Northern Open 11

 Initially I was planning to attend the Northern Open (NO) 11 as a Tournament Organizer rather than play but I was glad to be convinced to play. It has been a while since I played my Caledonia and with 28 people attending it was one of the biggest NO we had. I ranked 11th, so above the middle line which is where I tend to rank when I am not being overly competitive.

We played two new missions from the Season 9, which were kinda confusing. Never thought I'd miss straight forward missions like Supremacy. As always it was good to see lots of new people attending and the regulars. The event was won by Matt, who I think has by now won nearly half the NO events (despite his often horrendous dice rolls!).

Army Lists

List A

List B

Both of my army lists were from previous Northern Open events when I played Caledonia. As mentioned earlier I didn't plan to play in the NO11 so it was last minute lists. They did well enough in previous events with objective based missions so I figured I'd run them again. 

List A had Scots Guard Fireteam as the main attack piece, with Caterans and Highlanders to support SAS and Uxia taking objectives. List B was mainly intended for Acquisition where the deployment was 16 inches, so I could utilize the aggressive nature of that list.

Game 1: Power Pack - Caledonia vs ALEPH

Lost 1 to 6 (0 TP)

It had to be fate that my first opponent of the day would be Al. We even played on the same table as last time, albeit set up differently. When we played last time at the Northern Open 10 I managed to beat him with some very good rolls, and unlucky ARM saves on his part. So it was a prime opportunity for him to get his revenge. The set up on this mission was very odd because you could only deploy in corners of the board, which weren't great on either side of the table. I won the Lt roll and decided to go second, planning to win by having the last turn. As always, I regretted it soon after (going first just feels better).

My biggest mistake during deployment was having my Missile Launcher Scots Guard and a Cateran standing up. They were arguably in a good position but I always forget about the Smoke+MSV Lv2 trick, which I really should expect from ALEPH. It really is the most common mistake I keep repeating. Thanks to a very long fire-lane across the board, Al was able to drop Smoke with some unit which allowed another unit that had MSV Lv2 and Feuerbach to attack my ARO units. To make matters worse the mission had Saturation Zone across the middle of the board which took away my Missile Launcher Burst 2 Fireteam advantage. 

Needles to say, both of my ARO units died. Al then went on bit of a rampage with Achilles and few other units. Everything that wasn't hiding pretty much died and Al ended up surrounding my left corner (where I had Wallace with the remaining Scots Guards) with three units on Suppressive Fire. I'll be honest, I thought by end of Al's turn the game was over (which was only fair after what I did to Al in our previous game). I lost a good chunk of my Order Pool and most of my good units. 

But then my second Cateran decided to be awesome. First I managed to snipe the unit with Feuerbach, then he went on to kill a Total Reaction Remote and both of the units on Suppressive Fire that were pinning down Wallace (I love T2 so much). It was such an unexpected swing that gave me a fighting chance. With the Orders I had left I used an SAS to get an objective. Which I did manage to get but Al revealed a TO Infiltrator which killed my SAS.

The second turn was less eventful as Al lost his attack units. He did however had a better foothold on the objectives and capitalized on it by securing two, one of them was the one I took with the SAS so I was back to zero. Unfortunately for me two of the objectives ended up on buildings and my remaining Specialists were 4-2 MOV Scots Guard. I just didn't have enough Orders to be able to get them to the objectives. My plan instead was to reduce the amount of points Al could get, which I could mainly achieve by killing Achilles who was his Data Tracker.

But as you might image, killing Achilles is easier said than done. First I sent two Highlanders at him in a Coordinated Order. I was hoping I could get two Crits thanks to CC27 and +1 Burst (from having two units in CC), but I only managed one Wound. Both of the Highlanders died to AROs. My last form of attack was Wallace. With his 6-4 MOV he got to the CC quickly and went Berserk. The result was both Wallace and Achilles dying, which was pretty funny.

Overall a fun game with an interesting first turn. In retrospect I would say the problem with my list was that it wasn't tailored for this mission which feels it needs more Infiltrating, or at least fast Specialists. Though it also could have been the table itself, which wasn't really set up for this kind of deployment. The game could have gone better with the regular way of deploying I think.

Game 2: Acquisition - Caledonia vs Onyx Contact Force

Won 3 to 2 (2 TP)

My second game was against a new player Ross. We got a really cool table to play on, I thought it was set up really well with combination of tight corridors, dense areas and also open killing fields. After Lt roll I decided to go first (not wanting to repeat the mistake of game one). My deployment was quite spread out, long range weapons in middle and each flank, and fast aggressive units on each flank also. Ross was playing Onyx Force which I knew could have some nasty units, so I wanted to be covered on all angles. 

After deployment, my plan to send Wallace with his Merry Band of Highlander down the flank was stalled by a TAG with Plasma Sniper Rifles. It deployed on a roof opposite of them. I didn't want to risk being hit with templates so my first turn was focused on getting rid of the TAG. Thankfully I had a Scots Guard with Missile Launcher in Camo not too far away. It took me more Orders than expected but eventually I did shoot the TAG off the board. I was hoping to do more but the Scots Guard used up most of the Orders spent in that combat group. In the other group I was able to use Cateran and Uxia to thin down units from a Fireteam of Batroids. I also moved up Wallace and Highlanders into some cover.

