PLAYTEST RECORD // SHOW YOUR WORK
FILED_FROM: LAKEFIRE CORRIDOR // HIGH VALUE TARGET
FILING_DATE: 2026-06-24
RESULT: WITNESS WALKS // T5 // 7-0
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BARCODE: SIG-BATREP-2026-06-24
運
OPERATOR TACTICS // SKIRMISH // RECONSTRUCTED
BOTH
WINDOWS
THE GRABBER WHO WOULD NOT FALL
SKIRMISHHIGH VALUE TARGETATTACKER 7-0EXTRACTION // T5PRESSURE FIRED // SURGE
// ROLL IN THE OPEN // COUNT THE DICE // BLAME THE TERRAIN // FILE THE REPORT //
// OPERATOR TACTICS // SKIRMISH
A deniable Meridian East crew and an ACU wolf pack raced for one frightened delegate on a Lake Tanganyika survey apron. The grab took one move and a natural six. Holding it took everything after.
BOTH WINDOWS
BY TIB MARLOW
GAME: OPERATOR TACTICS // SKIRMISH
FILED: LAKEFIRE CORRIDOR // HIGH VALUE TARGET // 2026-06-24
TELEMETRY: RECONSTRUCTED // THE DICE ARE ON RECORD.
// DESK NOTE // M. KOSE
Kose here. The Wardens won four priority rolls out of five and still drove home empty, which is the most honest thing Skirmish has taught us this month: winning the roll is not the same as cashing it. Read this one for the medic, who saved the same dying woman twice and never fired a shot.
// DEPLOYMENT
GAMEOperator Tactics // Skirmish
SCENARIOHigh Value Target. Grab the forty-year delegate, escort him off your own edge.
ATTACKERSECOND MANIFEST // a deniable Meridian East off-manifest splice. Tally/Infiltrator, Drover/Commando, Ember/Marksman, Wick/Medic. 400 pts, south edge.
DEFENDEROBSIDIAN WARDENS // an ACU wolf-lineage pack. Fetch and Hackle/Commandos, Kennel/Breacher (Heavy Plate), Salve/Medic. 400 pts, north edge.
HVTDelegate Bahati Kweka, a forty-year assembly witness who knows the suppressed lakebed projection.
TABLE24x24 lakeside survey station, Lake Tanganyika shore after dark. Pump-house (sight block) center, intake works west, reed bank east, catwalk north, cargo stack south.
OBJECTIVEMake contact with the HVT (adjacent, TACT 4+), then walk him at half MOBI off your own edge.
WIN CONDITION+5 extraction, +2 controlling the HVT at end, +1 per enemy Out of Action. 8-round cap.
TURN CAP8 rounds. Decided on Round 5.
The amber comes up off the lake before your eyes adjust, a low resonance glow the morning broadcast measures and never names. On the survey apron at the Tanganyika intake, that glow was the only light anyone trusted. The station belonged to the day authority on paper and to whoever held the floor after dark in practice, and after dark on this night two crews held it at once.
The delegate stood where the runners left him, between the pump-house and the reed bank, a man who knew the number under the number. Forty years of viable lakebed, not the eighty in the governance file. Both crews had come to walk him off, one to fold him into a deniable channel, one to bury him back inside the framework that pays for the water. He did not get a vote. The contract was over his head, the way it always is.
Second Manifest moved first. Tally went up the cargo-stack lane under Ghost, seven inches of cover to the centerline, and reached him on the opening rush. She put a hand on his shoulder and the night said yes the way it almost never does. The grab broke her stealth the instant she reached for him, so she stood there lit, the delegate in tow, the whole pack turning her way.
The Wardens had committed early too. Hackle sprinted the east face into the open to threaten the grab, and an open wolf on a survey apron is furniture. Ember read the glow off his shoulder plate and put a round through it from clear across the board. Drover's first burst found a commando on the west. By the time the round closed, the pack had a body on two mortal wounds and another bleeding, and Second Manifest had the witness and a grabber carrying two breach windows on her back.
THEY EMPTIED BOTH WINDOWS INTO ONE WOMAN AND SHE WALKED OUT OF BOTH.
The pack spent those windows the way you spend a receipt, all at once and on one name. They put Hackle into Tally to break the grab and forced her dice to come up worse. Worse was still a five. She won the wrestle, the half-dead commando went down on her knife, and the grab held. Then Fetch limped in and emptied a burst into her, and they cashed the second window to escalate it, and that one stuck. Tally went onto the mortal track with the delegate still in hand, one hit from gone.
She did not go. Wick stayed glued to her the whole walk and never touched a trigger, just worked, and twice the medic pulled her back off the edge on the same patient. Meanwhile the crew read the obvious and handed the delegate off. Drover made contact and took the escort, a healthy commando in medium plate instead of a dying ghost, and started the long walk south.
Kennel finally arrived. The breacher had the grip all game, slow as a barge and twice as hard to move, and he caught the new carrier and locked him. He won that wrestle clean. The armor check came up a one and the plate held, no wound, just the lock. The pack ganged in to finish it, both bodies onto Drover at once, and Drover answered the second one with a natural six that put Fetch out for good. Then he tore the lock open on another six and walked.
That was the run. Power feeds spiked across the board for a round and Ember used the surge to chew the last Warden medic down. Kennel sprinted after the delegate and got there a step late, close enough to touch the carrier and unable to do a thing with the contact. Drover walked Bahati the last three inches off the south edge while the breacher stood in the dark holding nothing. The day authority will file it as a quiet night. The number went south with the man who carried it.
