Waiting in the Wings
Well, it was time to play in the George Spencer something something PanO Masters Invitational Spirit Awards Jamboree County Country Miss Universe Tournament at Shiv Games!
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m pretty sold on playing multiple games at the same time as a challenge, so I had actually written four lists for this tournament: two Nomad lists and two Foreign Company lists. I had intended on playing Foreign Company, but I volunteered to play two games simultaneously in the event we had an odd number of players… and we did.
Round 1 I got paired up against George (Bubba_Phatt) himself and John (Sarsippius) in double games of Unmasking–the missions were randomly selected from the following list by Jeff, who was running the show:
- Battleground
- Biotechvore
- Capture and Protect
- Critical Mass
- Cutthroat
- Decapitation
- Frostbyte
- Highly Classified
- Mindwipe
- Unmasking
I got to play on the ice table… again. It’s grown on me now that I know how it works, but it’s definitely given me my fair share of losses on it.
Overview
- Mission: ITS14 Unmasking
- Forces: Nomads versus Military Orders (300)
- Deploy First: Nomads
- First Turn: Nomads
To make OTM happy, I was playing as myself (using ForCo) and Jeff (using Nomads). “Jeff” was playing George, so here’s the list that I took, inspired by the Salem Shitshow triple Hellcat list that I’d been running. I actually spent a fair amount of time designing and thinking about this list, and it’s really quite representative of my unit preferences and play tendencies.
The list itself is very much about order efficiency and keeping orders protected. Key examples of keeping orders protected are the Puppetbots, which can die without hurting my order pool and the Hellcats, which are invincible until they show up. Order efficiency comes from the Hellcats, which can be wherever they need to be in one order on 15s, and then we have a solid package of infiltrating and forward deploying models that hit far above their weight like Morans and the Liberto.
Hard Mode
GROUP 1
7
1
GROUP 2
MODERATOR (Lieutenant) Combi Rifle / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 9)
PUPPET MASTERS (Minelayer) Submachine Gun, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 14)
PUPPETBOT (BS Attack [Shock]) AP Marksman Rifle / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 14)
HELLCAT Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 24)
ROBIN HOOK Rifle(+1 Dam), Tactical Bow(+3 BS), Drop Bears / Heavy Pistol(+1B), PARA CC Weapon(-9). (0 | 23)
MORAN (Repeater) Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse, D-Charges, Crazykoala ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 17)
BANDIT Light Shotgun, Adhesive Launcher / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 22)
1
JAZZ Hacker & BILLIE undefined / undefined. (0.5 | 25)
BILLIE Flash Pulse, E/M Mines / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 7)
ARMAND (Multispectral Visor L1) MULTI Sniper Rifle, Nanopulser ( ) / Breaker Pistol(+1B), Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 39)
STEMPLER ZOND Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 16)
MORLOCK Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Assault Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (0 | 6)
LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 8)
6 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Army | Copy Code
In case I need to do some stabbing or need access to smoke, I’ve included a Bandit and Morlock. Armand is the primary gun in the list, he pulls double duty as an ARO unit as well as an attack vector. If my opponent doesn’t have an answer for him, he generally tends to rule the table. I chose to have double Hellcat boarding shotguns because of the versatility of the weapons package and for redundancy. You can get a lot of work done with a shotgun, clearing links, attacking Mimetism -6 units, and even engaging hard targets out of cover out to 16″ on 12s. I don’t think the Hellcat spitfire needs any real justification!
Robin Hook is there mostly because I have the model and I wanted to try her out. She could easily be Aida or a Zero or something, I just really wanted to test her out and I had a free slot to spend. Jazz and Billie round out the list to give me access to White Noise and have hacking power through the Morans.
George brought Military Orders to his eponymous tournament. He used a Knight Commander without NCO, which I found strange, but sometimes you just can’t fit the points. He’s got two medics, both the Infirmarer and the Montesa, and then triple Trinitarian. The power in the list comes from a Teutonic Knight link with a Spitfire, Missile Launcher, and specialist profile.
George (Bubba_Phatt)
GROUP 1
KNIGHT COMMANDER (Lieutenant [+1 Order]) Combi Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 28)
INFIRMARER Combi Rifle / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 25)
TEUTONIC KNIGHT Spitfire / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (1.5 | 29)
GROUP 2
KNIGHT OF MONTESA (Paramedic) Boarding Shotgun ( | MediKit) / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 29)
TRINITARIAN MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 28)
CURATOR Combi Rifle, D-Charges, AP Mines ( | GizmoKit) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 17)
MULEBOT (Hacker, EVO Hacking Device) ( ) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0.5 | 15)
DART Submachine Gun, Viral Tactical Bow, E/M Grenades / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 34)
5 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Army | Copy Code
Dart and an EVO round out group two. Given all the specialist types in the list, I’m pretty sure this is the list that’s meant to cover Highly Classified and probably even Biotechvore with all the classifieds.
Deployment
In any case, George won the rolloff and generously chose deployment, mostly so I could be on the same physical side of the table as my other game, where John did the same thing. I’m already playing two games simultaneously, I don’t need to over complicate further! Thanks to George and John for being awesome and doing that! In any case, given that I have three Hellcats, I elected to go first.
I put my Unmasking decoys on the left and slightly right of center, with the real Designated Target locked up on the right with a Moran and Koala. To make another plausible target, I put the other Moran on the left, also protecting the Decoy. I attempted to over-infiltrate my Bandit, but failed, so she ended up watching the Decoy on the left with her ADHL to really sell it. Jazz and Billie went into pretty boring but safe spots, as did the Morlock on my left.
I didn’t know what to expect from George, so the Stempler went in the middle. I put the Moderator, Puppeteer, and the Puppeteer’s mine all guarding my backfield from AD tropops, and then put Robin Hook and the Libertos guarding the central approach. Finally, the two Puppets were at the edge of my deployment zone further protecting my Moderator. Le Muet was my reserve.
George stacked up his Decoys on the left with the Designated Target in the center. The Trinitarian MSR and BSG were on the right holding ground with the Montesa and protecting the EVO and Curator.
George hid his Knight Commander as a Knight of Santiago Spitfire, and then put the Teuton link in the center with the Infirmarer. Dart was just outside his deployment zone. I put Le Muet down outside my deployment zone and I forget what George’s reserve was. One interesting note is that George left all his Trinitarians on the table, presumably for orders on his turn.
Turn 1
Top of 1 – Nomads
MO is pretty points dense, and I saw a pretty small number of orders on the table for George. I figured I could spend the first turn taking out key units and attacking his order pool and that would do a significant amount of damage. High on my priority list was the Montesa, because if that stays on the table it can offset any damage to the order pool I do with its high mobility. It can even get to my lieutenant, potentially, so it really has to go.
If I can start exposing HVTs that’d be good too, but I don’t really need to, especially because there’s a points penalty to doing so, because your opponent can flip the console back and then have more consoles. In other words, aggression is the plan. George takes two orders from group two to limit my ability to do stuff with Le Muet, which is probably wise. I decline to use the Morlock’s impetuous, because the Teuton can see it, and instead drop in the group one Hellcat BSG right behind the Curator, which fails its dodge change face. Thankfully I rolled low enough to still land where I wanted due to the EVO’s Controlled Jump.
I split burst on the Curator and the EVO, dropping both in one order. This is especially impactful, because now Controlled Jump is offline.
I shoot the Montesa and do a wound…
and then drop it with one more order. 9’s with DAM 14 AP is still respectable!
I figure I’ll get rid of the Trinitarian BSG nearby, as the MSR on the catwalk isn’t revealing. I generate a template off the downed Montesa, which forces the issue and the Trinitarian templates back. I pass my ARM but it doesn’t.
I’ve got one more order on the Hellcat, so I try to take out the Teuton specialist. I hit but fail to do a wound.
Le Muet only has a handful of orders, so I attempt to bait out the Trinitarian MSR by moving Le Muet to discover the Trinitarian SMG. Neither ARO, and I discover the Trinitarian SMG and start taking shots. I hit, but it passes ARM and goes prone. The MSR continues to decline to ARO.
WIth that, I put the Stempler in suppression just in case and pass turn over to George.
Bottom of 1 – Military Orders
Well, I’ve done a fair amount of damage to George’s list. He moves Dart to Group 1 and sets about recovering. Le Muet is pinning everything in place, so George starts by trying to take him out with the Trinitarian MSR. The first shot, where George has surprise, isn’t bad for him, but it’s not great for either of us:
| 20.6 | 46.9 | 32.5 |
The odds swing in my favor once surprise is gone…
| 31.4 | 41.0 | 27.7 |
so I win the face to face and drop the Trinitarian MSR. The Teuton Missile tries next, as it’s the first Teuton that can see. We’re just outside of 24″, so George is on 7’s and I’m on 13’s.
| 35.4 | 33.6 | 31.0 |
I hit, but ARM 6 effective is pretty good so the Teuton is unscathed. At this point, George just starts dodging forward with all the Teutons and I basically can’t hit them.
Eventually he sends in the Spitfire, firing from the hip in the open. These odds are pretty awful, considering the burst 5 to my burst 1!
| 40.8 | 28.7 | 30.5 |
I hit again, but I can’t penetrate the Teuton’s armor. The Teutons eventually dodge out of LoF and stack up on George’s Decoy and Designated Target in the center of the table and he’s forced to pass turn after failing a WIP roll on the central console.
