Planetfall Battle Report (Directorate vs Sorylians)



Using the Cyber list i posted earlier in the week I managed a 3500 point game on Friday, some pictures and the battle report after the jump

3500 points
(The game is a few weeks old so it is not using the latest Orbats, the next battle report will be using V6)
Directorate vs Sorylians
The Long War Scenario

Armies:
Directorate
Core Helix
Desolator x 2
Retaliator x 3
Retaliator x 3
Informer x 3
Informer x 3
Patriots x 3 (all Gun Teams)
Trojan x 2
Trojan x 2

Recon Helix
Anarchists x 4
Deadlock Cadre x 4
Intruder x 1

Support Helix
Arbiter x 1
Deadlock Grand Company x 6
Trojan x 2

Sorylian
Core Helix
2 Huk'vok'ka
2 Bor'ka
6 Mul'kat (with Officer) in a Bol'vak
5 Ka'kun

Heavy Armour Helix
Huk'ka
3 Sor'ka
5 Ka'kun

Ground Attack Helix
2 Sar'mak
3 Vro’mak

Logistic Points x 10

The Battlefield:
2016-03-18%2B18.32.34.jpg

The Game: (Turn 1)
On turn one we both rolled a 6 for one of our reserves. The Sorylians got their Heavy Helix, while I got my Recon Helix. 

We managed to screw up the deployment of the Reserves (as you are meant to put them on the table with their back to the board edge in the Late Arrivals Segment)!

The First turn was a cagey affair with lots of flat out moves from units trying to get into position for later turns. 

When the dust settled one Trojan had been destroyed, two Bor’ka had been damaged and the Directorate held two Secondaries to the Sorylians one.

A quick snap from the middle of turn 1.
2016-03-18%2B19.00.23.jpg

ZHT Directorate 27 - Sorylian - 31

Turn 2
At the beginning of Turn 2 the TAC cards came out with myself playing Boosted Hack on the Core Helix, and Fabio playing Scatter Pattern on his Bol’vak

When reserves were rolled, I got a very low 1, not enough for my support helix, but Greg rolled another 6 allowing him to bring on his Ground Attack helix without needing to spend logistic points.

This turn had everything closing up so much more damage was dished out, an amazing torrent of fire from the Retaliators near the back of the Board killed the Bol’vak after it wiped out the Informer squad holding that objective, so much damage was caused that two bases of Mul’kat were killed in the resulting damage and marked as activated as they were forced to disembark. 

Below a snap from the middle of the turn
2016-03-18%2B19.38.35.jpg

The Trojans managed to put Advanced Targeting Offline one on the Huk’vok’ka squadron, that in return saved the Trojans from taking any damage from the return fire. 

The Retaliators on the far flank moved up to target the Bor’ka and managed to kill one of them, before the other Bor’ka elected to take on the Informer squadron first with CQB, followed by shooting resulting in two deaths, but no failed Disorder.

The Desolators moved up and managed to link fire on the Ka’kun sitting next to the secondary objective, they killed four of them and caused them to go Forlorn hope, whereby they charged up at the single informer, however both of them were very inffective at hurting the other. 

The Recon helix got hammered by the Aerial, losing three of the Anarchists as they were targeted by the flat out’s of the entire Helix. 

Their return fire from the two remaining and the Intruder manage to kill a Vro’mak. The Anarchists moved up to hold the Secondary objective that was getting crowded by plenty of non scoring Sorylian models. 

The Heavy Helix focussed on my Desolators managing to kill one of them, while the other remained on 1 DR left

At the end of Turn 2 the ZHT was
Directorate 14, Sorylians, 29

Moving into Turn 3 and further cards were played, with Expert Tactician being played by myself, and Mathematical Genius being played by Fabio on his Huk’vok’ka to get them back to a 4+ to hit as they failed to repair their Advanced Targeting effect. 

My support helix arrived at the edge of my long deployment edge where his Cyber booster would effect the most models. 

I won the roll off for going first, and moved the Arbiter up into range of the Huk’vok’ka. The shots from the Plasma took the first DR, and applied a Debilitating effect marker, before my Cyber attack got only 1 DR of success (6 successes out of 18!), however the luck came back for me and granted a natural 6, activating the unit.

Fabio response was to move his Ground Attack up to CQB & Shoot at the Arbiter. The 2 Sar’mak arrived and took 1 damage back in CQB before taking a full DR off the Arbiter in response. The Arbiter being the stalwart Command Vehicle promptly failed its Disorder test, before the Sar’maks shooting took its second DR.

