Paracommando SAS
Been a lot of Heavy Gear lately, time to get back to Infinity. We’ve been pretty lazy about tables, since Adam’s USAriadna table shares so much terrain with his Heavy Gear table. I’ve been frantically assembling and painting terrain for a new Infinity table, so hopefully I’ll get a new table on the blog for you soon. Still, the table has enough terrain to give some pretty different configurations.
Overview
- Mission: Mindwipe
- Forces: Kosmoflot versus Military Orders
- Deploy First: Military Orders
- First Turn: Military Orders
Well, time to try Kosmoflot. I did some list iteration with Tim (Chainsaw) and arrived at this:
Mindwipe 9
GROUP 1
6
1
2
WALLACE (Lieutenant) T2 Rifle(+1 Dam), Light Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, EXP CC Weapon. (0 | 35)
VARANGIAN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Heavy Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (0 | 9)
GROUP 2
S.A.S. (Forward Observer) Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse, D-Charges / Pistol, AP + Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 21)
UXÍA McNEILL (Specialist Operative) Boarding Shotgun, D-Charges, Smoke Grenades / Assault Pistol(+1B), AP CC Weapon. (0 | 27)
CATERAN T2 Sniper Rifle / Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (1 | 23)
UNKNOWN RANGER AP Spitfire, Chain-colt / Heavy Pistol, T2 CC Weapon. (1 | 47)
FRONTOVIK Heavy Rocket Launcher / Assault Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 21)
IRMANDINHO Chain Rifle, D-Charges, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (0 | 8)
WARDRIVER (Hacker, Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 14)
PARA-COMMANDO AP Spitfire / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 31)
5.5 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army
I really enjoy the Merovingian troops, so I had to take the Paracommando AP Spitfire, and then SAS and Uxia are sort of a must-take for Mindwipe. Tim asked me if I was going to take a Wardriver, so I shuffled things around to make that happen. I’m definitely of the opinion that I like Vanilla Ariadna more than Kosmoflot, but Wallace as a Lieutenant is a pretty attractive reason to play Kosmoflot. I’m also a big fan of parachutists, so that’s a big improvement over Caledonia.
Shockingly, I didn’t take Margot and Duroc, as they don’t directly help me complete the mission. Murdering stuff is great, and if either of them had an anti-material weapon they’d go from “OMG amazing!” to straight up auto-include. I did, however, telegraph the threat of Margot and Duroc by leaving 13 visible orders on the table. Adam gifted me his last copy of the Limited Edition Unknown Ranger, so I felt obliged to take him. That and Tim kept going on and on about how awesome the UKR is (he’s not wrong). I’m really not excited by links, but I figured I might as well have two 3-model links just to have some ARO options.
Adam’s Military Orders list, by contrast, is all about the big central link with a backup Black Friar HRL. He loves the Knight of Justice Spitfire and its powerful active-turn presence, and the Knight of Santiago hacker is pretty epic too. The rest of the link is filled out with the new Croziers that have fixed the removal of Fusiliers from Military Orders. The savings in points let Adam put in the new Knight of the Holy Sepulchre with AP HMG and an excellent support package of the Trinitarian FO and the Peacemaker.
Military Orders
GROUP 1
KNIGHT OF JUSTICE (Lieutenant) Spitfire / Heavy Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (1.5 | 47)
KNIGHT OF SANTIAGO (Hacker, Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, D-Charges ( | TinBot: Firewall [-3]) / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 39)
CROSIER Combi Rifle, Blitzen, E/M Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 13)
GROUP 2
BLACK FRIAR FTO (Sixth Sense) Heavy Rocket Launcher, Nanopulser / MULTI Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 25)
KNIGHT OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE (NCO) AP Heavy Machine Gun / Heavy Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (1 | 56)
FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 7)
PEACEMAKER Heavy Shotgun / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 20)
AUXBOT_3 Heavy Flamethrower / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 4)
SIERRA DRONBOT Heavy Machine Gun / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 24)
TRINITARIAN (Forward Observer) Submachine Gun, D-Charges, Flash Pulse, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 23)
MACHINIST Combi Rifle, D-Charges ( | GizmoKit) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 15)
PALBOT PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)
WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse ( ) / Stun Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)
5 SWC | 299 Points | Open in Infinity Army
Deployment
I won the rolloff and elected to take deployment, which I think… might have been a mistake? I dunno. Alpha striking in Mindwipe I think is reasonably important. In any case, he sets up his link clustered to the left side of his deployment zone with a comparatively weaker right side. The Black Friar is in the middle to reinforce the link. What’s fun is that the Black Friar profile has Sixth Sense naturally, so it’s a great candidate to leave out of a link. Adam covered two of his servers and his back table edge with a Sierra bot, and then covered both board edges with a Warcor and a Fugazi, respectively. You gotta respect Margot and Duroc!
