You really shouldn't have so many interiors and roof tops to be and to hide 6 models without there being multiple within template range. You should also make interiors and rooftops accessible from atleast 2 directions unless they're very small buildings. You're list is otherwise nothing terrifying to an experienced Infinity player. Hiding not withstanding, as your opponents gain experience you will both learn how quickly and easy reactive TR bots die. And then how many tools exist to wreck tags. One perfect example is a camouflaged AHD on a roof in midfield. You literally have no way to get to that guy that isn't the exact target he wants to come within 8" to possess. Oniwabans, Warbands and em grenades will also wreck your tags day if you don't have extensive supporting coverage
Yep, playable building interiors basically don't play well with 3-turn ITS limits. Especially if you aren't using the full terrain rules (which you usually aren't, because ITS). It's a problem.
Yeah, really don't see many hackers here locally. Maybe too many newbies or something, but I don't see many hackers. I think I'm going to start another thread to see what other people's experience is. FWIW, I was running this list in a local tournament that saw people coming from quite a distance away. One of my opponents said he had never seen anybody field a EVO Hacker mule bot (in the other list) so I'm not sure I'm unique in that.
Maybe, honestly the buildings we were using were about as standard as Infinity terrain gets, being from Bandua and MAS. Having several on the table seems pretty normal to me, as is spreading out in such a way that most are not easy hit by templates. Sure if it was a larger model count list I could see it being a problem, but not with 10 models. Also Firefight has a 16" deployment zone which helps. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. There are a few more solutions to the problem than I was expecting, which is good. However I'm puzzled, what terrain rules do you feel were being omitted? I don't think we omit things for ITS here locally.
The full rules for terrain destruction etc from the main rulebook, which are specifically excluded from ITS play.
I can't see anything in the scenery structure rules that would make a difference, given that Destroyed structures stay on the table and continue to block LoF. For the MAS buildings, they get a lot more accessible if you treat all the floor hatches as Lifts to/from all floors, then it's a single Order no matter how high the building.
The scenery becomes a saturation zone. Not that it would help reaching people inside, especially with the very difficult terrain it creates on the same time, but it can help dealing with suppressive fire or +1B from fireteams. However if the key pieces (TAGs ...) were already killed, the remaining troops will have a harder time getting out of the building to try and score something.
Seems like if you could put buildings into the Destroyed state, and that would result in a D15 wound to anybody inside that would fix the problem. Anybody in the upper floors could also take falling damage. Weapons with the anti-material trait would get a boost, but you'd add a new strategy to the game. Anti-material weapons are common enough that you wouldn't necessarily need to bring them just for this purpose, like say a LGL, and aren't limited to a few factions or unit like some of the other suggestions here. The big winners would probably be Missile Launchers, which at B1, could use a bit of help, while the ubiquoitous HMG/Spitfire is lessened by being unable to hurt buildings.
To be honest I don't see anything here that particularly scares me. The TR bot would not take me half my orders to take out. If it were placed in a problematic position, it would probably also be in easy Los to a spektr msr, intruder hmg/MSR, or kirza. The Spektr and intruder could zero out the TR bot or at least reduce it to crit fishing, and the Kriza still has strong odds. If the TR bot was not in a problematic position, just ignore... I also second that if you're opponents are not using hackers it will make life a lot easier for you. Even just a HD, and a KHD (~10 points) will make your life harder, I frequently field both those and an ahd as well. Where your opponent places his models and what else he takes are big factors too. If most his guys are in total cover it will cost you 3 or 4 orders to cross the board and if they take some chaff skirmishing models guarding corners like warbands or mutts that can eat up valuable orders too. Maybe your just better then your regular opponent (s) have you tried switching lists and the tag list still rolls you? Anyway I wouldn't go after the order pool if I couldn't easily get to it, the tags unsupported are vulnerable too. Either smoke + warband up close, hacking from outside Los, or just losing firefights with stacked mods, and active turn burst advantage. Some armies can easily get your orders too, diomedes, or raoul Spector, mirage 5, shinobu, brando castro, fidays, speculos, or probably even van zant are good choices to gut your pool.
It makes it easier to get into places. So hiding for the whole length of the game becomes less viable.
Take the right tools? Seriously spec fire, and guided are things for a reason, stop blaming the game if you choose not to run them. theres also super jump,. Climbing plus as other means of moving and attacking troops hidden at elevation.
