Is CC a trap?

As long as you do not start next your juicy target, yes, its a trap.

 

Disclaimer: I'm no JSA player, only played oniwaban/shinobu twice and a bit of uberfallkommando / massacre link with nomads.

CC, moreso JSA's, is an extremely powerful tool, but requires a high degree of finesse and isnt exactly worth against some targets.

Lets say you're facing a Cutter, an Avatar or a Swiss Guard. They're hard to dislodge with the usual methods due to troops with MSV2 don't usually have anti-armor weaponry, and the same happens the other way. Shooting there might burn a lot of orders and might even get your troop killed. And for whatever reason you don't have the luxury to not fight it. Either it's controlling a cuadrant or a critical line of fire that closes your way to an objective.

That's where those CC specialists might come in handy. Some because thay can just straight up murder it with a crit(Oniwaban/Shinobu) or just cause so much damage even that can't take it (Miyamoto, Neko). The thing with those beasts is what you faced, getting where you want. You will need orders and some way to avoid all the AROs. Most common is smoke, and this makes Shinobu highly deadly. Fireteams can try to force through with active weapons (Spitfire and Red fury for JSA). But it still takes an investment in orders.

Now, the thing is. Nekoyama gets to that juicy piece. That piece is as good as dead if you have 1-2 orders left. Even less if you manage to get an extra buddy for increased burst. Oniwaban/Shinobu have it even easier to get there, as they already have some distance covered (and Shinobu can smoke herself). And that trade is gonna hurt when you take one of those precious, extremely expensive models. Plus the fact that TO or 2wound troops are not as easy to dislodge.

Now the problem is: What if there's no big bad model? What against a more spammy list where you can't get those big trades? I'd say CC here turns more into a deterrent. Advance, hold total cover, make them come. JSA HI are tough to shift, so let them spend orders in trying to do so. Every order they advance is an order you don't have to spend to smash their faces. Don't bother going to CC for small cheap troopers if it's gonna take a few orders and ARO. Chances are you can just chain rifle / shotgun / spitfire it quicker anyway.

So... TL:DR i guess is, CC is pretty damm good but costly. Don't make it you're main battleplan. Play, lose, repeat and try different approaches until you have a feeling of how much you can push. Be careful, VERY careful if advancing a whole link. And most importantly, have good, fun, games.

 

Even for disposable CC oriented warbands under 7pts like monks, pretas and the morlocks CC isn't the primary method of dealing damage but remains one of their threats as a weapon of opportunity. Most units like that instead rely on big juicy direct templates and are based on trying to cover distance with their impetuous and irregular orders which they have nothing better to do with to do a piece exchange or to cover your advance with smoke or both. That said one time in 3 you'll get a decent run at CC usually against something bigger and scarier like a HI, in this situation a chain rifle shot for a potential wound generally won't be as devastating as stabbing them and tying up a more expensive model in an even better piece exchange.

By comparison JSA have some weird warbands as they're 20 odd points and wearing power armour, so stabbing a fusilier isn't going to cut it and you have to apply them slightly differently even if they have similar weapons and skills. Domaru for example you can basically use to assault anything you want to tie up and generally rely on their 2W to get there and when they're in whatever they hit is basically dead already if you're willing to berserk. But with that price point you don't have the resources (orders) to funnel into them even if their higher points mean you need to get more out of them which is where links etc come in. Basically your CC is a trump card for close quarter engagements within 8", it can really discourage people from coming near you to take objectives for example, also as your HI have lower armour and BS (generally) than their equivalents in other factions rather than firefights your more likely to try and rush them, soak a hit on the way in and get stabbin'.

Oniwaban don't have to stab something big to be effective, mine have won me games with a few well placed boarding shotgun templates to strip down my opponents order pool, and that TO camo SMG suppression fire is not to be sniffed at.

TL:DR CC is secondary weapon and an attack of opportunity. It can win you games but aiming solely to use it will lose you games as it's not as efficient as shooting.

 

There are tools for getting into cc, use them.

Yojimbo can use his koalas to provoke the aro then advance.

Ninja and oniwanban have marker state (and that amazing surprise attack)

Neko and domaru have beserk. Peek out, shoot pistol or chain rifle or grenades (mostly for lolz). If they didn't die ASSAULT!

