Colder than Carbonite 2018 - Nomads

We had a 40 person 2-day event up here in cold and snowy Edmonton. I took vanilla Nomads. I found the 2 hour time limit for games (I'm a new player) very tight so only took pictures of the terrain at the start, I unfortunately didn't have time for pictures during the game itself!

List 1:
Nomads
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GROUP 1 10
INTRUDER HMG, Grenades / Pistol, CCW. (1.5 | 42)
INTRUDER HMG, Grenades / Pistol, CCW. (1.5 | 42)
SIN-EATER Mk12 / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 30)
INTERVENTOR Hacker (Hacking Device Plus) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 25)
MORAN (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, CrazyKoalas (2) / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 22)
TOMCAT Engineer Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22)
DAKTARI Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
ALGUACIL Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 10)
JAGUAR Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 10)
JAGUAR Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 10)
ZONDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)

GROUP 2 3 2 2
ZERO Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 24)
ZERO Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 21)
JAGUAR Adhesive Launcher, Panzerfaust / Pistol, DA CCW. (0.5 | 13)
MORLOCK Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 6)
MORLOCK Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 6)

6 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

Game plan here was to abuse the Intruders against anything without adequate visors. The Zeros, Moran and Tomcats were for grabbing objectives and the occasional juicy shot. I've had much more success with the MK12 sineater than HMG in practice games - I think the lesser weapon forces me to be much more careful in placing him. I took the Alguacile lieutenant rather than the Interventor as one of the missions is Transmission Matrix, plus I have no remotes for easy supportware lieutenant orders.

List 2:
Nomads
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9 1
KRIZA BORAC HMG / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (2 | 54)
GECKO Mk12, Chain-colt, Blitzen / . (0.5 | 54)
GECKO PILOT 2 Assault Pistols, Knife. ()
INTRUDER Lieutenant Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, Grenades / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 35)
TSYKLON Feuerbach, Pitcher / Electric Pulse. (1 | 34)
INTERVENTOR Hacker (Hacking Device Plus) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 24)
BANDIT Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Light Shotgun, Adhesive Launcher / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 25)
TOMCAT Engineer Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22)
MORAN Boarding Shotgun, CrazyKoalas (2) / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 20)
ZERO (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 19)
JAGUAR Adhesive Launcher, Panzerfaust / Pistol, DA CCW. (0.5 | 13)

5.5 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

This was more of a "for fun" list that I was thinking of using for Firefight only. Also it gave me an opportunity to show off some more models between games. The Intruder and Gecko should be hard-to-kill lieutenant and data trackers, respectively, while the Kriza, Sputnik and Tomcat (great AD options in Firefight) give me options for active turn killing. The Bandit is in there for an convenient panoply grabber and KHD.

Quick picture below. More images of the army progress at the link below:

https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/superds-nomads.1282/



Lots and lots of great looking tables at the event. The three I provided are below. I didn't play on them - I get more than enough time at home!


Game 1 versus Morats on Safe Area.

I've played against this opponent a few times in the last couple months. He's taken the last few games so I was looking forward to a rematch. Great first opponent to start out a 2-day tournament.

He had roughly - 5 man core of Rodoks, 5 man core of Hungries, Bit&Kiss, Doctor Worm, Reaction Remote, 1 Daturazi and 2 Zerats (1 FO and 1 AHD).

Morat's won the roll and chose to go first. The board terrain was uneven with 2 big opens areas and 2 big dense areas. I know his list didn't have visors so I set up half the morlocks/jaguars in total cover and half with a slight sight line to the Daturazi/Hungries in hopes of getting an early smoke ARO.

The intruders set up on either side and the Sineater parked on the far left - he doesn't want to to go face to face against the Rodoks and I hoped his threat would funnel the hungries into the middle. The zeros parked back a little bit to avoid getting over-run by hungries. The moran I deployed up a bit which was a mistake - I was hoping his koalas would also encourage the hungries to go down the middle.



The morats go first and the Datarzi triggers a smoke ARO on the left. The Zerat turns out to have a boarding shotgun and inches prone along a concrete barricade, dodges the koalas then bumps off the Moran after 3 orders - my mistake exposing him! The hungries start rushing up and dodge a couple of early shots from the Intruder on that side. They funnel into the middle to avoid the Sineater but at this point both Intruders can ARO - fortunately for the Morats, they aren't hitting anything. At one point, an Intruder AROs with a grenade to hit three but all of them tank their saves.

