We played on a lovely board made by one of our locals. It’s meant to be the Aristeia combat stadium, with a big raised platform, holo ads, and lots of transparent LoF blocking but not LoS blocking pieces (the little clear tubes, right of frame). What’s really cool is that the riser supporting the main platform is actually a box that can carry the entire board, including all the scatter terrain! And yes, that is green EL wire, and yes, it looked awesome in person. The angry face “Hostile” tokens are the objectives for Supremacy. Clearly, not a lot of cover on the objectives!

Overview

Mission : ITS Supremacy

: ITS Supremacy Forces : 300 pts Nomads versus Shock Army of Acontecimento

: 300 pts Nomads versus Shock Army of Acontecimento Deploy First : Shock Army of Acontecimento

: Shock Army of Acontecimento First Turn: Shock Army of Acontecimento

And now, the lists! I was trying out the Intruder Lt to have access to grenades to dislodge something in turn three and other such options. The rest of my stuff was pretty standard. Zero hackers continue to be amazing, as we’ll see later. I took a Prowler Spitfire as well, with the intent of breaking link teams with it.

Nomads GROUP 1 8 INTRUDER Lieutenant Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, Grenades / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 35)

LUPE BALBOA Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Panzerfaust, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 23)

JAGUAR Adhesive Launcher, Panzerfaust / Pistol, DA CCW. (0.5 | 13)

REVEREND HEALER MULTI Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, EXP CCW. (0 | 37)

ZONDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)

ZERO Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 21)

INTERVENTOR Hacker (Hacking Device Plus) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 24)

PROWLER Spitfire, D-Charges / Pistol, CCW. (2 | 36)

HELLCAT HMG, E/Mauler / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 31) GROUP 2 5 MORAN (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, CrazyKoalas (2) / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 22)

ZERO Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 24)

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

MODERATOR Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 11)

MODERATOR Combi Rifle + Pitcher / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 10) 6 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army

My opponent took this list the last time I played him in Decapitation, and it did NOT go well for me. It started really well. I infiltrated a Zero BSG over the centerline, climbed up to get his prone Lt, and then failed all my rolls. My Hellcat dispersed, died, and then his TAG marched across the board and shot everything to pieces. Time for a rematch! Again, I don’t know what his combat groups were, and I’m not sure of a few minor details, but this is pretty accurate:

Shock Army of Acontecimento REGULAR Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)

REGULAR Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)

REGULAR Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)

REGULAR (Sapper) MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 22) BAGH-MARI (Minelayer) MULTI Sniper Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 28)

KNIGHT OF MONTESA Combi Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher, Chain-colt / Breaker Pistol, Shock CCW. (1 | 48)

BULLETEER Heavy Shotgun / Electric Pulse. (0 | 17)

TIKBALANG HMG, Heavy Flamethrower, Antipersonnel Mines / AP CCW. (2 | 85)

CRABBOT Flash Pulse / Knife. ()

NAGA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30)

NAGA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30)

TECH-BEE (Remote Assistant Level 1, Specialist Operative) Flash Pulse / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) 6 SWC | 299 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Deployment

I remembered to take pictures this time! My opponent ended up setting up first and going first. He put his Bagh Mari and Tech Bee at the top of the stairs, deploying the Bagh Mari’s mine in his backfield. His link team stuck his sapper sniper on a little perch with his Lt and paramedics strung out below the platform with one paramedic ready to pick the sapper back up.

The Tikbalang hung out covering my right flank through the gap below, and his Bulleteer stood ready to zoom up my left flank. His knight and Nagas sat in the midfield, ready to get to work. You can see the Naga on the small building right of frame, between the two objective markers, and the other is right next to the knight mid-frame.

Deploying was a bit of a puzzle, as there really wasn’t all that much cover and I only had two smoke sources. I ended up just trying to keep everything away from the TAG. Moran in the center behind the spiked pillar, Crazy Koalas covering the objectives on my side. Zero KHD on my left, Zero AHD on my right, both prone. Lupe and the chain rifle Jaguar watching the platform, with moderators and the Reverend Healer’s bot ready to climb up the stairs. My Interventor, Intruder, and Reverend Healer hung out on either side of the platform, with the Interventor on the same side as the AHD to deal with the Tik. I placed my Intruder to face off against the Bulleteer’s ODD. My Prowler is hanging out on the ground near the VHS tape covered in decals on the centerline, near the Knight and Naga, with the intention of walking around and getting some shots on his link team, hopefully breaking it.

