Esoteric Infinity insights yielded by recent playtesting 1

This is a catalogue of some stuff that playtesting has thrown up lately, just so I don't forget.

1. The O-Yoroi Kidobutai is better than it looks on paper because of the way it fits into JSA. In particular, in JSA, you end up with a TAG and a link team (of Keisotsu), which is rarely achievable in other factions, and the TAG is part of a list with around 15 orders. Most TAG lists scrape into 1 full combat group thanks to Joan lieutenant and a warcor. The Yoroi is also very helpful to JSA who typically struggle to find a quality HMG for that initial push out of your DZ. A keisotsu HMG is OK, but BS13 and only a single wound isn't very reliable. Once that Keisotsu is dead, you usually have to fall back on a spitfire (Rui Shi or Aragoto), and that just sucks against most snipers, especially as JSA do not have access to straightforward smoke options. The O-Yoroi provides an excellent HMG (and an AP/shock one at that!) with high BS on a tough platform that can whether a crit or two without stress. The Keisotsu link team is quite a good complement to the TAG to boot, because a missile launcher and Yuriko's (BS15) panzerfaust are capable defensive pieces if you don't happen to go first. A lack of defensive pieces is something that haunts a lot of TAG lists, limiting their effectiveness when not going first because your precious orders are often gutted before your TAG has an opportunity to get rolling. A final point in the O-Yoroi's favour - the high CC and MA1 might seem overpriced at first (you would certainly prefer more BTS instead - but the koalas make up for the lack of hacking defence), but it does make the O-Yoroi much more resilient than your average TAG to infiltrator melee shenanigans from Bandits and the like, and also gives you a powerful option when you're up-close against other unit armed mostly with long-range guns. With EXP and PH17, whatever you hit is going to die, and you often win with CC24. TAGs can often be a little underwhelming in close quarters, but with a heavy flamer and CC options, the O-Yoroi is actually alright.

2. Bandits are excellent. The irregular status always makes me cringe, but they have a tremendous ability to trade for more than their points, especially in missions where the KHD is likely to find targets that you can easily hunt thanks to infiltration and camo. High melee on a camo token makes for excellent engage shenanigans and double move to btb tactics when people hold expecting a shotgun (which you also have if they are fool enough to discover). High melee on an infiltrator is also excellent for killing TAGs and HI, which you are doubly equipped to handle with the adhesive launcher. The shotgun and camo status give you plenty of capacity to kill skirmishers and light link-teams and also give you a solid ftf roll against big units provided you find a cramped corner to camp in. When the enemy has hackers the KHD is amazing, especially against AHD-equipped units that can't really fight back. Being able to move around under a marker into ZoC when your opponent anticipates a prowler or zero is marvellous for getting off hacking attacks, especially if they declare change facing muwhahahahaha. In general, the bandit with KHD is just an outstanding problem solver to have in missions with objectives like supplies and tic-tac-toe. They can kill everything quite efficiently while also scoring objectives and contributing to the shell game. The irregular is not a drawback because of the lack of an order - you almost always have something to do with a bandit - but because it ruins the shell game (you have to put the order next to the unit). This means that you basically have to use the bandit straight away on your first turn, but sometimes you can just deploy out of reserve to a great spot.

3. Missile launchers > sniper rifles. Missile launchers almost break the game. They are one of the few ways to turn the reactive turn around. On reactive, you are almost always going to be on the low-probability side of a face-to-face. What missiles do is mean that while you are low-probability you are very high impact. EXP+AP or templates to ignore cover kills most things in one hit almost guaranteed and can often swing games if your opponent's main attack piece bites the dust early. If the ML happens to be on an HI platform that's even better because you get a few chances to score that low-probability hit. The threat of this defensive platform will often encourage opponent's to smoke their way past, which eats orders and buys you time. That's often all you want from your defensive pieces. When they're in a link team with B2, high BS and sometimes a MOD it's even more sick because you ftf is often quite tight (like 70-30), and on the active turn having a B2 template weapon with a long range band can often lead to vicious multi-hit kills when you're opponent isn't switch on and clumps around a corner.

4. Hordes of impetuous melee actually works really well provided there is a lot of smoke to go around. I've been working this using Nomads mostly (a bit with YJ) using Morlocks and Uberfallcommandoes for smoke and Krakots for more impetuous melee, with Morans providing white noise as necessary against MSV2 snipers. A lot of your guys die but they typically trade up on their points. Melee is remarkably effective at killing expensive units, and with impetuous you get phenomenal order counts. Nomads do it particularly well because you have so much else going on in the midfield to distract your opponent, like 5+ camo markers (2 zero minelayers and a bandit ready to axe somebody), and because you have the intruder to smoke shoot and discover-shoot through a smoke screen against pesky ARO pieces and Ariadna minefields that would stop your nutters. He provides covering fire of a sort, forcing your opponent to move cautiously, which gives your berserkers more open ground to move through without being shot. Against skirmisher-based lists you are a nightmare with all the chain rifles and free orders.

5. Hackers with cheap repeaters are remarkably effective counters to TAG rushes. What you typically want to do with a TAG is one of two things: if your opponent has 4+ unit visible, shoot all of them and hang back, going into suppression down a nice 16" line. This makes it damn hard for your opponent to kill your TAG on their turn and cuts their orders down so as to make the penalty you take for having a TAG not such a big deal. Or, and this is preferable, go straight down your opponent's throat, killing 6+ units, hopefully including your opponent's lieutenant, often using split burst against line infantry and cheerleaders. Go into suppression in your frontline on a flank such that any HMGs can only engage you from within 16". Shake hands; that's game over. If you're worried about this, deploy such that the TAG has to go past your repeaters to get at the juicy heart of your army. This will allow you to get some, likely unopposed, hacks off, notably possession and imm-1 for 2 turns. If you land the latter, you can then oblivion the bastard on your turn and possibly win right there. This tactic doesn't work on TO camo TAGs, but it does restrict their ability to destroy you on turn 1.

6. Impersonators are outstanding in ground control missions. In such missions, the standard tactic is to run a HI link team that doesn't die and can occupy several quadrants simultaneously. Impersonators allow you to deploy ~30 points in exactly the quadrant you want, including your frontline in a such a way that those points will be very order-consuming to uproot. Your opponent has to get over there first (say, onto a roof where you are prone), then discover you twice before he is able to kill you. Meanwhile you're contributing an order each turn and looking menacing. The discovery is particularly difficult because link teams have to swap leader between discover attempts, which costs at least 2 orders (one to retreat the present leader without provoking an ARO on another dude, then another to advance the new leader). HI link team lists typically only have 10 orders or so and simply can't muster the points to do this. When you're playing Hassassins and have 3 impersonators you can make a real mess of people's plans. The situation is a bit different against order spam or some such, but even there you are quite fierce, because most skirmishers will struggle to discover you and your lasiqs or noctifers can knock over the melee warbands before they have a chance to use impetuous to discover you efficiently and chain rifles to kill you on the cheap.