This is an overview and my impressions of my first Infinity tournament; Northern Open 3, hosted by Infinity Northern Alliance.

So, with a little bit of nervousness and a fair amount of excitement, last Saturday I set off to Leeds at 7.30am.

Nervous, because up until this point I had only played the Icestorm Missions and the first few rounds of the ITS Escalation League. This meant I hadn’t played with more than a handful of models and without any real objectives other than removing my opponent’s models from the table. I was about to play for the first time with 300 points worth of models, roughly 10 to 15 models, and having to concentrate on having a number of objectives to complete which didn’t just involve kill and not be killed.

Excited, because I had really enjoyed both playing and painting Infinity so far, and was pretty eager to have a go at the full blown ITS missions. I had just managed to get my models up to a standard I am happy to call fully painted for an event. Painting/modelling is a big part of the hobby for me, hence this blog, and it’s always cool to play both with and against fully painted forces.

I landed at Leeds just before 9am and easily found free parking near the venue, just down a side street. The venue, the Cardigan Centre, is a community centre in a fairly modern building, and is the home of Leeds Night Owls gaming club. So it was a nice, light and warm hall. None of this cold, draughty, dark church hall malarky.

There was plenty of space in the main hall with 9 tables set up, and loads of room to fit more tables in too. When you first walked through the doors boy did those 9 tables look impressive. If you are reading this I guess you already know that Infinity as a game is pretty heavy on the quantity of terrain required. It is worlds apart from the 6 to 8 pieces of terrain you tend to see on Warmachine tables, lol, (where most of my tournament experience is from.) It was also an eye opener for both myself and the Bolton GNOME lads I have been playing Infinity with. These tables have definitely inspired us to up our standards when it comes to our gaming table terrain.

Click on the link to see Northern Open 3 photos on Facebook by David Gardiner.

James Newman has also let me use some of his pictures taken at the event, I recommend checking out his blog: Gribbley Gaming. Especially for when he posts up all the other images from NO3.

After being stunned by the laid out tables, the next thing that catches my eye is the tuck shop. Leeds Night Owls run a tuck shop, your typical snack food along with hot and cold drinks, and what I really needed at 9am on a cold morning, after an hour and a half’s drive, was a cup of tea. I didn’t ask what kind of tea it was; I can only assume it was Yorkshire Tea 😉 .

I was also educated on the ways of making instant coffee and not putting the water on first!?

Off I pop to sign in on the register and immediately get chatting to another attendee, Greg, from Chesterfield. Really nice chap and, if I am honest, that conversation set the tone for the rest of the event. Everyone I spoke to was friendly and open; I never had a single rules dispute. What discussion there was about the rules were more about me asking how things should work, as I am new to the game. This wasn’t met with any sort of condescension at any point during the day. I am sure you’ve been at an event and you have a query in the heat of the moment; sometimes this gets met with a bit of hostility from your opponent. Generally, this tends to be because of the time pressure involved, and people obviously wanting to do well. I really think most people don’t realise they come across like this at times and, if I am truly honest, I suspect I have been like this in the past too. Anyway, I digress… the point is this: the event was really friendly in general, and very accepting of new players.

Tick Tock

Speaking of time pressure, the event was run like clockwork. Everything happened when it was supposed to, or at least I didn’t notice any screw ups which in itself is a sign of a well run event. The guys running it were friendly and approachable, and seemed to be having a good time running the event too.

Each game was allotted a 1hr 45min slot. This was another thing I was feeling nervous about because of my lack of experience with the game. As it turns out I felt like this was just enough time. The organisers gave a heads up as to how long was left when games were approaching the end of the allotted time. This kept you aware of how long was left and gave you the impetus to get on with the game and not waste your own or your opponent’s time. I think I had one game over run, but not massively, and the organisers had a little leeway in the round timings factored into the schedule anyway.

Prize Support

Prize support was very generous; the event was sponsored by lvlupgaming.co.uk, having promised voucher codes for their store as prizes.

First place: Armand Le Muet model & £30 voucher – winner: Matt Fisher

Second place: £20 voucher – winner: Greg Fawcett

Third place: £10 voucher – winner: Alan Bainbridge

Best painted army, voted for by the attendees, £10 voucher – winner: Matt Fisher

Best painted single miniature, judged by organisers, £10 voucher – winner: me! 🙂

Fully painted army raffle ticket prize, £10 voucher – winner: Greg Warwick (of TPCB)

Most improved painter, painting lessons from the judge of the single mini prize – winner: Peter Balogh

Game breakdown

Round:                   1

Mission:                 Supplies

Classified Objectives:   Inoculation, Telemetry

Opponent:                Matt Spears, Tohaa

Lessons learnt:

