Dreaded infiltration missions were my bane yet again. I got the infiltrate/survive mission (Quietly does it, I think)
Well. At least I got both of my plague swarms to use.
My strike force ended up being:
Plague Leader
3x regular mutons + 1x regular New Guy muton
Heavy Machine Gun muton
2x plague swarm (one of which had an intimidating Survive score of 7+...)
Enforcers had a list something like:
Enforcer Sniper
Missile Launcher Enforcer
Probably some special weapon Enforcer
Most likely 3x Trooper Enforcers
Well. My mission was to infiltrate and survive, so I didn't overextend myself too far during first round. I was considering in locking up my troops in the green building at space G6. However, I needed to go and contest the objectives somehow, because I didn't know opponent's mission. If I had known it, locking myself up would have been a good enough idea!
Enforcer sniper was in a disturbing position on top of the watchtower in cube B6. Finally once I started to come out from the closets of blue and green building, I tried to suppress the sniper with HMG muton, but either it completely failed, or opponent played Steadfast card. Random trooper muton found Intel from E7.
One plague swarm speeded to eat some Enforcers in D6, and there was nice odds of scoring two kills - if only enraged Fight 3+ Brawler with a veteran die and charge bonus would be able to double opponent's survival rolls. Not today. One success too short. And there the plague celatid was... right under Enforcer Sniper.
Meh. Another such chance opened at C1 where there was a support missile launcher and some other enforcer in same cube. This swarm wasn't a Brawler, but it had a veteran die also. It was slightly tougher fight than the one at D6, but should be easy enough to at least kill the missile launcher. Nope. Not today. Missile launcher was only injured.
Those were my last activations in turn 3, so I had scored three victory points. Both plague swarms were easily removed by the Enforcers, and that combined with a couple of other casualties made me flip the table and abandon mission. I didn't score any additional kills, though, because Enforcers got their ten victory points. It was some kind of "kill specialists and leaders and control an objective" mission.
Post mission rolls were... interesting.
A trooper muton and a plague celatid swarm both rolled 1 on the injury table. Of course the dead swarm was the better one - I was left with the 7+ Survive one.
Oh well. Even if the massacre was, in the end, pretty one sided, I don't think it was a bad game. There were a couple of turning points that, if given a bit of luck, could have tipped the game in my favour - most notably the attacks of the plague swarms.
Game 2:
For five missions I had saved up to buy me a Boom Stick muton, and for the sixth mission I finally had enough reputation to do just that.
And my plague aliens truly are cursed. We chose mission this time like you regularly do: pick two and choose one. First draw for me was infiltration mission again. Second one, however, was Stack 'Em High (kill troopers and expensive models)
Since the campaign had been going so badly for me, I thought it might be fun to play high risk, medium reward game. After all I had very little to lose, and with some serious fire power I just might make it through at least one mission with plague being the victorious faction. So I hired the most notorious mercenary of them all - Wrath.
Plague Leader
2x regular mutons
3x plague hounds
HMG muton
Boom Stick muton
Plague Swarm
Wrath
Opponent had at least:
Enforcer sergeant
That thrice damned sniper
Assault enforcer
Possibly 3x regular troopers?
First for starters... The Boom Stick didn't land even one successful hit during whole damn game. It did score a couple of good blasts, though, that were slightly inconvenient for Enforcers. The plague hound on top of the tower is there because it got Spotter ability and a fight value of 7+. HMG was just one cube below, trying to lay down some covering fire.
Some Enforcer was advancing somewhere around G6 cube, presumably coming to check the objective. Command action, move card and sprint + move later Plague Swarm slaughtered the trooper. Now only it would need to survive a round of fire from 5+ enforcers, and it had only 7+ survive. If memory serves, the lucky Celatid did survive a sniper shot, but once somebody drew pistols it was game over, man. Game over.
First round Wrath acted fine. He tried to shoot a grenade, and it did throw some enforcers around even if it didn't do any damage. Second turn it did absolutely nothing. Third turn it shot MY ETHEREAL DEAD. Fourth turn he did absolutely nothing. What a fine investment of points!
I guess that was the ultimate downfall, the loss of Ethereal and 75% of inactivity from Wrath. Somehow, somewhere I had killed a second Enforcer, but I just can't remember where...
So. Quickly enough plague forces scattered into the winds, and I scored most reputation points yet during this campaign! Six.
But then I had to pay wages to Wrath for his astonishing services. What is this I don't even...
To hell with Wrath. At least I now know why his name is Wrath. It has nothing to do with his personal innermost feelings. It has everything to do with emotions he evokes in his paymasters.
Post mission. Let's... let's skip this one. It's too painful.
All celatids gone. Gone.
Ethereal leader dead.
And the most cruel death of them all. The Boom Stick muton that I had been waiting for an eternity to buy to my roster. It didn't survive even one mission.
Also one of the plague hounds, named Lucky, died. He wasn't so lucky after all, I guess.
Few next games will be interesting as my strike team will mostly consist of new recruits who have -1 dice to all rolls. As it stands, my strike force doesn't have enough models to make 70 point strike teams.
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