Infinity N5 Slow Grow League Battle Report - Shasvastii vs Operations Subsection

 

To get folk going with N5 at the club, our Warcor is organising a narrative slow grow league. I'm running Shasvastii after I threw a list together to help me decide which faction to play and fell in love with it. My faction assigned me to the mission "Domination", facing ALEPH's Operations Subsection.

I went with a Mentor as a reliable Lieutenant. The Med-Tech and Ikadron were my "support package" with a Q Drone for defence. Trying a new link team, I took a Nox, Oktavia and Aida Swanson. Oktavia has had a major glow up this edition and it earned her a new paint job. Finally, I grabbed a Shrouded Minelayer and Malignos Hacker for midfield control, and a Taigha as a throwaway warband and solving problems that throwaway warbands solve.

I had the first turn and was super cautious about getting into a gunfight with the ALEPH gun fighters, so sent the Malignos out to flip a console. I ducked it into a quiet spot and went back into camouflage to avoid the spectacular number of hackers I was facing.

The Q Drone (discount, Thunderbolt version) headed up into the centre board to try and cost my opponent a few orders in her first turn. It lightly bullied a Deva hacker who managed to dodge out of sight.

The Taigha went for the Apsara hacker with a Berserk attack, but absolutely stuffed it and was shot down with a shotgun on its way in.

A Dakini HMG had a go at taking out the Thunderbolt, but got unlucky. Trisha N33 managed to Gizmokit the Dakini back up again, formed a link team with another Dakini and the Deva . . . shot again . . . and got taken out a second time. Ooof. This was a particularly unlucky chain of events that was a pretty hefty order drain.

I spent my turn bringing my Shrouded Minelayer up to try and take on some of the advanced pieces, but didn't get much success. I then brought the link team up, and Oktavia absolutely ashed poor Trisha with the rocket launcher, before heading up into the midfield to try and strengthen my scoring.

At this point, the ALEPH firepower I'd been so worried about started showing its strength. The proxy HMG (out of shot) simply exploded my Q drone without breaking a sweat.

The Apsara then worked around past my Malignos, who I had no intention of revealing in my reactive turn. She then snuck through the gap left by the Q drone, shot the Shrouded in the back (who miraculously survived but then failed guts into a horrifically exposed position), and melted the Nox hacker, breaking the fireteam apart.

The Med-Tech got the Q drone back online, but Aida was pinned down by the Proxy HMG, and I didn't fancy my odds on getting rid of it with the Q drone. Oktavia worked her way around the left of the barrier to engage the Apsara and was able to take it out.

In an effort to clear the opposition, I ran Oktavia forward and she got into a fight with three separate models. Most were fine, but I was able to take out the Operations Subsection lieutenant, meaning that my opponent now had to think very hard about how to spend her orders in her final turn.

As it was, she did a pretty good job! She was able to to clear the Shrouded, put Oktavia dogged, and then dive for the button with her Proxy doctor on the last order - sadly failing the WIP roll and being taken out by Oktavia moments before Oktavia passed out.

The mission ended with a 7-3 score in favour of the Shasvastii, but it was pretty close - if the doctor had survived, it would have moved to 6-4, and if the WIP roll had passed, it would have been 6-5... It was a fun game, and I spent most of it really scared of the ALEPH firepower. In many cases, I was being saved by the Shasvastii being difficult to hit, and if they'd been just a little less lucky they'd have evaporated completely.

Malifaux Slow Grow League Game 2

I headed down to Dark Sphere again for another game in the Malifaux Slow Grow League. This time, the Soul Stone limit was set to 40, and from the two options available, we drew the strategy "Reckoning", where you score points for killing enemy models, and the schemes "Power Ritual", "Take Prisoner" and "Claim Jump". Power Ritual requires you to put markers down in the corners, Claim Jump requires you to have models near the centre, and Take Prisoner requires you to have models standing near enemy models.

My opponent was running Perdita, a Guild crew with lots of shooting. I'm still running the Viktorias, who run at things and stab them. Broadly, most of this game would come down to whether or not the Viktorias' charge landed - if they were shot down before I got there I'd probably lose, if they were both alive when I hit the Guild's big hitters, I'd probably win.

I did not trust my activation control in any way to score Take Prisoner, so I selected the other two. With a corner deployment, I sent one Desperate Mercenary off to one corner, and a Desperate Mercenary to the other, this time accompanied by Bishop to beat up anyone who got in their way.

In the middle, I got the Student of Conflict set up with a scheme marker behind Taelor. The Student has an ability that allows her to remove a nearby scheme marker to grant another model fast.

Perdita came forward and shot Big Jake off the table. He was standing in that gap where there isn't a model any more . . .

I had two choices with the Viktorias. I could either slingshot one of them up the table, get into combat with Perdita and get maybe one hit off, or I could go a little slower, focus, and try and weather the shooting. I realised after the game that I missed an opportunity to put "Shielded" conditions on the Viks as they moved, which would also have probably helped.

Perdita sensibly focused her fire on one of the Viks and shot her down. Life definitely just got harder.

The other Viktoria shot into Perdita and caused some damage, but the Proxy snuck in behind her - if he's killed, the model doing it takes a huge amount of damage, and it did risk killing Vik if she landed the blow.

