After a period off, Rapacious Eurybia challenges Pugnacious Eos to battle, both in their 3rd configuration. Now this was an interesting battle as it also served as something of a test-match between a Titan with two coolant systems and a Titan with two capacitors. As avid Titanomachina fans may recall, Eos has a powerful late-game with the two capacitors because They can push a card advantage despite even thirsty systems like Eos' third configuration (plasma shotgun, rocket pod, laser blade). Eurybia, by contrast, has a powerful early game as systems are brought back into use long before their usual cool-down cycle through the deck would usually allow. In addition, I had decided to use this to my advantage for some psychological pressure to wear down my opponent because using Eurybia's somewhat weak third configuration (gun battery, laser battery, hand) armament in a concentrated salvo, saving it for deployment on round 4. My opponent was also slightly out of practice, in that a mid-game reminder about firing high explosive weapons at full spread (spreading the extra cogs from crew operation to secondary targets) nearly turned the tide. As it was the game ended in a 17VP to 16VP time-out as my opponent staged a heroic come-back that didn't quite make it. Nonetheless, it ameliorated some of my early game worries about the coolant system being too powerful as Eos hit back very effectively. Whether players merely need to be warned about how these systems perform, or these systems need further tweaking, remains an open question. Sometimes in these games it's fairly easy to see where the game turned, but I think in this game it was the gradual attrition of a series of decisions that saw me squeak out a win for Eurybia.
Eurybia deploys in the middle of the board on tile 55 facing south, and invites Eos to come get some. Eos indulges Eurybia and deploys on tile 25 also facing south, deployed to shoot Eurybia in Her back.
Eurybia has a plan though, or at least Her master crew does and he operates an arm to swing Eurybia around drive an elbow into Eos after They casually announce their presence with a sweep of Their own arm, crushing a pink habitat. Eos blocks this elbow with Their plasma shotgun, and staggers, but holds position. Before They can fire Their jump-jets, Eurybia launches a side-kick to Eos' rocket pod, forcing Eos to face launching Themselves into a block of buildings. Eos de-activates the jump jets, and hooking a foot into a nearby pink habitat reverses the momentum to square up with Eurybia.
Eurybia is no fool, and doesn't want to give the game away, because She knows Eos is going to run and hope Eurybia wastes Her energy chasing. So when Eos jumps and backhands a pink habitat upon landing Eurybia makes a big display of Her available systems, but only activates a leg to kick Herself back to facing south.
Cooly and deliberately Eurybia activates an initiate crew to operate Her left arm and smash down a yellow and blue building as Eos tries to bait Her into pursuit. As Eurybia uses Her other initiate crew to super-cool that arm and crew though, Eos kicks a green and pink building down...
Now Eurybia's weapons array comes online, and Her rapacious personality comes to the fore as She blitzes blue buildings with Her right-armed gun battery and detects a pink habitat in tile 36 and Her adherent crew uses another coolant system to super-cool the guns and Her fury, and Her crew again to operate Her primary sensor and detect a pink building in tile 67. Eos is not idle though, jumping further south, coming about west, and detecting a blue building in tile 91.
Things slow down as both Titans take a moment to consider their positions. Eurybia spots a second story to the pink building on tile 63, and Eos slides north to re-engage...
The dance begins as Eurybia works to draw a bead on Euryba and They dance around, delivering a sharp, shocking blast of plasma from Eos' plasma shotgun! Eurybia loses Her card advantage...
Eurybia lashes out, knocking Eos into a building in 76, crushing the yellow habitat topping it, but Eos is still up, and dances back around north behind Eurybia!
Another full spread of rockets into Eurybia's back right, bursting shields over shield generators, and blasting Eurybia's back and right extra armour systems into scrap! Eurybia's return fire with Her gun battery shatters Eos' frontal armour, and lightly damaging Their rocket pod, but the damage is mounting more radidly now.
Finally it's a last minute scramble to try and squeeze some points out of a considerably flatter battlefield, with Eos punching the pink habitat in 47 to flinders, and then using Their laser blade to destroy the pink building on tile 67 while Eurybia smashes blue habitats in 67 and 74. A tight finish, and nine rounds can cool and load a lot of counter-factuals...
I think my strategy of playing Eurybia as if I was playing for an early ring-out worked pretty well, but maybe not as well as if I had started working on the buildings early and let my opponent engage at will. That said, Eos' third configuration is a bastard and if my opponent had recalled the full spread rule sooner, perhaps the game would have gone very differently.
I'm still concerned somewhat about the balance between coolant and capacitor systems. As noted coolant benefits a Titan's early game, and capacitors allow it to resort to bullying in the late game. The difference in feelings using such systems, and the discrete advantage coolant systems lend to low-power system, makes me think I need to check hiw they currently work. I'd be happy not to tweak the coolant system again though, and I may be running out of levers to adjust the system.
