In the Name

Tim was able to get a more tuned list, but it’s not wildly out of balance or anything. With regards to the list, Tim had the following (paraphrased) things to say. The Gudan is good. Take it. Same for Lei Gong. Tim’s got a thing for Tai Sheng as well, and thinks that she’s really gotten a sizeable glow up since last edition. I agree. Very annoying to deal with!

Tim (Chainsaw)

---

GROUP 1 9 1 2

DĀOYĪNG (Lieutenant [+1 Order], Hacker, Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun ( ) / Breaker Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 28)

KOKRAM FTO MULTI Rifle(PS=6), Chain-colt, D-Charges / Heavy Pistol(+1B), CC Weapon. (0 | 35)
SHÀNG JÍ Heavy Rocket Launcher, Light Shotgun / Boarding Pistol, AP CC Weapon(PS=6). (1.5 | 34)
HǍIDÀO (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper Rifle ( ) / Breaker Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 29)

TAI SHENG Breaker Combi Rifle(+1B), Chain-colt, Flash Pulse ( | TinBot: Firewall [-6]) / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 38)
LÉI GŌNG FTO AP Submachine Gun, E/Mitter, Zapper / Breaker Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 29)
SHÀNG JÍ (Hacker, Hacking Device) MULTI Rifle, Flash Pulse, D-Charges ( ) / Boarding Pistol, AP CC Weapon(PS=6). (0.5 | 40)

GŪDǍN (Camouflage [1 Use], Forward Deployment [+4″]) Submachine Gun, Zapper, Shock Mine / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 12)
ZHĒNCHÁ (Hacker, Hacking Device [UPGRADE: Trinity]) Boarding Shotgun, D-Charges ( ) / Silenced Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 34)
LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Shock Mine / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 8)

GROUP 2 1

GŪDǍN (Camouflage [1 Use], Forward Deployment [+4″]) Submachine Gun, Zapper, Shock Mine / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 12)

---

5 SWC | 299 Points | Open in Army | Copy Code

Deployment

Tim won the lieutenant roll off and elected to take deployment. Given what I know about the mission, I decided to go first. I figured I could leave my Zero minelayers in the midfield, which would allow me to keep the mines on the table after patching the near chemical tanks. I’m not particularly enthused about the entire situation at the moment, but here we are.

I start by just putting down all three Sin Eaters and the minelayers. Just get that over with. Kusanagi goes on the right to push the button, and then I stack up both TAGs on the left where I think they’ll be okay. I hold Bran in reserve.

Tim guffaws at my list, and sets about putting down some gross stuff. The Daoying goes in her ivory tower, and he splits the two link teams into a left team and a right team. The two Gudan screen the approach to his deployment zone, and then Zencha parks on a tower in the midfield.

We were pretty distracted during deployment by helping a brand new player (so new they were borrowing models) so I missed the fact that Tim had deployed in the midfield. The mission states that every zone with an unpatched chemical tank takes a BTS hit every player turn, instead of only your models taking a hit at the end of your turn. That’s not what Tim thought though, so we played it the less aggressive way this game.

Of note, only the Shang Ji HRL can see any appreciable amount of the board (and funnily enough, Tim did not check to see if my Sin Eaters could see it when he placed it, the degree of distraction was so great). The rest of Tim’s stuff is hiding. I put Bran down with a path to getting an E/M grenade onto Lei Gong and the Shang Ji hacker, but Tim blocked it off his Libertos from reserve.

Turn 1

Top of 1 – Bakunin

After my Morlock does her thing (she rolled regen), I start by moving Kusanagi into base with the Chemical Tank and slap some flex seal on it to buy myself two turns.

I then start shuffling the TAGs around. I have to work to see the Shang Ji HRL, but Tim did leave the Haidao MSR out to cover this exact firelane. I decide to bully the Haidao with my burst 3 + SD HRL and succeed in deleting the Haidao immediately. Not even Tim’s infectious charm and charisma can save it.

