Saturday, January 23, 2010

First Contact with the Therians

Yesterday we played for the first time with Therians.
I was with my Red Block and was the attacker on the Mission 6 of the Rule Book - Extraction.
The Red Block Army List was Frontline 995/930:
Assault [995 AP]
6 Dragonov Kommandos (1 Lieutenant, 1 ATGauss, 2 Elect. warfare, 2 rifles) [230 AP]
8 RPG Soldaty (1 Leader, 1 MGauss, 2 Medics, 4 SM Gauss) [150 AP]
3 Sierps (1 Sergeant) [615 AP]
Reinforcement [930 AP]
3 Dragomirov Kolossi [385 AP]
Cap. Vrachov on KK5 [545 AP]

Therian Army List was Cyphers 725/1275:
Assault [725]
Omega Tiamat [445 AP]
6 assault Golems (1 Relay, 1 Nucleus Gun, 4 Rifles) [280 AP]
Reinforcement [1275 AP]
1 Wraith Golgoth [355 AP]
6 assault Golems (1 Relay, 1 Nucleus Gun, 4 Rifles) [280 AP]
1 Wraith Golgoth (including 1 Alpha) [365 AP]

I was taking a lot of pictures for the game but for unknown reasons, this morning the synchronisation between my mobile phone and my computer decided to deleted all of them except six :(
Have no idea where or how to rescue them. Sorry about that.
There is a picasa album with the surviving pictures.

The Therian list is not exactly as required by the scenario but as it was modified on the spot we did not care too much about it, anyway the excess in APs is not so big and it is in the reinforcement list.

The layout of the battlefield you already know.

1st Round
Red Block waggers 1LP and win the initiative and decides that the Therians can start their deployment.
The Assault Golems appear behind the three low walls on its deployment zone and move behind the container to control the Wreck.
The Dragonov Kommandos make a rush movement on the left of the battlefield and take positions between the container and the border of the terrain, controlling the container and looking into the open ready to shoot.
The Therian player loses 2 LPs due to the 2 Elect. Warfare specialists.
Tiamat enters the game, on the border of the deployment zone, in front of the Dragoniv Kommandos. With 4 LPs she creates a Succubus and with 2 LPs more she Dash towards the Dragonov Kommandos and lands on top of them killing two. Other two manage to scape from below of the monster. Still one of them is in the engagement 2.5mm limit. Tiamat attacks and he is gone, as he was one of the Elect. Warfare guys, the Therian recovers 1 LP.
The lieutenant is one of the dead. He was the company commander, now the Sierp sergeant takes this position. The Red Block loses 2 LP for this reason (actually we forgot this point but as I never used all my LPs it was not a big mistake, we were both a bit shock by the fury of Tiamat, it was really impressive. Unluckily the picture is gone).
The Sierp unit enters the battle and makes a rush movement on the right side of the field, between the four low walls and the border of the terrain and go into overwatch. Three LPs less for the Therians.
The RPG Soldaty move close to the first of those 4 low walls.
End of the round.
Control Phase:
Therians get the control of the Wreck (2 VPs) and the capture and control of the container behind the Wreck (250 RPs).
Red Block gets the container and the nanogenerator close to the four lower walls (400 RPs).
Therian does not get any unit as Reinforcement. Red Block calls in the Dragomirov Kolossi.

2nd Round
Red Block wagers and get the initiative.
Dragomirov Kolossi enter the field by the access point on the left, just behind Tiamat and launch a salvo of rockets to her which damages her legs let her immobilised. The MGauss salvo goes to the Assault Golems behind the container as three are visible but unsuccessfully.
The Assault Golems move to its right, from behind the container in the direction of the two low walls to take control of the nanogenerator and the access zone but they were making a normal move and it is not enought for them to get close enough to try to control the access zone, so they rethink their movement and try to hide around the container from the approaching Sierps and open fire on the Dragomirov Kolossi, but their armour is too hard for the aliens to penetrate it.
Sierps move close to the container where the Wreck is and having line of vision to the Golems, they fire all its weapons (3 hits, 3 misses). The mortar deviates 3cm (for the 3 misses) away from the Golems but the radius is 10cm and double number of impacts (for the 3 hits) and all the Golems are reduced to molten metal and little incandescent bits.
Tiamat uses the repair routine and get one leg operative and makes a Dash movement over the Dragonov Kommandos and the RPG Soldaty. The Dragonov ATGauss and the last Rifleman die, only one Electronic warfare specialist survives to keep control of the container. Two RPG Soldaty also were killed by Tiamat, but one of the Medics save one. Tiamat attacks on close combat 4 RPG Soldaty more (3 SM Gauss and the medic which has just saved the live of the other soldaty). She kills all the four, but the other medic saves the life of the attacked medic.

