The makings of a strong faction

Infinity is a very balanced game, but there are still good and bad lists. The following makes a lot of points regarding what makes on faction better/worse than another and why. I will follow up with articles on which factions suck, are average, are borderline and are top tier. 

 The first question that needs answering is, what do you want in a faction?

1. Combat pieces that win face-to-face rolls. This means having MSV2, camouflage, ODD, good stats and good access to support weapons with high burst for offence or sniper rifles for defence. Examples of major attack pieces include the Hsien, Aquila, Myrmidon link teams, Moira link teams and the avatar. Examples of bad attack pieces include the Yan Huo and most TAGs (most do not have MSV2 or camouflage, and remember that the camouflaged ones die pretty easily to a decent smoke shooting unit – except for the Avatar, which has AR12 when in cover).

2. To be able to construct a list that is great at missions that require 6+ specialists, like emergency transmission. This basically means you have access to at least 6 good specialists (high WIP), a variety of good specialists (all four types), have specialists with infiltrate and preferably camo, and have specialists that can join link teams, preferably as doctors. It might also mean having link teams of super cheap guys (like 5 FOs for 10 points each) that you can charge up using the link team movement dynamics.

3. To be able to construct a list that is good at killing and area denial missions like Annihilation, frontline and quadrant control. The most straightforward way to do this is to have a link team of Heavy Infantry with BS13+ and a variety of weapon range bands. These guys are very hard to uproot once they occupy a defensive position in the centre of the table and will always have a decent face to face thanks to BS16 base and +3 for range. Throw in shotguns and they become even more robust. They also ignore smoke penalties thanks to link team rules. Once in the middle they can reshuffle as necessary to allocate large numbers of points to appropriate table sections for frontline, supremacy and the like.

4. Have access to decent MSV2 units, preferably with an assault load-out so that you can mix them with cheap smoke throwing warbands to make a devastating attack unit, or a multi-sniper rifle so they can shut-down enemy smoke shooting tactics and all advancing units. Note that against most good attack pieces you will need to utilise that 48" inch range advantage

5. Infiltrating, camouflaged specialists, preferably with boarding shotguns. This is how you own the midfield. You start in proximity to objectives and if anyone pops out you get +6 to hit. Your mimetism makes it a good face-to-face. If you only have combi-rifles then you really want MSV1 (e.g. Guilang).

6. A TO: Camo unit with infiltrate and a boarding shotgun, like the Oniwaban or Nomad Spectr. These guys are an outstanding secondary attack piece and can single-handedly win games. I have yet to play against someone who effectively anticipated an Oniwaban.

7. A 5-man link team candidate with a base BS of 12 or higher (preferably 13), and preferably a high PH too for dodging those direct templates. This is a big part of winning command and control missions, but it is worth listing on its own because link teams are so powerful. The best link teams also bring other things that make them great attack pieces, like ODD (Moiras) or MSV2 (Djanbazan), a variety of weapon range bands, high PH for dodging template weapons and high WP if they are HI so they can avoid hackers.

8. A second link team, but this option is presently only really open to Tohaa, Phalanx and Qapu Khalki. Here I tend to look for a heavy rocket launcher – B3 rockets are amazing attack pieces. Don’t forget that command tokens can create new links teams. This can be used to, for example, move from a defensive Keisotsu link team with missile launchers to a Karakuri link team on your active turn, and potentially back again.

Some bonus things: cheerleaders (regular orders with chain rifles for 5 points, minesweeper bots, AI beacons, etc.), cheap lieutenants that don't cost SWC, infiltrators with d-charges for the classified objective e.g. Konstantinos or the Hawwa hackers and forward observers (this means you don’t need the usually redundant engineer), cheap fillers for expensive link teams, like forward observers, dudes with shotguns, or the Hafza holoprojector 1.