Ross was holding back in his turn, mostly moving units into position out of line of sight and getting to objectives. He has also used Bit & Kiss in Cyber-Mask to get to the objective in the middle, allowing him to put them into good ARO positions should I try take it. Ross did also manage to active an objective on my right with a Specialist Remote. The Batroid Fireteam was pinned down by one of my Caterans, so they didn't do much.

As we were taking such a long first turn I had to be more aggressive in my second turn, in terms of getting objectives (we were unlikely to get a third turn). I started with Wallace and Highlanders taking out the Specialist Remote on my right and occupying that objective. Then I used my 112 Doctor to go take the objective on the left. His Light Shotgun seemed like a decent deterrent for Bit & Kiss who didn't want to reveal themselves. Which allowed the 112 to get to the objective, activate it and hide Prone to control it. With my remaining Orders I did attack Bit with a Volunteer. I was able to Chain Rifle her, with the Volunteer dying to an ARO.

Ross also didn't have a choice and had to be aggressive in his turn, which was going to be the last one of the game. His best option was to get his remaining Batroid, Umbra and Nexus (all in one Fireteam) to the objectives but he was going to be taking Cateran fire along the way. Which worked out for him because I kept either rolling poor or he kept passing ARM saves. Ross did manage to get really close to the objectives but eventually my Urugan was able to draw line of sight and that proved to be too much for the Fireteam to handle.

That all said and done, I managed to win only by one point. Neither of us had the Tech Coffin (middle objective), we both activated one objective and then I controlled two and Ross did his Classified Objective. I think my struggle with his mission was not focusing on the objectives from turn one, though I might have got more points (or at least chance to take them) if we had full three turns.

Game 3: Supplies - Caledonia vs Onyx Contact Force

Won 7 to 2 (3 TP)

My last game was also against a new opponent (who I believe came down to Leeds with Ross), but unfortunately I forgot to write down his name. He was also playing Onyx Force but a very different list. After the Lt roll I decided to go first (my favourite thing for Supplies) and deployed with the plan to take the objective on the right and in the middle, so my defenses were set up to cover those sections the most. Since the only high ground I had were two shipping containers it was where my Ceterans deployed Prone.

During deployment of reserves, which for me was Uxia (as always), I changed my plan a bit because my opponent deployed a Total Reaction Remove on a high roof which was a big threat to the Caterans. So I rolled for Infiltrating Uxia near the Remote, and managed to pass the roll. My first Order (after Impetuous) was to use Uxia to kill the REM, but it didn't work out. I rolled poorly with the Burst 5 and she died. My Fireteam was not in a good position to take on the REM so I used one of the Caterans, which worked out even without being in cover against the REM.

With that taken care of I was able to use an SAS to take the objective on the left and go hide with it. I still had a bunch of Orders left in the first group so I have re-positioned my Scots Guard to attack my opponent's Fireteam of Rodoks. It wasn't the most favourable firefight for me as we were on very similar BS (after all bonuses and modifiers) but it was my best option at reducing their number. My opponent won the first face to face rolls but I did hit with the Missile Launcher and the other affected units could not declare Dodge (as they were in a Fireteam), so they died. My Scots Guard passed his ARM save and with a second round of shooting he killed the Rodok that he shot previously.

The positions of the Caterans turned out to be better than expected as my opponent was pinned down by them. His only unit with MSV Lv2 (which really helps against Caterans) only had a short range weapon and a Batroid with Missile Launcher did not have an easy time hitting a Sniper with Mimetism and in cover. After the Batroid died my opponent moved his units around and went to Coup de Grace my unconscious Uxia with a Rodok. To which I responded with both Caterans and killed the Rodok.

I often think to myself I would like to utilize my 112 for more than just sitting back and heal Snipers or other long range units so in my second turn I spent most Orders on him getting objectives. First he moved to the middle and took the objective out, which was then passed onto a Highlander. Then the 112 went to the objective on the left and took it out as well. I was feeling cocky and used the 112 to attack Batroids inside a building, I felt with the Shotgun he'd have a good chance. But whilst I won the roll my opponent passed his ARM save. After spending all those Orders I used a Scots Guard in the first group to do a Sabotage Classified Objective.

In his second turn my opponent killed the 112 and then used his Umbra to move close to my units on right flank. He thought he could attack my SAS who was relatively close but didn't have enough Orders as the Umbra was initially deployed on a roof with the Rodoks. So instead he attacked my Scots Guard in CC. I tied to kill the Umbra with DEP as ARO but lost the face to face roll. The Umbra then hid for the next turn.

In my last turn I thought I could use Wallace to kill all of the Batroids on the other side of the board (to avenge the 112). With 6-4 MOV he got there really fast but I fluffed the first attack. I was in good range and everything but rolled poorly, even on the ARM and BTS saves, which got Wallace killed. The last Orders I had I spent on the two units with the objectives, just running as deep into my Deployment Zone as they could to hide them.

