Paradiso Impressions: Scenario 201

I again played against Lo Pan's Imperial Service, and I managed to eek out a win at the bitter end. This was quite a surprise for me, as I had lost nearly everything by turn 2, including my Doktor that I was relying on. In the end though, I was able to immobilize his remote and get it onto the "dropship".

Combat Group 1
Dozer w/ Akrylat-Kanone
Dozer w/ Traktor Mul CD
Traktor Mul (Minesweeper)
Traktor Mul (Minesweeper)
Traktor Mul (Minesweeper)
Traktor Mul (Minesweeper)
Kazak Doktor
Warcor

Combat Group 2
Chasseur w/ ADHL
Chasseur w/ ADHL
Foxtrot w/ LGL
Intel (Cube, Specialist Troop)
Kempei w/ Boarding Shotgun
Tankhunter w/ ADHL
Tankhunter w/ ADHL (Lieutenant)
Tankhunter w/ Autocannon
S.A.S. w/ Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun
S.A.S. w/ Chain Rifle, Assault Pistol

This is the first scenario that I did not receive penalties for infiltrating, so I intended to make full use of it. It makes me realize how reliant I am on Infiltrating Troops in regular games.

I won initiative, so I chose to deploy second. He deployed mostly onto his right (my left), including his one Baggage carrier, so I deployed the majority of my ADHLs in his path. He moved his Hsien forward to get into cover, as well as his C Guard linked team and his Su Jian. His Hsien killed two of my Traktor Muls, so I was now down to two. He did not discover any of my guys, but he gave me plenty to worry about when I eventually did pop out of camo. I was halfway hoping he'd try to discover, roll high and get mauled by the Paradiso wildlife, but the only one to die from wildlife in this game was my own lieutenant.

I can go through the gory details, but pretty much every single one of my camo guys died on the heavy side of the board, as well as both of my engineers and my Doktor, while only killing a Su Jian in the process. There were two exceptions. My S.A.S. chain rifled the two Kaung Shi on the other side of the board, which was not necessary but gave me piece of mind, since now I controlled that board half. The second was my Kempai, who was now directly behind Lo Pan's Pheasant Rank and Hsien. Killed his Pheasant Rank, and got a wound on the Hsien before dying in a hail of ARO gunfire. Kempai, you made Japan proud.

Lo Pan's second turn consisted of him running his Baggage forward. On his last order, my lieutenant with ADHL popped out of camo and shot the bugger with some Adhesive gooeyness, leaving him immobilized. My second turn, I was down to 95 points, which thanks to Baggage was not quite enough to send me into retreat. My lieutenant spend all of his orders to shoot at the C Guard linked team and killed every last one of them. In the roll for his last kill, he rolled a 20 and failed his ARM check from the Hostile Environment. I imagine him going down a hero.

Final order from Combat Group 2 is to call down the Dropship with my Intel Specialist Troop, and I drive over with my closest Traktor Mul and pick up the Alien Info. At this point we are both in retreat and loss of lieutenant, but I allow everyone to head to the back of the board in order to save up enough orders to allow my Traktor Mul to safely get onto the dropship.

Helicoptor "Dropship" in the lower left corner.
The board is pretty much cleared, except my retreating S.A.S. agents.
Markers designate the Variable Hostile Environment.

Lost Cateran - 6 XP
Lo Pan - 0 XP

Scenario 204 was apparently ridden with failed ARM saves, if I gleaned anything correctly from the table ten feet away. The final scores were:

Aulleas - 6 XP
Morgrim Dark - 2 XP

Next will be Aulleas and I battling off in Scenario 203.

Paradiso Impressions: Scenario 103

So, this was by far the fastest game we've had so far in the campaign - over in one game turn. I played against Lo Pan, and he pulled out a pretty flawless victory (4-2 Lo Pan).

Setup: Combat Group 1 on left, Combat Group 2 on right.

Combat Group 1
Intel (Cube, Specialist Troop)
Irmandinho (+2 ARM)
Irmandinho (E/M Grenades)
Irmandinho (EXP CCW)
Line Kazak w/ Rifle
Line Kazak w/ Rifle
Line Kazak w/ ML
Line Kazak w/ HMG
Valerya Gromoz

Combat Group 2
Dozer w/ Rifle
Dozer w/ Akrylat-Kanone
Kazak Doktor
Tankhunter w/ Autocannon
Tankhunter w/ AP HMG
Tankhunter w/ ADHL (Lieutenant)
Warcor

I got first turn, ran my Irmandinhos forward, and two of them survived their impetuous movement. One (+2 ARM) ran for the RAS Console in the rocks, and died to a C Guard rifle, the other (EXP CCW) ran for the door. As she unlocked the door, the ARO from the linked team of C Guard took her out. With my two final orders from Combat Group 1, I shot a marker at the door from Gromoz, and tried to deactivate the security system through the marker (at WIP -9) without success.

