Inifnity Batrep: Commercial Conflicts on Planet Dawn

Planet Dawn: Hospitaller hostage rescue OP vs USARF border forces. Long, long ago - Andy was really keen on this game called Infinity, by Corvus Belli. He even printed out all the 2nd Ed rules and tokens in full colour. Then I think we made a cool Fallout Skirmish game instead. As part of that, Andy made some amazingly detailed wasteland terrain.  1950s cars all rusted sitting up on the broken highway over-pass, Hydroponics station, corrugated iron shanties with posters and interior furniture, you get the idea. Then I think I got heavily into X-Wing or whatever my next flavour of the month was and didn't even look at Infinity until Operation Icestorm. So Andy was understandably sceptical when suddenly we are all playing Infinity again. However, he did host me for a 200pt game of my Military Orders vs his USAriadna (using Empress miniatures Kiwis as proxies).

+++ESTABLISHING BATTLESPACE CONNECTION+++
+++PLANET DAWN WESTERN WASTES 2178.10.19:50 LOCAL TIME+++
+++TUITIO FIDEI ET OBSEQUIUM PAUPERUM+++ 

+++MILITIA LIEUTENANT IDENTITY CONFIRMED+++
+++USARF REBELS HAVE HOSTAGES+++
+++SECURE CIVILIANS AND TERMINATE TERRORIST+++

 I won the roll off and chose deployment. Andy chose first turn. No advanced rules so I couldn't use a token to reduce his order pool. We were going to allow the use and reforming of link/Harris teams but no Hackers. I don't know what objectives Andy drew but he did get Ambush and so revealed my 'kill the pigeon' objective. This guy is a big man in the local 'Militia', and wanted for war-crimes. Here he is considering the error of his terrorist ways as the PanOceania Military Orders close in. That made it his objective to stop me. My other objectives were to get to the enemy deployment zone, get out of mine and avoid going into retreat.

The Missions were YAMS by IJW Wartrader. I much prefer these to ITS as the game is four turns, rather than three, and taking objectives does not require specialists. I find the requirement to put Forward Observers into a list just so they can 'push a button' a little arbitrary. So this system allows the game to be about more than killing each other, while still making a wider range of lists work. My Lt and his backup have just rescued a local (it is my 'flag') and sure are hoping he isn't one of Andy's objectives as they are about to bug out and move forward.

Andy's USARF Grunts are in a link-team holed up in this compound. Andy had initially set up a nice table with Jungle pieces, overpass and a couple of buildings. I got there and immediately stated we needed more LOS blockers. Andy has a lot more terrain made to play moderns with. Some buildings set down the middle of the table to block LOS and we were off.

Andy had first turn, so once his force was down, I deployed the Magister Knight strike team forward, with LOS to and from his Marauder Sniper with my missile launcher. Once the over-watch forces were neutralised, he and the three backup guys with swords and shot-guns would immediately rush that terrorist in the middle. They were backed by an Order Sergeant with AUX-BOT and (out of shot) an Indigo Spec-OPs with Multispectral Visor and Demo charges.

Andy's reserve miniature was a Foxtrot sniper deployed as a camo-token on an elevated position in his back-corner. My reserve model was something... Infinity has true hidden deployment on some models, others have special deployment options, so  wait and see. I did know that he had two more camo tokens forward deployed near the Terrorist lieutenant.

And so ensued our demonstration of Infinity ARO mechanics. Here the LOS is from Andy's side of the table, in the sniper nest, over some shanties (hiding the terrorist and Andy's two Foxtrots) all the way under the highway overpass to my deployment zone. And I had deployed the Magister Knight in full LOS. Andy gets two shots per order with his sniper rifle... but I get two shots for every reaction through having a missile launcher in the link-team.

