Help vs spam

I have never honestly faced something like this but I have thought about trying it out a few times.

Try and go first to clear out the infiltrating guys with your first turn and hope you have a crazy amount of overwatch?

 

Wow, that's nasty!. He should have a lot of disgruntled opponents!

 

Spam morlocks/shaolin monks/your equivalent.

This is the elephant in the room I always bring up. Order spam is king, and I get run out of town whenever I speak that forbidden phrase :D

Hope for turn 1 and kill his obvious LT? Who will likely have 5-8 flamer guys watching his back? :P

Frankly though, unless he is a rather competent player I can see him being told not to play that list at tourneys due to how long it'd make the game(s)

 

Combined Army, Shasvastii, Haqqislam or Hassassins are going to have a field-day while killing the obvious LT.

If going second, use defence-in-depth to keep the infiltrating Grunts away from your long-range reactive troopers, because the Grunts that manage to infiltrate are the only thing in the list that will be capable of dealing with them - and after that the USAriadna player will be trying to advance up the table with Rifles. A single well-placed sniper could lock down his entire force!

 

Hello...

Ok, a really nasty spam, but he have nothing really "heavy" in long range. To give you and answer, which faction do you play usually? I think not all the factions have the same tools.
But I'am aware that not only the faction which you commmand is the problem here, because in a Tournament you have to make lists agaisnt many rivals as you can. Most of the factions have some kind of deployable weapon as mines, crazykoalas... This can be helpfull and maybe could stop the infiltrated grunts, buying you time to launch the counter attack. If you place some mines and deploy your troops on the top of the buildings, your rival probably only can move the grunts into a more dangerous position, and you will can avoid them in your active turn. Yes, depends a lot of the table.

I think factions like haquiss can stop this way to play with a cheap investement of points, muttawiah and naffatum make the trick. But others like pano can have problems in order to dealing, and still be competent, against list like the "GRUNTSPAM".

Tell us more about what do you play to a best answer :D

Good luck!! :)

 

Deploying mines and perimeter weapons against a Grunt Spammer going first is difficult since none of them may be inside the Perimeter's ZoC and quite frankly unless you're able to position a mine in a way so that the Ariadnan player can't Discover->shoot it and also cover more than one Grunt, that's still quite a lot of Grunts that cost basically nothing and where taking a mine or a Koala to the face is almost beneficial. All they care about is rounding the corner and putting down the template to cover 2+ enemies.

Still, using vertical table features is going to see a fairly large amount of troops in your DZ safe from this tactic.

 

What's your goal ?

If it is facing him in a fair fight :

Multiple total reaction drone have a lot of potential here (including the combi TR drone). Deployed in your backfield in a high enough spot, it should be able to block most grunt. For example : nomad list can deploy 2 TR HMG, 2 TR combi and 1 sin eater HMG. Add some morlock for close up defense and you should be able to do a lot of damage. Add some TO specialist to do objectives and some AD/Bran to hunt the obvious lieutenant and you should be able to kick some ass.

If playing Ariadna, I would also play full camo with a lot of minelaying and decoy to waste order plus highlanders to play DZ guards (exchanging one highlander vs grunt is a fair exchange)


If it is to play as nasty as your opponent, I would suggest an highlander horde with a pair of SAS to do objectives, wallace will hidden somewhere and murrough to hunt the USAriadna DZ (yes that's 67 orders including 35 regulars) :

Caledonian Highlander Army
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 2 8 8
WALLACE Lieutenant Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, EXP CCW. (0 | 35)
S.A.S. (Forward Observer) Rifle / Pistol, AP CCW, Knife. (0 | 24)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)

GROUP 2 10 10
McMURROUGH 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades, Smoke Grenades / Templar CCW (AP + DA). (0 | 31)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)

GROUP 3 1 9 9
S.A.S. (Forward Observer) Rifle / Pistol, AP CCW, Knife. (0 | 24)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)

GROUP 4 5 5
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)
HIGHLANDER Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 6)

0 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

I would think of adding replacing maybe some highlander by one or 2 camerionian to enjoy the total immunity against flammer

 

TR Remotes and Sineaters are probably a primary target for such a Grunt, rather than a deterrent. The Heavy Flamethrower template is large enough that it should be possible to catch a TR HMG or Sineater in it. I didn't give the Grunt cover below, but it's fully possible it'll get Cover as well, which puts the Husong down to 60% chance.
Those particular units are the ones I'd personally hide from the infiltrating Grunts and try and get long-range ARO against the remaining army.

