This is an attempt to update that list for more advanced play. This is the kind of thinking that I use to inform my listbuilding for tournaments nowadays. I came 5/60 at the national championships this year, only losing to the guy that came 3rd and it really could have gone either way. Other tournament I played I came 3/19, so I reckon I know what I'm talking about. Still a lot to learn though.
1. Strong ARO pieces
When you first start playing, you leave a lot of pieces out on ARO. You learn quickly that this is a bad idea because the active turn rocks face-to-face rolls. So you start hiding on turn 1. Then you come across a TAG army or a steel phalanx list (especially with an alley-shooting Hector) that just goes straight down your throat on turn 1 and you realise that you need to be able to slow your opponent down if you want to hide (see 1.5).
That's all good and well, but more broadly, the game is actually won on the reactive turn. There is a few ways this happens:
a) killing things on your opponent's turn is the most order-efficient way to kill things
b) if you can get your opponent 'pinned down' by an ARO piece that they can't get a good face-to-face roll on it gives you immense order efficiency as they waste their turn going the long way round to kill that unit. This is really fundamental to high-level infinity. A list with 14 regular orders (a lot) at the start of play gets at most 42 orders throughout the game. In a mission like supplies, it takes at least 10 just to complete the mission objectives. That leaves 32. If your opponent spends say, 14 of those to do not much and loses another 10 in casualties by turn 3, that leaves them with only 8 with which to actually kill you.
c) If you can 'lock down' your opponent, you win because your opponent can't move. This requires a few ARO pieces. The most intense way of doing this is to go first and lay into your opponent with a powerful and fast attack piece that limits his ability to knock over your snipers on his first turn. The game is effectively over immediately.
There are a two ways to set up the ARO pin/lock:
a) HI (or TAGs) in suppression, especially those that have MOD stacks, like the Dao Fei. If you can get one of these into a position where it will take several orders to move a spitfire over to kill it then your opponent is going to have a bad time. They spend a lot of orders just to start shooting, and then they're at -6 at least (cover and suppression) and you're on 3 dice, plus you've probably got ARM7 in cover and 2W, which means they're going to trade like 7 orders to kill 1 guy. Great economy.
b) Two or more quality sniper positions. By quality I mean high BS, preferably multiple burst and a long-range gun.
So what makes for an excellent ARO piece? These are my criteria
a) I will always prefer a missile launcher over any other weapon. This is because they have the range band to win ftf rolls against LI and skirmishers trying to get things done with a combi, so they can participate in a pin. But perhaps more importantly, they turn a lucky roll into a completely game-changing roll. There is nothing like your Hac Tao going ftf with a Janissary link and rolling a crit. The link team goes boom. It instantly turns the game. For this reason, units like Alguacile link teams with MLs are actually pretty good (in a way that celestial guard teams with snipers really aren't), and really cheap MLs like the Unidron are the ideal bait for the sniper trap (see below).
b) Obviously you want a long-range gun. After the missile launcher, the best candidate is the sniper rifle (viral is the most points effective). It hits pretty hard and has a range band that can really, really hurt a HMG if you can start engaging from >36".
c) Things with MOD stacks, in the following order: TO, ODD, camo, MSV2, mimetism, sapper.
TO camo allows you to set-up the sniper trap. This is where you have one ARO piece that is the 'bait', like a TR bot or a unidron with an ML. You then have a TO camo sniper (like the noctifer ML) positioned such that it can see the main points from which the unidron will be attacked, or where the back of the link teams attacking the unidron will be standing. Then when your opponent attacks the bait you spring the trap and suddenly they are looking at a whole death-festival with not enough burst to cover everything. The Rodok link team with ML with a noctifer is perhaps the best trap because there is a lot of missile around and all of it is on really strong platforms with mimetism and high BS.
Camo is better than mimetism because your opponent has to discover you. When using sapper or mimetic snipers, you want the cheap guys. They are pretty easy to knock over with a HMG, so you don't want to have to sink a lot of points into them. Lasiq mimetic viral snipers are a great example - 24 points for a guy that can only be uprooted by a genuine attack piece and has a chance even there and who hits really hard. These guys are best when you go first. Your initial attack can knock off some key threats to your snipers and then the Lasiqs can molest people for the rest of the game.
The main advantage of MSV2 is that warband units can't smoke past it. Because it doesn't effect your opponent's role though, they are the easiest snipers to kill with a HMG.
One other point in favour of camo rather than MSV: because camo makes everyone's rolls lower, it tends to result in a more significant order sink. MSV is a more effective killer in many cases, especially of skirmishers and specialists moving to buttons, but they rarely produce low-target-roll trades, and such low target role instances often result in order sinks on the part of your opponent.
d) things with multiple wounds and high armour. Here is where the (HI) link teams demonstrate their indispensability to good defence. A 2B unit with BS 13-16 will usually only take 1 or at most 2 hits in a burst from a HMG. If you have 2W and ARM3+ then you can shrug those off and keep firing. If you have an ML and your opponent has to engage you repeatedly to put you down, you maximise the possibility that when you get lucky and win the 70-30 ftf roll you will disintegrate the attacking piece. If things get hairy (like against a hyper-rapid-magnetic-cannon) you can always just take a wound and go prone, ready to be healed by your doctor.
* note: TR bots are mostly bad. Some lists struggle against them, but usually you just stack a MOD on them and suddenly they are hitting on 5s at best. They ain't gonna win shit at that point. They are good bait and they are also good on turn 2 to roll out to cover off a portion of the board from skirmishers. Don't expect them to stand up to a proper attack piece on turn 1 though.
1.5 Ways to slow your opponent down
All the points above apply here, plus some extra comments. The basic point is that if your plan is just to hide on turn one and let your opponent walk forward without doing anything, some lists will destroy you. For example, a Cutter will spend 2 orders to walk into your DZ with its 6-4 MOV under a token, and then it will open up and cut your order pool apart ("cut" - see what I did there?). Steel Phalanx will crush forward and then fire templates into all your clustered guys. Ariadna will press every single button and lay 12 mines around each of them.
The main way to slow your opponent down is with the ARO pieces discussed above. The other methods are minelayers and boost weapons like crazy koalas, repeater traps (obviously these are only effective against some lists) and camo fields. Note that many of the games really scary fast assault pieces don't particularly care about mines and koalas because they can just dodge them or take a hit with HI/TAG as you charge forward looking for the alpha strike.
1.75 An alpha-strike capable unit
Incidentally, I've noticed that very few metas have a strong alpha strike element. In Canberra, we cut our teeth playing against Steel Phalanx, the best alpha strike faction in the game, so we are not only very aware of the power of the alpha strike, but also paranoid about being capable of stopping one.
The power of the alpha strike lies in 2 things:
1) Removing orders from your opponent before their game has effectively started. Steel Phalanx for example will have 11 orders on turn 1 in our typical list (strategos from Hector for the 11th). It doesn't seem like much, but after Pheonix kills 4 guys with rocket launcher templates and then Hector rounds a corner in your DZ and lays sweet plasma death over 5 cheerleaders, suddenly you're 9 orders down and those 11 Phalanx orders are on beefy HI with ODDs rather than your chumps.
2) Asserting table control from the outset. Again, Phalanx is instructive. Your myrmidons assault, focusing on their cheerleaders and principle attack pieces (usually you just go for the biggest clumps of dudes for your templates), and leaving behind Atalanta and a Agema with missile launcher (both MSV2 snipers with good BS). Once you're alpha strike is over, you've got a very strong link team in your opponent's deployment zone in their optimal ARO range band (pheonix with ODD, B2, BS13, cover and range on the rocket launcher is a menace, especially when his shots are accompanied by the 16 point myrmidon throwing smoke to cover the whole team, thereby making your over-commitment to the alpha strike safe from a counter-attack - remember that myrmidons are CC21 and MA3, so you don't want to engage them in the smoke), and two snipers covering the board who are often free of major threats. Your opponent now has to spend a lot of orders just getting into position for a decent face-to-face. The game is basically over.
The other reason why you need something that can do a decent alpha strike (not much - a Rui Shi is sufficient) is so that your opponent can't turtle. If your first turn just involves creeping into the mid-field you're going to get run over on your opponent's turn as all their spitfire are in the prime range bands. You need to be able to just commit one rambo to the alpha who then sells their life dearly on ARO. You have now owned the first turn.
