Once upon a time there was an epic battle happening in the deep jungle of the Venusian Jungle.
In this clash of armies the combined forces of Mishima and Bauhaus overwhelmed the allied power of Capitol and Imperial. The beaten commanders vowed to take revenge and to recapture the bridge. It took a half year to prepare the battle and an endless number of plans where plotted and discarded (in real it took a half year to get find a date where everybody could join the battle but this is a different story
).
At first let’s introduce the forces and players:
Forces:
Bauhaus played by Lopis:
Ducal Militia 4 + Sgt
Ducal Militia 4 + Sgt, with Ablative Armor
Mounted Hussars 1 + Sgt
Mounted Hussars 1 + Sgt
Mounted Hussar Kpt 2
Kommandant
Valerie Duval
Strike Skimmer with 2 Passenger
Mishima played by Bagomba:
Faceless 4x4
Phoenix Samurai 3
Battlewalker 2
Dragonbike
Toshiro (with Pool of Nightshadow)
Amaterasu
Demon Hunter
Yojimbo
Imperial played by Micmellon:
Golden Lions 5 + Tank Hunter + LMG + Sgt.
ISC Handler + Iron Mastiffs 2
Vermin APC boarding Wolfbairns 6 + HMG + Chieftain
Gray Ghost
Imperial Colonel
Capitol played by Enker presented his force already by himself. His force included as key stones a couple Great Greys and a Ranger Captain. Especially the Ranger Captain was the starting point for our whole strategy. But later more about it.
We started like usual in the early afternoon and like all our 4 player games it took a long time to finish it. I was able to reconstruct the final points of start and end of the game. The starting time was the moment when the deployment was done.
Start of the battle: 2009/11/21 15:14 (MET)
End of the battle: 2009/11/22 02:34 (MET)
The deployment was overall without any major surprises. Every player built a small pile in his deployment zone. The only exception was our allied forces. We both had infiltrates in our Army. We learned the last time how worse it can go when the opponents are able to force you into there own strategy so that you can only react against there actions and you were unable to follow your own strategy.
We wanted to avoid this error of the last time and we decided to take large risks to do that. Let’s describe a little bit how I saw the plans of the sides.
Strategies
As far as I can judge the strategies of our friends I have to say there wanted to minimize the risks this time (last time they played full risk and succeeded) and both player decided to play a very regular force. It was funny to see that Enker was able to forecast most of the opponent forces. Only the Phoenix Samurais of Bagomba were a small surprise and there HMGs waiting for me wasn’t a nice thing at all.
We played last time very conservative forces so we wanted to be aggressive this time. But we knew both that we needed some luck to take the full advantage of our strategy.
Our first and major key stone was the Capitol Ranger Captain. This is one of the few units (maybe even the only unit) which could reach the control point on the small isle in the first turn. As long nobody will hold the point in the centre of the bridge we will always lead by one victory point because nobody will reach the other control points faster then we got our first one.
But what does it help to get control of the point if you can not hold it. So we needed as many units as possible to cover him and to keep the opponent on this side at bay. That was the reason why we chose infiltrated units even when it looks a little bit like a copy of the strategy of our opponents during the last battle.
But we had some additional ideas, too. But let’s get finally to the game.
The Game
1st Round
The picture shows the deployment at the Imperial vs. Mishima. The infiltrating Golden Lions were just out of sight (13” in a 12” LOS environment).
Our idea was to win the initiative and to discover the whole Mishima force at once. Mishima has in our games always the most activation and with his obligatory horde of Faithless it is difficult to reach his vehicles and strong units.
I had luck during the initiative Mishima and I (Imperial) had 3 ties before I won it. That was the starting point of my personal night of luck. I was able to act with my Golden Lions before the opponent could spot them and Mishima was forced to place is whole army on one spot.
Just to see how Bagomba was struggling to get all models squeezed to together in his deployment zone was almost worth to do it. It was really funny and I was sorry that GLs do not have any flamer.
Just look at the picture.
