However infrequent CC may be, I want to know your favorite tricks for engaging, hamstringing, and killing targets in Close combat. Who do you use? Who do you engage? What unexpected methods of engagement are your favorite? What do you like doing up close and personal?
This isn't necessarily a good trick, and my main opponent plays Steel Phalanx so I usually avoid melee, but I love carrying Yasbir in an Asawira Haris disguised as another Muyib. He is usually ignored and loves the boost for multiple bases in CC.
Well, i'm NOT using Fiday nowadays, because my regular opponent learned to cover his troops (and with Ariadna prices, it's really easy) after loosing 3 or 4 guys on the roof to Fiday in one turn. But yeah, he's good with that. Asawira. My personal favourite. Most of the time i'm picking her as my Lt (backed up by Farzan CoC) for that sweet LT order. Never managed to get CC with bikes or Krakot, but they are good option in my eyes. Nasmat as well :Kappa: Not a fun of Khawarijis and Tarik, so well. Mostly SWC BS units and specialists, ofc as long as i'm not running directly into ARO hell. Well, using your LT order for Asawira Engage is a great feeling, i gotta tell ya. Well, just being up close and personal is something great in Infinity. It's a high risk - high rewards thing, but if you have someone who can do the job... the game becomes something more exciting.
I absolutely love using my Fiday and his Knife on people. I love the Stealth+Silent+MA2 to give an instant kill possibility thats silent. There have been numerous times I have been able to wipe out groups of enemies that are close together. I often engage order monkeys, or weak obvious lieutenants. Another favorite combo of mine is Spec firing Smoke into a group and then moving into CC so I can place the smoke well. Another is spec firing Smoke, and laying out all of my mines and then moving into combat.
I don't engage my units in CC (Qapu Khalqi not having really dedicated CC Units), but there is something magical when someone else's unit goes into CC with an Odalsique, with her unimpressive CC 15, and find themselves hitting in a similar range due to I-Khol Lv3.
Odalisques are actulaly decent at bullying standard units. Hitting on 15s becomes way more impressive when the enemy is hitting on 5s or 4s. And it is trolltastic.
Tarik is OK at carving up guys who aren't CC specialists, and he has the mobility to get there. He can also do it to models on suppression fairly easily - spec fire a grenade onto them, they break suppression, you jump around the corner and thump them. Fiday or Al Djabel are obvious candidates, but again, don't send them after CC monsters. One silly thing I often do with Ghazis (because they're cheap, but really any unit will do) is run them into enemy units that they have no hope of killing, but who don't have a means to one-shot them. If they take a wound, they go Dogged. Then, I roll the Rafiq up and Triangulated Fire the helpless unit in CC, at no risk to the Ghazi, but since the enemy is locked up in CC they can't ARO.
Fun fact: chance of wounding some line infantry with knife goes like this: MA 4 > MA 3 > MA2 As tempting to compensate for DAM loss as it looks, it's actually a bad idea that will also get your Fiday killed more often than other MA options. I think they can ARO with Dodge and use it to Disengage, but at least you can setup that Triangulated Fire in the first place, yes.
Nobody mentioned our Kums yet? :) Another time when I'm going to be the biggest fan of them ;) Sooo... Kasym is a beast - and using him in CC is also great. He's extremely fast, can smoke his way, and can ride with ease into midfield or even into enemy's deployment zone (when other guys clear his path offcourse, in which he works great with Djanbazan for example). Similar with Zuleyka. It's great to smoke some infiltrating spec, then go into CC with him, using high CC of our riders and their impressive Physique and weapons (Kasym has CC23 and EXP DAM14 weapon!). They have also the great way to adjust the attack to which ARO the enemy will choose - you can ride with Kasym into BtB with enemy and then wait for ARO. If it's shot and it's some really good shooter, you can just chain him (and still ride with Dogged even if Kasym get a wound). Or you can use CC, or shot with a pistol. All depends on the enemy. Hell, you can ever shot a Panzerfaust in his face if you feel lucky! :P Kasym is so expendable, that sometimes it's good to push him for some risk - I used him once against Steel Phalanx to chain a link of myrmidons (killing one of 4, because they dodge really good), then he went into CC with second one, killed him, and finally died against Officer. Still a good way to go ;) With Dogged he can risk fighting against units with normal CCW (not shock, DA, EXP) and even if he loose one fight, he can try again. With his EXP CCW he needs only one win in CC FTF to finish off almost everybody ;) I also used him against better CC specialists, like enemy's Djabel - Kasym rode into CC, the enemy was sure we're going to fight, so decided to use CC and MA4, and then Kasym used chain to kill the enemy. His sacrifice was worth it ;) So that's about Kasym - and similar options work for Zuleyka. She's a bit worse fighter, yet has better close range guns - 2 Breakers Pistols. And 2 light flamethrowers. Scary ;) About other CC guys in Haqq - since the new edition I used Tarik