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Let's talk shop

Discussion in 'O-12' started by MikeTheScrivener, Aug 29, 2019.

  1. Tom McTrouble

    Tom McTrouble Well-Known Member

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    Countermeasures I think it still makes sense. Most classifieds get way easier if you can start halfway up the board and it would, IMO, skew the advantage to the player going first more than the mission already does. I do agree with the AD comment though.

    Also I'm with @Saitan247 , I would like the beta tech further explained. I've never taken one yet.
     
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  2. xammy

    xammy Keeper of Random Facts and Strong Opinions

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    I do wonder if part of the problem with L&S is that there is 1 objective per side. So it HIGHLY favors smoke/eclipse and CC monsters.
     
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  3. Andre82

    Andre82 Well-Known Member

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    Yah lol I know that would be a provocative statement.
    Sure, however lots of factions has cool and powerful "upsides", but so do a lot of factions and those factions might not force me to handicap or bench my best units.
    I don't really see this as the most awful thing however, Infinity has a lot of options so the first thing I do is start eliminating picks.
    If the missions tend to reward or punish unit types then a rule of thumb for me is to discount or put on the short list factions effected. This might not be 100% but it is a heuristic I am comfortable with.

    Normally only one but last game I did run both as Red fury my last game so I could threaten all sides, even as I only really pushed in on one side.

    Well last game I deployed him mid right field to make it look like I was going to push that way, but I always intended to push left because I had a TO Sniper that could cover him on that side. I used him to bully some midfield units and bait out my opponents offensive link team to deal with him. They did knock him out but he was picked back up on my turn. after that I had him climb a building that gave me LoS to my oppenents LT and he made a hero play provoking something like 4 ARO's to take that shot and kill that LT. His ability to attack from odd directions, cover a lot of ground and still attack, and unit synergy with your engineer make him best pick in a very very close race.
     
  4. Tourniquet

    Tourniquet TJC Tech Support

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    That and a lot of armies only have one okay at best option to break the AC2.
     
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  5. Leviathan

    Leviathan Hungry Caliban

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    That's why I put an exclusion zone in it.


    Delta is the standout option here, I'd say. He's a Veteran troop who can arrive in the opponent's half of the table, and has access to three different kinds of specialist. That's a *great deal* of classified objective coverage, especially if you take, say, a hacker and a doctor.
     
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  6. TheRedZealot

    TheRedZealot Well-Known Member
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    Im not sure that this makes sense. I understand the gut reaction, I have a Caledonia army I quite like but I cannot take to LI games. Or that I would want to avoid in tournaments with the TAG missions. And this has caused me irritation/frustration at times.

    Inherently all the rules encourage you to take different choices within an army and to sculpt it to the game at hand. The fact that some armies struggle more or less with some missions helps to keep the Meta rotating and for armies to see their time in the limelight. At the end of the day these sort of missions are incentive for people to get out of their comfort zone and I think thats very valuable.

    But TRZ, this makes the game pay to win! This is the most valuable counter argument I can see. But miniature games inherently will always have some level of Pay to Win to them and I suspect that the vast majority of players have more than one army. Even for people that don't most communities have players with many armies that are fine loaning them out for an event, so long as you treat them well.
     
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  7. natetehaggresar

    natetehaggresar Senior Backlogged Painter Manager

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    I'm not sure I'd agree that most people have multiple armies. I think roughly half my meta has two or more. Generally the longer you play the more armies you collect. With that in mind, scenarios that punish specific armies are roughest on newer players who don't have options. I don't think that's a good idea.

    I also really don't like being forced to buy certain models. I'm grumpy that I'm being forced to buy Andromeda when I don't like her concept, a "spy" that's on too big a base to sneak around, and I don't like her model. (Cetus is a sea monster and my head cannon had him being some sort of sweet techno octopus, the dog was a big letdown for me).

    I understand that's a personal opinion, but I really dislike having no other realistic option to complete looting and sabotaging. (It also sucks that she's such an alpha piece, if you go second in that mission your opponent can just prioritize killing her).
     
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  8. TheRedZealot

    TheRedZealot Well-Known Member
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    Fair every meta will vary. But from what I've seen in my own meta and on these boards it seems like the general trend is most people having 2-3 armies. (usually one primary and 1-2 ~400pt secondary forces).

