So painting up most what I could for my ALEPH, I am giving them a run now. I've had a few games with them now, but this will be the first battle reports written playing them.
So the mission we did is Radiation Leak, which is a custom mission made by Wise Kensai from the Dice Abides network. Link to it will be here: Radiation Leak - Google Docs
The general idea of the mission is one side is trying to protect the reactor and the other is trying to destroy it. You also get points for being in the room but the radiation from the reactor has a chance to kill your models.
(Disclaimer: I was playing an earlier version of this mission where scoring was in the first four play turns of the game instead of the last four. Hence if you are looking at it later and seems a bit off on the scoring that is why)
(Disclaimer: I was playing an earlier version of this mission where scoring was in the first four play turns of the game instead of the last four. Hence if you are looking at it later and seems a bit off on the scoring that is why)
Lists
After Adepticon I decided to ALEPH so here is what I was running. I played more toward the mission and for the most part I liked how it functioned on the table. Having Parvati, Mk. 1 Engineer, Acmon and Machaon gives me a good amount of redundancy but also can cover most of the classifieds in the deck. However, Classifieds would not be a concern here.
For my opponent, he was running Spiral Corps and more wanted to run his favorite of a "fake" Chaksa Longarms Haris which a cheap Chaksa of some sort with the Portable Autocannon Chaksa in reality being a Taagma Viral Sniper with MSV 2. The other man Haris in his list was a Draal supported by two Taagma schemers with one of them being the Tri-core. And the main piece was topped off with Neema as the LT and Jaan Star being out of Impersonation state with a Symbiobomb.
Deployment
My opponent won the roll-off and decided to take the first turn. And in turn I took the side where I could hide all my models I could but have an easy access to have one of my units with D-charges or antimaterial weapons blow open the door.
My opponent deployed his two Haris teams on both his flanks, with his 'fake' Long arms team setting up on the building on his left and then Draal team on his right to preform his alpha strike in the first turn. And then Neema Sataar in the middle to move up into the Radiation room if needed.
A Piece that may or may not do something this game
Not wanting to give my opponent that many easy targets, I put most of my stuff in null deployment save for a couple flashpulse bots to slow him if I can. There, my Agema ML placed in hidden deployment covering the lane where I expected his Draal to go.
Then he deploys his two heldbacks, which were the Keltar and then Jaan Staar in that specific order, with him getting the symbiobomb and then the Draal getting the Symbiomate. I of course held back the Liberto minelayer to lock up Jaan Star and makes sure if he was going to Symbiobomb Hippolyta he'd have to pay the price for it potentially.
Then he deploys his two heldbacks, which were the Keltar and then Jaan Staar in that specific order, with him getting the symbiobomb and then the Draal getting the Symbiomate. I of course held back the Liberto minelayer to lock up Jaan Star and makes sure if he was going to Symbiobomb Hippolyta he'd have to pay the price for it potentially.
I elected Hippolyta as my master breacher and my opponent chose Neema. In which in this mission, it gives Zero-G terrain but the main thing is D-charges to use to blow open the door.
Round 1
Turn 1 Spiral Corps
Wanting to take care of my Liberto and have Jaan Star safely hit Hippolyta, he spends a few orders shifting over his Taagma sniper to get to the Liberto and his mine. He spends a few orders clearing the Liberto, but the Liberto managed to lay a mine down to further trap Jaan Star. The Taagma failed to discover and remove either mine, which is where my opponent kind of goes 'Yolo, I need to try to take out Hippolyta with a Symbiobomb'. Fortunately for me and not so much for him, Hippolyta made her BTS saves even though she failed the face-to-face, and Jaan Star went down to the two mines from a fully healthy Symbiont armor profile.
This is where he switches gears and goes on the offensive with his Haris led by the Draal. When the Haris managed to walk out of the cover, this is when I revealed my Agema ML and took a shot against it. This sadly lead to the death of the Agema as he failed to hit and failed to make both of his armor saves against the Draal. He pushes up his Haris onto the edge of my deployment zone instead of pulling back, and managing to put down the Dakini HMG.
In my turn I would try to exploit the Spiral Corps Player's over-extension as much as possible.
In my turn I would try to exploit the Spiral Corps Player's over-extension as much as possible.
Turn 1 ALEPH
I decided to try to take care of the Draal haris by either killing all of the team or at least putting down the Draal so he would not be a problem later. However it had taken a few orders (including a risky play of using Machaon and his LT order to attack the Draal) before I put two to the three team members down. From there I breached the Reactor room with Acmon which blew the door open in one order. The Mk.2 Hacker then went in there, hiding behind the reactor and then using the rest of my turn to reposition Parvati to get into range to repair and heal the Dakini HMG and Hippolyta that went down on my opponent's active turn. The radiation saves then came in which my Mk.2 Hacker made with ease, which will be an re-occurring theme in this battle report.