Jaguar Chain Rifle: Hey look, I’m Señor Massacre! With a wide grin at Lupe, the Jaguar flourishes his curved knife and strikes an aggressive pose. Lupe responds by flashing him a rare smile and mimes an overly dramatic sword twirl before dropping into a combat crouch, reminiscent of Massacre’s Aristeia adverts. Jaguar ADHL: Hah! I saw him the other day, it’s more like- Intruder Lt: ¡Oye! Focus! Bakunin wants us to plant some more hidden cameras so we can get footage for Arachne. Let’s spread out, find the best angles. Hackers, keep spoofing their cam feeds, we don’t want Aristeia security showing up. Sweep and clear, people! We can play dress up lat- ¡Joder! Contacts at our 12!

Turn 1

Shock Army of Acontecimento (Top of Turn 1)

The first few orders my opponent spends are advancing his Bagh Mari to an elevated position on the other side of the table. My Jaguar throws smoke, covering himself. I figure I need the Jaguar alive for smoke later, in case Lupe goes down. In retrospect, I should’ve covered the Moran too, but I wanted to keep Lupe’s Panzerfaust in the fight. Finally in position, the Bagh Mari shoots at my Moran, who attempts a flash pulse and fails, going unconscious. His follow up shots hit Lupe, but she passes her ARM rolls and elects to drop prone.

Bagh Mari: X-Rays and Crazy Koalas, far stairs. Red. Red. Green. Regular Lt: Take the shot. Lupe: Contact at our 11! The Moran, having just hit the deck at the Intruder’s call of “contact,” reflexively pokes his head out to check the 11 o’clock zone… and loses it. Lupe’s return panzerfaust round goes wild, detonating harmlessly in the air above the Bagh Mari. Bagh Mari: X-Ray down. Taking fire! They have heavy weapons! Suppressing! Lupe: Sniper! Lost the CKs! We’re pinned down! Jaguar Chain Rifle: Smoke out!

My opponent is now almost out of orders for whichever group the Tech Bee is in, but he’s forced me into total cover/concealment. Safe from AROs, he just walks the Tech Bee up to the nearest button and pushes it successfully.

Swapping combat groups, he activates the Tikbalang, climbs up onto the platform, and starts marching over to flamethrower everyone. Unfortunately for him, while I don’t have LoF to any of this, he ends movement in ZoC of my AHD Zero. Naturally, I reveal and declare Overlord (I neglected to read the text for Total Control) to try and possess the Tik. I succeed, but he passes his BTS roll. He then reveals his Naga KHD on that side (but forgets to remove the camo token next to the knight), and tries to kill my Zero AHD with Trinity. I ARO with Carbonite. I win the FtF (thanks, dice!) and he fails one of his BTS rolls. The Naga is Immobilized!

With his last order, he stomps the Tik over to the Naga so he can see my Zero’s base. I declare Total Control, and he declares full-burst HMG. I realize that the new position might put the Tik in ZoC of my Interventor, so we check, and it is, so I declare Overlord with her as well. He wins the FtF against my Zero, landing three hits, and my Interventor’s Overlord roll succeeds as well. I roll a 17, 18, and 20 on my ARM rolls, and the Tik passes BTS. And with that, the turn passes to me with an Interventor HD+ and a Zero AHD in hacking range of his Tik…

Nomads (Bottom of Turn 1)

I do the obvious thing and spend two orders possessing the TAG with my Interventor, since my Zero AHD is in the ZoC of the Naga but the Interventor isn’t. I spin the Tikbalang around and drop a heavy flamethrower template on the Naga and the knight. The Naga goes unconscious, and the knight makes his dodge roll. The sapper sniper takes two STR off the Tikbalang with his normal rolls. I activate the Tikbalang again and put two dice each into the knight and the sapper, putting a wound on the the knight and blowing the sapper away. I push up to see the Bagh Mari and the knight and split HMG fire between the two of them, but the they win their FtF rolls and the Tik goes unconscious after failing an ARM save for the Bagh Mari’s MSR hit.