My second Combat Group was slightly more successful. Lo Pan has deployed his guys prone, making it rather annoying for me to try and smoke him out. Ran forward my TH w/ Autocannon forward, got two clean shots off on his Hsien and killed him coming out of Camo. My Dozer w/ Akrylat-Kanone ran forward, unlocked the second door and ran up to the Console in the middle of the room before running out of orders.

Lo Pan's turn started with him running his Kuang Shi forward towards my Dozer in the Security Room, only to get killed by my Kazak ML with ARO. Shooting some smoke from his C Guard Linked Team, Lo Pan covered the entire approach into the Security Room, leaving him to shoot at my Dozer who was inside, shoot at my Tankhunter from the doorway (which I conveniently opened), deactivate the security console and place the tracking beacon, winning him the game.

Finish, with the C Guard Linked Team inside the Security Room

Couple of things I should've done differently in hindsight:
1. Should've shot through the smoke with my ML once he shot at the Dozer. -6 to hit, but that circular template would've ruined his day.
2. Should've counter-hacked with Valerya, since I had a marker there.

All in all, Lo Pan deserved the win, thus continuing his undefeated record. We immediately went into Scenario 201.

Paradiso Impressions: Scenario 102

First off, sorry for the lack of pictures. I will resolve to take pictures of the games from here-on out, promise.

Lost Cateran's List

Group 1
Cateran w/ T2 Sniper Rifle
Dozer with Traktor Mul Control Device
Tankhunter with AP HMG
Tankhunter with Autocannon
Traktor Mul (Minesweeper)
Traktor Mul (Minesweeper)
Warcor
Veteran Kazak with AP HMG

Group 2
Dozer with Akrylat-Kanone
Intel (with Cube, 2 XP)
Irmandinho with Chain Rifle (Booty: +4 ARM)
Irmandinho with Chain Rifle (Booty: ADHL)
Irmandinho with Chain Rifle (Booty: AP Rifle)
Kazak Doktor
Line Kazak with Rifle
Line Kazak with Rifle
Line Kazak with Rifle (Lieutenant)

Morgrim Dark's List (Best I can tell)
Gabriel de Fersen (Lieutenant)
Teutonic Knight with Spitfire
Teutonic Knight
Teutonic Knight
Magister Knight
Specialist Sergeant with MSV2 and Spitfire
Specialist Sergeant (Hacker)
Bulleteer
Palbot

Turn 1 (Morgrim)

Morgrim ran his Magister Knight up my left hand side. Similarly, he used de Fersen to discover the activation sequence ([2, 1, 3, 5]) and activated the first marker. Finally, he moved his Teutonic Knights up to cover the center of the board.

Turn 1 (Lost Cateran)

Moved Irmandinhos up, discovered the activation sequence ([2, 1, 3, 5], same sequence coincidentally enough), and activated the first marker. Shot at a Teutonic Knight from my other Irmandinho’s Booty-ed ADHL, ended up killing my Irmandinho (do to vastly underestimating the distance between the two). Ran towards the second marker, failed his WIP and had to get into cover before orders ran out in that combat group. Other group shot at Teutonic Knights with my AP HMG Tankhunter, AP HMG Veteran Kazak and Cateran, with some pretty spectacular results.

Turn 2 (Morgrim)

De Fersen shot at my HMG Tankhunter and Cateran, killed the Tankhunter and sent the Cateran into hiding. Similarly shot at my Vet Kazak, which I chose to fail his guts check. Grabbed the data from the center objective, and had to book it around the corner to stay out of LoF of my guys.

Turn 2 (Lost Cateran)

Two Irmandinhos ran towards the Magister Knight, threw smoke in his face and attempted an Intuitive Attack. Succeeded the WIP roll, but failed to wound. Magister Knight manages to hit with a speculative shot with his pistol at my Irmandinho not carrying the data, who also has a +4 ARM from Booty. She rolls a 1 and dies. My last Irmandinho uses all the regular orders in that combat group to get up to the middle, activate the center objective, run towards the final objective and grab the data, while still avoiding getting hit by the Bulleteer and MSV2 Order Sergeant standing watch.

