This weekend I attended the SCTS X Tournament, which was three ITS missions and one Special Mission. The format was 200pts Limited Insertion, with the missions Looting and Sabotage, Show of Force and Firefight.
Game One - Looting and Sabotage
Pre
I managed to get a couple of practice games in for this. At 200pts Limited Insertion, it's really hard to find the Orders to go and smash that Advanced Communication Console. The best I done was to hit the Console for one damage point and keep mine alive. At 200pts it's also quite easy to send your opponent into Retreat, which also happened to me.
The Game
The matchmaking system decided to match me with Sam Cooper... huh? That was my first round opponent at the last SCTS... hmmm. Not that I minded, Sam (playing French) is a really good person to play Infinity with. Plays a clean game, knows his rules and knows his stats (better yet he knows my stats).
I won the LT WIP off, took Deployment and made us swap sides (sigh, yep I'm that guy). Sam took first turn. Sam immediately brought on a Para-Commando with HMG, which laid waste to my Baggage Bot (new model syndrome is alive and well), then he took my Total Reaction HMG Rebot to Unconscious, and left him tying up a couple of Myrmidons. The rest of the turn was shuffling about, including moving his Anaconda forward (which was really well painted and I forgot to tell him).
My turn, I'm pretty sure I was down to seven Orders (two Rebots and Netrod down). First I had to deal with the Para-Commando. Going for Smoke and some close combat, I stupidly attacked with multiple Myrmidons to give Eudoros additional dice. Sam then rightly attacked a "contributing" Myrmidon and killed it with a knife. Eudoros naturally killed him dead. I ran my Engineer over to heal the Total Reaction Rebot up. Finally the Myrmidon Link Team pushed forward.
Turn Two saw Sam's Anaconda start to push forward with a Chasseur, who placed a Mine to cover the Myrmidon Link (damn bloody mines!). My Flash Pulse-equipped Rebot managed to face down the Anaconda who received a wound from the Total Reaction Rebot's HMG. Unfortunately, my Engineer (also my Datatracker) missed with his Flammenspeer
My Turn Two began with Cybermasking Scylla, who moved forward to deal with an approaching Foxtrot and attempt to WIP a Panoply. I knew I was going to use a Charybdis to flame the Foxtrot (who had been discovered in ARO). At this point I said to Sam "I know I'm doing something wrong... I just don't know what it is." Sure enough, I flamed the Foxtrot, the Foxtrot flamed back, catching both Scylla and Charybdis. What a waste of Scylla.
In Turn Three, Sam made an absolutely heroic dash with a Medic (I think a Metro), grabbed D-charges from the Panoply and slapped them on my Advanced Communication Console, getting a critical hit and scoring an additional Structure point.
My Turn Three - this was going to be close. I started spamming Co-ordinated Orders to move my Engineer up to the Panoply, and Eudoros towards the Console. Incidentally I took out the Anaconda, but that was unimportant. The Dactyl Engineer got to within spitting distance of the Panoply, whilst Eudoros Dodged and Smoked his way through multiple ARO shots and a Mine to reach the enemy Console. With three Orders left I needed to destroy the Console, WIP the Panoply and if possible D-charge a container for my Classified Objective. Eudoros set about the Console but even with three Orders worth of hits with his DA CCW he managed two Structure points and I couldn't WIP the Panoply. For a moment, I thought it was a Draw as I was within 8" of the enemy HVT, but Sam was within 8" of mine.
Post
A 3 - 4 LOSS, but what a great game, super intense and boiled down to the last dice rolls of the game to see who won. I'm still learning how to use Scylla, and it seems I've got a lot of learning left to do.
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| Whilst he didn't make an appearance this tournament, I have recently finished Drakios |
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| This lovely model comes with Scylla and Charybdis |
Game Two - Show of Force
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As far as I can remember I've not played this mission before. I know it's one of the TAG missions. I was playing Graham Cleary (playing Combined Army) a veteran player in the U.K. I'd seen him win tournaments before and have actually wanted to play him for a while along with his partner in crime Ryan. I expected to lose, but I hoped it would be a learning experience.
