The Grid is pretty complicated, so Isaac and I got in a practice game to try to figure out the mission. As a brief summary, there are 9 Antennas in a 3×3 grid, a saturation zone, and a hostile HVT called a “Designated Target” that has a BS 6 stun pistol. Scoring is as follows:

Have the same amount of Designated Antennas as the adversary at the end of the game (2 Objective Points, but only if the player has Designated at least 1 Antenna).

To have more Designated Antennas than the adversary at the end of the game (3 Objective Points).

To have Destroyed the same amount of Antennas as the adversary at the end of the game (2 Objective Points, but only if the player has Destroyed at least 1 Antenna).

To have Destroyed more Antennas than the adversary at the end of the game (3 Objective Points).

To kill the Designated Target (2 Objective Points).

To kill the Designated Target with your DataTracker (2 extra Objective Points).

Unfortunately, the antennas can’t be targeted until turn two, so turn one is basically set up for turn two and alpha strike as hard as you can. Not being able to be targeted includes being forward observed too, so it’s really just alpha-strike. I think the right call is to take first turn if you win the roll off, which is exactly what Isaac did.

It’s also worth noting that the antennas are ARM 4, STR 2, which means to be in the “destroyed” state they have to be go to STR -1. Three wounds is ROUGH. We didn’t realize that so were counting STR 0 as destroyed for the purposes of this mission.

Overview

“This one is a big one,” said Zero Cool, standing in front of the ramp to the dropship. “We’re going to go raid a PanO cube storage facility. If you’re not okay with that, now’s the time to walk,” Zero Cool paused, but no one of the assembled crew moved. A SWAST operator thumped his machete on the ground to signal Zero Cool to continue. “Alright. We’re doing the right thing. On to mission parameters,” continued the Interventor. “We have good intel that many of these cubes are infected. Some new VoodooTech has allowed sepsitorized cubes to make it past PanO and Aleph’s scanners for recovered cubes. You know as well as I do that we can’t let them resurrect any of those cubes. It’d be as good as opening the door to some Speculo Killers and inviting them in, and we have to act, especially after the events at Wotan. We’ve managed to scrounge some VoodooTech of our own, and we’ll be able to scan the cube banks to see if they’re infected, but we won’t have time to go find the specific cube in there. We’ll be taking out folks that had no business dying for real. ” Zero Cool paused again, but no one reacted save some uncomfortable shuffling. Could just be tense muscles he told himself, taking a deep breath. “We’ve got two assets embedded in the cube facility, and we’ve got to try and get them both out. After this, their cover gets mighty thin and won’t last long under the full pressure of the Hexahedron. They might not know the full extent of what we’re doing, they just have the codes and access to get us in quietly and to open the cube banks. So we’ve gotta… handle these two guys,” Zero Cool says, pausing for subtext and glancing at the SWAST Taskmaster standing in the back of the group, who doesn’t give any visible response. “Alright. Load up, we’re leaving now,” he finishes, snatching up his combi rifle and just walking up the dropship ramp without further ceremony. The trip passes in a stony silence.

Mission : The Grid

: The Grid Forces : Nomads versus Neoterra Capitaline Army (300)

: versus (300) Deploy First : NCA

: First Turn: NCA

The Grid and Acquisition GROUP 1 | 7 2 INTERVENTOR Hacker Lieutenant (Hacking Device Plus) Combi Rifle, 1 FastPanda / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27) TASKMASTER Red Fury, Pulzar, CrazyKoalas + TinBot A (Deflector L1) / Heavy Pistol, DA CCW. (1 | 53) PROWLER Spitfire, D-Charges / Pistol, CCW. (2 | 36)

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

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

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

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

LUNOKHOD Heavy Shotgun, Akrylat-Kanone, D-Charges, CrazyKoalas (2) / Electric Pulse. (0 | 24)

TOMCAT Engineer Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22) GROUP 2 | 2 3 3 JAGUAR Adhesive Launcher, Panzerfaust / Pistol, DA CCW. (0.5 | 13)

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

MORLOCK Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 6)

MORLOCK Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 6)

MORLOCK Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 6) 5.5 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Neoterran Capitaline Army GROUP 1 | 10 SQUALO (Armored Cav.) MULTI HMG, Heavy Grenade Launcher / AP Heavy Pistol. (2.5 | 95) CRABBOT Flash Pulse / Knife. () FUSILIER Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 15)

FUSILIER Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 18)

FUSILIER (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)

FUSILIER (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)

FUSILIER (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)

MULEBOT (Minesweeper, Repeater) Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)

CLIPPER DRONBOT Smart Missile Launcher / Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 18)

PATHFINDER DRONBOT Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16) GROUP 2 | 4 PATHFINDER DRONBOT Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16)

DEVA Lieutenant (Sensor) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 24)

BLACK FRIAR (Albedo, Biometric Visor L1) MULTI Rifle, Nanopulser, Drop Bears / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 28)

MACHINIST Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 15)

PALBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) 6 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Deployment

Isaac won the roll off and elected to go first. I chose deployment and gave him the more open side. The Fusilier link nestled safely behind the large olive building, or so they thought, backed up by a Black Friar. His mulebot and engineer hung out on my left behind. One Pathfinder Dronbot poked out in the middle, with the other hidden in the back right. The Clipper and Deva hung out near the middle Pathfinder, with a Fugazi on the flank.

I put two Morlocks on the left, with Colossus Morlock on the right (who appropriately rolled Total Immunity). My Taskmaster was prone guarding the entrance to my backfield on the left, with my Lunokhod guarding my backfield on the right. My Interventor tucked himself into a corner in the middle. I put my two Jaguar Panzerfausts in a position to see as much of the field as possible for ARO and antenna pew pewing purposes, and then I started getting crazy.

I started conservatively but putting a Moran on the left and a Bandit on the right… and then threw a Moran and a Bandit over the centerline. The picture below is slightly off, the Bandit had to be deployed next to the antenna on the left to get out of 8″ of the nearest link team member. His Squalo stomped onto the board in my back left corner, and I put my Prowler down prone behind a barricade in the middle. Unsurprisingly, his Squalo was his DataTracker, and I chose my Taskmaster as mine.

Turn 1

Top of Turn 1 – NCA

I want to reduce the amount of times he can drop grenades on me, so I dock his Squalo two orders. He spends two of the remaining 8 grenading my HVT, netting him 4 points immediately. Well damn. Well played, sir. Well played indeed.

Zero Cool sent the coded transmission to start the operation to the embedded assets and waited. Soon, he was rewarded by an warning klaxon and the hiss of coolant and noble gases as the first cube banks began to rise from their armored containment vessels scattered around the facility. “Okay people, now’s not the time to get fancy, just get the job done and let’s get out of here!” The Deva Functionary looked up in alarm. There wasn’t a scheduled maintenance cycle today, so there was no reason for the cube banks to be exiting their armored vessels. He punched a few queries into his comlog and quickly identified the technician responsible, opening a comms channel. “You! What is the meaning of this? There is no scheduled maintenance cycle today, return the cube banks to the containment vessels immediately!” The Deva got no response save more blinking red dots on his display–more cube banks were being brought out into the open. Reacting quickly, he pinged the Squalo operator on duty. “We’ve got a mole. Kill him and I’ll deal with the consequences!” he commanded, sending coordinates. Within moments, the technician was blasted away from the console he had been operating, shredded by the Squalo’s heavy grenades, but it was too late, all the cube containment vessels were opening slowly.

He tries to clear out my Morans with some grenades, but only succeeds in knocking out the one on the left. So now I’m down to 6 Koalas. To clear out two more, he throws a Fugazi into the fray. Just in case it survived, I Oblivioned it, but the Koalas did their thing and knocked it out of commission.

He’s got a few orders left, so he moves his Black Friar into position to cover my Bandit’s approach, throwing a Drop Bear to protect the link team, and then puts the Squalo, the Deva, and the Black Friar into suppression just to ensure I don’t do any Hellcat shenanigans. I guess this is what it’s like to play USARF and to always have the looming specter of Van Zant over the table.