At this point I managed to play it wrong, forgetting that the deployed Punisher drone counted as part of the unit (and therefore I was not Forlorn!) took my disorder tests for losing my command element, the Trojans passed, while the Deadlock’s failed… meaning they had a disorder marker and could not intiate CQB…. had I got that bit right the Deadlock would have swung the game for me by either wiping out (or severely damaging) the Sar’mak or Vro’mak with their 30 CQB, followed by 30 (ish) Cyber on whatever was left.

As it was I got it wrong, and gave them the disorder, they disembarked and shot 30 Cyber at the Sar’mak, causing two disorder markers. 
The Vro’mak moved up and wiped out the Anarchists with CQB, before killing two Deadlock from the Recon helix. The Intruder & Deadlocks didn't need to take the Command check for losing their command element as the Arbiter was still present. 

The Support Helix Trojans then took some shots at the Ka’kun to see if they could get a nice number of Disorder markers, but failed their rolls despite 14 AD needing only 5 success, granting me a total of 1 extra dis-order. 

The Bor’ka advanced and killed the final Informer from the second squad, before shooting at the Desolators and damaging one of them.

I jumped into my Core Helix and advanced the Desolator in range of Sor’ka, and at 15” unleashed hell with 18 plasma managing to kill one Sor’ka outright, and causing the unit to fail its dis-order by 1.

The response from then Huk’ka was to kill my remaining Desolator, which meant I failed the command checks on two of my Trojan units, however my Patriots and both Retaliator units passed with flying colours. 

The Patriots then moved up into the building (non objective) that they were next to and managed then used their missile launchers to down the final Bor’ka. 

The Retaliators moved round the corner to kill another Sor’ka unfortunately the one left managed to pass his Dis-order test. 

The Retaliators & Trojans focussed their fire on the Vro’mak damaging them to a point where they had 2 damage markers and three dis-order markers. 

The Mul’kat got in to the local secondary objective with the Heavy Helix Ka’kun moving up to kill two more of the Grand Company of Deadlocks, who fortunately passed their dis-order test. 

The final action of the round was for me to move the two Deadlock up and CQB one Sar’mak which resulted in no damage to either side, while the Intruder stood still and placed shot it’s 9 AD at the Vro’mak. At this point between I needed 7 successes, and his shields to fail him to kill the Vro’mak. I rolled 8 successes, and fortunately his shields only got 1 off my total. 

Above the only shot I got in turn 3, one or two activations in.
2016-03-18%2B20.05.19.jpg

At the end of Turn 3 the ZHT scores were:
Directorate - 3, Sorylians - 1

For those interested the TV was scored in the following ways:

Directorate:

Turn 1:
Secondary x 2 - 8

Turn 2:
Boosted Hack TAC +1
Bol’vak -2
Ka’kun -4
Seconday x 2 -8

Turn 3:
Expert Tactician TAC +2
Bor’ka -4
Vro’mak - 9

Sorylians

Turn 1:
Seconday

Turn 2:
Scatter Pattern TAC +1
Informers - 3

Turn 3:
Mathematical Genius TAC +1
Informers -3
Desolators -8
Deadlock Cadre -3
Arbiter - 7
Anarchists - 4
Secondary -4

Overall a very fun game, very close, but as we were testing out the scenario for our upcoming tournament we didn't continued (as we didn't have time for the next turn). 

Had it been part of the tournament we wouldn't have had to setup the board, and I would actually have been there on time, meaning we would have had the final 30-40 minutes of the game time to finish the game off and Turn 4 wasn't going to take long at all! 

I suspect we would both have made planetfall next turn, but not too sure who would have edged it in the long turn, for now this is one we are classing as a draw. 

In the final analysis screwing up how we deployed the reserves probably didn't matter in the first turn, except that Fabio deployed his Ka’kun out of Command Range from reserves and that put them in a much better position.

My messing up the Forlorn hope on my Arbiter was a silly mistake, it did actually go forlorn later when the Punisher drone took a DR of damage and the squad then failed its disorder test again, but even so that Grand Company would have been much better without the Disorder present and would have allowed me to get the Secondary Objective. 

I could also have gone with my Recon Helix first to get the Deadlock into the Secondary objective (the Recon ones that is) and that would have probably saved the unit (3TV), netted me the secondary (4TV) and meant I could CQB out of the building at the Mul’kat with 16 AD to their 8, where I got shield saves and was DR6. 

The flip side of that is I would almost certainly lost the Arbiter without it shooting, but again if I lost it to Forlorn as had happened the 3+ from placed shots and CQB would have increased my effectiveness not reduced it.


Ah well, live and learn. First time out with the Arbiter and Deadlock and overall very impressed!

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