With the new N4 rules dropped on Friday, we tried out one last game of CodeOne before we move back to the full game of Infinity.

For this game, we went up to 25 points and this expanded the map to 32″ x 48″, basically double the size we’d been playing in our smaller 15 point matches.

With the point expansion, I decided to try out some big guns:

  • Hsien Warrior (Lieutenant)
  • Adil Mehmut
  • Jujak (combi rifle/heavy flamethrower)
  • Zanshi Yisheng (doctor)
  • Mech-engineer
  • Guilang Skirmisher (boarding shotgun)
  • Guilang Skirmisher (combi rifle, hacker)
  • Hundun Ambush Unit (Multi sniper)
  • Liang Kai (light shotgun)
  • Yan Huo (HRMC)

We setup to play the Domination scenario from the CodeOne book. I won the roll off and choose to take deployment. Sean chose to go first for initiative. I chose the right side of the field and had him deploy first.

I put my two Guilang infiltrators on the center and center left flank (bottom building in the layout picture above). Then I placed my doc up the left flank building with Adil on the far side and my Lieutenant on the right. The engineer took center and the Hundun remained my only ARO unit with Liang Kai on the far right flank. I held back my Yan Huo big gun for the last placement and put him prone on the left flank.

Sean had a TR bot on the right flank with an Aquilla in the center. His Nisses sniper was hiding in the back on the left flank. Support personnel (doc, paramedic, and engineer) were out behind their respective pieces prone.

After getting a few troops into position, Sean made a run for it with his hacker to the right flank console.

My Hundun Ambush unit de-camo’d to take a sniper shot at the poor fool as he trucked out. He failed his dodge and the shot downed him out in the open.

The Swiss Guard didn’t like that so he countered by decloaking as well. Knowing a duel would be pretty high risk, I decided to dodge so that maybe I could duck down and stay alive for later. The HMG was too much and the Hundun was killed.

With my main ARO piece down, Pan-O sends its ORC trooper out and succeeds on activating the console. Sean spends the rest of his turn setting up defenses with his camo infiltrator deploying something (CodeOne is a little silly in that it only has one deployable item: anti-personnel mines so it is no secret what he’s up to). Then Sean finishes his round by re-camo’ing the Swiss Guard.

I survived the first assault with minimal losses though the 3 point Hundun vs 1.5 point hacker was not the best trade off, it did prevent Pan-O from getting both of their consoles activated on turn 1. The Swiss Guard will be a problem but at least I know where he is at and can plan accordingly.

I start off messing with the ORC trooper as I need to clear some firing lanes. The Hsien has a good shot down range at the ORC that peaked out. He takes it but the ORC dodges successfully and moves back out of sight. It was probably too much to hope that he would fall but moving out of sight of the Hsien didn’t actually accomplish much for me.

Time to go big or go home. Yan Huo with his Hyper Rapid Magnetic Cannon strap-on burns an entire prone order to move up to the corner so that when pops up, he’ll do so in cover. Next order he pops up and opens up. There are four enemies in his sights so he takes a lot of incoming fire. The Orc chooses to dodge once again as he wants no part of that exchange. The Swiss Guard unveils to take a shot and the TR bot and Aquila both take their shots. Because the Swiss Guard is attacking, he weakens my debut due to surprise shot.

I really don’t like taking 4 HMG shots from his TR bot so I split 4 shots that way and one shot at the Aquila. Dice roll and the Swiss Guard puts a wound on me while I obliterate the TR bot and nothing happens with the Aquila exchange. I go again (each time popping up from prone then ending prone like some diabolical whack-a-mole opponent).

The ORC is still in view as he failed his dodge and so I try to tank another Swiss Guard shot and split the burst of the HRMC 3 at Aquilla and 2 at the Orc. The Orc dies and the Aquilla goes unconscious while the Swiss shot goes wide.

With the TR bot out, the right flank is clear so I use the rest of my orders advancing the Hsien (who tanks a Swiss Guard shot) and the Jujak deep into the center. These two will create some reaction options for me if Sean wants to still play on that left flank.

Pan-O doesn’t want to be trapped so the Swiss Guard works over the left flank. I misjudge the distance on the Jujak’s heavy flamethrower and waste his ARO and the Hsien squares off against the Swiss Guard. These two are pretty even with the Swiss needing 15s and I need 14. He is throwing 3 more dice than me and I end up paying for it with 3 hits coming in. The Hsien tanks the shots and so the Swiss opens up again. The Jujak switches to the combi rifle and gets a hit in but the Swiss Guard shrugs it off. The Hsien takes another couple of hits but the armor saves him again (in cover he needs 9+ to save so he should have failed one by now but the dice are with me today). Low on orders, Sean gets the doc up the stairs and succeeds in getting the Aquilla back up. Wanting to save them for round 3, he has the Aquila and Swiss go prone.

With the firing lanes clear, I advance the Jujak into Pan-O territory to set up for some last round shenanigans. I’m definitely in flame range of the Swiss Guard so it will start to get painful for him to stand up and I have a clear line on the other console that Pan-O has yet to activate.

Speaking of consoles, with the lanes clear, I activate my Engineer to work on my own consoles. I forget that the doctor has stood up earlier to get the Aquilla up and takes a shot at my Engineer. I fire back and end up taking a hit but luckily his single armor piece saves him.

The Yan Huo stands up and obliterates the doc with the HRMC and the Engineer hides behind the console and activates. I send Adil Mehmut up and he also runs up to activate my second console. With both my consoles up and running and my zones firmly in my control, I advance more of my team up to make the round 3 push into the Pan-O zones. Pan-O will need to get his other console activated or take one of my zones to win or tie. I’m hoping I set up my team to counter attack for Pan-O’s aggressive round 3.

Sean makes a critical mistake forgetting that my Jujak has clear line of the back lane on the console and he runs his engineer out to the console. The Jujak takes a shot and the engineer fails the dodge then fails the armor save to go down. The Aquila opens up on the Jujak and it takes two orders to bring him down.

With only a few orders remaining to get the console activated, the Pan-O paramedic comes out and fires off a medikit to try to revive the engineer. It whiffs and Pan-O can’t recover. Sean stands the Swiss Guard up to defend what is left but my round 3 is irrelevant as I will win 6-5.

Since I can’t lose, we entertain a notion to see what Liang Kai can do so I have him run in from the backfield to try to take down the paramedic. He dodges everything coming and gets into CC with the paramedic but fails to land a blow. I have Adil pick off the Paramedic and Liang Kai decides to find more worthy prey.

Using his Super Jump, my last two orders gets me to the wall and I super-jump to CC the Swiss guard. I take incoming unopposed shots from the Aquila and the Swiss but land a crit on my CC attack. I fail my armor save and Liang Kai goes down but the Swiss guard tanks all three damage 16 saves to stay up.

This last game of CodeOne was a refreshing validation that the system isn’t all bad. I don’t think it works at the 15 point level as our games were just tight quarter blowouts but this size was a lot better in terms of map and spacing as well as more quality troopers.

With the results feeling closer to a real game, we may not stop playing CodeOne but since N4 is released, we’re all chomping at the bit to play with the full rules again and use all our painted figures again. So farewell, CodeOne, maybe we’ll see you again.