I played a game! It was lovely! I made a whole bunch of mistakes! Learnt a lot! Still won! Still got it! Read on to find out more!
I was running this list in frontline:
Die Hard
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GROUP 1 7 / 1
LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 8)
BRIGADIER BRUANT (Lieutenant) AP Spitfire, Chain-colt, D-Charges / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 28)
VASSILY (Chain of Command) T2 Marksman Rifle, Akrylat-Kanone, D-Charges / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 40)
STRELOK Submachine Gun, Chain-colt, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 16)
VOLUNTEER Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 6)
VOLUNTEER Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 6)
SCOUT AP Sniper Rifle, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 25)
ROKOT (Infiltration, Camouflage [1 Use]) Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 12)
GROUP 27
BLACKJACK AP Heavy Machine Gun, Chest Mines, Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 38)
PAVEL McMANNUS Ohotnik, Chain-colt, Shock Mines / Pistol, T2 CC Weapon. (0 | 32)
UXÍA McNEILL (Specialist Operative) Boarding Shotgun, D-Charges, Smoke Grenades / Assault Pistol(+1B), AP CC Weapon. (0 | 27)
CHASSEUR (Minelayer) Rifle, Light Flamethrower, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 20)
CHASSEUR (Minelayer) Rifle, Light Flamethrower, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 20)
GRUNT Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 10)
GRUNT (Infiltration) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 11)
6 SWC | 299 Points
[url=https://infinitytheuniverse.com/army/list/gS0HYXJpYWRuYQhEaWUgSGFyZIEsAgEIAIT7AQQAAIEGAQMAAIR%2BAQEAAIRmAQMAAID1AQIAAID1AQIAAIDuAQQAAIXuAQgAAgcAgwcBiy4AAISAAQEAAIEHAQIAAID8AQQAAID8AQQAAIDmAQIAAIDmAQYA]Open in Infinity Army
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Pretty standard Ariadna camo spam list. You could tweak it for the mission (e.g. MSV Uxia rather than specialist) but I couldn't be stuffed. Main principles: all the camo, everyone has a direct template weapon so you touch me I touch you, blackjack to clear parapets, Vassily and Bruant to sweep around.
My opponent was playing an O12 list something like the following:
Experimenting with Hector & Raptor
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GROUP 1 10 / 1
SIRIUS (Forward Observer) Boarding Shotgun, Flash Pulse, D-Charges / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 25)
SIRIUSBOT Heavy Riotstopper / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 5)
EPSILON MULTI Sniper Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 33)
RAZOR (Minelayer) Boarding Shotgun, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 32)
GANGBUSTER (Minelayer, Hacker, Killer Hacking Device) Submachine Gun, Madtraps ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 22)
VARANGIAN Submachine Gun, Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Heavy Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (0 | 12)
PEELER Heavy Machine Gun / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 25)
HECTOR (Lieutenant [+1 Order]) Plasma Rifle, Nanopulser, Grenades ( | TinBot: Firewall [-3]) / Heavy Pistol, EXP CC Weapon. (0 | 69)
CHO (Chain of Command) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 20)
BLUECOAT Submachine Gun, Heavy Riotstopper / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 16)
RAPTOR (Hacker, Killer Hacking Device) MULTI Rifle, Light Flamethrower ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 42)
DEVABOT Heavy Flamethrower / PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 5)
GROUP 2 / 1
WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse ( ) / Stun Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)
3 SWC | 299 Points
[url=https://infinitytheuniverse.com/army/list/g%2BkEby0xMgEggSwCAQoAhawBBAAAha4BAgAAhbMBBAAAhbQBAwAAhbUBBAAAhbkBAQAAgvIBAwAAhe0BAQAAhfkBAQAAhf0BBAACAQAyAQEA]Open in Infinity Army
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He wanted to try out Hector and the Raptor boarding squad. The KHD load out on the raptor is neat because you can cybermask and get into range for your MULTI rifle and heavy flamer, and you're a HI specialist with 6-2, which is nice. NCO works nice with Cho and Hector's extra orders if you don't want to spend them on him. 360 visor always seems a bit over-costed to me because good positioning can typically eliminate the need for it, but it can be situationally excellent. Not sure the unit is worth 42 points (compare to Unknown Ranger), but neat and unusual.
I won the lieutenant roll, which was annoying because I didn't really know what I wanted to do and I knew he was bringing Hector and so would have elected to go first if he won. I chose to go second anyway because frontline rewards it and I am very hard to alpha strike effectively. The table was very dense with a lot of parapets. So I managed to get everyone into pretty solid positions. Scout was reserve-deployed prone on a helipad with views of the whole table, but I didn't manage to stand him up the whole game because my opponent reserve-deployed his Epsilon (MSV2, mimetism, BS13) sniper at the very back of his table with sight lines to most of that side of the board. My blackjack was in the opposite corner. Boo. He also placed a mine on that helipad with his Razor minelayer to prevent Uxia and the Scout from moving. Oh well, I was happy to leave their 52 points chilling in midfield scoring positions.
