How Many Mines?
It’s been forever since Adam and I had a chance to get a game of Infinity in against one another, so instead of playing Warcry we decided to have a Throwback Thursday game night moment and play an ITS Season 8 mission: Seize the Antennas. The fact that it was part of our grow league definitely had nothing to do with it.
Overview
- Mission: Seize the Antennas
- Forces: Japanese Secessionist Army versus USAriadna Ranger Force (300)
- Deploy First: USARF
- First Turn: USARF
List A
GROUP 1 |9
KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9)
KEMPEI (Multispectral Visor L2) Shock Marksman Rifle / Pistol, CCW, Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)
YURIKO ODA Combi Rifle + E/Mitter, D-Charges, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 23)
GROUP 2 |
SHIKAMI Contender, Nimbus Grenades / Assault Pistol, DA CCW, AP CCW, Knife. (0 | 45)
RYŪKEN (Forward Deployment L2, ODD) Submachine Gun, Antipersonnel Mines, D-Charges / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 24)
1
SHINOBU Lieutenant Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Monofilament CCW. (1 | 47)
TOKUSETSU EISEI Doctor (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
YÁOZĂO Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3)
5.5 SWC | 299 Points | Open in Infinity Army
Adam’s been encouraging me to play JSA with ~14 order lists. He’s also been encouraging me to take Kitsune as a Lieutenant, which means a Kempetai Chain of Command is pretty much mandatory. I took the usual JSA “good stuff,” i.e. max AVA Ryuken-9, the Kempetai Shock Marksman, and a pile of Keisotsu to fuel everything.
I built a few fun things into the list–the first being a 9-order first pool to telegraph hidden deployment, and the second being a Shikami, who I’ve been wanting to play with more.
USAriadna Ranger Force
GROUP 1 |1
GRUNT Lieutenant Rifle, Light Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 14)
ROSIE Light Rocket Launcher, Light Shotgun, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22)
GROUP 2 |
FOXTROT (Forward Observer) Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
DEVIL DOG Heavy Shotgun, Smoke Grenades + 1 K-9 Antipode / AP CCW. (0 | 41)
DOZER (Traktor Mul Control Device) Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
TRAKTOR MUL Katyusha MRL / Electric Pulse. (1 | 11)
WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3)
VAN ZANT AP Rifle / Heavy Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 38)
5.5 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army
Adam brought a USARF list to the party with Van Zant and the (unpopular on the Internet) Devil Dog with Heavy Shotgun. He also brought four infiltrating Grunts, because he’s a Jerk, with a capital “J.” There’s a lot of high-quality death in his list, including access to his favorite tool–speculative fire. I knew I was in for a tough time…
Deployment
which is why when I won the Lieutenant roll off, I shocked myself by choosing deployment, essentially giving Adam first turn. Lately I’ve been committing too hard to the alpha strike and not really doing the right thing on the first turn, so I wanted some more practice. That and Adam’s side of the table suuuuucked. He had a pretty open deployment zone, which I knew I couldn’t really exploit, but would hopefully make things more difficult for him.
He ended up deploying his Grunt sniper defensive link in the middle of his deployment zone, with one Grunt poked out to the right a little. Adam failed three Grunt infiltration rolls, which made me happy, and then he put down three Foxtrots, which made me sad. His Traktor Muls sat on either side of his deployment zone, and then the Devil Dog Team showed up on the left.
I deployed my Keisotsu link team on the the right to cover the approach of his Devil Dog with my MSV2 Kempetai Shock Marksman. I hid the HMG on the roof where I could get it into position eventually to go after Adam’s Grunts, and then made sure to cover every table edge I could with AROs and mines to defend against Van Zant. I telegraphed a Keisotsu Lieutenant hard by putting a prone Keisotsu on a roof next to a Doctor, and then covered the back edge with a Ryuken HRL, Kempetai BSG, two Keisotsu, a Ryuken-9 SMG in the center of the table overwatching my entire DZ, and Yuriko, along with all the mines I could place.
I put my remaining Ryuken-9 SMG out to ARO the Devil Dog and the Foxtrot in that lane, and then didn’t place her mine, instead placing Kitsune as a normal camo token pretending to be a mine. I figured Kitsune could help provide some additional insurance against the Devil Dog by engaging it or something, or hopefully the Devil Dog would just avoid her.
If the latter happened, that would let me use Kitsune’s smoke to set up the Kempetai SMR to do some work against the Grunts or other problematic units once I got rid of SSL2 somehow. We’d been joking in our meta’s Discord chat that to detect this “trick,” people should ask me “How many mines does that Ryuken-9 have?”
