Sorry everyone that this piece has been a few weeks getting to you but it turns out doing an ITS Tournament, even a small one, takes a bit of time when you’re dealing with a couple of kids at home.

“Insert daddy gamer joke here”

Austin, Wildchevy, and I played a 200 point ITS tournament and had a great time! The process was fairly straight forward and we wanted to share the results, and some things to keep in mind when you start to organize your own event.

The Players

First off let’s take a look at the teams! In this event everyone had the option of taking two lists. However, in an odd twist of fate each of us only brought a single list. I guess we all had a lot of confidence in the lethality of our armies!

Nomads

Austin brought his Nomads, but decided it was time to turn up the heat a little and added a Lunokhod remote with some Crazy Koalas and a Wildcat with a Heavy rocket launcher!

WILDCAT Heavy Rocket Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (2 | 31)
WILDCAT Engineer Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (23)
WILDCAT Lieutenant Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (19)
INTRUDER HMG, Grenades / Pistol, CCW. (1.5 | 44)
HELLCAT Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 36)
ALGUACIL (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (14)
LUNOKHOD Boarding Shotgun, Heavy Flamethrower, CrazyKoalas (2) / Electric Pulse. (29)

ARMY CODE: eNozNVJVNbQ0UzVRNTJSM1YzrAFSZhDKAkiZq

(cont)BkBSWOwkKGaOYgEKlIzVC0zAQBkggyL

Tohaa

I’ve been having good luck with my list as it is so there isn’t a whole lot of new things here. Basically I’ve added an additional Kamael and Aelis Keesan, because she seems to have a pretty nice set of rules and I want to try her K1 ammo.

KAMAEL (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (15)
KAMAEL (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (15)
KAMAEL (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (15)
KAMAEL Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (12)
HATAIL AELIS KEESAN K1 Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Flash Pulse, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 34)
ECTROS HMG, Nanopulser / Pistol, CCW. (2 | 53)
CLIPSOS (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (27)
SAKIEL Viral Combi Rifle, Swarm Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (26)

ARMY CODE: eNqzMFRVNbQ0VzXSM1U1VDNTM6xBJS1ApKma

(cont)EZCCkOZgCSM1EzVD1TITAKewDb8=

Haqqislam

Eleven Models in a 200 point list!? Not only does he have a ton of orders, but there’s some very nasty units in this list that I’m not looking forward to dealing with. He still has plenty of specialists so it’s going to be interesting to see how it goes.

GHULAM Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (13)
GHULAM Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (13)
GHULAM Doctor Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (17)
HAFZA Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (17)
DJANBAZAN HMG / Pistol, CCW. (1.5 | 36)
LASIQ Viral Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29)
HUNZAKUT (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 24)
HAWWA' Hacker (Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 33)
NAFFATÛN Rifle + Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife. (12)
NASMAT Electric Pulse. (3)
NASMAT Electric Pulse. (3)

ARMY CODE: eNo1y7sNACAMQ8Fp7BonQYLFqBie8GveyYVDgJWCQKWo

(cont)+duynZGVaBu/dHpib526n9MFIxb5BxJb

Results

So let’s see how we all did! Instead of doing a turn by turn, blow by blow retelling of every round we’re going to have both players summarize what happened and some of the highlights of their game (otherwise we would be here forever).

Round 1: Austin versus Wildchevy

Wildchevy: I tailored my list to grab objectives with a healthy amount of support in the back field. Both of my infiltrators are specialists so that will help me depending on which mission comes up. We rolled the mission Frontline and made our deployment rolls.

The fight was rough. I did manage to hack (IMM) his remote and snipe out a HRL early on. Unfortunately some unlucky dice rolls had my shots and doctor missing key targets by one. My medic performed admirably by killing two units during the mission, first one was my Lasiq through the Nasmat and the other was the Nomads AD:CJ trooper.

This game came down to the third turn. While trying to hold off the Nomads in turn two I was unable to utilize enough of my orders to get my backline troops to the first or middle zone. On the Nomad's third turn he was in retreat but managed to scoot up far enough to take the game.

Austin: It was a bloody game with turn one seeing my Lunokhod getting disabled by an infiltrating hacker and my Heavy Rocket Launcher getting sniped - so much for playing with my new toys.

Things turned around in the 2nd turn with my HMG intruder killing three on the left flank. My only big regret was with my Hellcat who dropped into the back 1/3 of the board with position to shotgun someone in the back and have the template carry on to hit a cheerleader who was also looking away. Not wanting to give him an ARO I stayed outside of his 8" ZC and used the burst 2 instead of the template and promptly missed with both shots leaving the Hellcat exposed. With 20/20 hindsight I should have moved within 8" because he still couldn't have shot as his ARO who would have had to turn around and I would have got +3 on my shotgun for being within 8". Gotta remember these things.

The game was fun and messy with most of the models in the middle of the board dying. The difference was I was able to hold off retreat and run my remaining Wildcats into the middle zone netting more points than my opponent who was only able to control the zone closest to his deployment.

Winner: Austin

Round 2: Austin versus Casey

Austin: The second game saw airdropped supply crates mostly falling in the middle of the board and drifting towards my deployment. With this setup my plan was to mostly hold the line and shoot any Tohaa coming in. My dream with having a Hellcat Hacker is to have him (actually I think the model is a her...) drop within range to hack something right away. In this game I was able to do that, dropping out of LOS to the Ectros and immobilizing him. This allowed the Lunokhod to come up the stairs and Heavy Flamethrower all three members of the Tohaa link team with the HMG Ectros locked in place unable to do anything... beautiful. Again no one wanted to play with my Heavy Rocket Launcher who was killed without firing a shot, maybe I should be less aggressive with deploying.