My opponent didn't have enough Orders left in his last turn to chase them, so he just tried to kill whatever he could get to. Funnily enough, the unit with MSV Lv2 and Combi Rifle (Maakrep) that was hiding the whole game was his Lt and when it took a shot at a Cateran it managed to kill him. I didn't mean for the Caterans to be in such an oppressive place for my opponent, as he was new to tournaments, but if nothing else I hope it was a lesson to have more long range weapons next time. Units like the Maakrep are really good with HMG.

Northern Open 10 - When I ruled the North

I did not end up taking Military Orders to the most recent Northern Open. I came to the conclusion that it did not speak well of my love for Caledonia if I was going to take a different army because I think I could more likely win with them. Given how my games went I'd say my fault was not practicing Limited Insertion more. In a way I think I tried to play my army the same way as when I have 20 Orders and that just didn't work, I really felt the lack of Orders.

Though I also have to blame my dice for the first two games. Vast majority of rolls I made either failed (like ARM saves) or I was out rolled in face to face rolls. The worst were those where I was out-rolled like by 1 or 2! The number of crits against me did not help either, but such is Infinity life. At least in the last game I was doing the crits. I threatened to throw away my dice so I guess they were not ready to be retired just yet.

Overall it was a good day though. I did have a laugh during all games and met few new people. I was glad to try Limited Insertion with Caledonia but it is not a format I'd want to play often. Will see if I'll feel differently when I play more Direct Action missions in September. I think in those missions I can do better with Caledonia.

My Army Lists

List A

List B

List A was meant for Transmission Matrix and List B was for Antenna Field and Supplies (though I ended up using it only for Supplies). Again I'd like to point out that I did not practice at all (bad idea, I know) so my plan for these lists was just theoretical.

With List A I wanted to have two Fireteams for some easier Order management. I settled on Isobel, Wallace and HMG Grey Rifle as Fireteam Core and Wulvers as Fireteam Harris. Isobel I thought would be good to defend against enemy Hackers and Burst 5 HMG is always boss. The Wulvers I wanted because they are tough and can get to objectives fast, and in theory can hold them. SAS and Uxia were there to give me some Infiltration. Cateran is just a great Sniper I'd take in every list. The Scots Guard was bit of a wild card but I do like Burst 4 in Camo, downside is that he is slow but I thought he'd be good at holding objectives (Suppressive Fire and Camo is good hurdle for the opponent).

I would say the List A worked as intended, one thing I'd maybe change would be to take second Cateran instead of the Scots Guard and this would free up some points to take a different SAS; like a Forward Observer. The main reason it didn't work in my games were just bad dice rolls. I did not feel during my games like I didn't have a plan or an answer to threats, so that was a plus.

List B was going to be around Infiltrating the SAS and Uxia and then rushing the Wulvers to support them as they hold objectives. The Cateran and Scots Guard would in theory take care of any long range threats. I don't know how it would work in practice for the Antenna Field as I didn't use it, but my thinking was that I'd have one SAS in the back holding an objective and Uxia with another SAS in the middle and on one flank, which would be covered by the Cateran and Scots Guard. The Wulvers would be likely contesting the middle and deterring my opponent from getting close since the can shred anything in Close Combat. 

Similarly to the List A, my game with List B (used it for Supplies) was very lucky for me so whist it worked just as I wanted it to my opponent was also unlucky on dice. Even if he wasn't though, I think the list would have hold up. The Wulvers in full Fireteam are usually good at holding ground and overwhelming enemy units. The Scots Guard Missile Launcher could be changed for something with higher Burst weapons but in all my years of playing Caledonia this Scots Guard has often been good to me and more often than not he proved himself to be worthwhile.

Game 1:  Transmission Matrix - Caledonia vs Yu Jing

Draw 4 to 4 (1 TP)

My first opponent was Matt (a new Matt, not one of our Leeds regulars). We played on a table that I generally perceive as more open than our other tables but it wasn't too bad. Matt won the Lt roll and I can't remember if he decided to go first or chose sides. It ended up with me going second. During my deployment I placed Wulvers Haris Fireteam with Cateran on my left, Wallace, Isobel and Grey Rifle HMG as Core Fireteam on my right and Scots Guard with Molotok in the middle. Uxia infiltrated nar the enemy lines and SAS was close to the middle of the board. Everything was hidden beside a Wulver with Mk12, which I thought had good chance of doing some damage or at least tanking damage.

Matt has proved that idea wrong in his first turn. Using his Invincible with the Hyper-Rapid Magnetic Cannon (HRMC) he went to occupy the middle of the board and attack my exposed Wulver. Normally the Wulvers can take few hits due to 2 Wounds and ARM 6 in cover but I rolled poorly and Matt rolled well, I think he even had a crit and my Wulver died straight away. Which pretty much set the tone for the rest of the game. Since that was all Matt could see of my units, he revealed a Ninja Killer Hacker and spent the rest of his turn trying to hack Isobel. She did really well and survived couple of attacks but with the last Order Matt managed to kill her.

Not a good start for me. The only upside was that Matt spent most of his turn killing things rather than occupying the objectives. He held the two near his deployment zone with one model each and the Invincible was too far from the central one, so only the Ninja held it. This gave me a good chance to win the first round on objectives. First my Grey Rifle HMG had a shoot out with one of Matt's units with HMG and I managed to win, but didn't kill the unit completely. Next I tried to deal with the Invincible. It was in Suppressive Fire but I sent Scots Guard anyway as I had a good chance I thought, with Camo, Surprise, Cover and good range for me.

