Totally Crit Open VI - Invasion by Yorkshire

I believe I mentioned it in some other article about the Qualifier Tournaments for UK Masters event, but my idea was if I don't rank good enough on the first Qualifier I attended in Birmingham I am going to travel down South of UK to attend an event before I go the Qualifier in Leeds. Basically so I have three chances to qualify with some good ranking. I ended up 9th in Birmingham so down South I went!

Totally Crit Open VI was the only one before Leeds, which I thought was cool because it gave the chance to meet the guys who do the Totally Crit podcast, and meet some of the players from the South.

I traveled to Royal Tunbridge Wells by train which was I enjoyed, though in London I had to use the tube and that I could do without. Those underground trains feel too confined and I would not want to experience it during rush hour. Since I don't know map of London at all I didn't realize the train would be going pass the Big Ben but on the way back I remembered to snap a photo.

The event was held in a nice social club venue and we had lots of space for the tables. They also had a bar so I went into my final game refreshed with a pint of Dark Fruit Strongbow cider. In total they had nine tables set up and all of them had good amount of terrain.

All three of my games were fun and the last two were quite tough. My last two opponents had something in their armies that I did not expect. I won all three games but only expected to come out 2nd at best because I was 3rd after the second round.

Table X.

Though as they were announcing the rankings I realized that the only player who had 6 Tournament Points after the second round (the rest of us with two wins had only 5), lost his last game. At that point I couldn't remember if his opponent had a major victory or not but there was a chance I was the only person with 8 TPs in the end. Which turned out to be true! So finally I had my win of the 2016 season. 

Me and James, the TO.

For the first place I got the ITS Winner Pack, £30 voucher, Desperados logo patch, some new tokens and a set of golden camo markers. I have no idea what company makes those but they are funky.

Army Lists

Totally CRIT List A
Totally CRIT List B

Before I get to the games, just briefly about my army lists. I had my Wulvers Link list for missions that require zone control. I do enjoy using them to dominate zones and thus far the Wulvers have not failed me. Their decent ARM 3, high PH 14 and 2 Wounds makes them very survivable against most weapons and in a full Link team they can take on many things and come out on top.

My second list was bit of a risk, for the first time I used a Scots Guard Link Team instead of running Wallace with Highlanders and three snipers. But a Missile Launcher in a Link, backed by two snipers proved to work well and I am definitely going to play the Guard more often. The list was designed for Supplies mission. Three Infiltrating Specialists to grab the objectives, take them back to my deployment zone and then everyone else just stop my opponent getting into my DZ and taking the objectives off me.

(A small side note, these lists were made before Human Sphere N3 book.)

Game 1: Supplies - Caledonia vs ALEPH
Won 9 to 2 (3 TPs)

In my first game of the day I played Lee and his ALEPH. I was bit wary because last event I went to I had mixed experience with ALEPH (won one game, lost the other) and their ODD on everything can be hard to deal with without Multi Spectral Visors and flamers. Lee won the Lt roll off and decided to go second, which was a relieve for me because for this mission especially I designed my army to go first. I chose the side with the highest vantage point and let my opponent set up first. Lee set up just about everything in hidden positions, which meant I could move my troops around without dealing with long range threats first but I also knew it meant I couldn't take off many Orders either and those troops would come for me later.

ALEPH deployment.

I started my turn just as I planned with this mission, three Infiltrators behind each objective grabbed the Supply Box and run back to my deployment zone. I was slowed down a bit by one SAS who took about four Orders before he passed his WIP check to get the box. Because of that I had to use one of my Highlanders from second order group to take the box and run further back. I did the same with a Cameronian. This allowed me to leave two SAS in the middle and put them back into camo for some defense. With the last orders I re-positioned my Link Team for some defensive AROs. Lee used his first turn to advance with Achilles down my right flank. He took out one of my Caterans, WarCor and a Highlander. Some other ALEPH units followed Achilles but there were no other casualties.

In my second turn I knew I couldn't take Achilles head on, or if I could, it would take lots of Orders so instead I decided to strengthen my defenses and hide the Supply Boxes. Cameronian jumped onto roof of the highest building (behind my surviving Cateran), one Scots Guard took it from Uxia and also climbed onto a roof with everyone else in the Link. Last one was harder to hide due to lack of Orders in the second group so the Highlander just run further behind a building. I had T2 Sniper, Molotok, AP Marksman Rifle, Missile Launcher and SAS in Supressive Fire waiting for Achillies to show himself. I think I killed one or two units that turn. Lee didn't push with Achilles but focused on getting his Classified Objectives (I had none of mine done yet) and moving up his troops.

