T2: Cateran Day
Based on my recent games against Adam (TheDiceAbide)
and Obadiah (nehemiah),
I’ve been pretty dissatisfied with the damage output and consistency of my Caterans. They do work but it’s more in shaping the battlefield than actually killing stuff. I of course get some serious value out of hitting things with T2 ammo when I get the opportunity, but the low burst and lack of AP really make it difficult. I wanted to try one more game before an upcoming tournament, but making the change of slotting either a Wulver AP Spitfire or a Scots Guard AP Spitfire.
Thankfully, after some scheduling misses, James (RomanLegion) and I were able to get a game on the books and roll some dice. After setting up his table we agreed that this was a particularly fun configuration:
Overview
- Mission: ITS14 Cutthroat
- Forces: Caledonian Highlander Army versus White Banner (300)
- Deploy First: CHA
- First Turn: CHA
I’m taking a similar list to the one I took against Obi, but I’ve dropped a Cameronian and downgraded the T2 BSG Grey to slot a Wulver AP Spitfire. I decided to go with the Wulver over the Scots Guard because of the additional wound and toolkit. Perhaps more importantly, the Wulver is a legal Key Ops, which frees McMurrough up to take good trades on his berserks if I need it.
Sorry Isobel v3
GROUP 1
7
2
2
WALLACE (Lieutenant) T2 Rifle(+1 Dam), Light Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, EXP CC Weapon. (0 | 35)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (0 | 5)
“FIRSTSTRIKE” DONN T2 Rifle, Grenades / Heavy Pistol, T2 CC Weapon. (0 | 32)
HIGHLANDER GREY Heavy Machine Gun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (1.5 | 28)
VOLUNTEER Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 6)
GROUP 2
UXÍA McNEILL (Specialist Operative) Boarding Shotgun, D-Charges, Smoke Grenades / Assault Pistol(+1B), AP CC Weapon. (0 | 27)
WULVER AP Spitfire, Grenades / Pistol, AP + Shock CC Weapon. (1 | 36)
McMURROUGH Chain Rifle(+1B), Grenades, Smoke Grenades / AP + DA CC Weapon. (0 | 27)
CAMERONIAN Chain Rifle(+1B), Grenades, Smoke Grenades / AP CC Weapon. (0 | 20)
CATERAN T2 Sniper Rifle / Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (1 | 23)
WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse ( ) / Stun Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)
4.5 SWC | 300 Points | Open In Army | Copy Code
James is tuning a White Banner list. He wasn’t particularly happy with the core, but after including one Zhanshi and all the other stuff he wanted to take, he decided to just take the second and get to the full five. After our last game,
he decided he also wanted to try double FO bot with hacker backup. Of course, I was playing a faction that didn’t really care about it, but it’s still a good idea with all the extra order efficiency you get out of the deal.
James (RomanLegion)
GROUP 1
JUJAK (Lieutenant) Combi Rifle, Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 26)
ZHANSHI (Hacker, Hacking Device) Combi Rifle ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 16)
TIAN GǑU FTO (Hacker, Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 23)
CHIEF JEONG Combi Rifle, Light Rocket Launcher, D-Charges / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 30)
SHÀNG JÍ (Tactical Awareness) AP Heavy Machine Gun, Chain-colt ( | TinBot: Firewall [-6]) / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 49)
GROUP 2
HÙNDÙN (X Visor) Heavy Rocket Launcher ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 27)
LIANG KAI Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse / Pistol, EXP CC Weapon. (0 | 21)
SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 6)
WÈIBĪNG Yaókòng Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 15)
SON-BAE Yaókòng Missile Launcher / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1.5 | 16)
TIGER SOLDIER (Hacker, Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Light Flamethrower ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 34)
5.5 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Army | Copy Code
He picked a Jujak for his Lieutenant, figuring the two wounds and flamethrower would be a good deterrent, and then packed in a Liang Kai haris and a Tiger Soldier. I’ve noticed he always takes a Son Bae these days, and the Tiger Soldier is a hacker to give him the ability to spotlight and then missile something. To defend against pushes, he threw in a Hundun HRL (they’re so affordable) and a Warcor. His primary hitting piece was going to be the Shang Ji AP HMG, with Liang Kai as another attack vector.
Deployment
I won the rolloff and elected to go first. James gave me the side with more elevation in the 16″ deployment zone, which I was excited about due to my Caterans. I held Uxia and the Wulver in reserve, forcing me to deploy Wallace. I figured this was going to be fine, because then I could actually have two links–the Galwegian link must be a core so if Wallace is in the Grey/Volunteer link to bring it to 4, I can’t have the Galwegians in a link.
