A busy week #1

The new ideas regarding list-building motivated me to squeeze in two more games until now. While I was massacred by Aleph one more time, I could win a quite close but interesting game against Ramah in LI.

Vanilla Aleph is never a good match-up, but I rebuild my current Druze-list a bit to have some more options to pull the big teeth Aleph would bring. In a mission like Decapitation this would be more important than anywhere else.

Smalllink
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GROUP 1 6 1
HUNZAKUT (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
DRUZE (Fireteam: Haris, X Visor) Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, D.E.P. / Viral Pistol, CCW. (1 | 25)
DRUZE (X Visor) Shock Marksman Rifle, Chain-colt / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)
DRUZE Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Pitcher, D-Charges / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
BRAWLER Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Submachine Gun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 17)
PEACEMAKER Heavy Shotgun + AUXBOT_3 / Electric Pulse. (0 | 21)
AUXBOT_3 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (- | 4)
FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)

GROUP 2 7 1
BASHI BAZOUK Submachine Gun, Chain-colt / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 12)
DRUZE HMG, Chain-colt / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29)
DRUZE Paramedic (X Visor, MediKit) Combi Rifle, Chain-colt / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
BRAWLER (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 28)
BRAWLER Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16)
KAMEEL Hacker (EVO Hacking Device) Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 25)
FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
PATHFINDER DRONBOT Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16)

5 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

I spread my reduced link-teams over both combat groups, since they had different roles. The HMG-core should be the first turn team of group two to open things up and do "major" damage, hopefully getting the MSV Brawler somewhere good for the reactive turn. In group one the Hunzakut should make use of other vectors and do damage on his own. During the following turns targets should be close enough to get rid of them via the SMR in group one and with the Bashi Bazouk in group two. Everyone needs as many orders as possible, but since the Bashi Bazouk is missing in turn one, a bit more is invested in that group.

ALEPH
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10 2
DEVA (Multispectral Visor L2) Spitfire, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 33)
PROXY Mk.3 Spitfire, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 21)
PROXY Mk.2 Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 21)
PROXY Mk.1 Doctor (MediKit) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
YUDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
AGÊMA Marksman (X Visor) Mk12 / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 29)
THORAKITES Submachine gun, Light Rocket Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 15)
THORAKITES (360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
THORAKITES (360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
AJAX 2 Combi Rifles, Nanopulser / AP Heavy Pistol, EXP CCW. (0 | 39)
EUDOROS Lieutenant Mk12, Nanopulser, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 40)
DART Submachine Gun, Viral Tactical Bow, E/M Grenades / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon, Knife. (0 | 34)
MYRMIDON Spitfire, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (1 | 31)

6 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

I played against this list some times before, but the overwhelming firepower paired with the visual mods is a really dangerous thing. Dart had AP-mines this time, he learned out of the one game without them.

I took one good looking table from what is offered in VaulSCs discord but did not have a closer look before the game.

I won the Lt-roll and was not brave enough to take the second turn, so I went first and was given the south DZ, which showed the drawbacks too late.

My HMG-core went on the right side with the Brawler behind the crate, covering the long firelane there and both Druze forwarded on the rooftop in the center (big mistake!!). A Pathfinder also went on that side, while the haris-team went behind the central building. The street was covered by my Fugazis and the Peacemaker, while my Lt and the other two hackers went on the left side, hidden as good as possible. The Bashi Bazouk should enter from my near left side.

In the right corridor, the LRL-Torakites and a camo-marker were sent, both watching my Brawler. Ajax started centered in the far away part of the DZ, behind all three spitfires and backed up with the Doc-Proxy. Eudoros appeared on the left, covered by a Torakites. An other one was a bit advanced in the center, overwatching a part of the street. In front of him, a TO-marker started.

My Hunzakut should help my Brawler in the right corridor, while an additional MK12 Agema went there, too. My Datatracker was the Druze paramedic, Alpeh nominated one of the Torakites, I guess.

Druze 1: With two orders down in group one, I totally fail to get things in the right order. In an attempt to clear the right corridor, my whole link was blewn up by the LRL and the Hunzakut only could put a wound on Dart and knock the Agema and the Torakites unconscious. Due to the wrong order here, I was left with four orders in group two but without anyone to spend them.

