Take 2, and the perils of rulebooks!

So Martin and I had a rematch with his PanO versus my Yu Jing. This time we went for 200points. Yet again just playing a straight up kill the opponent in 3 turns, with no hackers so we could get down the basic rules.

We increased the gaming board to 4x4' with a few more pieces of terrain (I think), we kept the board the same as one which Martin and Sean had just played upon, as there were no particular issues with it, plus we were a bit pushed for time.

The Board:

I had:

I decided to try out the newly built Aragoto and Asuka, mainly as they were new! I was a bit unsure of how to use them, other than try not to get them gunned down early, and hopefully they would do a bit of damage. The rest of the force was just from the Red Veil set, as I was still awaiting the arrival of a few more miniatures. I chose the Hsien to be my focal point for damage, decided I would keep the Tiger Soldier and this time try to use for a combat drop. This was in part as I thought it may be unexpected with the size of the force using the Aragotos. I took 3 Zhanshi to bolster my orders.

Martin had:

I won the roll and opted for second turn. Martin picked deployment and chose to set up second. We remembered to keep a model back this time, I went for a fairly balanced deployment. I had the Zhanshi and a single Aragoto on the right side. The other Aragoto on the left (shortly to be joined by Asuka), with the Hsien behind a sushi bar in the centre, with the final Zhanshi just behind him. This Zhanshi was carefully placed to offer some fire support whilst being relatively hidden, perhaps Martin would walk into a trap if he couldn’t see him (unfortunately this backfired, as it was me who forgot about him for a large part of the game)!

Martin went for a relatively spread out set up with more weight towards my left flank. He also had suspiciously few models set up...

Turn 1: 

One of the fusiliers moved up and was dropped by a long range combi rifle shot from the Zhanshi in the centre. This was off to a good start! Martin then was more cautious and the rest of his force moved into good firing spots and the turn passed uneventfully.

I opted to take my Impetuous Orders, with the belief that extra movement would benefit me in the long run, and perhaps a slightly exaggerated belief in their survivability. Asuka moved up and took an ARO from an ORC, and a Fusilier with Missile Launcher (I had overlooked when planning my move!), unfortunately she didn’t survive this onslaught! This was too foolhardy a move, and I didn’t realise how fragile the Impetuous/Motorcycle's made them. The lack of cover bonus made her really vulnerable, and I realised how poor my deployment of her was, as any movement would have resulted in her demise due to Martin setting up firing lanes. We did foolishly believe at this point she just dismounted, so we ended up playing with her for a further turn in which she inflicted a wound, however it was fairly simple to rectify, and I think I only spent one order on her so it wasn’t too costly a mistake!

I would like to say that I was slightly more careful with the second Aragoto, however he ended up moving as close as he could, due to Impetuous, declaring shoot as his second short skill, but neither he, nor the Fusilier or ORC managed to hit with their shots, so he survived this turn!

On the other flank the Aragoto with the Spitfire moved up and poured shots into a Nisse, dropping it.

The Hsien managed to kill the Fusilier with the Missile Launcher.

Turn 2: 

Martin brought an Akali Commando on either side, out of arc from my Zhanshi and Aragoto's. The Spitfire wielding Aragoto was killed by the subsequent order (the Ninja was the 'dismounted Aragoto, before we realised our mistake)!

On the left flank the Aragoto managed an about facing as an ARO to Martin's shot, hopefully allowing me to fire back when he spent another order on it. I was out of LOS to the ORC with him, so I wouldn’t be sacrificing shots against it.

The Nisses with HMG moved into LOS of my first Zhanshi and took her down. This left me with just a single Zhanshi at that side (my Lieutenant!).

The Neoterran Bolt moved up but survived the ARO from the Lieutenant.

On my turn I spent my Lieutenant Order, to shoot at the NeoTerran. Thankfully I was out of LOS of the Nisses, and survived the ARO due to height to the Akali, so I managed to take Bolt out.

She then spent a following order to move into LOS of the Akali and take it out.

The Aragoto moved up to the ORC and managed to get close enough to use the +6 from the Light Shotgun. Inflicting a wound. I had hoped to kill it off with the Tiger Soldier who's drop had scattered, but the ARO resulted in the death of the Tiger Soldier on the following order.

The ORC was taken out by the Hsien, putting Martin on a Loss of Lieutenant.

Turn 3:

Not much left for Martin, just a Nisses HMG, who took out my Lieutenant.

In my turn I was on irregular orders, I moved the Hsien and took out the Nisses, ending the game.

Another brutal game with a lot of deaths on both sides. I feel that my tactics will have to improve, but at the moment the chance to provoke an ARO to then get more of a hang of the mechanics seems to be a bit too difficult to resist!

We are about to start an Escalation League through the local store, and our first game (against each other!) will be for 120 points. With this in mind I had a few things planned, unfortunately one of these was to buy the rulebook (I prefer it than using Acrobat on the Laptop). The books are really nice, although it should come with a warning/disclaimer to ward you off reading other faction background! After reading up on the Ariadna, I decided I had made a massive mistake and picked the wrong faction! To this end I bought the USAriadna army box, which I have decided to use instead! Hopefully this is my first and last faction change, but the models were so nice to build (other than a few missing pieces, which have warranted an email to Corvus Belli), I feel I have made the right choice!

Will hopefully get some pictures of them up soon, possibly with a painting guide once I have started!