[MILITARY ORDERS TACTICS] Quo Peregrinatur Grex Pastor Secum ["300pts Box" WiP 06/04/19]

So I've just recently found and started playing this wonderful game of infinity and have been playing it for about 2 months. I fell in love with this faction because of the cool space knights and stayed for the crushing firepower that pano offers. I have been building lists and playing the ITS missions. My local meta is very competitive but it helps learn the game quickly as they all have constructive criticism after each game and helped me get a grip on list building and what is normally needed for each mission. So far I'm very happy with the faction overall and I am excited to see what season 11 brings.

 

Took MO for a spin last month to a Satellite in Spain, won 3 games and lost 2 and ended up being 16th out of 65. Faction definitely has good and bad match-ups. Spec-ops, if allowed, really helps out. Had way more fun playing them and preparing for the satellite than I had with MAF. TOFOs and TO snipers are awesome.

 

Thank you all for your thoughts, I'm going to try and reply to people in no particular order:

@Triumph I normally have a TOFOOS, TOMSROS or Dart in every list I play, ideally more than one. TOMSR is great, but often runs up against challenges around SWC, depending on what I am running. I also don't think its a great ARO piece, given it's a 1 wound model. I'm prone to deploy them so they reveal themselves in the last couple of orders of an opponents turn, but I have always aimed to play them more as problem solvers that remove troublesome pieces to allow the knights to advance.

Also, please don't patronise me. I fully understand the lethality of infinity (having watched my knights get critted off the board almost every game I have played), and I am under no illusions that there are no 40k Death Stars in this game. I have been playing for a year now (not necessarily with any degree of regularity),and flatter myself that I do get it, so I do not have a "fundamental misunderstanding". Nor do I need you "correcting" me, which frankly is quite insulting. I am not some schoolboy needing to have his homework marked.

@daboarder So this is part of the problem, for the first game I played against him, I played a joke list, because I spent 5 hours trying to build a list and couldn't. So the first game probably isn't very indicative (Bar t2 ARO crits taking both the KOTHS' I was running off the table. SUCH FUN). The second time, I just played a standard MO list really, so Santiago KHD and LT, Hospitaller HMG and BSG, Konstantinos to form the link, then couple of Mulebots, a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre with Spitfire and CoC (For when he inevitably assassinates my LT), a pathfinder, and then a TOFOOS. So I hid everyone away (As there is no ARO piece in that), and he then had two linked missile launchers in a core that were able to see pretty much the entire board, which made movement difficult, and I had nothing that could actually deal with them either. Risking a knight HMG against them both seems like suicide, and sixth sense negates the TOOS' ability to deal with them as well. He sat I think it was a Frontovik and two vet kazaks on a building right in front of my knights, and then stuck them all on suppressive fire. I now couldn't get out of my DZ, which meant point scoring wasn't ideal. I tried to pop them with a TOOSFO shooting from behind to force them to drop the suppressive fire, but it turns out veteren lvl 2 basically gives them 360 visors. So I spent a whole turn trying to gun them down with my spitfire Santiago, dropping two of them, and sending the final one into NWI. I couldn't swing the spitfire KOTHS out due to the missile launchers then being able to pop him off the board, and it wouldn't have mattered anyway, as getting behind the suppresive fire guys wouldn't have done anything at all. I had no templates that could reach them either (As they were on a building), so I genuinely don't know what I could have done. The ONLY tool I could think of that I might have had in a list that could have solved that, would have been a KOTHS with light grenade launcher to spec fire grenades down.

I don't feel like the armour is that much of a bonus, I don't think I actually made an armour save all game, but then I mostly didn't have to as it was crits that did it for knights most of the time. I'm not sure what you are asking by favourable fights, but I was never able to dictate board control because I couldn't afford any ARO pieces. I don't play Vird or ASA so don't know what they would have done different tbh.