// THE TAPE
PREATK wins zone choice 6v3 and Round 1 priority 6v1, chooses to activate second (the loser's first operator eats the 1-action penalty).
T1DEF Link-Up Fetch+Kennel up the west face; HACKLE sprints east to 3in off the delegate, in the open. TALLY moves 7in to center, nat-6 contact, GRABS Bahati, Ghost breaks.
T1HACKLE rapid-fires the carrier 3,4 (+1 CQ), TALLY 2 FW, 2 Breach Tokens placed on her. EMBER nat-6,4 into HACKLE = 2 MW. DROVER nat-6 into FETCH = 1 MW. Pressure 1.
T2DEF priority 3v1. KENNEL skirts the pump-house, falls short. HACKLE charges; Wardens spend Breach #1 to force her reroll-worse: 5 still beats HACKLE's reduced 4. HACKLE Out of Action (first OoA, Pressure 2).
T2EMBER nat-1 Dry Fire, rifle jams. FETCH (1 MW) rapid-fires 5,3, both hit; Wardens spend Breach #2 to escalate, TALLY cascades to 2 MW. WICK Stabilize 4 back to 1 MW. DROVER rapid-fires FETCH 3,2 = 2 MW.
T3DEF priority 5v3. KENNEL moves into contact and Fights 6 vs 2, armor check 4 penetrates: TALLY to 2 MW and LOCKED.
T3ATK hands off: DROVER contacts Bahati 5, takes the escort. Contest at the delegate tips Pressure to 3. CLIMAX D6=5 POWER SURGE. TALLY break-free nat-6, tears the lock and repositions.
T4DEF priority 4v1. Surge live. Link-Up KENNEL+FETCH gang the carrier. KENNEL 6 vs 2, armor check 1 absorbed, no wound, DROVER LOCKED. FETCH piles on, DROVER counters nat-6: FETCH Out of Action (half-splice, Contact Ceiling armed).
T4EMBER (surge) 4,2 into SALVE = 2 FW. DROVER break-free nat-6, walks the delegate to 3in from the edge. WICK Stabilize 4, TALLY held at 1 MW.
T5DEF priority 4v3. Contact Ceiling: KENNEL 4, SALVE 6, both pass. KENNEL sprints into contact, no action left to Fight. SALVE nat-1 jam.
T5DROVER walks Bahati 3in off the south edge. EXTRACTION. Second Manifest 7-0.
// WORKBENCH
// HOW IT ACTUALLY PLAYED
This was a dice-luck game wearing a tactics game's clothes, and the scoreline should not fool you. The Obsidian Wardens won priority in rounds two, three, four, and five. Four of five. They chose when to strike almost every round and they still lost 7-0, because winning the roll only matters if you cash it, and they could not cash a thing. Second Manifest landed six natural sixes across five rounds. The Wardens landed zero on a wound, and both their Breach Tokens went into the same operator without putting her down.
The turn it swung was two. Putting Hackle into the carrier was correct, he was the only Warden fast enough to reach her, and forcing her dice to reroll-worse was the right spend. It came up a five anyway. The quieter problem is that the pack's own success set it up to fail: Hackle was already on two mortal wounds from the round one exchange, so his melee die carried a minus two, and a charging commando who should win that wrestle lost it by one. They paid a window to kill her and fed her a kill instead.
- Balance read. High Value Target is a pure tempo race, and deploy-first plus a won opening priority plus a MOBI 7 Infiltrator let the attacker grab on turn one before the heavy side could matter. Heavy Plate is a superb anchor and a poor chaser. Kennel won every wrestle he entered, and his MOBI 4 meant he never once started a round in a position to finish.
- The unsung play. Wick. The medic never fired and twice converted a mortal wound back down on the same patient (two 4s on Stabilize). A carrier who lives is a carrier who scores. Weld the medic to the grab.
- Try next time. Give the Wardens a Marksman over the second Commando so a pack has any answer to a 36in gun, or deploy the Breacher pushed forward onto the objective so the anchor starts where the fight is instead of four inches a turn behind it.
- Terrain aside. One big central impassable block on a 24x24 makes a single contested apron and funnels everything into one lane. It screened the Wardens' approach and then poured Hackle straight into Ember's eastern sightline. For an HVT grab, two medium blocks beat one big one, so the carrier has more than one road home.
// DISPOSITION
RESULTSecond Manifest extracts Delegate Bahati Kweka off the south edge, Round 5. Final 7-0 (ATK +5 extraction, +2 enemy OoA).
CASUALTIES // SECOND MANIFESTNone Out of Action. Tally clung on at 1 MW (the medic saved her twice). Drover, Ember, Wick clean.
CASUALTIES // OBSIDIAN WARDENSHackle Out of Action (T2), Fetch Out of Action (T4). Kennel unwounded, Salve 2 FW. The delegate lost.
MVPTally / Infiltrator. The natural-6 grab, the breach-forced duel that dropped the charging Hackle, the natural-6 that tore Kennel's lock, and refusing to die on the mortal track. Drover walked the witness out; Tally made it possible.
RUN IT YOURSELF:
OT SKIRMISH // HIGH VALUE TARGET, 400 PTS, 24x24, 8 ROUNDS
THE PACK WON EVERY PRIORITY THAT MATTERED AND LOST THE ONLY THING THAT DID.