This was the first ITS event for my USAriadna army and it went better than I expected. I think I made a decent list for the missions, though I was more focused on taking things I want to try out some tactics, than trying to make it as good as possible. I wasn't overly concerned with winning the event, though when I did end up on the final top table anyway, I did want to win.
But combination of bad dice rolls, bad range bands and some bad deployment choices did not help me at all! This event went to Mark, one of the locals from Liverpool. I only ranked 4th out of 8 players.
Though it wasn't as bad as my mate James' second game, the first game he lost this ITS season due to forcing his opponent into Retreat unintentionally and loosing the third turn. Which meant he couldn't get the objectives he could easily get otherwise in his third turn.
Overall it was a really fun day and I am definitely going to play USA Rangers more often. They are very different to Caledonia, but I enjoy the challenge.
My army list
Open in Army 6
I did have only one list for this, mainly because all the missions were objective based and I didn't feel like I needed to change anything.
Game 1: Seize the Antennas - USA Ranger Force vs USA Ranger Force
Won 7 to 4 (2 TPs)
In my first game I faced Luke again. We both played USARF and the table we got was unusual looking. I liked the look of it but it was hard to say if it will be difficult to play on. Turned out it wasn't, it was actually a really good table I thought. What made the biggest difference was that the hedges were enough to give partial cover to S2, not all of them were the same but we played them that way as that was the intention (or so I been told). It meant that even with very little over I had lots of good deployment options. One thing that could have made the table very different was the Church (sniper) Tower that could see basically everywhere and was by far the highest point. But Luke didn't use it as it was outside of the Deployment Zone and there was no easy access to it. I deployed all my Infiltrators across the middle line and the rest of my army was up to the edge of DZ as well.
I had three Grunts with Heavy Flamers to Infiltrate but they all failed, while Luke managed to infiltrate two of his.Before we started, what I noticed Luke deployed his Grunt Link Team in a line behind some crates. Which decided what my first turn was gonna be like. Unfortunately there was a Grunt with Flamer, a camo marker and an Unknown Ranger in the way. First I tried to kill the Grunt and only managed to get my Minuteman killed by a Light Shotgun. Then I noticed one of my Grunts with Flamer was in range so we flamed each another but only my Grunt survived. Next up was the camo marker. For this I brought in my Airborne Ranger (Forward Observer). He came on near to the marker and Luke took the bait, revealing it to take a free shot. Which missed, fortunately for me. Once the revealed Foxtrot was killed, I first used one of mine to attack the Unknown Ranger, causing one Wound. Then my own Unknown Ranger finished him off.
Now the path was free for my Hardcase. He was able to take one shot with Light Shotgun across four Grunts of the Link but killed only one. After that I only moved up some troops, think I took the objective near by DZ also with my Grunt Link. Luke's first turn was spent on trying to kill the Hardcase. He broke off Light Grenade Launcher from the Link and tried to hit him and also with Urugan but my Dodge and ARM rolls were good and survived for a long time. Luke wasted lots of Orders and then had few left to move some troops around, he also healed the one Grunt I killed. I had no other casualties.
I guessed Luke's Lt had to be one of the Grunts in the Link and he left them more or less as they were so my next turn was about trying to kill the Lt. First I tried with a Marauder who run up to their flank and hit them with Heavy Flamer, which did not kill anyone. I think it was only the second Order that managed to kill one Grunt but the Marauder died also. Last try was with a Foxtrot. He run to the same place again and killed both potential Lt Grunts. With both of them dead Luke started in Loss of Lt and couldn't do much his turn. There was a flanking attempt with a Desperado (might have been in the first turn) but he died to my AROs. If I remember right Luke used one of his Marauders to get an objective in his DZ.
Even though I had the advantage so far I knew I could still lose the game because I didn't have the middle objective and realized too late I didn't move enough specialists nearby to secure it. I had to break a Grunt FO from my Link to go grab it, as Marauder Paramedic who was close died to an ARO from Urugan. With few Orders I had left, I killed two to three troops I could see, trying to limit Luke's Orders as much as possible. In his last turn, Luke used his HMG Grunt first to kill my HMG Grunt and also the FO Grunt, basically leaving the middle objective almost unprotected. Luke had only five or six Orders for the last turn so then he had to actually go for the objective with his Foxtrot FO. He had to do it with two Orders to get to it but my Warcor still had Line of Fire to the objective. He tried to kill the Warcor with the Foxtrot with first Order but I won the roll and managed to Stun the Foxtrot, which meant he couldn't do the objective anymore. I also managed to do Secure HVT for my Classified for extra Objective Point.
