August Store Tournament Report and General Thoughts on Reinforcements

So I've been kind of lacking in posts, and it's mostly due to trying the new Reinforcements rules and focusing on hobby projects for an event coming in November.

But I thought I'd write a tournament report with a short write up of my games but with the goal of kind of explaining how Reinforcements feels at the current time.

My Lists:

So since Exrah had returned and I've been playing the faction as is, I went with Combined Army. 

So the first list is clearly a vanity list with the Avatar with the intent of just playing it only for Mindwipe, matchup permitting. That said, I could also use this for supplies if I feel spicy about it.

The other list is built with Countermeasures in mind but it definitely can do Mindwipe and Supplies without any problems in list building for the most part.

I will kind of admit CA feels rough to build reinforcements for. This will go into detail on my overall thoughts but the fact you have to take a Nox Trooper, Morat Vanguard or Unidron feels hefty as a tax for what I usually like to take in a list. As well I didn't get as much practice with these lists so it might not be the best I could have done.

Game 1: 

Bye sadly. That said I managed to watch a little bit of agame which was a Tohaa mirror match and how rough that can be for both players. Though I I would be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued since they were good players piloting them.

Game 2: vs. Tohaa (Countermeasures). Loss 2-6

This was a bit of a rough game. I didn't deploy as good as I could and I had Nourkias get-got on the first turn. I did manage to score one classified on the first turn, but Extreme prejudice eluded me because I outright killed his Greif Operator instead of just putting him unconscious. In return I didn't push with my Speculo when I should and tried to do as much damage as I could since he got Extreme prejudice off it because of Tohaa bullshit known as Endgame (lol). Certainly could've played it better but is what it is.

Game 3: vs. JSA (Supplies). Won 6-2.

This is not my proudest game (or moment) as I played my Avatar list against a new-ish player. That said, I kind of ran over my list and what he did, and for the most part he did the correct thing and ignored the Avatar and played towards objectives when he could. 

My reinforcements never came in since it was only a two round game but his managed to get on and get one of the boxes away from me. I did make a comeback since I possessed his Anaconda and my Gaki managed to kill a CSU and Miranda to have him drop the box. He managed to get it back after saving against a Explosive shot from the Avatar.

Final thoughts:

So I had two games of reinforcements before this, and then three for the tournament so I figured five games would be good to explain my thoughts.

In concept, I think Reinforcements is a great addition to the game and a good way to have another format to play in. Especially since it is a format that feels like the Alpha Strike doesn't feel as strong. This said the execution is something that is...mixed at best for me, even though I enjoyed these games. 

And it boils down to two things:

1) the Commlink is quite the tax in a game mode where you need to play it. So instead of having 250 pts and 5 SWC you're essentially down 18 to 24 pts and half an SWC in your list. 

It does make list building quite awkward since the player has to take it. 

2) The reinforcement section feels quite hard to list build for properly, as not everything alings at a perfect 100 points. And tied to that, you cannot go over either limit for either the main or reinforcement sectiom, so depending how it is built either the main list or the reinforcement section might be at an awkward shortage of points.

So it goes to the main question: Will I play it again?

I think so but I don't think I'd want to do it in a competitive setting, at least in its current iteration of Commlink and a few tweaks to the mission. I am assuming latter problem will have the newest ITS mission pack in mine for that. The former is a larger issue I take with that hampers my enjoyment of what is otherwise fun and unique game mode.

As for the specific faction I played?

As much as I enjoyed being able to field the bugs again, Combined Army felt really hampered by the Commlink tax just to take them. Granted I did kind of go full-on meme mode with the Avatar in reinforcements, but from the few games I played with it in reinforcements the Avatar more often feels like an hindrance more than a help to reinforcement lists.

As well the Reinforcements profiles CA gets are good but feel rather limited what you can do with them, as you don't have any doctors/paramedics nor durable pieces outside the Caskuda. Granted the former kind of feels thematic since the Exrah do kind of die easily.

