Salt Lake Showdown with NCA

Thought I might as well do a quick salt lake Showdown recap from this past weekend. I managed to place 4th overall with NCA. Here are my games:

Game 1 - bakunin 10-0 Mindwipe
Game 2 - corregidor 2-7 Unmasking
Game 3 - tunguska 6-4 Aquisition
Game 4 - vanilla combined 10-0 Frontline
Game 5 - vanilla nomads 10-1 Firefight

Used this list for mindwipe:

aBluZW90ZXJyYW4tY2FwaXRhbGluZS1hcm15DVNMIE9iamVjdGl2ZSCBLAIBBwEEAQoAAgQBBQADBAEHAAQEAQkABQ8BBAAGFgEDAAeF0wEBAAIIAQUBAwACheEBAQADAQEJAAQkAQEABRYBAQAGEwEBAAcTAQEACBMBAQA=

And this for all the others:

aBluZW90ZXJyYW4tY2FwaXRhbGluZS1hcm15BlNMIE1TVoEsAgEHAQQBCgACBAEFAAMEAQcABAQBCQAFDwEEAAYWAQMAB4XTAQEAAggBCAEFAAIBAQkAA3oBAQAEJAEBAAUWAQEABhMBAQAHEwEBAAgTAQEA

Basically I fought all the flavors of nomads and then some combined along the way. It was a great weekend with all 5 being great games against great opponents.

 

Uma was a extremely useful piece in all my games. She either did the objective late game when no one else could or I used her as a scalpel piece and removed crucial units. As for the amount of nomads at the event there were 1 vanilla, 2 tunguska, 2 corregidor, and 1 bakunin.

 

Sure! The bolt hacker was mostly there to help cover all the possible cards I could draw from the classified deck. He did occasionally throw out some spotlights through the peacemaker and did get in a hacking fight with Mary through the peacemaker in reactive and was surprisingly durable taking a few orders to drop him. There were alot of regular hackers(mostly for spotlight and dealing with heavier targets like HI and TAGS) and not so many killer hackers in most of the lists I fought over the weekend and when that's the case he's a pain to deal with since he's veteran and usually through the repeater on the peacemaker makes him a headache to break through with a normal hacking device.

 

Game 1 mindwipe was rough for my opponent. My opponent had brought a core and haris of custodiers that mixed in kusanagi, moiras and reverend healers and I had brought the objective list and was going first. My first turn the bolt sniper killed the sniper and hmg moira who were left out for aro. Uma pushed the button and put the ai in a console and then the rest of the turn was the peacemaker killing a decoy LT moderator and the enemy uberhacker. My opponent struck back killing the peacemaker and bolt sniper with their turn advancing towards the middle console. Turn 2 for me was brutal. I revived the sniper and took down most of the core with my bolts and hmg haris. My opponents turn 3 was setting up some resistance to stop me from getting to the ai server but my Turn 3 was just me walking over to the console and hitting it after removing those defenses getting me the win 10-0.

Game 2 was unmaksing and a close game against corregidor. He was playing a pretty standard corregidor list that had a jaguar core with senor Massacre, jazz and Billie, some moran, mcmurrough, an intruder, carlota and a hellcat. He went first and moved up to hit buttons and discover who was the real hvt was taking a guess and getting it wrong. My turn 1 was the haris team running up and fighting his core team trading my fusilier and csu for most of the jaguars and a moran and the bolt core took out an intruder hmg who got left out. Turn 2 he sent mcmurrough off to do things. He hilariously ate about 7 sniper rounds from the bolt core and lived while also killing uma. Then carlota showed up and shot my peacemaker and hvt in the back and tanked a flamethrower from an auxilia. My turn 2 I shot mcmurrough again who tanked 3 more sniper shots and went prone then moved up to kill carlota and move up the table to make some progress doing the mission. I also mopped up the rest of the core with the aquila guard. His turn 3 he brings in the hellcat and kills the correct hvt and puts the aquila in a bad spot being watched on a wound. My turn 3 was the auxilia LT shooting the hellcat killing him freeing up the aquila to go push the button but ran out of orders to kill the hvt next to him. The core pushes another button guessing the correct one but on the last order to shoot the hvt he crits the stun pistol ending the game in a loss 2-7.