Problem was that my dice just didn't work and even when I won any roll Matt just passed ARM saves. When the Scots Guard couldn't do it, I tried Cateran who at least forced the Invincible to break Suppressive Fire but died in the process. After that my Scots Guard had even better chance of winning but Matt managed to get a crit on his one dice. Failing to kill the Invincible, I focused on moving units to objectives to make sure I had them. At the end of the round I held the objective in top left corner (from my side of the table) because Uxia was more points than the unit Matt had there.

The second turn went similar to the first one. Matt was focused on killing my units that he could see. He sent his Ninja to attack my SAS. Not liking my chances in CC where Matt would have Surprise Attack, I chose to use a Chain Rifle. My SAS died to CC damage but the Ninja passed the ARM save. Then Matt used a Heavy Infantry unit near the building where Uxia was to climb up and attack her, I was fortunate that at least she managed to survive long enough for Matt to waste most of his Orders. During his turn he also managed to heal the unit gunned down by my HMG but didn't have enough Orders to stand up with it.

I knew I couldn't realistically win anymore at this point. I couldn't do my Classified as Isobel was dead and securing HVT was out of question too (one of my two Classified I couldn't do at all). Even getting Draw was resting on a Hail Mary move. I had almost nothing left but I still held the two objectives near my Deployment Zone and if I could take the middle I'd win this round too so I'd have a chance to Draw if Matt didn't do both his Classified. To do that Wallace had to make two jumps. First from a roof of a building on my right side onto a crate and then from there to onto the roof of the central building. Matt was getting free AROs both times with a Remote. He did manage to hit once and of course I failed the ARM save but Wallace did manage to get onto the rooftop. With my last Order I moved Wallale closer to the central objective and the Ninja managed to engage. But Wallace was more Points so I held the central objective.

In his last turn Matt was just finishing off my army. First the Ninja activated in CC and since I was not going to hold the central objective anymore (the Invincible had to move once to hold it) I chose to go Berserk with Wallace to ensure we both killed each another. Matt then moved his Remote down my right flank where I left my Grey Rifle exposed. I lost the face to face rolls and the Grey Rifle died (bad rolls all around). I had one Wulver left but it was hidden so Matt went onto occupying four of the objectives. During the game Matt also accomplished one of his Classified. All he had to do was secure my HVT (he couldn't do his second Classified either) but the mistake he made, which led to the Draw, was that he forgot about my HVT and didn't change his Classified.

I admit I did notice it and I did tell him after the game but considering all the bad luck I had I wanted to at least have the draw. 

Game 2:  Antenna Field - Caledonia vs Tohaa

Lost 10 to 0 (0 TPs)

As fate would have it my next opponent was Dr Greg with his Tohaa. There were several first round games that ended in a Draw. Knowing what I was going to face did not make it much easier for me, I wasn't confident with either of my lists being able to deal with immortal Tohaa. I ended up using List A again (same list I used in Game 1) because I wanted to have that AP HMG at Burst 5. This list had less Specialists than List B but my plan was to kill all of Greg's Specialists and decide the game on Classified. Admittedly not the best plan but I wasn't very hopeful either way. Greg won the Lt roll and decided on Deployment so I went first.

I used similar deployment as before. Wulvers, Scots Guard and Cateran on my left, Wallace and Core Fireteam on right, SAS was up to the middle line on my right and Uxia managed to Infiltrate close to Greg's lines.

My first turn couldn't go any worse. Greg had a Tohaa with Missile Launcher standing up on a building which I knew would just cause trouble. I tried to first shoot it with Cateran but I got out rolled and he died. So I went after it with Grey Rifle and his HMG, which despite Burst 5 and BS13 went almost just as bad. I only caused one wound and then the Tohaa unit went Prone and I couldn't see it anymore. At least it allowed my Infiltrators to attack. The SAS took out one Specialist but died in the process. Uxia tied to do the same but Greg passed his ARM saves and she died for nothing. Then the Grey Rifle went on to attack some other exposed units but I couldn't hit anything, eventually he got killed by a crit.

Greg reminded me that Tohaa have Heavy Flamers on cheap units the hard way in his first turn. I did bunker down Uxia and Wallace but since Tohaa have Zero-V Smoke Grenades, he was able to get close and do the same thing I do to people when I have a full army (hit their good units in Supressive Fire with cheap units that have template weapons). But despite the number of shots I had I couldn't even kill this cheap Tohaa unit in return and it killed both Wallace and Isobel, not a single ARM save passed for me.

After that I really had no chance of winning. I still had my Wulvers but not enough Orders to get them anywhere and even when I won face to face rolls the Tohaa just used their broken Symbiotes to negate it. Normally I'd at least have enough Orders to keep shooting but not in Limited Insertion. We played the game to the end of three rounds but it was pretty much just Greg moving closer each turn to take out the Wulvers.