He deployed in offensive-defensive long-short range pairs (smart). Hector was on one flank with the TR bot, while the Raptor was on the other with the Epsilon. His infiltrators were spread across the midfield - razor on the side with the epsilon, gangbuster in the middle behind some crates, and Sirius on the flank with Hector.
His first turn was uneventful due to analysis paralysis induced by a sea of camouflage. He failed to identify a chasseur hiding on a bridge with his epsilon, but that unit was now effectively stuck and it was only a matter of time before he died. Note to self, ideally you want your camouflage hidden to the enemy deployment zone. I knew this, but still managed to fuck up a bit. A couple of millimetres back and I would have been safe. He then discovered and killed a 2nd Chausseur with his Gangbuster. Another poor deployment on my part - should have just sat him next to the grunt on the same roof. The Sirius bot sacrificed itself to remove 2 mines. Hector moved forward to midfield but did nothing else. That was it I think. My turn I killed the warcor with Pavel. I also took a shot at the gangbuster but he passed his armour save and went prone. Pavel retreated to safety. Uxia discovered the mine, which I should have realised was a mine because I knew that O12 didn't have any camo infiltrators so what else could be it. She made her dodge fortunately, then decided to chill out. I move my blackjack away from Hector and towards the epsilon, hoping to kill it next turn. Then the main action was a liberto laying mines and firing shotguns at Sirius and Hector. Killed the Sirius but couldn't put any wounds on Hector. I used Bruant's lieutenant order to move him up a bit.
His turn 2 was effective. He killed my liberto with a crit (sad) and took a mine out with the plasma template. He then spent pretty much all his other orders on his Razor. First he tried to WIP-3 the HVT. At this point, I should have revealed a Chasseur and flamed the devabot, but thought I would wait for the discover roll. I was going to die anyway though, so I think I should have prioritised Bruant. He would still have needed to spend the order to move-discover Bruant with the Raptor if the bot was dead. He succeeded on the 2nd WIP roll. Then discovered Bruant. I revealed him and the chasseur to kill the bot successfully, but Bruant died to flamer fire. My turn I moved my blackjack into good range band (16.5"!) against Hector and let off a volley. Miraculously, he missed with all his suppression fire shots, which meant I got 3 hits. He needed 11s to save and failed all of them! One dead Hector, 69 points off the table, and the game swung wildly in my favour. I then moved again to target the Epsilon, but found myself just out of range (35") and needing 4s to hit. I promptly loss the ftf and took a wound. I didn't have enough orders left to go round to get a better range band, so I dropped into suppression. I managed to put a wound on the Razor with my Rokot. I then casevac Bruant to try to score my classified. As I was moving around a building, his razor appears thinking that it was my 2nd short skill, but only the 1st, so we trade shots. It's a close ftf thanks to my shotgun, and I prevail. The midfield is now assuredly mine thansk to luck and miscommunication. We take those! I moved Vassily out of the DZ. Could have moved him via a safer path, but it didn't end up mattering thankfully.
His turn 3 his razor killed my Rokot and my blackjack, and then he moved units into his 3rd of the scoring zones. My turn Vassily killed his TR bot (surprise shot, within 16", mimetism -3, and cover mean the TR bot needs 2s - TR bots suck), then doubled back to hit his Razor but fail to wound. There wasn't much left to do except move a few guys round, so I called it with 8 orders left and won a minor victory with midfield control. Perhaps I had enough points to move Vassily into his half of the gaming table and claim a major, but it was a late and I didn't want to do the math.
Lessons learned:
- 12 is a relatively hard matchup because of the combination of high ARM/W and MOD stacks, especially the abundance of MSV. I suspect that there will be a lot of this sort of elite shennanigans in these days of 15 order counts, which hurts Ariadna a bit. On the plus side, if you are in 10 orders it is very hard for you to do more than discover one unit per turn.
- Worth attaching some priority to killing units with escort bots because they get double discover rolls, which messes with the math of camo spam.
- Try to be completely invisible to your opponent's deployment zone at game start. They must emerge to discover you.
- The blackjack should typically be your reserve deployment if you expect a sniper. Wouldn't have mattered in this case because of Hector's strategos, but still noteworthy. I'm sad my scout didn't get to lock down the table. Would have been lovely to snipe Hector from across the table.
- Light shotguns are much worse in N4 with the changes to impact templates, though it does mean the liberto, Rokot, 112, and others now have a direct template weapon.
- Don't use Brouant's lieutenant order if you don't need to or you don't have a genuine trap in mind (e.g. the scout sniper covering him from across the table).
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