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200pts. from Caledonian Highlander Army Starter

Discussion in 'Ariadna' started by Wolf, Mar 31, 2018.

  1. Wolf

    Wolf https://youtube.com/@StudioWatchwolf

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    Perhaps an obvious situation and a readily answered question, I thought to post it here for the record.

    A friend of mine is a very good painter and just bought the Caledonian Highlander Army Starter Box because he wants to have a go at their tartan kilts! (Which I guess it what you do after the challenge of painting Eldar Harlequins has faded for you, right? :smile:) and I'd like to give him some options to get to 200 points.

    We play a Starter Box league for casual pickup games to support beginners, and ITS missions at 200 points intended as an escalation from the Starter - add a couple of models in; maybe take something out; play ITS.

    The provisos are to minimize additions and cost, be more straightforward in play, and be the most challenging and interesting to paint. Without needing an exhaustive list of competitive ITS builds, can we get a couple of suggestions for obvious add-ins to get him from the Starter to 200 points, please?
     
    #1 Wolf, Mar 31, 2018
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2018
  2. Wolf

    Wolf https://youtube.com/@StudioWatchwolf

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    The units are entirely unfamiliar to me, and the names in Army slightly different, but I believe the box is
    3 x Volunteers
    1 x Caledonian Mormaer
    1 x 3rd Highlander (Grey) Rifle
    1 x 9th Wulver (Grenadier)
     
  3. Alkasyn

    Alkasyn Well-Known Member

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    Uxia McNeill is an obvious choice.

    Any other SAS too as they are camo Specialists.

    Wallace is also very often picked, as are 45th Galvegians, Cameronians, Cateran, and Scots Guard. That's what I'd go for.
     
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  4. cazboab

    cazboab Definitely not Cazboaz.

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    To be a bit more specific, the starter pack is:
    1 volunteer paramedic (10)
    2 volunteers with rifles (8x2=16)
    1 mormaer with T2 rifle (33)
    1 Wulver with T2 rifle (33)
    1 Grey with T2 rifle (33)
    Coming in at 125 points.
    For interesting things to paint on the way to a competent list, and further Ariadna sectorials later, luckily for us we get a fireman, a construction worker and an IT consultant in every sectorial and vanilla, so the first things to add to any Ariadna collection are:
    A 112 emergency service (12)
    A Dozer rifle (13)
    A Wardriver (19)
    The wardriver isn't actually available yet, but it's on the way, until then any of the LI hacker minis from any faction with no weapon shown or any LI with a boarding shotgun will fit the bill, and the mercenary nature means A it's a break from painting tartan, and B you'll have it in your collection if you branch out into the NA2 lists.
    They'll bring you up to 169, leaving 31 points and 1 trooper in the first combat group. Which giant murderous furball fits into that...
    McMurrough (31)
    Same as the wardriver, he's available in a few other lists, and painting ginger fur is pretty challenging and interesting...
    This list will be able to push buttons, but with the abundance of T2 and the fuzzy death machine it can knock some pretty big holes in the other guys...
     
  5. Alkasyn

    Alkasyn Well-Known Member

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    I'd skip the wardriver honestly, it's a waste of points for Ariadna. True, you're missing out on some Classifieds, but there's much better things to take. After all, if you kill the enemy, they won't do their mission anyway.
     
  6. AkiPL

    AkiPL Active Member

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    I would try with something like this:

    [​IMG] Caledonian Highlander Army
    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────
    [​IMG]9
    [​IMG] HIGHLANDER GREY AP HMG, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, CCW. (1.5 | 34)
    [​IMG] ISOBEL McGREGOR T2 Rifle, Flash Pulse, D-Charges, E/Mauler / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 26)
    [​IMG] VOLUNTEER Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 6)
    [​IMG] VOLUNTEER Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 6)
    [​IMG] VOLUNTEER Paramedic (Medikit) Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
    [​IMG] HIGHLANDER GREY T2 Boarding Shotgun, Grenades, Smoke Grenades, D-Charges / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 25)
    [​IMG] CALEDONIAN MORMAER Lieutenant (X Visor) T2 Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 33)
    [​IMG] UXÍA McNEILL (Covert Action) (CH: Limited Camouflage, Superior Infiltration, Specialist Operative) Boarding Shotgun, D-Charges, Smoke Grenades / 2 Assault Pistols, AP CCW, Knife. (0 | 27)
    [​IMG] WULVER T2 Rifle, Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 33)
    2 SWC | 200 Points
    Open in Infinity Army


    I know it is not full 10 orders on 200pts, but you have one full 5-man link with quite devastating punch, basicly on any range from 0 to 32 inches.
    My choices are:
    -> Uxia
    -> Isobel
    -> Grey AP HMG
    and you made few downgrades:
    -> Grey from starter is changed to T2 Boarding Shotgun one
    -> Volunteers with Rifle change to Chain Rifles

    as alternative:
    get a box of Volunteers, so you could place HMG Volunteer and additional one with Chain Rifle instead of Isobel (to get full 10 orders)
     
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  7. Wolf

    Wolf https://youtube.com/@StudioWatchwolf

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    @AkiPL Great reply, thanks.