But at least I'll admit some of my opinions of reinforcements is colored by the fact I played only CA, but I kind of stand by reinforcements as is feels in a beta stage still.

So for now any battle reports for Reinforcements might be limited, if non-existent.

Battle Report 04: Robots Tasting Metal in the Air (ALEPH vs Spiral Corps- Radiation Leak)

So painting up most what I could for my ALEPH, I am giving them a run now. I've had a few games with them now, but this will be the first battle reports written playing them.

So the mission we did is Radiation Leak, which is a custom mission made by Wise Kensai from the Dice Abides network. Link to it will be here: Radiation Leak - Google Docs

The general idea of the mission is one side is trying to protect the reactor and the other is trying to destroy it. You also get points for being in the room but the radiation from the reactor has a chance to kill your models.

(Disclaimer: I was playing an earlier version of this mission where scoring was in the first four play turns of the game instead of the last four. Hence if you are looking at it later and seems a bit off on the scoring that is why)

Lists

After Adepticon I decided to ALEPH so here is what I was running. I played more toward the mission and for the most part I liked how it functioned on the table. Having Parvati, Mk. 1 Engineer, Acmon and Machaon gives me a good amount of redundancy but also can cover most of the classifieds in the deck. However, Classifieds would not be a concern here.

For my opponent, he was running Spiral Corps and more wanted to run his favorite of a "fake" Chaksa Longarms Haris which a cheap Chaksa of some sort with the Portable Autocannon Chaksa in reality being a Taagma Viral Sniper with MSV 2. The other man Haris in his list was a Draal supported by two Taagma schemers with one of them being the Tri-core. And the main piece was topped off with Neema as the LT and Jaan Star being out of Impersonation state with a Symbiobomb.

Deployment

My opponent won the roll-off and decided to take the first turn. And in turn I took the side where I could hide all my models I could but have an easy access to have one of my units with D-charges or antimaterial weapons blow open the door.

My opponent deployed his two Haris teams on both his flanks, with his 'fake' Long arms team setting up on the building on his left and then Draal team on his right to preform his alpha strike in the first turn. And then Neema Sataar in the middle to move up into the Radiation room if needed. 

            A Piece that may or may not do           something this game

Not wanting to give my opponent that many easy targets, I put most of my stuff in null deployment save for a couple flashpulse bots to slow him if I can. There, my Agema ML placed in hidden deployment covering the lane where I expected his Draal to go. 

Then he deploys his two heldbacks, which were the Keltar and then Jaan Staar in that specific order, with him getting the symbiobomb and then the Draal getting the Symbiomate. I of course held back the Liberto minelayer to lock up Jaan Star and makes sure if he was going to Symbiobomb Hippolyta he'd have to pay the price for it potentially. 

I elected Hippolyta as my master breacher and my opponent chose Neema. In which in this mission, it gives Zero-G terrain but the main thing is D-charges to use to blow open the door. 

Round 1

Turn 1 Spiral Corps

   A Story of Jaan Star getting memed on, told in three parts.

Wanting to take care of my Liberto and have Jaan Star safely hit Hippolyta, he spends a few orders shifting over his Taagma sniper to get to the Liberto and his mine. He spends a few orders clearing the Liberto, but the Liberto managed to lay a mine down to further trap Jaan Star. The Taagma failed to discover and remove either mine, which is where my opponent kind of goes 'Yolo, I need to try to take out Hippolyta with a Symbiobomb'. Fortunately for me and not so much for him, Hippolyta made her BTS saves even though she failed the face-to-face, and Jaan Star went down to the two mines from a fully healthy Symbiont armor profile.

This is where he switches gears and goes on the offensive with his Haris led by the Draal. When the Haris managed to walk out of the cover, this is when I revealed my Agema ML and took a shot against it. This sadly lead to the death of the Agema as he failed to hit and failed to make both of his armor saves against the Draal.  He pushes up his Haris onto the edge of my deployment zone instead of pulling back, and managing to put down the Dakini HMG.

