'We've had to put Moderator Halo 'Thumper' Jones into quarantine after the cleanup operation. Although she has shown no signs of infection it has been hard to distinguish the symptoms from her usual hyper-aggressive behaviour and she did come within touching distance of fifteen-plus active infection vectors, the so-called 'Mardi Gras zombies'.

Halo's actions have already been immortalised in 'The Ballad of Halo Jones' via Arachnenet in spite of Aleph's attempted news blackout on all channels of Maya.

Observations are continuing.'

 

This batrep is based on a high-tech zombie scenario by Descrii on the Infinity forum.

The main aim of the scenario is to have two 150 point forces working 'together' to clear an area that has been hit by a nanotech zombie plague, doing house to house clearance.

 

My Nomad list:

NOMADS
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Group 1 (Reg: 7/Irr: 0):

INTERVENTOR Lieutenant (Hacking Device Plus) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife (26 | 0.5)

Hacking Device Plus, Lieutenant

LUNOKHOD Boarding Shotgun, Heavy Flamethrower, CrazyKoalas (2) / Electric Pulse (29)

Repeater, Minesweeper, Climbing Plus

REAKTION ZOND HMG, Antipersonnel Mines / Electric Pulse (28 | 1)

Total Reaction, Repeater, Climbing Plus, 360º Visor

STEMPLER ZOND Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse (22)

Forward Observer, Repeater, Sensor, Climbing Plus

TOMCAT Engineer Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife (22)

AD: Airborne Infiltration | Zero-G, Climbing Plus, Engineer

2x MODERATOR Combi Rifle + Marker / Pistol, Electric Pulse (11 | 0.5)

Shock Immunity

149 Points | SWC: 2.5

ARMY CODE:

Code:

eNozMFQ1NlYzVDOsMTJVMwBR5hDKDEwZqwEla0zUTGAkAPuACm8=

Army Infinity v.3.0.

 

Dom's Aleph evil overlord scum:

ALEPH
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Group 1 (Reg: 5/Irr: 0):

DEVA Lieutenant (G: Synchronized) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser+Devabot / Pistol, Knife (26)

V: No Wound Incapacitation, Lieutenant

DEVABOT Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse

Lieutenant

DEVA Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife (35 | 0.5)

V: No Wound Incapacitation, Hacking Device

DEVA (Multispectral Visor L2) Spitfire, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife (34 | 1)

V: No Wound Incapacitation, Multispectral Visor L2

ZAYIN Rebot HMG + E/M Light Grenade Launcher / Electric Pulse (36 | 1)

Total Reaction, Repeater, Climbing Plus, 360º Visor

MYRMIDON Chain Rifle, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW (16)

Martial Arts L3, ODD: Optical Disruptor

147 Points | SWC: 2.5

ARMY CODE:

Army Infinity v.3.0.

 

Setup

The scenario starts with a number of corpses dotted around the board, several roaming zombies and a bunch (in this case ten) of uncleared buildings.

I spread the dead bodies all over the board and then placed all fifteen roaming zombies between the two deployment zones. Including in the sewers.

The forces, minus my two Moderators and the fifteen zombies already on the board:

I was using an old Kryomek ED209-alike as the Reaktion Remote, a weapon-less Lunokhod as the Stempler and a Tsyklon as the Lunokhod. It made sense at the time...

Dom was using an armless Marine as the Devabot.

 

My Battle Plan

As the zombies counted as heavy Infantry and could be hacked I went for a Remote/robot-heavy list with lots of Repeaters that my Hacker could use to remotely hack the zombies plus a reaction remote to gun them down with an HMG on the way. The two Moderators could fire deployable Repeaters via their Markers to extend the hacking area even more.

The Stempler Zond robot could use it's advanced scanning arrays to check out buildings without having to go in, plus on the second pass it would reveal whether the corpse markers represented corpses or (yet more) zombies.

The Tomcat Engineer could outflank to help clear p dense infestations with her firethrower and fix broken robots and the Lunokhod was there to provide an even bigger fire template and friendly hugs from it's Crazy Koala walking/jumping grenades.

