Infiltration

Guilang, sometimes if I'm going first. It's mission dependent but if I spot an exploitable opening on quadrant based missions I'm pretty game for a guilang minelayer to try his luck as starting right in front of my opponent and with a repeater on shit can deliver a crippling round of GMLs and/or shotgun and mines to a target.

The penalty for failure on the quadrant missions isn't too high either as I can just spend an order to push them into a zone and have them camp it for points for a turn.

 

Depends a lot on which unit I'm using, the scenario, and how badly I need it to start those extra 12" forwards.

Generally, as most units have a <50% chance to succeed, I'm not very inclined to as the risk/reward calculation is just too negative.

 

I don't typically like rolls that decide the game, I'm a lot more into a series of rolls with properly manipulated odds winning the game by inches kind of person. Infiltration is usually a roll with high risk and modest rewards for units that have a clear role to play if they don't try to infiltrate, which is typical for units like the Zhencha. Units like Oniwaban are modest risk and high reward, but they get very useless if they fail so I tend not to, and it kind of announces them.

However, if I play Hassassin, then why not try to infiltrate with a Daylami or two?

 

Never! They're sooo good in marker state. And with a 32" rangeband, they don't need to be in the enemy half of the table.

 

Agreed.

Now, HFT Grunts, on the other hand...

 

Infinity is a risk reward game and this is a fundamental element of the rules.

While it does not reward reckless moves or uncalculated risks if you see an opportunity then I would advice taking it, even if it means risking 3 TO hidden deployment minelayers if your opponents deployment zone offers a deployment that a mine can have the moment of its life.

 

Yes, but one of three or four isn't too much to lose and a panzerfaust on the opponent's side of the board usually means a lot more awkward angles for the opponent to deal with and it's precisely the 32" range band that means that even a failed infiltration attempt can leave the Daylami still highly relevant.

 

Whenever I play Bran do Castro in Bakunin I let him deploy within the opponent's half (so far my series of 9 consective successes just got thwarted by a goddamn 17 last week - in my 1st N4 tournament game). When playing Star Co I did that once or twice with the Hardcase.

 

I do it with Zeroes once in a while. My other factions tend to be too reliant on those few precious Infiltrators for scoring or board control, but Zeroes in Bakunin can be spared for a potential big payoff.

 

I think that the game wouldn't hurt if it was changed to straight PH. As it is you can use Combat Jump for better chances (even without evo) as well as DZ access. And a lot of people are not convinced Combat Jump is worth the risk (preferring Parachutist instead).

 

I've definitely been trying it more than I used to, I've found that as long as I plan for it, I don't feel bad when I fail. This means making sure the table lets me easily re-deploy the unit after failing. Having a plan for it as a defensive model instead of offensive. If you have a plan, failing the roll doesn't feel like failing. If you don't have a plan, then it's going to feel a whole lot worse.

 

I won't try it often, but there are some ariadnan models with high enough PH and low enough opportunity cost that I'll consider risking it if the payoff looks good enough - Hardcases or Chasseur Minelayers if I'm going first and want to really smash into my opponent's defences would be two examples.

(And of course any model with big bonuses to the roll skews the risk-reward in a favourable direction, but I assume models like Uxia and Andromeda aren't the subject of this question)

In combined and haqq I won't ever try it; PH values are too low relative to cost that's too high, and for the role we have impersonators who can accomplish the same effect without needing to roll, or push it all the way into to the DZ on 14s or 15s.

 

I play vanilla CA and usually I don't roll for the infiltration, but sometimes I go for rolling a 9 or less on a shrouded/zerat minelayer If the chance of success Means that'll be a great headache for my opponent, something like putting a zerat and a mine to cover an agressively deployed fireteam is worth the risk, since you don't have a marker state to lose, but stuff like this is super situational and mostly works only against strategic deployment fireteams, but I think this should stay a super situational risk-reward play because when you can pull it off it can really slow down your opponent's first turn.

 

It'd be interesting to see the spanish language subforum poll results, since the anecdote that we had heard was that the Spanish meta tends to over-infiltrate "all the time."

There's lots of reasons to make the roll and to not, many of which are valid, and very specific to your playstyle, faction, matchup, mission, and table. Worth trying out. Maybe I'll make next month's Bromad Academy mission to give it a shot.

 

Almost never, voted never rather than rarely as rarely would be an understatement. I recall doing it once in something like nine years of playing but theres probably a few sneaky moments I forgot about.

Just not a fan of risk/reward calculations that are just "roll a dice, pass or fail, big advantage or big disadvantage". Not an interesting play decision.

Play Tohaa, Combined Army, vanilla Nomads, Hassassins for the most part. I only considered normal infiltrators - used to bomb daylami and shit over the midline with abandon.

 

My Naga hacker is too valuable to end up out of the action unable to hack anything all game. If I used the Dasyu more I might be inclined to risk it a bit with him though. Maybe if they get a new model....

 

I will say that I make such rolls more frequently when I have redundancy built into the list. Losing my only midfield Specialist or flanking attacker is a big deal, but when you have three it's easier to stomach the loss if it doesn't work. Even then, I need a few other factors making it more palatable to use such risky abilities- usually in my Combat Jump lists I'll have three AD pieces and an EVO device before I start feeling comfortable taking advantage of the rule.

 

I infiltrated a Hawwa Minelayer on a mission of Panic Room and it felt g o o d.

I am also OK with infiltrating higher PH stuff like Zhencha or Saito, but only if we play a mission featuring an exclusion zone like Rescue where you either stay in the FD+4" zone or attempt an infiltration roll.