We had a pretty good contingent from Portland, OR and Washington, WA making it up to the Emerald City Incursion, Mk2, run by the lovely Andy Brandt. Adam (TheDiceAbide) and I carpooled up with our tables the night before to stay with some old graduate school friends of mine in Redmond. Here’s Day Two, in case you’re looking for that:

Emerald City Incursion Mk2, Day 2

After some bad decisions at some place called “Ramblin’ Jack’s Ribeye,” including this cement-covered pile of fried dinosaur descendant,

…we stumbled into my friend’s apartment and beached ourselves on his couch to prepare for the first day of games.

Game 1 – Dice are OP!

My first game was against a newer player named Steve, who was playing Tohaa. He started things off by reassuring me that he had only brought two SymbioMates and not four, which I guess was a good thing? The way my dice were the first day, I’m not sure four SymbioMates would’ve made any difference. In any case, he won the roll off and started planting artichokes on the table.

Overview

Mission : Unmasking

: Unmasking Forces : Nomads versus Tohaa (300)

: versus (300) Opponent : Steve (ZeroTen)

: Steve (ZeroTen) Deploy First : Tohaa

: First Turn: Tohaa

List A INTERVENTOR Hacker Lieutenant (Hacking Device Plus) Combi Rifle, 1 FastPanda / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27)

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

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

MARY PROBLEMS Hacker (Forward Deployment L1) Submachine Gun + Zapper, Pitcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 30)

ZOE & PI-WELL . (0 | 47)

ZOE (Hacking Device. UPGRADE: Stop!) Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 28)

PI-WELL Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 19)

ZONDNAUT Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 31)

ZONDMATE Chain Rifle, Smoke Light Grenade Launcher / Electric Pulse. (5)

AÏDA SWANSON 2 Submachine Gun, Viral Mines / Viral Pistol, Shock CC Weapon, Knife. (0 | 24)

KRIZA BORAC HMG / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (2 | 54)

INTRUDER HMG, Grenades / Pistol, CCW. (1.5 | 42) 10 1 | 6 SWC | 299 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Tohaa RASAIL Lieutenant Viral Combi Rifle + 1 Chaksa Peripheral / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 39)

CHAKSA PERIPHERAL Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife. (- | 4) SUKEUL Missile Launcher, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Breaker Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 36)

GAO-RAEL Sniper Rifle / Pistol, CCW. (1 | 31)

KAELTAR (Chain of Command) Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse + 2 SymbioMates / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 21) SAKIEL Combi Rifle, Light Rocket Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 23)

KUMOTAIL Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22)

MAKAUL Heavy Flamethrower, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 13) NEEMA Spitfire, Nanopulser / Viral Pistol, Shock CCW. (2 | 43)

ECTROS Vulkan Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 38)

KOSUIL Engineer K1 Combi Rifle, D-Charges, Nullifier / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 29) 10 1 | 6 SWC | 295 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Deployment

Tohaa deployment is always easier to describe than most other armies. Basically Steve put a defensive Triad in the middle, with the Gao-Rael sniper and Sukeul ML covering most of the board. Thankfully, there were plenty of tall buildings to confound this. He put a triad on both sides of the table, with an Ectros (with ‘Mate) and Neema escorting a Kosuil and a Sakiel and Makaul helping a Kumotail along. On the right most side was a Rasail viral combi with SymbioMate, which was poised to try and crush that flank.

I trusted in my Moran and Pi Well to delay the Rasail long enough to get me back into the fight, so they went on the left, backed up by Mary. I tucked my Zondnautica into a cubby on the left, protecting my Intruder’s camo token. In retrospect, with the Rasail/Chaska’s flamethrower, this may have been dangerous, but it ended up being fine. My own Lieutenant hid in the middle, prone in a building, and Mary and Aida deployed to pressure the Ectros/Neema link, with the Moran on the right guarding one of my decoys. My Kriza went down on the right as my problem solver.

Not the best deployment, but it would have to do. I choose Mary as my DataTracker, and Steve picks his Sakiel.

Turn 1

Top of 1 – Tohaa

Steve’s clearly got a plan, and it involves killing everything with the Rasail. I shave off the SymbioMate with a Koala on its way in, which is already a win.

I lose the Moran to some viral ammo…

but Pi Well stops the Rasail in his tracks with a flash pulse to the face.

With the Moran dead, this lets Steve advance his Ectros/Neema/Kosuil triad up, which he does, settling them into cover and attempting to push the central button. He fails to do so, thankfully, and then turns his attention to his Kumotail triad, which narrowly dodges a Koala before settling into cover.

Steve doesn’t want to leave the Rasail out in the open, so he tries to retreat it to total cover. I use Pi Well’s combi rifle to take out the Chaksa, which would’ve really been a huge pain in my backside on my turn.

Steve’s out of orders, having spent his Lieutenant order as the very first thing, so it’s over to me.

Bottom of 1 – Nomads

I dismount my Zondnautica and go for the chain rifle/combi-rifle double attack on the Rasail, and fail to get through its armor… this will be a trend this game.

I take the safer option, buff Pi Well with my Lt order, and use his ODD/cover to take a shot at the Rasail, but again fail to punch through the hard artichoke shell.

The Rasail scoots around the corner to safety from Pi Well, so I stand up my Intruder and dump four dice into the Rasail, but again the Rasail makes all of his ARM saves. I drive the Zondmate into base to base, blazing away with chain rifle and combi rifle, finally putting a wound on him thanks to a crit.

I move the Zondnaut up and successfully Electric Pulse the Rasail (Achievement Unlocked!),

…then push the Zondmate around the corner to chain rifle Neema while the Zondnaut shoves his combi rifle into the Rasail’s twitching body and mag dumps. Sadly, I lose the Zondmate and only do one more wound on the Rasail.

My Zondnaut does a quick reload, jams the combi rifle into the Rasail again at point blank range, and this time finally kills it. I’m pretty out of orders at this point, so I use a coordinated order to get the Zondnaut into hacking range of the Ectros and then fire a pitcher onto the other side of the building with Mary for good measure.

Now that I’ve spent 15 combi dice, something like 11-12 of which were hits, 4 HMG dice, 2 of which were hits, and 2 chain rifles killing the Rasail, I pass the turn. UGGGH.

Turn 2

Top of 2 – Tohaa

Steve wants to get my Zondnaut away from his Ectros, so he goes for the Vulkan Shotgun to the face option. It works, his three on 16’s versus my Carbonite on a 16, but the rest of my hackers isolate and immobilize the Ectros. Unfazed, Steve’s Kosuil pushes the center button and he correctly guesses that my leftmost HVT is the Designated Target, so he spends the rest of his turn dashing his Kumotail Haris across the board, gunning down my repeater on the way.

Thankfully, he wasted two orders failing to fix the Ectros with the Kumotail. If only his ARM rolls were that bad!

Bottom of 2 – Nomads

Steve has left a bit of his Sakiel’s base poking out from behind cover, which I capitalize on with my Intruder, finally doing a wound to something with an HMG! Steve wisely fails guts to safety.

I need to get rid of the Gao Rael before I can go dig out Steve’s triad, so some quick White Noise and Kriza action takes care of that for me.

I buff Pi Well again, and then spend basically the entirety of my remaining order pool attempting to kill a Makaul and Sakiel out of cover with a buffed Pi Well from within 16″. The Sakiel crits Pi Well for my trouble on the second to last order.

I pop the Ectros’s SymbioMate with my Kriza out of spite and pass the turn, throughly frustrated.

Turn 3

Top of 3 – Tohaa

The obvious happens, and I lose my Designated Target to the Sakiel DataTracker. Ugh. My Intruder lands a hit on him as he pops out of cover to see my HVT, but you can guess what happened.

Some fancy eclipse smoke later, and Steve flamethrowers my Intruder off the table (ignore that camo token, I was too lazy to move it out of frame).

Bottom of 3 – Nomads

I need to put SOME points on the board, so my Kriza finishes off the Ectros to give me some breathing room, Zoe takes out the Kosuil guarding the center objective and the Sakiel DataTracker (finally), and Mary manages to push the button and take out the revealed decoy, making it a

7-2 Tohaa Victory!

I just want to make it clear that Steve was a wonderfully friendly, gracious, and skilled opponent, and I’d be happy for a rematch anytime… after I burn his dice.

Notes

Notes for Me

Roll more crits to bypass ARM saves, I guess?

I definitely played a pretty reactionary game. I had to deal with the Rasail, and I had to deal with the DataTracker Triad.

to deal with the Rasail, and I to deal with the DataTracker Triad. It definitely was outside of the statistical average for both the Rasail and Sakiel to take that many orders to kill, but each turn I still had one or two orders to spend on something else.

I think I lost this game for two reasons: 1) Statistical aberration, which is outside of my control and 2) poor prioritization, which is in my control.

What I could have done better is done the following: Turn 1, take out the Gao Rael and the Rasail, the former with the Kriza and the latter as I did. Turn 2, take out the Sukeul ML with my nearby Moran (pretty decent odds on that, given that I would’ve broken the Triad and also been within 16″ in cover with the Sukeul standing on roof without cover). Turn 3, I can get both Mary and the Moran into position to push the relevant buttons, and therefore have a better chance at eking out a win.

There’s definitely a question about whether or not I should’ve used the Zondnautica as I did. It would’ve been a far superior tool to take out the Sakiel Triad that gave Pi Well so much trouble. Having the Zondnaut there, around the corner, even without the Repeater would’ve also helped box in the Ectros some. I had no idea that Steve would guess correctly and reveal my Designated Target, then charge the Triad across the table.

Definitely not the best situation. I think getting the Electric Pulse off was great, but I think corner-guarding with the Zondmate would’ve been better.

Aida would’ve been hugely beneficial on the left, to help deal with the Sakiel Triad. I’m still not sure why I deployed her on the right, but you can’t really predict everything that will happen in a game.

So, basically the lessons learned from this one were: Think carefully about what your actual plan is–I needed to unstick my forces on the right, which meant the Sukeul needed to go, but that means the Gao Rael needs to go first. I had to prioritize that and make it happen across three turns to absorb the order cost of killing the Rasail and not killing the Sakiel after so many dice. Don’t overextend with the Zondmate. It’s too valuable to trade, especially against two wound models. Choose the best tool for the job, especially if you have multiple available–using the Intruder was probably the right call for dealing with the Rasail.



Notes for Steve

Don’t forget that SymbioMates work against hacking. Popping the ‘Mate against my hacking spam at the top of 2 might’ve helped you save some orders on your Kumotail there. It also would’ve given you a Vulkan Shotgun right there in the middle that was functional.

Definitely should’ve use the Kosuil, out of the triad, to take out the the repeater, and then the Zondnaut. No reason to risk the Ectros. Maybe after the repeater is down, you can send in the Ectros, but definitely not before.

Your Sukuel definitely gummed up my right flank, but I think you could’ve placed it better. Having both it and the Gao Rael on the roof would’ve been MUCH more difficult for me to deal with. Yes, you have to spend orders on it to move the Sukeul up, but I think that’s worth it.

Great work focusing on the objectives and presenting me with tough problems to solve.

I hate your dice.

Thanks for the game!

Game 2 – The Ballad of Tom Arnold

Game 2 was against Tony, of Zhukov2 and Ariadna shenanigans fame. I was eagerly looking forward to a rematch after facing his invincible Traktor Mul at Rose City Raid last year. We also got the opportunity to play on his lovely Asian-themed water table, with lots of playable interiors and interesting firelanes.

Overview

Mission : Acquisition

: Acquisition Forces : Nomads versus Tartary Army Corps (300)

: versus (300) Opponent : Tony (Zhukov2)

: Tony (Zhukov2) Deploy First : TAK

: First Turn: TAK

List B INTRUDER Lieutenant Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, Grenades / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 35)

INTERVENTOR Hacker (Hacking Device Plus) Combi Rifle, 1 FastPanda / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27)

ZOE & PI-WELL . (0 | 47)

ZOE (Hacking Device. UPGRADE: Stop!) Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 28)

PI-WELL Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 19)

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

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

HOLLOW MEN Spitfire, Chain-colt / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (2 | 36)

INTRUDER HMG, Grenades / Pistol, CCW. (1.5 | 42)

SPEKTR (Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle, E/Mauler / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 32)

BRAN DO CASTRO (Specialist Operative) Combi Rifle + E/Mitter / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 37) 10 | 5 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Tartary Army Corps COLONEL VORONIN (Sensor) Lieutenant T2 Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 21)

FRONTOVIK Engineer T2 Rifle, D-Charges / Assault Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)

FRONTOVIK (Multiespectral Visor L1) AP Sniper / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1 | 31)

FRONTOVIK Paramedic (MediKit) T2 Rifle / Assault Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)

VETERAN KAZAK AP HMG / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (2 | 47) VETERAN KAZAK (X Visor) T2 Rifle, Light Flamethrower / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (0 | 38)

VASSILY (Chain of Command) T2 Sniper, D-Charges / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (1 | 39)

STRELOK (Forward Observer) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 20)

SPETSNAZ (CH: Mimetism, AD: Parachutist) Rifle, Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW, Knife. (0 | 31)

STRELOK (Forward Observer) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 20) 10 | 4 SWC | 299 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Deployment

I didn’t really know what to expect, so I just set up a pretty standard deployment. A Moran FO on both sides, with Zoe and Pi Well in the center. I put a Hollow Man Spitfire on the right to control my XenoTech, and then backed it up with an Interventor Lt decoy. My actual Lt went on the right, and Bran went prone on the central Pagoda. I didn’t want to telegraph that I had Bran in case Tony gave me a deployment vulnerability to get a toehold on.

I put my Spektr on the ground floor of the central Pagoda, right next to the central objective.

Tony put most of his Frontovik/Vet Kazak link in a building in the backfield of his deployment zone, with just the Engineer and Voronin out to cover against AD.

Tony covered the side objectives with a pair of Strelok FOs, with the right one pushed more towards the center to get away from my Moran. Vassily and his T2 sniper rifle covered the right half of the board, and then Tony put a Vet Kazak T2 Rifle on the approach to the central objective to advance the XenoTech. I put my Intruder HMG down on Tony’s right to take a shot at the Vet Kazak T2 rifle, and then Tony declared that he was done with reserves. I was confused momentarily, but then figured out he was telling me that he had chosen the AD:1 quadrant for his Spetznaz.

Turn 1

Top of 1 – Nomads

I started things off by shooting the T2 Kazak prone–he passed the one ARM save that I forced. Ugh. Okay. I advanced the Intruder and popped Vassily’s Ambush Camo marker with a Discover, and then tried to attack the link a little.

I buffed Pi Well and tried to take out the Frontovik sniper, but the MSV1 and link bonuses prevailed and Pi Well fell over. Not great.

I forget to drop the Intruder prone as part of one of my coordinated orders to get Zoe closer to Pi Well, and then pick Pi Well up before passing the turn to preserve my turn 2 order pool.

Bottom of 1 – TAK

I lose my Intruder on Vassily’s second order. Definitely should’ve dropped him prone.

Tony brings on a Spetznaz Rifle next to my Hollow Man, who fails his change face.

I, thankfully, do not fail again. The 0-8″ range band of the rifle turns out to be relevant, and Tony whiffs the rifle shots on his next order.

Now that he’s staring down the barrel of a chain colt, Tony moves on to other problems, like my Koalas. In a total reversal of my last game this tournament and my last game versus Tony, I pass all but one of my ARM saves against Vassily’s T2 Sniper over the course of two orders.

It falls to the T2 Rifle Kazak to take out the remaining Koala as he advances forward towards the central objective.

Laughing off the silliness of the situation, Tony passes the turn after shuffling his link team around to advance his Vet Kazak AP HMG to a position where it can see my Hollow Man, should I push it around the corner.

Turn 2

Top of 2 – Nomads

I need to get rid of that Spetznaz Rifle immediately, so I just gun him down with the Hollow Man’s spitfires as he attempts to dodge-engage. I then advance the Xenotech and drop her Multiscanner successfully.

I really want to send the Hollow Man after the Vet Kazak AP HMG, but I don’t want to split burst between a linked Vet Kazak and Vassily, even if the Kazak is in cover. I need to remove Vassily, so I send in my Moran on the left. Sadly, it takes a few orders to even get Vassily dogged, and at that point he’s in cover and I don’t really want to waste more orders trying to take him out. Instead, I (stupidly) throw up White Noise against a full link and try to shoot the Frontovik sniper (again) through it. Immediately after doing it, I realize what I’ve done, which is all the worst because I’ve spent two orders getting White Noise up. UGH, so dumb. Anyway, needless to say, Pi Well is down for the count again, so Zoe picks him back up before passing the turn.

Bottom of 2 – TAK

Tony spends his turn sneaking a Strelok FO towards my Moran who had the gunfight with Vassily, pushing the button on the way. He spends a few orders attempting to shotgun the Moran in the face, but my Moran’s armor holds and Tony has other things to do.

He finishes out his turn by rushing his Vet Kazak T2 Rifle and his Xenotech into the central Pagoda and planting a Multiscanner before going into suppression in base contact with the central Tech Coffin.

Turn 3

Top of 3 – Nomads

Bran does something, finally, and takes out the Strelok pinning my Moran.

My Moran activates the left antenna as I position Pi Well and Mary around the central objective room…

This sets me up to walk my Spektr past the Kazak in suppression and plant an E/Mauler behind him, then coordinate an order between Pi Well and the Spektr to take out the Kazak.

Tony chooses to suppress my Spektr, and tanks all but one of the combi shots coming his way. The E/Mauler, however, freezes the Kazak in place, letting me blast him off the table with my final order, which I spent on the Spektr as it gets into position to dominate the Tech Coffin.

Bottom of 3 – TAK

Tony needs to get his DataTracker, the Vet Kazak AP HMG into the central room, as well as take out my Moran. He just advances his whole link, casually attempting to gun down my Moran on the way. I crit dodge in response.

Unwilling to lose ground and move backwards to see my Moran around the other side of objective, Tony switches to a burst five assault pistol to take out my Moran. I pass all my ARM rolls.

Tony tries again with a different Frontovik who can see the Moran’s new position as I dance him back and forth behind the objective marker. I pass all my ARM rolls again.

Now that the Frontoviks are closer, I start shooting with the Moran. Tony’s rolling lots of hits, I’m just rolling just as my ARM saves.

All of this movement did get Voronin and the Vet Kazak into the central objective room, which lets Tony’s lieutenant gun down my Spektr with his T2 boarding shotgun. Drat.

Well, Tony’s won the match, now it’s just time for the moral victory. Which he tries to deny me by breaking off the 3 Frontoviks into a new link and rushing my Moran. Thankfully, this lets Zoe and Bran also take a shot in case my Moran dies… but he crits the Frontovik that’s shooting him instead.

We lost count of how many orders Tony spent trying to take out that one Moran, but I’d estimate at least 2 orders of Strelok BSG and probably 5 or so linked AP HMG and/or Assault Pistol fire, so almost 30 dice worth of shooting as my Moran did a little dodge dance behind a lamppost. From now on, that Moran shall be known as Tom Arnold.

In spite of my Moran’s overwhelming awesomeness, Tony dominates my HVT and controls the Tech Coffin, giving him the win.

6-2 Tartary Army Corps Victory!

Notes

Notes for Me

No idea what I was thinking this game. I think the last game rattled me and I asked Pi Well to do too much.

Definitely wanted to drop the Intruder prone. That was dumb.

My Intruder Lt didn’t do anything, and he totally could have. Ah well. I deployed him stupidly, which meant that he couldn’t climb up without revealing himself.

I think I missed a great opportunity to put White Noise up off of my right Moran’s repeater and grab the right objective, which would have given Tony more problems to deal with.

Also, no idea why I didn’t rush Pi Well into the center objective room and get into base to base with the Tech Coffin. I was worried about the Kazak’s flamethrower, but he can’t flamethrower both the Spektr and Pi Well, and if I was careful I could’ve kept Pi Well and the Spektr out of shotgun formation.

I think I did a terrible job of getting objectives done. All those stupid orders spent on Pi Well could’ve been spent pushing buttons and accomplishing classifieds. Ah well.

Notes for Tony

No mistakes, as usual!

I think, as you mentioned later, that a little tunnel vision happened on my Moran. You could’ve easily grabbed the right most objective with your other Strelok to give you a 8-2 major, and then spent the remainder of your orders trying to dig out my Moran.

Can’t wait for our third game, when maybe we have some normal dice for both of us!

Game 3 – The Noctifier Debate

Tony and I finished our game pretty quickly, so that gave me some time to go get a beer with the rest of the Portland folks. When Adam and I moseyed on back near the start of round 3, we found a apologetic Andy telling us that we were paired as Game 3 opponents. We assured him it wasn’t a big deal–besides, at least this way one of us would go home with at least one victory! Adam had a pretty dicey (literally) Game 1 and 2 as well, so we were looking forward to a fun game.

Overview

Mission : Supplies

: Supplies Forces : Nomads versus Combined Army (300)

: versus (300) Opponent : Adam (TheDiceAbide)

: Adam (TheDiceAbide) Deploy First : Combined Army

: First Turn: Combined Army

List B INTRUDER Lieutenant Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, Grenades / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 35)

INTERVENTOR Hacker (Hacking Device Plus) Combi Rifle, 1 FastPanda / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27)

ZOE & PI-WELL . (0 | 47)

ZOE (Hacking Device. UPGRADE: Stop!) Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 28)

PI-WELL Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 19)

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

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

HOLLOW MEN Spitfire, Chain-colt / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (2 | 36)

INTRUDER HMG, Grenades / Pistol, CCW. (1.5 | 42)

SPEKTR (Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle, E/Mauler / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 32)

BRAN DO CASTRO (Specialist Operative) Combi Rifle + E/Mitter / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 37) 10 | 5 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army

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

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

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

ANYAT K1 Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, Smoke Grenades, E/M Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)

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

CORAX HASHT Spitfire / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 34)

NOCTIFER Missile Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32)

SHROUDED (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)

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

KRAKOT RENEGADE Submachine Gun, Chest Mine / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 15) 10 1 | 5.5 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Deployment

Adam decided to go first, so he set up for an early box grab with his specialists. His order sinks, a Noctifier ML and a Q-Drone HMG, went on the left and right, respectively, with a Krakot in the middle to pressure me.

I bluffed a Interventor Lt on the right, with a Hollow Man Spitfire guard. Zoe and Pi well covered the middle, and I put my Intruders prone on rooftops outside my deployment zone to fake some infiltrating specialists hiding from an alpha-strike. My Morans went on the left and right, each with a Koala deployed backwards towards my deployment zone edge to make life difficult for Adam’s Speculo–I knew both of Adam’s lists in detail, having discussed them at length with him in the car ride up.

My Spektr went smack-dab in the middle, and Adam put his Speculo out of reserve right where I expected him to–gunning for a Lt snipe on turn 1. My reserve was Bran. I didn’t see a great place for him, so I just pretended he was another specialist on the left.

Turn 1

Top of 1 – Combined Army

Adam cancels his Krakot’s order, unwilling to lose it to a Koala. The Speculo runs around the corner, doing a move-move to get into view of my Interventor “lieutenant”. Rather than attempt a discover with my Hollow Man, I declare Alert!, but my Interventor fails his roll to turn around. Ah well. The Speculo shotguns my Interventor in the back, killing him and tanking my Speculo’s chain colt, the runs into base to base and crit mono-filaments my Hollow Man off the table, tanking another chain colt in the process. Thankfully, my back-deployed Koala is in range and finishes off the Speculo.

Corax Hasht moves forward towards the central objective, triggering a Koala. He fails his dodge, and Adam forgets that he’s shock-immune, so Corax Hasht comes off the table after failing his roll.

The rest of Adam’s turn is spent grabbing the central and the right (from my perspective) objectives with Anyat and his Shrouded FO, respectively, retreating them with some coordinated orders. After Cybermasking his Charontid with his Lieutenant order, Adam passes the turn.

Bottom of 1 – Nomads

I inform Adam that I’m NOT in loss of lieutenant, breaking his brain a little, and then super jump Bran off his roof, further breaking Adam’s brain. All is revealed when I coordinated order combi rifle and E/Mitter Adam’s Q-Drone with my Interventor Lt and Bran, respectively. Of course, this is the game where Adam’s dice choose to wake up, and his Q-Drone crits my Intruder.

This is quite frustrating, to say the least, but I try again to take out the Q-Drone, using Bran, my Spektr, and Pi Well, advancing my Intruder HMG further up the board. Adam reveals his Noctifier as a TO camo token against my Spetkr, so I don’t use it to shoot. Thankfully, this time the Q-Drone doesn’t kill anything, but I also fail to knock the Q-Drone unconscious. The Noctifier is threatening everything at this point, so I need to get rid of it.

In our local Portland meta, we’ve gone back and forth about what the most efficient way is to get rid of the Noctifier ML. We focused on Knauf versus the Intruder MSR, as for other reasons we had been thinking about using MSRs in limited insertion. We had arrived on the consensus that Knauf (due to shock) may knock out the Noctifier in less orders on average than the Intruder, but the Intruder MSR was far less likely to eat a missile to the face. I didn’t have an MSR on the table, so I just declared a discover-shoot on the Noctifer, hit four times, and wounded four times, deleting the Noctifier.

Certainly not a scientifically robust conclusion to the debate, but a very viscerally satisifying one. I attempt to remove the Q-Drone with a Triangulated Fire from Pi Well, but we both whiff.

With the Noctifer out of the picture, I’m free to gun down Kerr Nau with my Spektr. My last order is spent re-camoing Bran, my Spektr, and my Intruder HMG.

Turn 2

Top of 2 – Combined Army

Adam’s Krakot rushes my Moran, throwing a grenade to contest his dodge. I break camo with my Intruder and take out the Krakot and thankfully crit dodge with my Moran.

Adam advances his Charontid, attempting a discover against my Spektr, intending to shoot afterwards. I do his favorite thing in response, which is to drop an E/Mauler in his face while a pair of Koalas bum rush him. Adam dodges in response, failing the dodge but passing both ARM rolls against the Koalas.

Adam brings his Q-Drone in as a problem solver to unstick his Charontid, discover-shooting the E/Mauler successfully.

Adam retreats his Charontid to safety, trading fire with my Spektr, and then fails to re-cybermask the Charontid…

Bottom of 2 – Nomads

In Loss of Lieutenant, I attempt to remove the Q-Drone again with Triangulated Fire from Pi Well, but we whiff again.

Bran surprise-shot E/Mitters the Charontid successfully, but dies to the Q-Drone.

I spend some ineffectual orders advancing my Intruder HMG up the table in an attempt to set up a run against Anyat and/or the Shrouded on turn 3. I secretly nominate him as my Lieutenant to give him 6″ of movement, and throw things back to Adam.

Turn 3

Top of 3 – Combined Army

It’s now Adam’s turn to be in Loss of Lieutenant, so he spends it advancing the Ikadron and retreating both Anyat and the Shrouded, dropping a mine with the Shrouded to discourage me from following it up to the roof it’s now hiding on.

Bottom of 3 – Nomads

The Pi-Well/Q-Drone stalemate is finally resolved with the Q-Drone declared the winner… we checked later and the odds are pretty awful trying Triangulated Fire a Q-Drone in 16″ to 32″.

I gun down Anyat with my Spektr, managing to avoid getting shot in the face by the Q-Drone…

I attempt a spec-fired grenade on the Shrouded with my Intruder, but whiff, and now I’m down to one order to go get Anyat’s box. My Spektr goes around the corner and gets riddled full of bullets by the Q-Drone.

Since my spec-fired grenade failed, it goes from a 0-0 tie (which would’ve been hilarious and appropriate) to a

6-0 Combined Army Victory!

Talk about a swingy mission! We got done about an hour earlier than everyone else, freeing us up to go meet our hosts in Redmond for some delicious Korean food.

At the end of the day, I was pretty much near the bottom of the pack with a 0-3 record. It wasn’t great, but all three of my opponents made the sound beating a really fun experience.

Notes

Notes for Me

I could’ve deployed my Interventor a little better, but I don’t think that would’ve changed the outcome.

I’m not sure what a better way to get rid of the Q-Drone would have been. Two coordinated orders and 3 Triangulated Fires seems a reasonable thing to try…

I continue to be impressed by the Spektr.

Definitely felt pretty pleased with my recovery from loss of lieutenant, but can always do better.

We checked the odds on that Intruder versus Q-Drone crit on the way to dinner, and I was at about 50% and Adam was at 4%… sigh…

Notes for Adam