The Patuxent Prime: An Infinity ITS Event Recap

On February 22nd, myself and 18 other Infinity players in the local region all converged on the local game store around me to attend our first ever home-grown ITS tournament, known as the Patuxent Prime! This is the first of hopefully many local ITS events that we host down this way. My buddy Ric/Ghost00 was the WarCor organizing the whole affair, which let the player pool be wider than if anyone else locally decided to try and run an event.

The mission set for this list was set to actually have players have to think about a mission with objectives that are deeper in thought than "remove enemy units better than they can." The mission set was:

Round 1: Unmasking
Round 2: Frostbite
Round 3: Mindwipe

In usual fashion, we have prepared 2 lists to use between the missions; to which my lists will be displayed further below, with a little insight on each one. All of these events are using the ITS 16-2 missions here.

Below are the tables the we had. We did have a bye-round, where each player who had the bye had the opportunity to play off against the T/O if they wanted to get a game in. All pictures were taken by the T/O and slightly edited by myself; mainly for just cropping them down to size. Unfortunately they were mid-game pictures, which is fine.

I did my best to remember who provided what terrain per table. As about 4 or 5 are missing who brought them, that's my bad. If you brought a table, sound off in the comments if it really ruffled some feathers.

### ### ### The Tables ### ### ###

Table 1

Table 2
Provided by Zarc07

Table 3

Table 4
Provided by SO WHAT IT IS

Table 5
Provided by Ghost00

Table 6
Provided by Ghost00

Table 7

Table 8

Table 9
Provided by UberBranchez

Table 10
Provided by Masterofmelee

### ### ### My Lists and Thoughts ### ### ###

So for my lists for today, I stayed true to my Tartary Army Corps Ariadnans. One list is actually made by me, and the other list is created by a list randomizer found here. It is up to date for N5, and the only change I made against the default setting was saying TAK and Exclude Mercs.

List #1: gTEHdGFydGFyeRxQYXhpbXVzIFByaW1hdHVzcyBMaXN0aWN1cyAxgSwCAQAKAYDuAQgAAoRnAZAtAAOEcAEBAASEcAEIAAWEZgEHAAaEZgEHAAeDAAEDAAiA4wEBAAmA8wEBAAqA5QEDAAIABAGHNgECAAKHNgECAAOBAAEBAAQyAQIA

So this list is from the randomizer. In all honesty, this was a list I only barely modified, but the bones of a Ratnik/Frontovik Haris team and a double-Vystrel setup remained. I think the only thing I really changed was a few camo options to the Forwarder Observer Streloks instead of non-specialist scouts/Streloks that were more expensive.

The Dozer and WarCor are the only true add-on I put onto the list.

List#2: gTEHdGFydGFyeRxQYXhpbXVzIFByaW1hdHVzcyBMaXN0aWN1cyAygSwCAQAKAYRmAQcAAoRmAQcAA4c1AQQABIc1AQQABYEJAQIABoDqAQYAB4DqAQIACIDnAQYACYDlAQEACoDuAQUAAgAFAYc2AQIAAoDwAQIAA4DwAQIABDIBAgAFhzQBAQA%3D

This list was the one I had made, which was based off of a game of Frostbite and Unmasking I had done in the past; those batreps will be up eventually; I've been really slow on pushing those batreps out.

Anyway, the intent for this list is Irmandinho for specialists and moving quickly with their impetuous/irregular orders; a Veteran Fireteam Duo of the 2x Veteran Kazaks; Tankhunter CoC to be sneaky about it when the Veteran Kazak LT eventually goes down. The Spetsnaz and Scout are meant to just be slightly problematic tokens, with the Streloks running as the usual button-pushers.

WarCor and Vystrel act as standing ARO pieces and the Barsuk's/Konduktor are just corner guards with their heavy flamethrowers.

