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MO and reach

Discussion in 'PanOceania' started by kendofarfar, Sep 15, 2021.

  1. kendofarfar

    kendofarfar Member

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    What's your favourite "reach"-unit? (by "reach" I mean a unit that can attack the enemy's DZ with only a few orders)
    I feel like a lot of people are doing the "zero-defence" these days and I like to bring something that can attack them on the first turn if they do. What are some of your favourites and why?
    I really like the Santiago AD KHD, but it + an EVO is a lot of points and I usually have a hard time fitting it into my lists. Especially if I want to fit an AP HMG as well for those enemies that actually decide to stand up in reactive :)
     
  2. Teslarod

    Teslarod when in doubt, Yeet

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    Montesa Tik is probably my favorite TAG, Miniature and Profile in the game.
    It will not fit every list, every table or every mission, but when you can bring him out to play in a good matchup there's nothing quite like him.
     
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  3. Fest

    Fest Member

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    I really like the standard Teuton Harris of Spitfire, Specialist and tinbot. If they've null defenced I move them up somewhere they'll be a pain to remove. High dodge means they can dance into CC if they get too close and a high burst spitfire means they HAVE to deal with them or suffer in active. At only what, 70 points or so it's 6 wounds to remove while the rest of your force does other things.
     
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  4. eciu

    eciu Easter worshiper

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    Dart.
     
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  5. Stiopa

    Stiopa Trust The Fuckhead

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    Dart, Montesa, either one of the TAGs, Crusaders
     
  6. eciu

    eciu Easter worshiper

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    Funny as always.
     
  7. AntipodeanBolt

    AntipodeanBolt PanOceanian Hypercorporate Delegation Secretary

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    Crusader Brethren with Multi Rifle and Light Flamethrower is a fairly solid profile. Unhackable, ARM 3, with AP, Shock and DA direct fire and a Continuous Damage Template option.
     
  8. Delta57Dash

    Delta57Dash Well-Known Member

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    Solid, but not 31 points solid.

    That's more expensive than Tiger Soldiers, and those guys have Mimetism, a higher PH for Combat Jump, Terrain (Total), and if you take the Paramedic they are a WIP 14 specialist.

    In exchange they have -3 BTS (doesn't really matter much), -1 ARM, and no Religious Troop.

    30 point dudes with only 1 wound REALLY need to make their points back, and BS 13 unlinkable with no visual mods is not a great way to do that.
     
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  9. Stiopa

    Stiopa Trust The Fuckhead

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    @Delta57Dash Tiger Soldiers are stellar, but we don't have them in MO. I'm more interested in judging whether the tools at hand can provide me with capabilities I want, than with comparing them with units my army has no access to.

    1W, no VisMods, and 30+ price tag are a drawback, but whether they are an automatic dealbreaker or not is a matter of personal preference, style, meta, etc, and not some kind of objective truth. For me Crusader works ;)
     
  10. Delta57Dash

    Delta57Dash Well-Known Member

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    All fair points, but there are other Superior Deployment attack pieces in MO, namely Dart and the Trinitarian. There's also the Santiago, but he doesn't have Parachutist, only Combat Jump.

    The Crusader doesn't just have issues comparing itself cross-faction to Tiger Soldiers, Liu Xing, or Spetsnaz; it can also struggle to make a case for itself over the options MO already has. It's a Superior Deployment MI, and MI is not in a great place balance-wise right now.

    It's not unusable by any means, but it's a lot of points that you can lose very quickly to a bad die roll with no ways to push that die roll in its favor. Hence why it's usually considered a bit of a meme unit; you're throwing a full tenth of your points behind a model that will often be rolling 3 dice on 13's.

    Of course it's still a BS 13 Parachutist with a 16" Armor Piercing threat, which means if you do bring it you can find uses for it (usually shooting something in the back), but you really have to weigh that opportunity cost. He doesn't have the stats to take on even Haris-linked ARO pieces (a mere Fusilier with +1B is 39% vs. 14%), so he's relegated to mainly picking off single pieces that are looking the wrong way or trying to rely on your ARM 3 to tank the rolls you lose.

    Now, granted, since he's seen as a meme piece your opponents might not be vigilant about guarding against parachutists (as he's the only one in MO), but they're only likely to make that mistake once or twice, and then you're back to 3 dice on 13's.

