OK. Over the last half year I have gotten to the point that I finally think I understand
most of the Infinity game and ITS play from the Tohaa's perspective. Though I often kick
myself for forgetting how some common skills can stack-up to my advantage, and have suffered
a bit from learning some rules wrong or having other rules reinterpreted to my disadvantage as I
have progressed, overall it has been a fun ride and I have become comfortable with playing the
game as Tohaa… maybe a little too comfortable.
With this in mind and the escalation league starting up it was time to branch out a bit and
shake things up. To that end I looked at all the forces in my growing infinity collection after
setting up a game with drobuff and turned to my already prepped (but at this point only primed)
YuJing Japanese Sectorial. With only a few punitive try-outs behind me, I hoped this would be
my first really go with them and I prepped a can opener of a 300 point ITS list with several
specialists packed into a Keitsotsu fireteam, a fast moving combo of Aragoto and O-Yoroi, and
some hard HI in the form of a Domaru and a couple of Harmaki.
However, dro had other ideas in mind and only around 230-something points prepped to
face me when I arrived. Monkeywrench in hand I dropped the O-Yoroi, traded out some of my
specialist Keitsotsu to missile launcher and grenade launcher, and was ready to give the card
objective system a go. My draw of 6 keep 4 missions netted me what I would call mostly easy
ones. Listed in ascending order of difficulty I had to: abandon my deployment zone, keep
drobuff's infantry out of it, open a single crate mid-board, and kill half of drobuff's figures (by
numbers not by points). The discarded missions included making a hand-to-hand kill (which I
rarely do) and having dro reveal one of his mission cards then stop him from completing that
mission (which I figured would be cause me to focus on it too much, to the detriment of my
other missions).
Missions in hand, I won the roll, taking first turn and then starting my set-up with a few
simple plans in mind. To start, I split my forces in roughly two with about half the objective in
mind for each. After a quick consideration I also got ready to sacrifice one half my troops to get
the other objectives if they faltered too much. On the right flank I set-up for a sweeping advance
with all the HI and the spitfire Aragoto using the heavier cover on that side to make them more
all survivable. Primary mission would be to abandon the deployment zone, close the lanes of
advance, and hopefully reach a point that I could hammer dro's infantry from the back and sides,
catching them without cover thanks to a flanking Aragoto attack. On the left I would use the 5
man fireteam, protected by the dangerous (HMG, missile, and grenade launcher) mass of ARO
they could throw. Primary missions for them would again be to abandon, the deployment zone,
close the lanes of advance, and to go after the crate in the sparser cover of the left.
With the start of game turn 1, I stuck to the plan. Using my Aragoto, I sped forward and
engaged in a close fire fight, killing dro's ???? on the roof, then cowed his Anticmentos (who
dodged into cover to avoid the hail of spitfire shells), before taking up a position I hoped would
pin his HI Knight of Santiago on the right flank. To back up the Aragoto, and ensure I wasn't
pinned in the deployment zone in dro's turn (since he really like suppression fire), I also spent
orders to close on the mid-field on the right flank with the Doramu and Haramaki, taking up
firing positions I hoped would support keeping the knight pinned and airborne deployment on
that side to the minimum. A single order was then spent to get my hacker into what I thought
was a good hiding position. This left the left flank, where my link team used the remainder of
my orders to get into what I thought was well protected firing position that would again keep air
deployment off my back.
From my perspective dro's turn went down kind of like I expected it would. Despite the
fire lane on the right, my Aragoto was a goner and my Doramu ended up pushed out of position
after dro's knight, hugging edge of cover as he advanced, gave him his first wound in an
exchange between chain rifle and combi. Quick thinking by dro then cost me the Doramu from
flanking fire. However, due to the set-up of the Haramaki on that flank, the knight stopped there
and dro's drop troops chose to eat up most of the remainder of his orders deploying in the middle
to go after his objectives, only further costing me my hacker when Rao dropped into just behind
him with assault pistols blazing.
At the start of turn 2 I will admit that dro's turn had hurt my chances, Rao had retreated to
cover in my deployment zone and my right flank was falling into disarray. That said, I knew I
what I had to do and it started with killing that knight. A quick stat check and I figured that a
Haramaki was up to the job, so I pushed forward guns ablaze to little effect on the first 2 orders.
With the combi not cutting it against a knight in cover, a change of tactics was at hand along
with a DA katana, and the 3rd order saw the Haramaki charge. Though wounded in the process
of getting to hand to hand, I now appeared to stand a better chance of killing the knight due to
martial arts first strike, and so I turned to the left flank with the remainder of my order pool.
After opening this box to complete mission, I pushed for a better position with the fireteam,
eliminating an Anticmento and one of dro's air-deploy troops via an overkill back attack of a ???
with missile launcher. Though dro still saved 3 of the 6 potential wounds this caused even
though he had no cover form that side, it was not enough and I was now within a few kills of my
goal of eliminating half his troops. Further shrinking his order pool was a bonus.
This left me in good position as dro started his turn and things were looking even better
as the first order saw continuation of the hand to hand combat, which quickly resolved thanks to
DA, resulting in the death of the knight on the right flank. This left dro with some tough choices
and one of those was to jump down my through on the left. With combat shotgun in hand
his ???? raced in against my fireteam and gutted it, killing both Yurika Oda and my LT in one
devastating double tap. Though it meant that my grenade launcher counted by killing him, it was
a pretty devastating shot. However, as his order pool getting thin, this was going to be highlight
of his phase and the remainder of my forces escaped his turn unscathed.
This brought me into my final turn, and thanks to impetuous I grabbed positions early
with my two Haramaki. The first moved in close to Rao trying to tempt him out of the backfield
and gain me another victory point. The second used my two orders for the turn, and in lieu of
electing a him lieutenant I drove him forward, removing the last of dro's drop-troops and one
more Anticmento. I was now in good position, having completed 3 of my 4 missions, and in
dro's last turn he took the bait with Rao. Though it would cost me one more Haramaki, it also
pulled Rao out of my deployment zone, and I came away victorious 4-2.
Overall I would say it the card mission system produced a pretty good game. I had to
keep track of the missions, prioritize, then stay focused, but at the same time I had to re-
prioritize.
My only real critiques were that some missions seemed a bit odd on a second read, and
they were definitely were unequal in their complexity even when equal in points. Example, I
believe dro had to drop one of my guys then get to him to search him for documents where I only
had to walk out of my deployment zone to score the same points. I also think a few of the
mission could be improved by being made specialist specific, or having at least a specialist
bonus to complete them. After reading a few of the missions, I dropped most of my specialists
in favor of more heavy weapons, and I think having mission bonuses might encourage the use of
certain specialists that might otherwise not see the light of day.