White Banner doesn’t have anything quite like a Speculo, and a Tiger Soldier can respond later to my placement anyway, so it’s not like I gave up a significant advantage here, really I’m bolstering my own access to links with some information loss. Plus, going first I felt I could shove some dogs in the way and delay whatever was coming. Again, at this point I don’t know what I’m facing.
There were three possible rooftops for Wallace to be on, and I elected to put him all the way on the right to reduce his attack surface marginally. I put a Galwegian on the roof with him, one on the ground, and Cadin guarding the other corner. A Warcor helped out by watching the right table edge in front of Wallace for any sneaky Tiger Soldiers.
Unrelated to this deployment, one of the two Caterans ended up on the box above Wallace to watch the very open board on my right, and then I stacked two Cameronians over there to stall James’s advance on that side. McMurrough decided he would advance up the central corridor, and then I put the Grey HMG link all the way on the left with the chain rifle Volunteer watching the left table edge. The other Cateran was on a nearby two story building watching by back table edge.
James castled his link on a catwalk system in the middle of his deployment zone, with the Son Bae near Chung-Hee, the engineer. The Son-Bae was watching my Cateran on the roof if I decided to use it, and then Liang Kai and his crew prepared to make a run on Wallace when the time came.
James left the Shang Ji out to ARO, which was bold, I think, but neither Cateran had a good line on it so it was probably fine. The real issue was the Jujak only really being defended by a Weibing and a Warcor, all by itself on the right. James disguised the Tian Gou as a Zhanshi FO, but basically that was meaningless to me since I wasn’t rocking Isobel.
In any case, with the Jujak all by itself, I placed Uxia in a position to make a run along the flank of the table to go assassinate it, and then I put the Wulver in the center to go after the Shang Ji. Hopefully Uxia could help drop the link down to a 4-man so I could drop the BS bonus. I didn’t think I’d be able to take out 3 members to get down to burst 1, but one could hope. James put the Hundun down to cover McMurrough’s approach, which of course I didn’t know about. I was anticipating it to be in a spot to protect the Jujak, but I wasn’t sure.
As planned, I choose the Wulver as my Key Ops and James decides on Liang Kai. The +3 to dodge doesn’t stack but James is planning on using Liang Kai to do some killing so this is reasonable.
Turn 1
Top of 1 – CHA
My plan for this turn is to kill the Jujak and block Liang Kai from making an advance with at least one of the dogs. Anything else I do is gravy, I just need to set up for the next turn. James docks me two orders from the dog pool, which is probably not the right call? Hard to say, both pools are full of sad for James, and he doesn’t know that I’m going to make a run with Uxia.
In any case, all the dogs move up, with McMurrough having to throw smoke against the Hundun which reveals. The other two dogs set up smoke to protect one another from the Shang Ji, and all is good there. I spend a coordinated order on the dogs to shift them further forward to hold the midfield, get McMurrough out of trouble, and get the Cateran near Uxia in position.
One of the dogs does get spotlit through a Weibing’s repeater, which is probably fine. I could reset, but I’m also content to dodge on 13’s versus 18’s and force James to spend multiple orders trying to missile the Cameronian. The next order is spent dropping the Warcor with the Cateran to open the way for Uxia.
Then I need to deal with Liang Kai, so I move the nearest Cameronian into view and ask for AROs. James dodges, and I throw a grenade and do a wound.
I spend another order attempting the same thing, but this time Liang Kai beats my throw and dodges into base to base. Also acceptable. I just want him delayed, which will keep Wallace alive until I can feed another dog into the gap on the following turn.
Uxia starts her run in view of the Shang Ji and the Tian Gou. I end my first movement out of LoF, but both of them declare discover. I decide to take the free assault pistol shot at 24″ on the Tian Gou. I’m on 2s, but I roll double 1’s and kill the Tian Gou. Whee!
I recamo and then keep pushing. I ask for AROs in view of the Weibing but James delays so I keep moving and end up behind the Jujak. I take my assault pistol shot against his dodge at -6.
| 82.93 | 12.87 | 4.21 |
The extra burst does make it slightly better than the boarding shotgun in AP mode:
| 70.90 | 22.90 | 6.20 |
Even with a 53.93% chance to one-shot the Jujak, I roll only 1 crit and the Jujak passes one of the saves and fails guts around the corner. I kinda want to get into base to base to go for the close combat attack, but i can’t do that without the Weibing seeing me as it turned around. I move into CC and down the Jujak, but what I probably should’ve done was move into view of just the Jujak and then double template it and the Webing behind it. I think at the time it looked like a long distance between the two models at the table, but this picture makes it look like it’s in template range.
In any case, the Jujak is dead, which is what matters. I then try to take the Hundun out with the Wulver, but fail the face to face, thankfully passing ARM. James does attempt a spotlight, but this fails, thankfully.
