Infinity Escalation League 2015 - Second Round

THE NEW ESCALATION LEAGUE CONTINUES, WITH SOME SIGNIFICANT PAINTING PROGRESS

GAME TWO
The second game of the League was drawn against a gentleman named Jake, who was running the Sectorial of ALEPH, Steel Phalanx. My favourite! I had far too much experience playing against the Steel Phalanx, and probably knew the stats of Jake's models better than he did! I had played Jake twice previously - he had beaten me once as I had put him into Retreat too early, while our second game had been a draw.

Jake ran Ajax, two Myrmidons (one with Boarding Shotgun, the other with Chain Rifle), an Agema Marksman with MULTI Sniper Rifle, a lone Netrod and an Ekdromoi (drop trooper) with HMG. Compact, with a lot of heavy hitters, but light on Orders. Hopefully for him the Link Team would mitigate this. In turn, I ran a full Link Team of five Wildcats (one carrying a Spitfire), a Hellcat with Spitfire, Alguacil Paramedic and a standard Alguacil. I felt my team would have the edge in close range firefights (as long as Ajax stayed out of close combat!), and as Jake won initiative, hid my team out of sight.

I used my Command Token to take away two of Jake's Orders, leaving him perilously low on the first turn. His Myrmidons moved forward, while the Ekdromoi stayed off the field for now. In my first turn, the Hellcat came on from the flank and gunned down the Agema Marksman, while the Wildcats riddled Ajax with bullets and left him near death.

In the second turn, Jake tried to advance with the Myrmidons and attack in concert with the Ekdromoi, but the firebase the Wildcats had set up was too difficult to break through and they only managed to bring down one of the Wildcats. In a brutal manoeuvre, the Hellcat spent the second turn going on a murderous rampage - he gunned down the Netrod, both Myrmidons, Ajax and the Ekdromoi in several rounds of shooting. What a rampage!

It was a quick and brutal game - Jake was undone by having a small force of elite models against a numerically superior, but no less well-armed force of experienced Nomads. The terrain played in my favour, allowing the Hellcat to hunt down the Myrmidons one by one, The game ended with no ALEPH models on the board, and a score of 10 - 0 to me. Ouch. With this, my team shot to second place in the League and will face the current title-holder next week. Hurray?

Onto the models! This is a League that rewards progress on the painting front as well as the gaming side, so this week I made sure to get some paint on some long-term projects!

INTRUDER WITH MULTI SNIPER RIFLE

Intruder with MULTI Sniper Rifle

This model has been on my Work-in-Progress list for many months, but the Grenzer from Operation: Icestorm has been such a good proxy I never got around to finishing him. Finally, here we are!

One of the single best models available to the Jurisdictional Command of Corregidor, I have very rarely regretted taking the Intruder with MULTI Sniper Rifle

The three Intruders now completed - until the Intruder with HMG is released next month! Kudos to "Hydra" for the inspiration on converting and posing the models

One day I will use all three in one game!

JAGUAR WITH CHAIN RIFLE

Jaguar with Chain Rifle

This is a relatively new model, having only been released a couple of weeks ago at time of writing

I have attempted to paint tattoos onto the flesh, faded to show their age. I did not paint any onto the face of the model as it is already interesting enough with the many piercings

The colour scheme of this model was difficult, as normally only armour plates are painted red. The vest might be somewhat armoured, however - a flak vest, perhaps. Painting it grey or brown would not look good enough or tie in with the rest of the team, so I decided red was the best plan

It was interesting to paint a model with so much exposed skin after so long with the fully armoured Nomad models

The Jaguar's Smoke Grenades pair especially well with the Multi-Spectral Visor on the Intruder

WILDCAT WITH HEAVY ROCKET LAUNCHER

Wildcat with Heavy Rocket Launcher

This model is a conversion involving parts from several different kits. I decided to do this as I am not a fan of the original Wildcat with Heavy Rocket Launcher model (more specifically, her arm).
The body is from an Interventor, while the head and arm holding the Rocket Launcher are from the Spektr in the Nomad Starter Box box. The other arm is from the Wildcat with Spitfire, while the Rocket Launcher itself is the Panzerfaust from the Jaguar boxset - which is nicely chunky compared to the standard weapon

The outfit may not match the Wildcats exactly, but there are enough visual clues I doubt many people will be confused

People complain the Wildcats are out of scale with new models - personally, I don't have an issue

TOMCAT SPECIAL RESCUE UNIT

Tomcat Engineer and Tomcat with D.E.P.

As discussed in a previous post, these models were not included in the team for a long time because I did not like the size of their guns - now they have been converted and swapped for new weapons, I think the models are great!

The three Tomcats with two Zondbot assistants

The five new models painted since the last update - next up, who knows? Perhaps another Jaguar

Thanks for reading, 

George