Over the Australia Day weekend, in a poorly air-conditioned tin shed located in the glorified Sheep-Station known as Canberra (known to some as the capital city of Australia). Nearly 50 Infinity players were drawn to this site of ancient power, each seeking to be crowned God-King of The Multiverse (or, at least, Australian National Champion for 2025).
The scenarios played were:
- Acquisition
- Unmasking
- Supplies
- Firefight
- Decapitation
These scenarios were selected as requiring a reasonable spread of capabilities/gameplay styles across the event while also being relatively straight forward for players who are likely attending Cancon as their first significant Infinity event of N5.
Cancon 25 was played under ITS 16.0, as Part-2 was only released after the event was completed.
Goonhammer was able to politely solicit opinions from the Top-Five players (and absolutely did not threaten to release incriminating photos if they didn’t cooperate) and, with pleasure, presents the Podium Player Interviews below…
First Place: R0gu3f0x
Faction: Kestrel Colonial Force
(Ed: Note: List 2 had a minor error regarding fireteam composition. This was identified shortly after the event was concluded and was determined to not be a significant influence on the final outcome.)
Congratulations on winning the Australian Nationals for 2025! You’ve been placing in the Top-5 for a while now, how does it feel to take the Gold?
Many thanks. It’s been a slow and fun build up for the last 7 years. I started with the Shock Army of Acontecimento and closed the circle with the Kestrel Colonial Force. It is gratifying and I am especially grateful to have had 5 amazing games and fantastic opponents, including two close friends. It felt like an Infinity celebration from start to end.
Tell us about your choice of factions and lists for Cancon 2025. What processes or ideas did you use to build your list-pair?
I was looking forward to using the new toys and since I attended CANCON 2024 with JSA, the choice was easy. Also I wanted to train myself in more cage and defensive factions in this new edition and since Varuna vanished in the air … Kestrel was the answer. Finally, playing a new faction gives you an edge, as proven when Varuna came out and [Ed: DaBoarder] took Cancon XX.
My list process is quite standard as I bundle the missions in two types and optimize the lists towards them. I crafted them to be able to swap them in any mission, and therefore respond to tables and/or opponents. For instance, List One can punish hacking and the List Two is susceptible to hacking. And vice-versa List 2 can TAG-you-out and brute force through (useful against Ariadna or Tohaa for instance) while having a strong LT. On the tourney, all aligned well and we stuck to the mission assignment.
List 01 is a classic N4 list with up-the-field specialist, Core, Haris and support. Design to defend, retaliate, and then take the centre.
List 02 is also designed to have some level of defensiveness but I can also steal the first turn and have a one-two punch with the Haris in Group-1 and the Tikbalang in Group-2 (with an incredible pool of orders). It hits hard and additionally/alternatively, can spam torrents like nuts.
You were the only Kestrel Colonial Force player in the entire event and you went on to win it all. What are your thoughts on KCF as a new faction in a new edition of the game?
KFC is a very strong faction, but it is not like the rest of PanO and, at least for me, it took some practice to learn to pilot them. As I mentioned, the novelty factor helped to take some players off-guard even when I explained before the game all the tools at my disposal (TO/Airborne deployment etc).
- KFC is good defensively and 1 active turn can set up a nightmare of multi-layered defense with mines, turrets, and overlapping LoF. Potentially even repeaters with the Armbots in the mid-field and the fast-pandas from the Fennecs.
- On offense, like most PANO armies, they are very strong: Tikki, Crux, Hetkari, drumbots, you name it. Mim, MSV, Albedo … all the arsenal.
- The mid-field presence is phenomenal with the jackals, Armbots, Scarecrows and Banshees
- The LT options are also prime, with the Tikbalang LT x2 and the Magistrate with Strategos/ counterintelligence and the CoC option. Incredible.
- In essence it feels like PANO purchased a bunch of Ariadnan troops and a slab of great LT options.
It is tricky to understand Kestrel completely unless you face/play them a few times. That is Kestrel’s great edge at the moment. I think the community will take some time to crack the code and understand what pieces are key and be able to scalp them in order to neutralise their power.
I was very surprised and happy to be the only Kestrel player in Cancon, as I don’t look forward to a mirror-match between two porcupines…not very exciting.
Finally, the quality of the miniatures is insane and I think is becoming my favourite faction in terms of looks and average coolness across all releases.
What’s the most exciting element of N5 to you? Any particular rule or profile?
