Flank Attack Union vs Empire 2K
I finally got a game in against Empire. We ended up on Flanking Maneuvers, 2K points, on 4ft x 4ft. I also decided I would not be using the transport missile to clear out buildings, so that’s a bit of a house rule I guess.
Deployment
The flank objectives are worth more, so those should be the priority. Each player has one close and one far, so locking down the close one with walking infantry sounds good, followed by a fight for the center. Seems reasonable.
(That’s not what happened.)
I put my mechs in the center to hopefully be able to engage any central forces, or to move to engage any heavy pushes to one of the other objectives. His objective got my fast movers (bikes and ironhides), especially when I saw him deploying an artillery park there. The central woods got a pacifier unit to hopefully take the center and some field guns in a similar role to the mechs. My home objective got the Lakota to hopefully flank and Troopers to hold the objective.
To hopefully not get my MOAB’s destroyed immediately, I put them quite far back to be out of range of the Wutai. This ended up being a bit of a mistake, as they only had suboptimal targets T1.
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| The Empire preparing to attack |
Empire deployed heavily towards my objective, with the Wutai, Reinforced Fanguns, Full Bikes, and a Full Strength Command Platoon. The middle held his fire support, with Full Jezzails, Rocket Teams, and Chariots, as well as some flame tanks to advance on the center, while his objective was only defended by a Full Flame Team and his artillery (Reinforced direct and basic indirect).
The Empire Flame Team received the On Lookout marker to hopefully keep my bikers at bay, while my Arc Mechs advanced as a Forlorn Hope.
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| Deployment and Vanguard |
Turn 1
The Empire won initiative, and immediately set the tone for the encounter. Aim and Fire. The Lakota took light damage from the main cannon, while the arc mechs losing 2 and having 1 damaged from the secondary heavy armament. The arc mechs decide to sprint forward but were ambushed (via card) by the rocket troopers, dropping them to reinforced, their return fire causing only superficial damage back. The Jezzails, confused by the unfamiliar wooded terrain, completely miss the arc mechs, while the Rocket Teams cause some damage to the Heavy Mechs.
On the left flank, the Lakota surges forward, opening fire on the bikers alongside the Houston. Casualties from the bombardment causes them to break and run, losing more from the lack of room to retreat. My troopers and pacifiers both sprinted towards their respective objectives, with the Rocket Trooper’s Pioneers proving crucial to reaching the central building.
On the right flank, the Chariots bombarded the Iron Horse Cavalry, wiping just under half the unit. The launchers also got in on the fun, suppressing them. Seeing their buddies chewed up, the Blazers rush forward, opening up on the flamer teams to take out almost half the squad. The iron horses regain their nerve and crash into the flamer team (on lookout doesn’t help you if you get charged) and wiped them, subsequently falling back onto the objective with hit and run.
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| Two thirds of the unit dead? Flawless victory! |
The turn closed out with some more maneuvering and ineffectual fire. Notably I forgot to activate my field guns, not that they had a viable target anyway. All objectives ended up held by my troops, the Empire forces too busy shooting them to advance. Score 17 to 0 for the Union.
Turn 2
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| Turn 2 |
Empire once again got initiative (he had all the high cards) and declared a charge from their chariots into my Iron Horses. I believe my reaction was “They get HOW MANY dice??”. Needless to say, they wipe the remains of the unit from the board, taking the objective. However, that left them in range of my Hotchkiss guns. I decided the to shoot at the exposed part of the unit, which amounted to just under half of them. In a crazy good roll, that part of the unit was utterly obliterated, leaving the rest of them cowering behind their barricade.
Over on the other side of the table, the Wutai continued to send shell after shell into the Lakota and arc mechs, causing more carnage. Seeing their train literally falling apart around them, the brave crew elect to ram the ball tanks but cause only minor damage. Their Houston carriage on the other hand, rains fire down on the Rocket Team still hiding in the forest, causing multiple casulties. Their return fire kills the engine, leaving the carriages to clutter their path to the objective.
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| CHOO CHOO! |
In the center of the field, we had something between a tense standoff and a slapfight. The Steam Bikes were threatening a charge on my objective holders, but blocking their way was a swarm of Mechs. Fire went back and forth, but the Empire forces were unable to shift the Mechs, and eventually some stray shooting took out the steam bikes. The Pacifiers also advanced on the central building, firmly securing the objective for the Union.
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| Holding ground |
Back on the Empire’s home objective, the launcher captain decided that something must be done about those bikers menacing their chariots. A volley of chemical munitions went out (why is it only a warcrime when Union does it?), killing some but more importantly forcing them to hunker down (discipline 5 hurts). However, a lucky turn of fate causes the Blazers to open fire on the artillery, wiping the unit (I may have forgotten I had an opportunity fire card till after they had shot, so we ended up playing it after their shooting, which is wrong, no reaction step after shooting). While they subsequently failed to shake off the supression, their fire broke the chariots which fled the field, leaving the objective open for a cheeky ironhide to deploy a command platoon onto it.
Union once again holds all objectives, taking the score to 33 to 11 for the Union. Seeing the writing on the wall, the Empire general quits the field, their Command Platoon having been busy doing some calisthenics.
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| Modern problems require modern solutions (we really need to make some movement trays) |
Summary and Lessons Learned
Not entering the central building definitely proved the better option that garrisoning it and exposing the unit to the entire opposing force’s shooting. Lots of units that could have done major damage to the infantry unit holding it couldn’t shoot due to lacking LoS (the flame tanks especially ended up ineffectually flaming some mechs). Of course, if the opponent had some fast moving infantry to jump in that would have had issues, but that’s what the ironhides and troopers are for.
My
philosophy continues to lean towards ignoring enemy tanks and
behemoths as much as possible and focusing on removing infantry and
artillery, and it seems to be working so far. It’s going to be
interesting facing off against a behemoth going for an objective at
some point.
The Empire deployment was suboptimal, but it was his second game. I think putting the Wutai and full Command Platoon on his home objective would have been the play to make it work. Maybe touch in to the center objective with the steambikes and then try to blast me off the table. MVP on Empire side was the Rocket Team in my opinion, they just consistently removed things from the table, and had great range and flexibility. I also think the flame tanks are very important for clearing objectives or contesting them if you’re not bringing a Laoshan.
On my side, I’m pretty happy with how my list is functioning. The Houston did good damage, but that was probably just good rolls. One thing I failed to realize was that putting the Newhaven at the end of the train meant it wouldn’t be far enough forward to reach an objective T1, so keep that in mind for longer trains. Walking infantry has also been generally useful. I might try to fit in another Iron Horse unit somehow at reinforced, having something at least resembling melee capability has been helpful.
Next time I’m going to try out Crown. I’ve got IDEAS.
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