Aquans vs Directorate - Battle Report (Pictures!)



This was a 5000 point game against the Game Designer, Derek. Unsurprisingly as the game designer he is pretty good at this...

More after the jump! 





My Opponents forces:

With Works Raptor & a Leviathan I knew it would be interesting to be on the receiving end of this, instead of dishing out the damage as the Wraith!


The Terrain:

We rolled up the terrain using the Tournament rules in the main pack. Terrain in Planetfall works in the Abstract in that buildings block LOS to everything other than flyers.

These buildings help that view quite nicely with their height, and the battlefield had some good stuff to hide behind.




Deployment:

Still getting the hang of my Aquans especially in the big games I went for the gun line approach, the line of sight to the Directorate was poor, but with all the Objective over here it was always going to be a challenge.






Recon Moves

With Derek winning the first recon move he managed to lock down some of my light tanks on the left flank, however I returned the favour in the middle of the table. 





Dereks first roll....

The game did not start well for Derek with his first roll resulting in no where near the total successes he was expecting!

Turn 1:

As I tend to find while taking these pictures I didnt take enough during the game.

Some highlights I stupidly took a building with my Khitari, only to allow the Wraith, Haunter & Grand Company to turn up, storm the building and take it from me.

That was 13 points of TV to the Directorate that they shouldnt have got. 

The Terquai did a good job of threaten the Directorate rear, forcing several of their forces to turn round after the Drones arrived and wiped out the Patriots that were going to jump into his Tertiary (my primary) objective. 

I also wasted far too much firepower on the Wraith, all of which did nothing and could have been used to greater affect vs other easier targets.

I also lost a Sedna, that didnt make it into these pictures.. damn recon Crones!

End of Turn 1 Casulties


Turn 2:

Turn 2 had more pictures as you can see. 

Below was the beginning shot, you may notice that I hadnt really moved my forces, relying on Hover and placed shots to carry the day, it didnt go too badly, but with Hit & Run I really need to learn to be more mobile.



The Wraith & Heavy helix, plus the remnants of the Works Raptor Witches. 


Here you can see the one Done squad (far left) on my Primary objective... if only he had survived the turn! 




The Leviathan is dead!

It took far too much of my firepower, including pretty much all of my AA fire coming down around it to down the beast, but it made a nice bonus for my ZHT!


The right flank had a lot of Directorate closing in on me, we were playing on an 8x4 board, and i should seriously have been hitting and running as best I could here. 





End of Turn 2 Casualties

The Teraquai were wiped out, I wish I had bought another section of Drones, that primary would have made a huge different for me! 

While I didnt have too many Medium tanks in this shot, I was taking a lot of damage on them, and they were beginning to lose their effectiveness.



Dereks casualties... I missed his turn 1 shot, but totally worth it in the end, with the Wraith dying this turn!

Turn 3

Early game turn 3, and you can see Derek bringing his Castigator to bear on my Locatu's


With the enemy closing on the right flank I took my Laratas out to meet the enemy, they faired remarkably well as I knew I needed a load of points this turn, and their dice rolling was hot! 


The final turn ended -11 / 6, which was close, much closer than I expected, although still a loss to Derek. 

I managed to bring his Desolators down to one model with one hull point left, and those 9 points would have been enough to force this from a major Directorate Victory to a minor one, but equally a second unit of Drones for the primary would have won it me a turn earlier, or way back in Turn 1 not using my Khitari to take the building till his Wraith had activated would have netted me an extra 8 points.

In Summary:
It was a tight game, and while we entered into turn 3 with Derek feeling the game had gone away from him, I had spent so much time focusing down his Leviathan that I didnt have any of his units low enough for me to get more easy TV! 

Hit & Run is something I really need to learn to use better, because while static army lines work well for Placed shots, when the enemy closes things begin to get messy.

What would I do differently? 

Well I think I would seriously look tweaking my force to get that second Drone Squadron in, and potentially look at dropping a Larata from my Recon Helix, I would also focus my AA a little more effectively to help me kill the flying behemoth. 

I hope to get a rematch in the next week... will it be third time lucky?

Playing the games designer I can hope so, although I really dont want him to think the Aquans are over powered! 

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