Northern Open 5

This has been our biggest event yet, 28 people! And they all showed up, which was awesome to see.One again Northern Open tables were all fully painted so I think we can keep our bragging rights about best tables in the UK.

Lots of photos from the event can be found HERE.

I ranked 9th with win-loss-win performance. Which I blame on being paired up against James for the second game. Out of 28 people I think its still good and if I scored one more Objective Point, I would been higher. I blame Tim for denying me his HVT!

Also shoutout to Andy from Ragnarok Games. He brought his stock of Infinity and it was so great to see so many boxsets and blisters in one place. Just looking at it made me want to buy stuff.

My Army Lists

NO5 List A
NO5 List B

I went with Caledonia and the lists were tweaked from what I used before. One of my main focuses was using Isobel without a Link Team, just to see how useful she would be. I quite liked my Scots Guard Link but two of the missions had lots of objectives, so I ended up using it only once as my other list had lot more Specialists. The Scots Guard List was more about if I was going against an army with not many Orders and try Alpha Strike them.

Game 1: Seize the Antennas - Caledonia vs Neoterran Capitaline Army
Won 6 to 3 (2 TPs)

For my first game I set up challenge against Tim. We played twice before and so far I been winning, though second game we had it came down to his bad dice rolls on WIP checks. I think I won the Lt roll and decided to go first, I was expecting heavy PanO resistance and was hoping to pull off Alpha Stike and reduce his Orders a lot from the start. Tim was afraid of my Cameronian and set up a whole Link Team and Remote to face him, which I found kind of funny. It did force my hand with how to use Uxia, instead of hunting for Lt I had to deploy her to weaken the Link.

My first turn did not go badly. I lost both of my Infiltrators, SAS and Uxia, but they did take down few models. Uxia managed to hit two Fusiliers and them Rem with Shotgun and killed the Rem and one Bolt. SAS hit two Auxilliers with Chain Rifle and took out one of them. My Scots Guard Link Team was unlucky at first, a Fusilier killed my Missile Launcher but my 112 did good and healed him back. They killed the Fusilier and then with Wallace left their position and advanced into a building. I think Missile Launcher managed to take out another of Tim's Rems. I couldn't do any objectives due to Aquila Guard in a very annoying place. Nothing could take him out easily and he could see through smoke. Tim couldn't do much in his first turn, though he did kill at least Isobel and the Cameronian. I think the 112 died as well.

Scots Guard Critial Roll

Starting my second turn, despite having the advantage in terms of firepower and board control, I had only two Specialists left so I could still lose the game easy. Neither of us took objectives. So my idea was to hit and hit hard, put Tim into Retreat and take my Classified, so I would win with 1 Objective Point. Tim's Lt was too far from my Army and I was worried he'd hunt down my Specialists or just use his last turn to take more objectives. So I used my Scots Guard to hammer down anything they could see. The Missile Launcher killed Fusilier with HMG, catching Bipandra in the blast. The whole Link then advanced further and Molotok took care of Aquila Guard after two to three rounds of shooting. With last Orders I moved Highlander to Tim's HVT ZoC and tried to FO (my Classified) the unconscious Aquila, but failed the rolls so I was relying on the HVT capture.

Tim thought he was in Retreat but then pulled out his TO Hexa Specialist and it put him 5pts over the limit. She revealed on an objective so I was super glad I got to have my next turn, otherwise I would have lost. Tim managed to get the objective but the Hexa was in total view of the Link and D.E.P. rocket took her out. I don't know why but Tim then run his Lt into CC with my Highlander. So I activated Berserk and killed it. In my last turn I run the Link Team to the middle of the board and then back to my DZ to be able to take the two objectives. When I was finished Tim had only three troops on the board so he was in Retreat and couldn't take the objectives from me, but he did kill my Highlander and then tried to take my HVT but luckly, my Link Team stopped that attempt.

Overall I must say I was super glad Scots Guard now have FO option, makes them so much more useful as a Link Team. Also I could have just got for it and risk Isobel in my first turn to take an objective. She would die either way but at least my second turn would have been easier.

Game 2: Emergency Transmission - Caledonia vs Ariadna
Lost 3 to 8 (0 TPs)

As it often happens, me and James go paired up against each another. Which was somewhat annoying out of 27 other people! On the bright side, I got to play on my new board, which I enjoyed. I was expecting this game to go as it always goes between us on events. James' vanilla army is hard to beat with my Caledonia, with my army I have to be aggressive but it is hard to pull that off against 20 Orders army that is full of tricks.

The one advantage I had was that I knew James' list. More or less anyway. So after we deployed I figured out who his Lt was and thought if I could kill it, I'd have a change to secure my position and objectives, making it hard for him to hit back. Uxia managed to Infiltrate next to the Lt who was a camo marker (it was a Foxtrot Lt) and I did Discover+Shoot. James took a risk by not reacting but it paid off because Uxia failed the WIP check. At least I managed to take three objectives and set up defensively. James was also lucky with his ARM saves on his Cateran.

