Somehow none of us managed to rank well, even James lost one of his games. I had two losses, which I don't think happened to me yet this ITS season. Though my experience was good overall, players were friendly and we had some good laughs.
As far as tables, I felt same way as back in Warzone start of the year. Less people would have allowed them to merge some tables and get better ones out of it. Though it would mean less places on the event, so I understand.
My Army Lists
Army List A
Army List B
Some of you might recognize by List A, I been playing it since Totally CRIT. It is my favourite list for Supplies and similar missions. Thus far it has not failed me and I just love the Scots Guard Link Team with Wallace. My Missile Launcher is ranking up high kill count every game. Sometime this month I should do a full Army List Tactica about it.
The List B was new one for me, I wanted to try 20 models list with Link Grey Rifles and Urugans. I am not quite sure yet if this is a good list. One problem I noticed was that I have too many Specialists in the second group so that needs addressing. Urugans I actually enjoyed, especially with Engineers and Hacker to support them. In both games they have been useful at stopping the enemy and retaliating. In both games though my opponents were very lucky with dice rolls which doesn't help with how effective this list is. I think I might drop it down to 16 Orders, see if I can get in some more elite units. Though I was happy with the Grey Rifles, they did well for me.
Game 1: Antenna Field - Caledonia vs Yu Jing
Lost 4 to 6 (0 TPs)
In the first game I faced Ryan of the Invincible Army blog and his vanilla Yu Jing. The table we played on was industrial-ish with some oriental elements so I thought it was fitting. It was different to most tables I seen on events because it had no high places, there was one tower on the edge but outside of deployment zone (and nowhere near objectives) and one side had a building but no cover on the roof and it wasn't even flat so prone markers would not be able to see. Which was not a big deal but what I did find somewhat problematic were the number of fire lines across the whole board. There were way too many and four out of the five objectives were in the open. Though the open lanes could have been easily fixed by shifting some terrain a little, or turning it diagonal. Ryan won the roll and decided to go second. Seeing as no side had any advantage, I took the one that seemed to give me the most deployment options.
Before I get to the turns, I'd also like to say that while I had games with above average number of crits, I never experienced this number of crits cancelled by crits. Ryan cancelled all but two of mine (if I remember right) and himself rolled quite a lot of them.
Since I went first my plan was to take three or four objectives and kill Ryan's Lt to make it hard for him to retaliate before I could consolidate my defenses around the objectives. This sort of worked. I was able to guess the Lt because Ryan had only one non-Specialist Line Trooper hiding in the back. Uxia, who passed her Infiltration roll during deployment, took care of it with her B5 Assault Pistols. My problems, however, began when I tried to take care of HMG Remote. First my Cateran fluffed his free shot (we were over 32") so I thought rather than risking him, I'll go in with my HMG Link Team. So I moved up to a good place, even got the Remote out of cover so I was hitting it on 19s vs Ryan's 11s! But my Highlander Grey was killed by two consecutive crits. I had more Volunteers around so I re-Linked back to five and it was my Volunteer HMG that managed to kill the remote eventually. I have also killed Ryan's Sniper that revealed itself from camo. I did not have many Orders left after battling the Remote for so long but I was still able to take three objectives, Engineer run into a building and then Volunteers held middle and the objective close to me.
Ryan did well in his first turn considering but it proved to be very hard to take objectives in this mission while being in Loss of Lt. Ryan could have grab the objective near him I believe but he needed to take my troops off objectives to even have a chance to draw in this turn. Lots of his troops run out and got shot to pieces, but I made a mistake of keeping my Volunteer Paramedics standing so he was able to kill them with HMG trooper. Fortunately for me, I had still one objective left and won the round.
Unfortunately for me, my centre-right lines more or less collapsed. Not enough cover and leaving troops visible was a fatal mistake for my Link Team and the other Volunteers were too spread out to Link with the second Grey Rifle. I was able to hold the objective room with one objective but for rest of the game dice rolls were not on my side. I had shots at troops from behind them which done nothing or Urugan with Marksmanship Lv2 in cover, within 16" of HMG trooper.... but Ryan rolled a crit. In the second turn we both held only one objective so we had a draw.
In the last turn Ryan had the advantage, he had more Specialists left. I made it as difficult for him as I could to take the central objective and the difference between us having a draw came down to his last Order with a Specialist running for the middle objective, after I killed FO Remote that tried to take it. Otherwise we both only had one as Ryan was able to kill everyone and I was left only with troops in the objective room. My Volunteers managed to roll well and hit with his Light Shotgun but Ryan had a crit which mean he Specialist lived and took the objective.
In retrospect, I think I should have focus on the objectives more than battling the Remote. I could have easily just drop Smoke to block its LoF but I was too confident that I could kill it fast and then didn't let go. Ryan would have had more alive troops but I could have still kill the Lt to make his first turn hard. I also should have hide more troops before my first turn ended, so Ryan would have less targets while in Loss of Lt. Speaking of Loss of Lt, I think this game was also a good example that you can come back from a loosing first turn, so never give up on your games.
I also thought next time if I play on a board with no obvious advantage, I should make my opponent deploy on the side where he will be more in the open as he comes out.
Game 2: Supplies - Caledonia vs Steel Phalanx
Won 9 to 2 (3 TPs)
I thought my second game would be much more straight forward but Ed gave me run for my money for sure. The board we played was very different and somewhat odd in the sense that big chunk of it was just layered hills with trees but no scatter or cover otherwise, outside of the section with buildings. I am pretty sure I failed the Lr roll but thankfully Ed chose deployment so I was able go first.
