Nah, I'm serious. The fact that Dashat gets the Tac Awareness Zuyong profiles and can put a Rui Shi in a fireteam is a bad joke.
The only thing I can thing of is that Qaid is one of the guys at CB's RPG character, and his ego wouldn't be satisfied unless his force was OP.
I'm more concerned about the defense angle. Nearly everything in those lists is a credible threat in ARO and the order count is huge, so it'll be nearly impossible to cripple it. I'm struggling to think of a way to actually beat this with my NCA barring a lucky TO ambush taking out the long-range gun carriers, or a severe misplay. Very formidable.
Yeah, well, the whole point of Dashat is it gets some very important toys (TA HI, Rui Shi) while breaking the rules that are supposed to keep those things in check (Limited order count, lack of fireteam viability) all connected with cheap camo infiltrators, cheerleaders, and link filler. It's gimmick is "wins Infinity a lot" without regard for theme. Why does it have better Libertos? Who knows, but they're incredibly points-efficient for what they do!
For what it's worth, I've found Dashat lists like the ones I took to Novacore to have a few exploitable vulnerabilities that I've used in games against them. it's very common for Dashat lists to have obvious and vulnerable lieutenants, and limited capacity to absorb a turn in loss of liuetenant. Spec fire or an assassination piece can cheaply buy you a free turn. the majority of the core link has weak AROs in the 8-16" range band, so a generic TO Camo skirmisher with combi rifle can engage the link very efficiently if a path through the libertos mines is cleared (this isn't helpful for NCA, but other PanO sectorials have very viable skirmishers for this purpose). although Gromoz can sometimes engage in and win hacking duels if she picks her ground carefully, the list's direct BS attack pieces can have their maneuverability sharply constrained by hacking AROs (I played a list similar to one of these against O12 last week in Transmission Matrix and the Rui Shi was dead in the water from the first turn). Engaging Gromoz with a KHD then having even light hacking AROs elsewhere will force the Dashat player to rely on their skirmishers (which are good, but limiting their tactical options will always benefit you) McMurrough is often quite vulnerable to active turn shooting, even from regular old combi rifles, and without him the list's smoke and CC capacity tends to disappear. if the Dashat player links the Rui Shi, they're committing themselves to very predictable attack paths (the table space that can be safely occupied by both a S4 REM and a core link tends to be very limited). This can let you concentrate mines and hacking. Dashat lists will often not like playing into a blanked deployment that relies on close-range templates or asymmetric elements like mines for defence (e.g. in NCA, Auxbots). Especially if you strip orders from McMurrough, Dashat can be forced to engage these defences either very cautiously or very expensively. They are, however, unquestionably very strong. Dashat plays amongst the best 'normal' infinity of any faction: good order pool, good things to spend orders on, cheap camo, pretty good button pushing.
A straight up generic fusilier, unlinked, has almost a coinflip per order to start putting damage on McMurrough (~40% v ~40%), and a ~10% chance to kill him in one order. Meanwhile, if you can catch him from outside 8" with a shot in the back (which I mention because McMurrough can often end up either in the midfield or deep in enemy territory, so it can be practical depending on how the turn plays out), the same basic fusilier has a ~45% chance to kill him outright. From this I feel it's reasonable to intuit that he has a vulnerability to active turn shooting, because, and I feel like maybe this shouldn't need to be said, most active turn shooting is better than a generic unlinked fusilier.
Oh, before I forget: if McMurrough is in your DZ and does drop smoke on himself in ARO, your response should be to pin him in place with REMs. He doesn't have a native way to increase his burst in CC, so two REMs each declaring electric pulse as an ARO if he takes an action can pretty reliably lock him in IMM-2 for two turns, netting the easy follow up kill. (Remember to force a null ARO by idle-moving or move-moving in CC so he doesn't just stab you when you walk into melee)
Well, "degenerate shit" or not, GZ on winning such a big tournament. From the performance on the ITS page, it looks well deserved! :)
That's the best way to attack him, but it's still not very good. He's a very overpowered piece. If you try to shoot him with a BS 13 combi rifle he's likely to be able to smoke to protect himself before you kill him.
Good thing I bring an Aquila or Black Friar in every list then. "Overpowered" pieces in Infinity tend to be the ones that attract real hard counters, and that is most true with Smoke. The big exception is Camo, but since half the metagame is built around it, it will likely stay that way barring an MSV3 reversion in N4.
I wish Dahshat had an easy button, but they don’t. At least not for me it doesn’t! Tac Awareness has not been a big help for me and the Rui Shi is such a target that I can hardly use it anymore. McMurder may be able throw down a smoke on 19. But doesn’t help when you roll a 1 against 3 of almost anything else.