I try again against the Shang Ji and take a wound this time. Very irritating. Well, at least I’ll get cover, I suppose!
I fail guts around the corner and settle in to see how much damage James can do on his turn.
Bottom of 1 – White Banner
Things aren’t so bad for James at the moment, and I’m only down Uxia, so things are doing okay for me as well.
He moves the Tiger from group two to one and starts his turn. The Tiger lands next to my Grey/Volunteer link, and everyone dodges, but only the Grey HMG succeeds.
After gunning down the Grey, James tries to do the same to the Volunteer. I crit-dodge into close combat, and then James commits to the fight. He’s got a better CC score than I do, but burst one versus burst one is really, well, dicey. It doesn’t go well for the Tiger and the damage is limited to just losing the Grey HMG. Not great, but certainly better than losing Wallace.
Liang Kai tries to fight the Cameronian and this doesn’t work at all. Natural born warrior is relevant and Liang Kai is off the table.
James has orders to spend still in pool two, and the only really reasonable candidates are the Weibing. One scoots forward to try and get a spotlight on the Wulver, but I dodge away. The other goes after the spotlit Cameronian, but I beat its rolls with a fastball grenade and take it out.
James then goes for the discover on my Cateran near Wallace with the Shang Ji and reveals him. We’re unfortunately at 32.5″, so on the next order the Cateran KOs the Shang Ji…
and the Zhanshi paramedic kills him.
James decides he can make a play for the Cateran near Wallace with the Hundun by taking the long way ’round, but he has to fight the other Cateran first… and loses.
He tries one more tactic to take out the Cateran near Wallace, and that’s firing a missile with his trusty Son Bae, but I crit it. James fails both saves and takes 3 wounds, taking the Son Bae off the table. T2 is gross.
With that, James is out of orders and passes turn.
Turn 2
Top of 2 – CHA
It wasn’t until I started writing this and calculating what was left that I realized how disastrous his turn really was. He went from 248 points to 86, a whopping 162 point loss in his active turn–over half his list.
At this point, with me having only lost Uxia and the Grey HMG, we decide to call it here in the interest of time. We could finish out the game, but I really only need to kill one thing with the Wulver and then just run away.
I’ve killed more stuff, more lieutenants, and James’ Key Ops, but the Wulver sadly hasn’t killed anything (but neither has Liang Kai), making it a
7-0, 245-86 Caledonian Highlander Army Victory!
Post Game Analysis
Well, a few things:
- Discovering Uxia when she ended her first movement out of LoF was a mistake.
- The Jujak was far too undefended, I think. Just putting him in the middle of the table with the link around him would have helped a lot.
- We probably should have measured the Shang Ji’s discover on the Cateran, that would have helped with the 32.5″ thing. This is a play speed thing… but to get within 32″ James would have had to be out of cover so probably not great anyway.
I think the real mistake was not bringing the Tiger on near Wallace and spotlighting him. I did use Wallace’s order to get some free movement for Uxia and Cadin to defend the right table edge a little better before reforming the link, but there was still a little pocket that Cadin couldn’t see. You get one shot to either climb the ladder and fight Wallace, or come on and spotlight him then start shooting missiles. The Cateran is watching the missile bot so I get to respond to this, but that’s the most likely way to kill Wallace.
Even if the play had gone amazingly on the left, and James had deleted the two Volunteers, the Grey, and the Cateran, I’m still doing quite well. It just didn’t feel particularly impactful, and I have plenty of options to answer the Tiger Solder on the subsequent turn. Yes, that makes the game less one-sided, but I don’t think it shifts it to a winnable state. With the loss of the Jujak on Turn 1 James really needs to go for Wallace to tie up the Lieutenant kill count–killing the Volunteers and the Grey isn’t really all that impactful in army points. They’re stupidly cheap.
I’m not sure I would have revealed the Hundun so early either. McMurrough is very likely to survive, and it just doesn’t seem worth it to me to give up that knowledge, especially when James could have punished me moving the Wulver around in subsequent turns.
With the Caterans really pulling through for me (they must have been reading all my previous reports where I was complaining about them), James was just in pretty unwinnable state at the bottom of 1. Not prioritizing Wallace at the bottom of 1 after not defending and losing the Jujak was still recoverable, but then losing all his guns to AROs is just brutal. I’m also a little uncertain about putting the missile bot watching the Cateran. We didn’t discuss if it was intentional (and I certainly would have let him move it if it wasn’t), but it seems a risky choice.
Anyway, it’s now the Wulver’s turn to be a bit of a disappointment. I’m hoping that he’ll perform better at the upcoming tournament. Thanks for reading!
