Raoul, Hunter or Hunted?
Flew to Hong Kong for vacation and figured I’d hit up the locals for a game or two of Infinity. After some Facebook sleuthing and poking around, I landed in the Hong Kong Infinity meta’s chat room. I wasn’t sure what to bring–so I asked the Hong Kong folks what they don’t have locally, and the first thing to come back was “Ariadna.” Well, if Ariadna is rare or non-existent, then French should be doubly so, making my decision of what to pack easy! My French are also unpainted, so I didn’t have to worry about my paint surviving the 14 hour plane ride.
Upon arrival, I managed to set up a game with a wonderful fellow named Vishal, who tutors English in Hong Kong and therefore could meet outside of normal working hours at the store–and what a store it was! The locals play at a place called Newtype Cafe x YM Studio, in Mong Kok. It primarily carries Gundam models and the big two–GW and Privateer games, but there’s a healthy Infinity community there. 
The store itself is a departure from the LGS model I’m used to in the states–there’s a large hobby area, and most of the store is actually dedicated to paints and hobby equipment. 
And I mean really dedicated. I had no idea that Vallejo even made a Mecha color line!
The staff of the store is your traditional LGS staff–helpful, gregarious, chill gaming nerds–and some cosplayers. Was a bit of a culture shock! I’ll just refer you to their Instagram and Facebook for details. They also rent out lockers (complete with pinup art) for you to store stuff–terrain, WIP stuff, etc. at the store. Space in Hong Kong is at a premium at home–really anywhere–so that was a real stroke of genius by the store staff. As I found out, hobby is very popular in Hong Kong, so I felt a bit self-conscious showing up with a silver surfer army. Nevertheless, I wasn’t about to turn around and endure another 28 hours of plane rides to show up with something respectable.
In any case, Vishal and I agreed to throw down and met up at the store–his Tunguska versus my French! He kindly agreed to play Acquisition in preparation for some of my upcoming tournaments–they primarily play ITS in Hong Kong, but he asked to omit the Xenotech rules. As has been debated at length on the internet already, the Xenotech rules can be seen as a “pointless” order tax. I’m personally fine with them, but when in Rome, as they say. Not my house, not my rules. Their meta also measures ZoC at any time, more or less, which doesn’t break the game, but was a little odd to me. Again, no big deal. After getting to know each other a little, we had our lieutenant roll off because Vishal had a prior engagement in less than two hours and we wanted to get a full game in!
Overview
- Mission: Acquisition
- Forces: Force de Réponse Rapide Merovingienne versus Jurisdictional Command of Tunguska (300)
- Deploy First: FRRM
- First Turn: FRRM
List A
GROUP 1 |
8
1
1
EQUIPE MIRAGE-5 . (2 | 69)
DUROC 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades, Smoke Grenades / AP CC Weapon. (32)
CHASSEUR (Minelayer) Rifle, Light Flamethrower, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 20)
LOUP-GAROU (Fireteam: Haris) Viral Rifle, Stun Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 22)
ZOUAVE (Forward Observer) Rifle, D.E.P. / Assault Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 21)
GROUP 2 |
MÉTRO Lieutenant Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 8)
BRISCARD (Forward Observer) Marksman Rifle / Assault Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
5.5 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army
Vishal A
GROUP 1 |
SECURITATE Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
SALYUT (Minesweeper, Repeater) Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
TRANSDUCTOR ZOND Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
LUNOKHOD Heavy Shotgun, Heavy Flamethrower, D-Charges, CrazyKoalas (2) / Electric Pulse. (0 | 25)
WARCOR (Aerocam) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3)
SPECTOR (AD: Combat Jump) Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser, Drop Bears / Pistol, E/M2 CC Weapon. (0 | 33)
GROUP 2 |
HOLLOW MEN Spitfire, Chain-colt / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (2 | 36)
STEMPLER ZOND FTO (Super-Jump) Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 18)
PUPPET MASTERS Hacker (Hacking Device) Submachine Gun / PistolKnife. (0.5 | 20)
4.5 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army
Deployment
I forget who won the roll off–I think it was Vishal, and he selected deployment. I was fine with this, given I was running Mirage-5 and wanted to go first anyway. I had a bit of an uphill climb–Acquisition strongly favors going second, but there was no way I’d give him both deployment and turn order. In any case, I scattered my Chasseurs and their mines across the midfield to start. My Loup Garou went on my right flank to backstop my Zouave FO, and then I put my Metros down on the middle and the left, respectively, more watching for Raoul than anything else. I put down two Briscards–the Paramedic and the FO–in the middle of the table, thanks to the 16″ deployment zone, and held the HRL in reserve.
