Durgama Takeover

Preparations for the push on Cameliard were in it's final stages when a coded transmission was received from the Gekidan research park. A team of our sleeper agents had positively identified Ambassador Jisei Nanaki as a member of a visiting inspection team, on a surprise inspection of the facility. He is a priority jade-alpha target for the state empire, with known connections to the leadership of the secessionist traitors. Despite the urgency of the Cameliard operation, an opportunity like this to strike a blow against the JSA could not be allowed to slip away and a small strike force was hastily assembled.

My list consisted of a hanshi core, with Haidao multi-sniper and a missile bot. The rest of group one was a daoying LT, baggage bot, duo with a Mowang and Chief Jeong with a Hulang to fill out the group. Group two was two flash pulse bots, a zhencha hacker and a zhanshi doctor.

The table setup for the game. I won the LT rolloff and chose to go first. My opponent gave me the more open side and made me deploy first.

Knowing I was playing against Aleph and could expect a bunch of hackers, I didn't fancy trying to fight through all those tight corridors with HI, so I deployed heavily on the right hand side where it was more open, just leaving a flash pulse and baggage bot to watch the left flank.

My opponent deployed the rudras haris and motorised bounty hunter on his right, with the dakini HMG team on the left, along with the reserve dopped Asura. He had a good spread of repeaters across the whole table.

The Zhencha moved up and activated the console on the right. I guessed the HVT in the middle and was rewarded with the designated target confirmed. The zhencha then moved up the stairs of the building in front of him and recamoed prone.
Chief Jeong and the Mowang duo moved up using NCO to the middle console and revealed the decoy on the left. The chief then moved into the woods and dispatched the designated target with a hail of K1 bullets! Objective achieved - Ambassador Nananki eliminated and a moral victory to Yu Jing!
The hulang then snuck across to the right and wasted a couple of orders speculatively throwing EM grenades to try take out the repeater on a flush pulse bot in an attempt to open a path along the right hand side. With this failing, two coordinated orders were spent repositioning the chief, the mowang and the hulang, first placing a mine and crazykoala, then putting them all into suppressing fire.
Did well on the mission but didn’t take out any enemy troopers.

The asura moved up using the LT order to take on the suppressing hulang inconclusively. The rudras, danavas hacker, dakini paramedic haris then moved up the left flank. The rudras face tanked a mine, losing a wound in the process and then flubbed his mine dispenser rolls, needing 15s and failing both. The team continued to move up, the hacker activating the left side console and revealing a decoy on the left. The rudras then took on chief jeong, dying to the suppressing fire and doing no damage.
The post human hacker then moved up, getting into close range of the chief and surprise shotgunning him to the face. Faced with a dodge on a 7, or shooting back at a -12, the chief sacrificed himself to place a mine as he went unconscious. The hacker proceeded to move up to the centre console and successfully dodged the new mine and the hulang’s original crazykoala, before pressing the button on the following order and revealing the designated target in the middle.
The dakini paramedic walked through the door and shot at the target, which tanked all its saves frustratingly. My missile bot in the back blew the dakini away for its troubles. The motorised bounty hunter then spent all group 2’s remaining orders zooming up the the target in the middle and SMGing it to death, dying to the missile bot in return. The asura then retreated with her final orders.

The zhencha moved up the building and killed the netrod, but had walked into hacking range of the asura and lost a wound to trinity. He then stood up and tried to take out the FO posthuman at the base of the building, but two orders later the posthuman still had one wound left and the zhencha was miraculously unharmed and prone on the roof.
The mowang then moved up and gunned down the post human hacker, followed by the danavas hacker. It was at this point that I made a mistake - there was only one enemy hacker left (the asura) and I decided to eliminate her, despite her protected position. The Mowang move into position and took a couple of risky shots at the asura through an open doorway, none of which harmed her but he managed to tank all the unopposed return fire from a dakini HMG and flash pulse bot. Deciding that a red fury was not the tool for the job, the hulang went on a long-bomb run to try take out the asura (and incidentally the final hacker). He spent most of the remaining orders in group one moving into position but got hit with a flash pulse 1 order short of his target – mission failed. I repositioned the mowang as best I could with the final order.

Having failed at killing her, or setting my defences properly, I knew this turn would hurt. The asura first fried the zhencha's brain with a trinity, then carbonited the hulang. A reset luckily beat her oblivion on the following order, but made no difference as she had opened enough space to walk around a corner and then through a doorway and gun the hulang down from behind. She then moved up and had a long and mostly inconclusive gunfight with the mowang, eventually gunning him down before retreating.
A baggage bot ran up to get the decoy on the left into repeater range and the asura finished the turn by targeting him.

With all the midfield specialists down and the Mowang dead, the zhanshi core had to do the job. They ran across to the left over several orders, leaving the haidao sniper and missile bot in overwatch. They killed the baggage bot but not before two of them were spotlit in return. A zhanshi FO activated the left console, revealing the final decoy on the right. One zhanshi walked around the corner to kill the decoy on the left and was promptly beaten in the ftf and got stunned. In hindsight, this critical failure lost me the game! The other zhanshi FO then killed the right hand decoy with some long range combi rifle shots to the back, before reactivating the middle console with the final order.

The aleph missile bot killed the spotlit decoy with a guided missile then frustratingly failed to kill one of the spotlit zhanshis. The asura then got to work, walking around the corner to finish off the lucky zhanshi. He proved to be the hero of the state empire, taking a wound off her, then tanking a bunch of armour saves in the following order. Getting desperate (running out of orders), the asura moved into range of another zhanshi, failing to kill either and losing a second wound to the hero zhanshi. I though I might have a chance at this point but she pulled it together, taking them both out with the following order. With two orders left, she had no room for error but with the hacker bonus was able to activate the left console, followed by the middle to secure a 6-4 victory for Aleph.

My opponent had a good list and managed to deploy very defensively, leaving me few attacking options. His hacking strength also highlighted the risks of running an IA list without tinbots or a good way to deal with hackers. Going after the Asura on the second turn was a definite misplay, and cost me dearly when the attack run failed to be pulled off. I should have picked off an order monkey or two and pulled back instead. Finally, the Mowang felt very pillow-fisted with his red fury. I loved this guy in N3 but it feels like he has been left behind in N4.