Operation Edgelord - Head hunters - 300 pts - Tunguska Vs Operation Subsection of the SSS

 

Intro

Tara's eyes fluttered open, the hazy aftereffects of cryostasis making her sluggish as she stepped out of the immersion tank. The room was cold and sterile, its pale light illuminating faint disturbances that hinted someone else had been here recently, not to mention the Kiiutan imposter lying lifeless on the floor. The holodisk was missing: Erin. Tara’s mind flitted to her briefly, but she had no time to follow the thought. Suddenly, she became conscious of the blaring alarm, its shrill cadence cutting through her disorientation. Peeking outside the rooms curtain, she saw the hulking silhouette of the Steindrage tearing into the edges of Averroes.

The camp was under siege. Haqqislam forces were rushing in to intercept, supported by a Tunguskan Rapid Intervention Team but tactical chaos was evident even from her distant vantage. Instinct told her to run, to flee before the battle reached her. She reached for her gear, a practiced routine, but as she moved, a new thought took root. She wasn’t just a survivor; she was a strategist. If she played this right, she could turn the situation to her advantage.

Tara rapidly hacked her way to a live feed of the battlefield. Aleph forces were concentrated near the fusion reactor, fighting not just to repel the Steindrage but to protect the critical energy source. Without hesitation, Tara made her decision. She broadcasted her position to the Eye of Hipparchus, virtually raising her hand — a signal of truce. The Aleph operatives hesitated, but ultimately allowed her to approach.

"I can help you," Tara said, her voice steady despite the tension. "You’re fighting to protect the reactor, but you’ll need more than brute force to hold the site. I know the weaknesses of that beast. Let me assist you."

Uncle Pentium studied her, inscrutable thoughs chasing each other in the depth of its potassium tank. Little records were held about Tara O'Neil, and Uncle Pentium knew little records always ment big trouble. After a moment, it replied. "We accept. For now."

“We may have more in common than you think,” she hinted cryptically. "You want to secure our future. So do I."

Her thoughts abruptly returned to Erin. What she had entrusted to her was no game: its shadow loomed large in her mind as she rushed to the battlefield, her mind already focused on slaying the monster and secure Aleph's tentative trust.

Operation Golden Ratio: episode 07 (season finale)

Intro 

Time passed. Despite working effortlessly on the remains of Patroclus, Nomads technicians got nothing but a glimpse of Laocoön and its meaning. However, back on Concilium, heads rolled for what had happened on Space Station Donacimiento. Aleph went paranoid at the idea of further Laocoön anomalies now that Nomads had case zero and issued a full scale update program on all Aspects and recreations to limitate and ward off any inconvenience. The damage in terms of delays and subsequent litigations was considerable, especially adding the fine paid to Varuna for what was later dubbed "The Donacimiento Incident". 

But after some time under apparently cold ashes, the flame of Project Laocoon started burning again. The OSS had been monitoring Batth'o Ubelin, the silk trader whose luxury ship's wreckage had been used by Tunguska as a base for infiltration on the Space Station. On his leisure world recreating the Old West, Ovestland, the attractions re-enacting Pat Garrett and his posse had started to malfunction, forcing extraordinary maintenance. The OSS figured out the malfunctioning was due to parts of Project Laocoön hidden into the attraction's software. Even if it meant to blow up Aleph's cover on Ovestland, the legacy of Project Laocoön had to be destroyed... 

Operation Golden Ratio: episode 05

Intro

As the ship started its approaching maneuver over Rodne, Alisaa sat next to Gina. In a matter of minutes, they would have landed on Island 3, a PanOceanian outpost built during the construction operations of Space Station Donacimiento, now reduced to a mass of falling debris over the lush rainforest covering the planet. The outpost had been scanned by Aleph's probes which revealed recent biological activity: investigations on site were extimated to be compromised by Nomads interference with an 83% chance, henche the armored support.  

"I fear the Greeks, even bearing gifts."
Gina looked back, without saying a word, uncomfortable with Alisaa's approach, who continued: "Apparently, this is something Laocoön said. According to Virgil, he was a Trojan priest who saw through the ruse of the horse and was therefore punished by the gods."
Alisaa stopped for a moment, looking at the barrel of her Combi Rifle, as if considering how to go on.

"After the Perseus incident, PanOceania made a motion to O-12 for the development of a failsafe dormient biotech antibody that would trigger upon Cube disconnection during class E missions. The motion was approved but Maya managed to soften it: mission class was rised and the bioweapon was only loaded on a limited number of subjects as a pilot program. Despite a number of close call events, Laocoön remained silent, until six months ago...".
Gina felt like she could ask for more information. It was a game she was not yet used to.
"So it triggered without satisfying the requirements?"
 "Yes, and not on a common trooper."
Their comlog light up, commencing mission countdown... 

Mission and lists 

This 300 point mission was Countermeasures, from ITS season 12 supplement. 

After the last defeat, Aleph goes for a more order intensive list bringing back the Dakinis and Parvati. The unusual 3-proxy formation is kind of a forced choice made to guarantee an adequate ARO power since the Garuda and the Dasyu are not on the table at deployment. 

Deployment 

Aleph wins the roll and keeps initiative, deploying and going first. A command token is spent to keep out the proxies and the Dasyu. The left flank is taken by the MK5 proxy supported by the hidden deployed Dasyu. On the center left goes the proxy MK2 and MK1 medic both on top of the building while the Danavas remains at street level. The center right is occupied by the big core link while the Naga goes on the far right. 

Nomads counter deploy with the Grenzer MSR and his two Securitate buddies on a rooftop with decent LoS to interfere with Aleph's approaching the HVTs. On the other end of the board, the Transductor also on a rooftop for some annoying flash pulse ARO action. The Perseus-Hollowman-Stempler Haris goes in the middle next to the Puppetattica minelayer. Zondnautica on the left flank in total cover ready to impetuously scoot forward. Mary and the Heckler also in the center making best possible use of forward deployment to hack and jam enemies going for the middle HVT and hopefully score some objectives themselves. Last but not least the most neglected of my toy soldiers, the Spektr FO goes in hidden deployment on the right, in the thick of the jungle ready to leverage his Terrain (Total) skill.    

Turn 1 

Classified Objectives: 

• Net undermine
• Identity check 
• Mapping discarded in favor of Capture

One command token is spent to move a Netrod from group 2 to 1. The core link advances toward the center, securing Identity Check with the MSV Deva. The MK2 proxy reveals herself to shoot the Grenzer sniper. Saturation reduces her active turn efficiency and she is shot down by DA ammo despite surprise attacking. She tries once again after being healed by the doctor but then goes down for good.

Nomads draw: 

• Follow up
• Identity check
• Capture is discarded in favor of Inoculation 

The Zondnautica comes forward covered in smoke to complete Net undermine and Follow up. The Naga reveals himself as a hacker and tries to trinity the Zondnautica but to no avail and moments later is shot down by the Grenzer. A camo token reveals himself as a Heckler and places a fastpanda in the center of the table. Through its repeater, Mary Problems isolates the combi Dakini. 

Turn 2 

Classified Objectives: 

• Inoculation
• HVT kidnapping canceled in favour of HVT designation
• Experimental drug    

The MK5 is in position to take HVT designation home easily and makes it. The MSV Deva goes on the right to wipe out the Zondnautica and succeeds. She then proceeds forward to shoot the Grenzer with her spitfire. Despite the 5 shots in good range she's not only sent to NWI, which would have been positive since the Experimental drug objective and nearby Parvati, but also to the graveyard. Cautiously moving, Parvati comes in range of the HVT and reaches him to complete Inoculation. The objective is secured, but Grenzer sends her to unconscious level 1 with just one DA hit.

Nomads draw: 

• Rescue 
• Test run
• Experimental drug is discarded in favour of Sabotage. 

The Hollow man comes forward and exchanges shots with the HMG Dakini, which surprisingly damage it. The damaging is a great opportunity to complete Test run and the clockmaker reaches the HI to heal it, securing the objective. Trekking once again through smoke, the same engineer aims for Sabotage. He goes unconscious due to the fire from Dakinis and MK5 proxy but succedes, securing the objective. The rest of Nomads army comes forward. 

Turn 3 

Classified Objectives: 

• Rescue is discarded in favor of In extremis recovery
• Telemetry 
• HVT: retroengineering

The Garuda parachutes to secure Telemetry but is made unconscious by a lucky shot. Trying the easy way, the Proxy MK5 goes for the Transductor Zond but a hidden Spektr is revealed and he steals the objective succeeding in forward observing. The Deva lieutenant goes though enemy fire to reach the unconscious engineer and secure In extremis recovery. 

With 5 objectives completed to 4, Nomads are declared victorious. 

Debriefing 

Aleph - OSS

In hindsight, I should have run White Noise with my Danavas the first time I shot the Grenzer. That would have allowed me to move freely on the right side with the core link to tamper Nomad's left flank. It will be something to remember for the next game. Having no hacker-only objectives drawn has been both a blessing and a course. It didn't allow me to use the well placed Dasyu I had in HVT ZoC and ultimately made it a waste of points in this mission. Overall I think I didn't help myself when I had the opportunity and on the rest of the occasions dice where pretty rough to me. 

