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...

Playing Infinity N4: skydiving

The Garuda Tacbot is one of the first miniatures that caught my eye when I started looking into the amazing world of Infinity The Game.

I am starting to believe the more I like a model the more difficult it is to focus it!

Assembling this piece enhanced my awe since its design is so futuristic yet its head looks like it's adorned with a grinning, ancestral tribal mask. The boarding shotgun sculpt really gives you the feeling of a big chunk of sprinting metal dropping from the sky. I tried to intensify this feeling by adding a broken tile, smashed by landing impact.

As I was painting this model, I started looking at the similar profiles offered by other armies. So, I filtered all Spec, trained troops that have the parachuting skill on vanilla armies and produced the following graph:

Here are 4 things that I noticed by looking at it: you may notice more stuff than me, so please let me know your considerations in the comments!

1. Yu Jing has no spec. trained parachutists. 
   They still have powerful alternatives but, being veteran and elites, prices start from 28 points and specialists profiles are above 30 points;
   
   
2. Nomads, Ariadna and Haqquislam have lots of cheap specialists alternatives with no SWC cost.
   Have to keep in mind that these armies could drop a low cost button presser in a nice spot at turn three if you lower your guard;
   
   
3. PanOceania has no 0 SWC options.
   They also have the same veteran and elites options Yu Jing has so it seems like thay have some overlapping alternatives. Although, it must be noted that PanO's options once again show off lots of interesting equipments and weapons since Echo-Bravo can either have a red fury, a light rocket launcher with continuous damage, a panzerfaust + hacking device or a wildparrot. These guys not only can take an objective but hold it!
   
   
4. Aleph, Combined Army and Tohaa are the only ones to have 1,5 SWC profiles.
   And they all have a spitfire! The alien advantage mainly lies in their transmutation skill and pays off the 8/10 points difference from the spitfire Garuda.

I can't wait to field this new piece in my next game!

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!

Mordheim Italia Facebook page #januhunters2021 contest entry

 Ciao!

The Mordheim Italia Facebook page issued a little nice hobby contest which I was happy to participate to. 

Rules were simple: post a picture of a model from the Witch Hunters range (witch hunter, warrior-priest, flagellant, zealot or warhound) together with some character story or background. The community then shall vote the one they like the most. You can go and search for #januhunters2021 to see all entries!

I do not own a Witch Hunters warband (yet), but I had a 6th ed warrior-priest craving for a new paintjob (and a round base, Sigmar forgive me!) so I threw him in the stripping pot of doom and got at it.

Here the final result.

  Let me now introduce you Father Innozenz and his story...

A hooded figure crept silently into the forge illuminated by Morrslieb's sinister light filtering through the skylight. The large bronze bell had been out of the mold for just a few hours and was still emanating heat. The cultist approached the bell and intoning a blasphemous chant sprinkled it with a few pinches of a fluorescent powder from a velvet pouch he took from the depths of his robe ...

Innozenz hurried down the stairs that led from the scriptorium to the courtyard. His brothers were already all gathered to attend the ceremony of consecration and inauguration of the new bell. As a result of complications from ear infection as a child, he was deaf in both ears and his family, wealthy beer merchants from Pfieldorf, had initiated him into monastic life. Innozenz had thus become a skilled amanuensis and an honest prelate living a peaceful and quiet life within the monastery walls.

Not being able to hear the sound of the new bell forged in the renowned foundries of Nuln, which would have brought prestige and importance to the monastery, deeply saddened him but he was still happy to be able to participate to this event and experience the emotion of this moment through the enthusiasm of his brothers.

After the Abbot's speech, the long-awaited moment finally came. The bell monk made the Sign of the Hammer and pulled the rope that operated the bell. Innozenz heard nothing but remained hypnotized by the rhythmic swinging of the bell. When he had counted seven strokes he came to his senses and was shocked by the scene before his eyes.

The bodies of his brethren were monstrously deformed: huge swollen bellies pierced with broken bones, worm-infested mouths and ears oozing purulent humors, eyes in unnatural numbers and positions turning to him with a disgusting expression of violence and commiseration.

In a moment the amanuensis realized that he was facing the manifestation of one of the purest essences of Chaos.

As the crowd of corrupt monks surrounded him, he knelt down and gathered his whole soul in a last and desperate prayer: "Sigmar give me the strength to save my brothers and defeat your enemies.”

Sigmar listened to him.

A golden aura enveloped him, his faith became armor and his fury became hammer. Transfigured by the spirit of Sigmar, he threw himself into the ranks of the possessed, sending them back to the hell from which they had come with holy hammer blows. Sigmar was with him and he was unstoppable.

With a prodigious leap he found himself on the ledge at the top of the bell tower where a cloud of flies and unclean beings swarmed around the cursed bell. Wicked tentacles protruded from the inside while disgusting ooze exuded from the bell that was transmuting from bronze into decaying organic matter, tingling with larvae and worms.

Innozenz raised his arms and struck a mighty blow against that demonic instrument. There was a flash of light and then everything went dark...

He woke up a few days later, lying on the grass in the clearing in front of the monastery. There was no one around and apart from the ruins of the tower, nothing testified to the terrible battle that had taken place. There was something else strange... he heard! He could hear the rustle of the wind in the trees and the warble of birds.

Then he heard a very deep voice, like a thunder that frightens enemies but comforts those who have faith: “Innozenz you are a faithful and courageous servant. I give you back the hearing that the disease had deprived you of. Go to Mordheim, lend your ear to the pleas of the desperate and mercilessly strike the wicked and the corrupt!”. 

Innozenz staggered to his feet, made the Sign of the Hammer, and rising a song of praise set off for the City of the Damned. Along the way many called him but he went straight on his way, he did not hear them, he had been deaf since he was a child...

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.