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Invincible Tactical Doctrine

Discussion in 'Yu Jing' started by Greysturm, Feb 27, 2019.

  1. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Here's what I learned today: Zhanshi with Light Grenade Launcher is not optional if your meta contains a good Haqq (and to a lesser degree Varuna or Nomad) player.

    One list must contain a Zhanshi link with at least one LGL, otherwise you may end up in a situation where it is literally on a Mutta WIP roll whether you are even able to score.

    It can be accepted that Haqq are simply meant to have 4 Muttas and that playing without 4 Muttas is objectively playing Haqq with an intentional handicap, but it's very disheartening to come to the realization that Invincible Army is one of the factions which have not really been designed with this possible opponent in mind.

    Frankly the terribly large list of weaknesses is getting to me.
     
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  2. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Tai Sheng can stun them with her grenades on the way in, then finish them off when they're stunned. If you can eyeball the ~2" to safely offset the template outside of jammer range it's 45% she gets a stun off on a spec fire in her good range band.

    Against anything that isn't Ghazi any of your stealth HI can also tackle them. As for Ghazi, well it's not like we're not all aware that profile needs to get rebalanced.

    EDIT: Largely unrelated, but I just noticed Stun Grenades are on top of their two BTS rolls, Damage 15. That's alot better than I seem to have thought it was.
     
    #22 Triumph, Mar 9, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 9, 2019
  3. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    Even if you offset the template Spec Fire doesn't change the fact you measure range from model to model, just like any attack. If you're in the +3 grenade rangeband then you're in Jammer range.
     
  4. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Uhhh you got a link to that ruling? The tactical advice suggests otherwise the whole point of spec firing is taking the measurements not from a model but the blast focus so you can ignore MODs such as TO, Partial Cover, etc by shooting at a specific patch of dirt.
     
    #24 Triumph, Mar 9, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 9, 2019
  5. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/speculative-fire-and-camo-tokens.26940/#post-207381

    Do note who pressed "like" on Toadchild's post. The more full answer is in the old forums. So yes, the fact that Wu Ming are not in Invincibles or that Zuyong do not have Light Grenade Launchers anywhere is a massive big huge deal - and no light/medium/skirmish infantry with Veteran.
    Means sectorial has literally no answer to Jammers (and Ghazi in particular) when Jammers are used by someone who's actually a good player. It's not a poor answer, it's no answer. Full. Hard. Counter.
     
  6. Joametz

    Joametz Chinese Empire in Space enthusiast

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    Even though jammers (and muttas in particular) seem oppressive to me in general, you do have ways to attack them in IA outside of just a Zhanshi LGL. For instance Zhencha, which is a troop commonly fielded by IA players because it’s a camo infiltrated specialist.

    In my meta we have a Haqq player and a couple of Nomads as well and most of the time, if someone gets wrecked by jammers is because we were simply outplayed.

    I’m not saying the sectorial doesn’t have weaknesses, it does, and it’s a good thing that it does. I’m just pointing out that the jammer thing in particular doesn’t seem like a hard counter to me.
     
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  7. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Nope, Zhencha won't be able to do its thing against a good Haqq player and a marginally decent deployment zone (increasing amount of missions require you to go to the opponent's side in ITS10, this is a major problem, and an increasing amount of missions have exclusion zones - sometimes this intersects such as with Rescue). If the Zhencha gets within 10" of the Mutta, they get E/Maratted. If they try to do something out of sight of the Mutta, they get jammed (roughly 40% risk).

    We did a bit of counting and conversing after the game, and frankly came to the conclusion that spending 6-7 orders per Mutta to kill them is not viable.
     
  8. Sedral

    Sedral Jīnshān Task Force Officier

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    Against Mutta you'll probably have to kill them in ARO yeah, otherwise you're in for a headache. It's hard to theorize on the zhencha/liu xing as a possible solution since their effectiveness heavily depend of the board you're playing on, but most of the time it will be order intensive.
     
  9. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    The difference between a good Haqq and other players is if they allow their Muttas to take AROs. A good Haqq player will have 3-4 regular orders in their second combat group just to be able to cancel Mutta Impetuous if need be.
     
  10. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    I fully agree, Ghazi are a problem for IA. The specific Ghazi profile is flat out broken, we know. Everyone knows. Trying to balance the rest of the game around them isn't really a place we should be going. The place we should be going is nerfing the Ghazi. They are a clear outlier.

    We should not be forcing every elite based army (or list someone writes) to be able to proliferate high BS, relatively long range, game warping Speculative Fire which is almost as obnoxious as Jammers in some respects just to be able to deal with Ghazi. We should just fix Ghazi. And if Haqq need a couple of improved ARO options to help them cover their DZ then just bloody give them AVA2 Shihabs and add some new and improved Lasiq profiles made to ARO and call it a day.

