Towards end of August we had another successful Norther Open event in Leeds. For me it was also the last event before end of the ITS season. It might have been the last even in the UK, or at least one of the last. I started the day well with a major victory but with every round things got progressively worse from a victory to a draw to a loss. My match-ups were Tohaa, Tohha and ALEPH.
Army Lists
I don't have links to Army 6 this time but I have used variations of Wulvers Link list and Scots Guard Link list. The main thing that changed from last time was dropping Traktor Muls in both lists and having three Infiltrators with the Scots for the Supplies mission. Wulvers also had a SAS in as a second Infiltrator to make it easier to get objectives.
Game 1: Supremacy - Caledonia vs Tohaa
Won 6 to 1 (3 TPs)
In the first game I was playing against Chris, a new opponent for me. He played Tohaa which is an army I am still not that familiar with (the unit names are hard to remember) and after he won the Lt Roll and decided on turn order, I did not feel in a good spot. My preferred plan for this mission is go second but now I had to look for a side which would give me the most advantage in terms of doing damage in the first turn and holding Chris back from my quadrants, while also taking one of his. So lots of hard work but the one advantage I saw was taking the objectives and destroying them before Chris could get more than me, or any at all.
When picking a side for this mission I look for two things (in addition to the usual where is the highest vantage point for snipers), ability to get out of my deployment zone and stay in total cover, and access to defensible position in middle of the table. I chose a side which had a building outside of deployment zone and near an objective, and another set of building close to the edge of the board and in the middle. Normally in my first turn I would go after enemy Lt with Uxia but since I had no clue who it was in Tohaa and I knew they likely had Chain of Command, I didn't bother. She went on to do an objective instead. With my Wulver Link I went to the buildings I was planning to go to and it was kind of a bonus for me that Chris put his heavy guns opposite of those buildings. Mk12 Wulver had a shoot out with them and won (as kind of expected with B4 BS15 DMG15 shots).
Wulver mobility allowed them to set up on the roof as well. My Cateran also took out some unit (can't remember what now) and I ended the turn there. In my opponent's first turn I didn't lose much, I think only one highlander. Chris tried to attack the Wulvers with an infiltrator but the Wulvers prevailed. Otherwise he spend his turn moving to his one quadrant where I didn't have anyone and taking the objective there. He couldn't advance much further without being shot at. My second turn was all about taking out the objectives. I have grabbed one more with SAS FO and then destroyed three of them (I left alone the one Chris activated). Which put me in permanent advantage of having one more than Chris. My Highlanders had lots of things to attack but Chris was good with his ARM saves.
Chris left the Wulvers alone for the rest of the game so they held two quadrants at the end of each turn, and I just had to make sure to keep the third quadrant with everyone else. I had easier job of doing so because Chris did not have that many units left and to draw at the end of turns he would have to hold two quadrants which would stretch his forces. While not a bad idea to not give someone more quadrants, it would have allowed my units to attack easier in my turn. I believe we had to end the game at the end of turn two, otherwise I would have likely had 8 objective points.
Game 2: Rescue - Caledonia vs Tohaa
Draw 3 to 3 (1 TPs)
The second mission was one of the new ones. Unfortunately I don't recall my opponents name but he also played Tohaa, so again I did not feel like I could Alpha Strike even if I did win the Lt Roll... which I didn't. In retrospect I think I chose the wrong side. I went for the side which seemed to make it hard to my opponent to get to his Civilian Objectives but it turned out to just make it harder for me to get to mine. The big block of a building in front of my deployment zone meant I had only two routes to get to my objectives. Which was also true to my opponent but I had no good defensible locations either. Overall it was bit of a mess and we both made mistakes during the game.
I deployed my Scots Guard Link in such a way that I hoped would prevent my opponent from getting to his civilians easy. Though I did leave my left flank quite week, but again, no good places to defend that I saw. I also infiltrated with two SAS (Uxia failed) but he was quick to counter them in his first turn. My opponent didn't move far in his first turn so I hoped I could snatch at least one of my civilians but the biggest mistake we made during the whole game was that when my opponent said his sniper had MSV Lv2 I believed it and did not bother to check a courtesy list. I would recommend to always do so from now on because before the end of the game (but too late to make much difference) we found out it was only MSV Lv1, which I wouldn't have cared out. I do not believe my opponent tried to cheat on purpose or anything, and its my own fault too.