Game 2: Cold Sleep - USA Ranger Force vs PanO
Won 8 to 0 (3 TPs)
My second game was against Andy on a very different table, it was full of high buildings. He said he was a new player so I tried to help him during the game as much as possible. I deployed very similar as in first game, everyone was lined up to edge of DZ, Link Team was defensive and Infiltrators across the middle, though one had to go on a roof as I had an objective there. I also managed to land one Grunt with Flamer. Andy deployed mostly hidden but had Sniper on a tall building and a HMG Remote also on a roof.
I went first and started with the Infiltrated Grunt. She managed to hit an Auxillier and a Fusilier with the template but they both survived, while my Grunt died. Then I tried to kill the HMG remote with my HMG Grunt, but Andy rolled a crit. So it wasn't a good start. I had to spent few Orders for my Paramedic to climb up, which was worth it as the HMG Grunt was healed back up. I also had a shoot out with my Foxtrot vs the Sniper, I won the roll but didn't kill it. One Marauder grabbed an objective and then I put six troops into Supressive Fire to end the turn. In his turn, Andy revealed a Swiss Guard on my right flank. My Sniper from Link could see, and one of my Marauders. Fortunately for me, the Swiss Guard had a missile launcher so I was always rolling more dice. After few Orders of Swiss Guard vs Sniper and Marauder, I managed to double crit with the Sniper. Which was very lucky. Andy then also dropped an AD trooper in my DZ, which tried to kill one Marauder but a Grunt with Flamer was able to change facing when he landed and then killed him with the flamer. (I didn't realize at the time the mission didn't allow AD Combat Jumps.)
My second turn was spent on getting more objectives and hunting down Fusiliers, which were Andy's Lt options that I knew of. I managed to get the objectives in my half of the board and the two in the middle. I also killed all the Fusiliers which put Andy into Loss of Lt when he started his turn. He attempted to move towards objectives but I had good AROs. Though he did kill one Foxtrot with Aquila Guard.
In my last turn my Airborne Ranger arrived behind the Aquilla Guard and outside of his ZoC as well so I had a free shot with AP rounds and it managed to kill the Aquilla. After that I only moved my Unknown Ranger and Airborne Ranger to one of the middle objectives, making sure Andy couldn't deny it by using his Intel Card to stop one being a Specialist. In his last turn he only had two units left I believe. One Auxiller who tried to get an objective but was shot by my Link Team and then his Sniper tried to kill my Warcor, but I managed to crit with a Stunt Pistol which was a very funny last shot.
Game 3: Emergency Transmission - USA Ranger Force vs ALEPH
Lost 0 to 10 (0 TPs)
In the last game I believe I was on top place and Mark on second, which made me want to win the event. I played Mark before and expected him to play similarly so I chose the first turn with hopes to deal some damage to his ALEPH troops. Unfortunately none of my Grunts landed and I knew I had the bad deployment side since all my buildings had flat roofs and so were useless to deploy on, while Mark had the sniper tower which during the game proved to be able to see more than I anticipated.
I have deployed in such a way that I could take five of the seven objectives but thanks to the sniper, I couldn't do any of them without getting shot and Mark also used Minelayers to put mines to the middle. Though it was my fault for not remembering he couldn't place mines with a camo marker in Area of Effect. I tried to take out the sniper with an Unknown Ranger but it failed because my only cover was 16" and half away from the tower, which put me at worse odds. Running out of cover did not help either, all my attempts to kill the sniper failed and my Link Team was deployed on other side of the board. Where they couldn't see the sniper as I was unable to deploy on higher levels. The Link did manage to take out Mark's REMs but too late as I didn't have Orders left.
Mark went onto a rampage with his Spitfire trooper as I expected him to do, and it worked for him again. There were some "hidden" Line of Fire that looked closed to me but I should have double checked from Mark's side. I think I lost six or seven troops in his turn. I tried to heal some of the troops but my Paramedic went on a killing spree this whole game. With less Orders each turn I was also unable to go kill Mark's Lt which I could have flank if I either had more Orders or the sniper was dead. With the large number of objectives, I couldn't do much after most Specialists were dead.
In my last turn I tried at least for a draw but my rolls kept being bad. The only good rolls I had was Airborne Ranger killing the Spitfire with a Crit from behind. In his last turn Mark didn't have to do anything to win as he already had more objectives secured than me.
Looking back at the game, it reminded me of my old thought if I don't take the side with highest vantage point, I'll lose. But my list was designed to go first so it was my own fault. I think even though I didn't want to deploy a whole Link around a single building I should have done it and stay within LoF of the sniper town to kill anyone on it. Lessons learned for next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment