I was traveling for work for pretty much the entirety of Phase I, so I scheduled a game with Adam (TheDiceAbide) for right after my plane landed. He and his lovely family picked me up from the airport. After stuffing our faces with pizza, we got dropped off at the game store to start rolling dice. So awesome! Since my plane landed only a few hours before the end of Phase I, we just agreed to play at the hypothetical new Nomad location, whatever that was going to be. Comms Center sounded like an appropriately Nomad-themed mission, so we played that. He had also prepped a list for Comms Center, so that just solidified the choice.

Overview

Mission : Comms Center

: Comms Center Location : Johnny-5 Node Base – J-5 Netzknoten

: Johnny-5 Node Base – J-5 Netzknoten Forces : Jurisdictional Command of Corregidor versus Ikari Company

: versus Deploy First : Ikari Company

: First Turn : Ikari Company

: Kurage Battle Reports: WiseKensai versus TheDiceAbide

Shadowcats GROUP 1 | 8 2 1 WILDCAT Lieutenant Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 19)

WILDCAT (Fireteam: Haris) Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 20)

WILDCAT Heavy Rocket Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (2 | 20) SEÑOR MASSACRE Breaker Combi Rifle, E/M Grenades, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW, E/M CCW. (0 | 29)

JAGUAR Light Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, E/M CCW. (0 | 13)

JAGUAR Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 10)

JAGUAR Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 10)

JAGUAR Adhesive Launcher, Panzerfaust / Pistol, DA CCW. (0.5 | 13) BANDIT Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Light Shotgun, Adhesive Launcher / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 25)

McMURROUGH 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades, Smoke Grenades / Templar CCW (AP + DA). (0 | 31) GROUP 2 | 6 INTRUDER HMG, Grenades / Pistol, CCW. (1.5 | 42)

MORAN (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, CrazyKoalas (2) / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 22)

MORAN (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, CrazyKoalas (2) / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 22)

TRANSDUCTOR ZOND Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)

TRANSDUCTOR ZOND Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)

SALYUT (Minesweeper, Repeater) Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) 5.5 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Ikari Company GROUP 1 | 9 1 1 KEISOTSU Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 9)

KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9)

KEISOTSU (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)

KEISOTSU HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 17)

KEISOTSU Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 14) PATHFINDER DRONBOT Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16) KRAKOT RENEGADE 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 14) KARAKURI Mk12, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 40)

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

JÄGER Submachine Gun + E/Mitter / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0.5 | 18) GROUP 2 | 5 2 2 WÚ MÍNG (Fireteam: Haris) Chain Rifle, Submachine Gun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)

WÚ MÍNG HMG / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 39)

BRAWLER Doctor (MediKit) Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 20) TOKUSETSU KOHEI Engineer Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)

FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)

YUAN YUAN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 9)

YUAN YUAN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 9) 6 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Or, if you prefer the Ikari Invoice:

Deployment

“This one’s easy, Shadowcats. Johnny-5 base has been under assault and we’re finally joining the fight. Those Oublietters sent out a call for reinforcements, and command has seen fit to send us,” shouted Wildcat Lieutenant Ashlynn over the low hum of dropship engines. “Secure the area, check the equipment for signs of tampering, and don’t break anything that looks important!” Ashlynn scanned her eyes over her squad one final time, giving her troops a chance to ask questions. There were none. “Shadowcats! Sound off!” commanded Ashlynn, grabbing an overhead strap as the rapidly descending Nomad dropship began to buck in the turbulence of atmosphere. A chorus of counting, webbing-strap-checking, and mags being seated in mag-wells came in response. The full throated roar of the decelerating dropships’s engines drowned out her own shout of “SIXTEEN, GOOD!” With everyone’s gear checked, Ashlynn activated her helmet’s maglock, the armored faceplate shutting with a clank and a hiss of her armor’s air filtration systems engaging. Her HUD flashed green icons next to all of her squad members as she opened a squad-wide channel. “If it’s not a Nomad,” she began- “KILL IT!” responded the assembled Shadowcats. The red light above Ashlynn flashed green as the back ramp of the dropship slammed onto the surface of Dawn, disgorging Corregidor boots onto the ground.

