Titanomachina: Quaternary Quarrel

After last week's scaly violence, last night's donnybrook saw Sagacious Rhea knock out Rapacious Eos in round 9, for a score of 29-25. Instead of the battlefield being flattened in an egregious display of collateral damage, only four habitats weren't detected, and actual increase in the number of surviving yellow habitats prior to Rhea's arrival. Eos only lost one habitat from the 24 They came to protect from Rhea' opportunism, although the loss of an arm, armour, and both gun batteries perhaps has Eos regretting Their choice of configuration. My plan, such as it was, was to use Eos quaternary configuration's arms and light weapons to methodically chase and dismantle my opponent's choice of Titan. My opponent went with Rhea's quaternary configuration, something packing more armour and heavier guns, but slower and perhaps less agile. 

The armour wasn't an issue, as I had planned to knock it off Rhea with Eos' guns and hand, and it was this notion of maintaining the initiative that caused me to succumb to temptation and line up my senior crew behind the laser battery and take the opportunity to stab Rhea through both layers of frontal armour and and render Her sensor too heavily damaged to effectively function. The idea was to eliminate Rhea's protection and initiative so that Eos could deliver a knock-out blow. My opponent, however, took the initiative and did something similar to Eos, utilizing the high explosive effect of Rhea's macro-guns to disable first Eos' superior mobility, and then chew off the armour protecting Their gun batteries. While both Titans where capable of using their sensors to detect buildings, and were well suited to clearing buildings, stabbing Rhea in the eye with lasers and being ahead on buildings meant that my opponent's option for winning was a direct confrontation, and I had been gambling on my opponent trying to win on buildings. I think Eos quaternary would have been a good choice had I not had the first choice of Titan, as a reaction to a Titan like Tethys quaternary from last week; I certainly found myself wishing Eos had brought some plasma howitzers. 

I had the initiative and perhaps deployed too conservatively given how I was packing both guns and the laser battery in the initial load of systems I drew to my hand. I wasn't terribly interested in getting into an immediate exchange of fire though, and figured I could go right or left depending on the direction of ambush. I think setting up closer to the middle of the board like my opponent ultimately chose was the better more as I would have the first shot and then could manoeuvre. I'm not sure this was a mistake, but given my opponent chose a gun-boat, and what happened the last time I had set up there, I'm not sure it was a great idea either. 

Round 1 was something of a battle of nerves, which is to say I don't think either of us wanted to go first. Me because I was in cover and had the initiative, which meant that my opponent could react to me leaving cover before I could shoot, and my opponent perhaps because he didn't have the initiative and was well-wary of wasting Rhea's limited power supply and allowing Eos to overwhelm Rhea's endurance with capacitor-fueled action. Sometimes it's two samurai squinting stonily at each other, and sometimes it's two fighters shaking out theirs shoulders and stretching their necks...

Well, Rhea wasn't going to exhaust Herself, so I announce Eos' presence by caving in a yellow habitat, hoping to give the impression of preparing to go on a rampage. Rhea understands the taunt, but replies by detecting a two-habitat-tall building behind Eos; "Look," she seems to say, "I have two more just like it." Eos cracks out Their back, flexes Their front armour, and curtsies. Rhea directs Her master crew to aim the right macro gun in a rude gesture, but not to fire. 

Rhea has shown Her hand, so to speak, and so Eos comes charging through the pink habitat left from Their initial attack on that building, and locks in for a shot; Rhea aims Her left macro gun at Eos' laser battery and staggers Eos back as They block the shot with leg armour, with the blast catching Eos' exposed back-left arm. Eos is patient though, this was expected, and keeps a Rhea in Their sights while Their master crew helps the adherent crew aim. As Rhea stomps closers, Eos unleashes a precise set of laser beams that burst Rhea's front shields, and carve deep into Her front like claws raked across the face and chest of a human. Rhea isn't phased as She blasts Eos again, and punches Them as Eos tries to capitalize on the gaping holes in Rhea's front; Rhea still has plenty of armour, and in Her wisdom (or perhaps in the wisdom of Her master crew) has not fired Her vulcan guns yet. Eos' elevated rate of activity will come back to haunt them in later rounds as card advantage has been sacrificed... 

Now as Eos attempts to suck wind and re-fire Her ichorplasma spiracles Rhea seizes the initiative and unloads with Her vulcan guns. Eos gets Their shields back up, somewhat, and isn't knocked off the battlefield, but They waste their rapaciousness and perhaps power turning around somewhat...

