That one's easy. The current rules reward 10-man armies hugely because going first will not cause you to lose 2 orders in the first turn. The drawback is obviously the lack of ARO pieces available due to running a single group. Vanilla Aleph is immune to this drawback thanks to Posthumans. Vanilla Aleph is arguably the best (or pretty much top-tier) faction currently.
I see, I hadn't read the ghost jumper skill, that does seem to give you quite a leg up in AROs if 10 order configurations are better.
I wouldn’t quite agree with this. You have a valid point in that stopping the tactical use of command tokens from stripping orders from single combat groups is a definite benefit, however this has just made it more viable than previously, not inherently better than two combat group lists. I for one usually try to have two combat groups whether paying Vanilla or SP because I think that orders are the most important resource in Infinity. Although the benefits of 1 combat group or 2 is arguably split dependant on the missions in question. For me, the reason I think SP gets less attention, is down to the reduced variety of options. Mainly because you need to use specific characters to set up the Enomotarchos links. I find that this means that very different lists often play fairly similarly due to activating links with the same Characters, ie. Phoenix. That said, I really enjoy SP and like to vary between the two armies depending on what takes my fancy.
Yeah, I’m not saying, the skills are completely irrelevant, and there are opportunities, when certain skills are nice to have. But they’re really not worth the extra expenditure, if it comes at the expense of something else. Of course, if you’re bringing expensive toys, like Achilles of Marut, you should bring an engineer.
I couldn’t disagree more. You will only avoid losing two orders if you go first, that means winning the initiative, which is a 50/50 chance. There is no reason a 10-order list should lack ARO pieces. You can include the same TR remotes, snipers, whatever, as anyone else. What a 10 order list lacks is orders. Getting two extra bodies - despite their cost effectiveness - is hardly overpowering. Vanilla still do not gain any extra orders. What vanilla has is MOV 6-4, endurance, versatility and modifiers to win ftf.
I'd like to mention that yes, Vanilla is THE best faction for Limited Insertion, very closely followed by Combined Army (vanilla aswell). This is because exclusive mechanics in both factions: Posthumans lets you have 2 extra bodies you can afford to lose without suffering hits to your order pool Mnemonica let's you play an aggresive Lt wihtout worrying about Loss of Lt Both have access to very elite troops that let them take lots of hits and keep moving Also remember that both Morat and Steel Phalanx enjoy order efficiency and elite troops that let them run amok with reasonable ease, but both lack really effective infiltrators (Zerat as hackers are exceedingly vulnerable to enemy hackers, specially now with the KHD, and SP has only Andromeda and Thrasimedes as troops that can start outside of the deployment zone; well, and Achilles V2, but he's no specialist). However, this doesn't mean that it the best faction, nor that a single combat group has advantages against 2 groups lists. Simply put, the Regular Order is the most valuable resource in Infinity, and starting with 10 orders means having 30 for the whole match. Starting with 20 means up to 60! Depending on the mission, going first with 10 orders is quite enough (supplies), but on another missions, you will be conceding the closing round, which is the most valuable (capture and protect, tic tac toe, supremacy...). Essentially, all missions where you have to hold objectives it's better to go second... thus negating the "advantage" of the first alpha strike, unless you are so good you can take the objectives and force enemy retreat in 10-20 orders and endure the 4 last orders or the enemy (not to mention, several troops are immune to Retreat mechanics, due to Religious, courage, veteran...).
To see if I have my head around this, SP is fine, it's a blunt instrument that gets by on order efficiency, near universal access to smoke, and having great gun fighting/CC. Vanilla is popular not only because it's flexible, but also because post humans are north of the balance point.
Pretty much, yes :) Although, don’t take the posthuman part that seriously. They’re just a really, really good deal ;)
it's due out this year and people are getting pumped. post humans being a bit too good is a bonus, not a reason (at least was for me). The overall faction isn't overpowered because of them (as evidenced by the fact they aren't consistently winning everything)
SP can do pushing buttons quite well, with at least one specialist in each enomotarch link. Actually, they do pretty well. What SP lacks is control of midfield in deployment. Wise rivals will abuse that and will try to jail you, but then is when your myrm spitfire or even simple combi rifle myrm start to shine. Currently playing vanilla Aleph, but have played the 3 last years with SP. I have try many kind of lists and never they disappointed me. Consider this example. You could miss MSV 2, but you can put in it easily, dropping Phoenix or the HMG thorakite. Example SP list ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 MACHAON Lieutenant Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0.5 | 38) MYRMIDON Spitfire, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (1 | 31) PHOENIX Heavy Rocket Launcher, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Heavy Pistol, DA CCW. (2 | 40) MYRMIDON Chain Rifle, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 16) SCYLLA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device UPGRADE: Maestro) Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser + 2 Devabots Charybdis / Pistol, E/M CC Weapon. (0.5 | 34) DEVABOT CHARYBDIS Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (7) LAMEDH Rebot Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) LAMEDH Rebot Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) NETROD Electric Pulse. (0 | 4) PROBOT (Minesweeper, Repeater) Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) NETROD Electric Pulse. (0 | 4) GROUP 2 5 1 THRASYMEDES (Fireteam: Enomotarchos) Submachine gun, Light Rocket Launcher, Nanopulser, Flash Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0.5 | 30) THORAKITES (Forward Observer, 360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13) THORAKITES HMG, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 22) THORAKITES (Forward Observer, 360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13) EKDROMOS Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 28) WARCOR (Aerocam) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army Your work horse will be the myrm link, of course. If going second, Scylla uses his bots to cover the advance of nasty infiltrators with template weapons; BSG or mines specially. Lamedhs cover the flanks for AD troops and in the other side of the table you have another hammer with the Thorakitai link. People tends to to ignore thorakites, until they hit you with B5 BS12 HMG or you could change the HMG for a more ARO tool as the feuerbach or the cheaper LRL. It's a good and funny faction... Until you have fought too many battles with them. Anyway, enjoy it!
I thought netrods were aleph and not steel phalanx specific. Wouldn't they prevent you from forming fireteams?
I just played a game with SP this saturday, that was at least 1 year since i last played them. I forgot how brutal this army could be. If anything, SP is perfectly fine for those who like to run in the opponent's face and hit it so hard he can't recover. Even if it's not tricky enough in my opinion (reason why i play vanilla), I can totally understand why SP can be popular. As for vanilla's popularity, they have cool minis, but sadly some of these cool minis have some problems right now (no i'm not looking at you Asura ... ho well, ok i am looking at you). But vanilla is also in my opinion the best army to play some of the steel phalanx troops: Patroclus, Diomedes, Penthesilea, Scylla, these have more synergies with vanilla than with SP. Thus, vanilla can appeal to both "vedic" fans and to greek fans.
I disagree that PH give you some huge advantage, 16 model tohaa LI is a real thing: Tohaa ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 10 1 RASAIL Lieutenant Viral Combi Rifle + 1 Chaksa Peripheral / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 39) CHAKSA PERIPHERAL Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife. (- | 4) RASAIL Spitfire + 1 Chaksa Peripheral / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 39) CHAKSA PERIPHERAL Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife. (- | 4) RASAIL Viral Combi Rifle + 1 Chaksa Peripheral / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 39) CHAKSA PERIPHERAL Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife. (- | 4) RASAIL Viral Combi Rifle + 1 Chaksa Peripheral / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 39) CHAKSA PERIPHERAL Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife. (- | 4) GAO-RAEL Sniper Rifle / Pistol, CCW. (1 | 31) KUMOTAIL Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22) MAKAUL Heavy Flamethrower, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, Viral CCW. (0 | 13) CLIPSOS (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25) CLIPSOS (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25) KERAIL PRECEPTOR Submachine Gun, Smoke Grenades + 2 Surda SymbioBeasts / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 28) SURDA SYMBIOBEAST Pulzar / Viral CCW. (0 | 8) 3 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army PH are good but they arnt the be all end all in limited insertion
I think it's a mix of some people being turned off of using a lot of characters and the faction having a bit of a steep learning curve. There are also a lot of units that don't fill a specific role that another faction would have and instead is a unique thing to Phalanx. Very cool but it makes them harder to pick up because cross faction skills don't apply as much.
I don’t see why anyone should be opposed to ‘characters’ in Infinity. I get that GW players are used to seeing named characters as something, that breaks the scale, but Infinity characters are more like just another AVA1 unit.
Well... 2 wound disposable models that cost no order to lose are pretty useful by themselves :p Because of fluff reasons: Aleph does not deal in individual personalities, aside from the Steel Phalanx and the posthumans, she's a "hive mind" (a Gestalt of Aspects, to be precise). Because of mechanical reasons: the greeks are heavy character-dependent, and once they face the Combined Army (their designated target to boot), the current campaign rules make it so that even if they win, they can lose it all. Essentially, Aleph's characters never die in campaigns, but if they face the Combined Army, you either manage to evacuate the unconscious body or the character is a total loss forever. So you could find yourself fighting pretty quickly with only 2 Myrmidon Officers and regular Myrmidons, with the Thorakitai unable to form Fireteams (since all of their Enomotarchos are characters), and downed to a collection of mooks without special tricks at all, in an army which already doesn't use them. Also, balance with other factions: Aleph already has more characters that any other faction thanks to the greeks.
That reminds me of a 20x20 game we played with friends, where the secondary objective (rolled just before the game, after lists were made) was "kill more named than the opponent". I wasn't even playing SP, just vanilla, but nearly half my army was made of named characters ...
To be honest, I doubt that enough people care about campaign rules today for that concern to make even slightest blip on the radar of army popularity. I would say the same about lore reasons, but that wouldn't be fair since metas tend to differ. I also doubt new people even know anything about campaign rules when they're at a stage of picking an army...
