After Action ReportInfinity

Beer Run

In keeping with the current Bromad Academy mission, we organized a big campaign session for our group’s game night. We even got Erik (Zelaponeepus) to drive 2 hours to a store he usually doesn’t play at to join us! Pics or it didn’t happen, right?!

If you’d like to learn more about the MEME CONTEST we’re running, along with other parts of the Bromad Academy mission, check here!

Otherwise, join the campaign and fight for your faction!

Adam actually built a Novyy Bangkok table well in advance of the campaign–he’s a terrain hipster–so we broke it out for our game. He requested a game of Supplies to support NA2 (he’s the NA2 leader), so I happily obliged him. I love this table, both aesthetically and in game play.

He’s put a lot of love and care into modifying the individual buildings, and is still pushing through all of the graffiti work that he wants to do on all of his buildings. If that weren’t enough, he’s got even more modifications planned! I won’t spoil them though, that would ruin the hipster-ness of it all.

Overview

Supplies!
GROUP 1 | 9 1 1

INTERVENTOR Hacker Lieutenant (Hacking Device Plus) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 25)
MORAN (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, CrazyKoalas (2) / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 22)
MORAN (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, CrazyKoalas (2) / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 22)
ZERO (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 19)
ZERO (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 19)
ZONDNAUT Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 31)
ZONDMATE Chain Rifle, Smoke Light Grenade Launcher / Electric Pulse. (5)
TOMCAT Doctor (MediKit) Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower + 1 Zondcat / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 26)
ZONDCAT Electric Pulse. (4)
REAKTION ZOND HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 26)
REAKTION ZOND HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 26)
MONSTRUCKER Submachine Gun, Chain Rifle, Drop Bears / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
ZONDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)

GROUP 2 | 2 6 7

KRAKOT RENEGADE 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 14)
KRAKOT RENEGADE 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 14)
LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 10)
MORLOCK Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, E/M CCW. (0 | 6)
MORLOCK Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, E/M CCW. (0 | 6)
MORLOCK Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, E/M CCW. (0 | 6)
MORLOCK Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, E/M CCW. (0 | 6)
MORLOCK Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, E/M CCW. (0 | 6)


6 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army

I knew I wanted to try something really weird out of Nomads, just for fun. I had just finished building the Zondnautica (an awesome model), so it had to be in there, and I’m getting back into Tomcat land so that happened as well. I didn’t put any real serious gunfighters in the list, so I decided to go all in on smoke with 5 morlocks, hoping that would sort things out for me.

The rest of the list is basically all board control–Zero and Libertos Minelayers and a pair of Morans. I’m using the Aristeia Laxmee as my second Moran, because I have her based and I like her better than the boarding shotgun mini.

Ikari Company
GROUP 1 | 9 1 1

TANKŌ Missile Launcher / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon, Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 32)
KEISOTSU Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 14)
KEISOTSU (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9)
KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9)

BRAWLER Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16)
KARAKURI Mk12, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 43)
LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 10)
FASID HMG + (Smoke and Normal) Light Grenade Launcher, Antipersonnel Mines / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (2 | 53)
BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)

GROUP 2 | 4 1 1

NINJA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 29)
YOJIMBO Contender, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades, CrazyKoalas (2) / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 21)
FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
TOKUSETSU EISEI Doctor (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
YÁOZĂO Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
TOKUSETSU KOHEI Engineer Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
YÁOZĂO Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)


6 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army

Adam was trying something fun too. He wanted to put a Karakuri and Yojimbo on the table supported by as many missile launchers, so that’s what happened. Ikari’s got some pretty fun tools. If I wasn’t helping run the Nomad campaign effort, I would probably have been playing JSA or Ikari myself.

Deployment

I won the rolloff, and had a bit of a struggle deciding what to do. I knew there was a better side, but I figured I had the advantage of a bajillion smoke grenades and wanted to capitalize on that. Also, the thought of digging out a Karakuri in suppression in Adam’s backfield protected by linked missiles sounded awful.

Deployment was a bit of a nightmare. I was positive that Adam was going to rain Yuan Yuans down on my at the bottom of turn 1, and I knew I would have to negotiate some crazy missile lines of fire, so that put a bunch of pressure on me to carefully place my Morlocks. I did my best to create a bunch of interlocking fields of fire in my backfield, covering everything I possibly could with at least one chain rifle template, especially around my Interventor Lt. There’s no fooling Adam anymore with Lieutenant mindgames.

The two Morans went on either side of the table, ready to go for the easiest possible objectives, and then I covered the board edges against more Yuan Yuan infiltration points with one Koala each. The objectives got a second Koala. My two TR bots covered the central and right objectives, respectively, and then I made sure to put the Monstrucker and his bot within a single move of either.

