Need Advice against Aleph

Just a few general ones:
* Steel Phalanx are surprisingly vulnerable to Breaker ammo so abuse Triangulated Fire with Zhanying if you can get a bead on a Myrmidon form outside of Chain Rifle range
* Don't get too close to any Myrmidon derivative. Even with a Ninja or Crane.
* Consider bringing Celestial Guard Light Grenade Launcher or Wu Ming Light Grenade Launcher in a 5-man for some ODD-workarounds.
* Aleph really hates Rui Shi. Bring two. Or 8 if you want to mess with them, 'cause Aleph doesn't like Heavy Flamethrowers, either.
* Aleph doesn't like Hsien. Particularly not when in a Haris.
* Make sure you got some MadTraps with you to prevent/delay Turn-1-Jerkchilles syndrome.
* Abuse the hell out of MSV2+smoke
* Prioritize their MSV2 and Eclipse. Luckily it's not a buttonpusher, so Machaon can't win the game single-handedly.
* Don't get too aggressive. SP are better than average at punishing that behaviour.

 

a little off-topic:
You can use the online army builder (https://army.infinitythegame.com/),
and then export your list for these forums
(the red-and-blue-speech-bubble-icon at the top of your list).

Then it looks like this:

Imperial Service
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

2 1
RUI SHI Spitfire / Electric Pulse. (1 | 20)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)

1 SWC | 25 Points

Open in Infinity Army

 

Pretty solid roster for a newcomer. You picked the good ones for killing! Kuang shi link, good ol' core of ISS, and yes Hsien haris is a nightmare against most of the enemy.

Only two thing is, they are brutal on Active Turn, and you're playing Infinity. Bro, you gotta do the missions.

You're facing ALEPH, one of the hardest hitting army. I suggest prepping something that pokes their weakness; and since you're talking about facing ASS, you need to exploit theirs.

I suggest you try CG FO link, with Xi Zuang (or some Madtrap relative to throw a middle finger at that Jerkchilles) inside the link. They will die, eventually, but Raw BS 20 FPs are not a joke on reactive turn.

Kanrens, They are excellent on 'turning' the attack routes of ASS. ASS tends to assault fast, and that hurts like crazy. Still that means if they pick the wrong route - they're screwed. They can't afford such a big waste of orders. I suggest including Kanren, If your opponent is savvy don't use Madtraps profile, instead try pure BS option.

I don't like sticking lists to people's noses, but to prove my crafting I'll post one today..

Imperial Service
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 9
CELESTIAL GUARD (Forward Observer) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
CELESTIAL GUARD (Forward Observer) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
CELESTIAL GUARD Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 21)
CRANE IMPERIAL AGENT Lieutenant (Sensor, X Visor) MULTI Rifle, 2 Nanopulsers / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 52)
XI ZHUANG Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, MadTraps / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 20)
CHAĪYÌ Yaókòng Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
HÙSÒNG Yaókòng HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)
KǍNRÈN Boarding Shotgun, Chain-colt / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon, Knife. (0 | 25)
SOPHOTECT Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 31)
YUDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)

GROUP 2 8 1 5
CELESTIAL GUARD (Kuang Shi Control Device) Combi Rifle + Light Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 13)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)
RUI SHI Spitfire / Electric Pulse. (1 | 20)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)
WARCOR (Aerocam) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3)
GARUDA Tacbot Spitfire / Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 28)

4.5 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

Disguise Kanren as a Hsien HMG, and place him like 'I-think-I-can-hit-him' placement. It will lure your ALEPH pal; they does hate Hsien anyway. Don't expect him to live on, but remember your 1st sweeper is the Rui Shi with supportware. Watch those Myrms crumble like bean bags.

Hope that helped. Good luck out there.

 

Oh, sorry.

ASS - Assault SubSection, Steel Phalanx

FP - Flash Pulse

 

This is a great Haris. You have the Hsien MSV2 with +1 Burst. But the Zhanying are good to with Breaker, Sensor, 6th sense. I've also been wanting to try out putting down a Nimbus Grenade for the Hsien to shoot through. You'd think that would be bad. But He's still a great gun fighter. Even through nimbus, his MSV will negate ODD and camo. So: Burst 4 instead of 5, +3 range, -3 low Vis. Really not to bad.

Edit: meanwhile, his guys are at -1 burst (if fireteam) and -3 to hit.