With the Haidao gone, I quickly seal the left chemical tank with one of the Stigmata, then I decide I want to get rid of the Libertos, because I don’t want Tim to have a throwaway attack piece. I decide to use my Morlock for this and start positioning it by chucking smoke in front of the Shang Ji HRL. I want to back the TAGs away from the Shang Ji hacker, but on the way we discover that I’m visible to the HRL during a vault. Tim offers a takeback, which I think about and just decide to “be brave” as he likes to say. I’m on burst 3 + 1SD an he’s on burst 1 + 1SD, so theoretically I should be okay here, but I’m out of cover. As it stands I lose the face to face and take a wound. Ah well.

I don’t have additional orders to be messing around, so I show Tim’s Libertos the Morlock. He obliges by dropping camo and shotgunning the Morlock, so I assault pistol and do one wound, sending the Libertos dogged.

I wasn’t expecting him to drop camo–I was fully expecting him to force me to throw an intuitive attack his way, so I’ve got an order left, which I coordinate to move the two TAGs, Kusanagi, and Bran. I decide to cover the firelane challenging Tai Sheng’s approach with one of the Sigmata, carefully avoiding exposing both Stigmata to the Shang Ji HRL with a vault.

I reform the fireteam, and pass turn. With the Libertos gone, I have more quadrants, giving me 1 point.

Bottom of 1 – IA

Tim’s down a Libertos and a Haidao, which sadly isn’t enough. I do have a Stigmata covering Tai Sheng’s approach, so at least I have some insurance. Tim complains loudly that my Morlock is preventing him from cautious moving Tai Sheng’s squad past the Stigmata’s line of fire (not planned, but I’ll take it!). Tim decides to just shoot the Morlock, which is reasonable, but I pass my dodge and just leave her there, forcing him to spend more orders.

He changes attack vectors and climbs the Zencha off its roof past the Morlock. I manage to discover it with the Morlock, delaying with the two Sin Eaters that can see this to give the discover some teeth. Tim just moves behind the Morlock.

His next order is spent getting the Zencha prone and near my Stigmata. The Morlock can’t see so is forced to dodge. I Carbonite with the Stigmata instead of flamethrowering, fearing a Total Control attempt. Tim splits shotgun burst between the Morlock and the Stigmata, hitting both, but I pass both saves.

Tim really wants that Morlock gone, so he sends Krit in to take some shots at outside of 16″. I roll well again and stick smoke, cutting Krit and the Shang Ji HRL off from the fight.

That attack path closed off, Tim decides to take Tai Sheng and Lei Gong around the long way.

Eventually he reveals Lei Gong to my Stigmata and successfully E/Mitters it. Well that’s irritating.

Lei Gong tries to take out the Morlock, but I dodge again, failing my reset on the Stigmata. With Lei Gong so close and the Zencha right there, I decide to dodge the Morlock out of line of fire to better cover the Zencha.

The way clear, Tim uses Tai Sheng to patch his near right chemical tank.

It’s at this point we get our first N5 curveball of the game. Lei Gong’s Albedo apparently (sort of) works against Marksmanship. I can either keep Marksmanship and take the full -6, or I can optionally turn off Marksmanship and take only the cover penalty. Kind of annoying, but sure, fine, whatever. I don’t think it’s game breaking or anything, it’s just a weird and inconsistent design choice.

In any case, this allows Tim to delete one of the Sin Eaters from just within 16″. Lei Gong then super jumps up to see, discover, and kill Bran. Very annoying. Turn’s over, so Tim takes (and passes the save for) a BTS hit on the Gudan in the other, unpatched zone. Tim ties things up in quadrants dominated, so I’m at 1-0.

Turn 2

Top of 2 – Bakunin

I start by losing the Morlock to a CC crit from the Zencha. How irritating.

I don’t have many ways to deal with Lei Gong, but I eyeball the distance and decide I can probably get one of my Zeros in range to attempt a shotgun shot. Tim is surprised to discover that we are indeed within 8″, and Lei Gong takes a wound from the Zero before tucking his way all the way around the little tower/wall thing.

