UK Masters - Day 1

 
It was finally time for the UK Masters where we could settle if North is better than South (nothing to settle really, we all know Yorkshire crew rules). It was the biggest event in the UK up to date as far as I know, if you are not familiar with the UK Masters from Infinity forums, it was collective effort of five tournament organizers from across the UK. There were five qualifier tournaments earlier in the year.

The UK Masters were also selected to be Satellite Tournament by Corvus Belli and they sent Gutier Lusquiños Rodríguez (Interruptor on forums) to give a seminar, which was really cool. I actually did not realize Gutier is one of the people who created Infinity! Shame on me. Though that makes it even cooler that he knew my blog.

Cheeky sneak photo of Gutier.

My performance in the event was not great overall. I went home with 2 Wins and 4 Loses. Mostly I'd blame it on my lists and not taking enough time to really think about them, and that in the first day I did not sleep for over 24 hours. There was a midnight pre-release from another unrelated hobby of mine that I could not miss. All of the games were still fun, I had only one game where my dice just rolled wrong all the time but that is to be expected.

Overall though really good weekend, I met lots of people I knew and plenty more that I didn't. The venue was good and spacious to fit everyone in and I believe everyone was more or less on time each round, we did have 2 hours and 15 minutes per round, if I am remembering correctly. The TOs were good at reminding the timings and we also had big clock on a projector. There was a big variety of tables, some were really good while other not so much. I'll give a comments on tables I played on in a later article.

I only ranked on 30th place out of 38 players, though the player who beat me in the last game ended up 18th so I could have been higher if I passed few more rolls! From our group best ranking was Matt who came 2nd and James came 4th.

Army Lists

List A
List B

I did go with Wulvers as Core for the killing missions and Scots Guard as core for the objective missions. The main difference from last few events, and the biggest drawback was including more SAS than I done lately. Giving myself less Orders and during the games it proved to give me less versatility. I am still not sure about the Dozer-Urugan-Hacker combo. I do like the idea and in some games having Marksmanship Lv2 Total Reaction Remote was helpful but 51 point feels bit too much. I did very much miss having Cameronian, especially in the Wulvers list. In retrospect I would have prefer to have him in both Lists and even two Caterans.

Game 1: Supplies - Caledonia vs Yu Jing
Won 10 to 1 (3 TPs)

In the first game I was paired against Stuart, a new opponent to me but on a table that I played on in the past at one event (think it was Birmingham Expo), it even might have been the same mission. It was one of the tables where they added terrain rules, this one had mountain terrain and woodland saturation and low visibility zone. The only thing we did differently was counting trees as blocking LoF, it was for convenience sake as some trees were large, otherwise we might have just as well remove them from the board. I believe I won the Lt roll for this and selected to go first as I always try to do for this mission. Though my plan was different than before. Instead of rushing all objectives with three Infiltrators, I wanted to take two and protect the other one until I can take it later in the game. We did clarify with the TOs that one WIP roll is enough to open the box and get the supplies token but I didn't want to risk it. It worked out in my favour because my opponent also had two units with MSV Lv2. The table was also somewhat in my favour as my Scots Guard have Multiterrain, so they could walk over it normal.

As I deployed I decided to grab the objective on my left and the middle, then protect the one on the right because it was the hardest for Stuart to get to as it was behind a building in the open so he'd have lots of AROs unless he had Smoke. With very few Lt options on the board, I sent Uxia to kill one of the two basic line troopers. She did kill it, but later in the game I found out it was the other one. She also provoked ARO from TO Ninja who missed its free shot and then Uxia killed it. My Scots Guard Missile Launcher in a full Link Team took care of enemy Sniper and HI with HMG and MSV Lv2. Next to the HI was also another trooper unfortunate enough to get caught in the blast and died as well. I finished the turn with taking the objective on the left with FO SAS and on the right my Dozer took it.

Stuart had lots of expensive troops as he started with only 10 Orders, meaning I halved his Order pool and making it extremely hard for him to retaliate. He did kill my Dozer and then there was shoot off between Scots Guard Molotok and another HI with Spitfire but nothing happened, or I might have taken off one Wound.

