James is one of our local ISS players, and he’s got an even crazier work schedule than I do. Thankfully, we were able to schedule a Sunday afternoon together to get some games in. James is a newer player, so I thought we’d try a game of Recon+ to limit scope, force us to use all of our tools, and iterate games quickly. I used it as an opportunity to try the Zondnautica again, just to get the table time.

Game 1 – Recon by Fire

I hadn’t set up my table at home since the Rose City Raid, so I just put together a quick 2′ x 4′ table. I know that Recon+ is supposed to be 2′ x 3′, but… I was lazy. Probably should’ve gone through the effort to do the smaller table to keep it in the spirit of Recon+. Ah well. I had made a really quick list for James the day before, just to give him a scaffolding to work with. As it turns out, making 150 point lists is really fun! I didn’t intend for James to take the list I had made verbatim, as it was a bit light on specialists, but he elected to give it a go as is. Smash and Grab is basically mini-Supplies, so specialists are pretty key. He definitely made the best of it though.

Overview

Mission : Smash and Grab

: Smash and Grab Forces : Nomads versus Imperial Service (Recon+)

: versus (Recon+) Deploy First : ISS

: First Turn: ISS

Recon A REVEREND CUSTODIER Hacker (Hacking Device Plus) Lieutenant Combi Rifle + Pitcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 34)

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

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

BANDIT (Forward Observer) Light Shotgun, Adhesive Launcher / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 23)

DAKTARI Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)

WILDCAT Heavy Rocket Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (2 | 20)

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

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

ALGUACIL (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) 7 1 1 | 3 SWC | 150 Points Open in Infinity Army

Imperial Service CELESTIAL GUARD Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)

SÙ-JIÀN Spitfire, Light Flamethrower, Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (2 | 59) CELESTIAL GUARD (Kuang Shi Control Device) Combi Rifle + Light Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 13)

KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)

KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) CSU (Specialist Operative) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)

CSU Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11)

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

WARCOR (Aerocam) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3) 8 1 2 | 2.5 SWC | 150 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Deployment

James won the rolloff and elected to go first. I made him deploy first on the side didn’t have great lines of sight to the central objectives. Not my best table design. James tucked his Kuang Shi core behind some cover and then wrapped the rest of his forces around a building. His Su Jian plunked itself down somewhere on the right, I forget exactly where. It looked like I wouldn’t have line of sight into the center of the board due to the big central building cluster, but that turned out to be not the case. I actually had pretty decent coverage, which we only really found out once we started playing and checking LoF. Like I said. Not my best table. I covered the approaches with Transductors and my Wildcat HRL, then scattered some specialists around. I put the Daktari near the Wildcat just in case, and stuck the Zondnautica on the right in a position that would eat most of its movement on the first turn. James passed a PH-3 roll to put his Ninja KHD right next to both my hackers. I figured something was up so I put down my Bandit in a central location so I could go Ninja hunting if necessary. With that, we were off!

Turn 1

Top of Turn 1 – ISS

James elected to get his link forward, covering the central approach with smoke. My Wildcat was watching a few approaches, so James decided to take it out with his Su Jian. We had a bit of discussion about odds, given that the Su Jian was out of 24″.

Su-Jian Immediate Action Unit – Spitfire 39.27% Su-Jian Immediate Action Unit inflicts 1 or more wounds on Wildcats, Polyvalent Tactical Unit (Unconscious)

09.79% Su-Jian Immediate Action Unit inflicts 2 or more wounds on Wildcats, Polyvalent Tactical Unit (Dead)

41.98% Neither player succeeds

18.75% Wildcats, Polyvalent Tactical Unit inflicts 1 or more wounds on Su-Jian Immediate Action Unit (1 STR)

08.44% Wildcats, Polyvalent Tactical Unit inflicts 2 or more wounds on Su-Jian Immediate Action Unit (0 STR)

03.80% Wildcats, Polyvalent Tactical Unit inflicts 3 or more wounds on Su-Jian Immediate Action Unit (-1 STR)

01.71% Wildcats, Polyvalent Tactical Unit inflicts 4 or more wounds on Su-Jian Immediate Action Unit (Dead) Wildcats, Polyvalent Tactical Unit – Heavy Rocket Launcher

After rolling the dice, I land a hit and all the burning puts the Su Jian into NWI. Well… hmm. That’s not supposed to happen. Since it’s a learning game, we check the odds for whether or not it would make sense for the Su Jian to leave cover and get into 24″.

