Ever since Pete (YueFei23) crushed me with a 4 Kuang Shi, 4 Shaolin, and some Yu Jing all-star stuff list, I wanted to try my hand at it. Erik wanted some practice for the Rose City Raid, and so became a willing? victim of the list. He wanted some more practice in Power Pack, which I think is actually a pretty reasonable scenario to use a silly amount of impetuous troopers in.

The strange deployment zones create areas of high model density, which is great for chain rifles, and we’re a full 8″ closer thanks to being able to deploy 16″ up instead of 12″. The middle of the table is comparatively unguarded, sans some infiltrators, which means my big scary guys can do some serious damage in the midfield.

Overview

Mission : Power Pack

: Power Pack Forces : Yu Jing versus Hassassin Bahram

: versus Deploy First : Yu Jing

: First Turn: Yu Jing

Power Pack GROUP 1 | 10 4 YĀN HUǑ Lieutenant Hyper-Rapid Magnetic Cannon / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 54)

HAC TAO Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) MULTI Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 67)

NINJA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 29)

KǍNRÈN Forward Observer Boarding Shotgun, Chain-colt / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon, Knife. (0 | 26)

TIGER SOLDIER Spitfire / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32)

CELESTIAL GUARD (Kuang Shi Control Device) Combi Rifle + Light Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 13)

KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)

KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)

KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)

KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) GROUP 2 | 1 6 4 HÙSÒNG Yaókòng HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)

LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 10)

WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3)

SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 5)

SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 5)

SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 5)

SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 5) 6 SWC | 299 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Pete’s list was pre-Liberto, so mine includes a Liberto. I also elected to go for a Tiger Soldier due to Power Pack instead of a Su Jian. I know Erik’s playing Hasassins, so I’m actually pleased about having a ton of chain rifles to fight off his Mutts. I figure I’ll hide the Kanren as a Hulang to hide some points, and then leave the TO models in hidden deployment until the last possible minute.

Hassassin Bahram GROUP 1 | 10 MUYIB Lieutenant Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher (Normal and Smoke Ammo.) / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 23)

MUYIB Rifle + Light Shotgun, Panzerfaust, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 24)

MUYIB (X Visor) Spitfire, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 28)

MUYIB Doctor Plus (MediKit) Rifle + Light Shotgun, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)

MUYIB (X Visor) Heavy Rocket Launcher, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 22) RAGIK Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, CCW. (0.5 | 32)

FARZAN (Chain of Command) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 26)

FARZAN (Marksmanship L1, Forward Observer) Rifle + Light Shotgun, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 24)

FIDAY Boarding Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW, Knife. (0 | 29)

LASIQ (Fatality L1) Viral Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 27) GROUP 2 | 1 3 3 FARZAN (Minelayer) Boarding Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23)

MUTTAWI’AH Chain Rifle, E/Marat, Jammer, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)

MUTTAWI’AH Chain Rifle, E/Marat, Jammer, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)

MUTTAWI’AH Chain Rifle, E/Marat, Jammer, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) 6 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Erik’s been thrashing his HB list before the tournament a little, tuning the composition of his link. He’s in love with the Muyib LGL Lt, which is quite handy, but complained after the game that he felt light on specialists. I think he needs to use his Farzans more, but I made a point to try and kill them early.

Deployment

I won the rolloff and started very carefully deploying my impetuous troopers. The keys rules I followed were:

Shaolin should be deployed at the periphery of my deployment zone to protect my vulnerable Kuang Shi, as they are a huge source of regular orders! Shaolin should have “guaranteed” impetuous order paths forward, with a clear spot to throw smoke to protect Kuang Shi moving behind them. To the best of my ability, check LoF to potential ARO locations and make sure I’m not granting an ARO to an impetuous trooper not protected by smoke. Deploy my non-impetuous troopers away from impetuous trooper movement paths to avoid getting caught by something like a Muyib HRL.

To this end, I put two Shaolin in each deployment zone and set them up to hit a corner of a building on their impetuous move and then throw smoke. Then I placed my TR bot very carefully to fulfill the following needs:

Cover the relatively open area between the two right-side deployment zones.

Cover the approach from the center to my right deployment zone.

Cover the right table edge against AD.

Cover the back table edge against AD (it exists in Power Pack!).

Block leftward movement for the nearby Shaolin, to force him to move right.