In my second turn I first sent my second SAS (Chain Rifle & Light Shotgun) to take care of the HI with Spitfire. Allowing my Traktor Mul to get the objective on the right from the unconscious Dozer. My Highlanders also provoked ARO from a Camo Marker Stuart had near the middle objective. It dropped a Mine which meant when another Highlander charged into CC, the mine went off but nobody died. It was the next Order where we killed each another (or it might have happened the Order before, memory is blurry but that was the end result, both dead). My problem then was that if I killed anything else I was very likely to put Stuart into Retreat, which I didn't want to do as I wanted to go for full points. So instead I moved my troops around to protect all the objectives and have AROs on the last three troops Stuart had left.

He was holding back in his second turn but he did kill my Traktor Mul. Which meant in the last turn I had to send a Scot Guard to grab the objective and then instead of killing I had just enough Orders for a Highlander to take Objective from SAS on the right, allowing him to FO an unconscious unit for Classified Objective and then get to the middle and grab the last objective, giving me all three when I finished my turn. Stuart charged at my units to try make them drop objectives so I woukd lose some points but I managed to kill everyone with AROs without any of my objectives holders dying. So in the end I did managed to score full 10 (I think I did secure HVT for the Second Classified or it might have been Extreme Prejudice earlier on) and be on a good start for the day.

Game 2: Antenna Field - Caledonia vs Tohaa
Lost 1 to 8 (0 TPs)

It wasn't until the lunch break after the first game that I realized it might have been better off to score lower than going for full 10. It meant I would be paired against someone else who scored full 10 instead of having potentially easier game (on two day events it might be better to win consistently, even if small). I was paired against John, another new opponent. Unfortunately for me he was playing Tohaa and I wasn't fan of the table we were assigned. I played on it before (again in Expo) but back then it had objective room on it, making it bit better I think. Neither deployment zone seemed to have advantage and thanks to not sleeping for over 24 hours at that point, I could not visualize how it would play out on later turns. I went with the side that I thought would give me advantage of having objective on roof. In retrospect I think we could have try ask the TO to shuffle the terrain a bit to put them all on the ground as two objectives were on roofs (I think it says somewhere in ITS pack they should be on ground level like the HVT).

I am not even sure why I did not pick to go first, I really don't like going second. The table had some really awkward lines of fire, John spent a good deal of time checking them all out before sending his troops against my Link. He was able to kill one of my Scots Guard FOs without getting ARO from anyone else. He then spent his turn establishing defenses and taking the middle objective and the one at his deployment zone. He prevented me from taking mine with MSV Lv2 Sniper standing on a lantern building (not sure what else to call it), which gave him line of fire to my Camo Token (SAS), who was on the roof, if he moved to the objective. The only cover I had there was some ridiculous oversized advertising sign  which did not do much but made it awkward to stay in cover.

In my turn I tried to take out the trooper John left looking over the route my Scots Guard could take but he either passed all saves or just lost Symbiont Armour (those troops should be more expensive for having that extra Wound... I'll try not to rant about Tohaa). I thought I would at least make it hard for John to get all the points so I sent my Link Team into the middle, killed one unit and took the objective. The smarter thing would have been to give John the points this turn and attack the next. He was clever with his deployment, three Triads with heavy weapons, one on each flank and one in the middle, made it hard for my movement. Since there were no long lines of fire I felt stuck in my half of the board. I finished the turn with troops in Suppressive Fire to at least make it hard to attack them. The turn finished in Draw.

Since I completely forgot Tohaa have access to Heavy Flamers on basic line troops (or just able to put them into each Triad), moving my Link to the middle was a terrible idea. It did not help that my SMG kept missing its shots, despite passing his ARM saves like three times, I only killed the Tohaa unit on the third or second round of shooting. At the end I was only left with him and Wallace, pretty much game over as far as ability to retaliate. I had nowhere near enough units to stop John winning this round on objectives. I did make some attack attempts but it wasn't enough.  

