Sanctuary Gaming Event Results & Photos!

This tournament came kinda out of nowhere. My mate James that I go to tournaments with told me about it last weekend when we were in Stourbridge so there was barely any time to get ready for it and practice. The most different thing from all the other events we went to was that the armies were 400pts, instead of 300pts. If you play Infinity, you know that is a big difference. I basically just "upgraded" the lists I had from week before, and the missions were fairly simple so I felt confident enough.

In the end I came 3rd out of 8 people, and the games had some intense moments. I won me a Weapons pack (which was great as I was looking for some weapons), new Shasvastii badge and Military Orders patch. I think I have a patch now for every army that I play, or at least a badge. My mate James won the first place, which was cool because now we both won one each.

Overall the scorings were close, or at least I think they were, there was no big difference between the top four. Which was good. I like close tournaments. 

The venue was also great, it was basically a big old church (or a small cathedral). Only downside was that it was really cold, otherwise pretty great and I am looking forward to going more often. This was their first Infinity event, so I am expecting they will do more next year.

As for 400pts, I thought it was definitely too much and I think most people I spoke to thought the same. But it was a good experience.

Game 1: Annihilation - Caledonia vs Shasvastii
Lost 4 to 6

The table from my deployment side, after few things already died.

This was a very unlucky game, I think I failed just about every face to face roll off and kept rolling really high in normal rolls, and then really low for armour saves. Just one of those games where there was nothing I could have done about it. In my opponent's first turn, Speculo Killer killed Wallace, which was before my first turn even started as I went second. That wasn't even the worse thing about, the Killer walked between so many models and I failed every single rolls to Discover. Just bad luck all around. It took him a lot of Orders though, and his second Order pool was mainly just drones and baggage bots so  he couldn't really press more. Only other thing that got close to my Deployment Zone (DZ) was Corax (from Dire Foes). Since I was in Loss Of Lieutenant, all I could do was bunker down as best I could to make it hard for my opponent to kill more stuff.

I thought he still could have press the advantage but he was careful in his second turn with his Gwailos Link Team (his Lt was also hiding in it). I was well locked down and the terrain was in my favour where I deployed. Basically he couldn't move in without lots of AROs and then being very close to all my template weapons, so he stayed well back. I only managed to kill Corax, he was trying to out-shoot Wulver with Mk12. In my turn I killed a slave drone that was close to Corax,but everything else just passed all saves regardless what that I threw against it. I even got my Cameronian to chain rifle the link team but he failed to kill anything. Wulvers also didn't do anything with their shooting against the link team. As far as Classified, I managed to do only one because my FO failed to Target the HVT twice.

Corax, the one of two things I managed to kill.

In the end I still scored okay because much of my army was alive, I didn't lose that much but only killed two models... which was my worst performance so far I believe.

Game 2: Frontline - Caledonia vs Caledonia
Won 5 to 2

The table from my deployment side.

Second time now I faced Caledonia and we were both worried it would be a stalemate and knew the smoke tactics would be used heavily. Though the strangest thing about this was, it felt like we played at a decent pace but half way in my opponent's turn we were told half an hour left, so we only managed to get one turn each. It is the main reason I scored only 5 Victory Points, I was on a good way to get more and planned to do so in the second turn. There really is only so far you can get in the first turn. What I did was focus heavily on my right flank, where I had like 300pts deployed. On the other side I just run SAS, Cameronian and Highlander to the middle of the board and the SAS run very far to enemy DZ. He was one Order shot from sneaking behind enemy Sniper and killing him.

In this photo you can see over 300pts of my 400pts army.

My opponent had a very different list, where I focused on hard Link of Wulves, he had over 20 models. I think most of those were Wallace with 45th in Link, few Scots Guard and several Volunteers. There wasn't much fighting, too much smoke and cover on one side of the board. I only killed couple on models with my long range weapons. His sniper tried to kill my SAS that was behind him with a pistol but he was at a disadvantage, out of cover while I was in cover and had a shotgun. So the SAS won. Though I think I would have risk the same, I would have killed the sniper in my turn otherwise.  

The SAS (in camo) that went to kill the enemy sniper.

I think I had the advantage if the second turn was going to happen. We ended up with much of our armies close to each another behind cylindrical towers. My Wulvers though all had Grenades so I would been able to do at least two or three salvos with four Grenades. Even one of them would hit lots of models, and if that wouldn't have worked, the enemy was so close together that chain rifles or even shot gun would be devastating. 

It was still a fun game though and I was able to dominate two of the three zones across the board, and I got one Classified. 

Game 3: Emergency Transmission - Caledonia vs Neoterra
Won 8 to 1

The table from my deployment side.

This was one of the most intense games I played in a long time and we actually had three turns. I wasn't sure where I was in the rankings but I think my opponent was playing for 1st or 2nd (now I know he was, but they only showed us who we were facing, not the points we had). I won the Lr roll (finally!) and decided to go first. My plan was simple, deploy five SAS (well four and Uxia) next to objectifies, get five of them and make my opponent trying to match that.

Isobel with Wallace and Volunteers.

 First thing in my first turn I destroyed my opponent's Total Reaction Remote with my Scots Guard Missile Launcher. I put him at BS -12 so he couldn't hit me (-3 range, -3 cover, -3 Mimitism, -3 Surprise Shot) and I managed to crit and destroy it completely as he failed the other two ARM saves as well. Which was unfortunate for him as he had a Palbot linked to an Engineer on the save roof. This allowed me McMurrough to jump across roofs, it was a very dense terrain, and jump into CC with Aquila Guard that was stopping my SAS from moving. I went into CC as it had better change of hitting and wounding than chain rifles, and even if they didn't I figured I'd be safer being in CC. I did win the CC and he failed both ARM rolls (DA+AP CCW at Damage 16, for the win). But I didn't realize there was a whole Link Team who saw McMurrough jumping into the CC, so he got killed. Then my four SAS and Uxia were able to grab three of the objectives in total, two of the around the board and then the central one. I could have get one more but the SAS kept failing and he was put unconscious by a revealed Hexa. Looking back I was bit stupid with Uxa, I didn't deploy her well. I should have ignore that objective completely, it was in very bad place for me.

