My Caledonia from events in Leeds and Stourbridge (2015)

I don't really take pictures during events myself (something I gotta work on) because one of my mates that I go with to events  has a sweet camera and takes lots of pictures, so I kinda just rely on him to snap a few of my army. He has his own blog where he write about building terrain, his armies and posts photos, so check it out if you are interested: http://gribbleygaming.blogspot.co.uk/

I found some photos from Stourbridge event we attended in October and the Northern Open 3 from this month. Here they are and little bit about them:

Stourbridge (October)

 

This was from the first game in the event and a brutal into to Cameronians for my opponent. My werewolf was first on the crate behind him and chain rifled the Nisses to death, he took a wound from Orc Trooper not in the photo. That was followed by jumping into combat with the poor Fusilier, she was a Paramedic and there was an objective nearby. I did put her unconscious and I think it was the Orc Trooper's second ARO that killed my Cameronian.

I love these markers, they are from Zen Terrain and you can chose between few colours and even what bases you want. I believe this was also during the first game, the marker on the roof was my Cateran and the other in the photo was one of the S.A.S. Forward Observers, there was an objective nearby.

This is actually a really good shot. It was the last game, last turn. It was quadrant control and I needed this quadrant to win. One of my assault S.A.S. was pushing the Remote and the Aswvang through that corridor between buildings. My opponent needed them to live to have more points in that quadrant so he kept Dodging, I was always at better odds when it came to shooting with my weapons. He kept surviving and fleeing until he got behind that corner. With like two Orders to spare, Uxia stood up from Prone (she has been in that corner the whole game), revealed and shot, I can't remember if one or both but she basically killed enough for me to win. Gotta love games where it comes to the last order. 

I am pretty sure this Volunteer was Prone the whole game, only useful to give Orders for my S.A.S. and add some points towards quadrant control.

This is me wearing my Caledonian outfit, I actually also had combat armour and army jumper but it was too hot to play in that. I gotta ask James to take a proper pic of my gear next time!

Northern Open 3 (November)

This is from a first game against Nomads. This Highlander single-handedly held down one of my flanks and was a major contributor for me winning the game. At first he failed to turn around when this drop trooper landed behind him but he lived through the shooting and in my turn killed him (in close combat I believe). Then he took out a different unit with a HMG, using his Chain Rifle which stopped my opponent from taking one of the objectives. The Highlander died in the process but he has done his job. I really love these guys, one of the best ways to spend 6 Points.

Another shot of Cameronian doing what he does best, being a cruise missile. This was taken the turn after (you can see part of the Unconscious token next to him). He came from that alley behind him, where Uxia is, and chain rifle in two direction, hitting like five or six troops and killing at least two or three of them. In some later turn Uxia used the same route and killed three people herself, it was a proper murder zone.

I believe this was in the same game as the photo above, on the other side of the table. My Highlander Grey wasn't really doing much beside holding the flank if someone wanted to risk it.

Here you can see Isobel in a Link Team with Volunteers. HMG in the window, chain rifle on the corner and the other two guys are Paramedics. It was a good position for Isobel to use her T2 rifle against objectives in Lifeblood. Across the balcony she could see three and they were within 16" and from her current position she could see another one. The HMG also had few AROs from that window.
 

Here is the lovely Uxia again, unfortunately not doing anything heroic this time. It was in a second game, last turn for me, I tried to run for the objective to claim it but I was bit stupid with placing my smoke grenades and she got shot by a sniper from across the table. I of course failed to claim the objective as well, so her sacrifice was for nothing. I still love her though, more times than not she works great.

Army List Tactica 1: NO3 Objetives

Now that Northern Open 3 is over, I can finally start talking about my army lists! For a while now I been wanting to just write about the lists I have used as I keep copies of the lists in a folder but without writing about them, I can hardly remember what worked and what didn't. So this should help and if it might also help anyone out there reading this, even better. For the last several weeks I mainly used (and tweaked) the lists I used in the tournament, which is why I didn't start this soon (you never know, my opponents might have been reading this blog!).