At this point, they over-extend on their last order with a move-move. Their plan was to put an exploding hungry right in the middle of my guys (touching a jaguar, zero and interventor) but both zeroes took the opportunity to expose themselves and drop mines. However, they have finished their turn, effectively trapping the mid-field with a bunch of dogged chainrifles...

The Rodoks then start to move up but they are careful to only expose the HMG link leader. The intruders decline to ARO and they spend 5-6 orders to push into the mid-board and stay put but don't inflict any damage.

The Nomads are now ready to go after a successful defense - no models lost other than the Moran but there are hungry Hungries right at the front door. The morlocks (starting from total cover) drop smoke on the roof edge within sight. I mis-judged one and she ran too close but she took a second order and nailed a spec fired grenade on the roof top. The Intruder on the right is in chain rifle range so declines to move but the one on the left goes to work - he drops the Reaction remote then starts in on the hungries. They dodge his first order but the mine takes out 1 (shock removing the explosion) and the controller. He then picks off the remaining three but the dogged takes a few extra orders to do it. I think the second mine may have killed one of those as well.

With the few remaining orders in Group 1, the Intruder on the right then activates and drops the boarding shotgun (the datatracker) first, then the HMG rodok. It was a bit risky to take on the HMG while he still has sixth sense but there was no one else out of total cover. The remaining orders in Group 2 re-camo the Zeros.

The Morats start Turn 2 and the Datarzi is ARO'd and killed on his impetuous order. The Rodok missile launcher activates next and shoots at the Intruder on the left. I was feeling a little too brave after the successful first turn and didn't bother to re-camo trusting in the nearby jaguar to smoke on ARO (he missed). The Intruder eats the missile and explodes. The Intruder on the right is re-smoked by his accompanying jaguar on his ARO. There's nothing left out of total cover for the Morats to shoot so he spends his remaining orders positioning Bit and Doctor Worm for control of the consoles. The Zerats stay put as they are both covered in ARO by the Intruder. At this point, time was called but we elected to play into lunch a bit and I bombed through my second turn in a rush without really thinking about it. Orders and dice were flying everywhere, I think I did the turn in less than 10 minutes!

The 3 Rodoks were facing away from the board edge so the Tomcat came in for a flame attempt. I hoped he'd succeed which would give me a specialist in a great spot. One of the Rodoks passed his change facing. The tomcat flamed all three but they tank their armor and he then died to the return fire from the one Rodok. The remaining intruder had a sight line on the rodoks so I probably should've started with him first. He took out 2 of the remaining three before the last guy dodged into total cover.

The zero KHD and AHD then ran up to grab their nearby consoles. The Zero AHD managed to shoot Doctor Worm on his way in, denying the Morats one console, and hack the nearby HVT for an easy classified. A jaguar on the left was my datatracker and he moved up a few inches to dominate that quadrant.

End score after 2 turns was a tie on quadrants but I have a datatracker dominating one, 2 consoles and a classified for a 6-3. The morats may have had a classified as well for 6-4... can't remember. Most of the Nomads are untouched except the Moran and one Intruder while the Morats are left with only a single Rodok, Bit and the two Zerats.

Final thoughts:
- Huge work done by Intruders, in both active and reactive turn. This match really helped them out in the obvious way (no enemy visors) but also because the terrain had several large openings and was easy to set up over-lapping lanes of fire from right to left. For warband protection, it's very important one Intruder can support the other up tight so that you don't need to risk activating in chain rifle range.
- Need to be more careful where I place my morlocks in relation to the Intruders if they are on ground level to ensure the smoke covers them to avoid wasted orders reaching smoke before exposing. Fortunately, spec fire rolls were lucky to cover those errors. Part of the problem is I try to start them far enough behind a building so they don't eat an ARO but there's a balancing part to it to ensure their smoke is still effective.
- The Sineater didn't fire a single shot. I suppose he did his work (encouraging the hungries to run down the middle). Part of the problem is that the MK12 version is very, very scared of linked HMGs so I was very cautious with his placement.
- The Zero specialists were great, requiring only a few orders to reach their consoles and the camo/mines were huge assets in the two fights they needed (mine against hungry, dropping doctor worm). Very helpful putting them both in group 2 - the 3 regular orders in that group was just right for them. I think I used a command token to move one over after the Moran bit it, can't remember...
- The Tomcat was disappointing. Probably not a good idea to pit him against 3 Rodoks, even though their backs were turned, I should've kept softening the link with the intruder but the opportunity to flame 3 of them in a single order was too tempting. He would probably have served better purpose coming up on the far left after the reaction remote was dead, killing Kiss then taking that console.
- The Daktari and Interventor just sat in the backfield. Didn't really feel the need to use them this game.
- The Jaguar panzerfaust may have hit a hungry with an explosive? I don't remember, I placed him fairly conservatively and near the Sineater to avoid face-to-faces with the link which meant he had limited impact. His line of sight was mostly limited to my deployment zone with all the buildings around him. I probably didn't need to double down so hard on encouraging the hungries into the middle with the Sineater, Jaguar and Moran all lined up on left board side.

