Dropzone Commander tournament game 3, Shaltari vs PHR

Time for the third game from the tournament.
My Shaltari would be facing PHR forces under the command of Max.

Each force would be deployed at the corners. In each of the four corners and in the centre a focal point was placed.

I wanted to place my commander early on, on the table to get his command value to work.

I had held back the Panther, my heavy AA warstrider until the last during the first activation. And noticed that my opponent had made an mistake... His commander and his bodyguard hanging under their dropship was clearly seen between some houses all the way from my table corner...
The Panther had found its perfect target...
Targeting homing in on the dropship and a salvo was fired from the massive Particle Triad, resulting in a dropship going down in flames...
Only the bodyguard walker managed to survive this inferno.
The enemy commander was taken out and the PHR was left leaderless from turn one onwards.

I gathered almost all my forces on my right flank, from here I wanted to make the push.

Gathered Shaltari forces moves forward, in force...

My commander guarding a flank as other warstriders turns behind the building.

PHR forces scramble to meet the threat of the Shaltari formation.

PHR snipers enters one of the buildings as Shaltari anti tank gunships pas them close by.

A Dreamsnare and its two Tarantula bodyguards are seen at the back moving to the centre as well as gates moving around to let the Shaltari take control of the focal points.

After its initial volley the enemy had learned to use the cover of the large buildings and my Panther was forced to move forward in an attempt to get better firing positions later on.
 

 By this time my warstriders started to envelop the focalpoint at the centre buildings as the infantry had taken control on the focal point in my deployment quarter and those on each flank.

Enemy forces pushed in his quarter.

I used my Thunderbird gunship to close in on the enemy behind a building to get protection from his aa guns. The warwalkers of the Shaltari had used the centre building to hide its movement and I could move around the corners to my liking to get just enough enemy walkers in gunsight to not overstretch my push. Singling out enemy troops and minimise return fire.
With the gates I was able to move my infantry where they could hold its ground, I could but the Pungaris on focal points where enemy infantry was not expected and could but my Braves and the Firstborn elites where potential enemy infantry was tempted to try to engage.
I even managed to sneak up one gate along the edge of my left flank behind buildings to deploy some Braves in the last building with a focal point right back at the enemy quarter to contest it.
All while my warstriders tried to occupy and take out the enemy walkers.

It was a massive victory for the Shaltari.

I think the initial loss of his commander put the fear in my opponent, he did not want to run the gauntlet and risking another dropship loss from the Panther. This made his movements slow and I was able to use the speed and take control of the game. To take the combats where I wanted and where the odds where heavily in my favour.
Had the PHR had more spread out AA firepositions my movements would also have been much harder. I had used my Thunderbird gunships and even sacrificing a gate to get his AA to one flank and tried to keep them occupied and threatening them with warstriders so they would hide behind larger buildings that also resulted in a worse AA protection. As it turned out, almost all his AA where at the same place and if I just held the distance from them the rest of the table where open ground for my fragile gates...



Here are some of the other players games that I managed to take between rounds.

This was the map at the end of this third round of games.
With my win I was able to get a foothold on the PHR space station... Let the invasion begin...