World Champion MegaMike's Invasion Day 1

As you may have heard, I won Invasion. I F**KING WON!!!!! Yippeeeeeeeeee

Someone needs to buy me this!! Zombie, are you seeing this?

Oh and I'm sticking with World Champ. Invasion certainly had a global feel to it ;-)

Invasion was awesome as usual. There were more players than there have ever been, plus a new faction to worry about. I met some old friends and made some new ones too. 

In this post I will talk through my games, where my army worked, where it lacked (if it did) and also how I feel about Shaltari winning again.

Game 1 

Military Complex

David Bonner (finished 2^nd)

Shaltari 

Coyote (CV3), 2 yari (1 mv gun), first borns

braves, braves

braves, totem

2 tarantulas

jag, jag

caimen, caimen

Eden x3 Spirit, Haven x3

David's list seemed light on gates to me. 3 Eden, 1 Spirit and 3 Haven for 4 squads of infantry. I started by piling in 4 units of infantry into my back board building to search for the objective, it's hardened and has 30 dp. I was surprised that David only put 1 unit in his and put his totem behind it. I knew I had to be the occupier in at least 3 buildings to win the game (and find the objectives!). After the first turn I managed to restrict David to not many searches, it's a shame that I couldn’t find anything till turn 4 though!! David found his back board objective on turn 3 - his second search dice roll. I'd had 10 before I found my first objective in turn 4. I found a second objective also, got them both extracted too. We had to call it on turn 5 as we ran out of time. 

Very limited opportunities for kps – very cagey from both of us. I thought he used his troops and troops gates badly. They just weren't around much. One thing I really liked though was Davids Totem. So much so, that I got one with my winnings, looking forward to trying it out - but in a more aggressive way. 

4-2 in victory points (vps), no kill point (kp) bonus (283 – 345) - 12-8 in tournament points (tps)

Game 2

Ground Control

Greame Parrish (finished 32^nd)

Scourge

Desolater

6 Hunters, 3 Reapers, Despoiler

6 Warriors, 2 Invader, Marauder

6 Warriors, 2 Invader, Marauder

3 Hunters, 3 Reapers

First thing I noticed was, no Destroyers and no Reavers. This made me happy. I finished this game with all the board quarters, calculating as I went through each turn, the cost of units in each quarter. It's a skill I possess, quick mental arithmetic, also helps you not look a complete tool as you get a calculator out half way through a game, I only mention this as that's what ZombieState did!! 

During the game Greame had some seriously amazing warriors, he disembarked 6 bases in a large building. I couldn't resist going in, so I threw in Firstborns and 2 squads of Braves to deal with them after shooting the building a bit.  The following turn the Warriors had 9 dice against each of my squads, he wiped out one of my squads of braves that's 6 sixes in 9 dice. It took 2 turns to annihilate all the warriors and I had to throw another squad of Braves in. After killing his warriors, his boss and despoiler shot the large building doing 22 damage (it had 21 left – killing the rest of my infantry). 2 shots 22 damage....seriously!!!! He also killed my Dreamsnare by dropping a building (10 pointer) on top of it, my fault - I was trying to stay out of the way of the hunters, so they shot the building I was hiding against - oops.  I killed a lot of his stuff and he only had 5 BGs which made turn 6 easier for me as I could position my squads after he did.

8-0 vps, 3 kp bonus (972 – 413) - 19-1 in tps

Game 3

Secure the Flanks

Erik Robertson (finished 5^th)

Scourge
Desolater CV5
6 Warriors, 2 Invader, Marauder
3 Hunter Marauder, 3 Reaper Marauder
3 Stalker Harbinger, 3 Ravager Harbinger
4 Minders Intruder, 2 Destroyers Intruder, 2 Destroyers Intruder

4 Minders Intruder

I was a little disappointed not to win. I know I made a couple of mistakes. My initial plan was to take out Erik's objective building, which is why I walked on everything that could shoot. My first mistake was not leaving room for 1 Jag. I left 2 dp on the building. He went in with 6 bases of Warriors (2 squads), won initiative, found the objective and bugged out. The second part of the plan was to make sure I was the occupier for the centre objective. This I managed, and this is where I feel his list let him down. If he had warriors in Intruders, he could have found the objective and been occupier in that first activation on turn 2. Being Occupier for that objective is crucial especially if you don’t have many ground units as most scourge lists have. Again, if dice had been average I would have found that centre objective and had the advantage early. But he rolled a very good amount of 6’s in CQB, plus made all his saves on his Destroyers.

he did very well at removing my light gates, which I think was you strategy from the outset, but in a game with Focal Points you really need to take out the Edens to stop the Shaltari from turn 6 shenanigans.

I was probably a little over confident with one focal point, and Erik having an underground monorail, crazy pilot and tactical withdrawal in turn 6 definitely helped him out. I should have made sure by moving my walkers there steadily over the game. It turned out that my 2 Tarantulas weren't enough to hold it after the Destroyers used a tactical withdrawal and went through the underground monorail right next to the fp. He used his Crazy Pilot card to land his last Ravager within 6" of the FP too. This was my third mistake. Erik went first on the last turn, I should have used my Tarantulas last, he would have dropped his last Ravager and I could have had a shot at it with the Tarantulas, had I have killed it I would have won!

An excellent game and a well earned draw!

5-5 in vps, no kp (629 - 478) - 10-10 in tps

That's it for now lovely people, more in a couple of days