Weekend Warlords Loughborough.

Last weekend Pete and I did our usual and packed out bags and jumped on the oh so familiar M1 again to drive southwards for another ITS event. This time we were heading to the Weekend Warlords based down in Loughborough. As I did last time I visited new venue I shall do a quick few words on the store then get to the juicy bits. When I say juicy bits I don't mean some mad rumor about Tracy getting with the guy from marketing on the work do, what  I really mean more photos of toy soldiers and gaming tables.

http://weekendwarlords.co.uk/blog/
http://shop.weekendwarlords.co.uk/

First impressions were good as you would expect from any gaming venue really. Staff were nice the place had a lot going on and there was lots of systems to spend your hard earned pennies on. Weekend warlords seemed to have a large card game following. I didn't pay to much attention but there were a bunch of people playing games that I can only assume were either MTG and or Yugi-Oh. In fact one guy who was taking part in the Infinity games was walking around with a grin like the Cheshire cat as he had sold some MTG and made some serious money. Good for you mate. I do give massive props to the guys running the venue as they had a bunch of open books for customers to read and reference when playing games . . . you know like Games Workshop back in the day, but we shan't go into that one now.  6 things to note on this store that stuck out in my mind 1. They had lots to offer verity wise. They even had Jay and Silent Bob action figures. 2. They had awesome Pokemon coloring-ins that some of the younger regulars had done ( at least I assume they were done by the young-lings ). 3. The staff were really funny the guy on the till made me laugh a bunch of times. 4. They really didn't want you to Poo. 5. They had some wicked sick tables to play on. Some were not designed for Infinity and as such were not ideal but they looked the business. And finally 6. they had A really good painting set up. It was based at the front of the store and had lots of space and light coming in through the windows unlike my dungeon of a painting cave lit up with a Ikea light.

 Someone had some serious skills on the chalk board. Must have got loads of detentions from the art teacher or something.

And the all important Infinity games.

Right now to the good bit. Infinity. As standard there were lots of good players and painters. I don't completely know why but the Infinity scene seems to draw the attention of people who like to paint a lot. Probably because the minis are awesome and you rarely have to paint the same one 50 times over. It does sadden me though when I spend time on models then about 20 other people have done a way better job, but such is life. I was really impressed by some of the players as they had only just picked up the game before X mass. It did make me feel a little sad when I was having real issues dislodging a link team from my table quarter on my first turn in the first game and my opponent was like "oh yeah this game is good I got some models in December and played a few games so thought I would give it a go". . . CHEERS MATE I AM TRYING REALLY HARD HERE!

 I took my French again as I can't seem to put them down for the moment. I constantly have ideas for other lists and ways of getting things done but when it comes to sitting down with the army builder my fingers just seem to tap on Loup Garous over and over until I have  a big ol team of Link Garous. Anyone who has played me will know these guys are my favorite unit in the game. At some point I will do a break down of my list and why I think it does so well but not just yet as we still have the Northern open and I can't imagine it doing me any favors running my mouth of and revealing all my secrets just yet :)

As it happens I managed to win the day and grab myself another Le-Muet so I was a happy camper on the drive home. My first game was a bit slow for me to begin with We had to grab those precious table quarters and I could not get rid of this bloody big link of myrmidons who had ODD and just sat there bold as brass. Fortunately I had gone overboard with Chasseurs so figured it was well worth having him die to get rid of all that ODD for someone else to then shoot down.

Second game I played Pete. As if I have not done that enough over the past few months ( Pete starts work at 3pm and I have recently taken a break from working so we have been playing two times a week getting in three of four games ). We had practiced the same mission two days before and I had won but I put that down to the table set up. The game took aaaaages as he also plays Ariadna but went for his standard Scottish force that was busting out 20 orders. on top of my 18 orders we were lucky to get the game finished. I thought Pete was on the winning path but I had this Chasseur on a roof in the middle of the table. I had him drop mines right on the lip to go off as units walked passed.

Third game I played a Scottish force again! Not going to lie I was a right arse hole with my set up. Literally everything hid or went prone and I also managed to get my HVT in the worst place possible as I was setting up second. My opponent was using a big link fronted by William Wallace. I was terrified of it as I am easily scared so my HMG commando walked on in this 2 inch sweet spot and blasted away as best he could. he didn't last more than a few orders but it was enough to get the job done. Anyway enough of my mad ramblings check the pics and see for yourself!

