The Superior Warrior faces the waves of the Combined Army with a fierce need to prove himself. They know nothing of his inner competition. They cannot fathom the teeth-grinding urge to ensure his soldiers are at the front line. Once that was easy. The Morat and the Unidrons were the only forces employed. But as time marched inexorably forward the EI Aspects grew in power and numbers. More Charontids seeded the ranks of the leaders. Recently, the Great Menace, the god-form of the Evolved Intelligence itself writhes through the ranks of its soldiers. Kornal can see its power and knows, as a leader, as a strategist, as a warrior, he is no match for this beast. But the Morat within, the raging power of millenia of competitions, thousands of years bred for one purpose, roars. The din within drowns out the voices of the others. When he stepped to the Avatar on a battle worn ridge a Legate general commanded him to get back in line with the rest of the sheep. The Avatar ignored the angry - what did the humans call the Morats? - Ape. Kornak bellowed after the beast. "You will fight me or be known a coward among your own kind. That is the way of things!" The legate cranked his Spitfire and hissed behind his gruesome death-mask. The Avatar put up a hand and slowly turned to face the impudent primate. "No," came the tinny growl from that inhuman throat, "let the Morat prove his mettle." The Avatar knew it had nothing to fear of this bottom feeder but he knew that Kornak fought with his own inner beast and reason would not be settled unless a pecking order was established. "There," the great Menace screeched, "we each send an emissary into that settlement. Whichever of the two walks from the ashes claims victory. Guard your ward well, Morat. By the end of the day your body will be broken and your mind will be mine." - My Opponent's, Don's, prelude to the battle My prelude to the match: Big papa Avatar doesn't like insurrection, least of all on this day. Stubbed his giant robot toe getting out of bed, left his giant robot MULTI-HMG at home, and his giant robot girlfriend says she needs some giant robot time away to discover her giant robot self. Normally he wouldn't entertain the fantasies of some dinky Morat, but after all of today, Avatar decides it's time to establish The Pecking Order™. (Sorry, no pics so we'll have to contend with text for now). For this battle, the Avatar decided to load up tactical library set "Ted" while Kornak took to heart the experiences of a previous mentor whose head he had cut off: Don. My list looked like this Avatar ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 10 1 AVATAR Lieutenant (Strategos L3) MULTI HMG, Sepsitor Plus / DA CCW. (3.5 | 137) STALDRON Flash Pulse / Knife. (0 | 0) IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9) IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9) SPECULO KILLER Boarding Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Monofilament CCW, Knife. (1 | 34) DĀTURAZI Chain Rifle, Grenades, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 14) Q-DRONE HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 26) ÍMETRON . (0 | 4) SHROUDED (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25) MORAT Hacker (EI Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 22) KURGAT (Operative Group) Boarding Shotgun, D-Charges, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 17) SLAVE DRONE Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army A fairly standard Avatar list that might be more than a little inspired by Vaulsc. Ikadrons for repeater and template coverage, speculo for impersonation shenanigans, daturazi for smoke support and pressure, Q-drone for defense and assisted fire craziness, shrouded for infiltration, kurgat to repair stuff up, and a bog-standard morat hacker for his winning personality. Don's list looked something like this Morat Aggression Force ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 10 2 KORNAK Lieutenant Mk12, Light Flamethrower / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 41) RAKTORAK Combi Rifle + Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23) SURYAT Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 37) SURYAT Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower + TinBot A (Deflector L1) / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 38) SURYAT Heavy Rocket Launcher, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CCW. (2 | 39) YAOGAT (Fireteam: Haris) Combi Rifle + Panzerfaust / Pistol, CCW. (0.5 | 30) YAOGAT MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, CCW. (1.5 | 34) YAOGAT Combi Rifle + Panzerfaust / Pistol, CCW. (0.5 | 29) DĀTURAZI Chain Rifle, Grenades, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 14) DĀTURAZI Chain Rifle, Grenades, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 14) 4.5 SWC | 299 Points Open in Infinity Army Biggest thing, of course, was the 5-man Suryat + Raktorak + Kornak pain train. I knew from the get go I had to cripple his link teams first turn or else they would either burn off my ODD or use smoke shenanigans to snipe my Avatar off the board. Next post shall have deployment :D
