Hey chaps! Final update this week as the escalation league has now concluded. I got in a game midweek to catch up so I didn't have to play 3 games today (definitely the right life choice) - Supplies again, this time against Combined Army. Honestly, there's not much to report here. I put my TR bot in a really good position and got assisted fire on it. My opponent then deployed really poorly and in my turn one I killed over 200 points of miniatures. I felt pretty bad about it, but... I couldn't not do it when I saw what needed to happen. Turn 2 and 3 were mopping up and claiming all the objectives. Wasn't, super satisfying but it was what it was. Today was two 300 point games of Looting and Sabotaging. First game using all the rules. I took my new O-Yoroi, Yojimbo, Kuroshi Rider (LT), Kempeitei with Boarding Shotgun, a Hacker and standard Keisotsu in link team, both Ryuken, an Oniwaban and a TR bot. First was up against a very good friend of mine who I have played many times in many games over the years. This was incredibly tense - he runs Nomads, and we both played very cagily. Yojimbo died immediately rolling a nat 20 for his smoke first activation of the game, but what followed was a very close and tactical game that I found quite stressful but also incredibly satisfying. There were a few poor decisions on my part with the use of CrazyKoalas and I probably misplayed my Oniwaban. I'd thought he was likely to bring his TAG through the middle of the board to lay down some dominant fire and in the end he didn't, going hard on the right flank with it - ultimately it ended with him managing to down my O-Yoroi before I could make the most of it, and then managing to inflict 1 point of damage on my AC2 - resulting in what had been a tie becoming a 1 point win for him. I really enjoyed the game, though, and felt like we have both learned a lot from all the previous games we'd played. We both made some mistakes here and there but the improvement in this game compared to the ones we played all those years ago when we first started was palpable. Second game was against CA again, and this time the Ryuken with Rocket Launcher was MVP by far. I took first turn and put my Yojimbo and Kuroshi Rider up front to bait him into trying to get AROs, which he did. TR bot with assisted fire killed his little TAG (not an Avatar, though I don't remember what it was called), and then the Ryuken jumped out of camo and laid down missiles into lots of groups of guys. Yojimbo died first activation rolling a 19 for smoke, again, but that was totally worth it. I did 130 pts of damage just with the Ryuken, then the TAG on top... and in his turn my other Ryuken got very lucky and killed both a krakot and a jump troop without even being on suppressive fire, which was unexpected. After that, my O-Yoroi walked up the board and exploded his AC2 in CC, tanking lots of small arms fire on the way. So, with all that done, my final score put me at 3/8, just behind my good friend by one objective point, and far behind the chap playing Haqq Islam who didn't lose a single game. Far more importantly, I also came tied for 'most fun to play against' which was incredibly flattering! This has been a fantastic experience and I've loved getting to grips with the game. I still feel like I have a ton of stuff to learn, and I'm sure it'll be that way for a long time yet, but JSA have definitely been the faction for me. The minis are great and the playstyle seems to be working out nicely for me. I've been hampered a bit in my listbuilding by the fact that my FLGS (who I really want to support because without them this league wouldn't exist, and I wouldn't be playing Infinity again at all) have had trouble with their supplier throughout the tournament so I haven't been able to get a lot of the minis I want... but that has just meant I've played around with what I have, and I've got a lot more toys to look forward to playing with when they DO come in! And, just because, even though my painting skills are far from the best... I give you the forces of The Happy Cat Corporation, my own little addition to the Infinity Universe! Thanks so much for helping answer my questions and give me feedback throughout this little journey you guys. Here's looking forward to many more games in the future! There's talk of a narrative campaign picking up in April, that should be awesome. :D
