This is The Wartrader. Nomad Krugs have a long tradition within the Human Sphere. A rare opportunity for members of the three different Nomad ships to meet in person, carouse and generally enjoy themselves, the name has been appropriated for any gathering of like-minded souls. This weekend, a small Krug occurred in Exeter, UK, back on the provincial backwater called Earth…

This season's Challenge event took a different tack than normal - instead of a pair of one-day tournaments I decided to hold a 'preparation for third edition' weekend. I gathered together as much released information about N3 (including Martial Arts charts, template rules, stuff from Icestorm etc.) which we then discussed and used in casual games on Saturday. Then on Sunday there was a small doubles tournament using the same rules.

Saturday - N3 Prep

One notable observation from Saturday is that even with a set of unfamiliar rules changes, the games played quickly. Some of the main reasons:

• Silhouette templates make Line of Fire much easier to work out and also mean that finicky positioning is less important when looking round corners.
• Measuring from base edge to base edge is fractionally faster but more importantly gives short-range weapons a slight boost in range.
• Weapon range band changes mean that troopers are in good range bands faster - the obvious example being Rifles and Combi Rifles having a -3 range that extends from 16" to 32" rather than 16" to 24" - without leaving their deployment zones, opposing basic troopers are shooting from one DZ to the next at -3 BS instead of -6.
• A wider range of positive and negative modifiers (specially any camouflaged shotgun-wielders that managed to uncloak in short range) meant that shootouts were generally more decisive than with N2 rules.
• Impetuous troops never being able to gain Partial Cover bonuses meant that they often never even bothered trying to hide and spent more time heroically sprinting towards the enemy.

Another notable observation - the entire* range of Infinity box sets takes up a vast swathe of table space!

*Not actually the entire range, I was out of stock of about a dozen box sets…

Zombies, Zombies Everywhere!

One of the casual games played on Saturday was a nano-virus zombie scenario uploaded some years ago to the Infinity forum by descrii, sadly no longer active on the forum. In it, a nano-virus has been released (presumably by the dastardly Combined Army) and the few remaining unaffected civilians are being called to an airlift. Unfortunately the Zombified civilians are following them…

A mixed force of PanOceanians, Tohaa, Japanese and Shasvastii (hey, they dislike being turned into zombies too!) gathered around the landing pad and waited nervously for the zombies to appear.

Green civilians (no guesses as to what boardgame we raided for models) run past as a Tohaa Makaul fends of the grey zombies, shortly before being buried under a writhing heap of grey bodies.

A Makaul that amazingly clambers unscathed out from under the pile of zombies!

The zombies had a nasty habit of regenerating once they'd been downed, requiring a Coup de Grace to make sure they couldn't rise again. The Japanese Aragoto bikers couldn't be bothered to dismount to do this, so decided to try out Decapitation via Motorcycle. A bit of a bumpy ride but it worked.

Sunday - Doubles Games

The mission was simple - at the end of the third turn, have more points of conscious troops on the rooftop of the central building than your opponents!

However there were two twists to the mission:

Secret Objectives - On the rooftop was a hidden objective that revealed once a trooper got onto the roof. In some cases these were relatively benign 'wandering monsters' like a Nomad Moderator or a PanOceania Fusilier that would join a players forces if they were a faction allied in the background, or shoot anyone else. In more extreme cases there was a broken down Reaktion Zond that could be fixed and used to shoot people and a Triffid-like aggressive toadstool creature that would grab nearby troopers with it's tentacles. My favourite, however, was a Diversion sign - everyone had been given the wrong maps, the objective building was actually the next one over…

In-game Achievements - Although controlling the rooftop decided who won or lost each game, a series of in-game achievements decided who got the prizes! Many thanks to Magno of the Infinity forums for the inspiration. The achievements varied from a simple 'I bet you weren’t expecting that!' (roll a critical in reaction) all the way up to 'That’s the way to do it!' (killing an enemy Lieutenant with your Lieutenant). Particularly popular but not actually managed by anyone was 'What we gonna use, strong language?' (go an entire game without killing an enemy trooper).

After many silly games, Stefan was the overall winner, largely by having killed an enemy Lieutenant in the last turn of the last game.

General Photos

A freight port table (my infamous Tetris-packing 16" tiles) and a rural colony table.

One of Antenociti's police cars next to a series of dice cube advertising columns.

A Nomad Grenzer sniper overlooks the battlefield and the red hemisphere covering that table's hidden objective.

A Yu Jing/Japanese Oniwaban (think 'Ninja with Lightsabre') sneaks up behind a Haqqislam Ghulam before shredding him.

A set of Antenociti Kuripots or egg-cars bought and painted specially for the event - unpainted ones were included in the goody bags.

A valiant Haqqislam Kum Biker tries outflanking the Military Orders force, weaving his way through a fusillade of reaction shots - only to take a Teutonic Knight's Panzerfaust to the face. The second Kum Biker decided to take a different route…

Summary & The Next Event

Overall what we've seen of N3 looks promising but this is just building up anticipation for N3 itself - I wanna use Hacking Programs and fast Heavy Infantry anna scorpion-tank Maghariba Guard TAGs and melee troops that can reliably kill stuff in close combat anna anna anna Rending Pony…

Sorry, I got carried away and anyway that's the wrong game.

Which brings me to the next event (and some really blatant self-promotion) - the Infinity Winter Challenge, N3 is Go!

Taking place on January 24th and 25th the Winter Challenge will follow the same basic structure as the Autumn Challenge, with casual gaming, tactics sessions, advice sessions and an 'adapting from N2 to N3' seminar followed by tournament games on the Sunday. This is currently the first N3 event in the UK and places are going fast - it's currently capped at 24 players so get your ticket now to avoid disappointment! 😉

P.S. Once again, thanks to my prize sponsors, Corvus Belli (creators of Infinity), Antenociti's Workshop and Micro Art Studio.