Infinity Battle Report: Firefight, Shasvastii vs O-12

I've been playing quite a few games of Infinity to "get my eye in", as it were, with the new edition. With the Tinbot tournament in the past I'm focused in on Shasvastii now. I had a game arranged with one of the club, running O-12, and our pick of mission was Firefight.

I decided to try running the Sphinx this game. It did mean I was a bit lacking in other attack pieces due to a lack of points. I'm sure that wouldn't be a problem...

I snuck a Shrouded Hacker up the field to tuck into a nook in a building and complete the Mapping Classified.

I then sent the Sphinx up to clear some ARO pieces

However, I over-reached a little bit and got caught in the open in a crossfire as the Sphinx moved up, taking two damage. With my engineer in the same group, I didn't have the orders to bring it up to repair this turn, so I needed to get back into cover and survive until next turn.

Unfortunately, I managed to catch another damage as I tried to move out of sight, falling unconscious. In the hope of keeping it alive, I moved my Q drone over to defend it.

My opponent proceeded to drop their speedballs on my right flank to enable his attack there.

The Shrouded who'd completed the Mapping objective was hunted down by an angry Varangian.

As the O-12 forces advanced, my Taiga started dodging towards them. They picked the speedballs, but managed to glue Victor Messer in place. Inconvenient.

Still, the Taiga got into the attacking piece to hold up it's attack run.

To keep me from repairing my Sphinx, a Crusher arrived and took out my servant remote.

The Crusher then moved around and took out my T-drone guided missile remote as well. I was really starting to run out of attack vectors!

The other Varangian came up to help out the O-12 unit my Taiga was pinning down, and managed to take it out with the extra dice from their buddy.

The Crusher went to take out my R-drone, but got stunned.

That was about all my luck, as my Q drone also got mushed.

I ended up needing to use my Mentor Lieutenant to clear some turrets in my turn, but with all the casualties I'd taken, didn't manage to get much else done. Including "get my Lieutenant clear" - he went down to the Varangian who'd killed the Shrouded, meaning I spent my third turn in Loss of Lieutenant.

Victor was still glued, so was picked off...

I managed to use command tokens to get my Doctor Worm up the the table to Gizmokit the Spinx, and score me a classified. But I didn't really have the orders to do anything else. A Varangian came up and tried to punch out the Sphinx, but it turned out it could punch pretty hard, got lucky, and managed to take out the Varangian.

In the end, it wasn't enough - I'd scored a couple of classifieds but had lost more points, more specialists, and not scored Panoplies.

So, I certainly mis-used the Sphinx here and tried to fight multiple things at bad range without enough orders to get away again. I also probably had the wrong support package for it. I'm still not sure if the Sphinx has a good place in Shasvastii right now. I'll probably try a few other bits and pieces before coming back to it.

Astra Militarum 10th Edition Plans

 

With the new Astra Militarum Codex released for 10th edition, I needed to take stock of my Guard army and work out what I'm doing. While I had a short period of considering selling them off entirely, I've enjoyed playing them in the club campaign, so decided to get them up to spec for the new edition.

Setting myself the rule of "use what you already have wherever possible", I've come up with the following starting list:

Astra Militarum - Combined Arms

Strike Force (2000 Points)

CHARACTERS

Cadian Command Squad (80 Points)

     ◦ Enhancements: Reactive Command

Commissar (40 Points)

  • Enhancements: Death Mask of Ollanius

Gaunt’s Ghosts (110 Points)

Ministorum Priest (35 Points)

Primaris Psyker (60 Points)

Sly Marbo (55 Points)

BATTLELINE

Cadian Shock Troops (65 Points)

Cadian Shock Troops (65 Points)

DEDICATED TRANSPORTS

Chimera (85 Points)

OTHER DATASHEETS

2 x Armoured Sentinels (130 Points)

Armoured Sentinels (65 Points)

Basilisk (140 Points)

Cadian Heavy Weapons Squad (65 Points)

Cadian Heavy Weapons Squad (65 Points)

Hellhound (125 Points)

Hellhound (125 Points)

Hydra (95 Points)

Leman Russ Executioner (170 Points)

Manticore (165 Points)

5 x Ratlings (60 Points)

5 x Ratlings (60 Points)

10 x Tempestus Scions (140 Points)

There's a handful of things that need fixing here. The two "Cadian" (Tallarn) squads and command squad still have heavy weapons, so they're gaining three plasma guns and three comm-links. With a mix of bits from eBay and existing stash, I've started putting the latter together. The plasma guns will be a later update...

