Adam’s moving out of Portland proper down to my neighborhood, which is good for me but bad for the Portland Game Store. I’m ostensibly taking over as “Warcor” for PGS while Adam returns to his usual Warcor duties at Glimpses of Wonder and Warfare. Ryan of PGS fame informed me that that since I’m taking over for Adam that I’d have to beat him in the tournament to officially transfer the role. You’ll just have to read on to see whether or not I did so successfully! Don’t worry though, Adam has promised to show up at PGS every once in awhile, which will be made more likely by the fact that he and I can carpool there on Monday nights now. In any case, Adam has a penchant for running tough missions as Showdown tournaments at PGS, so he chose Limited Insertion Frostbyte for this last tournament.

Table A – WiseKensai versus TheDiceAbide

Ah, the WiseKensai versus TheDiceAbide slapfight. Doesn’t matter what factions we’re playing or what mission it is, we’re going to be done in about 90 minutes and most of our stuff is going to be dead after a bunch of cries of “WHAAAT?”, “SERIOUSLY!???”, and “UUUUGGGGHH. That’s the worst!” I’ve been really looking forward to getting my Haqq on the table again at a tournament, and was very pleased to find out that the DataTracker gets an additional order in this mission… translated, this means Tarik brings 3 orders to the table if he’s your Lieutenant/DataTracker.

This sounded awesome, so it’s exactly what I did. I waffled a bunch on whether or not to bring a Zhayedan Breaker Rifle, but ended up with the following list. It marks a lot of firsts for me: first time playing Haqq in a tournament and the first time taking Tarik/Ayyar/Khawarij/Barid. Vanilla Haqq has so many cool toys! Adam brought his usual awful Combined Army nonsense. Sadly he won the rolloff and elected to go first, so I fully expected to start the game in serious trouble. Let’s see how it turns out!

Overview

Mission : Frostbyte Showdown

: Frostbyte Showdown Forces : Haqqislam (WiseKensai) versus Combined Army (TheDiceAbide)



: (WiseKensai) versus Deploy First : Combined Army

: First Turn: Combined Army

Frostbyte 2 TARIK MANSURI Lieutenant Spitfire, Nanopulser, Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (1.5 | 55)

BARID Hacker (Assault Hacking Device UPGRADE: Icebreaker) Rifle + Pitcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 19)

KHAWARIJ Doctor Plus (MediKit) Boarding Shotgun, Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 30)

NASMAT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)

KAPLAN Engineer Combi Rifle, Blitzen / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)

NASMAT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)

FASID HMG + All the Things. Because Reasons. (2 | 53)

ÁYYĀR (Surprise Shot L2) Rifle + E/Mitter, D.E.P. / 2 Viral Pistols, CCW, Knife. (0 | 37)

FIDAY Rifle + Light Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 31)

HAFZA Heavy Rocket Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 18)

FANOUS REMOTE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)

KRAKOT RENEGADE Submachine Gun, Chest Mine / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 15) 10 1 | 5.5 SWC | 299 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Frostbyte CHARONTID Lieutenant Hacker (Hacking Device Plus) Plasma Rifle, Nanopulser / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 73)

OVERDRON 2 Heavy Rocket Launchers / . (2 | 57)

STALDRON Flash Pulse / Knife. (0 | 0)

E-DRONE Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 28)

R-DRONE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)

Q-DRONE HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 26)

SPECULO KILLER Boarding Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Monofilament CCW, Knife. (1 | 34)

KERR-NAU (UPGRADE: White Noise) Plasma Rifle + Pitcher, D-Charges / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)

IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)

IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)

RASYAT Boarding Shotgun, D-Charges, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 28) 10 | 5 SWC | 299 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Deployment