    But I do not agree with your assessment that the Jammer in a vacuum is a straight up hard counter to IA. IA has multiple Stealth models that can sneak up to and engage Hecklers and Zulu Cobras in F2F rolls and kill them. They're also considerably more expensive and don't saturate the board space in Jammer/E/Marat nonsense like Ghazi do, it's alot more likely you have an option to get around them, or at the very least suiciding a Zencha in to remove a Zulu Cobra is actually viable plan as it's far closer to being an equal trade at 29pts vs 34pts that's reasonable unlike having to suicide to remove a Ghazi.

    Locally everyone hates fucking Ghazi, they've caused alot of grief. When it became clear that Jammers were going to proliferate outside of Haqq when Tunguska dropped there was alot of facepalming, eyerolling, and groaning about it. Once the Hecklers actually got some table time though it became clear that unlike Ghazi they were reasonably balanced and while an effective and useful model, they were a model you actually had options to combat against.


    It's not the Jammer. It's the Jammer being located on a WIP14 idiot that costs 5pts and has a E/M DTW in the Emarat. You can't justify spending alot of orders to hunt down and clear things that cost 5pts and there's four of the fuckers, nor can you afford to have your 34+pt HI trading to attempt to kill a Ghazi it's not economically sound.

    It's far more reasonable to attack say a Heckler with a Zencha. All the Heckler has is a shitty combi rifle or the Jammer to fight you back. You get burst 3, probably on flat BS for Rangeband minus Camo an it's a Face to Face roll instead of getting shitblasted and IMM-2+Isolated by an Emarat.
     
    #30 Triumph, Mar 9, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 9, 2019
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  11. krossaks

    krossaks Well-Known Member

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    As a very trained muttah killer ( like 50% of my games out of tournement are full of this bastards) i can say that speculate about how a good player will handle muttah aganist ARO is pointless, just deppend on the map. I usually manage to get at least one if i hold my haidao sniper as the last model. But hey, muttahs are a damm pain always (specially against exepnsive models like all IA)so how to deal with them:

    1- Natrual counter: Rui Shi + upgrade. Yeah know it's the boring vanilla combo, but since always it's the best way to catch muttahs in active beacuse A) Visor against that stupid smoke B) SHock ammo with th upgrade C) long movement, so less orders to move until have yhe muttah in LOF ( a good haqqui player usually hiddes his muttah to stagnate orders in ARO via jammer) D) as 90% of IA is hackable but the Rui Shi goes with reapeter and a fantastic PB6 so if they try to hack you just declare reset, and later use of our KHD haidao-
    2.- Zencha: Zencha have camo and mobility to be worth moving it to the muttah back. The ideal situation is to shot with the submachine gun with shock out of jammer zone, but if you can't aford to many orders a surprise shot from inside the jammer zone is good enought.
    3.- Haidao sniper: more than a counter is a way to limit the muttah actuation zone, is true that you will never catch more than one in the tipical first round impetuós phase.
    4.- Other ARO, well a muttah than must yuse smoke to advance is a muttah with less orders.

    Honor mentions:

    Liu Xiu as all combat jump troops can try to shot them from the back.

    Hulang: is good enought on CC to try to kill them with knife (remember, they can't aro with jammer if you get on CC from out of LOF and you attack with a knife).

    To be fair i nver considered the Zhansi light grande launcher, but is true that may be worth the try as a tool to kill muttahs ( anyway that 1 SWC in a zhansi kills me).

    @Greysturm may be worth make a section with how to deal with this tricky units ( muttahs ,posthumans etc) with invencible. If you consider to open it i can help you
     
    #31 krossaks, Mar 10, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2019
  12. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Uh... how are you attacking a Ghazi through a repeater with a KHD?
     
  13. krossaks

    krossaks Well-Known Member

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    The KHD is against the hackers that a haqqui player usually play in midfield supporting muttahs ( the AHD one from Qapu ). I was speaking about supporting the Rui Shi in his muttah hunt.
     
  14. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Those all work against mediocre Haqq players. The problem is that Muttas in particular has a very serious skill curve when they start being treated as if they cost what they're actually worth. Unlike Shaolin, Muttas primary job is not to provide smoke and unlike Morlocks Muttas aren't very good choice for clearing mines with. There's a reason why Haqq when evaluated from 1-5 receives a 3-5 score (when every other factions receives only a single number) that depends on the player.

    Zhencha can be made to work, but it involves a fair bit of luck as you'll typically need to run across the entire table and evade Discover checks. If the Mutta is alone and isn't able to properly put their backs against a wall, you can do it with reasonably favourable odds if you're willing to sacrifice most of your order pool to kill a single Mutta. We're talking 3 orders just to get into position, with extra orders required depending on terrain and particulars of deployment with a further ~3 orders if there's an exclusion zone. And then you'll need the orders to take advantage of this.

    Rui Shi straight up doesn't work*. It's a REM and will eat Jammer and Isolation before it gets close enough.

    Haidao straight up doesn't work. All they do is limit Mutta movement, but a good Haqq will be only allow the Haidao to shoot at Muttas that aren't needed for tactical work. Same with other AROs.

