Adepticon Tournament Report

So over the last weekend I had participated in the Adepticon 2-Day Satelitte Tournament. While a good amount of our local guys made it down, there was a good amount from the greater Midwest region of the US and a good amount that came from California and other regions. 

At the end I'll post the faction breakdowns and who the overall winner was but I wanted to go through my games.

So a spoiler to the set-up, I went 2-3 but all my losses for the most part were really close games. I got 30th which is not the top half of the rankings I think I did well all things considered.

Game 1 vs. White Company (Power Pack) Win 6-4:

So this was a more contentious game I felt a bit bad for winning but I managed to get a 6-4 due to the fact I had flipped both consoles and managed to have a turn where I camped on his objective with the Fiday. 

I won the LT and decided to choose deployment since I wanted to have what I thought was the better side and then force him to go first. In general there was a good trade of both of us losing our units but he managed to kill more since most of the time I had avoided his linked Haidao sniper that was watching a lane he could see. His last turn he had his Guilang walk over to my console since I didn't have anyone standing up, but come my turn I managed to shoot it off and made an attempt to get someone on his console and failed.

The contentious part of this game is were my opponent had pressed the antenna first, but decided not to flip them back after I had activated them. And this was him believing that the Activated antenna in Power Pack account for both players and not the one who activated it last. As I explained it to him at the end of the game, I could sense he felt robbed of a game he could have won. And if he had remembered that part, I definitely think he would have won with one more point over me and his play on his last turn to have Hawkwood and the linked sniper watch over his console was a solid tactic to avoid me getting the console.

Game 2 vs. Dahshat (Unmasking) Win 7-3: 

There were some deployment and play mistakes I had made this game, but in general I think I had done the best I could to pull the victory from the Jaws of near defeat.

I won the LT roll, which I took first turn in order to get the drop on one of his HVTs if possible. I held back my two Fidays which of course one got locked up by a Liberto mine layer. Kind of sucks but is to be expected since I assumed he wanted to protect the real HVT. 

First turn comes up, which I try to get the console far up the building. The Barid KHD gets shot, so now I had to shift my game plan, so my Asawira+Rafiq duo had to reach the middle one and managed to kill one of decoys. The only thing I really managed to put down is his Rui Shi. 

My opponent's first turn came up and he managed to get a lot done. He managed to repair his Rui Shi after not electing to impetuous with McMurrough. He gets the left console and managed to guess the right one and kill it with McMurrough. McMurrough had managed to do a decent amount of damage this game, but managed to put him down. During this he managed to position his Haris to grab the button next turn. That said I was down on some major pieces to kill his models. 

The rest of the game, I had managed to kill the Haris with the Krakot renegade, flip the rest of the consoles to get his other decoy and his main one, and be managed to only switch one of the three I pressed (especially the annoying one on top of the building). The main HVT of his was killed by a guided missile, and kept him from flipping both. So I was cautiously confident going into the third round since I was doing pretty well at this point.

Game 3 vs. Kosmoflot (Supplies) Loss 2-3:

So this game was played against John Carlson (aka MooingFish) of the Swiss Miss Gaming podcast. Knowing he was playing Kosmoflot I had to snap pick first turn if I can, grab a box or two if I can and then have a defensive set-up against his bears if he had them...

Which guessing correct, he was running a double bear list and Mirage-5 so I had to set-up my Ghazis Jammers at certain defensive points to stop either his bears or Duroc and make a mess of my backline. I set up my Fiday by some stairs to see if I could bait him into spending orders on him. IIRC he electric to strip orders from the small group the Fiday was in. 

First turn comes, and I managed to complete most of my objectives I had wished to do. Both of my Muhktar models went NWI to Uxia's shotgun template but managed to put her down so I could get the box and then put my Muhktar Red Fury in suppressive while my Muhktar hacker ran back with the box to hide. His first turn he had to contend with Knauf and Muhktar Red Fury watching his deployment zone and his bears unable to run up under the cover of smoke. That is when he brings in Margot and shot and Knauf, killing him. Then he moves her up and then kills my doctor and then tries to kill my Muhktar hacker, but gets clipped by my Ghazi's chain rifle and went unconscious afterwards. Sadly I revealed my Nadhir a bit too early thinking I could get the drop on Margot but she was just out of range of my Flammenspeer.

Second turn comes around and all we both managed to do is get some stuff moved up.  My turn but I lost my Fiday to an unlucky crit from his Rokot but managed to guided missile one of his pieces to get a free kill as I move my Muhktar hacker back. Then I put my Muhktar and Nadhir in suppressive fire. He tries to grab the box but multiple failures means he had to waste more orders on it than expected. Then he uses UKR to engage my Nadhir in suppressive fire but my Nadhir managed to live and put UKR in NWI.

Our last turn I failed to get the box from his Irmandino who grabbed it, putting both my Asawira and Rafiq into unconscious just to get the job done. However my Asawira managed to make his Regen roll and basically watched the box he failed to pick up. All my opponent managed to do was run up with William Wallace and get a classified.

