One of my biggest challenges at infinity are missions that you must dominate sections every game round, i don't like too much expensive units and that makes me use a lot of orders to march my cheap troops upfield. Sometimes i use Fidays for that, but if i don't control my bloodlust i forget to use it only for quadrant domination. What lists you guys use for missions like these? what kind of tatics? Thank you and Let's share knowledge!
Just my opinion here, I've played couple of dozens of those missions, however, rearly in tournament situation. The lists and tactics vary depending on two thing in my mind, with third, elephant in a room really being if you can reliably asses borders of the zones. Those first two are: a. Table setup, b. Initiative. As for the table the main questions are: are there any tall buildings (roofs)/other place with limited accessibility that spread to more than one scoring zone (or a scoring zone and your DZ). If you answer positively to that question then you should probably focus on placing some units there. In case those terrain features are placed in the middle of the table, spreading to the scoring zones on the enemy half, then dominating those is more often than not a key to victory, put you impersonators/infiltrators/AD troops there. Usually when you place 2 or 3 tokens on such rooftop you opponent can’t easily asses value of your troops and has to spend a lot of orders getting read of them (and not moving for domination of other quadrants). Second thing – the initiative is super important in those games, whoever goes second has like 30% of win right before the game starts. If I go first in such mission I usually try to eliminate the infiltrators and smoke-throwers first, and play first turn for a tie rather than a win… yet, you just can’t secure all the passes between scoring zones nor ready yourself for AD troopers (nor sensor and kill all the oniwabans and Kitsunes on your side of the table). Basically if you go second, you can win without firing single shoot, if you go first you need to unleash a mother of all alfastrikes. So all in all it is important not to forget to move your troops outside deployment zone on both halves of the table, and then focus your forward deployed pieces on one of the quadrants on the opposing side of the table (the more valuable infiltrators you bring, the better). Oh, and last thing – it is good to remember that scoring with your datatracer (meaning he is in any of scoring quadrants) for two turns wins you a game, no matter what happens in last turn... Hope this makes some sense.
100% this. I’ve had a lot of luck winning zone control missions with generic lists. The key was to focus 100% on scoring zones and crippling the opponent’s order pool. Going second makes these missions relatively easy, because you are less reliant on anticipating the other players hidden plays. Going first requires, as said, a list that can alpha strike hard af. Tarik is king for these missions, and the new Hakim seems like a godsend. I’m planning on using a hakim for the first time this week and very excited. Tuaregs are awesome for these missions too. (Mostly because I love the models and do t play with them enough). A Djanbazan HMG is great, as always.
I'm a fan of the Halqas. They start in the zone and generate orders. Basically you save orders grabbing the zone. There are 2 ways to play them. The first is they are all in ARO positions. This is good for the first turn. If you completely overload him with AROS he can't get out of his DZ. But I find this can be difficult. They just don't hold up. They tend to be killed off early, and you are struggling by turn 3. But by this point you may already have a solid lead in VP. I've had games were I had all 4 zones turn one, with 3 zone turn 2. By then I had the game and was wiped turn 3. But still won on VPs. This strategy works well with a fIday. The second method is to make them campers. Keep them in hard to reach spots, and make you opponent spend orders to eliminate them and work to grab the zone. It's easier for your opponent to leave his DZ grab the zones in front of him. But make it almost impossible for him to grab the zone with the halqas. Letting the rest of your force focus on 1 side of the table. With this you give up taking the zone in front of the halqas, and focus on pushing on the other side.
Use Rafiq+Fanous to flush out the infiltrators and hidden deploy units on the table! Do it! You will not regret it! Just pop that stuff up on your first turn in midfield (preferably getting a couple sniffers down). This will reveal ALL hidden units including TO removing that huge advantage in this game type.
Don't forget the kameel baggage bots. 8 points gets you 28 points of occupation ability in addition to a Regular Order. If you can keep them under cover near the center line of the board, you keep the ability to shift them quickly from one quadrant to another at a critical moment.
Don't overlook the power of Impersonators in these missions, but you are right to note that you have to hold them back. Haqqislam has a lot of quality Camo/TO Infiltrators, enough to build a whole list around. These are literal gold in these missions. Don't be afraid to keep a TO unit in Hidden Deployment if you don't need the points that turn. Baggage Remotes are well worthwhile, as are Sensor remotes to engage enemy Camo. Airborne Deployment units also serve as effective mobile reserves to drop into the correct location in order to score. Getting the second turn is nearly essential, UNLESS you have such a powerful alpha strike that you can literally win the game in turn 1. Measure this carefully, as a half-measure attack will likely result in a lost game. Saladin is valuable here to prevent the enemy out-deploying AND to maximize your chance of winning the Lt roll. A list built just for one of the zone control missions will often look very different from standard, but be careful not to over-specialise if you are going into a tournament.
Going first isn't the end of the world. Even if you don't kill any of your opponent's troops, you can spend the turn dropping mines, and setting up killzones. If your opponent puts out ARO, you kill them and dock the orders. If they don't, you have free range to assault and/or dominate the midfield. AD aren't going to drop down onto mines, or into suppressive fire. Sensor reveals all the midfield infiltrators, so you can easily kill them. How is your opponent even meant to cross the midline in their first turn if you had run of the place? That means they can only hope for a tie on points first turn. So really, you are fighting for second and third turn points, and you have the initiative advantage.
