Hey all, we just finished a 46 player satellite event in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada this weekend. I took Spiral Corps and managed to come in second... missed it by one objective point. Missions were (with Red deck classifieds): - Countermeasures - Unmasking - Hunting Party - Looting and Sabotaging - Firefight My lists: Countermeasures: Spoiler Test - Countermeasures ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 7 2 NEEMA Lieutenant (Advanced Command) Spitfire, Nanopulser / Viral Pistol, Shock CCW. (1.5 | 48) TAAGMA (Tri-Core) Breaker Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 21) KUMOTAIL Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22) TAAGMA Breaker Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16) CHAKSA AUXILIAR (Baggage, Sensor) Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 10) CHAKSA AUXILIAR (Baggage, Sensor) Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 10) BRAWLER Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Submachine Gun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 17) DIPLOMATIC DELEGATE (iKohl L1, Specialist Operative) Nanopulser, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3) GROUP 2 6 2 DRAAL (Minelayer) AP Marksman Rifle, D-Charges, Antipersonnel Mines / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1 | 40) KRIIGEL Breaker Combi Rifle + Smoke Light Grenade Launcher / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27) KAELTAR (Chain of Command) Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse + 2 SymbioMates / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 21) REEX Boarding Shotgun, Contender, Nanopulser / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 13) REEX Boarding Shotgun, Contender, Nanopulser / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 13) KAAURI Sentinel Boarding Shotgun, Nullifier / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 15) HELOT MILITIAMAN Submachine Gun, Light Rocket Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 9) HELOT MILITIAMAN Submachine Gun, Light Rocket Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 9) 6 SWC | 299 Points Open in Infinity Army Everything Else: Spoiler Hunting and Sabotaging ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 7 2 KIEL-SAAN (Special Fireteam: Triad) Mk12, Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, DA CC Weapon, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 53) DRAAL (Minelayer) AP Marksman Rifle, D-Charges, Antipersonnel Mines / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1 | 40) KRIIGEL Breaker Combi Rifle + Smoke Light Grenade Launcher / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27) TAAGMA (Tri-Core) Breaker Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 21) TAAGMA (Multispectral Visor L2) Viral Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 25) CHAKSA AUXILIAR (Baggage, Sensor, Fireteam: Special Triad) Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 10) CHAKSA AUXILIAR (Baggage, Sensor, Fireteam: Special Triad) Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 10) HELOT MILITIAMAN Submachine Gun, Light Rocket Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 9) HELOT MILITIAMAN Submachine Gun, Light Rocket Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 9) GROUP 2 5 2 IGAO Boarding Shotgun, Stun Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 25) KAELTAR (Chain of Command) Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse + 2 SymbioMates / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 21) TAAGMA Lieutenant Breaker Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16) CHAKSA AUXILIAR (Baggage, Sensor, Fireteam: Special Triad) Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 10) CHAKSA AUXILIAR (Baggage, Sensor, Fireteam: Special Triad) Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 10) HELOT MILITIAMAN Submachine Gun, Light Rocket Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 9) DIPLOMATIC DELEGATE (iKohl L1, Journalist L1) Nanopulser, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army Game one was Countermeasures against Dashat. I got first turn and managed to keep him penned into his deployment zone for most of the game while I managed to secure four classifieds to his one. Unfortunately I did lose my datatracker Kaauri to a Libertos' DEP early in the first game turn so didn't manage to get full scenario points. 8-3 major. Game two was Unmasking against vanilla Aleph (Marut). Opponent took first turn. This game I had a little helot that could - killed (3) models and put two wounds onto the Marut before getting crit off the board, but damn does he deserve a few extra highlights now! Unfortunately we called this game after two turns despite having a chance to complete the final turn (based on how many other games went a bit long...) and I had only managed to tie on consoles (1:1) and kill one decoy target. Going into 3rd turn my opponent was in loss, with (2) baggage bots, a TR bot and a smart missile bot - so not in retreat - I had barely lost anything & could have easily pushed both remaining consoles and got to his designated target. 4-2 minor Game three was Hunting Party against Vanilla Nomads. Basically the long and the short of it is that my opponent screwed up placement of their morlocks and ran them straight into my Taagma sniper (obviously holoprojected...) Group two spent two entire turns trying to spec fire stun grenades onto puppet bots and failed, group one screwed up and blasted viral sniper rounds into my opponent's LT turn one (whoops) and had to wait until the third turn to be able to run across the board and hit the new LT with an oblivion. Ended the game with more specialists and more lieutenants hunted down but didn't manage to grab any consoles or classifieds. 6-1 major Game four was Looting and Sabotaging against Bakunin (and one of my regular opponents). I went first and basically everything went according to plan. I managed to sensor and isolate Brando Castro who had superior infiltrated onto my side of the board. Killed all my opponent's Morlocks (the last of his antimaterial weaponry) and maneuvered the Kiel Saan and Igao up to destroy his console. Through clever use of Zero's mine he was able to pin the Igao in place and I was forced to rely on the Kiel Saan who had to be weary of a nearby HD+... Opponent flubbed an oblivion role and I spent 2 orders blowing up his AC2. 8-2 major. Going into game five I was in 3rd place. Well behind on OP but tied with Myomer in TP (3 majors one minor each)... Myomer faced Locke (four majors). I needed Myomer to get a minor win and I needed a major. Half of that went according to "plan"... Game five was Firefight against Varuna. I chose initiative and immediately took a big lead on army points. My opponent just wasn't able to draw LOF to anything worth killing after I hid from his Kamau sniper and unfortunately nothing he managed to attack me with was very effective. Turn two I shored up a few specialist kills and, again retreated out of LOF. Turn three is where I messed up the tournament.... instead of focusing on scoring objective points with a comfortable lead on army kills and specialists, I continued to try and force my way through his Kamau sniper (now only a 4-man) to get to his datatracker and where I thought his LT was located. This turned out to be a mistake as I was unable to get through the sniper and had I instead spent those final few orders getting a lead on panoplies or accomplishing my second objective I would have pulled the major I required. Instead the game ended in a minor 5:1. Myomer only managed a minor as well so we tied on TP, but he was well up on my in OP across the tournament. Had I looted a single additional panoply in the last game I would have pulled a major and taken first in the satellite.
