An early start for the long trop up to another great ITS event run up in St Albans.  I’d managed to get to the first one, missed the second but this one was packed out with 28 players registered and a waiting list. We had three drops on the day, and as they were last minute ones it wasn’t possible to get any reserves to fil the spaces, so that did mean we had a bye.

The prize pool was massive, with a JSA Army Box plus loads of other loot, including some free Garbage (literally a MDF Dumpster) for everyone and customised Smackdown 3 rulers!

The tables were of an excellent quality and after taking pictures of them I don’t think there was one table I wouldn’t have wanted to play on and the majority were fully painted up! Some of the best tables were kit-bashed, my favourite being the Paradiso jungle table with Warmill scenery sculpted onto hills.

Thanks to our TO and star baker Laina!

The Tables

 

My Lists

[No Picture as it never got unpacked and used….]
Smackdown 3 List A
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 10 5
ARAGOTO Spitfire / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 26)
ARAGOTO Combi Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22)
ARAGOTO Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 19)
ARAGOTO (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
KUROSHI RIDER Lieutenant Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Breaker Pistol, AP + Shock CCW. (0 | 33)
KEMPEI (Multispectral Visor L2) Shock Marksman Rifle / Pistol, CCW, Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)
KEISOTSU HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 17)
KEISOTSU Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 14)
KEMPEI (Chain of Command) Combi Rifle / Pistol, CCW, Electric Pulse. (0 | 22)
KEISOTSU (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)

GROUP 2 5 1 1
HÙSÒNG Yaókòng HMG / Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 25)
YOJIMBO Contender, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades, CrazyKoalas (2) / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 21)
KEISOTSU (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9)
TOKUSETSU KOHEI Engineer Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
CHAĪYÌ Yaókòng Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)

6 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

Smackdown 3 List B
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

10 3
DOMARU Spitfire / Pistol, E/M CCW, Shock CC Weapon. (2 | 39)
OYAMA Lieutenant Chain Rifle, E/M Grenades / Breaker Pistol, AP CCW, EXP CCW. (0 | 28)
TANKŌ Missile Launcher / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon, Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 32)
TANKŌ Flammenspeer, Contender / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 23)
TANKŌ Blitzen, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 23)
SAITO TOGAN (Specialist Operative) Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, EXP CCW, Knife. (0 | 40)
RYŪKEN (Forward Deployment L2, ODD) Submachine Gun, Antipersonnel Mines, D-Charges / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 24)
DAIYŌKAI Red Fury, Panzerfaust / Pistol, DA CC Weapon, AP CC Weapon. (1 | 49)
TOKUSETSU EISEI Doctor (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
YÁOZĂO Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
KEMPEI (Multispectral Visor L2) Shock Marksman Rifle / Pistol, CCW, Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)

6 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

---

Game 1

• Mission: Acquisition
• Opponent: Matt “Spears”
• Faction: Ikari Company
• List: B

I won the initiative and I had a plan! Wanting to get the last turn, I chose turn order and decided to go second.  This did put me at the disadvantage of having to deploy first.  I place my Tanko’s up high on a walkway, right on the edge of the 16” deployment zone.  A Missile Launcher on top, then a Flammenspear/Contender, and finally a Blitzen/Light Shotgun on the ground by the stairs.  My Domaru Spitfire has a shot out as well, and Neko was in cover.

Matt set up two imposing fire teams.  A Brawler (MSV2 Multi-Sniper), Tanko (Blitzen/LSG) and 3 Keisotsu (2 Paramedics, 1 regular), and a Haris of two Wu-Ming (HMG, Haris SMG) and Brawler (AHD). There were a couple more brawlers hidden away and oddly Rui Shi up on a rooftop on the 16” line with a Yuan Yuan deployed at ground level behind than building.  Finally, a Krakot (Chain Rifle) near the middle. (I hate Krakots).

BEST PROXY EVER! Matt’s Tanko was a Domaru with the umbrella from the Dragon Lady HVT on his head! Class!

As part of “the plan” my holdback was Saito Togan (Spec Ops) who went in HD on the 24” line near the centre tech coffin – the plan being to wait until the last turn, jump out and hack down whoever was on in base contact with the Tech Coffin.  Matts holdback was Yo Jimbo with his Koalas who deployed right into the NW corner.

My Data Tracker was Neko, and his was the Krakot.

Turn 1 Ikari

Kicking off with the Impetuous phase, 3 Yuan Yuans all walked on in the same place, behind a building just near my Daiyokai.  The Yuan Yuan near the Rui Shi just ran behind the building, and Jimmy moved up and fired off a smoke grenade.