Adam’s reserve was a fourth infiltrating Grunt, the mad bastard! Thankfully, it failed its roll, so I placed my Shikami watching the back table edge with his contender to defend against Van Zant (and be near the objectives!).
Turn 1
Top of 1 – USARF
Adam goes for the smoke toss on his Devil Dog’s impetuous order, relying on his ARM (and my bad dice rolls) to protect him from the Kempetai with MSV2. Sadly, Adam rolled well, beating my Ryuken’s SMG shot, and the one Marksman rifle shot that landed was easily defeated by Adam’s excellent ARM rolling.
With smoke down now, Adam didn’t want to just wander around in front of an MSV2-equipped unit, so he sent in a Foxtrot to take care of the problem. Rhonda Burgundy, my trusty Warcor, discovered him immediately…
and then was gunned down by the same Foxtrot in cold blood.
After discovering and clearing Yuriko’s mine, the Foxtrot recamoed and made his way to take on my Kempetai…
only to be discovered by a Yaozao watching the approach.
Out of options, Adam just ran the Foxtrot into the open and dropped a mine in front of my Kempetai, losing the Foxtrot in the process.
The Devil Dog activated, giving me the tough choice of do nothing to avoid the mine going off, dodging to hopefully clear the mine, or shooting and tanking a mine to the face. I opted for the most killy option and took the shot at the Devil Dog and hit twice!
Thankfully, I tanked the mine on the Kempetai’s armor, but the Devil Dog shrugged off another pair of bullets. This let it get into position to shotgun both my Ryuken-9 and the HMG up there.
The HMG beat the Devil Dog’s shot but the Ryuken did not, instead passing ARM and going prone to prevent further shotgun shenanigans. Adam passed ARM again! He wanted to get the Devil Dog into close combat, so he dropped the antipode in front of my “mine” (Kitsune) to clear it, while tanking another round from the Keisotsu HMG.
With the “mine” now revealed to be some sort of Ninja or Oniwaban, Adam pointed to the nearby Ryuken-9 and asked “How many mines?” while chuckling. I said, “Three!” Laughing, Adam tried to bait me out by jumping the Devil Dog down. I didn’t bite, so he instead shot the Keisotsu HMG, knocking the poor guy out.
Antipodes have no problem discovering stuff, so I knew I only had one option, which was to dodge-engage when Adam activated the Devil Dog team again, declaring discover.
I rolled low and Adam rolled two 12s, pasting Kistune with his Heavy Shotgun. Adam retreated the Devil Dog to the other side of the building and passed turn.
Bottom of 1 – JSA
I started two orders down, but thankfully not in loss of lieutenant thanks to my Kempetai BSG. I decided to play it conservatively, since I knew Van Zant was still waiting in the wings. If I developed any of my ARO net to attack Adam’s other pieces, I would open a hole in my Van Zant defense.
The only thing that I could safely move around was the Ryuken-9 SMG on the right, who started going after Adam’s stuff. First, I took out the Warcor and one of the infiltrating Grunts…
then over the course of two more orders crit down the Devil Dog.
I ran a Yaozao up to fix up the Keisotsu HMG, reform the link, and then was goaded by Adam and Than into jumping what they assured me was a 6″ gap between buildings, to perhaps pick up the Warcor as well. Of course, it was just under 6″…
so the heroic Yaozao plummeted to its death, failing multiple consecutive ARM rolls. At least I got my classified, Experimental Drug!
No matter, I dropped a mine with the Ryuken-9 and retreated to cover, covering the table edge where I thought Van Zant might come on.
Turn 2
Top of 2 – USARF
Adam has a stroke of genius here and uses his Minesweeper Traktor Mul to do exactly what it’s named. He discovers and then minesweeps the Ryuken’s mine, flipping ownership to him!!
I’ve got the Kempetai SMR backing up the Ryuken, but of course Adam finds a hole that the Kempetai can’t see.
One of his infiltrating Grunts walks out in front of the Ryuken, and I dodge to clear the mine. Of course, I fail the dodge and the subsequent ARM roll, which pleases Adam immensely.
Van Zant comes onto the table in the only safe spot–the one where the now-dead Ryuken was watching. He then scoots around to see Yuriko and knocks her out….
Van Zant always has your back, now available in T-Shirt form!
Anyway, Van Zant keeps going, but my Kempetai crit-shocks him off the table. Adam’s invested quite a few orders into setting up for Van Zant over the course of two turns and is understandably a little miffed by this turn of events!
