Just Play's ITS.

So I am back after a two week hiatus. A quick bit about myself as I never really introduced myself on this blog. I have been unemployed since last November so have had all the time in the world to do all of the Infinity related projects, build a table, paint a table, do two entire factions fully painted up, go to every tournament I can get to and of course keep on top of this blog. In fact, to post every Friday was this new year's resolution and I am normally pretty good at keeping to them. I am currently in the recruitment process of joining the Royal Navy's diving squadron. I quit my last job working at Yorkshire Water in November 2015 so I could train for my diver assessment, but didn't hit it hard enough and on the trip away to sunny Scotland I failed my BFT ( Battle Fitness Test ) by 13 seconds god damn it! I totally blame the 3 week holiday to Japan right before. Japanese eat pretty healthy but being the big stupid giajin that I am, I was having about 5 meals a day so it didn't really balance out! Anyway I got my papers from the MOD through in the post and my next assessment is in October. Being so far away I went and got a job. My previous employment was shift work so I still got a lot of free time but this new gig is 9 to 5. HOW THE HELL DO PEOPLE DO IT?! Its an alright job but does not leave much time for Infinity between working and the gym. I have also been playing as much Infinity as I can recently as I seem to have stumbled onto some good tactics and am doing quite well on the international rankings. I keep getting 1st then this Epsolon921 keeps snatching it back. I will find you Epsolon921 and I will settle this once and for all! Anyway, point is I am back and will hopefully be getting a post out every Friday if I can. I have lots of things to talk about, new Morat force I wish to discuss, lots of events planned including a tournament I am putting on myself, new units and of course all the new rules.

That's me with my new book.

Back to the recent event we went to. I went to Liverpool with Laina and Pete. Also known on the forums as . . . Laina and Lilith. This was a small event put on by the guys who run the gaming store Just Play. A few familiar faces and really good tables. They had been in contact with some of the guys who are putting on the Northern Open and decided to run the same missions so we could practice. I was in two minds about this as I will never turn down practice but this did also mean that if anyone went to both events they would see my list. But kind of didn't matter as most of it is in camo anyway and I am also really predictable so what ever.

Missions:

* Seize the Antennas
* Cold Sleep
* Emergency Transmission

As you can see all these missions are about grabbing objectives, so a lot of specialists are needed. Normally I would post pics of my list but as I said don't want no sneaky sneaky research by the enemies of the superior Aradinian empire snooping about.

Game one: Seize the Antennas

First game was against a lovely chap named James Hilton-Scott with a rather nicely painted force as you can see in some of the pics. I had seen him about before at other events but not had a game. He was running a fun list and using the original pain train, that's right 5 Brigada stomping about as if they owned the place. James chose to go first so I chose sides and set up. This was perfect as I pretty much always want to go second in a mission like this so I got everything I wanted. His set up was short. 3 wild cats and 5 Brigada all behind a building. Simple enough, he was going first and knew no templates could hit him right away. I had a lot of camo so did the standard thing of having all my line troops hidden at the back covering every approach, few snipers on rooftops and about a bajillion markers scattered about the board. James' first turn was not surprising really. He moved his 5 man link from hell up the table. The hardest part for me was holding back and restraining myself from shooting back. He took out my grunt sniper quick time with his HMG, then wasted an order to try and discover one of my markers but failed. Realizing I was not going to  be silly and reveal everything at one time, he dropped his Tomcat onto the board now that the sniper was not watching certain sections. I did get a free shot with a metro and missed. He then tried to run away and he was getting dangerously close to my LT so I had to pop out a Chasseur and blast that bad guy away. After this failed attempt at taking some orders away the pain train moved forward but this time I was ready. I waited until he was right in the open. A mine triggered two hard cases shot, a Chasseur and a Cateran. The mine took off a wound, the two shot guns did 3 wounds with their spray and the Cateran missed. Now he was standing in the open facing 4 ARO's and two more camo markers still hidden. After this his LT broke away from the Link to try and take down the Cateran but I was lucky and got a crit and took him out with one precise shot to the face. 

