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It is a nice simple list, doing what the Phalanx does best; beating people up and stealing their lunch money.

For a secondary list, I’d suggest just trying out some different aspects of the game. Like bringing in the ekdromoi, using Thamyris as an infiltrator, etc.

Or something entirely different.

Steel Phalanx - Forward Observations (300/300 | 5.5/6)

Group #1 | 10 Models | 10 0 0

Chandra Sergeant Thrasymedes Enomotarchos | Fireteam: Enomotarchos, Submachine Gun, Nanopulser, Flash Grenades, Light Rocket Launcher, Pistol / Shock CCW (30)
Thorakites Feuerbach | Feuerbach, Nanopulser, Pistol / Knife (22)
Thorakites Observer | Forward Observer, 360° Visor, Submachine Gun, Chain Rifle, Pistol / Knife (13)
Thorakites Observer | Forward Observer, 360° Visor, Submachine Gun, Chain Rifle, Pistol / Knife (13)
Probot EVO | EVO Hacking Device, Electric Pulse (25)
Thorakites Observer | Forward Observer, 360° Visor, Submachine Gun, Chain Rifle, Pistol / Knife (13)
Thorakites Observer | Forward Observer, 360° Visor, Submachine Gun, Chain Rifle, Pistol / Knife (13)
Thorakites Observer | Forward Observer, 360° Visor, Submachine Gun, Chain Rifle, Pistol / Knife (13)
Zayin Rebot HMG | HMG / Electric Pulse (26)
Netrod AI Beacon | (4)

Group #2 | 6 Models | 6 0 1

Machaon Lieutenant | Lieutenant, Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Eclipse Grenades, Pistol / DA CCW (38)
Eudoros Mk12 | Mk12, Nanopulser, Eclipse Grenades, Pistol / DA CCW (40)
Myrmidon Chain Rifle | Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades, Chain Rifle, Pistol / AP CCW (16)
Lamedh Rebot Repeater | Flash Pulse / Electric Pulse (8)
Lamedh Rebot Repeater | Flash Pulse / Electric Pulse (8)
Samekh Rebot Smart Missile Launcher | Smart Missile Launcher / Electric Pulse (18)

Open in MayaNet

 

@LightNinja you’ll need an enomotarchos to link those thorakites though; Thrasymedes or Alké

 

Try it out

 

B2 SSL2 AROs are really inconsequential. If an active turn player wants something dead, it is gonna die - especially, with access to suicide flamer attacks.

What you can do is deny access to your troops, by covering access points with long range weaponry. Or cut your losses via sacrificing chaff chain myrmidons etc. Your opponent will usually need to use short range weapons, so shoot them before they get there.

Back to Enomotarcos. The greatest thing about links is, that you’re able to move a specialist into position, while firing a big gun. CoC and a Spitfire is about as good, as it gets: smoke, eclipse, short+mid range weaponry, and WIP14 for buttons, at less than 70 points. These are the two models, who’d do the work (enable the rolls) in a link, so at the cheapest, you’re paying 32 points for very little. If links were any good, you wouldn’t see vanilla armies performing so well, links are not be-all end-all deathstars. They’re more like TAGs; deadly when working, devastating, when they fail.

 

Dont forget Enomotarkos is not only about myrmidons. Thorakites are good as a defensive link.

As for Scylla, she is far better as a KHD. Well you are the Steel Phalanx, hacking is done with swords, not with space magic.

 

@LightNinja Atalanta is statistically similar to a Total Reaction HMG bot with MSV2 that can't be outranged.

It's not quite "inconsequential" but it's certainly not to become impossible to beat.

The basic formula is that you have guys in total cover you don't want to die. They usually need to engage them at short range coming around the cover. So you want to cover them with long range weapons. That way they need to clear the long range weapon first with a different unit. So you want to make it as hard as possible to clear your long range weapon.

The hardest part is how to make it hard to clear your long range unit. You usually increase the orders taken by making them reposition their "aro clearer".

Increasing the power of the ARO reduces how many guys can clear it. A really powerful ARO might only have 1 enemy that could safely clear it, making them hoof it if they are out of position.

Another tactic is having cheap and weak AROs. ALEPH isn't the best at this but they do get various flashpulse choices. With only 24" you can't deploy as creatively but they still need to clear it before stuff like WB can go by.

 

Of course not, link teams are powerful afterall - but still easy to beat, when you grind them down.

 

I second pretty much everything Nenyx, loricus and regelridderen wrote.

If your opponent really want something dead, will die sooner or later. The point in defending your valuable troopers is not preventing your opponent from killing them but making the attempt too costly for him and therefore athieving victory.
So field some troopers you do not mind losing. And keep in mind 360 visors are better than SSL2, because SSL2 only allows the target to react to the attack normally! A huge difference when AROing.
Redundancy is a very valuable asset. Use it! In SP you can field several fireteams led by several heavy lifters.

The standard army list I use is something like this (obviously there is some tinkering around depending the mission but that is the backbone):

Argonautica
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 10 1
MACHAON Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0.5 | 38)
MYRMIDON Chain Rifle, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 16)
MYRMIDON Chain Rifle, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 16)
EUDOROS Mk12, Nanopulser, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 40)
MYRMIDON Chain Rifle, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 16)
MYRMIDON Chain Rifle, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 16)
THRASYMEDES (Fireteam: Enomotarchos) Submachine gun, Light Rocket Launcher, Nanopulser, Flash Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0.5 | 30)
THORAKITES (Forward Observer, 360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
THORAKITES Paramedic (Medikit, 360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
ATALANTA MULTI Sniper Rifle + TinBot E (Spotter) / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 39)

GROUP 2 5
ALKÊ Lieutenant Spitfire, Nanopulser / Pistol, CCW. (1.5 | 25)
THORAKITES (Forward Observer, 360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
THORAKITES Paramedic (Medikit, 360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
NETROD Electric Pulse. (0 | 4)
NETROD Electric Pulse. (0 | 4)

4 SWC | 298 Points

Open in Infinity Army

First of all , you should think of the Thoras and the CR Myrms as desposable heroes. Their main usage is keeping the important guys relatively safe. 360 visor Thoras are pretty hard to dislodge. Yup, your opponent can get to Machaon (and discover he is NOT my Lt!) and kill him (or Eudoros or Thrasy or Alke - Ouch!) but this comes at a price, namely vasting a lot of order and hopefully enemy troopers in the process. If they die they will be replaced.
And that goes to some extent to the big(ger) guys, too. Every one of them is replacable. Machy, Eudoros, Thrasy and Alke are all awesome troopers, but if (when?) one goes down, the others will replace him/her and take care of business.

I hope this helps!

PS Important disclaimner: I am a diehard Aridna player and play SP in a fairly unconventional manner.

 

I would suggest that one reason you may be struggling with AROs. As you are playing (currently) with a single combat group, sacrificing a model is much more of a loss than if you play with approx 15 orders.

As it has been said above, AROs are not (primarily) about killing. If your opponent knows what they are doing and has built their list effectively there should always be an option with which to have an overwhelming advantage against your ARO piece, so it will die. AROs for me, are more about wasting your opponents orders so that they are not spent on completing objectives or killing your key pieces; and also limiting your opponents movement options (until they clear the AROs).

There has been some discussion around the effectiveness of four man link teams ans SSL2. SSL2 has some specific uses (more so for defensive / ARO links) but it isn't the main reason I would personally bring a four man team rather than a three man team (especially in the case of a link team for AROs). Having the fourth member, means that you can lose one of the link team, and still retain the +1 burst bonus. As mentioned above this is particularly important if you are exposing members of the link team to ARO as you will be expecting to sacrifice some of them.

Steel Phalanx as a general rules, really shines in the active turn. The Myrmidon Link allows a brute force approach to reach objectives (as they can win most straight up fights) whilst bringing along high WIP specialists. As a bonus, they are good in CC, have smoke and eclipse grenades and can force a lot of orders to dislodge them when combing cover and ODD.

If you want a list with more effective ARO option, I would agree with the comments above, that a Thorakites link team is one of the best options in SP. Generally in a SP list, I would bring a link team of Myrmidons, with one or two specialists and guns to cover as much range bands as possible. This will be your main active turn unit, and I would not be likely to expose any of the models for ARO duty (at least not turn one). I would then bring one or two Thorakites links for AROs; an Agema or Atalanta or Teucer for the MSV2 + Smoke combo and then fill the rest as appropriate. For a generic SP list to give you more AROs, I would bring something like:

Generic SP List
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 10
PHOENIX Heavy Rocket Launcher, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Heavy Pistol, DA CCW. (2 | 40)
MACHAON Lieutenant Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0.5 | 38)
MYRMIDON OFFICER (Chain of Command) Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (1 | 35)
MYRMIDON Chain Rifle, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 16)
THRASYMEDES (Fireteam: Enomotarchos) Submachine gun, Light Rocket Launcher, Nanopulser, Flash Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0.5 | 30)
THORAKITES (Forward Observer, 360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
THORAKITES (Forward Observer, 360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
THORAKITES (360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
NETROD Electric Pulse. (0 | 4)
NETROD Electric Pulse. (0 | 4)

GROUP 2 5 1
AGÊMA Marksman (X Visor) Mk12 / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 29)
ALKÊ Spitfire, Nanopulser / Pistol, CCW. (1.5 | 25)
THORAKITES (Forward Observer, 360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
THORAKITES (Forward Observer, 360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
THORAKITES (360º Visor) Submachine gun, Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
WARCOR (Aerocam) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3)

6 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

That said, bear in mind that Infinity is not like 40k, as a generic list will always be worse than a list designed with a specific mission in mind.

Usually, I would suggest, that you expose maybe two from a link team (probably the 13pt Thorakite FOs) to ARO as they are cheap and expendable. However one thing to consider throughout the game is depending on the current game state and score, sometimes it is worth sacrificing your stronger pieces in ARO in addition to your cheap ones, when you have a good board position and a good score (and you want to prevent your opponent from scoring / approaching). A good example of this is Phoenix, as a general rule of thumb, I wouldn't have him out for ARO (although he does them very well) because he is a key offensive piece that adds a longer range attack to you Myrmidon link that is best used in the active turn. However in some scenarios, if you have a big points lead from going first and want to prevent the opponent from scoring much to end with a good score, putting Phoenix on ARO duty alongside some other pieces can force the opponent to spend more orders killing and as such prevent them from scoring or scoring as much.

 

SSL2 prevents smoke/MSV2 and surprise shot, drastically limiting which units can safely kill you. 360 is great but usually not as important at long range.

 

You have a point but keep in mind that the main task of Thoras is to keep the important guy alive instead of their own surviving. (At least I use them this way.)

 

Making it more difficult to clear helps that. If anyone (like a SK with a Combi) can do it it might only take one order.