Interestingly, I stared at that list of yours for a good long time actually. And then discounted it, due to there being too many heavy infantry to go up against TAK and their T2, the fact that Joan would just die horribly to a dog warrior or antipode or whatever, and the lack of pathfinder to try and sweep out any camo. But say I had run your list, I can't see any answer in it to the two Missile Launchers that were locking me into the deployment zone, or any way for it to have dealt any better than I did with the 3 suppressive fire guys. Also, daring someone to come in and root you out, I just don't get. I hide my knights like mad, because otherwise they get mined, chain rifled, and generally shot to death every game, normally by a midfield skirmisher. Also, what you said further down about ARO, I think most of the traditional ARO pieces are nullified by TAK (TRHMG is rubbish against mimetism, and won't really do much, flashbots can't affect dog warriors (Fuck the new total immunity rules. They are utterly shit), TOMSR I mentioned above, and FKML just no given T2 ammo everywhere. ) I see people write this a lot, about daring your opponent to come and get your knights, and I just don't understand it, so I guess i am doing something wrong? But that burst 2 fireteam bonus just doesn't cut it against anything I find.

@CabalTrainee But I don't want to try another army or sectorial. I want to be able to play with the models I have forked out a small fortune for, and now found are absolutely useless. I also don't want to buy into another force that I like the look of (Shas for example) for fear that they too will turn out to be horribly underpowered because CB is horrific at balancing. I can hardly proxy a whole other army, and I wouldn't feel comfortable asking someone to loan me theirs, given I am pretty new to the club. I have been trying to get MO to work for months now, and I have posted lists up, and it still isn't working. I mean it may just be that I am bad at infinity and should give it up as a bad job, but that is the same end result overall.

@Marduck I am tempted to try vanilla, but to me Vanilla is underpowered due to the lack of link team bonus. If my linked spitfire Santiago couldn't take out three one wound models in suppressive fire, what chance does an unlinked one what? And I know it is a lot more nuanced than that, but that is kinda how my mind goes. It may just be that I am really bad with 5 man fire teams (so difficult to move around, and even more to deploy), but I just feel I need those bonus' to make up for the fact that I don't have many options.

Sorry that this is overwhelmingly negative, but I am genuinely at a loss. Hell I've tried to be positive about MO on this forum for the longest time, but I am just sick of losing every match ever. I felt like I had no way at all of ever even coming close to winning that second match, every tool I might have had, he had something twice as good.

 

Congrats to anybody who manages to read all that btw. It's quite a wall of text :P

Joking aside, thank you to everyone who came back. It is appreciated!

 

heres a few short comments

1) You are over investing in active pieces in your list, a Spitfire lt, and a HMG hospitaller and CoC, thats way to many points in pieces that are in the list to achieve the same goal. either the Lt spitfire+CoC (and even thats questionable if you are careful with the lt and honestly no one is easilly killing a santiago lt) OR the HMG hospitaller. that change alone (making the hospitaller a BS or Doc) should save you some points. Then why is konstantinos in the link when you can get a 13 pt order sergeant for filler? that change alone gets you 2 flashbots to use as ARO/order generation

2) if you are playing TAK, then his MLs are Line Kazaks, they are trash tier (useful for other reasons) your HMG will cut through them like a hot knife through butter, fight them one at a time exposing only the HMG and not the rest of your link. you will be B5 on 14 or 17s relative to their B2 on 14s (or their 11s if you deploy smartly and attack under 24). you dont even need to be linked to stand good odds of winning that fight.

Even the TO FOs would be effective if you get them into 16 range (easy for a TO marker that move-moves with a handful of orders) you hitting them at 3 dice on 12s vs their 2 dice on 5s (0 range, -3 cover, -6 TO)

3) Joan does not "Die horribly" to a dog warrior or antipode (singular), shes a MA Lvl 3 CC 23 2W NWI monster, they are at best one dice on 18s (dog warrior) vs her roll+6 and if sitting in a corner she is not going to get ganged up on by antipodes.

4) daring the opponent to come get you does not mean not leaving tools out on ARO, I wont go into detail just now, but a TR HMG well used isnt caring about mimetism outside of the ability for it to -12 you if its camo (and that at most limits your deployment options) because it is rolling 4 dice that makes a TR HMG a sigfnificant threat.