Eos needs to get away from the edge of the battlefield to avoid a ring-out, and has a hand available, so They chase Rhea and try to smash Her into buildings in tile 37, but only succeeds in tearing the armour off Her side. Rhea holds Her patience, if not Her dignity, and kicks Eos for good measure.

Now my tunnel vision starts to tell, as I get Eos to keep firing in the hopes of capitalizing on Rhea's loss of armour: if I seize the initiative now my opponent can't get it back for Rhea until the sagacious personality is loaded to his hand in round 8. But first I have another crack at taking Rhea's head, but Rhea has the initiative and in the exchange of fire damages my gun battery, and I fail to destroy Rhea's back armour as She takes the shot on Her back armour. Here is where I think I made a major mistake, something easily identifiable as such, which was turning to face Rhea. Admittedly it meant that I had shields between Eos and Rhea, but taking cover would have helped more next round where Eos had lost card advantage. 

Now that lack of cover starts to hurt as I scramble to minimize incoming damage and Rhea keeps hammering Eos with perfectly functional systems. It's worth noting that while Eos is defending themselves, and I'm actually still winning at this point, Eos is out of gas and rapidly running out of functional body parts. 

As Rhea keeps beating on Eos I keep trying for an offensive solution to a defensive action, and while raising shields on Eos' damaged sponson helps absorb some of the damage from a hefty kick, Eos is down to 10% shields and is one good hit away from something bad. 

A pair of kicks from Eos does not prevent Their dismemberment, and fails to stomp in Rhea's vulnerable, tenderized face. Eos is bracketed and battered by Rhea, first losing one gun battery, then an arm, and finally the left gun battery to an enthusiastic stomp from Rhea. With the loss of the second gun battery the score of destroyed systems was 8 VPs for Rhea and 2 VPs for Eos, scoring a knock-out win for my opponent and mighty Rhea! Unfortunately I managed to lose the screen-shot that would have recorded the exact end-state of the board, perhaps related to this final position shot that I have used here, as it would help readers understand some of my post-game thoughts. 

The first of which is that Eos Quaternary is not meant to exchange heavy hits with another Titan, but instead is supposed to go for board-control, using Their suite of light-weight, low-powered weapons and unusually high number of limbs to dance around opponents while laying waste to their habitats. For the purposes of a punching match, this configuration of Eos is under-powered. Could I have done that with my opponent attempting something similar? I think so had I started the game more centrally and more aggressively, so that each weapon could be activated three times in the course of a 9-round game, and perhaps spread my shields out to protect Eos' rear arms to maintain mobility. Where I had planned to absorb hits on my leg armour, I should have expected my opponent to use the high explosive trait of the macro-guns to slip that damage in. Losing the armour would have been less painful that losing the arms. 

Additionally, despite the utter temptation, I should not have made that laser shot. I could have done something similar with the left gun battery, and either done damage to Rhea's guns (initial target) or knocked Rhea back into the habitats at the center of the board. Likewise I should have used the hand to bottle Rhea instead of grappling, as exchange of leg armour for facing benefitted Rhea much more than Eos.

Most of all, and this happens in most board games and wargames, is that I need to remember that I am not fighting the last battle, but the next battle. It's one thing to suppose that because an opponent turned left in the previous game that they will then turn left in the next game, particularly as the local conditions change. It's more a case of remembering the tricks and tactics that they used in the previous game so that they can't pull it over on you in the next game. Which is funny, after a fashion, because having flattened the board in the previous game this was the slug-fest I was planning on having. 

From a game designer perspective this game was fantastic for how I have envisioned the game to play and to be experienced, in the sense that I had a material strategy (Eos quaternary) that might have worked out but for my mistakes, effective counter-play by my opponent, and a critical switch in the initiative that I had anticipated but not fully prepared to counter (the idea being to knock out my opponent's ability to control the initiative). Plus a knock-out win!

So glory to my opponent and glory to Rhea! Maybe revenge needs plasma weaponry...

