Firefight! A space monkey's view. Part 1

  Greetings.  Sorry for the long hiatus, myself and Lowie have been busy trying our hand at the new WWII 28mm game, Bolt Action from Warlord Games, but that is a story for another blog!  Our games of Infinity have been pretty sporadic lately, but between Lowie, Cohen and myself (with most the work being done for the other two) we managed to organise a small tournament to try and garner more interest in Infinity locally, to provide more opponents for the charnel houses.

  The tournament, called Firefight!, consisted of four 150 point battles per player using the YAMS mission system.  We had 10 players and managed to cruise through the rounds quite quickly, the whole tournament taking about 6 hours with a stoppage for lunch.  We had some help from Slave to Painting, who generously supplied us with vouchers as prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions.  These guys frequently have great deals and amazing customer interaction/support.  Definately a great source for Infinity and other hobby needs.

My kilted opponent playing another player later in the day.

  I took my MAF again.  My list consisted of a Yaogat Lt., a 5 man Daturazi link team (4 with Chainrifles, 1 with a Light Smoke Grenade Launcher) and a Rasyat with Spitfire.  My first battle was against a vanilla Ariadnan force, my opposing commander even donning a kilt in an attempt to please the dice gods.  It definately worked, as I had a bad start to the day.  My link team crossed the fairly open ground to move on a Traktor MUL, Dozer and Loup Garou, but my over eager Witch-Soldiers fumbled with their smoke grenades when I tried to throw them through smoke clouds to chain a nice path of smoke to the enemy.  I ended up expending too many orders, so my link team dove into some nearby cover.  My Rasyat held off until an opening appeared.
 

The battlefield for the first battle, it had a few open
spaces that I foolishly tried to cross.

  My opponent moved an Irmandinho up, so my Daturazi dropped a smoke screen, but the Ariadna was focused and he used an intuitive shot to chainrifle my team.  My return fire killed the impetuous pup but I also lost 2 Daturazi.  This was to be the recurring story of this game.  Each time my Daturazi would chainrifle an Ariadnan, their return ARO would kill me and I was soon down to just my Yaogat and Rasyat.  Needing to get into my enemies' deployment zone and capture his flag, my Rasyat threw caution to the wind and drop down next to the Ariadnan flag but his camoflaged Chassuer flamed him to a crisp before he could react.  I ended the game with just my Lt. left and my opponent had 2 Traktor MULs and a Highlander Grey.  I lost 2 objective points to 3.  Our scoring system for the tournament used a Flames of War style system, where because I lost and killed between 33%-66% of my enemies force, I received 2 victory points (VP), while my opponent gained 5.  He was a new player to Infinity, but a long time wargamer and played very well, definantly a well deserved victory for him.

  My second battle was against another fairly new player who was running one of Cohen's Haqq-Islam lists.  It had a Maghariba Guard, Naffatun with Heavy Flamethrower and 3 Ghulam Riflemen, one being his Lt.  My objectives for the game called for me to kill his Maghariba for 2 of them, his Lt. for another and not be in retreat.  He had first turn and managed to put two suppressive fire lanes over my link team but they managed to conceal themselves with smoke.  Not wanting to activate them, I held off on my Rasyat again, and moved my Yaogat up to Panzerfaust his Maghariba.  This was where my lucky flew out the window.  My opponent decided he didnt want to give up the suppressive fire on my link team and proceeded to let my Yaogat blaze away, but with 2 Panzer shots and 4 shooting actions with my Combi-rifle, I only managed to inflict 1 point of structural damage to his Maghariba.

  

The Ghulam HMG that kept my Daturazi pinned down.

  Then in my opponents second turn, he gunned down my Yaogat and again laid suppressive fire on my Daturazi, pinning them.  I had really deployed them in a bad position.  My deployment is probably my weakest part of my game, as I seem to leave my poor Witch-Soldiers in often poor positions straight from the onset.  Anyway, I dropped my Rasyat down on the Maghariba's flank and elected him as my new Lt., then opened up on the enemy TAG with my Spitfire.  I fared better and eventually managed to kill it even with it turning and then attempting to return fire on my second shooting attempt.  Then on my opponent's next turn his Naffatun managed to get up to my Daturazi who'd been pinned for 2 turns.  It was messy.  I lost 3 Daturazi but managed to kill the Naffatun.  I then lost my last 2 Daturazi but managed to kill a Ghulam.  This left my Rasyat vs. 2 Ghulams, one with a HMG in a commanding perch above the battlefield.

The Ghulam Rifles fanned out to pick apart
the remains of my Daturazi.

  My Rasyat dashed through some open ground to get a bead on the last Ghulam riflemen who I assumed was my enemies' Lt.  His HMG Ghulam missed and my Rasyat cut down the riflemen.  When the smoke had cleared, we both had achieved 3 objectives.  Sadly, I was in retreating, having only my Rasyat left.  Being such a bloody battle (we each had less then 33% of our forces left), we both received 3 VPs.  After two battles I was on a measy 5 VP.  It was going to be a hard road to catch up to the forerunners of the tournament, one of whom was one of my follow bloggers who'd garnered 12 VPs after his first 2 games.  The results of my final 2 games and overall placings will have to wait for another blog, I must return to my command post and begin seeking replacements for my casualities!

 

Some pictures of the latest stuff

Some pics for your enjoyment!  About 300pts of Ariadna (painted by me); 150pts of Haqqislam (painted by a friend of all of us who is a very good painter; the Crates and Civvies for our upcoming 150pt tourney, Firefight; and some nearly finished terrain I've been working on, of which you've all seen a few pics.  In the foreground of Terrain Photo 1 is the Mag-Lev train, printed from the downloadable file. It also comes with the iKubes in the centre of the table.

Thanks for reading!

Not dead yet!

We are still here.  We promise.  But between work, family and other commitments, it has been a while since any of us have sat down to write things up!  Sorry!  Hopefully in the next month or so things will settle a little more and we'll be able to show you some of the games and terrain and cool stuff.

Okay?  Thanks!

Cork buildings basecoated

Greetings!

Just a couple of photos to add of my corkboard buildings.  I've added a rim around the edge of the previous one, where once the roof was fixed in place, to support a removable 'lid'.  It will be made of cardboard that has been corrugated.  The larger two pieces are the one building, which will be joined together (very soon, I hope).  They represent a mechanic's workshop or similar.

As with the cardboard buildings, there's a lot of work to do in the detailing.  I'm not sure just specifically what my approach with these will be, except to add the roofs, and inner floors for the larger building.  I'm thinking the section above the entrance (the two bigger doors) will be relatively open, with a walkway around the top.  I'll have to see how it turns out when I get to work on it.

But... so far so good.  I've enjoyed the projects and am looking forward to playing games on tables that sport these buildings!

Cheers!

Working hard

 Okay, so this post will be mainly pictures.  I've been working on terrain, on a bunch of buildings and today the accoutrements I bought from Antenociti's Workshop arrived. I ordered some computer panels for various hacking points, some door panels for each of the buildings and some interior furniture.  The other thing I ordered was a set of planter boxes.  I'd like to move away from the grimdark feel of GW's terrain offerings.

In fact, the look I'm aiming for at the moment is an outpost of some description, most likely something along the lines of mining exploration.

None of the buildings pictured are finished, merely basecoated.

So.  I might not get many games due to studies, work and family, but by George I'll have a good looking table when it happens!

Cheers!

The Migrant Fleet Approaches!

Hey all! Lowie here, been along time since i posted; living under a rock and all (and kept failing my PH rolls to lift said rock). After a rage quit from PanO's last failed game i have looked at what i can do within the game. I discovered that i actually really like the Nomad models and decided to build a list based on the Bakunen Jurisdictional Command. Some Moderators for a LINK team, 3 Sin Eaters to be auto-turrets. Two infiltrating glue guns and some other useful bits and bobs (don't want to give away all my tricks to potential opponents who read this :P). Overall synergised well in tonight's game against Cohen where we played a mission, the name fails me at this stage. At the end of the game Cohen had 1 model left and it was still a draw! (Mrs Cohen would have damaged me if i kept her husband away from the house any longer i think :S ; but of course I kid for effect.)

once the new job starts to produce more funds for me i shall purchase my metal warriors and start showing painting. Until next time!

...More games!

The games we played a while back were interesting.  Still at 150pts, I played both Skorpious' Morat Aggression list and Lowie's Military Orders (MO) list.