Next it was my turn and to cut a long story short I ganged up on the brigade with my Spetsnaz. I say ganged up even though it was 4 against 1 because the Spetsnaz is probably the most powerful unit for his points in the game full stop. OK, a Swiss Guard or Charotnid are better but this dude comes in a 38 points and is one of the few guys who can take on a link all by himself. And he did. And it was beautiful. 

To cut a long game short not much happened for a few turns, but in my next go Uxia ran up the table dropping smoke, then her buddy Chasseur ran up behind her and dropped mines right in front of his few remaining Wildcats. I had all the objectives but one brave wildcat ran at the objective and made a WIP check in the last order triggering the mines but getting the objective anyway. 

I couldn't even get onto the objective with these guys in the way.

That's it step into the open for me!

"Not so tough now you are all by yourself huh Mrs Brigada"

Game 2: Cold sleep

Well game two was interesting. I played a chap named Mark O'Brien, one of the local players and on top of that one of the good ones, so I obviously had to beat the pants off of him. We played on a new themed board that was a sort of supply pick up on a train line. Something rather reminiscent of the first rail roads in the wild west. I lost the roll and Mark decided to go first. He was using vanilla Aleph so lots of hard line troops backed up by two total reaction HMG remotes. 1st turn was awesome for me. I stripped him of two orders and hid like a coward. Except for one unit, my Cateran half way up a church roof. It worked really well as I could see the entire board and having mimitism negated the no cover for climbing up a wall. He literally couldn't do anything. It cost Mark 3 orders trying to spot him and failing. Add this to the 2 he was denied that was half an order pool gone on literally nothing. He did manage to get his Myrmidon with a Spitfire right into my line and took out a 112 and grunt sniper on his travels. After that he went into suppression in cover so I was at -12 to hit it. The mission was very objective heavy but we both put down two camo markers either side of the two main objectives so were both afraid of moving in close.

My first turn was pretty good. I took an Imrandhino to this event. I am really not a fan of extremely impetuous. Yeah you get a free order but you have no control over it and don't ever get cover so whats the point? People kept telling me to try this guy so for 8 points I though I would give it a go as he is an engineer. I was lucky enough to roll for an AP rifle on the booty chart so used him to take out some net rods. I didn't want to lose a specialist but on the same merit I really did not want an ODD Spitfire wielding baddie all up in my deployment, so decided to sacrifice the Imrandhino to chain rifle him... except it wasn't a sacrifice as he got one hit from his suppression that I passed and he failed his ARM roll to a chain rifle and died. GREAT SUCCESS! I then took out one of his total reaction remotes with my Cateran on the roof and got rid of a few order monkeys. I figured out who his LT was right at the back but didn't want to try and brave getting him as he had a remote next to him with a heavy flamer.

Mark was out for blood after this. He had lost a lot of orders to the superior Ariadna gunishment, pumping pretty much everything into his total reaction remote he pushed up the board and took out 4 of my guys. Its all good, plenty more where they came from. After that two guys moved closer to his nearest objectives and secured them.

Ok I did it again. Was so angry at myself the entire way home. My Imrandhino ran over to the Myrmidons corpse and scavenged his spit fire. It really was his lucky day - he managed to get himself an AP rifle and Spitfre for free. I am sure they will fetch a pretty price on the black market. He then ran forward and took out a total reaction bot and another Myrmidon. Next the Spetsnaz burst onto the scene and i'm telling you now HE REIGNED DOWN FIRE! Just destroyed everything in his sight! The idea was to keep a few things alive and just completely mop up in last turn. I had 17 orders left and 6 specialists on the table. One was Uxia right next to an objective. But you know what I did it again. I DID IT AGAIN. I put the enemy in retreat... by 2 points. It was the saddest day ever. 2 points. That was all she wrote. His softec scooted forward and nabbed the main objective putting him in a major victory. Now not to say Mark was not a good player, but he had very few orders and I had 17 regular, 3 specialists in camo by objectives, pretty much complete table control as what he had left was hiding and I also had all my big toys left. When will I learn, right?

Man of the match for the opponents he took on.

Dr. Useless did nothing again except die.

This little guy was pinned down for the entire game by a T2 sniper.