    The biggest problem IMO is that he pays for a Combat Jump that only works 55% of the time; take Combat Jump away, drop his points accordingly, and he'll be in a much better place.
     
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  11. Sungwon

    Sungwon Well-Known Member

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    Of course Dart and the Trinitarian are way more solid than the Crusader, but the versatility of deployment from Combat Jump and Parachutist is the strength of the Crusader, especially if you have to deploy first. In addition, Multirifle+Flamethrower Crusader can choose between template and f2f roll, which requires several orders for Dart and smg Trinitarian to set up mine tricks. Shotgun trinitarians can choose template and f2f, but they lack suppressive fire.

    For me, Trinitarians (except sniper) have different role from Dart and Crusader. Of course they can reach opponent's DZ and kill some of their AROs, but their major job and strength point is midfield mission running. If I am playing a button-pushing mission, I would not reveal trinitarian to "reach" enemy DZ. They will reveal at the safe position or after AROs are cleared and run for the mission. When I try to use trinitarians to reach enemy DZ and kill their ARO pieces, that's usually desperate situation when they are the only hope. And it usually didn't go well.

    About Dart and Crusader, I think their purpose are similar. In plain stats, Dart is way better, but I think Crusader is order efficient. In regular 12" DZ, Dart needs to move at least full 2 orders to attack the end of enemy DZ with positive mod (48-24(DZ)-8(range)=16). If there are MSV snipers, mine, or terrain, it takes more. Crusader? Just pop at their sides with better rangeband. Most opponents consider Trinitarians and Dart. Show them a Crusader, and when they begin to guard around the parachutist, Trinitarians and Dart will be easier to move.

    I agree that Crusader is struggling to make its space, but I think it is getting better. Crusaders have some strength compared to Trinitarians and even Dart. Another good news to Crusaders is the update MO got this year. MO was struggling for orders and points before, but it became much better with Crosiers and updated Teutons. It became more easier to make a space for Crusaders than before. All in all, I think the Crusader is a viable option in MO now (While I hope CV to give a specialist for free to multirifle+flamethrower Crusader).
     
  12. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    I'm in the pro-Crusader camp here. Yeah, it's mediocre, but if your only access to a capability is a mediocre profile, that does not make that profile unusable. But we should certainly look at other options first.

    Has anyone tried out the Montessa for this role? These days you can opt for not-impetuous to make him an extra order to cross the board, but a full +3 modifier once he gets there due to keeping cover. Really wish we got to see their defense first before making that choice between speed and mods but we do get to see the table first I think.

    For the price of a Crusader you can have 2W, good CC capability and mimetism, but you downgrade to a chain colt, become hackable and downgrade the direct insertion methods to a (very fast) hike across the table.
     
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  13. Delta57Dash

    Delta57Dash Well-Known Member

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    Oh I firmly believe he has uses, it's merely the price tag that I balk at. Plus you should certainly bring him every once in a while for more casual games just to remind your opponent he exists (and force them to waste time/orders/brain-power accounting for him, even when he's not there).

    He's just an unfortunate victim of the "left behind in N3" group, along with Wu Ming, Moiras, etc. Units that pay too much for what they have compared to newer, slimmer, more optimized profiles.

    Most MI fall into this category; just compare a Brawler to a Ghulam. +3 CC, +1 BS, +1 PH, +1 ARM, +3 BTS, -2 WIP, +4 Points. 11 points vs. 15 points; a 36% increase. And sure, one could make the argument that that all seems quite fair at a glance. But then you look at lists, where Ghulams show up in almost every list they're available, while Brawlers are rare. You look at faction tactica, where Ghulams are highly recommended and talked about as one of the best Line Troops in the game, while Brawlers are regulated to "Take the Sniper or HRL as an ARO piece, maybe." The point cost increase just doesn't work out when applied to the table.

    And part of it is the points system; every troop in the game, whether it's a BS 10 Keisotsu, a BS 14 Orc, or a BS 15 Mimetism (-6) Swiss Guard, pays 8 points for an HMG over a Combi. There's very little consideration for how well a troop can actually use a weapon, skill, or piece of equipment; they all pay the same flat cost.