Difficult to say. I like the speedball mechanics, they seem to be quite strong too. The Superjump mobility enhancement is exciting and slightly concerning… Did anyone said Nourikas? … The turret mechanic is strong, but after using them with just two Fireflies and seeing the pain on my opponents faces, I think we will see some adjustments from CB in the next 6 months.
The most exciting part for me is to be able to try my factions after the changes and explore new profiles. Especially the flying units, they look fun but not game-changing. At the moment Kestrel is consuming all my creativity and testing hunger.
Are you considering trying a different faction in the future? If so, who and why?
Absolutely, I normally gravitate around a faction for the whole season. I will be playing generic PanO, Kestrel, MO and maybe White Co for this season. But currently I have a LOT to try in Kestrel. Very existed for it … expect some funky stuff coming from my end in the next tourney: X)
Second Place: Cerritus
Faction: Invincible Army
List 2
Congratulations on earning second place at the Australian Nationals for 2025. Was there a particular highlight or tense moment of the event that you’d like to share?
Thanks, it was my best placement yet and particularly exciting to perform so well with the Invincible Army, one of my favourite factions that I have previously taken to Cancon and Novacore not long after they were initially released. It was a fantastic event with some challenging opponents, I think the most tense moments came in my game of Decapitation against Valukr’s TAK, after he had cross-board discovered and shot my foolishly deployed Daoying LT, and I was able to get a cyber-masked Haidao up close to discover and shoot his Scout Lt after Tai Sheng had failed at a similar approach. The game was full of back and forth moments where we both could rightly claim to have the other on the ropes. The game ultimately hinged on the last final orders of multiple units and could have been either a draw or a 10-2 victory.
Tell us about your choice of factions and lists for Cancon 2025. What processes or ideas did you use to build your list-pair?
When I saw the updated units for Invincible Army, I knew I wanted to play them. The next steps were to evaluate the missions, grouping by their similarities so I can define two lists for each group. In this case I considered Unmasking to require a unique list primarily due its exclusion zone and need for defensive units, and Acquisition, Supplies as the other group due to their shared objectives. Firefight and Decap I felt could fall into either group due to their requirement for defense and targeted removal. I built two lists and snuck in three practice games the week before the event, and ultimately I took one list for Unmasking and used the other list for the other 4 missions as I was more confident with it.
My main goal was to have an all-comers style list that leveraged some of the fun new changes to old units. First off I wanted a strong ranged piece to clear the path, and the Yan Huo is arguably the best. It doubles as ranged removal with its BS14 & B5 and as a strong ARO piece with its Immunity(ARM) and the lack of a negative long range band on the HRMC.
Next up was a mobile link team to take the fight to the objectives/midfield. The Haidao KHD is a great deterrence for enemy hackers and thus protector for HI. It has seen some neat changes including a +1B Boarding shotgun plus pitchers, and its ability to Cybermask for marker state can let it close to lethal ranges or reach objectives. This would anchor on a Zuyong link to provide a Tinbot to the Haidao, and I also wanted a mid range weapon. I was tempted by the Zuyong HMG, but it’s a very vanilla weapon (no AP) and wants to be at a longer range, and I also wanted to leverage IA’s bonus orders in the Daoying +1Lt order, so an NCO piece was desirable. That left Bixie, Krit, and Tai sheng. Krit is an average gunfighter with low burst weapons and either long or short range, and while Bixie is great with her Msv1, mobility and CC capabilities, she’s the most expensive. Tai Sheng has historically struggled as a expensive jack of all trades type unit that was hard to justify in N4, and I’ll confess it took others to change my opinion of her, but the +1B Breaker rifle combined with her BS 14 (and warhorse) gives you a hard hitting short to mid range attack piece, and conveniently she brings a Tinbot, which allowed me to complete the Haris with a Zuyong Paramedic to revive her and give me a bonus in Supplies (one of the Cancon missions).
With my attack out of the way I wanted some tricks up my sleeve. The Zhencha hacker is excellent at doing objectives and shutting down enemy REMs/TAGs/HI, and the bonus Trinity also makes it great at hunting enemy hackers if it is closer than the Haidao, whose pitchers it can also leverage. To help obfuscate the midfield and provide ablative defense I tossed in 2 of the excellent Gudan and a Libertos minelayer. This puts some fear in an opponent as they are unsure if they are walking into a mine, a shotgun, a template, or multiple Zhencha hackers or a minelayer.