Su-Jian Immediate Action Unit – Spitfire 52.60% Su-Jian Immediate Action Unit inflicts 1 or more wounds on Wildcats, Polyvalent Tactical Unit (Unconscious)

19.92% Su-Jian Immediate Action Unit inflicts 2 or more wounds on Wildcats, Polyvalent Tactical Unit (Dead)

33.60% Neither player succeeds

13.80% Wildcats, Polyvalent Tactical Unit inflicts 1 or more wounds on Su-Jian Immediate Action Unit (1 STR)

06.21% Wildcats, Polyvalent Tactical Unit inflicts 2 or more wounds on Su-Jian Immediate Action Unit (0 STR)

02.80% Wildcats, Polyvalent Tactical Unit inflicts 3 or more wounds on Su-Jian Immediate Action Unit (-1 STR)

01.26% Wildcats, Polyvalent Tactical Unit inflicts 4 or more wounds on Su-Jian Immediate Action Unit (Dead) Wildcats, Polyvalent Tactical Unit – Heavy Rocket Launcher

The odds are better, so James breaks cover and makes it into 24″. I roll a crit. Whoops. Not the best teaching scenario, but crits are crits? With the Su Jian off the table and running a bit low on orders, James set about covering the central area with AROs to tie me up on my turn. He climbed one of the Kuang Shi up to cover the objectives with a chain rifle, eating a successful, if meaningless flash pulse to the face. With that, it was my turn.

Bottom of Turn 1 – Nomads

I lose my Zondnautica during its impetuous move to the over-infiltrated Ninja KHD using Redrum. Unfortunate.

Zondnautica Rapid Offense Unit 57.21% Zondnautica Rapid Offense Unit Immobilizes Ninjas

16.14% Neither player succeeds

26.65% Ninjas inflicts 1 or more wounds on Zondnautica Rapid Offense Unit (Unconscious)

13.59% Ninjas inflicts 2 or more wounds on Zondnautica Rapid Offense Unit (Dead) Ninjas

Cereal Killer, my Bandita, cleans up the Ninja with a quick lean out. I pop my Daktari out and shoot the Zondnautica with a Medikit and pass the PH-3 roll. At this point, James asks if we can re-rack and try again, since he’s down a Ninja and a Su Jian and wants to get more games in instead of watching me pick apart his AROs to get at the objectives. Getting a ton of games in is the whole point of the day, so I agree and we switch tables sides and try again.

Notes

Notes for Me

Well, the Zondnautica AHD is pretty vulnerable to KHD. Carbonite is a pretty good active-turn short skill, as you can see from the odds above, but I’d much rather shoot the KHD from outside of 8″. Unless it’s a Hac Tao. Then I want absolutely nothing to do with it.

Based on this limited experience, I think Paramedics might be even better than Doctors in Recon+. The table is so compressed that things are likely to be within 12″ away (i.e. a MOV+shoot Medikit at 8″), and you really want to maximize your order efficiency so Medikits are quite useful. One follow on to this conjecture is that Hakims will be pretty awesome.

Tables are even more important to Recon+ than regular Infinity. You really need to make sure you have fair tables. Long firelanes are even more brutal, but you don’t want to have it become a chain rifle and shotgun only game.

I am really enjoying list building for Recon+.

Notes for James

Good call on re-racking the game.

