10/25/18 Battle Report - Texas Toy Soldier, Carrollton TX

[Savage Coyote]

Howdy howdy!  Time for another battle report!  This week we see an almost-Malvernis force take on a Templar force in a CAVCon Tournament-style battle!*

 

almost-Malvernis Mercenaries

 

Section 1 (attack)

2x Poltergeist

2x Banshee (proxied by Chieftains)

 

Section 2 (Specialist)

2x Haunts (Proxied by Spiders)

1x Banshee

 

Section 3 (Fire Support)

4x Manticores

 

Section 4 (Recon)

4x Nomads

 

Templars

 

Section 1 (Attack)

Centurion

Duelist

Gladiator II

Spartan

 

Section 2 (Attack)

Warlord

Warhawk (proxied by a Starhawk V)

Gladiator II

Spartan

 

Section 3 (Recon)

4x Sabres

 

* = The only exceptions were the 12 unit rule was overlooked and we forgot to include C3 points and Ace Commanders.  No other upgrades or doctrines were used.

 

Set up:

 

I set up terrain before every arrived.  We ended up with new players trying the game out so our sections were broken up so that they could participate and we filled them in on the basics for how things worked.

 

Turn one saw some shuffling and moving forward.  I had a chance to target lock a forward traveling Banshee with my Spartan and unleash my Warlord, Warhawk, and Gladiator II on it, though I managed to "almost kill" it so it was still alive at the end of the round.  The four Manticores drifted a strike point onto one of my Sabres and my Spartan, killed the tank and severely injured the CAV.

 

Turn two:

You'll have to forgive me as I missed most of the photos for turn one really and for some reason I've been really bad about that in games lately.  I'll try my best.  Here, in turn two, the other Banshee on "my" flank races up and fires at the Gladiator II.  With ECM going all over the place, it isn't able to get any bonuses and misses.  My CAV's blow up the injuries Banshee and the lead Banshee to neutralize the flank.  The other flank didn't have anything really interesting happen.  I believe their Manticores tried to attack my Starhawk during this turn but failed to do anything to it's armor.

 

Turn three

I kept moving forward, though I did have a critical failure on the ammo for the Gladiator II's medium Guided Missiles.  that sucked!  As I moved forward I took shots at Nomads, but due to ECM and lack of target locks, the numbers were high and I didn't do much.  The other side was heating up with some exchanges between the Haunts/Poltergiests and the Templars there.  The other Gladiator II had it's medium MRAC's run out of ammo, so it became a glorified missile battery.  The Manticores tried again to damage the Warhawk, but it only received one damage for all their efforts.  Things aren't looking great for us at this point.  

 

Turn four/five (I think I missed some photos)

I keep advancing, but for some reason my Warlord had been chucking guided missiles and ended up sitting around keeping it's strongest assets out of the battle.  He did drop three damage on one of the Manticores though.  that said, my group really didn't have much to do but snipe at the Nomads, who had hard cover.  I did race up my lead Sabre and almost kill the Nomad he raced up on.  In hindsight I probably should have ran turn three or four to cover some ground instead of spraying prayers for hits.  The other side saw the most carnage at the Poltergiests, Manticores, and Haunts focused over there.  Two Manticores rolled critical failures on combat rolls so that helped us a lot.  They still messed up the Centurion and Duelist, who managed to severely hurt the last Banshee.

 

 

Turn five/six (pretty much the final turn)

As we'd already called final turn, MiniAddicts son raced up his Nomads to attack my Sabre and managed two damage.  My other sabres moved forward and attacked, killing one Nomad and damaging another.  My Warhawk was right at thirty inches from the only enemy ECM running, so I was unable to target lock on an exposed Nomad and only inflicted a couple points of damage.  I moved up and attacked Nomads with three of my CAV's while the Warlord tried to tap the same Manticore from across the map again, but this time it didn't hit.  On the other side, the Centurion and Duelist were destroyed with the Poltergiests, Haunts, and Manticores.  We called it at this point, though the "buggy fight" was pretty comical.  Thankfully the Nomads light PBG's missed mostly.

 

 

Final thoughts:  Man, MiniAddict has been trying hard to make the Centurion and Duelist work, but they keep banging their heads against their weaknesses (range for the Centurion and higher armor for the Duelist.). With upgrades you can ODST the Centurion in of course, but the only other way I can think to make it really hum is run forward and close quicker.  I dunno.  Duelist can Salvo in early rounds possible or try to set up and pick off damaged scraps.  Other than that, I got to see for the first time a fully attack oriented army be at a disadvantage against indirect fire.  While my ADON force had that happen a couple weeks ago, I had a speedy attack section that managed to race into the midst of the rocket batteries and cause havoc.  This time that didn't happen and we were at a disadvantage.  

 

I'd call this game a draw, though it leans towards a mercenary/Malvernis victory baring a few dice rolls.  I still had a fresh Warlord, Warhawk, and Gladiator II with it's guns still good against essentially one Poltergiest, some buggies, a Manticore and a half, and the two Haunts.  We ran out of time so we don't really know!

[miniaddict]

It was fun to watch. First time ever seeing @Savage Coyote actually sweat a battle. I think I saw some fear in his eyes .

With that said this was more of an attack battle then anything else. Only electronics involved was the ECM which made dice rolls a little hard. Adding an APA (Active Phase Array) in the mix would have made it a little more bloody I think. 

All in all great game and I believe the new players had a great time.

[CitizenCane]

These are awesome by the way! I had planned to mimic this style of play-by-play for a couple of our Demos and games in Tulsa, but got so caught in the moment that I barely remembered to check-in, let alone take pictures and write down what was happening.

[jsalyers]

"Other than that, I got to see for the first time a fully attack oriented army be at a disadvantage against indirect fire."

 

Oh how memory fades as we get older! :P

 

We need to play games with more objectives and other ways to win than sit back and shoot.

 

J--

[CAVBOSS]

39 minutes ago, jsalyers said:

"Other than that, I got to see for the first time a fully attack oriented army be at a disadvantage against indirect fire."

 

Oh how memory fades as we get older! :P

 

We need to play games with more objectives and other ways to win than sit back and shoot.

 

J--

True...but when you are teaching new players...just shooting usually works best.

[Jeneki]

Aww yeah nice to see the Malvernis tanks rocking the field.  They certainly have some cool ones.  Something fun to try is a section of Spikes with a Nomad/Stalker: EST passes target lock, the Spike has Advanced Targeting Computer +2 and Wizzo, and suddenly "wait, those little things hit *how* hard?"

 

If you want to try dabbling with combined arms, Vidicators+infantry or Ghasts are pretty good ways to do it.  Malvernis is quickly becoming my favorite faction for playing well-rounded battles with a bit of everything.

 

On the CAVs side Malvernis looks like they'll get a boost with the addition of the Shadow CAV, as it fills in a few electronics holes in their CAV roster.  Can't wait to get my hands on them!

 

Edited October 26, 2018 by Jeneki

[jsalyers]

5 hours ago, CAVBOSS said:

True...but when you are teaching new players...just shooting usually works best.

 

My comment was meant for @Savage Coyote he knows what I mean.

 

@CAVBOSS you're 100% correct when teaching new players. 

 

J--