That vital learning experience in mind, I grabbed a list that I'd actually put together as a much earlier draft than my final list, to see how that worked.
INTERVENTOR Lieutenant (Hacking Device Plus) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 26)
CHIMERA Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Zero-V Smoke Grenades / Viral CCW. (24)
3x PUPNIK DA CCW.
REAKTION ZOND HMG, Antipersonnel Mines / Electric Pulse. (1 | 28)
ZERO MULTI Sniper Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32)
INTRUDER Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, Grenades / Pistol, CCW. (36)
Again, list courtesy of the Infinity Army Builder. Enter the code below if you want to see more details:
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This list retains the Chimera and Pupniks, which I adore the models for and want to use if I do start buying Infinity models.
I'd wanted to try a remote (cute robots), which the Nomads call Zonds. The Reaktion Zond is a cute little bot that's designed as a defence unit - it is really really good at shooting people who are running around in front of it. I also assumed it would be a bit tougher than a person, but looking at its stats now, it's really squishy, and just survives by machine gunning anything that looks at it funny.
In order to take adorable robots, you need a Hacker or a TAG (Mecha), and given the points value, TAGs were right out, so I took a Hacker, and given the available points, made them my Lieutenant as well. As the Intruder Sniper is super expensive, I compromised on a Zero Sniper, and took a very basically armed Intruder. Both of these models have Camo, and the Zero can infiltrate, which is a New And Interesting Thing.
So, this time around I went for a smarter plan. I won first turn, had to deploy first, so placed my machine gunning little robot in an open, elevated spot on the left. He may be hard to spot as it was a borrowed, only undercoated model from my opponent, but he is there. It's not in game Camo this time!
The crazy close combat team got put in front of the wall to make a mad dash for the building in the centre to give them some cover, with the Lieutenant happily cowering behind the wall. The Intruder I held back, and because the Zero infiltrates, I got to hold him back too!
Opponent's deployment complete, I put my basic Intruder with the Lieutenant to give him some extra firepower.
The Zero with the sniper rifle . . . now, I get a bit smart. He has mines as well, so I don't put him somewhere you'd expect a sniper rifle to be. The plan here is to advance my assault team past his position with him putting mines down to cover their assault, before he sneaks into a good mid or late game firing position.
Interestingly, the Reaktion Zond does it's job, and my opponent drops a cautious deployment on his left flank away from the bullet spitting defence bot. This is pretty much where I want to advance Team Stabby, so I'm pretty happy with that.
So, Team Stabby peg it forward, and use their claws to climb up the side of the building and in through the window. I then use some extra orders to have their squad leader head forward and drop a smoke grenade onto the bridge.
My Zero then heads forward and lays a mine on the corner of the Bridge to cover anyone sneaking up that way. My Hacker and Intruder make their way up to the back of the building.
This is nearly a mistake, as the following turn, the drone and handler you see top right made a run down the corridor to try and put a great big hole in my hacker, who my opponent suspects may be my Lieutenant.
This is the aftermath. The flamethrower drone mis-judges its route trying to stay out of range of being hacked and ambles into the line of sight of the Reaktion Zond and is filled full of holes very effectively. Its handler decides to try and do the job properly and rounds the corner to point blank the hacker, who turns and neatly drops a shot between his eyes and kills him dead.
I hold my impetuous irregulars back this turn, squandering an order to stop them charging into the open past the dispersed smoke grenades. I fired off some more smoke. And missed. And missed again. You can't quite see it, but there's a flame thrower remote sitting by the door of the building just off camera at the top left, so they really, really don't want to go that way.
Instead, I have them scamper down the side of the building and hide in the smoke. As a note, I later realised that smoke disperses at the end of my turn, so we got this a bit wrong, but it didn't really change the result.
Turns out the robots have a trick that lets them fire blind anyway. Flame-throwers on exposed troops hurts!
I'm pretty sure I can take out the remaining robot with my Intruder, who has advanced up while Team Stabby have been being a distraction by being shot in the face.
He decides to return the favour by sneaking around into the building and putting a great big hole in my sniper. To end the game, my Zond shuffles to the side to get a good line on the knight, and opens up with the machine gun, putting him down, finally.
We called the game at this point as it was getting late, and the few surviving models on both sides were miles from each other, with few orders on either side to really get much done. My opponent graciously said I had the moral win given the value of the points left alive on both sides.
My (somewhat dubious) honour is restored!
A huge thank you to my opponent (who is also the chap I played at Malifaux a while back). Some people may think it rude I'm not addressing him by name, but I don't give names on the blog unless I've asked, and I didn't think to in this case. He was courteous, helpful, and gave me a ton of good advice on how to get better at playing Infinity.
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