Infinity Mission Focus: Frostbyte or how I learned to stop worrying and love the meta

Welcome to another episode of this series focusing on Infinity Missions!
Today we delve into one of the more characteristic missions of ITS 13 aka Frozen Roads: Frostbyte.

BUT, before going through the mission, let me take the chance to have a look at this series and its scope.
For all those who are just interested in the Mission Focus, you can skip the part below to where pictures start.

The first Infinity Mission Focus was written and re-written several times during summer of 2021: the Covid-19 Pandemic brought me back to the hobby and I was having tons of fun with Infinity. My blog pals had been playing long time before me and introduced me to the game in the best way possible: discussing it. We talked about sculpts, paints, strategies, pros, cons, meta and all the projects we wanted to test, build and play.

With Operation Golden Ratio we also managed to take decent pictures of some of our games and built a compelling narrative that made us want to dive more and more into the story to see how it would end.

Wargaming is one of those media niches where a good blog post with intriguing pictures can still be as relevant as a cool YouTube video so I had a blast reading articles such as Faction Focus on Goonhammer or Which Faction is For You on Thediceabide and sharing ideas on the Infinity The Game - Italia Telegram channel.

It was only a matter of time before all of this was condensed into the Mission Focus series, a chain of articles with no pretense of explaining "how to win" but with the intention of highlighting some tools, skills and strategies that could be very effective for that particular mission. I still think the best explanation of the series is the one we wrote in its very first post:

Any road may lead you to either victory or defeat, yet probability and psychology can help us navigating in the sea of uncertainties which is wargaming. With these essays, we try to make some considerations on the game's missions trying to stay away from the temptation of defining do's and dont's or establishing tier lists.

There is an uncountable number of variables in a game. Pretending to be able to control them all is futile and it's not going to be the reason why you win or loose anyway. Wargames are not played in a laboratory or in a standard map such as online videogames. There is no recipe for winning, but you can still hope to find elements and mindsets that will make you a better player. As u/WiseKensai and u/HeadChime pointed out in their beautiful article List Building for a Mission:

A well played model with weaker stats will win more games than a poorly played model with stronger stats.

I think this really sums up the game and let me add that there is no tactic stronger than luck. This is why it's important to understand your playstyle and the meta you're in once you have grasped all the game's mechanics. 

You are going to play with different people, on different maps, with different objectives: you can't have one solution for all, you have to know there are many solutions and try to choose the best you can on that very precise moment, turn or order. 

Luck will do, or undo, the rest.

Ok, back to Frostbyte!

Skills, weapons and equipment

The coolest HI for the coolest environment: this beautiful Jujak was painted by @Trey815

🦾 Heavy Infantry (and REM): fast troopers immune to killing cold that can hold the exclusion zone: what else? REMs are also a great choice but they often come with a larger silhouette that makes it more difficult for them to stay in total cover so make sure they can respond fire with flash pulses or the like. No big deal if they drop down to unconscious level 1: you'll be able to repair them later in the game and turn the tables once again. Watch out for Unidron Batdroids (Combined Army/Onyx), Puppetbots (Nomads/Tunguska) and Dakini Tacbots (Aleph/OSS): not only they are hard to take down, they're also well equipped specialists.

Hassassin Fiday by Cristian Il Corinzio. Martial arts L3, smoke granades and CC 23 for 25 points? Come on!

🤡 Impersonation: playing behind enemy lines is so satisfying and it gets even better when these guys have and Anti-material trait cc weapon like the Fiday or D-Charges like the Grief Operator. Anyway, it's going to be an awesome roadbump for your opponent.

 

Mary Problems by @stefanodrei11 teaching some manners to a Gao-Tarsos unit. This girl is not only one of the best hackers of the game, she also knows how to shoot!

🔫🔫 Submachine Guns: AP/Shock that can go suppressive? A great tool both when attacking or defending your heat unit. Resist the temptation of going Rambo with these guys on turn one: they can still be devastating but they'll probably be more effective later on.

Behaviours and tactics

Yan Huo by @lucagirolami1987 standing tall over a beautiful terrain set: no wonder there are few enemies in sight!

🚳 Wheelie: dash forward (maybe on your brand new bike which you can now deploy for free during ITS13😉), get midfield and deny access to the exclusion zone without caring about the consoles. If your opponent has the Rambo mindset and has lots of impetuous orders to burn you can be pretty sure he'll try to strike hard and first. The Yan Huo in picture can be an interesting choice to counter this tactic: the Neurocinetics profile can make it a perfect control piece, taking advantage of its bioimmunity to laugh at any AP Spitfire brought by your opponent to face TAGs and HIs.

Totzro's sniper, nested inside a Warsenal Xiguan tower, checks out the sorroundings for a clear shot

👁️📴 Sniphacking: reach midfield with a triplet of deployable repeaters (pitchers work like a charm here) and hold back your scoring units until the very end. Use the rest of your orders to flush out the enemy and take them down with your carefully deployed snipers.

Some hypercool Nomad paintjobs by u/Bender082

🤫🎮 Hidden Total Control: nothing punishes your enemy like advancing recklessly with their TAG, confident that you won't be able to possess them if they come forward. Hold the aces up your sleeve and hack their favourite toy when they don't expect it! Croc men, Ninjas, Spektr, Malignos, Razors, Dasyus: almost every army has an option to field an infiltrated hidden hacker. However, since all these profiles are quite expensive, this tactic may turn into a waste of points unless you have a good hacking network. Therefore, being able to have a couple pitchers/repeaters on field is the starting condition to set up this kind of trap. Secondary is fielding expendable camo hackers, even better if they have some forward deployment skill. With a 6" moving REM w/ repeater and a pitcher, Jazz can be one of your top players in Frostbyte!