"Are you my daddy?"

Big shout out to Tim Coates who put on the event. He was filling in as someone looked as if they were not going to make it. They then they turned up as he was placing his models on the table. Unlucky Tim.

Jasper got second place.

Luke came 3rd

Booyah 1st

Final results, I knew I was ahead in army points but didn't realize how much. I was going to rant on about how good baggage is but will save that for when I do  review on my force when the season finishes and Northern open is done.

D20 Mission system for Infinity.

So today I got to try out the D20 mission system for Infinity. For those who don't know what it is, its a fan made mission system designed by PROPHET_OF_DOOM over on Data sphere so go check the link now!

• http://www.data-sphere.net/20-x-20-infinity-mission-system/
• https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6YAvw11QUqSaVJaWkp5VzZKbE0/view  

The idea is to add more verity and fluff to the Infinity universe and provided a competitive break from the ITS tournament pack. Don't get me wrong I am a big fan of ITS but after playing at least 3 games a week for the past 8 months I am in much need of something new other than YAMS. It works on the same principle of ITS in that every mission is scored out of 10pts with numerous secondary objectives depending on the mission being played. There is also a chart included for secondary objectives but we decided to go with the data cards to begin with so we didn't have to spend to much time flicking through the rules. I can honestly say it was a lot of fun. I think a big part of this is that Infinity is a very flexible game due to having its roots in role play. Most of the missions do not require you to take specialists and when they are included they normally just give a +3 bonus to WIP rolls. As we were completely new to these mission we decided to roll for the game then make our lists. First up we played "Upload evidence" 

Upload Evidence - 7

The soldiers have the opportunity to upload evidence of war crimes they have witnessed to O-12 

via a transmitter which is placed in the middle of the battlefield. 

Deployment: Place an objective marker or a piece of scenery as close to the centre point of the table as possible. The objective marker represents the transmitter. The objective marker must be accessible to be in base contact with models. The transmitter is considered to be indestructible.

Game Length: 3 Game Rounds.

Uploading Evidence: In order to upload evidence, models must get into base contact with the objective marker and use the Activate skill with a successful unmodified WIP roll. Hackers and 

Engineers get +3 to their WIP test. 

Every model can upload evidence only once. There is no limit to the number of attempts for each 

Players get 1 VP for every model that has uploaded evidence to the objective marker.When a lieutenant attempts to upload evidence, the player may reveal the lieutenant and receive 

2 VP instead of 1 if the lieutenant succeeds in uploading evidence. 

The maximum number of VPs to be earned by uploading evidence is 6.

As you can see you don't actually need to have specialists in this list its just a race to get as many You Tube videos uploaded as you can to show how bad the baddies really are. As we wanted to get a couple of games in I didn't get time to do a full report but here are some of the highlights and photos of the match

 My opponent Oliver was running his Steele Phalanx force in this game. Personally I am not a big fan of this faction as I normally play Ariadna and much prefer to have a million orders of crap than few orders of absolute badassery. As it happened I did take an Aquila guard in this game but still managed to squeeze in 14 orders by padding it out with line troops as best I could.

Oliver ran Achilles with his new profile to test him out and ran him right up to the data console first. What I thought was going to be a big mistake turned out to be a very lucky move for him. My total reaction HMG Sierra drone bot got two full bursts at him and smashed two wounds off him. He then moved and dodged again and went prone behind the objective and sat there contesting it the entire game stopping me from getting anywhere close at all. Little know to him he had accidentally locked down a Croc Man who was guarding the other objective marker . . . sad times. 

 I didn't do it to be a dick but in this list Oliver had all the ODD in the world. I wanted to use some models that were gathering dust so I ran a Bagh-mari, Neisses and Aquila giving me MSV 1,2 and 3. I was running my mouth off ( totally in a friendly way of obviously ) then he just threw down zero V smoke and burst 2 in ARO from his link team Making me feel rather small to be indeed:( 

 I never take my Orc hacker as personally I think he is rubbish! but the model is nice and this was a friendly game. As it happened an Ekodromoi Hacker dropped on the board, dispersed then tried to hack my remote to get his secret objective. Unlucky for him it had a repeater in it and my Orc managed to isolate him and negate him from spending any more orders that turn GREAT SUCCESS! 