Matt started with on Yuan Yuan who rushed around the corner with and chain rifle, my Daiyokai dodged and the Tanko LSG blew him away.  The next disposable Yuan Yuan went the other way and threw a couple of smoke grenades in front of the Tanko Fireteam but got shot down by a Tanko.  Matt now had a nice smoke screen across the Tankos, so he buffs the Rui Shi with Assisted Fire using his EVO Hacker and then….

[Rules Interlude] My Tokusetsu Doctor was up on the walkway.  The piece of scenery had railings which had gaps.  I had forgotten to define the nature of these as scenery, as I am used to playing all railings a solid.  TO decision – unless you predefine then play scenery as true LoF. My mistake!

…the Rui Shi wasted my prone Tokusetsu Doctor (who was near my Tanko ML read to heal him and had a YaoZao on the ground as well), not a good start.  The Rui Shi then went not for the Tanko ML, but for the Flammenspear, but turned out to be at 25” and got burned down by fire, but not he was unloaded! With only a contender left the Brawler Multi-Sniper then went for him and managed to put him unconscious.  The sniper then got a LoF on the Blitzen Tanko and managed to kill him outright!  Now down to a three man link Matt went for the Tanko ML, who tanked the hits and went prone.  Finally, she took a shot on the Domaru who took wound but ducked back into cover.

With the way clear Jimmy moved up the table a bit more.

Turn 1 JSA

I was down to only 6 orders (as Saito was in HD).  The Brawler Multi-Sniper had to go!  Time for some dirty tactics!  The Tanko ML crawled alone the walkway and managed to get a LoF onto the Domaru in the Fireteam who was is blast template range of the Sniper.  He cracked off two missiles and the Domaru, one hit on a low number and the other one missed!  Then both the Domaru and the Brawler manager to dodge!

[Rules Interlude – I didn’t bring it up at the time, but after the game it occurred to me that you can’t go prone as part of a dodge as you may only go prone at the start of a move action.  The bit that’s unclear is that Dodge has a Move tag.]

2 orders down.  I decided to make the hard choice and take the Sniper on directly with the ML.  I was B2 on 13’s and he was B2 on 15’s… I lost, down went the Tanko ML and the link was broken.

Plan X?  The Domaru Spitfire ran out of cover straight towards the sniper, getting into 24”, but the Sniper hit him on a 17!  Down he went.

Onto plan Z now I decided to take a crack at the sniper with the Daiyokai’s Red Fury and then ducked back (and like a fool I forgot he has a PanzerFaust).  Again, the sniper won and put a wound on the Daiyokai.

Last order, I put the Kempeitai MSV2 SMMR, Daiyokai, and Ryuken into suppression fire.

Turn 2 Ikari

Matt now has a commanding position.  His last dropped Yuan Yuan ran out towards the Daiyokai who tanked the chain rifle and capped him in the head with the Red Fury – Shock Dead!

The other Yuan Yuan ran up further from the backfield.  Yo Jimbo moved in and due to some expert placement last turn managed to just not get into my Ryuken’s SMG suppression LoF. Jimmy sent his Koala forward and tripped the mine.

With no targets in sight, the Brawler and her fan club, hauled arse over the table.  On their way the sniper got off a shot at the back of the Kempetai SMMR’s head and blew it off.  They had enough orders to move up around the back of the same building that the Yuan Yuans had landed behind, and line up on the Daiyokai.  After a furious exchange of Shotgun and Red Fury the Daiyokai tanked a hit fell back around the corner out of the good 8” LSG range and then managed to put a wound on the Tanko!  During the exchange the LSG blasts ad manage to catch Neko by a millimetre twice, and he failed his dodge twice, and ARM saves twice, and went down!

Last orders Matt moved his Krakot Data Tracker onto the central tech coffin.

Turn 2 JSA

2 Orders left. Loss of Lieutenant.  Time for a RAMBO moment.  The Daiyokai used his own irregular order to move back into full cover from the Tanko and into LoF of the Krakot, and managed to place two Red Fury rounds into both the Tanko and the Krakot!  The Tanko tanked it, and the Krakot when down – Shock Dead! Spending a command token the Daiyokai went true RAMBO and stepped out to the back of the building, taking on two Keisotsu, the Brawler sniper (at flat range) and Yo Jimbo (across the table), 1 shot on each!  He missed Jimmy, killed a Keisotsu – Shock Dead!, was beaten but the second Keisotsu and tanked the Combi Rifle (ARM 8 in cover) and hit the sniper who ARM saved and WOULD NOT DIE!

