High Value Target

When it comes to High Value Target (HVT) I feel like they are becoming increasingly more important in ITS missions, especially those where Classified Objectives are worth 2 points each and of course Highly Classified mission which can end up being all about the HVT. So I been thinking, is it better to deploy HVT in the open or hide them? Is there a "best place" for the HVT?

Open vs Hidden

Personally I tend to always place the HVT behind a building or some other piece of terrain so my opponent can't spot them easily with Forward Observers. In many games my opponent placed their HVT right in the open, which I thought wasn't a good choice as it meant my own FO can see them but most of the time it didn't end in my favour for other objectives. The other HVT objectives are about getting a hacker within their ZoC, and Engineer or Doctor/Paramedic base to base.

After trying it out myself I think having a HVT in open makes it easier to protect it. Especially if you have lots of elevated positions around your deployment zone, you can cover most, if not all, approaches to the HVT. This might not stop your opponent getting base-to-base but it might make them spend more orders avoiding and/or dealing with your AROs. The more Orders they spend on HVT, the less they have for attacking else where, which is always good. You just gotta make sure to maintain your defense because if your unit leave, the HVT is just right there in the open. 

If you happen to have a really good hiding spot in your half of the board, I'd say that might be the best time to hide the HVT. Otherwise, more times than not I end up blocking my own Line of Fires to the HVT or at least limiting them a lot. One game I played recently, my opponent had bunch of containers in his half which were touching edge of the board and arranged in such a way that I would have to go around the whole thing to get close to the HVT and that was a problem since the Classified were getting base to base. Even climbing over the containers would have taken lots of Orders. It put the game in his favour from the start. That said, I wouldn't expect these kind of hiding spots happen often but its good to keep an eye for them.

Overall I am getting more in favour of putting HVT close to my own deployment zone and in the open where I can protect it with defensive troops, or even just cheerleaders that won't be leaving the deployment zone.

"HVT Shield"

I still haven't figured out how to make this a viable tactic but it is good to remember nobody can place templates on the HVT intentionally. Or even if you can, if you kill it you lose the game so nobody in their right mind  will do it. This can be used to your advantage.If you are near the HVT it is unlikely people will be able to target you with things like missile launchers and even flamers/chain rifles can be hard to deploy near the HVT.

The HVT also has Silhouette 2, like a regular trooper, and block Line of Fire. Therefore if you see some small line across the board that you want block, you can use HVT to do it.

Going off on that, do be careful with placing mines around HVT. Your opponent could avoid it by hiding behind the HVT, or just in a direction where the mine would have to go over it as mine templates cannot be placed over Friendly or Neutral models. The mine would neither not trigger or some people said it would be lost. (Rules citation to be added but to me it sounds more like it wouldn't trigger.) Either case, it is a way to avoid mine templates.

Best place for HVT

This was on my mind for a while, is there a best place for HVT? By that I mean being able to place the HVT outside of ZoC of any potential enemy trooper so they can't hack the HVT from the start of the game. I made this handy graph to find out, no there really isn't.

This of course is assuming there is no terrain preventing enemy Infiltrators deploying right on the edge of 24", or an Exclusion Zone. Since you have to deploy the HVT withing 8" of the middle line, they can almost always be in ZoC from the get go.

Looking at the graph though I think it might be a good idea to deploy the HVT close to the middle if you know your opponent has access to Airborne Specialist. That way you can force them to spend extra Orders getting to the HVT from the side. At the same time though, you can lure the AD Specialists and set some traps for them if you have TO troops.

My miniature

I wasn't sure how to paint my HVT but in the end decided to go with red and black because it helps make the HVT stand out in my Caledonia and I really like red armour, I just try to avoid it in Infinity because I done too many of those in my wargaming years. I also took inspiration from the studio Alguaciles for the blue hair.

Overall I am happy with it but I wish I was more careful priming the face as it came out bit too rough for my liking, though its only a problem when you look really close.

If you are interested in how I paint faces, I wrote about it in this article.

How I paint faces

The other day my mates James asked how I paint faces/flesh and while I think its a simple process I tried to explain, figured I'd do like a "step-by-step" to show it with pictures. I am not going to claim this is some "pro-paint" tutorial, just how I paint my minis, so keep that mind. Cheers.

