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Initiative and Alpha Strike vs. Last Turn

Discussion in 'Access Guide to the Human Sphere' started by Knauf, Mar 4, 2020.

  1. Knauf

    Knauf Transhumanist

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    I wanted to bring this discussion to the forums as it has come up quite a bit in recent gaming sessions and I personally can't make up my mind about it:

    Are the implications of getting the first turn/alpha strike too important to have them depend upon a single FTF roll? This question is often asked by new players but I'm not as comfortable answering "No" as I have previously been, since a good chunk of our games are now heavily influenced and sometimes decided by who gets to slam their opponent and cripple their list first.

    Naturally, there are certain factors to consider like beginner mistakes (bad deployment) and getting the last turn to complete objectives, but how do you personally weigh that against the advantage of an alpha strike and are you happy with the way initiative is currently implemented?
     
  2. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    It has to be decided some way. The alternative is to implement a activation-by-activation system, but that requires a whole rewrite of the system.

    In general, first turn is the most tense and dreadful thing there is. The first player has to cripple the opponent, one way or another, or they will be playing at a distinct disadvantage due to opponent having the upper hand, but if they fail they risk over-extension something fierce. However, this is mission-dependent and while most missions favour going second, not all do.

    Generally, I think the order reduction mechanic does a good job of slowing down the first player to a manageable pace, provided you remember (or given an opportunity) to use it, and it's such an important move that no one should be allowed to forget it (also why I loathe Counter-intelligence - it messes with game balance in a negative way)
     
  3. Arkhos94

    Arkhos94 Well-Known Member

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    That does not work on 1 group list and this kind of list can now pack a lot of orders and firepower. Some example :
    - Achilles lieutenant in a 1 group list => 11 orders on Achilles
    - 2 TAG list on pano with Joan => 12 orders + 1 free coordinated

    This being said, playing second is not a bad thing if you are prepared for it. I went to my last tournament with a list with a very strong defense, played it 4 game out of 5 each time as the second player and won all of them.

    The table (how many place to hide your troops...), the mission and your list influence the impact of playing second a lot.

    Still, you should include in every list toys to allow you to play second and survive (roadbloack, cheap waarband, deployable, full camo list...), then going first or second became more a tactical choice (is it better for the mission) and less "who shoot first" (Han did)

    Finally, going second often means you get to choose deployement. I start playing very defensive this year and realize choosing deployement ca be a huge advantage if you have the right tool :
    - you can make sure none of your oponnent long range tool can see you
    - you can do a "refused flank" strategy
    - you can place all of your defensive toys when they will hurt the most
    - you can pick the side with the easiest defense (building to hide you orders, sniper nest...)
    - if you have TO ARO, that means you can deploy an ARO as a last trooper somewhere your opponent won't know and after seing this whole deployement. The tactical and psychological impact is huge.

    So to sump up, going second based on a roll is not that big of a problem. Building a list that can only play first if it want to win is the problem.
     
    #3 Arkhos94, Mar 4, 2020
    Last edited: Mar 4, 2020
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  4. Solar

    Solar Well-Known Member

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    I often wonder if the player with the lower on the board order count should get to decide who goes first.
     
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  5. Teslarod

    Teslarod when in doubt, Yeet

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    As usual it's highly circumstantial. Answer isn't easy but follows a somewhat straightforward "if then else" flowchart.

    The mission has an impact.
    Especially scoring per turn rewards going second - but also having enough points available to actually beat the other guy at it.

    The list has an impact.
    It's completetly possible to build double Swiss Guard ML + Hexa MSR lists that would love to go second or the exact opposite of two glass cannon Combat Groups each only fueling a single big piece who fall apart if one of the two big guys gets assassinated before they get to do anything.

    The game format has an impact.
    Limited insertion leaves a lot less space for Order sponges and disposable bodies to take the brunt of an impact. It also favors running the hardest hitting solo piece or link you can get. Add in the inability to strip Orders through Command Tokens, extra Orders from Tac Awareness and CoC backed Lts and you have a recipe for disaster for the guy going second.
    12 Orders spent on a Marut isn't going to get stopped by traditional FTF AROs, even high performance ones will drop more often than not. As soon as the linked Kamau (or whatever) dies, the other 9 Regular Orders are in grave danger to go down like flies. It's probably the biggest concern about Limited Insertion for me - it both enables Alpha Strike and removes the ability to set up Order traps, expendable Repeater Nets and warm bodies to soak a well executed Alphastrike together with ARO pieces.

    Personally I prefer to go first given the choice. Always, no exceptions.
    However games can be won during deployment and depending on the table you can easily weather the storm turn 1 making the most of your deployment advantage and hopefully mission advantage.

    The worst possible thing you can do though is to win the LT Roll and actively pick going second.
    Allowing your opponent to counter deploy and go first is akin to a death sentence on a similar skill level.

