Very Limited Insertion
By Tcional
Overview
- Mission: Frostbite (ITS10)
- Forces: Military Orders versus Merovingienne (300)
- Deploy First: MO
- First Turn: MO
This is a game that resulted from countless email exchanges between me and Jon (WiseKensai) over the past few years along with me sending Bromad Academy Mission Reports from (almost) day one of the Academy. It was my first intercontinental game and the difference of 9 hrs between our time zones didn’t make it especially easy to set it up. So. Here we are. 5:30 a.m. for me, late afternoon for Jon. We chose Frostbyte from the Rose City Raid mission so Jon could prepare. I picked MO as this format should be ideal for them and it was my first game with that sectorial. Jon ‘brought’ FRRM for reasons he explained in his report.
I had an idea of using a few HI attack units so that I don’t have to worry about killer cold rules in the middle of the table and then supplemented chosen pieces with Trinitarian and Black Friar in Crosier link for ARO and Dart for some skirmishing action and possibly Isolating some heavier equipment that might appear on Jon’s side (we didn’t exchange info on what we would be playing with).
Deployment
Jon won roll off and chose sides and let me deploy first. I tried to cover as much ground as possible with my Black Friar. I put my Trinitarian behind White Company sign on the right where he could see a long diagonal with the street. Then I’ve put my Montesa on the right and KoJ on the left so that I could choose my main line of attack depending on what Jon takes out on the table. Dart was set up to look like mine and I guess that worked as we can see in the aforementioned report from Jon’s perspective. I’ve left Knight of the Holy Sepulchre in reserve so that I can address most dangerous ARO pieces with his AP HMG and NCO Lt Orders from my Knight Commander.
Jon was lucky. He put two Chasseurs in my Dead Zones and Knauf found a cozy spot on the truck in the bottom left corner. Everything else hid in the middle. Anaconda was left in reserve and deployed where she could get full cover from my Knight of the Holy Sepulchre.
Turn 1
Top of 1 – MO
Seeing that pesky Knauf I deployed my Knight of The Holy Sepulchre so that I could reach a seemingly good position to take him out in a single burst of his AP HMG. I get to the position, Knauf delays his ARO, I shoot, Jon responds with shooting, we measure the distance and it’s 34” and I get critted off into the Unconscious with 2 saves failed.
Next I completely forgot that my Trinitarian could have a decent chance against the Knauf and there was a Chasseur standing next to him – that would be a problem, but in the retrospective I could have used my Montesa to deal with that. Without thinking too much I decided that my next best bet is my Black Friar, but she got blown off the table in a single Order from Knauf. Nothing to even try and heal with my Paramedic, so I get back to the original plan and bring Montesa to Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, hit my MediKit and then fail PH Roll.
With the remaining Orders I pushed my Knight of Justice forward to the left console and left her there.
Bottom of 1 – Merovingienne
Jon opened up with Chasseur firing on my Crosier Paramedic. Crosier got shot, but Montesa Dodged into LoF to Chasseur. However, Jon already was doing something else. The Other Chasseur went after my right console to activate the Heater in Jon’s Deployment Zone. I let him go with my Trinitarian as he was too close and I wanted to catch a bigger fish by surprise. Even Anaconda wasn’t enough. As she was approaching I wasn’t sure I would be able to draw LoF to her, so I decided not to declare ARO.
And I got it almost right away. Wolfgang (who was Jon’s Data Tracker) stood up and jumped down from his building. Luckily dice were on his side and Wolfgang managed to get to safety.
Now Jon’s in trouble. He knows where the Trinitarian is and decides to take him out. Anaconda, Knauf and Chasseur have LoF/approach to the Trinitarian. Knauf goes first and finally I managed to succeed in an FtF. Knauf got knocked into Unconscious with little hope of getting back up.
Next try was made by a Chasseur. He got closer so my Trinitarian Dodged and Chasseur shot with her Light Shotgun. Again Trinitarian managed to get to do his own thing and remained standing. Now Jon really wanted this one to be gone and brought Anaconda to the task. One Order, full Burst and Trinitarian was gone.
Editor’s note: It as a rifle on the Chasseur, and I think it took two orders on the Anaconda.