All I could do with my other combat group was to set up suppressive fire lanes across the board with my Cateran and Veteran Kazak, and run my dozer across the board to hopefully grab all the data necessary to triangulate (since I figured my Irmandinho was dead next turn). Had I known that I can triangulate with a different engineer than the one doing the activation scheme, that would’ve ended the game right there. This seems to be a point of discussion in the boards.

Turn 3 (Morgrim)

His Magister Knight runs towards my last Irmandinho, who now has all the objectives activated. In the process, he runs into my Cateran’s Suppressive Fire, which finally kills that SOB. His Bulleteer and MSV2 Order Sergeant make short work of my Irmandinho. His last Teutonic Knight spends an order to discover my last camo marker on the board is a Tankhunter with Autocannon, which I had no need to use until now, since he was blocking the avenue to Morgrim’s last objective. In a heroic charge, his Teutonic Knight charges forward to die gloriously, followed subsequently by de Fersen himself.

Turn 3 (Lost Cateran)

Knowing that Morgrim is probably now in Retreat (which doesn’t mean much for a fully Religious army); I run my Dozer up the board and into the LoF of his Bulleteer and Order Sergeant. This last Dozer shoots his humble rifle at the two, kills the Sergeant and in the very next order, crits (on a 2!) the Bulleteer. The Dozer retrieves the data, and in his last order successfully manages to triangulate on a 12.
 

Lost Cateran: 8 XP

Morgrim: 4 XP

The results of the other game:

Lo-Pan: 8 XP

Aulleas: 2 XP

Guess I'm playing against Lo-Pan once more for the final mission of Chapter 1. I will post my views afterwards. Have to figure out a good way of dealing with those Kuang Shi...

Paradiso Impressions: Scenario 101

First of all, I apologize for the lack of photos. I will be sure to take photos of the next scenario.

For the first game, I was paired up against Lo Pan’s Yu Jing, specifically his ISA. I wanted to try something out, only using Russian troops (i.e. no troops from Sectorial Lists), as well as some troops I had never played before - Dog-Warriors, Irmandinhos and Minesweepers. My army consisted of the following:

Group 1 (6 Regular, 3 Irregular, 3 Impetuous)

Intel Spec-Ops
Irmandinho (Chain Rifle) (KIA)
Irmandinho (Chain Rifle) (KIA)
Irmandinho (Chain Rifle) (KIA)
Line Kazak (Rifle, Lieutenant)
Line Kazak (Rifle) (KIA)
Line Kazak (Rifle) (KIA)
Tankhunter (AP HMG) (KIA)
Tankhunter (Autocannon)

Group 2 (5 Regular, 3 Irregular, 1 Impetuous)

Antipode Pack with Controller (Antipodes KIA, Controller survived)
Dog-Warrior (KIA)
Dozer (Traktor Mul Controller) (KIA)
Traktor Mul (Minesweeper) (KIA)
Traktor Mul (Minesweeper)
Veteran Kazak (AP HMG)
Warcor

I ended up losing the initiative roll, and was relegated to going second. Lo Pan sent his linked team of Kuang Shi up the flank to throw smoke grenades and give me a threat I had to deal with. I sent my Antipodes after him, which ended up not being such a good idea, as they simply got chain rifled to death. The real problem, however, was his Hsien with HMG and MSV2, who could shoot at my guys through the smoke with impunity. Lost my HMG Tankhunter, two Irmandinhos and two of my Line Kazaks from that. There go two of my Engineers.

The alien info was discovered (by Lo Pan) to be in the center of the table. My last Irmandinho was lost trying to deal with the Kuang Shi on my flank, and my Veteran Kazak got into a shooting match with his Hsien. After killing his Hsien, I sent my Dog-Warrior up the other flank to deal with his Su-Jian Remote. Ultimately, both died in a blaze of glory, shooting at each other.

Lo Pan rearranged his Celestial Guard for his turn. With only one Engineer left, I start shooting some smoke grenads with my Antipode Controller and my Dozer ran up and acquired the data. Unfortunately, I attempted to transmit and my attempt was hacked and I did not have enough orders to get the dozer back to safety. Lo Pan ran forward his Celestial Guard linked team, acquired the data and killed my dozer. As a final act of retribution, I shot his entire Celestial Guard squad with my Veteran Kazak, thus leaving both of us with no Engineers or Hackers.

While Lo Pan was in retreat whereas I had 158 points left, he technically had more Objective Points than I did, so he won this match.

Lo Pan: 4 XP
Lost Cateran: 2 XP

The other game went as follows:

Morgrim (PanO/Military Orders): 2 XP
Aulleas (Haqqislam/Hassassin Bahram): 4 XP

Next week I will be playing against Morgrim and his nasty PanO Military Orders . By that time, I may have named my troops by that point.