I use Kusangi’s lieutenant order to delete Lei Gong, and then I need to figure out a reasonable plan for recovery.

Tim graciously reminds me that I paid for Speedball at the top of the game, and I can just deliver the Speedball fix to my EMP’ed Sigmata using the nearby Zero. Funnily enough, I land the second Speedball right next to the other TAG, and it also rolls Switch On. The Zero fixes up the Stigmata and the Zencha turns around with a successful ZoC dodge.

I pick up the other speedball with the other TAG , Carboniting the Zencha successfully on the way. Of note, Possession isn’t cleared by Switch On!

I gotta say, even though it’s helping me out this game, I really don’t like Speedball. I think it’s fine to do sort of Helldivers-esque weapons delivery. If you were to drop an HMG from orbit to pick up, I’d be fine with that, as it doesn’t really fundamentally change the capabilities of the unit in question. Being able to get the benefits of an engineer without having to make room for one during list construction is something that I’m not really okay with as a design choice.

I think it devalues specialists like Doctors and Engineers, which are often not really seen on the table outside certain matchups anyway. Also it just creates a bit of a negative play experience without adding anything in terms of an interesting puzzle to solve. It punishes hackers, because now you can just dip into a hacking area, do something unrelated, and ignore the hacking ARO. I don’t like that, because it’s a pretty asymmetric resource expenditure. Basically it’s a command token to ignore someone taking a hacker and then getting the hacker to a particular position or getting a repeater out or something.

As far as balance is concerned, I honestly don’t know how truly impactful it is, but I can tell you from my brief experiences with it that so far it doesn’t feel good. When I used it, it felt like cheating. When Tim used it in our last game, it felt like a gotcha (this will of course lessen with experience). Maybe I should view it as being as a set of training wheels or a one time “whoops I left that tool at home” button? As it is, it just means I can shave the engineers and doctors out of my lists, which is not really something that I want to be doing?

Sometimes new rules just are polarizing. I’ve heard plenty of people suggest that they like Speedball. I just don’t know what problem it’s trying to solve, when the real problem with Infinity in my mind is a stale mission set. Rant over.

With the Carbonite locking the Zencha in place, I walk the now-unstuck Stigmata over and drop double flamethrower templates on it. Tim fails the reset but passes ARM.

This means I have to try again. This time the Zencha fails ARM and dies, but he does reset successfully.

I get the other Stigmata to the other console, and seal it before passing turn. We’re tied up on quadrants, so it’s still 1-0 me.

Bottom of 2 – IA

Tim decides to be brave with his Shang Ji HRL, and dies horribly to the two remaining Sin Eaters.

Krit, now free from his Shang Ji shackles, darts across the table. Since he’s an engineer, Tim tries to short-skill-seal the chemical tank and fails, necessitating a second order before moving Krit out of the quadrant.

The remaining Shang Ji tries to take over my Stigmata while my Zero tries to dodge into view to help out.

It takes a few tries and passed BTS saves until I remember I can fail guts away, so Tim has to stop trying.

I do manage to get the Zero into a position where I think I can fight the Shang Ji if it comes around the corner, but I had forgotten about Tai Sheng. The Zero immediately dies.

Tim shoves the Shang Ji into my quadrant and passes turn. Tim now has more subjugated quadrants, so we’re at a 1-1 tie going into top of 3.

Turn 3

Top of 3 – Bakunin

The Shang Ji is more or less easily shootable, so I pop the other Stigmata out to do just that.

I spend waaay too many orders trying to kill the Shang Ji but it either beats me with a dodge or passes ARM. I need to get some points, so I use my very limited remaining orders and kill the Gudan in Tim’s zone with Kusanagi. This will force Tim to put Krit in that zone if he wants to keep it.

