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Any guides/threads/discussions on aggressive play?

Discussion in 'Access Guide to the Human Sphere' started by Maksimas, May 20, 2019.

  1. Maksimas

    Maksimas Heavy Infantry Addict Maxim

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    Are there any guides/threads/discussions about playing very aggressively?

    I've been finding myself enjoying more and more taking those extra orders towards the offensive instead of investing more in defense by, probably a very naive actually, perspective of ''A corpse can't kill you, nor can it press any button.''

    That all being said I've yet to see any actual threads or discussions on this manner of play, or just the concept of a good offense sometimes being the best defense.
    Am I just bad at searching? 'Cause if I am and there are threads or just random blog posts somewhere about it, I'd like to be pointed towards them. Or is it just maybe not something people discuss all that often because it's not that interesting of a discussion in the first place...?

    Just curious is all.
     
  2. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    I don't think there was any generic guide focused on playing aggresively, despite several sectorials being extremely suited for such style (Morat, greeks, etc...).

    That being said, to play solely in the offensive in this game is not a great idea, not only because of the ARO mechanics giving strong defensive capabilities, but also because the game has a very random nature by design, and prizes imposing negative modifiers to the enemy more than anything else but the asymmetrical tradeoff of units. This means that you play aggresively only if there are no good defensive options, or your only winning option is to charge and win.

    For example, the typical vanilla CA Avatar list needs to be aggresive: there are little SWC to go around (2.5... that is a heavy weapon and two hackers at most), and most orders will go to the Avatar, since he needs to remove all threats before running out of steam (also called a DA troop killing the cheerleaders).
    Another example would be a Generic Haqquislam list, filled with Daylami, four Muttas, cheap bodies and Fidays to remove all possible enemies ASAP, usually with Saladin and, at most, a Farzan CoC.

    Bottom line: aggressive play means to kill the enemy before he can react, becoming a "no plan, no backup, no second chances" kind of game.
     
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  3. Maksimas

    Maksimas Heavy Infantry Addict Maxim

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    So just all or nothing fling the heaviest brick(s) you have at the table and hope there isn't anything remaining that can clean up?

    Yeah, sounds more or less how I've been getting away with playing. I blame me being maybe too lucky on how I was able to get away with this for so long. T:
     
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  4. Abrilete

    Abrilete Well-Known Member

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    1- Open Army and choose Vanilla Aleph.
    2- Add Aquilles Lt. and 2-3 Proxies (Specialist profiles) to the list.
    3- Fill the list with cheap troopers and something for ARO duty, just in case.
    4- Kill almost everything in sight (*) or hidden.
    5- Take objectives with the Proxies.

    (*) you don't want to kill everything because that would put the oponent in "Retreat!".
     
  5. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    Disclosure:
    At any time between steps 4 & 5 Achilles can take a crit to the face, or be burnt to a crisp after eating a single Flamethrower to the face and failing 4 consecutive ARM saves.
    Thrasimedes Likes This.
     
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  6. Abrilete

    Abrilete Well-Known Member

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    You mean 3 crits and then your Proxy Mk.1 failing two consecutive Medic rolls at WIP 15, don't you?
    It's really hard to put down Achilles in ARO, during its Active Turn he dominates the game.
     
  7. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    I've seen Achilles explode in a single ARO, one crit... then fire XD
     
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  8. Abrilete

    Abrilete Well-Known Member

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    LOL, I love Fire ammo, cheap yet lethal.
     
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  9. Maksimas

    Maksimas Heavy Infantry Addict Maxim

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    Fire ammo is something that's always nice to keep handy.

    Can always lay low an Avatar or Achilles with it.
     
  10. Ayadan

    Ayadan Knight of the TAG Order

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    I think aggressive play is hard to share as it relies highly on experience and skill. The best player I know with this kind of gameplay is Arkille, who finished 5th at last Interplanetario while playing really aggressive. But he had success because he knows exactly what he can and can't do with his troops and mostly with Achilles (as he know him by heart). This means you know how to make your opponent pay for every little mistakes he made, where his HD troops might be, guessing the range of your Cautious movement with the precision of 1mm, guessing the range of the ZoC in one look, knowing how many orders you'll use to reach said place etc. all those things aren't something you learn in one day and need dedication to want to being able to do it even if you're not successful at the beginning.
    This also means that you know how to play in LoL with no CoC. Yes, Shukra are a thing now but they are rather easy to kill compared to Myrmidon Officers and Arkille doesn't field a CoC in each Achilles list he plays.
    And even then, it asks you to be really reckless.

