On the 16th of September me and Dr Greg (The Plastic Crack Blog) went to Hull for their second tournament so far. It was held at the same venue as last time (which is a pretty cool gaming store) but with more people attending, and this time it was also more new people (or at least people I haven't played often on events). As it was also a Limited Insertion (LI) event I took it as an opportunity to try LI one more time and see if I like it better when the missions are more straight forward.
I have to say that I did enjoy LI more that way. As hard as it is to play with such a small Order pool, without objectives it wasn't too bad. It was also great opportunity to try out Blackjacks in USARF. They had new models released recently and I wanted to give them a try before committing to purchases and more models to paint.
Overall it was a pretty fun day. I managed to come second with three victories (one major, two minor). I don't know if it was my lists, the missions or just luck that on two of the missions I scored pretty low as far as Objective Points go. If I were to play LI again, I'd definitely want it to be Direct Action missions.
Army Lists
As you can see the core of both lists was a Fireteam: Core of Marauders. Out of the Fireteam choices in USARF they are my favourite because they come with good long range options (both of which have MSV Lv1) and with Heavy Flamers on most options, they are deadly up close as well. In addition they come with Heavy Pistols, have Stealth and Forward Deployment. Even Dogged comes in handy quite often, so overall a solid Fireteam and they are pretty good for LI points-wise as well.
The difference in the lists was because of the missions. List A was for Annihilation and Front Line, the plan being to use the Fireteam and Blackjacks to hold the line and hammer the enemy from distance. Meanwhile Van Zant would swoop in from behind and get extra Order as the Lt, either to assassinate enemy Lt or just take out something important. Unknown Ranger I like overall, but CoC was important for Lt Van Zant to work. The Foxtrot was kind of a points filler, but he was good at taking the fight to the enemy from close up and/or protecting one of my flanks with mines. I sure was glad to have the Foxtrot.
List B was for Decapitation. The idea was similar but I dropped the Unknown Ranger as CoC was redundant in that mission and I didn't give Van Zant Executive Order because I didn't want my opponent to get an easy Lt kill. Instead of the Ranger I took a third Blackjack (they are AVA 3, how crazy is that!) and a Minuteman. I thought the Minuteman could make good Lt replacement choice if my original Lt got killed.
Overall both lists worked just as I wanted them to, though I did notice there was a big drawback in terms of mobility, most of the army was 4-2 MOV. Which was not that much of a problem because I was counting on long range weapons, but it was troublesome on tables where I couldn't snipe across the board easily, or my opponent just decided to hide.
I was really happy with the Blackjacks, in all games they were worth the points and I can definitely see myself taking at least two in every USA army, even non LI. If not two, then at least one for sure. They truly felt like proper Ariadna Heavy Infantry with 2 Wounds and their weapon options are very versatile, you can fight the enemy from range and close up.
Game 1: Annihilation - USARF vs Bakunin
Won 6 to 3 (2 TP)
My first game was against Ed, I believe I met him before on events but I think it was first time we played against each another (maybe second time, bad memory). At any case I wasn't sure what to expect but it was cool to see Bakunin. His army had a full Fireteam of Riot Grrls which reminded me of my first ever tournament army. The table we played on was quite nice looking with its natural theme and it was surprisingly more dense than it appeared once we started playing.
I fluffed the Lt roll and Ed decided to pick deployment, he didn't want Saturation & Low Vis zones on his side. I didn't mind so much because my Marauders had MSV Lv1. I decided to go first because in this mission it didn't help much to go second and I didn't want to give Ed's TAG the chance to attack my units without some preparation.
Ed deployed with almost everything out of sight (which was smart) and given the limited pool of 10 Orders in my first turn I only managed to kill one Riot Grrl with Blackjack HMG. I didn't have enough Orders to Alpha Strike (and most of my army was 4-2 MOV) so instead I tried to get some good positioning. The Marauders moved into the forest/jungle to take advantage of the terrain rules and be in cover. Blackjacks also moved into cover, the T2 Sniper Rifle hanging bit further back and the HMG almost in the middle. The HMG went on Suppressive Fire and before end of my turn I moved my one camo marker close to Ed's camo marker on my left flank (in front of Marauders).
The Blackjack HMG proved to be a hard nut to crack for Ed. He spent just about all of his first turn trying to kill the it and only succeeded at the very end. But by then the Nomad TAG was down to 1 Structure and I think I also wounded a Riot Grrl.
