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: