I Took Vanilla Ariadna to a Satellite, and Here's What Happened

So, over last weekend, I took vanilla Ariadna to Colder than Carbonite. It was a great time, ran by great people, and I played against some great opponents.

I took vanilla Ariadna to the event with no expectations for performance. If you've read any of my posts in the threads posted here since the drop of N5, you've seen my thoughts going in. Ultimately, out of 47 players, I took 5th place (and best painted!).

As far as my thoughts regarding Ariadna are concerned, I'll sum that up at the end (it won't surprise you). But I'd like to think that I myself have come away a better player, having been exposed again to playstyles and strategies that don't often enter my meta.

Below, here are my lists, as titled with the missions that they were played for.

Mindwipe / Supremacy / Frontline / Supplies
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GROUP 1 7 2 1
VASSILY (Chain of Command) T2 Sniper Rifle, D-Charges / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 37)
SCOUT (Minelayer) Ohotnik, D-Charges, E/M Mine / Silenced Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 28)
BRIGADIER BRUANT (Infiltration) AP Spitfire, Chain-colt, D-Charges / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 33)
S.A.S. (Forward Observer) Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse, D-Charges / Silenced Pistol, AP + Shock CC Weapon(PS=6). (0 | 21)
DOZER KVP Light Shotgun, D-Charges, Armed Turret (Rifle) ( | GizmoKit) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 14)
KIBERVOLK Chest Mine, Crazykoala / Trench-Hammer, Shock CC Weapon(PS=4). (0 | 12)
CATERAN T2 Sniper Rifle / Pistol, AP CC Weapon(PS=7). (1 | 21)
EQUIPE MIRAGE-5 (MARGOT & DUROC) undefined / undefined. (2 | 58)
MARGOT AP Rifle, Grenade Launcher, Light Shotgun, D-Charges / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 33)
DUROC Chain Rifle(+1B), Grenades, Smoke Grenades / AP CC Weapon(PS=4). (0 | 25)

GROUP 2 6
VETERAN KAZAK (Lieutenant, Forward Observer) T2 Rifle, Light Flamethrower, Flash Pulse / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 34)
APACHE FTO Chain Rifle, Grenades / Heavy Pistol, AP CC Weapon(PS=6). (0 | 14)
KONDUKTOR FTO Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun, Shock Mine / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 7)
BARSUK (Camouflage [1 Use], Decoy) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 11)
TRAKTOR MUL (Deactivator) ( ) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 5)
TRAKTOR MUL (Deactivator) ( ) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 5)

5.5 SWC | 300 Points

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Unmasking
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GROUP 1 7 2 1
KNAUF MULTI Sniper Rifle / AP Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 31)
UXÍA McNEILL (Specialist Operative) Boarding Shotgun, D-Charges, Smoke Grenades / Assault Pistol(+1B), AP CC Weapon(PS=6). (0 | 25)
VASSILY (Chain of Command) T2 Marksman Rifle, Akrylat-Kanone, D-Charges / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 37)
SCOUT (Minelayer) Ohotnik, D-Charges, E/M Mine / Silenced Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 28)
TRAKTOR MUL (Deactivator) ( ) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 5)
BARSUK (Camouflage [1 Use], Decoy) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 11)
CATERAN T2 Sniper Rifle / Pistol, AP CC Weapon(PS=7). (1 | 21)
EQUIPE MIRAGE-5 (MARGOT & DUROC) undefined / undefined. (2 | 58)
MARGOT AP Rifle, Grenade Launcher, Light Shotgun, D-Charges / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 33)
DUROC Chain Rifle(+1B), Grenades, Smoke Grenades / AP CC Weapon(PS=4). (0 | 25)

GROUP 2 6 2
BRIGADIER BRUANT (Lieutenant) AP Spitfire, Chain-colt, D-Charges / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 29)
DYNAMO Submachine Gun, Panzerfaust, Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 14)
VARANGIAN Submachine Gun, Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Heavy Pistol, AP CC Weapon(PS=6). (0 | 12)
KONDUKTOR FTO Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun, Shock Mine / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 7)
DOZER KVP Light Shotgun, D-Charges ( | GizmoKit) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 11)
KIBERVOLK Chain-colt / Trench-Hammer, Shock CC Weapon(PS=4). (0 | 10)

