Combined Army (Avatar) listbuilding for CanCon2017

I have this weird feeling that the Avatar can actually win at all missions because people are never ready for an Avatar list in anything except annihilation, but especially not in missions that otherwise seem to require a lot of specialists, like supplies and antenna field. It's just not worth preparing specifically for it when every other list will be so different. Yet despite killing all of our opponent's specialist, my mate and I recently lost a team game to an Avatar in Engineering deck because it stole our specialists and pressed the buttons with them. Every time I look at my lists for just about any missions I think, "an Avatar would wreck me". This is doubly the case because you usually only have one or two units that could stand up to an Avatar, and the speculo can take them out often with no worries (e.g. she crushes Zoe and Interventors, and with a WIP roll she can start behind a Hsien and kill it in CC with stealth).

This first list is for the more killing-oriented missions at CanCon2017.

 Frontline, Supremacy, firefight
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 AVATAR Lieutenant (Strategos L3) MULTI HMG, Sepsitor Plus / DA CCW. (3.5 | 137)
 SPECULO KILLER Boarding Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Monofilament CCW, Knife. (1 | 34)
 DĀTURAZI Chain Rifle, Grenades, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 14)
 Q-DRONE HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 26)
 IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)
 IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)
 KRAKOT RENEGADE 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 14)
 KRAKOT RENEGADE 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 14)
 MED-TECH OBSIDON MEDCHANOID Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23)
 KURGAT (Operative Group) Boarding Shotgun, D-Charges, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 17)
 SLAVE DRONE Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)

 5.5 SWC | 300 Points
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The Krakots and Ikadrons allow you to contest at least 2 quadrants on your first turn in supremacy without any trouble thanks to baggage and forward deployment, which then gives you plenty of time to sepsitorize everyone and win on turns 2 and 3. In frontline, the Krakots are mostly there to kill link teams while the baggage bots contest the area immediately in front of your DZ and the Avatar/Speculo go to the frontline (always on the final turn to avoid pincers and the like). The Daturazi does a similar job to the Krakots, also providing a smoke screen for you to advance behind. The Speculo is there to remove a premier threat or put my opponent into Loss of Lieutenant. Alternatively, she can be an extremely hard to remove 34 points in a quadrant of my choice. Nice. The Kurgat gives me a second way to score sabotage and the engineer classifieds, and can also heal my Avatar. His Shotgun also makes him a neat defensive piece against AD threats trying to clean out my order pool. The Q-drone is a secondary attack piece and can defend against AD and units trying to flank my Avatar in the midfield, but could be replaced with a Noctifer by dropping the Kurgat down to an Imetron. I like not having any invisible deployments in this list for the full 11 orders on turn 1. You usually want to go first with the Avatar-Speculo combo, because the main strategy against the Avatar is to hide and draw it into the midfield where you can try to get it with shotguns or hackers. However, if you do that against a speculo she will be able to get multiple 1 on 1 assassinations in (surprise shot lvl 2 with a shotgun is so nasty) through your backline and the Avatar won't go anywhere.

In firefight, I intend to play very lame and just pot shot people with the Avatar. In fact, I might even run the list below because it has a noctifer. I have very few specialists, but they can score most of the cards, and the Avatar can't really be stopped from scoring secure HVT on turn 3 if it wants it.

One thing I really like about this list is how competent it is at dismantling link teams, especially in supremacy where they would love to bunch up in the middle. You've got 3 units with grenades and the best large teardrop weapon in the game (Sepsitor). This puts enemies into a null state, so they won't score for you, but it doesn't really matter because they don't score for your opponent either and it allows you to advance up to the midfield quite easily.

My main fear is TO camouflaged, infiltrating hackers, which only really belong to Nomads, Pan-O and combined (and combined never uses Malignos). With enough orders, they can isolate my Avatar, putting me in Loss of Lieutenant and preventing me from rampaging (would spend his irregular to move back to Dr Worm/Kurgat who can try to heel - always be within 16 of each other!). Infiltrating, regular camouflaged hackers are also a bit of a worry, and lots of people will have those. I of course have WIP17 and BTS9, so getting an oblivion off isn't the easiest thing, even with surprise shot, but that's why I said 'enough orders'. I can discover the markers and sepsitor them from >8, but that is a bit situational. I am consequently tempted to change the Kurgat into an M-Drone (sensor), but I am conscious that if I act like a pussy a lot and go around sensoring when my avatar should be killing, that can cost me games too. The Kurgat is also a repair option, so with the slave drone I should have someone within 14-16 of the Avatar and able to remove isolated. Additionally, the Kurgat can lay some mines around the Avatar to prevent undesirables. Another option would be to drop both Krakots and replace them with an Imetron and a nexus operative, who can score the hacker classifieds and has a nullifier to protect my Avatar. Imetrons are a bit safer than usual with an Avatar because you often get to go first, but I like having order-monkeys that I can hide in my backline and who can kill air-drop troops and the like.