I knew I could still lose the game in the last turn so my goal was to protect the troops with the objectives best I could and try take off some Orders from Lee's pool, and get my Classified (so lots to do!). I run the Highlander onto a roof as well so all three objectives were off the ground, the idea was to make Lee spend extra orders climbing or running around to the stairs. I couldn't do one of my Classified (Doctor a trooper) because everything that died was shocked to death, but my other was to Forward Observe enemy HVT. So I run camouflaged SAS to it but only too late realized Lee had a trooper next to it (it was behind a building so I forgot). So I moved the SAS pass the trooper and risked FOing the HVT. Lee decided to Engage, which he managed to get and I only passed one roll to FO. It meant I couldn't FO again without winning the combat first. I decided to take my chance and shoot a missile launcher into the melee. First shot killed the SAS but a second shot killed the ALEPH trooper.

I still needed the objective so I used my second SAS to run to the building from the other side and FO the HVT, which worked. I also kept him close so at the end I could change my second Classified to Secure HVT. The SAS ended facing towards my deployment zone for some potential AROs. I ended my turn with moving Uxia to a corner of a building to face direction of Achilles.

This turned out to be a bad decision when Lee started his turn by dropping down an AD trooper behind all my troops that I did not expect. He passed his PH roll and I had nothing facing that way anymore. To make things worse, the AD trooped had a heavy flamer thrower and super jump! So he of course jumped up and flamed my Link Team. Fortunately he couldn't hit the Guard with the objective but it could have killed off my AROs against Achilles. I managed to pass all of the Dodge rolls and had two AROs against the trooper. Uxia failed her roll on 17s, but the SAS who was all the way over the middle line landed a hit and killed the AD trooper. Lee didn't want to risk all the AROs so he first dropped a smoke grenade so Achilles could cross without being shot. He had only few Orders left and by climbing up the building to where the Highlander was he had only one Order left to attack. Which meant at worse I'd drop the objective but he couldn't grab it. I tried to hide in Smoke and rolled 15 but I was out-rolled and the Highlander died.

I would say the mission was more in my favour as Lee did not expect me to grab all the objectives so fast. If I do manage to get all three of them into my deployment zone it is hard for anyone to take them all from me. Granted as long as I can protect my DZ with long range weapons. Lee did have rocket launcher that he did not use during the game, which might have helped him to do some damage but he would have faced at least three AROs (two from Link and one Sniper) which would have make those shots hard.

Game 2: Safe Area - Caledonia vs Japanese Sectorial Army
Won 4 to 3 (2 TPs)

After chatting to people during the dinner break I knew I wasn't on top, I only had 9 Objective Points and few people had 10. I was expecting to play someone who I knew also had 9 but I was paired against someone else, Stuart and his JSA. Turned out from all the other 9s I was highest by only two army (victory) points. This mission was bit of a gamble on my part because I had only three specialists, but I believed I'd be able to take all the TO troops I was expecting from the Japanese army. Turned out Stuart's main hitters were Haramaki in a full five man Link Team. I won the Lt roll and decided to take the side with the best sniper spots, so I knew were Stuart deployed his Link and it might have been a smarter choice to deploy my Link on the other side of the board but at the same time if I smashed his Link I'd dominate the board, and I was confident in the Wulvers.

Stuart started his turn with the only TO trooper he had, Shinobu Kitsune. She appeared like right in front of my Link but everyone around her had Berserk and good CC, so Stuart had hard time getting the best use out of her. In the end she spent few orders moving between my troops as a TO Marker and revealed herself to attack one Wulver. I think she managed to score a Wound and it allowed some of my troops to change facing with Warining!. She then decided to throw a Smoke grenade. All of the Wulvers who saw her failed to hit and I couldn't Chain Rifle with a Highlander because I'd hit my troops so I did Engage as his roll was unopposed. It passed and when she decided to attack the Highlander in CC, I activated Berserk and killed her. I thought to myself, biggest threat avoided but I was so wrong. The punishment was just about to come. Stuart run out with his Link team and killed both of my Caterans with a Missile Launcher. One time I had a choice to either shoot face to face with the Link Leader or hit someone for free, I decided to have face to face because the Missile Launcher was the biggest threat but in retrospect I should have hit someone for free as I could have put them unconscious with T2 ammo and Stuart would then have to spend Orders healing them or have only four man Link.

