Operation Bone-Rustler Part 1: Alpha Team: An Infinity N5 Battle Report
Today, we're back with a game of Infinity N5, seeing the first of a series of escalating games between my Ariadna from the Tartary Army Corps versus my buddy Connor, piloting his JSA from Shindenbutai. This game was played on January 4th, 2025.
The escalating series is somewhat similar to the older "Operation X" mission packs, such as within Operation Black-wind, where players can learn to play the game using baby-steps to introduce new rules and units. While Connor has played a handful of games of Infinity, no one actually walked him through an Operations series to learn.
Running this series would be helpful for both of us, as Connor learns about the newer rulings for Infinity N5, and I can better understand how some of the new rules interactions will work.
Also, as a note for those who like the Lore aspect of these batreps, this batrep will cover the beginning slight lead-up to Operation Bone-Rustler, with Part 4 holding the results of the operation.
### ### ### Prologue ### ### ###
Col. Kraznitsky squinted into the morning sun reflecting from the Awanokai Sea from an apartment balcony. He had been brought along to the planet of Shinju fairly recently, as a special detachment sent along to support Sterling Forge personnel for their various resource operations on the planet. He had recently gotten his assignment location, alongside his entire detachment, which has been diverted from the normal Sterling Forge operational areas. They were going south, into the mountains.
Col Kraznitsky sighed, lighting one of his last cigarettes from Concilium Prima. The breeze coming in off the sea as a bit brisk as the cold seasons began to encroach upon Alatyr. There was a knock on the door, and the familiar voice of his old buddy who'd gotten quite ornery in his age.
Col Gretizky open the door. He was disheveled, worse than usual. "I swear we must have pissed in someone's coffee by accident. Why is it that whenever we get reassigned to a new theatre, we are always sent straight to the front? Why can't we get a cushy garrison duty assignment sometime?"
"Because we're proficient, Gretz. If we weren't we would still be around Okolnir support efforts there, or back on the frontier on Dawn. Heard the Dog Nation folks are getting worse and worse lately."
"I'd rather be on Dawn with family than out here with this family. I love y'all like brothers, but there comes a time where we all want to see our blood family. Speaking of, when was the last time you saw your family? Your kids should be up and running by now."
Kraznitsky puffed his cigarette again. "They're doing well. If you remember, I took a leave of absence for a year or two after the whole events on Concilium Prima. Spent time with the family, spending more time than I ever had with them." He took a sip of the drink on the table in the apartment dining room. "And if I could have worked it out better, I would be there now. But Leadership offered me an insane deal, so I renewed for the last 4 year contract. I don't think my body can handle much more fighting, so we'll see how this deployment goes."
"They cut you a deal? Brass wanted you here that bad, huh?"
"Yea." Kraznitsky puts the cigarette out in the ash tray and finishes his drink. "A damn good deal. Especially because I'm here, on this new planet, protecting our kinfolk who are trying to make something for themselves out here. Have you read where we're going? It's gonna be a long trip."
Gretizky unfolds the papers in his hand. "Some place called Kaksin, then we're going to other coordinates to the east, up in the mountains again or something."
"Gretz, we're going back to the front. We're essentially reinforcing a new stanitsa a few kilometers on our side of the DMZ. Mainly reconnaissance sorties and such, so we're getting Scouts and Streloks most likely."
"Are they at least flying us out?"
"Most of the detachment, yes. We're flying out the Kaksin, via whatever transports Sterling Forge are willing to allot to us for the trip. From there, we take the trucks, bikes, buggies, and whatever else we have to get to the stanitsa, which is expected to be a bit of a hike to get to. Estimates are maybe a day's travel time, so actually 5 to 8 hours considering the terrain. Not like we have paved roads to this place."
"At least we get to fly there."
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A few days pass by.
The detachment arrived at the stanitsa, known to them as Point Blue-Ridge (Пойнт Блю Ридж). The stanitsa will need to be expanded, or at least that's what the local leadership have advised considering the amount of new arrivals they now have, alongside the amount of equipment they have.
Over the next few months, Col Kraznitsky, Gretizky, and the local leadership would expand the grounds and facilities of the stanitsa, to allow for aerial resupply via a landing pad large enough for the Pelican ships to ferry supplies through. There was a proper truck depot and maintenance shop for the various machines they were expected to use and maintain. There were also plenty of defense position created around Point Blue-Ridge
Other than the Army Corp facilities, the stanitsa received an influx of supplies for remaining self-sufficient for survivability. New equipment for farming, new equipment for forging and mining, and especially needed were new communication setups. While the Army Corp had their communication arrays, the Stanitsa's civilian population did not have anything nearly as robust; with the new array they were now able to keep better communication with other stanitsa's in the region, with Kaksin being the main focus of these communication efforts.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
At this point, several months have passed by since Col Kraznitsky's troops arrived at the stanitsa. Winter has truly set upon them, snow making everything not elevate off the ground covered in mud. It gave Kraznitsky memories of North Bay again, especially whenever a heavy rain system came in and turned the ground into a swamp.
