So just was just at a 10 person ITS in a decently competitive meta with Shasvastii. Went 2-1 and that final game I lost I have 2 very clear points where if I had made a different decision I would have won pretty solidly. So pilot skill error in this case. But figured I would share my takeaways. - Gwailo + Jayth Discoballer + M-Drone FTO is such an insanely good link team. I specifically took the HRL with MSV lvl 2 but the HMG would have been just fine in most situations I was in. But I did have a case where in round 1 I was in a Shasvastii mirror and staring down a Q-Drone so I setup smoke with a Speculo to smoke shoot it. But that's the obvious. The real standouts are the Jayth and M-Drone. The M-Drone gives the team much needed mobility with that extra Tac Aware order, is a specialist, and Sensor giving Discover +6 and even using Sensor itself helped setup a lot of situations where you can strip a model of marker state to put it down. It was the one to ultimately discover + shoot a Speculo to put it down after I stripped it if IMP1 with group 2. The Jayth with the Disco Baller was my biggest takeaway of the event though, mostly because that source of long range eclipse setup multiple melee kills both from the Jayth itself but also from the Speculo who cut an Iguana in half who hadn't even taken a wound yet (taking all 4 wounds feels so good but will elaborate in the next point). But that MSV1 honestly mattered a lot as my point man if I needed to fight mid-fielders as you are far more likely to see camo/mim on many mid-field models. Even if the M-Drone revealed them first with Sensor, the Jayth can more confidently fight them knowing he won't be punished as hard in the F2F roll with his pistol. I may even consider giving the Spec Ops Submachine gun profile a try because the M-Drone doesn't always cut it as a gunfighter and the Gwailo E/M Carbine is not lethal at the end of the day but that 21pt profile is still so good. Also E/M mines in the 21pt vs AP mines so that I also hard to lose. - The buffed Speculo feels like a 1 SWC unit now. I define a unit with 1 SWC or higher as a unit that should have an influential spot in your list. Paying that price for just a smoke user that can maybe 50/50 a more valuable piece just felt like not worth the cost and I was better off taking something in camo that had a gun. But now it feels reliable in CC, has a great selection of weapons to pick off lighter targets, and genuinely I had good success with having a Speculo start in my side of the board positioning more for where to drop smoke and otherwise hang out near objectives to punish my opponent for going for them. He cut an Iguana in half under smoke, shot a Mobile Brigada dead with a shotgun that was wounded earlier, and had I not actually messed up would have also put down an Aquila Guard holding the armoury room round 3 and made taking that room an absolute nightmare. Also in my Shasvastii mirror we both had a Speculo prone in IMP1 on the same roof guarding access to it as it had stairs in both sides. So I chuckled that our Speculos were doing the Spiderman imposter meme. Personally I much prefer the Boarding Shotgun because you are at a premium for decent AP guns and the Speculo if it can't get into CC it may atleast be able to get into 8" and shoot the target dead. And while it has smoke, Disco Balls launched from the link team at a target's feet make great cover for said Speculo to walk right in and cut them in half. - Dukash was an all star group 2 model. He can potentially run the back line and murder the world but most people playing against Shas are aware he exists and don't give you such easy access. But what he can do is drop down, use 3-4 orders to pick off a couple targets and retreat, and use that as your opening to move your other assets up. He starts to struggle after the first couple of models killed as typically sight lines open up more and you're then more likely to end up in a longer range engagement. So just using him to create an opening worked wonders. - Dazers are kinda good..... Being forced to have to stop and start a new order before moving again in difficult terrain made for one hell of a hilarious Biotechvore list. Tried to fit 4 Shrouded minelayers but had to cut one to make a better list. Made 2/3 of the PH 9 rolls to infiltrate them. And even after that you still have a camo boarding shotgun that you can very well use as a guided missile because they don't have any utility. So just using them to trade for models works quite well. Plus a good many Shas units have terrain total such as the M-Drone who likes to complete objectives! Malignos is good too. - Noctifier ML is still good. And arguably a little better since you aren't likely to run into Fireteams with BS 15+. It is still a genuine strength of Shas that there can be multiple of them on the field and it paralyzes your opponent's movement. They aren't the end all be all but still good to not forget they can be very effective. Gwailo + Speculo + Dukash + 2 Noctifiers is an SWC allocation that can still cause your opponent many problems. - The change to Limited Insertion is a huge boost to Shas. Most of lists in N4 and N5 often hovered around 10 orders showing anyhow. But both in N4 and now I would still have a group 2 and models hidden so only now do I actually benefit from not having orders stripped. And it feels nice. They are still a faction that does well going second so you also don't always need the benefit but still nice to have. - Notable downside that has to be accounted for in planning, melee is your most reliable way to deal with high ARM, and especially high ARM + mim. I knew going into this event I was going to be dealing with a Cutter. And for the most part I just had to ignore him as best as I could