• Command Tokens have their uses. My opponent denied me two regular orders in my first turn. When I remembered to use them in my second turn, combined orders were a really efficient way of moving around.
• Tohaa are pretty tough models to take out. Even just a 3 man link is an improvement in firepower (it’s the first time I have played against a link team of any sort).
• How many WIP 13 rolls is it possible to fail in a row? Surprisingly quite a few.
• I managed to achieve my Classified Objective Telemetry on an unconscious model; this is because it’s much easier with a normal roll rather than a face to face with a concious model.
• Be wary of indirect template AROs and the spacing of your own models. I moved my ORC up to take a pot shot around a corner. An ARO was declared with a missile launcher which caught my Lt in the blast template. As you cannot ARO an ARO my Lt just had to pray his armour held – it didn’t.
• We played Loss of Lieutenant incorrectly as it turns out. Sure it would’ve affected my second turn but not the outcome of the game.
• My Paramedic was disappointing, managing to kill my unconscious Lieutenant.
• Things can change very rapidly in the space of a single turn. I was actually feeling fairly confident at the end of my final turn (I went first). Turns out I was soooo wrong. During Matt’s final turn of the game a specialist pops up next to one tech-coffin from Hidden Deployment, and hence gets that supply box. A Link Team, which had collected the supply box from the middle tech-coffin in the second turn, goes on to secure my HVT by taking down my Father Knight, and I think also hacks my HVT earning his second classified objective. Finally my REM was killed and dropped the supply box it was carrying, and my drop troop was taken out too enabling Matt to secure his own HVT. So I think it went from looking like a 2:1 victory to me ( I had one supply box and a classified vs Matt’s one supply box), to a final score of 9:1 win for Matt (Matt had 2 supply boxes and had achieved both classified objectives. I ended up with no supply boxes but at least I had one objective point from the classified 🙂 ).

Round:                   2

Mission:                 Supremacy

Classified Objectives:   Designation

Opponent:                Greg Warwick, Ariadna

Lessons learnt:

• Werewolves = Scary! Fast! Did I mention scary?
• Suppression Fire can be an awesome tool to protect a flank. My right hand quadrant was looking very vulnerable after losing my Father Knight, ORC and FO Fusilier. The Paramedic Fusilier on suppressive fire not only managed to hold the flank but clear the quadrant of enemy models too. Enabling me to score that quadrant with a single 12pt model!
• Even after sustaining lots of casualties, and feeling really outnumbered, it is still possible to win; so keep playing till the end.  Having said that this game ended in a draw. I had a round where I had more quadrants than Greg, but the other 2 rounds we had the same number. Greg had hacked 3 of the 4 consoles, I hacked the final one. Final score 5:5. Greg had more army points remaining though.

Round:                  3

Mission:                Lifeblood

Classified Objectives:  Experimental drug, Espionage

Opponent:               James Hilton-Scott, Nomads

Lesson learnt:

• However the initiative roll pans out you should choose carefully with the mission in mind whether to deploy first or second, or conversely have first or second turn. I can’t remember in this game who did what first, but I do remember thinking during the game that I had made a bad choice at the start.
• Lifeblood – 6 console to go and hack, once you’ve hacked one you can destroy that one. Score objective points for hacking more than your opponent and score an objective point for each console destroyed.
• I had gained a bit more confidence with my forces over the course of the day. So in my last turn I made a push to try and claw this game back. It was too little too late but I was impressed with the performance of my Father Knight, who achieved the following:
  • Hacked the enemy HVT, completing my classified objective Espionage.
  • Assaulted a Spectre and took him out in Close Combat, after he had just popped out of Hidden Deployment to shoot the Father Knight.
  • Assaulted a Zondcat, getting himself a bit further up the board and removing a pesky model.
  • Checked a supply box, then planted D-Charges on it to destroy it earning another objective point.
  • The Father Knight was the sole provider of all the Objective Points I earned in that game.
• My Fusilier Paramedic proved to be useless. In my last order of the game I tried to achieve the Experimental Drugs classified by reviving a fellow Fusilier. Failed and managed to kill him instead.
• Suppression Fire again saved the day . This time an Akalis Commando walked onto a board edge in a prime position to lock down the flank. OK I lost the game still, but this particular model proved to be a thorn in James’s side for the game. Final result 4:2 to James. I had destroyed a single supply box, and completed one classified, whereas James had checked more supply boxes and destroyed two.

I got the proxy model for my HVT from Heresy Miniatures. If you have never visited that site before, go have a look, there is some excellent models available there (customer service is great too).

You still reading?

This was a great event; I had loads of fun. It was friendly and welcoming of newcomers to the game. Although I used the same force each time, I played 3 very different games and enjoyed them all.

• Played 3 very different missions.
• Played on 3 different terrain layouts. I was impressed by how different each felt actually.
• Played against 3 very different lists.

I am looking forward to the next event I go to! Probably Northern Open 5.

In case you are wondering I’ll add some pics to this post of  my Father Knight posted up in the next few days. And, no, I haven’t decided what to spend my voucher on yet. Quite fancy some Morats!