Because I am of a certain age I like to imagine the soundtrack from Mortal Kombat (1995) when starting a game, but there was a comment by my esteemed opponent (here Harvey24) that he was reminded of A Clockwork Orange (1971) in terms of ultra-violence and a distinct disregard for collateral damage, so I was suddenly in the mood for Beethoven.
Appropriate soundtrack aside, I drew the Rapacious personality and so took Styxx's Configuration 4 (Digitigrade Legs, Big Arms, Turret, Macro Gun, Plasma Shotguns). Harvey24 drew the Sagacious personality and chose Rhea's Configuration 1 (Plantigrade Legs, Arms, Sponsons, Laser Batteries, Macro Gun, Hand). That gave me the initiative, and so I decided to set up Styxx in the middle of the board, with shields evenly distributed in expectation of attack from any quarter. Hereafter I'll refer to us as the Titans whom we're role-playing, Harvey24 as Rhea and myself as Styxx. Rhea was starting at 19 for habitat buildings, and I was starting at 9(!) for buildings.
Things started off slowly and carefully as we both decided to announce our respective presences by destroying some buildings. I had a 10VP deficit to make up, and Rhea was determined to stop me!
Taunting Styxx, Rhea moved out into the open, still hunting the green habitats while back up against the edge of the board and vulnerable to a ring-out. Any such attempt would have resulted in a victory for Rhea, as She was still far ahead on buildings, and the +5VPs for a ring-out endgame wouldn't also provide Styxx with victory.
Taking Her time, Styxx begins an advance, lazily lashing out with both plasma shotgun and swinging leg to keep smashing those yellow habitats (and any other colour unfortunate enough to be stacked as buildings!). Rhea bides Her time...
Styxx continues Her slow advance, making sure to stop and kick a yellow habitat into the ground.
Rhea's preparation does not go in vain, and operated by the adherent crew previously activated, Rhea skids past Styxx on the left to avoid Styxx's right-hand plasma shotgun, and cranks up Her own port shields.
Labouring to get that plasma shotgun on target, Styxx activates Her right arm and hauls around to get Rhea in Her sights again.
Rhea swings Herself out of the way, again ducking past Styxx on Styxx's left and lands an elbow in a green habitat again. Thanks to Styxx's rapacious personality She spots a green habitat where sensors had previously read an empty lot. She continues to charge Her systems, getting ready to unleash hell. Notably, however, Rhea activates Her sagacious personality and seizes the initiative...
Styxx brings Her left arm into play, turning the 180° into a 360° and now bearing down on Rhea with not only a plasma shotgun, but Her recharged macro gun.
Rhea continues to use the initiative to skip around Styxx, again forcing Her niece to come about and re-target. Fortunately the Styxx in this configuration has two capacitors, both the Plasma Cell and the Plasma Capacitor, allowing Her left arm to use full power and swing Her around yet again...
Almost shot in the back, in the sponson yoke, with a initiate-operated macro gun, Rhea managed to block with Her prow armour leaning back taking the hits on the shields protecting Her chest and arms.
The barrage continues as Styxx vents Her fury on the aunt that had tried to elude Her weaponry, and Rhea manages to block with the extra armour plating on Her left, port side. While Rhea's shields absorb the impact, She is still shocked by the actinic discharge of ichorplasma.
Running low on power, and needing a quick breather, both Titans' crews scramble to repair damage and get shield coverage back up.
Both Titans begin to glow as ichorplasma is shunted around their hulls, charging their systems, and the crews prepare for the next clash. Styxx once again finds a green habitat where sensors and census had not registered one before. Rhea activates an initiate crew to operate some system in anticipation of the next round.
While Styxx readies Herself to pounce, Rhea activates an arm, operated by the initiative crew, to get moving out of the way and to square off against Her niece.
Styxx opens fire with Her macro gun, aiming to keep Rhea's own macro gun out of the fight while the plasma shotguns charge, and Rhea is slewed to the right under the hammering impact of high explosive shells.
Rhea backs off, and Styxx activates a capacitor for full power to the macro gun, running the barrels hot. Rhea raises Her hand to block, and in doing so brings Herself square again to Styxx. Her back up against the edge again, and shields depleted, things are looking grim for Rhea.
But Rhea still has the initiative and edges along the road sideways so that She can use Her laser battery to pick off another green building, reasoning that so long as She can stay in the lead She is actually safer on the edge there.
But Styxx's blood is up, and the calm, cold-blooded patience that had served Her so well is abandoned as She realizes Her aunt is back on Her heels. Styxx advances, smashing habitats as She goes.
Here's where things start to go wrong for Styxx. Rhea can't see Styxx, and activating a sensor to scan finds a yellow habitat blocking the line of sight. Styxx logs it and spotting another green habitat stomps into position (smashing another yellow habitat) to push Rhea off the board for a ring-out victory.
Styxx smashes the building in between Her and Her aunt, casually brushing it aside to line up Her bulk for a swift kick.
A shot of opportunity from Her plasma shotgun, to disrupt Rhea's ability to defend Herself, and to hopefully provoke a block, and then Styxx sails in with a flying kick to Rhea's prow. Rhea successfully blocks with her macro gun and takes the hit on Her shields. Styxx gambled, and now has nothing left having over-extended Herself. Rhea's crew, an adherent and an initiate, are activated to operate (co-operate, if you will) something.