Game 3: Emergency transmission

Having lost and not being put on the top table my last game was chill. I was playing a Pan O player called Andy Phizacklea, who I think had literally played about 5 games before. He worked at the store and was getting into Infinity, so most of the game was us taking it slow and going through rules. I wont call him a cheesy bastard as he was very new but he did run a Cutter, Father knight and Croc man. His cutter legged it right into my lines. and I mean basically touching my back line. He then blasted his HMG over and over and over into 4 of my line troopers and they repeatedly dodged every single shot.

In my first turn I ran a Chasseur behind him and let rip with the flamer. He did pass 4 dodge saves in a row, but as soon as this failed and his bloody TO was gone my Spetsnaz popped out and hit him 3 times. Unfortunately for Andy he failed all 3 rolls and the mighty war machine collapsed. It was pretty cinematic as after this my Imrandhino engineer ran over and pulled all the cybernetic cables out the back of his neck and got me my data card of Coupe de grace. I like to imagine both the Chasseur and Imrandhino standing in front of it scratching their heads then the Imrandhino saying "Sod it yank em all out" then proceeding to pull out every wire in sight.

Andy's next turn was slightly eventful. His father knight ran out only to be confronted by a Cateran. Being new to the game he did not know that in the active turn when you dodge you don't get the 2 inch move so he was stuck in the open staring down a superior warrior! He did fall but made a good effort passing one save and one dodge but eventually falling to the T2 ammunition.

We were running out of time at this point so in my last turn with nearly 20 orders just nabbed all I needed to to get a major victory and we called it a game. I hope to see Andy at next month's event and see how much he has gotten on with the rules, especially as HS3 has just dropped. I didn't get any pics of my last game as we were spending most of the time going over rules and units but I did manage to get some cool shots of others games. I managed to come second in the end. Best loser isn't bad I guess but I am hungry for that Krakot model as I am just starting my Morats and they are AVA 3 so want to scoop up as many as I can!

Past few days of Infinity

No events last week and to be honest it was quite refreshing. I was still recovering after the awesomeness that was Salute. That being said I had heard through the grape vine that a club in Hemel called HHWC who normally meet on a Monday were putting on an all day event on a Saturday. Living in Leeds this was quite far but regardless I packed my Table, army and trusty camera into my car and got on the road to go check it out. Hemel is near to my home town of St. Albans and I remembered that a while back I was reading this blog https://redheadhobbies.wordpress.com/ and Toby who writes it was looking for some games in the area. We had not managed to arrange a game in the past as last time I challenged him he was selfish and went on holiday to Canada instead. but this Saturday it was on!

First mission we played was a D20 mission 'Save the scientists'. Basic overview, there are 4 scientists on the table who have been knocked out and you have to get them back to your deployment. Either by healing them and syncing with them or by tossing them over your shoulder and carrying them back to friendly territory. I was using vanilla Ariadna and Toby was using his QK Haq, so I expected Yuan Yuan's galore.

I tried to set the table up as even as I could. One side had more cover on high ground but the other had the tallest tower on the board, not to many open fire lanes and lots of sneaky routs to get about. I won the roll of and decided to go first. In a mission like this there is no point in going second as you don't need to hold any objectives or hold any ground. Just get the bodies and get the hell out out of there! I spread everything out as best I could and put a Cateran prone on the highest point I could get him into. On the other side I had my Grunt sniper watching over the entire board. I did kind of wonder if this was a good idea as I know Haq can take lots of cheap heavy weapons and would probably be able to out shoot me. Only other sneaky sneaky i had up my sleeve was a Chasseur who put a mine down next to one of the scientists and Uxia who I had kept in reserve. Toby then set up quite defensively, full link of kaplans hiding around the back of the board, 3 man Haris of Sekban and a total reaction remote on a roof with cover. I passed my Uxia roll on something like a 12 so instantly gave away what she was. Toby then put his Djanbazan on a roof looking right at her. I hate that model and people always take it :(

That is %100 not my Lieutenant hiding on that roof with his sniper bro.