Regardless, very fun game against a great opponent! We were both a little disappointed to only get 2 rounds (and barely at that) but it was the first game so we needed to get into the rhythm of it.

Games 2-5 to come...

One of the few pictures I took... the Intruder watches on as the Hungries pour down the middle of the board. His friendly Jaguar had a sneaky site line for a smoke ARO.

 

Game 2 was Supplies against a Haqqislam Sectorial. My classified was HVT: designation.

I've never played against Haq before so didn't really know the names of things. It was roughly a 15-16 order list with a core link team of light infantry, a Haris link of shotgun guys and a doctor, an impersonation marker with superior infiltration, 4 or so Mutts, reaction remote then a bunch of support dudes (doctors, engineers).

The main point of interest was - no visors, again. The intruders are clearly back out to play here as well, especially given how open the map is. There was a big building in the middle but otherwise clear firelanes from deployment zone to deployment zone around it. I won the roll and chose to go first.

One intruder went on either side of the building and the Sineater buried on the far right side where had had a line of sight to one of the objectives but couldn't see anything else past 18-20". The zeroes set up by the left and center objectives. The Moran was the reserve model and set up by the HVT for an easy classified using the interventor.

He set up his link teams in two buildings in his zone but left quite a few people out of total cover, ready to ARO. There was a worrying moment where he almost placed his superior infiltrating impersonation marker right beside my lieutenant but elected to put it in the middle, behind the red crate, to counter my zeros instead.

This was a relatively short game with clear lines of fire and no visors. The Intruders shot stuff, alot. There were sufficient weaker members of the link teams exposed they could kill them first and remove bonuses before going after the heavy weapons. The zero on the left went for the supply crate. His impersonation marker revealed to ARO but the Zero beat him down! Unfortunately, the zero then got nailed by a rifle across the board I hadn't noticed as he went for his WIP roll.

On his first turn, most of the Mutts got shot on their impetuous orders (two by the Sineater!) and there were attempts to heal a few members of the link team and shuffle parts of the list up the map.

On the second turn, the Daktari ran up to heal the fallen Zero and succeeded. As I had more orders left in group 2 by that point, the Zero then grabbed the supply crate. The Intruders had finished killing most of the opposing models and we mis-played the rules for retreat and played a third turn afterwards where the other two crates were grabbed. After lunch, we rolled a dice to determine if we should keep the result as played or if we should revert to the second turn result. The dice said to keep the result - 10-1 for the Nomads.

My opponent was an even newer player than me so I think he under-estimated how dangerous the Intruders could be to ARO pieces they can isolate with smoke. Regardless, he rolled with the damage they did with a great attitude, top notch gentleman!

Game 3 versus Bakunin on Transmission Matrix.

Oooh boy, hackers, everywhere! I was thinking about playing with List 2 for this scenario but after drawing another Nomad opponent, that was clearly not a good idea... the Intruders were back out for round 3. The lack of visors continued to be helpful!

He had a Core link of moderators, 2 Sineaters, Reaction remote, Custodier, 4 Morlocks, 2 Zeroes (1 KHD, 1 Minelayer), Daktari and Clockmaker. He won the roll and chose deployment. I was okay going first as this way I might get easy points on the designed target. My classified was Retro-engineering and I didn't even bother with it as I planned to kill the HVT anyways. I found out on a later round that Retro-engineering isn't even in the game anymore!

The table was card terrain which was very deceptive for line of sight. As everything was exactly the same height, it was very difficult to trace line of sight anywhere. There were a few good lanes diagonally across the board but lots and lots of total cover in any other direction, especially for prone models.