 

Deployment & First Turn

Dom won the roll off at the start of the game, forcing me to deploy near the largest concentrations of buildings. He deployed opposite with several models starting in a building. We decided that the presence of corpse markers would be rolled at the start of his turn.

Things initially got off to a good start for me, with the Lunokhod flaming a corpse with an Intuitive Attack and the Stempler Zond finding that there was a single corpse marker in the building to the left front of my deployment zone. Things then went downhill rapidly.

My Reaktion Zond proxy headed up to the upper floor of the building in the middle front of my deployment zone, peeking in through the door to see a single corpse and then realising that he couldn't shoot it without a Discover roll. This meant moving back to the door and away, this time with a zombie following close behind but I needed to get the remote back to the corner to help give covering fire against all the zombies filling the streets in the middle of the board.

Due to not thinking things through properly, my Interventor Hacker had started off a bit too close to a 'dead' body. After a successful Discover roll it turned out to be undead and the Interventor laid down some shots on the zombie but the zombie dodged.

Into combat with the Hacker.

The Hacker who was my Lieutenant. Bearing in mind that in Infinity you effectively lose a turn if your Lieutenant goes down.

The nearby Moderator bundled in to give the Interventor a helping hand to no effect.

At this point, out of orders with my LT Hacker locked in combat and having failed to use the two Moderator's Markers to get extra Repeater cover, my initial planning of hacking the bleep out of the hordes of zombies was out of the window.

Bleep. Bleep, bleep bleepity-bleep.

Bleep.  

 

My Tomcat Engineer decided to arrive in the middle of my deployment table edge just to get another Order next turn and help shoot stuff that got too close.

 

Dom's First Turn

As some of his models started in a building we rolled at the start of his turn and got a single corpse marker placed between two of his models. Which turned out to be a zombie. Which Dodged into combat with his Hacker. This was obviously a particularly intelligent version of the nano-virus which was picking up on the threat posed by enemy hackers. Some messy stuff later and the Hacker managed to get away.

Dom's 'bunker' guarded by the Zayin reaction remote on the roof, Deva with Spitfire and Myrmidon:

 

First Zombie Turn

Argh, zombies everywhere! At this point we'd only cleared two buildings between us so eight new zombies arrived and there were still quite a few of the original ones roaming the board. Our two reaction remotes did sterling work in mowing down approaching zombies but didn't get many kills.

My Reaktion Zond managed to shoot down the zombie that charged it from behind and quite a few others as well. The zombie in combat with my Interventor and Moderator Jones managed to immobilise itself on Jones' electric pulse, huzzah! My LT had managed to fight off several attacks from the zombie but was now free again!

 

My Second Turn

Another Sensor sweep by the Stempler showed a corpse marker downstairs in the middle front building and also revealed the left building corpse marker to be a corpse. Some repositioning and coup de gras later left my forces covering the middle alley well and getting a Repeater shot out to the right flank. By now I'd repositioned my forces to cover the middle alley approach, with the downed zombie behind the reaction remote being left for large numbers of reaction shots and a hack-attack when it would try to get up again.

At the bottom of the photo below you can see Moderator Jones and at the far end the Repeater that she'd fired. The reaction remote was still up on the second level of the building  but had moved further around to the front to be able to see more zombies as Dom was racking up an impressive kill-total.

 

Dom's Second Turn

Dom continued to mow down swathes of zombies with the HMG remote and also with it's E/M ammo grenade launcher plus the Mymidon dispatching many zombie bodies via coup de grâce.

 

Turn Three

Zombies on my side were getting hacked or shot in large numbers now that the Interventor was no longer locked in combat.

At this point I had the edge in cleared buildings as the Stemplar had sensed another two buildings and revealed one more zombie. The Lunokhod which had been holding much of the right flank with some Hacking help now got an Intuitive Attack on the right-hand building after sensing was done by the Stempler. Dom had 14 kills to my ten but I'd cleared more buildings and disposed of more corpses.

Zombies had got scarily close to Dom's base:

 

The Midpoint

After a solid two hours of play we'd got half way through the six turn game thanks to analysis paralysis on facing a new type of threat plus all the time it was taking to work out the zombie turns. However we had cleared the table of most of the original roamers and cleared the buildings immediately next to our deployment zones, only having to deal with a more limited number of new zombies each turn.