That something is a hand. Using the initiative, the hand's Shield Breaker (2) trait and +3 operate bonus Rhea tears off Styxx's right-hand plasma shotgun, and sends Styxx reeling back. Where a ring-out would have seen Styxx win by ~2VP, Styxx is now down 7VP (+4VP for the destroyed plasma shotgun, 3VPs ahead for buildings). Ouch!
Styxx opts to get back on track and charge up Her systems, activating an initiate crew to conduct some damage control on the right arm where it was damaged when the plasma shotgun was so violently and ostentatiously torn off. Rhea raises Her shields, getting ready for another frontal assault.
Not that Rhea intends to be the victim of such an assault, and She backs up into Styxx's reduced fore-quarter. In a fit of pique, realizing the score is against Her, Styxx doesn't give chase, but launches Herself in a flying back-kick into one of the tall towers near where Rhea started the contest, knocking off the yellow habitat at the top.
Rhea prepares to strike, reading an initiate crew to operate a system, and charges while Styxx does likewise while spotting another green building that hadn't registered on the map before.
Rhea activates a Her left arm, and swats a green habitat in the process of swinging Herself around to again face Her niece cowering behind the tall building off Her port. Styxx decides discretion is the better part of valour, and social awareness is part of discretion, activating Her sensors to detect another green habitat far off where Rhea is unlikely to destroy it.
For Her part Rhea can see plenty of other green habitat buildings and activates Her macro gun to turn one into a crater.
Roaring now, and ready to shove Rhea off the board for good this time, Styxx activates an adherent crew to operate Her left big arm, and swing Her around the building and into contact. Rhea swiftly activates crew to operate Her own systems, once again co-operating for maximal effect.
Stepping backwards, Rhea circles the pink habitat protecting Styxx's own port side, and boots Styxx right in the deflectors, sending Styxx staggering right. With a charged macro gun queued up, Styxx panics and activates Her turret; a ring-out may be out of the question, but She'll still hurt something dammit!
Rhea spots a yellow habitat right behind Styxx, preventing Styxx from simply reversing out of the vulnerable position She is now in. In terms in inflicting actual hurt, the macro gun's stream of high explosive shells does little but burst the shields protecting Rhea's prow and left arm, destroying the extra armour on Her prow, slewing Rhea left and aggravating Her.
Realizing Her predicament Styxx comes about, careful to stomp on that very same yellow habitat, while Rhea is once again activating Her adherent crew.
Rhea closes for a flying elbow with Her right arm, forcing Styxx to choose between being pushed out for a ring out, or not being able to attack with Her plasma shotgun. Styxx blocks the attack with Her shotgun, and while it takes no damage, losing only a shield token and getting slewed to the right, She is running out of systems that can block.
In the final round Rhea continues hammering Styxx, who blocks with Her right arm, and finally, out of systems that can block, is sent sailing off the board by Rhea's side kick just as Her master crew spots something on the sensors... (I had a sensor ready and was about to find four green habitats in the corner there).
The final score is 18-7 for Rhea! Rhea scored 9VP for nine yellow habitat buildings on the board (looks like I made up that 10VP deficit...), 4VP for destroying that plasma shotgun, and 5VP for causing the ring-out. Styxx scored 6VP for green buildings on the board, and 1VP for that extra armour (woo!).
This game had many notable features, the least of which was that the ending score was lower than the starting score for both player!
Likewise there was only a very small amount of actual damage done thanks to heavy use of both crew to repair light damage (that could be exploited in further rounds) and shields to raise and restore shield token coverage. With Styxx starting with only 9 habitats, I had to smash both buildings and the other Titan, and my opponent Harvey24 played a great defensive game at the start dancing around me. Styxx, particularly in this configuration, really rewards patience as a player needs to charge it up quite a bit in order to get off the combinations and rates of fire needed to get some momentum. You need to be willing to wait entire rounds while doing almost nothing; the rapacious personality really came in handy, and I dropped it whenever possible to get it moving through the deck.
However, where I was playing 10+ cards a round we observed that the charge time for certain preferred systems such as the Plasma Shotguns was considerably shorter than usual, presumably because they could be stacked at the top of the other 9+ discarded cards going on the bottom of the deck, and didn't have one or two rounds of draws to wait to be drawn into my hand. The combination of this, meaning I got my plasma shotguns every three rounds or so, and the two capacitors meant they fired much more often than the usual math might indicate. So long as I kept up a slow, careful barrage things would go very well, especially since the shock would likewise disrupt my opponent.
The turning point is rather obvious in that I charged in trying to go for a ring-out (previously I would have tied the game, discouraging me from trying for it earlier) and exhausted my Titan, allowing my opponent not only to rally, but to deliver a devastating blow. Bad timing and bad tempo, for me. In destroying my Plasma Shotgun not only did my opponent manage to cancel the punishing rate of fire I was managing with two of them and two capacitors, but scored 4VPs, pushed me out of position, and grabbed the momentum for themselves.
Aside from over-extending my Titan when I should have taken it slow and methodically, I didn't once seize the initiative from my opponent, allowing them to virtually dance around me, and leading to me getting hurled out of the ring instead because my opponent could use the agility of their Titan to get into position where hitting me first counted for everything. Had they not scored the ring-out, then the score would have been 13-11, and without that plasma shotgun 9-11 (and possibly better with the ability to inflict damage via said shotgun).
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