As the title states, we were playing decapitation. The board itself was littered with buildings and walls, but we said all "openings" to the guard walls around the roofs had ladders. To illustrate the board, there was a large, multistory building in the center that blocked most line of sight to the other side of the board. I could have infiltrated the shrouded onto, but decided against it. Way too exposed to his entire deployment zone. On the left hand side, two standard sized buildings with walls to break up the firing lanes, but a long, enclosed walkway extended from a building in my deployment zone to a building in Don's deployment zone. On the right, it was mostly single-story buildings, but there were two shipping containers arranged in a vertical L formation (vertical as in coming out of the board): Perfect cover for my Avatar. I won the roll-off, so I elected to go first to attempt to rampage and cripple his links as much as possible. Naturally, I was forced to deploy first, so I placed the Avatar behind the L-shaped containers thinking they would cover me (more on this later). My designated target a staldron behind another building on my right in view of the Avatar. Big daddy Avatar likes his little bot. On the left, one ikadron behind a wall and the kurgat with his boarding shotgun picking his nose while watching the sidelines in case of AD (didn't know he brought a yaogat haris too until he deployed. Either way, a safe practice). The shrouded infiltrated further up halfway through the enclosed walkway. On the right, the daturazi behind another building, the other ikadron, the morat hacker trolling youtube comments while watching the sideline, and the kurgat's favorite little engineering post-doc bot. I held the Q-drone and Speculo in reserve. For Don's deployment, he stuck his designated target behind his side of the center building. Covered by a shipping container from the Avatar. Yaogats on a roof smack-dab in the middle of his deployment zone. The sniper faced to cover all avenues in while the two combi+panzerfaust apes looked towards my Avatar's direction. Joining the rooftop party was a daturazi. Standing. Staring out towards my deployment zone. Like a BADASS. On another rooftop to my right was Kornak and his core linkteam. Prone. Behind a billboard. I guess his challenge and bravado was gone when he realized I had two reserve units BESIDES my avatar. Yet further to my right at the edge of the board behind a shipping container was the last daturazi who decided he was allergic to rooftops and his lieutenant's cowardice and decides to roll solo. In response, I stuck my Q-drone up to my right on a roof just behind a wall so he could overwatch Kornak's roof. The speculo attempts to infiltrate behind the yaogats and out of view of the daturazi. The yaogats were all in a line: as juicy of a target for a boarding shotgun as one could get............. and proceeds to roll a 20..................... The Avatar turns around to see his speculo in the back of his deployment zone. Unimpersonated. With a boarding shotgun. He is beginning to have second thoughts. Next post, the battle
I, being the super smart and knowledgeable player I am, decide to nominate my Avatar as the data tracker. Don chooses his daturazi furthest to my right behind the shipping container as his data tracker. *DING DING* ROUND 1 After my dat runs forward (noting to stay out of the Yaogat team's LoS), the Avatar activates and realizes his tactical library must be a "little" more corrupted than he previously thought as the entire Yaogat harris and daturazi can see him sticking out behind the vertical shipping container. Acting defensively, he moves further to the right so the vertical container now covers him completely. In response, the dat decides to throw smoke over the team while said team attempts to light up the Avatar more than all of the west coast combined. The Avatar decides his best bet is to fire 1 shot at everyone. Never let your opponent have an uncontested roll. For any reason. Ever. End result: 1 dead Yaogat, smoke covering the team (not the dat, though), 1 wound on the Avatar, and all panzerfaust rounds exhausted. It's times like these that I love my Avatar. Few other units can survive this kind of fire. Now I have a problem because the Yaogats are covered in smoke now. They are locking down both the left and right-side lanes up the board and even with the Avatar, I can only hit on 9s. Guess I'm not gonna go on a crazed, bloodthirsty rampage D: Instead, the avatar stands up on the shipping container to see just the suryat with heavy rocket launcher prone on the roof. Thankfully, the vertical shipping container still kept me covered from the Yaogats. 4 dice on 18s vs. 2 dice on 13s. You can imagine the result. With that suryat down, both link teams were crippled but I still had no easy way to have the avatar take out the designated target. Next, the shrouded moves through the walkway to the other side towards the yaogat team and their daturazi. Unfortunately, there was a window the yaogat and dat could see me through so the yaogat holds ARO while the daturazi attempts to discover. I keep moving forward past the window to a position where only the dat sees me. The dat succeeds the discover, but it's no matter. With my next order, the shrouded says "Excuse me, sir, this is a smoke-free campus" and crits the daturazi to oblivion. My last orders are spent coordinating the daturazi and ikadrons to the midfield, moving my avatar back behind the shipping container, and putting the shrouded and avatar on suppression. Don's datatracker daturazi to my right runs forward and throws smoke obscuring the view of my avatar and Q-drone to his suryat core. One of the combi suryats then stands up and unloads 4 rounds of angry morat (redundant) bullets into my ikadron to the right. His daturazi then continues throwing smoke downfield and advancing around my daturazi, closer to my designated target. I thought the daturazi would spend his orders speculatively tossing grenades onto the designated target, but he chose instead to continue forward through the smoke. He attempts to intuitively chain rifle the designated target. And fails. He does so again hitting this time. And the target tanks the hit. He prones out of the smoke so he's out of line of sight of the avatar and chain rifles the target again..... who proceeds to once again bounce the chain rifle hit. Frustrated, the data-tracker-razi spends his last order firing his pistol into the designated target hitting twice...... only for the hits to bounce off harmlessly again. Evidently the staldron brought a bullet proof vest. Or 4.
