Hey all, if anyone is interested, I took Dashat to 1st place at Novacore in Australia last month. This episode of white noise recaps the event alongside Trent, the Yu Jing player who also went undefeated. https://benandmarty.libsyn.com/87-professor-ten-zero-and-the-one-hand-man For reference, I'm not responsible for the name of the episode :P
As a main Yu Jing player, and soon Dashat, I have to say I'm absolutely amazed! Congrats to both of you! I hope I'll be able to retrieve all the lists!
Congrats on the win, well done. Going back, would you change your lists to remove the traktor mules? You seem to think you were a bit lucky to have been able to hide them properly
Good question. I think in retrospect no, they were the right choice; they survived all five games, contributed to a higher order count, and if Trent had scored just a couple more OPs across his five games, the baggage would have been critical as the tiebreaker for first. But if I'd hit a naked deployment zone (there were maybe one or two tables where terrain sort of effectively started on the 12" line, though these were phased our or adjusted early in the event) I might be saying differently right now. But, if someone felt less comfortable with defensive deployment I'd probably suggest the warcor and fanous over the two muls. Even with pick of DZs, deploying with them in the list took more mental energy than I'd have liked in a couple of games.
How expendable was your second combat group? I run into the same problem sometimes with Pangos in 20 (or more) order Yu Jing lists. When this happens I just stick them in the open at the back of the table and they rarely get shot. When there's that many expendable skirmishers flooding the middle of the table and the relative order efficiency of spending an order to deny an order is lessened because of the amount available, they very quickly fall down the totem pole of target priority. Your opponent could shoot and kill 2 orders from McMurder's group 2 to try and stop him from going on a murder rampage. They might even snipe out a few more orders from that pool and he's down to working with 3 or 4 orders, then you swap his combat groups and he's back to full orders and goes on his murder rampage. The more orders you have available the less value there is trying to order starve something vs attacking the model directly to remove the threat, but that all depends on list composition.
It's interesting you say that - even with a full order pool it was rare for me to attempt a full rampage with McMurrough. This was partly borne out as a result of my testing; locally, I've been pushing every warband under the sun up against my local community for a long time now and they've all gotten very good at taking their lumps and triaging that kind of attack before it does critical damage. McMurrough is higher-quality, tougher and faster but not fundamentally different to stop than, say, a makaul-centric attack triad. It's very possible I should learn to be more aggressive with him, and try to engineer early breakthroughs and damage much more pro-actively. Especially after chatting to Trent, I want to spend time learning to really push the aggression Dashat is capable of, rather than leaning on the 'ablate, deflect and counter-attack' style I learned from Tohaa.
I think keeping him as a reserve/utility piece in Dashat is smarter. You can use him as a cruise missile in CHA, and in some CJC builds, because they typically have other tools in the list that provide the same utility roles for cheaper (gals for smoke and screening in CHA and Jags in CJC) in Dashat though, from the builds Ive seen your other troop that offers the support Mcdoggo does are bikes, and while bikes are great they arent units I ever expect to live very long for various reasons. as such I think conservative play with him in dashat is going to be the better play for the list as a whole in harder matchups rather than trying to tear the heart out of the opponent
I'm not saying you should go HAM with McMurder I'm just using it to illustrate the point of the more orders you have the less effective it is in trying to order starve the attack piece vs directly neutralising the attack piece. Which I think is actually a weakness people are going to need to learn to exploit against high model count Dahshat spam lists. When a combat group is full of Traktor Muls, Fanous and crap if you can successfully hunt and destroy the one or two active models in that combat group and forget about the rest you can essentially cause your opponent to wind up with a tonne of orders that have nobody to spend it. This is less of a problem for my Yu Jing because a combat group full of left over Monks and Kuang Shi can usually always figure out a way to be at least annoying with spare orders, but a combat group that's left over with a Dozer some Fanous and Muls is going to be a huge waste in the active turn.
I’ve found too that there is a delicate balance between Quantity and Quality in Dahshat. When I take a lot of orders that leaves me very few good pieces and if they die i’m kinda screwed when I having a lot of meh figures. I only take things like the 5pt. Tractor muls if I happen to have points left and can’t find a way to use them. Though if i’s a mission that likes Baggage i’ll take them.