few times and he's also great in CC. High damage, nice statistics, really good against non-CC specialists. The combination of Stealth and Super Jump lets him make some hilarious actions, like jumping off a big building behind an enemy and not provoking any ARO ;) We also have the typical CC specialists - Fidays. My favourite is Djabel. He's highly effective, starting close to enemies. He's great at taking out enemy's lieutenants (or the guys that can be them), total reaction drones, snipers, specialists et cetera. I never really used Knife in CC, rather going for Smoke and then Viral CCW. There can be some situations in which Knife would be better, like when getting against Interventor LT with their 9BTS ;) My Yasbir also killed few enemies in CC, the tactic with is similar to the one of Djabel. He's a bit farther from the enemy usually, but with Holo and/or smoke he can quite easily get close to them. I think that those are the guys I use to kill enemies in CC. Ofcourse there are also some weird situations, like Hafza putting down Ninja in CC or Maghariba wounding Oniwaban, but those are rare ARO actions ;) PozdRawiam / Greetings P.S. To be honest I really like what CB did with CC in N3 :) The high stats are really effective and it's great that it's better to use Kasym in CC than to shot against a typical enemy with his pistols. The same goes with Tarik, I checked and there are many situations in which it's better to get close and personal, than fire with his Spitfire/AP Rifle/Light Shotgun from close distance (even though he has Fatality!)
Engaging with a MA CC monster is fairly useless since since engage is a PH attack and none of the MA abilities apply (or at least we didn't find the rules saying it worked, please correct me if I am wrong). Stealth+Knife only works against cheerleaders. I avoid 1B CC attacks. Once you hit 2B things get a lot less risky. So Al-Djabel(MA4), or Assaulting Aswari Duos usually are a safe bet. Otherwise I usually prefer shotguns.
MA doesn't, and if you go by what playtesters say, all CC Special Skills except I-Kohl were intended to work only with CC Attack skill. That said, even if your community doesn't think "place them on walls" trick is legit, your model being placed where you definitely don't want it to be is still enough of a disincentive to declare the ability. Well, except 4+ ppl-linked cheerleaders... It's interesting that against poor CC combatants MA4 is a riskier, but also more rewarding option. You're more likely to wound, but also more likely to be wounded as well. That is compared to MA3, no Surprise Attack modifiers. Of course, link bonuses stack with your MA, so it's good anyway. Still, I always wanted to ask how good of an idea this really is, considering your assisting models are going to be hit on normal rolls, most likely? Because we know you have our back!
Only if they have Sixth Sense (L1 if inside ZOC, or L2 if outside). Engaged troopers do not have LOF outside of CC, and the list of legal AROs is, For this reason, they can only declare CC Attack, Coup de Grâce, Dodge and those Skills which specify that they can be used in CC Combat or in the Engaged state, as Reset. Change Facing is not a legal ARO. If the target Trooper doesn't have Sixth Sense, you can shoot them with impunity and they cannot ARO.
Remember you can do the force-an-aro-declaration-with-first-short-skill trick too! I use it most often with a Fiday and if the target has a template weapon. For those who hadn't yet learnt the joy of abusing this technicality: Let's say you start out of LOF, but within 8" ZOC of a target.. If you use your first movement to move into b2b, the target can just lay a template while you do a normal Dodge/CC/anything else as your second short skill. This is less order intensive, but definitely more risky. Instead, if you declare a short skill such as Idle or even throw a smoke grenade as your first short skill, you force the target to declare an ARO, which at most can only be Change Facing. Then you declare short skill move into b2b. some caveats: You have to remember to "turn off" stealth by declaring it to be so, since it's an optional skill. If your movement skill brings you into LOS of enemies whose ZOC you were out of, they will get a free ARO at you. Also useful if trying to round a corner into a target who is in suppressive fire, and where marker state won't help. Same trick also pretty useful for Tarik, especially with his 6" movement.
I like Yuan Yuans in QK... nobody expact engage as the second action when you cut the corner by the firts one. The have no MA, but CC19 and good PH14, could be usefull. I ussualy take the 9 pts version /w DA CCW. You must choose your target well, sometimes is smoke better, sometimes chairifle of course, but have on your mind that engage is also an option... and even locking enemy in CC is a strategy.
I'm having a little trouble wrapping my mind around Cautious Movement and CC in the same order; as CM uses a whole order skill you have no second short order to make a CC attack. What am I missing? (to be clear, I understand Stealth and ZoC)
Nothing, really. Use next order to attack. That said, I'm of the opinion that by RAW CM always fails for its intended purpose if used to reach base contact with the enemy. On the other hand, some wordings suggest that the intention was different. Search the Rules forum for details. Tags should help you.
