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ODD/TO and USAriadna

Discussion in 'Ariadna' started by Cry of the Wind, Jan 10, 2018.

  1. daboarder

    daboarder Force One Commander
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    Oh yeah sorry my bad
     
  2. Káosz Brigodéros

    Káosz Brigodéros Vanguard, Inc.

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    In case You have broblems getting up close to these targets with a USAriadna army, I suggest trying to field a couple of infiltrating Grunts with heavy flamethrowers. Half of them pass the infiltration roll and start the game upfields. Heavy flamethrowers are the bane of ODD/camouflage units. (Notice that flamethrowers burn ODD/camo unless the opponent dodge successfully - but this will break SF mode.)
    I also echo the suggestion of using smoke grenades from total cover. This way the throw is unopposed. (Indeed this is fairly order intensive.)
    You can also try entering close combat. In melee ODD and camouflage is useless.
    I hope thsi helps.
     
  3. Káosz Brigodéros

    Káosz Brigodéros Vanguard, Inc.

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    Desperados are a cheap and effective way to toss smoke all across the board.
     
  4. macfergusson

    macfergusson Van Zant is my spirit animal.

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    Aleph's newest troop profile will be MSV2 + X-Visor + 360 Visor with a new ability called Overwatch that allows you to enter Suppression Fire for free at the end of each Active Turn. ;)
     
  5. Cry of the Wind

    Cry of the Wind Well-Known Member

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    I would be forward observing with two dice hitting on 1's and either not getting shot back at or taking 3 dice hitting on 3's if I try to get guided on an ODD target in cover with suppressing fire. Seems like a bad trade in orders regardless if I die in return or not. At that point I might as well just spec fire on 1's from safety of any ARO.

    I may try out those grunts too, just not sure where to find 33pts that won't hurt the list in other areas. I also run into the problem that while my smoke target may not have MSV2 their guard might. I've lost Mavericks to that in the past where they smoke the target but get shot anyway from somewhere else. Seems that USAriadna mirror matches are more interesting than fighting the high tech factions. Most of my games are crushing for one side or the other, very few tight fought matches.
     
  6. Lazarus0909

    Lazarus0909 Well-Known Member

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    - Flamer Grunts for sure (definitely one of the stronger pieces in the sectorial imo). As noted, half will fail, but sufficient numbers of them will pass if you have them in bulk, and they can do just fine vs. most cheerleaders, links, and so on.

    - In a link, a Minuteman HMG can hit a ODD/TO in cover with 5 dice needing 10s vs. most retaliatory efforts needing 1-2 13s (depending on if linked or not, odds are way worse for the rifle-type bearers), which is very good odds of winning a F2F roll. You have to focus extensively on keeping your 5 man link alive as long as possible as it is a significant source of muscle in US (or really any sectorial) and you rely on it as your primary source of gunfighting.

    - Mavericks and some Marauders have MSV1, which does help a little. The Maverick can't take cover, sure, but can use smoke and superior speed to often ensure the target isn't getting cover either. So again, you can usually be looking at 4 dice on 9s (12s if catching them out of cover) vs. 1-2 dice needing 15-16 (again, worse if you catch them on a bad range band). The HRL in particular is pretty ace for this as you are also bringing both fire and splash damage, helping catch potential multiple victims and ignoring the ARM bonus from cover for serious damage.

    - Mines. All the ODD/TO and NWI in the world means nothing to a mine. Rarely will they kill anything vs. an experienced Aleph player, but they will waste valuable orders that an elite army can rarely afford to spare. So if you are caught in a firefight you can't win, dropping a mine is an unopposed roll and can potentially really mess with enemy plans. Shock ammo helps here too, with things like SMGs (Maverick/Blackjack), Marksmanship on the Minuteman (who even has Shock Flamethrowers look, how cool is that?) and so on.