Vishal castled up a Hollowman Link on his left on a roof, with the Stempler at the base of the building. Like every Nomad player should, Vishal loves Lunokhods (he said as much), so two came down, in the middle and on the left, screening his squishier Transductor and Salyut Zonds. To complete the deployment, he put a Securitate Lt and a Puppeteer on a roof, and protected the approach to his Hollow Man link with a Warcor. I put the Briscard HRL down covering his Hollow Men, and I forget what he held in reserve.
Vishal’s list was really interesting–basically it’s split between the Hollow Men in one group and the two Lunokhods in the other. There also weren’t any EVO bots on the table or engineers, so the REM half of the list would start to fall apart relatively quickly. I didn’t know about Raoul and suspected a Spektr, given that I gave Vishal the opportunity to place any TO models he wanted while I took a trip to the restroom. As a Nomad player myself, I know how dangerous Lunokhods can be. Hollow Men are also extremely dangerous, but I felt confident in my ability to delay them with Mines and AROs, and I was also pretty certain I could handle the Stempler quickly, thereby pulling some of their teeth. It’s worth noting that Vishal had missed the 16″ deployment zone bullet point, so I gave him an opportunity to shift some of his stuff around–he said was pretty happy except for the placement of one Lunokhod, which he pushed forward a bit along with its attendant Koalas.
Turn 1
Top of 1 – FRRM
In any case, it was time to put Duroc on the table. I thought long and hard about whether or not I wanted to go after the Hollow Men or not–Duroc with smoke and super jump was a pretty reasonable tool to do so. Throw some smoke up there, get into base to base, and start carving up some robots. Of course, this is an incredibly order inefficient way of going about things, so I decided for a strategy of containment as opposed to direct attack with regards to the Hollow Men. Defanging the Lunokhods would be easier, and more reliable given their dodge penalties. Duroc therefore hopped on the board next to a helpless Transductor and Salyut, chain rifling them both into scrap without much difficulty.
I could’ve pushed Duroc further, but at the risk of dealing with some Koalas. It also wouldn’t develop the rest of my position any, and I saw a juicy spec fire target for Margot–the Securitate was the only lieutenant option, and it was right next to the puppeteer on the roof. I brought Margot on, took a free shot at the backside of the nearby Lunokhod, and knocked it out. That’s the problem with 55mm bases. Almost always a way to get shot in the butt. Anyway, with the Lunokhod down, I was free to start spec-firing grenades.
The Salyut went down to a crit, but I misjudged the distance on the shot to the Securitate and ended up outside 16″, causing a miss.
Without much in the way of orders, I retreated Margot, leaving her out to ARO the Hollow Men, and adjusted the position of some other pieces like the Zouave before passing the turn.
Bottom of 1 – Tunguska
Vishal started his turn 3 orders down in his Lunokhod/Raoul pool and one order down in his Hollow Man pool. More importantly, the Hollow Men were going to be BS13 and not BS16, thanks to the downed Stempler. Really this meant I just needed to drain enough orders and hope that Vishal overextended something. He started things off by splitting burst on his Hollow Man Spitfire between Margot and my Briscard HRL.
It took him a few orders, but he eventually took both of them out, cleverly swapping to the ML over the spitfire to take out the Briscard with better range bands. So far, so good. I probably could’ve elected to not expose Margot, but I wanted two template weapons in line of fire if at all possible. Ideally, I would’ve been able to throw her into suppression… but I never seem to have enough orders to. 