A Daoying LT +1 order provides a defensible Lt and fuel for the Haris. I didn’t have sufficient points for the hacker profile, which I don’t consider an auto-include due to the added vulnerability to hackers (and a loss of marker state if you ARO hack), and I figured with the Zhencha already there it was unnecessary.
Lastly, I wanted a Liu Xing. I’m a sucker for Drop troops and their ability to outmaneuver an enemy that has me pinned down, hunt an Lt, or rapidly do objectives, particularly in missions like Supplies, Unmasking, Firefight and Decap. The Liu Xing is particularly strong at this with its BS 13 Multi-rifle, specialist, d-charges profile. I am very tempted by the Hacker’s profile with the Tinbot, but I prefer the reach, burst, and ability to stay out of range of hackers/templates afforded by the Multi-rifle.
With the points remaining it was time to max out orders, and after adding a range of REM’s to provide orders, I was drawn to a Zhanshi + Doctor duo, which would mitigate the risk of the Yan Huo being taken out of action.
Invincible Army got a bit of a raw deal in N4, what has changed in N5 to make it your faction of choice for Cancon?
Invincible Army has historically been a bit of an uphill battle to play. You pay a premium for a lot of the primary units (30pts+) compared to a lot of other factions, the drop troops (Liu Xing), camo infiltrators (Zhencha) are 5-10pts more than most, and this means you fast exhaust points and that can leave you struggling to fill out link teams with the cheaper but important utility pieces, resulting in large gaps in effectiveness. They also had limited ablative defenses such as cheap units that can trade up like warbands, minelayers, or units with templates, which made it difficult to stall an Alpha strike targeting your key pieces. Coupled with weak CC (outside of the Hulong & Bixie) and limited mimetism, your opponents often didn’t need specific tools to deal with most of your army. Lastly, in N4 the general high lethality of attack pieces meant that ARM 3 and 2w didn’t really last much longer, and generally a focused attack on your units would remove them quickly.
N5 has been a huge positive change for IA and high armored units in general, with the replacement of the burst dice with the SD. IA also saw a broad reduction in points and escalation in efficiency, such as the Zhencha and Hac Tao Hacker + Trinity profiles, and the addition of pitchers and +1B boarding shotgun on the Haidao.
Additional subtle changes to units such as the disco baller on Mowangs and Hulongs, and a smattering of emitters (now great at 16-32”!) add more options to existing units. The desirable link benefits (+1d) moving to lower link levels allows us to make multiple dangerous links and even simple duos instead of sinking all our points into one thing.
Lastly the addition of the Gudan and Libertos fills that ablative defense niche, with the former one of my favourite profiles.
What’s the most exciting element of N5 to you? Any particular rule or profile?
In general I’m extremely happy with N5. I’ve been playing since N2 and with each addition of Infinity I feel Corvus Belli takes us in new and exciting directions that keep the game fresh.
I think the Special Dice changes are my favourite change and arguably one of the best they’ve ever made. As many players know, the more dice the better your odds at winning a face to face, critting, or dealing multiple wounds. This factor often makes DA the better choice than AP. However this created a trap for unit design where increasing dice to improve the odds of a unit in the face to face roll implicitly increased lethality due to the potential to inflict as many wounds as dice rolled.
This change is universal without requiring them to individually nerf units, and makes armor and wounds more relevant. Lastly it allows them to increase the effectiveness of a shooter without increasing its ability to deal multiple wounds (hello Crux Knight). A number of people can confirm I’ve been raving about this to anyone who listens.
I also think the distribution of unique skills to different armies and units, such as albedo, warhorse, marksmanship, immunity(ARM) etc. has created a vibrant parallel landscape of choice and efficiency as opposed to the more simple stacking of mim and MSV that was the go to in N4. This creates scenarios where different tools excel, and what is a strength in one scenario could be irrelevant or even a weakness in another, e.g. MSV strong against mimetism but weak against albedo, warhorse allowing you to counter BS(-3), immunity arm being weak against viral & breaker.
Lastly, the clever addition of burst and saves to spotlight makes it more effective in active and less in ARO. It remains relevant but is no longer the “everything that crosses the midfield gets targeted” it sometimes used to be. I know spotlight and guided is a controversial topic for some in the community and CB has delivered nuanced changes that I think should help appease those on the receiving end without crippling its use.
Are you considering trying a different faction in the future? If so, who and why?
I plan to stick with IA for most of this year and explore the different profiles available. After that I suspect I will break out my JSA again, as they have a wealth of new units available and offer a unique playstyle.