Sure: Countermeasures List: Basically everything I needed to either kill or accomplish objectives was in group one. Group two consisted of models who could die so that I could fix / heal them if need be, and the Kriigel which is incredibly useful for creating safe passage ways with smoke and mirrorball. I wanted him alone so that I could spend multiple orders blocking off LOF without stripping orders from my models that were there to accomplish objectives. Neema is a great choice for Countermeasures because she's an elite, a heavy infantry, very survivable, doesn't auto-kill models with the spitfire (thus leaving corpses for accomplishing objectives), and is reasonably effective in close combat in case one of those objectives came up. She escorted the kumotail and used the tricore to buff herself. The taagma and chaksas were there to fake out any opponent who may have expected the taagma to be the MSV2 sniper variant (didn't have the points). And finally the brawler made the list because I couldn't simply walk away from the prospect of drawing a hacking card or spotlight - she's not a great choice but she's almost half the cost of Aelis Keesan, and the killer hacking device can't accomplish some of the objectives. Hunting and Sabotaging: This list was developed (as the name indicates) for Hunting Party and Looting and Sabotaging. The intent here being that the Kiel-Saan and the Igao both have decent changes to thump the AC2 units with their high CC skills and DA close combat weapons. For Hunting Party, the Kiel-Saan gains an ADHL and the Igao comes with stun grenades that should be very nasty. Because I figured these two models would be the ones I was using to get things done I tried to ensure they had access to several orders each, thus placing them into their own combat groups. Once those pieces were determined to be my main attack pieces I needed to support them. I chose to double down on the Taagma + Chaksa links because anyone who knows Spiral will be expecting that linked MSV2 Viral sniper, by having six chaksa's deployed in two clusters I had the ability to cause some doubt as to which one (or possibly both) was the real MSV2 sniper - additionally, Taagma are HQ's so they both came with ADHL's for Hunting Party. The Tricore and Kriigel agent slot in nicely as force multipliers. Obviously the Tricore can power up either the Draal AP Marksman or the MSV2 sniper (or both); the Kriigel agent provides mobile cover for an agressive link between smoke and mirrorball, and the Eraser pherowear helps to protect your AC2 and is also useful for isolating troops out of LOF. The remaining pieces are basically there for support. Helots and the diplomat as ARO's and irregular orders that I used to power up whichever combat group had the best chance of accomplishing a goal; the Kaeltar hid on a roof somewhere and brought symbiomates for the two models with symbioarmor. For Unmasking, I felt that the Draal plus Kriigel plus X combo would be a great first turn active triad. Using the Draal and Kriigel in combination to block LOS to the consoles and press the buttons. In the end I deployed the tricore and kriigel with the sniper and left the draal solo. For that mission I needed to break past a Marut who was locking down access to two of the consoles and ended up spending most of my turn one orders between the kiel-saan and the igao in order to stop that tag. Unfortunately turn two saw the Draal fail 3/4 attempts to push buttons, and as I mentioned we called the game before the final turn so I didn't have a chance to push any more. Hunting party... the Draal and and Igao basically killed whatever they could on the first turn and then everything hid. Honestly, in most games I spend orders on the Kriigel agent, chaksas and the Igao. I regularly holo'd both Taagma in group one as chaksas and the taagma in group two as Neema to confuse any opponents who may have some insight into Spiral Corps (literally none of them did so it was all a bit of a waste...), the sniper would shoot whatever was exposed under cover of smoke, a poor chaksa would sacrifice itself to sensor and then use its flamer to clear out three or four targets at once, and then the igao would spend his orders to apply BSG templates to anything else. Shotguns are pretty much my favourite infinity weapon and I seem to prefer Spiral to my native JSA simply because of the plentiful access to good quality shotgun platforms (I regularly push my Kaeltar's up the board and take out heavy infantry links with his light shotgun when my opponent's position themselves poorly)