Titanomachina: Sheer Hubris

Last week my regular opponent made an error stepping into the danger zone, and paid for it with a round 2 ring-out. This week, it was my turn to seize defeat from the jaws of victory. This week was a full 9-round game, ending on a time-out, and finishing with a 14-13 in favour of Pugnacious Styxx (quaternary configuration) over Sagacious Rhea (primary configuration). Aside from a brief stab in the leg with a macro laser, and an incredible barrage of rockets on round 5, Styxx exercised a careful restraint on direct confrontation that lead to an eventual win on round 9. Perhaps it is worth noting that my opponent likes to conduct a tactical and strategic dialog (monolog?) on the voice chat, and I have confirmed that (a) my opponent likes to tell lies about strategy, and (b) is pretty good at mind games. Because of that chat I dropped the game when a crushing and impressive victory was in Rhea's grasp, thinking that I had sufficient reason not to pull it off, and plan B suffered from a laser to the knee. Afterwards my opponent graciously pointed out my error and perhaps a bit of vengeance was vowed. 

I had the initiative, being sagacious, and since Rhea can take a hit I decided that deploying in tile 55, the center of the board, facing east was the easiest. Strategically-speaking I had front-loaded all of Rhea's weapons and crew with the notion of having all my weapons and crew in hand to threaten my opponent. Likewise I juiced up the shields over my legs because I wanted it clear where any incoming fire was going to be absorbed. 

Of course I shouldn't have given Styxx room to breathe, but given that I had the initiative (and no ability to move or turn) it seemed like a good idea to see if Styxx was going to do anything. Styxx was, but Styxx was going to charge up a bit first.

Round 2 things start to get hot, as I walk Rhea southeast to kick a green habitat at tile 76 while Styxx activates Her turret. Rhea turns to get Styxx in line of sight and arc to Her macro gun, but Styxx isn't having it fire a rocket pod, missing Rhea and destroyed habitats in tiles 67 and 76 with high explosive rockets. Styxx isn't getting away so easily though, and Rhea clips Her with a macro gun before She can jump to cover in road tile 71. 

Still comfortably ahead on buildings, and with the initiative, Rhea turns west, takes a few strides, and then double-jumps over the buildings of road tile 63 to land in front of Styxx. Styxx is prepared and has an initiate crew member shoot Rhea in the leg. Thanks to the crew's operation, the laser penetrates Rhea's armour and slices into Her leg, causing light damage. Now Rhea's master crew steps up to operate a system, but Styxx fires Her own thrusters and jumps over Rhea, landing north of Her, on Her rite side where the macro gun is still re-loading. Styxx needs some space before firing Her capacitor, but it looks like there isn't time!

Rhea, emboldened by Her master crew on deck starts things off with a reverse elbow to crunch in Styxx's back-right, bursting a shield and turning Her around. Styxx has activated Her own master crew, to operate a leg to back Styxx away from Rhea at high speed. As Styxx retreats Rhea activates Her adherent crew and detects a tall yellow building in between two other buildings capped with yellow habitats, and Styxx fires Her capacitor to make sure this escape doesn't leave Her a sitting duck, 

Sure enough, Rhea walks around the block of buildings at 63, macro gun reloaded and looking to shoot someone. As Styxx prepares to fire Her rocket pod, activating a turret and adherent crew, Rhea wings Her, and She blocks the shot on Her left leg armour, preventing the explosion from catching Her rocket pod. Slewed around the tall yellow building is right in Styxx's sights and it comes crashing down as the tops of the two buildings beside it are also blown up! Styxx isn't done yet though, and activates Her coolant system, hot-loading the rocket pod again to blow up even more yellow habitats in tile 47. Rhea is shocked out of reverie as Her seven point lead evaporates in a storm of high explosive rockets!

Rhea piles in now, as Styxx scans with Her frontal armour and takes the initiative, meeting Styxx as She heads to the middle of the board, a kick, a bottling, and a body-slam later Styxx jumps over Rhea again (narrowly avoiding a ring-out) and lands in the middle of the battlefield, tile 55. 

Rhea hauls around and moves to chase Styxx as She runs north and then doubles back southwest to place a row of buildings between them, kicking a yellow habitat to smithereens on the way. Annoyed that Styxx is getting away, and clearly not needing it to defend Herself, Rhea runs a scan with Her leg armour and seizes the initiative back from Styxx!

Rhea isn't really chasing Styxx though, She is chasing Styxx's score and jumps forward in a blaze of gunfire and lasers to flatten the block of buildings in tile 43 and trim the green habitats off of tile 63. Meanwhile Styxx backs up to stay in cover, and gets Her adherent crew on deck for something next round...