Active Player
70.00% USAriadna Grunts inflicts 1 or more wounds on Hùsòng Yáokòng (Unconscious)
49.00% USAriadna Grunts inflicts 2 or more wounds on Hùsòng Yáokòng (Unconscious 2)
34.30% USAriadna Grunts inflicts 3 or more wounds on Hùsòng Yáokòng (Dead)

Failures
30.00% No success
Reactive Player
82.15% Hùsòng Yáokòng inflicts 1 or more wounds on USAriadna Grunts (Unconscious)
43.70% Hùsòng Yáokòng inflicts 2 or more wounds on USAriadna Grunts (Dead)

 

Mines can be nice... but, enemy might just sacrifice 1-2 grunt to clear all the mines... Hide long range aroes? When you have grunt under your nose? Don't think so... Grunt make one move and his flamer reaches the opponent end of board. Honestly - this list might break inifnity - please write us what are the successes of this spam-user... Because no one in comments ever played against something like this, spam list have counter-measures to all proposed solutions...except sudden LOL ... but that spam list can be improved.
Try also to improve the spam list by making several possible LT, so enemy don't know whom to kill to make LOL. Very interesting. Infinity is quite difficult to break, as it can be random as hell, but this list might do it...

The only way to fight this list, in my opinion, is to roll high ARM values :)

 

Add TAK to that list

 

No, I've definitely not played against lists with 10 infiltrating Grunts (not 12 like this list, but the lists get much scarier with some actual long-range guns in), or lists with three Combat Groups...

P.S. @psychoticstorm might this be better placed in the Access Guide forum?

 

This is even more order-optimized, and with a way to protect your Lt (Fireteam and mines)

USAriadna Ranger Force
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 10
GRUNT (Inferior Infiltration) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 11)
GRUNT (Inferior Infiltration) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 11)
GRUNT (Inferior Infiltration) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 11)
GRUNT (Inferior Infiltration) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 11)
MARAUDER Lieutenant Rifle, Heavy Flamethrower / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (0 | 21)
MARAUDER Boarding Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22)
MARAUDER Boarding Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22)
GRUNT Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
GRUNT Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
GRUNT Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)

GROUP 2 10
GRUNT (Inferior Infiltration) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 11)
GRUNT (Inferior Infiltration) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 11)
GRUNT (Inferior Infiltration) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 11)
GRUNT (Inferior Infiltration) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 11)
GRUNT Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
GRUNT Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
GRUNT Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
GRUNT Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
GRUNT Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
GRUNT Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)

GROUP 3 6
GRUNT (Inferior Infiltration) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 11)
GRUNT (Inferior Infiltration) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 11)
GRUNT (Inferior Infiltration) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 11)
DOZER (Traktor Mul Control Device) Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
TRAKTOR MUL (Minesweeper) Electric Pulse. (0 | 5)
TRAKTOR MUL (Minesweeper) Electric Pulse. (0 | 5)

5.5 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

It is always very short ranged and lacks of Specialists, but can score in a lot of missions anyway!


Counters?
1) Take a (couple, if you can) TR REM and place it in high position. As last figure.
2) (M)SR placed in high position
3) Infiltrating TO even with a simple Rifle can disrupt the opponent plan. He will be forced to spend orders to get there. Place TWO infiltrating Sniper at the sides of mid range and make him choose which his Grunts will be killed by...
4) Minelayers and Koala are your friend
5) A successful Flash Pulse (Grunts BTS is 0) prevents further attacks. Try to sneak even a EVO to Overclock your REM if you have enough
6) If you have first turn, you have three missions: Kill his Lt (and eventually Specialists), Score something, aim to start your second turn in Retreat

 

Yeah, I'am aware of the problem to deploy mines and others when you go second. But still they are a good option. You don't need to cover with the template some grunts, probably one of them go well.

We have to considerate the scenery, depends on this we will have more or less success trying to avoid the grunts spam. I preffer the non active defenses plus hide because the template is really large (about 27 cm, almost 11 inches I think) with one movement probably the grunt can hit any troop at sight (not if you are lucky and have a really high build in your table boder).

He have 12 Grunts, statistics say that you will have about 4-6 (depends on lucky) grunts front your doors. And the rest hardly can move too much to be a really danger.

With some factions you don't need really to play the same game:


Haqqislam
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 2 4 4
MUTTAWI'AH Chain Rifle, E/Marat, Jammer, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)
MUTTAWI'AH Chain Rifle, E/Marat, Jammer, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)
MUTTAWI'AH Chain Rifle, E/Marat, Jammer, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)
MUTTAWI'AH Chain Rifle, E/Marat, Jammer, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)
NAFFATÛN Rifle + Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
NAFFATÛN Rifle + Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)

GROUP 2 9 1
BARID Hacker (Killer Hacking Device UPGRADE: Lightning) Rifle + Pitcher / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16)
FIDAY Rifle + Light Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW, Knife. (0 | 31)
AL-DJABEL Rifle + Light Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Viral CCW, Knife. (0 | 35)
FASID HMG + (Smoke and Normal) Light Grenade Launcher, Antipersonnel Mines / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (2 | 53)
MUYIB (Minelayer) Rifle + Light Shotgun, D.E.P. Antipersonnel Mines, E/Mauler / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 24)
GHULAM (Forward Observer) Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
GHULAM Doctor Plus (MediKit) Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16)
GHULAM Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
DJANBAZAN Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 31)
HUNZAKUT (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
NASMAT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)