For flesh and faces I generally use only three colours, five if I want to add bit more detail. The colours are:

1. Ratskin Flesh
2. Kislev Flesh
3. Reikland Fleshshade
4. Ceramite White
5. Evil Sunz Scarlet

These are Games Workshop paints, but if you are using a different brand its basically dark flesh colour, bright flesh colour, flesh ink/wash (its kinda brown-ish), white and red.

Step 1 - Base + Wash

To start with I pain the whole face (and any flesh parts) with the base dark flesh colour and wash it. This will make it bit more darker.

As a word of caution, it pays out to take time with the undercoating of a face. More than once I ended up finding out the surface isn't smooth anymore because I used too much paint which left tiny clumps. But its only noticeable when you look super close.

Step 2 - First Highlights

Then I use the same dark flesh colour to start highlights. Its hard to see the difference on a photo but in person you can see the new layer is bit brighter.

Step 3 - Second Highlights

 In this step I sometime go straight to the brightest flesh colour I have and build up highlights with watered-down paint, or first do a layer where I mix the dark and bright and then pure bright.

Step 4 - Details

I don't do this on all models, but when I do I mix some white into the bright flesh do to small very bright highlights on the cheek, nose and sometime chin.

The red is for female models, where I also mix it with flesh to tone it down and then pain the bottom lip to make it stand out.

Step 5 - Eyes

Lastly, when the model has big enough eyes I first pain a strip of white horizontally and then put in a dot of black. Sometime I do it in three steps there I do big black stripe first, then white and then pupils. It is often a painful process so I am looking for a better way, but it does the job.

Alternative (faster) way

On some models I combined Step 1, 2 and 3. I paint the face with dark colour, do strong highlights with the bright colour on top and then wash it to blend it in. I do this on older miniatures where the faces are small, or when you can't see much of the face.

Also for line troops I don't often do Step 4 and 5, even without details and eyes they still look good on the table. Below are some more explames of faces I have done for my Japanese Sectorial Army. 

WarCor in Caledonia

This is a first article of many that should be coming over the next several weeks (probably months). Majority of my Caledonia models are half painted, which in my case means that they have everything painted in basic colours, maybe a layer of wash/ink and a base but it all lacks highlights and detailing. I really want to finish my army and write about my experience with the units, so I have decided to try write about them as I finish painting them so I can include pictures of my models in the articles.

I wanted to do WarCor first because I think it is a very underrated unit and I use him in most of my armies. Next will be article about High Value Target.

So to get right to it, lets talk about how Warcors fit in Caledonia and why I think they are great.

Profile

At first look there is nothing really special about the WarCor profile, basic MOV, below average CC and BS, average PH and WIP in Caledonia, no ARM and BTS and standard 1 W. The Journalist L1 skill doesn't do anything in a regular game either and there are no official rules for Aerocam per say (though it has been used as 360 Visor). On top of that they are Irregular, which means generally they can only use their Order. Combination of all of this, despite its extremely cheap cost, is likely why many might not give this unit a second thought, I know I didn't use to.

Weapons

It is not until you look at the weapons that WarCor becomes appealing. We can more or less discount the Knife because you'd be lucky to hit in CC. The Stun Pistol is great on paper as it can send anything with Wounds (not Structure) Unconscious just by failing 1 BTS roll (thought I couldn't find if it works on 2W models or if those just loses 1W) but usually you'll be hitting on 12 at best, which you can bump to 15 if you plan ahead of Target the approaching enemy with FO first. Use of Stun is sure situational but it is a goo tool to have if you need to accomplish Coup de Grace.

This gets us to the best thing about WarCor, the Flash Pulse that can Blind. Since its a Technical Weapon, you use WIP instead of BS, which means between 8" to 24" you'll be hitting on 16. I would say the Blind state is very underestimated by players, in most games I get some "free" unopposed rolls because people don't think it will do much. Until their hard hitting unit is Blind and can do very little for rest of the turn. While Blind, you can only do pretty much only MOV skills and CC, anything that needs LoF is unavailable. The worst/best thing about Blind is that nothing can fix it, it remains until end of the player turn and there is nothing else that can be done about it.