Armed with the initiative, all the cards anyone could want or need on round 9, Styxx is still in a tricky position. But I see that Rhea could get a ring-out by lining up for a body-slam, operating the thrusters with my master crew to push Styxx through the green buildings that She detected on tile 14, and then a quick punch to send Her off the board for a +9VP swing to me. However, my resolve falters on the progression of the cards played, and it looks like Styxx can still block an attach from Rhea. So I take Rhea off to mash some green habitats in tile 47, but not realizing Rhea's bum knee stops Her from taking out the last green habitat on tile 37. Styxx manages to spray the buildings I put up in tile 61 at the start of the round to push the score ahead one, and I walk Rhea back to tile 44 to end the game. And then my opponent asked why I didn't just jump Rhea into the buildings behind Styxx (tile 14). And I wonder why I didn't just jump Rhea into those green buildings and handily win the game.

I think, after that round 5 'macross missile madness' I perhaps got a little tilted, perhaps a little tunnel-vision, and maybe should have been thinking about all the things I could do rather than fixating on that one really cool thing where I try to kick the football and my opponent yanks that football away by blocking the attack. It might have worked though. It might have worked... Fortunately there is always another game, so glory to Styxx and glory to my opponent!  

Titanomachina: Prometheus and Epimethius

Alas, I am not introducing the famous and famously pro-human Titans to the game but instead trying to explain how it was that I was soundly defeated as rapacious Styxx (secondary config.) by sagacious Tethys (secondary config) despite what looked like a decent 7-rounds of play in a 9-round game. The answer is found in retrospect, the domain of Epimethius, but could have likewise be attributed to perhaps thinking ahead, the domain of Promethius. You see, I have given thought to how Styxx fits into the game and whether it's a weak build or hopefully requiring a different style of play, so I should have had a better plan. The problem, of course, is that I didn't really have a plan besides bullying my opponent and detecting short, two-habitat buildings. I think my deployment of Styxx reflects this, and my opponent capitalized on this by staging an ambush on Styxx's less defensive side. By starting the fight off early, my opponent was able to develop and maintain a card advantage by threatening Styxx with an early game injury. Additionally, my opponent casually threatened Styxx with a plasma shotgun, holding it in reserve, deploying it unactivated and then drawing it back to hand for potential use/threat next round. 

What could I have done about that? After all, Styxx benefits from having some time to build up some power. Well, given that I had the initiative, I would have gotten the first shot, and with 8 cards in the first draw, and I think a salutory exchange of fire in round 1 would have been best. While Tethys is a hard nut to crack, there's very little in the game that won't suffer a macro laser. So that is option one, to deploy first with weapons, crew, and turret loading first so anyone attempting to ambush Styxx regrets it. I did not do this... Alternately, and in the opposite direction, I could have loaded Styxx's arms and legs first, so that I had the option of moving Her in any direction, or even twice that round, to give Styxx some agility in responding to the ambush. Which I did not do either, even sacrificing Styxx's thrusters for some dubious benefit when having them to jump behind cover would have been much better. 

So as you can see, using the Titanomachina coordinate system, Styxx is deployed 25S with Tethys deploying 23SW, shields concentrated over legs and front while Tethys opts for a more conventional and fuller coverage of all around and twice on arms. West of Styxx, Tethys is on Styxx's claw side, which could have gone badly for Tethys had I thought to load Styxx's claw and capacitor in the first round draw. Tethys is well-positioned to be bottled using the habitat at 37 6P. A hard smack across the prow would see Tethys' turned left, and would either have to work to come back around, or hope that the plasma shotgun would work to slow Styxx down.

So rather than moving to engage Tethys, I had Styxx back off south-west up the street, and start detecting habitats to make up the starting deficit (6-4 Habitats), while kicking habitats (33 6P). Pink doesn't follow, but jumps forward, shadowing Styxx's south-west travel. 

Now I panic ever so slightly, having been informed by my opponent of how they plan to threaten Styxx with the plasma shotgun (which is, one must admit, probably integral to threatening someone with a shotgun) and I hold Styxx still hoping to loading more systems and power. Now my opponent back-pedals slightly, and gets Tethys' master crew on deck as its own kind of threat, having waved that shotgun at me. 