As with any ITS event, NO3 (and Warzone tournament before that) allowed two army lists. They were up to 300pts and no Spec Ops. I am guessing by now it is a standard practice you have one list for objective based missions and the other for more killing missions, or at least its what I did. The missions were Lifeblood, Supplies and Supremacy. The first two score points on capturing objectives and this was the list I have decided to take:

Overview

The core of this list were the specialists to score in the missions, I had eight of them in total. Three of those were in a Link Team, three were Camouflaged Infiltrators and then Doctor and Engineer (the two "must have" for ITS). What Link Team to take was a major decision as it is in any Sectorial Army, I decided on Volunteers because they are cheap and I wanted Isobel to have protection and the Support Bonuses (will be explained why below). My ARO Threats and long range support were Cateran, Scots Guard with a Missile Launcher and Highlander Grey with AP HMG, I think them three are a good mix of range bands, Burst and Damage. 45th Rifles Highlanders and Cameronian is something I pretty much always take to provide cheap suicide units and Smoke Grenades, though they do have other uses too. For this list I decided to hide my Lt, he never does anything beside not getting himself killed by deploying in the least reachable place in my deployment zone.

Achieving the mission

You might have notice that this list doesn't have anything very hard hitting, units like Highlander Grey and Cameronian can deal lots of damage but my plan for the missions wasn't to go on a rampage. As mentioned earlier, this list was for two missions; Lifeblood and Supplies. They are similar in the sense that the objectives are in the middle of the board, or at least near in Lifeblood. For this reason, the SAS and Uxia were going to do most of the leg work with the rest of the army taking care of ARO Threats and protecting my flanks. Depending on the Lt Roll result, my plans were this:

Going First: Deploy SAS as close to the objectives as possible, have my long range weapons in places where they can see a lot, the rest protect the DZ or offer Smoke cover.

Going Second: SAS would still deploy near but in hidden places with my long range covering the objectives as best they could and everyone else protect the DZ again.

Now to explain why I wanted Isobel in a Link Team. One way to score Points in Lifeblood is to destroy the crates. For that you need weapons Anti-materiel trait. In the list Anti-materiel weapons were T2 rifle, T2 sniper, missile launcher and D-Charges. The sniper and missile launcher are great but they can't see everywhere and they were likely to be targeted by my opponent. D-Charges work even better but only Dozer and Uxia had them. Uxia can't be everywhere without spending too many orders and Dozer would likely have to risk lost of AROs running to the objectives. Thats where Isobel comes in, with +1B and +3BS, she can shoot the objectives with B4 at BS18 when in good range band, which I think is great and she always does most of the damage. Plus T2 rifle with all those bonuses is great against everything else too, even TAGs.

Additionally, as a Hacker, Isobel was able to go for objectives and the Link Team included two Paramedics to go for Objectives if needed (and try heal fallen units).Dozer and 112 Doctor were mainly included for the Classified Objectives since both Missions had two of them. They were also there to go for the objectives if all the SAS failed. Overall I was confident in claiming the objectives.

Units purpose and performance

Isobel and Volunteers - The Volunteers were two Paramedics, HMG and a Chain Rifle. I like this Link Team because it is cheap on points and it has some decent offensive capabilities, though I think of it mostly defensive. They tend to sit in the back, protecting the DZ and only pushing for objectives when needed. I think they do have potential to do more but I usually spend most of my Orders on SAS. If I had the models for it, I think I would change one Paramedic to a Chain Rifle as the fifth model is there just to get maximum bonuses, and it would save 4 points. I like to have two Specialists but the third one hasn't really come into play during the missions.

The reason I took 2 Paramedics instead of just normal Rifle was because with the units I had, I had 4 points to spare overall (when they were just two Rifles) and I had a choice of either 2 Paramedics or a Warcor. I went with more specialists.

Volunteer Lt - I prefer the Lt be able to do something but for these missions I just needed the Lt not to die and all the other options seem wasted when just hiding. Sometime I like to put them into Suppression Fire with the Lt Order, just to tempt my opponent into wasting Orders trying to kill my Lt.

