I have a tournament coming with many specialist oriented mission (counter mesure, highly classified, button pushing missions...) I have an idea of building a list ARO oriented with 3 TO trooper with MSR or ML (swiss, hexa, croc...) A second list will be there for table that end up too dense for this kind of strategy The goal is to place them where they can kill the opponent key specialists as soon as they move (which will need me to think very hard on my deployement) Did someone here try something similar ? With good results ?
Tried something similar in VIRD. It's, well... it's awkward and not very forgiving for bad luck and you can be countered easily by smoke. Once your opponent will discover the trick, he might smoke as much as he can to have a safe work. If he can't, because of many reasons, you can succeed as long as you're not trying to shoot an Aquila or a Charontid with HMG. The funny thing about TO is that they're their own counter as they struggle a lot in ARO against TO and ODD units. So keep in mind that, while they will destroy most of mid-level and lower level players, those who have your level won't fall for it and you'll need a plan B. Maybe better having a Croc BSG rather than a MSR would cause more havoc. Though, the Cutter + 2 Crocs + Hexa Spitfire is a nice combo if your list support it well. Had a ton of fun with it.
This type of list can work well, as long as you still have enough Specialists and active turn shooters yourself. TO AROs can undoubtedly be game-winning though... Even an opponent who is expecting TO units will have a hard time planning for it. Even very prevalent use of smoke is almost always an advantage that works in your favor; Orders spent tossing smoke are Orders that are not spent doing the mission or attacking you.
Dont pull the trigger "as soon as they move" They are presumably pushing buttons, so you know where they are going, let the opponent spend a few orders before you kill them, costs them more resources
Once I read you, it sounded obvious. Yet I never thougt of it this way, thanks for the feedback Thanks @Ayadan and @barakiel for the feedback on smoke. I will need to think about it on my list building. Still having a TO/infiltrated MSR should make smoking every LoF insanely hard/order expensive for my opponent
It's also far more likely to result in getting a clean shot out of cover. And, if you are fortunate, your opponent will make an error with one of their moves and allow you to hit multiple troopers with a template (assuming that's what you've got hidden in TO).
TO troopers arguably makes the best ARO in the game, regardless of mission. I use them very often. I've been playing lists with basically no traditional ARO recently (no linked SWC, no TR bots, etc) and I've been getting extremely good results. TO ARO, Marker States and Template Saturation in my DZ are my go to now. TO ARO essentially lets your choose the rangebands at which you engage, but in the reactive turn. It diminishes a lot of the negative that traditional ARO have. Missile TO are particularly good and can often be game-winning. Not a lot of troopers have the power to entirely swing a game in a single order.
As usual things always depend on your goal for the turn. Early on you might not want to pull your TO ARO piece against a Warband able to oppose it with a Smoke on 16s. Just not worth the 30% chance to take out a cheap guy compared to your 30+ points for a TO troop. If your goal is wasting the maximum amount of Orders it's often enough to pull your TO troop after an enemy trooper has maneauvered into an unfavourable postition (i.e. no cover) and doesn't want to eat the unopposed hit for using Mov-Mov to get to saftey, so goes for a FTF and stays in a bad position, most likely dead, damaged or locked down for now. Which as exactly what @daboarder described. Later in the game priorities shift and you'd really rather not have that Specialist try a suicide button push vs your unopposed shot. So you'd prefer to start hitting him an Order or two before he reaches the Objective and chance it. Even more if he has enough Orders to cover himself with Smoke or get covered by other troops before reaching the Objective. Even with very good Rangebands a B1 TO ARO is usually lucky to be at 50/50 to cause even 1 wound vs a Dodge. It can be much higher, if you are a Swiss Guard pieplating an entire Zuyong Link, but a Hexa hitting ARM 2 on 15s vs a Dodge on 11 is far from a safe kill. TO ARO's are mostly good to layer with other AROs to multiply the odds or simply cover the other trooper. Ideally with difficult/impossible odds to split Burst or eat the original hit and change focus to the TO Trooper. A decent HMG trying to take on a linked Fusilier ML is pretty reliably going to win aside from freak accidents. The same HMG vs a Hexa outranging it and the Linked Fusilier is in deep waters. Even a basic Fusilier in SF increases massively in threat if you can back him with a TO ARO vs that linked Shotgun Shotgun rumbling around the corner. TO AROs really want to maximise hit chances. Lacking Visors themselves they are better off fighting Visors than opposing Mimetism or ODD. Your one shot can easily be reduced to a 9 or less, pulling most of your teeth and your biggest advantage -rolling a result the other guy can't beat without a Crít. Having a Warcor and a Hexa take on a Hsien in bad Rangeband for his HMG vs the MSR means that Hsien only gets you at an 8 vs hopefully your MSR on a 15 (no Cover) and your Flashpulse on a 13 (with Cover). With DTWs, Mines and Engage rolls in the mix things get fun. Someone crossing a corner to take on your HFT Auxbot/Krakot/Mine planning to tank the hit or to Dodge is a very good target for a TO ARO. This situation often leads to a target without cover, rolling a single dice vs your higher chance single dice and even if they win they might still be staring at a HFT and a MSR. Mostly undervalued is the Stun Ammo for MSRs. It's pretty much always optimal vs very durable targets and even against regular NWI/Multiwound it might be well worth it to ruin the Order Investment into that trooper for the turn. Very, very valueable to stop Objective runs (if the "Button Push" Ability for the mission is prevented by being Stunned) or just aggression vs anything that might survive losing just a single wound. Being stunned also hampers their ability to relocate from that position and turns the troop into easy pickings for your own Active Turn.
Some feedback : I went to my tournament with a 3 TO AROer list, took it 4 game out of 5 and won 4 time with it (vs nomad, forco, dashat and combined army). Mission were frontline, highly classified, unmasking and countermeasure. I played second in all 3. Feedback is : - good for making opponent loose orders in the reactive turn - struggle a bit on the active turn on "fight" oriented mission - specialist oriented mission are a pleasure. I focused on doing objectives and not playing offense. It's a change of my usual gameplay (very offense oriented) and it was quite fun to play - in two game out of four, I played with two TO together (once the hexa prone on top of a stairs with the standing swiss behind and once with the croc and swiss on top of the same castle). Once the swiss is revealed, my opponent send a strong trooper to deal with it and end up facing 2 TO ARO, lossing multiple orders (and wound). I need to try it more to see how efficient it is. - having a TO sniper to cover for AD is good but the croc man FO can help cover the game (he ended up stopping and Akalis spitfire against forco) - having my opponent look for a way to hit my TO trooper and realise the best he can do is to shoot me on 4 or 5 when I can hit him on 12 or 15 (and then choose to waste order going all around my LoF) is a nice feeling Ecuisse n°1 (specialist, 1 groupe) ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 9 1 JOAN OF ARC Lieutenant Spitfire, Nanopulser / Pistol, AP CCW. (1 | 51) SWISS GUARD Missile Launcher, Light Shotgun / Pistol, AP CCW. (2 | 69) HEXA MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 32) CROC MAN MULTI Sniper Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 38) CROC MAN (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 32) ZULU-COBRA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Breaker Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 28) TECH-BEE (Remote Assistant Level 1, Specialist Operative) Flash Pulse / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) PATHFINDER DRONBOT Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16) TRAUMA-DOC Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) MACHINIST Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 15) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army