4th AI Division – The Blue Devils – Scout Force Torak
Back in 2017, Shimond ran a blog – ‘Wargames Amsterdam: An Italian living in Amsterdam‘ and offered to write up some background and thoughts as to how he put his Algoryn army together, how it was inspired by terrain. We let Shimond (Simone Ristori) explain his simple, yet effective, Algoryn force, and updated to fit with Antares 2.
Shimond: I don’t write in my blog as much as I’d like but every now and then I have ideas I want to document and this is one of them. I am going to build up (not from scratch) the background for my renovated Blue Devils, adding a bit of background and exploring the operational side of this Armoured Infantry regiment starting from the smallest operation force, the scout force.
The Idea
I started to think about Scout Force Torak after I’ve seen the fantastic Sarissa Precision Algoryn Fortress and the plastic Algoryn were the perfect models to start executing the idea.
I like to build scenery with my force, I think it’s great for a theme and the narrative, and in an old post, I already published my first try to match force with scenery with the Agloryn exploration module. Now, that was the first time I was playing around with complete scratch build scenery and while I’m not too unhappy with the results the Sarissa product is at another level. It’s composed of three small bastions and one large bastion plus extra stuff as guardpost and walkways. And it’s a drop fortress. Drop. So I could see how a small bastion can be assigned to a small force and be used to drop the force for exploration, recognition and so on. That’s exactly what I was looking for, one of the small bastions will become Bastion Torak or “The Cave” as the Algoryn of scout force Torak likes to call it. It’s at the same time the place in which the scout force lives and operate during the exploration missions and it’s in all effects, part of the force equipment.
Army List
Two things in my mind were very clear: I wanted to use the new plastic Algoryn from Strike on Kar’A Nine and I wanted to try to keep an “exploration” theme for the force. Lastly, due to the constant struggle with the Ghar, I wanted my force to have an extra punch against the armored scum, so I had to find a way to add a Mag Cannon.
[Ed: things have changed from BtGoA v1 to Antares 2, so we’ve updated some entries for A2]
AI Squad Alpha – Torak’s squad (10pts)
Torak’s father, Ark’o was born into the Founder caste. Thanks to an incredible act of valor during a battle against the Ghar in which he managed to save several civilians, alone, against a horde of Outcasts, Ark’o was raised into the Vector leger Mok’or. Torak is determined to honor his father’s legacy and hopes one day to show the same skills and bravery. Torak carries a Mag Repeater, the same weapon his father used to repel the Outcast horde, and he uses the overload ammo in his unit to have an extra punch against Ghar Battle squads. He leads squad Alpha.
[Ed: In BtGoA v1, the squads were varied in equipment due to the cost constraints. In Antares 2, almost all the optional extras come as standard so the squads are largely the same: leaderr, 2×micro-x, 2×mag rifle.]
AI Intruders ‘Sharks’ (14pts)
Gorth and Torak are friends since the time of the training to become AI. Despite Gorth being Founder caste, and usually not assigned to lead Intruder squads, Torak knows the tactical acumen and bravery of his friend very well and he trusts him to be both the eyes and the hard hitting fangs of his force. The Sharks are trained to both speed and accuracy: they carry a compacted Mag Cannon and use the Intruders to quickly redeploy on the flank to target heavy armored targets. When there are no armored targets available they use a hail of Mag repeater fire to pin down and dispatch their enemies.
AI Squad Beta (10pts)
Bork leads Squad Beta, a typical 5 men squad.
AI Squad Gamma (10pts)
Squad leader Yask’h is in charge of squad Gamma. The standard configuration is useful in that the mag guns have a great range and a nice SV 1, and the micro-x’s are the star of the squad in combination with the spotter drone.
Targeter Probe Shard (5pts)
No scout force would be complete without a probe shard. In our case Scout Force Torak is not a sneaking force, it’s a hard hitting AI force: it might be small and lack the heavy weaponry and heavy support but with six micro x-launchers and a mag cannon it can shoot most enemies into oblivion. Therefore it’s good to have four little targeter probes going around locking targets to improve accuracy of those pesky overhead shots or concentrate all on one target so the mag cannon can easily dispatch it.
And an extra dice is always handy.
Army Options
Algoryn get the Distort Stability army option for free, so might just proteect themselves against the Ghar’s Distort dice at a critical moment.
However, the units above total to 49pts, so there is one point spare. This could be used to add an extra targeter to the probe shard, but could just as well be used to purchase a pair of Countershard+2 options to try and counter an enemy’s IMTel dice though Get Up! is cheap for Algoryn at 1pt, so is a tempting option.
Tactics
Scout Force Torak is the quintessential representation of the Blue Devils, an infantry division equipped for both exploration and combat, with a fast unit capable of quickly flank the enemy and put a mag cannon in crossfire.
Squad Alpha would be most likely deployed in the middle of the combat zone and will spend the game in fire order, while squad Beta & Gamma would either go for the objective or support squad Alpha as fire team. The flexibility of the Sharks is also its main challenge, the fact that they have a mag cannon doesn’t mean they actually have to use it, sometimes is better to rely on their speed and twin mag repeater to quickly disrupt enemy fire squads or support weapons.
The probes advance as fast as possible going for the main targets of either squad Alpha or the Sharks.
Algoryn Bastion CX06 – The Cave –
Bastion CX06, or The Cave as Torak’s force as started to call it, is a self sufficient Combat & eXploration module used by the Algoryn for combat missions (deployed in formation with a Bastion Fortress) or as outpost for military forces during exploration missions. The module contains all necessary equipment for a scout force to survive for months or even years in hostile environment: power generators, air and water filters, organic matter replicator and an automated workshop to maintain weapons and vehicles.
Several compactors are included in the bastion to maximise the use of space and equipment.
The module also comes with a set of four kinetic barrier to be positioned in strategic points of the surrounding as well as a turret.
Antares Nexus 
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