Turn 3 Ikari

Matt rearranged his combat groups to get his first group back to 10 orders.  The last Yuan Yuan managed to put down the Ryuken with a chain rifle who also killed him with her SMG.  Yo Jimbo revved towards the action and the Daiyokai hit him with the Red Fury – Shock Dead!

Time to bring out the big guns, the Wu Ming Haris.  The HMG opened up of the Daiyokai and put him down!  With no opposition on the table the Wu Ming moved in on the Antenna and then Saito appeared.  He managed to snap off a Combi shot into the Wu Ming (HMG) but he tanked the ARM save. Matt switched to the SMG Wu Ming and gunned Saito down, and then the Brawler (AHD) finished him with a Coup De Grace [CLASSIFIED]!

With no opposition left – Matt managed to activate one Antenna and control it, control the tech coffin, and control the last coffin.

Final Score

Matt “Spears”.  Complete Victory.  3 TP, 7 OP (Controlled Tech Coffin 3OP, Controlled 2 Antenna 2OP, Activated 1 Antenna 1OP, Coup De Grace 1 OP), 221 VP.

Stuart “sam2064”. Loss.   0 TP. 0 OP.  0 VP. TABLED!

---

Game 2 – BYE

Due to my tabling in the first game I was dead bottom and so earned the Bye!  Felt bad that I didn’t get to use my List A which was my Biker gang lists!  I got the chance to spectate, answer some questions, wash up tea cups and eat a lot of Rocky Road and Brownies! So not a total loss!

---

Game 3

• Mission: Firefight
• Opponent: Tim “The GunGrave”
• Faction: Corregidor
• List: B

Same list – different mission.  Kill Lieutenants, kill specialists, kill everyone else, raid vending machines.  My list intentionally was light on specialists with only Saito (Spec Ops) and the Tokusetsu Doctor (who would hide and only use her G: Servant bot).

I won the initiative roll and this time decided to go first – and deployed first.  Rather than spread out, I deployed everyone around a building in the south west corner.  The Tanko ML had a commanding view across two fire lanes.  The Ryuken was up right near a Panoply.

Tim set out spread alone his DZ.  The main threats were two Tsyklon’s, one on each side, and a Haris of Mobile Brigada in the middle (HMG, Hacker and Multi-Rifle).

I placed Saito Togan in HD next to the western panoply as my holdback.

Tim placed McMurder the doggy man.

I chose my Tokusetsu Doctor, prone in a back room, surrounded by Tanko’s, to be my Data Tracker. Tim chose his Mobile Brigada Multi-Rifle.

Turn 1 JSA

Turn 1 was the Saito Togan show!  He grabbed a Kevlar Vest (+1 ARM) from the panoply and then recamo’d, setting off down the western side.  He crossed the Brigadas LoF, they tried to discover him and failed.  He then threw smoke over one Tsyklon Sputnik.  I then did a Co-ordinated order and moved my Ryuken up to the central panoply, Saito as spearhead into the smoke, and moved the Daiyokai and Kempetai into covering positions.  As Spearhead Saito took a couple of shots at a Transductor Zond (Flash Pulse) REM but it made the ARM saves.  He then disassembles the Tsyklon with 6 EXP Damager 14 hits, then finished off the flash pulse bot.

With my last three orders, my Ryuken popped a panoply for some pump trainers (Super Jump).  Then the missile launcher Tanko popped up and took out an annoyingly placed Transductor Zond on a roof top.

Final action was to co-ordinate and place the Daiyokai, Ryuken, Kempeitai and Saito on Suppression Fire.

Turn 1 Corregidor

McMurder went to work! He moved out throwing smoke to cover his advance towards my Ryuken.  He moved through the smoke and then spec fired a smoke grenade on a 13 (16 + 3 – 6) on top of my Ryuken who dodge back out of the smoke, but not far enough out. McMurder then moved, keeping his base touching the smoke and engaged the Ryuken, tearing her to itty bitty pieces. (She was also my only source of D-Charges for my Classified)

Unfortunately, his next step was his last as he Super jumped, throwing smoke as he went and managed to block 3 out of 4 ARO shots, but in the end got taken out by the Daiyokai’s suppression.

Next up, the Brigada HMG moved out of cover to get a shot on Saito.  At this point the heat got to my brain and I forgot he was on Suppression Fire and threw smoke instead. CRIT Saito went down. (with the suppression it would have been his B5 on 7’s and my B3 on 8’s!).