In Caledonia

You might have thought this already; most of this applies to WarCor in just about any army but there is one thing that makes this unit even better in Caledonia (and two other armies in the game).

If you take William Wallace as your Lieutenant, his Inspiring Leadership makes everyone in your army Regular (among other things). This effectively means you are gaining an Order for 3 Points! This is the cheapest Order that you can get. You can only have one WarCor but it is almost always better to have that extra Order than not.

As I mentioned earlier, this can be also done in two other armies; PanO and Military Orders where Joan of Arc is Lieutenant. She is the only other model in the game (thus far) to have Inspiring Leadership.

On the battlefield

Taking all of this, how does it apply to a game? The best use of WarCor I found so far is mid-range or long-range ARO threat. If you put him in the right place, he can sit there the whole game and just generate an Order. People who know how crippling Blind status can be will think twice and spend their precious Orders killing a 3ptd mode, and people that don't know it are likely to leave their models exposed.

I like to use WarCor in what I call a "buddy sniper system". Basically you place this guy in a place where he can see the same places as one of your snipers (or other long range AROs). This will force your opponent to either split their Burst or give you a free unopposed roll. I can't promise this is guaranteed to work, but in my experience most of the time people either face the WarCor and the sniper, or they go around trying to pick off the WarCor first. Which again, helps you as well because while they are spending Orders killing the cheapest unit in your army they are not killing something more expensive (and likely more useful), or better, they are not doing the mission objectives.

Other but similar use that I found useful was protecting Deployment Zone flank. This is especially useful if you think your opponent has Airborne troops. If they land where your WarCor can see them, you have a chance to Blind them before they even do anything, which is definitely worth it.

Overall, I'd strongly suggest to anyone to get a WarCor and try it out yourself. Give it few games and found your best use for them.

My miniature

Last but not least the painting part of this article. The photos above were taken by James, you can find more awesome photos from events and games on his blog.

My intention with the WarCor was to make him look like a civilian with some military gear, so I went with white shirt and blue jeans for clothing and the same greens for the military vest and leg guards. I was going to make the helmet green as well but I really liked how the yellow looked on my Dozers.

I was quite happy how the detailing came out too. Though I might revisit this mini in the future to add Caledonia flag somewhere and put PRESS (or BBC) on his helmet.

I didn't plan to paint the eyes at first but on this mini they were quite big so it didn't look without them.

This was actually my first attempt at painting chips on armour. I only did very few, just to try it out and figured the WarCor wouldn't be too battle-worn. I am happy with how it looks so I'll be definitely doing more of these on other models.

It was hard to take a good photo of this but I noticed part of the basing was missing so I decided to make it look like a little mud puddle. In person you can also see slight gloss on the bottom of his boot.

Northern Open 4

Last Saturday I have attended Northern Open 4 event as Tournament Organizer. I quite enjoyed the experience of seeing a tournament from a different perspective. There is lots of work behind the scenes that I don't necessary think about when I go play but I can certainly appreciate more all the hard work that goes into events from the organizers. Northern Open is one of the biggest events we do up here in North, I think we always had around 20 players after the first one, so it was quite busy but having experience from our previous events I think we were ready for everything.

I would say the busiest part was before and after the event. We had to set up 10 tables in less than hour and a half and then clear them out just fast afterwards, but lots of people helped out both times which was great to see. I had a chance to play two of the three rounds as we had odd number of people in the end, and that really made me realize I should think about table set up even more. I think next time I'd at least measure where the deployment zones are and consider the missions more so you don't end up with objectives and HVTs in the most awkward places. I know, I know, games of chance are not really about always fair but at the same time I don't think unfair advantage is good for the game either.

As I walked between the tables I found it lots of fun to see how the games went and hear all the crazy things that happened, I think on one table someone managed to kill Achilles with a USA Grunt, in CC at that! It was also good opportunity to see all the different armies and how people played them, which you don't have time to do much when you are playing.

Surprisingly, our defending champion of NO3 ranked 3rd of 4th and my mate James who won last two events we went to also had some bad luck. In the end it was Yorkshire Renegades that took the crown this time. Will see if they can defend it in May!