First round of fire is inconclusive, due to intervening foliage,so he shoots again. No surprise-shot penalty this time and I get a missile through. AP+EXP ammo sees off the Foxtrot sniper as the first casualty of the game. So then he tries it next with his Marauder Sniper out of the Harris link-team. He gets +1 burst but again I get a missile through and having to take armour saves vs a missile is... bad.

Almost half his orders down and two Snipers lost, Andy takes a different tack. A Foxtrot ranger vault out the window in the Shanties, and I send a pair of missiles sailing above his head in ARO. ARO mean 'Automatic Reaction Order' by the way. Reaction fire. Then the Foxtrot suck around the side of that highway overpass and unleashed his Heavy Flamethrower Grenade Launcher on my link team, all bunched up under the bridge. I opt to dodge and everyone leaps clear with only one Magister having to pass an armour save.

Then it's my turn. Sure in Infinity 'it's always your turn' but in MY turn I get to advance. First up is the sniper in hidden deployment. Its an Order Sergeant Sniper revealed out of TO camo, using surprise shot on those USARF grunts arranged around the hostage in the compound below.

Yes my decision was to try a burst 2 sniper vs 5 AROs (4 grunts including HMG and the Marauder Lt). I actually survived the first and second round of fire due in no small part to the surprise shot penalty on my opponent.

Predictably, the sniper did not have the better side of that exchange though and fell in a torrent of HMG fire after killing only one USARF Grunt. So plan A: to kill the guys guarding the hostage, was a failure. Good thing that hostage rescue is only a victory condition insofar as it serve PanO PR purposes then...

So there was nothing for it, I decided to risk the reaction fire of that Grenade launching Foxtrot Ranger and begin the march on the terrorist leader.  Boom goes the explosive round and this time the Spec Ops Brother Konstantinos goes down and another Magister Knight takes a wound. The AUX-BOT also dies, as it dodges poorly. I will note at this satge that I painted three models just for this game: the Sniper, the Spec Ops Brother, and the AUX-BOT. The curse of the newly painted is real.

With the Ranger dead to a Missile to the face, the Magister Link-team finally moved forward. I started work on the Grunts on the compound roofs. Luckily for the first round, the HMG was blocked from shooting back by one of their own guys. Then that guy went down. Another inconclusive exchange of fire ensued so I decided to just 'move out'.

All four Magisters surged forward. I made the shotgun guy link-leader and tried to gun down the terrorist leader when he cowered in terror. Summary Justice was the only option due to lack of resources to handle prisoners in-theatre. My shots went wide though, and I was out of orders.

Turns out the one guy I did kill with that running Missile launcher shot was the enemy Lt! So Andy got to experience 'loss of Lieutenant'. Rather than pooling his orders to spend on his models as he chose, every model had to spend their own order on themselves. His HMG tried to gun down the one Magister Knight he could see. The Knight only had a shotgun and his two-shot (limited ammo) panzerfaust. So I fired both shots off in reaction as he was way too far away to hit with a shotgun. Amazingly, I actually hit. The Grunt with HMG somehow earned a Purple-Heart though as he survived all three armour rolls from the explosive weapon. He had another guy shoot at the same model, out of ammo the Knight dodged back out of LOS. Then he used his last order to sneak around his remaining Foxtrot and shoot me in the back. He won the shootout but my Knight's armour saved the day.

We had to stop it there as it was already 10pm, threatening bad weather and I needed to get back across town. Good game Andy. That Missile launcher allowed me to get out ahead early but I still had to grind forward and would have needed at least a couple more turns to complete my objectives. We had a lot of good discussion about the game and I think that Andy may just continue with using Moderns figures for some kind of Ariadna force for now. He was looking at Tohaa but same lists for 300pts weren't cheap and there is something to be said for learning the myriad of different abilities in this guy before buying models.

Andy's terrain is amazing BTW. Best looking and most playable table I have played Infinity on so far. So all that work on Post Apoc  and Moderns terrain has definitely paid off. Hope to get another game on it soon.

Thanks for reading.