We join Joan of HVT having just recovered from the med bay after her ill fated encounter with the Tohaa to find yet a new alien threat nearby. This time an invasion of combined army soldiers in a small scouting mission (Recon+). Being the ever faithful (bloodthirsty) Joan of Arc, she was ready to combat the combined army at any time and any place… especially since she brought a Seraph.
This mission once again exemplifies why I do love Infinity as a game. Spoiler alert: I lost 9-1, but it was still a blast and really fun! I’ll also say this about Recon+ because it’s such a short 1 hour or so game, I find it much more clearly shows what happened tactically than a more complex 300 point game where misteps can be obscured by other plays. In this case it was quite clear what happened. I ramboed up my Seraph, had way too much fun wrecking things (and taking a couple wounds in process) that I completely left my support troops and link team ineffective in the back field. I banked on the Seraph’s durability (never bank on durability in Infinity, a Combi can kill a TAG with a lucky shot). By the time, I was back to Active turn, the Seraph was unsurprisingly gone, but the CA also had some really good defensive positions that blocked me from gaining points.
Shorter version, I deeply overextended myself trying to alpha strike which then prevented me from gaining points. That said… rampaging Seraph was a lot of fun. Sure it would have been smart to cautiously advance, I probably could have taken down one Rodok and the Q-Drone, then brought my other troops up to support the Seraph… That wasn’t as fun and Joan of Arc demands blood! 😀
Turn one recap and it is a rough turn one for the CA, but they actually do turn it around all at the same time. The Seraph rampages in. All told in the active turn she’s eaten a Q-drone, a unidron, and a rodock. Not bad, but she took two hits on the chin from some luck on the part of the plasma unidron. Here’s dumb move number one… I was having so much fun rampaging the seraph AND I saw a great opportunity to drone flamethrower the back line, that I just did not save an order to move up my link or my fusiliers into a quadrant…
And since the seraph went down from a coordinated order in turn one I dominated exactly 0 quadrants…thaaaat was dumb. 2 points to Xammy and he managed coup de gras on the remote bot to score his classified. Still… the seraph was such a delight to run in this one. I find the seraph to be one of my all time favorite TAGs. Usually it seems like TAGs need to hang back, dominate fire lanes, and take occasional shots with their high BS, but they’re long range guns being predominately HMGs and the like… the Seraph though… whole different beast. For one it’s dang maneuverable with Super jump and a 6-4 move jump shots are very fun. Looking back at the photos, I think I actually shot have maneuvered to the side and gotten better ranges and cover. Probably wouldn’t have had enough orders though. Additionally, since the Seraph is pretty darn good in CC (skill 20 plus EXP CCW) it can handle its own close in. 0-8” is a little tough as your spitfire’s in 0 range, but it’s got a heavy flamethrower auxbot to solve problems at that range. So yeah… I like Seraphs a lot. They’re exactly what I want as a TAG, not a main battle tank in the back field, but an active up front warfighter.
Turn two is super super short… both of us have lost a lot, I have more orders, but he’s still on the back field behind a lot of terrain. I don’t have the mobility to attack… So I move up and claim an antenna, I also move up the Fusiliers in a coordinated order to get them in a quadrant. I should have spread people out a bit more, but I just didn’t have the orders for it, so when reactive turn came, I lost one of my order Sgts to a rodock, which left me with only one quadrant to control. Xammy moved up his units and claimed the other antenna which means he can effectively cancel my bonus…blast! 2 more points to Xammy for controlling 2 quadrants to my 1. This is exactly why some missions can really help to go second. (still wouldn’t trade it for my fun Seraph rampage though…)
Final results… you guessed it… Xammy wins. 9-1 I got one point for controlling an antenna at the end of the game, but I did not manage to control more quadrants for any of the turns. Also my two picks of classifieds required an engineer, so that wasn’t much help either.
Still though… very fun game, even badly losing!
It Rhymes with Hockey 