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Aleph & ITS9

Discussion in 'ALEPH' started by xagroth, Nov 29, 2017.

  1. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    Direct translate from my spanish guide.

    First of all, the biggest novelty of the Season 9 is that they type of troop is relevant. To be precise, Veteran and Elite are the most important and the Marut receives some extra love (she is our only Headquarters Troop). Also, a Specops with Chain of Command can do the Kidnapping aswell.
    DA weapons gain importance for certain missions, and we need to consider "tank" troops for Datatracker duty.

    Remember, heroes are Characters (at least at this time), not Veteran or Elite or...

    So our Actives are:

    Veteran Troops: Myrmidons and the Myrmidon Officers on SP, plus the Deva functionaries in Generic.

    Elite Troops: Ekdromoi alone on SP, but he is in very good company once we go to generic, with Dasyus, Asuras and ALL Posthuman bodies.

    As for Headquarters, the Marut is the only choice.

    Now, about specific changes or relevant stuff for some missions:

    MULTI weapons: this weapons change, in some missions (Hunting Party...) their "Stun" effect for IMM-1, meaning a state that requires a succesful Reset or Engineer to be removed.
    The troops with these weapons are: Marut (HMG), Atalanta, Teucer, Dasyus, Nagas, Dakinis and proxy mk2 (sniper), and one profile of Diomedes, Patroclus, both Aquiles and Asura (MULTI Rifle).

    Antimaterial CC weapons: DA and EXP are our only options here. DA weapons can be found on Eudoro (MA4), Machaon, Phoenix, Andromeda, the two cheapest Krakot profiles, all but one Ekdromoi profiles, and 26 points combi-toting Myrmidons; EXP weapons are in the hands of Patroclus, both Achilleus, Héctor and Ajax.

    Remember all SP troops but Phoenix have Frenzy, and I insist: characters are Type: Character only.

    Conclusion: The 20 points chain rifle Ekdromoi is Aleph's star troop for ITS9, since he comes with a DA weapon, MA3, Superjump, Aerial Deployment (lv 3) and Chain rifle. Missions like Hunting Party give him an Adhesive Launcher (non-lethal, causes IMM-2, a state that demands an engineer in order to remove it), plus a stun gun; he also can knock out the enemy HVT (melee, chain rifle) and can inflict damage to the enemy AC2 in melee.
    You can field 2 in Generic, or 4 in SP.

    Hunting Party is a mission which gives a heavy advantage to SP: chain rifle Myrmidons gain an Adhesive Launcher for long range, giving them a very good ARO weapon be it linked or alone (since a lone Myrmidon won't go into Frenzy, letting us shoot with 12 while imposing a -9 to the enemy).

    Datatrackers: The official word is that a Posthuman Datatracker is limited to a single body, and that chosing the Marut as Datatracker means both she and the Karkata are the datatracker at the same time (the long explanation: if the karkata dismounts, he is the datatracker, and if the karkata is killed, the Marut can reset to remove the Locked status and becomes the Datatracker again, this has been said by Hellois himself). Becoming Irregular does not affect Datatracker status, also.
    So, our best Datatrackers are Achilles, then the Marut, then the Asura, then Ayax, then Proxy mk3 or mk4, in that order.

    Coming soon; Mercs analysis, and Fear QK with their Kaplan engineer (27 points) fireteam Core.
     
    #1 xagroth, Nov 29, 2017
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2017
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  2. Arkhos94

    Arkhos94 Well-Known Member

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    While true in SP, I don't agree for Vanilla. Marut or Atalante will be much more efficent. High BS and the ability to shoot through smoke with good range band will allow them to win face to face roll against specialist with ease, MSV2 allow them to discover camo/infiltrated specialist easily and the high strengh of their stun mod make it very reliable.


    Discuting who is the best datatracker in general is quite pointless. Who is the best datatracker depend first and foremost of the mission.

    If the mission need the datatracker to kill someone, then yes your order is wright. In other case, I don't agree.

    For example, some missions need to keep you datatracker alive (so your opponnent doesn't do the "kill datatracker" objectives), then a backline resilient troop like machaon will be a much better datatracker than a frontline bullet magnet like Achilles or Ajax

    Same in mission where you need your Datatracker to go forward to control an area or an objectives. Datatracker like the asura, the marut or the proxy mk4 are not made to go close to the enemy where they can be hacked, flammed...
     
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  3. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    You do realize this is not a generic tactica, right? Giving the smoke + MSV2 combo as "huge advantage for Aleph in ITS9" is quite missing the point here.

