The fourth and final part of “The Monday Signal” campaign is “The Megabeast Sleeps Tonight” created by the Infinity podcast “WIP 12”. Now it’s all or nothing, as we are fighting for the Ruby Monday’s hoard of Xenotech artifacts, guarded by a Megabeast she affectionately christened “Bubbles”.
We—meaning my Haqqislam force and Uli’s Druze—must recover Xenotech from the sleeping Bubbles’ lair, preferably without waking him up. If he does wake up, we can put him back to sleep using a special weapon that can be retrieved from a special box (Supply Cache). Without it, operating in the center of the battlefield becomes extremely dangerous. Theoretically, you could kill the Megabeast, but Bubbles is so tough that it’s hardly worth the effort.
The story of Kleio and Ilya continues here.
Mission and Battlefield
Bubbles is sleeping in the center of the table with an 8″ Control Zone around him. He guards 3 Xenotech artifacts, which specialists can steal from him by passing a WIP roll. After that, however, a PH roll is required, and if that fails, Bubbles wakes up. Once awake, he reacts to any unit performing an action in his Control Zone with a (heavy) CC attack, unless the unit uses Stealth or makes a Cautious Move.
Each of us also places a Supply Cache and an Extraction Zone outside our Deployment Zone. From the Cache, you can pull a “Night Night Gun” to put Bubbles back to sleep, or just standard Panoply gear. In the Extraction Zone, you can deposit captured Xenotech artifacts, making them difficult for your opponent to retrieve.
Objective Points are awarded as follows:
- 1 Point for each Xenotech artifact you steal yourself (up to three, since there are only three available).
- 1 Point for each artifact you control at the end of the game.
- 2 Points if you control more than your opponent (1 Point if tied).
- 1 Point if you have at least one artifact in your Extraction Zone.
- 1 final Point if you retrieved more items from your Supply Cache than your opponent.
The deployment zones are interesting because while they are only 8″ deep, they extend 16″ towards the center along the flanks. This allows you to place Warbands and similar units quite far forward towards the enemy. However, the Megabeast’s Control Zone simultaneously acts as an Exclusion Zone where you cannot deploy.
We are playing with a house rule for this mission after seeing Robert Shepherd’s battle report: models that begin their turn inside the Megabeast’s Control Zone cannot be part of a Coordinated Order.
The Armies – Druze Bayram Security
We are playing with 300 points again, and this time Uli is bringing no fewer than three Yuan Yuan. Today’s weather forecast: sunny at first, followed by showers of Yuan Yuan. Scarface and Cordelia are back, and for the first time, a “real” Druze with an HMG.
Also new is Valerya Gromoz as a Hacker and an extra specialist alongside Fiddler. The Brawler Sniper is a must, as well as another Brawler (who looks suspiciously like a Lieutenant). Two Diggers and a Warcor round out the list.
The Armies – Haqqislam
I recently painted two new models for Haqqislam: both available “Korsan of the Gate,” and I absolutely want to try them out. Thanks to the very extended Deployment Zone, they fit this mission well as they have the Parachutist (Deployment Zone) skill. So, the female variant becomes one of my core models.
Saladin remains my commander, and of course, Fiday Kleio and Sāchā Ilya can’t be missing, as their story needs to be brought to a conclusion. I looked around to see which specialists in Haqqislam are best suited to steal the artifacts from Bubbles, and fittingly, it’s the Hunzakut, famous hunters. Thanks to Infiltration, they can get as close as possible, they have Camouflage and Stealth, and with PH 12, they have the best stat to avoid waking Bubbles. So, two Hunzakut Forward Observers are coming along.
Additionally, I want a shooter who is as good as possible to put the beast back to sleep if necessary. The only thing that helps against Bubbles’ excellent Dodge is BS(-3) and Special Dice. Therefore, a Janissary is required, who will be linked with two Odalisques to get the +1 SD from the Fireteam. I’ll take the HMG version to ne able to deal with other tough targets as well (he’ll have to use the Night Night Gun for Bubbles).