Bottom of Turn 1 – Nomads

Hoo boy. I’ve got my work cut out for me. I need to get things into position for turn 2 and wreck the link team. I really should do something about the Squalo, but it’s a lot easier to just deal with the link and deprive the TAG of orders to grenade me to death.

I have to, so I advance the Morlocks. There’s basically nothing left out to ARO so they get a free full 8″ of movement each to get up the table. I reveal the Prowler and Spitfire down the Drop Bear, clearing the way for my Bandit. I move-move my Bandit around the corner, trying to get behind the Black Friar. The Fusiliers scatter as best they can, but the Pathfinder in the back manages to reveal the Bandit. Whelp, there goes that plan.

I activate her again and cover four Fusiliers with the shotgun template, rolling a 15 and a 17. The first Fusilier crits his his dodge (the photo below is post-dodge), with the second passing both ARM rolls. Lucky for me, the Fusilier hacker and ML both fail one ARM roll apiece and go down. The Black Friar guns down my Bandit though. Could’ve been a better trade, but I’ve got a wave of Morlocks incoming.

“NCA Response team incoming,” warned the Bandit. “I’ll try to delay them!” The Bandit dashed towards the incoming fireteam of Fusiliers, dropping two with well placed shotgun rounds, only to be cut down herself by a burst of fire from a Black Friar. “Hostiles!” warned Friar Kenneth. “We need a medic! I am going to inspect the hostile, everyone stay on alert!” Zero Cool had just finished patching into the NCA’s comms and caught the tail end of Friar Kenneth’s transmission. “Get that Black Friar before he IDs us!” he commanded.

I coordinated order the Morlocks up the field to set up for turn 2 and then dash one of my Morlocks all the way up to chain rifle the Black Friar and the Fusiliers. They all make their dodges, with the Black Friar dodging behind my Morlock. RUDE! I’ve only got one order left in that order group, and it’s irregular. I burn my last command token (I burned a bunch flipping irregular orders to do this) and move the Morlock into base to base with the Black Friar, who nanopulses while all the Fusiliers dodge. I declare dodge myself and make it!

I spend the last few orders in my main group shooting the exposed Pathfinder and recamoing my Prowler, throwing away my remaining Bandit’s order because she’s already in a good position. Finally, just in case Isaac decides to get grenade happy, I cybermask my Interventor with his lieutenant order.

Turn 2

Top of Turn 2 – NCA

The remaining Pathfinder pokes out and forward observes an antenna, which immediately takes a smart missile and goes down (yes, we need to do 3 STR of damage but we didn’t know that this game, so we counted it). Isaac announces that what he’s about to do is a bad idea, and then proceeds to move two of his Fusiliers into base to base with my Morlock. I CC in response, winning the roll off and slicing the hapless Fusilier to ribbons in spite of the bonuses. He tries again with the Black Friar to get the CC buff along with the bonuses, but my Morlock pulls through and drops the Black Friar too.