After Snipers were gone, the Haramaki moved to face my Link Team and since then the whole game revolved around one corner of the table. Fortunately for me, because of the Smoke from Kitsune my Wulvers were all hidden. Unfortunately for me Stuart ended his turn in such a way that if I activated the Link, three AROs were coming my way, one of which was the missile launcher. I could have broke Wallace from the Link and use him to throw Smoke to help me advance but I was perhaps bit too overconfident in the Wulvers and wanted to face the enemy Link. I had Uxia near by so the plan was to take out one Haramaki to take away the +3 BS from them and then use the Wulvers. It did not go that easy but eventually I was able to take off some Wounds off the Haramaki with Uxia and her shotgun, and make the Missile Launcher hide. It was time to attack, but I also made one stupid mistake. One Wulver was able to see one Haramaki, another Wulver was able to see two. So I made the first Wulver Link Leader and activated, completely blanking out the fact Stuart would get a free ARO against the other Wulver. Outcome of the firefight was one dead Haramaki and two of my Wulvers Isolated. Which really sucked for me as I had no Engineers in the list. I ended my turn by putting one Wulver into Supressive Fire and hoping they would survive the upcoming onslaught.

This was were Wulver with Mk12 proved man of the match for me. Stuart tried to kill him with the Missile Launcher but because we were just within 24" he was rolling on a lower number, so the Wulver kept winning the face to face. However the Haramaki tanked like three or four saves and when I did kill him, he was healed back up by a nearby Doctor. Though during the fight, one Wulver died to a missile blast because I moved him too close to the Mk12. Stuart also tried to deal with the Mk12 by running up his Remote with Spitfire and MSV Lv2, but I managed to score a critical hit with the Mk12 and kill it.

In my turn things got little complicated. When the second turn started, the Tournament Organizer came around and said we had 30 minutes left, neither of us realized we took that long with the first turn but we also didn't feel like we were playing slow. I knew at best Stuart would get a part of his third turn but I wouldn't. So like at any other time in this situation I talked to my opponent about it to try agree on ending the game when we both had same number of turns, so there is no unfair advantage to anyone. We talked to the TO about it too and from it all I believed we agreed to end the game at the end of my turn, so that is how I played it. Instead of being careful with my troops, I run them out into open (but not through AROs) just to get them into the quadrants in front of my deployment zone. I also moved my SAS and Paramedic Volunteers base to base with one objective so if Stuart used his card to make one of them non-specialists, I'd still have one touching it.

When my turn ended there was only like five to ten minutes left and Stuart wanted his turn because he didn't move any Specialists to the objectives. He had the Orders to do it in his second turn but he thought we'd play all three, so there was some unfortunate miscommunication. My troops were standing out of cover so even in five minutes he might have killed them, so we had the TO to make a decision and he decided to end the game without the third turn as we were on the time limit and had two turns each. I felt bad so I offered Stuart we can score it as a Draw because we both had only two quadrants and he would have been able to get one objective. We both had our Classified Cards to use, and I think I might have been able to still win by denying him a Specialist because if I remember right, Stuart didn't know the cards had that use in this mission. In the end Stuart didn't take the Draw and let the results be as they were, with me winning by holding that one objective. He was good about it afterwards too, which was cool as I didn't want to leave anyone with a bad experience from playing against me.

(After I had a look at the final scoring in the end, I still would have won the tournament if we did a Draw. I'd lose 1 TP and 1 OP, so I'd draw with the second place on TPs but I was 3 OPs ahead. I think instead of being 3rd after the second round I'd be 4th and still face the same player in final game.)

Game 3: Frontline - Caledonia vs Military Orders
Won 9 to 0 (3 TPs)

In the last round I got to play Adam from Birmingham (who I thought I'd play in the second round), he organises the Warzone events but I don't think we ever played each another before this. The TO showed us the rankings after the second game so I knew I was 3rd, ahead of Adam just by victory points. I was expecting our game to be fight for the 2nd or 3rd place. I think I won the Lt roll off and chose the side with the best sniper places. Adam decided to take the first turn, and deployed two Seraph TAGs, which I knew would be hard to deal with. One TAG I can take out, two is tricky as my army was very focused on one Link.