Adam won the rolloff and elected to go first, so I made him deploy first. Most of his forces ended up on his right. The Wu Ming Haris anchored his center with all of his robots forming his right flank. Adam’s played me quite a few times and knows he has to honor infiltrating hackers, so he protected all of his hackable stuff with a Ninja KHD. Since all of his scary stuff was on his right, this was also a natural place to put his HVT as well. Of course, he can’t leave his left flank undefended, so that’s where his Keisotsu link team (with some Minuteman proxies) ended up. He left everyone prone, including the Keisotsu missile launcher, and put his FO within a quick move of grabbing the nearest objective. My deployment was pretty standard for me. A Moran on each side with Koalas covering the board edges against Adam’s inevitable Yuan Yuans. McMurrough was on the right, which meant the Jaguar core was on the left, blanketing the entirety of the left side of my deployment zone with anti-Yuan Yuan AROs. To further increase the anti Yuan Yuan defenses, I stuck my Wildcat Haris covering various angles, with the HRL covering a major firelane that Adam would have to move through on my left. This was further backed up by a pair of Transductors, and a backwards-facing Salyut in case I had missed something and needed to declare Alert! All this really set us up for was a pretty bloody fight on my left (Adam’s right). Both designated targets were uncomfortably close with a lot of scary heavy hitters on that flank. Adam’s Krakot was his reserve and it rolled +3 PH and Regeneration, while mine was my Intruder. Now that we were deployed, it was time for me to weather the initial alpha strike. Adam nominated his Krakot as his DataTracker and I nominated Massacre.

Turn 1

Top of Turn 1 – Ikari

Adam starts the party by walking in a Yuan Yuan next to his HVT, which is well outside of Koala range. He attempted to get another one landed in the midfield, but it deviated and ended up in his deployment zone, presumably due to being distracted by the possibility of Lo Pan’s Noodles. Rather than march his Krakot out to get gunned down by my Wildcat HRL, Adam opted to forgo the impetuous order, instead throwing smoke with the nearest Yuan Yuan. Now that he’s blocked LoF, this frees Adam to run the Krakot forward, staying just outside of Koala range. This is where things start to go a bit pear shaped. Adam burns the entirety of his first order pool trying to spec fire grenades onto my HVT. We both fail our rolls over and over again, until finally one grenade lands, taking out the Moran, but my HVT successfully dodges. Out of orders in his first group, Adam switches to the Wu Ming. After taking out my rightmost Transductor with the HMG, Adam goes after my Jaguar Panzerfaust. I roll a crit, and Adam fails 2 ARM saves, sending the Wu Ming off the table. After throwing his Wu Ming Chain Rifle into suppression watching my Intruder, Adam passes the turn.

Bottom of Turn 1 – Corregidor

I was a little too focused on getting shit done so I forgot to take pictures during my first turn. McMurrough leaps on top of the Intruder’s building and throws smoke for my Intruder. Thankfully this is way out of range of the Wu Ming’s suppression, so the smoke goes off without incident. My Intruder fails to wound the Wu Ming as he advances, but forces the heavy infantry trooper back into cover. I use the orders I’ve got left in the Intruder’s pool to shift my remaining Moran’s Koalas up towards Adam’s Keisotsu link, but I don’t have enough orders to get him to an objective and back, safely.

With my secondary pool exhausted, it’s time to send in the Jaguars. After throwing smoke to cover my advance from the Keisotsu ML, I get the Jaguars into the fatal funnel near Adam’s HVT, dropping the Krakot on the way with Massacre. I cover the approach to the HVT with smoke, then a quick intuitive attack takes out his Ninja. The way is clear, save a flash pulse bot, so I send in Massacre to gun down the HVT through a small gap in the scenery. Four dice on 18’s apparently isn’t enough, and the HVT drops prone while Massacre eats a successful flash pulse from the Fugazi. God. Dammit.