But it does mean the whole game would have gone down very differently and I would not have such a hard time getting to my civilians. One of my SAS failed to kill the sniper and then I believed smoke wouldn't cover me which left me in a pretty bad place. The important things in the game really happened in the last turn, until then we were just trading units, my second SAS made good use of his infiltration and tried to bring over one civilian but died to the sniper. By the last turn, however, we both did nothing as far as the objectives so it came down to who can get a civilian. My opponent had the upper hand so I was pretty sure he'd take two but he took only one, only too late realizing any unit can take civilians, not just Specialists. I was then able to run with Wallace to grab a civilian and run back, thanks to his 6-4 Move and now knowing Smoke blocks the sniper's LoF.
So where my lesson was make sure to double check courtesy lists, especially when it comes to equipment that messes up my whole battle plan, the overall lesson was also to read the mission pack properly and practice the mission before the event!
Game 3: Supplies - Caledonia vs ALEPH
Lost 1 to 7 (0 TPs)
In the last game I went against Chris, who is also ITS event winner so I knew it would be a tough match even though he was playing ALEPH and not his Nomads. After the last game I went to this with the mindset I have no chance of getting to the top three so I didn't care much but then Matt the TO came over and said we have a shot at winning because nobody else done too well either, which kind of changed things. I wanted to win, and win big. However, before the game started there was also a change to how we interpret the mission wording. It went from passing WIP check to get the objective, to passing WIP check opens the box but then you still have to spend another short skill to take the objective out. Basically costing you extra Order and making it slower to move away from the box. For me this meant having to think about my orders even more and making it really hard to get all three objectives into my deployment zone in the first turn.
Nevertheless, I won the Lt roll and I made that my plan. I was able to smoke my way to the objectives, get all three of them and get them either into my deployment zone or close to it but one SAS failed his WIP roll once and needing those extra Orders really stretched me thin. It meant that I did not kill a single thing in my first turn, which was not great. But I had the objectives and Chris only had 10-12 Orders so I wasn't worried for the first turn. My Missile Laucher Scots killed his sniper in ARO and everything else just moved up a bit.
My second turn wasn't much more eventful, my idea was to consolidate all three objectives in one building and defend it heavily as my deployment zone was fairly open otherwise. I believe the only thing I was able to kill was a Total Reaction Remote with my Cateran, everything else was hidden. I did manage to get most of my units close to the building and it seemed like a good defensible spot. However, in his second turn Chris went more aggressive and started to pick out my units that were away on their own. He also did a triple attack on my Missile Launcher with a Co-Ordinated Order and managed to take him down. Chris' ALEPH TAG was a pain to deal with after that because I had no units in position where I could attack it, especially not after it climbed up on a roof and went into Supressive Fire.
In the last turn I faced a dilemma. Either I will spend my Orders fortifying the building which had all three objectives in it or if I could take out the TAG, Chris would be in Loss of Lt and that would win me the game. I went with the later and tried to do it with the Molotok but I rolled really bad, it didn't help I wasn't on full 5 man Link anymore. By the end of my turn I held two of the objectives with third being on top of the building where my Cameronian died.
Chris still had most of his Orders in his last turn, not a great thing for me. However, his TAG was too big to get into the building and his units would get smashed with Supressive Fire if they tried to enter. All but one unit as it turned out a Myrmidon had Smoke Grenades. We had a debate whether Smoke Grenade would expand fully into a second floor through trap doors, and settled on that it doesn't but you can still be in Smoke when you get to the second floor. Which ruined everything for me as it allowed the Myrmidon to bypass all of my defenses and kill the troops holding my objectives in CC. If I killed the Myrmidon we'd end up on draw, or me winning if he didn't kill both of my units but it would have to be pretty lucky roll on my part. In the end, despite holding all three objectives for 99% of the game, Chris managed to snatch a victory.
It was of course frustrating but I should have defended the building better by having troops on the first floor and cover the entrance. I did not expect Chris to have a Smoke unit, I don't play against ALEPH often but did not remember them using Smoke from past games. Just like in the last game, I should have checked the courtesy list or at least ask more about the units on the field. Hard to say if spreading the objectives around the board would have helped, I was worried Chris would be able to pick them off easier so having them all in the same place seemed like a better idea.
I don't think the game was easy from Chris' perspective after I took all three objectives in the first turn so it is actually impressive to pull a win from that. Shows its always good to play your best until the very last Order.
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