I thought about it afterwards if I should have gone with my original plan to use List B and attack the Tohaa with full Fireteam of Wulvers. The only advantage really would have been the +3 BS but I am not sure it would have been enough as neither Mk12 or T2 Rifle do much to get through Armour. I think I could have forced Greg's units to go Prone or maybe kill enough of those on overwatch  to get close to his Deployment Zone where I could cause some havoc but I also think I'd struggle to do it with only 10 Orders. Limited Insertion is not really where I feel I can use Caledonia aggressive play to full advantage.

All in all, despite some really bad rolls I also have to point out that Greg practiced Limited Insertion a lot and found an optimal army list for himself which definitely made a big difference; he ended up on 2nd place at the end of the event. It does show how important practice is and I can only fault myself for not doing the same.

Game 3:  Supplies - Caledonia vs ALEPH

Won 9 to 0 (3 TPs)

The last game was against Al who did not fare well in the first two rounds either; despite also being a past Northern Open winner. We had some fun games before so I was looking forward to it; after two lost rounds (even if one was a draw) at least you know in the last round you can play more for fun than trying to win. The game turned out to be the very opposite of the previous game I had. I managed to win the Lt roll and decided to go first, as I always prefer to do on Supplies with Ariadna. I used List B and my plan was to take two objectives straight away and hold onto those, if I could prevent Al from getting the third objective then all the better. Normally I'd try take all three but I didn't have enough Orders for that in Limited Insertion. 

My deployment was very one sided. On my left flank I placed Scots Guard Missile Launcher in Camo and Cateran onto a building, Wulvers with Wallace on the ground in front of the building and on the same flank near the middle line was Uxia and one SAS. The last SAS was near the middle objective. Al deployed sort of hidden too, the only thing I could really see was his ALEPH TAG. So I started my turn by standing up the Scots Guard and taking a Missile Launcher shot across the board. Considering the range and everything else (like Surprise and Camo) I was expecting to win the roll but I did not expect Al to fail all three ARM saves straight away. This took out his TAG and Lt and pretty much crippled Al's army.

The rest of my turn was advancing Wulvers forward and put them into some better positions. Uxia and the two SAS grabbed two of the objectives. One SAS went to hide with Wulvers and the other hid on top of a building near middle of the board. 

Al started his turn by revealing an infiltrated TO Sniper, which was in a very good spot. On my right flank there was a tall building and part of it was just outside of my Deployment Zone, so Al had pretty good view of my army from behind. He tried to attack my Cateran but I managed to roll a Crit in ARO and take out the TO Sniper. The game was more or less over now but we continued for the fun of it. Al run up some unit with a shotgun onto a building in front of my Wulvers, trying to take out Wallace with the shotgun blast by targeting a Wulver in front of Wallace. This unit did not kill Wallace, just the Wulver it was targeting and it also managed to survive all of my AROs!  Al tried the same thing for a second time but this time his unit died to my AROs without doing any damage to me.

In my second turn I just used a Wulver with Heavy Shotgun to run into Al's Deployment Zone and kill everything on the way. He did die at some point while I was running in the open at some ALEPH unit. Whatever Al had left before Retreat he used to run at my units, but everything got killed. I can't remember what firefight it was but at some point I needed to hit something at BS 3 and managed to roll two or three Crits on 3; it was a funny moment. Before the game ended I didn't bother getting the third objective, which is why I only had 9 Objective Points in the end. It was a pretty amusing game for the last round.

Northern Open 9 - King of the North!

If you have been following my blog for the last few months, you might know that I went to the current ITS season with the intention of playing more for fun. Which did show on my results. My fun armies did not end up ranking well and I have been loosing a lot. My mates kept making fun of me for it, so I had to show them I still got it. The Norther Open 9 was also a qualifier for the UK Masters, so it was a good opportunity to actually try play well again. So I did and I finally won a Northern Open tournament! Which is all the sweeter considering I got a wooden spoon on the Northern Open 1 (which I still have at home).

It was really close though, the Totally CRIT crew came up from South and secured 2nd and 3rd place. I was fully expecting them to win after I won one of their tournaments down South last year. It was great to see them and the guys from Midlands who I also haven't seen this year yet.

Also special shout out to my mate Matt (s0tek in ITS) who was using my MRRF army that I lost every game with on the previous tournament. He managed to rank 5th with two major victories and one minor loss where the difference was only 1 Objective Point. I think that really show how a good player can do well with (almost) any army.

I was deciding between taking USARF and Caledonia. After some play testing and discussions, chose to take Caledonia as I was more confident with how to play them and army building. Whilst I have lots of USA models, I do feel like I am lacking few more heavy weapons. I do have lot more options with Caledonia. One of the lists was a variation of an older list I used in the past and the second one was new, specific for the Deadly Dance mission. 

Overall, I would say this might have been my best performance yet. I ended up with three major victories and I don't feel like I have misplayed in any game.  

My Army Lists

List A

List B 

The List A was a variation of a list that I like to use for the Supplies mission. Normally I would have three Infiltrators (Uxia and two SAS) but from playing my USARF on Northern Open 8, I learned to not rely on my Fireteam as an ARO unit only and instead put it on the ground and take objectives with it since there are Specialists in it. With this in mind, I was able to drop one of the SAS and change it for three Volunteers with Chain Rifles and a Highlander with a Chain Rifle, giving me three extra Orders. I really wanted to play two Caterans because one never feels as enough and having two gives me more chances to kill whatever I need killed, in case first attack goes badly.

