N4 SP listbuilding advice

Hey dhellfox, can u please explain whats your idea/plan/teams behind these lists?
In my opinion ATALANTA isnt a good aro piece(total reaction), shes a glascannon and love smoke tricks :)
AJAX is a beast for his costs and ANDROMEDA is still a solid pick in every list.
If u want to max u orders HECTOR isnt a bad option but he is pricy like a litte TAG and is a main target for u enemy.
Spitfire or Plasma depens on u fireteam comp. So protect/support him or use some backup with chain of command.
I used PHOENIX a lot in N3 as an lieutenant option or an aro piece with link bonus.
MACHAON still a good option(W15/doctor/eclipse) but not very cheap, if u need a doc maybe paramedics are also an option?
ACMON sounds good(wildcard/ta/engi W15), i will test him in my next games.
EUDOROS expensive and i dont like the MK12.

 

mostly Vanilla player here, but in TF fox HR PA drop that second combat group. You sacrifice a 12 order opening turn for your main group for almost no gain. I'd personally upgrade one of the myrmidons with the spare points, but you have lots of options. I'd pull the probot and Tham out and drop in Acmon. He's solid on his own, can bounce into any group as needed and an engineer is always handy to have around when running a HI LT.

 

I think they took that rule out. One combat group no longer denies your opponent the ability to reduce your order pool.

 

Correct.

 

old habits die hard

 

Instead of asking for a winning list, you should learn to use what you play. Placing Hector anywhere that's not a full group is a waste of 2 regular orders over the limit, and if you won't place him there... 69 points can be decomposed into several cheaper models for more return in orders, backdoor defence, etc...

Here is a "seed" of a list:

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GROUP 1 9
PHOENIX Heavy Rocket Launcher, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / DA CC Weapon, Heavy Pistol. (1.5 | 35)
MACHAON (Lieutenant) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0.5 | 36)
MYRMIDON Chain Rifle, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 16)
MYRMIDON Chain Rifle, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 16)
NETROD . (0 | 4)
NETROD . (0 | 4)
LAMEDH Rebot Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 7)
LAMEDH Rebot Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 7)
ZAYIN Rebot Heavy Machine Gun / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 25)

GROUP 2 4
THRASYMEDES FTO (Fireteam: Enomotarchos) Submachine Gun, Light Rocket Launcher, Zapper / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 30)
THORAKITES Submachine Gun, Light Rocket Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 16)
THORAKITES (Engineer, Deactivator) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, D-Charges ( | GizmoKit) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 18)
THORAKITES Feuerbach, Nanopulser / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 23)

4.5 SWC | 237 Points

Open in Infinity Army


63 points to go and 2 slots give plenty of options, like Diomedes (MULTI rifle, I'd say, for Big Game Hunting) and then adding a Dactyl+servant which can be another Medic, or an engineer that allows you to change one Thorakitai in the FT from engineer to a 2nd Enomotarchos (for those situations in which Thrasymedes goes down for good). Or you can add Atalanta TR with a Paramedic Thorakitai as bodyguard (not truly optimal), etc...
Another option is to compress the list a little more, replacing one Netrod or Lamedh, ofc. Or adding Achilles, that never gets old. Bear in mind that, aside from the Feuerbach and the two SMGs, the list lacks AP damage (I'm not counting the D-Charges), and even a BSG Ekdromoi is useful there.

The Zayin is a cheap, durable (as long as someone is close to repair it, since the enemy needs to inflict 3 wounds in the same order to remove it for good now they go prone when Unconscious... please remember to place the remotes where they get Total Cover if KO...) and useful unit for several purposes,

The idea for the TR Atalanta is that she can ARO and hunt, but as any ARO piece you want to use as more than a burner for 1-2 enemy orders, she needs a Doctor nearby, like Teucer or the Mk2 proxy I use a lot.

Forget it. Too many order intensive, too few hackers. Scylla is more useful for all-around hacking and repeating shenanigans (consider that an enemy hacker attempting to attack her through one of her repeaters suffers a -6 due to firewall and ECM), but they truly shine in Vanilla with Danavas & Apsaras backup. Aleph units tend to be cuasi-specialists with an incidental second role, and the Steel Phalanx is designed to ignore enemy hackers... aside for N4's Marked state due to the Guided missiles now, or Achilles being IMM.

The Agema can be boiled down to three options: mk12 with X-Visor for ground-level hunting from behind the Myrmidons (he gets a lot more reach than it looks), Teucer as a sturdy ARO piece (or TAG hunter with very long range, Triangulated Fire is actually usefull with the k1 at extreme ranges), or Atalanta as hunter/double duty. Remember all ARO pieces get more use if there is a Doctor/Engineer nearby.

Why is the Agema ML a trap? Too expensive in SWC and points, low PH and ARM, and can't be used in Active much, negating a big advantage from having the MSV2. As a "discount long range ARO piece", the Multi sniper is better.

Core: Machaon, and 99% of the time linked with Phoenix, and 16pts Chain Rifle Myrmidons. If nothing else, the 12pts Thorakitai are GREAT defenders against parachutists/combat jumpers due to their 360º visor.
Avoid: Thamirys (unless a vanilla hacking list). Drakios might or might not fall here, depeding on the enemy using mostly MSV-toting troops for ARO or not, and Dactyls are better than in N3, but also situational (because of Machaon and the Thorakitai engineer).
ALL of the rest of profiles can be used depending of the situation, which places the ASS in a great position compared to other sectorials.

 

While you do get some flexibility with Hector and Nesaie's NCO, your ability to project threats is a little limited. Thorakitae don't have the punch needed to get through a dedicated linked ARO or even a TR bot with any reliability. Phoenix would be a really good option for a long ranged threat.

I find that having something that can get up the field quickly is good as well. The forward deployed Ajax, Penthesilea, Diomedes, or an Ekdromoi or two, means that you don't have to spend as many orders slogging across the table to take down big threats.

 

While I agree with the other advice, this specific interaction doesn't work :( . Strategos on Hector will turn his Orders Regular, and place them in the Group he's in. So NCO will have no effect unless Hector goes down and you pick a new Lieutenant. Of course, she'll have NCO as long her LT profile isn't used, so it's not like there's an option for a cheaper profile, but it doesn't actually give any benefit, either.

 

Strategos is an optional skill, so you could elect to keep Hector's orders as lieutenant orders during the order phase if you expected to need to use them with Alke. It's cumbersome, but an option.

 

Why would you do this? You can already use the LT orders on Alke, or whoever if they're regular orders, you don't need NCO at all if you're using Hector

 

Did you read the post I was quoting? You can't use Hector's Lt orders on Alke if they've been converted to regular orders and she's in a different group, like she is in the list dhellfox wrote.

 

Huh. I thought it was that they could be spent like regular orders. I stand corrected.

That could work, but I agree, it is cumbersome and less than ideal.

 

Mostly it’s that there are wildcards in steel phalanx. So you could, for example, pop Hippolyta and Thrasymedes into a team along with a dactyl doctor and engineer to create a pretty effective Enomotarchos.

 

Yeah, as Yoink mentioned, it's not that the Dactyls (aside from their character, Acmon) got impressive upgrades (but I must note that the 4pts cheaper are great), but that we now have better options to use them on the table, in the sectorial (in Vanilla... still the Thora engineer, add the Proxy Mk1, and then look at Parvati... the Sophotects were good, but my god, Parvati...).

Few people do it, focusing more narrowly in stats or skills of only the troop in question, but I tend to look for indirect variations in their value, that being how their sectorial or vanilla can make use of the troop, how it fares against other options, and how the sectorial compares to others (for example, I complained about all factions getting Haris and Duos in spades in Human Sphere N3, because that negated the Enomotarchos advantage of being able to field 2 fireteams with bonuses at once -usually never full three fireteams, because of the Enomotarchos troops cost- and then again in the last days of N3 with so many Wildcards and Count As).