The rest of your ARO pieces are supposed to be tools that confound and frustate and cost orders, but they will generally (outside your HI) die eventually, accept it, move on

I seriously recommend you familiarize yourself with the following tool as you are demonstrating a fundemental lack of the statistics involved in the fights you choose to not pick and the fights you argue are auto loses.
http://inf-dice.ghostlords.com/n3/

 

Well maybe he was facing a Roquet launcher Frontovik. That is a much more difficult ARO piece to crack.

From what you tell I have two questions :
- Was a single unit in a single position in its deploiement zone abe to dominate all the board ? If so then the table is not in your favor to start with.
- Where you unable to pick one ARO piece after the other because your local group don't play with intend and pie slicing ? Even if so you should be able to fin a position to gun them one after the other using a laser and careful placement.

Against strong FT ARO it's usually a good idea to try to kill the weaker unit of the team to remove at least the +3 BS bonnus. Couldn't Dart or a TOFO try to sneak and kill a line Kazak ?

For ARO, you can usually place your model around corner so that they have a diagonal ARO. You are looking for 45 degree lign of sight, so that you can see approach road, but you can't be seen from the other side of the table. That is usuful especially for TR bot that don't want to be seen from the other side of the board by a sniper.

And last, have you tried the magister knight ? They are pretty good at covering these corridors with teir shotgun, and longer lane with panzerfaust.

 

Ok, this is really interesting.
I think we can help you there but the ideal would be to show you. Where do you live? If your not too against this, I would advise you to get TTS and join VaulSC's discord server so I could make you some demonstrations. I'm not the best at MO but I think I have a good grasp with the sectorial.

So, first thing first, even in your seemingly dire situation, you had multiple options:
- Take down each ARO piece one by one. The two ML who were pointing at your FT have few chance to be exactly stacked vertically and you should be able to find a place with your HMG to shoot only one of them before the other. Even if you not playing by intent, you can take 2 minutes by playing with silhouettes to find the good place to shoot it to death. 2 B2 BS 14 against 5 B11 is still a bit in your favor. The best is still to use the TOFOOS in the 0 range of the ML and in your own +3 combi range (or even FO him for your HMG if you can't get the range because of some mines on the way). Once one is down, the second will be easier.
- Don't forget all your options: even if you couldn't exfiltrate all your FT, your Santiago KHD was sure to have at least a 8" move thanks to cybermask. He doesn't need FT bonuses to kill standard 1W troopers in active provided he can fight at good range.
- Ask for what does opponent's troopers you don't know. Here, for example, Vet L2 provides SSN2 and NWI in addition to all the bonuses of Vet L1.
You should have come close and planted two mines before engaging the Vet Kazak in a firefight. It costs orders but this is the kind of troops with such quality that needs a well prepared situation to be taken down by lower troopers.
- Don't underestimate your knights. In CC, Dogs are no match for them since they have no CC bonus or skill. Dogde until you can declare Engage. Once tied in CC a Dog is more likely dead than anything else. And this is more true if it is Joan who is in CC with a Dog.
- T2 ammo with TAK is only on long range if it is Plushenko. Otherwise, it is on 8-24" weapons with DMG 13. Yes, it hits like a truck if it crits but an EXP or DA ammo could do the same too. Know your opponent's army and learn how his army works and where it is weak. For example, TAK has less troopers than standard for the rest of Ariadna because they have nearly all the best troopers of the faction but this comes with a cost. They have a lot of camo tokens but only a half or less of them are real troopers. Learn to identify them and ignore the others.
- I will say it again but I think the Hospitaller core should be used as an "on occasion" FT only and not as the main FT of a MO list. It is too much points invested in an active turn only FT. I would have rather used a Teutonic/OS link as it gives access to good ARO units and have some good active units in it and complement with wing elements. Teutonic NCO comes to mind but you could have used the Hospitaller Haris as well. Montesa, BF albedo, FD2 KotHS, Dart, TAGs, are all good options to lessen the pressure on your Core and give you alternative battle plans and strike vectors.

 

Perhaps, he said MLs though, as to HRLs, its still going to be B2 BS15 vs B5 BS14, so its still a fight you will win more often than not, additionally HRLs arent going to hit a HI nearly as hard as a ML is if it does connect and is a great example of where 2W is amazing

 

I just want to say that I am so happy that we have people who are willing to have dedicated, constructive discussion about Infinity. It really is refreshing.