Move forward wisely. Shoot favorable shots and If you get within 4 inches and they aren't dead yet THEN cc and end it.

Engage is helpful. Don't use a domaru holding cover sticking his head out if you don't need to. Sit back a ways so that when they peek you can engage. SITUATIONAL (think about what your opponent would want you to do)

 

CC in this game is funny. Because the burst is so low, you want to maximize the benefits you can get from stacking mods - this means its generally only worthwhile for models with CC>20, MA of some sort (preferably 3+), and ideally marker state for the surprise attack penalty. JSA has those in spades. It becomes pretty easy between all of our options to put opponent models at a -3 or -9 to hit us, while we're getting anywhere from a +6 to +12 on our dice rolls.

- Saito Togan, coming out of marker state, only has about a 55% chance to put a wound on a dodging Fusilier with his combi rifle.
- Saito Togan, coming out of marker state has about a 95% chance to put a wound on that same dodging Fusilier
- a Swiss Guard HMG coming out of marker state has about an 85% chance to put a wound on that same Fusilier

So for JSA, CC is generally a strong option for our attack pieces (keep ryuken and keisotsu out of combat however...) because we can stack those odds in our favour. That being said, CC is generally going to be more order intensive than shooting because you have to close that distance. You have to be able to judge on the fly whether you can afford to risk those extra orders. In the example above, Saito is almost twice as likely to KO that fusilier in melee, and in fact its a coin toss as to whether he's successful at all - he MAY require a second order to get his kill. However if he's more than 4" away (likely) - he WILL have to spend that second order just so he can move into base contact.

So,
- what needs to happen after you score this kill?
- do you have 2 orders to dedicate to this?
- if you need to spend the second order, is Saito in a better position if he simply moves to engage or stay put and shoots twice?

For units that have to start in our DZ, or don't have marker state, CC is even more of a burden if its your first plan of attack. But if its used as a weapon of opportunity, or you actually bait your opponent into allowing you to engage him during his active turn it can again be quite powerful. A Domaru or Mushashi hidden around a corner can become quite a pickle - if your opponent sends a 1W model to dig them out you can chain rifle and hope that your 2W (or NWI) keeps you up for the next challenger. If they send something beefy, you can always engage - locking that unit (that is probably meant to be shooting) into CC, thus preventing it from executing its job.

 

What I did when N3 dropped and totally changed how CC worked was to play a couple games where we took no heavy weapons and all the CC troops. It ended up being JSA versus Greeks. It was a blast, particularly turning Jerkilles and Ajax into statues with EM weapons.

But if you don't have a plan for what you're going to CC and what you're going to do with the unit after you win that CC, well, yes, CC is a trap.

 

In my mind, fluid and easy use of CC is about creating kill zones. Since Infinity is an objective-oriented game, you need to identify areas of the table that are likely to be contested, then either deploy your infiltrators there, or set up your heavy infantry to be ready to move in and challenge those areas. Since CC obviously requires base contact and requires moving your miniatures into the 8-inch zone of death (the most lethal zone in the game) you need to do whatever you make CC safe, and bring enemies close.

For me, I like to use tools like Ryuken-9 Suppressive Fire, missile AROs, mines and koalas to try and constrict enemy movement, bringing them into the midfield but then stalling their advance.

This allows for very good CC setups, where you can reveal a hidden deployment TO camo unit and use it to initiate close combat. TO units are ideal for this role, because the enemy doesn't know they're there, they get the huge benefit of surprise attack, they can move with relative ease due to marker state, and they can recamo to protect themselves and retreat once they score the kill. They're also entirely self-contained... They can move and operate without difficulty, compared to a heavy infantry who might be bringing 2-4 buddies along for the ride, which tends to be overkill.

If you're using Heavy Infantry for CC, their capability is either a deterrent, or an all-or-nothing blitz to remove a tag or just generally deal max damage to a critical target. They may go for multiple games without ever initiating CC, while a model like Saito might have one or more melee kills per game, because he's naturally more Order efficient at it, and is easier to protect after scoring a kill.

 

Going with what @barakiel said, CC is a trap, if you fall into it being a trap.