I think you had a pretty good structure to your game: make some smoke, try to break my AROs with your Su Jian, when that failed, set up for Turn 2.

Perhaps some more smoke tricks with the Celestial Guard and getting your CSU up there would’ve helped you secure a box on the first turn.

I think that trying to kill the HRL Wildcat probably wasn’t necessary. Smoke would’ve blocked LoF just fine, you have Burst 2 thanks to the link, so just ignoring her might’ve been better.

That said, I probably would’ve tried to kill my Custodier with your Ninja on your turn. You’d lose the Ninja but put me in LoL and then have an easy time of grabbing stuff on Turn 2.

HRLs are gross and very punishing if the dice don’t go your way.

Game 2 – Recon in Force

Overview

Mission : Smash and Grab

: Smash and Grab Forces : Nomads versus Imperial Service (Recon+)

: versus (Recon+) Deploy First : Nomads

: First Turn: Nomads

Recon A REVEREND CUSTODIER Hacker (Hacking Device Plus) Lieutenant Combi Rifle + Pitcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 34)

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

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

BANDIT (Forward Observer) Light Shotgun, Adhesive Launcher / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 23)

DAKTARI Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)

WILDCAT Heavy Rocket Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (2 | 20)

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

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

ALGUACIL (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) 7 1 1 | 3 SWC | 150 Points Open in Infinity Army

Imperial Service CELESTIAL GUARD Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)

SÙ-JIÀN Spitfire, Light Flamethrower, Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (2 | 59) CELESTIAL GUARD (Kuang Shi Control Device) Combi Rifle + Light Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 13)

KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)

KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) CSU (Specialist Operative) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)

CSU Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11)

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

WARCOR (Aerocam) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3) 8 1 2 | 2.5 SWC | 150 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Deployment

My turn to go first. I put the Zondnautica in the back to have a protected impetuous move, stuck a Transductor in a place where it’d be easy to get it into cover for James’s turn, and then put my Alguacil and Bandit forward observers as far forward as possible, ready to make a run for the objectives. My Custodier is to the right, below the rightmost Transductor (missed the label). James put his Warcor in a tower, then had a pretty similar deployment to his first turn–Kuang Shi fireteam in cover, CSUs behind a building. He attempted to over-infiltrate the Ninja but failed this time. I attempted to punish his CSU deployment by putting my Wildcat far forward to get a snipe on the CSU Rifle Specialist Operative. James responded by putting down his Su Jian in some cover, watching the midfield. His Lieutenant isn’t pictured here. I believe it was behind the building the Warcor is on. Deployment is pretty darn quick in Recon+!

Turn 1

Top of Turn 1 – Nomads

I have an absolutely awful first turn. After taking out the CSU SO with the Wildcat and retreating her, I make an attempt on the objectives. I get smoke down where I need it after the second order, coordinate up some stuff, and fail a ton of my WIP rolls on the objectives. Finally I get the right objective open, but this means I’m forced to leave my Alguacil FO out by the left one to die.

I make a calculated risk next, spending my Lieutenant order to fire a pitcher up the field towards the Su Jian and the Ninja. I figure that James has a small enough order pool that if he spends a ton of orders climbing the Ninja down into repeater range and having a hacking fight, he’s not accomplishing objectives and my Alguacil FO might be able to live till Turn 2. My Doctor is a 4″ move away from being able to Medikit either of my hackers, so I can recover. The repeater also dissuades the Su Jian from attacking my right flank, which I’m a big fan of. In retrospect I probably should’ve pulled it back towards my deployment zone, but such is life. James doesn’t fall for that trap and instead opts to try to take out my left flank with his Celestial Guard 3-man fireteam. Thankfully my Transductor is on point today, and flash pulses the Celestial Guard. James isn’t going to stop there, of course, and after taking out the Transductor with his Su Jian comes around the corner to chain rifle my Alguacil a few times. It takes a few orders, but she finally drops. I lose my Wildcat HRL to the chain rifle too as the Kuang Shi comes around the corner. Still need to improve my Chain Rifle eyeball, I guess. The Su Jian move into place as part of a coordinated order with the Ninja. Sadly, the Ninja touches the 8″ repeater bubble so I manage to isolate it with my Zondnautica, but fail a Sucker Punch on my Custodier. With that, James throws the Su Jian into suppression and James passes the turn.