Third Place: Marshmallow Death Laser
Faction: Invincible Army
(Only one list was used the entire weekend due to match-ups)
Third place is a very respectable outcome, well done! Was there a particular highlight or tense moment of the event that you’d like to share with us?
My matchup against [redacted] was quite the roller coaster and I had a blast with him!
Simply placing a turret using Doctor Worm with the last order, of his first turn, is where my hell began. Spending no less than 8 orders in my first turn trying to kill it, the glorious turret successfully killed my Shang Ji twice (clearly speedball needs a buff), and almost killed Tai Sheng, to say I was sweating would be an understatement.
The second moment was my blast of a game with [redacted], but nothing to do with the game itself, rather than his masterful way of navigating the table… if [redacted] had a skill in infinity, it would be Crawling-plus. I was absolutely demolished that game, but his friendly attitude and contagious energy kept my spirits high.
Tell us about your choice of factions and lists for Cancon 2025. What processes or ideas did you use to build your list-pair?
There was no particular reason behind choosing IA as a whole, other than I have been waiting for their glow-up.
As for the lists, list one was designed for U masking and decapitation. The Hiadao being used to push hacking networks/hunt hackers, while also getting bonuses for unmasking buttons. The Liu Xing was taken to hunt lieutenants for decapitation.
It just so happens that my other three opponents outside of those missions had the potential to be hacking heavy, so to mitigate that, I took the list for those match-ups.
What’s the story behind your username, Marshmallow Death Laser?
Well, I love marshmallows, and lasers are also pretty cool. But I figured it needed a little edge to it, so death did the trick. Credit to my brother for helping me with the name.
What’s the most exciting element of N5 to you? Any particular rule or profile?
With lethality down and movement as a whole buffed, N5 feels like an addition that emphasises the role of positioning as a more important factor than brute force which I am enjoying.
Are you considering trying a different faction in the future? If so, who and why?
I had played O.S.S exclusively since their release, so IA is my new faction going into N5, a long-awaited break. I had played 4 games with them before Cancon.
Fourth Place: Ryan Kirby
Faction: Ramah Task Force
List 2
Fourth place is an amazing outcome, every year and every event you’re always at the very top of the rankings. How do you do it? What’s the secret sauce, Ryan? The people need to know.
I think it could be sheer, bloody minded belligerence. Some of the ol’ Conan “What is best in life?” coming out in my tourney results.
I’ve been pretty committed to short-cutting a lot of the effort since I became a dad; building one list I’m comfortable with, playing that regularly and looking for as much fun as I can pump out of the games I get to have.
Tell us about your choice of faction and lists for Cancon 2025. What processes or ideas did you use to build your list-pair?
Oh easy! Khawarij are my favourite unit in the game, bar none, and seeing them get such a massive glow up meant I had to push them as far as I could. I’ll be honest I should have run a full core but I chickened out putting 180 points into 5 models. So with that in mind I built a list where the Khawarij core gets as many orders as possible and I have a functioning second group to post up defence for the core. That’s it. Insanely simple. The core does a pretty sizeable chunk of the classified deck, shoots real good against most things, CC’s real good against most things, rarely goes to dead in the active, moves 16” an order and looks real handsome doing it.
The most important thing on the offence is to make sure you have enough command tokens to rebuild the link if the leader goes down. Crits and bad dice happen. You also have to spend your last couple orders getting the link safe. Not a hard thing to do with 8”-8” but still important to remember. Other than that I’d heard mad chats about how good Nourkias is in N5 so my second list just dropped the Ghulam hacker for Leila Sharif, quick fix but never came up.
You took Ramah Task Force to Cancon. That’s a faction that has previously been described as lacking a little in defensive tech, how do you think Ramah fares in the N5 meta-game, which has been described as very aggressive?
Maaaaaaate, AVA 3 flash pulse, ava 2 TR bots, monstrucker with AP rifle turrets, linked Beasthunters??? Forget about it! You can post up an insane defence. You gotta think about it, like your TR-bots should be covering medium lanes diagonally across the board and have cover they can drop into. You should have your flash pulse bots prone along the front of your DZ presenting a repeater net for any hackers you can fit. But yeah, I think Ramah can put up a very tough screen. Ramah also get duo Ghulam links, so you can have ~2 dice missiles is aro with Naffatun and Zhayedan counting as pure. Very cheap and very effective. On the flip side Khawarij put the boot in something, shocking! So quick you get to choose your fights however you please, especially with smoke grenades from a Ghulam Smoke Grenade Launcher in a Duo.
