Infinity: Assault on Svalarheima ITS, Part 2

About a month ago, (after only a few months of playing), Adam and I decided to participate in our first Infinity tournament. I got started in Infinity around the same time as Adam and picked Tohaa to be my army, I have a thing for Artichoke headed Beyoncé impersonators. Knowing the missions were Beacon Land, Frontline, and Supplies, I decided it would be best to write one list spacifially for Beaconland and one which could be used for the other two. First up, the Beaconland list:

Combat group 1:

• Rasail Lieutenant with Combi Rifle and Anti Personnel Mines w/ Chaksa Peripheral
• Kosuil Engineer with Boarding Shotgun and Panzerfaust
• Sakiel Paramedic with Combi Rifle, Swarm Grenades, and Medkit
• Makual with Heavy Flamethrower and Zero-V Smoke Grenades
• Hatail Keesan with Viral Combi Rifle
• Kameal Forward Observer with Combi Rifle
• Makual with Heavy Flamethrower and Zero-V Smoke Grenades
• Clipsos Forward Observer with Combi Rifle and Antipersonnel Mines
• Gao-Tarsos Paramedic with Combi Rifle and D-Charges
• Nikoul Minelayer with Viral Sniper Rifle and Antipersonnel Mines

Combat group 2:

• Diplomatic Delegate Specialist
• Chaksa Auxiliar with HMG
• Clipsos Forward Observer with Combi Rifle and Antipersonnel Mines

And for Frontline and Supplies:

Combat group 1:

• Goa-Real with Sniper Rifle
• Kamel with Sniper Rifle
• Makual with Heavy Flamethrower and Zero-V Smoke Grenades

Combat group 2:

• Rasail Lieutenant with Combi Rifle and Anti Personnel Mines w/ Chaksa Peripheral
• Hatail Keesan with Viral Combi Rifle
• Sakiel Paramedic with Combi Rifle, Swarm Grenades, and Medkit
• Makual with Heavy Flamethrower and Zero-V Smoke Grenades
• Kameal Forward Observer with Combi Rifle
• Kosuil Engineer with Boarding Shotgun and Panzerfaust
• Makual with Heavy Flamethrower and Zero-V Smoke Grenades
• Gao-Tarsos Paramedic with Combi Rifle and D-Charges
• Clipsos Forward Observer with Combi Rifle and Antipersonnel Mines
• Chaksa Auxiliar with HMG

So with list in hand I was ready to send my bioengineering, artichoke-headed, symbiont wearing forces into the breach.

Game 1: Beaconland

Through a sophisticated random paring algorithm I was pared against the person I traveled with to the tournament. Playing against Adam, meant I was already accustomed his Combined Army, and knew he would be bringing a Speculo Killer that he would hold as his reserve during deployment. As he was going first and deploying first, during my deployment, I set up to insure he would not get the drop on anyone. Unfortunately, I failed to realize his Speculo Killer had a Boarding Shotgun and lost an entire Fireteam in the first orders of the game. While I suffered some set backs, things began to turn my way after several well timed critical hits. I in the last turn, if I had to drop 4 beacons I and reconfigure one of his in order to win, at this point the dice decided it was time to make me wish I had brought some baggage, but they over compensated by making those WIP rolls so high I would not have passed even if I had brought baggage. With 4 of my rolls failing the game ended in a tie.

Game 2: Frontline

This game my newness to the game an unfamiliarity with the other armies would come into play as I was pared against an Ariadna player. This unfamiliarity was showcased in the deployment phase after he deployed and had only a few models on the table and 8 camo markers. Knowing very little about what those markers may be, (except the one that was in an obvious snipers position), I tried to deploy as defensively as possible and give my sniper team good coverage of the board. Due to some uneven dice rolls I was quickly loosing points I would need to contest areas of the board. To make matters worse, my unfamiliarity with the rules also came up to bite me in the butt, when I found out if I was shot from outside if line of sight and zone of control that I did not get any reaction to it until the order was completed. In the end it was a near total massacre.

Game 3: Supplies

Once again I was pared against a Combined player, so I knew a bit of what he could bring to the table. However the board we played on did not have high vantage points, so my sniper team's board coverage was pretty limited. Through a quick application of smoke by a Speculo Killer, one of the objectives was opened by a Batroid who promptly ran it back to his deployment zone. By the end of the game I had lost my Clipsos to suppresive fire right next to the central objective, and my Gao-Tarsos had snatched up the last objective and made it back to my deployment only to be gunned down by the same drone who had done in the Clipsos leaving one objective securely in the hands of my opponent, while my own were empty.

Lessons Learned?

Reflecting on this tournament experience I noticed the common problem in all three games was not pushing up the field quick enough. My strategy had been to try to secure the field by neutralizing threats and then moving my units in to secure objective or score points, all the while failing to realize how difficult this is to do in Infinity. I also realized that while 3 link teams looks very order efficient, this efficiency is generally spent covering all the models in the link from AROs, making moving more than one link into a position to score difficult. With these thoughts in my mind I have been playing with few links and working at moving my models up the field in the first turn of the game. While some of this experimentation has left me in Loss of Lieutenant by turn 3 the results have resulted in more close losses than total loss.