These Hafza don't care about being hidden.

you cant see in this photograph but Uxia is right behind that wall ready to take out the Sekban. The term"Get in the sea" comes to mind.

My first turn went quite well for me. I had lots of big scary things to get rid of so basically spent an entire order pool hunting the enemy. That's OK for me though as I take roughly 1,000 orders in each game. My Cateran popped out of his rubbish camo and took on the Sekban unit. Should have probably asked what they were equipped with as one had a heavy rocket launcher at B2 in ARO. it took about 3 face to face rolls before I finally took the guy down. Second order of business was to get rid of that Djanbazan. Again this was a face to face roll of. I moved my Cateran around a little. he was worse of with his amour but if the grunt had shot he could have been blasted to bits by the Total reaction remote, but the main reason was the Djanbazan was on a roof so if i had of killed him with normal shock sniper he might have got back up next turn and also been out of sight for me to shoot him when unconscious. But the Cateran had a T2 sniper so any hit killed him outright. Again I won this roll of but it did take about 3 or 4 orders to do so. After this I spent a few orders on my Chasseur and marauder who both waled up to nearest scientist and dragged them back towards the deployment. No way in hell I was going to risk trying to heal them and have them run home.

In Toby's first turn things went to shit a bit. With most of his ARO units gone he decided to push forward with his Kaplan link. they are a bit nasty, cheap ( ish ) and well equipped. how ever they are not true Haq citizens so lacked the will power . . . and ended up killing the doctor they were trying to save. With his other pool two Yuan Yuans walked on the other side of the board. They did all they could but were order starved. one managed to smoke his way up the table then jump out and chain rifle a few units. she took out my Grunt sniper but got blasted to bits by a loup Garou, Marauder, Cateran and Line kazak.

I am jealous of this bot because I cant have one.

I don't like this guy.

My turn two was quick. I dragged the scientist back a little so she was definitely in my deployment. that only took a few orders. then i did the same with the scientist that the marauder was carrying. knowing I had two and Toby had killed one I decided to blast him away. And this was not an understatement. I have recently started using the Spetsnaz with HMG and I can not stress enough how much of a beast this unit is. Seriously take it no matter what what. long story short he wondered up the table and blasted away a total reaction remote and pretty much an en tire link team by himself. Each time I used him he popped his head out, shot and then went back into camo. This may seem a little order intensive but he was the only hard hitting unit in his order pool so had 10 orders all to himself to get this job done. After this we decided to call it a game. 

For game two we decided to go with some ITS so chose seize the antennas. simple enough mission three objectives laid out in a line and you have 3 VPs for each one you have in your control at the end of the game. this time I went with a more loose list and chose to run my Pan O. I knew Toby had a Pan O force and would know what most of my units were capable of as he probably has them as well.Toby went with his self titles "stomp list". He was still running QK but this list had Scar face and Cordelia in it. I took a Swiss Guard with HMG to dish out some paint and Croc man FO to get jobs done and my main ARO units were a total reaction HMG ( standard ) and Armand, who I don't really use that much as I think he is a little over priced on points for what he does.

Toby won the roll and decided he wanted to take second turn. This is normal what I want but It did mean he had to set up first so I could easily try and counter all his big stuff. This was all good with me as I wanted to go second and it also meant I did not have to set up first so win/win in my eyes. I kept my Swiss guard in reserve as he had no idea I was taking it and did not want to put it down and get spotted then out gunned in the first turn. Normally I would not care but the Dnjabazan sniper would have ruined his day. Toby put down a full link of Ghulams tooled to the nines. Missile launcher, HMG, doctor and FO all in one squad. They may be basic line troops but that scares me with all the link bonuses.

turn one I pushed forward. I don't feel as comfortable using Pan O as they way less orders as I am used to. First of  I stood Armand up for some retarded reason and he got shot by a Djanbazan, Scarface, Ghulam missile launcher, Ghulam HMG and total reaction HMG . . . And survived! This was a really stupid move by my though so I got my Swiss guard out and pumped shot after shot after shot into his tag. I took about 5 orders but he was gone quick. I don't like tags very much. My Croc man revealed himself ( not in a perverted way ) and nabbed the main objective in the middle of the table. He had to do a few cautious moves to not get taken down by MSV2 sniper. After this he ran behind cover dropped a mine on the way and went back into camo, the sneaky bastard! Then with my last 2 orders my engineer ran forward and grabbed the objective closes to me. I had run out of orders by this point and he was left standing up ready to be shot at.

