Adepticon Recap, Part 2: ITS Grand Tournament

After taking a day off to explore the game halls, getting suckered into some big purchases, making friends with my favorite GW illustrator, and drinking far too much before dinner, it was time for the main event! Many of the same players were here from the previous tournament, but there was also plenty of fresh blood. I was still only 4 games into playing this list, so my practice wasn't plentiful, but I gave it all I had. The List

For those who need a refresher, here is the list I used for the entire Grand Tournament, as well as the Campaign Tournament:

Combat Group 1

• Traktor Mul Katyusha
• Traktor Mul Minesweeper
• Dozer with Traktor Mull Control Device
• Grunt HMG
• Grunt Sniper
• Grunt FO
• Grunt Heavy Flame Thrower
• Grunt Rifle
• Grunt FO

Combat Group 2

• Grunt Grenade Launcher Lieutenant
• 112
• Van Zant
• Foxtrot FO
• Foxtrot FO
• Foxtrot FO
• Marauder Haris
• Marauder Heavy Rocket Launcher
• Marauder Paramedic

The first game of this event would have me put against a JSA player named Rick, playing Comms Center. Another stand up guy, and I think he had a fun game, despite me going straight for the jugular! I opened up by Targeting his Total Reaction bot, before blasting it to pieces with the Katyusha. Next up, I marked a few unsuspecting Keisotsu, and made it rain rockets from above. This game really saw the devastating power of a load of Forward Observers mixed with the Katyusha, plus having Zant on duty to clean up... I had killed his Lieutenant on turn 1, as well as about 6 of his models, making it hard for him to catch up from the damage. I finished the game with a 10-0 victory. One down, five to go!

Following the trend from the previous event, my second game was against the other half of Mayacast, Tom! We were playing Antenna Field, so I know I had to move up the board and keep him back at all cost. Tom was playing Combined, an army which I am very familiar with, as they are my favorite in the game. He had some of the big hitters on the board, his Charontid HMG, Yaogat Spitfire, plus a fair amount of camo, baggage, Umbra hackers and EVO. In an example of what happens when everything goes right, I was able to draw a bead on his clumped up remotes and Dr. Worm, and promptly delivered Katyusha rockets into their numbers. After taking out the Ikadron and Medchanoid, I focused my attention onto the Charontid, knowing that should it get a turn worth of orders to shoot at me with, it would get ugly. I had my Marauder rockets fire volley after volley into the Charontid, eventually wounding it and forcing it to the ground. Zant came in safely from behind, intent on finishing it off (after killing the EVO bot), but took a heavy pistol shot to the face and ended his day early. The rest of the game saw my shooting be totally effective, finishing off the Charontid with my Marauder when he peeked his head out, and taking out the Yaogat with some concentrated fire. By the end of the game I had Tom's remaining Umbra pinned on the central objective with no real way to remove him, and the game was over leaving me with a 5-3 victory. If you want to check it out on flamestrike, read Tom's Flamestrike Report.

The final game of day one would be Supplies against none other than Obi himself. We rushed to get a big sexy table, that turned out to be a nightmare to play on, but at least it looked good. Obi quickly ran forward to steal the objective to my right and run it back to a (somewhat) safe location. My left objective was contested by a Clipsos, but she was no match for my Marauder link and their flame throwers. The most memorable part however was the fierce battle for the central objective. Protected by Le Muet, the damned alien turned the cement red with the blood of my USAriadnans... I sent wave after wave into him, firing every gun I had, but with ease he took out my HMG, Heavy Flame Thrower, Marauder Heavy Rocket, and a Grunt with Rifle who got too close, until I finally managed to target him with my last remaining Forward Observer. Sending in the artillery finally took him down and I was able to secure the central objective with only a few models remaining. This was a 3-1 victory, putting me 3-0 for the first day of the event.

Day two started a bit differently. The first game was against Brandon, a very laid back Corregidor player. I was ready to do my normal schtick, take out his 1-2 long ranged threats with my HMG, and Forward Observers, blasting them with Katyusha, and mopping up the rest. What I wasn't ready for was an army with 5 Intruders! Touché Brandon, touché. After taking a sniper and HMG Intruder, I was down quite a few of my own long range threats, the game wasn't going well as now his remaining two Intruders (also with a HMG and sniper rifle) had a field day, annihilating everything they could see. We were playing Safe Area, but there was nothing safe about it. By the end of the game I had a mere 60 points of models left on the table, giving him a 5-0 victory over me... So much for that ITS prize package!

Now on to game 5, with a loss under my belt, I knew that I had to win big or go home if I wanted to take home the prize. This game was against another Combined player, though unfortunately I don't remember a ton of details of his army. The most humiliating thing I remember from this game is that it took me 9 orders, with no exaggeration, to score a single hit with my Katyusha on the first turn... 8 times in a row I rolled over the 10 I needed for my Speculative shot, giving him ample opportunity to use dodges to spread out, minimizing the effect of the initial bombardment. Being a game of Frontline, I knew that moving up was how I was going to win it, and having Zant come in from behind helped a ton. During my second and third turns, I was able to mop up most of his army, between Zant and the Katyusha, there was almost nowhere safe for him to hide. Despite this, he still gave a really good fight, stealing as much ground as he could, but the game came to an end giving me the win, 8-5.

At this point, I realized that I could recover, I just needed to win one more game and I could at least place highly. Well, my final opponent was a familiar face, it was Brandon again! To make matters worse, we were playing Highly Classfiied and we got: Hack HVT, Engineer HVT, FO HVT, and doctor one of our own units, fortunately I also drew Telemetry as my regular Classified, so I knew I could get that one. Instead of his Intruder list, he brought another, just as devious army, one with a whopping 6 Krazy Koalas, 4 of which were infiltrating, and the other 2 were protecting his rear from Zant. This was probably my favorite game of the weekend, as we both took turns wrecking each other, each time one would get the upper-hand the other would shut them down. By my last turn, I had taken out any opportunity for him to score any more objectives and knew I had one last opportunity to win it. Using my last command token and order, I had my 112 perform a single-model Coordinated Order, moving into range and firing his medkit at my unconscious grunt. With a bit of luck, his healing gun was on target, now just to roll an 8 or less and I'll win it... You guys should know by now that you NEVER make a medkit roll when you need it, and this was no exception, the dice came up a 9. We finished with a 4-4 tie, a lot of good laughs, and a beer.

Final Record 4-1-1

I came in 7th place overall and I wont complain, since I was able to score a sweet KR Multicase army transport. Coming in 7th out of 36 for my first Infinity GT is something I am proud of. I wouldn't change the list much, probably just moving Zant into that first combat group, since the second group often uses as many orders as I can give it. Unlike some other games, playing Infinity was actually really fun and invigorating, I don't have the usual post-GT malaise that comes with participating in a weekend long event. Quite the opposite, I can't wait to get more! With HSN3 in my hands, I'm already drooling over what my Caledonia, Morats, and even Vanilla Combined are going to do on the table.