In my turn I would try to exploit the Spiral Corps Player's over-extension as much as possible. 

Turn 1 ALEPH

I decided to try to take care of the Draal haris by either killing all of the team or at least putting down the Draal so he would not be a problem later. However it had taken a few orders (including a risky play of using Machaon and his LT order to attack the Draal) before I put two to the three team members down. From there I breached the Reactor room with Acmon which blew the door open in one order. The Mk.2 Hacker then went in there, hiding behind the reactor and then using the rest of my turn to reposition Parvati to get into range to repair and heal the Dakini HMG and Hippolyta that went down on my opponent's active turn. The radiation saves then came in which my Mk.2 Hacker made with ease, which will be an re-occurring theme in this battle report. 

While this turn is written shorter than I would have wanted, it is truly the main focus of my turn for the part. 

Round 2

Turn 2 Spiral Corps

   Eventually Hippolyta had to succumb to Tohaa/Spiral Corps Bullshit
Realising he had lost a good chunk of his haris, my opponent decides to use Neema to get into the room and start having points in the room to score. However, the Mk.2 Hacker was able to Isolate Neema after two orders he spent trying to blow open the door with her D-charges. The rest of the turn was used to reposition his Helots and then having his Taagma Sniper watching over the lane where I could make one potential run to heal Hippolyta, in which he put unconscious with his Igao after sneaking up my flank. 

Turn 2 ALEPH

The main impetus of the turn was to get my Dakini HMG and Hippolyta to hopefully get more units to engage then get into the Reactor room. The Dakini HMG managed to get back up and managed to force the Taagma down but did not kill him. However for the need of this turn it was good enough.

For the purposes of the this batrep I am going to wrap up Round 3 in general as pretty much the game was sealed at that point. My opponent managed to get Neema out of isolation and then moved into the room. Then Hippolyta ran into the room, took out Neema and then brought the Reactor down to 0 STR with the D-Charges from being the Master Breacher.

The game went to me in a 7-1, as my opponent managed to disable one of the safety looks on his final turn. 

Final Thoughts

This is a little more delayed than I wanted to be, but I wanted to talk about the mission more than the game itself even though it was fun to play. 

My thoughts on it is that it delves into the asymmetrical aspect Infinity that is present in the gameplay, but I feel doesn't get explored in the current design climate of ITS. I may get a few more games in before I have a solid take on Radiation Leak, but I like the main gist of it. 

One thing I really like is that you have a decision tree as the attacking player to either blow it early and force the defending player to repair it, but it also makes it harder for both sides to score points for holding the room. The damage scaling depending on the state of the reactor does also give some incentive for the defending repair it outside of scenario points tied to how much health it has.

The couple critiques I might have is that it falls into the trap of Looting and Sabotaging where it is highly discouraged that you want to repair the Reactor as the defending player, since the failure state is that you are giving your opponent free points if you fail. While this is mitigated by the fact that the reactor always is on the table and can still repair it at 0 STR, it punishes factions with average to below-average WIP (looking at you PanO) if they have to be the defending player.

The main suggestion is that failure state of the engineering skill should not be applied, or perhaps the use of command tokens allowed to reroll failed rolls. 

The second critique is a bit minor but the safety interlocks may not affect the game too much after the door has been blown open by D-charges or whacked with an anti-material CC weapon. The way this could be changed is that you cannot destroy the doors but at the same time, it takes away a tactical option. 


Sorry this took longer than I wanted to get out but I had some IRL stuff that happened and was in a bit of a funk. Currently I am working on a post about Impersonators which is kind of going slow since I am currently not playing a faction who runs them. Hopefully I can get it out soon-ish, but I want to have ALEPH be my main focus for the next few months (I.e around 3 more batreps or so). 

Tune in next time!

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.