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Welcome, one and all, to the latest Infinity battle report to come out of the regular carnage at G3 Gamers in Glasgow. This week I played versus AndrewGPaul from the official forums, and in the process had fun, learned vital lessons about the human condition, and got to see my favourite units all get hacked to pieces in the name of the Sultan. Unfortunately it appears that I was way more eager to take photos on my turn than my opponents (can’t imagine why) so this report’s photos are a touch biased towards the sons of Bourak. I’m hoping to do battle reports on a semi-regular basis, so hopefully you guys all enjoy this and don’t forget to leave any feedback below!

The Armies
My opponent used vanilla Yu Jing, and selected these following fine fellows. The day before this game he rebased all of them onto clear acrylic bases, and the effect is quite interesting – they looked great on the table, and you could often not see their bases at all, allowing the illusion of these little dudes scuttling around the place.



1: Celestial Guard Lieutenant
2: Domaru Butai with boarding shotgun
3: Shang Ji Invincible with combi-rifle and light flamethrower
4, 6, 8: Keisotsu Butai with combi-rifles
5: Meca-Engineer
7: Wu Ming with HMG
9: Zanshi Hacker

I for my part took Qapu Khalqi, and centred my force around my beloved Druze. Unfortunately I had a proxy, as my Odalisque couldn’t afford her spitfire; I tried out the SMG instead.



1: Ghulam doctor with rifle and light shotgun
2: Hafza Lieutenant with spitfire, using holoprojector lvl 1 to look like a Ghulam
3: Ghulam with rifle and light shotgun
4: Odalisque with sub-machine gun, contender and nanopulsar
5: Djanbazan with sniper rifle
6, 7, 9: Druze with combi-rifles and DEP
8: Druze with light grenade launcher and combi-rifle

The Map
We’re lucky to have some amazing terrain at G3, and this week we played on some Empire of the Dead terrain made for a demo table. The demo game won loads of awards at Scottish gaming cons, and it looked brilliant for this battle. We determined that we were fighting in Manchester, which clearly sucks & has high crime even in the future.







The Mission
We used YAMS for this battle. If you don’t know what YAMS is, it is the elegant random mission system built and maintained by IJW to try and give some direction to the slaughter that is Infinity. Each player draws six cards from a deck of objectives, from which you select four cards to be your objectives for the game. Part of the requirements are for there to be a crate and a civilian on the centre line, and a marker in each deployment zone. These are used for various objectives. Objectives are kept secret from the other player. My only real problem with YAMS is the rather arbitrary feeling that it gives affairs, but that is probably an unavoidable side-effect of the random nature of them. The cards that we each drew were as follows:

Andrew:
Capture
Intimidate the enemy through close assault.
Objective: kill at least two enemy models in close combat.
Infiltrate
Objective: have an active model in the enemy deployment zone at the end of the game.
Blockade
Stop the enemy advance from reaching your lines.
Objective: keep control of your deployment zone.
Conditions: no active enemy models within your deployment zone at the end of the game.
Clear the Area!
Objective: have none of your active models in your own deployment zone at the end of the game.

Myself:
Kill the Pigeon
A spy is on the loose and must be stopped before their secrets are passed on.
Objective: the Civvie model must be dead at the end of the game.
Kill the Leader
Decapitate the enemy chain of command by killing the Lieutenant.
Objective: kill an enemy Lieutenant.
Hold!
Hold the line!
Objective: don’t be in Retreat at the end of the game.
Forward Target
Objective: sabotage one of the centreline terrain pieces with a short skill/WIP check.
I chose this building to sabotage, which was on the right-hand portion of the table:



You can see the civilian wandering around next to authentic Manchester barbed wire street decorations in the below photo. This was to the right of the building I chose.



There is an option in YAMS of picking one of your objectives to show to your opponent, which makes it worth 2 victory points rather than one. We each chose to do this: I picked Forward Target, while Andrew picked Clear the Area!

The Deployments
I won the roll-off, and opted to go first. This, fairly inevitably, meant that I also had to deploy first. I deployed the link team in the centre with the doctor prone behind a hedge, the Odalisque on my left flank to cause distraction and carnage, and a Ghulam on my right to cover the angles. The sniper went onto a roof on my left, and the Hafza hid beneath him.