    Being an aggressive player myself too, even if not as gifted as Arkille, I would add that this is also a matter of temper. I face a lot of players who try to be aggressive but lack the nerve to achieve it.
     
  11. Maksimas

    Maksimas Heavy Infantry Addict Maxim

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    A lot of under-committing to the attack, I presume? Yeah, a lotta players here have that issue too sometimes, Quite a bit of bailing out a few orders too early sometimes. Guess the mentality of keeping 3-4 orders for the defense is strongly rooted, which is fair, as most seem to play that style more.

    Also, thanks for the info.
     
  12. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
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    I play agressive as all fuck. If I don't end the game with 1/3 of my army on the enemy half of the table I feel like I havent played it right.

    And I find it that most of the games I lost seem to be because I wasn't aggressive enough. The thing is, a lot of people confuse being aggressive with being bullheaded. For example:

    - Enemy has a defensive ARO fireteam with a missile launcher but no visual mods (fairly common thing);
    - You have a TAG;
    - You push against that Defensive team with the TAG, but fail to kill the AROing model on your first order. Then on the second you take a wound because you failed again. From this point on any more orders you spend on this TAG means you're probably being bullheaded.
    - What you can do is try to find another option. Maybe you have an infiltrated model with a smaller gun but who can stack modifiers; Or maybe you have an AD trooper. There are other ways to allow your TAG to move forward that don't involve fighting it out with that Missile launcher.

    The way I usually play when I want to go agressive is I try to have my most dangerous pieces deployed on the side. This usually means they can advance with less Aros, but more importantly, they often have less vectors to be attacked from. Sure, a TAG or Kriza Borac pushing right down the middle is scary, but you can flank it from both sides now. If that TAG pushes in from the side, you have a reduced number of vectors to attack it back once the enemy runs out of orders.

    But this is all from my experience, and I play Morats as my main army, which means I get to do stuff other people can't (seriously, walking through jammers is FUN, and so is telling hackers to go eat a dick). I guess some of the stuff I do with MAF can't be done with other armies.
     
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  13. Maksimas

    Maksimas Heavy Infantry Addict Maxim

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    Primarily the Jammer and ( Unless we're talking linked TinBots. ) telling hackers to swallow Sheskins Red Fury stuff.

    Might just be the table structure but I also rarely stride a big beefy killer up the middle of a table ( Unless it's high-up catwalks. At which point... Batfei time. ). I usually either end up piling them up on one flank for a sweeping ''hook'' approach or try sandwiching the enemy in between two flanks. Usually depends on where the beefy targets are during deployment or the juiciest attack vectors are.

    Don't mean there isn't a time and a place to bust out smack dab in the middle of a table and let rip with an HMG though.
     
  14. Ben Kenobi

    Ben Kenobi Well-Known Member

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    You forgot the Shukra Consultant with CoC and the three Netrods.
     
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  15. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
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    I'm a big fan of the old Zulu tactic of the Horns of the bull.

    Put something sturdy in the middle to get hammered, then hit them from the sides with your actual damage dealers. It works better in games where stuff doesn't die as fast as it does in Infinity, but flanking is never a bad thing.
     
  16. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    The problem there is that, for a lot of people, "playing aggresively" means going first => they deploy first, and need to save orders to crrect their defensive deployment. I've battled Pupnik several times, and his deployments are tight and very supporting of each other regardless of he going first or second... then he wrecks me with frigging cheap warbands...

    Aleph is really forgiving of the LoL... Almost all units (sans netrods, and 8pts remotes...) can dosomething with their own order, and playing a LI list means you can, in a pinch, use all of your Command Tokens to get extra orders to your spearhead (whose first order is the Irregular... unless Jammers on the table).