In the end he managed to win 3-2 because we both had boxes but managed to do a classified over me. Which in fairness, this was the most fun game of the tournament I had. Now I was going into day two with a 2-1 record.

Game 4 vs. USARF (Countermeasures) Loss 2-5:

This game was against a local by David Clark. Since he won the LT roll, he electric table side and I got the first turn. This would play into how the game went on since he managed to get a table side that got his Marauder sniper watching most of my side of the table, which made it hard to maneuver around. The first mistake I made was not using my Fiday to hunt his obviously where it would have not stopped his Marauder sniper, he would have had the first turn to do anything. Instead I have wasted a bunch of orders trying to take out his linked sniper and then only get a classified. Then he had his first turn where he maneuvered the rest of his big link, and he kept healing since he kept making his saves from being outright killed by my Nadhir. 

Second turn comes around and I managed to get another classified but I only managed to kill some chaff and that is it. His Wardriver survived my attack, in which he used to have his total reaction Traitor Mul to kill my Muhktar Red Fury in his turn and then got three classified in one go.

In the third turn, I was in retreat. The best I could do was try to grab one more classified since the rest were hard to grab. However the last classified grab I failed the roll and then called it there. 

This one was close on objectives but with some other play, I definitely think I could have done better with this game.

Game 5 vs. Military Orders (Decapitation) Loss 4-5:

This is the case of essentially having a game in the bag, and then going too hard for points that I wasted my advantage.

I won the initiative and decide to take the first turn. This mean I set up first, which I put most everything in a defensive set-up, save for the two Fidays and Knauf I held back to set up after his HVT drop. While not having a hacking network like Nomads, I still set up in a way to protect Saladin from a Santiago drop or have my opponent come in from the side. He sets up having his link hiding but defending the lane if possible, and his Sepulcher knight in a defensive position where it would be hard for him to get to without a good expenditure of orders but in a position to strike when needed. As expected he also had a Raveneye with E/M mines and a hidden deployment Trinitarian minelayer with a regular mind.

My first turn comes around and I use it to basically use my Krakot to take out his two HVTs instead of my Fidays to use them for later. The Krakot managed to trip both of the mines, take out a couple bots (especially a flash pulse bot that managed to blind Knauf for a turn) and put a wound on the Sepulcher knight after guessing the correct one. The rest of the turn for me was repositioning and protecting my right-most HVT. His first turn came around and managed to do a lot of damage with a Crusader Brethren. First he used his Sepulcher Knight to kill my Krakot but I managed to put him down in an rather unlucky armor roll. Then he went on his attack run with his Crusader Brethren. During this I revealed my Liberto to try and stop him but failed. My Ghulam Doctor, regular Ghulam, missile bot and Liberto died so now I felt like I was down on points. 

Turn two came around and my main goal was to try and get rid of his Brethren, which Knauf managed to do after an great expenditure of orders but then I managed to have my Awasira duo run up and do a decent amount of damage by taking out his Order Sergent HRL and his Raveneye but managed to e/m mine my Rafiq. Kind of sloppy but it was still worth amount the damage I did. I end with my Asawira repositioned into my deployment zone and then watch over the approach into my DZ and then the flank. His turn comes around and he brings his knight in, he kills my other Ghulam and then I stopped him in his tracks, backing up an attack he made when he realized that Knauf would get him out in the open. This is were he revealed his Trinitarian and killed my HVT, and then saved against the mine I laid the turn earlier. Then he ended his turn there. 

Third round is where I threw away the victory I had by trying to get more points. This was more due to using my Fidays very aggressively to kill his models, and then Al-Jabel had wasted a bunch of orders trying to kill both the EVO bot and his Teuton LT. Here what I have should have done is hold back a few orders to reposition my Fidays and have them re-impersonate to give them a layer of protection. The last turn of the game comes around and he engaged my Fidays. One I tried to shotgun with his Order Sergent who he healed, and we both died. And then I tried to smoke with Al-Jabel and then he died, which my opponent ended his turn there. 

The game ended in a 4-5 win to my opponent, with my amount alive was 6 points off from what my opponent had left. This was a great game but it came down to me getting tunnel-visoned and then some bad luck. I'd say it was one of the closest games of the event.

Final Thoughts:

While I had a 2-3 record for the event, the main tournament was great fun. While I had played the two other events, I wanted to focus on the main event.

This was my first time doing a vanilla army instead of a sectorial, and a non-PanO army. While I view myself of as mainly a Sectorial player, I wanted to spend the year playing Vanilla armies to get more out of my comfort zone. I found vanilla Haqqislam a great departure but similar to how I like to play most of my other armies that are not PanO sectorials. When I go back to sectorials, I might grab my Hassassins and given them a go, along with JSA since the new O-Yoroi dropping. 

Sorry for the delay on this post but I tend to be slow with write-ups and kind of wanted to decompress from talking about Infinity for a bit. Though I plan to get back to writing battle reports, with some vanilla ALEPH coming up. And a possibily long-winded post about a primarily sectorial player playing Vanilla armies.

