VIRD list 250 pts vs Ramah for Toxic Hack

Hello,

A bit of a noob is seeking from some advices from more veteran players. I’ll be playing the Toxic Hack mission from the Deadalus full campaign I’m running with my brother. He’ll be playing Ramah, and is way more experienced than I am.

Mission setup

Anyway… for those who don’t know the mission, there’s a Panic Room in the middle. There is no use for Infiltration / Fwd Dep as any unit deploying outside of the initial deployment has high chances of being paralysed throughout the entire game.

There are 4 points to be made by pushing buttons in the Panic Room. Another 3 by pushing buttons on one of the two consoles outside of the Panic room. Additional points for killing more specialised units.

The mission setup isn’t very suited for early button pushing as there are 5 Total reaction Combi rifle turrets defending it.

Important to know that the big panic room is 8by8 inches in the middle of the table with infinite height. As such the table is basically cut in two. For this reason I’m reluctant to use a Cutter. In front Yara Haddad is guaranteed, and super solid against the Cutter. Since the table is cut in two, I’m also pretty sure there will be a Hortlak AP Sniper rifle covering the opposite side of Yara.

What army list would you take for a 250 army?

Any idea is welcome! Thanks a lot

 

Replying instead

 

That's an interesting take. Thanks for idea!

I would have said I should go second to:
- force Ramah (weak defense, hard hitting) to go out of cover.
- playing first means 2 orders less, and first player will need to spend points getting rid of the turrets for pushing buttons (quite hard to button rush on turn 1)

I was thinking:
Group1
- full core of Kamau (sniper, hmg, combi rifle + 2 engies), covering one side
- 2 hellots
- Bulletteer spitfire + Evo Hacking device (marksmanship), covering opposite side with the Hellots

Group2
- Harris of Patsy + Quinn + fusilier at center / pivot between sides

There are alternatives, like swapping the Bulletteer and Evo hacker with a Hidden deployment Croc Man Sniper Rifle. Or swapping Patsy with a Zulu Cobra, or a Knight of Montesa.

Basically the strategy being to force Ramah into extending first turn, make him get rid of the turrets. With lack of orders and the need to shoot turrets, he won't be able to break through my defense. Then on my first turn use the Bulletteer advanced mobility to ambush specialised Ramah units (ideally without MSV), and getting rid of MSV units with the Kamau sniper.

Once weakened, use link teams to coherently advance into the button pushing on turn 2 and 3.

I fear that rushing early with one or even 2 KoM will be order hungry (because of the turrets, and the need to get rid of at least 3 of them (at least 3 orders)). And by over extending, to leave holes into my defense, and Ramah superior firepower would basically kill me.

However... There are 2 big downsides. If I lose initiative roll, he will make me play first, for sure. And with my army list, I would basically lose that turn as he will be hidden like f**k and I would be slowed down anyway by the turrets, without any opportunity to get rid of a single of his unit.

Second, he will probably very much expect me to play very defensively. Rushing early would probably be something he won't expect from me. If I'm able to button push with the KoM early in the turn - side computer, and manage to get inside the Panic room with my KoM, I could keep him defended by making sure my Kamau link has it under sight... Even though I'm afraid to leave the Core out on plain sight (his MSV, Snipers, and marksmanship models will somehow succeed on having advantageous rolls and break my FT...)

I'm so torn...

 

Ok

The match was done and here is a small battle report.

Here the list I used

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TLDR:
- one core of kamaus and engineers
- Harris Patsy, Quinn, Fusilier
- 2 helots
- spitfire bulleteer
- Evo hacker

As usual I lost Initiative roll, Ramah goes second, I go first.

First round PanO:
- activate Marksmanship on the spitfire bulleteer
- snipe the fearsome Zhayedan HMG (badly placed), but don’t kill him
- kill a REM
- get rid of two turrets (out of 5)
- waste quite a lot of orders on making sure everyone is enough distant to not lose half of my team from a Grenade Launcher.
—> I didn’t lose anyone, and roughly stayed in my dep zone. Patsy Harris pinned down due to the TR turrets and her short range team

First round Ramah
- get rid of one turret
- uses smokes with biker to blind turrets and activates west device with infiltration doctor
- places FT in mid of the table (offensive stance)
- no real fire exchange

Second round PanO
- get rid of two turrets (almost lost the bulletteer despite mimestim and marksmanship)
- kill the Ramah biker with Kamau HMG
- kill the Zhayedan HMG with Kamau sniper.
- very carefully place the Hellots to prevent any movement from his Doctor with shotgun (quite fearful unit)
—> I basically went just a bit forward very carefully. Still in a very defensive mode.