Regular Lt: Get the Tik in there. Sweep for enemy hackers! Naga KHD: Moving in. The Tikbalang clambered up the side of the Aristeia platform smoothly, finally planting its feet firmly on the Crimson Pitch. The pilot light of its napalm projector flickered like a snake’s tongue, testing the area for prey. In concert, the Naga slunk ahead of the TAG, malevolent code spooling like venom into her I/O buffers. Zero AHD: I have hostile contacts on my scanner! TAG! Oh shit, enemy hacker too! Interventor: Jack me into your data stream! Moments before, the Zero had been tweaking her changes to the Aristeia security camera footage, originally intending to loop back holo images of an empty field for the sake of any watching security personnel. It was a trivial exercise to redirect the massive live holovid packet stream into the comms array of the Naga, who was treated to a thousand sensory streams of her own body moving slightly out of sync with itself. The Naga froze in place, buffeted by the sensory overload, unable to differentiate reality from the data stream. In those thousands of parallel data streams, the Interventor found the one leading back to the Tikbalang’s remote pilot and went to work, splicing in a time-delayed version of the Tikbalang’s sensor feed. Interventor: Juke to your right! Tikbalang Pilot: Enemy Zero in sight! Firing! A stream of tracers lasered its way through the space where the Zero had just been, spalled chips of concrete pattering off the Zero’s light armor. Hacking furiously, the Interventor mirrored the Zero’s movement in the TAG’s data stream, so while the real Zero went right, the virtual one went left. A few deftly spoofed packets later, the virtual Zero’s avatar ran off the platform she had been crouched on and seamlessly overwrote the thousand forms of the immobilized Naga. In the heat of the moment, the TAG pilot didn’t notice that his feed suspiciously did not show the Knight of Montesa and pivoted to bring his heavy flamethrower to bear… Tikbalang Pilot: Slippery eel! You can’t dodge this! Thousands of Nagas immolated in the expanding cone of napalm, each hungry tongue of flame captured in exquisite detail for all the Aristeia fans. Reacting quickly, the Knight rolled backwards, smoke streaming off his armor. Knight of Montesa: TAG compromised! I say again, TAG compromised! Regular Lt: All units, fire on the Tikbalang! Zero AHD: Rerouting stream to you! The Interventor seized the incoming holovid stream from the Aristeia stadium, reversed the rendering of the field, and fed the new stream to the TAG, replacing the Pan Oceanian soldiers with live holoimages of Nomads. Then the Panoceanian snipers opened fire. Tikbalang Pilot: I’m taking effective fire! They have anti-armor rounds! Engaging! The Bagh Mari Sniper slammed a fresh magazine home into the receiver, the first caseless, electrically actuated round automatically finding its way into the firing chamber. Lines of targeting information from his rifle splashed across his multi spectral visor, accentuated by strobing HMG tracers as they sawed the Regular Sniper in half. The Bagh Mari’s IFF system still hadn’t reclassified the TAG as hostile, so he just emptied his fresh magazine as fast as his trigger would reset. Unsubtle, inaccurate, but effective at achieving the necessary result: coolant and musculature hydraulic fluids slowly spread from beneath the husk of what had been, just moments before, a combat effective TAG. Bagh Mari: It’s done. The TAG is- The panzerfaust warhead impacted center-of-mass. The shaped charge jet cored straight through two layers of advanced ceramic armor before the concussion wavefront plastered the remains of the Bagh Mari across his elevated position and sent his MULTI sniper rifle spinning away like a boomerang, straight into the path of a Hellcat in final descent. Jaguar ADHL: Did you see that!? I’m fuggin’ gonna be on the Aristeia highlight reel, ese! Hellcat: Madre de dios! What the hell was that?

My Jaguar ADHL panzerfausts the Bagh Mari off the table, but I fail the Hellcat’s PH roll, disperse right next to a mine (other side of the stairs), and it dies. My poor Hellcat hasn’t really been having all that much success! Somewhere in here my chain rifle Jaguar dies, but I don’t really remember how. Probably died to the Bagh Mari while trying to throw smoke?

With my last few orders, I bring the Moderators up the stairs, throw out a repeater with the Pitcher to give my Zero KHD AROs on the unconscious Naga KHD, just in case, and attempt a paramedic roll on the downed Moran, but fail and remove him from the table.