    The Mk4 HRL Proxy is my favourite "sacrifical lamb" for this. She's tough (ARM 5+3), she's agile (PH14), hard to hack (BTS6, WP15), and is a Real Threat (BS 13 + HRL and an SMG => fire & splash damage). 1-2 pulsebots can really give her an extra edge, and the only real cost of this lady is the 2SWC I gladly pay.
    The "Posthuman Strategos" (deploy all 3 bodies as one as the last model) also helps creating both the defensive field and a supporting net exactly where you need it.
     
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  17. Ayadan

    Ayadan Knight of the TAG Order

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    That's exactly what Arkille do most of the time too. The Mk4 HRL is one of the best lonely ARO troop as it doesn't harm if you lose it but he can do so much just by tanking though ARM saves and 2W that it is kind of silly.
    But Aleph has also Scylla who is a great 1st turn murderer provided the table is not too open.

    Well, @xagroth has already said one part of the reason. A lot of players I face who try to be aggressive tend to don't know exactly what they really want or stop to set up in defense too early because they didn't plan that I could deploy in a way that if you don't have the nerve to really come to me, you'll only finish at 2 orders of my attacker who will gladly kill your overextended trooper.
    If you plan to go first and of course deploy first, all your troops which aren't the attackers of the first turn need to be deployed ready for the reactive turn and already considering the attacking troopers aren't participating to the ARO net. This way, you won't use 3-4 orders to place your troopers, they're already where they need to be and this gives you the liberty to spend 10/11 orders on the guy(s) you dedicated to make the first rush. If you really need to adapt your defense, then use some Coordinated orders when you only need to Move-Move with your attacker or when you need to put him in SF state. A good rush is also successful if you're using a trooper already good for this.
    It also means that you're not afraid of losing troopers which cost more than WB. WB can be excellent for rushing but they are easier to counter those days than they previously were. They don't cost much but they don't have the ability (exception made of the Dogfaces) to sustain a long assault. On the contrary, units like Sphynx or Asawira can really survive to a lot of encounters thanks to all their stats, skills and weapons.

    To me, in PanO, BF MR and every unit equiped with a spitfire from the Bulleteer to the Seraph (excepted Regulars) has the potential to be a good rusher but the best ones might be Joan, Seraph, GDA and Santiago Spitfire just because all their weapons can hit hard between 0 to 24" range and can even hit more than one guy. On the contrary to HMG, Spitfire sucks your trooper toward your opponent DZ just in order to stay in good range, making this weapon the best for full turn run through the table. Pair this with CC ability, DTW and/or Shotguns and you have all the tools to murder one half of your opponent's half of the table.
     
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  18. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    It's a JSA Tactica, but do read @Dude 's post: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/jsa-tactica-the-way-of-the-dude-wip.22683/


    Even funnier when that's an EM crit to the face!

    Domaru, Tanko, and Riot Grrls all Like This. :laughing:



    Works best with Nomads, stick a Gecko or two in the middle as the Distraction Carnifex and then have interesting things flank them.
     
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  19. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    Easiest form of aggressive play overlaps a lot with "piece trading" - run a lot of warbands, cheap camouflage units etc, and attack through whatever angle your opponent isn't guarding sufficiently (it is impossible to guard them all 100%). A friend of mine uses this style and its goddamn hard to deal with it
     
  20. Maksimas

    Maksimas Heavy Infantry Addict Maxim

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    Main reason why I like to take a few more kill-capable units than some consider safe.

    Those extra opportunistic attack vectors are a blessing, really.
    Nice when the enemy takes notice and it screws with their actions.
    Nicer still if they miss a piece.
    That... actually explains why I end up gravitating towards those 8"-24" guns a lot quite nicely.

    Thing's are great when you get them in place ( Though I tend to prefer HMGs on more flank oriented dudes, simply because they can take the longer cross-table diagonal and horizontal lanes. ).
    I do try to deploy with the idea of "My rusher died in a mess of gored enemies" and that at least half of the enemys main attackers remain. Helps be ready for the almost-inevitable retaliation the enemy will toss at you after you do your first turn.

    Not really good at it though TBH.
    I generally speaking pronounce all my troopers as having already died the moment they've touched the table.
    Helps focus on doing the stuff that has to be done opposed to worrying about how "I won't risk this, my Guilang might stub his toe."

    Every unit is not only likely to, but even expected to die over the course of the game. So I might as well claw out all the use from them that I can while they live, right?
     
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