Col Kraznitsky was writing his monthly status report when he received a communiqué over his data-pad. Orders from Kaksin. There would be 3 flights of Pelicans arriving at Blue-Ridge in the coming days to collect Kraznitsky and a selected team of fighters for a sortie out into the DMZ from Kaksin based on his map overlays.
"DMZ means demilitarized, or at least it used to." He hadn't actually heard his leadership ever call the boundary between Greystoke and Kinkakuji a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), but considering their lack of seeing or hearing about anything other than reconnaissance sorties transiting it, that seemed to be how if functioned. Until recently, where various civilian projects, usually archeologists have been uncovering some unorthodox findings that have garnered the attention from both regions.
He perused the expected mission file, and composed his team accordingly. He would ensure his team is ready for the mission, while leaving remaining Blue-Ridge operations to Col Gretizky.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
The flight to the rally point at Kaksin was a bit rough. A storm blew in from the west, bringing with it snowfall and moderate winds. If it wasn't for the fairly time sensitive nature of this operation, the leadership at Kaksin considered having them overland travel to the rally point, but that would've taken a significant amount of time.
Col Kraznitsky's headset chimed, he forgot how Kosmoflot equipment was, at time, leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of Ariadna. The force commander spoke over the headset.
"I sure hope you're all prepared for this, there's no time to run back now. As I am sure your officers have informed you, we are conducted a coordinated strike on a Japanese held research complex at the base of the mountains just outside of the Demilitarized Zone. While on the surface it looks to be a research complex, intelligence from outside sources believe this to be a weapons testing facility and reserve tech stockpile for the Japanese army operating on the northern stretch of Kinkakuji. While it isn't one of the larger facilities we know of, this one is within a quick strike distance of Kaksin.
"Each team will have an assigned strike zone. Teams Alpha through Echo will focus on distraction assault on the edge of the complex, hopefully pulling the defenders away from the central hub so Gamma Team can conduct their raid. We're hitting the complex just before their rotational relief comes in.
"This needs to be as lightning fast as it gets everyone. First round is on me when we get back to Kaksin." The radio channel chimed as it closed. Col Kraznitsky switched to his teams frequency. Gamma Team was under his command; their assault would begin after the other teams began theirs.
"The bravado of that Ranger really gets under your skin sometimes, doesn't it Colonel?" One of his Frontoviks asked him. Sergeant Allis had been with him for years, starting on Dawn, going to Concilium Prima, and now here to Shinju.
"Yea, it always does. Would be nice if the Rangers had enough of a force to come to Shinju to be more than just desk-jockeys, but we know how Rodina and High Command tend to go with all this."
There was a chuckle of the channel from Sgt Allis. The rest of the team sat within the Pelicans, as comfortably as you could within a jump seat and no wiggle room. The flight of Pelicans was not small by any means, nearly a dozen of them flying around with minimal escorts. The would be flying towards the complex over the course of the following one to two hours.
Hopefully this storm was still in the area at the complex. Would be a shame to be caught by air defense systems so far out.
### ### ###
### The Board ###
This board is small, which makes sense for the scale mission we're playing (i.e. sub 100 points). This terrain is all from Operation Sandtrap.
### The Mission ###
Essentially just playing Annihilation here. Fight each other until one side is left standing, or Turn 3 passes. Very straightforward. The intent of this mission is to teach the use of Lieutenant Orders and the various alternate deployment styles of Camouflage and Hidden Deployment.
### The Lists ###
Ariadna (Tartary Army Corps)
Starting off, I have a Veteran Kazak with a T2 Rifle as the Lieutenant. He's being support by 3 rifle-toting Line Kazaks, and then a Scout with a Boarding Shotgun..
JSA (Shindenbutai)
Hatamoto Imperial Guard is as scary as ever, thankfully we were trying to use the initial rosters from the Sandtrap box for Connor's JSA, but man it's still a decent unit with the nano-screen. The Raiden was the alternate deployment style trooper for his force, and then the Senku troopers rounded out the rest of the list.