Spec Fire is a serious order sync. Most LI running a LGL in optimal band, against a target just attempting to Change Face dodge are going to be at around 25% success rate. So 4 orders, not to mention getting into the perfect range. Some models like Wulvers have it a bit better, hitting 30%, but still not great. Guided has similar issues, though slightly better, since it requires the model to be put into Targetted state, and then hit with the weapon. In a perfect setup that's a minimum of two orders, but is going to mean more when you blow a roll, or the target makes an armor save. Some of the better hackers in the game are going to hit ~30% chance of success for Spotlight v Reset, and the hit around 40% success against dodge, (it doesn't appear to be possible to use N3 dice to calculate U-turn from a hacker in there, guessing the odds drop even more). All together roughly 25-30% again, or 3-4 orders. (Just annedotailly I haven't seen anybody here locally try the guided fire trick, and only once have I seen a LGL have any impact on the game.) Contrast this with just shooting a regular LI with a combi rifle, which is ~50% odds of success, and has a much longer range. And that's really worst case, use something like a Swiss Guard with an HMG and the odds shoot up to 80% or so. I agree with you that Super Jump and Climbing Plus will often fix the problem, and efficiently.
So spec fire and guided are no risk moves. 25-30% with no chance of dying in the process is huge and regularly can get above that through the use of links and the targetted state. What do you people want, an I win button for every situation? The tools exist if you arent using them or not using them effectively either get better or stop complaining that its the main game. Develop strategies and tactics using what you have. Stop taking just HMGs and MSRs and DTWs and then complaining that your opponent employs a strategy that renders them useless
There is definitely a problem with a lot of partner terrain being too intricate for a 3 round ITS match. If you play on mostly simple, Mototronica-esque terrain the strategy is much less gamebreaking.
Just because a counter exists doesn't mean you don't have to be careful in how you select your terrain and the play it enables, there's counters to warbands but that doesn't mean we should all be happy to play on rat warrens, there's counters to snipers but that doesn't mean people shouldn't complain if they are seeing too many tables with blatant "see the whole board" type sniper towers. The fact of the matter is, tables where every building has parapets and every building including multistorey ones have usable interiors can be problematic, not every faction has good spec shot options, and bringing sat-lock and guided REMs is a non-minor commitment to a certain playstyle on the part of your list. Certain house rules only make matters worse, the entirely too common "muddy windows" (base contact required to see in or out) only makes it even harder to draw a bead on someone prone inside the second story of a building. The right tools only go so far when people are building crappy boards and imposing bad extraneous rules. The preponderance of parapets plus a predicament of practically un-pile-able products produces perverse play
Thats why i didtched muddy windows on my table and why i like that the rooves arent parapets for s2 or higher
Naah, it's fine. Anyone struggling just needs to git gd. ... I mean, sure, there are some options which people should be including in lists to respond to units in difficult to reach spots. But a skilled opponent can make Guided and Speculative difficult and expensive (although, admittedly, safe) to bring to bear. I'll be honest, I'm happy to watch an opponent spend orders to hit one model at a time with Speculative, or push up something to get Targeted only to follow up with Guided for one kill by one. I'm winning those games.
Works for a bunch of other players... But hey listing out the way things work to just have them thrown back in your face time and time again by people who often dont even try gets tiresome
I have never played an opponent who only had 2-3 models able to advance (not on rooftops) so take my thoughts with a grain of salt. My main faction is Haqqislam, so if my opponent only had 2-3 models guarding anything that would be absolutely great. Considering no MSV2 I would just smoke a bit (impetuous orders) then any of: a) walk hackers/CC specialists/Ghazis up to TAGs (through smoke, or with marker state) b) put mines/deployable repeater onto TAG lanes +/- midfield with Fidays, Farzans, Hunzakuts, c) do all the mission d) shoot TAGs out of suppressive fire ranges eg with Djanbazan through smoke, Marksman HMG bot, linked Missile launcher, regular old AP HMG e) go into suppressive fire in your half of the board, out of flamethrower range Basically I usually spend the first turn clearing a path to the midfield. If you have already put everything defensively in a way I only have to stop the advance of 2-3 models, my job is much easier. In terms of how to get at rooftop minis it's all already been said: a) there should be ladders to most of them b) if they are not guarding each other then smoke + CCW (fiday) or superjump or climbing plus or spec fire grenades at 8/16/32 depending on the unit or just have AD/infiltrators walk around and shoot them in the face To be honest I'd probably ignore the rooftop fusiliers and lockdown the TAGs instead. If all your back line troops aren't guarding your TAGs, then just one camo AHD Hawwa can have a field day - 1) Immobilize from out of LoF, 2) apply Boarding Shotgun to face.
