Liverpool ITS at Just Play Games.

Last week Pete, myself and Oliver got in the car nice and early to check out this new venue 'Just play Games' in Liverpool. We picked up Greg along the way in Manchester and we all went off on our merry way. The event was our second ITS this season so we were all keen to go and kick some butt. The venue was unique as they didn't stock any products; it was purely a gaming space. Located near the city centre of Liverpool it was tucked away on the 4th floor of an office block. The venue was nice and the guys had clearly made a lot of effort with terrain. I did take some photos of the tables but forgot to focus the camera so they were all useless - oops. I took my standard style list that consisted of lots of crap then a few good units and a decent amount of camo. Oliver took his Steel Phalanx, Pete took his Scottish and Greg busted out his Tohaa. I wanted to take some new units that I had not used very much. I threw in Van Sant and swapped out my Tankhunter HMG for an Auto cannon in one game. Other than that pretty samey, except I didn't use many skirmishers like I normally do. Here are my two lists below.

List 1

Order pool 1

 **that Hard Case and Tankhunter are also providing 2 camo markers I forgot to put them down as I was in a rush**

Order pool 2

List 2

Order pool 1

Order pool 2

Game 1: Front line

 First game of the day was front line. This mission is all about points not specialists so I used my first list as it didn't have that many in it. I played a lovely fella called Raja who was running a Morat list. Now I have only played Morats one time and I know they have bugger all tricks and hit as hard as a brick in a pillow case applied to the face. I chose to go second so ended up setting up first. Raja was a little new to the game and only played the same few opponents, but his first force was Ariadna so he had that going for him in this match. I set up first putting everything on roof tops and had them stay prone. Decided he would not have many orders so I could just pop up and blast him from afar when he had to try and creep close. Raja set his models up in a massive clump. When I asked if he was done and ready to start he said "yes" and I thought he was taking the piss. I thought this for one reason: He had everything in a big clump and two Sogarat right next to each other. Little did I know you could take two of the things and link them with a special character. Turn one was good for me - I stripped him of two orders for a start. I also managed to get my Uxia right up in his face prone on a roof top. Having no idea what it was but knowing it could be a flamer, he had to try to do something as his entire force was just sitting right there. Raja moved forward with a Daturazi, then downed smoke to avoid getting a sniper round in the chest. The Daturazi then stood in the smoke and tried to intuitive fire with a chain rifle . . . 6 times. He failed them all but the last. I wanted Uxia alive but I will 100% trade her for 7 orders out of an order pool thank you very much. My turn I didn't do lots. I popped out my Tankhunter, smashed in a few Morats and my Cateran had a sniper battle against something wielding a Panzerfaust. Took 4 orders but managed to clear it off the roof eventually. Turn two Raja pushed forward but didn't have that many orders left. Raja moved his Sogarat link at full strength right up to my deployment and just sat there like a Billy big bollocks! I needed to do something, so blasted them to bits with my Tankhunter. He had previously gone down to a lucky ARO but I keep a doctor spare in each order pool for such an event. I spent about 6 orders running across the table just to get him up but it was worth it. The HMG splatted one of his Sogarat to pieces from behind. Unsporting I know but this was Ariadna turf and the alien menace needed to be eradicated! I then took out his character keeping them together. Then came the most stupid thing I have ever done in a game EVER. I asked Raja how many points he had left as by now he had 1 Sogarat and two line troops. It came to about 80 points so I said "I will stop shooting you there then so I get my last turn and you don't go into retreat" then I went of to get a coffee and must have seen something shiny and got distracted. I then looked down and went "Ooooh I have one irregular order left from my Cateran . . .Fuck it I will shoot your Sogarat. Might as well". I HAVE NO IDEA WHY I DID THIS AS I KNOW I GAVE HIM A T2 rifle so its not like I was planning on giving him one wound to soften him up a little. But that's not even the best bit because right after I rolled I got 2 crits . . . not one but two! So yeah I instantly gave him 4 wounds and he was taken off the table. Then I realized what I had done and the game was pretty much over :( I did get a minor victory as I secured his HVT and had the middle of the table but was not the big win I was looking for :(

Yep, two snipers on a roof with a doctor.

 Briscard surveying the battle field. He did nothing in this game just gave me an order.

 What kind of set up is this? One that's about to blitzkrieg one half of the board.

 That's Uxia on the roof chewing up the enemies orders.

 This guy was the man of the match. He smashed in over half the enemy by himself. I think I am starting to like this guy more than the Swiss Guard HMG.

 Bold as brass! These guys are not something I would run in a list, but they were fun to go up against and I can see the fun in using them.

Nice one Cateran, you lost me the game with your god damn double crits.

Game two: Supremacy 

Game two I was faced up against Oli. This was a little unfair on him as I know exactly what models he has in his force and he had a butt load of ODD. This is good for most people but I had a few flamers up my sleeve so was not scared at all. Also I had won my game and he had lost his first, so the match ups were a little off. Oli made me go first. I am not used to this but I had to do it with 2 of my games that weekend so was a little out of my comfort zone. This was just one of those bad match ups. I managed to get my USA grunt roll and just plonked it right in front of his ODD link. I knew she would die but was well worth knocking out that link or at least making it easier for someone else to shoot later on. This was a rather uneventful game. I shot then hid, then Oli had to creep up the board. I did now put my Briscard on the offensive and made him run up the table. Usually he just sits on his bum and occasionally gets off a shot or two. He shot at a link of Myrmidons and did naff all, but at least I had him in a better position now. Van Sant ran on the back line and took out a guy with a missile launcher and a little remote generating an order. He then died to ARO and killed exactly the same points he was worth so kind of a waste but also not as I got rid of the biggest long range threat to me. My doctor grabbed a few objectives. I then ran my Autocannon Tankhunter up and blasted at two Myrmidons. I failed both my rolls and he basically got free smoke. I could only see a few guys now so thought "Bugger it I will just knock out what I can to give him as little orders as possible." Then guess what I did . . . Yeah that's right, I put him into retreat and denied myself the last turn AGAIN! I actually feel like such a prick. Two games in a row I did the same thing. I just get excited and go too hard, then scare them off. Its a problem OK! Luckily for me I had just secured an objective so got myself a major victory by 1 point.

 I did manage to get a nice pic of the table. I think it needs a house rule though as I was able to put my LT prone on the tallest roof on the table and make him completely safe.

 One of these things is not like the others.

 This little bugger dropped down and killed my USA sniper. He then went toe to toe in a shotgun battle with my doctor. Luckily for my 112 he had his +1 axe of shooting and won that battle.

 Van Sant was not really the hard hitter I was hoping for in this game. I have used him at two events now and he never gets very far.

 This is a cheesy little trick you can do. Use your HVT as a line of site blocker. Now that the Vet Kazak is prone, it's going to have to take some close quarters fighting to get rid of him. That's not easy when he is as beefy as his and has a flamer. Objective secured.

Back in the box for you you failure!

Game 3: Safe Area

Ahhhh game 3. This was an  . . . interesting game. I came up against Pete. This was not the end of the world but I was a little off for 3 reasons. First off I play Pete like two times a week at least, so was probably as bored of his face as he was of mine. Second he plays a very similar style. Normally 15 - 20 orders and lots of camo. I don't like it when people do things that I do! Lastly Pete is pretty good and know what he is doing. Lots of memorable things happened in this game but I will honestly put it down to a few bad decisions on Pete's side and a few lucky dice rolls. He chose sides and took the one with more cover but less elevation. I instantly put both my snipers on the tallest building prone, giving me cover and complete line of site to basically the entire board. I then passed my USA grunt roll and again plonked it down in front of his link team fronted by Wallace. He had to counter this hard with Uxia as best he could, so she went right down in front of the Grunt to speed bump her and ease up on the flamers hitting his link. This was good for me as I also took Uxia and put her right in front of his lines on the other side of the board. I put her in a place she could get some real good shots off and the only way to stop her was to reveal both his camo units. I wanted them in the open so the Tankhunter could go to work. And he sure did. When everything was tempted out, my Tankhunter ran up the right of the table. HMGs are my fave weapon in Infinity,  Even at short range it's still 4 dice you get and that's enough. He had a bit of a field day and blasted away a good amount of guys and was then in a position to get some good AROs as he was right in the enemy deployment. In Pete's turns he had to just try recover best he could, but knowing I had orders to burn I moved everything forward and put down as many mines as I could. Won't go into much more detail but by the end of it all Pete had left was Wallace on the table and I had managed a Major victory. Check Pete's blog below for his take on the day. No photos of this last game as there was not enough room to get the camera tripod around my side of the table :(