The Game
Again I won the LT WIP-off, took Deployment and made us swap sides. With Strategos Level 2 in his favour Graham held back a Speculo Killer and something else.
Well I wasn't wrong about learning something... I learned about Speculo Killers... I learned they are on my hate list (along with Intruders and Riot Grrls). I should have listened a lot more closely, and registered the Auto-Medkit. After wasting a tonne of Orders discovering and Nano-Pulsing I got the Speculo to Unconscious, but mistakenly didn't finish it off, dumb dumb dumb.
Rest of the game was me being slowly chewed apart from multiple angles, my one chance to salvage some dignity saw my Spitfire-armed Myrmidon being critted by the Total Reaction Q-drone.
Post
7 - 0 Loss, if Graham had taken a TAG, then it would easily have been 10-0 to him. Throughout the game Graham did compliment my Deployment, saying how defensive it was and a good example of castling. Coming from him, that's a real compliment indeed. Graham went on to win the tournament, so there's not too much shame to losing to the overall winner.
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| I finished the Minesweeping 8pt Baggage Bot just in time for the Tournament, In true new model style it was the first thing to die. |
Game Three - Firefight
Pre
I think it's fair to say that most people like to end with a mission of this nature. Not too much to think about... get on and kill. For this mission I purposefully took a different list. I wanted to make sure I benefited from the removal of the Aerial Deployment restriction. I was playing Joe (also playing Combined Army).
The Game
Three out of three, I won the LT WIP-off and once again I chose Deployment and made us switch sides. I had a Myrmidon Link with Phoenix and two Chain Rifle-armed Myrmidons. A second Link of Thorakitai, led by Thrasymedes and containing my favourite troop profile - a Thorakitai with Feuerbach. Lastly there were two Netrods.
Turn One. After losing an Impetuous Witch Soldier to Phoenix's Heavy Rocket Launcher, Joe's Charontid made mincemeat of the Myrmidon link team, shooting his HMG through Smoke. The lack of Sixth Sense was sorely felt.
My Turn One. Loss of Lieutenant is not a comfortable place to be, I thought I was looking at a three-loss tournament. I spent four Orders and four Command Tokens making each Order Regular. They all went on the Thorakitai link team. The Feuerbach took out the Charontid, a Daturazi (I think) and an Imetron.
Turn Two saw Bit WIP a Panoply and grab a MULTI Sniper Rifle, nice. Nonetheless, the Feuerbach Thorakitai won the subsequent shootout.
My Turn Two. With a Lieutenant in place and six Orders, it was time to play my trump card. On came Diomedes right behind Joe's army out of LOF. It was a rampage, starting with an Ikadron, then an Imetron, Doctor Worm, another Ikadron and something else but I forget what.
Joe's Turn Three. With his remaining trooper, a Daturazi, he came up the stairs to get my Thorakitai with his Chain Rifle. I Dodged, which kept Thrasymedes alive, but lost me a standard Thorakitai. In return, Diomedes went Super-Jumping from building to building, shot the remaining Daturazi and got into Zone-of-Control of the HVT.
Post
8 - 1 WIN for me... yay!
Perhaps exposing my Lieutenant without my usual Chain-of-Command for backup was silly. The Feuerbach/Diomedes combo really saved my bacon!
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| My final ALEPH model painted |
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| Looking forward to using this in conjunction with Diomedes. |
Final Result
I finished 9th out of 14, so about par for me, I did win the Best Painted competition which was nice although I'm sure everyone is bored silly of seeing my Steel Phalanx.
Overall it was a great tournament, my opponents all played clean games, I didn't once think anyone was over measuring, taking more orders than they should or "accidentally" get their stats wrong.
I also spent a bit of money on some new miniatures, so look out for a new army soon.
Winner Dave
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