Battle Report 03: "A Certain Word" the Police (HaqqIslam vs. Starmada)

Hello again, and here is another battle report of my gaming adventures. This game was played on Thursday the 29th of September, against my good friend Vince. I was playing vanilla HaqqIslam yet again, against Vince's Starmada. This would be my second game against Starmada on the blog, but against a different opponent.

The mission was Frontline, playing with the new ITS 14 rules. 

The Lists: 

HaqqIslam: 

I have been running an approximate version of this list for a while now and enjoy it. It for the most part deal with enemy hacking presence outside of Nomads which it might struggle against or the more elite hacking elements of Combined Army like an Anthemathic. The first group also has a lot of orders to push but also Zuleyka to have that expendable attack piece to potentially do some damage, along with a Fiday to either scaple a piece out or in the case of this mission act as points in a zone. 

Knauf also acts as a really good long-range piece of if he has something standing up in ARO to deal with, along with guided to threaten him if needed. 

Starmada:

I will admit I have very little experience with Starmada listbuilding despite this being the second battle report against them. This is also a recreation off memory what he played so the groups may be wrong from what was in the battle, in which I think the core may have been in group one and various other things in group two. This said I think I am confident in saying this is what he was running. 

This said, the basis of this list is solid from what I know about Starmada. He does have some ways to threaten me from all sides and has a few forward deploying models to get into the zones, along with him having a few disposable warbands that can threaten me if I am not aware of how things are deployed. Overall, something I could consider a good list despite the shortcoming of what I see with Starmada and their lack of marker state units and some staples of O12 that they really miss out on. 

Deployment:

Having won the roll-off, I decided to take deployment with the table side I thought would be easier to defend against his attack. He deploys first, setting up his 5-man security team on his right side while his three-man team of Nyokas and a Epislon Multi sniper behind the building. He deploys a baggage bot near his security team but kept it hidden to have it be points in his closest zone for later. Later I would realize he had a Nyoka parachutist with Red Fury, which I had not deployed that well against but could manage to deal it with if it came up.

In my set up, I had Knauf deployed standing up against his Lawkeeper but could not see the Varangian that could move up and throw smoke and forgot his Epislon Multi sniper could get into a position to take a shot at Knauf. 

As a slight spoiler, later in the game I forgot I had my Guided ML bot which would deploy behind the advertisement board which is where I originally was going to place him but came up at a point where his Nyoka was making an attack run in Saladin. 

His held back was a mutlirifle crusher, which deployed on the building where I would eventually put my Taureg hacker in Hidden deployment. Then my held backs go down with my Fiday hiding on the building while the Taureg hacker stayed I hidden deployement to hide from it being hunted down by either his Nyokas, Crusher or his KHD Beta troopers.

Since Starmada had the first turn I docked two orders from him.

Round 1

Turn 1: Starmada

Realizing he had a good chance to shoot Knauf off the board, he impetuous with his Varangian and throws smoke in the area in front of the two saturation zones and Knauf. Next order he then positions his Epislon Multi Sniper to engage Knauf and fires. In a situation where I should have dodge but shooting because I thought there was a recent FAQ that made shooting through smoke with MSV 1 was -3 instead of -6. However, I managed to win the engagement and his Epislon Sniper went down.

This is where my opponent realizes he has good chance to put me in LoL potentially, so he walks in a parachutist Nyoka Red Fury. When walking up to the building he got close to my hacker which I went to spotlight it. This is where I remember that I had missile bot and finally placed it where it was as spoiled before.

So not wanting to take two potential AROs, he goes for my missile bot but my missile bot manages to get a hit and kills the Nyoka. My opponent talked about it at the game but had he ignored the missile and went for Saladin I potentially would have been in a worse position since I'd be starting in LoL for my first turn. 

The last couple things for that turn he used his Crusher to get the Sabotage classified and bunkered up on top of the center building. Then he went on an attack run with his Betatrooper KHD went my Ghazi set up to run in and attack next turn due to dodges and Knauf finally being killed.

Turn 1: HaqqIslam

Since his Crusher had a good position to see my ghazi on the right and middle, the units that went impetuous was the BSG+E/Marat Ghazi on the farmost left and threw smoke. During this I spent and order to move the Ghazi up the stairs and took a shot at the Betatrooper, but the Betatrooper managed to make its dodge. Then I spent Zuleyka's actual order since I did not want to risk losing Zuleyka to his turret, which she then threw smoke down to block its line of sight. Then the Muhktar Duo moved up, with the Red Fury having to take a couple orders to shoot his turret off the table. 

The rest of the turn was me repositioning my Muhktar duo back, then the last couple orders I had one of my Barid KHDs in essence bully the Betatrooper which he takes a wound here. Then I spent the remaining orders with the Ghazis group to take out the Betatrooper and complete my Extreme Prejudice classified.

Round 2

Turn 2: Starmada

Since Knauf was out of the picture, my opponent was able to run his Lawkeeper up the board so he could attack Saladin and attempt to put me in Loss of Lieutenant. In this he managed to get my Missile bot down, but my turret managed to hold him up for a couple orders. Then his bike went up, soon engaging Saladin but Saladin managed to tank his saves while his Lawkeeper went down. Then she switches tactics to his Crusher which he attacks my Ghazi but the ghazi but the ghazi managed to make both it's dodges on the two orders be spent on the crusher to hide.

The other thing of note in his turn is that his Nyoka Multirifle to attack my Muhktar hacker, which in the exchange it loses and then goes unconscious. In the process, I had realized I scored Telemetry earlier because of the spotlight AROs.

Turn 2: HaqqIslam

Deciding that the Ghazi was in a good position to attack, he uses his impetuous order to run up against the Crusher. The Crusher elects to Nanopulser me and the Barid KHD nearby in which tanked it save but the Ghazi went dogged but managed to kill the Crusher that was already in NWI.

I realized too late that I could have just put my Ghazi unconscious instead of Dogged to score the Experimental Drug classified but was kind of too late in the turn to dial it back.

During this turn though is when Zuleyka went on her attack run, which managed to force the Nyoka down but also put his flash pulse bot unconscious after doing some damage. The rest of turn was me shifting my duo around along with my BSG Ghazi who managed to kill his baggage bot to strip orders but also trying to avoid putting him in retreat. Which granted if I did in turn 2 I think I would have scored a 10-2 victory looking back at that game. However, I do think I was limited on orders to do both exactly so it would have been hard to pull off.

Round 3

Since the last round me and my opponent did not do much, I figured I'd wrap it up with a general idea how it went. Since he was a little over the threshold of retreat, he still had his orders to push his link team up into his closest zone. He engages Zuleyka once, but she manages to toss her smoke and ends that fight.

My turn then comes around, which I reveal my hidden deployed Taureg hacker to have him be points in the zone. This as well I reposition models to secure points in zones I know I can dominate. 

I end up winning 5-2 because I had my closest and middle zone with two classifieds, and he had his closest zone and a classified.

Final Thoughts:

While I think most of the game had gone in my favor, I think it could have gone in my opponent's favor and would have been a harder game if he had managed to put me in Loss of Lieutenant. The Deployment of Knauf was definitely risky but I feel if he was not watching the Law Keeper he would have done a lot of damage along with it. 

Anyways, fun game to my opponent and hope to see you soon!

Since it is October, it means it is Haqqtober. For now, I am maining vanilla Haqq more than I'd usually would but soon I'll be going back to my first love of PanOceania and give MO a go.