Since Tethys is managing to hold to Styxx' flank, I decide that I need to get Styxx turned around and facing down Tethys with Styxx's gun battery and macro laser. I want to shoot back. One arm pulls Styxx forward while another one spins Styxx a full 180 and that is a mistake because without a target available my opponent has Tethys' master crew operate Her lone sensor system to detect a 4-habitat tall pink building south at tile 94 (6-10-14-20P). Taking the bait I activate Styxx's turret, use Her thrusters to power Styxx's own master crew, and then the gun battery to destroy the building. Had I not turned Styxx 180 and instead just 90 then I wouldn't have needed to use the turret, and even with the master crew spent 3 cards to cancel a 4 card action by my opponent. To add insult to injury, Tethys also uses Her unused armour coverage to scan and seize the initiative, rather than desperately spending it on defense. Backing Tethys off, my opponent is making it more costly for Styxx to attack when I probably over-spent on defense. 

So round 4 involves me adding two green habitats to the board and my opponent subtracting two green habitats with a deft rocket pod attack on a row of buildings in the south-east quarter of the board, 67 and 76. This turns out to be worse for me because my opponent removes buildings outside of Styxx's line of sight, and I place a building inside of Tethys' line of sight. While the score doesn't shift, the advantage does, and given that I used Styxx's rapacious personality, and Styxx's positioning, I probably should have placed them over to the west. My thought at the time was to bait a trap for Tethys so my opponent would be tempted to come at Styxx directly, but as it turns out I was just playing into my opponent's hands. 

Getting carried away, perhaps, with all the cards in my hand, I launch Styxx forward, detecting more buildings in my trap and getting Styxx between them and Tethys, facing south and hoping to do something to Tethys with Styxx's claw, and hoping my opponent is worried about that. My opponent is not tremendously worried at all, and match's Styxx's fancy footwork with some dance moves of Tethys' own, seeing things end with Tethys once again on Styxx's flank and working on dismembering Styxx. So my opponent noticed the claw and perhaps even noticed my fixation on it at the expense of perhaps the more efficient gun battery that wouldn't be back in hand until round 7. 

Once again bravado took the place of real action, mainly because I was running Styxx on fumes, and my opponent was working on making sure that Styxx was bled dry, and unable to mount a proper offense. Using the turret, for example, to threaten Tethys with the claw was not very effective when Tethys had the plasma shotgun and a better angle. Nonetheless, we matched on master crews being put on deck to operate systems.

Now this round I felt like I had a chance to win it, perhaps even by ring-out, but even punching Tethys back and body-slamming Her through a couple of buildings on 33 didn't equalize the advantage like I had hoped, as putting some space between Styxx and Her green habitats behind Her meant that Tethys was able to leap-frog over Styxx and do a massive amount of damage with the plasma shotgun and Tethys' laser blade. Now dangerously close to the edge, I decided I probably had a better bet getting Tethys in a ring-out, revealing the trap She had unwittingly wandered into. 

My opponent wasn't having it though, and while I managed to kick Tethys through a green building (small sacrifices, right) Tethys reversed out of the situation and into cover. 

Without really thinking too hard about how Tethys now had more green habitats as targets, and Styxx had considerably fewer, I ran out the last round of the game trying (and failing) to equalize on habitats because I had burned my two available sensor systems to power Styxx's physical assault on Tethys in the previous couple of rounds. My opponent had, of course, carefully husbanded Tethys' lone sensor system and used it to make sure my last flailing actions were futile. 

So, again in retrospect, I definitely failed to consider well the layout of the board, even when my opponent noted how difficult it was to pick out green habitats using the weapons mounted on Tethys' secondary configuration, either high explosive or armour piercing, and thus prone to causing collateral damage. Clumping up buildings like that was asking for failure and my opponent jumped on it. 

Which isn't to say that my opponent wasn't clever in picking a strategy and patient in carrying it forward. It was a good idea to engage Styxx immediately, and to keep a threat like the plasma shotgun loaded and evident, but unused: a great example of how this game is about choosing between the first shot and the best shot, my opponent used Tethys' weapons where they counted most. It was also a good idea to use Tethys' superior agility and armour to keep Styxx bottled up in the south-east corner of the board once I had committed there. But they also benefitted hugely from my mistakes, and I think being prepared to counter-attack an ambush, or to exit an ambush, would have been better than staggering away and then staggering back. Yes, "don't get ambushed," is legitimate strategic advice, especially now we have all seen the results of what happens if you do. 

Final score? 17-12 for pink. Glory to Tethys and to my opponent!