I didn't feel I had enough Orders to attack with the Marauders so I started second turn with my camo marker attacking Ed's marker. After some messing around my Foxtrot with a Boarding Shotgun revealed a Zero and killed him but the Zero dropped a mine which the Foxtrot tried to Dodge and failed, I had to try get the mine out of the way so next turn Marauders could move. With that done I dropped Van Zant on the right flank near Ed's Deployment Zone. My goal was to finish the TAG (it was Ed's Data Tracker and a big threat) but I also had to make sure to kill the Engineer, but to get to him I had to kill a Moderator first. So yeah, pretty daring strategy. But it worked like a charm! Van Zant killed all three of his targets and then ended the turn in cover and on Suppressive Fire.
Although a pretty hard blow, Ed still had four Riot Grrls and his second Moderator which was the Lt, so he wasn't out of the fight yet. The terrain was making it hard for me to attack from distance, making all my snipers useless. Ed did try to kill Van Zant but the remaining Riot Grrls only had Combi and Multi Rifles and the range bands made it very hard; Van Zant lived to see the third turn.
I admit I made bad mistake in my last turn because I forgot about a certain special kill the Riot Grrls have. They were all bunched up and I thought I could hit them all with a Burst 2 (thanks to Fireteam support) Heavy Flamethrower; I could have killed them all in blaze of glory. So I spent lots of Orders moving the Marauders forward and got them all lined up behind the rock. I hit three of the four Grrls with a Heavy Flamethrower as planned and then Ed reminded me they have Hyper-Dynamics! So they were dodging on 16s or something stupid.
My Marauder thankfully survived, albeit only for a turn as he had to go Dodged. While he was still standing I spent more Orders on the Fireteam to move them back, spread them out and on their way the Dodged guy was using his Heavy Pistol to take out one Riot Grrl at a time. I also spent Order or two on Van Zant to move into into a safer position to keep him alive.
To make matters worse for my Marauders, one of the Grrls that survived had a shotgun. Ed used her to attack them and I rolled really bad (though up to this point I did roll really well), all three exposed Marauders died or would die at the end of the turn, I think one was able to go Dogged. Blackjack with T2 Sniper Rifle managed to kill the Riot Grrl on ARO at least. Ed spent his last Orders on the surviving Moderator as he figured by moving into open he can attack Van Zant and potentially take lots of army points off me, but I managed to crit Dodge and hide him further which ended the game.
It was a pretty fun game. I did have luck on my side as the only crits were mine, most of those on Van Zant who was in proper beast mode. The one advantage I noticed during the game was having way more long range weapons. I had HMG, three Snipers and Heavy Rocket Launcher while Ed had HMG on a TAG and Spitfire on a Riot Grrl, so once they were dead it was hard for him to attack me as long as I kept the distance between our units.
And yes, if you are wondering why I did not mention Unknown Ranger at all, it is because he did nothing the whole game. He was my Data Tracker so he just sat at the back of the board hiding.
Game 2: Decapitation - USARF vs NeoTerra
Won 10 to 2 (3 TP)
My second opponent was James, also a new opponent. I can't quite remember how the Lr roll went but I ended deploying first and having the first turn. The table was fairly equal on both sides except one large structure just outside of the 16 inch Deployment Zone on my side of the table. Which proved to be a great deployment for my Fireteam of Marauders with Forward Deployment! I admit it was bit cheeky to deploy the Fireteam up there but it was too good to pass up. I was expecting to face TO Swiss Guards so had to use every advantage I could get. The rest of my army were three Blackjacks, one on each flank and one in the middle and a Minuteman on my left flank.
James deployed most of his army also on my left flank. He had five Bolts lined up behind a building and Squalos TAG not far behind them, hiding from my Marauders behind a piece of terrain. The way I saw it, I had two choices for my first turn: deal with the TAG or the Bolts. I certainly did not have enough Orders to deal with both. The Bolts were tempting because I had Heavy Flamethrowers and Boarding Shotgun in my Fireteam but the Marauders would have to abandon their good position.
So instead I went with a riskier strategy to kill the TAG with no other than Van Zant! James forgot (or didn't know) that Van Zant can show up on the back edge of his Deployment Zone so most of his guys were looking at the sides where you would expect normal Airborne Deployment units. By luck he had some Bolts looking back which left literally only one place for Van Zant to deploy and have the TAG in sight. The distance was very short though, so I had only one free shot where the TAG had to do Change Facing. I think I managed to take off one Structure point. The rest of my turn was pretty much spent on shooting the TAG and Van Zant being shot by a PanO Doctor who could see him after turning around.