One thing that really needs playtesting is whether the speculo is better or the noctifer. They are about the same points and I have the spare 0.5 SWC. Taking both would necessitate dropping the Q-drone, and I don't think that is a good idea because the Q is the best defense against air-dropping dickheads trying to wreck your order pool, notably Durok. The Speculo can sometimes just win a game by killing your opponent's only MSV2 unit, lieutenant or hacker, and this list is partially about making people make errors because Big Boy is so scary, and the speculo compounds that. If your opponent spends turn 1 in Loss of Lieutenant against this list it is all over. However, having the Avatar, Noctifer and Q-drone gives you a really nasty sniper nest on turn 1, which might be important for those games where you go second (in which the speculo is a bit weak).

 Supplies, Antenna Field
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 AVATAR Lieutenant (Strategos L3) MULTI HMG, Sepsitor Plus / DA CCW. (3.5 | 137)
 Q-DRONE HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 26)
 IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)
 IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)
 NOCTIFER Missile Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32)
 ÍMETRON . (0 | 4)
 SHROUDED (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
 UNIDRON (Forward Observer) Plasma Carbine / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 15)
 KURGAT (Operative Group) Boarding Shotgun, D-Charges, Antipersonnel Mines (0 | 17)
 MED-TECH OBSIDON MEDCHANOID Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23)
 SLAVE DRONE Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)

 6 SWC | 300 Points
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For the more objective oriented missions, I have opted to drop the krakots and daturazi for a few more specialists. I looked at an entirely different list with an Anathematic, but I just could not get enough specialists in there to make holding three buttons at a time really feasible. The Unidron can stand next to a button (notably my DZ button) in a pinch and is otherwise a decent DZ guard. The shrouded starts near a button, which is very useful. The Kurgat can charge buttons pretty effectively with his BS and then lay mines (protect the Avatar from hackers!), and doctor worm is the bomb. After that, the only other major change is to bring in the noctifer instead of the speculo. I would ideally go second in these missions, peppering my opponent with sniper fire as they advance on turn 1, and then charging at them with Sepsitor on turn 2. Once I control the midfield with his own units, it shouldn't be too hard to take the buttons/boxes on turn 2 and 3. Sepsitor troops can't hold buttons, but if he has no guys around the middle then I really only need the shrouded to hold a button and one of my other guys to hold the button in my DZ to get the points. With most opponents having no way to kill the Avatar in these lists, I should be able to grab the turn 3 objectives in Antenna field with little trouble. The noctifer and Q-drone allow me to guard buttons as well, so if my Avatar can collapse a side of the board, I can overwatch the remaining button and prevent it from being touched. My hope in antenna field would be that my opponent moves a link team to the central button that I can sepsitor and then use it to defend that button. I originally thought I might still want a speculo in these missions to take out things like Djanbazan links, LI lieutenants and such, but I opted for the noctifer instead, in part because the shock ammo of the MULTI HMG should be enough to wreck Djanbazans (the ftf is 15s on 4 dice against 15s on 2 dice, and then I have ARM12 if I lose), and in part because the speculo isn't so useful in these missions if you go second. That said, if playtesting suggests that having the speculo is super useful (I suspect mostly for killing lieutenants) then I will make the change, perhaps turning the Kurgat into another unidron for the 2 points I need.

I want to playtest this. As I said, it is not immediately obvious that the Avatar is suited to these missions, especially Antenna field. You don't have a lot of specialists to stand next to buttons or open boxes. But I am relying on people not thinking about killing TAGs, and not realising that the Avatar takes their guys (the game swings sepsitor produces are hard to fathom until you've had a few games against it). I don't need to stand next to many buttons if I can stop him from standing next to any i.e. if I am going second, I put the shrouded on one button and my doctor in my DZ, then sepsitor whichever of his guys are standing next to the remaining buttons. I can do this going first as well, because once sepsitored, his guys are the perfect button guards and because I am confident of winning turn 3 (provided I don't accidentally force a retreat) I can afford to lose turn 1. Assault hackers are rarer in these missions because HI links are rarer, and specialised TAG killing stuff is even rarer (in part because it is typically mounted on HIs). Specialist infiltrators all come with combi rifles instead of boarding shotguns, which means I don't even have to worry about getting flanked with AP shotguns that can overcome an ODD. Games will be tight I suspect, but a few missteps against an Avatar swings the game very fast, and I will be the one who is practiced because few people ever play against an Avatar. Supplies is actually quite a good mission, because I have enough specialists to open boxes if necessary and enough snipers to stop my opponent from getting far with the boxes if he opens the crates (unless he is running my Nomad smoke/eclipse spam list). I then rampage forward with big boy and sepsitor his guys. Sepsitorized dudes don't count as controlling crates at the end of the game, but they can carry them and easily hand them off to my other dudes.

I would have to be a little bit careful against lists trying to force the retreat condition and deny me a turn 3. If a list seems of this sort then I can't let them win turn 1, which is a bit tough for me if they take all three midfield buttons. Hopefully I can prevent that with Noctifer/Q-drone/Avatar sniping, and then I just concentrate on the central button. Turn 2 I am fairly confident I will have Sepsitorized enough crap to get over the line, especially as you can't hide TO specialists next to the buttons thanks to the exclusion zone. With only 1 classified objective, this should get me through.