Last night a gracious Tethys Quaternary configuration faced off against pugnacious Styxx Senary configuration, with my opponent taking the initiative and the configuration of the pink Titan that starts with its entire complement of habitat blocks on the board. I was starting with only 18 on the board, putting me at 6 down to start. But Styxx mounts three sensor systems, and I could put up 12 or so in the course of the game. Perhaps more. I was planning on a knock-out, using the plasma howitzer to suppress a card advantage by forcing Tethys to use extra armour to defend, and generally setting up shots and pruning buildings with Styxx' other weapons. I understand that my opponent was looking forward to caving Styxx in with full-spread rocket barrages. Without the initiative I demurred to skulking Styxx around in the north -west quadrant (south is up in the images), instead of trying to bottle Tethys up in the south-est quadrant. I still set up in range in the hopes that my opponent wouldn't wait for a clear shot and try to guide it in with Tethys' lone sensor array. There was also a meaty vein of prink buildings that could be cleared efficiently.
Something that I noticed was that by the buildings getting decimated, line of sight not only opened up, but line of sight to further targets. Part of the difficulty in placing buildings was detecting them where they could not be immediately or efficiently engaged by my opponent. To further complicate things, while that was an easy way to get points, it required me to ease pressure on my opponent which allowed him to slowly recover card advantage. Which meant that, at the end when my opponent had won, my opponent could afford to forgo placing a 4-habitat building, but instead walked over and saved Styxx the trouble of kicking Herself! My opponent conducted something of a scorched-earth campaign that took the initial advantage in buildings, and pushed it pretty high. I was not able to recover, and frankly it could have been worse.
Not setting up in Tethys' face gave me time to load up my hand with Styxx's systems, either options to be taken, or power for those options. Tethys used three cards to kick a building and gradually advance into the roundabout at tile 26. I showed all three of Styxx's weapons so that my opponent was aware Styxx was ready to shoot. My opponent put Tethys' adherent crew on deck to operate next round.
Here my opponent makes a choice. Actually, my opponent probably made that choice before, when activating the Adherent crew. The choice is accepting some friendly fire from rockets destroying pink buildings, just so that green is pushed further into a points deficit. It's cold and fishy, and very much in character for Tethys. Tethys blasts the two buildings in front of Styxx to rubble with a cunningly aimed spread of rockets. Styxx needed to start moving, and I play an arm without activating it to play for time and to let my opponent know Styxx had slowed down. Then I play another arm to move forward into plasma howitzer range. I need to get a shot off. My opponent backs Tethys off against the tile 59 on the western edge of the board. My master, who I was prepared to activate to fire the shot, stood down on the general principal that I was willing to wait, and needed to conserve cards anyways.
As Tethys' crew takes an early break, I activate with Styxx's un-activated arm from last round, closing the fire and pivoting to center the plasma howitzer on Tethys. We both activate master crew, and it looks like it's time to brace for an exchange of fire. Getting hit by a barrage of rockets isn't going to stop me from melting one of Tethys' armour pieces. Tethys is gracious however, and declines a churlish exchange of fire, preferring to swing up the north-west road to settle in waiting being a line of buildings in tiles 43 and 34.
Now, I can probably see through those buildings using Styxx's sensors, but I see an opportunity that I had planned for, namely three exposed pink habitats I can pick off using the the turret and adherent crew. So I somewhat unwisely indulge in this spree of destruction (and discovery as Styxx detects a two-tall green habitat in tile 94. See, at this point there was still places to detect buildings without worrying to much about Tethys hammering them flat with rockets. The gap has been narrowed in points, but I believe I over-extended Styxx here, and ended up paying for it by ending up with a card deficit.
Now Tethys starts running, getting past Styxx in the middle of the board, dodging past a Styxx that was expecting them to stay and exchange blows, and allowed Herself to indulge in detecting a building in tile 61 and then detecting Tethys hiding behind those buildings. Styxx awkwardly transitioned from a fighting position to chasing Tethys down the south-east road. Both stomped or kicked habitats during the chase. Styxx lands a solid kick, but Tethys soaks it on a shielded left leg and that slews Her around to face Styxx.
Styxx was chasing Tethys, for sure, but again, the goal at this point as primarily to play catch-up taking out pink buildings as efficiently as possible. Part of that was threatening Tethys, and my opponent pretty successfully kiting me with Tethys. Some shields were popped and armour shattered, but nothing Styxx or gracious Tethys couldn't handle; nothing substance or irreplaceable.
Meanwhile, Tethys' continues to pancake the city with massive, deliberate salvos of rockets, not simply picking off green habitats, but demolishing the blocks of buildings containing them. In perhaps an example of psychological warfare, my opponent made sure every yellow and blue habitat was placed with the green habitats on my side of the table. Not that I hadn't made peace with collateral damage as once again I spent four cards with the vulcan gun to remove three buildings, including a blue habitat). I try to use the capacitor to staunch the bleeding (of cards).
I was running low on cards, but I reasoned that while my opponent was definitely going to get some free actions after Styxx ran out of gas he also probably had four extra armour cards in hand that wouldn't really contribute at this point. Slowing Tethys down is good too, so I stagger Styxx over to tile 66 with a kick to the pink habitat in 76. My opponent backs
I had Styxx take a last couple of swings, but it was too little, too late, and I had run Styxx out of gas while my opponent was winning, which is not how you want to do these things. I used Styxx's arms to destroy habitats in 75 and 43, while Tethys annihilated habitats in tiles 28, 74 and 73, as well as detecting a habitat in tile 94, seizing the initiative, and kicking Styxx up the ass, destroying Her left deflector array. A nice little injury to go with the insult of pushing 6 missing green habitats to 16. Without anything more than scuffed armour and perhaps some fining of the rocket launcher repair (by the grace of the Titan and assisted by junior crew), the final score was 11 victory points to 8. That was from starting scores for 24 to 18. So while I did not win, I was successful in closing the gap somewhat.
So while I had started out with a plan, my opponent out-played me, and perhaps even out-thought me if the production of "hmm" sounds counts as measure. I did make a couple of mistakes, including forgetting to draw five cards at the end of round 3, which maybe could have turned out differently had I started the round with the card hand. At the time I figured it was a pretty good round and that the five forgotten cards probably kept me in the game after squandering card advantage. Styxx really is a squamous lizard mech, requiring slow, careful pacing before tearing into an opponent, and giving chase to Tethys (and ostensibly slower Titan) gassed Styxx out. Gears were definitely ground today.
I think my opponent raised an interesting point, in that Tethys' 24 starting habitats really lend themselves well to sacrificing a few to rocket barrages where senior crew can operate the rocket pods and optimize their spread. Losing one pink habitat to destroy two green habitats, even going at a 1:1 ratio may be a winning strategy where Styxx starts off 6 in the hole. Which is why I was aiming for the knock-out, because as the game went on I was losing places to hide buildings when a well-aimed rocket pod could take out nearly an entire two-floor block of buildings. Splitting senior crew between limbs keeping Tethys moving and kicking habitats, and rockets flattening entire blocks, one can see
So two strategic mistakes. The first was not deploying for the first shot and aligning shields to tank the rockets I would have had to soak in order to get that in. The second was not seizing the initiative earlier, allowing Tethys to duck, dodge, dive, and waddle around me in a big circle or fish-icon. I failed to do this, but doing so would have been bad with good deployment. Specifically I should never have pinged Tethys, and instead kept the sensor at low power to scan and seize the initiative.
Still, despite making a wasteland and calling it victory, glory to gracious Tethys! Glory to my opponent!