So instead I went with a riskier strategy to kill the TAG with no other than Van Zant! James forgot (or didn't know) that Van Zant can show up on the back edge of his Deployment Zone so most of his guys were looking at the sides where you would expect normal Airborne Deployment units. By luck he had some Bolts looking back which left literally only one place for Van Zant to deploy and have the TAG in sight. The distance was very short though, so I had only one free shot where the TAG had to do Change Facing. I think I managed to take off one Structure point. The rest of my turn was pretty much spent on shooting the TAG and Van Zant being shot by a PanO Doctor who could see him after turning around.
This fight lasted several Orders and I had some really lucky rolls; eventually I managed to kill the TAG off the board. Van Zant also suffered a Wound but while Dogged he also managed to kill the PanO Doctor and then an Engineer who was hiding behind the Doctor. The first turn really couldn't have gone any better for me, though I did lose my Heavy Rocket Launcher Marauder. I found a line of sight at the TAG and thought I'd hit it from long range (as I had the burst and BS advantage) but fluffed those rolls and the TAG used EXP rounds.
Loosing the Squalos was a hard blow but James still had a full Fireteam of Bolts (similar to how first game went, kill a TAG but Fireteam to deal with) and a Hexa (Hacker I believe) which revealed in my first turn when I activated the Marauders, so he wasn't out of the game yet. The plan of attack of the Bolts was to round the building they were hiding behind and take out my Designated Target, but to do that they had to through a Blackjack with T2 Sniper Rifle. James decided to try a Missile Launcher Bolt first, but the face to face roll went in my favour and the Bolt died to T2. Next up was Spitfire Bolt who had much easier time out-rolling the Blackjack with the high burst. The Bolts then killed my Designated Target and bunkered down around the left tower, it gave them good cover from all my attacks. Before end of his turn though, James also used the Bolts to drop a Drop Bear on top of the towers with Speculative Fire. This pretty much assured I wasn't going to activate my Marauders for the rest of the game as I wasn't going to risk loosing my Lt to the mine.
My second turn was not as eventful as the first. I needed to take my HMG Blackjack (my Data Tracker) and cross to the other side of my Deployment Zone so I could use him to kill James' Designated Target. However, the Bolts were in the way so I had to take care of them first. I tried to attack them with my Minuteman but we didn't realize Marksmanship was an optional skill, and Bolts have this ability to use their BTS instead of ARM for saves against Shock ammo... so that didn't work. My next best option was to use the HMG Blackjack against one Bolt at a time, but my rolls just would not work. Either I kept missing or James was passing his saves. I might have killed one Bolt at best by the end of my turn.
The failings of my second turn were, however, made up by my AROs. I still had a second Blackjack with T2 Sniper Rifle who was great at taking out the Bolts. The Bolts really did not like T2 ammo. There wasn't much James could do with the last 2-3 Bolts, though he did kill my Minuteman. My very last turn was more about mopping up and spending most Orders moving the HMG Blackjack across the table to kill the Designated Target. It was another fun game , and I think James will never forget to have troops looking at the back of his Deployment Zone should he face USARF (or vanilla Ariadna) again!
Game 3: Frontline - USARF vs Ariadna
Won 4 to 1 (2 TP)
(I forgot to take pictures during the game, this is the table but from a different game.)
The last game was against Anthony (also a new opponent for me) and his vanilla Ariadna, which did make me worried because I was doing well thus far and didn't want my hopes of good ranking be quelled by a Spetsnaz or two. At the same time though, it was going to be a good test for the Blackjacks which were doing great so far. I can't remember how Lt rolls went but I believe I was Deploying First and I know I had the second turn. The table looked more open than it was, it was playing with all buildings as infinite height so line of fire was limited to mostly between the buildings. My Marauders were again able to deploy on top of a tall platform right outside of the Deployment Zone (thank you Forward Deployment!), which allowed me to watch over approaches to my Deployment Zone with two Snipers, they were next to each another on the left tower.