    It might be worth pointing out the friend has played not a single game of Infinity yet, and therefore didn't have any particular interest in the Sectorial in terms of how it would play, but because he was interested in painting the models.

    So the natural assumption that he'd play the army with a Fire Team doesn't quite follow. He is a lifelong 40K player, so squad movement isn't necessarily problematic, but I'm not convinced about Fire Teams for beginners generally.

    There was an evening at last year's Interplanetario when a few debated this topic with one of the CB Directors. One side suggested that Sectorials are easier for beginners - because there are less units and profiles to choose from, but the Director suggested it was harder because of the difficulty of manouevring multiple models.

    I was much less experienced at the time, and was in agreement that Sectorials were preferable because of the easier army choices. Now I've played regularly for another 9 months, I'm kind of inclined to the CB party line that 'vanilla' play is easier to pick up.

    I just think it might be more fragile as a strategy for beginning players. If you can make it work, it'll pay off, but if you make a misstep, the cost could be greater than it otherwise might be.

    This threatens to be off-topic, but it's not-unrelated to the thread, so I'm interested to know what people think of the pro.s and cons in respect of Fireteams for a beginning Caledonian player?
     
    #7 Wolf, Apr 1, 2018
    Last edited: Apr 1, 2018
  8. Wombat85

    Wombat85 Well-Known Member

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    Caledonians were the first army I picked up, and frankly abandoned after a few months. The thing with the sectoral is that it really only has one play style that works, and forcing it to be anything else is just a self imposed handycap. If his playstyle just happens to match, great, otherwise I can see he will get quickly frustrated wishing for the sectoral to be seomthing it isnt.
     
  9. Wolf

    Wolf https://youtube.com/@StudioWatchwolf

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    Interesting post, Wombat, thanks. So what is the play style that works best for them; is there a general consensus?
     
  10. cazboab

    cazboab Definitely not Cazboaz.

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    What works best is murder. Kill the merciful crap out of the other guy, buttons can be pushed, but CHA's main shtick is :
    [​IMG]
    Kill stuff, push a few buttons, kill everything else.
    There are builds that can get objectives done, with a minimum of murder, but mostly you'll not need anything from the starter box for those, though you'll probably want a lot of camo markers for the SAS and Scots Guards to hide under...
     
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  11. Captain927

    Captain927 Shotguns and Scotch Runs.

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    The Caledonians are also my first Infinity army. I have yet to play a game. My rationale for picking them was I liked the look of them over all of the other Caledonian sectorials, the painting is varied, challenging, and will look sharp on the table, and they seemed to be the most straight forward. On top of learning the game rules, I didn't want to have to learn in depth hacking rules. I have some USARF as well, but they'll stay in the box til the Caledonians are all painted up.

    I can understand their limitations, but I'm looking forward to playing them.
     
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  12. macfergusson

    macfergusson Van Zant is my spirit animal.

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    I'm basically going to spout off my standard spiel here, I love CHA as a sectorial but they can struggle a bit to compete in ITS style games. They do multiple fireteams the best out of anyone in Ariadna IMO, but I wholeheartedly agree that Fireteam mechanics are not something that a beginner should start with. They are powerful, but have inherent weaknesses (which is why they don't dominate the game balance), and a new player will often struggle with not leaning on those Fireteam bonuses as a crutch, while suffering from deployment struggles and movement of 5 models at once.

    As with everything else in this game, YMMV. If learning on Fireteams worked for you and you're now a top-tier player, great. I think you're probably in the minority though. ;)

    As for specific models, a lot has been mentioned already. My go-to list of models to consider off the top of my head would definitely look similar. Also, agreed with ignoring Wardrivers completely. Personally I think they're a waste of space.