Preparing for the Long Campaign

After many months of work, school and other oddities of life keeping my away, I am finally returning to the gaming table. In my absence, many of the guys here at Remote Presence (Morgrim, Lo Pan and TimW) have been preparing for the 40K Team Tournament at Adepticon. I gave up 40K last year, but if you see them in Chicago, be sure to say hello and buy them drinks!

Starting in May, four of us will be cracking open those Campaign: Paradiso books to start what Corvus Belli terms a Long Campaign. Anyone who has the book has probably read through one or two of the scenarios, and possibly even tried to play a campaign. If they are anything like me, players may have some difficulty delving into the campaign and scenarios. They are somewhat dense and hard to decipher thoroughly. Over these next few weeks, I will try to give my best rendition of how campaigns and scenarios are meant to work.

A campaign needs a minimum of four players, and I think exactly four makes the numbers work out well. Unfortunately, this doesn’t allow for any flexibility – if one player gets sick or doesn’t show up, it kind of messes up the entire flow of the campaign. Players face off in scenarios, which have a variety of setups and objectives, which I will discuss in future posts. Each player chooses a faction, and they can build lists from any sectorial from that faction for that mission.

In this post, I will discuss the Control Screens (available for viewing here), Spec-Ops, Command Experience and Promotion Tests.

Spec-Ops

The Spec-Ops model starts off as one of your basic line troops. There’s a table available in the book for reference. You purchase this model into your army just like you would for that line troop – i.e. if I was playing Ariadna and I wanted a Spec-Ops, I would use the points cost and SWC of a Line Kazak (9 points, 0 SWC). He would then start with the stats of a Line Kazak.

What differentiates him is that you may spend experience points (XP) to level him up, either by adding to his attributes or by buying equipment or skills for him (the XP costs for any of these bonuses are listed in the book). You obviously keep track of them on the Spec-Ops Control Screen.

Now, what happens if your Spec-Ops goes unconscious or dies? We’ll get to that later on.

Command Experience

Another way to spend experience points is listed in the Command and Control Screen (C2). As you gain XP, you may purchase an advancement from one AND ONLY ONE military specialty. This means at the start of the campaign, I must choose the military specialty I’m going to advance in and I will only be able to buy advancements from that specialty. Also, as you purchase command experience, you must purchase the level before it, and you cannot purchase a level more than once. All of this is pretty standard, with the exception of the ONLY ONE military specialty.

Now, there is one way of gaining more than one military specialty, and that is to get promoted.

Promotion Tests

With the release of Campaign: Paradiso, there was this limited edition figurine that was released – Go-Go Marlene, who was supposed to be a journalist (the only one currently available in the miniature range). “This seems silly,” you may have thought, “Why do I need a journalist in my list?” This is why – getting promoted. After each game, the player may make a promotion test. This is a pretty hard test to make generally, but having a journalist gives you a +3 bonus to promotions. For each promotion you earn, you gain one extra military specialty you may access. However, as you get promoted, it becomes harder to get promoted.

As you can see from the Promotion Control Screen, you can calculate the value you would need to roll. If I’m an Ariadna player, I would start with 1. If I won my last game, I would add 3. If I had a surviving journalist, I would add another 3. If I had no other benefits, I would need to roll a 7 or below in order to be promoted to Level 1. No bonuses for critical hits, guys. Sorry.

Putting It All Together

At the end of each scenario, you follow a strict 8-step path.

1.       Write down whether you won or lost on the “Mission Control Screen”

2.       Write down the number of XP you earned this round, which equals the number of objective points you obtained. By the way, the game ends when all the troops of one army are immobilized, unconscious, dead, sepsorized, or possessed. This means, even if you’re the winner, you won’t have a chance to gain more XP after that point, so be aware!

3.       Write down whether you have a surviving journalist. You only get one +3 bonus, even if you have more than one surviving journalist.

4.       Write down the Surviving Troops Value, which is the points value for all troops still alive and conscious.

5.       Make a promotions test, using the formula explained above.

6.       If your Spec-Ops is unconscious (not dead) at the end of the game, make a MEDAVAC test. This requires rolling a specific value, as defined in the book on p. 173.

7.       If your Spec-Ops has a cube and either (a) you failed your MEDAVAC test or (b) your Spec-Ops is dead, you may make a CUBEVAC test. This requires rolling a different value, also defined in the book on p. 173.*

8.       Distribute XP across either command experience or your Spec-Ops as you see fit.

* If your Spec-Ops fails the CUBEVAC test, or does not have a cube, the Spec-Ops is dead. You can purchase a new one, but they start off as a basic line troop once again, without any special equipment or skills.

