Line Kazak Paramedic revives his unconscious buddy.

Turn 2

Top of 2 – O-12

The Epsilon takes out 2 more exposed troopers, and the Raptor gets closer to Parvati-the-HVT. 

The remaining Antipode closes in to stop his advance, but can’t dodge into CC due to Cybermask. The team leverages that 6-inch first movement, maneuvering to place a flame template and Multi-rifle burst, which knocks him out. Now revealed, the Raptor takes 2 orders to convince Parvati-the-HVT to follow along, and they start heading back to the DZ for safety. Along the way, he catches another Irmandinho out of cover, dispatching him with 3 DA rounds. Unfortunately, they don’t get very far, because the dance with the Antipode was quite order-intensive.

Bottom of 2 – Tartary

During the impetuous phase, the immobilized Dog-Warrior successfully escapes IMM-A, while his buddy races up the left side and takes out a Varangian. 2 suspicious camo markers manage to close in on the Epsilon and Varangian. These camo markers turn out to be a Strelok with a K-9 Antipode, who attempt to weaken the left side. They tank the madtrap, and take out the gangbuster. Super-jumping, the K-9 Antipode gets close to the Epsilon, who cagily dodges to the middle of his perch to body-block the surface. The Strelok eventually goes down, but not before dropping a mine to slow down survivors. 

The Dog warrior races down the left flank, and catches the Epsilon and Varangian with his Chain Rifles. The Varangian fails miserably, but the Epsilon succeeds and ripostes with a Nanopulser. Bioimmunity barely allows him to survive 2 chain rifles with double 11s.

To add insult to injury, The Tankhunter takes this opportunity to reveal and put a wound on the Raptor, while the first Spetznaz jumps in to finish the job, disconnecting Parvati-the-HVT. D’oh, I really wasn’t expecting the Spetznaz, much less 2 of them…

Turn 3

Top of 3 – O-12

By now, O-12 is sitting on 5 troopers (and a Warcor): Kappa, Fuzzbot, Crusher, Raveneye, and… a TAG. The Zeta tanks the mine, takes out the Spetznaz and glues the remaining Dog-Warrior.

 However, he’s got quite a way to go to the other side of the map to retrieve Parvati-the-HVT. Unfortunately, he has to stop short to take out the Tankhunter, which denies the extra movement needed to Civevac Parvati the rest of the way. Instead, he heads toward the HVT to prevent Tartary from Securing that OP.

Bottom of 3 – Tartary

With the left side effectively erased, the remaining Irmandinho rushes up to the Civilian, and allows the Crusher to stand up out of prone, but it’s a day late and dollar short for him. The Civilian has been Casevac’d to achieve the winning OP. The Dog-Warrior tries to get cheeky and rush the Zeta through smoke, but upon approach remembers that Riotstopper. Moral victory for the Zeta, but actual victory for Tartary!

Post Game Analysis

Well, Tartary not only achieved victory, but also accepted and conquered the challenge of being counter-deployed and alpha-striked! Well played to my opponent, who leveraged the ferocity of the Dog-people very well. The usage of camo tokens ended up being much more taxing on my order pool than the non-lethal weaponry was on his, but each was relatively effective. In retrospect, O-12 ended the game with 2 command tokens, translating to an extra 10-inches for the Zeta from moving the Warcor and converting his order to a Regular. Would that have been enough to get to Parvati-the-HVT? Maybe, we will never know.

As expected, the Gangbuster’s Madtraps and Warcor were the most effective speed bumps of the game for O-12, though the deployed Madtrap could have been placed better to tax more orders. Even though several units became incapacitated by non-lethal weaponry, lethal weaponry was never used to finish the job before the states were removed. 

Having had massive success with the Epsilon last game, I was too married to the idea of using him to clear the board. TAK units were deployed too defensively, and the Crusher and Gangbuster could have been used to grab civilians sooner. Dog-Warriors and Antipodes can waltz up to those long-range kill pieces in a hurry!

So, all lessons learned for next time. Alternatively, the Zeta could have been used more aggressively sooner; the Tankhunter was placed fairly obviously, and could easily have been avoided. Either way, it was still a close, well-played game; final score 1-0 TAK