First steps with ISS

Thought I'd do a brief write up of my first ISS game.
Managed my first game with ISS on the weekend. A friendly match with both of us using new armies - ISS vs Bakunin. We wrote lists based on what we wanted to try out in our factions, and randomly chose the mission - Unmasking, so nothing particularly tailored to the match-up.

It ended up a very close, low-scoring game with the last order flipping a console resulting in 5-3 to ISS.

Managed to set up all my scratch-built modular city buildings for the board here:
Scratch-built scenery: what've you got going on?

This is the list that I went with, fireteams as:
Hsien, Zhanying, CSU - haris
Dakini, Dakini, Pheasant - haris
Xi, CG monitor, Taowu (masquerading as deva hacker) - core

Game_1_List_1
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GROUP 1 10 1
HSIEN (Lieutenant) MULTI Marksman Rifle, Nanopulser ( | TinBot: Firewall [-6]) / Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (+1 | 53)
ZHÀNYING (Hacker, Hacking Device) Breaker Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, D-Charges ( ) / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0.5 | 25)
CSU (Specialist Operative) Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 11)
DAKINI MULTI Sniper Rifle / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1.5 | 20)
PHEASANT IMPERIAL AGENT (Minelayer) Boarding Shotgun, E/Mitter, Madtraps / Breaker Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 27)
DAKINI Heavy Machine Gun / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 21)
XI ZHUANG Combi Rifle, Light Flamethrower(+1B), Flash Pulse, Madtraps / Pistol, CC Weapon, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 21)
CELESTIAL GUARD Monitor Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 13)
TÁOWÙ E/Marat, Flash Pulse / Viral Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 21)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)
GROUP 2 4 1 1
DAKINI (Paramedic) Combi Rifle ( | MediKit) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 15)
HÙSÒNG Yaókòng Heavy Machine Gun / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 24)
GARUDA (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 20)
PANGGULING (Hacker, EVO Hacking Device) ( ) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0.5 | 15)
MOTORIZED BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Chain-colt(+1B) / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 9)
5 SWC | 300 Points
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General thoughts on the list and the game:

What I was disappointed with -
Hsien:
Not even sure why, because he won every F2F and killed kusunagi, a zellenkreiger, an MSR Zero and possibly a rounder, but it took more orders than I'd like. The B3 and Dam13 MMR just didn't have the punch I'd assumed it would and even units with ARM0 seemed to tank the shots. I'm leaning towards taking one of the LT profiles outside of a haris in the future as once his haris had died, using his LT order gave him far more efficiency. He will make it into more lists, but he did play differently to how I expected.
Taowu:
I didn't actually use him this game, even counterintelligence didn't come up, nor did his deva hacker rouse, so it seems a bit unfair to judge, but he just doesn't seem worth the points. If he was quicker, or had FD deployment or something to make use of his range bands, perhaps, but I could get Xi for the same price, or an actual Deva Hacker for a few points more. I'll try him again in some different situations, but he seems a bit too much of an investment for no guaranteed pay-off.
Pangguling EVO:
I don't think I've really used an EVO hacker outside of one game with StarCo where it got the +1 regular order for that ITS mission and just supported a hellcat to drop in. I used it to buff the dakini with marksmanship, but the dakini just don't seem punchy enough to utilise the bonus effectively. I could see it buffing a Rui Shi or a Garuda spitfire perhaps. I'll probably take this again to try on other bots, but the buff wasn't quite the 'game changer' I thought it might be. Maybe 'Enhanced Reaction' is a better buff for Dakini MSR haris to bump it to B3 in ARO, that would be quite a deterrent.
Dakini Haris:
Again, this is probably me playing them wrong, or getting the wrong impression, but they were not very good active turn killers, and weren't particularly good reactive ARO pieces. They were very good deterrents. Their bark seemed way bigger than their bite, they kept heads down, made sure my opponents orders had to be spent on smoke to move around, but when it came to fighting it out, even with marksmanship buffs, their base BS just didn't seem good enough to take on anything capable of shooting back. Both dakini died to a rounder RF in my active turn. I think I just misjudged these as active turn shooters, but having used them I think their role is in ARO and deterrents for warbands. If there was a cheap engineer in ISS they'd have a ton of value. The pheasant also seems expensive, but with aggressive Hsien LT, sitting back, providing template cover from paratroops and providing ARO burst bonus to the dakini is probably the best job for him anyway. I think this haris might get moved to Group 2 to support something there, as I dont think I'd want to spend many orders on them anyway.

