Still, I'd promised to go, and I've often found that dragging myself to an event can help me find the fun again, so I dragged myself out of bed and headed up to St Albans with an earlier start time than I need to get to work.
Given Corregidor received an update in the last Infinity book and my Druze weren't bringing me joy, I decided to go back to some unpainted figures for a tournament and just have fun.
First game was Engineering Deck. This is a mission I've literally never played. My opponent, multifish, announced they were playing Bakunin. Losing the deployment roll and forced to deploy first, I noticed the mission required controlling the central room and decided to take the pain of the first turn as well in the hope of some sneaky late game scoring.
The Bakunin list was built around a tanky Riot Grrl heavy infantry link. I was definitely worried about this as I wasn't confident I had enough punch in my list to get them out of the central room, which they promptly staked a claim to in the first turn.
I brought my Intruder HMG out to take out the Missile Launcher who'd been left out to ARO, but took a critical hit to the face and only a fine red mist was left. I was a little stuck for what to do next at this point, but managed eventually to stun it.
I moved my Lunokhod up to cause some worry - not really too concerned about losing it, but trying to make multifish expend too many models and orders getting rid of it. And then . . . the game got very focused and involved and I didn't take any more photos until the end...
And this is the final situation in the room . . .
The two main scoring points in this mission are "activated more consoles than the enemy" and "have models in the central room when your opponent doesn't have any". At the top of my last turn, I held two consoles to my opponent's three, and they still had a whole ton of models controlling the central room.
So, I had to resort to sneakiness. My Bandit Killer Hacker had downed a Morlock earlier in the game, and then used the Scavenger skill to pick up their smoke grenades while performing a coup de grace. They threw a smoke grenade into the room, walked in under the cover of the smoke, and took over the central console before ending the game. With the middle room contested, I claimed a 5-2 win for having more consoles controlled.
Next up was Hunting Party against laina, who'd stepped into the breach to cover a late drop out, and was running a Steel Phalanx list. She was running at a slight disadvantage in that she'd never played Hunting Party before, and it's a very strange mission.
I'd drawn two classifieds of Predator (kill two targets in close combat) and a second that needs you to take out an unconscious model with a WIP roll. Looking at the deployment, she had her Lieutenant well guarded in a bunker with a full linked team guarding them, and only two specialists.
I sent McMurrough up the board to try and get some early classifieds. First turn, he ended up like this, with the specialist resolutely not glued, and open to a counter attack. In later turns, as more models came out to deal with him, he was able to take out one that was unconscious for the second classified, but was put down before he could take out two cleanly in close combat.
On the right, I sent Senor Massacre and friends up to act as a screen for my core link (who had no orders after McMurrough used them all) and a threat that had to be dealt with - hopefully, this would mean I could predict where an angry Ajax was going to go.
The plan went OK, but sadly too both Jaguars died to a chain rifle, while Massacre got into combat. He didn't manage to cause much damage before he went down, sadly.
I dropped in my Hellcat with Adhesive Launcher to glue the Steel Phalanx engineer and secure me some points. We started running out of time at this point so things got rushed. At 4-0 up, I panicked and ran my Lieutenant into an adhesive launcher with one order left, meaning I'd changed the score to 4-4.
With little needed to win, laina advanced Ajax up to secure the HVT for a 5-4 win. I was super mad at myself for making a really terrible decision with my Lieutenant, but there was still a good chance she would have been able to get the glueing and the objective in her turn for the win.
Last game was Frontline against East of Irem's Yu Jing. I was pretty shattered and forgot to take photos for a lot of the game. What it basically came down to was that I managed to drop a Hellcat into his back line, and massacred most of one flank in a turn.
In retaliation, he dropped his Tiger Soldier, but as he was targeting a core fireteam with sixth sense, simply wasn't able to get the damage he was looking for and eventually the drop trooper was shot down.
I'd managed to get second turn this time and after a bunch of super nervy movement of models around the board, I managed to claim the centre and far zones while losing my own near zone for a 9-4 win.
After the games
I was absolutely ecstatic at this point, as I've never managed to win two out of three games at a tournament before, and it's been my goal for competitive play all year. To have it happen with my old Corregidor force at a tournament I'd not played practice games for,(and in one case, never played the mission) was amazing.
At the prize giving once the venue had been cleared away, I was even more pleased to discover I'd ranked 4th out of 16 players. While I don't have much Infinity planned for a while (I've had to cancel the Satellite event "Warcors Warparty" due to a family commitment) I'm definitely up for getting back into it and hopefully winning a few more games.
Well done on the 4th place man
ReplyDeleteStill buzzing about it. :)
Delete