SAS Forward Observers and Uxia - Personally I think SAS are the best Objective grabbers in Caledonia and one of the best in the game. They are not the only Infiltrating Specialists but they are geared for Close Combat, which is easy to get into when you are fighting over objectives but more importantly, they have Stealth which comes in handy often. Generally I have at least one FO SAS in my army because they are really good at getting Classified Objectives too, and attacking from Camo when needed. The one thing I don't use them for often it giving +3BS to troops shooting at Targeted units, I tend to forget about it. Only drawback is they are not cheap, 24pts can be a lot to sacrifice when you are going for that last Objective. Nevertheless, I can't imagine playing without them when it comes to objectives.

Uxia comes with two options and to be frank, I never played the SAS profile. I am sure it has its uses (and at some point I will try to find it) but Covert Action is just so much more useful when it comes to missions like these. D-Charges, Smoke Grenades, Specialist and Superior Infiltration is just full of win. Plus you have B5 close range weapon, which is awesome. She is bit fragile but in all games where I wasn't stupid with her, she was worth her Points in gold. The Superior Infiltration doesn't always pay off even on PH16 but most of the time it did for me. She has pretty much the same use as the SAS and lately I kept her as my Reserve during deployment. With the ability to deploy anywhere on the table up to enemy DZ, I can respond to just about all Deployment threats.

Dozer and 112 Emergency Service - In both games they performed as expected really. The Dozer usually hid somewhere in DZ and only got used when every other Specialist failed or when I have Classified Objective that required Engineer to get to the HVT. It was very similar for the Doctor, when I don't need him for HVT Objective, I usually deployed him near one of my ARO threats, like my sniper so I could try bring him back if the sniper went unconscious.

Cameronian and Highlanders - I use these guys as combination of cruise missile and smoke cover. Their high PH and extra Impetuous Order means they can throw lots of smoke to cover the other units. I mainly use the chain rifle option for Highlander, its cheap and effective and their BS is bad for shooting other weapons. The main thing with these guys for them to be effective, in my opinion, is to be careful and check line of sight before you move them, quite few times they been shot by something I didn't expect because I didn't check properly and also you gotta think ahead for the next turn because of their Super Impetuousness.

The Cameronian is bit more versatile because he is faster and tougher. When I am going first, in most games I send him across the board to kill whatever I want dead in my opponent's DZ, more often than not he will succeed at it. When there is nothing urgent to deal with, he is also good at zone denial. In a right place people won't want to come near him, just gotta make sure they can't snipe him from long range. Another really good use for this guy is carrying objectives that can be carried, like those in Supplies. This guy can get close as your Specialist gets the Objective and then you can run away with MOV 6-4 and Super Jump. You'll be back in your DZ in no time.

Highlander Grey, Cateran, Scots Guard - For a while I been using the Cateran and the Camo Missile Launcher as my core ARO threats and I am quite happy with them. They both start in camo so they have effective first Active shot and they both also have Mimitism which always helps. In the Lifeblood mission, they work hand in hand with the SAS so they are deployed in a way where they can see the Objectives and start shooting them in the second turn. The Highlander Grey is the odd one out in this list, I do like him as a unit but in these missions I haven't used him in Active turn or when I did, it was just because the opportunity presented itself. Otherwise I think I would prefer to have a second Cateran or Scots Guard with Missile Launcher, both of those are cheaper but I didn't have enough models. 

What worked

First I would like to mention I was happy with the decision of not taking Warcor over Paramedics. While the Warcor is a nice annoyance ARO unit, I found the Paramedics more useful. That said, if I had extra Chain Rifle Volunteer, I would have taken Warcor as I'd have the points. The Link Team itself either haven't done much but kept my DZ safe, or when I did use them to go after Objectives, they got the job done.

In all the games I played of Lifeblood and Supplies (practice and on the events), the "combo" of SAS and long range weapons with Anti-Materiel worked quite well. Especially when I had the first turn, I could always check at least three crates and then destroy them just as easy. Not much my opponents could do about it besides killing my specialists and Anti-Materiel weapons, but I had plenty of both.

With some tweaking, I could easily push this list to 20 models without changing how it works, so I think it has potential to improve as well.

