Caledonian Volunteers

How fitting the first Caledonia proper post is the backbone of every army, our precious cheerleaders! For now I have seven of these and I used to think it was more than enough but sometime I feel like I do need more chain rifles. They are pretty much in every army I play, even just one or two to fill the gaps for cheap Orders so they are the only unit so far I have done to the table-top standard (or at least first five of them). The rest of my army is almost ready for it too and should be posting those over the course of next week.

I had two inspirations for my Volunteers, Firefly and the Black Watch. I do love the army green but it is used so much on my other units I wanted them to be different. Then I remembered the Browncoats from Firefly series (and the film Serenity). They do seem little bit too dark overall but I think the colour combination works. At first I did consider giving them different tartans or at least having all tartans match across the army but I like the different styles, Black Watch seemed fitting to keep a link with the current real Scottish military.

You'll also notice one of the unfinished troopers has different colour scheme. I wanted one guy to stand out and try camouflage colours for whenever I play an Infiltrating Volunteer, which I some time do. I will keep the Black Watch tartan but otherwise switched colours around.

As for bases, this is how far I will take them for now. I have lots of models to do before Northern Open 3 so I want to keep it basic. The original idea was to make them highlands green on top of the brown but I am starting to like them so I might just add little but of grass and other small scatter. Will decide when the rest of my army is on the same level.

4-4 vs 4-2

In Caledonia only two units have MOV 4-2, which I find very slow and it is the main thing that stops me from taking the Scots Guard or the Mormaers. My play style with Caledonia is a lot about their speed so I do feel out of my comfort zone playing USAriadna where 4-2 is found more often since their Line Troops are Medium Infantry. So far I only played USAriadna in smaller games (around 200pts) so I had to chose between what to field more than in 300pts army. I spent some time deciding between Marauder who is 4-2 and Minuteman that has 4-4, as their cost for Specialist is the same and they fulfill more or less the same role.

I decided on Marauder because I am big fan of being able to deploy outside of your Deployment Zone and I thought deploying extra 4" forward would give him a speed boost. After the game though I thought about it some more and wasn't so sure I made the right choice. I realized that it takes only two orders for Minuteman to catch up and after that Marauder will always be behind, further and further with another Order. I made this image to demonstrate:

Background picture from http://www.toposolitario.com/workshop/index.html

So as you can see, Marauder gets to 28" in two orders (16+6+6) and it is the same for Minuteman (12+8+8). The only time Marauder gets bit further is the first order. I guess it is simple math in the end but math is not generally something I think about too much before the game, and of course you never really move always in a straight line during the game.

I think 4-2 with Forward Deployment is good to set up your defenses quicker, but in long term 4-4 will get you lot further. So if you are using either of these two for their Specialist profile, I would go with Minuteman as an objective grabber because his faster speed will also let you attack with him more efficiently. Marauder would be better if the objective is just outside of your deployment zone or to use one of his other profiles and as defensive unit.

USAriadna Expedition Force, Game 1

Recently we have started a campaign with couple of friends just to try it out and give us something else to play between tournaments. The basic starting point was: "On a routine deep space undercover survey one of your expedition forces stumbles across a distress beacon on what was thought to be an abandoned outpost on planet Emerald:B2-64." From there the story develops as go along. We have four active players (with maybe fifth) and the factions are FRRM (the French), USAriadna, Hassasin Barhaim and Steel Phalanx. I'd be only guessing where the story will go but I going to post updates as we play more games.

First mission was Emergency Transmission, 200 pts, only two Command Token and no Lieutenant. I have decided to play USAriadna because I won't play them much otherwise, and I really want to but Caledonia is my tournament army for now. My army list was:

1st Combat Group:
5x Grunt (Sniper, HMG, Paramedic, Forward Observer, Heavy Flamethrower)
1x Dozer
1x Foxtrot (FO)
1x Maverick (FO)
1x Marauder (Paramedic)
1x Hardcase

2nd Combat Group:
1x Warcor
1x Van Zant

(Bare metal unfortunately as my USAriadna is unlikely to be painted soon, Caledonia is priority for now.)

I planned to write a more detailed battle report but I been too busy and writing this like a week later so my memory isn't so great. I'll do better in the future. I was facing off against the French. I deployed my link team on left side of the board, almost everyone else on the right side and my Foxtrot was near the middle objective, waiting for the right time to take it.

I went first in this game and the first order I spent was Maverick's Imperious Order. She got glued down by an enemy Dozer. I had my own Dozer very close but there was an objective close too and I had to get at least two of them the first turn so I went for the objective instead. On the other side of my DZ the link team first took care of some long range ARO threats. I was surprised how effective the Sniper Rifle was, the Shock ammunition was quite deadly. Though one enemy kept surviving so my own HMG had to step in and put him unconscious with one round of shots. With the path clear the specialists were able to grab a second objective and everyone set up for the next turn.