Then the usual suspects go into the mix: Knauf, Zuleyka, a Muttawi’ah, and two Daylami with Panzerfaust. Why not a second Muttawi’ah? Well, I have quite a few points left over, but not enough for a strong offensive profile. As a compromise, I’m bringing a Shihab drone with HMG and Total Reaction to defend my Extraction Zone, even though I’m generally not a big fan of these units.
Initiative and Deployment
Saladin lives up to his reputation and wins the Initiative for me for the fourth game in a row. I could take the first turn again and try to grab all the artifacts in round one (which would give me a 3-point lead). But that almost went sideways last time, and my defense here is arguably even worse. On top of that, one side has a few good Sniper positions that the other side lacks. So, I opt for Deployment, and Uli takes the first turn. I trust that he won’t be able to recover artifacts as effectively due to the Yuan Yuan missing from his initial order pool.
In fact, the force he deploys consists of only 11 units. As it turns out later, three Yuan Yuan and Saito Togan are being held off the table. His two Diggers make use of the long Deployment Zone on the flanks, while his specialists (Valerya Gromoz, Fiddler, and Cordelia) orient themselves toward the center. Since the Megabeast’s base counts as an infinitely high Eclipse zone, lines of sight through the middle are highly restricted.
I entrench myself mostly on my right flank, where I also placed my Extraction Zone and Supply Cache. Zuleyka goes solo on the left side.
The Hunzakut and Ilya push forward to be closer to Bubbles, but I realize that his Control Zone is incredibly large due to the monster’s huge base, leaving me very little room. After Uli sends me out of the room to place his unit in Hidden Deployment (Saito Togan), I set up Knauf in the center, from where he has lines of sight diagonally forward to the right and left, and look for a good spot for my Fiday. This proves difficult, and I finally place her fairly centrally in front of the Druze deployment zone. The idea is that Uli will have to deal with her first if he wants to avoid trouble in my first turn. And dealing with a Fiday can definitely be a challenge.
While Uli reserves a Speedball, I reduce the orders in his large combat group by two—and to my surprise, there is no unit with Counterintelligence to mitigate this. So there is no Tao Wu present… interesting.
Round 1 – Druze
In his Impetuous Phase, only one of the Diggers moves forward. The other would walk into the Daylami’s line of sight, which he isn’t too keen on. Then Uli takes on the Fiday.
With Fiddler, he has the perfect tool for the job, as her two Jackbots can do the work without Fiddler having to risk her own life. The two roll up to the Fiday and manage to pass one of the difficult Discover rolls, since both get to try.
This drops Kleio down to Impersonation-2 status, forcing her to decide what to do on the Jackbots’ next activation. A Dodge isn’t promising, so she opts for a Shotgun duel with one of the bots. She wins the face-to-face and destroys it, but the other bot gets a free attack, and the two hits from its Vulkan Shotgun cost Kleio her life. Oh no, Ilya is not going to like this!
Next, Scarface gets to work to eliminate a few ARO units. First, the Daylami falls victim to him, and then he takes on the Shihab. And it goes exactly how it always goes for me with these Total Reaction drones: the face-to-face roll is fairly even, but one hit gets through and it goes down instantly. They are just too fragile.
Orders are running low now, but Uli decides to drop one more Yuan Yuan. Zuleyka is a tempting target, and she has caused so much havoc in previous battles. So a Yuan jumps in and successfully lands right behind her. He engages her in close combat, blades clash… and they roll the exact same result—a tie. With that, Uli’s first turn ends.
I’ve lost three units (Fiday, Daylami, and Shihab) and Zuleyka is tied up in close combat, but my main combat group is intact. It could have been worse.
