The first Northern Open of 2017 felt like a weed infestation with all the Tohaa players we had! It was crazy, I never seen so many. And hope I never will again. We also had few new people come to Leeds, which is always great to see, some of them came all the way from Scotland. Hopefully we get to see them again next time.
For this tournament I decided to take my USARF because I haven't played them in a while and it was a good reason to get them bit more painted. I wrote a 20 man list which was mostly focused around Grunts and Specialists because all of the missions were objective based. I think the list was good but I really wish I practiced with it because throughout my games I definitely felt I could have been using my units better. It just played so differently to my other armies.
I did win my first two games, the second purely by luck if I am honest. If I scored higher in my second game I could have done better overall but as I wasn't used to the army I failed to press the advantage I had after first turn.
I came 9th out of 22, but everyone else in our group did better. The winner was Matt, one of the Leeds locals with his Tohaa. I can't say for sure but I don't think we had any consecutive winners yet, which I think shows that anyone who plays well has a chance to win Infinity tournaments. I don't know if its the same in every Infinity scene but here we do seem to have a good mix of players.
Army List
List A
I did have two lists for this but they were virtually the same and I only used this one. The only difference in List B was changing The Unknown Ranger for Van Zant. I feel like this lists deserves a separate article to explain it so that will come soon!
Game 1: Cold Sleep - USA Ranger Force vs Neoterran Capitaline Army
Won 7 to 2 (3 TPs)
My first opponent was Dom, someone I never played before and he said this was his first tournament (if I am remembering it right). He played NeoTerra which I am used to play against thanks to Tim so at least I felt confident about knowing what is on the table. Dom surprised me with two OOD Remotes, but both had shotguns. Otherwise I can remember two flamer bots with Auxiliers, Fireteam of Fusiliers and Aquila Guard. The table we played on was interesting for this mission as most objectives were in the open with only one side having slight advantage in the objective placement. I think Dom won the Lt roll and chose deployment and I chose to go second.
My first opponent was Dom, someone I never played before and he said this was his first tournament (if I am remembering it right). He played NeoTerra which I am used to play against thanks to Tim so at least I felt confident about knowing what is on the table. Dom surprised me with two OOD Remotes, but both had shotguns. Otherwise I can remember two flamer bots with Auxiliers, Fireteam of Fusiliers and Aquila Guard. The table we played on was interesting for this mission as most objectives were in the open with only one side having slight advantage in the objective placement. I think Dom won the Lt roll and chose deployment and I chose to go second.
In my deployment I failed all thee rolls for Inferior Infiltration for Grunts with Heavy Flamers, which wasn't a good start but thanks to having the highest vantage point on my side I was able to deploy both of my Snipers on a good spot to look over the board. There was only one objective Dom was able to get to with his Fusiliers, Bipandra among them, without being shot at. To make way he used the Aquila Guard to take on my Grunt Fireteam. The firefight took much longer than it should have in theory and my Grunts came out on top in the end, I got lucky with Crit roll and Dom failed a regular ARM save too.
I spent most of my first turn getting the two objectives closest to my deployment zone, Paramedic Marauder on the right and Unknown Ranger (Chain of Command) on the left. I did try to take out some of the Fusiliers, I think I killed one of them but managed to get a Foxtrot and a Hardcase killed.
Dom went on to press for objectives with his Fusiliers. With some careful maneuvering he was able to take on my snipers one at a time, killing one of them with a missile launcher. The second sniper prevailed though and kept his other units pinned down. Dom was struggling to get to the second objective near his deployment zone.
In my second turn I have put my Fireteam back to five Grunts (I had six in the same Group in case one dies). Then I have sent four Specialists to an objective in the middle zone on the right. It was less protected but my problem was I knew Dom had chose to use his Classified to deny me a Specialists instead so I had to get two Specialists base to base with the objective. I was trying to kill his Diva in the process which I knew was his Lt but she just wouldn't die. Every AMR Save was a pass. I did however managed to get one Marauder Paramedic base to base.
In his last turn Dom went on to securing an objective in the middle on the right. He tried to also move up his REMs with OOD but I had plenty of AROs to take them out as they moved in the open. Once units got to the middle of the board there were long diagonal fire lanes. He did manage to secure the objective with the Fusiliers though and placed the surviving ones on ARO positions, making it hard for me to get there.