    - While MSV2 ignores smoke, nothing has both the negative modifiers AND MSV2, so as long as you aren't facing AROs from multiple models at a time (usually the case with proper pie-slicing) you can play to your strengths instead. Vs. the modifiers, use smoke. Vs. the MSV2, hit it with an HMG. I personally wouldn't bother with the Devil Dog and just go for Desperados instead - far cheaper, 5 dice active turn with the assault pistols, flexible smoke options, fast enough to get where they are going, and much easier to round up cheerleaders like Netrods with.
     
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  7. Wyrmnax

    Wyrmnax Well-Known Member

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    Smoke is the obvious option. Do it from behind full cover to cover the area you are going to approach from so its a normal roll and not a ftf.

    Thrasimedes is hard to flank because of the 360 visor, the best you can get is deny her cover. So you are "only" at -9, with +3 for range.

    If you can outrange her you can diminish the advantage. Using a weapon that has a good 16-24" rangeband means you are at +3 to fire while he is at -3. With all mods, you will be shooting at -6 and so is he, but on your active turn you should be capable of outbursting him, or having at least even odds.

    If you can find a position, you can snipe him from over 24". That denies Supp fire completely, as he will have to get out of it.

    Any camo marker could do move + move and then move + shoot at him, getting fairly close.

    Any camo marker with mines could sacrifice himself to do move + move and then move + mine. Thats a mine planted 12" from the your initial position, and since the mine itself has a activation range of around 8", that measn you can start your camo marker around 20" away from tharsimedes position. Keep in mind that you will loose your miner, but for the next action thrasimedes either tries to dodge, does nothing or he is eating that hit.

    There are *plenty* of ways to deal with TO/ODD in suppressive fire, as long as you dont try to directly outshoot it.
     
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  8. Chaotic Neutral

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    i would love to hear how TheDiceAbide would handle this situation.
     
  9. Maloc

    Maloc Well-Known Member
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    I don’t know all the details so it hard to provide a specific solution but USARF has plenty of ways to counter.

    Some ways I would deal with it.

    marauder sniper... msv one and great range bands can offset mods. If 5 man link very deadly as you basically wipe out his odd advantage and make straight rolls.

    Marauder HRL as above but fire damage. Bye bye odd.

    Infiltration grunts right next to him. They have heavy flamers.

    Van Zant

    Airborne ranger close into CC.

    Throw smoke out ahead to avoid FTF rolls. Smaoke first then move.

    Hard case move up and hit him in + 6 w/ shotgun. Or get behind and hit with bow.

    Foxtrot get close and drop mines near him.

    Spec fire with a traktor mul or light GL. Not great odds but safe.

    Use FO to target him like foxtrot or maverick with her MSV. Then use the muls

    I hope this helps.
     
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  10. Cry of the Wind

    Cry of the Wind Well-Known Member

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    One thing that I do keep coming back to is the Marauder link being superior to the Minutemen in more situations than not. They seem to have better answers to more problems.

    I guess the general question spawning from my particular example is dealing with ODD/TO on towers. They have commanding views of objectives and are safe from flamers and mines. If they are the held back model there is little prep I can do to stop their placement. Sometimes if is possible to climb up there sometimes not but in any case it will be burning tons of orders for what still could be a dead Foxtrot anyway if the model is in suppressing fire. Specfire seems my only safe option besides hoping my Marauder HML is in a good spot or that my Mavericks don't fail.
     
  11. Yvain

    Yvain Well-Known Member

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    MM are kind of weak. They are lacking staying power and Marauders more often than not do the same job but better especially because of dogged. The only advantage they have is the sweet AP HMG which can be devastating in a link.

    Marauders have forward deployment, that extra 4 inches puts you withing 8 of the middle of the table. It should give you some more flexibility. Foxtrots and hardcases have infiltrate. For a -3 PH roll you have a 50% of appearing on your opponents table half or just putting them into the edge of your half and relying on camo to get you in place. A surprise shot with is a good way to add in some bonuses on your side as well.

    There isn't going to be a truly safe option, but you have multiple methods of dealing it with that have been listed.