### Pregame Rolls and Deployment ###
I win the Lieutenant roll-off, and I chose to keep initiative and chose to go first. This would allow a potential interaction with Hidden Deployment with regards to AROs, which is something I have not had to deal with in my limited infinity experience. Therefore Connor got deployment, and had me deploy first. Because this was the first round of the learning games, we did not use Command Tokens at all, or Fireteams.
 |
| Look at me marking deployment zones now with fancy colors |
Shindenbutai Deployment
2 Senku troopers are huddling on his left flank, with the 3rd Senku escorting the Hatamoto behind the barricade. The Raiden would be the held-unit during deployment, which would hidden deploy on top of the left building.
### Turn 1 ###
Turn 1: Tartary Army Corps
First order sees the Veteran Kazak activate with his Lieutenant Order, and he walks forward, enough to get cover, but not be seen by the Hatamoto yet. Well, this movement is caught by the Raiden, who activates and declared an ARO BS Attack with it's Heavy Rocket Launcher, which can get me outside of cover. Being an intro game, I decide to return fire with my T2 Rifle, because why not?
The Senku on the right attempted to dodge from the Veteran Kazak, but failed.
The next order is a regular order spent on the Veteran Kazak again, who moves from cover to cover to see the Hatamoto from behind the pylon. The Hatamoto declares an ARO BS Attack with his Spitfire. The Veteran Kazak declares a BS Attack as well. The exchange occurs while the Veteran Kazak is able to claim the benefit of Partial Cover.
Orders 3 and 4 see the Veteran Kazak advance and address the concern of the Senku Troops, the one in the center with his rifle, and the ones on the flank with a flamethrower.
The game ends here, at the top of turn 1, as the Veteran Kazak reigns supreme.
### ### ###
The first flight of Pelicans peel off to their combat zones, as Team Gamma's flight of Pelicans stagger behind, awaiting responses from the other teams. As a more civilian-disguised complex, the facility had a stark lack of significant air defense.
The area around the complex was arid, but getting light snowfall from the storm. Col. Kraznitsky figured this was for sure a more civilian complex as the pilots mentioned nothing of any active radar being present. The only observation tower sat nearby a double landing pad that, based on the pad sizes, were mean for something similar to the Pelican he rode in.
Alpha teams pelican hot-drops the team in while taking small arms fire. Nothing too significant here. Alpha Team (from stanitsa Аркебуза) moved proficiently. There was a shot from a rocket that sailed passed their Pelican as the team got to work securing their zone.
Within moments, their zone was secured. Their team leader reported their situation Green.
### ### ###
### Post-Game ###
In this game, I was reminded at how going first and playing aggressive in smaller games can be a bit much, but it also shows the mindset of a player when they're getting used to the game. While I may be running this in N5, I underwent this exact series of games back in early 2023, running this exact force against aleph in Operation Cold-front.
As Connor now knows, being almost 2 weeks exactly from when we played these games at time of writing, you don't always have to shoot, or even reveal from a hidden or camo state. The Raiden revealing was a bit of a surprise, but considering I was mainly going after the Senku I could see on the right instead, and the fact the Senku wasn't shooting at me, the Raiden offered himself up for a play date. His rocket missed by a low number, probably 1 or 2. This is significant as this comes up multiple times in the game we have during this "Operation Bone-Rustler."
Taking out the Hatamoto in 1 order was surprising, but T2 ammo do be good at stripping 2 wounds off of a 2 wound model in a single hit sometimes.
### Closing Thoughts ###
At time of writing, it's the early morning of January 18th. I have signed up for 2 ITS events, one local to me that occurs in a month, and another that occurs in approximately 2 weeks. I am likely running some form of Ariadna for these, but we will see how that goes.
Later on today (January 18th) I am running a Warhammer 40k tournament at a local game store. This isn't your usual Warhammer 40k RTT either, it's Highlander. 1 of any data sheet, no epic heroes, etc. etc. It's something like my 5th time running this event since the ending days of 7th edition 40k.
And ya know what's great about being the TO and having acquired the assistance of a buddy to be the technical judge? I just sit there as answer light questions and record data, plain and simple. What that means for me, however, is I am not sitting idle, I managed to get another newer player named Darren in for a game of Infinity, seeing his Haqqislam from the Ramah Taskforce face off against my own Haqq, or possibly TAK.
I haven't faced Haqq since another local named Mike faced my Kosmoflot back in the SSSS league, but it seems neither of us posted a battle report, at least not on either of our blogs. So this will be a new experience. I've faced off against Darren in mainly Bushido, but this is the first time in another game system where we have played.
I am hoping to have the follow-up parts for Operation Bone-Rustler done soon, all depends on how well I manage my time, and how quickly it takes me to edit all these pictures.
Why do I want to see these as a web comic? Great stuff as always!
ReplyDeleteIf i had any sort of artistic background, I would consider it! The amount of pictures i'd need to take is crazy to get it to work the way i'd want it to go
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