It took me three orders to get out of the zone, which were all Move + Shoot to clear the way from enemy models. If I didn't need to shoot, it will be 2 orders - which is still pretty fine for saving up to 5 models. Then I unleashed the ORCs. It is important it was a Limited Insertion event. There aren't many ways how to build sensible 10-orders 300 list with Aconte without Bagh Mari. I thought about Tikbalang + ORC Haris + Regular Core, but then I decided that in that crampy killhouse in the middle of table the Bagh Mari shotguns could be useful.
Fair enough, if there are targets out to hose with HMG fire then it's all good. I'm surprised those targets didn't just kill your other team members 'though, it's what I would do. ... I've run a similar list to the latter with my NCA for Biotechvore, Squalo, Fusilier Core w Bipandra, ORC Haris (and a Machinist to round it out).
Tied for first in a tourney this weekend with the Shockists. They were actually pretty interesting...definitely a change from my usual Vanilla Ariadna. I ran a Tik list in the second two games, but for the first I played this... Shock Army of Acontecimento ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 REGULAR (Sapper) MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 22) REGULAR (Minelayer, Sensor) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 14) REGULAR Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) REGULAR Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) REGULAR Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) NAGA (Minelayer) Boarding Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27) NAGA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30) GUARDA DE ASSALTO MULTI Rifle + Heavy Flamethrower, D-Charges + AUXBOT_2 / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 49) AUXBOT_2 Light Shotgun + Eclipse Light Grenade Launcher / Electric Pulse. (- | 6) AKAL COMMANDO Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, E/M CCW. (0 | 21) BAGH-MARI HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 26) GROUP 2 3 1 FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) WARCOR (Aerocam) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3) DRAKIOS Red Fury + Light Flamethrower + 2 Devabots Kydoimos / Pistol,Shock CC Weapon. (1 | 45) DEVABOT KYDOIMOS Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (6) SIERRA DRONBOT HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 25) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army The logic here was to use the Sapper, the Fugazi, the TR bot and the WarCor to provide long-range AROs, use the Nagas to block, and Drakios and the Guarda's bots as DZ protection along with mines. Specifically, Drakios' two bots are very useful for protecting against rushes by Impersonators and others. The logic behind putting Drakios in Pool 2 is, he's primarily there as a counter attack unit so if it doesn't make sense to commit him T1, and instead use the Akalis, I can shuffle him into Pool 1 on the following turn using Free Agent should there be a casualty. My opponent was running ISS with a pretty nasty pain train. As it was, my Sapper was incredibly lucky and managed to pin the Pain Train and force it to shoot with its HMG beyond its +3 band. My opponent made a pretty big mistake by clustering his pain train in a small piece of cover near the center of the table. Drakios was absolutely phenomenal - I switched the Akalis to Pool 2 with a command token the switched Drakios for free, and pumped him with the entire order pool to flank with his bots and pick apart the pain train. The bots' Albedo meant that they weren't at risk of being shot up by my opponent's Hsien in the previous turn so I could deploy a little bit more aggressively with them. And, the 6-4 MOV allowed me to advance Drakios and a bot at ground level while his by buddy took the high ground. When they were close enough, the two bots and Drakios popped at the same time, giving my opponent the opportunity to either dodge or suffer 2 Heavy Flamethrowers and go toe to toe with the Red Fury. After T1, my opponent was pretty much gutted. This was my first time running Drakios and I'm amazed by how well he forces opponents into lose-lose positions. I'll definitely try running him again...he's far more threatening in practice than a glance at the profile suggests.
@TriggerPuller9000 Very nice. Great use of Drakios too... Sounds like a textbook application of all his best capabilities. Even Albedo and Free Agent came into play, and you got to apply both in a very useful fashion. That's awesome. Did you feel like you had all the Orders you wanted? I can see the appeal of dropping the Akal and the Warcor to get yourself 3 more Regular Orders. A support pool of 5 Orders is a very nice thing to have. How did the Tik do for you? Any reflections on moving from Ariadna to Acon?