While this turn is written shorter than I would have wanted, it is truly the main focus of my turn for the part.
Round 2
Turn 2 Spiral Corps
While this turn is written shorter than I would have wanted, it is truly the main focus of my turn for the part.
Round 2
Turn 2 Spiral Corps
Realising he had lost a good chunk of his haris, my opponent decides to use Neema to get into the room and start having points in the room to score. However, the Mk.2 Hacker was able to Isolate Neema after two orders he spent trying to blow open the door with her D-charges. The rest of the turn was used to reposition his Helots and then having his Taagma Sniper watching over the lane where I could make one potential run to heal Hippolyta, in which he put unconscious with his Igao after sneaking up my flank.
Turn 2 ALEPH
The main impetus of the turn was to get my Dakini HMG and Hippolyta to hopefully get more units to engage then get into the Reactor room. The Dakini HMG managed to get back up and managed to force the Taagma down but did not kill him. However for the need of this turn it was good enough.
For the purposes of the this batrep I am going to wrap up Round 3 in general as pretty much the game was sealed at that point. My opponent managed to get Neema out of isolation and then moved into the room. Then Hippolyta ran into the room, took out Neema and then brought the Reactor down to 0 STR with the D-Charges from being the Master Breacher.
The game went to me in a 7-1, as my opponent managed to disable one of the safety looks on his final turn.
Final Thoughts
This is a little more delayed than I wanted to be, but I wanted to talk about the mission more than the game itself even though it was fun to play.
My thoughts on it is that it delves into the asymmetrical aspect Infinity that is present in the gameplay, but I feel doesn't get explored in the current design climate of ITS. I may get a few more games in before I have a solid take on Radiation Leak, but I like the main gist of it.
The game went to me in a 7-1, as my opponent managed to disable one of the safety looks on his final turn.
Final Thoughts
This is a little more delayed than I wanted to be, but I wanted to talk about the mission more than the game itself even though it was fun to play.
My thoughts on it is that it delves into the asymmetrical aspect Infinity that is present in the gameplay, but I feel doesn't get explored in the current design climate of ITS. I may get a few more games in before I have a solid take on Radiation Leak, but I like the main gist of it.
One thing I really like is that you have a decision tree as the attacking player to either blow it early and force the defending player to repair it, but it also makes it harder for both sides to score points for holding the room. The damage scaling depending on the state of the reactor does also give some incentive for the defending repair it outside of scenario points tied to how much health it has.
The couple critiques I might have is that it falls into the trap of Looting and Sabotaging where it is highly discouraged that you want to repair the Reactor as the defending player, since the failure state is that you are giving your opponent free points if you fail. While this is mitigated by the fact that the reactor always is on the table and can still repair it at 0 STR, it punishes factions with average to below-average WIP (looking at you PanO) if they have to be the defending player.
The main suggestion is that failure state of the engineering skill should not be applied, or perhaps the use of command tokens allowed to reroll failed rolls.
The second critique is a bit minor but the safety interlocks may not affect the game too much after the door has been blown open by D-charges or whacked with an anti-material CC weapon. The way this could be changed is that you cannot destroy the doors but at the same time, it takes away a tactical option.
Sorry this took longer than I wanted to get out but I had some IRL stuff that happened and was in a bit of a funk. Currently I am working on a post about Impersonators which is kind of going slow since I am currently not playing a faction who runs them. Hopefully I can get it out soon-ish, but I want to have ALEPH be my main focus for the next few months (I.e around 3 more batreps or so).
Tune in next time!
The couple critiques I might have is that it falls into the trap of Looting and Sabotaging where it is highly discouraged that you want to repair the Reactor as the defending player, since the failure state is that you are giving your opponent free points if you fail. While this is mitigated by the fact that the reactor always is on the table and can still repair it at 0 STR, it punishes factions with average to below-average WIP (looking at you PanO) if they have to be the defending player.
The main suggestion is that failure state of the engineering skill should not be applied, or perhaps the use of command tokens allowed to reroll failed rolls.
The second critique is a bit minor but the safety interlocks may not affect the game too much after the door has been blown open by D-charges or whacked with an anti-material CC weapon. The way this could be changed is that you cannot destroy the doors but at the same time, it takes away a tactical option.
Sorry this took longer than I wanted to get out but I had some IRL stuff that happened and was in a bit of a funk. Currently I am working on a post about Impersonators which is kind of going slow since I am currently not playing a faction who runs them. Hopefully I can get it out soon-ish, but I want to have ALEPH be my main focus for the next few months (I.e around 3 more batreps or so).
Tune in next time!