Game 3 was aquisition and another close game. It was tunguska and he was playing a securitate core with a grenzer and interventor mixed in, a hollow men haris with the hacker, Krizia and Perseus, Mary problems, a Puppet master hacker and I think a war cor. I played my msv list. He won roll off and went first. He starts by moving up on my peacemaker and trying to hack the bolt hacker in the core. He spent probably 4 orders going back and forth with the bolt hacker before eventually killing him with trinity. From there he immobilized and killed the peacemaker. Then he moved the Krizia to see the sniper and killed him outright. I was in a bad spot turn 1 but moving into my turn 1 I sent the haris to deal with Mary putting her unconscious and then went to fight the grenzer who won one of the fight putting a wound on the aquila. From there I sent the bolt spitfire in a 3 man who eventually put the Krizia unconscious and dropped a hollowmen as well. His turn 2 he revived the Krizia with a paramedic shot from the core and sent Perseus after the aquila haris. He picked up the csu and fusilier but the aquila got away. My turn 2 I put down the Krizia again with the bolt spitfire and moved up an auxilia to try and deal with the middle of the table but he died fighting a securitate and the aquila wasted many order shooting at Perseus who tanked all the saves and went prone. Aquila goes into suppressive and we go to turn 3. He sends Perseus to kill the bolt spitfire but loses and finally dies. Then the grenzer comes to see the bolt spitfire and kills him. Then he wakes his Krizia up again parks himself on the middle with one wound in suppressive. My turn 3 comes and Uma finally crawls down from the building she's been hiding on to hit and control the right console. The aquila hits the left console and tries to get in extremis on Mary but fails on a 17. I move a fugazi to hold the left console and send the aquila to kill the Krizia. He spends the rest of his orders shooting at the Krizia but he will not die ending the game 6-4.

Game 4 was Frontline against combined. My opponent had brought a sphinx and combined good stuff. I brought msv list again. He won the roll off and went first. His first turn he sent the sphinx up the table fighting the fugazi bots killing 1 of the 2 he fought and then fought the bolt sniper eventually dropping him but leaving the sphinx exposed. My turn 1 I sent uma to remove a haiduk and get behind the sphinx dropping a em mine behind it and revived the bolt sniper re linking a 5 man. The peacemaker was sent to trade with the speculo who showed up outside my deployment and then the aquila shot at the sphinx who dodged and ate 3 ap marksman shots and an em mine leaving him isolated, immobilized and wounded. I continued to shoot at the sphinx dropping it to double unconscious knowing a caliban was somewhere. His turn 2 was spent dealing with uma and fixing up the sphinx but ended up leaving the sphinx in LOS of the bolt with the caliban just out of sight. My turn 2 was finishing off the sphinx and taking out the caliban. Then the core moved up fixing the peacemaker getting test run and settling in a good spot for the sniper. The peacemaker I revived went to trade with the only threat to my core which was a taiga on the right flank. Then the aquila killed the other tiaga and daturazi. Turn 3 my opponent tried to move out but got shot down by the bolt sniper giving me run of the table turn 3 getting all my classified and controlling all the zones getting me the win 10-0

Game 5 was firefight against vanilla nomads. He won the roll off and decided to go first. I found a good spot for the sniper and picked that side. Turn 1 he sent Mary problems and a zondnautica after my core. The Zaundnautica ran into auxbots and ended up trading the bike for an auxbot but couldnt make any more progress due to the auxilia on that flank and his auxbot. Mary tried hacking the bolt hacker through a fugazi repeater and wasted alot of orders to no avail. Turn 1 for me was cleaning up Mary with an auxilia and taking out the zondnautica with my peacemaker. Then moving the auxilia up to kill a moran and eat a crazy koala clearing the way for uma who got in position to jump his lt next turn. His turn 2 he ran a evader spitfire all the way across the map who took a fight inside 16 with the spitfire against the bolt sniper. The bolt sniper won the fight and killed the evader. My turn 2 was Uma assassinating the interventor and getting some classifieds done and pulling from the boxes with the haris who also picked up a zero minelayer along the way. From here the game was pretty much over with my opponent being in loss but he did manage to score a classified while in loss ending the game 10-1.

 

I mean they were average most of the time. Shooting 2 dice in a 5 man core or 4 man core if I'm trying to revive the bolt sniper and hitting twice with a medikit and only having to pass one of the two physical rolls is pretty good odds and probably better than a doctor in some cases and definetly better than a trauma doc.

 

I think the msv list is perfectly fine for the missions it needed to be able to do and I felt well equipped to deal with whatever an opponent threw at me and I dont think I'd change it at all. The mindwipe list was fine for the mission. It wasn't an amazing list for it but I think that's more because of our limited tools to do these types of missions in NCA rather than the list itself.

 

NCA can absolutely play without a bolt core. Fusiliers are still great for how cheap they are and can be reasonable gunfighters with BS12 and some core bonuses. They also allow you to get some of our expensive but powerful units like the uhlan, squalo, aquila and swiss guard while still hitting 15 orders.