Nomads - Tunguska

Pulled a victory out of a few crits and good armor rolls. All my specialists did well: Zondnautica and the Clockmaker excellent value for money. The Spektr did nothing but achieving the objective in ARO and securing the game. Mary and the Hollowman haris did not shine but still anchored the center and a STR 2 HI was good for Test Run. The Grenzer MSR is just solid but I might have said that already, even in a 3 men team he was a pain for my opponent to deal with. 

Outro 

Boris opened the hatch and went down the blood stained stairs, reassured by the low parameters detected by the Grenzer's biometric visor. Back on orbit Ludmilla, his trusted Clockmaker, briefed him via comlog: 

"One of the escape pods left Space Station Donacimiento during the biotechvore event. It was dubbed as a system failure but it must have been the subject they were looking for. Landing here and surviving on this rock mustn't have been easy."

Boris cautiously opened the door, pointing his gun to the body lying on the opposite side of the room. His flashlight lighted up the battered body of a Myrmidon, unconscious and with a missing arm. Despite the damage delivered by the biotech antibody, his face was still recognizable to the astonished nomad. 

"Ludmilla, call for a top priority extraction: we've got Patroclus here."

Operation Golden Ratio: episode 04

Intro

Laying on an intensive care bed Boris Legasov was debriefing with Tunguska's high command while nano-surgeons were at work to patch the effects of the biotechvore on his battered body. Actuating costly and highly compromising show of force he had failed twice to secure high value targets. It was now time to go back to more conventional tactics. 

Varuna's intervention made things more complicated and simpler at the same time, Aleph was now inclined to a quicker although sub-optimal solution, it was time to negotiate and set up an exchange. Boris had no illusions, Alisaa Murdock was going to try to trick him, but he knew the game well and was confident to be able to turn the tide in Tunguska's favor.

Mission and lists

This 300 point mission was Capture and Protect, from ITS season 12 supplement. 

The Armory and Panic Room, tackled with 5 men "death star" Core Link Teams built with different mixes of Krizas, hollowmen, characters and REMs went really bad for Tunguska (there might be a dedicated post to the topic but before that I want to play the mission/list combo some more times) so now we are back with a more standard and trusted selection of troopers. Aleph instead sits the Marut on the bench and brings back the Asura with a Yadu-heavy brigade.

Deployment

Aleph wins the initiative roll and decides to have Tunguska deploy first which in turn elects to go first. 

Tunguska places the defensive core team castled on the center-right, Puppettattica, Lunokhod, Heckler and Warcor guarding the beacon perimeter, Clockmaker on the far right and Transductor Zond on the far left. A command token is spent to keep 2 troopers to deploy later: Mary Problems and the Zondnautica.

Aleph anchors the left flank with Asura's 3 men team and the right flank with Deva's. The beacon guarded by an hidden deployed Dasyus.

Seeing a weaker side with an exposed hacker Mary Problems goes there while the Zondnautica takes the center.

Turn 1

Zondnautica Zips forward and parks in total cover waiting for the threat level to be reduced before further advancing toward the beacon. Mary goes on an adventure, pushing the flank and placing some repeaters so that the Interventor can activate white noise to cover her advance from the MSV Deva. Once in ZoC she starts pounding the Yadu hacker with Trinity, it takes a couple of orders to remove it from play. Then Raoul Spector’s lands into the white noise zone, so close to the Deva she can feel the heat of the retrorockets. Combined efforts of Mary’s submachine gun and Raoul’s DA CC weapon eliminate the Deva and the Yadu HMG.

Aleph begins with 3 orders less and some issues to deal with in its own deployment zone. The surviving 3 men team advances in the middle laying down a drop bear nearby the beacon. The MSR Grenzer performs well stopping the advance and neutralizing the HRL Yadu. All responsibilities fall over Asura's shoulders, she wears a cybermask and advances frying the Zondnautica hacker in the process ending the turn in a protected position at the edge of Nomad's territory and also achieving the classified objective!

Turn 2

The Heckler shoots its Fast Panda into the Asura's ZoC and Mary Problems engages OSSSS Lieutenant with killer hacking programs. The Asura is a tough nut to crack and after a couple orders a single wound is lost by the HI.

Raoul runs now for the beacon. He eats the drop bear (risky as NWI does not grant shock immunity!) and survives the surprising appearance of the Dasyu with his boarding shotgun. He manages to disengage and makes it close to the middle of the table, inside friendly repeaters' ZoC. With the last order Mary Problem attempts one more Trinity against the Asura, this time killing her.

Aleph's turn 2 begins in LoL and Retreat! With 2 orders left the only chance is turning one regular and dash the Dasyu to land one last boarding shotgun hit in Raul's back. If he can make it will be an OSSSS victory (thanks to the classified objective). The Grenzer MSR and the Securitate with Feuerbach are guarding Raul's back and despite the inconvenience of the saturation zone the Dasyu is exploded.