Andrew’s deployment consisted of putting the Wu Ming, Engineer and Invincible in a side-alley on his left flank, the Keisotsu and Celestial guard in the back gardens in the one-op one-downs, and the Domaru Butai and Hacker on his right.

We tried taking photos from above for his deployment, but unfortunately one is a touch murky; the first one has the left flank at the bottom, while the second photo has the left flank at the, uh, left.








Automatically Appended Next Post:
[Placeholder post for actual battle]

*waits for the rest with anticipation*

I think the acrylic bases are a neat idea. I particularly like the Blade Runner car as well.

The blade runner car is from Antenociti Workshop, and is a regular piece of terrain in all our games. Along with his friend, the pink icecream van. We have so many toy cars, in fact, that once myself and another Haqq player had a game where the objective was to steal cars and drive them off of the opponent's table edge - Gone in 60 Seconds. I think that I won by one motorbike and a van.

Qapu Khalqi Turn 1

Hakan, the Djanbazan sniper, opened the festivities with a potshot at one of the Celestial Guard in the alleyway.



He fired twice; one of the Keisotsu Butai was taken out, and the ARO-dodged behind the outhouse.



My third order consisted of the Druze link team moving forward through the park...



... and gifting the one of the Keisotsu Butai with the joy of a light grenade launcher.



This resulted in both the Keisotsu Butai, who were behind the wall and the phone box, and the Celestial Guard (Andrew’s lieutenant), getting blown into tiny little pieces. The last Keisotsu Butai felt lonely, oh so lonely, and started singing to himself softly.



It wasn’t all good: my Druze grenade launcher gets downed by the Celestial Guard’s return fire, leaving the link team broken for the moment.



Having caused carnage in the centre, I began trying to complete my Kill the Pigeon objective. The Ghulam advanced on the civilian like some sort of sexual predator, free from AROs since Andrew’s models were all lurking in an alleyway.





He used my sixth order to attack the civilian in melee, who proved surprisingly resilient:



After impressing nobody, the Ghulam finally manages to shiv the civilian on the eighth order.



He moved behind cover, pointing his rifle towards the alleyway entrance.



I believe that on my last order I shuffled the Druze about a bit, in order to restore the link. The Sabotage objective couldn’t be completed on my first turn, so I wanted to keep them in the area for my next turn.

Yu Jing Turn 1

Unfortunately for Andrew, his first turn consisted of selecting a new lieutenant. Play moved straight onto my second turn.

Qapu Khalqi Turn 2

I began my turn by walking the Ghulam doctor up...



... and she revived the downed Druze on the first attempt. Makes a change for a doctor in Infinity.



The Druze included their chum into the squad again, and made a move for the objective.



Success!



I began advancing the Odalisque up the left flank, as much to cause carnage and test out her SMG as for anything else.



She shot at the Keisotsu Butai on the sixth order, but failed to do much; I tried to use the contender, since it had much better range bands, but missed outright. The Keisotsu Butai ducked back into cover a bit.



She gave up on the Keisotsu Butai after this, advanced towards the Domaru Butai, and stripped a wound with her SMG. This seemed like progress to me, but events would prove otherwise.



Yu Jing Turn 2

Andrew started his turn by bringing the big guns up: the Wu Ming lumbered into view of the Ghulam...



...and gunned him down like a dog. Lost, but never forgotten, brave civilian-killing Ghulam!



The Domaru Butai now enacted revenge for her lost wound, advancing and firing the boarding shotgun, while the Odalisque tried to fend her off with the nanopulsar. The nanopulsar failed me, as did the Odalisque’s armour, leaving her on one wound (thanks to V:NWI).



Andrew now raised the battlecry of ‘Girl on Girl Action!’ and charged the Domaru Butai into melee with the Odalisque.



The ensuing melee, my first one since my intro game days, saw the Domaru Butai using her Martial Arts level 2 & berserk against my Odalisque’s i-Khol level 3; it ended really well, as you can see from the below photo.



The Domaru Butai then moved behind the concrete barricade for the start of my turn.

Qapu Khalqi Turn 3

Hakan the Djanbazan sniper once again felt the call of necessity drive him to take up the rifle. He fired at the Domaru Butai...



