Andrewc

I'm sad tha @George can't make it, but I will happily take your spot!

Sounds good, I'll be there!

Can't believe I forgot to sign up. How long is the wait list, any chance of getting in?

We can connect offline if you want to discuss more. Definitely looking forward to defending my sword at Rampage, so don't stop running events!

Amen!

@PaladinX Joel I’ve never seen worse dice in my life! Thanks for the positive and enjoyable game despite everything going against you!

I am sad to report that I will not be able to make it this year.

Agreed, it'd be nice to know so we can make lists and have time to make the painting requirement.

I'm pretty sure he was at RCR.

It's been way too long since I posted. How is everyone doing this fine spring? Had a great time at Cinco de Murder ITS at Glimpses this weekend, and was inspired to write a bit about tables and terrain. http://www.simpleknight.com/common-ground-thoughts-on-terrain/

Wouldn't want to run into that crew in a dark alley.

Oh man, called out. It’s our 10 year anniversary this weekend, I don’t think I’ll be able to make it...

Hey walker, ive been playing CA as my only army for a bit over a year. I started with onyx and it’s what I have the most experience with. I’m playing morats for most of 2018 to learn them, then moving on to Vanilla. I find that in onyx, not having smoke isn’t as much of a negative as you might think. It teaches you some things that you might not learn otherwise, such as utilizing cautious move, planning your turn carefully, and not exposing yourself to unfavorable Face to faces. That being said, it’s a fairly straightforward sectorial, apply plasma to the face and then move up with TO specialists as needed, with some nice tricks such as a noctifer missile launcher. As George said there are some fun fire teams as well. In the sectorial vs vanilla debate, I tend toward the school of thought that vanilla can be a bit overwhelming in the unit selection phase because there are so many different options. Sectorials have less options to choose from, and while Fire teams seem complicated, they really aren’t too bad to learn, especially maybe starting with a defensive unidron link. However there are some really great units in vanilla ca.

Wanted to do a quick summary of my games from last weeks tournament, and talk about current thoughts with Morats. Game 1 was Annihilation against Pete's Aleph. Pete is such a strong opponent, I predict a struggle and was not disappointed. I take first turn, and overextend with my Raicho. He posses it in his first turn, kills my Rodok missile launchers and then jumps him off a building, King Kong style. Game set and Match, 1-10 victory for Pete. Raindog and I (and everyone else) have had a few beers at lunch, so we were both loose and happy. Loose enough that I dropped my box of models and now have repairs to make. Not one of my better moments. We play the new mission Unmasking. I really do enjoy this one, lots of decision points. I learn from the two times I've played this mission before, choosing to go first, and concentrate on the mission. I take out an ARO piece, push two buttons and kill two decoys my first turn. Raindog hits back, killing some models, but not advancing his board position much. Turn two is much the same. My final turn I push the last button and just manage to kill the actual DT. Win for me 7-0. Final game against Isaac. He manages to keep my daturazi link pinned down for much of the game with a black friar in suppression. I move up a flank with hungries link and manage to be a thorn in his side but not accomplish much. Again I over extend with my Raicho trying to fight the world. He get's crit off the board turn two, and I can't recover having lost heavy hitters. I manage to keep my data tracker alive while killing his, but his Uhlan controls the console and he's killed lots more army points than I, 3-7 loss to Isaac. Still struggling to figure out what I'm comfortable with. I like the daturazi link, but without any ranged weapons, it's sometimes difficult to get anything productive done. The games I'm more comfortable with are when I have 2, one on each flank. I think I'll stick with this configuration for now. Hungries link was good for me, it was easy to spend all of my orders on them, because they were the only models in the second pool. However, they weren't able to accomplish a whole lot. I want to keep playing them due to the cheap orders and intimidation, but again not as comfortable. The haris with kornak, suryat and raktorak is hit or miss. Kornak dies almost every game I take him in, need to figure out how to use him but still keep him safe. Q-drone is money Zerat FO's are money I'm super comfortable with Rodoks. probably because they are super good. I will be concentrating on finishing their paint job, I think I'll be focusing on them for Rose City Raid. Have yet to spend more than 2 orders on Bit and Kiss, but haven't played many hackers, and haven't had an opportunity to use her for button pushing. I know she's good, just need to remember she's there. Rasyat is awesome, but need to remember eclipse smoke on his profile. Played a 200 point game against Jordan's USARF last night at glimpses in preparation for the April escalation tournament. It was a tight game with lots of back and forth. I managed to destroy one more antenna and his DT in the final turn for the 8-0 victory. Last two orders were a Zerat assault hacker attacking an antenna in CC with D-Charges, hitting both times and destroying it. Next week we'll play Rescue. I've not played it before, but I've got Suryats with jungle terrain, and Zerats with multi terrain. We'll see how that plays out.