    Foxtrots - Sneaky
    Hardcases - Sneaky
    Van Zant - Sneaky
    Marauder HML (Fire)
    Grunt Infiltrating Flamer - Sneaky
    Devil Dogs - Smoke
    Mavericks - Smoke
    Muls with Guided
    Spec Fire Grenade Launcher

    Even if you lose one or two of these, the odds stills should put you in favor of winning F2F. Even leaving a Marauder HML or sniper in an elevated position in prone until the active turn is a good deterrent/problem solver if you legit feel like you have no other options. (If farther than 24 inches, you should be rolling 2 dice on 9s vs 1 dice on 6s) You should be able to use the Forward deploy to give yourself just enough flexibility to do the job.

    It is also worth nothing that if you find this always being an issue, it may also be that your terrain is just not up to snuff or is unfairly placed. Just something to think about.
     
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  12. Cry of the Wind

    Cry of the Wind Well-Known Member

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    Well just got back from another game vs Aleph. Different opponent and very different list. This time Achilles and Ajax rocked me in a Highly Classified mission.

    Again this Sectorial just feels weak in more than one way. The mission itself is almost impossible to do well in if you draw hacking or engineering cards (and I did actually bring a Wardriver and Dozer with an Uragan knowing this ahead of time). Then you get Achilles ignoring my nicely placed camo snipers and MSV Sniper taking all 3 AROs and simply killing all 3 of my models. Now that Maurader Sniper did his job well and managed to crit and put a second wound on the nasty man before he died (and ate 7 orders doing so which sounds amazing). But if the best I can do in Sectorial with getting multiple AROs off can be simply shurgged away since ODD combined with BS11 means I'm needing to be lucky to do anything. Playing with dice calculators just proves that one high BS high B trooper with ODD will simply kill me unless I get lucky.

    Mavericks and Marauders keep doing will for me but I can't win missions with them. I still need to advance up the table and simply don't have the orders to do it. Managed to kill Achilles with a combination of grenades and a Submachine gun but that was a moot point as he had killed my hacker and engineer on his second turn with TO Camo something with a boarding shotgun. Engineer was my fault with a mine but his charge arcoss the smoked table was too order intesive to reach the objective which would leave him fighting a 1 wound remaining Achilles by himself next turn as his top cover was all dead then. Ajax didn't do much to be honest, just locked down board side that didn't matter anyway but his being there prevent any effective flank as he gunned down the Maverick and Foxtrot that tried.

    It seems I can kill a few things or attempt the mission and half the time one or the other is impossible. Every game I have won so far has involved FO Foxtrots pushing buttons out of camo before dying or FO'ing something and then dying. Once or twice Van Zant helps win me a game but (hell if I had the points for him this game I would have had a good shot at tying but then I would have given up 3 objectives and likely would be playing for the draw with no win chance) I still think he could either have 2 real wounds or Mimitism or something for even the same points cost based on what I see across the table from me.

    Sorry if this is a bit of a rant, I'm new at the game but no longer new enough to put my loses down to bad LoF or not understanding certain rules. People have been giving good suggestions but unless I know what I am fighting and tailor my list ahead of time I can't do it all at once and there just seem to be too many holes in this bucket of a Sectorial for me to plug enough for a decent game.
     
    #32 Cry of the Wind, Jan 17, 2018
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2018
  13. Maloc

    Maloc Well-Known Member
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    Okay I don’t play aleph all that often but I don’t have a problem with winning matches. Achilles is a mini tag and you need to used tag level fire power on him.Highly classified is very winnable as ariadna. The only issue is the hacker but we get war drivers.

    There are so many factors that go into a game that will impact win or loss. I recommend reviewing the game and breaking down everything. Be honest about things you could do better. Was the list built well? Have I used that list a lot? Or is it new and I still need to learn it? What did my opponent do well? What can I do next time to counter it?

    Example: Achilles and hector are expensive. Kill cheerleaders to deprive them of orders. Next time hit him with an AP hmg

    You need to learn how to play to your faction Strengths and understand their weakness.
     