I was also planning to use the List A for Firefight. Mainly because I feel the Scots Guard Fireteam is better at engaging other Fireteams than the units I had in the List B. The List A has more Specialists than B but in that mission killing more Specialists is only 1 Objective Point so I wasn't too bothered. 

The List B was designed for the Deadly Dance mission. I was considering to use an Anaconda TAG but I never played with it before and I wasn't confident taking it over other units (60 points is a lot in Caledonia). As such I decided to make a TAG killing list instead, I knew I wouldn't be able to get full 10 on the mission without a TAG but I would make sure my opponent couldn't either. To that effect, I took two Caterans with T2 Sniper Rifles and Camouflaged Scot Guard with a Missile Launcher for long range, Urugan and a Hacker to give it Marksmanship Lv2 for mid range. On top of that I took Wallace with Highlanders to engage TAGs in Close Combat, and McMurrough who can also shred TAGs in CC. Should all that fail, Uxia was last resort to plant D-Charges on TAGs. 

I was tempted to take a list with a Wulver Fireteam but I was thinking that if my opponent had some hard to kill TAG, like Cutter with TO Camo, I'd need more units able to engage it from various distances and angles.

Game 1:  Deadly Dance - Caledonia vs Haqqislam

Won 7 to 0 (3 TPs)

My first opponent was someone I met on the previous tournament in Harlequins, Joe or John I think (I am just terrible with names!), but we didn't face each another then. The table we played on was also new to me, it was brought by the Totally CRIT crew. I lost the Lt roll and my opponent decided to go first, after quick look over the deployment zones I took the one with the high ground to give my snipers the advantage. I did have slight difficulty deploying all of my 20 models on the table but that was my entirely my fault for having so many models, not a fault of the table. But even so, there was still enough places to deploy.

My biggest challenge during deployment was that I fully expected my opponent to put down a Fiday because he had 2 reserves (which meant his Lt was going to be Saladin). I did not see any good spot to hide Wallace who was my Lt so I resulted with deploying in such a way to have bunch of AROs before he could get to Wallace. But instead my opponent put down Maghariba Guard TAG, in addition to Scarface who was already on the board. So I was going to face two TAGs. Which didn't worry me too much as I designed this list to kill TAGs, but I was still bit concerned as I did not expect it.

The zones we rolled for the missions went in my favour, I rolled quadrant in front of my deployment zone to the left and my opponent rolled the one to my right, so I didn't have to move far to get in but he had to get across the board.

The first round was bit of a roller-coaster. It didn't start well for me but by the end of it I couldn't really complain. The first kill of a game was one of my Caterans sniping a biker that moved just too far with the second part of an impetuous move. Though then my opponent dropped Smoke with a different unit and moved a Djanbazan into it. Which allowed him to kill the revealed Cateran with relative ease. I think he then also tried to take on a second Cateran, but couldn't do it from Smoke which got him killed (the Djanbazan did die somehow in during the turn). My opponent then used Scarface to take on the second Cateran and got a really good roll with Panzerfaust which was not something the Cateran could survive.

But I still had a third camo marker in my deployment zone. Which turned out to be a Scot Guard with a Missile Launcher who got a crit on the Scarface and killed him with one shot (he failed the other two ARM saves too). My opponent still had a second TAG though, the Maghariba Guard went on a little rampage and killed one of my Volunteers and also my Urugan Remote (which was kinda sad for me, didn't even have a chance to use my Hacker on it for Marksmanship Lv2). The TAG then ended the turn by sitting on top of a terrain in Suppressive Fire.

Although I did have my assigned quadrant close, problem I had was that there was an expensive TAG sitting in it so I had to kill it. As my army was spread out so much, it would have been hard to get so many points in (especially because my baggage Urugan was dead and the second one was on completely opposite side). McMurrough and Wallace's Highlander Fireteam were an option but it would take lots of Orders so I decided to try with the Missile Launcher despite him being fairy close to the TAG. I went back to Camouflage and then shot it around the corner. Thankfully we were just over 16 inches away so he was in bad range for Suppressive Fire and ended up shooting on 2 (as he got -12 modifier) and I was only on -3 overall because of the Suppressive Fire, so the odds were decent. I won the roll but didn't kill the TAG, so I went back to camo and tried again. This time putting the TAG unconscious.

I finished the TAG with a Volunteer's Light Shotgun as I wanted to move him up into the quadrant. I don't think I killed anything else in my turn, I was mostly just focusing on getting units into my quadrant. The one mistake I made was not leaving units in ARO positions, at least not long ones, everything was mostly hidden and AROs were all short range. This gave my opponent bit of a free reign in his turn but without the TAGs he didn't really have anything scary left. One of his units did turn out to be a Hafza with a Rocket Launcher, it tried to take out my second baggage Remove (5pts Minesweeper) as it moved into his assigned quadrant. My opponent also ended up with a Specialist, Cordelia, next to one of the consoles.

At some point my opponent did try to get to Wallace with a Mutt (I can't recall if it was his second or third turn) but the Mutt couldn't get close enough. The Mutt did manage to kill two Highlanders but in return took 2 Boarding Shotgun shots and 6 Chain Rifle hits... yeah, he didn't survive.

