In addition to my old man games that I love to play, I also play a lot of miniature war games. One of my favorite games has been Infinity by Corvus Belli, I am almost always down to play even though I am not very good at it. Currently I am playing Shasvastii in an Escalation league, I’ve up until this point only ever played O12 and Starmada in Infinity EVER. So this has been a very interesting league for me in terms of learning new things and new play styles.

I also lose Infinity games a lot. I am OK with that, I actually quite like how “good” I am at Infinity, it sits in a perfect spot for me to enjoy the game and not get too worked up about the game in general

My List: glsKc2hhc3Zhc3RpaQEggMgBAQEACQCB%2FQECAACB%2FwEBAACFDgEGAACFDAEFAACCFAEBAACB9QEEAACCEAEHAACFCgEIAACFFgEDAA%3D%3D

• Mentor Lt w/ Shock marksman
• Jayth Tunnel Cutthroat w/ Pit Patrol
• Caliban w/ Spitfire MSV 1
• Shrouded Hacker
• Nox Paramedic
• Ikadron
• Q Drone w/ Plasma
• R Drone

Opponent’s List Vanilla Aelph : gr0FYWxlcGgMIDIwMCB2cyBzaGFzgMgBAQAIAYJLAQMAAoYdAQIAA4JRAQEABIJIAQUABYU1AQIABoRoAQEAB4JoAQMACIO2AQIA

• Dasyu Multi Sniper
• Asura Lt +1 Order Spitfire
• Danavas Hacker
• Motorized Bounty Hunter (bootied an HMG)
• Lamedh Rebot
• Dactyl Docter
• A Monstrucker and Shukra Chain of Command

Deployment: I got first turn, and had to deploy on the rougher side of the Board. (I did not take a picture of my board… but I played on my infamous scrapyard board) I think my deployment was OK, didn’t make any big mistakes until I started spending orders.

Turn 1

Post deployment my opponent put an Asura into Suppression (Our league rules state no Striping of Orders for League turns 1+2, and anyways I had a mentor and my opponent probably knew that). I think somewhat poorly I decided I had to deal with the Asura, looking back on this that was not the case I could have just grabbed the Center Civilian and make him react to me. At first I moved my mentor with my Lieutenant Order, he revealed a Dasyu sniper on a roof that had perfect sight lines to me, so that kept me from engaging the Asura out of suppression range.

I declined to continue with that order, instead just moving out of line of sight of the Dasyu Sniper. I then made a very bad decision to try and move my Caliban up to contest the Asura (A gun fight he would have lost anyways even in a good range band), due to bad movement she caught me during a move I didn’t think she would and then she blasted my poor Caliban into teeny tiny bits. I spent the rest of my turn maneuvering my Jayth and Q drone into the mid field.

On my opponents first turn he fired a repeater to neutralize my Q Drone, which worked. Then drove a bike forward into melee with Jayth, all in all it was pretty uneventful for the Aelph player, he was in a strong position with his Asura dominating the mid field in suppression. On the last order I got a lucky reset with my Q Drone putting him back into play.

Turn 2

It was my turn to be boring, I wasn’t in position to contest my opponents units, but I did have an easier path to grab the middle civilian and pull the game score wise to my advantage. On my left side I had a Tensho quickly run up and grab my left most civilian, move over and evac the Civilian at the terminal. The Tensho then had just enough orders to run up and grab the middle civilian and start making his way back to my console. My whole turn 2 was spent just trying to score points, forcing my opponent to react to me.

This turn I woke the Aelph bear and oh man would I feel it. The Asura ran up the mid field, she took a wound from my Q-Drone but ultimately killing it, and pushing forward to come slap my Tensho down. She ended up running past my Nox Paramedic who fired his combi… not the EM template that she could have either dodged that, and taken a hit mode shotgun to the face from my Tensho or take the E/M hits and gun fight which might have disabled her. I really beat my self about forgetting the Zapper, it might have saved my game plan. Either way she continued her way down the field and killed my Tensho.

Turn 3

Things looked pretty dire but I still had a chance, on my left I had a camo’d shrouded who could score my Classified objective (which was to spotlight an enemy) probably grab the Center civilian and maybe I would have enough orders to even grab my right civilian. And then my board struck me again, blowing apart my Shrouded, who got un camoed from the Flash pulse bot sitting on a roof. My shrouded got barely seen by the sniper through a small hole in the piece of Terrain he was moving in. Oh well stuff happens. At this point I didn’t have enough order to make anything happen with any useful units, I move up my Jayth to try and deny my opponent his left Civilian (since middle was too far out of reach given he hadn’t even scored one yet). At this point the end of the game was a foregone conclusion; it was really just up to Aelph to mop up and score at least two civilians. Which he did easily, dispatching my Jayth, and also scoring his classified which was to scan the Corpse of one my units.

Wrap Up

It was a great game, but again asking my opponent “Can you see this point” would have saved me a lot of pain and probably kept me competitive. I didn’t need to fight his Asura on his terms, ever. I should have done what I did turn 2 on turn 1 and make the Aelph player take the initiative and attack me. Also I figured out just how good at doing Objectives Shasvastii is compared to my O-12, I don’t always need to fight and that’s definitely a tactical lesson I plan to take forward.