    Newer players in general will be facing an up hill battle and I agree ideally we shouldn't be putting even more of a burden on them. However I've also seen a lot of the newer players in my meta thrive because they aren't preoccupied by trying to min-max in list building, they're busy understanding the mechanics and applying what they have to what they need to do.

    Well Cetus is supposed to fit in a briefcase when shes not in combat right? If you'd like to make a techno octopus for Cetus I'd be happy to help you convert one, I did a very similar technique to give my Sphinx Mechano-tentacle legs. PM me and I can show you what I did later and how you could use it to make a neato squid/octopus monster. Heck I'd even be happy to fuss with one for you and mail it over if you cover the cost of mailing it.

    Looting and Sabotage as a mission heavily favours the first player. Thats true regardless of what army you're playing. But it sounds like you're getting preoccupied by Andromeda (which I've noticed alot of us OSS players do.). Andromeda hitting an AC2 is certainly a reasonable option but it sounds to me like you haven't actually looked at your alternatives at all. Have you considered any of the following options for destroying the AC2?
    • Arjuna using their D-Charges with Kiran bots for bonus B to CC the AC2?
    • Marut Fist slamming the AC2?
    • Nagas/Dasyu/Dakini Speed running to Panoplies and then hitting the AC2 with D-Charges?
    • Swapping back to Vanilla and pulling in one of the 14 Excellent AC2 hitters in that faction?
    In case you were curious this is what happens when an Arjuna and 2 Kiranbots get in base with the AC2. Its better than Andromeda's chances.

    edit: It just occured to me Andromeda can use Guard with her own D-Charges so this isn't quite true but its very comparable.

    upload_2019-9-18_12-11-56.png
     
    #88 TheRedZealot, Sep 18, 2019
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2019
  9. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    Also note that the Arjuna and both their bots can interact with the Panoply at the same time, potentially giving 9 D-Charges.
     
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  10. TheRedZealot

    TheRedZealot Well-Known Member
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    and if you're greedy/order desperate the Arjuna boy comes with his standard set base so you dont even have to waist time running to a panoply to begin with.
     
  11. natetehaggresar

    natetehaggresar Senior Backlogged Painter Manager

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    @TheRedZealot I for the most part had written off D-Charges, as with their expendible a single set of 3 charges is unlikely to destroy an AC2, so it would require getting multiple models to the AC2 or back and forth between a panopolgy and the AC2.

    I do really like your idea about an arjuna and three friends looting it then blowing it up, even with thier poor CC the arjuna + friends follow up is pretty capible of destorying that thing. (also I don't think many people will expect that as even a remote possibility).
     
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  12. Tourniquet

    Tourniquet TJC Tech Support

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    There is a difference to giving people an incentive into playing new stuff that is outside of their comfort zone, as opposed to just telling them that they can't do something and the EZ is a very hard NO when it comes to it. If it only applied during deployment and/or models with infiltration could roll to get to the half way line but not past i'd be more okay with it, as it gives the player the choice to try or not, which is better as arbitrarily restricting player choice and play style is never a good thing.

    As for the multiple armies, that isn't really forcing people out of the comfort zone, they are just going to move to their comfort zone within an other army and frustrate new players and players who only have one army.
     
  13. Andre82

    Andre82 Well-Known Member

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    Just to make sure I understand. Your argument is that it is ok for some missions or mechanics to reward/punish some army's because it keeps players mixing up the army's they use. and that helps keep the game feeling fresh. Do I understand this correctly?

    I can understand that, but would counter that If the missions are rewarding only a handful of faction at a tournament, then the meta for the tournament is basically going to be mostly those factions.

    I kind of like my way of playing. I proxy full army's tell I am ready for a tournament, then I buy them. I will also buy a few if I really like the look, or I can use them in my Ghost In The Shell RPG, but other then that I don't buy a lot of models but I can still practice with almost any army.
     
  14. TheRedZealot

    TheRedZealot Well-Known Member
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    Im not sure I follow entirely. As it stands the Exclusion zone is a way to do the following:
    • Slow the game down by forcing players to spend more orders to move.
    As a result we start to factor in the following in list building:
    • FD 2, Infiltrate, Mechanized Deployment, AD go down in value.
    • Fireteams, FD1, Superior Infiltration, Impersonation, inferior Infiltration remain the same.
    • Impetuous, advanced Command and Fireteam Duo go up in value.
    As it stands now it encourage you to get creative with your movement efficiency. It also conveniently is a rule that encourages sectorial play without making Vanilla non viable. Infiltrators still have the option to try and get into the opponent's side of the board to be disruptive, and AD troops can still arrive outside of the exclusion zone they just won't be super efficient button pushers. If this bothers you I'd argue that Exclusion zones are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing.