Round 1 – Haqqislam
I check my opponent’s Courtesy List and realize I can identify his Lieutenant: it has to be the Brawler with the Rifle. Since I also know there is no Tao Wu in the list, there can’t be any Chain of Command either. And there is a spot where I can bring my Korsan onto the board unseen right near him.
From this, a plan forms: I will try to assassinate Uli’s Lieutenant and then grab as many artifacts as possible. In Loss of Lieutenant, Uli won’t be able to effectively counter me, allowing me to use my second turn to secure the artifacts and optimize my defense.
But first, the impetuous units: the Muttawi’ah moves forward, and Zuleyka tries to dispatch the Yuan Yuan. Should be easy, right, even if both have the same CC value (22)? Armed with her Breaker Pistols, she rolls 4 dice in close combat against the Yuan Yuan’s single die. However, the Yuan Yuan promptly rolls a Critical while Zuleyka doesn’t. She’s dead, and the Yuan Yuan is still standing. Great.
Back to the plan: the Korsan is ready. The only unit slightly in the way before I can fully focus on the Lieutenant is Cordelia. Should be easy, she’s just an Engineer, right? Right? At this point, I notice she has a Boarding Pistol, which is a Template weapon. I can’t reliably attack her without my Korsan taking a hit and losing her single wound.
So, we bypass her to attack the Lieutenant directly and try to shrug off the incoming hit. The Korsan rounds the corner and lands a hit on the Brawler with her Boarding Shotgun. He passes his ARM roll, and Cordelia’s Boarding Pistol takes out the Korsan. Fantastic. No plan survives contact with the enemy.
So, I have to figure out another way to survive the Druze’s next turn. Mission objectives first: Knauf uses his Surprise Attack to put the Brawler Sniper unconscious, clearing the path to Bubbles. The two Hunzakut and Ilya use a Coordinated Order to move closer to the Megabeast.
Then, the first Hunzakut snatches a Xenotech artifact. However, Bubbles wakes up and targets the thief—meaning as soon as he activates again, he will be attacked (and likely die). But since the Hunzakut have Stealth, the second one can sneak up on the awake Bubbles and pilfer another artifact. She even passes her PH roll, so Bubbles doesn’t notice or target her, and she retreats slightly.
Knauf takes out the Yuan Yuan in my Deployment Zone who otherwise could have caused massive trouble, and with that, my orders are spent.
I secured two artifacts, laying a solid foundation of two points. But the Hunzakut are not in a great position, and the Druze are poised to strike back. I mentally prepare myself for a brutal round.
Round 2 – Druze
First, it rains more Yuan Yuan. The left half of my deployment zone is empty and offers plenty of cover for units wanting to engage Knauf. Fortunately, the first Yuan Yuan fails his combat jump roll (the first fail of the entire campaign!), but the second one lands successfully. He targets Knauf and takes him out with his Chain Rifle, but is killed in return. Definitely a good trade for the Druze.
This clears the way for an even more critical attack. The Digger on my left side now has a clear run to storm forward and catches both Hunzakut and Ilya under the template of his Chain Rifle. One Hunzakut manages to Dodge, but the other one and my poor Ilya are hit. The Hunzakut dies, Ilya goes Unconscious. However, the attack triggers a reaction from Bubbles, who promptly devours the Digger for lunch.
The surviving Hunzakut can’t celebrate her luck for long, as the HMG-armed Druze pushes forward and targets her. She is eliminated, leaving both of my artifacts stranded and ownerless.
Fiddler calls in a Speedball to revive the Brawler Sniper, but Uli runs into an issue: his specialists are in the wrong combat group, and at the start of the turn, he didn’t have the space to move them into the main group. Because of this, he lacks the orders to recover the third artifact. He can only use Valerya to grab a Night Night Gun from his Supply Cache and put Bubbles back to sleep. This allows him to move Scarface into the center and put him into Suppressive Fire with his last order.
Round 2 – Haqqislam
Orders are getting tight for me now, as I only have one Muttawi’ah, Saladin, the two Odalisques, and the Janissary left.
