Now that I’ve got about half a dozen Infinity games played with the Japanese Sectorial Army (and a few more with Tohaa), what do I think about N3 and the JSA? Spoiler Alert! Haramakis are awesome!
Yu Jing was the faction that attracted me to Infinity on 2nd Edition. I had some minis built and half painted, but that was it as I never had the chance to play it. Once N3 became really popular at the Club, I tried to build a list with what I had. More than enough for 200 points battles and very close to 300 points of JSA!
My original plan was to start with vanilla Yu Jing and slowly add more Japanese troops until I had enough to jump to the JSA. No need for that, I could start with the rebellious sectorial right away!
My first matches didn’t end very well. But I didn’t care, as my objective was to learn the rules and familiarise with my troops. The Oniwaban is an amazing model, and quite deadly on hand to hand. But I must say I haven’t found a place for him on later matches. That’s something I want to remedy.
Prior to my first league match I played a game to test my list. I started playing aggressively, but not recklessly, from the start and it ended on a draw, first match I didn’t lose! What’s best is that due to a misunderstanding my rival played with a 300 point list against my 200, which makes the end result even more impressive for the JSA! Yay me!
The Haramaki link team, in one of the few moments when it wasn’t wrecking face
My first league match was against Nomads, playing Frontline. I went back to playing defensively and it wasn’t working for me. It was clear I was going to lose if something didn’t change.
It was enough with the Nomad trickery, I was going to cut in half what I could see. I rushed forward like a madman with my surviving Haramakis. And when he tried to shot them on his turn, I answered moving forward trying to reach close combat. And I did so, cutting everything in half. At the end of the game each of us controlled the zone closest to our deployment area and I had way more points in the middle.
An amazing victory! It was my first victory in Infinity and a great way to start the league. Best of all, I did it playing how I wanted to play. It felt really good.
For my second match, I face the Combined Army. This time I decided to play aggressively from the start. I advanced, taking control of the middle of the table with my Haramaki link team, and killing a couple of key models on his army.
The Gods of War were happy with me, because on the CAs first turn a jump troop was able to deploy on my back, unseen. He went for my Tokusetsu Kohei, which represented 50% of my specialist troops, from the back and without any cover. I was able to pass every single armor save, making my opponent waste all of his first turn orders trying to kill a single troop without cover and with only ARM 1. Amazing!
In the end, it was a major victory for the JSA! My rival wanted a rematch, and I was happy to have it.
This Tokusetsu Kohei took at least 8 shots to the face like a boss
I went with almost the same list, changing the Tokusetsu Hero and a Keisotsh for Yuriko Oda, for the rematch. My Raiden with Heavy Rocket Launcher (HRL) proved to be another good asset, allowing for a lot of table control for fear of generating AROs. The CA ended his first turn placing a HMG total reaction drone covering my Haramaki link team. I couldn’t activate them without risking at least one round of shooting, and no other troop had line of sight to the drone. I spent about half of my orders to allow my Domaru to outflank the drone and destroy it with a chain rifle. Freeing the link team to do as they please. At the end of my second turn, with a potential score of 6-1, he conceded.
The last JSA match I’ve played was against the Tohaa. It was fun because it gave me the chance to see someone else playing Tohaa (my other faction) and pick up what tricks and strategies they use.
Once again, the Haramaki link team proved to be a hard nut to crack for my opponent. The HRL Raiden Seibutai didn’t do much real damage this time, but was once again key in hampering the enemy movement. I brought 3 ninjas with Tactical Bows to try them and they were a little disappointing. Ninjas have a huge cool factor, but they might need a more subtle approach to playing them than what I like.
I must say that I’ve been lucky not to face too many hackers as most of my killing power comes from the 5-man Haramaki link team and the Domaru. And hackers can be very nasty against them.
I’m loving playing Infinity! It’s an amazing game. Really, really fun and the matches are relatively fast, which allows me to play even on weekdays when I have way less free time.
People say that the JSA is not a good army to play. They focus heavily on CQC on a shooting heavy game and they lack a lot of the cool tricks most other armies have. I picked them because I loved the look, which I believe should always be the reason you pick a faction.
And with the little experience I’ve had they are in a clear disadvantage if you let the other player dictate the flow of battle. So what if they’re best at shooting in a shooting game? The JSA doesn’t care about it. Be aggressive, be bold and have fun. I play to have fun, not to win but with the JSA I’m doing both things!