http://straightouttacaledonia.blogspot.co.uk/

So that was that. A good day out. This club are planning on putting on an event every month so will definitely be seeing more of Liverpool in the future. I managed to grab two of those Renegade models in a week so that's always a bonus, as the stats have just been released and they are AV2. Big shout out to the guys at Just Play Games. Here are some pics I managed to get of other forces. Jasper was there (the guy I played in the last round at War zone the previous week) with his nomads. I didn't get any photos last week when we were playing so this counts instead.

Warzone ITS 2016

So last weekend was my first tournament of 2016 put on by Adam Jones down in Birmingham. This time I took my vanilla Ariadna as I wanted to use a few units like Van Sant and some Tank Hunters. Unfortunately I did not manage to get many photos, as I was playing pretty hard and didn't have time to set the camera up for lots of shots. I did however manage to get first place, so got that new Morat unit and also won myself a Happy panda Noodle bar by Antenocitis Workshop! who were kind enough to have donated it as a prize. This was pretty good as I am currently making a new board and need a restaurant for it so a massive bonus there! I took two lists as is the standard, but my stupid fat fingers deleted one by accident and I cant remember exactly what was in it. The below list how ever was very similar and I did use in two of the games:

What you see in pool 1

What the bad guy sees in pool 1

What you see in pool 2

What the bad guy sees in pool 2

This pic has nothing to do with the event I just wanted to show off my new model. He stands in as either a Kazak doctor with that rifle strapped to his back or a 112 if I am playing any sectorial. His trousers are painted the same as my kazak's so he blends in with them, but also has the axe so can easily as a 112 if need be.

Game 1 Quadrant Control

In my first game I came up against Luke Taylor. I have played him numerous times before. In fact it was against him that I first had to play against Chasseurs as he some times runs MMRF. This time however he was using US so I was instantly crapping myself - I thought he would be using Van Sant, but it turns out not today. I decided to take first turn as we were playing Quadrant Control, so I wanted to be able to move into sectors and react to how he had deployed his forces up the table. At first I was a little worried as he had a couple of those new desperado bikers. One instantly tore up the middle of the board and put on the pressure. He then moved his Foxtrot up with basically no AROs against him (as I was hiding) and threw down a mine to stop my Cateran getting any kills. I think in the first turn I lost an SAS with a chain rifle, Grunt sniper, Briscard HRL and basic chain rifle order monkey volunteer. This was the list I have not got photos for in case you noticed some of those models were not in the above pictures. Not much memorable happened for the next few turns - a bit of back and forth but I did do a sneaky sneaky and have my commando walk on in turn three to secure a quarter, leaving my tank hunter free to pick off his 5 man link of grunts that were stuck in the middle of the board. I did have Van Sant walk on the back but he only killed a baggage bot and marauder I think it was, so not the powerhouse I was wanting.

 I passed my grunt roll as I took only one in this list and got him nice and close prone on a gantry right outside his deployment. He was instantly hard countered by a camo marker and they both just sat there for the entire game looking at each other.

 Oh yeah 5 man link of grunts on a roof. counts as AM6 and better than my snipers in ARO due to the +3BS. Nice one Luke. I could basically not move around the board for ages with these guys looking at me.

This guy walked on and instantly got shot by my engineer but its a really nice paint job so threw in a pic of it not dead on the table edge.