Game ends with a 3-1 victory  for Tunguska.

Debriefing  

Nomads - Tunguska

Back to the comfort zone of a more solid and tested list. Grenzer MSR in big link is just awesome both in active and reactive turn. Mary and Raoul did the job and nobody missed Perseus. The speed bumps placed to protect the beacon did not come into play but would have worked ok I assume. The Zondnautica also did not have the chance to shine, everybody loves it and I want to bring it again.

Aleph - OSSSS

Weird list built around the Dasyu, a unit I wanted to test since long time. Lesson learnt: no more than 2 Yadus.

Still the list itself, was not so underpowered: the main error was to spread out my troops in a linee too thin although I knew I had less orders and I was going to go second. It would have probably been better to entirely deny the flank with the big link and castle around the beacon in a stronger position to increase turn 1 survivability and then retaliate with my hard hitters.  

Outro

Tessa had just finished working on Alisaa when the door opened and Gina, the ship's Danavas attaché, entered the room.

The young aspect, empowered by her role, questioned her senior Sophotect with no preambles:

-Is she operative?

Tessa looked at Alisaa's face: nanobots from her mother forge kept going in and out her empty eye sockets.

-Almost... Her voice came out faintly, as she had been out of breath, but in a whiff she re-established her normal tone.

-...but you were there. So tell me: what happened?

The Danavs assumed a stiffed position, as if she had been reporting to Maya herself:

-She went careless. They had numerical advantage and she didn't seize the initiative when she had the opportunity.

The Sophotect turned to the nearest porthole: the relict of Space Station Donacimiento was now entering the upper atmosphere of Rodne. A broken station crashing over a desert planet: an appropriate allegory of what she thought about the whole operation.

-Where's the tech coffin, is he safe?

-He...? The Danavas look puzzled and Tessa realized she didn't know the full story of project Laocoon. A typical behavior of ALEPH: sending ahead her aspects without proper information. She should have known better, after all these years.

The mother forge announced the end of the repairs, quenching the silence between them, and Alissa woke up.

-The tech-coffin - she said, rising up sitting on the bed - is in a safe place. You don't have to worry about it. Now the Nomads have a bio sample, a copy. However, even if the asset we had to secure is safe, we're still missing the one we had to find...

Both Gina and Tessa hold their breath.

...and I think it had been on Rodne all along

 

 

Operation Golden Ratio: episode 03

In previous episodes, Nomads from Tunguska have been fighting against Aleph's OSS over a PanOceanian research facility on Space Station Donacimiento. Fights stormed both the station and the Nomads' hideout, while Aleph tries to get control over its mysterious assets on the Station but a distress signal is sent from the station to call for PanOceanian reinforcements....

The Varuna Immediate Reaction Division was established to be the first to face any threat against the Hyperpower or its interests and a distress signal sent to Neoterra by space station Donacimiento was no exception. 

Minutes before docking, J. "Wimpy" Wellington briefed his soldiers: 

"They will let us in but it doesn't mean they'll avoid confrontation, aknowleding our authority. In fact, by entering the station, we're walking right into Aleph's trap. They'll try to crush us with everything they have and blame Nomads or what else for it. They have the station and they control the narrative, so we need to find what they're looking for before they do." 

He had already visited the station, six months before, escorting an S-tier classified sample to the attention of professor Anastacio Esguerra, lead research of project Laocoön. As he recalled the eerie sensations felt at the time, sitting next to the frozen tech-coffin, a bad feeling dawned on him: could it all be due to that sample?

300 points of masterfully painted Varuna 

This 300 point mission was Acquisition, from ITS season 12 supplement. 

OSS starts first and immediately tries to break Varuna's defensive stance by sending a Garuda tacbot behind enemy lines. The landing fails and the Garuda has to go back to table edge with the only positive effect, for both players, of revealing an hidden deployed Croc Man. 

Look at that spaceship!

On the other side of the table, MK2 proxy shoots the Orc, forcing him to duck down. Now, with only the Kamau sniper still standing, it is Marut's duty to move away from the center to PanO's left flank and shoot him. With the last orders, the Shukra consultant moves up on the right flank and completes the classified objective. 

Varuna starts its first turn by moving forward the haris fireteam on the left. The link is supported by the Bulleteer, which goes on a rampage over the Dakini link exploiting the assisted fire support program provided by the Mulebot. The haris team hacks and controls the left antenna, also completing the classified objective. Meanwhile, at the center of the table, the Orc and the Marut start exchanging shots, wounding the TAG. 

On turn two, Aleph secures the right antenna with the proxy MK1 hacker and shoots down a Fugazi dronbot with the Shukra consultant in an attempt to thin down PanO's order pool. Trying to take down the central Orc, the Marut is heavily damaged and has to be repaired, consuming important orders that would have been useful to neutralize the incoming Bulleteer. 

