Campaign Paradiso - Ariadna Impressions 7

A few days ago, I squared off against Bayruun in Mission 301.  Now, our local group is playing at medium difficulty (15 minute turns, the ship explodes on an 8+), so our game didn't last all that long. In fact, the ship exploded just before either of us got a third turn.

As a result, there's really not much to say about this mission.  Most of the units we took sat there and did nothing while specialists zipped around, trying to make sure that everyone could board the escape pods just in case the ship didn't blow up at the very first opportunity.  That didn't happen, of course, but that doesn't mean we didn't try...

My side.

His side.

My side, behind the wall.  Lego dropships!

I ended up running two combat groups.  One (Task Force Red) was made solely of Infiltrators and included Uxia McNeill (Covert Action version); the other (Task Force Blue) consisted mostly of fire support for an Irmandinho and a Kaplan Engineer.  I went into this mission really lamenting the lack of an infiltrating Engineer/Hacker/Specialist-other-than-Uxia, because it made me feel like I was really limited in terms of the options I could bring to bear against my opponent.  This lack also made me feel like I had to bring Uxia or lose the match before it even started.  Not my idea of good mission design.

One highlight, though: my Loup-Garou (with Viral Rifle and Flash LGL) drew a bead on at least three models, putting down two of them as they tried to run for the objective and/or kill my Irmandinho.  I'm definitely enjoying the models that generate multiple-wound AROs: they're useful against pretty much anything, and necessary against factions like ALEPH.

In short, though, I think Bayruun and I were both frustrated that the game was over in under 15 minutes - the suggested length of time for a single player to take a single turn at this difficulty.  Neither of us live very close to our LGS, so we were hoping for...I don't know...more of a game for our troubles.  In the end, I walked away with 3 objective points and Bayruun had scored one.  He'd lost his Spec Ops model to a Camo attack, and I lost Uxia to the ship's explosion.  All in all, it hardly seemed worth it.

Bayruun and I sat around and talked for a while afterwards, though, so not all was lost.  Still...I was really expecting more from 301, especially after hearing that people were scoring in the teens.  Oh well, 302 should be better.  Right?