    Player Skill level also plays a role. A less experienced player will leave very easily exploitable holes in his deployment and list, obliterating the other guy's dudes down to surviving cheerleaders barely above Retreat state and LoL is the closest you'll get to an autowin.
     
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  6. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    My preference for this is you just make it a soft bonus to the LT roll. Not that I think that'll make much difference (I quite often pick deployment over initiative and do OK), but I think the cumulative effect of small advantages can get people to play the "right" way.

    I like Counter-intelligence for how it makes 11-13 trooper lists viable (10 order Tunguska, +1 Specktr MSR is a semi-viable build, it'd be complete garbage without Counter-intel). However, I do note that it's often used at higher order counts where it can be problematic (particuarly running into lower order counts).

    The structure of ITS makes going second often a lot stronger provided that you can leverage that advantage. It's why good defensive troops are so highly valued: being able to survive an alpha and regain the initiative is extremely strong in a lot of missions.
     
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  7. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    This is true, but they are also much more vulnerable to over-extension or alpha strikes themselves, seeing how those lists naturally lack a lot of the obstacles you mention later in your post, so I don't think this is much of an issue in the general sense of the word - but limited insertion format (either by tournament extra or by happenstance) tend to get really swingy because of it.
     
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  8. Teslarod

    Teslarod when in doubt, Yeet

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    Oh btw, forgot to mention something important.

    Imho Command Tokens are a very valueable ressource.
    With going first being subjectively better than going second already, making the guy who goes second pay a Command Token each to strip Orders, Activate EVO Buffs, reform Links to full after losing the ML/Sniper etc on top is a bit like adding insult to injury.
     
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  9. Arkhos94

    Arkhos94 Well-Known Member

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    This is so not true

    As said above, depending on the mission, table, your list or even your own playstile, going second can be a huge advantage

    It's just true for many player because they favor an aggresive playstyle and strong offensd/low defense list
     
  10. loricus

    loricus Satellite Druid

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    I'm happy with the balance for now, except that some missions favor second turn too much. I'm not in tournament play and that's one of the things I can't tell how balanced it actually is thou.
     
  11. Furiat

    Furiat Mandarin

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    It can be problematic but isn't something not manageable. If you go first in missions like quadrant control, you can still try to cripple your opponent to the point where his advantage in points allocation on the table is negligible. It becomes worse where your list isn't prepared for it and the best thing one could do when winning lt ftf roll is to decide about deployment order. This gives his opponent tough choice between going first against the mission and trying to gain an upper hand in his first turn but risk being outmaneuvered or going second as mission suggests but open himself for an alpha stike from very favorble positions due to his opponent being able to offensively counterdeploy.
    This is the thing Iove to do in missions like this one. You just have to have in mind that sometimes you will be forced to go first.
    Matter becomes more complicated in limited insertion which favores going first.
     
  12. Arkhos94

    Arkhos94 Well-Known Member

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    The problem is here, not in the rules. If a player build a list on the yhpothesis he will win what is basicaly a coin toss, he deserve to be punished.

    My Ariadna LI lits love when my opponent play first. Please waste your first turn detecting mine and ambush camo.
    My current Pano defensive list is also LI and I have no problem playing second, even against 15+ orders

    LI make alpha strike easier against list without defense but it also make defensive list easier (less people to protect, deploying all on on side easier, full camo easier...)
     
  13. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Arguably, that's on the assumption that the specific faction is capable of building a sufficiently diverse set of sufficiently different lists so that optimising for winning that coin toss is a conscious and active choice, otherwise the problem is not list building but faction design.

    Plus the whole you know... "it's not your list" thing where if it starts being about your list then that's a blemish on the game design.
     
  14. Arkhos94

    Arkhos94 Well-Known Member

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    I always understood "it's not your list" as meaning there are no must have units (or never to take units) or pre-build list that win all games and everyone know. Like in 40k where 90 % competitive player plays mostly the same list for the same faction

    I never understood that as meaning : you can not work on your list, take anything and win.

    To sump up : "it's not your list" means your list is a tool you use to implement your strategy and tactics, but it's your strategy and tactics that win

    As opposed to : Your strategy and tactis is defined by your list which is defined by the current metagame


    Regarding faction : I played 4 factions and never had problem building a list with all the tools I needed to play first or second was not a problem. But all factions I played were Vanilla so I had much more diverse tools than sectorials players.
     
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  15. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    "It's not your list" has always had a lot of caveats around it (provided that you had sufficient specialists, provided that you had enough orders and - relevant here - provided that you had sufficient defence to keep it alive).

    I do agree that 'specific faction is capable of building a sufficiently diverse set... of lists" is a problem. But this problem can often be more easily solved by good Tournament design. Forcing your players to play a wide range of missions may seem appealing but it emphasises that factions which can build lists with diverse capabilities perform better.

