A couple Sundays ago we held our second local Infinity tournament, which also turned out to be our first real experience ever using N3 rules. As much as we’d expected to get some 3rd edition games in before the tournament, we didn’t manage it, so there was a fair bit of page flipping all around; I can affirm that yes, the new rules are far easier to dig through than the old ones. Very usable on the fly.

We almost got 5 this time, but our Yu Jing player got sick and had to miss out, meaning that our first foray into N3 would be a 3 round modified ITS battle between Matt’s Combined Army, Tyler’s Nomads, Pete’s Haqqislam, and my Ariadnans. ITS was modified to allow 50% proxies and a single non-aligned mercenary (in order to increase accessibility), and the tournament was not officially sanctioned within the ITS system.

Round 1: Emergency Transmission
Urban War Zone; Ariadna vs Nomads

I was less involved than usual in the terrain setup, so it's a lot less dense than usual...

As in our previous tournament a few months ago, Ariadna fought the Nomads in round one, and just like last time we were way too slow. Despite having just over an hour and a half in the round, there were only about 25 minutes left when my first turn arrived. I did manage to sync a couple consoles, so I managed to (barely) score some points, but we once more suffered for our sluggishness. Only the 1 out of 3 game turns was completed. I actually fielded 2 hackers (Isobel MacGregor and a Wardriver); they prevented one guided missile strike and turned the next one into a critical. Oops. My poor minuteman. Probably Tyler’s favourite moment.
My favourite moment? When my rookie Irmandinho (my first time ever fielding one) used his booty-attained panzerfaust to take out the lone remaining Nomad sniper, dying in a hail of enemy gunfire but clearing the way for me to sync two consoles unmolested.

Final score:
Ariadna 4 / Nomads 0

Remote Outpost; Combined Army vs Haqqislam

Check out our sweet new Warsenal terrain!

As I was busy playing way too slowly, I missed much of this battle, but I do know they both accomplished more than we did. Combined synced 2 consoles, while Haqqislam managed to fulfil all of the objectives, including ‘more synced consoles’, so they ended up winning the day. Apparently Haqqislam was experimenting with the new Suppressive Fire rules, and was very pleased with the results
They did play their full three rounds.
Final score:
Haqqislam  8 / Combined Army 0

Round 2: Frontline
Urban War Zone; Nomads vs Combined Army

Much of what happened here I missed. Both Nomads and the Combined Army maintained death grips on their own territory, but it was the alien threat that managed to dominate the centre of the table, resulting in a Combined win.
Final Score:
Combined Army 4 / Nomads 1

Remote Outpost; Haqqislam vs Ariadna

Pretty much the end of the game...

Ariadna struggled a little in the first turn or so, as I lost the minuteman I was hoping to use for suppressive fire along with my autocannon tank hunter. I deployed fairly poorly, with most of my firing arcs blocked by trees and the like. Most of my first turn was spent dealing with Haqqislam’s TAG, which despite a few bad rolls seemed to have a lot more potential in the new edition.
My second turn saw the arrival of mirage 5, where they parachuted onto the battlefield behind a bunker.

They would later open that door, providing Margot with a small but very devastating line of fire through the window on the other side (she would take down Tarik Mansuri in a reactive long shot).
The final turn saw my paratrooper and a Spetsnaz parachutist drop in on the other side of the board more or less uncontested, and moving up to dominate the farthest (and third) zone for a big win.

Today's Spetsnaz parachutist was (I think) played by my foxtrot sniper...

Final Score: Ariadna 8 / Haqqislam 0

Round 3: Beacon Race
Urban War Zone; Ariadna vs Combined Army

The third round found Ariadna back in the urban battlefield, facing off against the Combined Army with their specialists in full force. The snipers and heavy guns set about finding solid firing positions in order to cover the routes that the Combined would need to run between the beacon generator and their safe zones. Uxia used a few orders to enter the command bunker and generate a beacon, retreating with it to a covered position behind the fish shack.
The Combined forces then charged into the bunker and took up position around the beacon generator. My forces had the CA’s escape routes effectively covered and suppressed, but the only line I had on the command bunker itself was a mine my chasseur had planted just outside the east doorway (assuming I deployed in the south). It wasn’t useless, but it couldn’t do enough, leaving the enemy with a serious foothold. They also managed to get in some pretty effective shots on the suppressive Minuteman I’d posted atop the fish shack; he ended the Combined turn in a prone position, without an effective line of sight over the Combined ‘beacon path’.
We used a warsenal tech console for the beacon generator, and had determined ahead of time that it would block line of sight, since it’s a big solid thing. This would prove to be invaluable to me, as the strongest of the Combined soldiers occupying the bunker was nestled in behind it, directly between it and the door. This also put the console directly between that unit and the door closest to me, which I’m pretty sure saved my Irmandinho. Impetuous as he is, he charged into the bunker with nary a thought for his own safety, but managed to take out the closer unit with a grenade (booty) from behind the relative safety of his side of the console.
Uxia then activated, running her beacon from her hiding spot behind the fish shack to my leftmost retrieval zone. This left enough orders for my Irmandinho to activate the generator, snag a beacon of his own, and run a similar path. I lacked the necessary orders to get my Minuteman atop the fish shack back into an effective suppressive position; I’d have to depend on my viral Loup Garou to cover the west side of the battlefield.
And cover she did! I’m not sure what the Combined unit is called (and I’m not 100% sure I’m thinking of the right unit), but the one that limits the impetuousness of those cheap little exploding dudes started throwing smoke, looking to lay down a safe corridor for a beacon runner. We broke out the silhouettes, and it was determined that yes, my Loup Garou could see her. The first smoke landed just fine, but the second resulted in my Loup Garou winning the face to face roll and eliminating the smoke throwing unit. Her death marked the end of the Combined Army’s effective counter attack, and without a safe corridor they were unable to get more than 1 beacon recovered. We no longer had enough remaining time to get in a third turn, so the game ended at this point.

Final Score: Ariadna 6 / Combined Army 1

Remote Outpost; Nomads vs Haqqislam

Frankly, it’s taken me three weeks of picking away to get this report written, and what little I remember of this battle has long since escaped my brain. Based on the score I recorded, they managed a beacon each.

Final Score: Nomads 3 / Haqqislam 3

All in all, it was a very fun tournament. Running with a combination of N3 and the not-yet-updated-at-the-time Human Sphere and Campaign Paradiso resulted in a couple of discussions regarding rules interactions, but most of the issues were pretty easy to deal with from a common sense perspective. We’re also a fairly easy going group, which probably helped as well. Things ran very smoothly, and we even managed to drum up a bit of fresh interest! One fellow that used to play 40k with us fairly regularly happened by the store to trade in some tau, and after watching us play for a bit and asking a few questions picked up an icestorm. A friend of his seemed fairly interested as well, so well have to wait and see if that develops into anything serious. And I heard this week that one of the store regulars that stopped by to check out our tournament while he was in the shop that day has decided to make infinity his second miniatures game.
We also had a chance to really test out all the warsenal terrain that we picked up recently (and which I am still planning to write some more about at some point), which performed admirably, and looked pretty awesome on the table, even unpainted.
An awesome second tournament, and a very fun first experience with N3.

Final Results:
1 – Ariadna 18
2 – Haqqislam 11
3 – Combined Army 5
4 – Nomads 4