With his Impetuous order, the Muttawi’ah tries to Jam Scarface. It doesn’t succeed, but at least the TAG has to break Suppressive Fire to declare a Reset. My Haris Fireteam finally swings into action, and the Odalisque with the Viral Marksman Rifle kills the remaining Digger. The other one engages the HMG Druze but can only force him to duck out of line of sight.
The Janissary has two orders left, which he invests into attacking Scarface, but the TAG escapes with only a single wound taken. At least Bubbles wakes up again, which will hopefully make the Druze’s final turn a bit more difficult.
Round 3 – Druze
Only one impetuous unit is left for the Druze: the Yuan Yuan that failed her Combat Jump earlier. She brings an Adhesive Launcher rifle, which she tries out directly on my Odalisque—successfully.
But now Uli has to focus on the mission objectives, because I am still 2:1 in the lead. Valerya uses the Night Night Gun to put the Megabeast to sleep again, which takes two orders. A Camouflage marker had already appeared in the midfield last turn and sneaked close to Bubbles. It now reveals itself as Saito Togan, who successfully extracts the last artifact from Bubbles’ den. However, he draws the beast’s attention in the process (failing his PH roll). Regardless, he sprints out of the Control Zone—Bubbles leaps onto his back and kills him.
The artifact drops just outside the zone, allowing Fiddler to scoop it up and carry it into the Extraction Zone. This puts the Druze at 6 Objective Points: 1 artifact extracted, 1 controlled, 1 in the Extraction Zone, 2 points for controlling more artifacts, and 1 for utilizing the Supply Cache more.
Round 3 – Haqqislam
Amazingly, I haven’t lost any more models; only one Odaliske is Immobilized. So I still have 6 orders (including Saladin’s Lieutenant order) to turn the game around. Uli’s Extraction Zone is too far away to do anything there, but there are still two unclaimed artifacts sitting on my side of the board.
First, the impetuous Muttawi’ah tries to hurl a Smoke Grenade to block Scarface’s vision, but fails. Then, the remaining mobile Odaliske plucks a Night Night Gun from my Supply Cache and successfully puts Bubbles back to sleep on her first attempt. After that, she just needs to run forward and grab one of the artifacts. Scarface gets an ARO on her, but barring a Critical, he can only inflict a single wound—and she has NWI (No Wound Incapacitation), so she can take it. As it turns out, she even passes her armor save against the hit she takes.
This ties our score at 4:4, and given how the game went, I am already completely satisfied with that. But I still have three orders left and see that my Janissary can just make it to the Supply Cache. That would give me an extra point if I can pull out one more item. Let’s go! The Janissary arrives on the very last order, needs a 14 or less for his WIP roll (shoutout to Haqqislam’s amazing Willpower), and passes it.
With that, the game ends 5:4 for Haqqislam. Technically a narrow victory, but contextually and narratively it feels like a true draw—after all, both sides ended up with exactly one artifact securely in their possession. And what happened to the third one? Hm, we’ll see…
Conclusion
For us, Mission 4 ties with Mission 1 as the best scenario of the campaign. Having the Megabeast in the center is incredibly atmospheric, and the struggle for the Xenotech artifacts was highly suspenseful. Our minor house rule restricting Coordinated Orders was absolutely necessary to prevent Haqqislam from easily sweeping up a ton of Xenotech all at once.
Overall, the campaign was absolutely fantastic for me, as this battle report highlights. It gave me the opportunity to play four games of Infinity in four weeks and inspired me to write plenty of narrative lore and battle reports. I’m not completely finished yet; a fitting conclusion to the story of Kleio and Ilya is still missing—but I already have an idea.
Thanks to Corvus Belli for organizing the campaign, to the YouTubers and podcasters for designing the missions, but most of all to Uli for sticking with me and being an awesome fellow player and opponent with his criminal Druze. Now he’s finally allowed to play a more modern faction again!