I'm tempted to try and get some evidence for this comparison. IA vs. MO seems like a ton of fun if either side is taking anything but the eggs-in-one-basket death link. The Hac Tao ML in particular as could do extremely cruel things to MO and the standard IA link is better against armour, as well as IA having Zhencha which could outflank Trinitarians, but MO has a solid shot at Hacking superiority through Peacemakers and the AD Santiago and will typically outperform all IA troops in CC with the significant exception of the Hulang.
In terms of midfield skirmishing being unhackable is important if we're actually emphasising the skirmishing part and not just saying "dude who infiltrates". The Zencha is really good but he's at his best when he's with Guilangs, in IA he fits in the category of diversified threat vector like a Liu Xing rather than an actual skirmisher. Have nothing but Zencha and you tend to fall over when it comes time to press buttons under a Moran repeater network. Dart and the Trinitarians though can go right ahead and start fighting/pressing buttons immediately so they can definitely fulfill their skirmishing role.
Good thing about skirmishing with MO (and most of PanO in general) is that there's no Hacking surprises. Stay under Marker when there's a Peacemaker about and you'll usually be alright. With the C+ a Zhencha can pretty much own the midfield in this matchup, getting whatever angle he pleases on a Peacemaker and nuking it with a Panzerfaust then running around rooftops representing a threat that MO can't afford to bypass thanks to the AP on its guns. The MO player would need a serious positioning advantage, or Dart or a Tikbalang present and in a convenient position if they wanted to take down a Zhencha efficiently- or use a Pathfinder for Sensor and really hope the IA guy wasn't crazy enough to take the Hacker Zhencha and therefore drop a free Oblivion on your bot. Not sure how the top players run PanO, but I usually rely on REM density to stop serious attacks, so a Zhencha able to move around so freely would be a threat despite the limited places he could reveal.
I'm not talking about MO vs IA specifically, just the role difference between trinitarians/dart and the zencha
Tried a straight forward LI list in Firefight last night, did well for me. Had some good fortune with the Mk12 Bøyg, did yeoman's work with both the Mk12 and the Heavy Pistol. Accounted for a Peacemaker, Montessa Red Fury, a pair of Helots, an HMG ORC, Machinist, and a couple of Fusiliers. That, plus a Kamau deciding it wanted to dice off with a Nisse MSR and Karhu Paramedic, meant a fairly straightforward 9-1 victory. We definitely have some good pieces available to us.
