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
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