There were quite a few opportunities where I thought I had lined up a shot only to realize I couldn't see once I got really close to the model. It was a little frustrating trying to figure out and I wasted a bunch of orders/AROs on trying to set up shots that didn't have LoS after further scrutiny. Lesson learned - make sure terrain set-ups have varying levels of elevation!

We only played two turns on this one partially because we had to slow down so often to try to puzzle out who could see. The other reason is that I'm not a fast player (yet) and he was a very good opponent and set up a bunch of great traps that took a while to puzzle through.

I set up each Intruder on each flank, the Zero KHD right on top of the center objective and the Zero AHD on a building just to the right of it. I wanted to use him to go after the console in the Bakunin deployment zone on the right, rather than contesting the middle. The Sineater set up in the middle of the board, behind a crate where he could see everything up to the middle along the left side, including the center objective. The Jaguars and Daktari stayed back and held the two consoles in my deployment zone.

Bakunin countered with two (!) camo tokens both on my Zero KHD with a third token at the stairs beneath the building. I didn't know which one was a mine but after the game, he let me know that mines can't be deployed by camo markers so it should have obviously been the one by the stairs.

His moderator link took up one building with Sineater HMG nearby and the Sineater MK12 and Reaction HMG on the right. His 4 morlocks were spread out across the board. His HVT was on the right flank so I used my reserve Moran as datatracker and set up close to it. I don't remember what his reserve was.



First turn the Intruder on the left shot the Moderator sniper left up to ARO. There were no weaker members left open to kill first so it's always a little risky but with two Intruders it feels acceptable to take. He tried to shoot the Sineater HMG on the left but we couldn't figure out line of fire with all the same height buildings.

The Intruder on the right climbed down from this building and shot the Sineater MK12 and left himself with a diagonal fire line across the board. With the two ARO pieces gone, the Moran was free to run up and plug the the designated target for an easy three points. The Interventor knocked his Custodior unconscious. I was fishing for his Zero KHD to expose himself but he didn't - I was happy enough with the hacking win as hacking can be risky without modifiers.

The Zero AHD had a shot on the Reaction remote out of cover within 16" so I took it as he'd be on 2s. I was hoping for an easy kill and a second attempt to draw out the Zero KHD. Unfortunately, the Reaction bot crit'ed on a 2 and my Zero dropped... but his Zero KHD had ARO'd as well. My Zero KHD then revealed himself and trinity-ed his Zero into oblivion. I think the Interventor may have been the smarter play as his second zero dropped a mine as ARO... I was just too excited for an opportunity to Trinity something.

Bakunin started their turn and the Morlocks impetuous orders trigged smoke AROs from my Morlocks to cover the Intruders. His paramedic tried to heal his sniper but failed the roll but his doctor successfully healed his custodier. The custodier and Interventor went through 3 FtF rolls but he didn't succeed. I think the Interventor may have won again and his doctor healed the custodier a second time...

His remaining Zero activated and tried to shoot my Zero KHD. The zero successfully engaged, dodging the shots and mine, lucky! Unfortunately, he had a great play in his pocket with a Morlock who rolled super jump. The morlock dodged an ARO from the Intruder on the left, then jumped on the building to kill my Zero in close combat. As he did, the Sineater killed him but it was too late. There was an opportunity for the Intruder on the right to have killed the morlock before he could get close but I'd been too cautious in setting up the firelane and didn't have the line of sight I thought I did.

On the right side, he blocked the Moran's advance with a Morlock hiding behind a building but didn't go further. On the left side, a second Morlock dodged two Intruder AROs and left himself within 10" of both my Morlock and the Intruder. And that was the end of the turn, he'd claimed the center objective but with the death of the Sineater MK12 on the right, he'd forgotten to claim that one so we were tied 1-1 as I had both in my deployment zone.

On the start of my second turn, he had a great trap with that Morlock who'd ran up on the left. As my morlock triggered his impetuous order, he chain rifled both the Morlock and Intruder. Fortunately, the Intruder passed his armor, phew! I'd forgotten I can spend an order to cancel impetuous and I had a spare regular order in group 2 that I wasn't planning to use anyways.

