Hello there! I've been thought experimenting with Cadmus the last couple of days (club's been closed and the few opportunities I've had to play have been spent demoing) and wanted to share ideas about him/her/it. Looking at the profile at first glanse, its stats aren't really that impressive. Only BS 11 and WIP 12 makes a poor gunfighter and a poor specialist (of which the only version is a KHD, which means its BTS 0 is also not helpful). However, the Cadmus comes with a few special skills. I'm sure you've heard of the Cadmus' ability to daisy-chain the decoys after final landing spot, but in case you haven't here is a short example: 1) CA player tries to AD a Cadmus, but fails the PH roll and disperses the Cadmus or decoy token 16" 2) CA player uses the decoy rules to put the Cadmus where the player originally intended to land This in itself is a great reason to use Cadmus since it makes sure that its nearly impossible to fail to land where you want to (unless you disperse of the board or onto terrain where you can not land at all). However, I thought that there must be other fun ways to use the Cadmus, so I created this thread so we could discuss them. One such idea, that I already posted in the SEF tactics thread is this: I think it was on the White Noise podcast episode “protect your embryos” where the guest said something along the lines of “how could you not love a mine that fires twice” while referring to seed soldiers. And I thought “what about a mine that fires twice and also has AD and has decoy so the opponent won’t know which is the mine?” Consider the following: Shas has turn 1. In the first time, you drop 2-4 Cadmus behind cover/around corners as shown below before doing whatever else you want to do turn 1. In the opponent’s next turn, he/she will have to consider everyone one of these as a possible mine and due to the placement, needs to spend orders clearing them out or risk a chest mine going of. And as they round a corner to shoot or dodge a decoy, the Noctifers with ML start appearing... You can also use the decoy to activate perimeter weapons or mines, just like holo echos, landing in different zones in missions that reward dominationg zones of operations, where the enemy has no way of knowing which is actually the 21-25 points until you need them (works great by dropping on rooftops since seed-embryos are S0. You could drop all three surrounding a model you want to take out, forcing them to choose for a 33% chance of AROing against the correct model before you activate a chest mine once they start to move. Go on, share your ideas about how to sow fear and confusion in the hearts of our enemies with the Cadmus!
http://infinitythewiki.com/en/Decoy_(State) Emphasis mine. I think you can't piggyback the whole 16' of the dispersion, but 8 at most. That being said, you can get 8' within of "forbidden" areas for AD but allowed in dispersion XD
I also think that the ruling allows you to chain up to 16' plus width of a base. Great skill! The Combined Army has really powerful and unique AD options. 2W Sygmaa drop troops, KoDhali, Rasyat, Cadmus. You need to decide whether or not the first marker is a decoy or the actual seed embryo before rolling PH, or did I get this wrong?
As far as I can tell, the passage you quoted doesn't contradict my point at all (I might be wrong, I'm not an english or spanish native speaker!). 1) the CA player places a decoy (or seed-embryo marker) and rolls the PH check 2) disperse if neccesarry 3) place the two other decoys where either of them must be within 8" of at least one of the other two 4) either of the three markers can be the real cadmus just as if you were deploying a model with Decoy in your deployment phase
Damn, the Cadmus is amazing. CA might actually be able to field a "drop force" that beats Corregidor's/Nomads' choices there.
the example says that one of the placed decoys was in coherency with none of the others, so it needs to be moved so it is. Please refer to: http://infinitythewiki.com/en/Decoy#Decoy_and_Airborne_Deployment Emphasis red mine, to indicate where to go in the reference chain. Then to http://wiki.infinitythegame.com/en/Coherency#DEPLOYMENT_PHASE_COHERENCY_CHECK Again, emphasis red mine. In this situation, the Reference Trooper is the first marker you deployed, per the Decoy + AD rules, so both markers need to be inside the Control Zone of that marker, but need not to also be inside of the CZ of each other.
My understanding is that the 'reference trooper' is simply the trooper you are trying to be in coherency with. In the rules for the decoy state it tells us the following. see also Note the use of "another", "at least one", and "either". Decoy is not like fireteams, where there is a singluar reference trooper. Any decoy may be coherent with any other decoy (from the same model obviously), and the reference trooper is simply which decoy you are trying to be coherent with.