I strung the SAS out into awkward spots in the midfield, and then foolishly put Uxia on the landing platform, figuring that I would need her to go do stuff on the left like take on the Peacemaker. I covered the servers with Wallace and the Varangians (band name alert) and then I decided to stack up the Frontoviks and the UKR on the left. I put the UKR covering the left table edge to defend against the Peacemaker, and put the Frontovik Engineer between the UKR and the HRL, which was covering the Santiago.
My Irmandinho in the back rolled a MULTI Sniper Rifle, and the one on the right got an ADHL. Adam put down a Sepulcher Knight on my left, so I put a Cateran down to contest a firelane that it would have to go through, all the way on the right to ensure I had good range while it did not.
Turn 1
Top of 1 – Military Orders
I dock two orders from Adam’s second pool. Adam starts off by sending in the Knight of the Holy Sepulcher, taking out my Frontovik HRL. Without surprise shot, the odds aren’t great.
| 19.52 | 35.62 | 44.86 |
With surprise shot, they’re worse.
| 11.59 | 29.91 | 58.51 |
Anyway. I should know better than to leave things out against PanO, even if it was to threaten something that I out ranged.
With the Frontovik gone, this lets the hidden-deployed Order Sergeant flip a console and reveal the central server as the one with the Rogue AI.
The Sepulcher Knight tries to take out my SAS FO, but fails the discover. Nothing there, boss!
The Knight keeps moving, and reveals itself to the Cateran, well outside of 32″. I decide to take the shot. The odds are pretty even…
| 28.18 | 43.94 | 27.88 |
which of course means I lose the face to face and the Cateran. I rolled an 18 and Adam rolled 2, 3. How frustrating.
The UKR gets vaporized next, and then there’s this hilarious standoff between the Irmandinho with his MSR and the Knight… which I of course lose.
After getting Follow Up on my HVT, Adam backs the Knight off and throws it into suppression. The Trinitaritan is forced to spend a command token to recamo.
Bottom of 1 – Kosmoflot
I’ve lost quite a bit of stuff now, so I blow up all of my command tokens to get this hobbled list:
GROUP 1GROUP 2
2 SWC | 192 Points | Open in Infinity Army
That was my first mistake, leaving the Irmandinho in the second group instead of the Wardriver. I make a second mistake and try to set up a run on the remaining console on my right to reveal the server. I land smoke with a long-bomb smoke from the Irmandinho and then spend Wallace’s free coordinated order to get the SAS in position in the smoke. What I should’ve done was just spend all my orders on the Paracommando, which I bring on near Adam’s link. The first order sees me take down the Crozier Paramedic…
followed closely after by the other two Croziers.
Wallace’s order got the Varangian in place to attempt a Intuitive Attack on the Trinitarian, but Adam beats my roll with an SMG shot. I pass ARM.
At this point, I’ve got three orders left. I make my third mistake, and instead of murdering the Trinitarian with Uxia/the Varangian, I make two rolls on the console with the SAS FO and fail both. I settle the Irmandinho into cover, and spend my last order getting the Paracommando to safety.
Turn 2
Top of 2 – Military Orders
Adam kills the Varangian with the KoJ’s lieutenant order.
Then he re-camos the Trinitarian and gets one swing on the Rogue AI server with its D-Charges after I fail two discovers. Wallace shotguns the Trinitarian down, but I fail all three ARM rolls on the server.
Adam then pushes the Knight of Justice into base to base with my SAS. We both crit on the first CC exchange, and I manage to beat the KoJ on the second order. Adam sadly passes both saves.
With that, things go back to me.
Bottom of 2 – Kosmoflot
I’m not doing very well. I’ve got to do more damage and clear the way for my SAS to get to the objective. I move the Irmandinho towards the console and manage to flip it. I do get flash pulsed by the Warcor, but that’s fine as it’s my last order in the pool. The Paracommando wipes out the Warcor…
and the Santiago.
At this point, I really need to get rid of the Knight of Justice. I figure I can just CC it with the SAS, either I win or Iose. Either case is good for me. If I win, then I maybe kill it with the SAS. If I lose, then the Paracommando is behind the Knight of Justice and I can shoot it in the back unopposed from outside of 8″. It takes two orders but I down the Knight of Justice, putting Adam in Loss of Lieuteant for Turn 3.
I correct my earlier mistake and aggressively push the Paracommando, taking out the Black Friar.
I retreat the Paracommando into a corner with Wallace’s order, moving my remaining SAS into the midfield.
Turn 3
Top of 3 – Military Orders
Adam is indeed in Loss of Lieutenant, so he tries to prevent me from getting the server. He tries to take down the Irmandinho with the Sepulchre, but fails against my smoke.