Which made my last turn difficult. I still had to secure the objective on middle left with a second Specialist, which would give me minor victory as a I had more of the objectives near deployment zones. To get more Objective Points I had to kill the Specialist Dom had base to base with an objective as I used my Classified as normal to get 1 Objective Point (I went with Secure HVT). I was able to get another Specialists to join the Paramedic by running through Dom's AROs and surviving. With that done I used The Unknown Ranger to go kill Dom's Specialist. But Bipandra, who was standing in the open next to me was causing problems as the Ranger was already on No Wound Incap so one more failed ARM save and I'd be dead.
We were close so I was able to outshoot her with Heavy Pistol while moving back but she just wouldn't die. I even used HMG Grunt to unload into her with Burst 5 and she still lived! In the end she did die but it left me with only two Orders to kill the Specialist that mattered. Which thankfully proved much easier and the Unknown Ranger got the kill. The swing in points in the end was big because I controlled more objectives with Specialist and more activated, which doesn't show how close the game was.
Game 2: Antenna Field - USA Ranger Force vs Tohaa
Won 6 to 4 (2 TPs)
With the second round I did not feel confident at all, I was put against Matt and to make it worse he was playing Tohaa (a different Matt with Tohaa than the tournament winner). On tournaments I think he always beat me when we played. My plan was to at least score some points so I don't walk away with nothing. On the board we had all of the objectives ended up in the open which did not make it easy as we had to be base-to-base with them end of each round. Which is where I think Tohaa have the advantage with their extra Wounds. I lost the Lt roll again and Matt decided to go second, as most people would in this kind of mission to have the last turn advantage.
I have again failed all three rolls for Grunts with Heavy Flamers which made it rather difficult to deal with two Snipers in a Triad that Matt deployed on a roof to protect all objectives. There was a path I could have attacked them one by one with my Foxtrot but I did not see it (only found out after the game) so my plan was to use my Fireteam of Grunts to take care of them. This was where my luck turned insane. My HMG Grunt put full 5 Burst into one Sniper, giving the other one free shots. I managed to score a Crit and enough hits to kill one Sniper (he couldn't use the Simbio-mate to negate Hits as I had Crit. After I wrote this article we realized the rule actually states the mate can still be used to negate the other hits, but the crit would go through as normal).
My Grunt then survived the free shots and proceeded to kill the second Sniper also. With them gone I was baffled on what to do next because I just did not expect it. I don't think I killed anything else since Matt was hiding the other troops, so I positioned Specialists around objective near my deployment zone and then on the left side.
Matt was surprised as much as I was with how the tables turned and tried to get rid of my HMG Grunt, but he just wouldn't die. No matter what he threw against it, I kept winning or surviving and passing Guts Checks. It was kind of crazy. Matt tried to kill some of my Specialists with Tohaa Beasts but judged the distance wrong and the template was about half an inch short of all my guys, so I was able to kill the beasts and then survived the hits from it too (and if I didn't, I'd still have someone base to base). Matt couldn't move any of his units to the objectives so I won the first round.
As I mentioned earlier, this is where I made quite the mistake. I had more or less free reign on the board but only managed to take one more objective instead of pushing for all five, which I could have done. Thanks to my HMG pinning Matt's units, he was forced to leave a Triad behind a building in a line, which allowed my Hardcase with Light Shotgun to take them out easily. Paramedic Marauder with Heavy Flamer then finished them off. After that I still had Orders to push for more but I didn't, it was a mix off not knowing my army well enough and also the game so far seemed pretty demoralizing for Matt so I thought he couldn't back from it (stupid assumption to make!).
That said, Matt's second round did not go much better than his first. My Fireteam still dominated but he was able to inflict some casualties on units holding objective on the left, I had The Unknown Ranger there, Foxtrot and Engineer (I think, might have been second Paramedic Marauder), everyone but the Ranger died either way. I think Matt was using his second turn to get ready for the last turn, which I did not see, but I did win the second round.
I decided bit too late to move my Grunt Fireteam out of a building and get them towards an objective. Unfortunately I did not have enough Orders because they had to first get down from the building and then they are only 4-2 MOV so not the fastest. I had to leave them in the Open but at least they still had lines of fire to objectives. Everyone else who could went on Suppressive Fire to stop Matt from taking any objectives from me.