So miffed that he decides to throw a spec-fired grenade at my unsuspecting Ryuken-9 on the roof with his Grunt LGL, knocking her out!
Chuckling evilly, he passes turn.
Bottom of 2 – JSA
I start pushing the Keisotsu link up the field, taking out a Grunt Infiltrator…
and then one of Adam’s two remaining Foxtrots in an attempt to degrade his ability to accomplish the mission. With the movement afforded the link, I hide the Kempetai BSG on a roof to protect him, since he’s now my Lt.
Of course I want to do the mission myself, so I long-skill climb the Doctor off her building and try to flip the nearest antenna, failing twice.
Grumbling, I pass turn.
Turn 3
Top of 3 – USARF
Adam needs to push some buttons, so he sends in his own link. I ran out of orders to adequately hide my Kempetai shock marksman, so after pushing the nearest button with Rosie, one of the Grunt snipers climbs up onto a building and…
takes out my Kempetai SMR with a crit!
Adam flips the center antenna and then settles in for defense, throwing two long-bomb Katyusha spec fire shots at me and failing.
Bottom of 3 – JSA
I use one of my two remaining command tokens to push one of the Keisotsu in group two into group one, and then promptly fail to flip the nearest antenna with my doctor for the third and fourth times!
My Shikami cautious moves into position and flips the nearest antenna, but Rosie is watching the central antenna with her shotgun. I don’t want to risk the Shikami, so I use my remaining Ryuken-9 and burn Rosie off the table with his HRL. One of the Grunt snipers can see this and takes out the Ryuken-9, but oh well. Job’s done, Rosie’s gone and the link is broken.
The Shikami advances and chucks a Nimbus grenade onto the central objective. I’m not within 4″ of the objective yet, so move forward to be in 4″and gun down one of the Grunts. Adam maths wrong and I zero him out thanks to cover, Nimbus, and ODD, so I assault pistol down the Grunt in total safety.
I’ve got two orders left, and Adam will be on 2’s with his grunts. I decide this is safe enough, and go to push the button.
Both Grunts whiff horribly and I pass WIP on my first try, giving me two antennas and a classified to Adam’s one antenna, making it a
7-3 Japanese Secessionist Army Victory!
Post Game Analysis
I think Adam spent way too long trying to set up Van Zant. Things were in Yuriko’s favor to isolate him with her E/Mitter:
| 40.11 | 28.57 | 31.32 |
The Kempetai fight was in his favor, but still pretty risky:
| 18.50 | 39.87 | 41.63 |
When your list is really built around a thing, you really can get too focused on it. I basically had a bunch of AROs stacked up to make things difficult for Van Zant, and Adam blew up a bunch of stuff trying to clear a path for our super Airborne Ranger friend.
Adam informed me post game that his plan was to go kill my Kempetai BSG, which was a good one, but unlikely to happen, especially since he came in on the side where I had had two mobility kill options against Van Zant’s dogged: E/M and Shock.
I think I would’ve had a much more difficult time if Adam hadn’t committed to the extent he did. My only plan to get rid of the Grunt snipers in overwatch was to throw a Nimbus grenade in front of the Ryuken-9 in the middle and then split burst three ways across all three snipers. Thankfully I would’ve caught them out of cover two cases, and the odds are decent but not stellar. Being in cover drops my odds to 20% to take out the Grunt, but only bumps the Grunt’s odds to 7% to take me out.
| 33.50 | 60.90 | 5.75 |
So when Adam moved his Grunt team up to take care of the objectives with Rosie, he disrupted his ARO net. This happened for two reasons: 1) he wanted to use Rosie and 2) 2/3 Foxtrots were dead. I think the former was more of a factor, especially since Adam off-handedly mentioned that he wished he used the Foxtrot instead of Rosie to grab the center objective. Rosie could’ve handled the close objective, which would’ve given me fits trying to get to the center objective, especially with the Ryuken-9 down.
As it stood, I got to use the great toolkit of the Shikami–that Nimbus grenade can easily -12 someone. It definitely felt like the right tool at the end of the game when my Doctor had failed me and I needed a low-variance option to get the job done. Taking out that Grunt that got zeroed out was very likely:
| 79.24 | 20.76 |
Even if the Grunt dodged, it was in my favor:
| 69.60 | 22.48 | 7.92 |
Definitely going to have to use the Nimbus grenade more! That felt like the proper way to use a Shikami, even though I didn’t get to leverage all the mobility tricks. Been a nice return to JSA, however brief. Thanks for reading.
I really enjoyed this write up and the annotated pictures to let me see this game unfold.