Vishal then set about trying to deal with Duroc, but I smoked out the Spitfire without much trouble. It was at this point that he decided to jump most of them off the roof, leaving the ML up top to control the board. I delayed with my Chasseur’s SSL1, and got a free flamethrower hit on the Spitfire, knocking it out as Vishal failed two ARM rolls. This also meant he was out a DataTracker, which was good news for me.
With my Chasseur now exposed, Vishal wasted no time in shotgunning her down with one of the Hollow Men SO’s, shuffling the rest of the team around after reforming it as he did so.
Vishal knew that he had to deal with Duroc or I would just clean up the rest of his forces with an angry werewolf, so he brought in Raoul, proxied by an Intruder HMG. 
After some unfortunate whiffs on chucking Drop Bears, Vishal just throws Raoul into close combat, critting Duroc, isolating him. Raoul passes ARM against my chain rifle and I fail my ARM against Raoul’s E/M2 escrima sticks.
Unwilling to burn more orders on a potentially risky roll, Vishal opts instead to advance his remaining Lunokhod to cover the central part of his deployment zone. Thinking ahead, he even put them in Standby mode after climbing his Lunokhod onto a roof behind a billboard.
Turn 2
Top of 2 – FRRM
I’m obligated to try to punch Raoul in the face with Duroc, more or less, which also triggers a Koala. I fail both ARM saves (against Raoul and the Koala), meaning Raoul can’t claim to be engaged with Duroc’s unconscious body as my poor werewolf is now off the table.
I leverage the Briscard FO’s MSV1 to take some shots at Raoul, doing a wound. Perhaps I should’ve attempted an FO instead. Will have to consider that for next time, especially since I’d have to hunt Raoul with other tools after he failed guts into total cover. 
I did have an easy shot on the remaining Lunokhod though–I suspect Vishal just forgot about one of my camo tokens that was a short shift away from getting an easy LoF onto the Lunokhod. I roll triple three’s against the Lunokhod’s failed dodge roll and take it out. 
I kinda want to pick up the Chasseur on the right, but I’d have to climb my Briscard up and would have to leave it hung out to dry. Not the best thing to do with your DataTracker. Ignoring the voice in my head telling me not to, I do it anyway. At least I don’t fail any rolls and pick up the Chasseur, who immediately attempts to take out the Hollow Man out of cover, doing a single wound, I think.
The Hollow Man retreats to total cover, and I don’t bother chasing it. I’ve got a fair number of assets left on my right, but my left flank is a little worse for wear with Duroc gone and Raoul on the loose. I go hunting. I send in a Chasseur, who gets discovered at long range by the Hollow Man ML as I scoot through an LoF window. This exposes me to a Koala, which I thankfully dodge. Raoul attempts and fails a change face due to my breaking Stealth, and then I’m free to shoot him in the back. 
As luck would have it, this fails miserably and Raoul turns around, letting me ping-pong him with another Chasseur, also from behind. This fails again. Mimetism is a bitch. Definitely need to think harder about throwing FO at stuff. 
At this point, I’ve got a single Chasseur (the original one) watching Raoul, since he failed guts against the second one, and am out of orders.
Bottom of 2 – Tunguska
Vishal tries to extricate Raoul from his predicament, but fails to take out my Chasseur, mostly because my cover and camo and Raoul being outside of 8″ really help me with the odds.
Vishal then decides to come back to that particular problem, which I think is the mark of a good player–take some time to mull it over. Instead, he sends his Hollow Men on a rampage, taking out not just my recently healed Chasseur but also my Briscard Paramedic DataTracker. Drat. 
With the situation on his left in better shape now, Vishal returns to the issue of extricating Raoul. Figuring he’d need to get Raoul closer to get better dice odds, Vishal pushes Raoul forward. 
I thankfully pass ARM and elect to drop a mine instead of shooting back. Vishal goes back to the Hollow Man side of things and pushes the Hollow Man forward again, splitting burst against a Metro (which I had advanced at some point during the first turn), the second Chasseur to have shot Raoul in the back, and my remaining Briscard, who is looking the wrong way. I sacrifice the Metro to get an Alert! off, granting the Briscard a change face. Both the Briscard and the Chasseur survive, but my Metro does not. 