Adam put down 10 orders of awful on the table. His Q-Drone covered two giant firelanes with its stupid mimetism face gun grumble grumble. The E-Drone hung out nearby to buff it, and Ikadrons covered each flank. Kerr Nau and an R-Drone completed the left flank, and Adam’s big hitters, a Charontid HD+ and an Overdron HRL sat in the center of his deployment zone at the deployment zone edge. I was really not excited about the prospect of Adam going first, so I tried to minimize my exposure. I tucked pretty much everything into cover except the Kaplan and the Fanous flash pulse remote, which exposed a Blitzen and a Flash Pulse as ARO. Both were positioned so that Adam would have to advance pretty far into the midfield to get a shot at either of them, so I figured that would at least waste some orders. My big guns were spread out across the table, with Tarik on the right, facing off against Kerr Nau, the Al Fasid in the middle to cover the board with smoke, and the Ayyar on the left. I stuck a Hafza HRL disguised as Leila Sharif on a high roof just at the edge of my deployment zone, then covered the left side of the board with a Khawarij Doctor. Adam plunked a Speculo outside my deployment zone, and I attempted to land my Fiday in the back of his deployment zone, prone on a roof, but failed, so I stuck it right next to the Fiday. I lost marker state, but didn’t want to risk my actual Fiday model on the edge of the board so I used my impersonation marker instead. I nominated Tarik as my DataTracker and Adam nominated his Overdron. Brace for impact!

Turn 1

Top of 1 – Combined Army

Adam starts things off with a coordinated order to discover my Al Fasid’s mine with Kerr Nau, the R-Drone, and one of the Ikadrons. Kerr Nau slips back into total cover, vaporizing the revealed mine with his plasma rifle. Now that the mine is gone, Adam is free to drop in a Rasyat naer my deployment zone to try and take out one of my heaters. A few orders of Eclipse grenades and shuffling later and I’m down my dead zone heater, thanks to the Rasyat’s D-Charges. Adam throws his Charontid and Kerr Nau into impersonation state with Cybermask and retreats the Rasyat into cover before passing the turn.

Bottom of 1 – Haqqislam

I cancel the Krakot’s impetuous order because the Q-Drone and Overdron are looking right at him. I break LoF between Tarik, the Overdron, and the Q-Drone with some smoke from the Al Fasid. Tarik runs towards the center and manages to gun down the Rasyat after two orders. I’m not sure why I used Tarik for this, I think I was concerned that the Al Fasid might’ve been in 16″ and would be at 4 on 10s. That probably would’ve been good enough, honestly. With the Rasyat down, I use my Fiday to cover the Speculo with smoke. This frees the Barid up to move, and I attempt to land a pitcher next to the Overdron, flubbing the roll. Drat! Well, I had hoped to either steal the Overdron or isolate it, but I didn’t want to waste a ton of orders committing to this. Had I landed the pitcher it would’ve been fine, but now I had to change tack. I sent in the Ayyar instead, and landed a successful E/Mitter hit against the Overdron’s HRL ARO, thanks to Surprise Shot L2. This was a pretty big miscalculation on my part though, because the HRL template clips the Barid, killing him. D’oh! I need to practice with Holo2 some more. It’s a weird bit of kit. I shift the Ayyar to safety as part of a coordinated order to move Tarik, the Krakot, and my Hafza, netting a crit on the Overdron with the Ayyar’s DEP on the way. Unfortunately, Adam cranks out two 15’s on his ARM saves and the Overdron shrugs off the rest of the hits. With the Overdron no longer a threat, I try to do some damage to Adam’s order pool. Tarik gets flash pulsed by the R-Drone trying to take it out, and the same happens to the Krakot, who tried to SMG down an Ikadron. I’m forced to spend my last order shifting Tarik into cover behind the smoke, and pass the turn.

Turn 2

Top of Turn 2 – Combined Army

Tarik isn’t all the way in cover, so Adam buffs the Q-Drone and tries to take him out. I take a wound but finally manage to pass my guts checkto fall back into cover on Adam’s second attempt. The Charontid wipes out the Krakot and my Ayyar over three orders, beating out my Krakot’s dodge and my Ayyar’s E/Mitter shots each time. Plasma is so rude! Unwilling to over-extend, Adam settles for grabbing the leftmost console and re-cybermasks his Charontid.