I hope this has helped to illuminate the rather daunting Control Screens printout available at the Infinity website. As I mentioned, we will be discussing various scenarios in the coming months. I look forward to playing some Infinity once again.

Tohaa Technology and Special Rules

If you're someone who obsessively checks the Infinity the Game website like I do, then you've noticed that the new rules, new weapons and some of the new profiles are available for download. They are not a complete set of rules yet, as you cannot access the complete Tohaa army list or rules for the campaign system, but the downloads give you a lot to chew on.

Today I'm going to take you on a little review of what's in there for the Tohaa, their technology, special rules, weapons and spikey hair.

Tohaa Triads
While the Tohaa do not have any sectorials armies at present (personally I doubt they ever will), they still have the ability to form special linked teams, called triads. Triads are 3-man linked teams with any combination of troop types with the special rule 'Fireteam: Tohaa.' They can only have 3 members, hence the name, triad, but they can mix units into the teams. This means you can have a linked team of a Tohaa Ectros, a Tohaa Kamael and a Tohaa Sakiel, unlike sectorial armies, whose fireteams must contain units of the same type. Furthermore, the Tohaa are not limited to one fireteam per army but an unlimited amount depending on how many troops with the 'Fireteam: Tohaa' special rule (they should have called this special rule 'triad' instead of the long winded one they chose.)

Swarm Grenades
For what we can tell from these downloads, Tohaa have the unique access to Swarm Grenades. These are grenades which can only be hurled at a target model (not a piece of ground), causes shock damage against BTS (no ARM rolls) and remains in play, creating a low-visibility zone (ignored by all levels of multispectral visors). What potential. Essentially this is a weapon that can be used offensively while creating a defensive zone against advancing troops. However, so far no revealed Tohaa units have any multispectral visors that would truly create a nice combo.

Symbiont Armor
Symbiont Armor is definitely unique to Tohaa and features some important advantages and disadvantages.

So far, two released models wear symbiont armor, the Ectros and the Sakiel. The Ectros is an HI model while his symbiont armor is functioning, yet only ARM 3, but maintains a high MOV rate of 4-4. The Sakiel is an LI with ARM 2 and, again, MOV rate of 4-4. So Symbiont Armor does not seem to slow its wearer.

It's main advantage seems to lie in its ability to preserve its wearer longer than traditional armor.
Its wearer has two profiles: active and inactive. Its wearer uses the active profile from the start of the game until he reaches 0 wounds or the unconscious state. However, instead of going unconscious, he changes to his inactive profile with 1 wound, so can continue fighting with a new, weaker profile. In a way, you have to kill the wearer once, then he gets a new lease on life, at a weakened state. Neat!

Its disadvantages lie in that it is vulnerable to fire, which kills him outright with a single wound caused. Fire weapons are becoming more numerous, too, so this could be a big potential drawback to playing the Tohaa. In fact, their swarm grenades are also vulnerable to fire so the Tohaa players are really going to have to be mindful of what fire weapons the enemies carry.

Interestingly, the rules indicate that the Tohaa TAG will wearer symbiont armor, have wounds instead of structure points and will be vulnerable to fire. Hopefully this will lessen the points cost of fielding one, as it would be the only TAG in the game that could be killed outright by a single wound from a flamethrower.

Viral Weaponry and Poison
Tohaa are the first army to have access to viral combi-rifles. Only two of their released units have them - again the Ectros and Sakiel, but combined with swarm weapons, they will have a distinct advantage against units with low BTS values, like Ariadans and most line and medium infantry troops.

The Ectros has the rare poison special skill, which grants all his CC attacks the shock special rule. In addition poison causes a DAM 9 hit on opponents whenever the bearer suffers an unsaved wound in close combat. Not terribly powerful, but interesting nonetheless.

Spikey Hair
Nuff said.

Conclusion
The Tohaa will be a unique army to play. I believe they will be fragile but hit hard - an example of glass sledgehammers. Viral weapons and swarm grenades will put a serious hurting on their enemies, especially those LI and MI models. Symbiont Armor can help them last longer, but instant kills from fire are going to really hurt.

Yet, we're still only able to look at 4 units that have been released so how knows what the full Paradiso book will reveal as it comes out...I'm guessing regeneration and metachemistry models will be somewhere in their list...we'll just have to wait and see. Anyone know when that book is coming out?