Happy Holidays all! Here's (my first!) batrep for a holiday-themed Varuna v. TAK firefight! A few things to keep in mind with these lists: First match playing Varuna, in recent months ran bakunin pretty much exclusively. This is also my opponents second match playing TAK, playing primary USA and occasionally Yu Jing. We've been playing for little under a year. On a split second decision, my buddy (opponent for this game) and I decided to go to the local game store and pick up a Cutter. With that being said, this is my first time a TAG has been in either of our matches. While my opponent was aware he was facing the cutter, I'm positive I've made some noob mistakes with this. LT roll goes to my opponent, who chooses deployment. I choose to go first, leaving my cutter on the left hand side of my DZ in hidden deployment. Cutter - Firefight ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 10 FUSILIER Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) FUSILIER Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) FUSILIER Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) KAMAU HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 28) KAMAU (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32) CUTTER MULTI HMG / . (2.5 | 115) CRABBOT Flash Pulse / Knife. () BULLETEER Spitfire / Electric Pulse. (1 | 23) MACHINIST Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 15) PALBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) ZULU-COBRA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Breaker Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 28) ZULU-COBRA (Forward Observer) Breaker Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 26) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army Tartary Army Corps ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 9 1 VETERAN KAZAK Lieutenant AP HMG / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (1 | 47) LINE KAZAK Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9) LINE KAZAK Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9) LINE KAZAK (Forward Observer) Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) LINE KAZAK Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 17) STRELOK K-9 Submachine Gun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines + 1 K-9 Antipode / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 24) K-9 ANTIPODE Trench-hammer, AP CC Weapon. (8) SCOUT (Minelayer) Ojotnik, D-Charges, E/Mauler / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 30) PAVEL McMANNUS Ojotnik, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, T2 CCW, Knife. (0 | 31) ASSAULT PACK . (0 | 25) HANDLER Rifle, Smoke Light Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (- | 10) x3 ANTIPODE AP CC Weapon. (- | 15) GROUP 2 5 TANKHUNTER Portable Autocannon, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 34) VASSILY (Chain of Command) T2 Sniper, D-Charges / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (1 | 39) DOZER (Traktor Mul Control Device) Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) TRAKTOR MUL (Minesweeper) Electric Pulse. (0 | 5) TRAKTOR MUL (Minesweeper) Electric Pulse. (0 | 5) 5.5 SWC | 299 Points Open in Infinity Army R1 - Varuna Overlooking the board, directly across from my Cutter is an antipode assault pack hiding in the enemy deployment zone. With the potential of being bum-rushed next turn, I decide to instead use orders on my bulleteer. He is deployed with cover up to midfield, where I'm able to provoke the ARO's of two standing Camo tokens in enemy DZ. These end up being none other than Vassily and a Tankhunter portable auto cannon. Doubting I can take both with a 50/50 burst split, I throw one shot into Vassily and 3 into the Tankhunter. Fortunately, I hit the Tankhunter twice and Vassily one. Unfortunately, they both pass their armor saves and go prone. This leaves me the option to creep up and successfully down two line kazak's, decreasing the core fireteam to three. At this point I have a small amount of orders left, and a baggage bot watching the carnage successfully dodges and is able to block the passage to the back of the building where the Antipode handler is hiding. On the way to cover I throw 3 shots at a Dozer across the board and a shot into the baggage bot. The dozer passes his armor save and goes prone and I miss entirely on the baggage bot, who is now getting very annoying. As my final order I am able to go on suppression just outside my opponents DZ, hoping it'll waste enough orders of my opponent not to dig into more critical pieces back in my DZ. R1 - TAK Realizing the opportunity, the antipode handler moves up around the building out of LoS of my buleteer. The controller fires a smoke grenade that clips my bulleteer, however in an amazing bit of luck takes 4 orders to do so. Unfortunately for my (soon-to-be-dead) bulleteer, an antipode jumps over from a nearby building, eventually getting into CC. I use electric pulse, but the antipode rolls a 9 and I fail both DA armor rolls. In the last bit of orders, he coordinates some mines across the midfield and stands back up his re-camo'd Vassily and Tankhunter, preparing for the Cutter advance. R2 - Varuna I breathe a sigh of relief as my cutter is still alive, but frown again when I know that the antipode pack is only a few orders away. I use this opportunity to move my cutter out of hidden deployment and face off against the AROing line Kazak Missle Launcher (now only in a 3 man link). The Cutter succeeds, and the Kazak is shocked off the board. I use the rest of my turn to move to the opposite side of my deployment zone behind a building (failing a discover roll on a mid-board camo token along the way). I re-camo and end my turn. R2 - TAK With still a good chunk of orders left, my opponent runs his antipode pack across the board. With super jump, he is seen by my zulu-cobra KHD, but I decided to delay revealing the zulu. The positioning of my sniper had the left side of the board pretty open for the antipodes to run through. As they get closer I am able discover all of them and down one with my kamau sniper as they run towards my cutter, who revealed earlier when he saw the antipodes at long range and threw a discover roll at them. Antipodes are able to successfully get into close combat and put a wound my cutter, however a crit from a Zulu-Cobra leaves only one antipode left in CC. In the last bit of the first order pool, he moves a K-9 antipode around the back of the now-revealed Zulu-Cobra. I am able to successfully kill the antipode with my Kamau, but not before the Zulu dies to a CC attack. With the second pool my opponent moves Vassily to the mid-board, leaving the tank-hunter autocannon alone to ARO on the right hand side of TAK's DZ. R3- Varuna Thankfully the dice gods were in my favor in my reactive, as my cutter has a wound but is still very much alive. I use my kamau sniper to shoot the antipode in CC with my TAG, luckily only hitting the antipode and killing him. With my Cutter freed, I move up the board to face off against the camo Tankhunter autocannon. He decides to reveal and shoot (because autocannon), and I am able to successfully shock him off the board with my Multi-HMG. I move up to the point where my bulleteer was two turns earlier, however this time I am able to get behind the building as last turn the baggage bot was coordinated back behind the building to safety. Hoping to score with army points or a possible LT kill, I throw three shots into the line kazak on top of a building across from the cutter and an unopposed shot into the back of the antipode handler. The line kazak passes two arm rolls, and the unopposed shot misses entirely. This ends my turn. R3 - TAK In a move that only existed in my nightmares, my opponent moves Pavel McManus across the board toward my cutter. My Kamau sniper is able to see him briefly and succeeds in a discover roll, however with his second move he is able to get out of LoF. He continues across the board until he is able to CC my cutter. Unlucky for me, my Cutter is critted and is now unconscious, winning TAK the game. Score 3-0 Takeaways: I feel like I was over-aggressive my third turn and should have re-camo'd my Cutter after killing the tankhunter to attempt to protect him. We calculated this however and even if the cutter was still alive it would have been an extremely close match. The bulleteer is great. My only wish is that I brought a regular hacking device to assist fire him. If he was able to successfully down the tankhunter and Vassily it would have made for a much different game. Camo on the assault pack moving so fast seems crazy efficient. Even with two camo tokens, an MSV2 sniper, and a TAG covering the approach they were barely able to discover all three, and only killed one on the way in. The Kamau Sniper with MSV2 was just as awesome as I thought he'd be, even if he didn't get a huge chance to shine.