Turn 2
Top of 2 – Nomads
It’s time for me to start exposing HVTs and such. I cautious move the Moran on my left into contact with the nearest console and reveal George’s amazing Boba Fett HVT to be the Designated Target! This lets me move my Libertos (proxied with a Morlock, I guess I forgot the Libertos at home) into view and template the HVT and two of the Teutons. The Teutons and the HVT easily dodge, with the Spitfire Teuton dodging into close combat with the Libertos.
Not ideal, but Le Muet can see Boba Fett, and now there are no AROs thanks to the Teuton being in close combat, so our favorite Mim -6 sniper drops the Designated Target easily.
I decide to try and take out the Teuton ML with the Stempler’s tac aware, but fail to get through its armor.
This wasn’t strictly necessary, but I figured it was a good use of the Tac Aware. In retrospect, this is actually pretty bad odds for me and I shouldn’t have made the attempt.
| 15.8 | 26.7 | 57.7 |
I did it because I wanted to try and drop the link bonus, so I’m just forced to use the Moran to try and take out the Teuton. It doesn’t work, but I’ve at least got the Moran watching them now from cover.
I shuffle the puppets forward and fail to WIP roll the rightmost console, and then I’ve gotta pass turn.
Bottom of 2 – Military Orders
George easily takes out the Libertos with the Teuton, and I attempt to flash pulse the specialist operative while this is happening with the Moran… it doesn’t work. That would’ve been pretty grand.
The Teutons flip the central console, revealing my Designated Target, and start moving towards it. The Moran and Le Muet try to stop them, but cannot beat their dodges at all.
I eventually do a single wound to the Spitfire as it rounds the corner and enters my defensive net. Both puppets and a Koala fail to get the job done, and even Jazz doesn’t get a Carbonite off.
Thankfully George is out of orders, so turn passes back to me.
Turn 3
Top of 3 – Nomads
I’ve still got two Hellcats waiting in the wings, so I’m feeling pretty okay about my ability to project power on the table where I need it. I start off by cleaning up the Teuton near my Designated Target with the Puppetbot BSG.
I flip the rightmost console, and then Le Muet finishes off the Decoy in the center.
I’m about to bring on some Hellcats to take out the Teutons when George calls the game. He’d had a late night and wanted to have a bit longer for lunch and some well deserved downtime, so we called it there at a
9-0, 292-159 Nomad Victory!
Post Game Analysis
I. Love. This. List. It’s everything I liked about the list that carried me through the Salem Shitshow, but with enough orders to support the Hellcats and the rest of the list effectively. It really solves the problems that list had by giving me ways to interact with the table with low risk (the puppetbots and Morans) and elevates the ARO presence from the Grenzer MSR all the way to Le Muet.
I think I definitely had a streak of luck at the beginning of the game with my Hellcat boarding shotgun, and that really put George on the back foot. I think having all the Trinitarians on the table was a mistake–being able to protect some of his orders and then surprise me later would have been really powerful. Not having NCO on the Teuton spitfire was also an issue, I think. Having the extra orders there would have been pretty good.
This game is definitely a showcase of the power of Le Muet when your opponent doesn’t have a good answer. An albedo Black Friar would have been absolutely devastating, and I am looking forward to abusing that model in NCA when I finally get around to playing them again. Still, George did an excellent job leveraging the tools he did have–those Teutons were basically invincible with all the dodging they were doing! Crazypants how strong that is, especially on the whole Haris!
We both failed a bunch of WIP rolls on objectives, nothing to be done there, but it is what it is. I wish I had remembered to roll for Booty on Robin Hook, or attempted to use her at all. I eventually discovered while reading her profile mid-game that she didn’t have Specialist Operative, which dramatically alters my usage model for her. I’ll continue to attempt to use her, of course, but she’s definitely an oddball of a unit.
I really enjoyed playing this list. It clicked for me, and I felt like the low order count really made me prioritize well and in the right way. I never felt like the game was getting away from me because I had access to the Hellcats and could have responded to key problems with a shotgun or spitfire at any time. Just the ability to be exactly where you need to be on 15s is so powerful.
After the Shitshow, I attempted to list build in other factions to replicate the list archetype of multiple AD troops. I don’t think it works well in other factions, for many reasons. Other factions that have high quality and reasonable PH drop troops like Tigers in YJ have a cost problem. Factions like Acontecimento have affordable AD troops, i.e. the Akali, but they have pretty low PH 11. Nomads are the sweet spot of high effective PH and low cost and capability, so I think this archetype works best in vanilla Nomads where you can support the Hellcats very well.
It’d work out of Corregidor, but losing things like the Libertos and Puppets is a big deal, in my mind. There’s a lot of potential here, and I look forward to continuing to explore this stuff in Nomads. It’s really nice to finally have a new archetype to explore in a faction that I felt I had played to death–just a welcome breath of fresh air. Thanks to George for a great game and for being so generous with the lieutenant roll results, and thanks to you for reading!
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