Second round Ramah
- Yara Haddad tries to take down my Kamau SR. Didn’t succeed and Yara dies from ARO.
- Due to very good placement from my Hellots he can’t access the panic room from the West.
- Bulleteer has Suppressive fire and sight on the East side of the room.
- My Kamaus are also very well placed to prevent him to make any further attempt in attacking them (with Zhayedan and Haddad down, his core was basically over)
- North side of the room is under sight of the Kamaus. So basically, since he has more victory points than I do, he secures the objectives, put mines to prevent panic room movement and my access to the East device.

Third round PanO
- this is where things get rough and where I need to play clever.
- I activate my Hellot close to the panic room and make him walk so that he triggers both mines (genius move!)
- that leaves me with free movement to activate 3 of the 4 devices in the panic room with my Core of Kamaus
- also to activate Harris, and try to take down the Hortlak with my Harris. This was a very stupid move. Didn’t expect to be that hard to take him down. Patsy dies on her first order. Use Quinn in prone to activate the East console. Use bulleteer against the Hortlak again, without success.
- kill down the Ghulam officer with my Kamau HMG
—> last round made me all my XP points. And I was very lucky with the WIP rolls at 13 since 4 out 4 succeeded. This allowed me to only use 4 orders out of 10 (including the lieutenant & NCO) for objective points and 6 orders to try to take down the Hortlak (failure) and wipe out his lieutenant and core FT

Third round Ramah
- loss of lieutenant
- he basically sends his troops in suicide mission to kill my engineers and Quinn and gain extra points on the fact he killed more Spec troops

end of game:
5XP points for me (2 from east device and 3 from panic room ones). 4XP points for him (2 from west device, and 2 from more specialists killed).

Lessons learned
- nothing can take down a well placed Link of Kamaus (nothing new there but always good to see and reconfirm )
- Hellots are a mandatory unit for insane board control
- I always struggle to use as much as I want the bulleteer despite very good paper stats (mimetism -6, spitfire and marksmanship), but at least he was useful in killing the turrets without risking my FTs and completely securing the entire East zone alone. So mission accomplished for him.
- Hortlak under cover is basically unkillable if he’s in a Harris and you’re not using a heavy shotgun or similar template weapon

 

Thanks! Glad to help ;)

It was interesting match.

I’m not a very good player (not even 5 serious matches) so take my opinion with a grain of salt :)

I think that Ramah did a mistake in choosing to go second. That is because, while they do have very strong ARO pieces (namely Hortlak), they are way more on the offensive side than VIRD (Hortlak again, Haddad, Zhayedan, Tarik Mansuri etc. All very powerful active units, each able to take down pieces 3x their value).

On the other side, they have less consistent ARO troops than VIRD.
- Kamau link, mainly with the Sniper rifle, is extremely hard to pierce
- It’s a huge risk to trigger ARO against well placed Camoed Hellots. Is it a sub machine gun? Is it a Red Fury? Very risky to go in their line of sight and potentially losing a unit to a 9pts irregular trooper.
- Marksmanship Spitfire Bulleteer in Suppressive fire is also something almost indestructible. Considering Cover, an active piece starts with -12 BS!!! While the bulleteer starts with flat BS, 3 dice. 99% of the unit can’t face it unless they have MSV and optimal long range distance. But again, no one would put a spitfire bulleteer under the potential LOF of a sniper. Maybe sacrificing a cheap unit with template weapon… But not easy to do.

With that said, I think he made a mistake letting me go first. Because that means I’d deploy second.

Considering the map is cut in two (middle occupied by Panic Room with infinite height), I obviously decided to put my Core of Kamaus in front of his core (much less powerful), and put in front of his Hortlak Harris with Leila Sharif and a Khawarij the Bulleteer and Patsy’s Harris.

By letting me playing first I then had the strategical upper ground since I would decide who confronts who.

His very offensive Harris was basically stuck because the Bulleteer was preventing them any further movement. If I didn’t go full retard by confronting his Hortlak (and only push the button), I would probably have secured the additional 2XP points from specs kills. And on the other side of the table, his core wasn’t able to match my Kamau link.

I think he should have played first. Put his Harris in Front of my Kamau Core and his Core with Yara and Zhayedan HMG in front of my Bulleteer. Use smokes to push buttons. Prevent me from optimally placing my troops and being the one who decides what the confrontations are.

To conclude, with my limited experience of 1 match against Ramah, I think that their key to victory is being very agressive. In fact my brother tells me he struggles with this Sectorial as, if he’s not able to immediately take down core enemy troopers in the early match, he’s unable to keep a consistent board control. As soon as the powerful active units (not very good at ARO) are down, the entire army falls apart: it’s strike first or lose. That is his point, but maybe his style of play simply doesn’t fit this Sectorial