    As for the Datatracker, there are two requirements in all missions for one: mobility and survivavility. Getting there and controlling a position is an Assault Datatracker role, which is Achilleus bread & butter. Hanging back and surviving is the Marut's shtick, since agains a losing proposition (Surprise shot from behind cover and White Noise with 1 wound left, for example) lets her ARO as "Karkata dismounts, and is the Datatracker". And to say that the Asura or the Mk4 are bad "at close combat" (not talking melee here, though) ignores their weapon loadouts: the mk4 has a HRL and a SMG, with PB6 (unless you are of the "HMG and assault, ignore other options" school) and the Asura can go at +3 in short range (pistol, combi, MULTI) not to mention her nanopulser.
    Also, for control sometimes you need the troop to bring points to the equation, that's why I value more Ajax than the Proxies.

    Everything can be flamed, or hacked, or shoot with an MSV2. This is Infinity, there are no absolutely right answers.

    Machaon is just 40 points wasted if you want a Datatracker hidden under a rock, since the Thorakitai or a 16 points Myrmidon are your best options. Why? Because you will place him in as hard to reach a place as possible. For my experience, the most annoyingly harder to kill datatracker is a hidden Warcor under Joan of Arc or Wallace's command!
     
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  4. Nenyx

    Nenyx Well-Known Member

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    I agree with Arkhos94 (in fact i wrote nearly the same thing in the other topic). Your choice depend first and foremost on the mission and on what you intend to do. Even if you want an assault datatracker, Achilles is good, even very good, but that does not mean you should take him - he has his cons too. If you think it would be better to run a dual enomotarkos team, it's unlikely you would run Achilles too, because of points.

    In the former forum, i opened a topic about looting and sabotaging. Stat wise, Achilles is the best when it comes to reach and destroy the AC2. Who else can hit that thing with DAM 18 x 3 or DAM15 x 6 on melee ? Yet, i think Achilles is not a good choice here, because it's very likely your opponent will have both a repeater coverage on the AC2 and some flamethrowers nearby. That would mean you're essentially throwing a 75 pts mini in your opponent zone while he is expecting it. I know i would favor a softer, sneaker approche for this mission, dumping the DT bonus objective if needed.

    As for the hidden datatracker, I would rather use a MK1 engineer. He is often not supposed to move to begin with (he's here with yudbots to heal zayins), and if the worst happens, he should be sturdy enough to survive. But you're right, anything cheap and with some kind of defense can do the job quite well, and the humble SMG thorakite is quite sturdy for a line troop.

    A side note to MSV2+smoke combo. In SP, the problem with that combo is mobility - the only MSV are Agemas, who are not exactly fast and have low burst weapons. Vanilla has better options with spitfire and 4-4 mvt.

    Ho by the way, i just had a funny idea for an assassin DT. What about a Samekh ? I mean, you just have to FO the target and let it fire, so you can have plenty of FO, only one has to succeed :) Not sure it would be worth (guided has his problems too), but it could be really fun :) I'll try it some day.
     
  5. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    I'd break the enemy AC2 (called PAC in the guide since I did not check how CB called it in english) with the 20 points Ekdromoi entering from a border, for example. And if I want to run something all across the table to do the job, Ajax is as capable as Achilles to deal massive amounts of melee damage.

    About smoke combo, my most effective runs have been Asura + two 16 points Chain Rifle Myrmidons (a lady needs her bodyguards) and the Marut with the same escort. The problem people either ignores or knows infinitely better than me how to avoid is that the Smoke Combo is above all an Active trick, where Snipers are more a deterrance than a threat you get to use (meaning the enemy will avoid or kill them, instead of exposing his troops).
     
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  6. Nenyx

    Nenyx Well-Known Member

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    In English it is AC2 for Advanced Communication Console. And i do agree with you, don't try to use the DT and send an ekdromoi to kill it easily. I would rather use Diomedes through, but since you can have 2 ekdromoi for cheaper, thus twice the chances to land (if you try AD4) and kill, that's a fair trade.

    Nicely said ! :)

    Edit: typo
     
    #6 Nenyx, Nov 29, 2017
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2017
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  7. DukeofEarl

    DukeofEarl Well-Known Member

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    DT can't be remotes unfortunately.
     
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  8. Nenyx

    Nenyx Well-Known Member

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    Ho, forgot about that, thx for the reminder :(
     
  9. Arkhos94

    Arkhos94 Well-Known Member

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    I don't agree. Unless he is in a FT, Machaon is usually hidden back and heal through yudbot so hidding him is not a problem and don't limit his ability to do his job well. And he is also much more resilient than a thorakitai (DDO, NWI, MA 3, eclipse grenade) or than a myrmidon (NWI, eclipse grenade). And don't forget than he can heal himself to come back from NWI. I played him many time as an (obvious) lieutenant and often as a datatracker (in scenarii where he needs to survive) and he was only killed once (mostly due to bad deployment).

    By the way, when it come to "killy" datatracker, if you can find a LOF to the designated target from your ZD or near it (which can happen time to time), Atalante is a formidable datatracker. Being in smoke allow her to shoot the designated target usually without any ORA from your opponent and her high BS is a blessing.

    Regarding the smoke trick (because it is a thing for Aleph in ITS9 in hunting party) :
    For sniper, I would usually agree with you but not for hunting party. Most "hunter" will use burst 1 weapon so good range band and high BS/good modifier became very important making sniper with multi good hunters in active turn.
    For the same reason the marut is a very good hunter because he has high BS + smoke trick + multi weapon in stun mod with a strengh of 16

    On the other side, while the asura is usually good for smoke trick, I'm not convince in hunting party with just an ADHL. Did you try her ?
     
    #9 Arkhos94, Nov 30, 2017
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2017
  10. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    I'm not a fan of bringing SP to when I play on generic, aside from Achilleus and some basic myrmidons (for smoke and bodyguard duty), and when I play SP I usually need all the characters on the frontline, linked if they can (thus my ignoring of yudbots).

    Please do consider that in Hunting Party there are three main uses for the added ADHL: first, range for troops who lack it (like Myrmidons); second, to glue down enemy specialists (remember, an engineer can still activate his servitor even in IMM-2 state, he executes Inaction while the bot does the job... like releasing him); and third, to glue down high BLI enemy troops, specially in ARO.
    So, if you bring a sniper, your enemy will fire lethal ammo against him/her, since there is no Objective Points granted by them, meaning it's unlikely (s)he will face ADHL.

    Whith this in mind, I would bring, and use as "glue hunters", unlinked myrmidons (ODD, CD12, non-lethal weapon) instead of the Asura. Sure, she is great, she can use the smoke trick, and all that, but depending on range bands I would use the ADHL only in ARO with her, never in Active turn.
    Why I think the basic Myrmidons are better? For starters, unless facing an enemy with MSV, they already impose a -6 thanks to the ODD, and 4+ Fireteams do not get to ignore that. Second, they are way cheaper than the Asura: you can bring four by paying 64 points... so you can add a Netrod and get 5 orders for the same price. Third, the Asura is hackeable.

    My conclusion here is, essentially, that the Asura is not a good troop for Hunting Party because the other options are superb.
     
  11. Nenyx

    Nenyx Well-Known Member

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    Outside of hunting party, ADHL and variants (akrylat kanone ...) are designed to take care of sturdy targets that can't be disabled with a single shoot by other weapons, meaning Asura is already the natural target of these weapons. A single lucky shoot will disable Asura as well as a modest dakini, except she costs far more. I know i would not field her in hunting party for that reason. Marut may be a better choice since it has a MULTI weaponry. The fact that a heavy ammo round, dam16 in game, may be non lethal is hilarious :)

    For hunting party, another choice would be MK2 and dasyu (both being elite contrary to nagas), and specificaly the AHD versions if you expect the opponent to field some HI (but it should be unlikely for the very same reason i wrote about Asura), since they can IMM-1 out of lof, then IMM-2 using their ADHL if needed. They cost far more than myrms, but they have the added advantage of being able to surprise shot (won't work vs 4+ core teams) and hidden deployment.

    As for the myrm characters, I think some of them can perform as well, if not better, in vanilla than SP. Machaon can freely take yudbots since he won't link (and given he is one of the best, if not the best Lt in vanilla ...). Patroclus can have some midfield support thanks to nagas and MK2 and will have a great synergy with either deva/asura (providing smoke for them) or danava (white noise counter Pat main opponents). HI (Ajax mostly) can count on a good hacker coverage (KHD nagas, danava + repeaters ...). Even for Diomedes if you want to use AD4, vanilla will have a supportware nearly everytime (courtesy of the danava being that strong and that cheap) while SP does not field EVO or standard HD very often since it does not bring much to an SP army.
     
  12. Arkhos94

    Arkhos94 Well-Known Member

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    I'm not a fan of ADHL due to crappy rangeband. The only good rangeband of your ADHL will be 20-40, while the marut multi hmg will be 40-80 and atalanta 40-120. Also, the smoke is not only for the -6, it also allow you to pick up your target while staying protected from other ARO.

    This being said, I understand your point regarding ADHL. I imagine it's more a question of playstyle. I prefer to hunt long distance with my Marut and snipers (atalanta with smoke, mk2 sniper), staying close to my doc/engineer in case of problem. You prefer to go up close and personnal with warbands

    Nenyx : nice idea with mk2/dasyus, I would be curious to learn how well they perform
     
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