6 SWC | 299 Points

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Round 1: Supplies vs White Banner
I played against a newer player who's only been at it for a few months and was appearing at their very first ITS event. Going in, the table suffered from some very weak deployment zones, and my opponent wound up winning the Lt roll and choosing deployment, my guess to take the zone that was least disadvantageous. Ultimately, I was able to crack through holes in the deployment with Duroc (this is going to be a reoccuring theme), and then catch some unopposed angles from some overly powerful midfield sniper towers with Bruant and a Scout. With the damage I was able to inflict, and the positioning I had, I was essentially able to lock him down not too far out his deployment zone for the entire game while Margot walked from server to server planting D-charges.
That all said, my opponent employed a coordinated order to crack open part of my defensive coverage of the midfield. While he didn't manage to get all the way through to the button (by then too much damage was done and there weren't enough resources left over), I'm glad that he was able to work figure out a path. I think with that impromptu planning he managed to land and some more familiarity with matchups and the ruleset as a whole, he'll be able to advance rapidly. I'm interested to see how he develops come next year.

Round 2: Supremacy vs CJC
I played this around against Ash of the Tactical Awareness podcast. Owen and Dan are both fairly regular opponents in my local community, but this was my first game against the third member of the group. All three are very strong players (even if Dan likes to pretend he's not), and I've enjoyed my games against all of them greatly. I'm sure Ash will have his own summarization of the game in an episode, likely in greater depth than what I'll go into here.
I won the Lt roll and opted for first turn. The table had some great looking large, multi-level pieces, but was lacking in scatter terrain. I think this contributed to some deployment zones that were a bit weak. Ash ran a Gator list supported by an Alguacile link (with Mobile Brigada Lt and Jazz) and a host of Moran and REM support.
Ash deployed with the Alguacile link hidden in a far corner, with much of the table overwatched by TR, missile, and flash bots. At the cost of overexposing Vassily, I took out most of the defensively positioned bots. It ate up most of the orders in my first combat group and overexposed Vassily, but at the cost of removing a significant pool of orders and opening up enemy defenses for Duroc to come in and eat the Alguacile link, and the turn ended with him locked in combat with the Brigada.
Most of the game after that ended up being a very messy back-and-forth. A lot of things died, a lot of overexposed troopers were rightly punished for it, and a very lucky Scout wound up doing horrible things to a very frustrated Moran.
For everything else that went on, I think the game ultimately came down to two missplays, one made by each of us, that would have cost us the game. I just happened to make my game-losing move before he made his. Hindsight being 20/20, obviously.
With Duroc locked in combat with the Brigada, I could have just left him there and with how the rest of the game went, that'd be pretty much it. There were not enough orders or army left outside of him (especially after Margot finished off the Gator) to keep on scoring for the rest of the game. Instead, upon being triggered by fear of losing in CC against McMurrough's advance, Duroc attempted a dodge to get out of combat and face McMurrough to threaten him with a chain rifle. This was a massively stupid move on my part, as with the positioning of Duroc and the Brigada on top of a storage crate, there was no way for McMurrough to actually get into CC with me. I had reacted to a completely self-made threat, and now the Brigada was free to flee and attempt to revive members of the link with a vitapack.
For my misplay, Duroc was summarily executed and the Mobile Brigada was now a major threat that would likely have taken the game.
Ash's major misplay, and the final reverse in momentum, came after trying to flee from the Apache that I'd slammed into that corner (unfortunately not quite into CC) to make up for my mistake with Duroc and start occupying table space, was to use the full-order 8" jump (that would have been clever in any other situation) to get out of the frying pan I'd set up, but rob him of the order efficiency necessary to capitalize on his freedom, and leaving himself exposed for a sniper round from a Cateran on my following turn.

Round 3: Frontline vs Hassassin
The only game I wound up going second on, and my only loss at the event. My opponent was local to me, but our communities didn't really intersect due to unfortunately opposing schedules. This was my first time playing against him. He's a strong opponent, and I enjoyed this game immensely in spite of some very frustrating dice on my end.
I don't think either of us would deny just how cursed my dice wound up being, but full credit to him for playing a stronger game. In hindsight, there were several things that I could have done at several stages of the game removed from luck that could have easily resulted in a very different result.
Outside of a major desperation-borne misplay with Duroc, I had lots of small mistakes that a better holsitic view of a game can help mitigate. Which makes sense, since I find that I have a history of very strong, acute attacking plays that can suffer with lost (or never acheived) momentum.
I think that the thing I'm happiest about with my play from this tournament is turning a tilted position that could have easily gone 10-0, and with the tools I was left with (NOT A LOT), running it down to a 5-3 loss. In hindsight, there was a way to even force a 5-5 draw. Overall, this was my favourite game from the event.
That said, I do think that Hassassin is dangerously and unhealthily overtuned right now (although I cannot iterate enough, not to take away from my opponent's success, I was solidly outplayed this time around) more on that later.

Round 4: Unmasking vs Morats
My opponent was a new player local to me who I'd been helping to learn the game. This was his very first ITS event, and through the form of cruel and unusual punishment that is practicing for it with me, he'd managed to net himself a 2-1 record leading up to our match with only a few months in the game. That's insane.
Anyway, I had to put an end to that run.
My Unmasking list was a bit of a curveball, and on top of Bruant FTO (as overpriced and mediocre as he is unexpected!) parking in the middle of the table in suppressive, and Knauf pre-emptively counter deploying a Raicho's reserve drop (leading to him being hidden in a corner for Duroc to lock hands with), there was just a lot of bullshit for him to deal with.
Ultimately, he does very well (and actually did quite well, up until he ran out of orders/steam) at single-problem solutions, but has trouble with sheer volume of problems and trying to 'save everyone', and I took advantage of that. He'll earn his win against me eventually, I see it coming in a few moments every game we play. I look forward to it, but it wasn't that day.

Round 5: Supplies vs vAriadna
Mirror match! Even more amusing, this one was against an opponent that I'd played against in the Kosmoflot mirror in a similarly sized tournament back in August. He's not part of my local community, so once I recognized my opponent, I was curious to see how he'd improved since then. In our last game, I managed to open up on him right away with Uxia and Duroc, and basically eat his deployment zone from the beginning.
I won the Lt roll, and I know what I'm about, so I took first turn. This time around, he was ready for what I had coming, and set up a defense that kept Duroc away from his juiciest bits. Duroc did manage to punch through and make a selection of bodies (as well as end his run by forcing an enemy Dog Warrior into a premature transformation that would cause him to expand uncontrollably and lock them into CC with one another), but he was funneled through a less optimal corner of the table that restricted his ability to do crippling damage right away. With Duroc and Bruant breathing down his DZ, and a whole host of T2 snipers staring down all his exit corridors, he put in some serious work to break through.
Ultimately, the fatal flaw was that everything wound up trapped in that singular corridor that so much work went into to get through, and not enough ground was gained to keep it safe. Crucially, an order spent to keep the Czernobog in the backfield dealing with Bruant's threatening, suppressive gaze may have been just the one needed to better secure that advance. With Duroc finishing the job on his Dog Warrior companion (Margot liked that), he was able to jump out and finish the job on the remaining offensive pieces that were left overextended.


So... Ariadna?
Unfortunately, my position on Ariadna's current state hasn't really improved. I don't think I saw much of anything to change my opinion on the problems that presently exist, and they were only reinforced by the realization of seeing how insanely optimized Hassassin troopers and teams were in practice. We are a fundamentally weak faction with limited options that we pay more points for to be worse at.