Bishop handily took out the model that the Guild were sending to score the corner.

Taelor took the job of smushing the Proxy, then headed in further to try and take out Perdita, who wisely legged it.

I tried to push into the centre, but the surviving Guild were tougher and shootier.

I did at least get some a marker down in a corner, but it wasn't really enough.

In the end, I got gunned down and lost thoroughly. I was 5-2 down overall. All in all, it was a fun learning game and I felt like I was starting to get a bit of a handle on what some of the crew can do. I definitely want to get more games of Malifaux in!

Battle Report, Slow Grow League Week 9: 1,000 pts vs Space Marines

I've decided to take a break from the Dark Sphere slow grow league - I was definitely having fun, but a weekly game commitment can be exhausting on top of a busy job. Thank you to everyone I've played, and a massive thank you to the Commissar for organising it.

My opponent was the nice chap from "Dakka on Bakka" who played Space Marines, and had provided my only victory. So he was certainly keen for his Marines to redeem their honour. With the smaller game, he was still running scouts, Tigurius, an Aegis line and a Thunderfire Cannon. The flyers (which I hadn't actually faced in person anyway) were out, and a small squad of Legion of the Damned were in.

We rolled lengthways deployment and Purge the Alien (AKA Kill Points). I lost and had to deploy first, deploying pretty conservatively to protect against scores of scouts ending up behind me and murdering me to death, and deep striking Legion with a multi melta.

I decided after deployment I should rush the Chimera up the field, then failed to get the screening unit out the way, and thought it would be a bright idea to rush through the woods. This was, in fact, a terrible plan, because it got stuck there. Meanwhile, the Thunderfire Cannon was blowing massive holes out of my infantry.

Tigurius fried his own brain two turns in a row, passing a leadership test to avoid being dragged into the warp one turn, and forgetting one of his powers the next.

Some scouts outflanked and blew the immobilised Chimera to pieces.

The Legion of the Damned tried to turn up here and botched, entering ongoing reserves.

The command squad scrambled into the ruins away from their wrecked Chimera.

The psyker successfully cast the brutal telekinetic death storm, taking a wound in the process from the Perils of the Warp. The Scouts failed to deny the witch, and then the psyker missed and the brutal death storm deviated off the table.

The Commissar Lord, down to a single wound, had tried to make a break for the safety of the fortification, but hadn't quite managed to reach the door when the Legion of the Damned arrived to punish him for his cowardice.

The start of the Marine shooting phase...

The end of the Marine shooting phase...

The conscripts, perhaps unsurprisingly, decide enough is enough and make a break for it.

The regular troops, however, are made of sterner stuff and make a concerted effort to murder some Marine Scouts.

The Legion, having killed the cowardly Commissar Lord, demolished the bunker he'd sought to take shelter in, showing that there was no hiding from the vengeance of the Emperor.

The veterans climbed onto the wrecked battlements and hurled a demolition charge and unleashed hell, but only a single Legionnaire was felled. Clearly some sort of supernatural force was protecting these ghostly warriors.

With so many Guardsmen dead, some of the Scouts decided to go for a gentle amble out from behind their wall to try and get a few more guns into range.

A battle cannon shell from across the field reminded the scouts why sitting about in the open, even against a mostly destroyed Guard force, is a daft idea.

Eventually, a single Scout was left, and he made a break for the ruins.

The Legion of the Damned tried to take out the only survivor of the Guard - the Leman Russ battle tank, but to no avail! It's armour held true.

I failed to rack up a single kill point as the Scout in the ruins passed his cover save. I was incredibly amused when I then took a closer look at him after the battle...

Battle Report, Slow Grow League Week 8: 1,000 pts vs Grey Knights

Another week, another Slow Grow. This week, I drew a new player - this was his very first game of Warhammer 40,000 ever.

We were on a lengthways deployment, and I rolled up the Warlord Trait which grants units outflank, so sent some of my models off on a hike around the block. We were using one of the strategic objective card missions.

My opponent was running two squads of Grey Knight Terminators, a Dreadnought and a Dreadknight with a teleporter.

As is to be expected in this sort of thing, the Dreadknight teleported straight up the field to start punching my guys in the face.

My warlord and a combined infantry squad came in at the far end, right by one of the objectives.

While his Warlord decided that a non risky deep strike would probably be wise.

It quickly turned into a brutal fight in hand to hand, with the Terminators trying to carve through all the Guardsmen.

The command squad with melta guns came in to try and grab another objective in some ruins on the far side.

Having carved through the conscripts, priest and psyker, the Dreadknight started tearing the fortification down.

Meanwhile, the command Chimera was ripped to pieces by the Grey Knights.

Having carved through my combined squad and Warlord, the terminators headed for an objective they'd drawn.

The command squad  botched their "Forwards, For the Emperor" roll (which was actually going to be used to run away), leaving them caught in the open.

The vengeful Grey Knight terminators, having lost some colleagues to melta fire, charged in for vengeance, wiping them out.

The Dreadknight finished off the fortification, then stayed on an objective and pushed for linebreaker, leaving only my Leman Russ alive at the end of the battle, and another solid defeat for me!

I still had a lot of fun! I think my army definitely needs some more mobility and more ways of dealing with 2+ armour saves. I shall be having a think about how best to do this in the near future.