Hello everyone, I am an inexperienced player who plays solely against a USAriadna friend, and as we continue to play and learn the game I'm finding it difficult to deal with his infiltrating grunts and forward deployment L2 Marauders, especially when they are kitted out with heavy flamethrowers. To me, they completely shut down the mid-field by hiding behind blind corners and waiting to ARO, where, if I want to kill them, they'll get a free shot against any of my expensive units with damage 14 fire ammo. They're especially deadly against linkteams with the template's massive area. What's a good ISS way to deal with this? Kuang shi? This also leads to a general question about the game: how do you deal with cheap units that can easily trade up at close ranges, hidden behind corners or in buildings? For instance (thankfully my friend doesn't do this), I've seen thirty-order USAriadna lists with 12 Inf. Infiltration HF grunts. How does anyone deal with this? Thank you for your replies in advance.
Well, the most easy answer as ISS would be garuda AD infiltrating on his side of the board, taking the fireteams by the side, and picking his grunts from behind. Other more dicey option would be kanren, using the old trick of moving on his ZoC to force an ARO and then getting into CC. Kuang shi also work, trading with their imp order, and exploding if that fails.
Well, as a new player maybe it's about time you start showing him the advantages of high tech armies. Crane Agent multi rifle, Zhanying Agents and the REM unit Yaokong Weibing have something in common: Sensor. Sensor is your solution to massed camo troops as it allows to discover all the camo units in a wide area (your sensor unit ZoC) with a single successful roll. I recommend you to give a good read to the rules for that piece of gear and realize there's no way to hide from the Imperial Agents. Additionally the Kanren (sniffer) minelayer and the Yaokong Chaiyi REM allow your sensor units to be more effective thanks to the sniffers, a gear that extends the ZoC of Sensors in a similar way repeater do for a hacker's hacking zone. Now regarding the problem of annoying cheap infiltrators with DTWs, that are good for trade outs, sticking behind corners; you have two solutions. First one is trading up them with your cheaper Kuang Shi. The second one is making use of your high tech again. Given your problem with USARF camo units you should already be bringing at least one Weibing in each of your lists, if not the max AVA of 2. Weibings have a piece of gear called Sat Lock and this allows you a chance to mark a target which can even be a camo marker! Once marked the unit can be targeted with your own artillery fire. That is supposing you brought a Son Bae REM and/or any unit with a grenade launcher. I encourage you to read the rules for the smart missile launcher and its guided mode. If you bring an assault hacker you can mark enemy units in a similar way with the Spotlight program. The thing is neither Spotlight or Sat Lock need LoF to the target, therefore they are useful to get rid of those units hiding behind corners waiting for you to come. Just mark them and make guided missiles and grenades rain over them. Other high tech factions have ways to protect against guided missiles but in the case of Ariadna they have it grim. Last but not least, if you're worried about midfield control remember ISS have access to the position weapon known as Mad traps, they are automated glue mines that will try to glue any enemy that gets within their range. The Kanren unit is our skirmisher with Forward Deployment Lvl2 and has an option equipped with a pair of Mad traps. You can find Mad traps also in the Zhanying (and with sensor ), Xi Zhuang and Pheasant Agent. Finally don't forget about the Garuda jumpbot and the ninja, which can give a surprise attacking the forward deployed enemy units and links from their rear. A Garuda with boarding shotgun can be very nasty against a link or you can try to dismantle the link member by member with the spitfire version.
It’s been a while since i’ve done ISS but I agree a lot with Janzeeker. There’s two other things to note as well. 1. Sat-Lock skill on the Weibing both Discovers and Targets the figure in one order. 2. EVO Remotes automatically negate the -6 to do the Sat-Lock. A side thing too is that once targeted, A Light grenade launcher can Spec fire with no negatives but the Son-Bae is the main killer. Something I’ll add is to use Madtraps. Kanren can have them already up close. But there’s a number than can use them: The Zhanying is my favorite because he also comes with Sensor, Xi Zhuang is a great tool box character, and the Pheasant Agent.
USAR camo exists, but it's pathetic compared to other Ariadna factions, I'd say the USAR camo game is close to vanilla Yu Jing where the former has quantity and price while the other has quality. Not to be too dismissive, but you can skip building specifically for this unless the USAR player regularly bring all 7 camo AVA. For the most part you'll be able to find solutions in the active turn. Celestial Guard Light Grenade Launcher if he likes to clump up, Wu Ming Light Grenade Launcher if you really want to push the issue. Kuang Shi for even cheaper trade pieces. And if you want to trust dice not to screw you over then Su-Jian can often face-tank flamers, but you know how dice are. Sun Tze can also be kind of funny to tank all those flamers, DAM 14 Normal vs "ARM" 6 isn't impressive. The challenge is often going to be first turn when going second, before you get Assisted Fire on your REMs and before you have been able to clear the most immediate threats. Try Total Reaction remotes - both Panggos and Husong. Deploy them at awkward angles, never try to engage your opponent across the table or he'll make life miserable, though USAR are exceptionally poor at handling TR Remotes at long range (their HMGs barely reach better odds which is not something that you want). Your goal with deployment is so that when you are forced to Dodge with one Remote you should have another Remote filling the offender with bullets. This isn't always possible, but that's what you're aiming for. Also make use of MadTraps. They'll delay your opponent either by forcing him to waste orders on them, or by gluing them, or by simply being in the way of a suicide flamer. You should be able to muster 4 of the blighters without making any special concessions. Last and least, if you're really feeling desperate try using the Ninja as a Multi Sniper and position him to cover your side of the table.