What I liked -
Garuda:
I really like the garuda, I mostly play bakunin or starco and neither has anything this cheap and effective. He made a kill, threatened some models on the backline and I chose to sacrifice him for an HVT kill. The Combi seemed enough to get the job of shooting stuff in the back done and the 6-4 MOV and FO gave options for use.
Kuang shi:
Very good. I only had one, and basically used it as I would a morlock. Cleared a mine, going dogged, and shot a zero in the back, well worth the points. I think a core would play very differently, but as an impetuous warband, dogged was really nice to have.
Xi Zhuang:
I didn't use all of his utility, but B3 flamers when in a haris meant he cleared an objective and flipped it to win the game on the last order. He will go in a list again.
Hsien Haris (minus the hsien):
The haris was effective, but this was mostly down to the CSU rolling NWI and threatening templates, and the Zhanying being in the right-place at the right-time to get an oblivion off on a Riot Grrl. I was a bit disappointed in the Hsien contribution to the haris though. I might use it as more of a cheap throwaway fireteam instead with an extra CSU or bounty hunter, and move the Zhanying into a Wu Ming haris.

Overall I enjoyed it. great game, great table, great opponent.
I liked how different ISS are to my usual Bakunin/StarCo. Made for very different challenges. It was unusual to have everything start in my deployment zone and without any camo or marker states compared to StarCo, and the hackers I did have seemed a little unsupported, but there's a ton of regular orders in ISS and the extra fireteams make them quite efficient.

 

I did mention in my notes that I could probably pull the dakini haris into Group 2 as ARO/order generators for something mean like a garuda spitfire, Rui Shi, Su Jian. I didn't feel like the two haris were competing in my game mostly because I didn't really spend many orders on the dakini haris. It was mostly the Hsien haris doing all the work and the dakini haris providing overwatch and orders. I think a Wu Ming haris and Hsien Haris would struggle to share orders in the game group.
I did think afterwards, the lone dakini paramedic should have been in the same group as the other dakini to fill in the haris slot after one goes down. I could probably do that if I moved them all into Group 2.
I thought I might struggle for orders in Group 2 with the garuda and MBH, but actually the MBH took turn 1's orders and the garuda took turn 2's orders, so it wasn't too bad.

 

My second game was part of the Operation Edgelord Campaign, and written up as a narrative report here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jOKdP37i2sOIYdFwFmJAOB1fekQ1YkhT/edit
I got stomped, but tried out some new units, so happy overall.

My list (ISS) - It was a part-random list from the old randomlistgenerator which spat out 149pts of sophie and a yudbot, two kanren, major lunah, a husong, and a CG LT. I've been meaning to try out sophie, kanren, and lunah, so why not all at once?
I had a stupid idea to use the kanren minelayer to fake kuang shi and the mine to fake lunah, and use the other kanren to fake a minelayer kanren and a 'mine' (which was lunah) that's when I found out the Army app doesn't allow you to fake kuang shi, and doesn't print out multiple models on the courtesy sheet like it should for holomask+holoecho, so it was all a bit moot, but a fun list and a fun game anyway.

