Earlier in October we did a small casual event to celebrate one of my mate's birthday. It was six of us playing three missions over the day with a random list each game. Everyone made a list or two that were put into a hat before each round. I ended up playing Combined Army and Haqqislam (vanilla and Qapu Khalqi) but there were also PanO, Morats, Nomads, Yu Jing and Steel Phalanx. All lists were Limited Insertion to keep the games within the time limit and to not make it overly confusing when playing armies we haven't played with before.
I thought it was a really fun format to try. It was a great opportunity to try different armies without having to buy the models or proxying models. Plus all the lists had to follow a set of rules to be fair, so there were no intentionally bad lists.
Army List
The lists we made had to be Limited Insertion and we had spend at least 298pts and 5 SWC. There was also a general rule of being fair and include a selection of specialists. I decided to make a Morat list because I felt they are easy to play and they have a decent selection of well priced units for Limited Insertion. We had the option to make different lists for each mission but because I left it to the last minute, I just made one general list that could do all three missions.
For Specialists I went with Dr Worm for Doctor & Engineer, Kurgat with Mk12 also an Engineer but with a better gun, Yaogat Hacker to provide Supportware and to form a Fireteam, and Anyat who is a Specialist Operative. The last two tied well into the big guns.
Anyat had Smoke Grenades which allowed Fireteam of three Yaogats to use the good old MVS Lv2+Smoke trick. The Yaogats had a Sniper Rifle, Combi RIfle and Boarding Shotgun to cover all the range bands. The list also had two HMGs, one on Tempest Regiment and the other on Total Reaction Remote; both good attack and defensive units.
Kornak is just a good Lt option with Strategos Lv1 and his Mk12 is also decent weapon. The Ikadron was there mainly to fill in last 9pts but it is also a pretty good utility unit as it has Flash Pulse, Flamethrowers, Repeater and Baggage. Overall I felt the list had a good mix of everything. I didn't get to play with it myself but I heard no complaints during the day about it.
Game 1: Power Pack - Combined Army vs Steel Phalanx
Major Victory
The first mission of the day was a new ITS mission. I never played it before but it involved several objectives which I knew from the start was going to be trouble because we played Limited Insertion and there is only so much you can do with 10 Orders. It did not help my first opponent was Matt, a numerous tournament champion. On the Lt roll I decided go to second, hoping to have the advantage of the very last turn. All I had to do was survive the first turn against Steel Phalanx; no pressure.
The main problem I felt I had was during the deployment. Much of my army was wider than Silhouette 2 which meant I wasn't able to deploy on the ground, which was either open or the buildings had too narrow doorways. This left me deploying many units on an elevated building which had walkways wide enough for my troops, and there was also only one place for my Avatar to deploy and be hidden.
The first turn didn't go to terrible, I got lucky on an ARO where a Noctifier with a Missile Launcher was able to cripple Hector's Fireteam and take a Wound off him too. I still lost a bunch of units but I believe I was able to finish Hector with later AROs which took care of Matt's attack on my left flank and it cornered his other Fireteam on my right side of the board. Quite literally as he decided to hide inside a building, he didn't want to be taking long range fire from the Avatar.
With rather limited number of Orders and inability to kill many units, my plan became to weather the Steel Phalanx and then run the Avatar to an objective in the last turn. As such my first turn wasn't very eventful. I think I was able to kill one, maybe two units.
The second turn was quite funny for me, one of my Unidron Batroids was able to tank so many attacks. Which very much halted Matt's attack on my right flank. He had to end his turn with his guys in the open which allowed the Avatar to have some fun in my turn.
In the very last turn Matt was mainly just trying to stop me from be able to take any objectives but the Avatar proved to be too much of a challenge for his remaining units. He knew in my last turn I would have only just about enough Orders to run the Avatar to the objective near his Deployment Zone (which would give the most points) so he ended his turn with his units inside a building, looking out a doorway that would give them AROs at the Avatar.
But he did not take into account the Avatar could walk over the building! So I just walked over the enemies, gave them no AROs and run to the objective for victory.
Game 2: Ultra Classified - Haqqislam vs Morats
Minor Victory
The second mission was made of all the Classified Objectives (including Secure HVT), 1 point per Classified completed, so I was hoping the army I drew was able to do them all. Unfortunately I was missing any form of Remote so I wasn't able to complete one. But otherwise I had a selection of Specialists, some of which had Infiltration and Camo. After the Lt roll I took the initiative and went first. I deployed both of my Infiltrators on top of a building near middle of the board, it was where my opponent Oliver deployed his HVT (we had them both near each other) and my Infiltrators were a Forward Observer and a Hacker, which would let me do bunch of the Classified.