and focus on the mission as getting the kill was not likely to happen (due to many factors). Even that Gwailo HRL who can deal with the mim 50% of the time fails to deal any damage even when smoke shooting. So this is why the stress on boarding shotguns came up. It's something Shas has plenty of access to with their camo/marker state models and many come with deployment skills. Getting in range usually isn't that bad. Plus linked Disco Balls from the Jayth (and potentially Tensho but have yet to properly trial that link fully) also help a ton with getting units in close. Corax does have an AP Spitfire and Dukash has a Multi Rifle but mim really hurts them both. Seeing this in practice though you could play more Haiduks if you really are seeing an above average number of mim + decent ARM models. If not the Gwailo + Jayth can sweep them well enough and the Gwailo already fits well as a way to punish visor users who naturally want to be taken into Shas. I probably have more then that as I tinker but it was atleast a fun little boost to show Shas has some serious legs in a few key areas. The Gwailo HRL is such a highlight as only very few models have Albedo + MSV2 to smoke shoot, and of those, the Black Friar doesn't have access to smoke, the Satrah only has smoke in Vanilla Aleph, and the Bao troop in ISS has a very reliable smoke launcher so it can smoke shoot very well. But only the Satrah has Albedo -6 in that group (the other 2 are -3) and all are a single wound. The Gwailo's notable weakness here is it's smoke only comes on a 1 SWC unit that can't link, but now that is just good on its own so it does feel like less of a tax. And do not discount that E/M Carbine. Sometimes if you can't deal with the high ARM unit, you may just be better off turning it offline that way. Anyways, that's my little spiel. I still have plenty of stuff to play with, next in my list is to give Cadmus more of a shot followed by Nox teams in a support capacity. As my buddy who had the Cutter in said game told me, he genuinely sees value in a 19pt boarding shotgun drop troop just cause it's so cheap. And seeds are SX so that opens up a butt ton of drop locations that previously would be open to a ton of AROs but now are only the size of your base. And they specifically wrote the Combat Jump rules to not allow you to go prone for that exact reason, so I'm going to try a more extended look of taking advantage of it.
I largely think their general gameplay style/themes are what is working best at this point but it feels more like a mechanical issue with them feeling edged out in various areas. But the designer in me struggles on what to add to improve them without absolutely shattering their balance because I honestly don't think they are wildly away from being in line in the grand scheme of things. Not having any deployable repeaters and pitchers is probably good strong theming, but seeing something like ISS who has access to a decent amount of Shas's themes and feel but such a strong ability to bring hacknet to bear and use their Albedo + Smoke shoot with much greater reliability (but in a slightly weaker platform) really feels bad. I would probably like to see something like a Shrouded or maybe even Caliban with Deployable Repeaters, preferably Minelayer but now I'm wishlisting. I'm also aware that the design team really wanted to prevent Shas from getting easy access to targeting with their linked guided in the past and the beginning of N5. But with how many nerfs to guided have come around and reduction in Fireteam BS, having Shas as a guided shot faction that still has to get the model dropping the repeater up and with average hackers at best doesn't feel that unfair. The Sphinx feels rough. It's just too expensive for what you are getting. I think at it's price bracket it can afford to have AP. That still means Shasvastii won't have wide access to AP shooting to just outshoot the opponent, but paying for nearly 100pts of "kills little things" is just double dipping in a bad way and that alone is what feels to me as pushing it out. Most importantly, their key characters shouldn't be accessible in Vanilla. Sheskin maybe because she's really not much of a highlight in Vanilla, but Dukash should 100% be Shas exclusive. Not sure if this feels like too much but if you gave me more time maybe I can come up with better and more detailed suggestions. But I honestly feel that the overall feel of Shas feels great, but I end up with far too many moments where I go "this feels like a coinflip where I could easily do this reliably in another faction" and end up with that feeling multiple times a game. How much that is actually true, hard to say but that's my feelings on the matter.
@TacCom helpful and detailed writeups, thank you! I've got a Shas army in boxes, been looking forward to jumping in with them. The unit analysis and overall tactics you name here will be very handy. I've faced them across the table plenty, but knowing what's good from the user's side of the table is nice. Things like the D-charges still being useful on the Caliban in CC, for example. I've definitely noticed the standout Gwailo/M-drone/Jayth haris. Looks like a lot of fun and many options, and isn't just more camo. CA is unique/rare in having Baggage units which are more liekly to be present midfield to reload Discoballers, too. @psychoticstorm , making Gwailos AVA2 would also be handy, still thematic IMO. Being able to field the HMG as a Duo member on top of the HRL/MSV one would create a really unique set of HI play choices, unlike what's in most other armies. It wouldn't be too strong or a crutch either, IMO. AVA1 on these things feels like it chokes off one of the faction's potential build-archetypes. I mean, we used to have whole units of them...
