Saturday Night Infinity

Z and I brought out the Infinity guys again last evening for a bit of the old shoot-em-up. I used my Combined Army, having very recently added some minis and tweaking it to be all Shasvasti plant-people. Perhaps I was inspired by the Burger King Impossible Whopper from earlier in the day?

We played the basic kill-em-all scenario from the MRB and each of us had two secret objectives. Interestingly, we both rolled the exact same two secret objectives. For the terrain, I did 2/3 of the table using my interior hallway bits and the other 1/3 standard outdoor urban. Infinity inside corridors is pretty wacky.

The blue line is a solid wall / cliff face / hill side. Three doors allow passage from the interior to the outside.

Some of my troops just after deployment.

I had a sneaky hacker (the yellow character) deployed way forward. We got to play with antipersonnel mines a lot; Zig had a forward observer nearby who also had mines. Here's a shot of my hacker using "Redrum" on the Pan Oceania hacker. The PanO hacker was done after that.

Out in the street, the Crusader stalks one of my Cadmus troopers. I gave him fits all game long, able to dodge shots with the best of them.

Growing frustrated with the stalemate caused by the Knights, my leader makes her way to the front.

She rushes the Templar (the black mini two pictures up) and kills him outright. Moments later, the knight with the machinegun (the blue guy aiming his weapon at her above) would fall to a hail of gunfire from Smurfette.

My Gwailo sends a rocket down the street at the PanO rocketeer. My rocket's explosion kills the PanO trooper and causes his squadmate behind to check his shorts. Towards the front of the frame, one of my sneakers considers how badly she wants to check a smoke grenade out into the street in an effort to get that PanO Crusader.

OK, so not a lot of pics. We were both paying more attention to the game and our drinks than photo-documenting the proceedings. In the end, it was a 3-3 tie - I scored two points on kills and one point for getting my hacker to snoop an enemy trooper's bank account. Ziggy scored one point on kills and two for objectives - scanning a trooper's bank account and having his forward observer "designate" a high-value target twice.

So yeah... these two were painted up between Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon. Some of the nicest speed painting I've ever churned out. Smurfette there was a bad mother and her presence was a game-changer. The Gwailo with the rocket launcher didn't have a lot to do this game but will be useful in the future I'm sure.

Files of X - A Thorough Test

My bride and I played a thorough test game of my simple skirmish rules last night. It was also a nice test of some of the scenario ideas I've been kicking around recently. It also severed as a wonderful inaugural game on my new Frontline Gaming mat which took its sweet time getting to me! Ordered Aug 9, arrived Sept 7).

I got to use a lot of new scenery items I've been making and collecting recently including the fall trees, hay bales and rolls, corn maze and road tape.

I was very pleased with how the layout looked and my wife, a Halloween-ophile was equally excited.

So the scenario was this - the FBI and Army arrive at the farm to investigate a UFO sighting. Four alien saucers have also just landed at the farm. All the groups are hunting for the McGuffin Spores - the FBI for research, the Army to destroy and the Aliens to recover. There are six possible Spore locations on the battlefield and the teams would have to investigate them to find the correct location.

I've circled in yellow the exploration points on the map. The spacemen start near their saucers while the FBI begins in the parking lot in the center of the map. The Army dudes arrive in a AFV from one end of the road, in this case randomly determined to be the left side looking at the picture above.

The first few turns were fairly quiet as we both nosed around towards the objective locations.

The aliens used their giant robot to cheat the corn maze, stomping a path straight through!

A view from the end of the table. The Stryker has finally made it to the game (way down there just getting over the bridge). Tobor has made good progress stomping through the field, literally leaving a path of destruction.

Scully and Mulder plug the alien who made it to the roof of the gas station.

Meanwhile, Agent Reyes takes a look at the glowing stuff by the river. A couple of soldiers take up positions near them.

Feh. The aliens bum rush my heroes. One of their FBI agent brothers heads over to help. 

One of the alien commanders taking a lonely stroll through the woods in the dark. If that objective turns out to be the right one, I'm screwed.

Heh heh. Reyes actually found the thing by the river. She and Doggett head back to the parking lot to get out of Dodge! The Army dudes spy Tobor in the distance - "Sarge didn't anything about this!"

Blast! Mulder is knocked out. The unnamed agent takes his place in the tango.

Reyes and Doggett make good progress to the cars. Tobor is right behind though and the Army guys are doing their best to slow him down. I rolled a die to see which car this pair had keys to. Spoiler alert - it was the orange car. I also replaced the wooden counter with something a bit more appropriate.

Although things are looking good for me, the Aliens are not giving up and a large mob of them are getting close!

I do like how this scenery looks on the tabletop.

No time to admire the view! Tobor pushes past  the troops, hellbent on cathing up with the Spores.

The agents hop in the car while the robot makes short work of another car. The spacemen prepare to pepper the car with ray gun blasts.

The soldiers continue their pursuit of the mechanical monster, desperately trying to stop it before it catches up with the agents.

Moments later, blasts of electrical energy smash into the car with our heroic agents in it, destroying the car and taking out Reyes and Doggett. At nearly the same time, the soldiers finally manage to take out the robot. About 10 seconds too late!

The space men win the race to the Spores and have the numbers to enforce it! Scully's no wimp and gets into the mix.

The Aliens' numbers take their toll. It doesn't help that the Stryker's gunfire hasn't hit anything in recent memory! An Alien commander graps the Spores and legs it toward the nearest saucer.

