Flight of the UCM: Day 2

I'm back......sorry, you have to put up with me for now.

Team OB: Screamer - MegaMike, ZombieState and SkullSword (plus a rather disgruntled German in the background)

If you haven't read part 1 of my Invasion recap, firstly why not? and secondly it's here

Without further ado

Game 4

Michel Goulmy
Bunker Assault
UCM

I'll start this run through with an apology to Michel aka Thunderboy. I'm really sorry for what happened. I still owe you a beer!
This was the second list I played that had double Seraphim, and I'm not convinced of their worth.
It all started in turn 1 when Michel put his Snipers in a 20 point building as his first activated squad. I duly removed the building and it's contents and Michel's game went downhill from there.
The thing with Bunker Assault is how you use your troops. They either need to get into a bunker nice and early, then defend it, or keep them off the board until turn 5 or 6 when it is safe to enter.

Because I had killed off the Snipers, there were no more scouts to spot for the Kodiak, meaning it was going to be a minimum of 5+ to hit anything. This didn't seem to bother the Kodiak though, as it put 2 wounds on my Ferrum! Then in turn 3 hit my Rapiers to cover 2 - he subsequently rolled double 1 to wound though; and that is pretty much how the entire game played out.
We had a good game of cat and mouse with the Archangels in which a great dog-fight where I had an Archangel go for a Falcon, Michel intercepted me and I intercepted the interceptor. I shot down his Archangel (his last one) and then failed to hit the Falcon.
I removed his Rapiers reasonably early using the Hazard suits, they had a good game and I really can see their potential the more I use them. This gave me free reign with my aircraft.

His Seraphim were probably the best squad for him during the game, they removed my Ferrum on turn 3 after I forgot my initial plan of keeping my own Rapiers near it...oops. They also killed a Rapier and Katana, but as you can see from the kill points, that was the majority of what was killed.

Michel's beautifully painted UCM (a really pretty digital camo effect) retreated into their corner, this meant my fast moving aircraft spent a turn bombing forward and by turns 5 and 6 had killed most of them off. His Kodiak went down, the Katanas were finished off and at the end I owned all 5 bunkers with Michel contesting 3.

This gave me a 10-3 win on victory points plus a 4 point kill point bonus (1007-332) giving me a 20-0 win.
Michel was an absolute gentleman throughout and for this reason I gave him my best sport. I would gladly play him again, anytime. He definitely deserves a rematch.

Game 5

Leopold Stein
Military Complex
PHR

Well well well, the 20-0 victory has propelled me into 2nd in the rankings, and 5 points behind my opponent who was Leopold Stein aka Lorn from team Germany.

What was nice to see, was that we had 4 players from the 2 OB teams on tables 1, 2 and 3!

I was surprised that we were playing Military Complex (MC), especially as we played Targets of Opportunity in the tournament already. They are the same mission but MC has hardened buildings.

Leo has a very good army for this mission (and most missions really). With 2 units of Sirens, Valkyries plus lots (7 in total) of Apollos bouncing around.

I had a plan to destroy Leo's home building, extract the objective from mine and stop/strand him in the centre.
Turn 1 Leo put Valkyries and Immortals into his home building and his Sirens rushed forward the full 20" to sit behind the centre left-hand building. I got one of my Archangels out of reserve and took out a Siren Triton, only killing 1 base in the crash. The walk-on Phobos reaction fired and killed the Archangel, I thought this was worth it.
I put all four of my infantry squads in my home objective. I shot up Leos building a fair bit too, although my Katanas were almost useless the entire game! He deployed very compact, all huddled together.
I really wanted to win activation for turn 2, but alas even with a higher level commander I failed. This was a major point in the game. Leo activated his Valkyries (and double Sirens). 1st search roll with the Valkyries and they find the objective, they jump out back and hand off to the Hades (personally I think I would have given the objective to the Immortals and leaped into the centre right building).
The Hades eventually handed off to a Juno (which came from Leo's second call for extraction) which extracted the objective. I was very very close to taking out the Juno with my flanking Falcons, but was out of range by about an inch.
The single base of Sirens enter the centre left-hand building and the other Sirens go for the middle centre building. I use my 2nd archangel and destroy the remaining Siren transport and again lose the angel to Phobos reaction fire!! (probably not worth it this time).
I take out the Valkyries Triton in the turn too. I search for my objective fail with Legionnaires but succeed with Hazard Suits, who hand off to the Legionnaires and then go after the single base of Sirens.
The rest of the game is very cagey, Leo is content to stay back and consolidate what he has, he knows that a minor win or draw is more than enough to win the tournament - probably even a minor loss too!
I wipe the single Sirens, but it took a while and I took casualties.
I was busting the centre building with the other Sirens and by the end of the game there were 3 left (holding an objective) and 6 dp remaining on the building. Leo made a hell of a lot of falling masonry saves, and when I did get through rolled poorly to hurt them!
I had the chance for a search on turn 6 with Legionnaires, who failed.
The Sirens left in the centre building were looking for ways to extract the objective, first with the single Apollos and then with Helios, but each time I scuppered Leo's plans by shooting down whatever got near.
The game ended with a 2-3 loss in victory points, very close indeed. Leo didn't receive a kill point bonus (582-472) so it finished 9-11 and relegated me to 4th spot overall.

Congrats to Leo and to team Germany. It was a good tense game.
Team OB:Screamer won the team competition by a massive 7 points, with all 3 team members in the top 4!!

Conclusions

I really like playing my army. The UCM airwing can be absolutely deadly. It has it's weaknesses. CQB for instance, I would love to fit in a unit of Praetorians but I'd lose a battlegroup as they would replace the Legionnaires.
The Archangels were a constant threat to opponents, I just really wish you didn't have the loss of a battlegroup early on in the game though. It would be great if you could have a unit of Scouts or Infantry in their battlegroup.
Hazard Suits..... (sighs with joy at the thought). The Hazard Suits are exactly what the UCM need. They can tank falling masonry like a boss, they have a very decent shot on them, they are superbly costed plus they are infantry. Seriously, I wouldn't change a thing. They are a magnificent unit entry. It's a shame I couldn't roll to hit with them in 2 of my games!
I think for my next UCM army I will try something a little different, and a whole lot more grounded (wink wink)