This also lets Vishal get a pair of Hollow Men into base to base with the right objective, making it exceedingly difficult for me to deny it to him. Thankfully both of them have a single wound on them. Going back to the other side of the table, Raoul manages to dodge his away out of trouble and then goes after the Lunokhod-killing Chasseur on my left, who drops another mine, further complicating things for Raoul. Another dodge and he’s out of hot water, for now. 
Turn 3
Top of 3 – FRRM
I’m running quite low on orders at this point, and throw the Briscard into the first pool. This leaves just the Metro Lt in the second pool, as everything else is dead. This means I have two orders to get into position and to take out Raoul. Thankfully, even with their relatively poor BS, my Metro gets it done and Raoul is off the table.
I send in the Loup Garou and sneak a single Viral hit onto a full-strength Hollow Man, who fails both BTS saves and gets knocked down. Excellent! 
The Hollow Men are at least easily shotgun-able, which I do in style with a crit and a hit, taking out the ML Hollow Man, who unfortunately manages to chain colt my Loup Garou. The other Hollow Man passes both saves against my BSG, so I’m out of luck there as well.
I’m down to my last orders, which I use to coordinate my Briscard into base to base with the central objective, and the Chasseur on the left into base to base with the left objective, in what I hope is in ZoC of Vishal’s HVT. 
I then coordinate one more time to try and take out the remaining Hollow Man, and fail, whiffing all my shots with the Zouave’s assault pistol and the Loup Garou’s rifle.
Bottom of 3 – Tunguska
Vishal cleverly flash pulses my Zouave with his Warcor…
then stands up his Securitate Lt and crits my remaining Loup Garou. 
This gives him two orders to get his remaining Hollow Man into base to base with the central objective…
face-tanking the nearby mine with a 20 on his ARM roll. 
After zooming a Transductor into base to base with the objective on the right and snagging In Extremis Recovery or whatever it is off my downed Chasseur there, we measure ZoC of my Chasseur to his HVT and find that I’m within 8″.
With both of us having a classified, neither of us having the center, and both controlling one of the secondary objectives, it’s a
2-2 Tie!
Notes
Notes for Me
- I think I should have kept Margot safe on my first turn, instead of putting her out to ARO. I knew in my heart of hearts that it wasn’t going to work out, and then having a BS14 AP Rifle was going to be pretty handy in removing the Hollow Men. Ah well.
- I also think that I was maybe a little conservative in a few things, especially in going after Raoul. Having to just leverage rifles really makes things difficult and forces you to think carefully. Metros did well this game though.
- Was a little disappointed in Duroc’s performance this game… I think I asked him to do a little too much. NWI really makes chain rifles an ineffective deterrent.
- I was also very disappointed in myself in having to leave my Briscard Paramedic out. I think there were other ways to approach that problem, and making the FO the DataTracker was probably the right thing to do.
- Loup Garou are pretty fantastic. I’m digging the double Loup Garou “Haris,” lets you drag some pretty awesome kit wherever you need it.
- I think leaving Margot out was the first domino in the game going awry. That and not using the Zouave’s full burst with an assault pistol to the back of a wounded Hollow Man.
- Saving two BSG shots was pretty unlikely though.
Notes for Vishal
- Great work weathering the storm! I’m very intrigued by your list. It’s not what I would run or have seen, really, which is the point of visiting other metas to see what works for other people.
- I do think that finding room for a Clockmaker is advisable, or perhaps even an EVO, given the number of REMs you have.
- The castle/denied flank deployment style is effective. I generally don’t play that way, but in this case it worked. It was pretty order intensive to attack your Hollow Men so I just ignored them, basically, save for picking off the easy Stempler kill.
- I also think that you were missing some board presence on the other side of the table. I almost brought Margot in on the other side, where Duroc was. Having a Lunokhod over there would’ve helped a lot.
- Also, great work being aggressive with the Hollow Men. Definitely the right thing to do. Very risky, but you had the wounds and the BS to back it up.
- I think I left you some openings which you exploited very well–then the rest was dice in turn 3, which is what the game is all about! Positioning and mitigating bad dice.
- I look forward to our next game. Hopefully it won’t be as long till I’m back in Hong Kong.