The two Zeros and the Libertos scattered themselves and their mines around each of the objectives, with the Zero on the right protecting my weak right flank against Yuan Yuan.

With that, I was done deploying and it was Adam’s turn. He put down his link on his right, covering most of the board with at least one missile launcher ARO. Sigh. The Karakuri and his Al Fasid anchored his left, along with an ABH on a roof to prevent any AD shenanigans, and then he deployed his Fugazi contesting the central firelane. The Libertos came down to screen Adam’s right objective (my left), and Wild Bill covered the same objective with his rifle.

Then he put his Engineer next to the Fugazi (because he had Test Run), and the Doctor near the Tanko. The two bots from both Tokusetsu backed up the Al Fasid and Karakuri to deal with “Nomad tricks” as he likes to put it. I saw an opening to make a run on my rightmost objective with the Zondnautica–I’d only have to land one smoke to do it, so I put my Zondnautica on her bike ready to do that. Little did I know that Adam had put a Ninja KHD right there…

Then it was Adam’s turn to place his reserve. He put Yojimbo down near his link to protect them with Yojimbo’s Koalas, as well as giving him a fast way of recovering the box on Adam’s right. With that, we were deployed!

Turn 1

Top of 1 – Nomads

Time to go for a beer run in The Main Strip! Zero Cool the Interventor had just finished a hard day of managing the Arachne node’s subsystems and wanted to kick back. As it turns out, a group of Morlocks and their Krakot friends were en route to Harry’s Bar by way of the Main Strip and extended an invitation to ‘Cool to join them for some ice-cold brew! Not Icebreaker Brew. That’s for Reverend Custodiers only.

As Morlocks are wont to do, they rushed ahead and threw a bunch of smoke grenades everywhere! This upset the local Ikari thugs, who started shouting and revving their ostentatious Bosuzoku motorbikes… which in turn attracted a Tunguskan Zondnaut who wanted to show off!

The Zondnaut raced ahead and attempted to grab some beer from one of those vending machine things. They have buttons that you can push, but it’s really hard to push them or something. Who designs these things? Honestly. As she did so, a Ninja popped out of nowhere and tried to hack her! RUDE.

Still showing off, the Zondnaut managed to immobilize the Ninja with her Carbonite program. I can’t get over how awesome that model looks, even unpainted.

Thanks to the nearby Moran’s WiFi Range extender, Zero Cool was able to attempt a Sucker Punch on the Ninja, but rolled a 17 against the Ninja’s successful reset. Zero Cool sighed, knowing that he would never be able to live down this failure! The Libertos attached to the group decided that this would be a good time to walk through the smoke and lay a mine to deal with Ninja! Unfortunately for the Libertos, this was in full view of the Ikari fireteam that had been BBQing up on a roof… and they obliterated him with a volley of missiles.

Now that the mine was there, Zero Cool attempted a Sucker Punch again. The Ninja passed both saves but the mine finished her off.

It’s fitting that Zero Cool didn’t really have much success here, because I think I made some sub-optimal plays in this interaction. Adam definitely did the right thing by revealing the Ninja–his job is to deny me the objective or at least delay my obtaining the objective. I did the correct thing as well by using Carbonite to negate the -3 WIP from Redrum.

I’m not convinced that sacrificing the Libertos (it got revealed before reaching the smoke and got blown up as it walked into the smoke to lay the mine) was the right call. It drained resources in my second pool that I needed for later. In fact, Adam had done a very smart thing in docking me two orders in my second pool at the start of the turn, which drastically limited my options.

After failing the Sucker Punch and giving the Ninja a reset, one alternative that I’m now considering as I write this would have been to climb the nearby Moran down to take the box safely. Definitely should’ve done that after the sucker punch attempt to deny a free reset, but I really wanted more orders for my first pool… which is why I thought of the Libertos plan in the first place. I dunno. Lots of suboptimal plays this game. In any case, back to the story.

The Ikari thugs had done a pretty good job of covering the left beer vending machine with mines and Koalas, so my Moran over there just tossed a Koala under the proverbial bus to clear all three in a single order. She had the benefit of smoke while she did this, so my Moran was able to advance a little…

The problem here was that I didn’t realize two things. First, that Wild Bill could see this area form his vantage point, and second that I actually had my own Wild Bill order in the second group, which would have given me an extra order to cover my Moran’s approach with smoke. I then spent two orders trying to clear Wild Bill with my Moran, succeeding only in putting him into NWI.