In the last turn Matt proved he could back from the massacre that was going on. I only held three objectives so his plan was to kill off units from two of them, leaving me with one and then take two himself, which almost happened. With my Fireteam on the ground, Matt was able to move base to base with an objective at his deployment zone. His first attack then didn't work out as The Unknown Ranger survived. That, however, did not stop him from attacking the center. Using a unit with Eclipse Smoke Grenades he made a path to the middle and then was able to kill my Marauder in CC, bypassing all the AROs I had ready if he tried to go in the middle. We both did our Classified before end of the game.
In the last turn we both had two objectives, giving us 1 points each, Matt got 2 more for holding the central objective at the end of the game and then got 1 for Classified. If he managed to kill The Unknown Ranger he could have make us Draw by having 2 points for holding more objectives which would give him 5 in total, same as me without getting 1 point in the last round. This really showed me that if you keep your head in the game it is possible to come back from almost anything, even if just to minimize the loss.
Game 3: Supplies - USA Ranger Force vs Imperial Service
With the second round I did not feel confident at all, I was put against Matt and to make it worse he was playing Tohaa (a different Matt with Tohaa than the tournament winner). On tournaments I think he always beat me when we played. My plan was to at least score some points so I don't walk away with nothing. On the board we had all of the objectives ended up in the open which did not make it easy as we had to be base-to-base with them end of each round. Which is where I think Tohaa have the advantage with their extra Wounds. I lost the Lt roll again and Matt decided to go second, as most people would in this kind of mission to have the last turn advantage.
I have again failed all three rolls for Grunts with Heavy Flamers which made it rather difficult to deal with two Snipers in a Triad that Matt deployed on a roof to protect all objectives. There was a path I could have attacked them one by one with my Foxtrot but I did not see it (only found out after the game) so my plan was to use my Fireteam of Grunts to take care of them. This was where my luck turned insane. My HMG Grunt put full 5 Burst into one Sniper, giving the other one free shots. I managed to score a Crit and enough hits to kill one Sniper (he couldn't use the Simbio-mate to negate Hits as I had Crit. After I wrote this article we realized the rule actually states the mate can still be used to negate the other hits, but the crit would go through as normal).
My Grunt then survived the free shots and proceeded to kill the second Sniper also. With them gone I was baffled on what to do next because I just did not expect it. I don't think I killed anything else since Matt was hiding the other troops, so I positioned Specialists around objective near my deployment zone and then on the left side.
Matt was surprised as much as I was with how the tables turned and tried to get rid of my HMG Grunt, but he just wouldn't die. No matter what he threw against it, I kept winning or surviving and passing Guts Checks. It was kind of crazy. Matt tried to kill some of my Specialists with Tohaa Beasts but judged the distance wrong and the template was about half an inch short of all my guys, so I was able to kill the beasts and then survived the hits from it too (and if I didn't, I'd still have someone base to base). Matt couldn't move any of his units to the objectives so I won the first round.
As I mentioned earlier, this is where I made quite the mistake. I had more or less free reign on the board but only managed to take one more objective instead of pushing for all five, which I could have done. Thanks to my HMG pinning Matt's units, he was forced to leave a Triad behind a building in a line, which allowed my Hardcase with Light Shotgun to take them out easily. Paramedic Marauder with Heavy Flamer then finished them off. After that I still had Orders to push for more but I didn't, it was a mix off not knowing my army well enough and also the game so far seemed pretty demoralizing for Matt so I thought he couldn't back from it (stupid assumption to make!).
That said, Matt's second round did not go much better than his first. My Fireteam still dominated but he was able to inflict some casualties on units holding objective on the left, I had The Unknown Ranger there, Foxtrot and Engineer (I think, might have been second Paramedic Marauder), everyone but the Ranger died either way. I think Matt was using his second turn to get ready for the last turn, which I did not see, but I did win the second round.
I decided bit too late to move my Grunt Fireteam out of a building and get them towards an objective. Unfortunately I did not have enough Orders because they had to first get down from the building and then they are only 4-2 MOV so not the fastest. I had to leave them in the Open but at least they still had lines of fire to objectives. Everyone else who could went on Suppressive Fire to stop Matt from taking any objectives from me.
In the last turn Matt proved he could back from the massacre that was going on. I only held three objectives so his plan was to kill off units from two of them, leaving me with one and then take two himself, which almost happened. With my Fireteam on the ground, Matt was able to move base to base with an objective at his deployment zone. His first attack then didn't work out as The Unknown Ranger survived. That, however, did not stop him from attacking the center. Using a unit with Eclipse Smoke Grenades he made a path to the middle and then was able to kill my Marauder in CC, bypassing all the AROs I had ready if he tried to go in the middle. We both did our Classified before end of the game.