Once I had done all of that, it was time to find a home for all my non-impetuous troopers. Rhonda Burgundy (channel 4 news Warcor) went on the left, since that had the densest terrain to protect her when she was trying to get the Xenotech business done. I put the Celestial Guard on the right as a backup smoke source to the two Shaolin, since the right side was the most open, in terms of terrain. The Ninja went right next to the central objective, because that makes sense, and I tucked the Kanren as a Hulang in the middle as well, mostly to defend against things trying to secure the console on my side of the table.

The Libertos went in the middle to be able to clear mines off the central objective for the Ninja, and then its mine went on the right to defend the right objective. I put the Hac Tao on on the right as well, in the corner of my deployment zone closest to the central objective, so I could pick and choose which objective I wanted. I didn’t have any specialists on the left, but I figured I’d have a ton of chain rifles over there so Erik wasn’t going to get that one either.

Erik deployed his Muyibs on my left, his right. I think he was also concerned about the relatively open left side, but as I write this that probably was the best plan for them. I suppose there were better ARO spots on right, and he felt he could protect himself better with Mutts there? Speaking of AROs, Erik left everything out to ARO, more or less, because of the psychological pressure of having 8 impetuous chain rifles on the table.

As I suspected, Erik put his Farzan Minelayer in the middle to defend the center objective, and then he put a Farzan on each flank. One of the weaknesses of Erik’s list was the lack of good Xenotech carriers. He was more or less forced to use his Lasiq to sync to the Xenotech. The problem was if he wanted to protect both deployment zones with a Viral Sniper Rifle, he had to deploy the Lasiq pretty far back, which would’ve made moving the Xenotech up pretty annoying. Thankfully for Erik, Lasiqs have climbing+ so this would delay him only by an order or so to get off the building, but there’s a pretty long trek upfield.

The usual Mutts made an appearance, and then it was my turn to deploy my Yan Huo Lieutenant. I didn’t really know where I wanted him to go beforehand, since I was planning on using him to dismantle some AROs. After Erik deployed everything, there wasn’t anything on my right to really attack other than the Lasiq, so I put the Yan Huo on my left to maybe be able to take on the Muyibs with shock ammo.

Unsurprisingly, Erik finishes off his deployment with a Fiday in my backfield. It was pretty clear that he intended to go for the console with the Fiday, but it would still occupy some headspace in protecting my Lieutenant.

Turn 1

Top of 1 – Yu Jing

My plan works perfectly and the Shaolin set up smoke in all the right spots for the Kuang Shi to scurry forward (they’re proxied by Mutts, I’m waiting for bases for my Kuang Shi). I get the Kuang Shi moved forward, and then it’s time to actually start my turn.

Erik has left the back door in Power Pack open, so it’s time to punish him. I walk on my Tiger Soldier Spitfire and start blasting away. His Lasiq passes his first ARM saves on my normal rolls, and then I win the next face to face roll and paste it.

I start pie slicing the Muyibs and take out the HRL over another two orders.

Thankfully, the Doctor keels over without much additional fuss, and I can return my attention to my Shaolin’s irregular orders and the Xenotech.

I drop the Xenotech’s Multiscanner in the required two orders (Warcor + TR Bot), which is great, and then I settle the Warcor in behind the smoke to ARO the Muyibs as they advance. The same smoke allows me to Intuitive Attack safely and force a dodge on a nearby Farzan. I’m out of regular orders so I have to burn a command token to do this. Erik has a Mutt in range, which successfully jams the Shaolin, but this is super worth it for me.

I don’t have smoke set up on the right, so I just run a Shaolin into view on the right on my second short skill, baiting out a reveal from the Farzan there. I fail my ARM roll though, which kinda sucks.

This does let me back the last Shaolin into the pocket where the Yan Huo is, which will hopefully be enough to protect him from the Fiday.

So, Erik’s down a Muyib HRL, Muyib Doctor, Lasiq VSR, and Farzan something at the end of my turn, and killing the Lasiq also disconnects his Xenotech. Great! I throw my Lieutenant into suppression, hoping to bait him to go after it with the Fiday, which is risky but probably fine? I dunno.

Bottom of 1 – HB

Erik’s Mutts start advancing. One manages to do so without incident, but the second hops off his roof and starts a chain rifle fight with my guys. I dodge, chain rifle, and shoot as appropriate, and everyone passes their ARM saves.