Highlander in deployment zone.

In my opponent's first turn, he annoyingly brought his Auqlia Guard back to live with a Crit roll. Though the Auqlia Guard only got into position to make it harder for me in the next turn, instead of going on killing rampage. His Link Team of Neoterra Bolts was close to Uxia and massacred her, just no other way of saying it. First he threw a mine behind her and then taught me a new trick by Idling in her ZoC but out of LoF, I didn't think this forced me to declare ARO at that point so he was then able to use his second movement to get behind her. In the next Order I failed to Dodge anything. I think the only thing that stopped him from advancing further was my Cameronian behind a nearby building, which could decimate them. Luckily for me, he had no Specialists in that team (something he couldn't believe he forgot to add when making the list). He also came out with a Swiss Guard, but he didn't do much  beside walking to the middle of the board and Spotlight my HVT. Though it ended up a threat I had to deal with in my turn.

Scots Guard, not mentioned because he has done nothing as he was facing Hexa.

First I tried to charge him with a Highlander. I figured I could go Berserk and then Dogged if he wounded me, so I had two chances to hit him in CC. But I didn't throw a Smoke Grenade good enough and at one point was out of it but not in CC yet, so he shot me. I caused no wounds and my Highlander died. So instead I used my SAS, one that was in the middle also (very close to the Swiss Guard) went into CC and I think I won and it glanced off, or at least neither of us took wounds. Then second SAS walked into CC and with B2 I was able to stab the Swiss Guard to death (I liked to imagine of them grappled his arms behind his back and the other just stabbed him in the guts with AP CCW). Worth mentioning Isobel did Data Scan on the Swiss Guard before he died. My paramedic healed the SAS that was shot by Hexa, by shooting him with the MedKit, which was great for me. Isobel with support of a Link Team killed the Aquila Guard with her T2 rifle. For good this time. I was pretty unlucky with the Cameronian though (this happened in the Impetuous phase). He charged out towards the enemy Link Team and was seen only by one of them with Spitfire, which I thought was good for me. The Bolt rolled like 3 and 5, and I needed anything but a 20... of course I did roll a 20 and then I needed only to pass ARM roll on 12+, which I do all the time, but failed both. After that I had nothing nearby to attack with. With still lots of Orders left, I noticed the Palbot that healed the Aquila Guard was next to the Hexa, so I sacrificed one SAS to FO the Palbot shot a DA Guided missile. Which did hit both of them but only on1 and they both Dodged, putting distance between them. After that I couldn't really touch the Hexa and while I had 6 orders left I completely forgot you can do Coordinated Orders from any combat group and so wasted some opportunities as I thought I was out of Orders to use on SAS. I tried to end my turn defensively as there was still the full Link Team of Bolts on my right flank.

My opponent went mainly for objectives in his second turn and managed to get one with an Auxilier. I made it hard for him to take objectives from me. And thanks to PanO poor WIP, he spent quite few orders getting even one. I think it was like five in total, two of which was just climbing to the objective. His link team managed to kill Volunteer and Isobel, I put them in a bad position and failed to Dodge with both. Beside the Link Team though, there wasn't much left that could do damage to me, his second Auxilier with heavy flamer bot was pinned down by my sniper and our snipers couldn't see each another.

The last turn for me was a bit desperate because I had to protect my objectives and I didn't have anything that could have effective protect the central objective. I got one more side objective with the SAS that was revived and I left the second remaining SAS base to base with central in hopes he'd survive, I put him into Suppressive Fire too. I thought my best option was to hit the Link Team with any kind of template, try to take few down. First my paramedic climbed to my unconscious Missile Launcher but failed to heal him. So I sacrificed Wallace, hitting four Bolts with a light flamer and managed to kill two of them. I couldn't afford to be careful about it as I didn't have enough Orders.

The street from my opponent's side.

My sniper was pinning down this Auxilier.

At this point my opponent had one side objective and one of his Classified, while I had three side objectives, the central objective and both of my Classified. He basically needed to take one from me and take one of the unclaimed ones to get some more points, or at least make us have the same number and take over the central one. He managed to kill the SAS I had in the middle with a flamer bot. First attack I dodged and had three more AROs against the bot but failed to hit it. Second time I killed it, but the SAS died too, so that cost me two Victory Points. A mechanic of his managed to get unclaimed side objective on the right (where Uxia died). This mean he needed the last unclaimed objective to equal, or take one from me to have more. So he did a suicide run with Auxilier pinned by a sniper to try get the unclaimed one. He failed to Dodge after running out of full cover, but passed ARM roll, but then failed Guts Check and had to fall back. He had to spend another Order to get to the Objective but failed his WIP and my sniper killed him. Last option was to send the second Auxilier jumping across a roof, to try take one objective from me. I had a free shot from my Paramedic Volunteer but failed to hit. He had two Orders to try take the objective, so he run to it and rolled a 20, but I failed to kill him. Last Order, which could have turn the game, he rolled an 11 which was a fail (the side objectives were at -3 WIP).
 

Dead Auxilier.

Paramedic Volunteer who failed to revive the Scots Guard.

The Auxilier that lost the game for my opponent.

It was a tough game for both of us, but lots of fun. That last WIP roll could have been 5 to 4 victory for him and likely put him in the first place, instead of 8 to 1 loss.