Vostoks

Have you run any math on these? They consistently outperform a Kriza running full fireteam buffs. To quote a local Nomad player the Wildcard FTO Vostok profile is an abomination that never should've been added to the game.

 

I might be weird but I've had several games with the Red Fury profile in vanilla nomads. Native burst five is a real luxury at a quite reasonable price point.

 

I have mostly used the FTO MK12 profile. I don't think they are too expensive. They are wildcards, fast (mov 6-4 and C+), resilient (structure 2, remote presence, immunity ap, ARM 3, BTS 6) and sport great visual modifiers (mimetism -6) with a decent but not great gun. On top of that it's buffable with an EVO remote.

I would actually pay 0.5 swc on top of the points even though an MK12 doesn't usually cost swc at all but the combination is extremely potent.

Mostly in Duo with a Evader engi. Sometimes a haris. In Corregidor that is. The Vostoks speed and mobility are imo one of it's greatest strength and I don't want to weigh it down with slower troops especially if they lack climbing plus.

I use either a Gecko and/or a Vostok in most of my more fighting oriented lists. The Vostok is usually my go-to when I expect a dense table, a null defense or lots of long range gunfighting. So obviously it makes the cut more often than not.

My advice would be to use it's mobilty to the fullest. It's already hard in infinity to defend against all standard vectors of attack. Defending against a wall crawling HI with mim-6 and it's own engineer in tow is nigh impossible.

Just beware of cc. Not just the melee specialists but also things like line infantry dodging into cc because you got too close. The Vostok might not immedietly die in cc but its stats are so bad that you probably will be stuck there.

Edit: It's for this exact reason that I usually bring the Boarding Shotgun Evader to duo with the Vostok. It can stand behind the remote and still use the BS template mode to ARO against charging warbands etc

 

Had a few games with MK12(Mim -6) and Red Fury(Albedo). With the support from Remracer(+1 Dam) and Assisted Fire, Red Fury has killed Montesa Knight quite easily(since they can't benefit from cover), and MK12 was menacing even against Karakuris, since the gun shoots Dam 17 bullets as if they were meteors.

The main issue would be their 24'' threat range. But for me the problem was not that difficult to handle, since we've got plenty of White Noises or Smoke Grenades.

 

I've used a mixture of support, but the EVO is best. +1BS remracer is nice but less essential due to its relative cost, although if you want a real meme take the +9CC remracer and use it to buff the dual missile dual heavy pistol vostok for CC24 B2 melee. It's not great, the range bands are very cumbersome - but it's hilarious,

I like it the vostok a Kriza just because I often have both offensive hacking and engineers in my lists. Zoe is increasingly common because she's a zero SWC hacker engineer which ticks three great boxes, and having both another aggressive midfield repeater to move around and a model I can pick back up without putting points and troop slots into a doctor really helps. Basically, I don't think it's better than the Kriza in absolute terms, but it has a little more synergy.

 

Vostok might be useful in vanilla too. Anyways i would prefer a piwell to buff in vanilla.

 

The thing is cheaper than a Kriza, and unlike the Kriza not a worthless paperweight.

Summary of my findings so far;

Vanilla: not tested

CJC: tried it too awkward to fit in a list I was happy with and found it not worth it

TJC: most lists in a HM haris With Hacker+tinbot and MR+pitcher, with EVO support. Core, too cumbersome and not really worth the investment, as far as the effectiveness and the math is concerned it dumpsters the Kriza while being 10 points cheaper.

BJC: see TJC but with attached engineer friend and a better tinbot.

Close enough, much more civilised than I remember putting it

Mostly Haris, and outside of one or two lists with BJC its been mostly seeing the table in TJC. I found mostly a waste of points in CJC as it was just the bad kind of redundancy when there are better things to be spending points on, like more Sombras

Native B5 isn't all it's cracked up to be, burst or burst's own sake is no where as strong as it used to be last edition (especially on some trash like a RF) when the choice is a B3 Dam16 vs a B5 Dam 13 I'd be leaning more to the weapon that can actually kill as opposed to just bouncing off the target causing to expend way more orders than you should have then stalling out.

Additionally what ever a RF can take down or wants to take down can die to other cheaper and as effective weapons platforms making them redundant and too ineffective for the cost, which is not what you want on the list's primary gunner.

If you are taking a Vostok, you should probably be taking at least an EVO rem with it, being functional BS15 is just too good to pass up, and the potential fairy dust for the list as a whole is also incredibly useful.

Vostok vs Kriza

Vostok:
- 10 points cheaper
- better mimetism
- not a worthless meatbag (all hail rem pres)
- better mobility (6-4, climbing plus)
- has repeater
- laughs at AP
- can be buffed

Kriza:
- different range bands
- +1 base BS
- Better base Arm
- Terrain skill
- Hvy pistol sidearm on all profiles

 

Kinda obvious but worth noting Albedo (vs Mimetism) is nice in a meta where MSV ARO pieces are common. Even vs Sixth Sense pieces it lets you get into the range band you want sometimes, which is especially nice on short - medium ranged guns like the Vostok has.

 

Oh hey - are you one of Triumph's locals? Any chance we'll winkle any of you out to come to CanCon next year? :)

 

Not used one. Seiko, Timex, Citizen and Bulova but never a Vostok. Bill Murray wore one in that movie, "The Life Aquatic". I'm not really sure why you would want one to play Infinity. Vostok's are apparently durable and inexpensive, but suffer from quality control issues.

 

I am,

A couple of us were going to Novacore, but that didn't pan out for obvious reasons. CanCon is one I've wanted to go to but the idea of spending days in a metal box in the middle of an Australian summer isn't overly appealing, but maybe.

 

Fair point, The albedo profiles don't really register to me thanks to in built repeater allowing for you to drop white noise right on it while still maintaining the more generally applicable mimetism for the other targets.

 

I ran a bunch of numbers through the N4 calc and found the mk12 -6 to be better in almost all scenerios. The red fury was considerably better against dogged or nwi things, due to shock. And marginally better vs linked MSV2. I think the mk12 out performed the red fury against linked MSV1. Red fury should be a lot better against unlinked MSV, did not bother running the numbers. It's a unlinked Aro though you can kill them with anything so I don't sweat it.

 

Interesting. I think it's not terribly surprising for raw probabilities to tell that tail. But also, positional advantage like you can get from Albedo vs msv are hard to quantify in exact numbers. Having Pi Well (with a plan) and an Albedo attack REM in one list gives you some options just a Mimetism bot does not I feel.

 

Do you have some granularity on the numbers? In particular I'm interested in how large the MK12's margin of advantage is, and where.

 

Correct but the albedo is only useful on one turn, against a very small subset of units that can be ignored through other means by pieces in the army. For example as previously stated dropping white noise through the inbuilt repeater, which is viable all game long and allows the remote to be more widely useful all game long as opposed for one small part of it. I find the albedo versions of the Vostok to be too niche in their usefulness compared to the more generally useful mim-6 which with support from the army can trivially imitate the albedo and for a longer period of time.

 

In my experience the Vostok is not a subtle tool, it is a sledgehammer to the kneecaps then a follow up to the brain pan, and one of these profiles leans into this better than the other.