Antares Day was a fantastic event held here at Warlord HQ Nottingham! One of the Primaris Shard group members, James Bowen, managed a close second place and has written down his thoughts about the event.
By James Bowen
I recently took part in the first Antares Day at the HQ store in Nottingham. I thought I would put together some thoughts on my list choices, my matches and the day in general.
The day itself was a great experience. 3 games over the day meant that there was no time pressure and gave space for mini seminars on Antares between each round and even time to enjoy the food Warlord provided.
First up some thoughts on my list;
750 points – battles 1 & 2:
- I field 2 squads of AI with overload ammo and spotter drones.
These squads are very good all rounders, as the overload ammo, helps them deal with higher res targets like drones and Tsan Ra and gives me two squads that can put pins on Ghar suits.
- The third AI squad is cheaper with just the leader being given a mag repeater.
With two repeaters, two mag guns and a micro-x launcher the squad can still put out a good weight of fire, while being cheap enough to let me fit targeter probes into the list. I have been tempted to drop the spotter drones from the other squads to free up points so I can give this squad overload ammo as well but I need to play more to decide.
- After that, I have a 6 trooper assault squad.
I haven’t had much luck with this yet but then I’ve only recently been trying to sprint them into combat. Whether it’s because I’m too aggressive with them or because they’re a bigger squad they tend to draw a lot of fire, meaning they’ve tended to be down to only 3 or 4 troops by the time they’re in assault range with a fair few pins as well. However in cover, they’re still good at soaking fire and keeping the rest of my army in tact, so I’ve stuck with them.
- Next, the X launcher is an obvious choice and I go up to 2 for the 1000 point list.
Since the change to Net ammo, I’ve been using scoot, grip and scramble rounds more and more, finding them to be a wonderful set of tools. The x-launchers rarely make their points back directly, but games 1 and 3 wouldn’t have been won without them. Spotter drones are also vital for this unit.
- An Avenger skimmer with a mag-cannon, batter drone and spotter drone
This is one of the choices I’m less sure on. I’m very tempted to try it without the spotter and a twin mag light support so that it can hunt weapon teams. My original thoughts were that it would be good for killing Ghar battle-suits. The reality is that the one shot goes on the squad leader, where there is only a 1 in 10 chance of actually killing a suit. It stayed in the list for its ability to kill Concord weapon drones and rebel crawlers.
- The final choice at 750 points is 4 targeter probes.
For 20 points they’re great. I’ve yet to have them destroyed and being able to get that +1 to +3 on the unit I need to remove has proven vital time and time again. They also make for a great time waster activation. Just make sure to keep the last one well hidden somewhere out of the way.
Upgrade to 1000 points – battle 3;
- I’ve added a second x-launcher with all the trimmings, a medic team and an infiltration squad.
I believe the medic team is really just another cheap dice. Its another throw away activation, that can eat the disruption dice. I’ve not really used them enough to say how good I think the unit is so I’m likely to change my mind. In game 3, they did help the assault squad survive against a concord C3M4 drone for an extra turn.
- Infiltration squad
I run them at 5 troops, with a camo drone and solar charges. I’ve yet to see a minefield be detonated but I do think it has a good psychological effect and that they have great potential in ensuring you can hold objectives from the enemy. The camo drone is definitely well worth while, even if in game 3 they refused to ever stop being down. I’ve yet to use an activation to have them lay another minefield but I do like the idea of using them to make a run pre-game and them lay a second mine field on the first turn.
In terms of developing my lists, I’m very excited to see how the hazards suits play out. I love heavy infantry and at 100pts for a unit of 3 they seem promising. I also want to look at getting a command team of some sort to start experimenting with ‘follow’ orders, but that is for another day…
On to battle:
The first game was against the Ghar in a straight up fight. My opponent had two big units of Ghar suits, an outcast squad, a disruptor cannon and flitters. This meant I could just kill his 3 soft units to break his army. A combination of x-launcher ammos and by ordering the squad targeted by the Ghar battle-suits to go down, kept the Ghar from doing any serious damage to my army.
Game 2 was against Chris’ Ghar Outcast Rebels. My plan here was to focus fire and break rebel squads, aiming to kill two a turn, thus breaking his army on turn 3. For this scenario, we had to keep half our forces off the board, to then move on during turn one. This allowed me to wait for Chris’ mag cannon armed crawler to come on before I brought on my Avenger. After a brief duel, my Avenger destroyed his crawler, mostly due to my Batter drone ensuring he missed and my spotter ensuring I hit. While my battle plan failed miserably in the face of Chris’ unfailing ability to make saves and pass command checks, a frenzied turn 4 saw 5 of Chris’ weakened Ghar Outcast Rebel units finally break and run, giving me the victory.
The final game was hamstrung by dense terrain. Both sides deployed such that we had little opportunity to shoot at each other. Lucky use of scoot rounds, combined with both sides hugging cover, meant that aside from my Avenger taking some gun drones to task very little had happened in turns 1 and 2. By turn 4 it was clear I had a minor victory in hand and a possible major victory, but my opponent cleverly and skillfully manoeuvred his forces back away from the closing Algoryn to deprive me of my 3rd major victory.
All in all, it was a great day and looking at the scoreboard, a very good day to be an Algoryn commander 🙂 I’m looking forward to the next one, where I will have to do something about the fact Ghar got the top slot!
Begin your battle on Chryseis III here!
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Sam Phillips