My plan was the same as always with this mission. Take three objectives and more them back to my DZ, and if I can, kill the long range threads. This wasn't easy to do because Ed deployed Phoenix and Sniper Marksman to cover left (from my perspective) objective and middle one was covered by Total Reaction Remote. Problem for me was that the LoF were not easy and my Link Team would face two AROs, which I didn't want. So I spend good few Orders shooting Phoenix and the Remote with Caterans. The Remote went down but Phoenix's ODD was hard to beat. In the end I dropped Smoke to block his LoF to my Link Team and was able to kill the Sniper with Missile Launcher. After that I was able to take two objectives, middle and left, but with the right one I didn't pass WIP and didn't have the Orders to keep trying. Ed spent his first turn taking the available objective with his second Link, my Scots Guard Link made it really hard to get close to the objective I held.
The second turn for me was all about doing more damage so Ed would have less Orders to retaliate, I knew as long as I can keep more objectives I'll win, even if I don't have all three. I was using Scots Guard lot more this turn, though first I attacked Phoenix with Cameronian and his Chain Rifles, I believe I rook off one Wound before Scots Guard finished him. After that they moved from very left side of the board to the middle so I could shoot an unconscious trooper with a Missie Launcher to hit someone else with the blast. This only took one Wound off the hiding model. Moving with their 4-2 Move ate most of my Orders so I ended my turn in defensive position. Ed first dropped a Hacker using AD jump, I had a free shot with Cateran but failed it. He then killed the Cateran with Chain Rifle and got both of his hacking Classified Objectives. Ed then spent the rest of his turn using the model I wounded with the blast, who turned out to be his Lt, and run with him back to his deployment zone.
In the last turn my goal was to kill the Lt and deny Ed the objective. My only hope to take it was Cameronian who was in Ed's Deployment Zone but he got Immobilized by some trooper when killing him so that plan was out of the window. I had to use my Scots Guard Link again. First they tried to kill the AD trooper, which they did but I guessed the distance wrong and my Molotok was killed by a Chain Rifle. Even so, the rest of the team run across the middle of the board to get LoF at Ed's Lt and blasted him to bits with Missile Launcher. I left the Link facing the objective so they could kill anyone trying to take it.
At this point Ed was in Loss of Lt and in Retreat, so he used all his command tokens to make some of his three troops left function normal. He had a good idea of healing a trooper with MedKit shot, which would allow him to drop Smoke and block my Scots but his PH roll to heal failed. His Hail Mary was running with one guy to the objective and taking it, hoping to survive, but my SMGs and Missile Launcher made sure he didn't.
Overall I don't think this game could have gone any better for me. I think Ed did do well with what he had, this mission really does favour lists with Infiltrating Specialists and it is not easy to take objectives from me when they are close to my DZ by end of my first turn and protected by full Link and two Snipers.
Game 3: Highly Classified - Caledonia vs Hassassin Bahram
Lost 3 to 7 (0 TPs)
When Glen said he is playing Hassassins I was expecting two to three Fidays and the game to be over in his first turn because he won the roll and took the first turn, to my dismay. But he had a very different list, it was full of Remotes, impetuous troops and one Link Team. The table wasn't very good, though I do suspect some of the terrain was knocked around by people who played on it before us, because all of the terrain in deployment zones was pushed forward. Which resulted in not so good deployment options. I didn't see any advantage at the time but then I realized the side I didn't chose had higher buildings to deploy on, which might have helped me.
The missions we drew were Engineer the HVT, FO the HVT and Hack the HVT, and Engineer a REM. So it was a battle for HVTs. I did have two Engineers in my Lists so I felt okay about the missions but it was too many HVT missions for sure.
In his first turn Glen showed me just how deadly Remotes with Sat-Lock can be. I never played them before so I didn't know what to expect. Because of the terrain and me having to deploy most troops close to the edge of my DZ, Glen was able to target troops out of LoF and then used his Grenade Launcher and Guided Missile Launcher to take out bunch of troops. Only around four in the end, but it did kill Uxia and my Cateran. Glen wasn't able to do any of the Objectives so I thought I could take the upper hand, but again I was stopped by a Remote. This time it was just a cheap Sat-Lock Remote in Supressive Fire. It took 2-3 Chain Rifle hit and as many point blank Shotgun shots before it failed an ARM save. Which ate too much of my Orders and I wasn't able to Smoke it because my Smoke troops were either not anywhere near or in open LoF and would get killed.
So I spend rest of the turn trying to take Orders off Glen and protect my HVT. I should have really been moving up my Hacker and Engineer close to Glen's HVT but I wasn't thinking very well unfortunately, too focused on wanting to retaliate. The rest of the game was also bloody. We kept attacking each another and while I was able to fend off Glen's attack this time, I lost sight of the objectives. By the last turn Glen was able to secure three Objectives, all but Engineer the HVT. We both also achieved our Secondary Missions, so I had do three to Draw.
It wasn't impossible, I had just enough Orders to do it but all my rolls would have to be perfect. Sadly, they were not, my Hacker failed to pass a single WIP roll once she was in ZoC of the HVT. I was able to only do the Engineer Mission by repairing one of my Urugans. All in all, it was my fault really, it was very stupid of me to wait until the last turn to do the objectives. I lost focus from the start, going second really wasn't part of my plan. So the lesson here would be to always have a plan for both Imitative options and focus on the objectives!
No comments:
Post a Comment