Tuesday 17 October 2017

Operation Cannon Ball - Armada

Sitrep
Insurgent vessels are engaged in mapping asteroid clusters near trading routes. Intelligence suggests they may be engaged in setting up bases for piracy or convoy raiding. Let them no that we are onto them, and that their activities will not go unopposed.

Threat Assessment
Variable - The local volume is full of asteroids and the insurgents will attempt to use this to their advantage. Keep your speed low and watch out for ambushes.

Combat Report
I think my deployment is getting better, but my fleet selection definitely needs work. Both the Jerkzanti - courtesy of our local gaming podcast and my Quasar failed to bring the pain, the latter, probably because it was out of position, the former, perhaps because it never got into it.
 
Deployment, with the traditional YOLO run setup from the ISD

I'm still not entirely sure how to use the Quasar properly, so I decided to run it into asteroids to collect victory points, or at least, deny them to Alex.

Relentless stares down an MC80
The first turns were - as is traditional, unexceptional. Squall bumped into some asteroids while nervously eyeing up the rebel escorts to starboard, while missing an opportunity to alpha strike squadrons (admittedly with fighters). Relentless dithered with its speed, trying to get the drop on the MC80 while Suppressor tried to do something unseful. Insidious yes, Insidious went for the flank.

It should be noted that I'd scored the first turn, which probably won me the game, as Alex was unable to fly a MC30 up my jacksie and keep it there.

Squall begins to have have A Bad Time while my fighters harass the scout frigate and trailing Hammerhead
My fighters finally got in on the action, jumping in on the reluctant rebel fighters, while Insidious and Relentless unloaded into the MC80.

*Pew! pew!*
Squall having racked up several points of hull damage already from hoovering up objectives, actually survived rebel fire long enough to plow into the MC80 losing its last hitpoint and exploding.

Explosions!
 Relentless' retaliation was swift and the MC80 was dispatched at the start of the next turn.

More explosions!
 At this point, my first turn advantage really came into its own. The below should have been a worrying set up, with several small short ranged units behind my ISD.
Pictured: no bueno!
 But because I had first turn Relentless was able to...

...Melt an MC30...

...Melt a hammerhead...
...Then fly the fuck away
Alex conceded at this point, foreseeing this series of events was bound to repeat itself over the coming turns (perhaps with less melting).

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