I'd like some suggestions on what to buy next for Shas. I have the shasvastii force from Defiance which includes Nox, Cadmus, Caliban, Jayth, Taigha creatures, Seed soldiers, Speculo, Victor Messer, Gwailo, Sheskiin, Aida Swanson. I also got a Mentor and the Dire Foes box with the new Corax Hasht. What should I prioritize getting next?
Sounds like you kinda have most of the faction. If you want a bit of basics, the Combined Army Expansion Pack Alpha which contains the Imetrons (which Shasvastii can't use but Vanilla CA can) and more importantly the Ikadrons. It doesn't look like the Combined Army Remotes are in production but some kinda S3 remote option would be good as Q-Drones are quite handy and the M-Drone goes really well with the Gwailo and Jayth you already have. Outside of that, the Shasvastii Expansion Pack Beta is nice to get a Shrouded and a Malignos. But in all honesty I'd probably play with what you have and proxy some remotes to start and see what you like in the faction and how it plays. :) And while I don't think it's very good at the moment competitively, the Sphinx is super fun and hilarious to play with. So if your goal is casual games it is technically a unique piece. I love it personally, and will still pull it out for various casual game nights!
Thanks for the shopping tips. I really like the looks of the CA S3 remotes but it's strangely oop at the CB store and out of stock everywhere else. I'll just proxy some stuff seeing as I still have Yu Jing White Banners in the pipeline so I won't be getting to Shas for a while.
You're welcome! Yea. I noticed that too as I started looking to see if I could get more. I keep using the lore reason of "they hacked and stole some Nomads remotes before the battle." :P I did also forget, it's probably worth proxying the Noctifier to see if you like them also as both the Missile Launcher and the Spitfire both can be very strong in the right circumstances. And multiple hidden missiles is a unique strength to SEF but it eats a lot of SWC so best to see how much you even like it before committing to buying it. I am a big fan of putting stuff on the table first, especially as you have a bunch of minis already. I hold pretty strongly to the belief that Infinity as a game rewards perfection of personal play-style rather then chasing some measure of perfection in the game or in the list. And the main reason being is the game is technically very flat without massive mathematical variations between units in the grand scheme. So it really comes down to application of the tools you brought so your play style will typically dictate what tools you like to use and thus will use to better effect. It may end up causing a faction shift if you're talking in a competitive sense over time but ultimately playing the models you want to play will pay off better then trying to net-list. This is certainly not true for all mini wargames out there because strong synergy between units can create power that is greater then the individual components, but Infinity lacks a lot of strongly interconnected synergies in favour of powerful pieces that you use when the time is right. So instead you can focus on playing that particular unit well in the moment. Which is something SEF can do well but they arn't as resilient if the plan doesn't go well, which makes them challenging to play. Although as the Souls franchise of games will show (and many other games before them), that challenge can be very rewarding :)
That's a great analysis. Sadly I don't get to play as often as I like. When I play my Yu Jing I usually bring a fair bit of camo so going into SEF shouldn't be a difficult transition. I am however trying to wrap my head around Seed Soldiers' skills and rules.
Gosh I know that feeling of not getting in as many games as I'd like. I'm operating as an unofficial WarCor in my little corner of Southern Ontario. And it's hard enough to carve out time to make it out in order to keep community energy up but it's worth it in my mind. But I have a lot of weeks where we end up with an odd number of people so I abdicate my game for that week to ensure other community members get games. Which I am happy to do because I'm genuinely happy to have more people to play games with, but it's also true that it also cuts into personal game time. Seed Soldiers are honestly my go-to in my head when I think of Shasvastii line troops. With Nox being base 14 pts, the most basic Seed Soldier is 1 point more to hide under camo making it harder to strip out orders. Additionally it can be used to help hide other camo models like Calibans. But even from a defense perspective, chest mines being able to double tap can make them a very dangerous mine. But the other notable benefit is having the FO/Paramedic options as specialists that you can just hide in the mid-field as part of your shell-game, but come late game when you need to make some kind of mad-dash for the objective they are already some distance up the board and can press buttons. Since they hatch and become the model the moment they move you do still have to find a way to get them to the objective safely but they still can come in clutch. If you have any specific rules questions that you're struggling with feel free to send me a PM (which is fair, they are weird). I've been quite chatty here and while I've played SEF a fair bit in N5 I'm by no means the best player in the world so I personally want to keep the conversation in this thread to discussing SEF as a faction and how to play them. So I can do my best to answer rules questions privately or in another thread if that's alright. I'm just willing to help but also don't want to flood the thread with something tangential either :)