3
HSIEN HMG, Nanopulser / Pistol, AP CCW. (2 | 61)
ZHÀNYING (Fireteam: Haris, Sensor) Breaker Combi Rifle, Nimbus Grenades / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 27)
ZHÀNYING (Sensor) Breaker Combi Rifle, Nimbus Grenades, MadTraps / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 28)

2.5 SWC | 116 Points

 

It's situational, but don't forget about lobbing grenades (i guess you dont have standard grenades but you should have grenade launcher in ISS) over sceneries. If you are to hit at -6 because of ODD, better do speculative fire at -6 but without the returning fire. They can still dodge with a rather high PHY, but you can expect to put the template over several minis since Steel Phalanx will probably have several fireteams. Remember that when using speculative fire with grenades, you need to choose a main target, but you don't have to center the template on it. As long as the main target is hit by the template it's fine, so try to have as many enemies as possible.

 

This might help:
https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/infinity-acronym-glossary-for-newbies.285/
(even though "FP" is missing...)

 

Depends what you're getting aggressive with. SP are relatively expensive on a model by model basis. Getting hyper aggressive with warbands is actually something they absolutely hate dealing with. You know what cares about your ODD Martial Art smoke throwing link team? Not the 5pt idiots with Chain Rifles that may or may not explode on them if they try to chain rifle you back at close range.

Monks and Kuang Shi are both quite good at inflicting damage, both also pack shock weapons which can upset Aleph in general who tend to have alot of NWI.

 

Hah, Myrmidons don't have knives!

In either case, your Monks won't survive to get into position when they all died because you chose to play ISS and Kuang Shi actually have to get close enough. On a theoretical level Myrmidon-heavy SP wouldn't like having Kuang Shi shoved down their throat, but on a practical level there's going to be a Phoenix and probably an Agema of some sort locking down a few fire lanes. If they're also smart, they'll be using a few Thorakitai SMGs and while not a sure fire solution to over-extended Kuang Shi, it should be possible to pick them off, and of course Hector, Phoenix and Drakios can all fairly reliably smoke them up and shock them down in melee.
While that's not a too effective use of orders, it's still going to be eating from the ISS player and the SP player will only have to play for time.

I'm more in favour of not giving them any easy targets than trying to do everything at once.

 

I am a huge fan of the Wu Ming LGL. Gives you something to shoot at any target in the 8-16" range band, and you're hitting on 16s with a lone Wu Ming. -6 due to ODD? No problem, lob speculative grenades and avoid the return fire, too!

 

Phoenix doesn't have MSV2, you're thinking of Teucer and Atalanta.

I think you're slightly misunderstanding how aggressive you get. You don't run them into the enemy side of the table you just push them to the halfway mark roughly and set up behind cover. SP wants to be close to mid range for their firefights. But if you dig a bunch of WB models into the halfway mark on a table if they want to actually push up to get aggressive on you, they either have to kill these WB models which is a dangerous trade for them against 5pt idiots or risk leaving themselves in a position where they can get jumped by the warbands next turn.

They basically function as an order drain. Your opponent is forced to go and play whackamole digging out warband models before he can actually commit to diving on your valuable stuff. The exception to that is an Achilles oriented list, because they don't do vulnerable fireteams really.

 

No, smoke and then Heavy Pistol in melee. If the Kuang Shi are close to the SP DZ, then it should be trivial cost to kill them off.

That doesn't sound at all like what I alluded to when I wrote playing aggressive, no. That sounds more like simply playing a conservative push. Still, Kuang Shi should not be easy to get that far forward if the table isn't a godawful clutter or your opponent failed to take Agema (which are really good against an opponent who will likely rely on smoke, such as ISS) or, again up to the table, if there's no place for an Agema to hide in order to cut the table into sections where nothing will cross unchallenged.

 

I consider leaving stuff at the half way mark on the end of turn 1 aggressive. Half way up the table is where some invisible asshole can just show up and stab you or drop mines on you. I consider playing conservatively sitting right outside your deployment zone.

Agemas are nice. But they're not exactly difficult to get rid of. You just shoot them and they go away to open up paths, they're just BS13 with no defensive mods or fireteam bonuses. Sure they might get a couple of your 5pt idiots in ARO off the impetuous orders, but they're 5pt idiots you don't really care if a couple of them die. If you lose a tonne of them then you've either totally messed up your deployment or your table is way too open.

 

I like what you’ve got going here. A couple of thoughts I have based on my experience.

I really like to have the celestial guard and Kuang Shi Fireteam in my second group along with a ninja and a gunfighter (either a Garuda or a dakini are great). If I can squeeze out enough orders, I’ll bump my hacker over to this pool so my support ware doesn’t take orders from my main pool. All of this is so that my secondary gunfighters, my smoke tossing, and the occasionally opportunistic strike with a Kuang Shi does not take away from my main order pool.

I usually use the main combat group for spending most of my orders on the rui Shi on turn 1. Usually, it dies on my opponent’s turn. Then, I can start spending orders on my hsien or a specialist or a secondary gunfighter to accomplish the mission or really cripple my opponent.

Anyways, good luck!

 

Be sure to let us know how it goes!