In the last turn we both had two objectives, giving us 1 points each, Matt got 2 more for holding the central objective at the end of the game and then got 1 for Classified. If he managed to kill The Unknown Ranger he could have make us Draw by having 2 points for holding more objectives which would give him 5 in total, same as me without getting 1 point in the last round. This really showed me that if you keep your head in the game it is possible to come back from almost anything, even if just to minimize the loss.
Game 3: Supplies - USA Ranger Force vs Imperial Service
Lost 0 to 8 (0 TPs)
My last opponent, Ben, was also new to me and since locally nobody plays IS regularly I wasn't sure what to expect. Though I was expecting to see three Total Reaction REMs. The table was interesting in the sense that the objectives were on equal ground, more or less. One was in the open and then each side had an objective hidden from the other size. The unfortunate thing was no good high ground on either side. I won the Lt roll and decided to take the size which had better deployment options (I thought so) but in hindsight I wish I went first instead. I could have utilized my army lot better in this mission.
After Ben deployed I was surprised he did not seem to have much. He only had two Total Reaction REMs and then a Fireteam of Celestial Guard, Dire Foes Character (Xi Zhuang) and Crane with X-visor and Sensor (plus some throw away units and Engineer). I deployed my Fireteam of Grunts in such a way to block the flank where Ben's Fireteam was. Which limited my lines of fire a lot, so might have not been a best idea. I also managed to pass infiltration with one Grunt with Heavy Flamer, finally, but the other two failed.
Ben didn't do much in his first turn, he felt it would take too many Orders to change the route for his Fireteam so decided to take my Grunts head on after killing my Grunt with Heavy Flamer near his Fireteam. But the fight between full Fireteams did not go well for either of us, though it did go in Ben's favour. The Crane had enough ARM to take all the hits I scored and my Grunts did too. I think only one Sniper went unconscious, or maybe both. Otherwise Ben only moved his REMs around a bit so I couldn't flank his Fireteam.
Which I tried to do anyway, his Fireteam was left in a line, a great juicy target for shoguns and flamers but my Hardcase got himself immobilized by MadTrap without killing a Total Reaction REM which then blocked path for my Marauder. I then used my 112 to heal the Snipers, one of them came back, allowing me to go back to a full Fireteam (again I had sixth Grunt nearby for this reason). I used my HMG to attack the Crane with Burst 5 but rolled really bad, getting myself killed and doing no damage. Since I couldn't kill anything I went on to moving units into defensive positions to make it hard for Ben to get to the objectives.
Which somehow worked. I had Marauder in cover on Suppressive Fire and Ben spent at least 7 Orders trying to kill him with the Crane in full Fireteam, and failing. I had three dice, looking for 9 (-3 for Cover, 0 for Range) while Ben had four dice and needed 13 (+3 for Fireteam, +3 Range, -3 Cover and -3 Suppressive Fire). After all those Orders he brought in an AD trooper to deal with the Marauder. My bad luck continued as I had a free shot at the AD unit but failed it. Overall though, it caused Ben to kinda waste his second turn as he didn't do any of the mission objectives.
The problem we faced now was that we played slow and were running out of time. We decided to finish my turn and see how much time we had left, so I made the mistake of rushing. I played it like I would play my last turn, just getting as many objectives without much through for the next turn. I did get two objectives. One with Foxtrot in the middle and Unknown Ranger on the right. I also managed to get a good shot with 112 and his Shotgun, I noticed there was a window I could use to hit them all if I shot the front person.
If we ended the game on time I would have won but we decided to continue which allowed Ben to kill my units with the objectives and grabbing two for himself. He killed the Ranger with a REM that had Spitfire, and then Ninja took the objective on the ground. His Fireteam took an objective on the left and he killed my Foxtrot who put mines all around himself as AROs to prevent Ben from taking the objective, he'd have to risk getting his units killed or waste Orders shooting the mines. In my last turn I was able to kill the person in Ben's Fireteam that held the objective but I had nothing to get to the Ninja, plus my Classified were to Engineer a REM and Ben's HVT, which I failed to do. Ben managed to get both of his.
So in the end I lost pretty bad. I think the lesson from this game is to decide with your opponent on what to do when you are nearing the end of the time limit. From my experience it happens quite often the games only last two rounds. It is okay to go over if TOs allow it but don't make the mistake of rushing your turn like I did. Its hard to say how it would have played out but I could have used my second turn to put units on Suppressive Fire and try to stop Ben getting to the objectives and then in my last turn all I would have to do is run to them and pass the WIP rolls. I would also say we both made the mistake of ignoring the mission until the last turn, very bad idea. It was a fun game though, good learning experience if nothing else.