PIC Deployment zone
Now was the moment of glory for my Golden Lions. I was able to kill 6 Faithless and 1 Battlewalker as far as I remember. Especially the Battlewalker was already knocked out by the Sgt. I started to roll one perfect after each other. At the end of the game we had highest amount of perfects ever and 90% of them were done by me. The god of fortune blessed us to crash our opponent it looked like
After this start every thing happened more like expected:
The Ranger Captain captured the control point. I moved the Colonel and the Grey Ghost in the direction of the isle to give him cover with smoke. I moved my mastiffs and the vermin in position and embarked my Wolfbairn in stealth.
Mishima collected his rest of the army and spread them between the deployment zone and the Golden Lion. Of course he had a little bit struggles to get his units out of the mess of the wild mixed models but he was able to advance with some units in direction of the bridge. Especially Toshiro was still on his way to the control point in the tower of the bridge.
Mishima was able to kill some of my Golden Lions but like I mentioned before the luck was on my side. Some of my Golden Lions even survived the first counter attack. Something I never believed. I was sure I would lose the whole squad in the first round. Especially except of the LMG spec. nobody was behind cover. But the miracle got true and I would be able to continue the attack in the second round if I would win the second initiative.
Bauhaus on the other side was able to advance with all of his units and to push the front close to the capitol force.
On the other hand Capitol moved most of his units directly in the direction of the bridge.
Mostly the both Great Greys and the Mounted Hussars had some skirmishes but no side was able to fell one of the opponent side. But most of the Mounted Hussars (7 wounds spreaded over all units) and one of the Great Grays we already badly wounded (1 wound left).
2nd and 3rd Round
One more time we were lucky and won the initiative. This gave me one more chance to use my Golden Lions. Afterwards the concentrate firepower of the Mishima HMGs (Demon Hunter, Phoenix and Dragon bike plus the special weapon of Yojimbo) was used to kill most of my Golden Lions. The last two Golden Lion were at the point to panic but the last Golden Lion was killed as a broken unit in round three (Mishima won the initiative for the first time). A surprising long life. And until they panic they were able to fight well back. The Phoenix S. were the worst unit in any way. Just perfect to counter my aggressive tactic. They have only to actions. If you have to walk a long distance it takes to long but now the enemy was just coming to him and he had just to pull the trigger or to swing the Katanas.
At the end of the second round I send my Wolfbairns into the battle but they were not able to harm anybody. I rolled some perfects but Bagomba rolled well enough to block all of my attacks.
The most annoying unit was Yojimbo. I had to kill him three times to get rid of him. Amaterasu was able to heal him twice but I my last kill was after her activation and in this way she couldn’t help him. During these two rounds I was able to kill his dragon bike, too. My Vermin survived just with one wound left.
On the other side Bauhaus was pushing forward and Capitol wasn’t able to hold the line. At the end Bauhaus units (Strike Skimmer and Mounted Hussars) were able to conquer and to block the bridge head at there side.
We all got the feeling the star and the spirit of the Bauhaus-Mishima-Alliance was rising.
Duval reached the control point on there side in the cottage without problems.
One very unusual moment was when we realized that Mishima hat the same amounts of units/activations left like Imperial. Mishima started with 11 and Imperial with 6. Now both sides had 6 activations left. Normally Mishima has the most units in our games until the end of the game. A new experience for all.
4th Round
In round four I was able to kill the last battle walker which was supporting Toshiro to reach the control point in the centre of the bridge. Toshiro was able to get into the tower where the control point is hidden and to cast the Pool of the Nightsshadow. No it was almost impossible to hit him. Is this the point of victory for Mishima?
The victory was close but the Mounted Hussars were starting to die like flies on the one side of the bridge even if they took there toll from Capitol. On the Imperial/Mishima side it got more and more quiet. The Phoenix Samurais were playing with the Iron Mastiffs. The Ranger (Squad and Captain) and the Grey Ghost were just bored after the battlewalker vanished. The Vermin stands at the end of the bridge with no enemy close, too.
Only the Imperial Colonel had the chance to shot Toshiro but was not able to hit him.
5th Round
The last round was the moment of glory for Capitol. The Great Grey killed Toshiro and the Strike Skimmer (plus the passenger). The Strike Skimmer had at the beginning of the round 4 wounds and the Great Grey was able to take them all. After this disaster was for our opponent clear that they had no chance to recover from these casualties. At the end of the fifth round Bauhaus and Mishima capitulated.
I have to say this game was awesome for me. Frankly this was my 5th game and my first victory. It was a great moment!