Varuna has the upper hand on turn two: the central Orc finally takes down both the Marut and the Shukra consultant, forcing OSS to play turn three in loss of lieutenant. The Deva hacker is also wiped out by the Bulleteer, leaving the table without having spent an order. With only two command tokens and five irregular orders it looks like things cannot be recovered by Aleph. 

Left: MK2 sniper controls the alley between the tech-coffin and left antenna.
Right: Marut is about to go down despite being in suppressive fire (don't mind the wrong token).

Turn three starts with Parvati: using her own order, she superjumps onto the center platform next to the tech-coffin. As a result, the camo marker is revealed to be a Zulu-cobra trooper who tries to take down the doc/eng with his jammer, but fails. With the last two orders provided by the netrods, the Zulu-cobra is shot down and the tech-coffin is controlled. The rest of OSS can do little if not bracing for Varuna's turn three. 

The Bulleteer uses all the orders from its group to take down Parvati but to no avail. The haris group tries to reach the tech-coffin from the left flank but is pinned down by the proxy MK2 sniper and the need to control the left antenna. Leaving its position, the Orc reaches the tech-coffin but its put to unconscious state by a lucky submachine gun shot. With the last two orders, the Fusilier lieutenant reaches the area but to no avail. The match, dominated by PanO firepower, ends with an unexpected 7-4 victory for Aleph.

What next?

Before retreating from the docking bay, J.W. looked at the tech-coffin one last time: the refrigerator module had been shut down and the frost on the front panel had started to vanish. Pressed against the glass, as crying for help or cursing its enemy, was a mysterious burned hand... 

Fake news!

Breaking news: In a dramatic turn of events, following a biotechvore hazard incident and rumors of an attack from Nomads terrorist, Space Station Donacimiento is once again in the eye of the storm. 

According to Alisaa Mudlock, Aleph's aspect now in charge of the station, terrorists have hacked the station to send a false distress signal promptly picked up by Varuna separatists who tried to seize the station. The attack was foiled by the OSS but the terrorists have taken control of one a station's modules and managed to compromise its orbit. 

The Varunan High Command still haven't made comments on the matter but a statement is expected by the end of today.

Operation Golden Ratio: episode 02

In previous episodes, Nomads from Tunguska have been fighting against Aleph's OSS over a PanOceanian research facility on Space Station Donacimiento. Fights stormed both the station and the Nomads' hideout, while Aleph tries to get control over its mysterious assets on the Station... 

Boris opened the hatch and reached the control board, dominated by the eerie silhouette of an hollow man. "How's our malware doing, Wintermute? Have you found anything worthy?" 

The android turned to him without unplugging from the control board, stretching the cables that once controlled the ship, before its wreckage had been elected as their base of operations. 

 "That Alisaa Mudlock, Aleph's aspect on the station, she's been interrogating the scientists." 

Boris had always tought the hollow man's voice sounded like underground drilling operations on Dawn. 

"Now she wants to inspect an old cargo that left the station two days ago. Some components of Project Laocoön may have been sent to Neoterra without autorization. They want to retrieve the components, but they think it might be a trap since the cargo is such in a bad shape: it looks like the hull is compromised." 

"Well" said Boris, relieved by the good news "I think we just may prove them right this time, shouldn't we? Take Chrome and Newrose with you: we'll steal those components right under their nose". 

This 300 point mission was The Armory, from ITS season 12 supplement. 

Aleph decided to keep initiative and deployed keeping the three posthumans proxies last. 

Tunguska went for a tightly packed deployment, exploiting the additional cover provided by localized decompressions to control access points to the objective room during the first reactive turn. 

With only one order stripped down thanks for Shukra's counterintelligence, during turn one the MK2 proxy shoots down the first hollow man of the fireteam core from the vantage point acquired via infiltration. 

The rest of the orders were used by the Naga to mine two of doors to the objective room, as the Yadu haris link advanced towards the room, destroying one Tsyklon remote in exchange of three NWI.

During Nomads' first turn, the remains of the hollow men fireteam core tried to shoot down the sniper, but to no avail. With a few orders left, the other fireteam with Perseus, Raoul Spector and the Stempler advanced on the Dakini side.

On turn two, Aleph entered the objective room and opened one of the panoplies, securing the zone of operations. With a few orders left, Tunguska shot down the Deva with MSV in the Dakini link and prepared for a final assault to the armory. 

Turn three wasn't much different from turn two: Aleph kept dominating the zone of operations while Tunguska tried to turn the tide but failed to conquer the heavily fortified objective room despite the selfless sacrifice of Perseus and Spector. 

The match ended in a sound victory for OSS, who managed to retrieve the genetic assets fundamental for Project Laocoön. 

What next? 

Boris Legasov sat down on the Captain's chair on the main deck. He had just ended a spiky holoconference with Tunguska's Command where he had to balance the important intelligence he had gathered with the recent defeat on the cargo. His comlog blinked impatient, indifferent to his adsorbed reasoning. 

"What now? It better be important." 

"It's about Space Station Donacimiento: they just sent a distress signal to Neoterra."

Playing Infinity N4: TAG along

Finally, my Marut is painted and ready to battle!

For anyone wondering, the mat is Neo-Tokyo PVC from Deep-Cut Studio 

Approaching a bigger miniature has been really fun and very satisfying but I have to admit the assembly part was quite stressful.

To celebrate, I decied to write a short story about Aleph's TAG, enjoy:

Zizhan glanced down the street, where holographic cherry blossoms sizzled in the rain. A graceful river of citizens was flowing quietly out of the subway, dispersing itself into the night's alleys. He took a moment to find Huyên into the crowd: a tall, beautiful woman with a Jade Empire service combi rifle concealed in the cello case strapped on her back. Her face was now perfectly calm, totally abandoned to the moment, so different from the one she had when she confessed him her concerns on their mission, a few days before. She didn't share their lieutenant's approach: according to her, using heavy infantry troops in such a densely populated district was reckless and would have compromised the operation. 

His comlog started blinking: combat group one was on the move and it was time to act. He went down the stairs and pulled up his hood to protect the visor from pouring rain. The zone had to be clear for the extraction of lieutenant's trusted Tiger Soldiers but, moments before he could finish deploying his mines over the perimeter, a sudden blast rose a cone of flames and dust two blocks away from his position. Hell stormed from his comlog: combat group one had engaged the enemy sooner than expected. 

Going upstream the screaming crowd of civilians, Zizhan reached the burning remains of a flower shop: a scorched cello case welcomed him as he inspected the area drawing his pistol. "White Carp to Blue Tortoise: I am engaging the enemy on sector four!" he gasped into the comlog, exploding three bullets towards a dakini tacbot peeking from a balcony, as instructed by his visor's infographics. 

Zizhan dashed back to take cover behind a vending machine. "White Carp to Blue Tortoise: do you copy?". The colorful lights of the vending machine started dancing, mistaking him for a potential customer to attract. Somewhere, nearby, rounds from a familiar combi rifle exploded, breaking once again the concert of rain over the city. After loading his gun, Zizhan peeked back into the alley: as he saw the Marut's silhouette stand out against the clouds he realized he wouldn't have a chance to see Huyên again and tell her their lieutenant was right.

Operation Golden Ratio: episode 01

In episode 00, a tactical unit of Tunguska's operatives tried to breach a PanOceanian research facility on Space Station Donacimiento. The Nomads were welcomed by a quick response unit from the Station's main client: Aleph...

Aleph stalks Tunguska's raiders, leaving Space Station Donaciminento on board of three tactical dropships. Protecting level 1 information was not enough: the menace must be neutralized. Tunguska's hideout is located in the wreckage of a luxury ship once belonged to a silk trader, drifting in a nearby field of asteroids and debris. The bio-visor shows no traces of life: another mark of Nomads' proficiency in hacking. Ready to face any risk, all three of Alephs tactical dropships board the wreck...

Meanwhile, Anastacio and the rest of the board are interrogated by Alisaa Mudlock, the aspect of Aleph in charge of obtaining clear answers or to take over the project...

This 300 point mission was Mindwipe, from ITS season 12 supplement. 

Tunguska was trying to load its malware into the breached server of one of the dropships, while Aleph was trying to shut down the ship's reactor while investigating on the Nomad's mole inside Space Station Donacimiento, since Aleph's classified objective was HVT: Designation.

Here's how it went down from Tunguska's perspective.

I won the Initiative roll and decided to go first.

I anchored the right flank with the big Securtitate link trenched in a high building, Hollow Haris link with Grenzer NCO and Perseus aggressively deployed in center left ready to dash forward, Puppettless Puppet Master in the left rear laying a Camo token next to one of the servers and Clockmaker on the right. I kept Mary P. aside and deployed her last, fully exploiting the 4'' forward deployment to get closer to one of the two consoles.

On turn one I had two orders stripped from the big link combat group so I did what I could, luckily the MSR Grenzer started strong and shut down both the Dakini and the Yadu HMG, unfortunately no confirmed kills. Then I used the other Combat Group's orders to advance the Haris link and Mary P. towards the consoles. I decided not to go too offensive and placed some smoke to achieve better positioning. Mary P. shoot a repeater to threat the Proxy hacker managing to only send it to NWI. Finally she hacked the console and I rolled a 19 so I could pick the server/dropship! I chose the one on my right.