Pre-Adepticon Adepticon (or The Evening Setup of The Two Day Tournament)

With Adepticon nearly two weeks away, I can assume many are trying to get painting goals done and trying to work out lists. As for me I am quite excited to come back to Adepticon for my second year, especially since I am planning to do four days' worth of Infinty events. This is something I might regret later but going to enjoy the day of. 

While I am planning to do the narrative event and duos tournament, the main focus of this post is to talk about the five main missions of the ITS event. The mission lineup is Power Pack, Unmasking, Supplies, Countermeasures and Decapitation. The faction I am taking- due in part of Critposting's 'democracy'- is vanilla HaqqIslam. 

In truth, this actually works out well since for the most part HaqqIslam can do all these missions quite easily. For the most part, I have built my lists to tackle the mission line-up. I hope to place in the top half if I can, if not I am there to have fun and see some people I have not seen in a while.

So here is my lists I am planning to take and why I have made my lists like this:

List One: Power Pack/Unmasking/Decapitation 

Since Unmasking and Decapitation require you to kill HVTs, it seemed like a no-brainer to take a list that both ran a regular Fiday and Al-Jabel. If I was going to do that for those missions, I figured I would make this list my Power Pack since I can use the Fidays to either camp on his console to rack up objective points as well as forcing the opponent in an awkward position they would need to deal with turn 1.

Saladin is the lieutenant since he does have NWI and the identity of the LT is known in Decapitation. While it does make him a potential target his value bringing that extra command token and order each turn will help to squeeze out one or two more orders to get the mission done. Hackers and guided missiles are here to give me another attack vector if needed, with my main guns in the list being my Asawira Spitfire in a duo with the Rafiq and Knauf. Zuleyka and of course (and the surprise Krakot) makes an appearance since she will provide corner guard duty and smoke until I can use her to make an attack run to do as much damage as I can.

The rest of the list is my backup specialists like the doctor, as well as the chaff and order monkeys. There is only one Daylami instead of two or more to give me an option to have the Liberto lock down a lane or be a potential held back to lock up any enemy Impersonators to protect Saladin.

List Two: Supplies/Countermeasures

Since these missions are more specialist heavy, I changed a few things around from the other list to this one. Running both the Muhktar and Awasira+Rafiq Duos, this gives me enough coverage on the board to get the supply boxes and most classifieds in the deck. The largest omission in this list is any kind of Engineer. This is due in part to Haqq not having great access to an Engineer that can be generally useful. There is the Govad Engineer but needing other things for my list I decided to leave it out and hope the engineering classifieds do not pop up during the game that is Countermeasures. 

Naffatuns were chosen to be the lieutenant and decoy as the points were needed to have two Ghazis with Jammers to guard the DZ but potentially lock out the opponent's specialists. The Nadhir can act to grab the box in Supplies or stop the opponent from doing so.

Final Thoughts:

While I am happy with these lists for the most part, the one mission I may struggle with the most is Countermeasures if I cannot get the first turn. That said, I am confident in my lists to get it done.

I hope to see you all at Adepticon if you come! 

Battle Report 03: "A Certain Word" the Police (HaqqIslam vs. Starmada)

Hello again, and here is another battle report of my gaming adventures. This game was played on Thursday the 29th of September, against my good friend Vince. I was playing vanilla HaqqIslam yet again, against Vince's Starmada. This would be my second game against Starmada on the blog, but against a different opponent.

The mission was Frontline, playing with the new ITS 14 rules. 

The Lists: 

HaqqIslam: 

I have been running an approximate version of this list for a while now and enjoy it. It for the most part deal with enemy hacking presence outside of Nomads which it might struggle against or the more elite hacking elements of Combined Army like an Anthemathic. The first group also has a lot of orders to push but also Zuleyka to have that expendable attack piece to potentially do some damage, along with a Fiday to either scaple a piece out or in the case of this mission act as points in a zone. 

Knauf also acts as a really good long-range piece of if he has something standing up in ARO to deal with, along with guided to threaten him if needed. 

Starmada:

I will admit I have very little experience with Starmada listbuilding despite this being the second battle report against them. This is also a recreation off memory what he played so the groups may be wrong from what was in the battle, in which I think the core may have been in group one and various other things in group two. This said I think I am confident in saying this is what he was running. 

This said, the basis of this list is solid from what I know about Starmada. He does have some ways to threaten me from all sides and has a few forward deploying models to get into the zones, along with him having a few disposable warbands that can threaten me if I am not aware of how things are deployed. Overall, something I could consider a good list despite the shortcoming of what I see with Starmada and their lack of marker state units and some staples of O12 that they really miss out on. 

Deployment:

Having won the roll-off, I decided to take deployment with the table side I thought would be easier to defend against his attack. He deploys first, setting up his 5-man security team on his right side while his three-man team of Nyokas and a Epislon Multi sniper behind the building. He deploys a baggage bot near his security team but kept it hidden to have it be points in his closest zone for later. Later I would realize he had a Nyoka parachutist with Red Fury, which I had not deployed that well against but could manage to deal it with if it came up.