 

Pizza break!

 

End Game

Now I decided to get aggressive. In my turn 3 Moderator Jones ran forward and then part-way up the stairs on the side of the central building, right next to a hacked/immobilised zombie.

A lucky indirect shot with her second and final fireable Repeater put it down right behind Dom's Zayin reaction remote. The Interventor then successfully hacked it. My reaction remote then came down off his perch, scuttled across to the left flank and shot down Dom's Deva Lieutenant who was standing in the middle of the road.

An attempt to take out the Mymidon and Deva Spitfire didn't work as well with the Myrmidon dodging and the Deva inflicting a wound on my Reaktion Zond, albeit with it now safely out of Line of Fire.

Dom's turn was rather short and thanks to the immobilised Zayin the zombies were starting to congregate.

As the immobilised Zayin remote was no longer covering the top of the stairs and my reaction remote was slumped in the corner with a bullet hole through it, the plucky Moderator Jones was starting to get worried at the number of approaching zombies:

However with the help of hacking support vie the Repeater in the Stempler behind her, some Combi-Rifle shots and in the worst-case scenario some jabs with a knife she held off the onslaught and survived.

The Tomcat Engineer made a made dash up the table, only to trip at the last moment and jam her screwdriver into the delicate circuitry of the downed reaction remote and screwing up my plans to shoot Dom's immobilised Zayin.

Dom took his Deva Spitfire up onto the roof to shoot down my Repeater (and somehow got the dice to land on top of each other) while the Myrmidon retreated from the oncoming horde. Now that the Repeater was gone and Dom actually had some orders he managed to reset the Zayin giving him some much-needed covering fire again. 

Toward the end of the game the Myrmidon had administered at least a dozen coup de gras in the roadway in front of Dom's deployment zone.

 

In the endgame my Tomcat spent some time failing to Discover a nearby corpse only to end up in combat when it got revealed and charged her. She survived the round of combat before the zombie got immobilised through the Stemplar's Repeater and then repeated this a couple more times with new zombies.

The Moderator was still on the stairwell fighting off repeated attacks by zombies and also watching them walk across the Zayin's fire arc and get shot.

The Myrmidon headed off on Dom's right flank to clear a building there, only to find out there were two corpse markers in it. One turned out to be a zombie on closer examination and the other was a corpse but in finding that out the zombie started getting rather close...

In the final zombie turn the zombie charged the Myrmidon who wounded it but then died to the corrosive blood spurting from the infected body.

I had a bunch of zombie kills:

But Dom had so many he had to change to dice while we recycled the zombie models:

 

Final Tally for Ian

Zombies killed: 14

Buildings cleared: 4

Corpses disposed of: 4

Models lost: Reaktion Zond

 

Final Tally for Dom

Zombies killed: 25!

Buildings cleared: 3

Corpses disposed of: 3

Models lost: Deva LT, Myrmidon.

 

Ian VPs

More buildings cleared: 2

More corpses disposed of: 1

Hit enemy models: -3

Total: 0

 

Dom VPs

More zombies killed: 2

Hit enemy models: -3

Lost more points of troops: -1

Total: -2

 

Overall a nail-bitingly tense game especially in the first couple of turns before we'd got the hang of things and when there were more zombies around. I stand by my decision to kill Dom's Deva LT as:

1. We had killed most of the zombies by then and,

2. She was Aleph scum, selling out humanity to the AI in return for cheap thrills. Anyway, who said that the nano-virus came from the aliens not the computers? Yes that's right, Maya the tool of the AI.

 

This was one of our longest games, including the pizza break it was over four hours but enjoyable and/or nerve-wracking most of the way through. Amazingly, the Mymidon was the only model to die to a zombie and only three of our models died in total. Due to the 'cooperative' nature of the scenario this didn't matter too much but I suspect for the non-cooperative scenarios our lists would have been too geared toward the missions.

 

Models of the match for me would be Moderator Jones (as played by Sigourney Weaver) for even surviving the battle and Dom's Myrmidon who personally applied the coup de grâce to well over a dozen downed zombies.

 

Ian