In my first reactive turn a Garuda was dropped in the middle of the Core fireteam, I failed all useful dodge rolls and remained exposed to dangerous close range Spitfire. After several orders were spent and a non-statistical amount of ARM roll was passed, when the dust settled nobody was hurt and the Grenzer MSR was prone hugging cover. 

The Sophotec brought back the Dakini and the Yadu HMG was still on NWI so back to square one there. The Haris link was hammered and both the Grenzer and the Hollowman (my designated UberHacker!) went down. Some tough retaliation was to be expected, all in all I can't complain as I was able to limit damages.

In the beginning of turn two I got too excited and missed the opportunity to re-shuffle combat groups, I'll remember it for next game!

First things first I needed to get rid of that Garuda. Perseus placed some smoke to block the HMGs LoF to the Grenzer and the big team shoot down the lightly armored REM. Then I moved to placing my Air Cavalry and Raoul Spector landed in his shining HellCat jumpsuit close to the objective. I swiftly moved him in silhouette contact and started to smash with its DA CC weapon. I spent all remaining combat group's 3 orders but once again statistic failed to apply and zero damage was dealt. Maybe Raoul was distracted by the close range HMG rounds that peppered him and despite the -9 mod a wound was finally inflicted so Raoul ended the turn hiding behind a corner in NWI. 

With remaining big link orders I managed to put in null state a couple more enemies, thinning down the order pool of my opponent for the next turn.

In my second reactive turn Raoul bit the dust, hit by a MSV Lv2 Deva, while the rest of OSS advanced on my left flank, hacking the other console to reveal the server/reactor they had to blow up. Luckily, it was the one I had conveniently rigged with a mine.

With turn three I had to blast the server so Perseus ran through half of the table to reach the server/dropship and completed the mission. With my final orders I had Mary moving to prevent the enemy lieutenant from scoring points on my HVT.

On the last reactive turn my opponent only had six orders and two lieutenant orders. These last two were used by the Asura to spotlight my HVT and secure their classified objective. The Asura succeeded but met her end by Mary Problem's trinity. All the remaining orders (six!) were spent by the Sophotect to reach their final objective: it was Aleph's only chance to win the game. By cautiously moving, the doctor-engineer came six inches from the objective without triggering any ARO...until then. Overriding her self-preservation protocols, the AI made her jump towards my mine and under the Grenzer fire with loaded D-charges in her hands. A huge explosion shook the ship. I feared for the worst, but when dust settled down the server/reactor was still standing with one structure point while the Sophotect had been neutralized by Grenzer's bullets.

What next?

The rest of Aleph's forces fell back to their dropships, unaware of the malware loaded by Tunguska into their own systems...

Operation Golden Ratio: episode 00

"Minutes ago, a sudden firefight took palce right here on Space Station Donacimiento, in subsector six. A tactical unit of Tunguska highly skileld operatives broke in, exploiting the maintenance status extablished in the subsector after yesterday's biotechvore hazard event. 

We have reason to believe Tunguska's hackers were looking for sensible data about our projects. Luckily one of our clients, Aleph, was not convinced by yesterday's incident and had deployed an OSS quick response commitee to welcome potential intruders. 

Here is the footage recorded by our dronbot during the clash. 

We have reason to believe the Nomads were repelled before gathering level 1 information, but this is far from a success: this accident offers Aleph the perfect alibi to question our delay in delivering Project Laocoön..."

This 300 point mission was Acquisition, from ITS season 12 supplement. 

After a rough start, Aleph won the match by a few inches. 

Here is the post commentary from both players, with group shots and lists.

Aleph - Operations Subsection of the SSS

Really a fun game. Infinity always gives you a chance to turn the tide and this time luck was by my side. I overestimated the need for orders and specialist, which led to some serious mistakes. 

Some considerations on how I used my list and how I may have changed it: 

Yadus had to die

No mimetism, no visors and very expensive: these are toys you don't want to have that exposed on a reactive turn. I learned my lesson and understood more about their weaknesses.

Avoid the 4-core

Seriously, what's the piont in a four model core fireteam? My Dakinis sat doing nothing for 3 turns straight. I should have brought an HMG dakini but I didn't have enough SWC, so the second best thing to do would have been to discard the 4-core completely, make a 2-core with the Deva hacker and the paramedic Dakini and use the remaining points on something tactically relevant: Naga, Garuda...you name it. There were plenty of options but I was blindfolded by my "fireteams are good" bias. 