Shenanigans_editedRandomList
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GROUP 1 8 2
SOPHOTECT Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 31)
YUDBOT PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)
YUDBOT PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)
NINJA (Hacker, Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow ( ) / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 29)
CELESTIAL GUARD Monitor Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 13)
MAJOR LUNAH VIRAL Sniper Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 29)
XI ZHUANG Combi Rifle, Light Flamethrower(+1B), Flash Pulse, Madtraps / Pistol, CC Weapon, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 21)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)
KǍNRÈN (Minelayer) Boarding Shotgun, Shock Mines / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 25)
GROUP 2 7
RUI SHI (Multispectral Visor L2) Spitfire ( ) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 23)
HÙSÒNG Yaókòng Heavy Machine Gun / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 24)
DAKINI MULTI Sniper Rifle / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1.5 | 20)
DAKINI (Paramedic) Combi Rifle ( | MediKit) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 15)
CELESTIAL GUARD (Lieutenant) Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 13)
PANGGULING (Hacker, EVO Hacking Device) ( ) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0.5 | 15)
KǍNRÈN (Forward Observer) Boarding Shotgun, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 24)
6 SWC | 298 Points
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General thoughts on the list and units:
What I was disappointed with -
- Sophotect is expensive, especially if you need the yudbots to provide coverage, and most stuff died outright against the 5 rocket launchers the opponent had, so I didnt get much utility in the end. She is speedy though, and NWI does give some assurance when you need to clear a gap. I think I will try her again, but perhaps on a more REM/HI/Su Jian - heavy army list. I'd love a cheap line-troop engineer though. Might even put into a celestial fireteam.
- Dakini again, was mostly a deterrent, and goes down quickly if actually fighting it out. The EVO marksmanship didn't seem to add too much. I think I'll swap to the HMG for most cases, and use the MSR with the Enhanced Reaction buff to gain B3 ARO in the cases I do take the EVO. I think this leans more into the deterrent role - more dice maybe providing more F2F wins and slowing the opponent down. I still don't see much of a role for the dakini in active turn, but perhaps it's because I'm mostly facing coherent fireteams in these games. I seem to fit them into a lot of my lists, but for a 3-4SWC, 60 point haris to get the Burst bonus, I do wonder if a couple of Husong TR bots would do the same job for less investment. But I think there's a psychological impact, I feel my opponents respect the dakini more than a TR bot and spend more orders navigating around it.
- Ninja, specifically in this mission I felt the regular hacker would have provided more value, and actually, I really felt the loss of any weapon other than the Tacbow. More burst would have given me better options when navigating around a 6th sense fireteam. But having a HD specialist is fantastic.

What I liked -
- Dare I say it on here, but the kanren. I actually quite liked them. They're expensive, and a bit silly, but (if the army app/print out worked properly) having '15' models on the board did seem to play games with my opponent and forward deployment is nice in an army that spends most of its first turn orders moving out of the deployment zone. I blended real and fake Kuang shi on one side of the board making it look formidable, and that seemed to help guard a few objectives. The mine doing the work of covering the actual objective.
The other kanren (FO), 'sat' near all of the objectives on my side of the table and looking like I had the objectives pretty well covered when combined with overwatch from dakini and TR bot.
- The ninja, yeah.. it's a love/hate, but mostly love. The options it opens are great. I had the central objective covered by my ninja on the other side of a wall, within one short skill move, and with HD, only I knew it was there. When it revealed, it secured two objectives that my opponent perhaps didn't expect I could reach with the '15' models on the board, and scored most of my points in this game.
- Rui Shi, MSV2 spitfire is great for camo-heavy infiltration armies, and the repeater built in meant I could buff it wherever it went with the EVO. I can't remember if I used it that much, but it did sweep away one or two camo specialists.
- Xi Zhuang, still not managed to place the madtrap somewhere actually useful, but his utility and wildcard status are great. and he's got the tools to sort out anything in the midfield.

 

The third game, again for Operation Edgelord, but this time against Aleph, went better than the last. I've been meaning to write it up as a narrative, but its dragged on a while now and I might have missed my chance. Perhaps I'll make it into some lore for the campaign instead.
The mission was 'The Brawl' - basically an objective room mission where you also need to kill more points within the room, and ended with a 6-2 win.
I took another part-random list which included a zhanying, miranda, and a bao. I wanted to try out miranda and the bao, and thought i'd throw in the deva spitfire too as an alternative to the rui shi from last game. My opponent took a scary named-character-heavy list including andromeda (who successfully over infiltrated), Atalanta, Ajax, and Drakios, with Arjunas, Satrah, Thyreos, myrmidon officers, and some bots.

