Infinity-The Merovingian FRR in action!

avril 29, 2016

Infinity-The Merovingian FRR in action!

So today is my first game of Infinity in a while; for the occasion, we settled on a 300pts limit. Since this is more of a sparring match than anything, my opponent was going to build my list so I don't make stupid game-wasting mistakes even before starting to roll dices. He's one of the best tactician I know and the goal here is to brief about and learn from this list-making as part of this practice game.

I know I know this is against the spirit of list-building in Infinity, where you keep stuff hidden from your opponent and such chenanigans but this time around we'll play like the spies from both sides have been working real hard and got all the informations about the opponent's detachment before the conflict.

I am going to field my Force de Réponse Rapide (MRRF), the merovingian side of Ariadna, a french colony that was part of the original Ariadna space exploration/colonisation mission who got lost and secluded from the human sphere for a while, hence being less technologically advanced than most of the rest of humanity.


The terrible Mirage-5 Duo

So let's go back to the list; I had only one condition and it was that I wanted to play the Mirage-5 team, as I just finished painting them. I usually field a 5-men métro fireteam when fielding this army, including a deadly HMG, but I knew my buddy was not a big fan so I was not surprised to see the team nerfed to 4 with no HMG, a limited infiltrator unlinkable trooper with a rifle and some D-Charges, a paramedic (who in time killed more métros than most of my ennemies), a lieutenant and the bottom of the line métro trooper with a rifle and not much else. Then the other thing that set this one appart from my standard Mérovingian lists was the absence of the alguacil hacker, a little nomad ally that I like to bring along and surprise my opponents with, even though it's far from the best hacker in the game. With all the options they get nowadays I am always garanteed to put it to good use. Not this time though!

The list was also including 5 loup-garous, 3 of them with light shotguns and adhesive launchers (you don't know how anoying these might be until you get glued down for the game!), one with one of my favorite weapon, the viral rifle, and last but not least a sniper. This is a very good unit with an unusual configuration, personally I'm more into viral rifles as you can guess but eh, let's glue the ennemy down for once!

Closing the list was a moblot with light shotgun, rifle and e/mauler, a device I like a lot. A chasseur with a light flamer, mines and a rifle was also part of the list. I usually put the adhesive launcher in the hands of this guy but we'll try to burn faces with it this time, or drop a mine on a strategic point, ready to blow to shreds any fool enough to get close. also included was a lone para-commando, a unit I usually field more of, but this single one was going to be just fine, a forward observer with a rifle. Last but not least a zouave (always funny to read that one, from where I come from this is an insult more than anything), he will be the one with the honor of carrying the heavy load, the fat HMG! and with the foxhole rule of this unit surviving seems to be at least a bit easier than for its métro counterpart.

I just realized that this is going to be a long one folks, stay tuned, I'll try to shorten up a bit and get you more into the thick of things. So now, on with the game!

So it was going to be against the Tohaa. I have a pretty good record against them, I know they are as good an army as any but for some reason I've always managed to beat them so far. Let's see if it was going to be the case here again. No need to mention that I didn't feel like winning this one versus the almighty JV!


Extremely dangerous!

The scenario was to kill as many ennemy lieutenant as possible, meaning that once you kill the first one your opponent have to nominate a new lieutenant freely. It was 1 point per kill, plus 3 if you have more lt. kills than your opponent. We also had one hidden objective each, giving 2 points per completion. Mine was to hit a model with one of my two forward observers and to make sur I get those two points, I put my para-commando on the task, arriving from the right flank to score this objective easy breezy.

I'm sorry I cannot give you much information about my opponent's army as I don't know much of the models I faced tonight; there was a Makaul troop at least, the one with the viral CC weapon, who acted as kind of a bodyguard for the lieutenant. Some sort of combat jump unit, a Gao-Tarso I believe, also was there. The unit that really shined for the Tohaa was the Kerail Preceptors; they got into the fray a bit late to really turn the tide but they managed to kill 4 out of my 5 Loup-garous and my Chasseur as well. I think the lieutenant was Neema Satar but I'm not sure. She was quite resilient however and gave a hard defensive challenge tu the merovingians. I know that my opponent, knowing that I was getting back in the game, gave it to me easy mode by playing new models and trying things with his list. He didn't hesite when he could massacre some of my guys however, to make sure I don't get away with it like it was a field trip!

Soooo basically what happened, outside the fact that the overall dice-rolling balance went on my side in this one, is that Sergent Duroc arrived mad as a raging bull and killed a lot of guys right off the starting blocks with his chain rifles and speed. He got the ennemy lieutenant down to one single wound left before dropping to the floor unconscious. After that the Tohaa tried to catch up as much as they could but couldn't achieve their objective anymore due to casualties. Margot arrived a bit late, I must admit I kinda forgot about her for the first two turns, but she sot good before getting downed in a gunfight. I couldn't finish off Duroc's business and the ennemy lieutenant survived the game, while mine was so deeply hidden in my territory that I wonder if he heard a single gun shot all game. My forward observer para-commando had no trouble tagging a target and scored me 2 points, a simple task that won me the game.


The Tohaa lieutenant

I'm still a bit lost on intuitive and speculative attacks, I'm going to read those up real soon, but overall the game went well, with my teacher giving me advices while playing. We looked up a few rules to make sure we got them allright but it wouldn't be Infinity othewise would it?

Oh and one last thing, it's my birthday in about a week and JV, my opponent tonight, gave me the Briscards box and the missile launcher blister to complete the set. That's super cool really! Now I have so much to paint it makes me want to cry. A little. From inside. But for real I know my merovingians needed those (MSV1, heavy rocket launcher and mountain terrain...no wait nobody gives a crap about mountain terrain in Infinity!).

So that's it, sorry about the pictures, I'm not a pro and I don't spend too much time taking shots of the game to not break the tempo but I hope you guys enjoy it nonetheless. This and the fact that JV don't have a single Tohaa fully painted, what are you waiting for bud ?!

Until the next one may the dices be good to you lads !

And now, the pictures, in no particular order: