When Ikari was launched, I did not like it much. But the idea has kinda grown on me, the more I look at its capabilities, the more I find a the more satisfied i get. I will be splitting this in categories that kinda make sense, and that are things I look for when building a list. Long Ranged firepower: 4/5 - Solid The quality of the long range firepower on Ikari is not astonishing - You don't have the really ridiculous pieces for it, like camo HI, or high end tags. But the avaliability is there. You got linkable HMGs on BS13 HI - wich is the staple of what you need to get the job done. Then you have them on MI BS12 links, where you also get linkable mimetic multi snipers. The you have solo pieces, and plety of spitfire-like weapons for the slightly less long range. So, pretty much - nothing astonishing, but enough options that get the job done. Thats better than most factions ARO Potential: 5/5 - Fantastic You don't usually want many ARO pieces, but you want a few that are affordable and effective. Here you have BS 13 HI with missile launchers that you will be putting on your links, and BS12 mimetic snipers that again are at home on their links. They are both reasonably cheap, and fantastic at their jobs. As solo pieces you get acess to 2 sniper bounty hunters that are regular on the army, as well as the standard TR bots. All in all, pretty good accces and very cheap great pieces. Can't really ask for much more than that Aggressiveness: 5/5 - Fantastic Yuan Yuans. Yojimbo. Desperadoes and Bashi Bazouks All of those are disposable units that can be on the enemy DZ on turn 1, and can cause a hell of a mess. Your more standard lineup is more held back, but you really have little need of expensive rambo pieces when you can do it with numbers instead - even though you DO have access to a couple of decent rambos. Basically, every Ikari list will have something in turn 1 that the enemy must be very worried about, and that he will need to spend part of his first turn getting rid off. Specialists: 2/5 - Mediocre Your specialists are reasonable, but you have only 1 option that can start where you want him to - the Ninja. You got 2 that sorta can on the Bashi and the Jaegers, and Bashi actually works because of the number of them you can field ( and getting in borad in holo2 state, meaning they might even survive). But all the bashis come from the same side, so once the first is in you have given way for any kind of surprise for a smart oponent. The rest of your specialists are... very meh, and you need to walk them from your board side. Being part of fireteams help brawlers, but wip 12 doesnt. Being part of teams help Druzes, but not their price. So yeah, not much over there. Middle Board Presence: 1/5 - You cant get much worse than this. 1 Ninja. Thats it. If you plan to slow down a enemy advance you are forced to rely on ARO pieces. Be glad you have good ones, because you have nothing else that can even bother the enemy from setting up in the middle. Fireteams: 4/5 Solid You have decent core and haris teams. You have fantastic special teams avaliable, but they do have the downside of being hard ( if not impossible ) to reform if you break them in the middle of the game. Take Wu Ming special core: If you loose that clipper, you aren't reforming as a 4 member (always bring a haris wu ming so you can at least reform as a haris). Conclusion: Most of your great options as a faction stand on your non-standard fireteams, but they are fragiler than normal. Meaning that the faction plays fantastically, until things start going south. Cripple the enemies with your hyper aggressivity and then use the teams to move up and complete the mission / mop up the remains, as it is going to be hard to make the teams do all the heavy lifting as you can do on many other factions. It is a very fun and entertaining playstyle, it is pretty much blitzkrieg in Infinity.
I'm almost personally offended you knocked the Karakuri and didn't mention them. They're WIP HI and among the best Specialists in the game. Chain Rifles, D.E.P., 2 Wounds, Total Immunity, Remote Presence and Dogged (allowing to take four points of damage and still run) are all good and for 35 or 40 points almost a bargain. They're among Ikari's strongest active pieces and should be a go-to specialist.
I agree about the Karakuri. I've yet to use them but have gone against them. They will be great especially in a Limited Insertion list. But if you want to take only 1 heavy, it's the one to take. 1pt. more than a Wu Ming with a lot of utility.
Any discussion on Ikari and Fireteams should mention the EVO remote, with Team Pro giving everyone No. 2 it makes your links a lot more resistant to lucky crits knocking out the link leader, and you can have it running from the start of the game.
I unfortunately don't have one but it does seem to offer a lot of tools for Ikari. The +3 for combat jump alone could be very good.
The more I play Ikari the less I bother with teampro, despite having the evo in almost every list. Obviously it depends on the fireteam comp but due to the chaffy mixed nature of the teams I dont tend to care what happens to the rest too much after the big hitter goes down.
I'd also like to note that there is a bunch of neat Duo teams available. All Druze, Brawler and ABH profiles can be Duo'd. And the Tankos can also be Duo'd, but one of them has to take the Blitzen Light Shotgun Duo profile. Duo teams don't really bring any of the team size buffs ( Extra burst, SSL2, that +3 MOD, the usuals. ), but being able to move two units at the same time for one order, when both members generate an order... is pretty useful. Especially for the AHBs and Druze I'd dare say. Being able to have a fighter and a specialist walk around together in a pair sounds pretty neat if anybody asks me. And AHBs are simply cheap-yet-decent midfield fighters, what with them being able to potentially roll for some ridiculous results on their Booty tables.
I think the best thing about Duo's is that you can have as many as you want! You could almost have a core team and like 4 duo teams.
Which takes precedent? The PDF or the army creator? If pdf, I want my Wu Ming Combi-E/Mitter with Duo! It's in the PDF but not online.
PDF has the rules for which Fireteams can be formed, Army has reminders. Wu Ming can not Duo in Ikari because it is not in the PDF. However it does appear the Ikari are lacking the Combi+E-Mitter profile altogether, I'd raise that in the Army bugs thread.
It shows duo on the troop part but not at the end. So does Bounty Hunters but that's also in the army creator. In fact they didn't have duo in any other army before this so it would have bin an intentional thing. What page should be used? I'll definitely bring it up.
Until the next FAQ is published IJW had spelled out the finer points of Fireteam creation here: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/forming-fireteams-a-summary.3553/ In essence, having the skill is not sufficient to form a Fireteam, you must also have permission from your Sectorial chart (found in the Profiles PDF, summarised on the List of Fireteams wiki page). The Regular ABH profiles all have the Duo skill, but only Druze Bayram Security gives the permissible to form a Duo, Regular ABHs in Ikari do not have this permission. This has been confirmed as intentional (Ikari is close enough to being Druze+ as it is).
Yep, I hoping for a big clean-up in be next FAQ, the NA2 went further than ever before with unique and atypical Fireteams.