Bottom of Turn 2 – Haqqislam

I need to take out the Q-Drone to free up Tarik to move, so I use two command tokens to get some folks in position and then reveal the Hafza HRL in concert with the Al Fasid HMG and Fiday. Unfortunately, I declare the Al Fasid to be the Spearhead and am in awful range bands. Thankfully, no one makes any rolls, especially since Adam threw all four dice at “Leila” expecting to face off against a Shock Marksman Rifle. I try again with the Fiday, shooting at the Q-Drone within 16″. Something seems to be wrong with the Fiday’s rifle though… It appears that I’ve made the best D&D roll ever, but the worst Infinity BS roll ever. If only I could roll like this on my ARM saves… I gamely push on through the affront to statistics and finally Tarik down an Ikadron without getting flash pulsed. I’m running super low on orders, so I try to put some hurt on the Charontid by discovering it with my Khawarij. My Al Fasid tries to take out the Charontid but only manages to get shot in the face with plasma. Thank goodness for 2 wounds! My last order is spent trying to boarding shotgun the Charontid at outside of 16″, but Adam chooses this moment to reveal the Speculo, forcing me to split burst. Thankfully, the Charontid whiffs and I pass ARM against the Speculo’s boarding shotgun. That doesn’t mean I get to spend non-existent orders though, and I pass the turn after retreating Tarik into cover.

Turn 3

Top of Turn 3 – Combined Army

Adam needs to move the Charontid, and he doesn’t want to do it with the HRL right there, so he activates the Q-Drone to take out my Hafza. The dice decide to finally be in my favor though, and I knock out the Q-Drone with a lucky rocket shot. This doesn’t last against the Charontid’s plasma rifle though, and my Assault Pistol within 8″ loses to a storm of plasma rifle fire. The Charontid sets about pushing the central button, tanking a flash pulse along the way. Satisfied with his situation, Adam moves to knock out both my DataTracker and my Lieutenant, spending two orders to get a cybermasked Kerr-Nau into position. I throw a grenade in response, trying to leverage Tarik’s PH 14 instead of his PH 13 as well as deny Kerr Nau cover. I lose the face to face but manage to eke out the necessary ARM and BTS saves against Kerr Nau. My Kaplan whiffs his combi-rifle shot though–I correctly judged us to be within 16″ and shot the combi instead of the Blitzen. Adam’s last order is spent trying again, but this time both the Kaplan and Tarik succeed, knocking out Kerr Nau.

Bottom of Turn 3 – Haqqislam

Tarik springs into action, blasting the Overdron off the table with Fatality L2, and decisively swings the game in my favor by giving me more points killed, a DataTracker kill, and control over the exclusion zone. Tarik’s a bit over-excited though, and spends three orders trying to push the button to enable my deployment zone heater to save my Kaplan and Khawarij. He gets the job done though, leaving me with one order left. I spend it on the Al Fasid and gun down the Speculo. Adam cleverly declares dodge with the intent of getting into my deployment zone and the safety of its activated heater. It’s hard to beat an HMG when you’re in the open though, and the Speculo goes down. I’ve killed more stuff, thanks to taking out Adam’s DataTracker Overdron, turned on a heater, and Tarik is hanging out in the exclusion zone to control it. With both of Adam’s heaters active, it’s a

9-1 Haqqislam Victory!

OP VP WiseKensai 9 176 TheDiceAbide 1 110

Notes

Notes for Me

Well, the Ayyar E/Mitter profile is RAD. I think that’s the one I’ll be taking… forever.

I definitely did some inefficient things this game, like using Tarik when the Al Fasid was right there, and not choosing the Fiday as the spearhead leader.

Couldn’t achieve my classified, which was Experimental Drug, thanks to plasma. BOOOOO.

Tarik came through for me. Funnily enough, even though grenades give you +1 to my target number, thanks to PH 14 versus BS 13, the Pistol was the slightly better option than the grenades, due to Fatality L2. In fact, the Spitfire had better chances than grenades in 8″. Of course, Kerr-Nau had a > 70% chance of doing a wound, so I really lucked out.

I paid for that luck by having to spend 3 orders turning on a heater though. I could’ve maybe done something about my classified if I had more orders… probably not though.

I really need to watch my templates, especially with Holo2. There was no good reason I should’ve lost the Barid on my turn like that.

Nasmats are so dangerous in a limited insertion list. You want them for coverage, but I could’ve really used the Kaplan’s Blitzen to take out the Q-Drone as part of a coordinated order. Very frustrating.

