I took the opportunity to get in another game of Infinity at HATE. My opponent is just starting to get into the Bakunin Sectorial, and as I have some interest in the force, I thought it would be a good way of looking at the faction from another angle.
As I have a lovely pre-painted objective room from Right Arm Labs, I suggested a cheeky game of Armory to make sure everything got up in the mix.
I chose deployment, and my opponent chose to go first. I had really wanted to go second and holding the room, and thought my opponent wouldn't fancy deploying first and going second. I was right!
The Lunokhod holds down the left flank, with the TR bot my reserve model on the roof. My opponent's reserve model was advanced infiltrating camo token (Bran Do Castro, then) who you can see on the tall building just outside my deployment zone.
If you squint, you can just about make out a couple of camo markers (Zero Forward Observers) at the shipping containers. Pi Well was left a little exposed on the right, relying on his ODD and supplying some annoying AROs.
I've noticed a problematic bit of irrational behaviour. In an early game of Highly Classified, I simply couldn't get my opponents to shoot my remotes, as Test Run was one of the four known Classifieds. I since bought the Lunokhod so I had something to more aggressively push my remotes and force people to do something about them. This lets me put my remotes in dangerous situations so they can get disabled, allowing me to get the repair and Test Run.
But I keep doing it when I don't have the classified.
I keep putting my remotes in dangerous situations so I can get them shot and repaired - when that's not the mission! I had the Forward Observing one this time around. I really need to get out of that habit. I've kind of written it out to explain to you here to hopefully drum it out of my head...
So, my Bakunin opponent goes first. Immediately combat drops in a forward observer remote, clearly to start Observing everything so his smart missile launcher sitting at the back of the field can do horrible things to me. He places it near Bran Do Castro, in a nice spot to start really ruining Pi Well and the Zeroes . . . and fluffs the drop roll.
His dispersion roll (result pictured above) is not ideal...
The reactions are two Crazy Koalas, a Heavy Shotgun blast (I wasn't confident I could get the Heavy Flamethrower down without catching the total reaction remote) and a full burst from the HMG, although at an inconvenient range.
The only surprising thing about the end result was that it was only double unconscious, and not straight back off the table!
It turns out, this was the first outing of the Meteor Zond, so it clearly needed to get all its bad luck out of its systems...
Bakunin's turn then mostly consisted of moving, completely failing the rolls to hit with Pitchers, and someone thoroughly blowing a hole in my reaction remote. I forget who. It was either the Sin Eater firing in the active turn (when he's rubbish) or the Task Master opening up at a stupid range with his boarding shotgun.
The Taskmaster had taken up a careful position on the side of the objective room, covering my advance on that side. For those of you who know Infinity well, don't worry that the Taskmaster looks 'suspiciously' like a Gecko - the proper model is on it's way!
Not pictured, I discover and neutralise Bran Do Castro, who's blocking any safe route I have to advance up the field.
I start moving models up to the Armory, and a careless failure to check lines of sight means that the Killer Hacker Interventor gets picked off on her dash up the field.
One of the Forward Observer Zeroes opens the door, runs for a crate - and forgets to check line of sight again, getting blasted by some models just out of shot - the same ones who picked off the Interventor.
I pop Miranda Ashcroft just inside the door to score the points for holding the room at the end of the turn.
The Taskmaster decides to get involved and opens up on Miranda. A good dodge roll and ODD combine to get her out of there - dodging back outside the room.
My turn two starts with this as the position - my opponent won't be scoring the room again, but I should be able to get them - but there's someone peeking in the right hand door to see the supply crate, and the Taskmaster is covering the main room itself.
Things got a bit fast paced, but there's the situation at the end of the turn. The Mobile Brigada turned the corner and opened up with his flamethrower, running neatly down the line of troops there, though sadly not quite catching the remote at the end.
Miranda Ashcroft then ran around the left hand side of the building, where there was another convenient line of troops, and opened up with her boarding shotgun using the template shot, which she then rolled a crit on an 18 for. The result was predictably bloody.
Sadly, the Taskmaster had decided to tough it out and use his Pulzar, and a model outside the template had also got a lucky shot back, putting Miranda down for good (much to my opponent's relief).
I then ran a camoflagued Zero into the room to score the points unopposed.
My opponent now rushes as many people into the objective room as possible to grab the last turn five points. The Zero is easily discovered and shot to bits. They open the panoply once to even out the points and deny me the two victory points. I'm left with five orders to salvage the situation.
Up runs the Reverend Healer. She patches up the Mobile Brigada who runs into the room and opens up with the multi-rifle, one shot each.
Kusanagi, already with her ODD burned off and on No Wound Incapacitation, falls - but the Clockmaker and Custodier are still up.
The Reverend Healer runs in, goes for the shots, but can't quite take down either of them - while remaining upright herself. In the end, I don't quite have the points to retain the room, and that's me down 5-2.
It turns out, if I'd retained my Classified for area control, I could have won the game - but I chose not to in the pre-game phase. I had a Forward Observer Classified, but simply couldn't free up the orders at any point to get a good opportunity to claim it.
All in all, this was a brilliantly fun game, which gave me plenty of ideas for things I want to do next. I also need to be more careful about checking lines of sight and asking my opponent about them before I move. There were some sloppy mistakes here that cost me orders!
This is also the first time that aggressive plays on my part have come off, and short ranged weapons have done some serious damage. A critical hit on a boarding shotgun using a template is absolutely brutal. I'm certainly going to try getting some more short ranged troops / weapons to try in the future.
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