Army List Tactica 3: Victorious Link Teams (Guest Army Lists)

As the title suggests, these are not armies that I have played myself. Oren Dotan was kind to share his tournament experience and the Caledonia army lists that won him the event!

This post will not be the usual Army List Tactica format, instead first we'll first get Oren's army lists, his review of the games, bit of commentary about Specialists and then my own thoughts. Without further ado, lets get to it.

The armies

Oren's Army 1
Open in Army 5

Oren's Army 2
Open in Army 5

The games

Oren played three games but only two are covered here because his third opponent was new to the game and while had good army, he deployed badly and was unfamiliar with Caledonia. Oren's first opponent was more seasoned and in the second he faced off someone equally experienced. The games by Oren's words: 

Game 1: Biotechvore – Caledonia (Army 2) vs Military Orders (Open in Army 5)

Military Orders (MO) won the Lt Roll and decided to go first, Caledonia chose deployment. It was a fairly dense table, so I deployed mostly out of Line of Fire as I mostly had close to mid-range weapons, except for a Volunteer with HMG.  In his first turn the Mo player pretty much had moved up and outside of the Virus zone unopposed. He had a link team of De Farsen and 4 Knights on one side and 2 Spec. Order Sergeants with Spitfires and MSV Lv2, plus a Father Knight on the other side. He then moved one of the Order Sergeants up to the side of the Link Team to counter my Smoke shenanigans.

 I started my turn with moving my Super Impetuous units, which I deployed on the same table side of the enemy Link Team and let them rush it. I had two Highlanders who threw smoke in front of the alleyway where the enemy Link Team stayed, allowing only the Order Sergeant to see through. I then sent out the Cameronian to go crazy and launch forward towards the enemy Link, dodging successfully the Order Sergeants ARO and then coming out of the smoke blasting most of the Link with double chain rifles. At this point the Cameronian died from all the ARO shots but took out De Farsen, one Knight out and wounded another (my opponent fluffed more rolls then he should have).

I then started moving my Volunteers Link Team with Isobel up the board without generating AROs as the board had a lot of buildings and all models were on ground floor. I moved enough that I could accomplish a Data Scan after the second attempt. Then I switched the Link Team to the Wulvers with Wallace and moved them up as well on the other side of the table and flanked the Father Knight and rest of the MO army. My opponent started in second turn in Loss of Lieutenant but managed to heal De Farsen and reformed the link. I started my second turn with moving everything out and annihilated what was left of them using Wulver with T2 Rifle and Close Combat, getting myself 10 Victory Points as I got both of my Classified Objectives, I changed the second one to Secure HVT. 

Game 2:  The Armory – Caledonia (Army 1) vs Tohaa (Open in Army 5)

The table setup was pretty Euro style (this means it had lots of open lanes between buildings) but a bit denser. Tohaa won the Lt Roll and they also chose to go first. I deployed my Scots Guard Link Team in a good spot where my Missile Launcher could see one side of the objective room together with one Cateran and on the other side of the deployment zone a Mormaer with AP HMG and Cateran, they were base-to-base with each other and watching the other side of the objective room.

The Tohaa had three triads (Link Teams of three), the first was two Makauls and a Aelis Keesan. He began moving them only to be caught in Line of Fire to my AP Marksmen Rifle and Missile Launcher from the Scots Guard. The missile Launcher shot at one of the non-Link Leader models, catching the whole Link and another nearby unit, hitting them with two Blasts. The AP Marksmen tried to shoot the Link Leader while he tried to Special Dodge using Zero-V Grenades. The Link lost most of the guys and Aelis Keesan went unconscious only to get herself back to life using Regeneration later on. The other Triads managed to make it near the room using Zero-V Grenades, while shooting my Mormaer with a Gao Rael MSV Lv2 Spitfire (before the smoked landed). The Mormaer went down but took some other guy with him. 

In my first turn I tried to wreak havoc with Uxia in the Tohaa back field. She killed a couple of stuff in return for her own life, and the rest of the Orders were used to move up the link close to the objective room. Tohaa player spent the second turn trying to setup defences as much as possible to hinder my movements and make it hard for me. My second turn I blew up the door and entered with my Link Team. They grabbed few things from the Panoplies and managed to dominate the room.

The third round Tohaa managed to send a Makaul inside and kill one of the Scots Guards but didn't manage to do a whole lot more.  I ended up getting 7 Victory Points for dominating the room for the second and third round, plus getting more stuff from the Panoplies than my opponent.

Oren's commentary 

There were two reasons I didn't go Specialist heavy. Firstly, because all three missions, putting Classified Objectives aside, were in not such a need for Specialist. Secondly, Isobel can cover two to three objectives and Uxia can do one of them as well. I did manage to score both Classified Objectives in the first game and I was one order short of doing one in the second game; I planted the D-Charge but lacked the last order to detonate it.

As a general note, it is easier now to go without  all the different Specialists as you can draw four different Classified Objectives, so high chances you will land at least one that your Specialist can do. Then you can also switch up to Secure HVT if you can achieve it.

With armies like Corregidor or ALEPH I put in a lot of Specialists because I can and they have a good variety but in Caledonia the variety is very limited (only one Engineer, one Doctor. They are very crunchy and don't fit my play-style all that much). Using S.A.S. FOs makes me bring out certain units like Traktor Muls and a Dozer because of the great synergy but they take away my flexibility of bringing other tools to the mix thus I usually go on the small amount of Specialists.

My thoughts

The first thing I noticed is that both lists have distinct lack of Specialists, beside Uxia and Isobel as Hacker, and one list only has Isobel. This could make it very hard to get Classified Objectives done, which means loosing out on few Victory Points (which can make the difference in rankings). Myself I would be skeptical going to an ITS event without having all the Specialists but you can see that you don't always need them to win. Though Oren made some very good points and it certainly made me consider using less Specialists in the next ITS season. I have noticed before that I limited myself by trying to include everyone and then some of them never done anything anyway.

Both lists have a very strong Link Team. I think it was a great choice to go with two Link Teams for Biotechvore, it makes it so much easier to move them all out of the Virus zone. The other list seems very strong with ARO threats, two Caterans, AP HMG and Missile Launcher is brutal and can sure do lots of damage. 

For the first list I would have definitely add a Warcor, there were exactly 3pts to spare and with Wallace as Lt, it is the cheapest Regular Order generator. I thought it was really cool Oren used Wallace in both lists, very iconic Lt option for Caledonia. 

Overall, both lists are very different to what I played so far (no SAS and lot less Specialists) but I think they are very hard hitting with plenty of ways to ruin your opponent's day. The main difficulty I would expect is when facing someone with higher Order pool and more Specialists, but I suppose if the missions were Objectives heavy, the army lists would been different. 

Thank you Oren for sharing and contgats on the victory!