Great battle report as always. I can't imagine how much time it takes to write and complete the pictures, but I enjoy the reports and appreciate the time you put into them.
Been playing a lot of Heavy Gear lately, so it was time to go back to my roots: FILTHY hacking shenanigans with Nomads. To the Last Moran
Great report as always, thanks for posting it! I enjoy the way you keep notes on your thought processes and intentions in here, not just what happened. ARO Spotlight is really a game-changer, especially if you've got a hacker with no opponent capable of taking him down. That plus Guided = ouch, well demonstrated here. I actually played USARF with maxxed-out Foxtrots today too (Rescue, vs. TAK). No Minelayer on these guys makes USARF feel a bit dated at times. USARF have plenty of flamethrowers, but piece-trading isn't a great defense in N4. Still at the price they pay with great PH, Foxtrots are still worth it. But I guess my point is that ASARF's board control feels like it's still in N3. No real answer to no-LoF Spotlights, no Minelayers at all, even if they do have tons of infiltrating template-droppers, feels kinda meh. At least Marauders can see through smoke now, but Marauder defensive links feel like a bit of a trap too. It makes Van Zandt kind of a must-have to threaten units like your Vertigo/hacker combo. That or really use those Mavericks well to zoom in and kill the backline hacker/artillery units (and whatever sweeper will clear the way for the Mavericks if there are opposing visor-snipers on overwatch). On a different note, I find your build here interesting. Seems light on orders until the Prowler and Carlotta show up... but then they will already be in great spots when they do. I guess the order efficiency of your fast-grabber pieces and good passive midfield control make that work out okay? Certainly seems like it did here. I would have been tempted to downgrade the EVAder to get either a couple more orders or a couple more warband troops.
Thanks for reading, @Savnock ! I'm glad you enjoyed it. USARF is still good at board control--it just feels really bad in comparison to Nomad hacking with missile. Some simple things that could have been done to fix the problem on the landing pad (ignoring the Prowle for now) would have been to send in the Foxtrot BSG and drop a mine covering my Moran. If I'm not mistaken, that generates two different target numbers--one against the shotgun, one against the mine, so I can only crit against one of those things. The Foxtrot is dead, but you've basically unlocked that area for the UKR to move through. Having the Prowler live for 4 orders on 45-55 odds is a little outside of statistical expectations, but not crazy. In any case, if two things had changed: 1. My Moran at the base of the landing pad dies 2. the UKR had killed my Zondnautica, which I stupidly forgot to hide after it fired smoke for the Morlock it would've been a very different game. With that Moran and Zondnautica dead, I have half the hackers to roll Spotlight (WIP 15 on the Interventor is good but I failed a few and the Zondnautica had to back him up), and I now have to deal with the Unknown Ranger in an elevated position protected by a Grunt and Foxtrot. So yes, I have a better hold on the board, but it's tenuous at best. A few rolls that were already statistically in my opponent's favor go his way, and then I'm on the back foot. I think this speaks to your other point, where I don't have much in the way of orders on my turn with Carlota and the Prowler off the table. Thankfully, I chose a lot of order-efficient stuff to compensate for that, and a lot of my board presence is passive/in ARO thanks to hacking. If I lose half my hacking (a repeater and a hacker) then I give up half the board, I'm down on a bunch of orders, and now I'm really in trouble. So, in short, I had a slight advantage in list and positioning in this game, and then with some key rolls going to me it was very difficult for Adam to recover. Had he pushed a little harder and delayed getting the supplies box on my left till Turn 2 (my only options there were the Evader or the Sombra, which would have had a hard time) and instead spent the orders killing the Moran by the UKR I think he would've been in much better shape. Double Moran + some sort of hacker + missile bot is VERY strong if you let it do its thing, but also I think quite fragile. Morans aren't particularly durable, especially given the huge amount of direct template weapons and shotguns that USARF can put into the midfield. After all, I there was only one attack on the Moran the whole game and I just rolled a crit. There was plenty of stuff nearby that could've kept up the pressure if Adam had decided to commit to removing the Moran. I think that's the strategy, which is to kill everything To the Last Moran. See what I did there? :) Regarding the Evader itself, yes, I think it's probably suboptimal for the way it was used this game. I could've had another Morlock and a Clockmaker with two bots instead, and would probably have been pretty happy about it. It's only in there because I wanted to mess with it, but I'm not disappointed by its performance at all. Still, I think had things gone more poorly I would've been happy to have it on my left to fight in the midfield.
Rescue is such a great mission. It really does require a different approach to play and to lists. Le Muet is the rare solo sniper unit who is a genuinely tough cookie for board control. Solid gold with the MSV1, and totally worth the points in vanilla lists. Also, pretty good example there why nasty forward troops probably shouldn't be your Lt unless you have CoC. You need them out there doing stuff and grinding down the opposing forces early.
Had a fun game of Armory with a new faction! Putting my "new" Acon on the table for the first time. Blue on Blue
Thanks to CB and their support for Late Night Wargames, @TheDiceAbide got a review copy of the Military Orders Action pack! We just had to put it on the table: Paracommando SAS
Trying out a new table with the help of my Corregidor and @TheDiceAbide's Military Orders in a game of Looting and Sabotaging! Whack a Knight
Another game with Corregidor. They're quite different in N4. Enjoying the games! Almost a 100% mirror match, this one! Erroneous Evasion
Getting back to my Merovingia. Not doing them justice yet, but perhaps Elan will be enough... Is Elan Enough?
Don't panic! Just get your essential personnel to the room! Enjoy this Merovingia versus Haqqislam battle report! Cannes it be Done?
@TheDiceAbide and I threw down on his new Eastworld table to work out all the bugs before RCR Lite 2021! Eastworld Early Access
Hey just real quick, I have some questions about the Knauf vs. Sepulchre fight. I plugged the numbers into ghostlords (B4 BS5 Damage 16 AP w/ ARM 5 2W vs. B1 VS B1 BS10 Damage 15 DA w/ ARM 1 1W) and I'm getting this result: This doesn't seem to show that the numbers favor Knauf by "almost 10%," in fact they show Knauf getting KO'd over 1/3 the time while only inflicting damage back 1/5 of the time, with less than 1/20 chance to KO the KotHS. However, if I change Knauf's burst to 2, suddenly Knauf has about a 10% bonus, with a 12.34% chance to KO the KotHS, just as you said in your report. Are you guys erroneously applying Knauf's +1B mod in the reactive turn? Because, as modifiers in parentheses only apply during the active turn, Knauf should only be burst 1 in ARO.