The last Mutt sets up smoke to approach the Tiger Soldier.

Erik sends in the Muyib Spitfire and splits burst between the Shaolin, a Mutt, and Rhonda Burgundy the Warcor. I manage to flash pulse him and everyone else passes their saves.

Erik keeps going after my chain rifle guys on the left with his Mutt, and I finally manage to put a wound on the offending Mutt and either dodge or pass all my saves again, sans my chain rifling Mutt who goes Dogged.

Erik tries to get rid of my Tiger Soldier by spec-firing with his Lieutenant order, but he whiffs horribly.

After reforming the link, Erik wants to get rid of the Shaolin that’s super advanced and dangerously close to his Mutts on the next turn, so he throws a handful of dice at the Shaolin with his Lieutenant’s rifle. The Spitfire Muyib is still visible though, so the Shaolin pistols her in the face and she drops.

The Mutt continues going after my guys and takes out one of my Mutts but everyone else dodges, and the combination of pistol and chain rifle finally stops the rampage.

Erik then drops in a Ragik AHD in the back corner of my deployment zone, right behind my Lieutenant, who’s in suppression.

I fail my change face on one of my Kuang Shi, but Erik opts to shoot the Kuang Shi to deplete me of regular orders instead of trying to Oblivion my Lieutenant. Not sure that was the best plan, but it’s not a bad plan.

He does put one of the dogged, but this does allow everyone who didn’t spin around to spin around, including Rhonda Burgundy, who flash pulses the Ragik as he goes prone and takes a shot at the Yan Huo, who tanks the shots handily, as does the Ragik against my Kuang Shi’s chain rifle.

Erik throws his remaining Muyibs into suppression and passes turn.

Turn 2

Top of 2 – Yu Jing

Some weirdness happens with impetuous orders and the Ragik. I’m basically forced to run my Kuang Shi and Shaolin straight into the side of the hill, then I’m allowed to move them on the next order. I send in the Shaolin to try and chain rifle the Ragik, but he passes ARM and I don’t. Come on!

The other Shaolin does manage to take out the Farzan that his brother baited out on the right though, which is great for me. Erik thought that the hill would block LoF at the table edge, but gamely decided to leave it up to the dice–evens it doesn’t block, odds it does, and I rolled an even number.

I clear the central mine with the Libertos as planned, and dodge the Farzan Minelayer’s shot. I move in to take out the Farzan, but we tie on rolls and the Muyib Panzerfaust in suppression takes puts the Libertos dogged. I’m out of orders for the Libertos anyway, so this is fine.

After spending my Lieutenant order to vault some blocks, see the Ragik, and fail to kill it with an HRMC, I choose this moment to reveal the Hac Tao and run him to the right objective and push the button as part of a coordinated order to reposition my Yan Huo, the “Hulang,” and the Kuang Shi on the right. I want to get my Yan Huo away from the Fiday to tax Erik on orders.

I climb the Hac Tao up onto a little hill and rely on my cover, TO, and range bands to stack some horrendous modifiers on the Farzan Minelayer, the Muyib Panzerfaust (who Panzerfausts), and a Mutt, who smokes. I manage to zero some guys out, but the Mutt lands smoke, which is fine. I whiff my rolls too, but the smoke gets the Panzerfaust out of the equation so I can do other things…

like reveal a Ninja and Tac Bow the Farzan in the face! We both whiff again, which is the worst.

I throw some coordinated orders into the Hac Tao, the Ninja, the “Hulang”, and the Kuang Shi on the right to reposition them, and then throw another coordinate order and feign me shooting the crap out of the Farzan Minelayer. Erik wisely elects to drop a mine, so I just push the central button with the Ninja, meaning I don’t have to worry about it later.

I remember at the last minute that the Tiger Soldier has a order of his own, so I go for the Lieutenant snipe on pretty decent odds…

69.85 16.94 13.21

which of course means I get crit. Bah humbug.

Bottom of 2 – HB

The Mutt makes a run for my Ninja, and I crit Tacbow him off the table but lose the Ninja to the Farzan’s cheeky mine.

The other Mutt dies horribly to my Lieutenant, who is now hanging out with Rhonda Burgundy, thanks to all the moving I did last turn.

Erik goes for a hail mary with the Farzan Minelayer, but a MULTI Rifle crit stops it cold.

Since the game is getting pretty silly at this point, Erik elects to do something silly and give up his chance on getting the central console in my backfield. The Fiday activates and starts moving up and takes some successful discovers from the Kuang Shi on the right that I moved into place for this very purpose.

I manage to reveal the Fiday on his next order with the same Kuang Shi, and then the Fiday starts hunting my Yan Huo. Erik’s extremely low on orders so he has to aggressively push forward and hope to win some face to face rolls.

He tries to throw some smoke, but I dodge the Yan Huo away and the Warcor ties his grenade with a flash pulse, so on the next order Erik just blasts the Yan Huo with a shotgun.

I manage to pass my ARM rolls, and the Fiday retreats to relative safety around the corner.

Turn 3

Top of 3 – Yu Jing

None of my impetuous troopers can see anything on their first move, so I just shuffle them around, and then run the Hac Tao all the way up to Erik’s console after recamoing. I’m in view of his Lieutenant now, so I surprise shot it. Erik wisely dodges, and rolls a crit!

My last Kuang Shi on the left pistols down the Fiday and dies to the Ragik on the hill. Worth it!

I throw my Lieutenant and the Hac Tao into suppression and pass turn.

Bottom of 3 – HB

Erik has no more Mutts and only 4 orders left, which he spends just spec-firing my Hac Tao, sadly missing every shot.

My Hac Tao is close enough to secure Erik’s HVT, making it a

10-0 Yu Jing Victory!

Post Game Analysis

Well, I’ll start by saying I love the list. Everything in there is great, and nothing is “just a cheerleader” (not that I ever really think that). The Hac Tao is a monster. I do kinda wish that I took the Ninja AHD to upgrade to a combi-rifle, but I’d much rather have all the toys I had in the list instead of a slightly better gun.

I was very happy with my patience in revealing the TO camo guys at the right time, and I had a very capable order sink in the Tiger Soldier for the first turn. The effectiveness of the Tiger Soldier was definitely artificially increased by Erik being a little forgetful–I don’t think that will be as effective in the future. That said, it would actually have been fine–if Erik had deployed with something watching the back table edge, I would’ve shot the appropriate model off the table with the Yan Huo and then brought in the Tiger Soldier in the resulting hole.

I don’t like how clogged my deployment zone got, but there were 8 guys running around in there looking for trouble–can’t really complain, it’s sort of a feature, not a bug.

I think this was about the perfect outcome for the list–the impetuous models create a huge blanket of psychological pressure on Erik, so much so that he left a bunch of models out to ARO, all facing forward. This let me get the Tiger Soldier in unopposed, and then all of my impetuous guys created a huge amount of positional and order pressure–you want to stay away from them and but you also want to get past them to kill my stuff. Very difficult to deal with.

Erik’s failed attempt to remove my Lieutenant with the Ragik I think was a bit poorly executed. He knew it too–he was saying that it was more for the laughs than anything else. I think a stronger play would’ve been to drop him on the ground floor at the back table edge, then slowly pie slice using the hill and take out my Kuang Shi with full burst 3 per Kuang Shi.

This keeps the Ragik safe from chain rifles for awhile, and depletes my order pool. Then Erik could’ve shotgunned the Shaolin on the ground to ignore my suppression modifier from the Yan Huo, and catch both of them. It’s not great for me–Erik has 40% odds to win the F2F and do a wound.

20.20 39.93 39.87

I probably chain rifle to remove the threat the next turn by forcing the Ragik dogged. Thus I lose the Shaolin, and then Erik has a pretty even odds of winning the face to face on the next order:

26.76 41.18 32.06

The right call is definitely to use the Ragik to accomplish objectives, and go after my specialists too–that’s one weakness of my list. I do have really strong defenses for my specialists though–two of them don’t even start on the table!

I think I could’ve been more careful with my Shaolin, and I need to abuse Intuitive Attack more. It’s really strong.

WiseKensai I thought it would be interesting if that was a discussion between the two of us about the game this time, since there’s a lot of stuff to unpack.

Zelaponeepus

Yeah; I’ve definitely had thoughts since then. There were mistakes on my side for suuure

#1 play to the scenario…. it’s classic mistake for a reason. That AHD ragik should have been pushing buttons so that the farzans dance with the Libertos meant something

WiseKensai

Well, i dunno what the best time would have bene to do that

you brought the Ragik in on turn 1, which gives me two turns to undo your hard work.