I spent most of my second turn hunting down Saladin. It took lots of the first group Orders because the Scots Guard move only 4-2 but I did manage to get across the board and hit Saladin. He only took one Wound. But I was dedicated so I spent the rest of the Orders to finish him off. Saladin did not survive a second missile. Thanks to Cordelia I had to move one my own Specialist, Dozer, to a console as I didn't want my quadrant to move. When we did the scoring at the end, I dominated my opponent's quadrant by accident as I had Uxia hiding on top of crates the whole game but his one model, the Hafza, was less points than she.

We then both failed the WIP check on the consoles so neither quadrant moved. As my opponent was in Loss of Lt, he spent his last turn just running as many units as he could into his quadrant for some objective points. I remember thinking I didn't need to do much to win because I was already ahead but then realized you get more points for dominating more quadrants at the end of the game so I had to either kill all of my opponent's units or move in more points. I decided to try the killing. McMurrough went in first but he was already wounded and then took another hit. I still had a Volunteer close so I tried with him and his Chain Rifle. He managed to hit three units, a little remote, a Mutt and a Hafza. The Nasmat died, Hafza survived and the Mutt went Dogged. My Volunteer also survived and for his second attempt used a Light Shotgun. This time everyone died, including him.

Thanks to his sacrifice I managed to secure more Objective Points and got my Second Classified by using the Scots Guard to secure HVT (earlier in the game my Hacker scanned an enemy). I did cap out on 7 Objective Points for this mission as I didn't take a TAG but I was glad to see my TAG killing list had a chance to actually fight TAGs and performed well doing it.

Game 2:  Firefight - Caledonia vs Tohaa

Won 9 to 1 (3 TPs)

The second game was against Matt Spears, a winner of the Norther Open 8, so I wasn't super confident going into the game. He can play his Tohaa really well. I can't recall if I won or lost the Lt roll but ended up deploying first and taking the first turn. I was torn between deploying my Fireteam om high ground or staying on the ground. I went with deploying on the ground to give me more flexibility of where to engage with them (sticking with my original plan). I was expecting Matt to play the Tohaa Beasts which are deadly against Fireteams so I deployed the rest of the army sort of covering the Fireteam. Which I was glad I did as Matt did deploy the Beast unit (only one Beast though). Since I don't bother hunting for Tohaa Lt (they always have Chain of Command somewhere), I deployed my reserve, Uxia, to take on the Beast and its controller.

My first turn went really well and was glad that I did remember not dropping Smoke with Highlanders in such a way to block my own snipers. After the Impetuous phase I used my Caterans to take on Matt's snipers, one of which had MSV Lv2 and the other was a Sapper. I was able to attack them one at a time and despite the frustrating Symbiote Mates I was able to kill them both. Tohaa really do not like T2 ammo! With the snipers dead I was then able to take out a unit with HMG, which I managed to crit so the Symbiote Mates did not help him. Frustrating was that I run out of Orders in that group so I couldn't kill the HMG unit, it was just unconscious and I was worried Matt would have some kind of Airborne Deployment Doctor. He had no medics on the board.

Uxia, who was in a different group, first tried to use her shotgun to take out the Beast and the controller. They were lined up so I was able to hit both by shooting the Beast, sadly for me nothing happened as nobody died. So instead I moved her out and used the twin Assault Pistols to attack the controller. I managed to cause one wound but Uxia died. I did then try to use my Fireteam to kill the beast but it survived a Missile Launcher too and Dodged away (bloody thing just wouldn't die). It was out of LoF so I couldn't attack it again so instead I shot a Tohaa Diplomatic Delegate with the Missile Launcher (and killed it) and then I positioned my Fireteam in a way to get as many AROs as I could before the Beast could reach them.

It turned out my fears were warranted as Matt did have an AD Paramedic and managed to revive the HMG unit which then took its revenge on the Cateran. The Beast and its controller first dropped Smoke before advancing but I still had Cameronian around a corner. Matt decided to go into Close Combat with the Beast and after two rounds I managed to win. It was interesting because neither of us had any CC Special Skills to it was just who can roll higher, I had +1 to my roll and Matt had +2. Matt also managed to kill two of my Scots Guard in his turn. The Missile Launcher and one of the Forward Observers died to a triad with a Viral Rifle.

My turn started with the Cameronian jumping into CC with the Beast controller. I think I won the CC roll but neither of us died either way. Instead of continuing that CC I used my Highlanders to attack the triad that was killing my Scots Guard. One Highlander was able to Chain Rifle two of them but didn't kill anyone, dying in process himself. Though another Highlander managed to kill the Viral Rifle unit by going into CC and activating Berserk. My other orders were spent on remaining Scots Guard and Wallace to go to the middle of the board, allowing a Guard with Molotok to first kill some unit with Flamers and Pistol, and then also kill the revived HGM unit, killing it off the board this time (Burst 5 AP rounds for the win).