My opponent tried to attack the link team but Sniper Rifle prevailed and scored another kill. My only casualty was my Dozer who even in suppression was unlucky. It made one of my secured objectives vulnerable but my link team still had LoF to it so my opponent didn't push for it. In my second turn the link team advanced to take a third objective and set up around and on a platform to basically have LoF almost everywhere on that side of the board. I also brought in Van Zant, which my opponent didn't expect so his DZ wasn't covered. He was able to walk on without being seen and quickly killed a Moblot with a Panzerfaust from behind. The shots were fired in ZoC of the enemy Dozer that glued my Maverick, so she was able to turn around but then she got shot with a Heavy Pistol on BS16 and died. Van Zant then took out Alguacil mercenary for good measure and went into cover with last available order.

In his second turn, my opponent was able to take out Van Zant by moving Moblot back towards his DZ. I didn't roll well with Van Zant that time. The second Game Turn ended with my opponent having one Objective and I had three, but he was in range of getting two more. I should have pressed my link team further to get fourth objective but I played defensive in my last turn. My Foxtrot managed to get the main objective in the middle. I was set up in a way that I covered the objectives my opponent needed but he'd have to do suicide runs as he couldn't deal with the link team. He did end up running for the objectives and while his troops did die, he managed to roll well and ended up with four objectives. At this point I was still winning and he had one order left, so he decided to shoot my Foxtrot. If he died, I'd lose 2 Victory Points and we'd draw but my Dodge succeeded and Foxtrot won the day for USA.

I had 2 VPs for activating the main objective, and 2 VPs for having a Specialists in contact with it. My opponent had 2 VPs for having more of the other consoles. 

Campaign kill count (Dead/Unconscious):
Drew, Sniper Grunt:  3/0
Van Zant: 2/1
Frank, Heavy Flamer Grunt: 1/0
Thomas, HMG Grunt: 0/1

FIASCO 2015

Today I have attended wargaming event FIASCO 2015 in The Leeds Royal Armouries, as part of our gaming club the Leeds Night Owls. They had a really nice ruined city table for Bolt Action and we got a big size table to show off Infinity so had a nice set up of a full gaming table, which was part for demo games and part for just showing other miniatures. And then we still had room to set up the Operation: Icestorm boxset and show bunch of the tokens and templates. I didn't collect all of the minis from Icestorm in time so we only had one Fusilier and one Alguacile, but we had bunch of other mimis. I brought some of my Morats, JSA (did demos with three line troops of those two) and Caledonia. Colin who was attending the table with me added some more Ariadna and PanO, can't remember if something else too.

We talked about Infinity to lots of people and did some demo games, which was fun. Having the Icestorm box helped to show off everything you get in it. I think we might have sold few people on it. I didn't have time to check out everything else much, but the event was full of wargaming traders and related stuff, and lots of demo games too were going on. Maybe next time we'll see some Infinity traders! We did show some of the Infinity templates too, Zen Terrain, Warsenal and Customeeple. Next time I'll prepare better and have some leaflets or something.

By next year I plan to have my own Ariadna themed board done, so I'll be able to travel UK on my own without taking our club stuff all the time.

Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures, I was too busy talking about Infinity and forgot, but at least I got our set up:

King of the North(ern Open), part I

Northern Open is an ITS tournament in Leeds run by Infinity the Game: Northern Alliance (link to our Facebook group is located on the right). If you don't know what ITS is, basically the official Infinity tournament system. This November we are running the 3rd event, so any NO3 reference I'll make in my articles is Northern Open 3. This one is sold out but we are planning to run them every few months next year, so check it out if you are interested and you should totally come!

The current event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1665925463643632/

Also our FB group has album with some of the tables we had in NO2.

I have attended the last two events and this time I am aiming to win it. I'll write about my experiences in some other articles but in short, first time I played Bakunin sectorial (Nomads) and came last, second time I played Morat Aggression Force sectorial (Combined Army) and came on 7th place (if I remember right). I was happy with that but I could have done better, I lost one game pretty bad because I didn't stick with my battle plan and I think I could have gotten more victory points if I didn't end one or two games sooner because the result was obvious. I feel kinda bad when I am winning too much, so I try not to table my opponents but this time, no mercy!

I will be taking Caledonian Highlander Army to NO3 and I been practicing my game for weeks. There is a tournament week before NO3 that I will be attending as well which should help, I like to practice against people I don't play often.

As with any ITS tournament I have two army lists, one for objective based missions, the other is more about just killing stuff. I am happy with my objectives lists, it has everything I need and if I don't fuck up anything I should draw at worst. My other list is still work in progress, the main thing I can't decide on is what will be my Alpha link team. I want to run William Wallace and since he can link with anyone, I am trying things out.