  14. Cry of the Wind

    Cry of the Wind Well-Known Member

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    There is only one thing I truly admit was a mistake that cost me a 4 VP swing in that game that would have made 8-2 into 6-4. I went into suppression fire with a Foxtrot FO when I should have kept it as a camo token till turn 3 when there would have been an unconscious enemy model at its feet that I could have FO'd for a classified (assuming I didn't fail that roll and just die to a suppressing spitfire). Problem being at the time I didn't know that was going to happen and it seemed better to cover that area of ground with suppression rather than sit doing nothing (mistake as even suppressing in cover Foxtrots loose according to dice calculators and real life). I dislike the feeling that my men are better off not shooting the enemy as they are outclassed by everything which seems to be the case but when I don't they just cap the objectives faster anyway. In previous games people have been more cautious about my camo tokens, now they know that I probably won't hurt them anyway and so they just charge past (and they are correct to think that more often than not).

    I have been using the same models consistently but not the same list. I find the missions to different to use the same one each time. Common themes are there however.

    My hacker did make my Uragan scary enough to slow down the Aleph player just not enough to stop him. If I had an AP HMG it would not have mattered as he hid his models behind total cover at the end of his turns after killing all he could see. I could have really use Van Zant this time even with my opponent expecting him all game. I don't want to have to reduce my chances in a game down to one model being an auto include however (and he is not currently as his record is about 50/50 dying instantly vs killing an order pool).

    I haven't given up on them yet but with a huge string of losses beyond what I consider fun for any game I'm just not seeing what other people see in the Sectorial. I read all the tactica I can find but when dice hit table they just seem behind the curve. For the record my most common opponents are Aleph, Onyx, MO and Haq (various incarnations). Morats seem to be the only group I beat consistently and both those players are either dropping faction or switching them out for other CA flavours.
     
  15. macfergusson

    macfergusson Van Zant is my spirit animal.

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    Personally I think it's a mistake to lock yourself into one sectorial, especially if you feel like you're struggling. Hell, to properly appreciate Ariadna at all, I had to play another faction for a while. The only real benefit to sectorials is generally the fireteam options, and you have to make good use of the fireteam for it to really hold up.
     
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  16. Maloc

    Maloc Well-Known Member
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    I am not saying you played a bad game or made bad decisions. Every game is a learning opportunity even when you win.

    Example: he denied you active turn targets. How would you handle that in the future? What could you have done differently with the tools you had? Could you have deployed differently?

    Infinty is a rock paper scissor game. There is no one way to win every match or magic list that will dominate every game. You have to be flexible and adjust as the game progresses.
     
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  17. pedrogzc

    pedrogzc Well-Known Member

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    How many times hace you faced Aleph or Steel Phalanx?

    ODD / TO troops or even mimetism troops in SF are a PITS but you have an absolutely nice troop to crush them.... Well, some of them.

    Firstly, the LGL grunt, usually your "hidden" ltl in Usarf. Speculative grenade and you bypass the SF.

    If you want a more direct approach, you can use the core marauders sniper or HRL that can outrange the SF troop, although the safest bet is the LGL.

    Also you can trade some of your desperadoes. Or even smoking him.

    Enviado desde mi SM-J330FN mediante Tapatalk
     
  18. Wyrmnax

    Wyrmnax Well-Known Member

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    BS11 vs ODD...

    You are trying to brute force it. Don't try to brute force stuff when your faction has a hard time doing it.

    The whole point of ODD is that that unit wins firefights. Don't try to handle it WITH a firefight.

    You have plenty of access to flamers, mines, troops that you can sacrifice on coordinated orders and etc. But you are trying to force firefights against the faction that is probably the best one in the game at winning firefights.

    And never count on AROs killing stuff. Especially if it is something like Achilles. Active turn has plenty of advantages in infinity, you need to kill stuff like that on your active turn. AROs are for delaying and not letting the enemy gut your army, not for killing stuff. Anything that is killed in one of your AROs should be counted as *lucky* by you.
     