    * You need to find a spot where E/Marat can't reach you and where there's no Repeater coverage, which thanks to Kameel shouldn't be very many places. If there is a place where a Rui Shi can work, there is also a place where you can cram a full link of Zuyong through. Zuyong can Cautious Move or if they have a Panggolin with them they can stick the Panggo in Repeater range of the Kameel and take out the Kameel's Repeater to allow easier access - Panggo will be protected by Tinbot and have a decent chance of avoiding Oblivion ARO.
    Basically, when I write "Rui Shi doesn't work", what I mean really is "Rui Shi doesn't work better than brute-forcing it and IA are designed to brute-force problems"

    P.S. Louie isn't an honourable mention, it's a good mandatory mention. Typically a Haqq player can cover attack vectors with repeaters, but won't cover the entire DZ. A Louie should be able to find a spot to drop down in and Haqq will also typically not use normal hacking devices which means the drop should be a normal roll. Problem is, approximately 1 time out of 8, the Louie lands inside the Jammer/Hacker line (and 1 times out of 8 the Louie lands in your DZ)
    Louie can also occasionally be walked on the edge and may very well be able to do what a Zhencha could using fewer orders.
    Just like everything in the army, though, the Hackable trait is such a huge drawback for nearly no discount :(
     
    #34 Mahtamori, Mar 11, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2019
  15. krossaks

    krossaks Well-Known Member

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    I disagree in some points: visor, shock + extra movement (order eficiency) make the Rui Shi a better hunter in most cases.

    Crossing a jammer zone dosen't work with any IA troop. A good haqqui player, at least in my zone will use the muttahs as a zone protection. A muttah prone in a building or hidden between a wall make that zone nearly impossible to clean without lucky or tanking a template. Thats why i considered always the Rui Shi the best option in order eficiency. The point with all of them is to shot the muttahs from out the template range (23cm aprox), and if you can for his back.

    Zencha is more order intensive but if you reach the point where you can shot 3 dices at 12 from outside jammer zone and out of LOFT the muttahs die fast.

    For me IA against haqquis should consider at least killing 1 or 2 muttahs in the first round. Expending orders if it's neccesary. The E/marat and the jammers are too dangerous for a pain train based army.

    Ps: limiting the zone of actuation via haidao sniper is always worth it against haqquislam.
     
  16. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    @krossaks how can a Rui Shi cross a zone guarded by a Mutta when it has a bigger base than Zuyong and when the Rui Shi can't Cautious Move where a Zuyong can?

    The benefit of using the pain train directly is that the point of killing the Muttas is to get the pain train to the Haqq's DZ and order pool. If you have a mission where this is not important, you can play the mission and set up a perimeter that makes life hard for Tarik. The hard-counter problems are missions where the objectives you need are 16" from the Haqq's table edge.
     
  17. Weathercock

    Weathercock Well-Known Member

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    Minor point, but WIP15.

    It doesn't change things much, but it pretty much guarantees that even the most willful heavy infantry are at a disadvantage for that FtF roll.

    Jammers are stupid, and Ghazi are criminally overpowered and undercosted. Mahtamori is right though, I don't think IA is at all worth taking to any competitive event where you're expecting to face Haq. It's bad enough for ISS and Vanilla, but the Invincibles look like they were tailor made to be the perfect prey for those 5 point bastards.
     
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  18. barakiel

    barakiel Echo Bravo Master Sergeant

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    Discussing situations like this gets pretty circular pretty quickly. It's hard to describe effective tools in a game like Infinity, where there are so many variables, and so much depends on terrain and available Orders.

    I think it's fair to say that there are some IA tools for dealing with Mutts, but they also represent a big obstacle. Zencha mobility and Camo state strike me as a good tool, and having that LGL as a choice makes sense too. A lot of the newer Sectorials, with their emphasis on more elite troops and fewer traditional Camo/warband units, feel particularly vulnerable to asymmetric trades.

    An upfield Engineer seems like it can help too. You can risk that E/M or Jammer hit, maybe get saved by BTS, and if not, you can hopefully have an Engineer or Palbot on-hand to assist. That's not always easy, but at least many IA units have some extra durability to add to the risk/reward equation of confronting mutts within their area of threat.
     
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  19. krossaks

    krossaks Well-Known Member

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    @Mahtamori
    A Rui Shi shouldn't walk into jammer zone, every troop except camo markers shouldn't (sometime, usually at the end game you just can't avoid it to get to the objective).

    For best muttah hunter I was speaking of best tools in order eficiency to move until get a secure loft an shot them. Ofc looking for a spot is the player job and as @barakiel said, we can't precise more the situation without the map etc...
     
    #39 krossaks, Mar 11, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2019
  20. Greysturm

    Greysturm Invincible Army Drill Sergeant/Military Theorist

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    Sure, thats precisely the aim of the thread, to add material to help the community. If you wanna be in charge of building that section feel free to do it, just send me the content when your done and ill add it.
     
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