Spring Slaughter Debriefing

Second time in Birmingham was fun as expected and overall was a very fun day, even though I did not do as well as I hoped to do. The new ranking system made it feel very different in the sense that after each round the ranks felt very close as everyone was like 1-2 Tournament Points difference. Which is a lot technically, but saying it doesn't feel that way. Just something to get used to.

I did well at first two games but the last game sent me down in ranks. Funnily, it didn't occur to me until now that I faced three vanilla armies (never mind that Tohaa don't have Sectorial). In the end I came 9th out of 24 players so I am happy. The last time I played here I was 8th out of 18, so I think I did better this time but next time I gotta rank higher!

There was four of us coming from Leeds and we all did well I'd say. James came 1st, Matt 2nd, me 9th and Oliver 11th, so we all ended up above the middle line. 

Don't know yet if I qualified for the Masters as I am not sure what the ranking requirements are, will find out later.

My Warzone List 1
My Warzone List 2

Game 1: Supremacy - Caledonia vs Tohaa
Won 7 to 4 (2 TPs)

My deployment zone.

In this game I used my Wulver Link Team, which kept up its winning streak and smashed through everything it faced (makes me worry of the day they will get obliterated). I had the second turn in this and my opponent had three Triads in one combat group and second group was a Triad with two MSV Lv2 Snipers, which worried me. My first roll, which was my sniper vs his sniper was a Critical Hit which kind of set the tone of the game, I managed to roll 11 Crits in that game. Even I felt bad and bought my opponent a drink after the game.

The full table from my side.

Wulver flank.

"Cheap" units flank.

The game was more in my favour after the first turn. He left two of his Triads on the edge of the zones but kind of in the open, or at least it felt that way to me. On my flank I had my Wulvers two killed everyone, plus a TO Infiltrator who put down a mine, which I then proceeded to Dodge with everyone in the Link. On the other side, I had most of my cheap units as the table didn't let me deploy much in the middle and while I would like to have my snipers in the same quadrant, I needed to oppose his snipers. At any case, on the other flank it was Highlanders who did all the damage with Chair Rifles. I think I killed all but one.

The fist Crit of the game, green dice on 12.

Second turn I lost both my snipers and I believe two Highlanders but there wasn't much my opponent had left so he couldn't push on. He was close to Retreat so I rushed my SAS across the board to get two Consoles, and at that time I was winning by 5 Points as he only had one console. He started his last turn in Retreat which screwed me a little as he managed, by accident, deny me Secure HVT, he also took another Console and because I couldn't get my turn we also had same number of quadrants as I had only 9pts hold one. This bumped him enough to stop me getting a Total Victory.

I still had 2 TPs, 7 Objective Points and around 230pts alive so I felt good about my chances still, even though some people did get 3 TPs.

The survivors.

Game 2: Antenna Field - Caledonia vs Combined Army
Won 7 to 1 (3 TPs)

I was bit worried going into this mission because CA have lots of sneaky troops and I am not a fan of missions where you have to hold objectives base-to-base each round. It was a very open board, especially around the objectives was lots of empty spaces. There was only one hidden behind a building so when I won the Lt Roll, I picked deployment and my opponent chose to go second. The table really was to his disadvantage as it turned out he had more of an aggressive force where I was more defensive.

My left flank.

In my first turn what I found quite amusing situation, my opponent deployed lots of Hungries and one Witch Doctor in a square behind a building so I run my SAS with Grenades to the building and did Speculative Shot into middle of them. It landed and managed to hit all of them, most Dodged though but three still died and everyone else spread out because there were exploding Hungries. After that I couldn't get more than one. In the turn I also I took out his sniper and managed to deal with Impersonator that was close to my Deployment Zone. He deployed it next to one of my Camo Markers (who was FO SAS) and it took several Orders of moving about a little and trying to do stuff before he took the bait and revealed eventually. This allowed my Wulver to run up and upload T2 Rifle into the Speculio, who did kill my SAS when it revealed previously. With last Orders I put a second FO SAS and 112 into contact with objectives and put the Wulver into Suppressive Fire, watching over objectives I couldn't get to.

My right flank.

My opponent started his turn with the Hungries running over the building towards my SAS who killed I think two of them in CC with Knife, some were killed on the way by long range Pistol shots from my Link Team. He spent the rest of the turn trying to get to his objectives but my Snipers and Wulver had his half of the board locked down and everything that moved out got killed. This lasted for the rest of the game. I moved up my 112 to the middle objective to secure more Objective Points, but otherwise I haven't moved around that much as everything was in place.

They're coming outta the goddamn walls!

I did put my opponent into Retreat in the end but I didn't mind this time as I already had Total Victory for 3 Tournament Points. I would have totally understand my opponent's frustration because it was an unfortunate match up and a board for him, but he was really cool about it so it was fun game. 

Game 3: Comms Centre - Caledonia vs Haqqislam
Lost 0 to 10 (0 TPs)

I would want to say that this was was an unfortunate match up for me but that is kind of just trying to justify my terrible decisions during the game. Hands down I'd say its the worst game I played on my part in a long time. Everything from choosing sides, deployment and in-game decisions. Might have been nerves too, I was among the top and really wanted to win. Though in the end even if I scored 3 TPs, I'd come second as James would have had more and still win the tournament. Looking back I could have done a lot better. Also would like to take a second and appreciate Wallace's WIP 15, I won all the Lt Rolls today.

The table from my side.

So to start with this table was very open in the middle. The Deployment Zones were decently filled but the middle was just empty, full of crates and had an extremely high tower. I was concerned about Infiltrating Snipers that could deploy there, yet I let my opponent have the side with the tower, and he decided to go first. Going second is usually better in these kind of missions but his list was suited for Alpha Strike. And he did lots of damage in his first turn, taking out my Engineer, WarCor, 112 and Uxia just with one Impersonator. He did deploy a marker on the tower and I managed to Infiltrate on top of it too with one of my SAS but I fluffed te face to face rolls and SAS died. Funnily enough the sniper did nothing for the rest of the game.

Another look at the table.

 
I tried to run Wallace with Highlanders down a flank to get into enemy DZ to start taking out Orders but I miscalculated how far I could get and used too many Command Tokens just to get them into safe enough position but they were all out of the Link. Which sucked for me as the Highlanders started going crazy afterwards. Looking back I should have put them on the flank with more cover, I had to cross lots of open space which just left me too exposed and needed too many Orders for Smoke to cross.

Isolated Wulver =(

In the end, I just made too many mistakes to even bring the game back to a Draw. I even positioned my FO SAS wrong for my last turn and didn't have enough Orders to get enough Objectives.

Hopefully I will remember these painful lessons and not do them again!

Wallace and Highlanders by the tower.