What didn't work

One thing that was bit annoying was that I haven't won a single Lt roll, which does come down to the dice mostly but it doesn't help when my opponent can pass with a higher number (yeah it happened, I rolled 11, he rolled 13). That said, in Caledonia the only other Lt options are either WIP 13, or 15 if you take Wallace, and including those would likely change the list a lot because they cost more to take.

For being the most expensive unit, the Highlander Grey saw the least use, so that felt like a waste of points a bit.

Also might have been worth putting Cameronian into the second combat group, sometime I felt short of an Order or two for Specialists because I needed to attack with the Cameronian, or other way around where I couldn't attack more because I needed the Orders for Specialists.

Verdict

Overall I am very pleased with this list and how it works together. The only time it didn't work was either when I didn't know what I was doing with the mission (like when I was playing Beacon Race) or my dice just didn't work but there is nothing you can do against being critted a lot or just out-rolled, it is still a dice game. There is still room for improvement though and will surely tweak it when I have more models.

List on Army 5

6th Airborne Ranger - November Release Predictions

Soon we'll be able to buy the new blister of the 6th Airborne Ranger, which I think is great! Been waiting for these guys since USAriadna release. Corvus Belli hasn't release the rules yet so I want to take some guesses and see if I was right when the rules are released.

The blister comes with SMG and AP CCW, which I would assume will be more or less the standard weapons for the Airborne Rangers, plus a Rifle or Shotgun option. Considering the French Para-Commando, these guys will likely have Sniper Rifle option too. They might have a HMG option but I would guess Heavy/Light Flamethrower is more likely. As they have a CCW weapon, I think they will be more close up orientated.

In that regard, I think they will have Martial Art Lv1 or Lv2, plus Kinematica Lv1 and high CC. I'd say 19 like S.A.S. For the rest of the statline, I think it will be similar to Van Zant but lower.

My guess: MOV 4-4,  CC 19, BS 12, PH 13, WIP 13, ARM 1, BTS 0, W 1, S 2, AVA 2/4*

As far as cost, probably between 20 - 30 Points.

* 2 for Ariadna, 4 for USARF sectorial.

The most important I'd say will be if they have a Specialist option, which I am assuming they will have at least Forward Observer, and what Level of Airborne Deployment they will have. I think, well hope, they will have Level 2 Airborne Infiltration but Level 1 Parachutist might be more likely. It would make sense they could deploy with Van Zant wherever needed instead of deciding during Deployment.

Well, will see how much I guessed correctly soon enough! I am sure to get at least one when they are for sale.

King of the North(ern Open)... almost

What a day. In a quick summary, it didn't go as well as it could have but I still came on the 4th place, which was pretty good! I won two of the three games and the one I lost was definitely my weakest. Funnily enough it was Supremacy and for a second time, I found myself not being aggressive enough which made it difficult to score high early in the game and easier for my opponent's last turn. Now that NO3 is over I can start writing about my lists so I will have break down of those later. 

Apparently I was 60pts (army points) away from the 3rd place, which isn't much, so I ought to remember not to throw away any units and just be careful even when I lost badly to preserve some army points. And I have also won the "best improvement" for Painted Armies, which was a nice surprise. The price for that was a free painting lesson with someone I can't remember, so that should be cool.

I haven't seen the score table yet but if I remember right the top player had 21 Victory Points and I was on 18, so it was pretty close overall. 

Game 1: Supplies - Caledonia vs Nomads
Won 7 to 2 (or 3)

This was an interesting game because my opponent had only 10 units, and only 8 on the board to start with. Sadly I have failed the Lt roll (which I haven't won all day) and my opponent went first. I did expect him to go for the objectives as I planned but he was very defensive and short on orders so he didn't do much, mainly just set up his defense. He had a Gecko TAG in the middle of the board and two Crazy Koalas guarding an objective on the right side. There wasn't much he could have done with 6 Orders after I took 2 at the start of his first turn. My first turn didn't go terribly, I have managed to take one Objective and take care of some ARO threats, but most annoying, my link team decided not to pass any WIP rolls, so I spent like 5 orders just trying to get it. Looking back I should have just sent Isobel to get the objective as she was part of the link team, her WIP is 1 point higher.