Turn 2

Top of Turn 2 – Nomads

I cancel the Zondnautica’s order to prevent it from getting blown up, and then have a minor panic attack as I spend my Custodier’s Lt order to Sucker Punch James’s Ninja again. Single die dice offs are super risky, and the odds are pretty even: me on 11s and James on 10s. Annnnnnndddd… I roll a 4 and James rolls a 3! Ninja down! I attempt to get James to break suppression on the Su Jian by popping my Custodier out to take some shots at it it from over 24″, but it just passes ARM and ignores me. I don’t have a ton of orders left, so I settle for just shooting my Alguacil FO with my Daktari’s Medikit to pick her back up, then pass the turn back.

Bottom of Turn 2 – ISS

James kills my Alguacil FO again with his Celestial Guard Smoke LGL, then shifts his Su Jian away from the repeater to try and pressure my other flank where I’m weak. Thankfully my Bandit can see this and I land a lucky ADHL hit, freezing it in place. Go Cereal Killer Go! I glue James’s Celestial Guard Lt as it tries to remove my Bandit, but finally lose the Bandit to a crit from the Celestial Guard Smoke LGL. Ah well. With all his orders gone, James passes the turn back to me.

Turn 3

Top of Turn 3 – Nomads

I have only three orders left, not including my impetuous order and Lt order. My impetuous order rockets the Zondnautica up the table, dropping the objective near my Custodier as I do so. My Zondnautica’s mimetism causes James’s Warcor to miss. My Custodier grabs it with her Lt order, then my first real order of the game happens. I shoot smoke to contest the Warcor, beating the flash pulse. The remaining two orders gets me the objective and a quick retreat away into cover. With that, it’s back to James.

Bottom of Turn 3 – ISS

James sends in his CSU BSG to “arrest” the dirty Nomad instigators. I lose my Daktari to a long range BSG shot on the way in. The Zondnautica eats the BSG shots, going down. I chain rifle in response, but the CSU passes ARM. Drat. Well, on the way to grabbing the package from the downed Zondnautica, my Custodier takes care of the CSU and that’s that. I had a Datacube at the end of the game, and had one throughout all three turns, but did not have both at the end of the game. Neither of us accomplished our classifieds, making it a

6-0 Nomad Victory!

Thanks to James for coming by on his day off, for the games, and most importantly for bringing cinnamon rolls! Yum!

Notes

Notes for Me

Well, I was pretty ballsy with my repeater placement. Every little bit of distance matters on a smaller board, it feels like. I definitely should’ve been punished more for that. I think I’m so used to quantronic superiority that I’ve gotten a bit sloppy.

Holy moley the Zondnautica is fast. AHD is really risky in a meta with KHDs but a fast specialist with smoke is really strong.

I don’t think I’ll take it all that often in larger games where I have more room for less risky specialists, but in low point games it’s a really good option. Plus in larger games the Spitfire becomes more appealing.

I think I should’ve figured out a way to leverage the Zondmate better by blocking the way into my deployment zone with it or something. That would’ve been the most clever thing to do, but I didn’t have a ton of orders to do it with.

I’m liking the Rev Custodier lieuteant, but she does feel a little odd, no pun intended. Need to play with it more. I know she’s way more vulnerable to KHDs than an Interventor Lt, but I like the added kit and the fact that she’s better at gunfighting.

I kinda like the HRL Wildcat as a low-point game bruiser. Not super overpowered and reasonably useful.

I definitely need to play some more Recon+. I’m really enjoying the format.

Notes for James