 

This is honestly why I haven't thrown in the towel yet.

Thankyou everyone, I will reply later, need to read stuff!

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

 

Well, I think that @daboarder, @Marduck and I are willing to help as we know what MO has to offer and how MO can be weak if some advanced fundamentals aren't understood. The sectorial is not friendly with players starting the game of even for those who are only initiated. It is not "hard mode" but it needs some game knowledge you acquire only if you see it applied or someone's telling you you could do it. Stealth cheeses, use of Cybermask, Holo2 applications, Drop bears and G: Synch mindgames... and learning your odds before trying something is all advanced stuff you need and you aren't used to think to when you don't know how to apply it, if you ever know it existed.

Compared to NCA, for example, MO is a lot more sneaky in how it should be played while retaining all the frontal approach caracterising PanO. This is unique and this is why it is hard for newcomers.

 

try the massed armour thread herod, ive got a lot more detailed positioning written up in there, and honestly its going to be better and more helpful given the pictures than anything I re-write here

 

Guys, I don't know what you are talking about. I had a great game of Unmasking vs Morat yesterday. Maybe you have to change your approach to MO, I for my part had fun with my double Seraph list

 

I am glad the discussion progresses in constructive ways here.

 

When I say there's a fundamental misunderstanding I'm not trying to be patronising I just think given the available information that you are expecting something from a model that you're not really going to get.

It is sounding more and more like you don't really fully grasp the nature of ARO pieces. That's not an insult it's just there's a few things you're saying that aren't adding up in my head. Like the complaint that TO MSR Sergeants aren't great as an ARO piece due to having 1 wound.

You know because here's the thing the vast majority of ARO pieces in this game have 1 wound. The two most lethal ARO pieces in the game are probably Kamau and Dakini snipers, they're both 1 wound. The most common ARO pieces in the game across every faction are Warcors and the equivalents of Fugazi which are cheap as chips 1 wound models. Your average cheap defensive link is composed of a basic line infantry like a Fusilier armed with a Missile Launcher. Total Reaction bots are super common ARO pieces and they're all 1 wound across every faction. The primary purpose of an ARO piece is to get your opponent to spend 1 order fighting and killing them, instead of spending that order killing your attack pieces. If you hurt your opponent in the process that's a bonus.

It sounds like you're expecting ARO pieces in general to both kill many models, as well as survive for a good length of the game. This just isn't true and you're going to be eternally disappointed if this is what you want out of them. The primary function of a basic ARO piece is to stall your opponent on turn 1 by wasting orders so you don't get run over and you have some breathing room to counter attack. They will usually die doing this duty. Most ARO pieces surviving into turn 2 is a luxury not something you count on. If you're expecting every faction/sectorial to have something as ball busting as a Kamau locking down fire lanes you will be very disappointed in this game because they are a relative rarity.

Your focus on whether or not it's a good ARO piece should be on whether it can waste orders or put your opponent in a position where they've got to burn more orders than they like to get out of a situation. The TO MSRs are great at this because of the nature of hidden deployment, they keep your opponent guessing and you can lay nasty ambush traps with them and force your opponent to make uncomfortable decisions. Like they could pop around a corner and fight a Sierra bot, but will a TO MSR pop out and force them to fight 2 guys at once? They could move a link into the open to press a button, but will a sniper pop out and shoot one of the non active members that can't fight back, like a specialist? Should they spend an extra order throwing smoke before hand just in case?

That's what makes the Order Sergeants good as an ARO presence it's the awful mind games you can play with your opponent and push them to be very cautious to avoid gross punishment. It's got nothing to do with having multiple wounds.

 

Keep in mind that you can reform your link team with a command token. So taking more than 5 guys that can join the link makes sense (and this is where the stregth of MO´s flexible linkteams shine). I like to take a OS link with FK Misslelauncher and 2 Santiagos as a Duo so they can merge in the core if needed thanks to wildcard. I think that CB is really good in balancing the game. So I really hope that you keep playing the game! Maybe ask experienced players and opponents for feedback. Learn the stregnth of MO and winning will be really rewarding imo.

 

If you let this happen you did something wrong during deployment