2 Seraphs No Orders

After just having played in an Infinity campaign that was waaay too short (only 4 weeks and work was busy, so I only made two reports). I decided it was high time I started doing more battle reports! This time on my own site! So to catch you up, I played a couple of games now with Military Orders. Here’s my two Kurage Reports:

Episode I: A Lesson in How Not to Use Knights

Episode II: Days of Our Knights

So we embark upon a new mission! Powerpack against the ever capable Jon (Wisekensei) and his cadre of filthy Nomads. Here’s a link to his report as he was quicker than me!

Draining Power Packs

Meanwhile back at PanO local HQ:

Where to begin. This was a first time mission for me, and the deployment really messed with my head a bit. I also was confused on which side was 16″ which had me selecting probably the worse side. I couldn’t get any ARO cover on rooftops as they were just a bit too far from the edge or I could get to cover with an ARO.

Well with deployment sorted as best I could Seraph on either side of the board. Joan as warcor with a hacker on the left. ARO link team of fusiliers with an Lt on the right. I was relying on holding Jon off for a turn then deploying Crusaders and Seraphs to start crushing filthy Nomad.

Krakots! Of course! Between them and Morlocks they really cut my order pool to shreds. I first lost my major ARO piece the missile, but that was only the beginning.

Because on Joan’s side of the table the new Zondnaut profile went to work! It’s actually a really cool profile. When I switch back to Nomads at some point I’m definitely going to enjoy using it. Seems very versatile. Anyway, it managed to axe Joan of Warcor and due to a failed dodge the Hacker as well. The Seraph was sadly no help, failing to shoot everything… That will be sadly consistent territory for the Seraph in blue!

He is however pretty good with a sword. He kills the Zondnaut, then I think I’m slightly out of order here, but at some point in Nomad turn 1 he KO’s the zondnaut pilot on a reaction shot.

Turn one’s not over yet though! The Krakot pops back in and manages to brutally chain rifle BOTH my other fusiliers! Things are not looking good for our valiantesque boys in blue!

So my plan at this point… First active turn and all I’ve got on the board are 2 Irregular Seraphs. I do have 2 Crusaders and a TO sgt observer that I can do things with… I’ve got 4 Command Tokens, so if I drop in the crusaders, I can probably order one up to shotgun the Kriza. After that I’ll drop the other one somewhere in the back field. If things work out, I can start Turn 2 with an LT AND 4 orders!

AAAAAAND that plan goes sideways:

Knight 1 fails his jump and disperses off the table.

Knight 2 fails his jump and also disperses. I put him on the left figuring I’m well out of the range of that Morlock.

Aaaaand Morlock headshots him with a pistol…

Well… plans foiled… I take the two Seraphs and put them on suppression. I think it’s my only bet to weather the oncoming Nomad storm!

Nomad Turn 2: no surprise but the exposed Crusader is viciously cut down by a Kriza

The Nomad troops did a lot of advancing this round including taking the antennas and sending all their Koala’s out to make friends on PanO turn 2. The Seraphs are pretty boxed in at this point.

And my blue Seraph is still clearly distracted, though he makes his ARM rolls with no problem, so we don’t lose much. I think this is where the bot got KO’d though.

I brought out the TO order Sgt finally. I think my mistake was trying to take a shot instead of just desperately sprinting to objectives to try and make a couple points. My surprise shot wiffed, but on the next order I did pull an antenna. No…if that guy will just survive!

Last couple orders I had went to trying to clear some immediate threats. Big Red took out a Morlock to help out the Order Sgt’s position.

Blue Seraph missed the Lunokhod but did kill a Morlock. Unfortunately I took two Koalas and between that and the Lunokhod’s shotgun. Blue Seraph is down for the count.

Blast! Nomad turn 3… All I’ve got left is the sgt and the red Seraph!

Big red’s auxbot manages to flamethrower the approaching Morlock

But the Order Sgt is no matched for the diabolical Nomad Intruder!

Finally the Kriza punches a large number of holes in Big Red. All on a single shot too, just some bad ARM rolls!

Finally the puppetbot runs a Coup De Gras on one of my errant Crusader Knights.

Granted this game was a total blowout, but surprisingly it was still really fun. It had me really thinking hard on how to even attempt to salvage the situation. It was also a really interesting puzzle in what to do when you have some really great, tanky units, with good BS…but not enough orders to power them.

Discussing with Jon post game, I’m thinking my plan to bring on the Crusaders Turn 2 was my major mistake. Also looking back at the table I think I might have picked the wrong side? Not certain on that, but I did find Powerpack’s deployment really tricky. Buildings were just out of range to set up good ARO positions.

Looking back this mission does score everything last round. so if I’d maybe set the Seraphs to suppressing…or maybe burned all my command tokens in turn 2? Moved them into covering positions and put them on suppressing? That might have helped. All in all, I think having some better ARO positions would have made a big difference.

Great game against Jon as always!