Aleph 1: The Doc let his Yudbot advance and pick up the Agema and the Torakites, while Eudoros advanced and wrecked a Fugazi. The TO-marker was the Proxy AHD, but got stuck on the Peacemaker or better said on all the other hackers trying to freeze him. The Deva advances but iss topped by a critical Flashpulse.

Druze 2: My KHD takes out the Proy hacker, then the haris fails to kill Dart and the Torakites on the right and falls back a bit. My Bashi Bazouk appeared and took a wound of the Deva and Eudoros with his chain-colt, then he died.

Aleph 2: The Myrmedon sets up smoke on the street, which is used by the Deva to kill the Peacemaker and the second Fugazi. While she tried to shoot my haris, the KHD crits here down but this triggers a mine layed by Dart, which kills the other two members of her link.

With nothing left to threaten Eudoros, I call it here and Aleph wins 5-0 with more army points and a killed designated target, I guess. I felt diced somehow, since I rolled quite low or quite high most of the time, while everything Aleph tried succeeded. Logically, this can'T be due to the randomizer of the TTS, but who knows? I calculated most of the situations in the dice calculator afterwards, which showed that I was shooting with something like 40-50% chance of success against 20% chances for Aleph. While I failed most of the time, Aleph succeeded. But I have to admit, that I made the wrong decisions here, leading to those odds. Suprisingly a buffed Pathfinder would have been the best available choice in the right corridor. Something to be considered in the future! My haris was nice and will be tried again in that set-up, while I wasted the core totally. I struggled in my plan during deployment and chose the reactive one, with the Brawler far away from the rest of the link, expected to be shot. This made it impossible to move my link with him as link leader. Lesson learned.

The second game was against our Dashat-player in Vassal. Since games with him took at least three hours in the past, we decided to play some LI-games in the next weeks to smooth things a bit and reduce the brain-work a bit. That said, I had to take the hard task of limited insertion with Druze.

LIBest
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10
SCARFACE & CORDELIA TURNER . (1.5 | 78)
SCARFACE 2 Mk12, Heavy Rocket Launcher / AP CCW. (1.5 | 61)
SCARFACE Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CCW. ()
CORDELIA TURNER Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 17)
BRAWLER (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 28)
DRUZE HMG, Chain-colt / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29)
DRUZE (Fireteam: Haris, X Visor) Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, D.E.P. / Viral Pistol, CCW. (1 | 25)
DRUZE Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Pitcher, D-Charges / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
DRUZE (X Visor) Shock Marksman Rifle, Chain-colt / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)
ARSLAN Lieutenant MULTI Rifle, Light Shotgun / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 36)
DRUZE (X Visor) Combi Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher (E/M and Nimbus) / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27)
DRUZE (X Visor) Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, Panzerfaust / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)

6 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

I wanted to test my small links further, so I tried to fit all this into a restricted list. Scarface was needed to fill the points, as well as Arslan. I would have loved to have at least one Pathfinder included to experiment a bit with it, but that is not possible in LI, if you don't want to use Scarface and the Anaconda. And I totally did not! The KHD this time should stick with the HMG, while the Panzerfaust should add some ARO-potential to the haris. Arslan and the LGL should hang out together for whatever there would be.

Ramah Taskforce
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9 1 1
GHULAM (NCO) Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher (Normal and Smoke Ammo.) / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 16)
KHAWARIJ (Fatality L1, Multispectral Visor L2) Mk12 / Pistol, AP CCW. (0.5 | 36)
KHAWARIJ (Chain of Command, Fatality L1) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 32)
KHAWARIJ Heavy Rocket Launcher, Light Shotgun / Pistol, AP CCW. (1 | 28)
NAMURR Spitfire, E/Marat, D-Charges / Heavy Pistol, E/M CC Weapon, Knife. (1 | 44)
GHULAM Doctor Plus (MediKit) Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16)
NASMAT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
NASMAT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
MUKHTAR Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Rifle + Light Shotgun, 2 Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 33)
TARIK MANSURI Lieutenant L2 Spitfire, Nanopulser, Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (1.5 | 59)
FANOUS REMOTE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
CARMEN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades + Bâtard / Heavy Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 22)
BÂTARD Trench-hammer, AP CCW. (- | 5)

5.5 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

The core-link was quite weird with all the different stuff in it, but the Namuur needs to be considered as a thread and a MK12 MSV 2 as back-up is not bad, too. Tarik should work together with Carmen as a solo-piece, while I have no clue over the Mukhtar to be honest.

