Mega Mikes Invasion Day 1

Invasion has been and gone. As most of you already know, I managed to to fight off 49 other competitors and lift the Invasion 2016 Champion trophy (for the second time).

So, here is a run through of my games from day 1 and their key moments. In the next post I will run through day 2 and reflect on my list and the UCM in general and finish up with where now for me.

I have spent a fair bit of time over the past few weeks making sure that my army was fully painted and up to scratch. From the new units like Mortar Teams, Hazard Suits and Starsprite Drones to re-vamping old units like adding squad markings to infantry and Ravens and basing the remaining flight stands. I received a lot of nice compliments on my army which I was very grateful for. I'm not the greatest painter, but I have put a lot of love and effort into my army.

On day 2's run through there will be few shots of my army and some of the units individually.



Game 1
Russell Joynson - Scourge
Military Complex

I played Russell at Warfare in Reading back in November, he hadn't changed his list much (slight tweeks). Mine has changed significantly from Air Supremacy to my 6 infantry list (with double Ferrum). The game started really well, on turn 2 I managed to jump on Russells Reapers that deployed in the open, my Hazard Suits making short work of them. I was removing Intruders to stop the scourge troop movements - I simply cannot deal with Destroyers and or Eviscerators in combat!
I found my home objective reasonably early and prevented Russell from getting his, I stopped the Destroyers and Eviscerators from moving on from the middle centre building, they found an objective but could not extract it. The Eviscerators, however managed to escape the building and get into combat with my Legionnaires in the middle centre building for turn 6...... no prizes for guessing what happened to my Legionnaires!
During the game 4 call for extractions were played (2 each) and all Intruders and Ravens were destroyed; 7 of my Ravens and 6 of Russells Intruders!!
I found the objective in the centre middle building and held it till the end. I won 3-1 on VPs but had amassed a huge kill point total (1135-405) giving me a 16-4 win

Game 2
James Foster - Shaltari
Search and Control

This mission is Recon+ with a swanky new name. A 6 is a Focal Point, no Intel and opponent can't search, a 1 is a bomb and Intel, but opponent can't search.
There were 9 searchable buildings on our table (and on every table). A sensible decision for a tournament.
This was the first time that I would come up against the Pungari. They have a fuck-ton of shots. Who knew?!?!! James also had 2 Havens and 2 Spirits to transport his 4 squads of Braves. I knew that if I could disable a couple of gates, that would be it for the Shaltari. I managed to knock a building right down which contained a squad of James' Braves, similarly, James did a significant amount of damage to the building containing my Mortar team. As James had a CV2 boss, I had a decision to make. Iwon activation, so...... do I search with my Mortars and get out? (turn to page 53) or, do I down the building with Braves in? (turn to page 394)
I chose the latter. I activated my old reliable Katanas and turned the building (and Braves inside) into rubble. I also took out a Spirit with the drones from the same battlegroup. James retaliated by destroying the building containing my Mortars. But I still had 5 infantry squads to James' 3. After turn 2 I had 2 pieces of Intel and 3 squads ready to search on turn 3, James had 1 piece of Intel and had found a Focal Point. After turn 3, I had 5 Intel and James was to have no more searches. We kill a fair few of each others units, 1 particular epic shot from a Firedrake killed 3 Katanas and 2 Wolverines. Silly me for bunching. James also killed a Ferrum (the only person to do so all weekend).
After James saw the savagery of my Hazard Suits, the Pungari stepped up to shoot them at the windows, they are like Orks, bucket loads of dice hitting on 5's. But needing 6's to wound was their undoing. They killed a few Hazard Suit guys, but I subsequently brought down the building on their heads.
James held onto his Focal Point, I contested it and the games ended 6-3 to me, I also edged the kill points 684-624 which gave me a 14-6 win

Game 3
Andrew Page - Resistance (Feral)
Ground Control

Ah, Andrew. My old nemesis. I have played him a lot at Invasion and other tournaments. I'm pretty sure I have played against 5 different armies from him too. What Andrew didn't know though, was that during game 2 I had been drinking some secret Swedish win juice (basically Koppaberg - pear). Andrew started the game by telling me how tired he was (I thought he was just getting his excuses ready) but to be fair to Andrew, he was dead on his feet. I took full advantage of the situation and took out the majority of the Resistance. I was shit-scared of the Lifthawks containing all his infantry (1 with 2 squads of Bezerkers and Fighters, the other with 3 squads of Fighters), as I have no sure-fire way to remove them. A few well placed Wolverine shots and a swarm of Starsprites dealt with the Bezerker wielding Lifthawk, they ended up on the floor where I removed them from play with templates, machine guns and some heavy guns.
The other Lifthawk delivered it's payload and in the ensuing combat 2 squads of Fighters magically turned into Bezerkers, I say magically, Andrew had 2 cards!! These pseudo-zerkers rolled a 5/6 for their D3 CQB EVERY BLOODY TURN FOR BOTH SQUADS. It was to no avail, even though Andrew won the first couple of encounters. I swept through them (armour 1 don't you know!) with Praetorians and multiple Hazard Suits, taking extremely heavy losses. Whilst outside of CQB my army tore through the Resistance. Hazard Suits wrecked a Thunderstorm, the Drones finished it off. All the Gun Wagons went down too. Andrew finished the game with 5 models left, and he contested 3 quarters while I owned all 4. 8-3 in VP's to me and with a massive 1268-629 kill points I got a 19-1 victory. Sleep well Andrew, sleep well.