2.5 SWC | 298 Points

Open in Infinity Army

You have a list what allow you to make an strong defense against his spam (if the statistics don't fail too much). If you can hide in your deployment zone the muttawiah probably with the jammer can stop the spam of grunts. If one grunt can't recive more orders can`t make too much harm. Stille you have 2 minelayer. And too the fiday, both of them are a really good defense if you combine them with the "muttas". The nasmat could prevent the grunts to pass throught one point, you can dodge or engange. Still have 2 unnconscius levels and the enemy can't pass over an enemy troop, no matter in wich state they are, according to the movement rules. If all of it fails the naffatum and the muyib could do the trick...

 

I add more...

If I use the dicecalculator, grunt flamethrower against al fasid... Don't forget Alfasid have SSL1, so if you can place it where the max distance were 8 inches, so your chances are higer. The best option to kill the alfasid it is only a 46%. And it is a risk. If you deploy well your alfasid the rival have to struggle against a mine, probably one order, and later take a better position to shoot your HI, which probably don't die at first shot... If he lost three or four orders triying to put down your HI, probably the others grunt are far away to make a great harm and you can counter attack. I know, more easy to say than do it, but you have your chances and he will have all her strong in this not at all flexible strategy. Don't go into the despair.

Face to Face Roll

USAriadna Grunts - Heavy Flamethrower vs. Al Fasid - Dodge

Active Player
13.50% USAriadna Grunts inflicts 1 or more wounds on Al Fasid (1 W)
6.08% USAriadna Grunts inflicts 2 or more wounds on Al Fasid (Unconscious)
2.73% USAriadna Grunts inflicts 3 or more wounds on Al Fasid (Dead)


Failures
16.50% Neither player succeeds
Reactive Player
70.00% Al Fasid Dodges USAriadna Grunts


USAriadna Grunts - Light Shotgun vs. Al Fasid - Heavy Pistol
Active Player
39.69% USAriadna Grunts inflicts 1 or more wounds on Al Fasid (1 W)
6.61% USAriadna Grunts inflicts 2 or more wounds on Al Fasid (Unconscious)

Failures
43.56% Neither player succeeds
Reactive Player
16.75% Al Fasid inflicts 1 or more wounds on USAriadna Grunts (Unconscious)

USAriadna Grunts - Light Shotgun vs. Al Fasid - Dodge
Active Player
44.19% USAriadna Grunts inflicts 1 or more wounds on Al Fasid (1 W)
7.91% USAriadna Grunts inflicts 2 or more wounds on Al Fasid (Unconscious)

Failures
35.86% Neither player succeeds
Reactive Player
19.95% Al Fasid Dodges USAriadna Grunts

USAriadna Grunts - Light Shotgun vs. Al Fasid - Heavy Pistol

Active Player
46.17% USAriadna Grunts inflicts 1 or more wounds on Al Fasid (1 W)
8.53% USAriadna Grunts inflicts 2 or more wounds on Al Fasid (Unconscious)

Failures
44.27% Neither player succeeds
Reactive Player
9.56% Al Fasid inflicts 1 or more wounds on USAriadna Grunts (Unconscious)


I say it again, what faction are you playing with it?

 

TR bots, Sin-Eaters and mines got mentioned. I'd add cheap snipers (like Line Kazaks, Bounty Hunters, etc), Auxbots/Devabots in armies that have them, heavy TAGs, actually - it's not that easy to harm an ARM 8 unit with flamethrower, and AROs are usually deadly...

 

What about trying the DIS-Courtesy List?
Camo/TO/AD abuse to render VERY DIFFICULT to kill your models. You can try Shasvastii.

 

This kind of list is quiet unexpected and may take an opponent deploying first (so probably going first too) by surprise.
But if that kind of list was so strong we would see it more often in tournament.

It has some obvious drawback :
- it's relying heavily on luck. You may succed to infiltrate all your grunts, or a few of them ... or none of them.
- except the infiltrating grunt, a well placed TO sniper or a TR bot can block all the army. And its not sure you will be able to bring it down with the infiltrating grunt since it usually is a reserve model, placed after you deployed your grunts.
- direct template weapon are not so great against a lot of troops (dodging + armor make it around 30% chance to hurt most of the time)

With my classical MO list (knight link + some TO and snipers), and providing I roll average, I think I would have not trouble to deal with it, using the knight link 6th sens to delay my AROs dodging on 14 or 17.

A more balanced list with only 10 infilitrating grunts (that's still a lot) and a Marauder FT would be much more scary to me.

 

Play Limited Insertion for a time.