OSS vs ASA

I got the chance to put OSS on the table again against @barakiel with his Shock Army. The bad news about that matchup is that he is a strong and consistent player with PanO and I firmly believe that ASA is the best that PanO has to offer. The good news is that I’ve talked through a lot of his list ideas and strategies with him, although I run a lot of my ideas his way as well.

In any case, the mission was Frontline and I knew I’d be in for a fight. My goal was to use the large assembly of remotes I had to do as much damage as possible and pile bodies in the middle to try to score the mid zone and if I could sneak it, the far zone.

My list was:

OSS Deva Hacker, Danavas, Rems
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GROUP 1 10
SHUKRA Lieutenant (Strategos L1) MULTI Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)
DANAVAS Hacker (Hacking Device Plus. UPGRADE: Maestro) Combi Rifle + Pitcher / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 25)
CSU (Specialist Operative) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
PROXY Mk.1 Engineer Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
YUDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
PROXY Mk.2 MULTI Sniper Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 24)
PROXY Mk.5 (Forward Observer) 2 Submachine Guns, Nanopulser, E/M Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
NETROD . (0 | 4)
NETROD . (0 | 4)
ZAYIN Rebot HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 26)
DALETH Rebot Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 17)
LAMEDH Rebot Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
LAMEDH Rebot Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)

GROUP 2 6 1
DEVA (Assault Hacking Device UPGRADE: Lightning) Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 28)
DAKINI Tacbot MULTI Sniper Rifle / Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 21)
DAKINI Tacbot Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 13)
DAKINI Tacbot Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 13)
DAKINI Tacbot HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 21)
APSARA (G: Jumper Level Z) Submachine Gun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22)
WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3)

6 SWC | 299 Points

Open in Infinity Army

My thinking behind the list was simple. The Dakini fireteam tends to be a target, and I tend to avoid spending orders moving it up the table as I’ve been touched by Noctifers and Swiss guards too many times. By putting them in the second group, I was hoping to use them to buffer my main order pool as a juicy target if I went second. Alternatively I would have 5 or 6 orders to spend exclusively on them if I went first.

I won the LT roll and opted to take deployment. My opponent chose to go first.

His list was something like this. Although I may have gotten the order groups a little wrong.

Shock Army of Acontecimento
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GROUP 1 10
ORC HMG / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 44)
BAGH-MARI HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 26)
BAGH-MARI (Minelayer) MULTI Sniper Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 28)
REGULAR (Minelayer, Sensor) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 14)
REGULAR (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 11)
REGULAR Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
REGULAR Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
REGULAR Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
DART Submachine Gun, Viral Tactical Bow, E/M Grenades / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon, Knife. (0 | 34)
TRAUMA-DOC Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
PALBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)

GROUP 2 6
PEACEMAKER Heavy Shotgun + AUXBOT_3 / Electric Pulse. (0 | 21)
AUXBOT_3 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (- | 4)
NAGA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30)
MACHINIST (SAA) (CH: Mimetism, Multiterrain) Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
PALBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)

6 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

He opened aggressively with his peacemaker, naga, and Dart. He managed to get a good e/m grenade hit on a couple of my Dakinis, to which I failed all of my dodge and bts rolls. Then he managed to get his peacemaker up close to my Deva, but I had a repeater nearby so I hacked it with my Deva and Danavas. At the same time I got a flash pulse with my FO bot. I managed to hit it with all three and he missed his shotgun rolls. Then he rolled 16 and above on all of his BTS saves. In any case, at the end of the turn, my Dakini team was dismantled and my Deva was dead but my first order pool was 100% in tact.

I was able to kill the peacemaker relatively quickly and then put down Dart, although that took a couple of failed attempts followed by my TR bot climbing a high wall into a white noise zone to shoot her at bad range. At that point I only had a couple of orders left to move a couple of pieces forward into the zone. I think I brought back a Dakini and made a 2 robot core team so that I could at least advance with them later.

In turn two, my opponent put down my Danavas and failed to kill my Proxy engineer. He advance with his ORC hmg to put the pressure on, but my army was keeping their heads down, so he wasn’t able to accomplish much. I think he did put down a netrod. I managed to use my Proxy sniper to hit the ORC with a nano pulser on his second short skill and take off a wound. Then he managed to get a bead with his Bagh Mari hmg in my back arc. With some lucky rolls for armor,
I got out with only one wound a fell prone. His Bagh Mari team, however, was up and ready to take on my advancing army. Without white noise, there was little I could do about it.

I maneuvered around with my TR bot and caught his ORC in the back, but only landed one hit and he made the armor save. Then I tried to kill it with the Proxy sniper, to no avail. I managed to get his Naga out of cover with my sniper and kill him. Then I advanced a few pieces into scoring zones.

Turn three saw his core team advance to get overwhelming dice on my TR bot and removed it from the table. Then his engineer killed my sniper. He stood up his fireteam and covered his ORC with them and the engineer in suppressive fire. He was holding the middle zone with more than sixty points and the ORC was impossible to get to without drawing fire from at least one Bagh Mari.

I used my FO bot to get a 32+ inch shot against his engineer. The first not doing anything. The second, however, was triangulated and killed the engineer. Then I moved my Dakinis up to secure the hvt. Finally, I coordinated my FO Proxy with a flash pulse bot to draw fire from the Bagh Mari team to get my Proxy close to the ORC. It was either my second to last or last order that I was able to take the last wound off the ORC with an smg burst at close range, securing the middle zone with my Liaison Officer.

This ended in a 6-1 victory for me, which doesn’t reflect the fact that my opponent had me on the ropes the entire game. My win really came down to a bullshit manipulation of the ARO game. I guess that’s the rules, and I suppose I prefer it to just throwing smoke and completely negating an opponent’s skill and hard work with a 5 point warband. In any case, it was a great game against a really skilled opponent.

All in all, I like the theory and I think I like the practice so far, of putting the Dakini team in the second group. Their lack of ability to go prone can still be significant and mixing up the fireteam with a bunch of 4-4 models isn’t really idea. That being said, I think it is valuable to put a CSU in the team. Proxies are still really good, and frankly, necessary in OSS.

I don’t love how much OSS relies on remotes. Missing out on things like cautious movement and going prone are significant.

I need to try the Yadu core team to get something different on the table. I’m having trouble getting a list with them that I like though.

In any case, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the light recap.

 

Mostly that I didn’t have the points for anything else and I prefer a full combat group of regular orders.

With the order required to reactivate the Apsara, I also find that I rarely reform the fireteam. I do think there is a lot of value in swapping the CSU and warcore though.