In the second turn my dice began to fail me a bit when my opponent used a HMG unit of his to take out few of my units, which led me to dropping the objective I had because Uxia went down. I was worried he'd take it and run away but again, having so few Orders worked against him. In my turn one of my Highlanders was able to take care of the people who were close enough to threaten the objective. The Koalas and other ARO threats stopped me from claiming the objective on right because I had nothing these that wouldn't have to waste lots of Orders getting there and only maybe survive. I was able to take the Objective in the middle though and Isobel took down the TAG with her T2 rifle. I can't recall my Classified Objectives but I was able to get both of them as well by now (I remember one of them was to FO an enemy).

At this point we should have ended the game because we hit the time limit but we were allowed to have the last turn as my opponent had very few orders left. He wasn't able to take the two Objectives from me (one next to unconscious Uxia and one held by Isobel) but he was able to take the objective on the right and hide behind a crate. In my last turn my FO SAS went down from a roof to grab the Objective from Uxia and it came own to my Volunteer being able to shoot the enemy trooper with the objective. Unfortunately that did not happen so I was unable to get the extra two Victory Points.

Photo from INA Facebook page, my deployment side was on right.

Game 2: Supremacy - Caledonia vs Shock Army of Acontecimento
Lost 3 to 6

I blame two things for loosing this game, being too cocky with Uxia and my dice deciding to fail so many of me rolls. With Uxia, I kept her as my reserve and there was a place that I have selected as my Classified Objective for Sabotage (it was a car) and my opponent deployed a Peacemaker Drone with his little flame-bot pal and a Knight of Montesa next to it but they were deployed in such a way that there was a blind spot outside of their LoF but very close to them, like literally on the other side of the car. I decided to risk it and Infiltrated there but failed the roll, so Uxia had to deploy in my DZ. Instead I should have just deploy in my half of the table and not risk the roll. During the game I wasn't able to deal with one of my opponent's snipers as me dice kept failing me which made me worried of using Uxia until the last turn where she died because I used her wrong. Instead of helping to secure the quadrant she went into open to get an objective and got shot down.

There isn't much to write about the first two turns because as I mentioned at the start of the article, I wasn't very aggressive and we both kept to two quadrants. The only interesting thing was a CC fight between Cameronian and a Knight of Montesa, we were both on 1 Wound each but I kept rolling low on hit dice and high on ARM saves. He then run in a paramedic into the combat and with B2 was able to win and kill my werewolf, which made it easier for him to put more models into that quadrant and take it from me. I had a plan of splitting my force into three groups, one for each board side and then my ARO threads and suicide units that I didn't count on to be scoring in quadrants. And it worked but the problem was I had nothing really for attacking the other two quadrants. In retrospect my opponent had a weak left flank which I could have attack with my link team and hold it down but I was just bit too cautious and didn't do that.

The table we were playing on:

From my deployment side.

Game 3: Lifeblood - Caledonia vs Ariadna
Lost 8 to 2

I was bit gutted after the second mission because I didn't think I'd have a chance to rank near the top anymore. I pretty much had to get the perfect game, and oh boy, did I! It was like the opposite of the second game, everything went right for me. I was paired against Greg from The Plastic Crack Blog which was funny as we were talking about having a game at some point, during the break before this mission. I failed the Lt roll (again) but everything else was kind of in my favour; my opponent chose deployment so I was able to have the first turn, he played Ariadna so no MSV Lv2 and he placed his HVT between my FO Infiltrators and one of my Classified was to FO his HVT. As usual, my Infiltrators deployed very close to the objectives and so I was able to score 4 of them right away. There were two on one roof which helped me as my opponent didn't deploy anyone there to stop me from checking them freely. Then my Cameronian was able to smoke his way in between buildings and run out pretty much in my opponent's DZ, which was a suicide mission but he did kill 3 of the 5 models he was able to chain rifle. One of them was a Dog-Face that changed into a Dog-Warrior. My sniper was also able to take out a HMG Kazak. The rest of my army was in a good defensive position. In his turn I believe Greg was able to check the two crates near his troops but I think my only casualty was my sniper.