2. A link team
As you may have guessed from the discussion above, I don't think you should leave home without a link team. Some units in Vanilla have a similar level of killing power with maybe even some utility to a link team - things like the Anathematic, Marut or Achilles, but they rarely also bring the defensive power, let alone the order economy. SSlvl2 is brutal, especially on snipers, because it means you can dodge templates really well and can't be smoke shot. This cuts out some of the main ways to take a cluster of units like a link-team down. The B and BS bonus turns humble LI into killing machines with a HMG - real cheap ones to boot. And the 10 point combi guys suddenly become excellent drop zone guards with B2 and BS 13 or 14. Nowadays I mostly choose factions for tournaments based on what link team I can use while still being able to complete the missions. The ones that I consider solid are below (Haramaki only make the list because of the impetuous discount):
Aconticimento Regulars, Bagh Mari, Fusiliers, Hospitaller + Magisters, Haramaki with MLs, Grey + volunteers, Minutemen, Janissaries, Ghulams with Leila, Riot grrls, Rodoks, Myrmidons, Thorakites with Thrasymides, Jaguars with Massacre. Some others can be good against some opponents but are also sometimes a major liability, like the Onyx TAG harris, moiras (god these hate warbands) and unidrons. Some other link teams are good but are outshone by similar link teams in other factions, the most obvious being the Wu Ming, who suffer for not having a ML (though Kuang Shi powering HI hrrnnggg).
3. Attack pieces that can take the major defensive pieces on turn 1
Efficiently leaving your drop zone on turn 1 is critical to victory. If your opponent can kill you or slow you down you are losing economy. If you can reach his DZ with an impact template weapon you can get enormous economy. There are three kinds of defensive pieces you need to worry about:
a) Snipers in 5-man link teams (i.e. with SSl2).
b) TO camo and mimetic snipers
c) MSV2 snipers
For these you need three things to be efficient. You can't always have all three:
a) something with an ODD or TO camo that can stack a MOD through the SSl2, B2 and +3BS. This is something like a Hac Tao - a big, bad motherfucker with an ODD. This is your principle attack piece
b) An MSV2 unit, preferably one with a HMG or at least a spitfire. A high B and decent BS HMG is often enough, like a HMG in an LI link team.
c) Here you want no-frills HI with 2W and a HMG, or a TR bot with supportware and an engineer nearby to get it back up from the second level of unconscious. Something that can take the lucky hit from the sniper, survive and then come back for a second shot, winning with B advantage. The Zuyong HMG is a great example, or an Orc HMG. Your principle attack piece can do this job, but I'd rather have a secondary unit do it.
Obviously some times you will have a unit that can feasibly do 2 of these. For example, the BS17 HMG hospitaller in the Military Orders link can do (a) and (c) pretty comfortably. A Hsien with an HMG can do (b) and (c) quite comfortably, especially with a little bit of smoke.
Some examples of this mix in action:
E.G.1) Steel Phalanx: (a) Pheonix (b) Atalanta (c) Hector
E.G. 2) Pan-Oceania (a) Cutter (b) Nisse (c) Orc HMG or TR bot
E.G. 3) Nomads (a) Kusanagi with smoke to get forward (b) Intruder (c) TR bot
4. A principle attack piece with multiple wounds or some other access to redundancy
In the past I was completely obsessed with MOD stacks. I still am, but nowadays I also put a lot of stock in having 2 wounds on my main beatstick so (s)he can take a crit or a bad roll and keep going. Sometimes this just isn't possible (notably in Nomads), but it's something you can usually arrange, at least by bringing something with dogged. If you can't, then make sure you have doctors around to heel your intruder when they unexpectedly die to a TR bot hitting on 2s and need to be picked back up.
5. Specialists who infiltrate, are fast, or have some additional purpose i.e. aren't just LI dudes with a combi.
Infinity is substantially about order economy. At the start of this article I talked about the order economy you get from having strong ARO pieces that sink orders. Another angle on economy is what you might call 'incidental specialists'. These are specialists who are near buttons not because you spent orders specifically to get them there, but because they were doing something else in the vicinity, notably killing your opponent. These are the specialists you want, even more than skirmishers. Skirmishers are great because they deploy near the buttons thanks to infiltrate, but they are often quite expensive for paper thin models, and die horribly to chain rifle warbands, which are abundant and make for a very bad trade. Much better are things like the Dao Fei assault hacker with MULTI rifle, who can kill stuff and press buttons as he goes, the Anathematic hacker, and link teams with embedded specialists. This is perhaps the main power of Tohaa (and a prominent dimension of Steel Phalanx) - the ability to have a defensive link team at home, and two attack pieces down field pulling specialists along with them.