The vile invaders also seem to be interested in carving a jack-o-lantern! The Stryker is all I have left.

The AFV's weapon fire FINALLY makes contact and the Alien commander is vaporized. A day late and dollar, pumpkin and extraterrestrial spore short. The other space men swiftly scoops up the Spores and are off, into their saucer.

The winners pose with their very hard-earned loot!

Oh wow. What a terrific game! I can't remember such an enjoyable playtest. Not only was it productive in locating rules tweaks but it was well-balanced, thematic and just a great story. I can't believe the stupid aliens won. 

 

Post Hurricane Update

We will rebuild.

I jest and my heart goes out to those in the Bahamas and the rest of the Caribbean who bore the brunt of the storm. We got off real easy here.

Another September, Another Storm

Here's hoping things go well for us. Dorian should pass us by on Tuesday / Wednesday. We're not evacuating.

Two More Conveyances

A couple more gizmos to go along with the FBI and Army dudes from earlier in the week, because if you're going to have a game it might as well have vehicles!

That's a M1127 Stryker from QRF and a speedboat from model train accessory outfit http://modeltechstudios.com. I did enjoy painting the boat - it's not often I get a piece like that one. The Stryker AFV was selected because it seemed to be the right "power level" for the game I'm putting together. An Abrams or even the Stryker MGS with the 105mm gun on it would just be way over the top!

New Additions

I've been hard at work on the latest pick-ups over the last couple of weeks. I got some inspiration for a game idea and picked up some 15mm minis to make it happen. More on the game later, though once you see what I've painted it won't be very difficult to divine what I have in mind. Minis are from Rebel Minis.

First up - the zombie horde. Forty-Three of the buggers. They're not exactly a gore-fest. Pretty basic painting with a brown/red wash.

Next, some support for those zombies. Some swift-moving werewolves.

And of course it isn't a game without something to fight, so I painted up some FBI field agents. There may be a nod to the X-Files in there.

And finally, our representatives of the American military-industrial complex.

The bridge is new too. It's four inches wide and the length was exactly what's required to get over my river segments. I knocked it together from cereal box and duck tape. The guard rails are foam sheet. Not bad for two hours on a Saturday morning.

There are a few other elements that aren't quite done yet - I'll post those when they are. I'm hoping to give the rules a run through over the Labor Day weekend.

Gold Digging - A Star Fleet Battles Report

Last Saturday the Space Cadets re-convened in Brunswick for another game of SFB. This month's scenario was one I put together called "Gold Digging." It features ISC and Gorn exploration and scout ships snooping around a recently abandoned pirate base. Of course the two groups arrive at the same time and are displeased to find competitors.

The two sides' scores are based purely on scientific research points they can accrue snooping around specific points on the map. Combat is not essential to winning, although the right hits can reduce your opponent's score and ability to perform further research. The order of battle:

ISC
    R13.73 HPL Heavy Police Ship Ruleslawyer (Ziggy)
    R13.18 SC Scout Impartial Observer (David D)
    R1.26A FE-S  Small Exploration Freighter  Goldstar III (Ziggy)
Gorn
    R6.4 DD+ Destroyer Ridgeback  (Anson)
    R6.13 SC-F Scout Basilisk  (Mike B)
    R6.13 SC-F Scout Slither  (David S)

So there's the map. ISC start in the yellow hexes, Gorn in the red. The grey rings are asteroid clusters and the green spots are the research locations. There are also twelve mines of various description hidden in the area. Yours truly GM'ed the scenario and was the mine controller. Bwahahaha!

Action is pending.

Action occurs! Anson's Destroyer quickly locates a large captor mine packing Plasma-Fs. Buh-bye, shield.

Having been kind enough to locate the mine on Turn 1, Impulse 26, the mine was able to fire at him again in short order. Buh-bye other shield.

Besides me having a lot of fun hammering a Gorn Destroyer with a mine, the players were studiously trying to rack up the research points and scanning for mines.

Look at all of the pretty little shuttles!

Mike's Scout locates another captor mine and gets an F-torp as a prize. David Drake's ISC Scout continues its push across the map determined to score ALL THE POINTS.

To my amusement, Ziggy's police ship and Anson's destroyer finally dance. They lob torps at one another. Ziggy eats one after phasering it a bit and Anson runs for home, having lost a handful of shields.

After four turns, the ISC was firmly in control and the Gorn had no practical way to catch up. We called it there.

Final Score: ISC  442    Gorn  304
David D's ISC Scout was a beast racking up 236 on its own. The ISC aux exploration ship scored 160 and the HPL was good for 46.

David S's Gorn Scout led that side with 120 points. Mike's had 108 while Anson's DD scored 76.

Mike forgot to charge his Probe on turn 1 ( proceed with a middle-school giggle ) so he missed an easy 20-point opportunity. The Gorn team was completely miserable at scanning for mines while the ISC were significantly more successful. It didn't help that Anson triggered two plasma-launching captor mines himself and Mike hit an explosive mine and triggered and was hit by both a plasma and phaser captor.

The scenario was a hit, particularly since it was a lot different than the typical shoot-em-up. I was fully expecting the ISC auxiliary ship to get crushed, but because Zig played it cautiously with that ship, it was able to score and keep a lot of points that the Gorn had a tough time keeping up with. If I'd been driving the Gorn, I'd have told the DD player to get up to speed 30 or 31 and go hunt that damn thing down. Oh well, that's what makes it fun!