Yu Jing and ISS. They've got speed bumps, but that's not what I'd call control. Every time I play I feel like I'm a tiger hiding in tall grass during ARO, ready to explode during active turn with precision cuts and brute force, but hoping the hunters don't spot my weak flank. I rarely if ever am able to actually control the movements of my opponents since Yu Jing has few units that can effectively stack modifiers in ARO. Yu Jing is better at taking small areas and hunkering down. I'd nominate Pan-O and CA for better candidates for control, both have strong ARO threats capable of covering larger areas of the board. There is also the vector of counter-deception (surveillance?) that Yu Jing excels at with MSV and Sensor all over the place, beaten only by ISS.
Heh. And here I was, about to tell the story of one of the guys in my local group, who just can't seem to play anything but highly defensively (regardless of game). In Flames of War, he plays Hungarians with lots of defenses. In Warmahordes, he plays things like the Trencher Brick. In Infinity, he plays Morats, and almost never leaves his own DZ. All the time, he plays the "you can come to me" game. You should be able to, but I know some players who either can't or don't make the effort to.
The thing is not everyone plays extremely competitive. In my group, there are people who dissect tactics, lists and missions and try to adapt and change and make sure they're always ready for whatever task they're given within the game. These people are great players, make for some tense but fun matches. There are also people who just build a list with their favorite models and come over to play a game. They make for fun, hilarious matches filled with epic and awesome moments. The two groups don't have to be mutually exclusive, but it doesn't mean someone who fits the first also fits the second. Some people just have different wants and needs for a game, and if we want our community to group (Brazil's infinity community is budding now, so that is a concern for me) we need to accomodate all kinds of players, not just the super adaptable and competitive ones.
I can get behind both of these. To me I looked at the TO, Holo and AD Availability in MO as a pretty defining option. Its the most deceptive a Pan O Army can really feasibly be right? But I can see the argument that its not a very competitive way to play the faction. As for Neo-Terra that would be more my over sight I think. I was thinking along the lines of "Orc Harris and Bolt Links can be expensive if you want to run them you're trading alot of points" I can get behind this too. My general feeling was it wasnt a major game plan but I only passingly play Yu Jing so it could just be local players and my experience differs. My thinking on Vanilla Ariadna was that the lack of Hacking, TR and Links put them at a disadvantage on the Control front but you're right they do have an abundance of Mine Layers and general Camo to muck up the works. I could see Verticality. Re: QK. I see Yuan Yuans as being more of an Efficiency piece. They come in up the board. And spend their impetuous and irregular orders to try and mess folks up for little trade. They also seem like a pretty pivotal piece of QK in that its rare to see a QK list without one. Not something I'd say is overly Deceptive. As for a weakness Verticality could work or like Corregidor there is an argument to be made that there isnt one exceptional weakness so much as a series of slight deficiencies. I figured Brigada Links, Geckos, the Intruder and the Igauna gave it some street cred when it comes to Verticality. Their Links definitely help but I didn't see Efficiency as an out standing element of their game play. But that would be more in comparison to other armies I suppose. In relation to CA they are probably the most Efficient. I was thinking a dirth of hackers compared to their glut of HI and generally middling ARO tools made them low on the control scale. I think I over looked Brigadas to be honest. they definitely add more Durability than I was initially considering. I can see what you're saying. From my point of view I figured the following: Yu Jing has solid access to things like: Mad Traps, Hacking, TR Bots, and some generally alright ARO pieces (Missile Yuan Huo, Dakini in ISS, etc). To me that falls under Control but I dont think its exclusively true. One thing I was struggling with was how to classify Surveillance. I thought for a bit it might factor into Verticality? like if we are treating rules like ODD as Verticality MSV is an indirect form of that?
I don't think it fits into Verticality, it is more about denial of advantage than stacking advantages. It's to me the polar opposite of verticality, it's all those abilities that's all about dragging someone down in the dirt where you have the advantage.
Oh, we usually kick his ass, and try to teach him what he's been doing wrong, but the lessons never stick.
The way I looked at it was that was an equivalent process. You gain the advantage by removing your opponents. But perhaps it needs a different name...
The problem with Verticality is that I don't know that it hugely applies to Infinity in the same way as it might in other games. Like, let's say my opponent takes a Tikbalang, which has a higher BS, ARM, MOV etc etc etc than anything in my Nomad force, and the cost to match. Then I toss a smoke grenade on an Intruder HMG and over the course of 3-4 Orders promptly destroy it. Like, you could say that's deception and flexibility... but in reality, I'm just rolling B4 on 13s vs B1 on, like, a 7? Or a Dodge on a 10 (IIRC). Vastly superior, statistically. Similarly, in a different scenario, my opponent has the Tikbalang on Suppression Fire, with a couple of AP Mines deployed near it, covering an objective. I need to get to the objective. Theoretically, I am stronger in Control than the PanO player... but in this circumstance, my opponent's control of a key location vastly outreaches my own. I don't think you can just apply these things broadly. In a game where a well placed line trooper in cover firing at optimum range can trash an elite troop in the wrong place with the wrong gun, but the other way around the elite troop will trash the line trooper, and the elite troop will do it more efficiently and has more options and is superior in more places... it's complicated, anyway. I don't think you can just say "this faction is good at these things."
Actually, your assessments can be seen as assesments of weaknesses in relation to how the proposed classifications work. For example, even though you can destroy a Tikbalang in 3-4 orders as you said, you still have to spend those orders, and that means it takes the resources generated by 2-5 of your models in order to remove only one of the opponents. That IS verticality, it means one model is 'worth' more or as much as three or four others. It does carry the problem that if the model is destroyed it will be a bigger damage to the enemy than a less vertical army would suffer. On the second example, it's the same thing. The tik must have spent 3 orders just to set up the control of that objective, while an ariadnan player would need only to deploy a couple chasseurs around it and get the same effectiveness. So that's why we can say Ariadna has better control because it needs to spend less orders to get to the same results.
I mean to mean the example of the the Intruder is another one of Verticality. One of the examples I listed in trying to define it was ODD. In this case the Tikbalang tries to be vertical by being the biggest badass on the board. While the Intruder tries to do it by bringing a bunch of modifiers to win out. They're both examples of Verticality to me. I agree 100% with your first point but I'm not sure I agree with your overall conclusion. None of these definitions are meant to 'solve' the game this isnt rock-paper-scissors obviously. But I do think we can find some generalized army strengths and weaknesses. Will these apply in every situation? heck no. Will they apply to every list? not even close. Do they still have value? I'd say yes. One of the nice nuances of infinity is that its rare any given area is fully off limits to a faction. However every army does have their own perks and general play style that its units tend to fit towards. Understanding what the general direction the army takes can be helpful to better balancing a build, or finding the play style that makes success with the army easier.