In preparation for a tournament, I'm thinking about Cryogenics strategy. It's a weird mission in that when you push a button, you have a 40% chance of finding an HVT in it. This means that if you push the buttons on your side first, you're actually increasing the odds of the HVTs winding up on the opponent's side, making it harder for you to score. So is it worth waiting for them to push their buttons first? Suppose I delay pushing my buttons until my opponent has pushed both theirs. The outcomes then are: 36% both HVTs are on my side, and I have an easy game. 16% both HVTs are on my opponent's side, and I have a very difficult game. 48% one HVT on each side, for an even game. Suppose I push one of my buttons first. I have a 40% of getting lucky and finding an HVT on my side right away. But if I don't find an HVT, and then delay pushing my second button until my opponent has pushed theirs, the outcomes now are: 16% both HVTs on opponent's side. 84% one on each side. So pushing one button makes it less likely I'll hit the jackpot and get both HVTs on my side, but it doesn't change the 16% risk of both HVTs being on the other side. On the other hand, if I push one button, don't find an HVT, and then go ahead and push my second button, the odds are now: 60% both on opponent's side 40% one on each side So pushing the second button after failing the first will dramatically increase the risk of giving the opponent both HVTs on their side. Now suppose I wait for my opponent to push one button. If they don't find an HVT, great! I can now safely push both my buttons knowing I'll get at least one HVT. Alternatively, I can wait for my opponent to push their second button and give myself a shot at getting both. But, what if they do find an HVT in their first button? Now, there's an unavoidable big risk (either 40% or 60%) of them getting both HVTs. Finally, what if I go over and push a button on my opponent's side? It gives me better odds of not finding an HVT there, plus if I do find one I can potentially civevac it and bring it back to my side. The order cost is very high, though. Tentative conclusions: - Don't be afraid to push one of your buttons immediately. But, if you don't find an HVT in it, hold off on pushing the second one. - Planning to push an opposing button and civevac if you find an HVT is a reasonable risk-mitigation strategy, though hard to pull off. You can always push one of your own buttons first, to give yourself a 40% chance of not needing to do this, or wait for your opponent to push one to give yourself a 60% chance.
You are approaching this entirely wrong, the HVTs are the secondary scoring mechanic and they score at the end of the game and only account for 40% of the scoring. You need to focus on the functionally 2 sequentially scoring mechanics as your primary objectives. The first scoring point is for activating 2 or more coffins, the coffins leave the table when activated. This means despite being tallied at the end of the game they are functionally a sequential scoring mechanic. Turn 1 you should endeavour to push 3 buttons if at all possible. Success means you score 2 points and lock your opponent out of 2 points. At a bare minimum you want to push 2 buttons if you can't make 3 happen, this will make sure your opponent can't put you behind. Additionally pressing 3 buttons guarantees at least one of the HVTs will be on your side if you make sure you press a button on your opponent's side of the table first or second. Next you should be focused on dominating a zone with the Master Breacher every turn. This will account for a further 3 points if you can get it each turn, and every turn you deny it from your opponent costs them a victory point. If you can assassinate the enemy Master Breacher turn 1 you are locking your opponent out of 3 objective points, do it turn 2 you lock them out of 2 instead and so on. Alternatively as player 2 you can just try to sneak and outpoint them to deny OPs. A good turn 1 could see you lock your opponent out of 5 Objective points and limit them to a max score of 5 OPs. A good opponent will be trying to do the same things to your Master Breacher, you need to protect the shit out of them too. Disclaimer: This assumes the mission matters, AKA you're not playing 300 points. If you are playing 300 points you should focus on alpha striking the fuck out of your opponent. If you kill the Master Breacher and gut their army they aren't going to have the ability to score 3 points, press buttons and/or dive an attack piece on your Master Breacher. An opponent with no viable attack pieces isn't going to be able to effectively push out of their deployment zone, and they're going to straight up lose on attrition at that point.
Yeah, you can assume all my posts are about 300 point Infinity. I believe that should have been obvious.
This is how I played the mission most of the time. Last time I go first and snatch a box from my opponent and open one on my side, but waited to open the 2nd one on my side to make him run in a trap - but he refused, so I managed to get his second box and finaly my second :-D The game before I had 2nd turn and my opponent tried to do the same, but luckily failed (he had only on order, and used hacker or FO (paramedic is a must, if you ask me). I was lucky to get a box from him and he faild to open the last one on his side. If the HVT is on the other side I would not go for civ evac, I would go for agressive advance... if possible ;-)
The strategy I followed was to over infiltrate two specialists for the opponents tech coffins and then work on the ones on my side of the table.
I think that's reasonable, if one of the HVTs is on the opponent's side. Especially if you have second turn, you can move an expensive attack piece into that quadrant on turn 3. It's not much different than the "control more quadrants" missions where you usually score by controlling both your near quadrants and one of your opponent's quadrants. I did that in a game last night. My opponent pushed both his buttons and found his HVT in one of them. On T3, I moved into that zone to score it, and also poked one of my buttons and found my HVT, so I scored for controlling that zone as well. (But if I hadn't found my HVT in that button, it would have been a draw.) The problem is if both HVTs end up on your opponent's side. I don't think it's realistic to control both opposing quadrants. I'm not sure what to do in this scenario other than civevacing one of them back to your own side. It does seem like a lot of orders, though.
I think that the distance is sufficient for the master breacher to threaten both HVTs if he is in the middle.
I don't think they are. Each one is 12" from the outside edge which makes them 12" from the centerline. Even a Maggie on the centreline only extends 1.4" on each side. The HVT extends 0.5". So a Maggie on the centreline will be 10.1" from each HVT which isn't close enough. That said, the MB could civevac one of the HVTs and then have a shorter distance to move in order to threaten both of them, so still less order-intensive than bringing it back to your own side, and scores 4 points instead of 2. So in that respect it could be a good idea though it still requires civevacing.
Yeah. Now I think about it, it's actually about the same number of orders to move far enough to threaten the second HVT, vs. moving the first HVT back to your own side of the table. With the added restriction that you have to do it with your MB to get full scoring. Plus, assuming your opponent is controlling both their quadrants, doing this just gets you a tie on quadrant scoring (4-4). But, bringing one of the HVTs back to your side also just gets you a tie (2-2). Interesting. So if your opponent hits the jackpot with both HVTs in their side, you have to spend a lot of orders, possibly an unrealistic lot of orders, to even tie on quadrant scoring. And there's no realistic way to win on quadrant scoring. Possibly the safest strategy is to find a way to push one of your opponent's buttons on T1 or T2 and budget a lot of orders for it. If there's no HVT in it, great - you now know at least one of them will be on your side. If there is an HVT, civevac it and bring it back now while you still have the orders. This mitigates the risk that the other HVT will also be on your opponent's side. It doesn't seem like a great strategy, but I've yet to come up with any other option other than "hope both HVTs aren't on the opponent's side, and lose if they are."
In this case (Civ evac one home, thread the other) your MB can wait in the scoring Quadrant or you use it to threat the HVT (both gives one extra point and you can not do both). Best way is to have MB three time in a dominant Quadrant. Only in the last round its necessary and possible to dominate two Quadrants. Anyway - if the opponent gets lucky and has both HVT on his side you have to go for a serious assault and try to bring one home. This also means he got two coffins already, so you can not deny him the 2 extra points. I think this is very fun an challenging mission.
Played the Cryogenics game I was prepping for. It sort of illustrated the danger of opening boxes willy-nilly. Opponent went first and made the oft-recommended play of pushing three buttons on turn 1, immediately denying me two points. But, doing so cost a lot of orders and he wasn't able to also do enough damage to my army. So I was able to just play Annihilation for two turns - killed his Master Breacher and some other stuff with Nazarovs on turn 1, killed most of what was left on turn 2. On turn 3, I had plenty of orders to open the last box to reveal my HVT, dominate both HVT zones, and Secure HVT, for an 8-2 win. As it happened. one HVT was found on each side. If they'd both wound up on my opponent's side, I might not have been able to dominate both zones but that would still have been a 6-4 win. It also helped that he opened the boxes so early such that I knew from the outset where the HVTs were and could plan accordingly. Plus I didn't have to spend many orders opening boxes since he'd mostly done it for me. My opponent pushed a button on my side first, finding no HVT, and I think he'd have done better to stop there and spend the rest of T1 on killing. He'd have had plenty of time to open the ones on his side later. He would've had a hard decision if he'd found an HVT in my box, though. Contrary to my previous thoughts in this thread, I think he'd have been wrong to civevac it and bring it to his side - it would have been too many orders so that game would have played out similarly to how it actually did, where he wouldn't have killed enough on T1 and I could have just counterattacked and dominated the zone he'd moved his HVT into. Seems like a good T1 strategy would be to take a combo button pusher/attack piece (e.g. Fiddler), push one opposing side button, and continue on to do as much damage as possible. Worry about the rest of the mission on T2 and T3. Pushing that one button is enough to make the opponent's life difficult without costing too many orders.
Isn't this your opinion for all 300 point games though? I do not see if this is your opinion for 300 points game of Cryogenics how this would change in a 400 points.
That's because reading is difficult for you and you have failed to understand threads literally stretching back years over alpha striking on these forums being exceptionally less effective at 400 points. I could explain it to you, again, for like the 10th time but I'm not going to waste my breath because you are incapable of being taught.
Your entire thesis is that now that we are restricted in 15 models raising it to 400 will allow more resilient models who can survive better the alpha strike. It is not really difficult to follow that line of reasoning, of course with more resilient models comes more models that are good at killing such resilient models and the power level more or less resets with the caveat that the filler units are gone and new more resilient units become the filler units. The only thing that happens is the game balance shifts from the 30 points unit to the 40 points unit. It is not that I am illiterate, or too stupid to understand what you say, I just do not subscribe to your opinion, it ahs been suggested and rejected by the community again and again, there are communities who swear by it for sure as are communities who prefer the 250 points as a game balance, that does not change the fact the community throughout the editions prefer the 300 points as a game balance and the game is balanced on the 30 point units. Now if the game finally shifts to 400 points, then it will need to be balanced around 40 point units and many things will change. Unironically though, I am waiting to see your opinion and insight for reinforcements as it is the closest thing that pushes the game towards the gameplay you are advocating for.
No, I just do not see it making the alpha strikes significantly less effective to go to the trouble to rebalance the entire game for 400 points. And make no mistake if the game settles to 400 points all profiles will be rebalanced to reflect this, of course you think that the game balanced for 300 points is better balanced for 400 points.
Yes, because as you've just demonstrated, you don't understand why they're less effective at 400 points. You have so little comprehension that you don't even realise that CB don't need to rebalance the game's mechanics around 400 points.
No I realize you think they do not need to do so, if you had paid attention to this weeks videos you would have already understood that the game got rebalanced for 300 points when the community settled to 300 points.