In his second turn Matt tried to kill Wallace two times, maybe even three times. First he tried to hit him with a Flamer, which did kill the Scot Guard with Molotok but Wallace Dodged it. My other Scots Guard and a Cateran killed the attacker. Then he tried with something else that had a Combi Rifle but Wallace managed to out-shoot it with his own Combi Rifle. Somewhere during the turn Matt also took something out of the Objectives, +1 ARM for some unit. Which reminded me I should use the objectives myself.

I started my last turn killing the Beast controller with Cameronian and then activating an objective with him. The Cameronian found himself a Light Grenade Launcher and whilst jumping to another objective, he managed to kill someone with it. I didn't have enough Orders for him to try find another thing. Instead I used remaining Command Tokens to do Coordinated Orders and run with Volunteers to the objectives. One found a Nanopulser and the other an Auto-Medkit. I don't think I done anything else that turn, I was just trying to maximize my objective points.

I don't think Matt was in Retreat but he didn't have much left when he started his last turn. He did reveal a TO unit on a roof where I also had an SAS, who did nothing thus far. The TO unit did manage to kill the Cameronian by shooting it from behind, my SAS had a free sot but failed to hit with his pistol. Matt then moved close enough that I was able to engage with the SAS. He did ponder activating the CC but decided not to because his unit wasn't good in CC, while the SAS was.

During my turns I was able to do both of my Classified Objectives, one of them was Forward Observe a HVT and I am not sure what the second one was, I think Coup de Grace someone. The only Objective Point I didn't get in the end was killing more Specialists. I lost Uxia and one FO Scots Guard, but killed only one of Matt's. Though I did kill one Lt of his (which I didn't realize until he told me at the end), had more things from objectives and also killed more army points. 

Game 3:  Supplies - Caledonia vs Qapu Khalqi

Won 7 to 1 (3 TPs)

I was going into this game bit nervous. It happened many times before that I lost after two victories and this was the closest I got to winning the Northern Open. From talking to people I think I was the only one on two major victories (I wasn't sure though) but there was at least one other person with the same amount of Objective Points, so not only I had to win this game, I had to win with lots of objective points and preferably get a major victory. So no pressure!

I never played my opponent before (odin6 in ITS) and don't think I met him on other tournaments either, so had no idea what to expect. I lost the Lt roll on this one and my opponent chose the deployment zone. They were both fairly equal in terms of high ground and density of terrain, though the side he chose had better access to the objectives as they were hidden from sight from my deployment zone. I chose to take the first turn, which is what I prefer on this mission. During deployment I was again tempted to put my Fireteam on the high ground but I kept in mind that I want the flexibility of being on the ground. Plus my plan for this mission was for them to take one of the objectives as I didn't have three Infiltrators to do it.

My opponent deployed his Djanbazan Fireteam in a peculiar way, they were all bunched up behind a car. I thought he'd have some kind of a way of protecting them as I did deploy a Missile Launcher in a Fireteam. I also tried to get Uxia infiltrate close to them and soften them up with a shotgun but she failed her infiltration roll. After deployment I had one SAS near an objective and my Fireteam heading for another but I was fairly certain I had no easy way of getting the third one in my first turn. Instead I planned to focus on killing enemy threats to make it easier for second turn objective grabbing. 

The first death of the game was an Al Hawwa, it infiltrated near an objective and revealed itself to shoot a Highlander as he run by the camo marker. He didn't die and then engaged in CC, going Berserk and killing it. He did die in the process from Djanbazan AROs. Next I used my Caterans to take out long range threats. Thanks to the high ground being near the end of the board I was able to shoot at a Total Reaction Remote from over 32 inches, giving it a -12 to shoot. I did manage to put it unconscious with my free shots and then killed it to make sure its off the board as there was an Engineer close to it. My second Cateran was able to take out a Janissary with a Missile Launcher. This allowed my Fireteam to advance without AROs across the battlefield to engage the Djanbazans.

This is where it got very unfortunate for my opponent. He didn't know about the effect of template weapons affecting every unit in its zone as long as it hits, even if he wins the face to face roll. Only one Djanbazan had Line of Fire, so he declared to shoot back (which meant the others as part of a Fireteam didn't Dodge). I hit with both of my rolls and my opponent rolled better against one of them. As such, the Djanbazan I was shooting at had to take 3 ARM saves and the others had to take 6. Needles to say, most of them died and only one was standing. The last one I was able to finish with a Molotok. 

I didn't realize until then my opponent would start his turn in Retreat. The Djanbazans were around half of his army points (probably bit over) and with everything else that died, he didn't have much left. Thankfully I still had some Orders left for my SAS to grab an objective and then my Cameronian used four Orders to jump around 36 inches so I could Coup de Grace an unconscious Djanbazan, accomplishing a Classified Objective. I could have also try for secure HVT but realized too late. Thanks to being too aggressive and not thinking about Retreat, there was no second turn and I couldn't get more than 7 objective points. 

While I did get the major victory I needed, I was still worried because I didn't realize the person closest to me in rankings didn't have two major victories. I kept thinking if he wins with 8 or more objectives points I could still end up only 2nd or 3rd. Thankfully this mission is not that easy to get a big major victory. In the end he did end with 7 Objective points major victory, so we would have been tied on those but even if he also had 9 tournaments points I was 98 points ahead in Victory Points (army points left at the end of each game).