My Tomcat came in behind that Morlock to force him to change facing. As he did, my Jaguar panzerfaust activated to shot him in the back and blew him up. The Intruder on the left then jumped on top of a crate to try to see more targets. As he was within range of the console, the Custodier ARO'd with white noise in his face. I was not expecting that! My interventor went back to work and knocked the Custodier unconscious (again), removing the white noise. The Intruder was then free to kill the Sineater HMG but because of the terrain again, he couldn't see anyone else... except the Custodier's body. Possibly unnecessarily, he shot it to get her out of the game.

The Tomcat then raced up the left side and killed the Moderater spitfire who was behind the building. I was considering climbed up and killing the 3 remaining moderators but he had them facing different directions well and there was no easy means of avoiding ARO. He then hid in total cover beside the console instead.

I didn't have enough orders to send a Jaguar into the center console to try to kill the remaining zero as there was still a mine at the staircase. I tried to send the Moran around the right side in hopes he'd tank the chain rifle but he didn't and got shredded.

On the Bakunin turn 2, his Moderator peeked over the building and I wasn't as good with total cover as I thought, he could see the Tomcat. Fortunately, the Tomcat got lucky on the F2F and the Intruder ARO blew the Moderator off the map. Not much else happened on this turn as he didn't have enough orders to try a different attack on the Tomcat, leaving me with control of consoles this round.

At this point, the 15 minute warning was called so we ended at the bottom of Turn 2 rather than going for 3 but the Nomads were sitting in good shape with most of their Bakunin foes dead. Final result was a 6-1 or 7-1 for Nomads.

Learnings:
- Line of sight can be very time consuming on certain terrain! Sometimes you really have get down close to work it out. Once I'd realized how surprisingly limiting the board was, I should have been more aggressive with the right Intruder to work the diagonal fire lanes for ARO. More importantly, with only 2 hours per game, working out that line of sight can really delay things.
- The Intruders did great work again. If the opponent doesn't have an MSV2 visor, they are almost unstoppable. The Sineaters can be a little worrying as even though he was -12, he was still fishing for crits but both times the Intruders got lucky. Part of the problem is that I usually only play with 1 which means I'm very, very cautious with him to avoid a crit or death during the reactive turn. When you have 2 (and there's no visors on the table), I should feel free to really push them up provided they have a source of smoke.
- The Tomcat and Moran had pretty good games. The extra point of BS they get over most other light troops was the deciding factor, they both rolled 15s to kill (and missed with their other shots!). The zero AHD had a good opportunity to kill a reaction remote but he ate the crit instead.
- I'm usually pretty cautious with my interventor, probably because he is often the lieutenant. For this game, he was very successful with the Custodier, beating her on a bunch of F2F rolls and knocking her unconscious twice. I probably should've used him against the Zero KHD as well - even if he dies, it's not a huge loss.
- Very clever trap to leave the Morlock in range of my impetuous Morlock and Intruder, forcing an armor save without any reaction. I got lucky, I just need to remember I can cancel impetuous orders if I need too.
- I didn't use my Jaguars very well. I probably could've used one to kill his Zero on the center objective but couldn't really work out an order efficient plan to get around the mine at the base of the building. Due to the line of sight again, there was no way to discover it without almost being in its ZoC. However, they did fine as objective holdings on my side of the table.

 

Game 4 versus Calledonians on Aquisition.

He had Wallace, a full link team with Grey HMG and 2 spare volunteers, Isobelle, Uxia, 2 SAS FO, Mcmurragh, 2 Gallewegians, Sniper, 2 baggage remotes and a Warcor. In total it was 19 regular orders so I may have missed something.

I've played this opponent 5 times in the last two weeks and his army is very tough to counter and very aggressive. He is a better player than me but the Intruders are a big advantage against Ariadna. However, many of our games have been very "swingy" for luck so who knows what may happen here!

I won the roll and chose deployment which may have been a mistake as I know his army loves to go first. My logic at the time was that I saw the big line of buildings and was worried that he could easily get total cover behind them and negate my first turn. With only a Tomcat for AD, he can easily counter with chain rifles on the flanks. There was a big tower in the middle but otherwise large firelanes from DZ to DZ. This is one of my favourite tables and is absolutely gorgeous to play on.

He set up his link team on the right flank with the Grey on a crate over-watching most of the battlefield. Mcmurragh and two Gallwegians went on the left. The SAS hide behind the tower and his ARO pieces went on the catwalk in the back.