Second turn was just as brutal. First I was able to take out all four crates, one by D-charges, one by Missile Launcher and another two by Isobel with her T2 rifle. Then one of my Highlanders on the very left end of table was able to put my opponent's hacker unconscious and while he was Dogged, he was able to Coup De Grace the enemy before he died, which was one of my Classified. One of my SAS sacrificed himself to get my second Classified, he did FO the HVT twice but too many AROs outside of cover. At this point I had 8 Victory Points and couldn't get any more as the last two boxes were checked already. Before end of my turn, Uxia was able to take out enemy SAS and a Doctor Kazak. My opponent couldn't do much, but he was able to destroy the last two boxes with his Auto-cannon Tank Hunter (though he died in the process) and his two Irmandinhos killed my second SAS.

The last turn was quick, my missile launcher killed one Irmandinhos and the other was taken care of by my link team HMG, then Uxia took out a Spetsnazs but died to the last model on the field, which was Veteran Kazak with HMG. This put my opponent into Retreat for his last turn as he had only the Veteran Kazak left alive.

I think what made the most difference in this game was being able to go first and the table set up. Which was really good. While there was a long line diagonally across the middle, it had lots of scatter in that line and then one half (on right) was very dense while the other was quite open. The dense side allowed me to easy walk around unopposed as I only had to drop smoke grenades in between buildings to block line of sight and even without smoke it would have been easy to Cautious Move across.

From my deployment side.

Warzone - Autumn Assault

Yesterday I have attended the Warzone event in Birmingham. It was good fun as ITS tend to be, though I didn't do as well as I wanted to. Once more I have only ended up over the middle line, 8th place out of 18 people. Without trying to make excuses for myself, I think my biggest mistake was not preparing for the missions, especially the first one (Beacon Race). I focused too much on practicing for the upcoming Northern Open. There will be more details description of each mission below but in brief, in the first mission I went against Caledonia which I didn't expect at all. I put my attention onto Classified too much and I believe it is what lost me the game. Second mission was Armoury and I did great in that one (thank you Mayacast for the mission tips!). Last mission was Supremacy and while I made some mistakes, the game pretty much fell apart because my opponent rolled a crit for so many of his rolls.

Interesting was that we had over two hours for each round but I only played two turns in the first two games. Well we did third turn in the first mission I believe but we played over the time, and the third turn on last mission I was in Retreat. I think big part of that were the tables, they were quite open so we took too long to deploy. I tried to do it as fast as possible but some opponents took their time (or it felt that way anyway). It was definitely different to what I am used to from Leeds, which is fast deployment and fast missions. Overall it was a good event and I am happy with my lists but I should have prepare more for the missions.

Also my first opponent recognized me from this blog, which was kinda cool.

Game 1: Beacon Race - Caledonia vs Caledonia
Lost 3 to 7

Unfortunate match-up as I didn't expect to face Caledonia. It didn't help I never played the mission before and thought (stupidly) I could just wing it. Turned out I couldn't, or at least not against someone using my own tactics against me. I lost the Lt roll and went second. First turn wasn't terrible, don't think I lost anything and opponent had one beacon, so I had good chance to seize my own and keep the game on the same level but I went for classified instead. Which I got both of them but then didn't have enough orders to get a beacon. In the second turn my opponent got another two or it might have been over two turns he got two, but I knew the game was over for me at that point. I only managed to get one myself in the end.

Only in the last turn most things died. One of my SAS went into Rambo-mode and killed many people even when the odds were against him. Overall I expected my opponent to be more aggressive but he knew what he was doing with the objectives. One big mistake I made was leaving my Dozer Engineer in the objective room, after he didn't have enough orders to get a beacon, rather than moving him back for cover outside.

Some of the things I learned: Cameronians make for great objective carriers, when the mission allows it. I don't think what my opponent done would have worked against armies with MSV Lv2 or 3 but Smoke works great against armies that do not have access to MSV Lv2. Although we had very different army lists, I noticed we played similarly in the terms that his SAS did lots of the leg work and Cameronians were at the front with them. He did have Wallace with 45th Rifles link team sitting in a building the whole game, which I understand why but whenever I play Wallace, I don't feel right keeping him at the back of the board but admittedly I did notice myself in other games that he makes good clean up unit to defend the DZ from flankers.