I lose the Paracommando to the Sierra, who shifts to get a better shot and protect the server. I probably should’ve just thrown the Paracommando into suppression, which would’ve made this more difficult, especially because it also allowed the Machinist to move into a spot to contest the SAS’s approach.
Bottom of 3 – Kosmoflot
The Irmandinho attempts to set up smoke, but fails, getting crit by the Machinist.
I have enough orders to get two SAS nearby, with Adam failing 4/5 discover rolls against the pair. I should at this point spend my orders surprise-shotgunning the Machinist, or shooting against its discover with a long range flash pulse or shotgun, but I don’t. Instead, I made a single roll against the server, crit, and Adam passes all 4 saves and the Machinist drops my SAS.
I’ve got one order left and Uxia nabs Net Undermine. Well, that was almost a tie. If only Adam had failed the same number of ARM rolls that I did on the server.
10-2 Military Orders Victory!
Post Game Analysis
Well that was more than a little frustrating. I’m very pleased with my recovery from a really bad deployment and first turn. I wasn’t thinking very carefully and just left things out to intentionally ARO guns instead of covering objectives. Although I am a little miffed about that Cateran interaction. I think the biggest problem was Uxia was out of commission the whole game, and that really made things difficult.
I think I could’ve easily tied this game had I been more careful with my SAS when attacking on Turn 3. There was definitely a way to get there and deal with the Machinist somehow. I do think that SAS losing their rifles is a pretty big deal. The Chain Rifle and LSG is a nice toolkit, I’m certainly not complaining, but it is weaker than having a rifle, especially in N4, where anything with a shotgun can now just template you. Yes, you can use the shotgun outside of 8″, but that’s probably going to be 2d20 on 8, which is much worse than 3d20 on 11’s, especially since you don’t deny cover to the target anymore. You can, of course, use the chain rifle at outside of 8″ or flash pulse, but that’s just far less reliable. Nevertheless, I think taking a flash pulse at 24″ on the way in from one of the SAS would’ve been much better, and would’ve given me two attempts to blow up the server.
Really, this game came down to me failing 3 ARM rolls and Adam passing 4. There was a lot that I did wrong and I could definitely have improved my chances by getting multiple orders of D-Charges on the server, but I was very pleased to have lost so much and still managed to push my way through to an almost tie. I was down a Cateran, the UKR, Uxia (effectively), and a few more orders over that. I’ll take it. Just goes to show you, an Infinity game isn’t over until the last order.
I think the big things I should’ve done, ignoring better deployment, was that I should’ve gone all in on the Paracommando the first turn. I think I could’ve wiped out the entirety of Adam’s first order pool, sans the KoJ and the Fugazi, which would have been pretty devastating. Either that, or I should’ve gone after the Trinitarian with Uxia. In any case, the real problem was I should have waited to go after the console till Turn 2. I had it in my head that I wanted to set up for a run on the server, and I really wanted to know which one early. In retrospect, knowing at the top of 2 is probably good enough. I also think that not having the Irmandinho in group one was a big deal. The Wardriver was pretty meh.
One subtle thing is that the Sepulcher Knight did the suppressive fire holo trick, but Adam tried to shell game me by having the real one facing backwards in case I brought on AD troops. It would’ve been much better for me to have the Wardriver in a group by itself, and then just move-shotgunning the Knight and the Peacemaker. I probably kill the Peacemaker and die to the Knight, which is good. That removes orders from the Trinitarian. I think my big issue was that I haven’t really paid attention to MO at all since its release and didn’t think about the Trinitarian having D-Charges. Had I known about that I would’ve tried much harder to kill it. Ah well. Next time.
As far as Kosmoflot goes, I’m not very excited about it still. The links aren’t terribly interesting to me (really no links are), and losing my links early on was actually pretty liberating! I went back to Vanilla problem solving, and that felt much better to me. I think the real benefit is that you can take Wallace as a Lieutenant, which gives you three Irmandinhos as regular orders, which is super awesome. SAS are great, and you can take AD troops, which Caledonia lacks. I think that no matter what you bring in Kosmoflot, you have to make sure that you’re threatening Margot and Duroc. That means you have to show your opponent no more than 13 models on the table, to force them to castle up a little in their deployment zone.
Wallace feels pretty worth it, especially since you get a free coordinated every turn, which I really appreciate. I do think that there are lists that work without him, like this one:
KOSMOSOLDAT (Lieutenant, Multispectral Visor L1) Portable Autocannon ( ) / AP Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 48)
ZENIT-7 (Chain of Command) AP Marksman Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 32)
I really like the Paracommando. It’s expensive, but this game it accounted for a huge chunk of Adam’s list. Of everything on his side that died, only the KoJ was not killed by the Paracommando. Pretty impressive. Anyway. I might try Kosmoflot again, they seem fine. I just need to find a link that I actually like.