The Brigada HMG then tried to get a couple of shots onto the Tanko Flammenspear, he got a shot through the face to face roll and theTanko took a wound and elected to fail guts to drop into cover.  The Bridaga then tried the Tanko ML but was at a bad (-3) range of 33” while the Tanko was in good range.  The Tanko landed a missile on him but he saved two rolls and dropped back into cover.

Turn 2 JSA

Play the mission, not the game…

Tim had two specialists and I needed to kill them.  An Alguacil Hacker prone on a roof, and a Brigada Hacker.  A very silly plan formed in my mind.  The Daiyokai set off down the table.  He took shots at the Brigada HMG and landed a couple of hits but against ARM 7 it bounced off, and the Brigada jumped back into cover.  The Daiyokai then climbed up the tallest building on the table in the centre taking 2 full order climbs.  From the roof, he could see the Alguacil Hacker, who got an uncontested ARO on him and CRIT.  Next order the Daiyokai, went prone and placed 4 Red Fury shots into her – Shock Very Dead!

Turn 2 Corregidor

To break out of their bunker the Brigada needed to kill the Tanko.  The HMG tired again to take him out but was beaten but again made his ARM saves.  He managed to move up closer inside the 32” range but took a hit again.

He then walked in a Tom Cat with Zond Cat near the downed Tsyklon.  I then completely missed the ARO opportunity as the Zond Cat walked across the Tanko ML’s LoF and fixed the Tysklon [CLASSIFIED] (The missile would have been able to vapourise both of them in the blast template…).  The Tom Cat then stuck the knife in and Coup de Grace’d Saito [CLASSIFED]

Turn 3 JSA

I was 2 points down now. We’d both killed one specialist each. I’d got more panoplies, but he had 2 classified objectives.  So I decided that since the Daiyokai was already up the table I’d pour orders into him. He climbed down the building, then moved and got a shot on the Brigada Hacker from behind.  Despite putting 3 shots into her, she only took 1 wound. The Brigada has a dilemma though. If she failed guts and fell back, she’d be in LoF of the Tanko ML, so she used Warning! and spun about to face the Daiyokai.

With the last order the Daiyokai went again and this time managed to put her down! Finishing the turn in ZoC of the Corregidor HVT and in cover he just needed to hold on.

Turn 3 Corregedor

With the Tanko ML still on overwatch over the Mobile Bridaga, it was very difficult for them to get a line on the Tanko.  So, he bought the other Tysklon around and managed to catch the Daiyokai out of cover from that angle.  This game I remembered the PanzerFaust and let one off CRIT, no more Tsyklon.

Next, he tried to get a shot off with the Brigada HMG and manage to hit the Daiyokai and knocked off another wound, and he fell back out of sight.  Now the Brigada HMG couldn’t get to the Daiyokai without crossing the Tanko ML’s LoF, so he switched to the Brigada Multi-Rifle (his data tracker) and moved up to take the Daiyokai at close range.  The Daiyokai had to switch to a pistol but lost the face to face and failed the ARM save against the Multi-Rifle’s AP rounds.  With nothing else possible to do with his last two orders he called it a day.

Final Score

Stuart “Sam2064”. Partial Victory.  2 TP. 6 OP (More panoplies 2OP, More specialists killed 1OP, More army points killed [142] 3OP), 187 VP

Tim “The GunGrave”. Loss. 0 TO. 2 OP (2 Classifieds 2 OP). 158 VP

---

Final Result

I think I ended up on 4 TP, 8 OP, and 281 VP but I’m not sure because there is a bug in the OTM so when you look back at results it doesn’t include the points for byes (which are the average OP and VP from your other two games).  I placed 13^thI think (not 20^thaccording to the OTM) which is respectable after the pasting I got in game 1.

I still think that people who get byes should get a complete 3 TO victory rather than a partial 2 VP one, as they do in some other systems.  For example, if a really good player (not me) takes the bye in game 1 they will then never be able to get 9 TP so could end up placing second to someone on 9 TP without playing them (in a larger tournament).

Great painting in the single figure painting competition. Tim “The GunGrave” won with his Iguana TAG!  Couple of great looking avatars as well.  I put in my Ryuken-9 SMG

In the end it was a great day, and I did enjoy seeing all the games going on.  Well done to Dan Barber for once again taking 1^stplace with dirty Tohaa (he has told me he plays other factions but I have never seen proof of this).

All the players who got a bye, also took a bit of stick from the TO.

Look forward to more Smackdown next time, and hopefully less being smacked down.

P.S. If you know you can’t make a tournament for whatever reason, please let the TO know in plenty of time so they can plan to not have a bye.  Don’t be the guy who just doesn’t turn up… Although if you are throwing up violently or full of lurgy you can stay home !