Meeting the Yorkshire Renegades

The idea of taking a break from events did not last long at all. Its only like second week of January and I have been to my first event of the year. Me and James went to visit the Yorkshire Renegades, a neighbor gaming club from the God's Own Country. It was just a two games-six players mini-tournament, but it was still a good fun. Renegades have some cool looking tables too, some of which they bring to Northern Open tournaments.

Instead of my usual Caledonians, I took Morat Aggression for this event. It has been a while since I played them. I'd say Morats are my second favourite army to play, they have no Camo tricks but they don't care about Lt or Guts or Retreat, which I think is a neat thing.  

(Images with the Renegades logo were not taken by me.)

Game 1: Highly Classified - Morats vs Haqqislam
Won 9 to 4

For this mission we have drawn these Classified: Extreme Prejudice, Test Run, HVT: Designation and Sabotage. I also got Telemetry as my Secondary. My opponent was relatively new player so I helped him out a lot. The game actually came out quite close, I only won by a lot because the mission is built that way; if you achieve more Objectives you get 4 points and they don't get any for achieving less. I had the second turn and it came down to my last roll. I was trying to Forward Observer someone and instead of just FOing an Unconscious unit that was almost right in front of me, I went against someone shooting at me for no good reason. But I did luckily roll a Crit on my WIP with the last Order.

The table we played on from my side.

Another stupid thing I did, you know how they say no battle plan survives contact with the enemy? I think its more like, no battle plan survives the deployment phase. In the list for this mission I specifically took a second Hacker, a Morat Vanguard, so I'd have access to supportware for remotes. I even took a remote with a Repeater so is easier to give my HMG Total Reaction remote Marksmanship Lv2. Then I deployed the Vanguard Hacker and the Repeater on the other side of the board away from the HMG.

More of the table from my side.

What was quite funny, and frustrating for me a little, my opponent had some kind of heavy infantry with HMG on a roof. We were shooting at each another across the board, diagonally so we were always over 40". Even with his -6 BS, he managed to take out two of my three AROs, my HMG in a Link and my Yagoat Sniper. I put him unconscious, but then he had a Doctor Plus unit around the corner and brought him back. This happened like two more times.

The table from a different side, not during my game.

Overall it was a fun game and I hope I tough my opponent few things, we even had some hacking battles between his Hacker and my Zerat Hacker. If I failed that last roll, I think he'd either won or we'd tie. 

And this is me playing.

Game 2: Annihilation - Morats vs Nomads
Won 9 to 6

In the second game I was pretty stupid with my Classified. In this mission you have two worth 2 points each, which is pretty good so it is a good idea to actually do them. When I was selecting my Classified I kept thinking I do have a Zerat Hacker in my list because I almost always do when I play Morats. So I chose HVT: Designation and Sabotage, which is like a great combo for Infiltrating Hacker with D-Charges. I really should have remember I did NOT take that option and instead had a normal Zerat with a Combi-rifle. But I realized like mid way through deployment so I had to just live with it. In the end, my Engineer had to run across the board and get himself killed to get Sabotage done and in the end I had to change my second Classified to Secure HVT. I had the last turn and my opponent already done both of his Classified, so I also had to get both. 

The table from my opponent's side.

I was quite lucky though, overall I rolled like six to eight critical rolls during the game. Since the mission is about killing but also keeping your army alive, we both just shot at each another from safe distances of our deployment zone. There were plenty of funny moments, like when my opponent Airborne Deployed a Hellcat behind my Vanguard Link Team, but didn't realize one of my guys was facing backward so I did Alert! which made the whole Link Team turn around and then when he activated the Hellcat again, it was just shot to death.Without knowing it, I also did a full burst into his Lt at one point, I think either with Kornak or my HMG Remote but he survived. I found out it was the Lt only at the end of the game.

More of the table from enemy side.

My Link Team, HMG already dead.

I think the "worst" Crit I rolled was when my Tempest Regiment was advancing against his HMG Remote. I just couldn't kill it so we ended the turn in front of each another, and in my opponent's turn he had the advantage of Burst 4 over my Burst 1. We were within 8" so I decided to use a Pistol and rolled a Crit.

Tempest Regiment advancing....

... get some Nomad Remote.

In the end, I managed to outkill my enemy. Morats had 209 pts alive (229 with Baggage) and I killed 219 of my opponent's army. I have no doubt the luck on my part was a major help. If my opponent managed to kill Kornak and the Tempest Regiment,  I'd been down by 100 pts and he'd have more alive.

And I got a nice certificate for my Morats, so I am happy!