Toby's turn was a little more straight forward but effective none the less. He pushed forward with him link team slowly and managed to get into the middle of the table unhurt. His Ghulam tanked a shot from a Swiss Guard and a mine. Risk paid off as he managed to take back the main objective in the middle of the table and my Croc man was not going to get back to it with all the shotguns now staring him down.

My turn two was very uneventful. I  moved my Sierra bot around the back of his link. It took a few orders as I needed to cautious move through doors to be able to fit into the buildings. All i did was take out one guy. Shooting him in the back made no difference as he has 6th sense but I had to try. After that my Swiss Guard took his reaction remote head on. This was way in my favor as I had surprise shot, TO and cover. I had the Croc man lay another mine then go into camo again just in case he wanted to push up the board. the mine would work as a slight speed bump and this might make a difference lat on in the game.

Toby's turn Two Went better. his Alguacil walked up to his nearest objective. he had left it un touched so he could grab it later on in the game with no stress. This worked well for him as nothing I had could stop it so that was all on him. At this point in the Game Toby had two of the three objectives. All he had to do was hunker down.

Mad love for the Croc man in this game. He absolutely bossed it in this round. One at a time he blasted the Ghulams away. the MSV2 sniper had move up the board to try lock down my Swiss guard. This gave my Croc man complete free reign to move about. with a bit of jiggery pokery he got right behind the enemy lines and nabbed both objectives. After this he put down two mines and went back into camo right on top of the objective. With him locking this down and the Swiss guard and Sierra total reaction bot having the main objective within line of site that was game over.

All in all a fun day was had. Toby challenged me again to a game on his table when he was less hung over. I wont be in S.t Albans for a while but when I am its on! Completely not Infinity related but someone at the club had a nice goblin force so took a couple of snaps.

Salute 2016

"No Infinity this week" I hear you say. Well yes that's true but I have one arguably better, A big ol' trip to Salute. For those of you who don't know its the big gaming event held every year in London at the ExCel centre. This event is probably my most looked forward to event going, even more so than Christmas! Basically a massive hall with many many traders and demo games running all sorts of games. Space battle games, skirmish games, mass army games, few role play games, sci-fi games, fantasy games and so on. I was good this year (really good) and only spent about £70). I managed to find a shop that was giving away the cheapest Infinity product for free when you bought 4 things. They also had a bunch of the 10th anniversary Achilles. I went halves with someone and they got the rule book and Janissary box and I got the Morat sectorial and Achilles box all for £100. The only other things I bought were a few bits of scatter terrain for less than a tenner. So in comparison to other years I was a very very good boy! Not much else to ramble on about, fun was had by all and I am already waiting for next year.

This scenery was part of a big table that went with the past two photos. It had a dungeon under a big snowy mountain.

This was a large Mad Max participation game that was running all day. Little bigger scale than normal but a lot of work went into each vehicle. They were all hand made form different kits.

When we came back a few hours later it was all kicking off!

This looks like my gaming table at home . . . sort of.

Now here is a man who loves his job.

Not my thing anymore but still have love for Games Workshop models. Wouldn't be the same with out any.

No idea what this is but it look cool. Like so many things on the day.

I wonder what awesome game this is from?

This was just a huge display board full of Vietnam stuff.

This guy is here every year marauding around like he owns the place. What a champion.

From what I could tell this game only needed a hand full of models on each side. When I first started war gaming I was keen on the big armies clashing with each other. But now I am preferring having only a few models each side and having to think about each action and movement.

 

Having played Halo many times I had no idea of the scale between some of the ships. Better play them all again I guess now I understand.

Just popping down the pound shop before I fend of the Nazis.

Someone had made a Minions game to keep the younglings entertained. 

That's some Oldhammer style painting right there. 

That Centaur looks like he is in serious distress