Hello my fellow artichoke enthusiasts, I am going to compete in this years German Satellite at the beginning of Febuary. As usual, I expect to face a lot of 5-man Fireteams, which I have trouble dealing with ever since I started playing Infinity competitively about one year ago. The +3 on all their roles often pushes the enemies BS to 4 above mine before other mods are applied, making it really hard to deal with the team. Whenever I face those Fireteams, I do my best decimating them down to at least four. Sometimes I manage to find a good angle with an unexpected Gao-Tarsos HMG and sometimes, I put myself in advantageous positions to shoot one of them down, I can't expect that to work everytime though, espacially not against better players. Tried the Smoke trick several times, too, but that often feels more like a gamble than a good line of play. How do you guys deal with these pesky Fireteams?
Why is smoke a gamble? Throw it from a position where they can't see you. And use it to advance where you need to, or use your Gao Rael sniper to shoot through the smoke isolating your target. Throwing the smoke grenade with a normal roll of PHI +3 shouldn't take a lot of effort. Sukeul with missile launcher is great. Even 5 man links will struggle. With her symbiomate you make sure the opponent has to spend several orders trying to take her out. Her mimetism counters most of the links +3 to BS. And given that they need to shoot her several times, the enemy is always risking to her a missile on the face. If after the symbiomate she gets another wound, you can duck her to cover, ready to be a threat again in the next turn. The Kerail with 2 symbiobeasts is also pretty good. And either dealing with the enemy ARO troops first or just using the smoke grenade s the Kerail has, you can run and put those beasts close to that 5 man fireteam. They have super jump, so they can even go on top of roof tops and throw a chain rifle to them. And you shoot the fireteam with the SMG and the templates at the same time, you are already making them sweat a lot because there is no good ARO decission againts that. I do not play Tohaa, but I usually play against them, and these are some of the strategies they use against me and usually work.
5man aro is a menace, but it can be delt with. option a) brute force. Place yourself in a way that Sukeul can shoot FtF with a single fireteam member. 5x13 vs 2x12 (Fusilier) can do the trick. option b) You can go better with the odds by adding nimbus. 4x7 vs 1x6 option c) Clipsos combi on good range. 8-16 is your sweet spot. Clipsos is 3x11 enemy 2x6 (range 0, cover, TO) option d) order expensive: nimbus+makaul in triad. Enemies will dodge on -6. option e) Eclipse to cover approach. Kerails puppies can jump on the roof and Pulsar whole link at once! option f) Kotail. EM granades might isolate part of the fireteam, and with Holo2 and superjump this can be quite easy to get him to the target. option g) A standard in most armies: use coordinated order.
The smoke trick of shooting through it with MSV 2 doesn't work on links 4+ strong as they have sixth sense. Only difference is that only the targeted model might shot back.
I hate giving advice to Tohaa players when I don't play the faction, but Armand is one of the few solo units that seems designed to attack fireteams. As long as he can limit the AROs he generates and avoids the few teams with decent linked MSV AROs he's pretty solid for the job. I've played against Tohaa a lot, but I learned to use him as a second attack vector for stubborn AROs in DBS. Armand 'Le Muet' (MSV 1) - MULTI Sniper Rifle (Anti-Materiel Mode) vs. Fusiliers - Missile Launcher Active Player 56.51% Armand 'Le Muet' (MSV 1) inflicts 1 or more wounds on Fusiliers (Unconscious) 32.09% Armand 'Le Muet' (MSV 1) inflicts 2 or more wounds on Fusiliers (Dead) Failures 17.23% Neither player succeeds Reactive Player 26.26% Fusiliers inflicts 1 or more wounds on Armand 'Le Muet' (MSV 1) (Unconscious) 20.64% Fusiliers inflicts 2 or more wounds on Armand 'Le Muet' (MSV 1) (Dead)
You can declare two different target, who can stand nearly behind each other and you get your burst 2
Burst 5 Sukeul with HMG and Symbiomate. Keep trying until he gets it right. With Mate, Symbiont Armor and a few orders behind it, that's pretty likely to succeed.
Bombing into melee under cover of smoke with Makauls works on everything up to about a crusade or samurai team. However, you'll typically need to either wait for the later turns of the game or otherwise incent your opponent to advance their team into the midfield for it to be practical, so it's a strategy best combined with non-committal skirmisher or other attacks on the rest of their force.
Another piece to consider is the Nikoul. This one will depend on local playstyle and terrain setup but with sapper a Nikoul can deploy on the very back of the table edge. This makes them almost certain to be out-ranging enemy HMGs and pretty likely even to be able to out-rang enemy missiles if you're lucky. With the range mods against the and mimetism on the Nikoul, most enemy HI links will be down to hitting on 7s to the Nikoul's 12s. In active this can let you snipe out overwatch elements (like Tanko or Magister missiles) and in reactive will force smoke and generally effectively delay most aggresive HI links. Even with good range a Nikoul won't last indefinitely against a fully linked HMG, but they can last long enough to secure an advantage. To note, Gao-Rael snipers can obviously do the same thing but without sapper are dependent on terrain to achieve cover, which makes them much less reliable for this specific strategy.
When engaging a 5 man link team I think it's important to assess their potential. Examples given above of nimbus grenades and flamers are always good. Also CCing is also good if you have the orders. Sometimes its the play that you need, other times you may as well ignore the link and try to dislodge other pieces first to get rid of the 5 man bonus. There are times where this isn't possible due to terrain. For most part I feel most 5 man link teams for Tohaa can be taken apart by the Sukeul HMG B5 in good ranged bands but there are some exceptions. The link teams that a sukeul HMG may have a hard time beating without assitance are basically any link with a that can effectively get a +3 target number above you in reactive as well as B2 in ARO.: - Riot Grrl Missile launcher if the RG link is within the 24+ range band. - Kamau Sniper Link - Dakini Link (HMG/Sniper) with supportware The example below is of a Kamau linked sniper which has to be one of the hardest links to face in terms of trying to win but I think gives a good example of what you could be up against. A savvy opponent will also do things to make the roll particularly hard. They might have a TO camo sniper which reveals when you try to engage and force you to split burst. Sometimes you need to weigh the odds. Symbiomates are great for this but chances are it might already be used. The Kaauri nimbus zone I believe Tohaa's answer to hard 5 man link teams. You might get and your opponent might get a -3 to hit but the difference it makes is it reduces your opponents burst by a higher percentage than yours. Example below is of what happens when nimbus zone is in effect vs the Kamau link. You can try it with the nimbus plus grenades from Sakiels but it actually reduces your chance to cause a wound by too much I feel though the end effect is the same. If you don't have the Kaauri nimbus zone and you need to engage from range the negative burst is what you're really wanting so sometimes you need to just do it. For most part though play the missions. Kaauri nimbus zone isn't fool proof. It can be order intensive and require planning and coordination in deployment. Sometimes the best thing to do for really hard link teams is just ignore it.
You can always just eclipse and not engage. "Oh you have a 5 man grunt sniper team, cool story, im going to smoke and run into your blind spots, grab some objectives then force you to come close to fight me, flame thrower close/.".
I really appreciate your advice, guys! Some of it might prove really useful in the upcomming tournament. I've never thought about using the nimbus zone to deal with fireteams that way. That being said, I don't really like the CR Kaauri profile too much compared with the one that brings an SMG. Running at them with a triad of Makaul is fun and all, but also really order intensive, that's why I often avoid it. Maybe I'll try it with the Kerail.
The thing is that you dont do this like you would with say achilles or joan, you are looking at two turns for this to happen, with your first turn being about just blocking them out while you get to mid field. When setting AROs, setting a makaul in sight to throw eclipse blocking them out for their turn. Trading a 13 point makual for a turn where 100 points cant do what they are their to do is a good trade. Suicide Igao can also be a very nasty thing.
Clispsos, and Libertos are useful for getting mines in place to cover the link before engaging from range with another unit, (Le Muet is a great unit for this follow up because of the mods he imposes through ODD, and because he reduces their mods with MSV1). The Clipsos itself can be used to sneak up into the 0 range bands, (or -3 range band if the unit does not have a pistol, such as Daikini HMG), and engage them using its TO mods to swing roll in its favor. Krakots are also great disposable units for running full ahead into enemy fireteams. I prefer the double Chain Rifle + grenades version because if all the close units dodge, it can throw a grenade to try and catch multiple units, and if any shoot back you have a good chance of bringing them down with the Chain Rifles. Once the link is down by even 1 unit, it is far easier for your other units to engage at range.
