VIRD: first games, early lists

That's where I am as well. The fact that the Kamau HMG is half the SWC cost of the ORC HMG is a really big deal. That 1 SWC on a BS13, Mimetism, 4-4 HMG is incredible.

I'm putting some hope in our NCO ORC character. If she brings something like a MULTI Marksman Rifle, or perhaps some strong utility/versatility that Kamau can't provide, I think that will really help ORCs find a place in VIRD.

 

I definitely hope that's true. But, if NCO can be used while linked, it means she could let her link team spend 11 Orders, even if her NCO Order just lets the link double-time it with a MOV + MOV. Technically that's an advantage, though I doubt most of us will pay for it if she's only packing a Combi rifle.

That's why I'm hoping she had MULTI Marksman or (like you said) an SWC weapon. Something to really make her worthwile.

 

Did another practice game last night. Unmasking vs OSS using the following list:

Group 1
Echo Bravo Paramed with combi, lsg, Wild Parrot
Zulu Cobra Killer Hacker w/ Breaker combi
Zulu Cobra with Shock Marksman Rifle, x-visor
Kamau MSV2 w/ MULTI Sniper
Kamau HMG
Kamau HMG
Fusilier FO
Fusi
Fusi LT
Minesweeper Mulebot

Group 1
Zulu Cobra with Shock Marksman Rifle, x-visor
Pathfinder
Fugazi
Fugazi
Trauma Doc w/ Palbot
Helot with SMG, Light Rocket Launcher, Decoy
Helot with SMG, Light Rocket Launcher, Decoy

Total: 300, 5 SWC, 15 Regular, 2 Irregular

The goal with this list was to learn a few things:

• Experiment with that ZC Marksman Rifle loadout: This went quite well. BS13 on a camo platform with superior rangebands (especially for a non-SWC weapon) was great. The Shock obviously makes ALEPH nervous, and being able to casually outrange a multitude of units is great. Having two of them was totally unexpected.

• Experiment with a lower, less mobile Specialist count in a mission with demanding button pushing and mobility: this went okay. An unopposed Pathfinder with 6-4 MOV is still one of PanO's best Specialists, and it got the bulk of my work done in pushing the three center consoles. The Cobra Killer Hacker is a pretty solid purchase, since the utility of having a KHD, authorizing REMs, and a BS13 Camo Breaker Combi is a very nice weapon to fall back on. I'm still rusty with AD, but the Echo Bravo Paramedic looks every bit as reliable and useful as the Tomcat has been for Nomads. I brought the EB on in a devastating location, but ate two Crit Flash pulses in a row (first Order spent was Crit v Crit, cancelling my Combi Burst. Second Order the EB got Crit again.) But the potential was there, and an Asura had to come and dig him out, very nearly getting IMM2/Isolated in the process.

• See if the link and the Helots are enough for defense, or if I really need a Jammer in every list: I did miss that Jammer. There were half a dozen moments where an enemy unit was operating within ZoC of my Cobras, and I found myself gritting my teeth thinking about missed Jammer opportunities. There's room for mind-games here: if you start out by always bringing a Jammer, you'll teach your opponents to fear the possibility that any Camo Token in VIRD might be hiding a Jammer. Then eventually you can leave the Jammer at home, because the psychological impact will be the same: the opponent has to regard that every Camo might be hiding a Jammer. In this game though, it was still too early; my opponent wasn't thinking of Jammers, so moved with impunity, exploiting some gaps that I had to contest with direct AROs. Thankfully the Helots did pretty well, including one who got off a cheeky Discover vs a Proxy Mk2 Assault Hacker moving in the open, then pinning it in the open with that Light Rocket Launcher. Quite decent.

• Experiment with the Wild Parrot as only being EM, and not EM2: Different sources are claiming different information, so I played the Parrot as standard EM to get a sense of whether or not it still generated the same degree of threat: Tricky. If the Parrot's Disposable 2+ and/or EM2, it's going to be really potent. If it's Disposable 1 and just EM, it's still a great tool, but the chance that it will actually score its in-game effect is pretty low. So the Parrot will shift from being a good way to reliably isolate/immobilize opponents, to being a mind-game that helps force a no-win situation where your follow-up gunfighting is going to be more likely to impose a game-altering condition on the enemy. Does that make sense? A standard EM parrot, rather than an EM2 parrot, isn't that likely to Isolate things. So you need to use it as a mind-game to make sure you shoot the target effectively. That being said, I almost caught an Asura with it. She passed her Dodge, so the difference between EM and EM2 was moot, but my opponent certainly respected that it was on the table.

• Try out the Decoy rules, based on my theory of how Decoy will work: I think it will be like Holo2 that doesn't follow the user, but vanishes like Ambush Camo if the User reveals himself. If Decoy works the way I think it does, it's going to be a pretty interesting alternative to Limited Camo. Limited Camo is great, and blends in well with Cobras, but demands that Cobras don't use their Forward Deployment in order to preserve the illusion. Limited Camo is also of limited gunfighting application on a unit with Neurocinetics... They're not going to be Surprise Shooting very often. So I played Decoy as basically generating 2 HoloEchos that don't move, and was quite pleased with it. 2 LRL Helots would potentially generate 6 tokens, each of which could be hiding a Burst 3 SMG or Burst 2 LRL. That's great. The enemy has to weigh knocking over each Decoy (that's 6 Orders of gunfighting, potentially eating up the bulk of a turn) or ignoring the Decoy, maneuvering into the open, and getting knocked over by Light Rocket shots. That happened to a Proxy Mk2 Assault Hacker, who MOVed into LoF of the true Helot using a second short skill. The Helot managed the Discover attempt, catching the Assault Hacker flat-footed in the open. The Mk2's MOV-Dodge was beaten out by a Light Rocket crit. Pretty sweet.

On the whole, a solid game for VIRD. Coming from NCA and Acon, I miss the Hidden Deployment and cheap templates of the former, and I miss the plethora of mines on the latter. Practicing with the alternative options is my first priority, just to try and establish the hyper-stable defense that I really like in my PanOceania lists. It's already pretty clear that VIRD can gunfight pretty much anything off the table in the active turn, so it's getting a handle on the reactive turn that's the question.