    I really want to run a Tournament with 3 of the same mission, where the variety comes from table and opponent.
     
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  16. Teslarod

    Teslarod when in doubt, Yeet

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    Even assuming going first and second is roughly equal the Command Token thing is pretty bad and as a result pushes towards things towards first turn being better since you don't have the Command Token penalties attached to it.

    Player Skill also skews things towards going first.
    Shooting a beginner to just shy of Retreat is an easy major win. As we all know dice can be freaky and you simply roll more of them in your Active Turn.
    Denying the other guy the opportunity to roll 3-5 dice per Order and minimize the impact luck has on the game's outcome is going to make your own performance more reliable. Yes you can still do that by not rolling dice and just putting obstacles and warm bodies into the way, but it's not the same as killing the other guy's TAG/Core Link before he spent a single Order on them.
    Most lists also happen to be better at aggression than at defense. You better assume the people you'll have to beat for a tournament win will be able to get through any amount of defenses. This is Infinity, a wall of Camo Markers and cheap bodies isn't just going to eat the turn of anyone who know's what's coming and worth his salt.

    Going first also mitigates your opponent running something very different than you expected. Good deployment vs a Charontid MSV3 HMG can suddenly be a massive problem if the big missing chunk of points turns out to be an Anathematic coming from the flanks with a long ranged template instead.
    A Tikbalang using a billboard to on the highest building in the midfield to flip over and gain extra height, might have a significantly higher vantage point than you ever expected - leading to exposed cheerleaders all over your deployment zone.

    Maybe that's different when you more or less break even, but for me almost every game I lose, I lose to my own mistakes and the other guy playing better than me by taking advantage of those mistakes. Not dice.
    For instance your best piece getting crit by a Falshpulse bot and stopped in his tracks 2 Orders into a turn isn't bad luck, you just shouldn't have risked your best piece on that or should have prepared a backup plan for the possibility.
    The best example I can think of for bad play is always taking the best odds instead of the least risk.
    Cautious Movement past that Warcor might cost more Orders, but it'll guarantee you can spend the next 6 on killing Combi Rifle Cheerleaders and Baggage Bots with your Achilles.
    You can split burst between the Panzerfaust and the Warband chugging a Smoke, but you might want to make sure you don't miss all your shots and the Panzerfaust just hits you, which might actually be twice as likely as it rolling a Crit in that situation.
    Or you might want to let the Panzerfaust shoot you unopposed because that Smoke going down will ruin the entire turn and you need to maximize the odds of that not happening over preserving your trooper.
     
    #16 Teslarod, Mar 5, 2020
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2020
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  17. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Well here's the rub, if we ignore the footnote and address the main issue;

    If a faction can only build in one particular way in order to be able to deal with an alpha strike, that faction becomes predictable. I don't mean "one single list", I mean one general way. It's not about building "a list", it's about building 3-4 lists that do not need to gamble on a coin toss and that are different from each other by (an arbitrary, for the sake of discussion) 20+% of Troopers differing between each list.

    The fine print here is, of course, that it's hard to define lists that are defensive and lists that aren't beyond that very obvious stuff like how Varuna's "main" build archetype (Kamau in a core with maxed Helots and Cobras, preferably LRL and Jammers respectively) being very defensive or TAK camouflage spam being very costly to go through, and how most builds in the LI format without extensive Marker state troopers or very high MOD stacking troopers with competent statlines tend to be hard to defend with.

    I think JSA is the faction that struggles the most with this, typically going for very high octane coin tosses, but I also find it depressing how there's certain builds that usually don't work because they don't have requisite defensive tools available. Most factions have some way of slowing opponents down, be it camo that needs Discover, wounds distributed in several bodies so several wounds can't be over-killed or disabled, perimeter weapons, mines, disposable war bands, deployed repeaters if opponent is using TAG/REM/HI, or all of the above at the same time. But if those are rare, restricted, and expensive... well... hypothetically you've got a problem.

    Yes, vanilla will almost by definition be immune to this outside of Limited Insertion, but keep in mind that even if sectorials are meant to be more restrictive, they shouldn't be so restricted that players need to keep several armies in case the wrong missions crop up in tournaments or if they want to play in a meta with the wrong terrain rules/density.
    Oh, yeah, and it is a new player issue as well. Identifying what defensive is in Infinity is very difficult.
     
  18. Arkhos94

    Arkhos94 Well-Known Member

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    Still don't agree. Spending a command token to take 2 orders is a fair trade to me but I don't need it to make playing second a tactical advantage vs playing first.

    The numerous advantage of going second is what make going second as least as interesting as going first :
    - deploying second allow to adapt to your opponent deployment making most of his long range active piece useless without 1/2/3 orders moving
    - choosing the table side can often give you a big advantage
    - many mission allows you to change the result of the game if playing last (killing a trooper carying a box in supplies, moving your datatracker withhout risk in frostbyte...)