Anya the Morlock loped up towards Friar Kenneth, sword drawn. As she made visual contact, she found the Friar crouched over the Bandit’s body, about to turn it over. Thinking quickly, she fired her chain rifle with her off hand, missing the Black Friar and the Fusiliers standing there, but attracting their attention. “Heretic!” frothed Kenneth, drawing his own sword and settling into the Cat Crosses the Courtyard, a position of readiness. Before the Fusiliers had time to react, Anya barreled into them, kicking the lead Fusilier in the chest and sending him sprawling into his fellow. Kenneth flowed into Parting the Silk, driving a cut at Anya’s back, but the battle-hardened Morlock had her blade in the way, almost contemptuously turning it aside. Anya turned to face the Friar, Fusiliers forgotten. Now here was a worthy opponent! Anya and Kenneth circled around each other, sizing up the opposition. Kenneth broke the stalemate first, probing Anya’s defenses with The Viper Flicks its Tongue. Anya shifted her weight slightly, gliding around the quick jab. The Fusiliers had managed to get to their feet now, and were watching the fight through their rifle sights, looking for an opening. Anya didn’t wait to give them one and just triggered her chain rifle directly into the nearest Fusilier, shredding him and dropping the wet meat on the ground. Kenneth seized what he thought was an opportunity with Striking the Spark, sending looping cut after cut at Anya, who just backed away from the charging Friar, getting her feet under her for a leap as she did so. Kenneth felt his heart swell in victory as he dropped to one knee with The River Undercuts the Bank, expecting to catch Anya’s abdomen exposed to a horizontal slash. His sword whistled through empty air, and the last thing he felt was the hot barrel of a Chain Rifle pressed to the back of his head as the world exploded into a thousand motes of light. “Always with the kneeling! You knights are so pious!” sighed Anya, disappointed. The nervous Fusilier nearby squeezed the trigger of his rifle, muzzle sweeping his fellow as he tracked the rounds onto Anya. His friend glared accusingly back at him as he fell, bleeding from his back as the rest of the rounds dented Anya’s ceramic armor. Anya dropped her sword and drew her pistol in one smooth motion. “Two to the head. Don’t they teach you anything?” she sighed again, drilling two new holes into the traitorous Fusilier’s surprised face.

He goes back to playing to the objective and forward observes to more antennas, managing to missile one down but whiffing on the other. The GML bot comes out to play with one of my Jaguars, but we both whiff. He’s only got his Lieutenant order left, and forgets that the Deva is his Lieutenant and not his FO Fusilier (this was one of many lists he had been messing with on the day). He shoots into the close combat, trying to down my Morlock and rolls a 17, 11, 1. The 17 whiffs, the 11 hits his FO Fusilier, and the 1 hits my Morlock. I pass ARM, he doesn’t!

Zero Cool was surprised to see two new blips appear on his heads up display. He tapped into the PanO command and control net and smiled. “Well, don’t mind if I do…” Within moments, the Clipper Dronbot was slaved to a Pathfinder’s targeting laser. A few more rapid gestures from Zero Cool and it was missiles away! Several Cube banks disappeared in balls of fire and shrapnel. The Deva spun around, startled by the explosions. “CEASE FIRE! I did not release heavy weapons! CEASE FIRE!” The NCA Lieutenant tried to raise the Fusilier hacker on comms to get the situation under control and got only static and telemetry of weak vital signs in response. Sighing, the Deva escalated the problem up his chain of command. Now alerted to the hijacked remotes, the NCA response was swift, booting Zero Cool from the command and control network, but the damage was done. Araña ducked as the Clipper fired a missile at his position, but the confused remote operator missed, the smoke trail spiraling lazily away. “¡Oye cabrón!” shouted Araña, thinking Zero Cool was still in control over the REM, getting only laughter in response.

Bottom of Turn 2 – Nomads

Things are looking a little smoother for me now. Black Friar’s down, link’s shattered, and I’m in no danger of him going into retreat if the Squalo is still alive and kicking. Time to go to work.

Hero morlock guts the last FO, with her buddy on the left advancing into the middle. The Morlock on the right chain rifles down the FO bot, tanking a combi-rifle shot, and then Colossus Morlock goes down in a blaze of glory taking out the GML bot, eating a shot from the Squalo and the GML bot. I should’ve done this earlier, but I cover the Squalo with a smoke grenade from hero Morlock. I stand up my Moran and start forward observing all the antennas I can see, shuffling a little get a few more. By splitting burst I manage to get 5 antennas flipped, including flipping one of my opponent’s. My Bandit stabs an antenna over the course of two orders, and my Jaguars lob a pair of panzerfausts downrange, leaving me with a single panzerfaust left. One of the antennas goes down, but the other still has one STR left. I move the middle Morlock into position to stab the wounded antenna, and move my Taskmaster up to make a run for his HVT on turn 3.

I walk a Tomcat on at the end of the turn for the order at the bottom of 3.

