Initially I was planning to attend the Northern Open (NO) 11 as a Tournament Organizer rather than play but I was glad to be convinced to play. It has been a while since I played my Caledonia and with 28 people attending it was one of the biggest NO we had. I ranked 11th, so above the middle line which is where I tend to rank when I am not being overly competitive.
We played two new missions from the Season 9, which were kinda confusing. Never thought I'd miss straight forward missions like Supremacy. As always it was good to see lots of new people attending and the regulars. The event was won by Matt, who I think has by now won nearly half the NO events (despite his often horrendous dice rolls!).
Army Lists
Both of my army lists were from previous Northern Open events when I played Caledonia. As mentioned earlier I didn't plan to play in the NO11 so it was last minute lists. They did well enough in previous events with objective based missions so I figured I'd run them again.
List A had Scots Guard Fireteam as the main attack piece, with Caterans and Highlanders to support SAS and Uxia taking objectives. List B was mainly intended for Acquisition where the deployment was 16 inches, so I could utilize the aggressive nature of that list.
Game 1: Power Pack - Caledonia vs ALEPH
Lost 1 to 6 (0 TP)
It had to be fate that my first opponent of the day would be Al. We even played on the same table as last time, albeit set up differently. When we played last time at the Northern Open 10 I managed to beat him with some very good rolls, and unlucky ARM saves on his part. So it was a prime opportunity for him to get his revenge. The set up on this mission was very odd because you could only deploy in corners of the board, which weren't great on either side of the table. I won the Lt roll and decided to go second, planning to win by having the last turn. As always, I regretted it soon after (going first just feels better).
My biggest mistake during deployment was having my Missile Launcher Scots Guard and a Cateran standing up. They were arguably in a good position but I always forget about the Smoke+MSV Lv2 trick, which I really should expect from ALEPH. It really is the most common mistake I keep repeating. Thanks to a very long fire-lane across the board, Al was able to drop Smoke with some unit which allowed another unit that had MSV Lv2 and Feuerbach to attack my ARO units. To make matters worse the mission had Saturation Zone across the middle of the board which took away my Missile Launcher Burst 2 Fireteam advantage.
Needles to say, both of my ARO units died. Al then went on bit of a rampage with Achilles and few other units. Everything that wasn't hiding pretty much died and Al ended up surrounding my left corner (where I had Wallace with the remaining Scots Guards) with three units on Suppressive Fire. I'll be honest, I thought by end of Al's turn the game was over (which was only fair after what I did to Al in our previous game). I lost a good chunk of my Order Pool and most of my good units.
But then my second Cateran decided to be awesome. First I managed to snipe the unit with Feuerbach, then he went on to kill a Total Reaction Remote and both of the units on Suppressive Fire that were pinning down Wallace (I love T2 so much). It was such an unexpected swing that gave me a fighting chance. With the Orders I had left I used an SAS to get an objective. Which I did manage to get but Al revealed a TO Infiltrator which killed my SAS.
The second turn was less eventful as Al lost his attack units. He did however had a better foothold on the objectives and capitalized on it by securing two, one of them was the one I took with the SAS so I was back to zero. Unfortunately for me two of the objectives ended up on buildings and my remaining Specialists were 4-2 MOV Scots Guard. I just didn't have enough Orders to be able to get them to the objectives. My plan instead was to reduce the amount of points Al could get, which I could mainly achieve by killing Achilles who was his Data Tracker.
But as you might image, killing Achilles is easier said than done. First I sent two Highlanders at him in a Coordinated Order. I was hoping I could get two Crits thanks to CC27 and +1 Burst (from having two units in CC), but I only managed one Wound. Both of the Highlanders died to AROs. My last form of attack was Wallace. With his 6-4 MOV he got to the CC quickly and went Berserk. The result was both Wallace and Achilles dying, which was pretty funny.
Overall a fun game with an interesting first turn. In retrospect I would say the problem with my list was that it wasn't tailored for this mission which feels it needs more Infiltrating, or at least fast Specialists. Though it also could have been the table itself, which wasn't really set up for this kind of deployment. The game could have gone better with the regular way of deploying I think.
Game 2: Acquisition - Caledonia vs Onyx Contact Force
Won 3 to 2 (2 TP)
My second game was against a new player Ross. We got a really cool table to play on, I thought it was set up really well with combination of tight corridors, dense areas and also open killing fields. After Lt roll I decided to go first (not wanting to repeat the mistake of game one). My deployment was quite spread out, long range weapons in middle and each flank, and fast aggressive units on each flank also. Ross was playing Onyx Force which I knew could have some nasty units, so I wanted to be covered on all angles.
After deployment, my plan to send Wallace with his Merry Band of Highlander down the flank was stalled by a TAG with Plasma Sniper Rifles. It deployed on a roof opposite of them. I didn't want to risk being hit with templates so my first turn was focused on getting rid of the TAG. Thankfully I had a Scots Guard with Missile Launcher in Camo not too far away. It took me more Orders than expected but eventually I did shoot the TAG off the board. I was hoping to do more but the Scots Guard used up most of the Orders spent in that combat group. In the other group I was able to use Cateran and Uxia to thin down units from a Fireteam of Batroids. I also moved up Wallace and Highlanders into some cover.