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  19. Cry of the Wind

    Cry of the Wind Well-Known Member

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    I do have a large Nomad collection that is next on the painting block, maybe that will get me out of my slump. I also do find my Marauder fireteam as almost essential now but that might also be do to my other options in Sectorial not being good enough to carry the game. It is all my support units other than Mavericks and Van Zant that seem to fail at anything they try to do.
    ``
    That's part of my problem with these guys. I have no idea how to get at a model that rambos and then hides. Nothing I can place on that other side of the table is capable of handling it or will not survive walking on to get there. Typically they will be over 16" away making all those specfire shots drop to wasted dice accuracy. I'm not looking for a magic I win button but am hoping that I'm not simply playing rock to Aleph scissors and have no chance as that is how it feels now (closest game I have had against Aleph has been 4-2 for them, I think I hit retreat and they lost some points).
    ``
    Onyx is probably the faction I face most with Aleph coming in second. Marauder Core is my go to link with both Sniper and Heavy Rocket guys being MVPs most games. I have found specfire with low BS models to be as good as dumping orders into the garbage however so I'm not sure why that advice keeps coming up. -9's unless the enemy is hugging me on BS11 or BS10 doesn't scream valid option to me. FO'ing them is fine but now a second order that needs LoF and has to get through a FtF roll and BTS after that which again significantly drops the odds of success.
    ``
    If AROs do nothing should I just leave the board open for them to move then? It seems that is what happens every game. I keep my head down and they win by objective. I poke my head out and just die, next turn they win by objective. If I had minelayer I could probably control the board better, however my guys need to uncamo to place those mines. Spending 17-19pts per mine adds up fast. Infiltrating grunt flamers is fine but how many points do I need to spend to accomplish that goal? Airborne Ranger is awesome, sadly need to guess where he is needed before the game starts. That's my issue with these tools, they seem over costed and unreliable compared to every other faction I have seen. If I played 400pts I could probably do all these things but I shudder to think of what I'd be facing on the other side with those numbers.

    I love the models which is why I picked them. Just sad that they really don't seem to mesh with what I want my forces to be able to do. Each model seems cheap on its own but it only good for one task. In a game as dynamic as Infinity it just strikes me that having a slightly more expensive model that can handle more that one situation is far more valuable than 3-4 orders that are wasted on troops that can't do what I need them to do. I agree that the Sectorial has tons of tools to get the job done, just seems I need to know exactly what mission, what faction and what models they are taking ahead of time to be able to take advantage of those tools. Otherwise I'm throwing things blindfolded at a dart board and hoping they hit somewhere near what I need.

    Anyone got some lists they suggest I try out to see if your vision might open my eyes to something else I might be missing?
     
  20. macfergusson

    macfergusson Van Zant is my spirit animal.

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    I play Vanilla Ariadna primarily, a lot of my must-have units come from all the sectorials. I generally start off with Uxia, Scout or Tankhunter LT, Foxtrot FOs, Chasseur Minelayers, Vet Kazak HMG/FO/Paramedic/X-Visor, Spetsnaz HMG. Flesh it out with the extra flavor I feel like atm, such as Knauf or Blackjack sniper, antipode packs, Cameronians, etc.

    Something like a Dog Warrior is definitely one possible answer to your trenched-in hard to shoot opponent. They just rush straight at the target soaking fire with their 3 Wounds and Total Immunity, and get into Chain Rifle/CC range very quickly. These are good problem solvers for all kinds of things though, like much of the list I just mentioned. They can handle a wide range of things, but they each have a niche they shine at.

    I generally don't list build to a specific faction or scenario, I will put together a list that has a tool to handle whatever might come up. I'm generally screwed if I HAVE to have a hacker, but we're Ariadna. That shouldn't be a shocking development or anything. And it's never really been a game-losing problem anyways.

    The other nice thing about getting away from US sectorial is the access to super cheap options like Galwegians and Irmandhinos, who simply blow away the competition in their niche for their point cost.
     
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