Cheers Barakiel, and thank you. Orders-wise I didn't feel starved for orders at all but generally got a bit lucky in removing serious threats early on. And, in positioning too...the Sapper Sniper is amazing due to the ability to position it in locations that other units simply wouldn't perform. The Tik list included 3 Fugazi and a TR bot in the second pool, and I did end up bringing them into the primary pool to replace casualties (got rushed pretty hard by an Avatar so...yeah lol). The Tik was phenomenal. Opponent was running a list with an Avatar, Kerr-Nau, Ko Dali, a Speculo, 2 Ikadrons, 2 Netrods (imetrons?), an engineer and Bit&Kiss. Lots of tough units, single order pool. In this situation (and going first), my strategy is to hamstring the Speculo and kill at least 3 or 4 order producing models. The Tik spent the first two orders climbing the vertical surface of a building and shooting Kerr-Nau, who was hiding at a tricky angle. The third order was spent advancing and killing a Netrod and one of the Ikadrons. After that, the Tik climbed back down the building and planted a mine. He ended the turn stuck (Climbing plus ftw) to the side of the building in a location that would make him impossible to reach with the Speculo, and difficult to reach with the Avatar without entering HFT range. My opponent was smart about it and decided to target the Regulars instead and blew away 3/5 of the fireteam in one order with the Avatar. All in all a great game though, and it really highlighted the incredible offensive power (killing order providers through unique sight lines) and defensive power (sticking to a wall to avoid CC) afforded by Climbing Plus. Compared to Ariadna, SAA (as with all PanO) really requires much more aggressive reactive turn posturing. With Ariadna, I generally hide my attack pieces, and block board edges and the entire midfield with infiltrating camo units and mines. With SAA, I get two Camo troopers on the midline, so I have to really be careful about how I position them, usually using them for objectives. Instead, you have access to super powerful reactive turn firepower (Sapper sniper, Tik on suppression, mines, Guarda on suppression, Guarda + bot, Drakios, Scylla...) so you have to be willing to expose units in ways that you wouldn't want to do with Ariadna. Hopefully other folks find this exchange interesting!
@barakiel Great unit write ups. I'm a long time SAA player, and I'm in complete agreement with your assessments. One particular point that I often hear is that the Bagh Mari are limited by the 4-2 movement. To date, I've only ever had one game where that really became an issue. Capture and protect at this year's Rumble saw me wasting orders to get my Haris midfield. Otherwise, I've had no issue with them as a mobile specialists when they need to be. Both core links (Regulars and Bagh Mari) come with some clutch snipers. I've found that they're good enough shooters that they generally only need the link bonus for the first half of the game. By that time, the snipers (and your ARO network) have either killed the enemy's big shooters, or they're dead. In either case, your fire team can now advance to cap objectives and smoke fools with high burst combi fire, leaving either a competent shooter backfield in overwatch, or a casualty waiting for a medic. I've found this core team flexibility to be one of the biggest assets of SAA; I thought I'd share.
Can anyone critique my list I am running for HAS Area right now, but might toy around as a more combat-mission oriented list? It is mostly about taking some amount of Akalis to attack from unexpected angles, each with a different load out to deal with a variety of situations SAATriIndigo HAS Area ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 REGULAR (Sapper) MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 22) REGULAR (Sapper) MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 22) REGULAR Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) REGULAR Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) REGULAR Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) DRAKIOS Red Fury + Light Flamethrower + 1 Devabot Kydoimos / Pistol,Shock CC Weapon. (1 | 39) DEVABOT KYDOIMOS Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (6) AKAL COMMANDO Spitfire / Pistol, E/M CCW. (1.5 | 28) AKAL COMMANDO Combi Rifle + E/Mitter / Pistol, E/M CCW. (0 | 24) MULEBOT Hacker (EVO Hacking Device) Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 25) TRAUMA-DOC Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) PALBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) GROUP 2 6 BULLETEER Heavy Shotgun / Electric Pulse. (0 | 17) MACHINIST Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 15) PALBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) BULLETEER Heavy Shotgun / Electric Pulse. (0 | 17) AKAL COMMANDO Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, E/M CCW. (0 | 21) FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) 6 SWC | 298 Points Open in Infinity Army Here is the general thinking of when I was making this list. Regulars are meant to be the defensive Fire team, while Drakios acts as the DataTracker and back-up active turn piece if necessary. The first group has a spitfire to deal with long range engagements, while the combi+E/Mitter is there to deal with opposing HIs and TAGs in the reactive turn. Of course the EVO mulebot is there for the +3 PHS if I decide to drop in, and then revert to assisted fire or enhanced reaction Second group is mean to lock down the side with the bulleteer HSG, though they can make a good back up active turn piece for the group as well. The BSG Akali is meant to be the door-kicker and deal with link teams. Trauma-Doc and Machinist are there to bring things back up if necessary but also complete classifieds.