“Shadowcats, crush their left flank!” directed Ashlynn over the heavy thudding of the Intruder’s HMG as it forced the Wu Ming trooper back into cover. “With pleasure!” grinned Massacre, loping forward with a predatory grin. His band of Jaguars moved in concert, rolling smoke grenades ahead of them in a practiced fashion, their speed of advance creating eddies in clouds of smoke curling around them. Now visible was the Ikari Krakot, fumbling with yet another grenade and obviously going through some sort of mental checklist: 1) take grenade off belt. 2) ensure that pin is pulled. 3) wait. did I pull the pin? 4) check pin 5) “Get shot in the face by MASSACRE!” crowed the very same. As Diego the Jaguar neared the fatal funnel guarded by the Ninja, Araña (unlike the Krakot) correctly pulled the pin on a smoke grenade and rolled it into the gap, the cloud covering Diego just as he crossed into the narrow alleyway between buildings. Diego’s chain rifle barked once and a wet thud could be heard through the smoke as the Ninja collapsed into an unconscious heap. Massacre smacked Diego on the ass as he bounded by in congratulations and skidded to a halt as he left the expanding cloud of smoke, already sighting down his breaker combi. The Ikari HVT ducked quickly, spoiling Massacre’s shot. “Mother flippin’–ARGH my eyes!” shouted Massacre as he caught the full force of a military-grade laser pointer in the face. “Who gave Ikari Blu-Ray players!?”

I figure a point is a point and I don’t want to wait for another chance, so I try again with one of the chain rifle Jaguars. This fails to kill the Yuan Yuan or the HVT, and I’m forced to retreat the Jaguars to a more defensible position given fact that there are two Yuan Yuans right there. Now that we’ve both had awful first turns, it’s time for Adam to have another go.

Turn 2

Top of Turn 2 – Ikari

Adam’s nearest Yuan Yuan puts both of my chain rifle Jaguars dogged, and thankfully does not survive four chain rifles in response.

Amped up, my Jaguars tell Adam to bring it on! Adam’s fat Yuan Yuan is hungry for noodles, which he thinks are behind my Jaguars. In order to get some noodle-y goodness, he takes some pistol shots at long range as he advances, but my Jaguars are still in a 5-man core and one of them drops the space pirate with accurate pistol fire.

Adam’s not willing to waste any more time faffing about, so he sends in the Karakuri. After taking out my dogged Jaguars with the Mk12, the Karakuri challenges my Wildcat HRL, losing the first face to face and taking a wound, but critting on the second. After healing the Karakuri’s wound with the nearby engineer, Adam beep boops the antenna nearest the Karakuri then risks the Keisotsu FO to clear the Koala on my right. Thankfully for Adam, he makes his dodge and the Koala’s endless quest for love is denied. By rudeness. The Karakuri strolls through no-man’s land, and I (correctly) judge this to be outside of 24″ so I reveal my Bandit to try and glue the troublesome robot geisha. Sadly, Adam rolls better and I’m down to a single specialist, the Moran on the right. McMurrough covers the Intruder with smoke in ARO, so the Intruder reveals. Sadly, his one HMG shot isn’t enough to do anything.

The Karakuri pushes itself into the gap, and while I whiff on Massacre’s E/M grenade, my Jaguar LSG dodges closer. Massacre eats a chain colt to the face and goes down, but my HVT, my glorious HVT, JNCO Jeans Jimmy, tanks the hit! My Jaguar LSG engages the Karakuri, bringing it to a halt. Adam walks a Cube Jager on right behind his HVT, “just to get it on the table.” With that, Adam’s out of orders and passes the turn back to me.