James decided to drop Van Zant in the first turn and started to shoot at Highlanders and other units on my right flank. While he didn't do much damage in terms of points lost, he did kill like five cheap units. James then used his HMG Spetsnaz to take out my SAS in Supressive Fire and WarCor. My second turn was all about holding the objectives I had, and stopping James from taking one that I didn't have so he could have two near his DZ. I killed Van Zant with Wallace and remaining Highlanders but it was hard to do much else. My Cateran also hot outrolled by James' Cateran.

Learning from his past mistakes, James was careful not to put me in Retreat because if he did, I would have won by having more objectives. In my last turn, for some reason, I thought it was the last turn of the game (to my defense it was really hot in the venue!) so I thought I'd run my Specialist to the middle of the board and put him base to base with the objective there. James did activate it, but didn't stay with it. It didn't work due to some fire lines I didn't see before, but I still thought we could Draw. If I managed to have more of the other Objectives I'd get 4 OPs, and James would get 4 OPs for the middle objectives. We both did one Classified.

I made the mistake of leaving the uncontested objective without defense, running Wallace and remaining Highlanders to the middle instead. Which ultimately allowed James to have the same number of those objectives, plus the middle one.

Overall it was a hard game and few different results could have changed the outcome, but as I mentioned earlier, match up like these are hard for me to beat with my play style. James was smart with use of his Ambush Camo. One turn I wasted four Orders discovering one and avoided another one the whole game thinking it was a mine.

Game 3: Cold Sleep - Caledonia vs Hassassin Bahram
Won 8 to 1 (3 TPs)

In the last game I was paired again Brett and his Hassassins. From the start I was worried about Impersonators so I took the first turn. I had no clue who could be Brett's Lt but guessed it was a member of his Link Team so I sent Uxia there. One of my SAS also managed to Infiltrate on a roof where I figured he'd have good place to take out Snipers and call artillery strikes. Though Brett deployed a viral mine on the roof thanks to a Mine Layer. And as expected, one Impersonator was deployed near my DZ but far enough so I couldn't Discover it easy.

In my first turn my first concern was a Rocket/Missile Launcher on a roof. First attempt was to call an airstrike, so my SAS revealed and FOed the trooper. He also survived the mine and being shot at, which was great for me. The guided missile didn't do any damage. So instead one of my Caterans revealed and with the additional +3 was hitting the trooper on whooping 18 as I got him out of cover. Next up was Uxia, she was lined up in front of three troopers, the first one a trooper with Jammer and then two members of the Link. With her Boarding Shotgun she Wounded the first two, making them go Dodged and then survived a Chain Rifle hit herself. Last thing I could see to shoot was a lone Ghulam hiding on a roof. She survived about two rounds of shooting from my Snipers but died eventually.It turned out the Ghulam was Brett's Lt. Which made his first turn difficult. I had no losses and he mainly advanced his troops.

My second turn was about taking objectives, I took both near my DZ and then Isobel run on my left side to get the one on the middle. She put down E-maulers all around the Impersonator and then went into suppression, along side Volunteer and Dozer, hoping to defend against the Impersonator. I have also used Cameronian to take Brett's Doctor that was near an objective. SAS that was near the objective on the right side, which was on a roof, took out Brett's Infiltrator. The other SAS that survived a mine, was in CC with a Lasiq for the longest time. I kept winning the CC roll but Brett was passing his ARM saves. Brett used his second turn to take one objective near his DZ, on my right side, which was also on a roof. He then used his Impersonator, who was Al Djabel, to attack Isobel. He decided to CC her from Smoke, using his Martial Arts to get Burst 2. In a stroke of luck, Isobel rolled a crit and killed the assassin.

Last turn for me was all about securing objectives. I run a Paramedic to a building on right and he climbed all the way up (it was faster then moving through the building floors) to double on the objective with SAS. Isobel did the same with Paramedic. That way using Intel card against me would have no effect. In a very cinematic way, my SAS killed the Lasiq (finally), then called artillery strike from a roof on troops below him, once they were dead he climbed down and took an objective near Brett's DZ, on left side. Brett was in Retreat with very few units left so he couldn't do more.

This game was the perfect example of when everything goes according to plan. He was unlucky on bunch of rolls where I managed to win by a very small difference, plus the unfortunate Lt deployment. The table also allowed me to set up two Caterans in very high place where they could see almost everything, which was hard to deal with once I took out Brett's long range weapons. I think he might have benefit from setting up his Impersonator to take out my Snipers but since I had the first turn I would been able to run my Link of Highlanders (who did nothing the whole game) and take care of the Impersonator.