Thursday, April 14, 2011

Infinity Battle Report, as promised

Take cover! Infinity is a game that actually simulates live fire-fights with even your toughest heroes suffering critical injuries and your troopers getting mowed down by heavy machine guns.the most important rule is to keep your head down

In my first game last night I ran a Yu Jing battle group of six soldiers. Yu Jing is a Pan-Asian empire that specializes in heavy infantry, clad in power armor wielding advanced and traditional weaponry. The core of my force was three Zhanshi with combi-rifles. Zhanshi are your basic trooper, nothing special here. Combi-rifles are akin to a bolter in 40k but have a maximum range of 36 inches, with heavy penalties for long range shots.



For my heavy infantry I brought a Tiger Warrior with sniper rifle and an Invincible with Heavy Machine Gun or HMG. Both these soldiers wear power armor and carry deadly weaponry.

Next up is my lieutenant. The lieutenant is your army's ground commander and his survival is important to winning games. His/her death means you lose a turn, a fearful prospect as one turn can mean life or death for your troops. I nominated a second Invicible as my lieutenant.

My opponent was gracious enough to teach me the game as we played so he took units which would highlight some of the rules. He also had a Yu Jing force and brought some Invicibles, some Zhanshi and a shaolin monk.

I won the roll for deployment, chose an edge, set up and gave first turn to my infinity mentor. He kicked off the game by tossing a smoke grenade so some of his troops could get into firing positions. By positioning his Invincible with an HMG in cover, he created a veritable machine gun nest, that then proceeded to gun down my lieutenant in the first turn. I would have lost of turn because of that but my mentor skipped that rule as it was more of a demo game than an actual match. Note to self, keep your lieutenant protected, lesson learned.


In return, I started to work my troops into position to start laying pressure on that HMG nest. After losing a Zhanshi to return fire, my Invincible's HMG managed to gun down his, and make short work of the line troops supporting the position. While doing so, one of his heavy infantry was flanking me on my left. Seeing this, I had to reposition my sniper in order to get a good line of fire on his avenue of approach. As his power-armored soldier rounded the corner to fire on my line troops, my sniper took aim and got a direct hit. A sniper's bullet penetrated his armor and felled the attacker in silent death. 

With that threat nullified, it was my time to execute the killing blow. I began to move up my heavy infantry but fumbled the moves a bit and lost my sniper while fleeting from cover to cover. That's the beauty of Infinity, you really have to be careful where you step or you'll be pushing up daisies. 

In the end, my Invincible leaped up a hill, shrugged off some fire, and pumped the enemy full of lead to kill off the last pockets of resistance. Rambo moves like that aren't uncommon in Infinity but they are risky!

Infinity really is an exciting game. One thing that struck me was the vulnerability of even the most elite infantry, which creates a lot of risk and excitement during the game. Though, there were many things we skipped over in this game, like gut-checks and hackers, I feel pumped up to keep playing Infinity.     

11 comments:

Mark said...

I've been wondering about the battle system that went with these fantastic minis for some time. Post more pics of yours, btw, they look awesome!

Simon said...

Thanks for the bat-rep. I wish Infinity was bigger at my LGS - the models are gorgeous and I'd love to paint some up.

James Convy said...

I love my Infinity army. I play Ariadna. Werewolves and kilts! Still learning the rules but it is a quick and fun game.

cncplyr said...

Looks interesting :)

Marc said...

Hey Tim,

I'm going with Ariadna myself. I hope to get in with you and Auroth soon!

For the Greater Good,

Unknown said...

We only had 3 people who were playing, then we started a once a week game night at the FLGS and now we have over 19 members to our Front Range Infinity Games club...

@Simon: Sometimes, you just need to play the game in public to draw some new players...

Pete W said...

Sounds like you had a blast Tim and the game sounds like a solid firefight is deadly, much like real life. It sounds to me as though your forces were really having to deal with the imminent threat of death and push through to secure the win.

Look forward to more batreps when you get time.

suneokun said...

Looks like you had a good amount of cover. I collect Haqqislam, which specialise in Medium Infantry, with a couple of really dirty Heavy options - all backed up by Doctors and some of the best LI in the game. Infinity is a game best promoted on two front. It plays really well on a small scale - so as a dining room skirmish game it thrashes 40k and equivilent. But building up a local followings also key.

dzer0 said...

What do you think of the Monk and Invincible? I play a Sectorial Ju Ying army and have yet to try those guys out.

Tim said...

I've only really played one game but from what I can tell, the Invincible is a good choice although, apart from his armor and weapons, he doesn't have any special skills or abilities. He's a good soldier though.

The Monk has Impetuous and that makes a bit difficult to use. If they get into CC though, say good-bye to whomever happens to be on the receiving end.

suneokun said...

I use 'Kum' the impetuous bikers with smoke grenades. Smoke grenades make the impetuous action easier to swallow. Their first 'free' action means that they can move and throw. This is simultaneous and therefore any thrown grenade IF it falls in the way WILL block LoS, depending on where its thrown from.

If thrown from out of LoS, and then you move across the area, covered in smoke - no LoS, no reaction. Sweet.

If you move to a 'better position' to throw which IS in LoS then this is a face to face roll between the Shaolin and the reacting marksman. If the smoke's off target, RtH with no modifiers, if on target RtH with -6 to hit as per smoke rules.

Two short orders are 'simultaneous', while you 'have to react' after the first short order is declared, you cannot 'intervene' on the second action.

The only exception to this is with reacting to camoflagued models when the spotter can 'choose' whether they want to react after the first order (or wait for the bugger to have a shot and 'uncover' itself on the second short order).

I use 2 Kum as a mobile smoke screen to cover the advance of my HI/MI, covered by my Djanbazan MI.

Beware Multispectral Visor L2 (Djan have these), as they completely ignore cover ... hence the neat combo for Haqqislam.

Hence Shaolins are cool. Irregular being a bigger issue than Impetuous.