And after two orders he had removed her from the game. Revenge! The Druze now moved up, aiming to eliminate the Wu Ming and Invincible from the game. I used two orders to get them into position to see the Invincible, but misjudged the LoS and started a firefight before I was ready. In the below photo there was actually LoS, though it doesn’t look like it, and the only one of my Druze who could see was the idiot at the back.



This passed without event, and I enacted the plan that I had been trying to do all along: a co-ordinated order with three Druze to move out and spray the Shang Ji Invincible into the ground, before using the lieutenant order to reform the link at the end of my turn. Two of the Druze fired at the Invincible (one as a normal roll) while the other went for the Wu Ming. The fourth Druze hung back, as I didn’t have orders to activate him.



However it all went a bit pear shaped, and after the smoke had cleared my grenade-launcher Druze was down, while I had only managed to force the Invincible to go prone.



This was not, needless to say, part of ‘The Plan’.

Yu Jing Turn 3

The Druze-Invincible firefight continued into Andrew’s turn, as he stood the Invincible up and executed another member of the Druze linkteam. I tried using the DEP in my ARO but missed outright.



His invincible then used some more orders to move around the police box (which blocked LoS from both the surviving Druze) and shot the unconscious grenade launcher Druze to remove him from the game.
He finished his turn by using the Invincible’s flamethrower to roast the Druze:



But only managed to kill the already-downed Druze.

Qapu Khalqi Turn 4

At the start of my last turn I was in danger of going into retreat if I lost any more models, which would lose me my Hold! objective; I’d lost 84 points so far, and the Invincible showed no intention of stopping his reign of terror. So I used two orders to do another co-ordinated move with the Druze, with one firing a DEP and the other his combi-rifle...



...and managed to kill him, even though the DEP missed (I don’t think that I managed to do anything with the DEPs in this game, sadly).
I finished my turn by moving the Druze back into the park, which they clearly felt drawn to as a Haqqislamite unit.



Yu Jing Turn 4
Andrew was now in retreat, and used his orders to keep his models from fleeing, which allowed him to claim his Clear the Area! Objective. The game ended without another shot being fired.

Final Score – Qapu Khalqi victory!

In the event, I had managed to achieve all of my objectives (Kill the pigeon, Sabotage [for 2], Kill the Leader, Hold!), netting me 5 victory points, while Andrew managed two of his (Clear the area! [for 2], Blockade), getting him 3 victory points. I thought that it was all over for Andrew after that disastrous first turn, but his army pulled it back with the Wu Ming and Invincible savaging the Druze and the Domaru gutting the Odalisque to leave my force victorious but surprisingly battered. This is something that I’ve noticed in Infinity – it is easy to feel that you’re on top because you've killed a few enemy models, without realising that you’ve just removed some chaff and the heavyweights are still to come. It was a good game, with a brilliant fight-back by Andrew, two fully painted forces fighting over great terrain, and some very cinematic moments, although the Druze hiding amongst the trees at the end like girls will perhaps not make it into the army photo album...

Great Bat rep Charles, thanks for sharing!

Congrats on the win, looks like a well thought out and well tohught out plan, shame the dice didnt agree at times Well done to Andrew for nearly pulling it back with the Invincible/Wu Ming combo after a shocker of a first turn...

Really liked the use of the laser pointer as well, it helped delineate when/where models were firing + when they had LoS etc.

gone in 60seconds sounds like heaps of fun, did you make up some rules for cars etc.?

That was a fun read, I enjoyed it even if the pics were a little blurry.

A fun house rule for cars is that if you have a Hacker or Repeater in range you can attempt to hack the car. On a success you can spend an order to start it up and have it overrun someone if they're in front of it.

We thought this was a great idea until that game in the parking lot, and then it stopped being everyone shoot at each other and instead turned into the most dangerous game of bumper cars ever seen.

Really nicely done. Andy seemingly managed to pull it back a bit at the end, but not enough. I'm impressed with your winning streak Charles. Infinity is the one game that Andy has a rep as a hard player to beat, and so far you've beaten him every time. In fact, I don't think you've lost a game of Infinity yet, out of how many?