What you absolutely want to avoid as much as possible is relying on specialists who are just LI dudes with a specialist quality, like Daktari and the Keisotsu hacker (a standby in vanilla YJ for casting gadget programs on Rui Shis and Lu Duans). Think of these guys as being able to push buttons but only in a pinch. Relying on them forces you to spend heaps of orders (like 6+) just getting a guy to a button to push it. Sometimes you can get some economy with combined orders (but not if your guys have helper bots, which they usually do) but it's almost always wasteful. The problem is compounded by the fact that a sniper can easily pick them off as they go.
All factions have link teams that can help with this issue, but otherwise 'incidental specialists' are actually quite hard to come by. It is rare to find an attack piece that can also push a button, and even when you do they usually don't have the ideal support weapon. Some prominent examples include De Ferzen, the Dao Fei and Hac Tao (though Hac I think is too $$$), Uxia, Kusanagi, The Anathematic and the Charontid. That's about it.
If you can't get incidental specialists or link teams, then the next best thing is skirmishers, but try to find ones that are also useful for something other than button pressing. The most obvious example is skirmishers with shotguns rather than combi rifles, like the Hawwa, who can hit really hard and press buttons. Another is something like the Moran, who brings Koalas for minelaying and a repeater for setting up a web. What you want to avoid is expensive things with combi rifles that don't even deploy under a marker, like the Kanren. If you have to take something with a combi, then go for something cheap, like a zero with KHD. In fact, KHD infiltrators are generally one of the better options, because they sometimes have huge killing potential. FOs can also be good if you think on your feet - targetted is a big advantage, especially if the mission involves a lot of classifieds.
6. Other really cool stuff:
These are things that aren't strictly necessary but are things I consider huge advantages.
a) The ability to avoid loss of lieutenant. Lol against good players is basically game over, so being resilient to it is very powerful. The obvious way to achieve this is with chain of command units like the Kempetei, Farzan (so good - under a camo marker!) and Kaeltar specialists. Another prominent method is to have a really tough lieutenant like an anathematic; this is doubly good because they can use the lieutenant order effectively. Mnemonica is obviously awesome, as are lieutenants who deploy under markers, like interventors who can cybermask (though beware going second) and Jacques Bruant. Finally, don't forget that Veterans ignore Lol. The most prominent example of this is Rodoks in Onyx. Your defence is really strong, so even if your first turn you are in Lol, if you've got 5 orders of Morats to use and your opponent took a beating from your missiles or unidrons while coming to assassinate your nexus, you've still got plenty of killing power.
b) Resilience to the first turn curbstomp. This is the tactic where a big link teams or TAG just charges straight at you turn 1, gutting your order pool and locking you down with snipers thereafter. It is a particularly bad proposition for low-order count lists that rely on TAGs or something similar. The Marut list provides clear guidance on how to be robust to it: have units that deploy hidden and/or are order sinks like the proxy sniper, have units with NWI or multiple wounds that take a lot of orders to kill, leaving your other orders unmolested, have units under camo (Nagas) that take orders to discover and kill etc. More generally, when deploying, make sure it isn't possible to drop a template across your troops - the main way to lose against the curbstomp is to take a boarding shotgun over your cheerleaders or have your lieutenant clipped by a stray rocket launcher blast.
c) Alien i.e. your opponent can't use impersonator 2. This is actually a big deal for Tohaa. I have been playing Hassassins a lot lately and my games against everybody are pretty straightforward except against Tohaa, where I am significantly neutered because I can't be belligerent in using MOV-MOV orders on my Fidays.
d) Useful lieutenants. This is kind of an extension to the point I made above about specialists. It sucks to have a lieutenant who does nothing but hide and is otherwise weak, like the moderator decoy in Bakunin. They can't use the lieutenant order and they're vulnerable. A lieutenant that can use the lt. order, like Machaon or an interventor, is a step up. A lieutenant who can use the order and is resilient, like a Zuyong HMG or Cassandra, is even better, just beware of assassination attempts.
No comments:
Post a Comment