Today we play the mission 5 of the Rule Book of AT-43, called Landing !
This picture is not from our game, but from the net. I put it here only to be able to show you the sep up of the game.
The defender gets to deploy in the blue indicated zone and the attacker arrives to the battlefield by the opposite side which constitutes the access zone.
The Victory Points for the attacker are 2 VPs for every AFV unit which cross the battlefield and 5 VPs for every infantry unit.
The defender gets 1 VP for controlling the points A, B, D, E and 2 VPs by controlling the points C, F, G.
There are also two neutral access zones on the side of the defender, just on the border of the battlefield behind points F and G. Also two drop points are present, one between the points A and B and the other one between the points D and E, both of them on the deployment zone of the defender.
The attacker gets 1500 APs as assault force and 500 APs as reinforcement and the defender 1000 APs assault and 1000 APs reinforcement.
The reinforcement points are given by controlling the containers and nano generators (both players) and to the attacker also for capturing them.
This mission can be played in the context of the Damocles campaign as secondary mission for the Phase 1 of the operation. In that case, the Karmans and the Red Block are the attacker and the UNA and the Therians are the defender.
It was our first contact with Damocles and the results were a bit disappointing as my UNA opponent was not really able to prepare the game in advance due to professional obligations and his army list was not suited for the battle.
The Red Block Army List was Frontline:
Assault (1500 APs)
8 RPG Soldaty (Colonel, Medic, Engineer, MGauss) [225 APS]
3 RPG Kolossus (Sergeant) [435 APs]
1 Molot (Sergeant) [240 APS]
1 Molot (Sergeant) [240 APS]
1 Sierp [200 APS]
Propaganda
Reinforcement (500 RPs)
6 Spetsnatz Kommandos (2 Medics, Rocket launcher) [175 RPs]
3 Dragonov Groupa A (3 ATGauss Gun) [125 RPS]
1 Sierp [200 APS]
I do not have the UNA list but it was M.Ind, with Stark as Colonel in an infantry unit of Steel Troopers, a Lancelot, a Defender Kobra, 2 Snippers and a support unit with 2 Volcano MG in the assault force.
Red Block authority was 7, UNA authority was 5.
Before we determined anything, we rolled a dice for cosmic hazards but neither Magnetic Disturbances nor Meteor Shower. Damocles started without Special Effects :D
UNA decides to use 6 LPs to increase his roll for initiative, but gets twice a 1, wherein Red Block gets a 5, and therefore it is a tie. As far as we know the situation is not defined in the rules, but we always ruled that the higher authority wins, in this case the Red Block which decides to let UNA move first.
Round 1
1.- The 8 Steel Troopers with Colonel Stark leading them deploy close to the central nanogenerator, controlling it, together with the container and the victory point C, taking cover and over watching the movements of the enemy.
1.- A Red Block Molot enters the battlefield and fires its flamers on Stark and his boys. The quick intervention of the Medics is not enough to avoid the dead of one soldier. Its presence contests the control of victory point C.
2.- A UNA Lancelot deploys and moves between points B and C to try to avoid the future movement of the Red Block AFVs into the UNA controlled area and over watch the Red Block further movements.
2.- Another Molot enters the fight and moving close to its brother calls dead on the Steel Troopers, only 3 of the original imperialist fighters survive; one of them, Colonel Stark.
3.- UNA decides to mobilise its biggest AFV of the evening and a Kobra Defender try to block the other access to the UNA side of the battle and fires its missiles on the Molots, without any effect.
3.- The RPG Kolossus blitz into the action and the Lancelot decides to fire its grenade launchers on them. Their thick armour protects them from the salvo but the lack of gyroscopes send them to the ground. However the two salvos of their RPGs manage to destroy the Defender in a big explosion of fire and molten metal.
4.- Two snipers take position on the victory point G and shoot the Sergeant of the RPG Kolossus dead !
4.- The Molot Sergeant calls an Artillery Strike over the Lancelot which does not seems to do any damage to the enemy AFV. Upon arrival, a Sierp opens fire and kills the two snipers. Together with the two Molots, they deny the defender the control of the victory point C.
5.- The two Star Troopers of the Volcano MG support team are deployed on victory point F.
5.- The Red Block Propaganda helps the RPG Kolossus to come back to their feet.
6.- The RPG Soldaty move behind the container, on the further side of the battlefield.
UNA concedes the game and we spent the next half hour discussing the game ;D
My opponent was of the opinion that the scenario is a bit unfair for the defender, specially as the UNA is not able to control objectives with its AFVs and therefore they need infantry, a lot of infantry, which on the other side is expensive and quite weak. 1000 APs as assault force for the defender is maybe not enough for the UNA to have anything really good on the board.
The true is that the Red Block was having the supremacy directly since the beginning of the battle, maybe due to a good Army List (I hope so) and the lack of preparation of the UNA, but also maybe to those 500 APs point difference as after the destruction of the Defender, there was nothing on the board able to stop my RPG Kolossus and my AFVs.
Next time I would like to play the defender, I think the Red Block cloud probably do better than the UNA as Frontline allows the AFVs to control objectives and even if some Red Block infantry units are not so expensive but also very week, the Kolossus have a very good armour and are still affordable.
Note on Artillery Strike: before the battle we got the impression that Artillery Strikes in Damocles were quite powerful, but as it was called only once and targeted not into an infantry unit but into a AFV, I can not give a honest opinion about the particular. Maybe next time.