I'll be there

Fantastic stuff!

Is that seriously a mini pocket-door?

Wanted to throw out a non-blog update on the table. I finished this one last week.

Terrain, my vote is always for terrain!

New post up http://www.simpleknight.com/test-building-apha/

I'm glad I'm not the only one starting to plan lists.

Last weekend I played at the ITS at Glimpses. It was my first time taking Morats to an event, and my expectations were not high. I wanted to try out a couple of things to see how they did in real world application. List one had a 5 man rodok link, a haris with Kornak, Suryat HMG, and Raktorak, a Zerat FO, Bit and Kiss, and two daturazi. My thoughts were to have some linked specialists, lots of high burst, and some smoke to move up the board. Game one Comm Center against Nate's Vanilla Nomads. Nate is a VERY good player, and we had a good close game. He was really able to leverage his Kriza Boracs and took out the suryat and kornak, my designated target, and placed him in the center in cover in suppression. I had to spend orders to dislodge him, losing a couple of rodoks to pistol shots from morlocks in the process. Nate was able to move up in the last to turns and press a lot of buttons, and killed more specialists, giving him a solid victory. Game two Hunting party against Erik's Acontecimento, I took a haris of Yaogats, a rasyat, bit and kiss, an E-drone, a vanguard FO, a Kurgat with Autocannon, Dr. worm, a Q-Drone with HMG, and two daturazi. First turn I lobbed some pitcher and used exile to isolate his Bag Mari HMG LT. That put me up on points, but It was all down hill after that. He moved up his Knight of montessa and took out bit, two of the three yaogats with grenades. brought on an akali hacker to data scan my hvt, pushed a button with a paramedic. My turn I failed to drop on my rasyat needing a 16, and had to place him back in my DZ. I used dr. worm to heal up my yaogats, and moved the lt into a building. I also glued that paramedic. Going into what would be the final turn, I had 6 to Erik's 3. He managed to push the other button with a naga, and stun my FO and kurgat for the 6-4 victory. A fun and insightful game. Game 3 Frontline against Aaron's Vanilla Pano. I took my first list, got the first turn and then went to murder city. He revealed his cutter to take a pot shot against an impetuous daturazi. Aaron had deployed him to cover a lot of the board, but was out of cover. This table was pretty open, and had a lot of awkwardly curved terrain pieces. All I had to do was peak out slightly with a rodok missile launcher, and got lucky, killing him with 1 order. After that I moved my links up and killed a bunch of stuff. Now lacking orders and his big heavy, Aaron scrambled with his orc to kill the suryat and some rodoks. my second turn I used my last daturazi to go on a rampage in his back line, killing stuff with grenades, and ending in b2b with his orc. If I kill the orc, he goes into retreat, so I use stealth and just idle in b2b. After the orc dies in his turn, we call the game, giving me a 9-0 victory, and third place overall. Takeaways Rodoks are good. We knew this, but didn't have too much real world testing. Need to learn how to really leverage superjump. Suryats aren't as good as you think. That haris is a lot of points, and isn't as resilient as one would hope. Kornak's additional order is nice, but also is 41 points, and is vulnerable to shock. Probably won't take this again. 12 orders was super awkward. I either want more or less. Probably more. Daturazi continue to be my favorite part of this army. I'm taking a 5 man link next time. Yaogats seem like they would be good, but I never really used them effectively. 4-2 move hurts when trying to move up the board, BS 12 isn't all that great unless shooting through smoke/ Bit and Kiss + E-drone is very effective. Expect to see this a lot moving forward. I would have liked an assault hacker to target HI and remotes, will include one next time. So in my learning of Morats, I've tried some different things to get the feel for them, and see what they can and cannot do. Next month I think I'll try out an 18 order list, and play as quickly as I can. It won't have much if any long range pieces, but if I can get first turn, or minimize damage going second, I will have a good shot at forcing my opponent to make bad decisions and trading my own pieces up.

I missed it in my first read through too. By activating a console, you can reveal one HVT as a decoy or Designated target. It's the second bullet point under the Activate console effects.

Having now seen the render, maybe I have the right amount of raktoraks after all...

With the kurgat with boarding shotgun I suddenly have way more raktoraks than I need. Very excited for this release schedule.