RandomList_Fixed
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GROUP 1 9 1 1
ZHÀNYING (Lieutenant) Heavy Machine Gun, Chain-colt / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (1 | 26)
MIRANDA ASHCROFT MULTI Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 24)
BÀO TROOP Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 22)
CELESTIAL GUARD (Hacker, Hacking Device) Combi Rifle ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 18)
CELESTIAL GUARD Monitor Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 13)
DAKINI Heavy Machine Gun / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 21)
DAKINI (Paramedic) Combi Rifle ( | MediKit) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 15)
DEVA (Multispectral Visor L2) Spitfire, Nanopulser ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 33)
MOTORIZED BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Chain-colt(+1B) / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 9)
GARUDA (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 20)
GROUP 2 5
PANGGULING (Hacker, EVO Hacking Device) ( ) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0.5 | 15)
HÙSÒNG Yaókòng Heavy Machine Gun / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 24)
NINJA (Hacker, Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow ( ) / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 29)
KǍNRÈN (Forward Observer) Boarding Shotgun, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 24)
CHAĪYÌ Yaókòng Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 7)
5.5 SWC | 300 Points
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What I was disappointed with -
- Miranda, tad expensive and died to andromeda turn 1. not miranda's fault, but not much I can learn from this game.
- Bao is a bit expensive too, and really just used as a cornerguard that could have been done by a CSU or similar, but did survive Andromeda's CC D-charge attack, and with the shotgun ended her run. I'm tempted to try a bao again, perhaps in a more aggressive, cheap haris to clear midfield or play with smoke.
- Not much else in this game, TR bot and dakini died turn 1, but expected as they were on ARO duty to slow down Andromeda and Ajax.

What I liked -
- Motorized bounty hunter was fantastic value. rolled a multi-rifle on booty and took out atalanta through a white noise zone before getting hit by a missile. Didn't even spend any regular orders to do it either. As a bonus, the Myridon officer nearby threw smoke as an ARO to protect from the MBH, which I then took advantage of with the deva MSV2 spitfire.
- Garuda, awesome model and the 20pt specialist continues to be my favourite. in this game I took the risk of a combat drop, landing right next to a console and claiming it in minimal orders. the combi seems to do good work for me at the short ranges too, although I mostly use it for button-pushing.
- Ninja, back again. did good work again too. used the tacbow to take out the Satrah, and dodged a missile bot's ARO to get my secret faction objective. Still, even though the tacbow worked, B1 does not feel good and DAM12 feels weak, even if it is unopposed. B3 SMG against a -3 dodge feels better in my mind, though I've not looked at the numbers.
- Kanren, again the holoprojector pretending to be cornerguards wasted an Atalanta shot and an Andromeda D-charge attack, and in fact the surprise boarding shotgun knocked Andromeda into NWI and put her in a bad position. I wish they were cheaper, but I really value the forward deployment in ISS where everything else starts so far back.
- Deva MSV2 got the LT kill through smoke, but that was just good luck opportunity I think. It died to multiple wounds later on, so I didn't get a feel for the benefit of NWI.
- Dakini paramedic, I keep putting them in lists as a back-up specialist. I dont think i've ever used the paramedic skill becuase they're usually hanging around a bunch of other bots, but the specialist status and speed have always come in handy. I think this fella grabbed a console and gummed up an enemy in CC with multiple opponents, which is good enough for the points.

