I got the chance to take some decent shots of my new Dahshat recruits for Infinity: Fiddler, Aristeia’s ex-Toymaker and Valerya Gromoz. I’m pretty sure Corvus Belli purposely put that ‘s close to the ex-Toymaker part for some additional lulz and I applaud them for the additional crude humor.
This is the limited edition figure (the only sculpt that is out currently) and I could have waited for the general release but there is no telling when that would happen and this sculpt is so dynamic that I figured I should get this one if I liked it.
She also has some “Jackbots” that are AI-driven segways with vulcan shotguns mounted on top but I haven’t gotten them ready yet. They all have “climb+” which means they can Spider-Man all over the place and I’d like to incorporate that into the base if I can.
And I also finished up the merc hacker Valerya Gromoz. This is her older sculpt as I picked her up well before the new one was announced. Obviously still working out how to do faces but this one came out so goofy that I felt like the charm fit her. So she will perpetually look like she’s mid-chew when she saw some trouble coming her way.
As mentioned before, I did get a game in with these two. It was a quick one at 150 points (half the size of a normal game) but that is what the escalation league is for.
Taking Dahshat out for a spin under these circumstances is a little odd. A big selling point for the faction is the flexibility in using fire teams. At this point level, specifically for the league, we’re easing into the full rules of the game so no fire teams. Also no smoke or impersonation or TAGs to make sure the games aren’t too lopsided.
Given all that, I’m leaning heavily into why I’ve run with Yu Jing and adding in some new tricks I wouldn’t normally get to see otherwise, namely Fiddler and Gromoz. Gromoz adds a pitcher that can extend my hacking range (Yu Jing doesn’t have that capability) and Fiddler is a great engineer and all around threat with her drop bears (thrown landmines), fast movement and double burst contender gun.
Making his debut, I’ve also included a Liberto. I’ve heard great things but never put him in a list because I hate the normal lizard/fishman model. With the Cube Jager model I painted up from the Steve Garcia paint class, I’ll perma-proxy the Cube Jager for Liberto all the time now.
I won the lieutenant roll off and chose to go first. My opponent was running Nomads and chose the top of the board, putting me at the bottom. We’re actually playing on a 3’x3′ board instead of the normally smaller 24″x32″ board recommended for this point size. It does make the game a little different and helps favor my Zuyong HMG a little more as he’s able to get some longer range gun options.
Lots of fun things in this list. Mary Problems meant that I was back to Jocks vs Nerds. This is fine as I had both Rui Shi and a Zuyong HMG and they are used to solving that problem. The Chimera + Pupniks Uberfall group is new to me and very nasty. I make a mental note to make that my priority target.
For deployment, I deployed first and set up everyone except the Liberto to hold back and counter deploy the Uberfall group. Gromoz was prone on a building ready to pop up and throw a pitcher out at anything hackable. Not much in the Nomad list was a target for that so (spoiler) she just hung out and watched youtube videos the whole battle. My heavy infantry lieutenant was hidden in a backup position in case I need to leverage her mid-field weight. Rui Shi was stationed with a Nasmat bot and controlling one of the longer fire lanes. The Nasmat bot was there to babysit and let Fiddler be free to run around the cabin. My big gun HMG was also watching approach lanes while the Warcor just hung out ready to blind anyone.
Nomad Evader took control up top with his multi-rifle and went into suppression while the Wildcat with spitfire hunkered down on the other side. Alguaciles hung out in the back to cheer on the Uberfall, Mary Problems and the Wildcat/Evader gun fighters.
True to my word, I took my Liberto (Cube Jager figure) first turn and ran him around to face off against the Uberfall. These guys are just gross and at this small of a point level, they can completely level my whole army if they get free. The Pupniks are fantastic dodgers and will tie you up while the Chimera murders you. Lucky for me, the Chimera was out in the open after I got around the building and I was able to throw a full burst in good range of my SMG. The pupnik animals dodge around towards me but I score enough hits to drop the Chimera, rendering the whole group inert.
Next up is to take down the Evader in suppressive fire on a prominent rooftop. Rui Shi steps out and they go toe-to-toe for a couple of activations as I also jockey for a better position. The board is too short for me to get in the Multis bad range while staying in my good range so I just push order after order into him to try and take him down. Eventually a crit sneaks through and the Evader fails both saves and goes down. I got lucky that a couple of stray bullets didn’t take Rui Shi down but he had some nice Armor saves.
With the Evader gone, I use my last few orders getting my HMG up on top and then ordering him, the Liberto, and Rui Shi into suppressive fire.
Down a few orders, Nomads push out with Mary Problems and she sneaks a pitcher right into the opening of the large hall my HMG is standing on. This is terrible placement for me as now Rui Shi, HMG, and the helper Nasmat bot are all in repeater range from one of the best hackers in the game.
Mary first tries Oblivion on my HMG. It takes two tries but he eventually is isolated from the rest of the team. Next, he spotlights Rui Shi. Again this takes a couple of tries but eventually succeeds. The Wildcat crawls back off his roof and goes low to get a 1v1 on Rui Shi. It is takes a couple of activations but he puts a couple of holes in Rui Shi and it goes down to its last damage state and inert. Out of orders, it is back to me.
My Zuyong HMG is isolated but not out of action. He actually has two orders to himself. But my priority is getting rid of the pitcher so Fiddler runs over and D-charges it, blowing it to smithereens. Activating her activates my nasmat helper bot and Mary isolates it as a reaction, shutting it down and limiting my options for bringing Rui Shi back online.
Fiddler doesn’t want to see another pitcher come out so throws a drop bear out into the open field, daring Mary to peak out her head and try it again. She also sets up shop to fire at anyone else coming around that corner to play. The Liberto pushes farther into that right flank and easily kills an Alguacil and then holds to guard that corner, pinning in Mary and another Alguacil.
Finally, my Lieutenant comes out and starts harassing the Wildcat, trading shots until she takes a wound and I decide to stop tempting fate. I’m out of orders and so it goes back to Nomads.
Nomads throw an Alguacil at the mine/Fiddler/HMG problem. It gets obliterated by my HMG but also gets rid of the mine. The pot shot it tried to take on Fiddler fails but does get me to dodge positions and lose my firing lane on Mary’s favorite corner. She pops out to pitcher again and succeeds. But realizes there isn’t much to do so she spotlights Fiddler. The Wildcat does a suicide run trying to kill Fiddler but fails and dies to the HMG. At this point, the Nomads see no path to victory and concede the game.
Dahshat Wins!
It was a somewhat quick game and I had a pretty average set of rolls. My armor saves were great but my shots we pretty mediocre. But when a shot did get through, Nomads couldn’t save and would just drop. This was probably the biggest dice factor in the game and it was obvious when you saw that I had one unconscious remote versus the five dead nomads.
I think the biggest thing missed by the Nomads was not pushing harder on the infowar. The hacking was in a perfect position to shut down my major offensive pieces but after doing a few inconvenient hacks, they left them alone. The player was really liking the spotlight protocol and that likely did him in. Going for buffs instead of shutting my units down allowed bad dice rolls to become opportunities for my team. The player is still learning so we talked a bit about these options. He’s been playing a lot since our game so it’ll be interesting to see if he’s found his rhythm.