Not enough heavy hitters if you can't drop in the opponent half of the table. Of course the Akal Spitfire will find a way to try something but I'm really bothered about you facing a really defensive list. Shasvastii, for example, would give you some really hard time if they are played by someone who knows his/her sectorial.
Outside of a Regular link with sniper, you might be right about that and no MSV in list might make it harder. What do you think I should change around while keeping the theme of it?
Something like this? Shock Army of Acontecimento ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 REGULAR (Sapper) MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 22) REGULAR Hacker (Hacking Device, FastPanda) Combi Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 23) REGULAR (Minelayer, Sensor) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 14) REGULAR Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) REGULAR Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) DRAKIOS Red Fury + Light Flamethrower + 1 Devabot Kydoimos / Pistol,Shock CC Weapon. (1 | 39) DEVABOT KYDOIMOS Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (6) TRAUMA-DOC Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) PALBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) AKAL COMMANDO Combi Rifle + E/Mitter / Pistol, E/M CCW. (0 | 24) BULLETEER Spitfire / Electric Pulse. (1 | 23) PEACEMAKER Heavy Shotgun + AUXBOT_3 / Electric Pulse. (0 | 21) AUXBOT_3 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (- | 4) GROUP 2 6 MULEBOT Hacker (EVO Hacking Device) Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 25) FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) PATHFINDER DRONBOT Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16) MACHINIST Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 15) PALBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) AKAL COMMANDO Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, E/M CCW. (0 | 21) 5.5 SWC | 299 Points Open in Infinity Army I'm not very fond of it as it isn't my way of playing but there is more versatility there. Don't forget to use supportwares for your Armbots and Pathfinder.
That does not seem to bad as well. Kind of steered away from the Regular hacker unless there was other hackers I was supporting. Though it could definitely help with support ware for the bots and the Akali so may try this version as well.
So, we have Dart now, I know it's a bit early to pass judgement, but what are you guys immediate thoughts on her?
Timely post. I was just thinking about her this AM as I wait at the airport for gencon. I think she's a big deal for a number of reasons. Having another Camo Infiltrator really helps take some pressure off our poor overworked Nagas, and even opens up some freedom for some of the great profiles I always want to take but rarely do (monomine, minelayer.) She herself brings great tools. Her SMG and abilities basically make her better at applying AP/Shock than the Guarda, for fewer points and more order-efficient freedom of movement. More mines are great, but E/M grenades are a great tool to have in the arsenal. Using that to disrupt tough enemy defenses, or scatter/isolate links, is going to be great for breaking up the static defenses that can be dangerous to light Acon troops. I think she offers some competition to Montessa too, providing good multi-Wound durability and a different set of diverse tools. Her ranges are more limited, but I think she's far easier to protect and harass with. I'll update the article itself once I can try her for a few games.
Well, to me as an mostly MO player she's yet another headache as she easily can have an E/M grenades :(
OMG, Did Pano get something nice? O.o But of course, everything nice Pano gets is limited to a sectorial. Sigh. But lets stay positive, because we just got another "infiltrator" in SAA even if she just has Forward Deployment level 2. Shes expensive but amazing as well. Bioimmunity effectively gives her shock immunity which is great since she has NWI. She is basically a two wound camo infiltrator with E/M grenades w/ PH13. Why would you ever take the mines? Thats what Nagas are for. Remember back in N2 when people questioned the effectiveness of SAA? Yeah, those days are long gone.
It's a spillover issue. I like her, but she is damn expensive. It's going to take a lot of rebuilding to fit her into lists, but I think she is going to find a place at least some of the time. This makes her the very best kind of addition, good but no autoselect.
She's cut the second Naga KHD right out of all my lists straight away and finding the 4 points to field her isn't that painful, honest.
Yes, she is as expensive as a crocman but she effectively has 2 guaranteed wounds. So her cost is justified. Also, E/M grenades are amazing. Can't wait to IMM a Su Jain or other scary HI and laugh. SAA = Pano mixed with dirty nomad tricks.