    This makes units with highly synergistic or useful skills cost the same as troops with a bunch of random or niche skills that don't work well together. And in the case of the Crusader, he pays far too many points for things like ARM/BTS 3, Multi Rifle, and Combat Jump instead of Mimetism or Forward Observer (both of which cost ~1 point each, btw), which would make him a much more effective and versatile option.

    Am I saying he's useless? No, absolutely not. But his problem is that he's fair. He's got a decent gun and straight stats, and in a game where models are increasingly stacking the dice in their favor it can leave him struggling to compete.

    And I'm not saying that every parachutist needs Mimetism or whatnot to compete; there are other ways to accomplish that goal. Give him the Frenzy discount, take away his PH 11 Combat Jump, drop his mostly-useless WIP to 12... there are ways to lower his cost to better reflect his on-table performance without totally bypassing CB's points system.

    And the sad reality is that as more and more models with these streamlined profiles are introduced, the more models need to BE streamlined to compete. Just look at Evaders, or the Bearpode, and compare them to other HI or Dog Warriors. The new stuff is outpacing the old stuff, and the old stuff either has to be reworked to "cheat" the system in similar ways or get left behind. And unfortunately, when MO got its shiny new paint job and "cheat" models like the NCO KotHS or Teutons, the Crusader got left in the dust.

    ... anyways I think it's a decent unit, but "decent" with no ways to give it buffs (like fireteam access) can make it difficult to compete with "good" or "great," and there's an increasing number of those.
     
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  14. Knauf

    Knauf Transhumanist

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    This is probably the most pressing issue for Infinity as a game and I hope CB have some idea how to mitigate it.
     
  15. Teslarod

    Teslarod when in doubt, Yeet

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    N4 has addressed that problem in some areas.
    Look at baseline HI.
    Orcs and Mobile Brigada are finally good outside of being able to slot 1 of their SWC guns into a Linetrooper Link.

    For one reason or another the same adjustment did not happen for the MI "class" of troops, that are stuck on 1W (without NWI or other multipliers) and still overpay for their defensive stats, slight PH, CC, WIP and BTS bumps without ever reaching greatness anywhere without Skills and Equipment synergy on top, and they suffer as a result.
     
  16. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    Hard agree. I don't mind if not every profile is synergistic, but I do mind how the points system prices them. My particular bugbear is MSV1, and how it should cost literally 1 point on profiles that don't pack a SWC gun and good BS. But this issue is applicable across the board.

    As for optimizing the Crusader, there isn't a huge amount to work with. He's fairly vanilla outside of having a MULTI/LFT loadout. By cutting WIP to 12, BTS to 0, ARM to 2 and MOV to 4-2 (not a problem on a AD IMO) he would probably be around 25 points. I wouldn't like that profile but I would think it better than the 31 point one we have now.

    In vanilla, as now it's only point of meaningful positive differentiation from the Akalis and Echo-Bravo would be that MULTI/LFT loadout. Sort of feels like all the cool shit went on the Echo-Bravo when I look into it so there isn't much room to make him stand out.
     
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  17. AntipodeanBolt

    AntipodeanBolt PanOceanian Hypercorporate Delegation Secretary

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    What interest would there be if the Crusader Brethren were given any or all of the following Skills: Berserk, MA, NBW, Marksmanship or MSV1. Let's try to provide options.
     
  18. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    Martial Arts or Berserk would be cool, and MO is the sectorial to put those abilities on an AD. Maybe he'd compete too much with the Santiago?

    I'd be a bit concerned with the idea of an effective BS 16 AD trooper. MSV1 might be good but might also not be impactful enough and also doesn't really feel all that on theme.

    Maybe there is a deployable worth looking at here? Just slap a dep.rep on him and call him done lol
     
  19. atomicfryingpan

    atomicfryingpan Well-Known Member

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    I think most games played are not tournament games where min maxing your lists are super important. Most players probably play casual and go with what they think looks cool.
     
  20. atomicfryingpan

    atomicfryingpan Well-Known Member

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    Also the crusader brethren is one of the best units MO have at assassinating a LT. Putting someone into LoL on turn 1 is priceless and these guys can start right outside the deployment zone and have the tools to do it. Only have 1 wound? Use shock. High armor? Ap time. Uh oh tons of visual mods? Flame on.
     
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