The terrain we were playing on showed how terrifying Super Jump on a TAG can be. The buildings were not that tall and the Seraphs were able to jump around and move really fast. I was able to get a hit on one of them with T2 Sniper and take off two STR points, so he went back to hide. The second Seraph, however, took out both of my snipers and tanked free shots I had against it at one point. Thankfully Adam had only 8 Orders in total after I took off two with a Command token so he couldn't do more damage but ended his turn with one Seraph on top of a building which mean he could see a lot.

My Wulvers were on others side of the board and one Smoke grenade allowed them to move where I needed them to. The wounded Seraph was behind a big garage building and while I couldn't move all the way around it (it was too close to the board edge), I was able to move just enough to be in cover but see it in the open. I did manage to kill it on a second attempt, though I can't remember if it was Mk12 or Heavy Shotgun that went second. With the TAG dead, and more importantly, its Auxbot deactivated, I was able to move inside the garage. This allowed me to attack more troops inside Adam's deployment zone. In front of the building was a wall with three or four troops lined up so the Heavy Shotgun could have done lots of damage. The only problem was the second TAG, it could see me if I run out. I probably should have just throw Smoke Grenade and ignore it, but I had a Highlander inside the building on which it was standing, so using his Order pool I run him into CC so the TAG couldn't see anything. I won the face to face CC roll but done no damage. I also managed to heal one Cateran with a Paramedic. I ended my turn killing one trooper I could see and the unconscious TAG because I didn't want to risk an engineer getting back up.

(In retrospect I think I should have really just ignore both of the TAGs after I made the first one unconscious. The alive one was very far away and with Spitfire it would been hitting on negative modifiers to BS. If I was smarter I would either just run out with the Shotgun and take the one hit, or use Smoke. Getting my Wulver around that wall would have likely crippled Adam's next turn a lot more because it was very likely I'd kill all those troops.)

Adam used his turn to kill the healed Cateran and took on the Wulvers with some cheap Remote, but it didn't do any damage. Some of his other troops also moved up the board. The Seraph in CC won it this time and Explosive weapon killed my Highlander. The TAG then proceeded to jump off the building and move across the board to jump on top of the garage. His Auxbot tried to flame my Link team but they all managed to Dodge. Which was great but he left it right in front of them, so if they activated another template was coming my way. This forced me to use Uxia (again coming to the rescue of Wulvers) to take out the Auxbot. I think she did get hit by the flamer or it might have tried to Dodge but she survived either way but the Auxbot didn't. One threat was dealt with but I still couldn't just move the Wulvers out. After unsuccessful attempts to kill Order Sergeant with TO and Sniper Rifle, I was confined to the garage building. At the time I couldn't think of a way to get out and either kill the TAG or the troops that were still behind that wall. As I am writing this I think if I used Smoke to block the sniper I could have try use the Heavy Shotgun against the TAG or put the TAG into Smoke and then use SAS I had on the same roof to CC it, or even just have Wulvers use their Climbing Plus to go CC it.

Speculations aside, I ended my turn bunkered down inside the garage. Adam moved lots of his troops forward though only one made it far enough to maybe be in the zone in front of my DZ, one made it to the middle and then he had three in the zone front of his DZ. The surviving Seraph jumped down from the roof and either killed a Wulver, or I might have had only three left by that point. Hard to remember now, but the turn ended with me having only Wallace and two Wulvers left in the area, Uxia and SAS that were also around got killed in Adam's turn. My third turn was the final turn so I was trying to take all three zones, or at least the zone in front of Adam's DZ which would give me the most points. My only other troops were a Highlander, Volunteer with Chain Rifle and a WarCor.

First I tried to move the Wallace, the idea was to throw Smoke at the TAG and then use Coordinated Order to run him and two Wulvers into CC, which would have given me Burst 3 attack at Damage 16 with Explosive weapon that would crit at 12 or more. I was able to smash TAGs like this before. It would likely mean dead Wallace or one Wulver, but it was a trade off I was willing to take. However, none of that happened because I didn't know Seraphs had Nanopulser. So he shot the template and it of course hit everyone, Wallace dodged and the Wulvers also survived but I did not dare to activate them again. I had my card worth of 40pts to add to a zone and Adam decided to use it as Classified instead so I knew he couldn't add points, so I hoped Wallace and Wulvers plus 40pts were more than the TAG and three troopers.

After the failed attempt to kill the TAG I moved my WarCor out of my DZ and the Volunteer moved even further out so he was in the middle zone and close to Adam's HVT so he couldn't get Secure HVT (at this point he didn't do his Classified yet so I thought he might try to change it). The last Highlander did not move anywhere, I cancelled his Impetuous Order because he was already outside of my DZ and he was in LoF of a Fusilier and I didn't want to risk Adam rolling a crit, he rolled too many of those already before.

