Durgama Takeover

• Mission: The Armory
• Forces: Vanilla Yu Jing (Khepri) versus Tohaa (Hey It’s Bren) – 300 points
• First turn: Yu Jing
• Second deployment: Tohaa

I had played Bren once and before, and had a blast, so naturally jumped at the chance to play some of the shiny new missions with him! I’ve had mixed experiences with the armory as a mission before, but this was one of the most tense and exciting games of Infinity I’ve had to date, showcasing what the mission can be at its best. So a big thank you to Bren!

I wanted to try a list different from what I regularly play, which is hacking and camo heavy with a missile bot. I was inspired by Rob Cantrell’s super fun looking “Art of Meme” YJ list, which used units very different from ones I regularly play, so I tweaked a couple of things and we were off!

I won my Lt roll and elected to go first. The Armory rewards going second, but I’m playing a new list, and not confident in my defense against Tohaa impersonators, so I was hesitant to go second.

My classifieds were both medic type classifieds, and I had no doctors or paramedics, so rescue the HVT it is!

In deployment I tried to take advantage of the sparse cover on my side of the table, and reserved my Lt (Sun Tze Marksman) and my Yan Huo. The thought was to better place my powerful active pieces for an effective first turn. While Sun Tze will never be left to ARO, with total immunity and leveraging the Sniper Rifles range bands, you can carefully take some fights. I placed the Kuang Shi scattered around the deployment as human mines, guarding other pieces, while my two Long Ya anchored the sides and took some of the high ground. The digger and the Liberto were placed to advance into the armory, and the shaolin to smoke the two long firelanes that controlled access to the armory.

One of the Long Ya placed a mine on the access ladder of the building, blocking the way of any impersonator that did not decide to risk rolling for my deployment zone. That was going to be the area where I placed Sun Tze.

However Bren deployed with a decently strong ARO presence. A triad with a Sukeul missile launcher controlled the left access to the armory, and another triad with a Sukeul HMG controlled the right access. Two Kaeltar doubled as flash pulse bots overlooking the left access as well.

The obvious Lt was the Taqeul, way over on the right side hiding on top of a building. However, the buildings in the center of the table were much taller! If I could access the top of the right center building, I could get plunging fire and possibly take out the Taqeul with no cover. That seemed a perfect job for my Su Jian. It had deployed defensively back, in the center of my deployment, but it’s so fast, if I took care of the missile launcher first, I could definitely have a shot at killing the Lt.

I deployed the Yan Huo on the left to try to get access to the roof. From there I could dominate the whole board with his HRMC. Sun Tze deployed in an exposed position on my left, where I could use the sniper's total immunity to risk a shot at taking out the missile launcher.

Both of Bren’s impersonators came down on my left flank. One in an awkward position over on the far left, and the other rolled to deploy in my DZ, and ended up right behind my Lt, perfectly placed to shotgun my Lt, the Celestial Guard, and a Shaolin with one template.

Outskirts of the Camillard Research Facility, Armory A24. T-00h:05m

Xi Yingjie, Lieutenant of the 237th Special Reconnaissance Unit, also known as the Crystal Tigers, swept his gaze along the dark shapes of the Camillard Facilities. Ahead lay one of the many armories that dotted the huge swathe of developed ground. His Lhost body moved smoothly, his eyes picking out many details in shadows between the buildings.

It’s what Xiu would have wanted, wasn’t it?

So here was my first big mistake. I knew Greif’s did not have template weapons, and I thought Jaan Staar had only a viral pistol +1B. I did not realize he also had a shotgun! So when I moved my shaolin in the impetuous phase, I expected the impersonator to either do nothing, and I would then try to discover with the shaolin, or he would reveal and I would chain rifle back, trading favorably.

Well Jaan Staar revealed and blasted my Lt, shaolin and Celestial Guard Monitor! The Shaolin hit him back with a chain rifle, causing a wound, but Sun Tze could not dodge, and took a wound, and the Celestial Guard went down.

Instead of disentangling this mess, I continued with the impetuous phase by running up my kuang shi on the left. The Greif revealed, the Kuang Shi chain rifled, but both made their armor saves. At least I had revealed both impersonators. Time to take care of them!

I used the Long Ya nearby to surprise attack with his SMG to finish off Jaan Staar, and advanced with the Yan Huo up to the big building in the center left, and pasted the Greif from behind with his HRMC.

The Su Jian advanced under cover of smoke and climbed to just underneath the big building on the right, keeping him out of sight and ready to attack next turn, as I did not have enough orders to complete an attack run this turn.

The liberto, beasthunter and irregulars moved up to get closer to the armory, ready to breach next turn. I decided not to open the gates as I had spent too many orders taking care of the impersonators and was not confident in being able to defend the armory. Let Bren spend orders rolling WIP to open it up!