These were the ten tables we had:
(more photos from the event can be found on Facebook groups and the Infinity Forums.)

Weekend Warlords: Yorkshire returns victorious!

On Sunday the 24th we went to Loughborough in somewhere not-Yorkshire, but it was my mate James who scored the first place. We both did very well in our first game and had unfortunate match up against each another for the second game, which to my bad luck was Nimbus Zone. We practiced the mission like two days before and he won that too. I was doing okay at first but had some bad luck and made mistake of spreading myself too thin, maybe going first wasn't great either. Last game I was confident about that I could pull it back, but ended up loosing by a lot.

Its been a while I lost two games out of three, but its not the new ITS season yet so I am happy to get my bad games out of the way!

Game 1: Quadrant Control - Caledonia vs Combined Army
Won 8 to 1

We played on a very open board, there were no long fire-lines but there was lots of room between terrain pieces which made it difficult to maneuver around without going into open. My opponent had a small army, half his points were in Morat TAG and Sogarat Tempest Regiment with HMG. From my perspective he had Sogarat on the left and TAG on the right. With the rest spread in between. I also had fairly small army, only 12 models. I deployed Wallace and Wulvers in the middle, Cameronian and McMurrough on each side and SAS in camo infiltrated as far as they could. I chose side and deployment, my opponent went first.

Table from my side.

The start of the game was fairly uneventful, I deployed with almost everything hidden so the only shooting happened between Sogarat and my Cateran sniper, but neither of us died. My opponent moved up most of his units so that he had around 100pts on one side, and 150pts on the side with TAG. I wanted to assault across the board to take my opponent's quadrants but I was too cheeky and didn't think it through. The idea was to run my Wulvers across the board and split them so I had more points in both quadrants, but first mistake was that I was completely oblivious to the fact I did not move across the middle line and second that I really only needed to take one of his quadrants, not both, so I should have just charge into one of them with the full Link. Albeit I did not and we both got 1 point each. My Cateran also managed to put the Sogorat unconscious.

The luck turned against my opponent in his second turn. He did bring back the Sogorat with Automedkit and survived the free shot I had at it, but then I won the next attack and since he was on 1 Wound this time, the T2 sniper bullet took him out. Then the most unlucky thing happened, he moved his TAG forward to attack McMurrough but I also had a shot with WarCor. With the ARO I managed to Critically Blind the TAG and McMurrough dodged away, he couldn't flame it because my HVT was in the way. In my turn I more or less managed to secure board dominance, though I did lose two Wulvers in the process. One T2 Rifle died to a Plasma hit, he went against two of those Remotes and managed to kill only one. The second Wulver with Heavy Shotgun died from Fire. I attacked the TAG and hit it three times, but he flamed me and I failed three rolls in the row. Though he also failed all three of his rolls and the TAG went down, which was very unlucky for him. With my last orders I also killed few more troops and moved up to claim my opponent's quadrants.

In his last turn my opponent had less than 75pts on the board, he moved around defensively but all I had to do in my last turn was to switch my Classified to Secure HVT so I could score 8 Points because I couldn't do any of the ones I drew. I had enough Orders to probably finish the last few troops standing but we ended the game there.

I really did not do much with my other troops, almost everyone survived the whole game because I used the Wulvers the most. The SAS especially just sat Prone on a roof in the middle of the table. 

Game 2: Nimbus Zone - Caledonia vs French
Lost 4 to 7

This board was also very open, with few blocks of terrain but not much scatter in between. My side had the advantage of the highest level on the board but it was without cover and at that time I did not know how to make use of it without leaving my snipers exposed. I had army of 20 troops and James also had like 18 to 20 in his French army, so there were troops everywhere. I deployed everything more or less hidden, because I knew James will too and my skirmishers went as close as possible to the objectives but not as close as I'd like because of Exclusion Zone. I went first in this mission because James won the roll but chose to go second.

Table from my side, but objectives were removed.