So far I have ruled out Wulvers, too expensive, and Scots Guard, too slow. My favourite are 3rd Grey Rifles so far, but due to their cost I only have 3 man link team. I think I will revisit 5-man 45th Rifle team, or try Volunteers team, since both of those are relatively cheap on points. The other thing I need to decide on is if I am going to be aggressive or not. It is how I play Caledonia (as you should) and I don't feel right hiding but in a mission where you need to survive, it has some value. Next few practice games should help me decide, for now I know I really missed my Cameronian when I tried Wulver instead. So my list will be likely build around Cameronian, McMurrough and Wallace. For defense I found Cateran and Missile Launcher Scots Guard with camo to be a good combo.

I am not going to reveal my full lists since people I'll play against might be reading this! But after the event I will get down into reviewing each list for sure.

Freedom Delivery System: Traktor Muls

I want to make my Traktors very rusty and dirty, more than the studio miniatures. I just think it fits with the whole Ariadna setting more than them being clean and shiny like most of the remotes of the other factions. Well, at least the body. The guns I imagine are something that is replaced often so they would look bit less worn.

I have a way of doing rust on miniatures which I think works well, at least I like how it comes out but I never tried it on vehicles before. So, I am doing the Traktors in two different ways.

This one, I'll do the whole thing rusty to start with and then layer the green on top of it, followed by more damage to the paint in form of scratches and such. So the end result should have very little green on it. I think it could really show this Traktor has been in the service forever.

Then the second Traktor will look bit newer. I am doing the opposite way, I started with green and metal  and will do the rust on top of it across the body.

I haven't decided yet what I'll freehand on them but for now I am leaning towards giving one Caledonia icons and the other one will be USAriadna, since those two I'll play the most.

First thoughts on USAriadna

Recently I played my first game with USAriadna. It went well for me (I won) and I quite enjoyed playing them but I can see straight away they will play very different to my usual Caledonia. Gameplay-wise, I am used to having minimum of three camo tokens, lots of smoke grenades and fast moving units. USA is almost the opposite of that. They have only two units that have smoke grenades, also only two units that have some level of camo and they mode medium-slow speed (at least that is the impression I have for now). I am going to write about this sectorial lot more in the future in more details as I plan to play them on tournaments next year but for now I'll break it down by the units I have used and my first thoughts on them.

In the list I had: Van Zant, Grunts, Foxtrot, Hardcase, Maverick and a Marauder. I also had a Dozer and a WarCor but I'll talk about those some other time as they aren't USA specific.

Van Zant - This guy worked pretty much as expected. Walked him up to the board in my opponent's Deployment Zone (DZ) out of sight of his troops and then proceeded to shoot them in the back. With BS 13 he can be very devastating since it is so easy for him to jump on people outside of cover and do unopposed attack, three shots at BS 16 is deadly. AP rounds with his rifle is just a cherry on top. If you get too close, you can use the Heavy Pistol instead and it is awesome, Damage 14 with Shock? Yes please! Great thing about Van Zant is also that he is 4-4 Move, can Dodge or Engage an extra 1 Inch and is very good in Close Combat. He has Martial Lv2, CC value of 22 and AP Close Combat Weapon. Basically you are going to wreck things in CC. His drawbacks are Dodged and no Silent weapon, plus quite high cost, 38 or 39 pts. But I think the points are worth all the things he can do and Dodged is better than nothing, keeps him alive until end of the turn if you need it. Lack of Silent weapon, like a knife, is likely because it would just make him broken. I am sure I'll write a full article about him later, he is awesome and I love him.

Grunts - These guys are different to every other line infantry by being Medium Infantry (MI). They are your cheerleaders, but they are lot more useful than just generating orders. 10 pts is the cheapest option and it gives you Armour 3, Shock Immunity and BS 11. They downside is Movement of 4-2 because they are MI. But! The weapon options are so cool. From Caledonia I am used to having very limited options but these guys can take HMG, Sniper Rifle, Heavy Flamethrower, Forward Observer (FO) and Paramedic. Plus the best line troop option ever, Inferior Infiltration and Heavy Flamethrower! If you land even one of those near your opponent's deployment, they are in hella trouble. I run my guys in a link team of Sniper, HMG, two Rifles (Paramedic and FO) and Heavy Flamethrower. In my game they dominated the part of the board they were on. These guys are tough to kill because most of the time, they will have Armour 6 in cover, which is really high for line troops. I also loved the Shock Ammo for the Sniper, that really made it lot more deadly in a five-man link team. I did end up spending lots of orders to move them across the board because of their slower speed but they were well worth it. 