 

Got a game in this week at a local store that I never knew existed. There are a couple of people there dipping their toes into infinity, and the store owners are pretty keen on building up a community around the game.
We played the Operation Edgelord mission 'Cloak and Dagger', with my ISS vs Nomads.
Ended in a strong ISS victory mainly due to some very bad luck on objective dice rolls for my opponent. I managed to get the secret objective for this month though.
ISS 6.OP/199.VP - Nomads 1.OP/141.VP

For this game I wanted to get a ninja and garuda specialist in the list so I could do objectives, but keep the specialists safe until I needed them. I also really wanted to try out the Lu Duan after the fun I had with Kanren in previous games, and trying Taowu again as another 'hidden' specialist.
Taowu masqueraded as a dakini MSR for this game, in a group 1 haris with a celestial monitor and deva MSV2 spitfire. I had the Hsien HMG, BH, CSU haris in group 2, and a 4-man core of celestial guards and dakini taking up the other slots in group 2.

Cloak_and_Dagger
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GROUP 1 6 1
DEVA (Multispectral Visor L2) Spitfire, Nanopulser ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 33)
CELESTIAL GUARD Monitor Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 13)
TÁOWÙ E/Marat, Flash Pulse / Viral Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 21)
PANGGULING (Hacker, EVO Hacking Device) ( ) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0.5 | 15)
GARUDA (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 20)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)

GROUP 2 9
CELESTIAL GUARD Monitor Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 13)
CELESTIAL GUARD (Lieutenant) Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 13)
DAKINI MULTI Sniper Rifle / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1.5 | 20)
DAKINI (Paramedic) Combi Rifle ( | MediKit) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 15)
HSIEN Heavy Machine Gun, Nanopulser / Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (1.5 | 55)
CSU (Specialist Operative) Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 11)
LÙ DUĀN Mk12, Heavy Flamethrower(+1B) ( | Deployable Repeater) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 24)
BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 12)
NINJA (Hacker, Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow ( ) / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 29)

5.5 SWC | 299 Points

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What I was disappointed with -
- Nothing stands out too much this game as playing particularly badly, everything generally went well, although I really found it a struggle to list build effectively with both garuda and ninja being a must, and wanting the Lu Duan in there for a trial run, but that's mostly on me.
- The Dakini MSR went down very quickly again, but somewhat expected as an ARO unit.
- I really feel the lack of cheap doctors or engineers, or alternatively a linkable sophotect, similar to parvati. Some of my lists end up mostly bots, but the 30+ points for sophie is just a bit too steep.

What I liked -
- Kuang shi, used the impetuous order to template a wildcat and alguacile hacker that had pushed up, taking out the alguacile, and getting the intruder to reveal. Kuang shi died, but not a bad trade.
- Lu Duan, I love the holoechos for wasting opponents orders on turn 1. Both an Intruder and Evader took shots at holoechos I'd partially left as cornerguards/AROs, which is huge value. The actual Lu Duan was out of LoF at the end of opponent T1, so they even popped back up for the start of my T1. The Lu Duan dropped templates across the wildcat and unconcious alguacile, taking them both off the board and dying to the intruders ARO.
- CSU, BH, Hsien fireteam, these guys did a good amount of work, and as the Hsien wasn't my LT, I didn't mind pushing them right up into the opponents half after the nomad hackers I could see on the board were gone. The CSU I basically used as a morlock, running out to threaten templates on multiple models. Everyone chose to dodge, so I used hit mode to remove the evader in one order. The Hsien claimed an objective card and tucked up safe, then I broke the fireteam to drop the CSU and BH on coordinated suppressive fire, pinning the models who'd dodged against the CSU earlier back in their DZ.
- Garuda FO, again fantastic to have a specialist with airborne deployment options. With the weird DZ in Cloak & Dagger, the garuda walked on in the gap and claimed telemetry from a HVT, then just sat there hoping another FO objective card would come up in T3.
- Taowu, the Dakini MSR rouse baited a vostok into shooting from just outside of 8", so I dropped E/marats on it, putting it at -12WIP from isolation and Immobilised. Taowu died, but I was happy to have the vostok effectively out of the game but in easily accessible position if I needed to target an enemy model for an objective later on.