Asteroid Blues

One could get the feeling that the Shasvastii were everywhere at the Japanese Bottom. Small teams marauded the streets, struck from the shadows, obducted people here and there...some willingly, some screaming for their lives.

Haidachi Musoka's combat team came across such a raiding party. Not on combat strenght, they still unlocked their guns and went to engage the alien troops...Japanese soldiers simply value their own lives as little, as the aliens do. What they call honor...well in th eyes if the EI, this was another chance to simply slaughter some humans...willing fodder to get slain.

One guy in the ranks of the Japanese initiated the assault, crying BoBsai...and they began to charge...only a drone having realized that something might be wrong. But who listens to drones anyway?

Week 3 of the campaign and I had a dear visitor: Tom from one of my former clubs came to celebrate our National Holiday. Quick note: Germans don't celebrate anything national...maybe except football. He just had a day off and came to visit. So I asked him if would like to play Infinity, since we would just hang out anyways. So why not? He hasn't played Infinity in N3 a lot, so this would not be a competitive game. We grabbed some of my minis, set up a table and clicked some lists.

We chose to play a Recon mission on a slightly smaller board...and of course some music. Beer would have helped to endure the terror a bit better, but it was too early for getting drunk.

The Recon mission Rescue is quite similar to the ITS version, but only with 2 civvies for each player. Makes it far easier to stay on top of things.

Lists were 150 points, and I went with my usual subjects: Speculo, Shrouded, Mento, Q-Drone, Ikadron, leaving me with 6 orders. I felt a little cheesy for my camos and impersonator, but whatever. I'm the bad guy here!

Toms list at least featured a fireteam and 2 Rui Shi...wasn't this supposed to be a friendly game where we take things easy??? Unfortunately for Tom, characters are not allowed in Recon missions...which made his Lt. Option quite obvious: Domaru or Keisostu. We chose to allow 2 command tokens for each player as there was a linkteam...just to have some options.

I won the initiative and chose to go first...so I had to deploy first. Nothing too crazy, but still a quite aggressvie set up. I made the infiltration rolls for both my Shrouded and my Speculo...this never happend at the club or at tournaments btw. Tom rolled successful for his infiltration, so there definitely had to be a Ninja somewhere. That might be a problem...

For this report I chose not to show the moves in the map...just too little movement. Hope you can get the jist from the pictures.

I strated to coordinate my Q-Drone, Ikadrons and the Shrouded Minelayer to move forward. Then BoBstria started his rampage: first he shot a Keisotsu, then the Rui Shi on the right flank...both only took one wound. With the rest of my orders the Shrouded FO dropped a mine, synched a civvie and strated his retreat. 7 ordes spent...hell, this just speeds up things sooooo much.

Tom started to form a fresh fireteam and shot down BoBstria. Then his second Rui Shi moved up to get my Ikadron...I was worried. Actually it was a Lu Duan. Not really the better alternative but still only 3 shots. Unfortunately for Tom, he just came a little too close to the mine and took a hit while shooting at the Ikadron. Makes his armour roll but gets stunned. Well done. Tom used his last order to have his Paramedic her luck with shooting her Medikit...missed.

Definitely some clean up had to be done, so I moved up my Q-Drone. Shot the Lu Duan in the back...only one wound got through, but that was enough. The the thing went for the Kempeitei...two crits, Kempeitei gone. Q-Drone then said hello to the nearest Keisotsu, put down a plasma template and also got the Domaru. Both rolls beaten, the Keisotsu died and the Domaru recieved a wound. Saved 3 hits...not bad! As I had another order left I took another shot at the Domaru, but he dodged them and jumped forward...

...so Tom charged the Q-Drone with the Lt. order and struck that drone down. Quite depleted on orders, he unveiled the Ninja and "ramboed" one of my Ikadrons with his bow. Then he went for my Shrouded but my 2 beat his 1...pathetc rolling...Ninja went down. Tom's turn done.

With so little orders, turn 3 would be quick...I retreated my Shrouded FO further back. Then the Shrouded Minelayer went for the second civvie and barely synched it. The Domaro tried his luck with his pistol, but missed.

Tom had 3 orders left, so with nothing better to do, the Domaru charged my Shrouded...2 Chainrifles on the way, Shrouded dodges both. Then the Domaru charges...Berserk...Martial Arts Level 3...rolls another pathetic 2. Shrouded makes his save.

The game obviously a win for the Shasvastii:

More civilians: 1-0
more in the dead zone: 4-0 (didn't get the civvie in the deployment zone unfortunately)
secure HVT: 6-0

Some of our rolls were just rediculous, others were pathetic, and again some were just hilarious. The battle would have been much closer if the dice followed the odds. Still: it was highly amusing.

Recon is quick and dirty. The game took less than an hour and was really a lot of fun. So we decided to play a rematch on that same table. Btw: this new cardboard terrain for me is the shit. Absolutely great stuff. Looks nice, stores away easily, is resiliant, lightweight, but doesn't move too easy on the board. Perfect terrain for casual games!

BoBstria had orchestrated this carnage brilliantly. The JSA just stormed into their demise...two of the humans made it out alive...for now.

The Shasvastii collected the seed embryos of the fallen warriors, looted the boodies of the dead for useful information, then they killed the wounded. The Shoruded grabbed the civilians and dragged them to their exfiltration spots. The human females screamed...knowing that the horror of this battle was nothing compared to what they were to expect...