In my set up, I had Knauf deployed standing up against his Lawkeeper but could not see the Varangian that could move up and throw smoke and forgot his Epislon Multi sniper could get into a position to take a shot at Knauf. 

As a slight spoiler, later in the game I forgot I had my Guided ML bot which would deploy behind the advertisement board which is where I originally was going to place him but came up at a point where his Nyoka was making an attack run in Saladin. 

His held back was a mutlirifle crusher, which deployed on the building where I would eventually put my Taureg hacker in Hidden deployment. Then my held backs go down with my Fiday hiding on the building while the Taureg hacker stayed I hidden deployement to hide from it being hunted down by either his Nyokas, Crusher or his KHD Beta troopers.

Since Starmada had the first turn I docked two orders from him.

Round 1

Turn 1: Starmada

Realizing he had a good chance to shoot Knauf off the board, he impetuous with his Varangian and throws smoke in the area in front of the two saturation zones and Knauf. Next order he then positions his Epislon Multi Sniper to engage Knauf and fires. In a situation where I should have dodge but shooting because I thought there was a recent FAQ that made shooting through smoke with MSV 1 was -3 instead of -6. However, I managed to win the engagement and his Epislon Sniper went down.

This is where my opponent realizes he has good chance to put me in LoL potentially, so he walks in a parachutist Nyoka Red Fury. When walking up to the building he got close to my hacker which I went to spotlight it. This is where I remember that I had missile bot and finally placed it where it was as spoiled before.

So not wanting to take two potential AROs, he goes for my missile bot but my missile bot manages to get a hit and kills the Nyoka. My opponent talked about it at the game but had he ignored the missile and went for Saladin I potentially would have been in a worse position since I'd be starting in LoL for my first turn. 

The last couple things for that turn he used his Crusher to get the Sabotage classified and bunkered up on top of the center building. Then he went on an attack run with his Betatrooper KHD went my Ghazi set up to run in and attack next turn due to dodges and Knauf finally being killed.

Turn 1: HaqqIslam

Since his Crusher had a good position to see my ghazi on the right and middle, the units that went impetuous was the BSG+E/Marat Ghazi on the farmost left and threw smoke. During this I spent and order to move the Ghazi up the stairs and took a shot at the Betatrooper, but the Betatrooper managed to make its dodge. Then I spent Zuleyka's actual order since I did not want to risk losing Zuleyka to his turret, which she then threw smoke down to block its line of sight. Then the Muhktar Duo moved up, with the Red Fury having to take a couple orders to shoot his turret off the table. 

The rest of the turn was me repositioning my Muhktar duo back, then the last couple orders I had one of my Barid KHDs in essence bully the Betatrooper which he takes a wound here. Then I spent the remaining orders with the Ghazis group to take out the Betatrooper and complete my Extreme Prejudice classified.

Round 2

Turn 2: Starmada

Since Knauf was out of the picture, my opponent was able to run his Lawkeeper up the board so he could attack Saladin and attempt to put me in Loss of Lieutenant. In this he managed to get my Missile bot down, but my turret managed to hold him up for a couple orders. Then his bike went up, soon engaging Saladin but Saladin managed to tank his saves while his Lawkeeper went down. Then she switches tactics to his Crusher which he attacks my Ghazi but the ghazi but the ghazi managed to make both it's dodges on the two orders be spent on the crusher to hide.

The other thing of note in his turn is that his Nyoka Multirifle to attack my Muhktar hacker, which in the exchange it loses and then goes unconscious. In the process, I had realized I scored Telemetry earlier because of the spotlight AROs.

Turn 2: HaqqIslam

Deciding that the Ghazi was in a good position to attack, he uses his impetuous order to run up against the Crusher. The Crusher elects to Nanopulser me and the Barid KHD nearby in which tanked it save but the Ghazi went dogged but managed to kill the Crusher that was already in NWI.

I realized too late that I could have just put my Ghazi unconscious instead of Dogged to score the Experimental Drug classified but was kind of too late in the turn to dial it back.

During this turn though is when Zuleyka went on her attack run, which managed to force the Nyoka down but also put his flash pulse bot unconscious after doing some damage. The rest of turn was me shifting my duo around along with my BSG Ghazi who managed to kill his baggage bot to strip orders but also trying to avoid putting him in retreat. Which granted if I did in turn 2 I think I would have scored a 10-2 victory looking back at that game. However, I do think I was limited on orders to do both exactly so it would have been hard to pull off.

Round 3

Since the last round me and my opponent did not do much, I figured I'd wrap it up with a general idea how it went. Since he was a little over the threshold of retreat, he still had his orders to push his link team up into his closest zone. He engages Zuleyka once, but she manages to toss her smoke and ends that fight.

My turn then comes around, which I reveal my hidden deployed Taureg hacker to have him be points in the zone. This as well I reposition models to secure points in zones I know I can dominate. 