It's a Queen's gambit

I don't care if the meta or cost efficency drives you towards other choices for your lieutenant, the +1 order Lt. Asura hacker is still a great choice to me. Being incredibly resilient, she's a beast on 1 vs 1 and she will always be pivotal to create space for the rest of the team when things go wrong. Of course, taking enemies one by one is very order consuming, and I think this is the reason for the lack of love from the community: it's not about the profile, it's about entrusting her with so many orders when the sh*t hits the fan.

Nomads - Jurisdictional Command of Tunguska

All-in and fairly ignorant double Kriza limited insertion list with strong 5 men link and a couple troublemakers. 

Grenzer mon amour 

After taking regular beatings from Nisse and Kamau snipers in 5 men link teams it's time for the Grenzer MSR to strike back. Hitting on 19 most of the time (range mod + big team + ignoring cover and mimetism) with burst 3 make it quite successful in the FtF game. 

Exploded Yadu HMG in suppressive fire, Yadu HRL and PROXI Mk2 MSR. 

Well done. 

Krizas, good but not enough 

Krizas are cool and look good on the table. However, it really shines in grinding cheerleaders and so they do not add too much value against OSSS. One was roasted by HRL blast failing miserably 3 50-50 ARM rolls in a row. The other was engaged by the Asura, it stalled for a few orders but then NWI and Sophotec support tipped the scale in favor of the robot girl. I need to get better at deploy and pick the right fights with these guys. 

OSSS can hack too O.o 

Game was lost when the Asura isolated my Interventor LT through a repeater Mary Problems had placed with her Pitcher. It took a couple orders and some bad luck on my side but still placing that repeater with my second last order as a reactive turn threat was not a brilliant move. I should have saved orders to try to Trinity the Asura to death. Instead the Proxy FO isolated Mary Problems lobbing E/M grenades and then the Asura was able to go 1-Vs-1 on my LT. Heckler's Jammer was quite ineffective.

Bring a Zondbot instead of a Paramedic

In this game "Isolated" state was a game changer and having possibility to recover from it looks more important than recovering from unconsciousness. Ideally you would have both, but seems better to have a zondbot to extend the engineer reach. 

What next?

As you can imagine, this firefight will sure have drastic consequences. Let's see what the Scientific Executive of the Station has tweeted right after the clash:

Truth is something strange is happening in the PanOceanina research labs of Space Station Donaicimiento: Operation Golden Ratio has just started!

Playing Infinity N4: a post about posthumans

Having finished painting my box of posthumans, I take the opportunity to talk about how to list them.

Disclaimer: I don't think the following reasoning covers all the possiblities offered by this beautiful game to list posthumans and I am 100% sure it is flawed by my tactical vision and my strategic bias. One of the thing I like the most about Infinity is its resemblance with real life, bear with me, in the elusivity of perfection, since its definition changes from moment to moment and from subject to subject. With that in mind, I'd be happy to hear any comments and objections from the audience.

A true distillate of madness: the PTS-SWC Posthumans Chart

This chart has SWC on x and PTS on y. The green dots represent two-models groups, the orange dots represent three-models groups and the stars are my honorable mentions. All possibile combinations should be listed.

Proxy Bay: this is where everything start, a sort of safe spot. The cheapest teams you can build are here. In fact, my honorable mention here is the cheapest, featuring a PROXY Mk.1 engineer or doctor and a Forward Observer PROXY Mk.5.

Leaving Proxy Bay we find the Uncanny Valley. This area hosts expensive couples in terms of SWC. I don't like them that much since you have lots of cheaper and more effective options to choose. You may be tempted to go here if you use posthumans to round your list up to a point cap, but my suggestion would be to avoid this area completely.

The Specialists' Achipelago: one of the most popular parts of this chart for sure. Here, almost every three-model group option is valid, depending on the mission of course. My honorable mention goes in fact to a group made by a PROXY Mk.1 hacker, a PROXY Mk.2 hacker and a PROXY Mk.5 Forward Observer. It means you have two or three specialists and that two of them won't waste the order they won't provide you, since they're already deployed forward.

Around 60 points, we slip into what I call the Canyon of Choices: an area with SWC and Points so high you should wonder if you really want to bet so much on models that can't join fireteams and give you only one order. For real tho, go take another look at the Asura profile: you can list up to four of those.

South of the canyon, lies Wounds Island. The two profiles in it provide you with a four wound dreadnought with an outstanding ARM/BTS of 4/3 and 5/6. It takes half of your available SWCs on a 300-points list, but it may be worth it.

Our journey ends at the fringe of the known world, where the chart warn us: Hic Sunt Leones, Here There Are Lions. A dangerous and unexplored zone rich of unpractical three-models teams, too costly in terms of points and SWC to be seriously considered. The honorable mention here goes to the WYSIWYG three-model group provided by the box: a PROXY Mk.1 engineer or doctor, a PROXY Mk.2 sniper and a PROXY Mk.3.