It's very tempting to want to go full samurai and chop something's face apart, but if your Assault Pistol Shikami is attacking something where the AP from their melee weapon is excessive, and/or the enemy has LOF to you as you move in, you should probably be firing the Assault Pistol at B4, instead of going for your B1 CC attack. We have a local player that would be a FAR better player if he would stop swinging his sword at every opportunity, and started using his gun.

CC is a good tool, but only when it is the right tool for the job.

 

Well, i play CHA and i use CC very often. It's another resource you can use. Usually is my only way to deal with Rambo TO and ODD troops.

 

Totally fair, though if we're talking about Galwegians, they're not really playing the same CC game as everyone else. You can get ~7 Galwegians for the same cost as Saito Togan, they don't have to worry about face-to-face rolls, and a typical CHA list usually has at least three times as many smoke tossers as a JSA list does.

 

I mostly use SAS and McMurrough. Galwegians rarely survive long enough to engage

 

McMurrough's an interesting one.

Comparing him to JSA, he has to walk all the way from the DZ, can ignore light AROs and mines, is easy to spot during deployment, benefits immensely from 2 Wounds, etc.

Functionally though, that extreme mobility, great speed, and very-reliable smoke mean he has some comparisons to our ninjas as well.

You can brawl with him like a HI, but also be surgical like with the TO choices. McMurrough's a really good unit.

 

This is so true. It's hard not to chase people down in CC when you discover how frustrating it is for your opponent to EM them.

I really struggle with that.

 

All these are good points, however I have found my HI to be good for CC more than my Ninja - they are less brittle and prone to bad luck, and they can shoot the entire way in.

The Daiyokai is really good at advancing up the board having gun fights while dragging his payload of two very angry Domaru into Assault range, and once you clear an objective, the FO domaru pushes the button, and then you can set up behind corners to make anyone trying to budge you face engage AROs and chain rifles.

 

Last week, Neko Oyama Assaulted and MA3'd both my Taskmasters into the dirt. It was savage. CC is definitely a more fringe, niche option... but if you use it when the opportunity arises, it can utterly annihilate enemy forces. I wouldn't necessarily say that you shouldn't plan for it either, if you've got Domaru, the answer to the question of "how do I root irritating enemy skirmishers out of dense terrain" can absolutely be "Ban-motherfucking-zai"

 

That was me - and I followed it up this week with an Oniwanban ambushing a Daiyokai and Domaru (chalked up the big guy, but fell to the Domaru) in an inter-JSA training exercise. CC absolutely is fine to clear objectives (especially with berserk assaults), but always know what it is you're doing - focus on clearing the enemy rather than going on a rampage.

That said, I find Shinobu's strategic smoke deployment sometimes to be more useful than her katana....

 

I think JSAs CC is ONLY a trap if you think it's the only or best option for a troop who's good at it. When used well it's a way for you to punish anyone who gets into close proximity. Look at the each profile that shines at CC. Domaru have 2 wounds, E/M grenades, and mid range weapons, if they get into the mid field you have to try to engage them at a distance or get recked by any of their close to mid range options. Ninjas/Oniwabans TO lets them set up flanking maneuvers or even HD on the opponents side of the table. Being in a marker state allows you to do some mind games to push people away from their usual kill zone, and if done well toward your main army force. Others have mentioned smoke tactics to force a CC opportunity, JSA isn't covered in smoke throwers, but you only need 1 to be able to set up game changing plays. Use them wisely.

It's not that CC is going to be your first choice, it's more that your opponent absolutely wants to avoid it. Use that to your advantage.

 

Fixed that for you ;)

 

Very much this.

Pretty much everyone risks death to get into CC with JSA troops. The DoTanko (almost wrote DoHara) can tank one wound on the way in and will just END whoever they CC. You can trade way, way up with them. About the only TAG that isn't going to shit itself when a single DoTanko gets into CC is the Avatar (fucking Sepsitor). Even an O-Yoroi is going to die to a DoTanko if the DoTanko survives the flamethrower on the way in. Sure, the DoTanko might die due to eating an EXP CCW's normal roll, but the O-Yoroi is dead.

Your HI link team or TAG can't be stopped by some 5pt mooks. You may take a wound, but they will be dead.




Again, I seriously recommend playing a couple games where you take no heavy weapons or hacking, and just go to town with CC. It's a lot of fun, and is a great teacher for what targets are good to CC and what targets aren't.