Army list options with currently available models?

Welcome to the game! The first thing I like to do when advising new players is point them to this post about list building. Don't take it as gospel but it's a good starting point.

With that being said, I threw together this list quickly. The only proxy it should need is the Pneumarch as a Nexus Operative (they're the same sillhouette, and look pretty similar), and the E-Drone for an M-Drone (which is basically a weapons proxy as they're built off the same kit).

150pts CA
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9 1
Q-DRONE HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 26)
KRAKOT RENEGADE 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 14)
MED-TECH OBSIDON MEDCHANOID Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23)
SLAVE DRONE Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
Bit Hacker (UPGRADE: Expel) Submachine Gun + Pitcher, Deployable Repeater + KISS! / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 19)
KISS! Adhesive Launcher / Electric Pulse. (- | 4)
NEXUS Lieutenant Hacker (EI Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Nullifier / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 24)
M-DRONE Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 17)
IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)
IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)
ÍMETRON . (0 | 4)

2 SWC | 148 Points

Open in Infinity Army

Your Q-Drone is powerful on both attack and defence, and can be buffed by the nexus with the "assisted fire" program in order to let it ignore the -3 MOD to BS from cover + get shock ammo on its gun. The Krakot Renegade is a nice secondary attacker who can roam the midfield.

You have four specialists - Dr Worm, Bit and Kiss, the Nexus, and the M-Drone - which is more than enough. The M-Drone is an especially good piece, as its sensor lets it reveal camo models with ease and it has a 6-4 move which lets it get to objectives quickly.

The Ikaron Batroids are great defensive pieces with their flamethrowers, but don't forget that you can also use them as cheap kamikaze units.

The one weakness of this list is that it's fairly obvious that the Nexus is the lieutenant - you'll want to make use of the Ikadrons to block your opponent from getting to it.

 

Get aspects. ASAP.

Seriously, you have a damn great unit selection as is, so now you should get yourself some aspects if you're planning on playing Combined Vanilla. All four of them are useful (although I guess the Anathematic and Charontid are the most common ones) and all of them bring some really powerful models to the table while making your army nearly immune to Loss of Lieutenant (beware Jammers and E/M ammo though).

Aspects are one of the biggest draw of Combined, you should definitely have some (or all).

 

You have nearly a full Onyx collection, lacking only Tags and the Malignos. If you are going to grab the O-12 Vs Shasvastii box (Operation Wildfire), then you will buy the sphinx (which goes well with the Unidron fireteam, I prefer to use a 2xForward Observer, 2x Missile Launcher, and 1 combi k12+tinbot).

For vanilla, I would grab a Skiavoros, and a Charontid if you want completeness to which you add the Daturazi (for cheap smoke and melee) and a Speculo Killer.

You also need another pair of S3 remotes, since CA can use Evo, Total Reaction, and 1-2 8pts remote. Specially since Shasvastii can carry 2 total reaction remotes...

 

Lieutenant choice is something I sometimes stuggle with myself as a somewhat new player. Generally there are two things I consider.

1. How much value do I get out of using the lieutenant order on this model?

2. How easy is it going to be to keep my lieutenant safe?

I chose the nexus in this instance because it can use its order to put assisted fire on the Q-drone, which you'd otherwise have to spend regular orders on doing.

Obviously getting a free order is nice, but remember that if your opponent can hunt down and kill your lieutenant you enter loss of lieutenant, which is very bad. Sometimes you'll want to take that risk, whereas other times it might be more valuable to just make a low cost cheerleader who can hide in the backline your lieutenant.

I didn't bring them up because I think they're too expensive for 150 point lists, but the Aspects that RedOne mentioned are almost undoubtedly among the best lieutenants in CA, if not the whole game. The apsects are basically every unit in the "headquarters" section of army builder, minus the noctifer. The reason they're so good is twofold; They have great stats, and they have a rule called Mnemonica, which means that if they're killed you can instantly transfer their lieutenant status, their WIP stat, and the Mnemonica rule itself to any other model in the army with the cube characteristic, or with the Ghost:Autotool rule, preventing loss of lieutenant.

For a more detailed look:

The Skiavoros is the 'budget' choice of the bunch, but is still a strong gunfighter with mimetism and effectively 2 wounds. It also packs the strategos lvl 2 rule which lets it give its lieutenant order to any other model on the field (good for order economy) and also allows you to hold back an extra model in the deployment phase.

The Anethmatic is a very strong midfield piece, ARM 5, total camouflage, and 2W + NWI (No wound incapacitation) mean it's difficult to disloge (especially if you put it in supressive fire) and allow it to move around the board safely. It can also be given a hacking device which lets you use it to grab objectives.

The Charontid is a fire superiority piece. The only profile I'd really look at is the MSV L3 (multispectral visor level 3) + HMG profile - you take this piece alongside something like a daturazi to place smoke templates down. MSV 3 lets you shoot through smoke (and anything shooting back gets a -6 penalty (unless they also have the ability to see through smoke, or can use the sixth sense rule). You use this piece to bully enemy models into submission.

The Avatar is arguably the deadliest model in the entire game - it's also the most expensive. I wouldn't recommend running it as a new player, but if you want to read more Orph3u5's guide is great

 

Aspects are basically what happens when the EI decides to take direct control of the battlefield instead of letting the grunts go unsupervised. They're supposed to be highly efficient artificial bodies with enhanced intelligence and better weapons.

As @Spinnaker mentioned above, there are four of them and they each have different functions. Honestly I think having all 4 is a good idea because they are good for different missions, so having options for which ones you want to pick is always great.

 

You haven't lived until you've stomped around the battlefield with an Avatar...

 

Yes, I meant the Charontid (HMG + MSV3, the "Asura's dark twin"), the Anathematic goes the other way around (Total Camo). It's easier to play with, since you only need to use the smoke combo, and avoid Isolated state.

Remember that only the Avatar and the Skiavoros can use the "spend a Command Token to rerroll failed repair attempts" rule (per the "command Tokens" entry at the beginning of the rulebook), the Anathematic and the Charontid can't (no mention anywhere on the rulebook to Ghost:menmonica as akin to cube).

Sheskin, like Tarik, is a bully that depends only on your dice. Link her in a Core for burst 5, and per the Spanish rules she gets 15% crit chance (because of wording, in Spanish it mentions dice, while in english it goes directly to roll, keeping it at 10%). That's a "crit your win to victory" piece that won't help you improve your game. So, I don't recommend to use her (also, she is getting a new model, so wait for it anyway) to start playing, the same way TAGs (or non-TAG troops) of more than 60pts are discouraged. The Charontid & Anathematic are exceptions since they are critical pieces in several "CA builds" that have no equivalent piece (the Maakrep has an MSV2, so she could pull the Charontid's role, but is overprized and too much fragile, in general).

I already reserved the Operations Wildfire box, since I've been looking to "close" my CA collection.

 

150 is a rough level for CA to play at as you can't take many of the fancy toys and still have a good amount of orders, TAK/Ariadna however do not have this problem.

I'd chalk those games up as learning experiences and focus on getting the rules down pat and building up to larger games.

 

Ariadna is a difficult army for new players to play against in general unfortunately, and like colbrook said they play better at lower points levels than CA does. One of the things that you'll learn pretty quickly about the game is that models die easily - you can't really ever ensure that something is completely safe, you can only force your opponent to waste orders trying to make it dead. Against units like the Spetsnaz and the Antipodes, your best bet is often just to hide your models, and to place your deployment zone guards (the Ikadrons in this case) in the way - if you can survive their turn you'd then want to use the M-Drone's sensor to discover them and then hit them with templates from the surviving Ikadrons or the Krakot