To do all that first I had to take care of a HMG Remote, which failed miserably. The silver lining was that I was able to get one Classified for healing an unconscious unit. But it took most of my Orders so to end the turn I attacked Oliver's lined up units with a Fiday. I was able to take out an Engineer and wound Kornak.
Oliver took his revenge in his turn, killing one of my Infiltrators with MSV Lv2 Sniper. I believe Dr Worm also managed to heal the Engineer. I am pretty sure my Fiday also got killed in that turn, but he did drop a mine before he died just to slow down enemy units. Oliver then moved up some units in preparation for the second turn.
Which for me was extremely short and frustrating. I wanted to use my Hacker while he was alive to get as many Classified as he could but he failed so many WIP rolls! I basically spent the whole turn failing at rolling low. Oliver then went on the offensive and tried to kill that Hacker with Anyat. She had the easiest time getting to him thanks to Climbing Plus but Oliver's dice decided to be as useful in his turn as mine were in my turn, and so Anyat died to AROs whilst my Hacker lived. Which took away Oliver's Smoke Grenades so I was happy.
Third turn went bit better, I was able to complete some Classified with my Hacker and also with my Engineer I did Sabotage. I then tried to get the Engineer base to base with enemy HVT to interact with it for another Classified and whilst I was able to get there, I failed the WIP roll and then the Engineer died to AROs. With last Orders I had I just moved as many units into ARO positions as possible, just to slow down Oliver if nothing else.
It worked better than I could have hoped for. Al Fasid and another unit, I think it was Asawira, did brilliantly. I was shooting with a Rifle at -6 BS and kept winning rolls! It was very lucky for sure and also highly amusing for me. Whilst Oliver had more Orders in his last turn than I did, my lucky AROs slowed him down a lot. He was able to kill both of my guys eventually but by then he didn't have enough Orders to achieve more Classified than I did. I don't remember which Classified it was that gave me the victory, but I did win by doing one more than Oliver did.
Game 3: Escape - Qapu Khalqi vs Nomads
Draw
The last mission was James' custom mission. It revolved around a drop-ship in the middle of the board which had to be repaired so your army could use it to escape (originally it was part of campaign). The objectives were to repair the ship, hack the entrance and then finish the game with a unit inside of it. The repair and hacking had specified points on the ship (front and sides or back) and required one successful WIP each. A tricky mission to complete even without Limited Insertion. We also played it with Exclusion Zone (8 inches from the middle on each side).
The list I drew was Qapu Khalqi with a full Fireteam of something that was able to have Rocket Launchers (I think they were Sekban) and there were three of them. There was also Fireteam Duo of Janissaries Doctors and some Infiltrators. I thought it would be a fun list to play as I like to use Fireteams to hold down board zones with AROs. I am not sure how the Lr roll went but I ended up going first. My plan was to use the Fireteam to take out enemy long range weapons on AROs and then bunker down around the drop-ship so in the second and third turn I could go for the win.
But as it often happens, my plans and my first turn were two completely separate things. I failed like very single roll I made and one Nomad sniper just annihilated my Rocket Launchers. All I could do afterwards was to move some of my units to ARO positions. The Janissaries ended the turn taking cover at the front of the ship.
If my first active turn was the bad end of the spectrum, my first reactive turn was the complete opposite. James had Iguana TAG in his list and it just failed against the Janissaries. The ejected pilot landed somewhere that got him killed next time he activated. The same happened with everything James used to try kill the Janissaries so he could get to the ship.
In the second turn I was just trying to capitalize on James' failed attacks by placing more units into defensive positions if any enemy unit tried to get to the ship. I also tried to revive some units but I believe I either failed to hit with the MedKit or killed them. James' second turn didn't go much better than his first, the Janissaries were still able to hold the ground well. I think it was in the second turn that one of them did die.
The third turn was the last chance for me to try win the game so I did use some Orders to WIP the drop-ship but to complete the mission I could fail only one WIP. After I failed two of them I just ended the turn with a Janissary on Suppressive Fire. James wasn't able to get through my defenses on his last turn either and so we ended in a draw as nobody passed a single WIP check on the drop-ship.
It started terrible for me but at the end I thought it was a funny game which really showed how your luck can change from turn to turn.