What’s the most exciting element of N5 to you? Any particular rule or profile?
Um, I think I may have answered this one! The Khawarij profile has got to be the most insanely exciting things I’ve seen when opening the app. I think I put in my YJ and Kosmo lists first, got a bit bummed out, then loaded up Ramah and was shocked.
I really like the new link rules and I’m pretty excited to push an oss army around with wall to wall links in. Never roll a single dice again!
Other than that there’s some stuff I want to test to see if it’s as bad as people go on about; like climbing plus. I think Karhu are still good and I have an awful lot of Winter Force models I’d like to prove it with. I guess that I should probably learn how speedballs work. I gave them a wide berth at Cancon cause I didn’t know how they worked and had more pressing things to spend my command tokens on, but I’m excited to learn. Everyone I played seemed to vibe the new tech.
Are you considering trying a different faction in the future? If so, who and why?
I was gonna do USARF purely as a hobby project but I think they aren’t in a place where I could play them and still have fun.
Instead I’ve decided to paint up every more Jumpy-Larrikins in the form of the Caskuda and the Combined Army Booster Pack Beta. Nourkias, Ko Dali and Victor Messer (who is currently cut from CA but will take the place of my Mentor). I love all of those minis, they’re gonna be amazing to paint, and they also do lots of insane and fun things in game!
Fifth Place: Micro
Faction: Tohaa
Fifth place is an amazing outcome, every year and every event you’re always at the very top of the rankings. How do you do it? What’s the secret sauce?
Thank you!
My Secret Sauce is relatively simple:
- I think about the game and tinker with list ideas a lot, even when I’m unable to get games in reliably.
- I focus on 1 or 2 sectorials/vanilla factions at any one time for myself, and tend to build my lists for the next major tournament. That way I don’t have an overwhelming breadth of things to think about.
- And, most importantly, on the days of the tournament, I try to get a good night’s sleep, don’t drink too much and pack a healthy-ish lunch for the days of the tournament. Many a game has been won or lost on the final day due to fatigue!
Tell us about your choice of faction and lists for Cancon 2025. What processes or ideas did you use to build your list-pair?
With both of my factions not making the leap from N4 to N5 (Spiral Corps and Varuna), I knew I would have to turn over new ground when N5 dropped. Tohaa and Vanilla PanO are the factions closest to my two N4 factions, so I started looking there, and Tohaa list building made more sense to me than Vanilla PanO. So I committed to taking Tohaa to Cancon just after Christmas, particularly given I felt like the scenario list was quite permissive, so the limitations of the faction (e.g. no hacking) shouldn’t hamper me.
For Cancon, I focused on taking 2 Taquel Officers (one Lt, one CoC) in both lists. My initial thought was that I wanted one list to have both Taquel going forward and actively Endgaming things for Unmasking and Supplies, so I could kill HVTs and box holders through walls (List 1). As for the other list I wanted it to have the Lt Taquel cowering at the back playing a support role, with the CoC Taquel being active for Decapitation and Firefight on day 2.
For list 1, I knew I wanted an MSV aro piece for supplies, and after testing out the Nikoul and the Taagma, the Taagma worked out better for me. The Taagma also incentivises bringing a Doctor along, so along came the Bioengineer for the ride. I had also found the duo of a Viral Taquel and a K1 Kosuil worked well, as their guns support each other quite well, and the Deactivator can be a nice piece of equipment against turrets.
For list 2, I wanted to try out the Sukeul Missile as an ARO piece that could actually threaten to kill things, unlike the K1 sniper, who would at best do a wound. With one of the Taquel lurking at the back I wanted to include a Kriigel to bolster my Pheroware presence. Meanwhile a Greif is my personal flex. I love them for getting rid of some annoying single target or for going after an obvious enemy Lt.
How do you feel about Tohaa in general with respect to N5?
They feel like they’re in a good place. While they didn’t get any of the new toys of N5, having excellent access to the best Eclipse in the game (that can be placed through walls too!) forgives many things.
What’s the most exciting element of N5 to you? Any particular rule or profile?
In game, the addition of Flyers excites me most – even though I haven’t seen one on the table yet!
Otherwise, I’m really excited about the jump forward in time that has happened in the lore. I’m intrigued to see what Shinju brings, and how having the EI as a part of O-12’s senate will shake things up.
Are you considering trying a different faction in the future? If so, who and why?
Vanilla Haqq is probably next on the list. Going back to my very first faction from the dark days of N3!
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