    Your opinion in your meta. The (likely) most skilled player in my meta (and the only one I never won against) is a very defensive player (NCA/vanilal pano)


    A good defense can also kill the opponent TAG/Core/Rambo/key specialist. Usually after he spend a few order moving them. Having your opponent spend 3/4 order to put someone in position to have him die is as bad for him (if not worst) as having lost him before he could spend an order on him.

    I have been on both side of this kind of tactics and fear it at least as much as a good rambo.

    The goal of a good defense is not to prevent your opponent to go through it. It's to make your opponent loose bucketload of orders and loose troops going through it.

    Loosing your best piece to a flash pulse crit is not an example of good defense. Loosing your best piece because your opponent stacked ARO in a way you didn't see (neurocinetic + hacking, TR drone covered by hidden deployement sniper, one came you thought was an ambush ending up a tankhunter, your opponent finding LoF you did not thought of...) is an example of a good defense

    You should try playing a strong defensive game. I played very offense oriented for 2.5 season and have been playing defense for a season and half. I discovered that well organized defense is nightmarish for most opponent to go through.

    During my last tournament, I played 4 game out of 5 with a 10 orders pano list with a Swiss missile, an Hexa MSR and a Croc MSR and played second in each of the 4 games (on tables with very few long LoF). Three game were against good players with strong offensive list and all three wasted their turn 1 going around my defense and loosing key troops.

    I played similar thing last season with nomads with a mix of intruder sniper/sin eater/TR drone/mines and CK and it also performed very well.

    Defense likely require more experience than pure offense (because you need to predict your opponent actions instead of just going for his weakness) but it's as rewarding and as dangerous as defense.
     
    #18 Arkhos94, Mar 5, 2020
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2020
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  19. Teslarod

    Teslarod when in doubt, Yeet

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    @Arkhos94 gonna be that guy here.
    If there's a guy in your local meta you can not beat, how do you factor your own experience here?

    Going first vs going better is (hopfeully) a nuance at best. Maybe 5% more effective maybe 10%. Probably not so nuanced since a swing from 50/50 to 55/45 is rather big. Basing stuff foremost on personal opinion is going to turn out bad.
    Observing a larger sample size, creating some theories and have several people test them in practice is going to yield better results.

    Everyone I've ever talked to about it kinda arrived at the same "going first is an advantage" conclusion, usually for more than one reason. All of them, including me, still value the impact a mission and matchup has and don't disregard going second, holding zones with a double Noctifier list built exactly for that purpose or whatever else is going to provide a big advantage. It is better or at least equally good given the right circumstances.

    Overall it appears to be unanimous consensus, at least for who I've had the chance to talk to, that it's better to act than react given a choice and a roughly equal matchup.
    Ease of execution isn't the same as "requires more experience". Druze don't have a higher Skill ceiling than Dashat. They're just worse at the things that end up having the most impact. Your deployment and defense game is going to get better the more skilled you are, but so is your offense. There are a myriad of options you can take and choices you can make during your Active Turn. The Reactive Turn has it's fair share as well, but it's not going to be anywhere near as many.

    Since you somehow opened that can of worms, if you're not playing with intent based line of sight, we don't play the same game to begin with. If Infinity was a digital game where you couldn't cheat, I'd be all for it. On the reality of a table, playing without it brings out the worst in people given a tabletop tournament setting.
     
  20. Arkhos94

    Arkhos94 Well-Known Member

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    @Teslarod : first, I play with intent, so we play the same game

    The guy whos playstyle pushed me to try defense had also very good result in tournament out of our meta (france & spain), so I think I'm quite objectives when I feel that his defensive playstyle is quite strong

    Also I played a strong defensive playstile in local, national tournament and in one of my list of the last interplanetario and performed well with it. So it's not just my local meta. Trying it also teached me that the skillset to play defense is not quite the same as the one to play offense (which is the exact reason why I choose to fully try it this season).

    This being said, it feels like you never saw a "stong defense" oriented playstile (likely as it's quite rare) and are not ready to be open minded about the subject. If one day you are ready to start questionning your "unanimous consensus" and explore new way of gaming, I will be happy to get your feedback. If you want to keep your "unanimous consensus", then please feel free to do it, that's not the hill I want to die on.

    Still I will keep defending going second as a tactical choice as valid as going first, because I tried playstyle ranging from 100% offense and always go first to 100% defense and always go second and got good results from both. Going from one extrem to the other was quite challenging but also quite fun and that taught me a lot. It's an experience I would like to share.

    PS : consensus and truth are very different things when talking about tactics. History as shown this many many time (including to my country)
     
    #20 Arkhos94, Mar 5, 2020
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2020
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