I had HMG Blackjack in the middle, in a building; Sniper Blackjack was on my left flank with the Unknown Ranger and Foxtrot was in a building near the center line of the board. It left my right flank kind of exposed but I wasn't worried if Anthony wanted to spend half his turn moving units there, easier for me to attack him. Anthony started his turn by Knauf trying to take on the Marauder Snipers but my guys had MSV Lv1 and more dice to roll, so it didn't end up well for him. The next attack came from the left, an AD Spetsnaz with a Boarding Shotgun came on and tried to kill the Unknown Ranger and the T2 Blackjack. He was able to get a Wound on the Blackjack but my Unknown Ranger managed to Engage. And thats where the Spetsnaz and Ranger spent the rest of the game, not once being activated again. Neither of us wanted to potentially lose their model.
Anthony also attacked with a Cameronian. The werewolf run up to the platform where my Marauders were and jumped up so he could hit them with Chain Rifles. He took tons of AROs in the process and died, but so did at least two of my Marauders, which was kinda frustrating (now I know how my opponents feel when I do it with my Cameronians). After that Anthony just moved up few of his units forward.
My turn started with trying to kill a Veteran Kazak with my Snipers but Anthony passed ARM saves and the Kazak spent the rest of the game hiding in a bin from the Snipers. I also moved up both Blackjacks forward and I tried to Discover a Camo Marker with the HMG but it didn't work out. I believe my Foxtrot managed to take out Anthony's Wardriver but it didn't feel like an impact turn. My plan was to mostly stay alive until Anthony's last turn so I could just snatch the zones I needed to win.
Anthony of course wasn't going to make it easy. The camo marker I was trying to discover moved quite far, almost into my Deployment Zone so it could draw Line of Fire on my HMG Blackjack and then of all the things, it was a bloody Tank Hunter with Auto-cannon! Needless to say, the Blackjack got obliterated. Uxia, who failed to infiltrate when Anthony was deploying, also spent several Orders shooting a mine that my Foxtrot left behind during my first turn. It was funnier for me than for Anthony but she kept rolling high with the Burst 5 Assault Pistols and couldn't hit it. It helped that she couldn't move into good range because it would trigger the mine.
My second turn was pretty much just dealing with the Tankhunter. Thankfully the Foxtrot had a Boarding Shotgun so at least it wasn't too hard to hit. I had +6 for Range and then -6 for Camo and Cover, so I was hitting on flat BS, while if I had Rifle I'd be hitting on -3 BS. As luck would have it, I had to spend few Orders trying to kill the Tankhunter but it had to be done. I had just about enough Orders to move forward my surviving T2 Blackjack and take the Foxtrot back to the where he started (he did spend most of the game in the same building).
In his last turn Anthony pretty much moved everything forward, except the Vet Kazak who was hiding in a bin from my Snipers and Spetsnaz still engaged in CC with my Unknown Ranger. The only fight that turn I can recall was between Uxia and the Foxtrot. Despite shooting her from point blank range with a shotgun, she survived and the Foxtrot got shanked in CC. It was hard to tell the zones on this table, but I thought Anthony had most of his units in the center zone.
I'll be honest here, it was only in my last turn I realized that I haven't used Van Zant yet. Which kinda came in handy because I thought I could do a cheeky move to take the zone closest to Anthony's Deployment Zone, to me it looked like he only had a Marauder (his Lt) in that zone. So I did just that. Van Zant came in a safe position and stayed there to score the zone. My next plan was to move the Marauders to the center zone but to do that they had to leave the tower, which would give Uxia free ARO that I didn't want to risk. The T2 Blacknack who was staying in the zone near my Deployment Zone took a shot at Uxia and while she didn't die, she did use Smoke to hide herself; which was just as useful.
Marauders were free to get down and move forward to the center zone. I did think about activating the Unknown Ranger but he'd need at least two Orders (CC and then Move) to be helpful and I just didn't want to risk loosing him as I was already short on Orders. Before we measured it, I thought I had Van Zant taking the farthest zone, Marauders taking the center and Blackjack holding the nearest.
Things turned out very differently when we measured it though. Anthony didn't move his units far enough and all of them but Uxia were still in the zone nearest to his Deployment Zone (farthest zone for me). I tried to give Van Zant extra points with my Classified Card but it wasn't enough. I think Anthony tried to do the same for Uxia but it also wasn't not enough to outpoint the three Marauders. So in the end we both held the zone closest to our Deployment Zones and I had the central one too. The strangest thing about the whole game was that neither of us lost that many models or at least it didn't feel way, I was expecting mode deaths but I suppose the mission itself makes you more careful as you need units to survive to the last turn.
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