Bottom of Turn 2 – Corregidor

Well, my order pools have been pretty much wrecked, so I’ve got to make do. McMurrough jumps off his building, ignoring the flash pulse bot who whiffs and just moves straight at Adam’s link. A quick smoke grenade to block LoF later, and I’m deep into Adam’s deployment zone. A quick spec-fired grenade covers both regular Keisotsu, dropping one and taking away that all important +3 BS bonus. Which is a good thing because on my next order, when I come around the corner, all six of Adam’s dice worth of shooting miss, and he loses all but the Keisotsu FO to double chain rifle awesomeness. McMurrough is a generous dogeman, however, and wouldn’t want the last Keisotsu to feel left out, and gives him the gift of a live grenade, wiping out the last of Adam’s link team. I spend all of the other orders in my second pool grabbing the nearest two antennas on the right and setting up for a run on the two central antennas in turn 3. I don’t have anything for Lieutenant Ashlynn to do, so I pass the turn.

Turn 3

Top of Turn 3 – Ikari

As I had hoped, Adam’s in loss of lieutenant, so he just goes about grabbing objectives with his irregular orders. The Brawler doctor dies to my Intruder but grabs an antenna, and the Pathfinder manages to sneak its way to another, grabbing that too, bringing Adam to a total of three antennas to my two. He throws the Cube Jager into suppression and passes the turn.



Bottom of Turn 3 – Corregidor

McMurrough covers himself with smoke. I clear the Pathfinder with my Intruder, then grab a third antenna with my Moran. I throw a die into my dice cup and start rattling it around before telling Adam that here’s the money roll for the game! I try to regenerate Massacre…. and it’s a success! Wasting no time, I cover the gap with Eclipse smoke and then dash him through it to get one last round of combi shots on the HVT.

I land only one hit, which Adam’s freaking HVT tanks, and the Cube Jager finishes Massacre off. My last order is spent on getting the Moran to the center objective, and I fail the WIP roll before the Cube Jager crits my poor Moran off the table. We tie on antennas, neither of us managed to scratch the other’s HVT, and we think it’s just a straight up tie, especially since neither of us got our classifieds and we’re dominating each other’s HVT’s. Then Adam re-reads the scenario and we discover that even though all three of my specialists are dead, he’s lost a Brawler Doctor, a Keisotsu FO, the Pathfinder and the Ninja KHD, putting me at one more specialist kill, making it a

4-2 Jurisdictional Command of Corregidor Victory!

“They’ll all be dead shortly, ma’am,” McMurrough informs Ashlynn, charging at the Wu Ming chain rifle. “Good. Shadowcats! Sweep and clear! No prisoners!” Ashlynn commands as she goes to check on her downed Wildcat comrade.

Notes

Notes for Me

I thought -9 (range, cover, camo) was good enough on the Karakuri versus my Bandit, but dice are dice!

Karakuri are MEAAAN

I think I should’ve made the Jaguar LSG the datatracker, or maybe tried to get Massacre into close combat with the damn HVT? I dunno. That’s so many orders, and if 7 dice on 15+ isn’t enough, one on 26 probably won’t do it either. Gotta remember to turn off dual-wield too, just in case I crit. Why the hell isn’t it AP+EM so you get the wound as a crit! UGH.

Intruder wasn’t really the star of the show on this one, but he did l0ck Adam’s link into his deployment zone long enough for me to get McMurrough in there.

McMurder! You really gotta pace using this guy, but if you can thread the needle and get him there, he delivers.

I felt really light on specialists this game. I should try to find a way to work in a Daktari and bot or a Tomcat doc. That would really make this list sing.

Notes for Adam

Yeah, this game was really one of dice. I don’t think either of us made any huge mistakes.

Probably should’ve spent the order to get the Krakot closer, dodged the Koalas, then started rolling spec fires on 13’s instead of 7’s.

But, as we said after the game, even if our horrible killing HVT luck had gone better for both of us, it would’ve been a 7-5 game instead of a 4-2 game. What a mess!

Thanks again for picking me up from the airport, and for the great game!

Here’s Adam’s take on the battle, for those interested: