Since 2020 rolled around, I’ve been to two Infinity tournaments. “8Ball’s Release Party”, which was in January in San Rafael, and Toss a Coin to your MERC, last month in Santa Cruz. Both tournaments were a blast and MERC in specific was eventful enough that I wanted to write about it.

Eightball’s Release Party

Eightball’s release party was a six-person, three round ITS tournament with no extras. The missions were Frontline, Capture and Protect, and Safe Area, and the roster was me, a relatively new player, and four pretty high level Bay Area players.

(That last bit should not be taken as an excuse for what comes next)

The Lists

One of my lists for this event was pretty normal while the other…aggressively was not.

So Raining Men is a pretty normal QK list, at least in how I play QK.Yuan Yuan’s with EVO support, a Remote-heavy defense based on Overclock, and some camos to round it out. Djanbazan as the Core Lead because I wanted the MSV in a competitive environment, while the Azra’il was an experiment due to my newfound love of the Gamma in O-12 and my success with it at Battle By the Beach. I knew I was running Yuan Yuans in other factions during a Soldiers of Fortune tournament later (And possibly at Rose City Raid in June), so I wanted to get in practice with them early.

Attack Haris is a nine-man Core with a Sensorbot and then a Sekban link in the second group. I’ve heard cool things about Overcores (Overfilling your Core Link for replacement troops and to switch stuff through mid-game) and have wanted to experiment with them for a bit. QK let me do that by having a defensive Ghulam Sniper link with Surprise Rocket that turns into a Djanbazan HMG link even if the Ghulam link loses all four exposed members.

It’s less impressive than it sounds.

The Games

My first game was Frontline against Jiron13 playing Aleph. He pushed into the midfield pretty aggressively against Raining Men but didn’t make too much of a dent and when my turn came and the Yuan Yuans dropped things went very poorly very quickly. They made an enormous amount of armor saves and as a result killed a lot of people, including his Lieutenant and some Posthumans, before they went down.

Well, before some of them went down, one of the little pricks survived the game. Monster that she is. T

In theory he could have pulled it out but his advance left too much stuff exposed, and when my link moved up turn 3 things went south pretty quickly. That said, I didn’t have enough people remaining to secure everything that I wanted to, and thanks to the specifics of points-in-zone, I win 5-2. The main lesson learned was being careful with your advances in Frontline, especially if you’re going first, and to always watch for drop troops. My Yuan Yuans all got great drops and walk-ons and managed to walk on top of high value targets and knock them down with impunity. On my end, I clustered my points too much and didn’t manage to exploit my advantage into a major as a result. Leaving Yuan Yuans in position for Cruel Chain Rifles and cleaning up with the link more was advisable.

My next two games go pretty similarly. I face 3Bounds, playing Varuna, in Capture and Protect. My Yuan Yuans actually murder the Dreaded Kamau Fort Kickass and shred his Haris, but I vastly over-extend my fireteam on Turn Two, they get shredded, and TO Camo touches the box to win. Embarassing, but it happens and if I was smarter with the Sensor bot and might not have it might not have. 7-0 against me.

Final match is Safe Area v Polynikes with Vanilla Combined. I take deployment, he takes first turn, I set up my nest of Snipers and Hafza to try and control rangebands.

It doesn’t work.

HRL ends up against a Combined Army TR bot and dies. Snipers end up with decreasing link bonuses against a Xeodron and die, one eating three hits in a single turn. I reveal my Assault Hacker inadvisably and she gets killed by Sheskiin. And then I get my first turn.

Admittedly, I do manage to turn things around for a bit. One burst of Linked Djanbazan kills the Xeodron, a second finishes the corpse. I drop a lot of units and wound Sheskiin, but run into the problem that my Haris and Flash Pulse/Sensor bots are actually terribly placed, several of their movement routes aren’t and some of the firelanes are terrible. The second group wastes some orders just getting people back into position. Things go well, but at the end of my turn two I greatly overextend my fireteam again and they all get killed by a Liberto.

Oops.

Between poor positioning and the fact that I have one Odalisque to try and capture three zones and two consoles, I lose 8-0.

Lessons Learned:

Be careful with links. Never forget the Shotgun Lesson. Be careful with links. Check your movement and firing lanes before you commit to your deployment. Everything you put on ARO is going to die and some of it is going to die embarrassingly.

I placed 5th in that tournament, and though it was a lot of fun it…wasn’t an impressive showing, to say the least. Especially since I lost to the same mistake twice in a row.

Hell of a learning experience, though.

Toss a Coin to your MERC

MERC was a three round, fourteen person tournament using Soldiers of Fortune and Tactical Window at Mythic Games in Santa Cruz. The missions were Biotechvore, Hunting Party, and a custom armory-based mission called Prison Break.

The Lists

The lists were simple and based on the missions they were meant to accomplish rather than anything I was aiming to test out.

Of note, I guess, is my Hunting Party List, which has quite a few specialists, a very aggressive LT, and a Core team that is the only thing in its order group. I personally don’t view Specialists as much of a liability in Hunting Party, yes there are points for taking them down, there are also up to four points (Depending on Classifieds) for using them and all you gotta do is make sure they die. Or that Mister Monstrucker saves them.

The weirder bit is the 5 order Core with Tarik L2 (So secretly Seven Orders), and the secret there is that they’re actually a very angry defensive link team. They advance slowly, cautiously, and with the Monstruckers palbot suspiciously nearby.

The second group is pretty standard for SoF Ramah. “What if my weaknesses didn’t exist” is a thing every sectorial wants to be able to say, and SoF gives you the warbands and skirmishers to make that dream a reality. Your Mukhtar haris is here for violence, but aims to do most of its work turn two/three after they’ve had time to advance, the Ghulam link does different stuff depending on the mission but ideally the Khawarij menaces people and then the link moves forwards and does stuff when he dies/when he miraculously doesn’t.

The Games

This went pretty well for me.

First-round was Biotechvore against Scopedog, playing Military Orders. I got deployment and correctly guess that he was going to go first. He had no high-burst weapons over 24 inches, with only Panzerfausts to strike at 32, and I had eyes on both of his best ways out of the Biotechzone. The Hortlak and Linked Khawarij took overlapping Overwatches and, uh, that was the game, really.

On his first turn, McMurrough and three knights died and several knights were wounded. On my first turn, I killed everything he got on the field and got almost my entire list out of the BTV zone. My Hortlak died on ARO when the Spitfire managed some crits. My Liberto died to BTV on account of a failed roll and no spare orders. My EVO survived, inexplicably. My Khawarij Rocket-Launchered his link into pieces, dragged my link across the field, through multiple Long Skill Jumps, and went into Scopedog’s Biotechvore zone to shotgun his link into oblivion, then retreated back out. It was the most Titanfall thing I’ve ever done in Infinity.

On his turn two, a TOFOOS revealed, walked forward 8 inches and died to the Zone. We didn’t play my second turn but it would have consisted of my EVO walking out of BTV.

Scopedog took it very gracefully and assured me not to feel bad about it but it was the first time I ever tabled someone and I felt a little bad about it.

The second round was Hunting Party nagarok7, playing JSA. Once again I took deployment and handed over first turn, though this time I only had the Khawarij and a Rafiq on ARO duty. It was enough, the Khawarij took out a Tanko and some members of a Domaru link as well as Shinobu and halted both McMurrough and Yojimbo in their tracks for almost my entire turn. There was a dicey moment, my facing on my link members was poor so there was a gap for a Yuan Yuan dropped, but with no EVO he failed the roll and reset to his side of the table. On my turn my Yuan Yuans dropped, causing a small amount of havoc, Tarik killed McMurrough and Yojimbo, my Yojimbo ran forwards and revealed his Lieutenant, then knocked that Lieutenant unconscious. My Mukhtar glued the Lieutenant (Took several shots to do it). My Tuareg revealed and hit some buttons and did a classified. He advanced and killed the Khawarij and Yojimbo but couldn’t do much to the link or Mukhtar at which point I dismantled what was left of the list. 7-0 my favor, as he didn’t bring any specialists and I failed to get one button.

Lessons:

On my end, I really do need to check my facings. That could’ve been real bad for me in Hunting Party. I probably need to be more aggressive about Buttons, as that loses my points with some regularity. A Faction may be able to deal with any problem in Infinity, but that doesn’t mean your list can. Long-range AROs are a normal part of the game and, honestly, not something Ramah is particularly exceptional at. A linked HRL is scary but a solvable problem and one your list should either be able to solve or avoid. Both of my opponents downed the ARO eventually, but it cost them the game in the process. Judicious use of smoke, Cautious Movement, a linked HMG or Sniper, or even Buffed TR Bot could all have dealt with the issue.

The finale was Prison Break against C_B, playing Ikari company. Prison Break’s an interesting mission, you need to get into an Armory Room (Either by Pressing Buttons to open a single door at a time, using Lockpick on the door, or knocking down the Doors or Wall), sync your Civilian, get it out of the room, and keep the other guy’s civilian inside. So you’ve got a few ways to approach the mission and a reasonably broad spectrum of points to score, with Classifieds, two Buttons to push, and of course the objective room. Which, here, has an ARM 10 3 Wound door and ARM 12 3 Wound walls, gives a -6 to Lockpick, and having an EVO on the field gives you +3 and 2 rolls to Lockpick and press buttons.

Ikari went first here, with a held-back TR bot to lock down a decent sniper tower on my half of the board. Definitely a good move on his part, as it forced a much more conservative, defensive Sniper deployment. The first turn was a bit of a Cluster on both sides, his attempts to Sword down the door failed, with D-Charges and a Druze/Tanko link’s best efforts only getting two wounds onto a 3 wound door. There was light skirmishing, but nothing particularly serious. On my turn I drop a heavy rocket launcher burst onto the bulk of the link, killing one unimportant member and Yojimbo despite two solid hits. It was very disappointing. My Yojimbo, meanwhile, sets his Madtraps, rockets into the link, eats a bunch of ARO fire…

And no-one took any wounds.

Additionally, after an exchange of Crits with his TR bot where neither of us went down, my Mukhtar haris ended its turn with the link leader exposed. So I walked a Yuan Yuan right in front of him as a smoke-wielding body shield. Really, the biggest note is that I Lockpicked the door on the first try and synced my civilian, though didn’t get him out of the room yet.

Turn Two was a bit more brutal. Lots of units died, though my Yuan-Yuan lived, and his FO bot gave its life pressing a button. I, having prepared for the wrong door to open, mis-positioned my Khawarij and he got killed in a firefight with a Liberto, who then ate flamethrower. The Druze link ended up retreating, as they were out of Anti-Material weaponry and the run to the open door wasn’t going to end well for them when the turn flipped. On my second turn I managed to kill another member of the Druze Link, run my HVT back to my deployment zone, put a hacker on high-stakes ARO duty, and sacrificed my Yuan Yuan to soften up his backline before my Mukhtar Haris ran back and nanopulsered a bunch of units into unconsciousness.

C_B’s turn three was spent protecting the button he’d pushed. It worked, after all the bloodshed I didn’t have the orders to get there, fight his defenders, and push the button without losing at least one Objective Point. As such, game ended 9-2.

Lessons:

Some units live to die. Yuan Yuans are great sacrificial pieces and as long as a template isn’t going your way, physically blocking Line of Sight works just as well as smoke. My Impetuous units, barring the Hero Yuan Yuan, did very little besides soak orders. I likely should have committed to them more aggressively or used a different approach. Your opponent will come for you in the way least convenient for you, not necessarily the way most convenient for them. Remember to save an order to pull people back from a bad situation.

Wrap Up:

I won.

For the first time ever I just won a tournament. I got my ass kicked for a couple of years, got better, and now have legitimately won a tournament in a meta I really respect.

I am, to say the least, over the moon about it.

It’s tempting to qualify that win. I got great matchups in the first two rounds and had some good luck in the third. But I still had a list and deployment that let me force those matchups and managed to leverage that third match into an overwhelming victory.

There are still lessons to learn. 8Ball was very much me smashing my head into a grinder, but I’m at the level where that grinder is the next step up and I’m feeling pretty decent about trying to take it. I’m…probably not fielding Krakots again in SoF and at some point, I’ll learn to watch my facing and by-inch unit positioning. I’m also really, really going to want to make sure I don’t suffer the same fate as my first two opponents did. Bad matchups can be brutal and having ways to manage them, or knowing how to respond when you can’t, is vital. Playing mindfully and carefully is, and remains, the most reliable way to play well.

But sometimes you sprint across the board and shotgun three Knights in the face with Burst 3 on 22s and get to feel like a champion.

And you get to revel in that.

I hope you enjoyed the writeup and that it included lessons you found useful. If you enjoyed it, please consider supporting my Patreon or Ko-Fi, they help make these articles happen more often.