I had some pretty stupid helper bot placement. Even with an LI list, I had a tough time fitting everything in my deployment zone. I had thought about taking an AHD Druze or the E/M LGL Druze to relieve some pressure on my deployment zone in terms of model density and well, to have some freakin’ Druze, but the Kaplan and Khawarij won out as specialists.

I still needed an AHD for the inevitable HI and TAGs in an LI list, so I brought the Barid. Cheaper, and a better hacker, but less cool guns. Oh well.

I didn’t think about it at the time, but the Barid and a fake Lelia made for a pretty convincing deployment anti-Charontid/Overdron bubble. You don’t want to bring the Charontid close until one of them is dead.

No idea how to use a Fiday if going second… I think my idea to put it on a building in the backfield was good, but I flubbed my roll.

Notes for Adam

UGH. Ikadrons and R-Drones. You monster!

Great placement of your Q-Drone. It really locked everything down.

The Overdron is pretty sweet, and makes for a durable DataTracker. Your list sorta boxed you into that option though, since you wanted to Cybermask the Charontid and Kerr-Nau.

WTF PLASMA. WHY. Zhayedin, your stock is rising…

That was a super fun game. I definitely felt like I was getting wrecked early on, but then managed to scrape something to together at the end. Guess I have officially taken the title of PGS Warcor from you by beating you! Thanks for the game!

Table B – Zelaponeepus versus RomanLegion

This game was between Erik (Zelaponeepus) and James (RomanLegion). James is a relatively new ISS player, with only ~10 games or so under his belt. He’s improving quickly though, as evidenced by the results of this game, so watch out if you see him across the table! Adam and I finished our game in our usual 90 minutes or so, so we were treated with the opportunity to sit there and heckle Erik and James as they played.

Mission : Frostbyte Showdown

: Frostbyte Showdown Forces: ALEPH (Zelaponeepus) versus Imperial Service ( RomanLegion )



ALEPH ACHILLES Lieutenant Spitfire, Nanopulser / Pistol, EXP CC Weapon. (2.5 | 75)

THORAKITES (Forward Observer, 360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)

THORAKITES (Forward Observer, 360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)

THORAKITES (360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)

PROXY Mk.1 Doctor (MediKit) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)

PROXY Mk.2 MULTI Sniper Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 24)

PROXY Mk.4 HMG, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 25)

SOPHOTECT Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 31)

YUDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)

SHUKRA (Chain of Command) Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)

ARJUNA Boarding Shotgun, Akrylat-Kanone, D-Charges / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 33)

x2 KIRANBOT E/Marat, Cybermines / Electric Pulse. (8)

APSARA (Killer Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 19)

DALETH Rebot Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 17) 10 | 6 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Imperial Service HSIEN Lieutenant HMG, Nanopulser / Pistol, AP CCW. (2 | 61) SÙ-JIÀN Spitfire, Light Flamethrower, Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (2 | 59)

SÙ-JIÀN Heavy Shotgun, Light Flamethrower, Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (0 | 54) WÚ MÍNG (Fireteam: Duo) Combi Rifle + E/Mitter, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 32)

NINJA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 29) 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) PHEASANT IMPERIAL AGENT (Chain of Command, X Visor) Combi Rifle + E/Mitter, MadTraps / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 36) 10 3 | 4.5 SWC | 299 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Highlights : James and Erik forgot to name DataTrackers till the middle of the game, so the missed out on the free order. ALEPH takes 7 orders to take out a Su Jian and a Wu Ming on Turn 1 (Erik: “Stupid battlecats!”)

Remaining Su Jian cleans house, jamming its Spitfire into everything’s face and emptying the ammo drum. Erik: “I hate battlecats!” Adam: “BATTLECATS! <cat noises>” Achilles takes two crits from the Hsien at the bottom of 3, swinging the game to Imperial Service when he fails the non-crit ARM save. Erik: “😢 — That’s a single tear on behalf of Achilles. He’s a warrior so he’d only want a single tear. “ James had Extreme Prejudice as his classified, which he nabbed easily.

: Result: Imperial Service Major Victory!

OP VP Zelaponeepus 1 81 RomanLegion 10 108

Since James was able to complete his classified and I wasn’t, he takes the tournament with first place, followed by me, Adam, and Erik. A big congratulations to James on his first ever tournament win! Thanks to everyone for coming, and to Adam for throwing one last fun tournament at PGS!