Durgama Takeover

Mission: Looting and Sabotaging
Forces Jurisdictional Command of Tunguska versus Kosmoflot (300)
Deploy First: Kosmoflot
First Turn Kosmoflot

Sometimes things can go too well. After getting a somewhat lucky win at the first table, I was paired with another winner who outskilled me completely. He needs no introduction. I got one any way.

Unfortunately, I took no pictures of the table. I needed maximum concentration and even then, I was out of my element. Looting and Sbotaging was the mission I expected to do worst on. I had built my second list for Mindwipe and between this and the Capture and Protect list felt that relying on a Hollow Man haris with Perseus backed up by Fiddler was my best bet. I hemmed and hawed about adding a Lunokhod to this list in addition/instead but decided that Fiddler was better a long with orders in group two. I don't think it would have mattered in this case, but it was a considerationg that I might not have enough d-charge options to do what I needed to do.

Any way, I knew it would go great when I got the pairing. I introduced myself to Lobo and when he told me he was playing Kosmo I said "One bear or two. JK, I know it's two bears."

Next thing he said was "I'm going to use a command token to hold back two models from deployment."

They say this is where you lose the game. It's certainly where I did. I don't know much about Kosmo except that it's basically bears + MRRF + CHA. Wallace was the lieutenant. The Unknown Ranger was in a haris with a Varangian and a Patcher, I think. A couple of camo tokens went down and when I asked Lobo to roll bad he failed Uxia's infiltration and had to stick her in his DZ. With his forces laid down, he turned it over to me.

I did a lot of things wrong here. The second most glaring mistake was having Perseus on a roof facing backwards not thinking about the lines of fire that could be drawn to him. I was concerned about something coming from the back of the board--a Para-Commando, maybe? I think the main issue was that I didn't think critically about what my threats were and where they were coming from, so I was correcting for a problem that didn't exist in an area that was pretty exposed. The biggest was putting my Interventor Lieutenant prone on a roof at the front of the DZ. Bears don't care about roofs. They're just a place for them to eat privately.

So, left side of my board was the MBH (I think with MSV1 again, doesn't matter, it was an irrelevant piece). The haris of Hollow Man spitfire, Hollow Man hacker, and Perseue on a building housing a Warcor and a zondbot. Fiddler tucked in a room in the middle with the AC2 guarded by her jackbot and a Transductor Zond, and with the core link of Interventor, Grenzer, Securitate Paramedic, Securitate HMG, and "Securitate Hacker" guarding the right flank. I chose that hacker as I printed my courtesy lists because I love the sculpt and it's hard to fit him in with Tunguska's access to basically other, better hackers who are worth the points increases. N4 is better to him than N3 was, but even with the fireteam rules he's an odd fit. What I should have done was go with another plain jane Securitate or maybe another Interventor for an assassination shell game. In any event, it's Sforza and I didn't sell him at all with this trick.

Grenzer was deployed prone and Sforza behind a wall, which as Lobo pointed out after the game, was probably a waste. I was hoping to hold the Grenzer for a later game ARO piece but as it turned out I wouldn't survive that long. I took this advice later, though. The heckler KHD forward deploys in front of the AC2 so it can watch approaches with none of the right tools to fight this fight. I also spent a command token to dock the big pool two orders. But it was a one way trip to bear town in any event.

Here comes the bear flying up the right side of the board. I ask if it has stealth and, of course, it doesn't, so I put a spotlight on it. It jumps up on the roof and I think I shoot at it with the Interventor. Dodge is the better move, of course, but I don't expect to live here, just hope to pull of a wound. the Grenzer and Securitate HMG also shoot and the bear lays down two templates, basically putting everyone to dead but I believe losing a wound in the process. The "hacker" below dodges so it can see what's coming.

The bear runs over to say hi. The hacker reveals he's a Sforza and shoots with the viral rifle, melting the targeted bear and eating a heavy shotgun blast into unconciousness. A camo token moves up on the right side to close out group two's orders.

On the left, UKR and co come through and take down Perseus, the Transductor, and the jackbot in I think that order. At this point, he takes on the camo token expecting a heckler jammer but finding the KHD instead. When he shoots, I put down a cybermine because I didn't know how they work, to be honest. The heckler dies. That's a pretty effective first turn. Let's see what I do.

lol, I'm in LoL. I try to cautious move with my spitfire hollow man to sneak around and maybe secure HVT for a point, since my classified is not going to happen, but I misjudge the distance (and misunderstand the rule) and die. Lobo offered to let me take it back but the negative reinforcement is probably more helpful than extending the use of the piece. My hacker sets up for a fight that it's also going to lose with just a combi and I use command tokens to flip my orders regular. Somewhere in the scrum, my MBH dies to the UKR. My Securitate Paramedic attempts to revise Sforza and makes sure he's really, really dead instead. It was a short turn.

The camo token moves in and turns out to be an SAS with d-charges. It takes three orders, but I lose a wound save each time and eventually the AC2 breaks. From there, UKR goes in and takes an ear off my Warcor for In Extremis Recovery. My zondbot dodges into CC so he decides to eliminate Fiddler with the SAS. After Fiddler dodges a couple of times but goes into NWI, Lobo decides to move Wallace up to finish the job. The sword swinging Caledonian has enough orders to get in and lay down the template, killing Fiddler at last. With no pieces left, it is a 0-10 Kosmoflot

Nothing like going from playing down to the last second for a win on my first game to ending an hour early in defeat on my second. Huge emotional let down. Wasn't really fun for me or for Lobo. We chatted briefly about my thinking on deployment, the mistakes I made, and my list. He was generous with his time and pointed out that while holding the Grenzer for turn 2 might have been powerful (even if it died to his Volkolak missile launcher), it would have probably helped me more to put it up and strip the bear of its impetuous orders and at least force him to spend some regular orders putting it down. Allowing the bear to walk up and do it was a freebie. Perseus facing backwards was also a mistake, which I still can't really explain. Admittedly, the mission is hard for Tunguska and list wasn't built for it, but I don't think my performance was significantly degraded by those disadvantages. I misplayed just about everything possible. But failure is a better teacher than unearned victory, and I did glean at least one lesson from it. Congrats to Lobo on his win. He's a very nice guy. It's just his bears you have to watch out for.

>> "Where's the report?" Boris' knuckles turned white as the last vital sign went red. It could be a problem with the satellite transmission. It could be, but he knew better.

>> "That's it, sir. We've lost contact with the team." There was sweat on the forehead of the young EVO hacker who had been encrypting comms from the bridge to Szarvas's comlog. Her voice was strained not by the words but about the things they couldn't bring themselves to say.

>> After a long moment he released his breath and his grip on the captain's chair. "Very well. I'll be in my ready room, making a report."

>> There were no bright sides to it, but at least Nakamura wouldn't be complaining about the TAG any more.