Yep, this is a good point - I normally have a rule against not putting models in a list purely to generate orders, unless they're either very cheap or can in some way be a material danger to the enemy (kuang shi being the platonic ideal of this concept). Traktor Muls just barely fit into the 'very cheap' bucket, at 5.5pts each after you factor the cost of the control device. Generally speaking my lists were designed to have enough fight in them to be able to leverage the order pools even in the event of casualties being applied to the pointy end. The second combat group in my Supremacy/Supplies/Engineering Deck list for example had a libertos, a hunzakut and McMurrough as the offensive elements, and then also included the Dozer and Doctor as models that could also productively spend orders being generated by pleb remotes. However, it was definitely less well balanced than my first group, which had both a healthy order pool and a much better depth of attack elements (both independent and linked).
Sup, Sep, Eng V1.1 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 7 3 1 ZÚYŎNG (Tactical Awareness) HMG / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (1.5 | 38) BOUNTY HUNTER Sniper Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 21) BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) VALERYA GROMOZ Hacker (Hacking Device UPGRADE: Expel) Combi Rifle + Pitcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 21) RUI SHI Spitfire / Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 20) KUM Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 10) LIBERTO (CH: Mimetism, Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 11) HUNZAKUT (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18) GROUP 2 7 3 1 McMURROUGH 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades, Smoke Grenades / Templar CCW (AP + DA). (0 | 32) HUNZAKUT (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18) GHULAM Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) LIBERTO (CH: Mimetism, Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 11) DOZER (Traktor Mul Control Device) Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) 112 Light Shotgun / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 12) FANOUS REMOTE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) FANOUS REMOTE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) TRAKTOR MUL (Minesweeper) Electric Pulse. (0 | 5) TRAKTOR MUL (Minesweeper) Electric Pulse. (0 | 5) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army Armoury, Frost V1.2 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 9 1 1 ZÚYŎNG (Tactical Awareness) HMG / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (1.5 | 38) BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) ZÚYŎNG (Fireteam: Haris, Tactical Awareness) Combi Rifle + 1 TinBot B (Deflector L2) / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 34) RUI SHI Spitfire / Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 20) VALERYA GROMOZ Hacker (Hacking Device UPGRADE: Expel) Combi Rifle + Pitcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 21) GHULAM Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) KUM Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 10) GROUP 2 7 3 1 McMURROUGH 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades, Smoke Grenades / Templar CCW (AP + DA). (0 | 32) LIBERTO (CH: Mimetism, Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 11) LIBERTO (CH: Mimetism, Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 11) 112 Light Shotgun / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 12) DOZER (Traktor Mul Control Device) Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) NASMAT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) FANOUS REMOTE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) FANOUS REMOTE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) FANOUS REMOTE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) TRAKTOR MUL (Minesweeper) Electric Pulse. (0 | 5) TRAKTOR MUL (Minesweeper) Electric Pulse. (0 | 5) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army
Worth noting that after the changes to fireteams, I'd change the first list so it includes the Ghulam in the first combat group (since he can enable you to form up a fireteam using the ABHs if the Zhuyong dies).
First I wanna let you know that listening to that episode changed my WHOLE infinity life, as these are the two factions play, I was already running lists similar to yours but I was feeling kinda down about maybe infinity was not the game for me, because I kept losing... something clicked during that podcast for me, blending trent's portion about aggression and not being afraid to lose a piece and the just load up the next missile works so well in Dashat. I now build intentionally aggressive lists with both harris-Rui Shi and Lu Duan, and thow them recklessly into enemy's, I always try to go first, after your "crumple zone" analogy, and if not RIP Libertos.(I take 1 mine, one smg) My regular opponent plays Tak and nomads, and has a few years experience on me, and would beat me game after game for about a year. usually with the same lists. Combing what you and trent do into one playstyle finnally gave me a sense of one-ness on the table in my games. Even when I lose I feel better about my games cause I come in like the raging fire and its closer games! What I find i do with my mcmurder is I end up canceling his impetuous order turn 1 using him as a stable smoke platform for Rui Shi, then once rui shi goes down, if I dont have a dozer nasmat handy I free mcmurder turn 2 for the follow up punch. thanks again good sir, you helped save my hobby!
Hey @Kalendo that's awesome to hear. Thanks so much for the positive feedback. Glad to hear the episode was useful for you! :)