Beyond that, I had Sly Marbo and Gaunt's Ghosts in my stash needing assembly, so I've dug those out. One of the Hellhounds and five of the Ratlings are also currently without paint, so they're going in the queue.

Quite a lot of my older tanks don't have sponsons and so on, so by and large I'm taking that as an opportunity to sell them, and buying new tanks to paint up to my new skills / standard. I'm not buying anything new for the Guard outside of fixing the squad load outs until the test list is painted. I'm pretty sure it's lacking in armour and anti-tank, and a Rogal Dorn tank is pretty high on the purchase list once this lot is done, but I reckon given the move and other projects, this is plenty to be getting on with...

Aenor Goblins Finished

 

I finally finished the goblins by Aenor Miniatures that have been stuck on my desk forever. I'm pretty pleased with how they came out, and a bit annoyed that the passage of time has meant I forgot a few bits of how I did them, which meant when bits needed fixing due to overpaint, I struggled to get the right colour match.

This does remind me that I really need to work on getting half done bits and pieces finished before I move house. Not just because half finished projects are harder to move and you're more likely to miss things, but the delightful feeling of Just Finishing Things is probably going to be needed for morale purposes in the run up to the move.

I still need to finish up the new Conquest Druids, but the new item for the paint table is this Dwarf from Otherworld Miniatures. She's going to serve duty as a Templar in my Frostgrave warband, so I need to get her painted up before my next game.

Updated guide to starting Infinity

I've updated my guide to starting Infinity to bring it up to date with the new edition. If you've been thinking about getting into the game, hopefully you'll find it helpful.

First Ever Frostgrave Battle Report: The Keep

 

I recently got to try Frostgrave for the first time. My witch, Hannah of the Owls, led her warband to explore a magical keep to try and recover magical treasures and knowledge. As her warband approached the perimeter of the keep, they spotted a rival band, led by an experienced elementalist. Both sides drew weapons, preparing for battle.

There were five treasures, one in the centre of the keep on a raised area, the other four in the centre of magic circles spaced around the edge. The warband split up to gather the treasure before they engaged the opposing warband. As warband members on both sides started entering the circles to retrieve the treasure, there were fizzles of magic, but nothing happening . . . 

. . . until one of the warband thieves walked into a circle and in a flash of magic teleported across the keep to another circle. Unfortunately, the circle where the other warband's barbarian was standing.

Several of the warband jumped into the magic circle to try and rescue the thief, but to no effect. Our little gremlin thief decided to "waste not, want not" and grabbed the treasure from the circle.

Meanwhile, the magic circle on Hannah's warband's side was suddenly full of rival warband members, who quickly grabbed the treasure there and started planning their escape route.

The warband thug ran into a magic circle and was pulled over to the magic circle with the barbarian, and the two of them together managed to push the barbarian away, even though they weren't able to take her down.

As the rival elementalist saw my warband starting to head towards the central treasure, he summoned up a gigantic stone wall to block access to the treasure.

Still, it turns out that you can climb, so my woman-at-arms spent a couple of turns climbing over the wall, and engaged the rival man at arms while another warband member was fleeing with the treasure.

A portal flashed, and a giant worm arrived, drawn by the sounds of conflict.

Hannah's archer was overwhelmed by two of the rival band making off with one of the treasures.

The warband's crossbow-woman was chased by the worm, and chose to flee to get away from it.

A hostile construct then arrived, probably following the worm as a threat, but then identified multiple "thieves" in the keep, and moved to try and stop them.

My woman at arms was magically leapt to chase after the treasure, but was caught up by the rival warband and overwhelmed.

Hannah's apprentice ended up caught by the worm after a cunning plan to lure it across the teleport circles to move it elsewhere failed.

