One Day Infinity N3 Tourney

Rob from the Totally Crit podcast asked if I would like to come over to Tunbridge Wells for a one day ITS tournament. Currently on my Infinity pilgrimage how could I decline. 

Above: Looks can be deceiving. This tournament is not taking place in an underground bomb shelter.

Game One - Stuart - Yu Jing JSA - Annihilation 

A quick summary of Stuart's army; Bikes, bikes and yet more bikes. As scary as the bikes were, as I found when using a Maverick in the USAriadna, the large base size can make for a tricky game if you have a terrain heavy table. 

Fortunately for me, Stuart's bikes had to pass in front of my resilient Taskmaster if they wanted to get involved in the game quickly. On the other flank the JSA had a fireteam, who did not have a great game. Firstly, they couldn't shot a Morlock on the opposing flank who made his slow progress of moving and dodging towards the bikes, and eventually, managed to pop two bikes with his Chain Rifle before he was finally dropped. Secondly, the fireteam found itself being pinned by a Jaguar, also armed with a Chain Rifle. 

Above: My Jaguar waiting for the fireteam to make a move.

Above: A bike traffic James* if you will.

* This reference will only make sense to those of you that have read the Drop Fleet Commander Rule Book. 

Stuart had to use a number of his turn two orders to send one of the remaining bikes over to extricate the fireteam from its predicament. With his remaining orders the fireteam finally disposed of the troublesome Taskmaster. However, my Riot Grrl armed with a Spitfire then proceeded to mop up the models on Stuart's left flank, and eventually Stuart's fireteam fell to my TO Spector on a high roof. And this resulted in my first ever tabling of an opponent in an Infinity game. To be honest, I cannot take all the credit for the result. Stuart was plagued with bad dice and the dense terrain did nothing to help his big bike bases.

Game Two - John - Combined Army - Safe Area

My game one victory came at a cost. I was certainly going to play a very adept player. And that player was Totally Crit's very own John Bedford. 

If you have listened to the most recent Totally Crit podcast you will know all about John's Combined Army list. In fact John makes reference to an event in our game. Using my Intruder with his MSV2, a Jaguar's smoke, and a TO Camo Spector, I was able to put two of John's Immatron link team (those armed with the missile launcher and the plasma sniper rifle) into the unconscious state - all good so far. 

Above: The table for game two.

Unfortunately for me, my lack of knowledge of my opponent's army and me failing to pick up on the fact that the Unidrons are Remotes, and not normal troopers, meant that I did not shot them further to kill them outright. I had wrongly assumed that they were prone in the unconscious state and therefore not in my line of site. And for my error, John promptly doctored back to full health, and with them covering one side of the battlefield, John's Sphinx went to town removing the immediate threats, such as the annoying Spector.

I managed to hold one objective by the end of the game and the finally points score did a lot to aid John's eventual tournament victory. Well done John.

Game Three - Mike - Combined Army - Transmission Matrix

I previously played Mike at an event in Woking (Ibuywargames) where I managed a win. Although, the our game did highlight the problem with shop based tournaments; customers. (The placing of the tables meant that Mike was stood right in front of the X-wing racks; apparently a very popular game on that particular day. So today's game was his opportunity for revenge).

Above: Mike setting up his forces for game three.

Having won the initiative roll I chose to go second. All I needed to do was survive long enough to have guys around to capture the objectives at the end of each turn. Simples.

This was not a mission I had played before. On reflection I had a simple task. Keep my Smart Missile Launcher alive so that my Interventor could target enemy models through the numerous  Repeaters, and then drop missiles in their laps. Job done. My fundamental error was putting the SML in a place Mike's link team could get line of sight to - Very, very dumb. 

Having fallen foul of a super jumping tag in the past, I now fell foul of a super jumping Morat fire team, who got their beady eyes on two of my troops laying prone on a building top. A few jumping missile launcher shots later and my order pool was looking less formidable.

Above: The Morats.

I kept my TO Camo Spector in hidden deployment, but, even with his shout of 'surprise!' he also fell to the now rampant Morats who took ownership of the table centre. Mike got his revenge with an 8 to 2 win and, with the aid of baggage, he had 326 points left to my 47.

*Just to remind you, this was a 300 point tournament :-(.

Again, I really enjoyed playing and my opponents were all good sports. Thanks to Rob for hosting. Unfortunately the next Totally Crit event clashes with the January Drop Zone Commander Invasion tournament in Croydon, so my next Tunbridge Wells trip will have to wait a while. 

Learning Infinity Update

Work continues a pace with our little group's Infinity learning experience. Last Friday night Nathan an I enjoyed a to and fro 300 point game, with Nathan's army coming off best. And Mike and Ed played a couple of 150 point starter games, where Mike felt the full force of an MSV2 equipped missile launcher (not nice apparently).

Above: The guys enjoying Friday night.

Two questions were asked, and to address these in a community spirited way, I looked into finding the answers. Firstly, page 25 of the main rule book explains under the heading 'Remotes' that your list must contain either a Tag or a Hacker, to allow Remotes in a list.

The second question related to when does a model not have the right to claim an ARO in the non-active turn. 

Page 30 of the main rule book explains that 'the reactive player must declare AROs (where the reactive player's model has line of fire, or the active model is in the reactive model's zone of control or the reactive model has a piece of equipment that allows a reaction without having line of fire), immediately after the active player declares his entire order or first short skill of his order'. 

Therefore, should a reactive model, for whatever reason decide to not react to a model activating in line with the circumstances describe in the brackets above, that model gives up its right to ARO in the remaining part of the active model's order. 

Or saying it another way, if a reactive model could have declared an ARO in the first half of an active player's order, but didn't, they lose the right to declare an ARO in the second half of the order.

Above: I think Mike an Ed were having a 'line of fire moment', or they were both waiting to be spanked. It's difficult to tell.

On the subject of learning Infinity, most recent episode of the Mayacast talks about the challenges of teaching newbies about the game and getting over the hump of the massive rule book. It can be found here:

https://mayacast.com/

Happy wargaming to all in this festive season. I hope nice things abound.

Alex