So I have my first game in an escalation league where almost everyone is playing armies they haven't played before. I picked OSS and have a match up against JSA Round 1. The first game is at 150 points and 20x20 with list construction using Recon+ rules. The objectives are Border Wars and Take out the Big Guns, so you gain OPS for killing your opponent's most expensive units, killing more units, and getting your units into your opponent's DZ. The board is 36" x 24" for this first round. I had a game of Annihilation against this same opponent at a 150 pt local tournament on Sunday. My opponent played this list: JSA 150 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 9 1 1 KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9) KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9) KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9) KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9) KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9) KEISOTSU Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 9) RYŪKEN (Forward Deployment L2, ODD) Submachine Gun, Antipersonnel Mines, D-Charges / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 24) KEMPEI (Multispectral Visor L2) Shock Marksman Rifle / Pistol, CCW, Electric Pulse. (1 | 25) YOJIMBO Contender, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades, CrazyKoalas (2) / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 21) NINJA Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 26) 2.5 SWC | 150 Points Open in Infinity Army I played the following: Recon + 2 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 8 1 DEVA (Multispectral Visor L2) Spitfire, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 33) DEVA Lieutenant (Sensor) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 24) CSU (Specialist Operative) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) DAKINI Tacbot Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 15) DAKINI Tacbot Combi Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher / Electric Pulse. (1 | 17) NAGA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30) LAMEDH Rebot Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) LAMEDH Rebot Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3) 2 SWC | 150 Points Open in Infinity Army I got first turn and used the Deva spitfire to take out Yojimbo, the ninja, and the Ryuken. I ended the turn by putting both Devas and both dakini in suppressive fire. I thought I was home free, however I was eventually crushed under the weight of the MSV2 kempeitai and seemingly endless keitsotsu bodies thrown my way. I'm anticipating he'll run a similar list for our match, and was thinking of changing the list to this: OSS Round 1 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 8 1 NAGA (Minelayer) Boarding Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27) PROXY Mk.2 Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 21) PROXY Mk.5 (Forward Observer) 2 Submachine Guns, Nanopulser, E/M Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) DALETH Rebot Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 17) CSU Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11) DAKINI Tacbot Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 13) DAKINI Tacbot Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 13) SHUKRA Lieutenant (Strategos L1) MULTI Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) PROBOT (Minesweeper, Repeater) Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3) 1 SWC | 150 Points Open in Infinity Army I'm hoping to play more defensively with some added resilience of Posthumans, mines, and cam/TO troops I can hide until the last turn. I'm losing MSV, which sucks because it will make the dealing with smoke/Ryuken tougher. If any of you have any thoughts about how to approach list construction for this, I'd love to hear them.
Are there rules restrictions you are using for the leagues? I know following the official round structure you don't use LTs at first and hacking is later too. Your new list really seems to lack teeth some heavier and I can see Yojimbo causing some serious problems on that size table. Motorcycle mobility makes him and the others pretty strong with that mission set and his Koalas cover the entire width of the board if positioned right. I'd look at possibly attempting some infiltration rolls to get an edge on him. The small size of the table means it is less of a penalty for failing, but getting a minelayer or HD BSG near their deployment area right off the bat could be really strong. Keep in mind that Nagas are pretty fragile though and that's almost 1/5th your points given up. What about a remote heavy list with an engineer to repair things?Use Remote Presence to your advantage and force him to spend more orders taking them off the board completely or risk you gaining them back on your turn. Devabots are great for trading up on points as an option as well. OSS Round 1 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 7 DAKINI Tacbot HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 21) DAKINI Tacbot Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 13) DAKINI Tacbot Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 13) DALETH Rebot Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 17) PROXY Mk.5 (Forward Observer) 2 Submachine Guns, Nanopulser, E/M Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) PROXY Mk.2 Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 21) PROXY Mk.1 Engineer Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) YUDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) YUDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) SHUKRA Lieutenant (Strategos L1) MULTI Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) 1.5 SWC | 150 Points Open in Infinity Army
I'm not too experienced with OSS yet (less than 10 games below my belt), but I think I would've tried something like this: Operations Subsection of the S.S.S. ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 7 DAKINI Tacbot HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 21) CSU Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11) DEVA (Multispectral Visor L2) Spitfire, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 33) DEVA Lieutenant Combi Rifle, Nanopulser + Devabot / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) DEVABOT Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (4) BOUNTY HUNTER Red Fury / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 21) NETROD . (0 | 4) PROXY Mk.1 Doctor (MediKit) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) PROXY Mk.2 Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 21) 3 SWC | 148 Points Open in Infinity Army Could swap out the Deva + Devabot for a Shukra Lieutenant to generate another order if you don't feel like having that combination. I included the Bountyhunter with Red Fury to have more cool weapons, but you do end up with less orders this way. The Mk1 is a Doctor, due to the few amounts of REM's in the list. As all my battles have been at 200 points, I find a full 5 man link really unwieldy (although powerful), so I prefer the smaller 3 man links. I might change my mind as I upgrade to 300 points, but so far I've found real success with the smaller links.
So the restrictions are: - List needs to legal on it's own (so you need LTs, hackers for REMs, etc) - You can only have 1 combat group - You can only have 1 impetuous trooper per 4 models - You can only have 1 model with 2+ wounds (NWI counts for this) per 4 models. That list may be a good idea. I wouldn't be able to include 3 proxies but I could tweak it a little.
That sort of shafts most of what makes OSS so cool, tho. Proxies and Deva are both NWI :/ Might as well go vanilla Aleph, I think.
Yeah in that case I'd drop the AHD Proxy and get a Danavas for some White Noise (to deal with the Kempetai) and Supportware. OSS Round 1 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 8 DAKINI Tacbot HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 21) DAKINI Tacbot Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 13) DAKINI Tacbot Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 13) DALETH Rebot Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 17) PROXY Mk.5 (Forward Observer) 2 Submachine Guns, Nanopulser, E/M Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) PROXY Mk.1 Engineer Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) YUDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) YUDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) DANAVAS Hacker (Hacking Device Plus. UPGRADE: Maestro) Combi Rifle + Pitcher / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 25) SHUKRA Lieutenant (Strategos L1) MULTI Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) LAMEDH Rebot Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) 1.5 SWC | 150 Points Open in Infinity Army
In that case, the remote+engineer way is a good option. Force your opponent to burn orders killing their 3 wounds or taking the risk to see them rise again. The problem is the NWI limitation, you can take a Mk.1 engineer and a Mk.2 hacker to fulfull all the requirements, but it means you cannot take any other NWI troop. Or Mk.1 + Mk.5 + danava if you want some buff for your rems, but given the number of orders you'll have, i'm not sure you can afford spending one order for assisted fire every turn. You may consider taking a zayin. Don't deploy it in sight of the Kempei (because you don't want to see your opponent do smoke+MSV2 and kill it in 2 orders), deploy it so that your opponent will have to deal with it if he wants to fight your troops in close range. Like, a little behind your own troops, so that the zayin can support your own troops, you only need 40 cm range. Yes, Yojimbo can smoke his way, but it will force him to use orders to throw smoke before moving in. If he tries to smoke-dodge vs the reactive HMG he will probably lose. Remember that you can also use the zayin in active turn, and that murderbot has climbing+. Buff it with assisted fire, have it climb some scenery, shoot at your target. Repeat as often as you want, but remember to keep some orders to take it back behind your troops. As long as you have the range advantage (i mean you're shooting in your +3 but outside of your opponent's +3), you should be fine. In fact, you're playing it as you would play a TAG, just a TAG who can't tank a critical hit. Just a quick try, not sure about the list: Spoiler Operations Subsection of the S.S.S. ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 9 1 SHUKRA Lieutenant (Strategos L1) MULTI Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) PROXY Mk.1 Engineer Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) PROXY Mk.2 Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 21) ZAYIN Rebot HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 26) DAKINI Tacbot Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 13) DAKINI Tacbot Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 13) DAKINI Tacbot Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 13) DAKINI Tacbot Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 13) NETROD . (0 | 4) NETROD . (0 | 4) YUDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3) 1.5 SWC | 150 Points Open in Infinity Army Basically: _ a 4-bot fireteam that has a single objective: be your frontline to cover your key troops (engineer, lieutenant and zayin). Why 4 ? 5 was too expensive, and 3 would mean no six sense L2. They are only here to be a speedbump for your opponent while your protect what is really precious. If they are still alive toward the end, try to bring them into your opponent's DZ thanks to their speed. I would have taken a deva Lt to boost the fireteam to 5 and have a harder to kill Lt, but it would break the NWI troops limit. _ A zayin - keep it safe, don't expose it too much at the beginning. He has two roles: 1. being an active turn killer and 2. denying your opponent your DZ at the end. _ A Mk.1 engineer. He is the corner stone of your strategy, you need him alive the whole game. Expose the yudbut, keep the engineer safe. _ A Mk.2. He will be your main active turn killer at the beginning. His main target are the keikotsu. With his BSG (template !) and ODD, he can murder them, denying your opponent's orders. Make sure you avoid both the kempei (obvious) and the ruyken (he can kill you in a single lucky wound, and because of ODD, you may have some troubles killing it). The best would be to kill some keikotsu and recamo too close to your opponent's DZ for him to be comfortable with. Even if your opponent succeed in killing it, as long as you did enough damages and he had to burn orders, he will have succeeded at his job. No ... let's put it in another way: he WILL die. Just make sure your opponent will have taken so much damages he will never recover. _ your Lt. Just DON'T expose him for any reason. Put it in sight of your zayin for mutual coverage, and in suppressive fire if possible. _ a warcor. Just use it as a speedbump and let it cover your fireteam, so that any opponent will have to take a flash pulse ARO. Remember that you can spend Command Tokens to convert his order to a regular one. By the way, there is no fairness in that battle plan, that's the Aleph's way :)