I then realized that I had the extra Wild Bill order, threw the smoke, and promptly failed the WIP roll to get some beer from the vending machine. My Zondnautica fared better on the other side of the table, but I had to spend almost all my orders and command tokens retreating the Zondnautica and trying to protect my Moran in a corner by the left vending machine.

I just had the Monstrucker’s order left, so I flipped it regular and attempted an Oblivion on the Tanko to break it out of the link. While Zero Cool made his WIP roll, the Tanko passed the BTS save by one! UGH. Frustrating. At this point, all the Nomads were pretty annoyed at the distinct lack of beer–including the Zondnautica, who knows better than to drink and drive.

Bottom of 1 – Ikari

Yojimbo was feeling pretty cautious–no sense in racing out and getting hit by either a Zero or a Mine, so Adam canceled the impetuous order. Instead, Adam sent in the Libertos irregular unit to do the dirty work! The Libertos moved into position and shot the Morlock in the face with its shotgun with the template catching the camo token behind the Morlock! Uh oh! I revealed the Zero to shoot back, and between the Zero, the Moran, and the Koala, the Libertos got turned into paste.

Sadly, the Morlock failed his smoke throw and died horribly. Ah well. The dice were soon to go much better for me. Adam sent in the Al Fasid next to clear a path to the beer! My Reaktion Zond fended him off for an order or two, even making an ARM save in the process!

Discouraged, Adam took out his frustrations on my poor Zero with his Will Bill robot! The robot’s been programmed to say awful one liners (of course) so the last thing poor Acid Burn the Zero heard before getting gunned down was some trash that even the Ariadnans had banned.

Buoyed by that success, Adam returned his attention to my Reaktion Zond and began blasting away with his Al Fasid, rolling a crit. Of course, my job is to make Adam sad, so I rolled a crit, canceling his! Adam spent another order, and I rolled another crit. Another order, and another crit! Now the Al Fasid was down!

Of course, Adam had prepared for this eventuality, and the nearby helper ‘bot picked up the Al Fasid and another order of shooting took down the TR bot… which had been covering Yojimbo’s approach to my Moran. Yojimbo beat down my poor Moran in a display of Ikari thuggishness, and then rolled off to find something else to be rude about.

With only a handful of orders remaining, Adam tried to advance his Karakuri to get some beer, correctly assuming that she wouldn’t drink it all before returning the beer to the Ikari troops. He figured that, as an afterthought, he’d shoot the TR bot to deny me the ability to pick it up later with my nearby helper ‘bot.

It took entirely too many orders for him to do this, but he got it done. What was most irritating to me was that I had dodged my Morlock into safety while the Fasid was shooting at my TR bot… and now I couldn’t protect the downed ‘bot with smoke. Definitely going to think about that more carefully next time. Protect the downed ‘bot with smoke to pick it up on my next turn!

All this shuffling about and shooting at the TR bot meant that the Karakuri was out of cover at the beginning of my turn though…

Turn 2

Top of 2 – Nomads

I had actually used up all of my command tokens and a few irregular Morlock orders on my first turn, getting smoke into the right places, so I found myself pretty low on orders in my second group for what I wanted to accomplish this turn. I could have canceled my Morlock’s order, and I absolutely think I should have now, with complete visibility into the game and dice outcomes. At the time though, I chanced throwing smoke against the Keisotsu ML and my Morlock died horribly… and since they don’t have cubes, they indeed only live once.

I was saving the orders for my Krakot to go after Yojimbo. This particular Krakot had rolled Dogged and Total Immunity, making it reasonably likely for me to survive at least one round of shooting from the Keisotsu ML. I made it into view and chucked a grenade at Yojimbo in an attempt to beat his dodge. I didn’t.

The Krakot ate a missile and went dogged, and so I spent another order on him in an attempt to grenade Yojimbo again. This time, I hit, but Yojimbo passed ARM. A veritable flurry of missiles and some shots from Wild Bill finished the Krakot off.

I decided I wanted to go after the Karakuri, since it was in the open and it was really the only time that I would have to take it down, but the Fugazi was in the way, so I took it out with my remaining TR bot. This left my Moran free to start shooting at the Karakuri. I had a 66% chance of wounding it, but of course I spend two orders doing nothing and then get crit in the face. With my right flank in shambles, Zero Cool decides it’s time for a beer, so he walks over to the Zondnautica and takes the beer from her. “Lieutenant’s orders,” he says.

Bottom of 2 – Ikari

Adam starts things off by picking up the Fugazi with his Engineer, netting him Test Run and a point.

The Karakuri starts pushing forward, taking out one of the last few Morlocks I have left. Yojimbo sets up some smoke for the Karakuri to make it to the central vending machine.

After snagging some beer from the vending machine and returning it to a grateful Tokusetsu engineer, the Karakuri grabs the last of the beer out of my leftmost vending machine, setting off a mine on the way and tanking the hit.

The Karakuri makes her way towards the Keisotsu link, but runs out of orders to deliver the beer to the link team, instead electing to go prone on a roof.

Turn 3

Top of 3 – Nomads

I’m in trouble now. I don’t have any realistic ways of getting anything done really, at least not in a way that I can expect to last through a full turn of Ikari face punching. One of my Morlocks is so angry at being denied beer, she stands up in front of the entire Ikari gunline and flips them off, getting asploded by four missiles to the face.

My Tomcat finally decides to show up. He’s that guy. You keep texting him to ask if he’s coming, he gives non-committal answers, then he shows up late and tells you the venue sucks.

I could’ve gone for Experimental Drug, by picking up the Moran, but really I wanted the opportunity to electric pulse Yojimbo. I dive the Zondcat into base to base, and Adam and I aren’t really sure what the optimal choice for either of us is… so he elects to dodge and I elect to flamethrower him. Who knows!?

Of course, Yojimbo rolls a 1. Ugh. Should’ve electric pulsed! With that off the table, I move Wild Bill into a position to take out the Flash Pulse bot, which will hopefully let me get the Zondnautica to steal the objective from the nearby prone Engineer. Of course, I whiff all three rolls, get flash pulsed and take four missiles to the face.

The Zondnautica makes it all the way across the table again, firing smoke in key spots…

then does her best Transformers impression. The Zondmate chain rifles and she dumps three shots into the Engineer… and the engineer survives all of it, failing his dodge and passing all the ARM rolls.

at least the Fugazi went down to the chain rifle.

Bottom of 3 – Ikari

Yojimbo easily smashes the Zondcat to scrap…

then sacrifices himself to my remaining TR bot to set up smoke for the Fasid.

Adam decides the best thing to do is to just try and spec-fire Zero Cool into dropping the box, since he doesn’t want to tangle with the Zero or the TR bot.

He spends probably 4-5 orders doing this, actually hitting with his first shot, allowing me to pass ARM and fail guts out of 16″, dramatically dropping his chances to hit. In any case, with his last order he tries for Secure the HVT but fails to get within 8″.

6-1 Ikari Company Victory!

Post Game Analysis

Adam was pretty convinced that I had too many chain rifles and not enough gunfighters. I can’t say he was wrong. I definitely agree that I had a much more difficult time piloting my list than he probably did piloting his. Most Nomad players will be pulling their hair out because I don’t have an Intruder in the list, but I kinda enjoy not crutching on Intruders.

In any case, I think my positioning and my decisions left very little margin for error. I don’t think I prioritized things properly and I needed to be more aggressive with the Zondnautica on turn 2 to get the central objective and my hack the HVT classified. I had enough mines to deter Yojimbo from making it into my backfield, and that would’ve at least forced Adam to spend his orders differently at the bottom of two.

I also didn’t have much in the way of ARO presence. Adam docking me two regular orders from my pool of impetuous troopers really hurt–it meant I had to eat into my command token pool to get stuff done by flipping orders, and also I didn’t have enough orders to retreat my Morlocks into safe-for-impetuous positions on the next turn.

I should edit the list and try again–perhaps by mixing the order pools to mix more warbands in with regular units will help me reduce the pressure on my order pool–I just generally don’t like doing that from a organizational perspective. It’s hard to keep track of who belongs to which group, and I opt for the lowest energy path.

In any case, at least Zero Cool walked away with a cold beer, so I guess I can be happy about that! Thanks for reading. Go Go Nomads!

WiseKensai

I primarily play Infinity and Malifaux nowadays, but I dabble in plenty of other game systems.

2 thoughts on “Beer Run

  • I’m not sure failing guts allows you to fall back from Spec Fire, as it doesn’t improve your cover (because you don’t get it to begin with); you aren’t exiting the “danger zone”, which is a vague term to me, but I don’t think it applies; and you can’t go prone, because that won’t prevent further attacks…

    Love your work, keep it up!

    Reply
    • I very much appreciate you carefully reading the report, and the kind words of support! I’m always looking to improve my play and correct mistakes. Thanks for bringing it to my attention! I did some research, and found this:

      “If the troop is inside a danger zone, such as the Area of Effect of a Special Skill or a weapon that uses a Template or that requires no LoF, it must move up to 2 inches in order to try to exit the danger zone, or declare itself Prone if it can prevent further Attacks that way.”

      That seems pretty clear cut to me, unless IJW or CB has ruled otherwise? Losing the old forums means we lost a bunch of solved questions too… Thanks again!

      Reply

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