Finally the Yan Huo used the ladder to climb to the top of the left building, but I had not checked the lines of fire correctly and as he used the second move to get to the roof, the Sukeul Missile Launcher had a line of fire! Big mistake number two, and the Yan Huo was vaporized in a large explosion. Not a good start for the State Empires ambitions in Camillard!

I had not repositioned my Lt during my turn, and Bren moved quickly to capitalize on this. A camouflaged Liberto made a mad attack run, dashing through the building on the left, crashing through windows. He was discovered but not soon enough, and managed to get close enough to threaten. Sun Tze dodged, but failed, and was slaughtered in a roar of shotgun fire. He fell in that same order, riddled with panzerfausts and other fire from troops in the area, but the damage was done. Guess I was going to spend the next turn in loss of Lt!

The Sukeul HMG took out the right hand Long Ya in a burst of HMG fire, opening up that firelane to the Tohaa advance.

The way now clear, the diplomatic delegate moved up and opened the doors to the armory, staying outside, threatening the inside of the room with her pheroware.

Finally the Kerail Preceptor moved up with his two symbiobeasts to occupy the armory. The first one traded templates with my liberto and fell, the second beast and the Preceptor were more cautious and stayed on their side of the armory, claiming it for Tohaa at the end of turn 1, and placing Tohaa in the lead by 2-0.

3 miles away from the Camillard operations theatre. T+00h21m

“Lieutenant down! I repeat, Yingjie is down!” ..

“Let's clean up this mess. Plug me back in!”

OK, things were not going well! I had made mistakes, and been punished hard for them. Both of my big, long range guns were down and I had also lost a third of my army points. I was also going to spend turn 2 in Loss of Lieutenant, so I had to be very precise with my orders if I wanted to be able to have a shot at winning.

Surveying the table I came to a couple of conclusions:

• I had to abort the assassination attempt on the Taquel. The Su Jian was my last, powerful piece in play, and I needed those 50 points to contest the armory. The Su Jian has an effective 4 wounds between his STR, No Wound Incapacitation and Remote Presence, and that plus his good ARM, BTS and PHY should allow him to be a pain to remove, and give me armory control.
• I had to cede fire control. There was no way I was going to kill the HMG or the Missile Launcher at range now, so I had to hide and try to ignore them as much as possible.
• The armory was lightly held, and most of Bren’s troops were still in his deployment zone. If I play my cards right, I might be able to take this round!
• Between the Kuang Shi, the Digger and the Shaolin, I have a bunch of impetuous orders. That should help a bit to mitigate this turn's impact.

The digger started by using his impetuous order to barge into the armory and kill the Surda Symbiobeast in a hail of chain rifle fire. He took a wound in return (pesky Tohaa and their fondness for BTS weapons!) and was isolated by the delegate. That was OK, he was inside, and with his tankiness, templates and good CC ability he could threaten anything placed in the armory.

The Shaolin used his impetuous order and his irregular order to get closer to the armory and lay down 2 smokes for the Su Jian, blocking that whole firelane from the view of the overwatching Sukeul HMG.

The Su Jian used his order to climb off the wall, and into the middle of the street. From there I converted a Kuang Shi’s order into regular to move the Su Jian just outside the armory. In that position he would be safe from any attacks, but hopefully could dodge into the armory during the end of Bren’s turn, minimizing in this way his exposure to attacks.

The liberto moved into the armory, placing a mine to threaten both the top and right door. The left door was defended by the digger, so I had all accesses covered.

Finally, I brought my Lui Xin down. I figured I would really need his order on the table for turn 3. However, here the fact that Bren’s deployment had not moved was a disadvantage, as he had prepared a really good defense. With the exclusion zone, there was nowhere to walk on without getting nailed by the HMG or the Missile Launcher. Walking on my edges would mean the Lui Xin would probably not be able to participate in the armory defense. After much deliberation, I finally decided to Combat Jump in, and tried to land on a mimetism -3 marker I thought was an Igao, which scared me as that could destroy my Su Jian in close combat.

I made my roll and my Lui Xin came down, but the marker was a mine! The Lui Xin took a wound from the mine, but was at least in cover on the way to the armory. With luck he could sap some orders from Bren’s pool. With that I passed the turn over to Bren.

A Chaksa Auxiliar moved forwards toward the armory, and used his Heavy Flamethrower the Lui Xin. The Lui Xin dodged successfully and I moved him into close combat with the Chaksa!

A couple of orders were spent on the Chaksa attacking the drop troop in CC, the first was not effective, but in the second order, the Lui Xin slew the Auxiliar. Fist pump moment for me!

Of course now the Lui Xin was outside of cover in view of the missile launcher, and was swiftly vaporized. He will be remembered as a hero!

