First Turn Defense

Spektr TO Hacker (+2 Moran Repeaters) , TO Sniper and 2x 8pt Flashpulse Drones might keep them at bay.

I usually position my Morans prone on a roof, supported by 2 Hackers to isolate/immobilize HI.Koalas spread for LI blockage. Flashpulse is the weakness of dog warriors. If needed give them burst 2 via Evo-Drone. My typical setup additionally includes 4 camo markers (Zero KHD or AHD, Zero Minelayer and Banit KHD) and 1 interventor for White Noise / Oblivion AROs

Be also aware, that a hackable Unit with MSV2 can trigger a White Noise ARO, which can be used to block the "smoke

 

Repeaters and Hackers (in vanilla Nomads it's easy to have 2 or more for different AROs) against HI.
Stun ammunition are great agains Dogs.

 

It doesn’t sound like you’re doing anything wrong with picking the correct ARO pieces, it merely sounds to me that you’re doing the common mistake of thinking your ARO pieces needs to cover as much as possible, which sounds logical on paper but not in practice. Try to assess your table, determine specific lanes you want to ARO from, which is much easier when you go second and counter deploy.

Many people make the mistake that they think their TR bot needs to be placed so it can see everything from the start, however what this usually ends up with, is simply that your opponent actually benefits from this, as he doesn’t need to spend orders to reach you, so he can remove your ARO pieces in a very cost efficient manner, rather than having to spend several orders to reach that specific point AND THEN engage with your ARO piece. Snipers and TO snipers operate a bit different in this regard, as they often stand to benefit from being able to see everything (or at least most things) from the start but mostly only recommended if that’s due to the fact that you can out range your opponent AND have visual modifiers.

 

Re: White Noise. It's valid vs ANY trooper. It doesn't need to be Hackable or MSV2+.

 

https://wellspokenman.wordpress.com...cking-fields-of-fire-and-avenues-of-approach/

This is a short blog article I wrote on deployment a couple years ago. A few extra things:

1. Going second means loosing models. Your ARO pieces are just there to eat orders, not to kill. That is just a bonus. If it happens at all.

2. There are a number of missions that heavily reward going second. You'll have to take advantage of that to counter the boost they get for going first.

Personally, I always go first if I win the roll, unless the table is wildly unbalanced. I do not want to let my opponent deploy second and go first. A good opponent will focus his attacks in one area and break my defense. I also like to take fast, lethal counter attack units like attack remotes, Chimeras, or McMurrough to make my opponent wary of pushing to far and to punish them if they do.

 

Take the golden option. Zoe & Pi-well. 2 orders, 0 SWC Hacker, much better hacking ARO with Stop! Program, engineer WIP15, d-charges AND a forward observer bot that fills the same role as everyone normally uses forward observer remotes to do, except this version is S2 an comes with ODD.
That’s Engineer, Hacker AND Forward Observer checked off from your specialist needs in one package.
11/10 would recommend.

 

THIS!!
If you win the roll, go first.
If you loose the roll, let the other one deploy first.

I used to do this wrong and got savagely beaten several times in Turn 1...

 

Step 1: select a bunch of pieces that will persuade the enemy coming that way is not a good option.

• Place morlocks back, so they can do a Move without showing themselves. Separate them so they give you options for placing the Intruder (if you carry one, and you should).
• Place cheap troops, preferably with access to chain/flame weapons on the sides, so no enemy can start their turn with an alpha strike of an AD trooper coming from a side. Make them, at least, roll. Jaguars are good here (better than morlocks and Alguaciles).
• Seed the middle: try to deploy at least 2 camos (2 Zeroes!) in the middle, inside the ZoC of each other and one of them not prone, so the enemy can think it's a mine. Extra points for a Minelayer Zero and a Prowler!
• If you pick an Interventor Lt, pick 2 H+ Interventors that can be Lt, so at least it's not an autochoice for the enemy which target to hack.
• If you bring an ARO piece, deploy it so the enemy cannot focus fire on her: even if it's placing a humble warcor by its side, a Total Reaction lasts more if the enemy has to risk their attacker being blinded or dead unless he splits the Burst!
• Always make it so your ARO pieces have Cover, and if those can go prone, look for a place that lets them gain Total Cover when they fall Unconscious.
• Always have a Servitor or a medic/engineer troop able to reach at least your main ARO piece in a single Move (preferably prone, meaning you look also for differences in height so if a circular template engulfs the ARO piece it won't also touch the healer's Silhouette).

​

Step 2: laugh maniacally as the "safe" access is, in truth, a trap.

• There was a TO in that route!!! Mwahahahaha!
• Or an AD Troop just entered from behind the enemy's advance, and has started killing unopposed!
• You can redeploy easily your troops so the advance has used at least twice the orders you need to take them out (they came, they died!), SMG troops work wonders here.

Step 3: profit!

 

I hardly ever play much of an ARO game as Infinity can hugely reward alpha striking. Instead, if I'm stuck going second I'll try to get as much total cover as possible. For direct action type missions, I'll leave out guys to see no more than 16-20" up the board. Their job is to shoot warbands but if a big bad HMG comes strolling up, they will hopefully pass their armour save then guts into cover.

For console type missions, I'll be more brave and make sure I have pieces that can see at least half the consoles (but never the enemy deployment zone) and may take a sniper (Moira or Spektr) with a larger view but I'll take her with the full knowledge she will be dead before I get to go.

The real trick to ARO I find is to clamp down on AD troops more than anything. Get those jaguars watching the flanks and make sure your back edge is also covered against anywhere he can put a template. After that, AROs that don't need line of sight (koalas and hacking) plus a mine or two are golden at eating up more orders. Hacking especially because it deters most of the faster active turn shooters (TAGs).

After you've got that done, just accept you're going to lose a few things. Hopefully if you've defended yourself against warbands and AD troops he's going to have to make a push with a HMG that will take 5-6 orders to even get in position which will limit your damage.

 

Depending on the mission the only reason to have AROs is to stop fast units like motorcycles or WB from getting to your DZ. If they can't accomplish any or many permanent points on turn 1 focus on your DZ.

Most ARO problems come from: Covering too much of the board; judging from a small set of anomalous games; expecting too much. Not saying those apply to you.

Personally when I'm in your position I try to be more reserved with my AROs with each failure. If they're going to get objectives anyways you may as well not waste the troops. Indirect AROs such as Minelayer or Moran help with this a lot. Having a good way to counter attack is helpful so they don't just position half way up the board and start hitting your DZ later.

If you become too reserved and get punished for it then it turns out your ARO troops were being worth it all along and you were just getting beat anyways.

 

It's becoming more and more difficult to kill in ARO and the power level of attack pieces has continued to rise over the past year or so. Killing in ARO is a huge advantage, since you're removing orders from your opponent on an order that your opponent spent. But there are so many pieces available that can stack modifiers so effectively that it's only specific lucky match-ups or surprise gotchas that will allow you to actually kill in ARO.

Instead, your ARO pieces are more likely to just deprive your opponent of orders as it takes more than one order to kill it. For this reason I'm finding it harder and harder to justify spending SWC on ARO pieces. A well-deployed flash pulse bot is as likely to burn an opponent's order pool as an intruder sniper. The fact that it can't kill said opponent has been made irrelevant by the relative ease most factions have of attaining effective BS 16 Burst 5 machine gun attacks, which will easily kill both the flash pulse bot and the intruder.

I haven't come to a hard and fast conclusion on this, yet. Specific match-ups are still common enough that those SWC ARO pieces might be worth it...for example playing against Caledonia with the intruder sniper placed in the opposite corner from his linked Grey HMG...but figuring out when to duck and cover with everything but my flash pulse bots and war cor, and when to instead leave my Intruder or linked wildcat rocket launcher out in ARO is a deployment decision that can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Having 1.5 swc killed on the first turn of the game is a lot worse than it used to be, because it leaves you with less of the current crop of power creeping attack pieces, but having to kill everything in the active turn can leave you order starved against all those 18+ order armies, the 4+ symbiomate armies, and the 3 post human armies.

 

Nomads
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 8 2 1
BANDIT Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Light Shotgun, Adhesive Launcher / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 25)
MORAN (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, CrazyKoalas (2) / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 22)
MORAN (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, CrazyKoalas (2) / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 22)
ZERO (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 19)
TRANSDUCTOR ZOND Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
KRIZA BORAC (360º Visor) Mk12, Submachine Gun / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 63)
LUNOKHOD Heavy Shotgun, Heavy Flamethrower, D-Charges, CrazyKoalas (2) / Electric Pulse. (0 | 25)
ZERO Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 24)
MORLOCK Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 6)
INTRUDER HMG, Grenades / Pistol, CCW. (1.5 | 42)

GROUP 2 3
INTERVENTOR Hacker Lieutenant (Hacking Device Plus) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 25)
TRANSDUCTOR ZOND Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
JAGUAR Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 10)

4 SWC | 299 Points

Open in Infinity Army

 

There's a lot of good ideas above. It's gotten meto think how I can improve my aro deployment.

Few tips i didn't see:

Reserve your best aro unit for the last word in range bands. A msr sniper loses its edge if your opponent can react with a fiday or his own sniper for burst advantage.

Cheap link team with aro pieces and replacements to relink. I do this a lot with moderators in bakunin. A wall of combi moderators is hilariously scary to anything in the open. 10 dice needing 4s or better is a point effective speed bump. Then your turn relink with replacements or activated your primary riot girl link or equivalent. I expect alguicils can only do this better with missiles, Lupe, and bs11.

Quick note: Lupe can smoke while the link shoots back. She can prepare the intruder for next aro smoke cover or hide anything you want to protect until your turn. Just don't shut down your own aros

 

I'd say that Smoke special Dodge is not the same thing as BS Attack, despite being an Attack, so she would either drop out of the team or even break it.

Moderator Combi is 9pts, Alguaciles gain +1BS and cost a point more, but have no Shock Inmunity... the funny thing is that the second Moderators link has a "free" combi member (due to the discount point) and 0.5 SWC Spitfires...
Sure, the Ghulam are better at that game with the Shock Sniper Rifles at 0.5SWC, but they cost 14 points at the base (5 more points than a moderator!) XD

 

Riotgrrl ML for long range, heavy ARO,
No TR bot for ARO - it is an Assault Piece, squishy, better kept hidden in reactive and used in active instead,
Zeros and Morans for speedbumps,
Morans for Repeater ARO's (Interventor HD+ in the back),
MORCLOKS behind corners, would intercept any Heavy Hitters comming into your Depzone,

This works fine for me,

 

Throwing smoke is an attack. The Special Dodge is a characteristic of smoke, not an ARO. The ARO is throwing smoke, which is a BS throwing weapon.

"Bear in mind that Special Dodge and the Dodge Skill are different things with different rules."

 

Sure thing Special Dodge is not the same as Dodge... but it's not a BS attack either. Remember that smoke is not used to "fire upon one or more enemies" if used for Special Dodge (another thing would be using the smoke grenade with the attacker as its target).