Game 2: Armoury - Caledonia vs Qapu Khalqi
Won 7 to 2

In this mission I knew what I was doing. My opponent won the Lt roll and chose deployment, so I went first. I stormed the objective room with Isobel, SAS, Uxia and Dozer in the first turn by Isobel going first and Lockpicking one of the doors. From the loot boxes Isobel got +4 ARM and SAS found a combi rifle. Isobel the proceeded to shoot one of the doors but only caused 1 STR loss. The Dozer then D-charged all doors but one of them just wouldn't die. In his turn my opponent wasn't very aggressive and I held the room.

In the second turn most of my army got inside, destroyed both of the loot boxes. We were approaching the round time limit so it was my last turn. On top of the previous units, 112 Doctor and Wallace in Volunteer Link Team got inside the objective room. Most other things were dead by then or in a combat group without orders to spare. With his last orders my opponent used a camo unit to open the last closed door and shot a shotgun into five people, I didn't beat his roll and he took around 100 pts with the one shot. But I still had as much left in there, so I won the game

I couldn't get one of my classified done without sacrificing the hacker but I could have get one more point if my 112 didn't kill the guy he was suppose to Doctor and I had nothing else unconscious around. Looking back I think I could have protect the room better instead of rushing everyone inside because I only needed more points inside than my opponent but I was worried he would do a suicide run with some units and take the room by having second turn. I think my opponent made the mistake of giving me the Initiative choice but I could see why second turn would be useful.

Game 3: Supremacy - Caledonia vs Ariadna
Lost 3 to 4

I was confident going into the last game. I was matched against my mate James and for all the practice I have done, it didn't matter at all because he rolled critical so many times. I really know now how it feels when I do it to my opponents sometime. In the first turn I wasn't aggressive and killed nothing and he just obliterated one of my flanks (Wallace in Volunteer link, Cameronian, 112, only Wallace survived). My other flank held steady for the most part but I made few stupid mistakes, mostly with Uxia by not checking the person she was going to kill went back to camo and she was placed to give smoke support to Isobel while the job was done my 45th Rifles so she could have been used better somewhere else. I also forgot about my guided missiles, which would have helped as I had FO SAS in a good position. I only held one quarter both turns, while my opponent had three so my points were from Classified and hacking two objectives.

The best thing in my army was my missile laucher that took out a Rocket Launcher and Doctor with the blast, then a Sniper across the board, then Tank Hunter HMG and Engineer by the blast and lastly a Metro HMG. He was on a proper rampage until he got killed from close range in the end. Overall the game pretty much fell apart because of the number of criticals, not because I played it wrong. Hopefully that will not happen in NO3 next weekend.

What to listen to when painting

I think most people who like to spend lots of time painting would agreed it is good to have some background noise; music or TV and such. I often play some show or films but lately I like to listen to podcasts, either as audio only or on YouTube. What propted me to write this post was finding MayaCast, which while I think I heard about before, I didn't listen to it. And I totally should have! Their shows, at least the latest ones, are over an hour, so they are nice and long. The two hosts have good chemistry and are fun to listen to, so definitely worth checking out:

http://mayacast.com

Some of the other things I like to listen to are:

Dan Carlin - Hardcore History - As the name suggests, this is a podcast about historic stuff, but he has a really cool way of talking about different periods. He has done some amazing series on Genghis Khan, the Roman Republic and World War I. Only the most recent stuff are free and you have to wait a while for new episodes, but it always pays off. I wish I found about it in high school, I'd have paid more attention to history classes!

The Plastic Crack Blog - This is relatively new YouTube channel about Infinity and wargames (and board games) in general. You'll find things like product reviews, battle reports and tutorials how to make custom terrain. Right now they are doing the Operation Ice Storm missions which are good intro to Infinity. Overall it is a pretty good channel.

