O12 listbuilding

Hola

I have retired from Infinity, and I've actually been really good about it and only checked army twice in like 3 months. It's working! Then O12 came out and I had a bit of a longer look. Eventually I felt the need to write some stuff down. Getting it out of my system will make it less likely that I look at Army again.

Infinity faction tiers 1-4

Edit (17/07/2021): I have updated this for N4 in a new post (there aren't many changes) - see here: https://emperorsghost.blogspot.com/2021/07/infinity-tier-list-for-n4.html

It is often said in Infinity "it's not your list, it's you". This is somewhat correct, but mostly horseshit. Some units in the game are simply inferior to others, like the Yan Huo with Missiles is strictly worse than a Hac Tao with missile launcher. Let me list some other units that are just bad: bolts (they are now passable with CoC and the changes to bioimmunity), Aida Swanson, Cube Jaegers, Taskmasters, Guijia, Takael (the symbiobug guy). You never see these units in winning lists, and I would almost say that you don't see them period. The same can be said of some factions: they just suck. Inversely, some units and factions are simply outstanding. I won't write a list of the best units, because that would take forever, but I do think it is helpful to have an idea of the faction tiers so that newbs stop playing Morats because "it's easy". MAF is actually infinity on hard mode. Yes, there are fewer rules. There's also no hope of winning unless you are very skilful in melee. I will explain my picks.

Note that some factions in tier 2 become tier 1 when the mission mix/meta is right. For example, Hassassins is nigh-on unbeatable in ground control missions when piloted by a good player on tall terrain. I would also say that the difference is only really noticeable between tier 1 and 3/4. Tier 2 against 3 is totally fair. Tier 1 against 2 is also barely noticeable. Tier 4 is always noticeably hard to win with.

Playtesting Vanilla Ariadna

I make no secret of a few opinions that I hold:

• I want to be able to play a finesse faction - something that relies on things like melee, hacking, stealth, smoke shenanigans and jank like sat-lock to win games rather than just pounding my opponent with first-order optimal strategies (e.g. link teams) and units (e.g. Rui Shi). 
• I think link teams are a bit broken (make BS only work on active and B only work on reactive) and I don't really see any reason to play vanilla these days. As such, playing Vanilla is basically a handicap. I like the idea of playing with a handicap and still winning
• I've been trying for ages to make a camo-spam Nomads list work but it just doesn't because hacking is over-costed (compare it to a 5 point Mutt that does the same thing) and under-powered (mostly because everything you want to hack has stealth...<cough> knight <cough>...)
• I'm bored with infinity because second-order optimal strategies are so tough to make work.

Well I have an announcement: vanilla Ariadna may save Infinity for me.

Playtesting jank shit

Now that CanCon is over we're going deep into the praxis labs to test weird shit that might work as part of some unexpected second- or even third-order strategy. My mate actually discovered a very powerful way to play Tohaa using this method. He started by trying to build a list with highest wound count possible, using things like Rasails, preceptors (super cheap 2 wound model) and lots of cheap Sakiel paramedics. We discovered a couple of things. First, double makaul + sakiel paramedic triads are fierce. They score well and the Makaul eat anything in close combat. The best your opponent can do is put a useless wound on the Sakiel. Tohaa melee was born. Second, guerilla warfare with heaps of cheap direct template weapons on cheap units is a very effective counter to most alpha strikes, especially if the templates are flamers. Trading with things like Chaksas works especially well in a ~31 wound list. These were golden insights that are now informing all sorts of weird shit that actually seems to work. Below are other things we intend to try:

CanCon Battle Reports

Well CanCon is over for another year. Went 4-1 and finished 3/70. Pretty happy with the result. Only loss was a close one at 4-1 and might have flipped to a win if we had time for turn 3. All other games were major victories. Aside from maybe one moment I managed not to be a dick at any point, which is the main thing. Battle reports below. I have omitted my opponent's names.

Ikari Tactics and Playtesting

God I love this sectorial!

• I love the fluff: Japanese revolutionaries and deserters from the Chinese penal corp committing dishonorable war crimes; mercenaries; machismo
• I love the units: a shit-tonne of impetuous dudes including the amazing (top 5 units in the game) Yuan yuan backed up by HI link teams, the Rui Shi (another top 5 unit, though maybe not at 1.5SWC) with smoke support, and cheap specialist profiles from Keisotsu
• And I love the playstyle: BANZAI!!!!

The only thing stopping me from completely committing to this faction for the next 12 months is that I freakin' love STARCO as well. 

Alright let's break the faction down and do up some initial lists (date: 03/04/2018):