Zelaponeepus

True

Tbh, I went into panic mode after that tiger soldier hit my back line so hard

WiseKensai

I think you did just the right amount of Tiger Soldier problem solving by isolating him

Zelaponeepus

Well I got into this “I’ve got to stop this hurricane” mindset and went for the LT, but maybe it would have been worth saving the ragik for last turn button pushing while the fiday ran up to the box. The LT is long range, so stuffing what was left of the link team further into that nook probably would have kept me safe while my mutts screened your own warbands for another turn

WiseKensai

I don’t think I could’ve gone after the Fiday, probably the thing to do would have been to litter the area with mines with the two Farzans. That keeps my warbands busy, and slows down my TO camo a lot

That’s why i pulled my Lt away, to make you spend at least 2-3 orders running to get LoF with the Fiday if you chose to do it

Zelaponeepus

Only the mid farzan had mines—one of the trade offs to getting super cheap skirmishers… but a turn spent mining the center and moving to block passage on the right probably would have been less resource dependent and a lot better long term even just re-camoing the farzan on your left (my right) would be great

Drop one more mine in the mid, recamo, move move, mine around a corner for the warbands, recamo… 5 orders and I still get to keep the ragik in the wings, or putting it in suppressive

Really good point

The fact that the thing she was hiding against wasn’t blocking LOF was one of those “I should have clarified” but made a huge difference

WiseKensai

I mean, not really.

Zelaponeepus

The difference between getting chain rifled in the back and being able to waste a few orders seems semi significant

Or at least potentially so. At the minimum it’s one or two more orders.

WiseKensai

I had lots of options to kill the Farzan. The Hac Tao would’ve made short work of it, and i was already there

Zelaponeepus

Sure; but a face to face before you can start pushing buttons isn’t insignificant, even if I’m just dodging

WiseKensai

I don’t think it was a huge difference. Tiger Soldier, Hac Tao, Shaolin, all of them could’ve taken out the Farzan

Zelaponeepus

There was also the LT dodging under my smoke template—which was well down the path of me no longer playing well, but was a really brilliant rules corner case that’d I’d never really faced but will definitely remember.

Zelaponeepus

Wasn’t tiger soldier jammed by that point?

WiseKensai

yeah, but I think I could’ve moved to see you in 4″

Zelaponeepus

I think with it prone that woulda been hard?

WiseKensai

Maybe.

Zelaponeepus

I mean, I agree; farzan wasn’t winning the game

But I DO think an extra order here and there can add up to a game if everything else is being deliberately handled

There’s a big lesson in both that farzan, and the tiger soldier attack about facing

Another classic but ever important lesson…

WiseKensai

absolutely true, a single order can matter

Zelaponeepus

Actually; the facing mistakes go even further; as I moved my link team to counter the tiger, one of my Muyibs ended up being faced poorly to counter the right flank—I don’t think it mattered, but when I saw it in the middle of your turn I realized how tunnel visioned I had become on solving the immediate threat

Which I think is the major difference between or last go at this scenario and this game—everything went south the last time around too, but I stayed really really focused on the scenario. This time it all went south and I started fixating on big threats instead of buttons

WiseKensai

yeah. i think the list got into your head. too many threats, and the one serious hole you left the tiger dove through and wrecked face

Zelaponeepus

Absolutely

I was like “what even IS this?

Which I kind of love. That was a ton of fun, seeing something that’s so unlike our meta

WiseKensai

I’m deliberately taking things to disrupt the meta

I think the list just was overwhelming. i think that the last few games that you’ve lost as HB are because you lost sight of the objectives too. i didn’t watch your tournament games, but i suspect that’s part of it

The Farzans are super important, and you sort of threw them away (not intentionally), but I don’t think there was enough protecting them. there also might’ve been a spot where you could’ve leveraged the Fiday to shotgun a bunch of Kuang Shi in ARO

that might be worth it, especially if you strip 2-3 orders

Zelaponeepus

Good points all around

WiseKensai

i also think you need to leverage the farzans more, especially the fancy new ones.

the Fiday could easily have hunted some orders too. i think you can’t skimp on the Fiday, you need a rifle and the mines are brutal

Zelaponeepus

Yeah— there are some really tight point considerations in that list. I really like the core of it, but finishing it off is not easy