I end up winning 5-2 because I had my closest and middle zone with two classifieds, and he had his closest zone and a classified.

Final Thoughts:

While I think most of the game had gone in my favor, I think it could have gone in my opponent's favor and would have been a harder game if he had managed to put me in Loss of Lieutenant. The Deployment of Knauf was definitely risky but I feel if he was not watching the Law Keeper he would have done a lot of damage along with it. 

Anyways, fun game to my opponent and hope to see you soon!

Since it is October, it means it is Haqqtober. For now, I am maining vanilla Haqq more than I'd usually would but soon I'll be going back to my first love of PanOceania and give MO a go. 

Battle Report 02: (Somewhat) Irregular HaqqIslam Division (HaqqIslam Vs. Starmada)

 Heya, I figured I'd write up another battle report, this time writing one up for WiseKensai's Bromad Academy challenge. 

As a little disclaimer, I was going to write up a tournament report for one I participated a few weeks ago but I had lost the photos and one of my games was a bye, so I kind of lost the motivation to write it up. Though in the future, I'll definitely get one out even if I get a bye game I play. 

Moving onto the actual battle report, me and my opponent agreed to do a classic mission Hunting Party with the matchup being my HaqqIslam versus Starmada. If you are not familiar with the mission before, it was in previous ITS seasons in N3 but never got ported over to N4. Which I do find a shame because it is a mission where you cannot outright kill your opponent but have to 'capture' them in order to score points on top of having a couple buttons to press. In order to make it work, everyone gets stun pistols that shoot rounds that immobilize-A (for the purposes of this game, we treated them being like adhesive launchers that shoot at the range of a pistol), and veterans get adhesive launchers. 

HaqqIslam List:

Dice Abide Irregular challenge

──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1  8  / 2  / 1

 SALADIN (Lieutenant [+1 Command Token]) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser(+1B) / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 36)

 MUKHTAR (Multispectral Visor L2) Red Fury, Nanopulser(+1B) ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 36)

 MUKHTAR (Hacker, Hacking Device) Rifle, Light Shotgun, D-Charges ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 31)

 BARID (Hacker, Killer Hacking Device [UPGRADE: Trinity (-3)]) Rifle, Pitcher ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 15)

 BARID (Hacker, Killer Hacking Device [UPGRADE: Trinity (-3)]) Rifle, Pitcher ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 15)

 SHAYTANIYAH REMOTE Missile Launcher / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1.5 | 16)

 KNAUF MULTI Sniper Rifle / AP Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 32)

 FIDAY Rifle, Light Shotgun, Shock Mines, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 27)

 HUNZAKUT  (Forward Observer) Rifle, Light Shotgun, Shock Mines ( | Deployable Repeater) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 18)

 ZULEYKA Light Flamethrower(+1B), Smoke Grenades / Breaker Pistol(+2B), EXP CC Weapon. (0 | 12)

GROUP 23  

 LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 8)

 HAWWA' (Hacker, Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun, D-Charges ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 26)

 GHULAM (Doctor [+3]) Rifle, Light Shotgun ( | MediKit) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 15)

 NASMAT PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)

 DAYLAMI (Camouflage [1 Use], Infiltration) Light Shotgun, Panzerfaust / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 8)

 WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse ( ) / Stun Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)

 6 SWC | 301 Points

(Disclaimer: This list was played on the weekend before the change to ITS 14 so this list reflects what would have been a legal list in ITS 13)

Starmada List:

Opponent's List

──────────────────────────────────────────────────

 10  

 SALADIN (Lieutenant [+1 Command Token]) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser(+1B) / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 34)

 NYOKA (Forward Observer) MULTI Rifle, Chain-colt / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 23)

 EPSILON Heavy Machine Gun, Nanopulser / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 35)

 SHONA CARANO Submachine Gun, Nanopulser(+1B), Flash Pulse / Pistol, EXP CC Weapon. (0 | 27)

 CHAKSA LONGARM Missile Launcher, Pulzar / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 25)

 CHAKSA LONGARM Portable Autocannon, Pulzar / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 30)

 PSI-COp (Hacker, Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser(+1B) ( ) / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 24)

 KNIGHT OF SANTIAGO (Hacker, Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, D-Charges ( | TinBot: Firewall [-3]) / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 39)

 BRONZE Red Fury(+1 Dam) / Pistol, E/M CC Weapon, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (1 | 56)

 KYTTÄ Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 7)

 6 SWC | 300 Points

Initative Roll:

Winner: Starmada

Turn Order: Starmada
Deployment: HaqqIslam

Since my opponent decided on first turn, I elected to have him deploy first. Which he had a duo of a Bronze Red Fury+Santiago KHD on his right-hand side, with a Chaksa Longarms in the middle and a three-man core of a Epsilon HMG, Shona Corano, and Nyoka FO in the link. The Chaksa Longarms haris was three models he held in reserve thanks to Saladin and a command token. 

I deployed rather defensively save for the Daylami standing up and Fiday more forward than it should have been to force him to waste orders on it in theory. I also spread out my models to counter-deploy against a potential alpha strike he could have used to get into my DZ. The Liberto held down the left flank to have the HI duo slow down its potential advance some distance behind the Fiday. 