RPG Soldaty try to move away from Tiamat but one of the medics is engaged with her, so the unit only get to move 7 cm not being able to rush (only free units can rush and they are engaged) [This part was edited].
The Succubus moves between the Sierp and the Wreck to try to block the way (The Sierps were just a few millimetres too far away from the Wreck to be able to control it)
The Electronic Warfare specialist fails the Morale check and falls to Disorganised but the menace of martial court from the Sierp Sergeant rallies him back into Valiant for only 2LPs ;)
End of the Round.
Control Phase:
Therians have no infantry, They can not control any objectives. They consider conceding the game but we decided to play until the end.
Red Block controls the first container with the elect. specialist (150 RPs), has captured a second one with the Sierps (250 RPs), keeps control of a nanogenerator with the Sierps (100 RPs) and captured a second nanogenerator with the Dragomirov Kolossi (150 RPs). Together with the 15 RPs left from the previous round, the Red Block has 665 RPs, more than enough to bring Cap. Vrachov (545 RP) into the battle.

3rd Round
We forgot to recalculate the LPs of the Red Block as Cap. Vrachov has 5 LPs but the game was almost over, therefore it was also not critical for the outcome, also for the fact that the Red Block never used all its LPs, not even half of them.
Therians wins the initiative.
Tiamat make a rush movement over the RPG Soldaty in the direction of the Sierp. All the RPG soldaty survive !!!
Tiamat attacks the Sierp on the back which get damaged on one mortar, one leg and one in the frame. He is still there :D
Cap. Vrachov enters the fight and enclosed Tiamat between himself and the Sierps and opens fire on the Succubus. The first salvo of rockets get home and destroy the Succubus.
The second salvo was intended for Tiamat but it was already point less as the game was more that over.
Without infantry to get more RPs the Therians were not able to bring more forces into the fight except for the creation routine.
With the Succubus gone, Tiamat was not able to bring more AFVs as the space between she and the border of the battlefield was not big enough.
Therefore we considered that the trapped hero in the Wreck (Serg. Tymofiyeva) just eject after the front Sierp moved a bit closer to the Wreck to control it and that she run out of the battlefield.
Two pictures of the final round.
The conclusions of the battle were similar to the time we played it Red Block versus UNA.
Frontline is devastating in small maps were control of objectives is critical to achieve victory. The small amount of APs for the defender makes this scenario quite difficult because it is not possible for him to field enough anti-AFV power to take down the Red Block AFVs which are controlling the objectives and as the level one Red Block AFVs are anti-infantry specialist. it should not be too much complicated for the Red Block to kill the infantry units of the opponent to deny him/her the acquisition of the so much needed RPs.
In the case that we play this scenario another time, I think I will not field Frontline but Supra or even ARC. I liked the way my Sierps and Kossak blocked Tiamat in a narrow corridor making impossible for her to create more AFVs and to attack my infantry. I am playing with the idea of use multiple level 1 AFVs and screen for several minimum size Krasny units with 2 mechanics as a way to manoeuvre close to the Wreck, control it with the infantry, eject Tymofiyeva and make that she joins one of the Krasny units.
This tactic could work very good if Tymofiyeva could be able to switch from one unit to another. There is nothing in the rules which goes against this idea, but I need to check it more carefully.

What do you think?
Ideas, critics, suggestions are as always more than welcomed.

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