My last opponent, Ben, was also new to me and since locally nobody plays IS regularly I wasn't sure what to expect. Though I was expecting to see three Total Reaction REMs. The table was interesting in the sense that the objectives were on equal ground, more or less. One was in the open and then each side had an objective hidden from the other size. The unfortunate thing was no good high ground on either side. I won the Lt roll and decided to take the size which had better deployment options (I thought so) but in hindsight I wish I went first instead. I could have utilized my army lot better in this mission.
After Ben deployed I was surprised he did not seem to have much. He only had two Total Reaction REMs and then a Fireteam of Celestial Guard, Dire Foes Character (Xi Zhuang) and Crane with X-visor and Sensor (plus some throw away units and Engineer). I deployed my Fireteam of Grunts in such a way to block the flank where Ben's Fireteam was. Which limited my lines of fire a lot, so might have not been a best idea. I also managed to pass infiltration with one Grunt with Heavy Flamer, finally, but the other two failed.
Ben didn't do much in his first turn, he felt it would take too many Orders to change the route for his Fireteam so decided to take my Grunts head on after killing my Grunt with Heavy Flamer near his Fireteam. But the fight between full Fireteams did not go well for either of us, though it did go in Ben's favour. The Crane had enough ARM to take all the hits I scored and my Grunts did too. I think only one Sniper went unconscious, or maybe both. Otherwise Ben only moved his REMs around a bit so I couldn't flank his Fireteam.
Which I tried to do anyway, his Fireteam was left in a line, a great juicy target for shoguns and flamers but my Hardcase got himself immobilized by MadTrap without killing a Total Reaction REM which then blocked path for my Marauder. I then used my 112 to heal the Snipers, one of them came back, allowing me to go back to a full Fireteam (again I had sixth Grunt nearby for this reason). I used my HMG to attack the Crane with Burst 5 but rolled really bad, getting myself killed and doing no damage. Since I couldn't kill anything I went on to moving units into defensive positions to make it hard for Ben to get to the objectives.
Which somehow worked. I had Marauder in cover on Suppressive Fire and Ben spent at least 7 Orders trying to kill him with the Crane in full Fireteam, and failing. I had three dice, looking for 9 (-3 for Cover, 0 for Range) while Ben had four dice and needed 13 (+3 for Fireteam, +3 Range, -3 Cover and -3 Suppressive Fire). After all those Orders he brought in an AD trooper to deal with the Marauder. My bad luck continued as I had a free shot at the AD unit but failed it. Overall though, it caused Ben to kinda waste his second turn as he didn't do any of the mission objectives.
The problem we faced now was that we played slow and were running out of time. We decided to finish my turn and see how much time we had left, so I made the mistake of rushing. I played it like I would play my last turn, just getting as many objectives without much through for the next turn. I did get two objectives. One with Foxtrot in the middle and Unknown Ranger on the right. I also managed to get a good shot with 112 and his Shotgun, I noticed there was a window I could use to hit them all if I shot the front person.
If we ended the game on time I would have won but we decided to continue which allowed Ben to kill my units with the objectives and grabbing two for himself. He killed the Ranger with a REM that had Spitfire, and then Ninja took the objective on the ground. His Fireteam took an objective on the left and he killed my Foxtrot who put mines all around himself as AROs to prevent Ben from taking the objective, he'd have to risk getting his units killed or waste Orders shooting the mines. In my last turn I was able to kill the person in Ben's Fireteam that held the objective but I had nothing to get to the Ninja, plus my Classified were to Engineer a REM and Ben's HVT, which I failed to do. Ben managed to get both of his.
So in the end I lost pretty bad. I think the lesson from this game is to decide with your opponent on what to do when you are nearing the end of the time limit. From my experience it happens quite often the games only last two rounds. It is okay to go over if TOs allow it but don't make the mistake of rushing your turn like I did. Its hard to say how it would have played out but I could have used my second turn to put units on Suppressive Fire and try to stop Ben getting to the objectives and then in my last turn all I would have to do is run to them and pass the WIP rolls. I would also say we both made the mistake of ignoring the mission until the last turn, very bad idea. It was a fun game though, good learning experience if nothing else.
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