Round One:

Turn one: Starmada

Since he had only one command group, I strip two orders out of it but left him with 9 out of realistically 11 because of Saladin. Most of the turn, he moved up his duo to engage the Fiday with his Santiago and my camo Daylami with his Bronze Red Fury in the next few orders. He tries to discover with the knight but fails. Then he activates his Bronze Red Fury after he had managed to get the Daylami out of camo with his flash pulse both IIRC. While not the best situation I had my Daylami in, I decided to dodge to save my panzerfaust rounds I decide to dodge out of the way. While I had failed, I managed to pass both my armor saves he got on me and fail guts to go prone and out of line of sight. 

He decides then to use his Bronze to discover my Fiday, which he eventually does over the course of three orders to down him. The Knight then attacks him with a template, which I do the same but goes unconcious while his Santiago makes his save. Then he moves his Bronze back up on top of the building and holds it in ARO. 

Turn One: HaqqIslam

I needed to get rid of both the ML Chaksa Longarms that was standing up in ARO and potentially the Bronze if it could be done. So Zulyeka runs up with her bike with impetuous to move into a good position to throw smoke in the next order or so. However with must frustration and annoyance what should have been one order turn into three or four, and only block the line of the sight of the Bronze. So from there Knauf engaged ML Chaksa Longarms, but took orders to take him down. Then attacked the Bronze through smoke, which managed to oneshot him. 

This left me a few orders left, so I elected to do a coordinated order to move both my hacker and Knauf, this time moving Knauf out of line of sight and moving the Barid up to shoot his pitcher to land spotlight on his three-man core. With the few remaining orders in that group, Zuleyka moved back into full cover. 

Using my second order group then, the Panzerfaust Daylami stood back up and then the Liberto walked up to his Knight. While I went into this engagement expecting my Liberto to die and take a few orders to possibly kill the Santiago or at least put a wound on him, I got really lucky and one-shot his knight while my Liberto managed to tank his BTS save from the Nanopulser. The last order is him moving towards the wall and laying down a mine. 

Round 2: 

Turn Two: Starmada

Killing three out of 10 units in his list was a good trade for losing my Fiday's mispositioning, but he still had Saladin around and had a total of nine orders to play around with. So, in essence I did bring him down to his original orders he had after stripping two orders turn one. For the most part, his turn was him moving up his three-man core. I managed to get a few spotlights on the Epsilon HMG and Shona, but he managed to kill the Daylami and have Shona get into CC with my Mukhtar Red Fury and downed him. Other things of note for the turn is his Nyoka FO was immobilized in places, which gave me a point on the board. Then he spends a couple other orders to reposition his Epislon HMG and his flash pulse bot, but also Shona engaged Knauf but Knauf managed to live. During this my opponent managed to get the Predator classified IIRC. 

Turn Two: HaqqIslam

So in a slightly panicked state, I had moved Saladin up to try and shoot Shona to dislodge her and save Knauf. Which going as bad as I potentially expected, all my shots went into Knauf but he saved all but one so was just unconscious which I did not wish to happen. Then using the Hunzakut I had on the side and was not doing anything with, I shuffled the Hunzakut to engage Sona. Doing a surprise shot into Shona, she makes her dodge on a crit and engages with my Hunzakut which puts my progress back to square one. Not wanting to lose more models that could not act as shields for Saladin, I stop spending orders on that and view it as a lost cause for the most part. During this time his Nyoka managed to reset out of immobilized but managed to immobilize the FO again.

That's when we shift over to the one irregular order left on the Liberto in the second group, which for the most part I use to put his unconscious Santiago KHD in the immobilized state. This gives me another specialist of his locked down. There, we then reposition Zuleyka to engage Shona if she manages to escape. Before my turn ends my Al Hawwa Hacker managed to score the HVT hacking classified

Round 3

Turn 3: Starmada

Being that he is still down on points, he attempts to tie on specialists captured. Which due to my desperate play of trying to lock down Shona, she manages to immobilize the Hunzakut.  There, he then moved up with his flash pulse bot and then repositioned his ML Chaksa Longarm watching the lane Zukelya will go down if she takes impetuous. This also gives him a chance to lock down my Al Hawwa hacker, which he manages to immobilize instead of isolate. 

Turn 3: HaqqIslam

I needed to reset my Al Hawwa out of isolate but had to get rid of his flash pulse bot to do it. Zuleyka goes in to try and do it but she gets stunned by it after it passed all of its armor saves. Funny enough she does get hit with the missile but tanks all her armor saves. Since I could not make another attack with Zuleyka, the Liberto Minelayer is left to do it but manages to make it happen as the Flash pulse bot goes down. Next, I spend a few orders to get my Al Hawwa hacker out of its immobilized state, which takes his points off the board  I then use the Barid KHD and presses one of the consoles, which no wanting to risk any more potential danger I call the game there with me in the lead. 