Observant readers will note that I had first turn on all the games that I won. This is no accident or coincidence. Quite frankly, our defense doesn't really hold up all that well against an opponent who can see through our camo games. Vystrel is neat, but it's enormously expensive for a defensive trooper that is inflexible enough that I left it off the table as a potential liability. Our list building revolves around a foundation of overcosted mid-price profiles that leaves surprisingly little room left to play with, corraling the faction into homogenous list builds. In a world where most factions have access to multi-wound DZ attackers that are either highly mobile or just start right next to you (doing M5's job better and cheaper than they do it), get an extra wound with Speedball, and often come with their own built in immunities, our strong built-in template coverage only gets so far.

As the metas settle and people become more comfortable with their toolkits, I only see hyper-offensive plays becoming more present and more destructive, and we're going to suffer greatly for it. As things stand, there are some troopers here that I adore and have a lot of fun playing with (and models that I love), but I only expect our problems to grow more pronounced as time goes on and people get used to our tricks (or the lack of them).

As far as the game as a whole is concerned, I see a rift forming. HB, BJC, vCA, and SP all received massive buffs when they were already way too strong to begin with at the end of N4. Now, it feels to me like Infinity is turning into two games based on the faction you play. There's the one that includes those four and the factions that can manage to keep up with them, and then there's the one for everyone else.

That said, I'd rather not end on a cynical note. CtC was a great time, and while my view on the current and future state of Ariadna is quite dismal, I think that there is a possibility for some real improvement if CB is interested in pursuing it. As egregious as our peak offenders are, I think that the redesigns of vPanO and vYJ are absolutely inspired. KCF looks great. I don't like every change going into N5 (for the love of god, please kill Speedball), but there are some great examples of CB doing some great design within it. They have the ability, I just want to see the inclination.

 

Tankhunter CoC parks in the back all game and does nothing. Vassily is doing sniping duty and threatening stuff all game long.
He's overpriced, but at least he's not just a really expensive cheerleader and can contribute to the rest of the game. I dislike troopers that can't do more than just cheer.

 

I'll be the first to admit I (unintentionally) chicken-hawked the hell out of it. Most of my games were against players that I had a significant edge on experience against, one of which I had the additional advantage of teaching them most of what they know and knowing very well how they play. They all show promise, and I was glad to see them pull out a few interesting moves, but there's no secret to anyone that they were running an uphill battle. I also managed to avoid most of the problematically powerful factions in the game outside of HB (which... I lost).

Additionally, getting first turn on all my winning missions certainly played a part. Quite frankly, Ariadna's defensive game is weak and mostly 'fake.' We're a glass-hammer, and I'm just a naturally extremely aggressive player. A lot of people are playing cautiously right now, but if you lean into the aggressive tools available, it's pretty insane. As time progresses and people become better at both defending themselves and understanding just how hard they can push offensively, our star will only grow darker as our offenses reveal themselvs to be less capable than others and our ability to withstand attack becomes recognized for as weak as it is.

SP had a few losses here and there, but the gains far supercede them. Their steeply discounted multi-wound troopers are now harder to put down with AROs thanks to the overall reduced damage that linked AROs can put out, their own defensive presence has become relatively more potent thanks to the monsterous firepower of Atalanta now going completely unmatched, regardless of investment.

They've gained a solid skirmisher in the form of the revamped Thyreos, K2s are absolutely nuts, Penthesilea is now worse than any Bear could ever have hoped to have been, and Hoplites now bring some impressive utility with turret spam access that allows for some oppressive plays. Eudoros became hackable, sure, but he (and others) also dropped down 6 points.

They suffered a bit from the general rule changes, but actually less than most other factions just through raw weight of their discounted, powerful stat lines, and are in an incredibly strong position to capitalize on those changes. SP listbuilding and play is slightly less automatic than it used to be, but they're capable of more within what the game has become.

 

That list gets carved apart by basically anything that reaches the back line. And in N5, that's a lot of things.