A desperate scuffle was breaking out over the last treasure, as both sides had, by now, escaped with two.

The back and forth continued a short while, but soon, Hannah's warband was overwhelmed, and the elementalist's band escaped with the last treasure.

In the aftermath, Hannah's warband took stock. Our woman at arms had been killed outright, and the party apothecary had been injured badly enough to miss the next expedition. No-one else suffered significant long lasting effects. Checking the recovered treasures, Hannah discovered a Staff of Power that would help with her casting, and a significant pile of gold, which was enough to hire a Templar to replace the deceased woman at arms with a little spare.

With my wizard having also gained two levels, I enjoyed my first game of Frostgrave. I'm still learning the rules, and now need to paint up a Templar before my next game.

Hedge Witches, Goblins, and a Plinth

 

This week, I finished up the Hedge Witches from Conquest Games. They were a good couple of miniatures to get my vibe back for painting. They're good options for Frostgrave, too.

I've also been plugging on with the Aenor Miniatures goblins. I got started on them ages ago with a sepia wash over off white, and they've been sitting for absolutely ages. I was very pleased with how a little drybrush really brought out the details on the cloak.

Three of the five are now finished and waiting for photography. I'm going to finish the last two before I count them all as "done". I'm also pondering the Steel Legion Drab base rim - maybe I should change it to black?

My big purchase that arrived this week was this 5" x 5" plinth from Fenris Games. I've picked it up for miniature photography so I've got an alternative way of raising miniatures up to the hills I'm currently using. It'll need washing and cleaning up before I get started on painting it, but I'm going to finish a few bits and pieces first.

Infinity Campaign Game: 250 point Custom Mission, Shasvastii vs O-12

 

Our club Infinity campaign continues. My Shasvastii were sent to face O-12 in a custom mission where you needed to upload data on consoles and photograph enemy troops. (I believe put together from the YAMS system.) There was also a special mission rule that meant that there was a visual mod if you shot over a long distance.

I based my list around two small fireteams. The first was a Gwailo with Heavy Rocket Launcher, Victor Messer and a Jayth, the second was a Nox HMG, Tensho and Aida Swanson. I'd lost the Lieutenant roll and my opponent had elected to go first.

O-12 had the first turn, and the Nimrod went for a Super Jump, shooting my Q-drone as part of the move. Some unlucky dice meant that the Nimrod went down, with my reaction remote still up and active.

My opponent then moved into "making my life difficult", and moved a Gangbuster up, deployed a Madtrap to cover my fireteam, and headed back to a little nook again. As my list lacked Taighas, I broke the fireteam apart, had the Jayth idle to trigger the Madtrap, then successfully dodged it. I had a servant remote close enough if I'd messed it up.

My Shrouded then took out the Cyberghost who'd moved up to lay a pitcher down.

And finally, my Jayth Cutthroat managed to push the button on the console. Well. They failed all the WIP rolls so didn't score me points. But they spent time there, so at least they were contributing. I couldn't send Victor up there as it was covered by a Repeater. While the hacker was down, there was still a Killer Hacker lurking about somewhere.

A Raptor then came up and sent his flamethower buddy into the team. Uh oh. This is "sub optimal".

End result: Victor Messer dead. Gwailo Lieutenant dead. Jayth has dived into close combat with the robot to stop getting set on fire himself.

The rest of the game passed pretty quickly as I didn't have a whole ton of stuff left. The Jayth finally pushed the button on the console, uploading some data or something.

A hidden deployed Razor also showed up to make the mid field a sadder place for me.

In the end, with me having the last turn, I needed to photograph the Raptor, move around him, and then push a second console button to win. Sadly the Jayth, needing a 19 or less on a D20 to get the photograph, managed to roll a 20, meaning I didn't have enough orders to get to the second console. I took the remaining photo, tying the game, but was just a little short on the win.

All in all, it was a good game. Taking a Gwailo Lieutenant without backup is not smart, but I was limited by the points available for the mission. The Gwailo / Jayth link seems excellent, and I want to give it a bit more of a test run soon.