Both sides were able to discover the same amount of supply crates so the difference in this game came down to my opponent being able to destroy a crate where I could not. The only things I had that could kill the crate were the D-Charges on the wildcats and after the rocket went down they got pinned behind a small building unable to venture out and start killing crates.

Casey: I have to admit, my heart sank just a little when I saw all the crates scatter into Austin’s half of the board. Looks like I was going to be playing the offense game. Lucky for me I had a TO Camo Infiltrator that could grab a box! I pushed hard up the middle in the hopes of establishing a strong fire base.

Everything seemed to be going well until my Ectross with HMG was hacked and immobilized. Then hit with a flamer template, and then shot with a HMG… Yeah that wasn’t such a great time. However my other triad fared much better and moved quickly to a pair of objectives. I broke the triad and claimed two boxes while my infiltrator grabbed the third. That alone was enough to tie the game so a couple of K1 rounds into a container to destroy it gave me the win. I think this is another great example of why going second can be a big help in an objective game since you know exactly what needs to get done in order to pull out a win.

Winner: Casey

Round 3: Wild Chevy versus Casey

Casey: We rolled “Emergency Broadcast” and boy am I glad I brought a bunch of specialists - there are a ton of objectives to grab! Unfortunately I was so busy creating a cool looking board to play on I didn’t realize I had given my opponent a perfect sniper’s perch and he had brought one of the nastiest snipers in the game – the Lasiq with a viral sniper rifle! This meant instead of grabbing a ton of objectives I was mostly locked down to synchronizing the two in my deployment zone and trying to keep him from grabbing the two in the middle.

I was able to get the two objectives in my zone without much difficulty, but it did cost me my link teams. However by the end of turn one I had dug myself into positions with solid fire lanes. Turn two was mostly a holding action while I tried to run out the game without suffering too much damage. About this time Wildchevy remembered my little TO Infiltrator – man I love this gal! It costs her life, but she managed to hack the comms antenna and clear off the other specialist. Unfortunately we’re still tied since no one has anything in base to base with the antenna so I make a desperate decision: I run my Aelis Keesan up over a wall and through a HMG ARO and with my last order manage to get into base to base, securing the win.

WildChevy: This is the mission my list was geared for. I got to deploy and go first so I positioned my force to have the best advantage right from the start. Luckily the board was set up before hand by my opponent and he left a nice piece of terrain for my Lasiq to perch upon.

With no obvious targets to shoot first turn I used my infiltrating specialists to grab the first set of relays and set up a few zones of conflict should any Tohaa come wandering my way. This being the second time ever facing a link team I knew I had to break them up where they were weakest. A lucky ARO and a Heavy Flame Thrower helped to take care of the link teams on both flanks.

Again this game came down to the last turn. In the Tohaa's second turn He came gunning for my Hawwa standing close to a console. My folly was to seek cover instead of ARO'ing to take the objective. My turn came around so I had my Hunzakut rush the center to connect the antenna and along the way he was able to catch the enemy heavy in the back. I was set to win but there was still another Tohaa turn and a pesky TO marker on the field. (Casey: Or should he say NOT on the field! MUWAHAHA!!)

The bottom of turn 3 had me hoping my dice would be better than the Tohaa's but no such luck and he was able to capture the antenna at the end of the game thus stealing victory from my hands. Hindsight sees 20/20.

Winner: Casey

Final Rankings

Winner: Casey
First Place: Casey (21 points)
Second Place: Austin (10.5 points)
Third Place: Wildchevy (7.5 points)

Things to keep in Mind

Actually running the tournament was a bit of an eye opener. While nothing was particularly difficult there were a few things that caught me off guard. Here are a few tips that will hopefully help make the experience a smooth one for you and hopefully save you a bit of time:

Email is shipping and takes a few days

When I bought the mini-pack from the Corvus Belli website I assumed I would get the download code immediately. Wrong! Turns out Corvus Belli has to process these all by hand so it could take upwards of several days for them to get you your tournament code when doing the mini or virtual pack. After a few days I received an email that my order had “shipped”. About 5 minutes later I received an email with the code attached.

I guess shipped = emailed.

So if you know you’re going to need a code don’t wait until a few hours before the actual tournament to order it like I did!

Take some time between rounds to really figure out rankings

With only three people playing in essentially what was a round robin style of game we had some room to play around. If you’re going to have more than just a couple of friends you need to understand how ITS calculates who goes next. Instead of being based on strict win/losses you add up the objective point totals and have the two highest player’s pair up and then the next highest two pair up until everyone has their game.
There is the potential for the win/loss ratio to not always correspond with total points scored so be aware of that. Also you’re going to be crunching a lot of numbers quickly so a spread sheet that will sum point totals will be very useful.

Be aware of the “bye” system and how it factors into scoring

There’s a 50/50 chance you won’t have an even number of people playing in your tournament so you’re going to need to understand how byes are calculated. Essentially the player who takes a bye receives a weighted average taken across the entire tournament as their score for the game they missed out on.

Remember that spread sheet I told you to put together? Consider this another reason to have it.

In Conclusion

This is going to wrap it up for our Infinity and Beyond series of articles. The idea behind these articles was to help people who are considering getting into Infinity and those just picking up the game avoid certain pitfalls and help them get to playing the game faster. We’ve covered dealing with metal miniatures, valuable online resources, and how to get involved in the tournament system. Along the way we also looked at some battle reports that tried to help you and your mates have a better first couple of games while trying to keep you entertained at the same time.

So this is it from me, several more people in our group have decided to pick up the game and they love what they’ve found. It looks like Infinity has taken root in our little space of the map and will be a staple game for a long time to come. Hopefully you’ll have as much luck as Austin and I in spreading the good word that is Infinity.

Casey Roberts

If you would like to write a review for Beasts of War then please contact me at [email protected].