### ### ### Into the Games ### ### ###

Game 1: Unmasking Ariadna (Tartary Army Corps) vs Yu Jing (Invincible Army)

So this game was actually one of four "challenges" that occurred on round 1, with the other challenges between 2 locals (CapsFan vs Ivory Ronin, and NomadFox vs WHAT IT IS) and then another challenge I don't recall. I challenged by buddy Killa_Kaan who i have played multiple recorded batreps with ( see here and here), who moved a bit away but was willing to make the drive down AND accept a challenge from lil-ol me. Only thing to note is I "cut my teeth" against his Yu Jing a few years back with my Kosmoflot in N4.

We ended up playing on the Train Table (Table #5) which was surprisingly open. I chose to run List #1 as the double-Vystrel should have good like of sight across the table. However, was I wasn't expecting to see was a Yan-Huo, specifically with a Hyper-Rapid Magnetic Cannon:

While the Vystrel with their Neurocinetic Portable Autocannons can really hurt, it doesn't do ANYTHING meaningful against Immunity(ARM). Would've been nice to have something to hit against BTS, but if I did, I wouldn't be playing TAK.

Notable highlights from my side was Turn 1 hitting a console and immediately finding his Designated Target HVT and was able to reveal one of the decoys.

The Yan-Huo in turn 1 break a Vystrel, the Ratnik, and the MSV Sniper Frontovik pretty handily, Burst 5 does hurt. 

Killa_kaan eventually reveals my designated HVT and all of the decoys and introduces them to bullets, slugs, or the occasional HRMC shot.

My only points were discovered when I brought in the Kazak Spetsnaz on the flank and took out the designated target HVT.

Yu Jing (IA) took the win 8 to 3.

Game 2: Frostbite Ariadna (Tartary Army Corps) vs Aleph (OSSS)

This game was against ServiceProvider, who mentioned that he is a relatively newer player. Having played against OSSS in my test game for this exact mission, and the thought of fighting another Rem/TAG heavy list concerns me.

I ended up having a decent defensive setup this time despite going first. I was able to elevate the two Vystrel in the middle part of my deployment zone, and the Ratnik Haris is sitting center-left of the board. The initial plan is having the Ratnik Haris clear any overwatch to let the Streloks can saunter forward and turn on our heaters.

I end up pushing a button Turn 1, activating my rear heater. I also took down a TR Bot and a Yadu with Heavy Rocket Launcher. One Strelok did die off this turn after pressing a button, while the other Strelok failed to activate heater.

My opponent turned on his midfield heater in his active turn, while also managing to avoid what are likely the worst ARO shots I've eve had. The Ratnik and Vystrel tried taking shots at an Asura and another Yadu which inadvertently rolled 18's with his special die, and the Vystrel rolled something well above the 15 it needed. The Asura and Yadu were running off towards my HVT.

Turn 2 saw me tag up the last heating unit, being the midfield on my side. I set up my Ratnik to dominate the central zone with his Frontoviks sitting outside the zone, and then I spent the rest of that entire turn on the Spetsnaz boarding shot-gunning the Yadu, and then trading shots against the Asura. I usually hit the Asura, but he just kept making his armor saves. The OSSS turn 2 was either repositioning for getting into the zones on turn 3, or trying to kill off the Spetsnaz with the Asura.

Turn 3 saw the Spetsnaz and Asura trade, with the Asura remembering it has a Nano-pulsar. the Ratnik ran up, got immobilized, reset itself out, and then the MSV Frontovik killed a hacker.

The game ended with Tartary over OSSS with a score of 8 to 1.

Game 3: Mindwipe Ariadna (Tartary Army Corps) vs Nomads (Tunguska)

I let me opponent pick the list to fight, and he chose to fight list 2, the one I wrote. This table was very open (table #4); a LOT of open firing lanes. My Vystrel, WarCor and CoC Tankhunter set up camp on a corner building before dying off to a Hollow Man with a missile launcher; I am just thankful he didn't declare blast mode, cause that would've been an issue for that CoC Tankhunter.