Now, back to Wolfgang and his shenanigans. He took aim at my KoJ. He tried getting to the wall behind her, but she turned around and once he got up the wall they had a shoot off in which she got Wounded and into Partial Cover.
Then super scary Wulver got shot once after 2-3 Orders, but managed to succeed in his ARM roll. Being low on Orders Jon brought him back to Metros Ft Core and reformed the link with Wolfgang.
Turn 2
Top of 2 – MO
My Montesa had to go after the Chasseur next to him and got her with his CCW while getting burnt by her and shot at by the other Chasseur. This left us with nothing near my Dead Zone Heater.
Now for my proper turn. I noticed that I should be able to see Wolfgang laying on the stairs from the top left corner. My KoJ went there and sent off one of the Metros to her maker on the way. Then she shot Wolfgang, but he managed to get into safety after being shot twice.
Seeing that I don’t have enough fuel to do anything sensible I made two Coordinated Orders pushing Dart and relocating Crosiers a bit and the threw KoJ and Crosiers into Suppressive Fire to get some advantage in case Jon would want to attack my positions directly.
Bottom of 2 – Merovingienne
And attack my positions directly he did. Anaconda got to the top of one of the buildings and got an angle on my KoJ. I decided that there’s a chance of being still in the 24” range so I try to take a shot with SF mode, but it turns out it’s 26” and Anaconda gets Normal shots against my KoJ.
KoJ survived the first Order and managed to try biting back in the 2nd one, but got shot instead of doing anything else. With the rest of the Orders Jon activates 2nd Console to get his Dead Zone heater up and running, then relocates his Core link and tries shooting Medikit at Unconscious Knauf and succeeds. Knauf is back on the lookout.
Turn 3
Top of 3 – MO
I have only 4 Orders at this point so I push Dart forward only to realise that she is NOT a specialist and therefore I can’t activate a console with her. Anyway, Jon allowed me to try and activate it only to roll 14 on her 13 WIP…
The only thing I could do to not get 10-0’ed was to stop Wolfgang from reaching the Exclusion Zone. So Dart got up the wall and pushed the issue in the middle. Chasseur couldn’t get to her. Well, she tried but got shot and had Jon failed her Guts Roll to get into Total Cover.
She got left there with one Order so I tried throwing E/M Grenade but obviously miss on my 4s while Wolfgang had 17s on his Dodge.
Bottom of 3 – Merovingienne
So now everything collapses on Dart. Chasseur tried twice her luck, but eventually got shot down, while putting one Wound on Dart (into her NWI state). Jon didn’t want to risk losing Wolfgang, so he moved him while taking a shot with Moblot and she Dodged out. Now Haris gets closer to take Dart outside of her good range with Spitfire, but she Dodged to cover while all shots missed.
Eventually Wolfgang got activated and pushed the issue hard enough to kill her and get into the Exclusion Zone.
10 – 0 FRRM wins
Post Game Analysis
So, Knauf killed the Holy Sepulchre and my game in the first two Orders. A bummer. I wish I could have more fun, but I feel like I lost the game at that point. Maybe it was exhaustion of 4hrs sleep and super early hours, but I would probably make similar choices if it was a different hour.
Nevertheless, I should really explore more options of dealing with problems like Knauf that don’t include just outgunning him.
As for the format of 10 model lists, I feel like going into games without protection from losing 2 Orders on turn one, while also needing the first turn is pretty hard when you don’t have access to Tactical Awareness and NCO skills. That’s why I chose NCO Holy Sepulchre with +1 Order Knight Commander for this game. I feel like it would be a much more even game if I didn’t lose this combo on turn one.
BUT, as the rest of the game showed, Jon still had to consider me a threat after that. That gives me hope that despite losing protection, 1 Combat Group lists might still be viable, with Crit changes and all of that and I will definitely keep exploring my favourite way of playing this game. From the beginning of my journey with Infinity I’ve considered this format most challenging. I love a good challenge and heavy toys and Limited Insertion gives me both.
Special thanks to Jon, for this game and experience. Hopefully we will manage to get some more of those in a more reasonable time of the day. Thanks for reading 😉
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