I really enjoyed that batrep. I've been wondering about infinity and this is the best play-by-play, this is how the game works bat rep I've seen. Thank you and congratulations!

Thanks for the feedback guys

Revenent Reiko wrote:Great Bat rep Charles, thanks for sharing!

Congrats on the win, looks like a well thought out and well tohught out plan, shame the dice didnt agree at times Well done to Andrew for nearly pulling it back with the Invincible/Wu Ming combo after a shocker of a first turn...

Really liked the use of the laser pointer as well, it helped delineate when/where models were firing + when they had LoS etc.

gone in 60seconds sounds like heaps of fun, did you make up some rules for cars etc.?

The laser pointer was Andrew's, and is really useful in general. I'm going to have to get one myself for the next battle report, it really helped. His Invincible nearly lived up to the name - I wasn't really expecting to nearly lose all of my Druze to one guy with some spikes on his back - and I was outright terrified of that Wu Ming.

I think we said that it was a short action to get into the vehicle and another short action to turn the car on. The idea was that every model could drive around, but couldn't fire when driving (though it counted as being in cover). A lot of fun, with stolen police cars racing down streets with bullets pinging around...

Chemical Cutthroat wrote:That was a fun read, I enjoyed it even if the pics were a little blurry.

A fun house rule for cars is that if you have a Hacker or Repeater in range you can attempt to hack the car. On a success you can spend an order to start it up and have it overrun someone if they're in front of it.

We thought this was a great idea until that game in the parking lot, and then it stopped being everyone shoot at each other and instead turned into the most dangerous game of bumper cars ever seen.

Sorry about the pic quality - one camera phone died, and the other was distinctly lower quality. I'm hoping to get a camera from somewhere for the next game, but god knows where. The bumper cars does sound hilarious - bit of an ignoble way to die though...

LeadLegion wrote:Really nicely done. Andy seemingly managed to pull it back a bit at the end, but not enough. I'm impressed with your winning streak Charles. Infinity is the one game that Andy has a rep as a hard player to beat, and so far you've beaten him every time. In fact, I don't think you've lost a game of Infinity yet, out of how many?

I've fought Andrew three times, and won each (sorry Andrew!), once with assistance from Tim. Barry I played twice and beat both times, but he did have some really bad luck in a contest between two very similar forces (Haqq both sides). Tom I've played twice, beating once and drawing the other time. I've not played the other Andrew yet, so perhaps Pan-O will prove to be my undoing, while Tim's nomads are stepping up to the plate on Tuesday. I think that the real source of my power, other than this glowing green ring, is that we tend to have not quite enough terrain, a tall building in my deployment zone, and I usually get to go first. Hakan (the sniper) accounts for easily 40% of my kills. Against Tom I did a similarly-damaging alpha strike, using the Odalisque and indirect fire from the Druze grenade launcher.

Gitsplitta wrote:I really enjoyed that batrep. I've been wondering about infinity and this is the best play-by-play, this is how the game works bat rep I've seen. Thank you and congratulations!

That's the best bit of feedback that you could have given! I'm glad to be of help - I did try to make it intelligible to outsiders - and hope that you pick the game up yourself. It is a brilliant game, and does feel like a group of hard-as-nails cyberpunk soldiers duking it out. What more does one need?

Yeah, Grenade Launchers can prove very very nasty. Especially HGL's against link teams. My Mag doesn't mind spending a couple rounds just peppering my opponents with heavy THUMPTHUMPTHUMP's of HE rounds going off.

Ban that you 0-12 pricks!

Always bring a mech to a gunfight.

I seem to play on short terrain rather than tall, which is a shame for my Lasiq, as she always tries to scramble to a highpoint only to scare everyone into immobility for the rest of the game. Sigh.

 LeadLegion wrote:
Infinity is the one game that Andy has a rep as a hard player to beat,

Says who? I'm as crap at this as I am at everything else.

I forgot that you are allowed to deploy on top of buildings unless otherwise specified (which reminds me; I need to build some roof hatches for those pieces), so got owned by the sniper. I think the Tiger Soldiers are going back into the painting queue soon.

I got that laser pointer from Maelstrom ages ago. Clearly, that's not a useful recommendation.