UNpopular Culture - These guys, Hugo and Jake, they do film and TV show reviews, game reviews and playthrough, and similar stuff. I like how they do really long trailer breakdowns or TV show reviews for each episodes. To me they stand out from other channels with similar content because when you listen to them, its just like talking to two of your mates; swearing, stupid jokes and all the good stuff.

True Highlander Army

Last night while painting my Caledonians, I had an idea of a "True Highlander Army"! Basically William Wallace and all the 45th Rifles you can fit in. To keep it easy I basically used the options you get in the 45th Rifles box-set, 1x Rifle, 1x Boarding Shotgun, 2x Chain Rifle. I found if you have seven of those boxes, plus an extra Highlander with a rifle, you can get this: 

William Wallace
8x Highlander Rifle
7x Highlander Shotgun
14x Highlander Chain Rifle

Total: 30 models / 298 pts 0 SWC

I am not sure I am going to do it, but it is a nice "dream project". The cost is not super high and if I buy a box set each month, starting January, I can be finished in July. Practically this is probably a terrible idea for an army list, there are no specialists, no snipers, no heavies, etc but I think it could be quite fun. First, imagine the look on someone's face when you put down 30 of these guys. Then you start with 30 regular Orders, plus at least 25 irregular, which is a huge order pool. Sure plenty would die to long range fire but only MSV Lv2 or 3 would be danger to you, since everyone has smoke grenades! So you are bound to get plenty of them into enemy DZ and wreck stuff. For ITS I would probably scale down to like 20 Highlanders, so I can add in some specialists but for non Objective missions, the full 30 list could be so much fun!

Just picture it, Highlander after Highlander streaming down the battle zone...

 

Tartan day

Tartans take lot longer to paint than one would think. I spent most of the day just painting and I only managed to finish five of them. Still at least three more to go. Keep in mind please these are before any washes or highlight so barely half finished models.

The red one and green one were more or less copied from some of the Corvus Belli studio models, I liked the colours of the green tartan and was looking for something relatively easy for the red. The yellow one is the same tartan I did for my Cameronian, I don't want all of my guys to have the same tartan but I want some troops to be from the same clan. The blue one is based on Modern Pride of Scotland (I think) but mainly I was just using the available blue colours I had. The grey tartan is based on a kilt I bought in York not that long ago but I couldn't find its name. I use it on my Grey Rifles so they have something grey, I prefer metalic armour. 

Next in line is William Wallace, Isobel and Cateran. At some point I probably will do the inside coats of my Scots Guard but haven't decided yet on what tartan, so that will come later. I have lots of models prepped for basing and have to finish that first. 

King of the North(ern Open), Supremacy struggle

NO3 is fast approaching and I haven't even decided on my lists yet. At this point I am likely just overthinking this, I can't even count how many games of Supremacy I have played so far and still messing around with different lists. Today I played the mission three times in a row and while it did help me try different lists and see what each was missing, it also showed me that no matter what you do, Infinity is brutally unpredictable. One game, every roll I made was successful against my opponent but in a different game it was the other way around. And there is nothing you can do about that, some games just go bad no matter the list or the opponent or the table. Which makes it difficult to practice more than the different rules of your troops. In NO3 most of the tables are very different and there is always a mix of experiences among players. Supremacy might be the last mission likely, so if I flunk the other two missions, its not like I'll have to worry about facing the people who'll rank in top three. 

I think I have identified the weaknesses of some of the lists I was trying and learned few "not to do" things but the hardest decision for me is if I am going to take William Wallace or not. I do love him as my Lieutenant, to me he represents Caledonia perfectly, but at the same time its not very forgiving when I make a mistake with him. That goes for any Lt but he is about the only Lt in Caledonia I would use aggressively from start of the game. So far my favourite way to use Wallace is in a link team of two Grey Rifles (AP HMG and rifle/T2 shotgun) but I am considering to run him with Volunteers as they can fulfill a similar role and their link is lot cheaper. I have to submit my lists on 7th so I have to decide by end of the week.

By end of this week I should also be a lot closer to finishing my army to a table-top standard, so photos of that should be coming soon!