Turn 2

Shock Army of Acontecimento (Top of Turn 2)

My opponent uses the Montesa to grenade launcher Lupe and the Moderators, downing both Moderators but Lupe’s panzerfaust sends him unconscious. Lupe elects to go prone again after passing her ARM roll. With no one watching the platform, he runs a paramedic up the stairs and tries to pick everyone back up, managing only to get the knight back up, but killing the Naga.

The Moderator Paramedic turns away from the incoming grenade, but it catches her in the small of the back, erasing her from existence. Lupe smashes herself to the stairs, bruising her ribs but avoiding the worst of the explosion. The other Moderator is sent sprawling and smashes his head against the stairs with a sickening crack, blacking out. Raising one hand, Lupe pushes her comlog above the lip of the Aristeia platform, its camera feeding telemetry on the Knight of Montesa to her retinal implant. She subvocalizes the arming and firing commands for her last panzerfaust round, and the dragon perched on her shoulder shoots up and over the lip of the platform. The impact sends the Montesa sprawling, his armor spraying coolant fluids into the air.

Without many orders left, the Bulleteer advances up the flank and hides behind the building that the remaining Naga is standing on. My opponent pushes the Tech Bee up the field with its irregular order, intending to push the next button. I ARO by planting a mine, and the Zero KHD gets pistol-whipped and dies.

Nomads (Bottom of Turn 2)

Bottom of turn 2, my Jaguar ADHL is frenzied, so I try to ADHL the Tech Bee, who flash pulses. We both miss. I shuffle the Prowler upfield and reveal it, just to score points. The Reverend Healer takes some pot shots at the Bulleteer, which passes its ARM roll and hides. I push the Reverend Healer up to the other side of the building from the Bulleteer and pick the Moderator Pitcher back up with her bot to get the order for later. The Intruder pushes up to the corner of the building, just in case I have to deal with some Naga and Bulleteer stuff on Turn 3.

A pretty uneventful turn for me. Last thing I do is block LoF from the Knight of Montesa with some smoke, push Lupe up and kill the Paramedic that tried to pick the Naga back up. I end my turn with Lupe prone and in suppression fire by the central terrain piece.

Turn 3

Shock Army of Acontecimento (Top of Turn 3)

My opponent tries to kill my Reverend Healer with a heavy shotgun, but he fails 1/2 of his rolls due to Mimetism. I drop an angry swarm of nanobees on his face but whiff my Jag’s last panzerfaust. He fails BTS and the REM goes down. The Healer passes her ARM roll with a 17! Some hot dice on ARM rolls this game!

The Knight and remaining Naga coordinated order to try to take out Lupe, but the Naga whiffs (hooray Mimetism!) and Lupe out dices the knight and drops him again. He ends up in range of the repeater I shot on Turn 1, so wasn’t going to have a good day even if he survived. For his final order, the Naga manages to drop the Reverend Healer, but also sets off the mine I dropped earlier, killing itself and the nearby Tech Bee. At this point, my opponent only had his Lieutenant and I think a Paramedic left, so he stuck out his hand and conceded the game.

Summary

Nomad Victory! I could’ve easily completed Classified Objective: Extreme Prejudice with my Intruder Lt, shuffled Lupe around to push buttons, and could’ve also put dudes in all the relevant zones, so we saved ourselves a few minutes and just called the game.

A pretty one-sided game, all in all. TAG possession is rough, and I had some pretty hot dice this game. I learned more about the capabilities of my hackers (they continue to be awesome). I’m liking deploying the Zeros as hackers, but it is a lot stronger when deploying second, so I can place the AHD and KHD appropriately. In most of my games, the Moran just dies a lot and doesn’t get to be a repeater, so that kinda sucks. He definitely is a priority target, and he is much more annoying to my opponents if I hide him somewhere with only huggable robots exposed, but this table didn’t leave me a ton of options… I suppose I could’ve stuck him under the stairs, but I didn’t think that far ahead.

I’ve been toying with the idea of taking a Spektr Deployable Repeater for Turn 2 shenanigans, but I think a better option is taking the Zero version and tossing it over the centerline to lock up some HI or REMs.

My poor Hellcat dies more often than not dropping in with AD:5, but I’m going to continue using him. I’m going to try to walk him on more often. That’s probably better anyway, especially with the HMG’s rangebands.

Big thanks to my opponent for taking it on the chin and being a great sport!