I played a list using this idea last night against Nomads, playing Tic Tac Toe. I won - barely - and no thanks to my own tactical blunders. As per "no plan survives contact with the enemy" he surprised me with a heavy midfield camo presence, courtesy list blank except for two Morans with CrazyKoalas, two Morlocks, and the transformer bike. I went first, trying to land a cadmus KHD + decoys behind (what I suspected was) an intruder in a very strong overwatch position... and scattered right off the table. Second landed, same spot, but I screwed up and hatched the cadmus instead of attempting an intuitive attack. Shoulda left him in decoy... My third cadmus did better, but I found out after I landed that decoys don't trigger boost, and his camo marker didn't bite on an ARO. But that cadmus landed where I wanted, and took out his EVO. (He died to a DA morlock shortly thereafter. Egg in peace, brother). Here's my full list: Reign of Errors──────────────────────────────────────────────────GROUP 1 10 CADMUS-SOLDIER Hacker (EI Killer Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 24) CADMUS-SOLDIER Hacker (EI Killer Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 24) CADMUS-SOLDIER Hacker (EI Killer Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 24) CALIBAN Engineer Submachine Gun, Pulzar, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife, CC Weapon. (0 | 28) SLAVE DRONE Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) SPECULO KILLER (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenades, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Monofilament CCW, Knife. (1.5 | 39) MENTOR Lieutenant Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22) 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) E-DRONE Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 28) R-DRONE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)GROUP 2 2 3 3 NOCTIFER Missile Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32) NOCTIFER Missile Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32) TAIGHA Chain-colt / DA CC Weapon. (0 | 6) TAIGHA Chain-colt / DA CC Weapon. (0 | 6) TAIGHA Chain-colt / DA CC Weapon. (0 | 6) 5 SWC | 300 PointsOpen in Infinity Army In the end, my EVO took 2 antennas, the scattered cadmus took 1, and the caliban took 1, resulting in three in a row, plus more antennas for the win. I would recommend this tactic again. Just don't be like me and hatch earlier than needed (unless you're killing an enemy EVO).
Maybe I'm missing something... why wouldn't a decoy trigger a boost? Boost specifically calls out Camo, TO, and impersonation markers and "any Special Skill or piece of Equipment whose description specifies so." Nowhere in the decoy rules do I see any reference to boost.
Boost specifies a trooper. If I'm not mistaken, that excludes units in marker states: http://infinitythewiki.com/en/index.php?title=Perimeter&redirect=no#Boost
I also like the idea of dropping multiple decoys next to a cluster of enemy troops (doing it in such a way that the real seed wont be harmed, even if it means sacrificing one or two decoys to do it), and then using the next order to surprise shoot from decoy with B2 Chest Mines targetting as many enemy troops as you can hit.
Hmm, I see that argument, but then the real Cadmus is a trooper. As I mentioned, decoy doesn't have the language necessary to prevent boost, and so my conclusion is that you must treat the decoys as troopers. I haven't used holo at all, but if holoechos can trigger boost (I'm pretty sure they do, right?), I don't see why decoys wouldn't.
Holoechos do, but their text says: "Holoechos are considered real troopers in regards to providing AROs, checking LoF, and activating enemy weapons or pieces of Equipment (Mines, E/Maulers, etc.)" Making it even stranger, decoy says: "Decoys are considered real troopers in regards to checking LoF" but lack the ARO clause like the above.
Well then, there's also this in the decoy rule: "The game mechanics of this rule are very similar to the Holoprojector L2 piece of Equipment and Holoecho state (See Human Sphere N3)." It could probably be more cut and dry, but I'm finding more reason to have boost apply than not. In any case, we could probably move this question to the rules section and leave the rest of this thread to having fun with the cadmus.
Cheers to that! The tactical lesson I learned is chest mines aren't helpful against camo, unlike traditional mines. You've got to spend an order to run an intuitive attack on WIP 12. Something to consider vs. Ariadna or a Shas mirror match.
Played a game last night, my first with a 300 pt SEF list. I only used one cadmus, and I landed it amongst some bunched up units, of which a maakrep tracker and a Q-drone had LoF. He luckliy shot at the decoys (gamble on my part!) and the cadmus lived. I left it there and in his turn, he moved a slave drone past the Q-drone and I *forgot* to ARO with a chest mine that would've hit both of them XD The next order I remembered though, and I splashed both the slave drone, the maakrep and KISS. The maakrep and KISS went down and he spent an order on the slave to revive it. In other words, he got lucky and I forgot to do the ARO the first order, so it could have gotten WAY worse for him. At least it cost him a few orders!
There is, however, a paragraph specific to decoys + AD Troops, and the example calls for the second and third camo marker to be in coherence with the first. We can ask for @HellLois to answer about this, but I doubt you will be allowed to ignore dispersion completely. Besides, being able to deploy the real cadmus in 40cm (16') of radius, being a troop that starts at 21pts, would be quite OP...
No it doesn’t. It calls for each Decoy to be in Coherency with at least one of the other two, and it doesn’t care which one. “The next step is to perform a Deployment Phase Coherency Check, only to discover that one of the Decoys is not inside the ZoC of either of the other two. So, the player must adjust its position to be inside the ZoC of at least one of them.” This was queried and confirmed during the editing process.