Smoke. Just drop smoke all over the place so they can't see you (crane+celestial or celestial + kuang-shi fireteams provide very accurate smoke), and then have an MSV2 unit like a rui-shi, a hsien, or hell even a bao walk somewhere where he can start shooting them outside of their flamer range. If you need to defend against active turn flamers mad traps and kuang-shis are your friend, dodge with the stuff you want to keep alive and let the disposable stuff deal with the attacker. Long range ARO pieces (lunah, Husong Yaokong) to keep those not starting right in front of your DZ at arm's length might be useful too.
I'd also try Su JIan assault. With his freedom of movement it is sometimes possible to find un expected angles to shoot down your enemies. But generally I agree, that ISS do not has a strong midfield, especially vs USArdiadna, who make use of midfield non-camo dtw.
This maybe true but you have a boat load of tools to kill camo. ISS is the anit-camo faction after all. Don't forget unit's with Sensor's get a +6 for discovery. A 5 man linked Wu Ming LGL will have a BS16 to hit without mods. You can spotlight them before you shoot too. Aside from all the the great information here. I would recommend some tactical positioning. If you can, flank a long fire lane of the camo (outside of the flamer template). This can be played out in several ways. Use a MSV or Sensor unit to do this. Use a ninja to flank them with Stealth. Good luck!
IF the Rui Shi survives to active turn, sticking smoke down and having the Rui Shi enter the Grunts' ZoC to force Change Facing is a lot more reliable in terms of getting rid of the Grunt (66% to 8% dodge / 71% to 5% damaged Rui Shi versus 88% to 5% CF) because they won't be able to delay owing to not having Sixth Sense (I coldly count on the Rui Shi at close range being able to move so it ignores Cover, it's still more reliable if the Grunt has cover at that range thanks to CF being so weak a response) But again, Grunts are cheap alpha striking units; they'll either alpha strike you or they'll deploy where getting to them with a Bao or Rui Shi will be hard or impossible. Active turn should have loads of options, reactive turn is the hard part. Or they'll just make you waste orders on sticking down smoke and moving the Rui Shi suboptimally to protect the more important and costly units.
Thanks for your replies everyone. I agree with some of you that USAriadna camo isn't that big of a problem, especially compared to vanilla where any camo marker could be a tankhunter with an autocannon. My issue is still more with just how he can get all his cheap, ARM 3 grunts and marauders with heavy flamethrowers so far up the table with Forward Deployment and Inf. Infiltration, leaving me to try my best to dislodge those pesky Americans without taking Fire hits on my heavy infantry. I'm definitely going to invest in some more remotes though, right now I only have the Rui Shi and Lu Duan models.
Lu Duan and Rui shi are both nasty against ariadna, lay down smoke and shoot. If you’re having trouble with both skirmishers and templates I suggest trying out the Celestial guard + Kuang shi Link Team, this allows you to drop smoke anywhere you want it, and then you can send kuang shis to trade up, I suggest meleeing with the Kuang shis under smoke so they don’t get the chance to shoot back with their templates. Sat-Locking and Speculative fire with Celestial Guard or Wu Mings is a good thing, if you lack Weibings and such then you’re stuck with Crane and Zhanyings for your sensoring needs. Garuda is a very nice attack piece, Zhanyings do take advantage of Ariadnas Native BTS deficiency, the Crane does this as well but at the cost of trading a hit to shoot 2 or 3 nanopulsers... Ninja can also be very good if you can smoke up your enemies allowing it to enter Melee Unimpeded and without risking a template (neither ninja or Kan ren like Templates and the ones they hate most are the fire ones) Addendum: The Kuang shi Link with a single Kuang shi boarding shotgun is perfect to dislodge the Minutemen and Grunts fireteams in the Midfield, you won’t have to to move the link as much to get into shotgun range, and once you get there a BS11 kuang shi with Shotgun will shoot at 20s before taking into account things like cover and camo/mimetism. And if he does survive the first shot you can rinse and repeat the shot by going into dogged or if you’re particularly close, you can explode in their faces for some free damage.