Everything I could do was done, so I ended my turn. We started with measuring where Adam's DZ ended and it turned out his TAG jumped back too far and was over 50% inside the DZ! Which meant he wasn't scoring and Wallace with two Wulvers were easily more points than his three cheaper troops. In the middle zone I had only 6 points Volunteer and he had over 20 points with two units. In the last zone, I held it with Highlander and WarCor, 9pts in total, and Adam had no troops in it. So I added my 40pts into the middle zone and was able to take all three.

Overall it was a very crazy game, I did not expect to face two TAGs. and while I think I didn't play bad, I could have made some smarter choices.

Just Play Games - April Assault

We have set off to Liverpool once more and returned to Leeds with the 1st place again... but not held by me, again! First thing I noticed after we got there was that the guys at Just Play Games added more to the terrain and had really nice objective markers too. Out of the five boards used, I think only two could have used more tweaking. We thought making the buildings diagonal would have solved it but others were pretty set on horizontal set up.

It was a good day overall and more lessons learned, despite my win-loss-loss performance. I was okay with the first loss, it was a tough game and I felt like I played good for the most part. The second loss was kind of painful as it came down to some deployment mistakes I can't seem to shake off.

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

Table 4. Deployments were on left and right.

Table 5

After some post-games discussion, I still can't decide if I like the new ITS Scoring system or not. I do see how needing three wins is fair, but it works against me as I was comfortable with two wins and try for high loss. It sure puts bit more pressure on every game if you are going for high ranking.

Also something that I didn't think about till today was the mission grouping. In this event they chose to have three objective based missions and in the end I ended up using only one list for all three games. Being used to having objective list and killing list made me feel like I didn't know what to do with the second list. I think if I spent more time thinking about it ahead, I could have one list for dense tables and one for open tables or something like that. Some people had one list tailored against a faction, which is something to consider as well.

Game 1: Seize the Antennas - Caledonia vs ALEPH
Won 10 to 2 (3 TPs)

With the first game I played Mark, whom I never played before, or at least not this year. I don't face ALEPH often so I wasn't sure what to expect. After roll off Mark went first while I chose deployment. I think I won the roll but not sure. The first turn was way more brutal than I expected. He didn't have many Orders but was very bold with his Forward Observer and Hacker, which allowed him to kill handful of troops with Guided Missiles and despite my best efforts I didn't stop a single one. Even fluffed all of my free shots. Mark had an obvious Lt choice, some ALEPH TAG with Strategos Lv3 so I focused on trying to kill it, hoping to cripple Mark's next turn so he can't focus on the objectives. After some failed attempts to kill the TAG with T2 Rifles and Sniper Rifles, I sent Cameronian after it. The TAG survived the chain rifles but went down in CC. I even spent a command token so I could Coup de Grace the TAG, I didn't want to risk it coming back.

There used to be a TAG where the Cameronian is.

After that what happened was mostly Mark trying to defend the objectives and me trying to take them all. By the end of my second turn I put Mark into retreat and at that point we both had one Objective and he also had Classified done, I didn't. Thankfully ITS now says Retreat make the game end at the end of the Turn, not Player Turn so I had my last turn. (edit; after some discussion on Facebook we figured out we understood it wrong on the day. They might have changed the wording in ITS but the game still ends by end of Player Turn if they start in Retreat.) Though because of limited number of Orders I was on the edge. It took my Engineer four rolls before getting an objective and thankfully Uxia took the one Mark had with the last Order.

In the end I changed my Classified to Secure HVT as I failed all my Doctor rolls, so I scored full 10.

Game 2: Cold Sleep - Caledonia vs Combined Army
Lost 2 to 6 (0 TPs)

As it tends to happen, I ended up facing one of my mates from Leeds. Matt also scored 10 in his first game so at this point we were on top ranks I believe. I knew he was using his Combined Army which worried a bit because there is lots to do in this mission and in previous games his CA always gave me lots of trouble. However the table was good and I ended up having the first turn so I could set my defenses and deal some damage. Or so was the idea, but dice didn't go in my favour. I lost everything that I should have won, like shotgun at point blank range or sniper vs line trooper at very long range. I don't think I killed anything but was able to get my guys into position and also had my Cameronian right in front of Matt's Total Reaction HMG Remote, close enough for Chain Rifle template. In my turn I run out of Orders trying to keep hitting it.