    Possible. But I find in general that people that like a rule seem to like that rule in every army they play :P

    Yeah basically. I think that when you get a tournament set for missions ideally there should be a moment where you're looking at the rules and you have to say to yourself something like:

    "I really like my Shasvatii build for Power Pack. And I know Frontline and Transmission Matrix will be fine, but my normal lists won't work for Unmasking. How do I build to make my list work for that mission. Or is it better to bring out Pan O or Borrow Yu Jing for this event?

    Theres alot of armies in Infinity and most missions only penalize a small portion of them. If say some missions were Limited Insertion and others weren't then I could see what you're saying. But as it stands most of the missions are just "You're going to have to work harder for X or Y."

    With the only noticeable exceptions I can think of being the Liaison Officer and Show of Force. But LO is for Bonus Points only and Show Of Force has opened up alot this year. (I'd still prefer if they had made the scoring Silhouette based).

    And I personally have no problem with that at all. Infinity is a very proxy friendly gaming system particularly in friendly games.

    I'm also not claiming that CB is perfect. At one point this game didn't have missions and that led to some problems. The original set of classified it was something like 1/3 of them couldn't be completed by Tohaa. The narrative ITS kit that had a mix of LI and not LI was awkward. But in general every ITS season lately has felt like the game has changed and thats a good thing in my books.
     
  15. Tourniquet

    Tourniquet TJC Tech Support

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    I would argue that Fireteams go up in value, as defensive teams can overwatch the objectives and make reaching the objectives incredibly difficult. Also aggressive teams become the quickest and most efficient way to get specialists to the target as well as providing a hard to deal with threat in the middle of the table (depending on Fireteam composition), and are significantly harder to slow down and stop from getting in there as you can't deploy countermeasures (Mines, E/Maulers, Jammers, Perimeter weapons, and repeaters) to slow them down. Fireteams are strong enough

    Impetuous is already extremely valuable so making it more so is hardly a good thing. Advanced command is an incredibly rare skill that is more than strong enough on its own, and Duo is an underrated skill to begin with but to run it you are either wasting command tokens, orders and 25+ points on top of the models that you are putting in a duo in vanilla or your are in a sectorial where you have access to Core and Haris which most people would gravitate towards thanks to greater flexibility and those sweet, sweet fireteam bonuses.

    EZs also increase the value of taking turn initiative as it allows you to move into the objective areas fairly uncontested as you only have to worry about long range shooting, then dig in hard making it extremely difficult for the second player to take that ground back. where as with out it they would have been able to put up an effective defence in the area making the task of pushing back just difficult as opposed to extremely difficult.

    To paraphrase @Callum over in the Ariadna forums, It unnecessarily punishes factions that rely on Defence in Depth strategies, aggressive deployment, and AD flankers.

    Sectorials have a group of rules that do that and it's called fireteams, and when already sectoirials appear to be the popular way to play to the game they don't need the additional help.

    I would agree with you if it weren't for the fact that the dead zone where they can deploy is tiny 4" band that will be filled with the opponents FD1 models, infiltrators, deployable weapons and the like with weapons directed at board edges making such strategies more or less suicidal. If you need to reign in the prevalence of efficient button pushing skirmishers (which does need to happen) then there is already a better less punishing mechanic in the ITS packet with Confused Deployment.


    Like Looting and Sabotaging where a non trivial amount of sectroials only have one or two options that range from average to snow ball's chance at cracking the AC2. Or the old Deadly Dance where if you played a faction that didn't have a TAG you were screwed.

    While armies should have appreciable upsides and downside to playing them competitively actively being hamstrung or out right prevented from scoring full points is not the way to do so.
     
  16. TheRedZealot

    TheRedZealot Well-Known Member
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    I think alot of the things we're discussing here seem pretty philosophical/meta based/I'm stupid/whatever you want to call it. I doubt we'd come to a reasonable conclusion in the middle. So I'm going to just focus on this because I think theres an interesting data mining point here. Something we can probably both come to an agreement over.

    What armies actually struggle with looting and sabotage? What makes an army good at looting and sabotage? It seems to me like what we need fits roughly into the following requirements:
    • A way to get a unit to the console.
    • Should have some form of midfield control to deter your opponent's attack run
    • The army should have at least 2? 3? units able to kill the OBJ fairly reliably.
    It seems to me like all armies can get a unit to the console consistent. Between orders availability, smoke, white noise etc. And between Fireteams, Minelayers, TR Bots and other units all armies have at least some way to try and control the midfield. So that leaves the question of how good does a unit need to be at killing the OBJ and how many does an army need to have?
     
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  17. Callum

    Callum Member

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    Hi USARF player here,

    Thats an easy question to answer. Warbands/sub 15point cc units with DA weapons or d-charges. It is significantly easier from a tournament list building perspective to build a list with three or four of these to run up and smash the AC2 then if your an army like mine, where this is one decent cc unit with an antimaterial unit costing 40+ points and until three weeks ago had to run up solo from dz to dz

    As experience taught me that using the unknown retard as my one shot normally resulted in my getting murdered by my opponent so I simple left him out and used the points for something worthwhile.This left my best option to score the mission was to wait for turn three and run a grunt link up, panoply d-charges and mob the ac2 on a coin flip to hit.

    To compound to this when TAK who rightfully should have been in a similar position to us was released they invented a whole new weapon and gave it only to them so they wouldnt be short on antimaterial weapons.

    Other armies that suffer are:
    MRRF - zero decent cc units with antimaterial, one smoke option
    NCA - one decent cc option in the locust but likely to murdered on way in, zero smoke
    Varuna - (ironically one of the few missions they struggle with) one decent option in montessa but pano player cant get him to work, zero smoke
    Invincible army - zero smoke, Hulang is a middling unit and under supported trying to get to ac2 in IA.
    Tunguska - Perceus can do it but it is all eggs on one unit who is allergic to land mines.

    While all these armies tend to have one or two "options" to use these are often 30+ points and require massive support.

    it for this reason that the mission design is flawed as it a has an almost binary quality to it that armies have good tools or they dont. I can tell you it really suck if you are a person who plays only one army like me and the mission pack is prejudiced against your army and you your chances of winning the tourny tank at the list building stage.
     
  18. Tourniquet

    Tourniquet TJC Tech Support

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    I agree with those criteria, points 2 and 3 are probably the most relevant of the two, being what do I use and how do I get it there. However it comes down to how do you classify classify reliable. A lot of non-cc specialists with d-charges may be able to get there but are only sticking a charge on 8-10's which they need to do multiple times with a disposable weapon that will probably only sink a wound maybe two.

    When it comes to good at killing it and number it is hard to set a number. for example BJC has both due to Bran, Morlocks and Uberfall, but TJC only have the clockmaker (if youre desperate), the Lunkhod (not going to happen), and Perseus who has a pretty good chance IF he gets there. It comes down to can I get a lot on target (Mass DA CCW warbands), or have good chance with one (Bran Do Castro, Valkryie).

    The list above covers almost all of the armies that have issue except for OSS who only have Andromeda, who is on a large base, cumbersome to manoeuvre and in general isn't a particularly good profile, and OSS also don't have a good delivery system for her.
     
  19. Andre82

    Andre82 Well-Known Member

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    imagine how unbalanced this mission would be if you could practically start next to the objective with two units holding DA CCWs and being under the cover of smoke.
     
  20. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Had my first two games with O-12 yesterday and... it was rough. I went second in both games, winning initiative both times in missions that typically favour last turn pushes, but... I think my opponent in the first game had more critical hits in the first turn than I got to generate orders throughout the game (one Liberto double-critting with Light Shotgun, covering both my Cyberghost and Alpha LT) and my opponent in the second game had fewer crits - but still more than I got orders. I did manage to accidentally bring two lists without any MadTraps

    A few things I did pick up on, mostly regarding soaking losses, was
    1. Gangbusters are mandatory
    2. The Cyberghost should stick down White Noise whenever possible - particularly when there's a Dahshat Rui Shi /facepalm
    3. Lynx are great
    4. Light Grenade Launchers makes Cyberghosts and Alphas sad
    5. Siriusbots are kind of hard to hide, Alpha not so much.
    6. Alpha CoC is probably a higher priority, at least in vanilla O-12
     
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