Skorpious' list was something like 2 Morats and a Morat paramedic (linked), a Yaogat with sniper rifle and a Yaogat with Combi Rifle and panzerfaust.  The thing that's confusing me about that is that it's only 125pts, so I'm missing something.  I chose the table edge (the top of the picture) and put all my guys behind cover, one Line Kazak (LK) on either side to protect my flanks, and one more LK in the centre with the HMG and the Veteran Kazak (VK).  My Chasseur and Foxtrot Ranger were awaiting Infiltration deployment.  Skorpious deployed his sniper (whichever it was!) up in the two-storey building next to the landing platform, the other Yaogat in the centre of the board (visible in the first picture, and the three Morats on the far right side, just visible.  My Chasseur deployed behind the green street sweeper, laying a mine out between the yellow truck and the cork building.  The Ranger deployed on top of said building, right on the half-way point.  Both were in Camo.

Quickly both Skorpious and I saw that the Ranger was exposed and he tried to discover her.  As a reaction, she ducked out of view but they'd seen her.  She was trapped now between the Suppression from the sniper and from the other Yaogat on the ground.  The Morats moved up closer.  My forces moved up, sticking to cover as much as possible.  The LK on the right moved up and lay down Suppression Fire to a firing line along the edge of the board to block the Morat advance, the LK with HMG doing the same from the edge of the big building.  The left-side LK ran up, aiming to flank the sniper.  The VK also moved up, but with very limited visibility to the other side of the table.

The first blood of the match was to me in ARO when one of the Morats came into LoF.  He went down, dropping the Morats out of their link team mode.  The Yaogats manoeuvred a little, the sniper hugging cover more closely and the Yaogat on the ground trying to get a bead on the sniper.  Suppression fire was renewed.  I renewed my LK's suppression, kept my flanking LK on the move (in cover) and pushed up the centre with the rest.  The Ranger restarted her Camo and went prone, moving up to the edge of the building and avoiding the Suppression fire from below.  The Chasseur crept up closer too, still in camo.

More fire was exchanged through the building, with another Morat dropping, but revived by the paramedic.  One side of the battle was focussed through the buildings (the cork one, mid right) and finished with the Vanguards on that side down (crits for the win!), and one of my LKs.  The other model lost there was the Chasseur, who found himself open to attacks from behind, fire coming in from the Morats prior to them going down.  This was another of the rules that I found tough to deal with.  The Chasseur is being shot at, but until the bullets actually hit him, he doesn't turn around.  On the forums it was described as too much noise in the surrounds, or silenced weapons, but the more I think about it, the less I like it.

The other thing I'll have to do is house-rule the windows on the buildings.  If Skorpious and Lowie agree, we'll make them see-through-able, but not able to be shot through without either breaking the window first (short skill?) or shooting it out.

The final part of the battle consisted of a lone LK flanking and shooting down the Yaogat (who on consultation wasn't a sniper but an HMGer!) and the Vet Kazak taking the last Yaogat full on.

The second game was against Lowie's list: 3 Order Sergeants with Combi Rifles (linked), a Spec. Sergeant with Sniper Rifle, a Teutonic Knight with Combi Rifle and a Magister Knight with Panzerfaust (basically just the starter).

I'll describe this one in a little less detail, since time is short!  I deployed at the bottom of the picture, my Vet Kazak centre, two LKs and the HMG on the left in buildings or near the crates and a lone LK on the right covering the flank. My Chasseur deployed just inside the halfway mark, behind the green truck, laying a mine 8" farther out.  The sniper rolled for and got prime position in the bombed-out two-storey building in the upper left.  Lowie deployed his meagre forces within his zone, the specialist sergeant (SS) sniper with TO Camo emerging on top of the grey bombed-out building at upstage centre.  His link team of Order Sergeants (OS) came down the flank to the right.

The Magister's first move took him in contact with the mine, taking a wound and attracting a shot from the sniper.  The TO sniper took out my sniper quickly after that and proceeded to dominate the centre of the board.  The Chasseur kept up the pressure in the centre, but didn't do much else.  The action was on the right flank, with the LK there killing off all three members of the OS link team.  This left the flank wide open and after a few turns of dying in the centre of the board, I was able to move my Vet Kazak and Chasseur to threaten the remaining minis - the SS and the Teuton.  Concurrent with that, the LK on the flank simply ran around the edge of the map (much as in the previous match) and ended up taking out the sniper with sheer weight of fire.  It was glorious!  The Teutonic Knight died soon after.  I'd had to sacrifice my Chasseur, but it was worth it, as was the flanking manoeuvre.

So there you have it.  Two battle reports, two wins.  I've played two more games since then, one scenario game with Skorpious (who's described it well) and another with another friend to show him the game.  I left my HMG Kazak on the top of a tall building and he died turn one.  After that it was pretty much down hill!  I lost that game to a man.

Cheers!