It ended up somewhat in my favour because Matt had to deal with it and revealed his Anathematics Hacker. The Cameronian died but took a Wound off with Chain Rifle, as did a Highlander which made Matt lot more careful with it for the rest of the game. He also managed to pull off Smoke-MSV Lv2 trick with his HMG trooper, which I always hate to face since I just have to take the damage and hope to survive. Lucky for me it didn't end up doing much and Matt moved the trooper off a roof. Which allowed me to deal with it easier in my second turn. My biggest problem was being unable to deal with the HMG Remote and the Anathematics. My Volunteer HMG in full Link failed to kill the Remote and after that I had nothing on that flank to deal with it.

It more or less cost me the game, it kept my mind focused on the problem so I didn't make the smarter choice of going for the objectives on the other side of the table. Matt was able to take out the Link Team one by one and take objectives with the Anathematics. He couldn't move much to the other of the board because I had good lines of fire everywhere he couldn't deal with easy. The scoring in the end was close, we both had two Tech Coffin Objectives and the main difference really was that the Anathematics and another Specialist very able to hold Console and I had none of those since I didn't really go for it.

In retrospect I think I should have go more for the objectives and stay focused, I did feel like I was trying to do too much and spread my Orders thin. Could have been a very different result if I managed to also get two Specialists into contact with a Console.

Game 3: Highly Classified - Caledonia vs ALEPH
Lost 3 to 10 (0 TPs)

Funnily enough both Marks played ALEPH but this was a different person than I faced in the first round. I played him in the previous month where I won the mission, this time it was his turn to deal the pain. I admit I underestimated how un-effective it would be to deploy hidden against Mark on the board we played. I was expecting his Spitfire trooper to run into my Deployment Zone again but thought I protected myself enough. Which was proven wrongs. Thanks to some fire lines that I did not see he was able to take out my Engineer and also tore apart my Link Team. ODD really makes the odds bad even when I was in good range and a full Link. With some Camo Iflitrator he was also able to take out both my Paramedic and Doctor, which put an end to a chance to win before I even started playing. Two of the main Classified Objectives were Engineer something and Doctor someone.

With my game crippled, I was going to try force a draw. I had done my secondary Classified and was able to do two of the remaining main Classified. I did one of them and then needed to get my hacked to Mark's HVT ZoC and hack it. With bad judgement on my part, a failed Cautious Move cost me my hacker and it was really game over. The most I could do was make it harder for Mark to get the remaining main Classified, which he did get all in the end thanks to some lucky Fall Damage rolls.

The main lesson from this game was that I really need to work on my deployment techniques when playing on an open table. I usually play on boards were buildings have interior and then end up on a board with closed building in an event and suddenly its lot harder to deploy almost twenty models. Definitely at least need to keep my Specialists hidden better and not near each another for Shogun blasts to kill them.

USARF Conversions Part 2 - Foxtrots

This article will cover my conversions of the Foxtrots. To see other articles in this series, click on the links below:

Part 1 - Marauders
Part 2 - Foxtrots
Part 3 - Girl Grunts
Part 4 - Grunts with Heavy Flamers

Foxtrots

You'll notice two of the Foxtrots are actually Ariadna Scouts bodies. This is because I had them left over from another conversion I was doing for my Caledonia army and had no other use for them. They do not have the Foxtrot hat but I think they work just as well.

Bits used:
- Ariadna Scout bodies
- Shotgun and Rifle arms from 45th Highlander

The one thing that all of these guys shared were gaps between shoulder and body. Because the miniatures are metal I didn't want to spend too much time re-positioning the arms, so they were glued to look right and the gaps were filled with greenstuff. The gaps are more obvious from behind.

Going from left to right, the first model was the most straight forward. I gave him arms from the Foxtrot that comes in the USARF starter box. The second miniature was also fairly easy, main difficulty was that I couldn't get his left arm connect so it required the most greenstuff.

The hardest was the third miniature. The rifle is very close to his chest and to make it fit I had to cut off some of the breast pockets but the arms still didn't connect well. Though I was able to glue them on in a decent place and greenstuff concealed the gaps well.

It might have been easier to give this guy the shotgun but I quite liked the pose with the rifle. 

New Caledonia Fireteams in HSN3

The information for this article are mainly from the Beasts of War video about Fireteams, you can watch it yourself here:

http://www.beastsofwar.com/infinity/human-sphere-n3-week/fireteams/

In this article, as you probably guessed, I will only talk about Fireteams for Caledonia but the video has news for all the faction.