I’ve got one more order, which I spend on a coordinated to drop a flamethrower template on the Shang Ji with one Stigmata, move Kusanagi forward to maybe dodge into another quadrant/into secure HVT range, and drop some HRL templates on the Shang Ji. Tim can’t resist, as I knew he wouldn’t be able to, and declares Total Control on the flamethrowering Stigmata instead of Dodge.

Finally the Shang Ji dies. Killing the Gudan puts me to 2-1 quadrants, giving me a 2-1 lead.

Bottom of 3 – IA

All Tim has to do is get his classified and take a quadrant from me, so he starts with a classified…

then aces my Stigmata with Tai Sheng.

This does, however, let me dodge Kusanagi into Secure HVT range.

With that, it’s a

3-4, 164-113 Invincible Army victory!

Post Game Analysis

Hard to really comment on the overall balance of the mission because it wasn’t played as intended, but Tim had some feedback nonetheless. He thought it made more sense to swap the subjugate/dominate scoring, which we’ll try soon.

I’m actually pretty happy with my play this game. I don’t think I made any serious mistakes, aside from some weird lines of play we mutually agreed to just stop and start over. I already complained about the Speedball stuff, so I won’t belabor the point here. I do think that one thing I could have done better was make sure Bran was safe, putting him near the mine was probably the right way to go there.

Probably the most impactful thing this game was the one Shang Ji hacker just not dying for 4-5 orders of reasonable quality shooting being shot at him. I complained about this loudly to Tim via text the following day, and the cheeky bastard just sent me this in return:

That shut me right up, haha!

Returning to the subject of N5, I’m enjoying the games I’m playing with my friends, full stop. I’m not sure I needed a new edition for that? And I’m 100% certain I didn’t need a bunch of my armies deleted for that. My biggest issue is that the game is pretty stale in the sense that we haven’t gotten any new ITS missions that are good. I don’t think B-Pong or whatever the rescue the HVTs one that isn’t Rescue are very fun. Last Launch is a nice exception.

I guess to sum it up–I understand that CB has limited resources and is beholden to a lot of various constraints that we’re not aware of. I just disagree with their choices about where they invested their resources. We needed new ITS missions, not a new edition (although there are plenty of things to like about the new edition, especially the shotgun changes and such). Maybe I’m just wildly out of touch with what the Infinity playerbase needs/wants. :: shrug ::  Who knows.

I’ve been trying to address the missions thing by coming up with custom missions and lowering the barrier to entry for playing custom missions by ensuring they’re in Comlog. One thing that’s certain is that my local playgroup has moved on from Infinity in a big way, so it’s hard for me to stay motivated and get testing games in to properly playtest these custom missions. Now that Tim has moved to within 15 minutes of me and importantly is childless and therefore schedule flexible, perhaps that will change.

I guess the real issue with N5 is there’s my feeling that CB’s betrayed the player base by removing armies and didn’t even give us the courtesy of clear messaging up front. They were still selling stuff on their store that wasn’t usable in N5 after launch! That really smarts, but the game is still great. It’s still fun, it just really feels like sometimes they don’t know what makes the game fun for the veterans and are optimizing for something else.

I really want to like N5 and Infinity at large. I just feel like the way CB has handled the launch, or really just community engagement in general has made it really difficult for me personally to do that. I’m glad people are enjoying the game, and the community, as always, is supportive of one another. People’s comments in response to my general negativity have been supportive and kind, which I truly appreciate.

I wish I wasn’t so negative on it, and maybe I just need to let myself take a step back, enjoy other games, and let life stabilize. There’s also a sense of been there, done that for competitive Infinity, and perhaps I can just acknowledge at the current level of energy and time that I have, I’m more of a narrative and dare I say casual player overall.

All that said, don’t let my negativity harsh your vibe on Infinity. If you’re enjoying it, that’s wonderful! I’m just feeling grief about how my relationship with the game has changed. It’s been such a huge part of my life for the last 10+ years. We’ll see how things develop over the next months. Thanks for reading and following along with my journey.