The delegate moved up to try to use his template on the liberto and the digger, catching only the digger in the blast. The digger templated back, taking down the delegate but passing his own armor roll. Meanwhile the Su Jian took advantage of the delegate’s movement to dodge into the armory! This was perfect for me, as Bren had expended quite a few orders and I had my big piece inside the armory.

The HMG triad pushed forwards, and the Sukeul used his symbiobomb to endgame both the liberto and the digger, but they both managed to successfully reset.

The Makaul of the triad crept forward and positioned himself to be able to see the Su Jian and not the mine. He used his flamer, and the Su Jian failed his dodge but managed to pass his armor saves, suffering only one wound.

Finally the Sukeul HMG blasted with digger with breaker pistol fire and managed to put it down, but the digger removed the symbiomate with his chain rifle.

At the end of turn 2, we were tied! 2-2, and I had a real chance to win this game!

Just outside the Camillard A24 Armory. T+00h31m

Imperial Citizen Reformation Corps member G4A9YL shook his head. His body was awash with combat drugs and stimulants, and his heart fluttered with every breath.

As the flames enveloped him, he wondered why he had shouted sweetheart.

So first things first, I had to break up the Sukeul triad just outside the armory. I would not survive all those active turn orders into my units. I didn’t trust my Su Jian into all the burst 2 ARO’s, and I had no big guns left, so time for my impetuous orders! The Kuang Shi were the most disposable units now, their 5 points would not make much of a difference in the armory. I launched one at the Makaul, but he died a flaming death with the Makaul still standing.

So it was the Shaolin’s turn next, and he finally managed to kill the Makaul while dying in the attempt.

Next the Su Jian moved up and between his shots and the Liberto’s mine, finished off the Kerail that was skulking in the armory.

The Liberto placed another mine in the exact same spot. It had a direct line of sight to the top and right door, so it was a good position to reinforce the armory defense.

Finally, I wanted to take out the Sukeul HMG outside the Armory. I figured he was the only power piece left close to the armory, if I can take him out, the rest of the army might be too far away to mount a proper attack.

However if the Su Jian stepped outside he would get a missile to the face. So I brought the beastmaster in. He got discovered on the way in and had to re-camo, but he stepped outside to kill the Sukeul. Annoyingly the Sukeul dodged around the armory trying to escape, but the beastmaster managed to run him down and +1 burst EXP CC weapons left only a fine mist behind. Even better, the Missile Launcher Sukeul missed, so I still had the Beasthunter as an asset. I ran out of orders to put him back into the armory, but maybe I could dodge him into the armory or into an enemy Tohaa during the following turn.

Bren burns his command tokens to place all the troops in the same group, and starts moving up the table with the Taquel Lt’s haris.

A few orders later, within zone of control of the Beasthunter, the Taqeul blasts him with Endgame, quickly wiping him out.

Another order and another Endgame later, the liberto lies dead on the floor of the armory. Only the Su Jian stands inside the armory now, and lucky for me, he is immune to endgame.

Bren has only 1 order and the Lt order left. It all comes down to this. I eyeball that his Lt haris is worth more than my Su Jian, so I need to take action. It’s not enough to dodge and stay alive, I have to kill one of his units in my ARO, and hope that armor 5 and 3 wounds would allow me to survive the counterpunch.

The Makaul is now the spearpoint of the haris, and he and the Sakiel rush into the armory. The Makaul drops two Heavy Flamethrower templates on the Su Jian, and the Su Jian fires back at the Makaul, as the Sukeil has two wounds.

I roll the armor saves, and the Su Jian falls, enveloped in flames!

The Taqeul waltzes into the armory unopposed with his own order, and seals the game! 5-2 in favor of Tohaa!

In hindsight, perhaps leaving the armory to try to kill the Sukeul HMG was a mistake. I could have placed another mine with the liberto, and placed the Beasthunter and the Liberto in camouflage, making them harder to Endgame and to remove.

On the other hand, I’m not sure it would have had any more success, the Sukeul was well placed to use his breaker pistol to kill the Su Jian in his active turn, and without the Su Jian, there was just no way I could outpoint the Tohaa forces in the armory.

The act of trying to get the high ground on the left with my Yan Huo, even without the missile launcher overwatch, was a clear mistake. The Yan Huo is 48 points, and is pretty tough. He would have been valuable in the armory, and in suppressive fire would have been a real pain to remove.

Finally, I believe I also mis-played the Lui Xin. Again, a tough, 2 wound piece that was worth over 30 points and would have been important to secure the armory. Perhaps he was better used by combat jumping somewhere safe and moving up into the armory to help defend. Or perhaps I should have been more patient, and brought him in turn 3, when the board had opened up some and he could actually make a difference.

I enjoyed the game immensely, and the fact you can fight to make a comeback after such a disastrous first turn in Infinity is one of the reasons I love this game. Always fight until the last, and play the mission!

Big thank you to my opponent Bren for a friendly, intense game where no quarter was asked or given!