Table setup in Vassal is quite limited and I had not much time to create some playable new ones, so we went back to the well known factory. Maybe I need to redo it in the future, since there are some too sweet spots, if you reach them.

I won the Lt-roll and chose to deploy second in the north, but was given the first turn.

The Ghulam-core hid behind the south right building and the nearby crates with the HRL out to ARO and some dudes looking for the entrance of the right building. Tarik went together with the Fanous and the Doc+ into the central building, while Carmen & Batard started behind those buildings.

My HMG and the KHD went on the far right, waiting for their Brawler-fried, while the Haris deployed behind the central building or inside of it. Scarface and Cordelia took the left side, backed by the LGL and Arslan, still preparing for battle in their barack.

A Mukhtar AHD was placed on the left and I deployed my MSR Brawler on the right, building my core-team.

Druze 1: My core-team advances towards the crates on the right, from where the MSR blasts away the Kawarij HRL. THe team shifts towards the center, shooting a pitcher next to the Mukhtar and then dropping it unconscious with a skullbuster. My TAG-team advances a bit, the haris, too and all in all a bit of Druze-shuffle was done to build a core-team with my MSR in it, waiting behind the truck. My KHD cybermasked himself inside the room to avoid nasty templates.

Ramah 1: Carmen didn't want to move, so the core-team starts. The NCO sets up some smoke and shoots my pitcher, before the Namurr tries to engage my Brawler with the spitfire right in front of the truck. Two orders later my Brawler had killed her with his pistol (40% for the Namuur, 20% for my Brawler).

Druze 2: With the whole core-team lined up on the left side of the truck, it was time for Arslan! Together with his buddy, he started advancing and took out the Kawarij and the Ghulam in one order each, further advancing into the left building near the south DZ. There he entered suppressive fire. On his way he scored mapping. Meanwhile my core-team fails to take out the MK12, still hiding behind the truck.

Ramah 2: Things seem lost here, but nothing is lost as long as Tarik is on the field. Supported by smoke from Carmen, he advanced in the midfield and took out Scarface, Cordelia and my MSR with crits only (without joking!). Everything wielding a rifle or comparable weapons enter suppressive fire.

Druze 3: Tarik did real damage and reduced my capabilites to control him or the quadrants. First I had to un-cybermask my KHD by shooting a pitcher and securing the near right console. WIth a new five-man core up, my SMR was shot down by the MK12. Three men grouped again and the HMG was shot down by Tarik. Scarface embarks his demolished TAG, while my remaining Druze enter suppressive fire.

Ramah 3: Carmen tries to chainrifle Arslan and puts a wound on him, but dies to the shock-ammonition. Now High Command struggled with his orders, so that Tarik takes out Scarface and enters my near left sector, leaving the far left to me.

So we tie on sectors, but due to my controlled console and my scored classified, I win 4-2 more to bad luck and missing concentration. I thought the game won after my second turn, but Tarik is such a bad-ass...Wow. Arslan has ordered a poster of him for his bedroom, I guess! Of course, there was some luck with the dice, but this whole package boosted with Fat2 is just great and can turn a game completly on his own. That is something, I call a super-soldier! I was worried about this even in the beginning, but not in that way. Even with four guys lost, the Lt2 makes him so powerfull....wow. So, lucky me, that you need to be concentrated to win Infinity and I hope this loss hurts enough to learn from it.
In general I am really pleased with my game, since most of the things worked out as planned and the core-team in the center of my side was gold. With only 10 orders available, it is not that easy to dig out such a link then. I could have wrecked the link with Scarface instead of Arslan, but that would have lost me the game, since 59 points were still sitting in my DZ in the end and there was enough space to take him up in round two. Arslan did a great job here and is definitively someone to take into account in the future. Maybe. In LI he is great!

Both games showed me, that I am on a cool path with two reduced links and some skirmishers added to it, but with some things to learn better. A Druze-link is where it is, so you need some mobile units to solve your problems in other positions. With the Hunzakut as a premium-hunter here, the Bashi Bazouk is an other piece of this puzzle, but the Pathfinders are also valuable for this, since you want to field some support for it anyway. I am sceptical to get a raid through the whole DZ in turn one some time with a Druze, but I am confident to work out at least the surgical removes you have to in turn one and be able to continue strong enough then.
Credits here need to be given to WiseKensai and TheDiceAbide for their recent battle-report and some thoughts around that! Thank you very much!