Managed to use my Scouts' E/M Mine to immobilize a Hollow Man for what is the whole game. A Barsuk managed to kill off Perseus with a heavy flamethrower after he destroyed one of my non-rogue AI servers.

My Strelok on the left side of the table sorta popped off though, using his boarding shotgun to identify the target server, completing my classified by forward-observing the target HVT twice, and then also removing 3 or 4 models using that boarding shotgun, clearing a path for the Irmandinho to run up and end his last move order just short of the target server where he couldve D-Charged it to hopefully remove the target server.

Over the course of this game I likely shorted myself on

The falling about a half-inch short of the server is was cost me that game. Tunguska won 6 to 4.

### ### ### Final Results and Admirable Notes ### ### ###

At the end of the day, big shoutout to the WarCor Ghost00 for setting up the ITS and Swords and Spoons (the local game store) for allowing us to take up essentially all of the play space for a Saturday to play some infinity.

After the dice were down and the dust had settled, we had the following for top 3 places:

1st Place: Masterofmelee (JSA-Shindenbutai)
2nd Place: Cobraprime (Aleph - Steel Phalanx)
3rd Place: Carlonius (Ariadna - USARF)

I ended up placing 14th of 19 players who showed up; if I managed to get to the end of Game 3 with a win, it would have been a much better placing. The rest of the placings can be found here.

As an honorable mention, we had another Ariadna TAK player here (good ol Tristan), but also a USA Ranger Force player who placed 3rd (Carlonius). He's a buddy I've done a few games with, several of which are on this very blog. With USARF having a whole stigma behind them with N5 (not going into all the chatter about that on here), I asked and received the lists he brought to play today:

List 1: gTAJdXNhcmlhZG5hDVdhcmRyaXZpbmdVU0GBLAIBAAoBgwcBiy8AAoD%2FAQEAA4PeAQMABIMJAQQABYLVAQYABoLVAQgAB4DoAQUACIDoAQcACYLUAYmcAAqBCQECAAIABAGBAQEDAAKA6wEKAAOC6wEFAAQyAQIA

List 2: gTAJdXNhcmlhZG5hDFZhcm9vbSBEb3plcoEsAgEACgGC1AGJnAACgtQBiZwAA4MJAQQABILVAQYABYLVAQUABoLVAQMAB4DoAQcACIDmAQUACYD%2FAQEACoEAAQUAAgAFAYEBAQMAAoD0AQEAA4DrAQsABIDsAQEABTIBAgA%3D

I had some comments about the table I brought (Table #9) and what I used for the trucks. They're 3d printed from Nfeyma on cults3d. The pre-supported version costs some money, but the link is for the non-supported version. There are also a few other creators who have different bed-styles and other bits and mods, but that's just the baseline model. 

### ### ### Closing Thoughts ### ### ###

While I didn't place as well as I had hoped for, I did get the prize from the table that I wanted; that being a Hlokk Station scenery expansion set, which I mainly got for another objective room to build with a roof, and then another "sniper tower" cause I only had the one from the Darpan Xeno-station expansion set. As of time of writing this, maybe 24 hours after the event has concluded, it's already built and in the terrain shelf, which isn't saying much as the terrain isn't hard to assemble.

The next event some of the locals are going to next is Tidewater Tempest in Virginia, but that's a bit further than I'm willing to drive. On the note for Tidewater though, I do have a game on the 24th against Connor/NomadFox to run Resiliency Ops for the first time, so I will have approximately 3 of my 6 upcoming battle reports being against him and his JSA, likely all Oban as well!

My next event, however, is going to likely be the Richmond Open in May; where after that I don't really have anything planned after that for the year, unless we have another local ITS event in the late summer/early fall, but more on that later.

I'll have the next few batreps typed up and ready to roll out soon enough, I swear. Some of these have been sitting for over a month, but at least I remember how they mostly ended!

See y'all in the next post!