    • Uxia - aggressive alpha strike or specialist with D/Charges, apply as needed
    • Cateran - T2 Snipers scare everyone. You can use multiple of these if your terrain has lots of fire lanes.
    • Isobel - T2 rifle and a button pusher. Good for mid-range in a Volunteer link. Combine with:
    • Greys - HMG Grey in a Volunteer link as your primary weapon/aggressive piece. This covers your longer range band, where Isobel falls short.
    • Volunteers - almost all Chain Rifles. 6 point regular orders make list building very smooth. In the aforementioned fireteam core, they cover the short range shooting with piles of teardrop templates pointing in every direction.
    • Wulvers - Another linkable option, Haris or Core. Wallace + 4 Wulvers doesn't see as much play as I would like, but with or without Wallace they are incredibly durable and perform admirably in the mid-field control if you can get them into position. Don't forget that high PH when spec-shotting grenades.
    • SAS - A bit pricey compared to our normal camo/infiltrating specialist options, but they come with some nice perks for CC problem solving because of that point cost.
    • Mormaers - A controversial pick, but I love 'em. Haris HMG Morm + T2 rifle Morm + cheap shotgun/smoke Grey. You can run this and the famous volunter fireteam core in the same list.
    • Scots Guards - Duo specialist gives you some order efficiency. Excellent for missions like Biotechvore where you want EVERYONE to move up the field on first turn. Also look at camo Missile Launcher for fun ways to mess with your opponent's head.
     
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  13. Barrogh

    Barrogh Well-Known Member

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    I would like to say that link rules aren't so hard to wrap head around, it's just harder to figure out how not to feed your links to opponents.

    I do think it's worth it jumping in with them when it comes to CHA for two reasons:

    1) CHA is Ariadna's JSA, in a sense that there's very little overlap between CHA and vanilla list building aside from a couple of volunteers and Uxia you will likely encounter in vanilla lists pretty often. If you like CHA and its style/models specifically and as such you don't feel like getting a lot of non-CHA models, you will likely have a bad time using what you have per vanilla rules.

    2) CHA doesn't necessary require you to know how to play midfield links, which is I think the most challenging thing about using fireteams in practice. Their "firebase" of Grey HMG + volunteer "minefield" is one of the simplest things of its type IMO, and it's quite effective for what it is supposed to do, which is mostly shoot stuff from your DZ. So, basically, don't be afraid here.
     
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  14. Wolf

    Wolf https://youtube.com/@StudioWatchwolf

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    Update: so the CHA Guy turned up at the showroom this evening; we played a foreshortened YAMS, and he managed to beat me 3:2

    Obviously, he’s been banned for ... ‘unsporting beviour’ ie. being a precocious git, and painting half his models in the week since he picked up the box.

    Stupid game this; I’ve always said so.
     
  15. Captain927

    Captain927 Shotguns and Scotch Runs.

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    Never underestimate a Scot.
     
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  16. Wolf

    Wolf https://youtube.com/@StudioWatchwolf

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    In fact, my (Scott) family motto is "It's never too late", and has been regularly used as a rallying cry throughout my life.
    Give my exam results, I presume the virtue was to encourage relentless optimism, rather than academic excellence...:cry:
     
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  17. Wolf

    Wolf https://youtube.com/@StudioWatchwolf

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    Well, I was delighted that he transitioned from WH40K to Infinity so effortlessly and effectively, but as currently a Morat player, I have to point out that skulking around in Marker State behind buildings is hardly the behaviour expected of fine kilted warriors!
    The reason we Morat work with sneaky Shavasti bastards towards the goal of transcendence is because it's not concomitant with heroism, valour and honest, decent stand-up fighting in general. Marker State my red arse!
     
  18. Barrogh

    Barrogh Well-Known Member

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    Is this for real?
    Reminds me of butthurt local 40k community who banned a guy for reading and applying rules...
     
  19. Wolf

    Wolf https://youtube.com/@StudioWatchwolf

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    Yes, he's managed to put the first coats on one, and to prime and base all the others in 6 days flat. He's also following this thread (but hasn't yet registered) and read all the background fluff for the Caledonians. All this in the week he started a new job!

    A keen hobbyist and a decent bloke - find me a dozen more and the business might still be here next year! :smile:

    I didn't really ban him of course, but we do know a guy who got exactly that treatment from another group.
     
  20. Barrogh

    Barrogh Well-Known Member

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    Oh, I was mostly talking about that ban part. Because, as you can see, I've seen some weird stuff coming from communities and thus Poe's law kicks in...

    Well, I was hoping it was tongue-in-cheek, this time at least.

    Anyway, props to your friend, these were quite the feats.
     
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