HaqqIslam wins 5-1

Final Thoughts:

While the Hunzakut play could have been much better by laying a mine or two to deter Shona to some extent, I think it was the best play I could have done to stop Shona from getting to Saladin. 

While I am planning on playing HaqqIslam for the next few months, I think HaqqIslam is the premier faction to highlight irregular orders so I built my list to include what I find to be the four main archetypes.

1. The Impetuous troopers (as played by Zuleyka in this battle report)

While not all Impetuous troopers are irregular, I would say a good majority of profiles with impetuous tend to have the irregular order. Which I find gets used to great effect to push order efficiency unless you are put into a position where the trooper in question is locked in a place that is hard to move forward. However, these troopers tend to be very inexpensive and can be good to soften up your opponent's deployment zone if it is allowed to get into it. 

Granted in the game Zuleyka only provided smoke for Knauf and act as an corner guard, but if my opponent did not have something standing up then Zuleyka could have ran into his DZ to cause a lot of damage and potentially take out his haris if she could get in position. 

2. Roadblocks and Piecetraders (as played by the Daylami and Liberto in this battle report)

As this describes, this is irregular orders that may not do much but be ARO pieces during the game for the most part. However, they have the potential to trade up their points value tenfold if they get a good shot in ARO or have the orders to spend can reposition or go on the attack. Which either they may die without killing anything (which is more what happens statistically) or can ruin your opponent's gameplay if they managed to get a lucky roll. The main point is that this type of irregular unit is meant to 

In this case, my Daylami managed to delay my opponent for a few orders and my Liberto managed to make nearly six times his points during the game and would say was the lynchpin of making me able to win the game. 

3. Off-table Piece (as played by Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Battle-Report)

While not part of my list in this game, it fits the role of something like the Bashi Bazouk or Yuan Yaun. Here, this would be a piece were it comes in and either becomes a nuisance for your opponent or clear your opponent's midfield of mines and other items. This said, the Bashi Bazouk has the benefit of a specialist profile to press buttons if the mission calls for it. 

Due to the board set up, I think it would have been hard to benefit with a Bashi in the list if my opponent expected one to come up on the board as there are no good sides with enough coverage to land. However, if his stuff was cleared up it definitely would have been easier to do so without any threat. 

4. The Inexpensive toolbox (as played by the Hunzakut FO in this battle report)

This could encapsulate a lot of different roles, but in this case, it was my Hunzakut. This would be the kind of irregular piece that can be used to move up and press buttons or set up the board state to make it more adventurous to the player in question.

If I was a bit smarter with the play of my Hunzakut this game, then I would have used it to possibly lay down a repeater on a group of my opponent's models to spotlight them, press the button on one of the consoles or put mines around Shona to make it a less appealing prospect to attack Shona. This said, the Hunzakut did alright for what it did this game in trying up Shona.

I may write a blog on this topic down the line, but the general gist is that running irregular orders requires a balance between regular and irregular orders or else your order pool begins to lack the resources to get the mission done. 

Well this took a bit longer than I wanted to get out but I hope to get another report out soon! Next tournament I do promise to write up too! 

Tune in next time as I possibly post my first impressions of the new ITS packet. 

Battle Report 01: Warming up with Heavy Metal (Ramah Vs. Corregidor)

Hello, this is Tanako Skyler bringing a new blog that I hope I plan to stick with now. Ideally this is going to be mostly used to write up my batreps, but also wax poetic about the game I love to play, Infinity. Though here, I plan to write up a game I had on the Saturday of the 20th of August, 2022. The game was playing Frostbyte, against a Corregidor opponent who was playing in person after a few months of not playing outside his home if I recall correctly.

Lists:

Ramah Task Force:

The list I am playing is what I am planning to use for a store tournament this Saturday, in which is going to be used mostly for Frostbyte. I may make some changes if needed, but for the most part I am happy with this considering that Frostbyte is a mission that kind of requires you to lean into Heavy Infantry or Tags as your primary method of scoring the zone. 

Corregidor Jurisdictional Command

This is a recreation of my opponent's list, but this is more of one he had on hand for a casual game and coming to have fun. In all honestly, I think it is a fun and non-meta list, leaning into Bandits. However, this is not one definitely suited for Frostbyte and would need a massive overhaul in my opinion. 

Deployment: 

So I won the Initative Roll, electing to go first. The reasoning behind this is that Ramah in my opinion does good if you get an Alpha strike to gut your opponent's order pool, but because this list cannot really play defensively. As well if I managed to get my Jannisary Haris to the middle, I was of the belief he'd have little to shift it from that position. 

So I set up my Shakush+Leila Duo on the left flank to strike there if he sets up in that manner. Then the main Jannisary haris more centered to grab the central console and turn on one of my heaters. Set up along my deployment zone was my Ghulams, both of which were the potential LT and could shell game. Then I put my left flash pulse prone, the right one along the back to watch for any airborne I thought he might have with a TR to cover the extreme right for anything wanting to come down that lane. Then I put my Najjrun Engineer prone but close to the TR bot and the helper bot close to where the Shakush was and my free biker next to my LT until it could roll up to a better position.  I chose my held back as Carmen and Batard. 