I countered with an Intruder on each flank and a Jaguar nearby for smoke. Morlocks were on ground level underneath. Daktari and Interventor were at ground level for a run to objectives on turn 3. The Alguacile hid in a building. The zeros set up just outside my DZ to avoid chain rifles.

I put the Sineater on top of a roof on the left to counter Mcmurragh which was a big mistake. I thought the tower blocked line of sight to the Grey but I didn't look closely enough. His reserve was Uxia who dropped down on the right. I countered Uxia with my reserve, the Moran, but made another mistake and put him too close to my zero on that side. I've gotten so used to her shooting things with Assault pistols I forgot she had a shotgun...



Turn 1 starts with him cancelling his impetuous orders on Mcmurragh and the two Galwegians to avoid early deaths from Intruders. I used a command token to remove 2 orders from his link team which was my third big mistake to start - I should've removed two orders from Mcmurragh, leaving him with only 4 after cancelling impetuous.

The Grey activates first and idles, then shoots a Morlock I accidentally left out. He spends 4-5 orders (staying in the same spot on the crate) and eventually kills the Morlock, puts the Jaguar on the same side into dogged and kills my Sineater (very sloppy exposing him) but by this point both intruders are successfully smoked and ready to ARO.

Uxia activates and kills both my Moran and Zero with her shotgun. They both fail dodge and armor saves. Jaguar panzerfaust takes a shot and misses. She then tanks both koalas on her armor. Uh oh... I can see where this game is going...

I forgot an ARO on the intruder but he lets me take it afterwards. The intruder shoots her dead with a pistol.

Then Mcmurragh starts his rambo. Over the course of his 6 orders, he runs up the board, dodges 2-3 times, then jumps up on the building and cuts the Intruder in half on his very last order. He tanks 8 HMG shots, 1 panzerfaust, 3 combi shots, 4 pistols and a chain-rifle (I was getting desperate at this point and trying everything!). Some of those were dodged but over half of those were armor saves. Good grief!

I really hate Mcmurragh... only on one previous game was I successful at killing him without losing anything. He always does massive carnage, I can't believe he's only 31 points. However, luck aside, I definitely should've pulled 2 orders out of group instead of the link team.

The rest of the turn is not eventful. The link team advances a bit but only expose the Grey so the Intruders don't ARO. The SAS run up to the objectives. The Gallwegians on the left also ran up with Mcmurragh using 2 command tokens to park at the objective. I don't think he even spent all his orders in Group 1.

My first turn it's looking very bleak. I have only 7 orders. I have an Intruder and no smoke on the right and smoke and no intruder on the left. I decide to see if this is salvageable and spend 3 orders moving up the Daktari and Interventor towards the objectives and they shoot at Mcmurragh on their way in. 9 shots, hitting on 14s.... All but 1 or 2 miss and Mcmurragh tanks those on his armour. He then goes prone on the roof. Okay.. so not salvageable.

I have 4 orders left and an angry werewolf that I can't get to in my deployment zone. There's a jaguar right beside him but I don't want to activate him as the Grey can see him.

I decide to put myself into Retreat and try to get a few points. My remaining zero runs up and hacks the HVT for a classified but dies to chain rifles on the way in. I bring in my tomcat and he puts the 2 Gallwegians guarding the left objective into dogged. They get off a smoke grenade but he runs into the smoke and activates the console. My last order goes into Intruder into a silly shot against the Grey, hoping his sniper will activate and kill him. Instead, the sniper stays in camo and the Intruder and Grey face off, knocking the Grey unconscious... That was unexpected!

On his second turn, his SAS comes up and kills the Tomcat and re-activates the console. Mcmurragh runs into the jaguar but they bounce off each other and he doesn't spent further orders on him. His sniper activates now and kills the remaining Intruder after 2-3 orders. The link team and wallace (data tracker) then run into the center objective. His SAS on the right side activates that console.

I count my points and I'm at 72. I use my command tokens to put 3 orders into my interventor who runs up the left console and activates it. He shoots at the SAS on the way in, forcing him to engage. He successfully engages... and I put his model on the far side of my interventor, off the console. Ha! I think I've done it, I've snagged 3 points out of a terrible situation.

As we pack up, I notice I forgot to count the zondbot.... 3 points... that puts me at 75. Oh no. He plays a third turn and unsurprisingly makes it 10-1...

Game 5 versus Yuijing on Firefight.