John took even more objectives in his last turn. He had every Triad moved up to one of the objectives and with heavy weapons on Suppressive Fire backing them up. My last turn was pretty desperate. I had one shot at either forcing a draw again or if everything went perfect, winning the round. First I sent Wallace to clear up the middle and the objective near John's deployment. I had one round of shooting to make it work. Wasn't impossible to kill two Light Infantry but my dice rolls were bad. Which also describes the rest of my attempts. Both SAS and Urugan failed to kill anything. Which left most of my army dead in the end. John had very solid victory.

My two big mistakes were not really thinking about the kind of units Tohaa have (I don't remember any of their names which doesn't help) and not thinking about the deployment zones properly. Only as we played it became clear the side I chose was the worse of the two because outside of the deployment was very open, while on the other side you could advance behind and into cover. Tohaa seem to be a wild card for me, never sure how the game is going to go.

Game 3: Comms Centre - Caledonia vs A.L.E.P.H.
Lost 0 to 10 (0 TPs)

I was more confident with this match up (at first anyway) against Chris and his ALEPH. I believe I met Chris before but think this was our first game (sorry Chris if I forgot any earlier games!). The table looked quite good, until we realized there were some enforced terrain rules which in my opinion were entirely unnecessary. The area with trees, marked by the green hedges, was counted as a Saturation and Low Vis zone. The whole area between the hedges, not just the trees themselves. For me it meant I was not willing to send my army through there because it would put me at big disadvantage, while Chris was fine since ALEPH has access to both ODD and MSV Lv2. His army was not what I expected, it was all Remotes with TAG as Lt and only like four S2 units (engineer, hacker, Warcor and sniper I believe).

The table looked like it would have some good long range lines of fire so my idea was to send the Link Team up a tall building to get them into good ARO and attack spot. During the game that proved to be not such a good plan. I couldn't get the Link Team up there without taking AROs at disadvantage. I did get tunnel vision on a Bounty Hunter Sniper, it took me like four Orders to kill it which didn't leave me much to move around and also meant I did not kill enough in the first turn. I ended the turn with trying to set up the Link in a way that if anything wanted to attack them it would face multiple AROs and also moved Uxia out of a hot zone. She was near the TAG (which deployed last so I didn't know it would be there) and had no chance surviving against it since it has MSV Lv2.

Chris was careful with his TAG. He moved it through the Saturation Zone to attack some of my back line troops and my Sniper. I think Uxia died too. But then he run it back to his deployment zone. It wasted all his Orders but it also meant it was again on the other side of the board from my Link. We played the doors in the buildings as opening when you touch them as part of your movement and then closing again. This allowed my Link Team to go through a building on the very left near Chris' deployment zone and give my Missile Launcher a shot at the TAG. I did win the face to face. Both shots hit. But Chris failed only two of the six ARM saves. The TAG then went into hiding and I had nothing close enough to finish it off. Actually I did consider using five or so Orders in my second pool on the Urugan doing speculative fire on it. I would need 1 to hit, but 1 would be a Crit too. Though I thought that was too much of a Hail Mary to waste Orders on in the second turn.

Again Chris was careful in his turn, he set up defenses outside of the building where my Link Team was and Engineer repaired the TAG back to full Structure Points. This game was odd in that while Chris wasn't killing that many things, neither was I. In the last turn I wanted to deny Orders and just kill more things. Wallace went balls out and killed both Total Reaction bots right outside of the doors. I only then I realized I did none of the objectives thus far so I sent Dozer and SAS to get as many as they could. I managed to get only three thanks to bad WIP rolls. Also on the photos you might have noticed infiltrated SAS on a roof near Chris' deployment zone. He did nothing the whole game because Chris always had AROs I did not want to risk just to kill a Warcor which was on a roof of the same building.

In his last turn Chris revealed a TO Hacker (or some specialist) that took two unclaimed objectives and then one of mine. Considering I couldn't kill any of his Specialist, it was clear he won so we called it there. Looking back at the game I really should have put the Link into middle of the board because there was a good defensible building and with Specialists in the Link I could have done more Objectives earlier (I really should have been using them for that during the game more), I was just too tempted by that high vantage point. It is definitely something worth keeping in mind even more for future games, deploying Link Team in the middle gives them more mobility to attack every part of the board. If you put them on a flank, their ability to attack on the other side of the board is reduced (unless it is a really fast Link).