So whats new?

From what Bostria said, on top of the Core Links we have now (Volunteers, Grey Rifles, Scots Guard and Wulvers, plus Highlanders with Wallace) two units will have Fireteam: Haris and one unit will have Fireteam: Duo.

Fireteam: Haris - Mormaers, Wulvers
Fireteam: Duo - Scots Guard

They both work as regular (Core) Links do but have lower capacity. Haris can have only up to 3 members, while Duo has only 2. This does limit the bonuses you get from being part of the Link, full Haris will get you +1 Burst but Duo gets you nothing. But with all of them you can activate more than one trooper with one Order, which is always helpful!

Personally I was bit surprised that Grey Rifles do not have Haris but you can still link them as normal and I guess they didn't want us to have one Core Link of Grey Rifles and one Haris, in the same army. Rumour is that Grey Rifles will be able to join with Volunteers and maybe other units but don't know officially yet.

I hope they will raise AVA of Wulvers in Caledonia because I'd definitely want to run more than four now. Even if they don't though, it'll be useful to have them as 3 man Link on top of a second Link. I could definitely see myself playing defensive Volunteers or Scots Guard while using these guys to attack. The best thing will be that as long as they stay in a Link they ignore Frenzy which is one thing that makes them less useful, since they lose Partial Cover after wounding or killing something. This is assuming Link Teams still make units Not-Impetuous.

For Mormaers it is definitely a boost to be able to Link. My problem with them always was that they are slow, and I really like the idea of Burst 4 T2 Rifle or Burst 5 AP HMG. I think personally I would run them as two T2 Rifles and AP HMG, but if you really want to you could Link three AP HMGs! All ARM 8 in cover. That sounds pretty badass and hard to shift for your opponent. Hopefully Dogged will no longer drop you out of the Link either, at least not immediately.

Duo seems less useful than a Core Link or Haris because its just two troopers, but for a 4-2 unit I think it can really help. I could definitely see using a Scots Guard to attack something and another one just trailing behind to get closer to the enemy or just to a better position while you are doing something else. I doubt you will be able to Link the Camouflaged Scots since those can't Link even now.

Overall I am excited to see what more HSN3 has for Caledonia. These new Link Team options definitely open up a whole new range of tactics on how to play this already very versatile army.

(Photos of troops are from the Infinity catalogue.)

USARF Conversions Part 1 - Marauders

Recently I have expanded my USAriadna collection by dozen models or so and as the range for USA models isnt that big yet, all of those were duplicate of models I already had. Personally I dont like to play two models that look identical so I have decided to do several weapon swap.

In this series of articles I will talk about the conversion I have done and do my best to describe how I have done it so if you are looking to do weapon swaps yourself, you can use this as a guide.

Part 1 - Marauders
Part 2 - Foxtrots
Part 3 - Girl Grunts
Part 4 - Grunts with Heavy Flamers

There will be some sculpting involved but I don't think any of these were complicated, myself I have only basic sculpting skills and all I used were mostly "standard" tools. So without further ago, lets get started.

Marauders 

This unit has the option to form Haris Link Team so I wanted to have three guys with different weapons; Heavy Flamer, Shotgun and Rifle to be specific. The current only available model comes with the Heavy Flamer and fortunately is in a such a position where weapon swapping is relatively easy. Basically all I had to do was cut away the flamer and then attach a new gun.

Bits used:
- Shotgun from 45th Highlanders
- Rifle from USA Grunt

First off, you want to cut away the Heavy Flamer carefully so you can use it later but if you dont care about it, you can just chop it off. But if you do want to use it later, first make sure to use your clippers to cut the bottom handle but leave enough under the hand so you can tell he is holding something.

Then I have used a small saw, but a knife/scalpel should work too, to cut the weapon in half. You don't have to cut all the way through, you can just cut in a bit and then gently bend the weapon few times and it should "snap" where you made the cut. If you have a small filer, I recommend smoothing the cut. On the image below I have cut where the red lines are:

Then you'll need to cut the weapons you are swapping. It doesn't matter as much where you cut them, the goal is to cut away the back part with the handle and arm. In my case, I was able to cut the rifle and have enough left it connected straight to the remains of the flamer but the shotgun wasn't long enough.

I did not do any positioning of the Marauder's left arm but if you want to spend more time on it, you easily could get the shotgun connect. 

