Mission test: Recon+

For Critical Engagement 2015 we are running the following 3 missions:

• Recon+ 
• Ground Control+
• Secure the Flanks

The tournament (I hope) will have a more casual feel to it. Lots of friendly people playing friendly games. We are changing up the scoring system and the missions (a bit). Ground Control+ is exactly as GC but units can contest quarters too. It should make the mission more interesting. The big change is Recon.......

A little bit of background information first. The idea is not ours, it was first thought of by one of the guys over at DzC Sweden (Jens i think). It has been tweeked slightly and for any Halo fans out there, it is like a crazy king of the hill!

Recon+ is exactly as Recon from the 1.1 Core Rulebook with the following change.

Intel: When rolling for Intel a roll of a 1 is still sabotage, and 2-5 is still locating a piece of intel, but on a roll of a 6, you gain a piece of intel (so receive 1 VP) and the intel is removed, it is replaced with a Focal Point. 
There can only be 3 Focal Points on the board at any one time. If a 4^th Focal Point is found then the first one located is removed from the game.

There is no point including a mission in the tournament if we haven't even played it, so ZombieState and I gave it a thorough test at our last club night.

I won't give a detailed battle report, mainly just the key points.

It started so well for me, both Archangels came out of reserve on turn 1 - yes, I rolled double six. Zombie had sad panda face, but took it well. What we didn't know, was that I had peaked already. 
Getting the Archangels so early meant that I had Dan worried, he disembarked everything on turn 1, and didn't enter a 10 point building until about turn 3 or 4 due to my ability to focus my long rang fire. He was also a little afraid of the Phoenix missiles, their ability to do 8 damage to a building in 1 shot is not to be sniffed at. 

My Archangels did nothing for 3 turns! 1st turn 1 turned up, failed to destroy the Destroyers Intruder, got taken out by Harbingers reaction fire. Turn 2 and 3 the remaining one failed to destroy anything. My Phoenix failed to hit with his big missile shot, booo.
My Katanas were also pretty useless for 3 turns (3 building damage turn 1, 4 turn 2, 4 again turn 3) 
After turn 1 I was in 4 buildings and Zombie was in 3 (2 units in 1 building to be safe)

What did work quite nicely, was putting the card Black Project on the Starsprite drones. It can be devastating! My Drones survived 3 Reapers and 4 minders reaction firing and took out 2 of the Reapers, they followed up by removing the Destroyers dropship. 

Using my Wolverines as a strike unit meant I could jump in front of the other Destroyer Intruder and down it, turn 2 and no more Destroyer movement........or so I thought.

Zombies Reavers wiped 2 squads of infantry in 2 turns by destroying 2 10 point buildings. 4 Reavers are rude as fuck! In response 3 Rapiers over 2 turns (5 firing in total) wiped them out. 
My Phoenix finally hit with his missiles, but rolled a 1 to damage. That was both the missiles failing epicly!
After turn 2 I had 3 pieces of intel (my Praetorians found a bomb!!) and found 1 focal point. Zombie also had 3 intel, but he had found 2 Focal Points. I was in another 2 buildings to search, Zombie was in another 1.

4 Reavers is a little bit naughty

The Praetorians were killed by falling masonry (and the sabotaged piece of intel), only 9 damage points had been done to the building!!! Obviously they weren't trained for dealing with masonry. They didn't even get their 2nd search. 
2 squads of my infantry also didn't get a second search roll! 
My last squad hightailed it to a safe-ish building on Zombies side, they were joined by Destroyers (who used secret entrance) and Warriors. Zombie had already searched this building.  

Zombies other warriors went from a 10 pointer (finding intel) into another 10 pointer, but I couldn't do enough damage to either, I really needed activation, as I left it with 2 damage left!
After turn 3 I had 3 intel, plus a Focal Point, Zombie had 5 intel and 2 Focal Points

Zombie won activation, rolled for his Warriors and found another Focal point, this meant that the first one found (with his stranded destroyers) was removed and a new one placed. He flew the Warriors into the CQB - which was a big mistake.
I activated my last troops, they were duly wiped out by Warriors and Destroyers but in a last ditch effort to collect intel, they rolled a 6 and found a focal point. This meant that the other Focal point Zombie had found earlier disappeared. 
Now, because I had activated my infantry early, knowing they would die - it meant I could take out the building with 3 units in it - I did. This also removed a Focal Point.  

Dan took out the Focal Point in the building on his side, as it only had 2 dp left (worried about my Phoenix bum-rushing it to hold it).
After turn 4 I had 4 intel and a Focal Point, Zombie had 6 intel

Turn 5, I needed to win activation and take out the Oppressor. As the final focal Point was deep in my half I knew I could stop the Scourge from contesting, I just had to stop the building from being shot down. 
Unfortunately Zombie won activation and took out the last Focal Point. I did take out the Oppressor that turn, but we called it as we wouldn't change the score of the game at all. 

In the end 6-4 to Dan, and none of the 5 Focal Points discovered during the game left at the end. 

The upside down hawk building was my last bastion of hope

My biggest mistake was not entering my 10 point buildings on turn 1. I entered larger buildings to keep safe, but Scourge cannot play the long range demo game until at least turn 2 or 3. Had I entered the 10 point buildings on turn 1, I would have had at least 2 more search rolls. I'm not saying I would have won, but you never know.
Dice failed me too, but it all evens out eventually. Phoenix, Falcons, Katana and Archangels all failed miserably in the first 3 turns when it really mattered, they started doing better in turn 4 and 5, but the game was almost up by then.

Conclusions on the actual mission, rather than the game:
Recon+ offers something different to Recon. It keeps the battle contained, there is no extracting objectives, therefore losing squads to reserve. It is very quick paced, as can see from the report, a lot happened. I think that slower armies still have a good chance of winning this mission. 
Also when an opponent rolls a 6 for intel you aren't immediately depressed as it finds a Focal Point, you need to think about holding that Focal Point or destroying it. It is very interesting.