My opponent then set up a Jaguar core team along his left side with his TR bot seeing mine, then a camo marker with what would be one of his two Bandit KHDs deployed forward. Then on his right he deployed his Aguaciles and Mobile Brigada Missile Launcher though unlinked. I had asked if he wanted to link if I remember and decided not to. In that general area he deployed his second Bandit KHD along with his Intruder KHD. His free bike then deployed close to his models to potentially make a run but was quite exposed. His held back was the Intruder Sniper. 

My held back went down then was Carmen and Batard, deployed to run up the open lane and hopefully drop this LT. Then his held back was dropped. The game then begins. 

Round 1

Ramah Turn 1:

With very few models standing out in the open for AROs, Carmen spends her impetuous order and begins to speed towards my opponents deployment zone. With the next order or two, I managed to get into line of sight of one of the paramedics. I win the engagement but the paramedic passes it armor saves, then Carmen continues her attack run into the sight of my opponents other Aguaciles (both the LT and Paramedic), both his camo state Intruder and Bandit, linked Jaguar Panzerfaust and Intruder sniper. Since the one Aguacile paramedic was still standing, I sent one of my chain rifle bursts into it and the camo markers, and then the other template went into both the obvious Aguacil LT and other Paramedic. Both the LT and the Paramedic on Carmen's left made their dodges, but the other paramedic died and the Bandit KHD went unconscious. Carmen died to the revealed Intruder Sniper and Jaguar Panzerfaust. While it did not kill the main intended target, it did drop a few of his models he could use in the next turn while also revealing his Intruder Sniper. 

The Jannisary team then moves out after the free bike bounty hunter moves to a better position. The Jannisary HMG engages his Intruder KHD through the Blizzard zone, but the Intruder KHD dodges away though downed his Motorized Bounty Hunter. Then the HMG went for the Intruder Sniper, which dropped him easily. Then the rest of the turn was spent turning on the heater in the deployment zone, with the Shakush and Leila Sharif moving into position next turn. 

Corregidor Turn 1:

While there was some damage to my opponent's order pool, he managed to medikit his down Bandit KHD and takes the time to recamo his Bandit. The Bandit on his left size then went on a run for his left-side console but got discovered by my Motorized Bounty Hunter. He does recamo, then continues his advance to the console and manages to get it before he dies to the Red Fury. He hits up his dead zone. His Jaguar team then moves up, throws smoke to cover the advance of the TR bot. 

Once my opponent finished that order pool, he spends a command token to move the three remaining Aguaciles and the Mobile Brigada ML. The Aguacile HMG engaged the Warcor, but nothing had come from the exchange. Outside of this, most of the turn went on with just repositioning and setting up the next turn for him. 

Round 2:

Ramah Turn 2:

Realizing I had put my Jannisary doctor in a bad position, and decided to go for a longbomb shot with my TR bot against my opponent's TR bot. While it is a literal coin flip, I wanted to do to also repair it to score my Test Run classified if it does not go in my favor. In which my TR goes unconscious but is out of line of fire of my opponent's TR bot. Which the engineer manages to repair it and that is all of group two's orders.

So I went for the ballsy play to move my Janissary Haris with the HMG as the lead. What I didn't expect was the Jaguar Panzerfaust that was still fully loaded would have line of sight, which made me panic and decide to dodge with the whole team instead of shooting with the HMG. In this situation what I should have done instead is fired with my Janissary HMG like I originally planned or have the Doctor be the link leader and make it the face to face even with bad odds.

During this time, I switched with the Shakush Duo during some orders, engaging his group of models be had guarding the flank. The Shakush managed to kill a Aguacile HMG and put a wound on the Missile Mobile Brigade. The turns ends with the Shakush back in cover to guard the flank and Leila in Cybermask to protect herself from the opposing killer hackers.

Corregidor Turn 2:

So a bit of a spoiler, this would be the last turn that my opponent would do anything of note but he managed to start up his last heater with his Bandit KHD before it dies to Leila's Trinity attacks. Then his Jaguar team moves up, repositions and defends his area from a push from my turn. 

Round 3:

Ramah Turn 3:

Needing the final push, the Shakush took on the Brigada Missile Launcher and finally put it down. The climbing up the building, the Shakush then took out his Aguacile LT and then his Intruder KHD. Leila then goes to the console, turns on the last Heater and the turn ends with me scoring the capture classified and holdkng the middle.

The final score as 9-3 as my opponent did manage to do all three of his classifieds.

Final Thoughts

While there are some things I could have done differently, I think the list for the most part done well. This was my third time playing Frostbyte in a two week period and expect to play it on our local game night as well as the aforementioned store tournament on Saturday. My opponent was definitely fun to play and was glad to see him after a long time. 

In the meantime I'll have a tournament write up from this weekend coming up once that is done, and then plan to play vanilla Haqqislam for a while on top of trying the updated Hassassins.