 

I solved the gap by placing a small rectangle of plastic (cut away from a left over sprue) in there and then filling the whole gap with greenstuff. You could probably do it with greenstuff straight away. 

The same thing was done on the rifle as well, but there was barely any gap to fill. If you want you can also add some small details with the greenstuff to make it less obvious the weapon was swapped.

The gap filling is the only use of greenstuff on these guys. This is my end result:

 

All three of them are in the same position but I don't mind, its a very action front line pose and I like that.

USARF Blackjacks and the Unknown Ranger - First Thoughts

With the upcoming Human Sphere N3 book, Corvus Belli started to gives us a taste of what is coming. For the first time recently they gave us profiles of the long awaited USAriadna units, the Blackjacks and The Unknown Ranger.

The profiles are quite interesting and I wanted to get my thoughts down before we get the books.

Blackjacks

I seen people calling this the first true Ariadna Heavy Infantry (HI), but I don't really see it that way. To me "normal" HI in Infinity has 2 Wounds, Blackjacks have 1 Wound per profile. Which is pretty interesting on its own! Not many units in Infinity have two profiles, unless you play Tohaa. At first glance this reminds of the Yu Jing unit that can transform but this seems more like Tohaa Symbiont, it gets worse after taking damage.

V: Courage is not new, but Lo-Tech A and Heavyweight is. I am guessing the Lo-Tech A is the rule that makes it downgrade after taking a wound because it is not in the second profile and Bostria said something along those lines in the Beasts of War video. It would be nice if this rule always kicked in, even if you go straight to dead, so you could never be taken out too quick but I doubt it would be that badass. Harder to guess what Heavyweight could do, no mechanics comes to mind where being heavy would affect it. Maybe you can jump on people and cause damage?

I do like the statline though, BS13 is always nice to see and it has ARM 5, after taking a wound it goes to BS12 and ARM 4 which isn't too shabby either. It is a slow HI unit, which was kinda expected but I am guessing it will be more of a sit back and deal gunishment unit. With AP HMG or T2 Sniper Rifle, you are not going to be charging forward, but they do have Chest Mines and SMG or DEP, which are pretty good at keeping people from getting too close.

Sadly it is Hackable though, which I am not fan of as Ariadna was always famous for not being Hackable but we can't have everything I suppose.

Both weapon options are 36pts, with only SWC being different. Personally I think I'd see myself going for the HMG option because I have enough Snipers in my USA but the 2 SWC cost might be bit high so it'll depend on the rest of the army, but I'd be happy with either to be honest. There is a potential for both, or more, since in USARF sectorial I expect the AVA to be higher.

As far as the model, I am expecting it to be a suit of armour rather than a robot-style. The current Ariadna HI do not actually have that many armour plates so would be cool to see this being either armoured from head to toe, or like a battle-mech suit. With Silhouette 5, its gonna be big either way. If it was S6 I would guess it might be a Dog Warrior with lots of armour, which would be epic. I hope they make two models box set so you have a full power version and a damaged version, it has lots of potential to look awesome.

The Unknown Ranger

The Unknown Ranger is definitely either Chuck Norris or Rambo, or mix of both! Will see when the model comes out who was the inspiration. It is a quite costly unit at 41pts or 47pts +1.5 SWC but it does seem worth it and most of things in USARF is cheap. If I am honest I was expecting more of a Camo+Infiltration loner unit with close range weapons, D-charges and such but this profile seems to be more of elite commander.

The Ranger looks very beasty in CC, not only he has Natural Born Warrior to negate enemy Martial Arms but he also has CC22, Kinematica and T2 CCW, thats insane! Though because of the price tag, he might not be in CC that often. It tends to be safer to shoot people still.

Scavenger and NWI are also pretty useful. I think this makes the Rifle option much more appealing than the Molotok. You get Chain of Command so you don't have to worry about your Lt as much and after you kill someone, you can take their weapon most of the time so you can easily grab yourself a HMG or Sniper Rifle and go on a killing spree from long range.

The Chain of Command also has some decent combo potential in both vanilla and USARF. In vanilla the new Lt unit is coming out with Strategos Lv2 which is fun and you wont have to worry about obvious Lt.

In USARF though, you can get your first Lt killed, this guy becomes Lt, then drop in Van Zant with Executive Orders so he becomes the Lt and has the Lt Order for use and when he dies, the Ranger is Lt again! Fun times.

I think I will often try to find a place in my army for this guy. Hopefully the mini will look as badass as the profile is.