I started my turn as I usually do in these kind of missions. Camo Markers move forward and try to take Objectives. If memory serves me right, I got both of the objectives I could get in first turn and then spend the rest of my orders positioning myself for the second turn. I dont think I killed anything in my first turn because everything was hidden or just too far and across the nimbus zone. I don't remember where James spent all his Orders because he didn't do any of the objectives but he did shot at few things and set up his skirmishers in annoying positions for me.

As soon as it was my turn again, I started to blast the objectives James didn't capture in the first turn to deny him Victory Points and secure 3 for me. I destroyed both of them but I should have just stop at one because then the Nimbus Zone was gone, which was good and bad at the same time. I was on a good way to win but I knew I could still loose because I would have to stop James from downloading and controlling more of the objectives in the middle. Which was hard, for starters there was one objective I couldn't get to as it was on a platform with no ladders and he had a skirmishers deployed on it from the start. The other two were more or less in the Open and I did not have enough Orders to get more troops to them so I was relying on my SAS to hold them, which James knew and send his troops to take them out.

In the last turn I was just trying to minimize the damage but it was more or less a win for James. My army was pinned down but few of his troops on high up positions and a Paratrooper with HMG on the ground. I was pretty unlucky with my Linked HMG as it took like twenty shots to take out a single trooper, and then not to mention where James passed like five Dodge rolls when my Cameronian attacked his Link Team in previous turns. I wasn't even able to do my Classified Objective because he killed my Hacker. In the end I ended up only with 4 points but I learned a good new tricks.

Game 3: Highly Classified - Caledonia vs Corregidor
Lost 3 to 9

I was going confident into this mission, up until then every-time I played Highly Classified I scored high. Which was my only chance to rank in the first three. I wasn't sure what to expect from Corregidor though I knew hacking I don't have to worry about. I am not sure now who won the Lt roll but I went first and my opponent made me deploy on the most bare deployment zone that I have ever seen, literally it had no cover and I had to rely on level variations of the ground and buildings to hide my troops. The Objectives we had were Doctor the HVT, Coup de Grace someone, Doctor your own trooper and Engineer your own remote. I also drew Data Scan. In my opponent's deployment zone, there was a bridge that extended out of it and he deployed two troopers of his Link Team on it, which made me Infiltrate Uxia right in front of them and I passed the roll. We both passed all of our Infiltration rolls actually, he had a Bandit in Camo and I also had a Volunteer.

Terrible image, I know but hopefully gives an idea of the table.

The first turn went good and bad for me at the same time. Uxia managed to kill one of the Link members (dying in process but she did also active both Crazy Koalas, which was worth it) and my SAS Forward Observed his Total Reaction remote which was next to his Link Team and took few Guided Missile shots. I also managed to take out some Jaguars I believe, reducing his Order pool by a chunk. The bad thing was I did not managed to get any of the objectives. I dont know why but I had this stupid idea moving one of my SAS around too much and wasted lots of Orders on it. My opponent managed to get at least one of the Objectives because he healed one of his Link members after he brought in his Tomcat Doctor.

The next turn I killed few more things and I did my Data Scan with my Link Team but I spend lots of Orders running them to the opposite half of the board where the enemy HVT was. I think for some reason I was worried taking on the enemy Link Team that was protective the HVT (it was in the open right in front of them) even though I had the advantage of numbers and range. I also tried to Doctor someone but failed that roll. My opponent did better, the Tomcat managed to get to my HVT and get that objective, then if I remember right his Classified was to hack my HVT which he did with the Bandit and he also Coup de Graced one of my SAS. He also killed my Doctor by finding a good route I did not see, I thought my Doctor was hidden well.

In my last turn I got Coup de Grace with my Cateran (thank you climing plus) and I made my Traktor Mul fall two times but it kept passing its ARM save and I run out of Orders for it. In desperate move I run my Link Team across the board into open trying to get my Paramedic to the HVT but that failed too. My opponent couldn't get the last Classified as he did not have any Remote left to Engineer (not sure if he had an Engineer on the board). 

Looking back at the game, I don't know what happened but I made some pretty bad decisions. From the start I should have move my Link Team across my Deployment Zone, get close to the enemy HVT, take out the Link Team and lock down that side of the board. Which would have given me a better chance to do the objectives. I am still glad its not the new ITS season yet! This is the final ranking provided by Tim the Organizer: