Dactyls vs Acmon & Machaon

About Machaon, he may be the best lieutenant choice of the whole game, or at least among the best. He is even better than a dactyl and a myrmidon combined, since he has also NWI, making him rather resilient, the rare Eclipse grenade, and a fantastic WIP15. Plus, providing you don't want to include him in a link, you can buy him yudbots as for any doctor or engineer, but with the added benefit that Machaon is a fine melee fighter by himself. Add that sweet +1B in melee, and you turn him into a fearful cc master (don't try Kitsune through).

I don't have that much experience with Acmon, but he has also the benefit of having panzerfaust. Through it's uselessness is debatable since he should be used as a specialist and not as an ARO troop, it's a strong mid to long range ARO weapon that can act as a deterrent.

 

There is a point cost difference to
balance them out. It may not seem much, but if you’re constantly choosing ‘the best’, you’ll find yourself without orders to use them.

Then again, Machaon is the second best model in the game (Posthuman is the best), his only downside is, that he cost 0.5 SWC.

Acmon may be your 1st choice of engineer, but if you want a dactyl link (possibly with Hector), you’ll need the rest.

 

Machaon has two "downsides": obvious Lt choice, and close to the front. Also, remember he is the ONLY medic in the whole Greek sectorial, aside from the Dactyls.
However, he also has many upsides, among them being close to the front to heal Phoenix, being sturdy against anything but fire and shock, WP 15 Lt specialist, the Eclipse Grenades...

He does not compete with the Dactyl medic, because Phoenix and Machaon are autoinclude in every greek list, and most of the time they will be in the same Fireteam.
The Dactyl Medic is there mostly to have more medics, specially an unlinked one to have with Yudbots. And to link with Hector, so the Big Guy protects the specialist while they go to the objective (and the medic heal him if he goes down to activate NWI).

Acmon is there in case you want to do something with an aggressive engineer, but most of the time you will be best served by using an 18pts Thorakite engineer to remove statuses and repair gear. If you go to the Hector link... well it might have its uses (panzerfaust mostly, unless the Nimbus grenades are reworked), but why place 3 Dactyls and Hector when you can place 3 Thorakitai and Thrasimedes?

 

I'm new to the game, so take this with a grain of salt, but - neither Machaon nor Phoenix can carry glue guns. while both Dactyl profiles can (although the engineer has the option to swap out the glue gun for a heavier weapon), and I've found them very useful against my friend's all-HI-all-the-time Yu Jing, especially as any Engineers are not HI, and thus much easier to kill. A Dactyl on a flank gooped three HIs and killed the engineer who came to fix them, one game.

 

Whoa, thanks for sharing your experience!
I actually have similarly good experience with ADL Loup Garous, though the burst bonus of the fireteam helps a lot in this case. Did you play the Dactyls in a fireteam or did you go solo?

 

Glue is not the reason they are taken. For one, ADL has the same range bands as the Combi rifle with the first one changed from +3 to -3, and Burst 1. While they are good ARO weapons in that regard (you will get the same Burst from a combi, and the neutralizing potential of the glue is far superior), linked range variation demands Thorakitai or Phoenix.

Now, if you play SP you will mostly want to field a Myrmidon Fireteam (if not, any sectorial has options that are equal or better to the other two fireteam options, even with the limit on 1 Core, thanks to the Haris now present on nearly all sectorials), then Phoenix is the first piece for long range offensive power and ARO duty. Then you need someone to keep him alive, which means Machaon (who also brings Eclipse grenades), and then you fill the other 2 slots with whatever suits your needs (Death Star: Eudoros and Mym officer. Discount bodies: chain rifle myrm. Assault tactica: Hacker and either spitfire or chain, Assault tactica heavy: Hector and hacker, Heavy Assault: Hector and Ayax, etc...).

Now the dactyls fill a strange niche here, because unless you play a Highly Classified game they only bring additional medics, or more expensive dogged engineers. Most of the time, you will place a medic in a duo with Acmon in this case. A full 4 Man fireteam of Dactyls, while possible, is at least as expensive as a Thorakitai one (where you can place a paramedic and an engineer), with less range bands variations unless it's leaded by Hector, in which case is much more expensive.

Anyway, if your current meta has people going around in a lot of HI, that speaks poorly of the local Nomads (they have glue and hackers in spades), or that they like to tailor their lists specifically against you, in which case the advantage will be yours in tournaments with a mix of killing missions and consoles missions, since they won't be used to face you with light units.

And remember, Fire is Good. Fire kills a lot. And Ayax and Achilles enjoy a lot when the enemy has no hackers but a lot of shooty HI XD

 

Solo - I've only recently tried Steel Phalanx, so this was in Vanilla without fireteams. I wanted more combat capability than a Sophotect or a Mk1 Posthuman gives (especially since the Mk1 was already a Hacker), but I didn't have the points for Machaon and Phoenix, and I wanted both an Engie and a Doc.

Thanks for the advice! Like I said, I'm new, and I haven't found a FLGS that both plays Infinity and is actually L. The closest one is about an hour away -most of my games have been with the few of my mini-playing friends that jumped to Infinity and convinced me to jump to it too, after the game we were all playing, that had a healthy local playerbase, had the company basically go insane and drive everybody away with bad decisions. Which means the local mini scene is more fragmentary than it's been in a while, and every group is playing their own game and denouncing all others with the fervour of the recently-converted. Means it's hard to get games, so I'm less experienced than the time since I first played a game would suggest. So I'm still getting my head around how the game works and trying out things that more experienced players would probably scoff at.

 

Keep doing that! Lessons learned by mistakes are the best of all, and sometimes a new player finds things experienced ones wouldn't dream of. Sure, there are a lot of "brilliant" ideas that end in the gutter, but sometimes gems show up.

As for the hour away... assume a lot of players are in the same situation, most of the time I go in the tube making lists, checking combos and movements in my head, reading stuff...
The best tactic that has worked for me so far is "impede the enemy movement as much as possible", so my ARO pieces (I rarely place a single one, Warcors and Lamedhs are too useful, not to mention humble Dakinis in Suppressive Fire) tend to support each other and when we check ARO either my opponent needs to spend a lot of orders to do anything (like facing them one by one) or we both suddenly realize that vector he is coming from faces two or three ARO pieces...

In Infinity the most valuable resource is Orders. Tarpitting the enemy can do wonders, and then you "go up" to "play the enemy", placing your troops so your enemy is constantly second-guessing himself, not sure of what will happen now, and feeling unprepared.

Also, against HI placing some repeaters close by means they have to Move + Reset on their turn or risk being Isolated by your hackers... much more enjoyable than glueing them (since IMM2 does not remove their order, and they can use their engineers to release those troops, unless you also kill the engineers). A Danavas placing a pitcher so the enemy approach with HI is impossible without getting several AROs, and amaging to inflict IMM1 AND Isolated is soooo nice ^^

Give surprises! Get surprised!