 Decided to use my war cor model I got from http://www.em4miniatures.com/ for my HVT. Only fitting as the mission required us to upload footage of all those terrible war crimes.

 When I did finally manage to get my baggage bot into position he just got out shot by Achilles instantly. What a waste right.

 This ODD link team were the bane of my game. Zero V smoke casual as you like over the objective. Croc man could not react and all my MSV were worthless. He just sat there uploading videos and checking e-mails then just casually walked away. He did however fluff about 4 WIP rolls so that's something at least. probably forgot his password or something.

The game ended up being 7- 0 to Oliver. A serious stomping but no worries we had game 2 to try out after lunch.

Next mission we played was Teseum Run. This game worked a little in my favor. Basic over view, run up to some boxes and bring the loot home. I did take a baggage bot and that was a big help as they don't get slowed down by movement and can hold two lumps of Teseum at the same time

Teseum Run -14

Valuable shards of teseum are stored in crates. Opposing forces fight to bring them home.

Deployment: Two objective markers are being used to represent the tesseum stores. The players alternate placing 1 objective marker each before the Initiative roll. 

The 2 objective markers must be deployed  

• Within 4 inches of the centre point of the table 
• At least 4 inches away from each other. 
• It must be possible for models to get into base to base contact with the objective markers. 

No mines may ever be deployed with an objective marker inside its trigger area. The objective markers are considered to be indestructible.

Game Length: 4 Game Rounds

Gathering Tesseum: In order to get a shard of tesseum, a model must be in base to base contact with an objective marker and perform the activate skill, passing a -3 WIP check.Engineers get a +3 modifier to their check. Once a tesseum shard is gathered, place a marker next to the model which searched the objective marker. Models with the baggage special rule receive 2 markers. 

A model in possession of tesseum may not go into camouflage mode. If a model carrying tesseum shards is in a null state, the marker stays on the board and can be picked up by any model using a single action. All models may only carry 1 tesseum shard at a time; models with the baggage special rule may carry 2. 

Bringing Teseum Home: A model with a tesseum shard marker moving into the own deployment zone automatically drops the marker, which is then removed from play. The player owning the model is awarded one Teseum Point. 

Victory conditions:

 At the end of the game, count the number of Teseum points every player scored in the course of the game. Compare the number of Teseum points the players earned with each other and VP are awarded as follows:

6 VP if a player has more than 2 Teseum Points and at least double the amount of Teseum points than the pponent. 

4 VP if a player has more Teseum Points than the opponent. 

3 VP if both players have the same number of Teseum Points.

2 VP if a player has less Teseum points than his opponent but at least 1 and the opponent does not have double or more the amount of Teseum points. 

1 VP if a player has at least one Teseum point and the opponent has double or more Teseum points.

When we rolled for the initiative and I decided to take the same table side simply for ease. Oliver set up first and went first pretty much in the same way as the last mission. However this game went a slightly different way.

 Setting up second was a god send as I spotted a cheeky 4 man link trying to sneak up the right hand side of the board so just plonked my Sierra bot facing them and that pretty much set the pace of the game. They moved and I pumped one shot into each. I won 3 rolls and the face to face rolls and the last was a miss on both sides. Oliver them failed 3 amour rolls, breaking the link. I managed to take down 3 orders with my first ARO . . . Nice.

 The previously mentioned broken link.

 This bloody link team did the same thing again. Zero v smoke and casually walked up to the Teseum boxes. However in this game you have to drag them back to base and are slowed down when you are carrying the precious loot. This meant that Oliver had to try and survive a turn by the boxes in order to spend the orders grabbing more Teseum as he knew my baggage bot would just run up and down all day taking back two loads at a time. It did a pretty good job to be fair as it also had an Egema on a roof on suppression covering them. Meaning I had to spend precious orders getting rid of it first.

 Not a single order was spent on these guys for the entire game in typical Infinity style.

 My Orc ran across the open ground and spent two orders shooting at one of his characters ( I forget what one now ) and blasted him from about 2 inches away with her shotgun. This cleared half the table and I managed to put her in a perfect position to cover one of the Teseum boxes allowing my Baggage bot to empty it out.

 In the last turn I revealed my spec sergeant who was hiding in contact with the objective. I wanted to do this in the first turn but the MK12 sniper was watching over him and I did not want to risk it.

And in the last turn my baggage bot made another delivery of two lumps of space coal winning me the game.