Turn 3

Top of Turn 3 – NCA

He’s down to three orders, and he spends them all trying to spec-fire my Taskmaster. He misses, crits, and hits, but I pass my ARM save on the last one! Phew! He moves his Deva into position and tries to gun down hero Morlock, but she smokes him out on a 15.

Bottom of Turn 3 – Nomads

I cancel the Jaguars’ Frenzy orders and use one of their regular orders to cancel the middle Morlock’s order, with the other one throwing smoke at the Squalo. The middle Morlock finishes the middle antenna off with a 20 in CC.

I spend the rest of my orders running the Taskmaster across the table to get into LoF of his HVT, who attempts to stun pistol me. I crit it with the Red Fury, and that’s game! I’ve flipped more antennas and blown up one more than Isaac, so I get the points for that. Both of us killed the enemy HVT with our DataTrackers, so it’s a

10-4 Nomad Victory!

Zero Cool watched with grim satisfaction as his team did their unpleasant duty. After the Moran had identified and marked the relevant cube banks, his forces dismantled them, either by outright destruction via panzerfaust or by careful application of bladed implements to sever critical coolant and support lines. With a sigh, he plots a red blip on the Taskmaster’s HUD and watches as the SWAST DataTracker methodically advances up the field and guns down the remaining embedded asset. If the sound of a Red Fury on full auto wasn’t confirmation enough, the DataTracker breaks squelch twice on a private comm line. “Job’s done, folks. Gather our dead and wounded and let’s exfil. Well done,” radios Zero Cool, calling in the waiting extraction ship.

Notes

You really really want to go first in this mission. You can alpha strike really hard first turn and control tempo. You can FO all the antennas with split burst on Turn 2, then blow them up all up with a split-burst Feuerbach or linked ML or something. Turn 3 is about tying up loose ends.

Martial Arts 2 DA CCWs are good, but now that we know that you need to do 3 STR damage, that’s a lot of orders to be spending!

Splitting burst in the Saturation Zone is critical, for FO and for shooting the Antennas. I’m definitely bringing a Tsyklon Feuerbach to the tournament.

I got really lucky throwing both the Moran and the Bandit over the centerline. I didn’t need to with the Moran, but it did influence his Squalo deployment. The Bandit was just gravy.

I need to find a way to get more regular orders for my Morlocks. Flipping so many command tokens is getting costly. I ended up not needing them, thankfully, but it’d be nice to have the option later.

I don’t think this mission benefits greatly from coordinated orders late in the game, so I’m not particularly worried about not having command tokens. I think it’s perfectly acceptable to burn them all in the alpha strike, but I still would like more orders for my Morlocks.

Fusilier dodge game was strong this match! I really like what my opponent did with his dodge movement. Very good use of the ability.

Throwing the Fusiliers into the meat grinder was very risky.

Auxilia — Pistol (CC Mode) — 2 Friendlies in Combat 18.45% — Auxilia inflicts 1 or more wounds on Die Morlock Gruppe (Unconscious)

02.06% — Auxilia inflicts 2 or more wounds on Die Morlock Gruppe (Dead)

17.42% — Neither player succeeds

64.13% — Die Morlock Gruppe inflicts 1 or more wounds on Auxilia (Unconscious)

33.04% — Die Morlock Gruppe inflicts 2 or more wounds on Auxilia (Dead) Die Morlock Gruppe – DA CCW

Doing it with the Black Friar also very risky.

Black Friars — CCW — 1 Friendly in Combat 18.08% — Black Friars inflicts 1 or more wounds on Die Morlock Gruppe (Unconscious)

01.67% — Black Friars inflicts 2 or more wounds on Die Morlock Gruppe (Dead)

21.84% — Neither player succeeds

60.07% — Die Morlock Gruppe inflicts 1 or more wounds on Black Friars (Unconscious)

28.07% — Die Morlock Gruppe inflicts 2 or more wounds on Black Friars (Dead) Die Morlock Gruppe – DA CCW