Foxtrot - Pretty much your standard Camo Infiltrator, every army has them. To me what makes him different is that he is relatively cheap, 17pts basic or 18pts for a specialist, and he has Antipersonnel Mines, something that I don't have access to in Caledonia. I use FO S.A.S. all the time so this unit is auto-include for me.

Hardcase - Personally I really like this unit but its hard to say if they better than Foxtrots. They don't have specialist option so they can't compete over that spot but they do have Camo and Infiltration. Their camo is Ambush though, which I think is lots of fun (it allows you to place down a fake camo marker). They have standard BS 11 and Rifle or Light Shotgun option, but also they come with a Tactical Bow which definitely shouldn't be dismissed. Its Damage 13 (because of his Physical) so same as the other weapons, but it is Double Action (DA) and Silent. They are best at close range, or at least only up to 16" but with DA, a decent ARO weapon if you need to use it. Though I think he will be best suited for attacking from camo, or destroying objectives with his bow. In my game I haven't really used him so just theorizing for now. Points wise these guys are cheap so for me they will find a place in most of my army lists.

Maverick - Same as for the Hardcase, I only have theories for this unit. In my game she got glued down in the first turn and haven't done anything else. But in short, they are fast and have specialist option, plus cheap on Points so I think I will run her in all my lists.

Marauder - Another Medium Infantry unit, which is double the points of a Grunt but has some fun options. I really like they have Forward Deployment so they can deploy outside of your 12" Deployment Zone, Stealth and specialist option, and most options come with a Heavy Flamethrower. Plus he is BS 12. Downside is that he is only Movement 4-2 and currently, as with many other units, there is only one model. I hope they will release a box set of four soon because these guys can be either a regular link or a second link team Haris. In my game he also didn't do much because Grunts ate all the Orders but I foresee he will see lot more action in the future. Overall I think this unit is well worth the points.

In conclusion, for me USAriadna is very different to what I usually play and so far I am very happy with the troop options they have. I do look forward to playing them more and try the other units (Minutemen and Devil Dog Team).

The other thing I like about USAriadna is their look, they are these almost 21st century looking troops but they still fit with the Infinity universe well; its what I love about Ariadna in general.

The USAriadna army box.

What can you do when you get shot in the back?

This is something that comes up almost every game but I never really took the time to find out exactly what are my options when one of my troopers gets shot in the back. Turns out, there are few things you can do and looking back at my past games, knowing these things at the time would have helped a lot.

In this post I won't talk about special skills and effects, just the basic things.There are two things your trooper can do when being targeted outside of Line Of Fire (LOF), "Warning!" and "Change Facing". There is also "Alert!" which can help to prevent getting shot in the back, but I'll get to that later.

Warning! - This action affects your trooper that is the target of an attack and any ally in his or her Zone of Control (ZoC). It doesn't stop the shots, but it does let your trooper turn to face the enemy if he survives. This action also allows any allies to face the same enemy if they are in the ZoC, regardless if the attacked trooper survived or not. So you hardly ever end up in a situation where you get shot in the back more than once. Remember though that this happens at the END of the order that was used to attack your troops, it is NOT an ARO (Automatic Reaction Order).

Change Facing - This, however, is an ARO which you can use if the Order to attack your trooper is activated inside his or her ZoC, so if the enemy is really close. It works like a Dodge but you have -3 to Physical (PH) and you only turn around, you can't move like with a normal successful Dodge. It is better than nothing and can save your trooper's life.

The next action is less about just one trooper and the action against him, and more about a group of troopers or your army as a whole. Personally I think if you can master using this next action, you can really mess with your opponent's active turn. It effectively allows you to change facing of your whole army in your reactive turn, which if you think about it, is pretty awesome and it can help you fix some mistakes done in your previous turn. 

Alert! - To declare this ARO, you need LoF. Basically you need to see the enemy with one of your troopers. This does not require any roll but the drawback is that it is the ONLY thing that trooper can do. Which usually means he will get shot in the face and likely die. But the good thing is, it allows you to declare Change Facing ARO with any number of your troops on the table, regardless if they can see the enemy or not. So suddenly, the path your opponent thought was clear might not be, assuming your troops pass their -3 PH roll.

It can also help you if you made the mistake of deploying a group of troops facing the same direction and someone gets behind them, as long as someone along the way can see that approaching enemy, they have a chance to turn around. But it is easier to just remember to always have one guy covering the group's back.

I admit I haven't used this yet, but I will try to keep it in mind because I'd be happy to sacrifice some cheap guys if it means my more expensive units can get into better facing. It gives another use to your cheap Line Troopers (or even better, the 3 Points WarCor). They don't need to hide or wait for offensive AROs, they can be a look-out for the rest of your army.

Of course there are special skills and equipment attributes that make these things easier to do, or harder, but I'll write about those some other time.