Ross was holding back in his turn, mostly moving units into position out of line of sight and getting to objectives. He has also used Bit & Kiss in Cyber-Mask to get to the objective in the middle, allowing him to put them into good ARO positions should I try take it. Ross did also manage to active an objective on my right with a Specialist Remote. The Batroid Fireteam was pinned down by one of my Caterans, so they didn't do much.
As we were taking such a long first turn I had to be more aggressive in my second turn, in terms of getting objectives (we were unlikely to get a third turn). I started with Wallace and Highlanders taking out the Specialist Remote on my right and occupying that objective. Then I used my 112 Doctor to go take the objective on the left. His Light Shotgun seemed like a decent deterrent for Bit & Kiss who didn't want to reveal themselves. Which allowed the 112 to get to the objective, activate it and hide Prone to control it. With my remaining Orders I did attack Bit with a Volunteer. I was able to Chain Rifle her, with the Volunteer dying to an ARO.
Ross also didn't have a choice and had to be aggressive in his turn, which was going to be the last one of the game. His best option was to get his remaining Batroid, Umbra and Nexus (all in one Fireteam) to the objectives but he was going to be taking Cateran fire along the way. Which worked out for him because I kept either rolling poor or he kept passing ARM saves. Ross did manage to get really close to the objectives but eventually my Urugan was able to draw line of sight and that proved to be too much for the Fireteam to handle.
That all said and done, I managed to win only by one point. Neither of us had the Tech Coffin (middle objective), we both activated one objective and then I controlled two and Ross did his Classified Objective. I think my struggle with his mission was not focusing on the objectives from turn one, though I might have got more points (or at least chance to take them) if we had full three turns.
Game 3: Supplies - Caledonia vs Onyx Contact Force
Won 7 to 2 (3 TP)
My last game was also against a new opponent (who I believe came down to Leeds with Ross), but unfortunately I forgot to write down his name. He was also playing Onyx Force but a very different list. After the Lt roll I decided to go first (my favourite thing for Supplies) and deployed with the plan to take the objective on the right and in the middle, so my defenses were set up to cover those sections the most. Since the only high ground I had were two shipping containers it was where my Ceterans deployed Prone.
During deployment of reserves, which for me was Uxia (as always), I changed my plan a bit because my opponent deployed a Total Reaction Remove on a high roof which was a big threat to the Caterans. So I rolled for Infiltrating Uxia near the Remote, and managed to pass the roll. My first Order (after Impetuous) was to use Uxia to kill the REM, but it didn't work out. I rolled poorly with the Burst 5 and she died. My Fireteam was not in a good position to take on the REM so I used one of the Caterans, which worked out even without being in cover against the REM.
With that taken care of I was able to use an SAS to take the objective on the left and go hide with it. I still had a bunch of Orders left in the first group so I have re-positioned my Scots Guard to attack my opponent's Fireteam of Rodoks. It wasn't the most favourable firefight for me as we were on very similar BS (after all bonuses and modifiers) but it was my best option at reducing their number. My opponent won the first face to face rolls but I did hit with the Missile Launcher and the other affected units could not declare Dodge (as they were in a Fireteam), so they died. My Scots Guard passed his ARM save and with a second round of shooting he killed the Rodok that he shot previously.
The positions of the Caterans turned out to be better than expected as my opponent was pinned down by them. His only unit with MSV Lv2 (which really helps against Caterans) only had a short range weapon and a Batroid with Missile Launcher did not have an easy time hitting a Sniper with Mimetism and in cover. After the Batroid died my opponent moved his units around and went to Coup de Grace my unconscious Uxia with a Rodok. To which I responded with both Caterans and killed the Rodok.
I often think to myself I would like to utilize my 112 for more than just sitting back and heal Snipers or other long range units so in my second turn I spent most Orders on him getting objectives. First he moved to the middle and took the objective out, which was then passed onto a Highlander. Then the 112 went to the objective on the left and took it out as well. I was feeling cocky and used the 112 to attack Batroids inside a building, I felt with the Shotgun he'd have a good chance. But whilst I won the roll my opponent passed his ARM save. After spending all those Orders I used a Scots Guard in the first group to do a Sabotage Classified Objective.
In his second turn my opponent killed the 112 and then used his Umbra to move close to my units on right flank. He thought he could attack my SAS who was relatively close but didn't have enough Orders as the Umbra was initially deployed on a roof with the Rodoks. So instead he attacked my Scots Guard in CC. I tied to kill the Umbra with DEP as ARO but lost the face to face roll. The Umbra then hid for the next turn.
In my last turn I thought I could use Wallace to kill all of the Batroids on the other side of the board (to avenge the 112). With 6-4 MOV he got there really fast but I fluffed the first attack. I was in good range and everything but rolled poorly, even on the ARM and BTS saves, which got Wallace killed. The last Orders I had I spent on the two units with the objectives, just running as deep into my Deployment Zone as they could to hide them.
My opponent didn't have enough Orders left in his last turn to chase them, so he just tried to kill whatever he could get to. Funnily enough, the unit with MSV Lv2 and Combi Rifle (Maakrep) that was hiding the whole game was his Lt and when it took a shot at a Cateran it managed to kill him. I didn't mean for the Caterans to be in such an oppressive place for my opponent, as he was new to tournaments, but if nothing else I hope it was a lesson to have more long range weapons next time. Units like the Maakrep are really good with HMG.