These guys had to get a move on as they were the only few left other than a Dozer and a camo marker at the end.

Game 2 Antenna Field

Ahhhh my old nemesis Nigel. He kicked the crap out of me in the last game we played at the Northern Open so now I had to return the favour. It was a matter of honour. I chose to go second again so had to set up first as usual. I rolled and passed for Uxia and my Hard case to go right outside his deployment zone. I think this worked as the hard case has his ambush camo and I plonked it right next to an objective so it looked like a mine. Not much to say about set up, although Nigel had his Sin Eater watching the whole board so it was very hard to move about at times. He ran his Moran up to an objective so I could not get near it with anything as he had 2 krazy koalas. Going second is the way to win for sure. All I had to do was make him waste orders getting into position then react accordingly. Easily done with many camo markers and lots of Heavy Weapons. I brought my commando on in the first turn to take out Pi Well as that thing really upsets me. I didn't want to give it the chance to get into position and go into suppression putting me at instant -12 in cover to shoot it. Commando then shot his remote, capturing the objective in the middle of the board and I grabbed 2 in the end and the Moran was only counting for one. Was an intense battle after that. Nigel's Pupniks ran up the board and surrounded the objective in my deployment and it took sooooo many orders to dislodge them. In the end I prevailed by having my Dozer creep up and cautious move through a tiny gap, so as not to be gunned down by an Intruder with HMG watching the whole battlefield.

Only got one photo from this game, this was his Lieutenant obvious on the roof. I realise now why he did everything he could to get rid of all the camo markers as they were about 3 inches away from him and carrying shotguns.

Game 3 Comms Centre

Sorry literally no photos of this game. It was the final match and I had won 2 major victories so was concentrating really bloody hard. I came up against Jasper. Last event I went to I got 1st and he came in at 2nd so I knew he was good. I had also never played him before so had no idea what his style of play was like. The one redeeming factor I did have was that he was using Nomads and they were my first force so I already knew what his units were capable of. Unfortunately for him I shoved everything in camo so he had no idea what to expect. He passed his infiltration roll for his camo marker that turned out to be a Bandit but I instantly countered it with a chasseur. He moved. I shot with a flamer. He shot with a combi. We both died. As an Ariadna player this was good for me as his was specialist, cost more points and was right in my lines so I was happy with that exchange. However I sucked  at getting in his face with my rolls. Jasper put a reaction bot and engineer on a roof. so to hard counter I rolled for a grunt with a flamer and failed. Then rolled for a grunt with a flamer and failed. Then rolled for a Hardcase with a shotgun and failed. Then finally passed with Uxia in a 12. He was pretty quick to figure out what it was though with that roll. Managed to take out the engineer and the baggage bot in ARO and not have her die so that was a specialist and a lot of points I instantly gained for free. The basic layout of the game was he moved up really quick and grabbed some objectives, then I had to slowly try and chip away at his force. It was not easy because he had two Moran Massai with Krazy Koalas locking down the entire middle strip of the board and also behind buildings, so I could not get any lines of fire. My Cateran did however smash the crap out of his Alguacil link by picking them off one at a time, but it took a few orders to get it done. I thought he had a lot of points on the table so was surprised when he revealed his camo marker. He went on a rampage with an Intruder HMG down the right hand side of the board. I was seriously lucky when he was right in my deployment zone gunning everything down then from miles away when my LT hit him in something like 2 or 3 and took him down. I think one more order on that guy and he would have targeted the LT just to knock an order away and get a lucky LT kill. In my last turn I had to get 2 objectives. My commando FO ran on and got behind his guys and took a few down, then made a run for the objective and got it. I had a few more orders, so my 112 doctor took one more for shits and giggles and in the last roll of the game stole another off him. Fun times.

So that was that. I managed to nab first place at my first event of ITS and scored nice and high so hopefully will get myself a place at the UK masters. This is the chart as it stands based on last weekend. Now to crack on with painting that new model even though I have no idea what most of its rules are yet.