As luck swings out, it swings back in. I had somewhere between 6-10 crits in this game and he had none. My opponent was an absolute champion to take that sort of ridiculousness without complaint. He won an Onyx contact force box as part of the raffle prizes 30 minutes after the game so karma does get back to you in the end.

I decided to try out my firefight list, just to give my poor intruders a rest after that shellacking earlier. I won the roll and chose to go first.

I set up the Kriza and Gecko in the middle of the board, the Interventor hid at back watching out for AD troops, the Sputnik went on the left beside a tower with the Jaguar nearby, the zero dropped his mine to control the middle tower, the Moran on the right side and the Intruder went on top of a tower, prone behind some crates.

He had a Guija, Reaction Remote, Rui Shi, 3 Monks, a Raiden with ML, Ninja KHD, a Guilang, and few zanshis. He set up the Rui Shi in total cover protected from AD by the monks, with the Raiden and Reaction remote ready to ARO. My reserve was the bandit who set up by a panoply. His reserve was the Guija who went behind a tower at his back field.


I started the turn with 1 order in the Kriza to kill the reaction remote. Next up was the Sputnik. Even though my list had the Feurbach, I forgot I had it and played it with a Spitfire instead as that's what I've always used with him previously... I had wild dreams of climbing that spider thing all over the tower and upside down on the catwalk above. However, after working it out, we realized the width of the tower and catwalk was slightly less than 55mm... which means he can't climb it apparently. The poor guy stayed at ground level. He spent an order to throw a pitcher at the Guija but missed. He tried again, this time the Raiden ARO'd and the Sputnik blew him up. I put a third order into him and this time he landed his pitcher. The Interventor then spent 2 orders and isolated the Guija. I considered going after the Rui Shi with my Tomcat but didn't have enough orders to do it.

I spent the last couple orders moving up the Gecko and Kriza slightly and putting them and the Sputnik in supressive fire. The Moran was also part of that coordinated order but I didn't realize the Guija could see him. The poor Moran got vaporized by an EXP round. The bandit grabbed a Breaker rifle from a panoply.

The monks dropped smoke and the Sputnik failed to kill any of them. He started his rambo with the Rui Shi through the smoke. I was a little surprised at this... despite doing the same smoke nonsense on all four previous games, I still didn't see it coming! It wasn't easy to get to the Rui Shi with his monks guarding him against AD Tomcats but I should have tried a little harder.

However, it didn't matter. The Sputnik crit'd and knocked him out. And then this is when things went off the rails. His Guilang revealed itself to remove my mine in the center tower but died in the process by a crit from Kriza. His Ninja revealed itself as a marker on the left catwalk and spent 3 orders to move to the left into the Sputnik's pitcher. He got discovered by the Jaguar but it was too late for anyone to shoot him. He killed the Interventor but the Bandit KHD crit'd him back with Redrum. His Guija spent his irregular order to put a wound on Kriza. There wasn't much else for him to do so his engineer repaired his Reaction remote, getting glued by the Jaguar in the process.

Turn 2, the Sputnik killed two monks. At least one of these was also a crit... The tomcat then came in and coup de graced the Rui Shi for classified, got retro engineering off the HVT for second classified and killed his Zanshi and the last monk.

The bandit killed the reaction remote (also a crit...) allowing the Kriza to kill the Guija over 2 orders (with another crit). At this point, it was basically over for a 10-1 for Nomads. I had a pretty successful first turn removing several orders and isolating the Guija but I don't know if I deserved a big win by ignoring the Rui Shi like that. I didn't think my tomcat could get in there to kill him but with Firefight AD rules, there was probably a path if I spent the time to work it out.

Isolating the Guijja seemed like a good idea at the time but doing so took up 5 orders (3 on Sputnik, 2 on Interventor) which is half the pool! Limited insertion definitely needs a different thought process. It may have been better to drop the pitcher and isolate in ARO as it's only B1 but odds aren't good I'd get him on the first try. Alternatively, maybe isolating was the right play but then I should've not activated anything else and focused solely on isolating then killing the Rui Shi which effectively removes all his big active turn threats. The Kriza can then ARO fairly safely.

However, the luck just went sideways for him on his first turn and absolutely nothing he did turned out well.

Final result after 2 days was 4th place out of 40 for the Nomads (by which I mean, Intruders) and a best painted prize. Very fun tournament and I definitely hope to come again next year.