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Yu Jing vs. Alpha Strikers

Discussion in 'Yu Jing' started by Space Ranger, Feb 7, 2022.

  1. YueFei23

    YueFei23 Durian Inspector

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    I guess one important general point is to avoid "land raider lists". This is the pattern from 40k to pile a squad of terminators in a land raider as the bulk of your army points and rely on them to save the day. Everyone wants to make the glorious charge from the assault transport, but all it takes is the transport to be immobilized for the game to be lost.

    In Infinity, it's natural to do the same thing - once you've figured out that Shang Jesus is the best shooter you want him to solve all your problems. But you've focused a lot of your lists attacking force in one spot and turned it into a target. It's fine to take this list, but also consider if you can swap in multiple cheaper units to perform the same roles - for example in ISS, try taking an MBH duo and a Kunai instead of a Su Jian. It might not be as fun as running battlecat, but you still get to exploit table verticals with climbing plus and can have a fast moving red fury to dash around the table, with a buddy to bring templates and a second wound.

    Then... run the Su Jian. Recognize all your eggs are in one basket, but also that you're doing it because it should be fun. If you lose to an alpha... you know you built a vulnerability into your list but did it because you wanted to.

    (On the subject of the Su Jian, I guess deploying it stuck onto a wall is a fun way to deny some CC alpha strikers from nailing it. Obviously, that won't work for Kitsune...)
     
  2. Weathercock

    Weathercock Well-Known Member

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    Su Jian isn't really putting all your eggs in one basket though. I use mine primarily as a suicide missile.
     
  3. YueFei23

    YueFei23 Durian Inspector

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    Anything that gives your opponent a chance to punch out 1/6th of your list in a single trade is a much juicier target for an alpha striker than an MBH that costs 30 point less than Kitsune. You wouldn't always want to shy away from a Su Jian, but if your regular opponent has just managed to alpha strike one then switching up to a selection of cheaper suicide missiles is a way you could counter their strategy.

    Maybe my example was a distraction. The general principle is to encourage your opponent to trade downwards with expensive alpha strikers.
     
  4. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    I really hate that the best answer is essentially "run camo" or "don't run anything worth killing". Can't be the only one who feels that way.
     
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  5. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    There's also move to 400 points but that's obviously got some inertia attached to it.
     
  6. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    You are preaching to the choir on the 400pt thing. I played a few games of that in early N3 and have been convinced that this is the best way to play Infinity, though I'm not certain about if you'd keep the 15 model cap or use a different one.

    I love the style of "everyone has all of the tools, strategically eliminate tools for the advantage" that you get at 400 as opposed to "sometimes win because opponent does not have ____" at 300.
     
  7. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    One advantage of staying at 15 is more profiles become viable. The Zencha hacker for example, not a profile I'd normally ever consider when I've got space to be cut throat on points and add more bodies the cost of upgrading him from the FO SMG profile could well get me another Chaiyi into the list.

    At 400 points sometimes that profile gets to make an appearance just because I've hit 15 models and I have nothing better to do with a spare 20ish points and half an SWC other than upgrade a models here and there. Having used it the profile is fine too, performs and I've actually enjoyed having a C+ hacker causing unexpected grief for people playing into IA because it's so uncommon. Realistically though if I got to choose between downgrading to the cheaper FO and throwing in a Chaiyi it'd get cut in a heartbeat so in that respect it's nice that staying at 15 units allows for some more variety in list construction.
     
  8. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    I just wish we had that same decision making but via costing the units a bit better rather than this clumsy AF cap. Hard to justify many things when your choices have to compete with sub 10-point orders and warbands
     
  9. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    In a perfect world yeah, on the other hand I don't know if it's ever possible to balance it even with better points costs (not that we shouldn't try to appropriately cost things regardless). The value of orders is just so damn strong I don't know if you can ever overcome the value of low cost orders/bodies like warcors, kuang shi, warbands without driving their cost up significantly to where they're not worth it.
     
  10. Space Ranger

    Space Ranger Well-Known Member

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    They could just make the AVA on some being 2-3 (vanilla), 3-4 (sectoral) instead of 5-8. They are there, but you can't spam what you can't take. Hell, they aren't even coming out with them in boxes lately. Shaolin, Varangian and Yuan Yuan for example. Due to the 15 cap, does anyone take more than 3? I think in WB I've taken a max of 4 Shaolin (once) but I have 5 available to me.
     
  11. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    We don't take more because of the limit causing combat group issues. If you raise the unit cap, you would see more.
     
  12. YueFei23

    YueFei23 Durian Inspector

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    Well, Ninjas gonna Ninja. Basically, the game would suck if they couldn't.

    This is one of those rock-paper-scissors moments. If your opponent beats your rock with paper, don't always go rock. That doesn't mean you can't use rock again, just that you've got to throw in a few rounds of scissors and paper to reduce the reward for them.
     
  13. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    This isn't a rock paper scissors thing because that implies that all different strategies are equally valid. N4 is heavily skewed towards favouring how to deliver a crippling alpha strike at 300 points, which makes builds that favour delivering your own alpha strike as well as defending against them (which is what camo spam does) skewed in favour because they're more effective than everything else at working within the metagame.
     
  14. YueFei23

    YueFei23 Durian Inspector

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    That really depends if you're playing in a large tournament, a small local meta, or against the same regular opponent. Against the same opponent, it's always going to be rock, paper, scissors as your battles are informed by what happened in the last game and what they're likely to try out next. If you play against someone who favors certain kinds of alpha strikes, you can tailor your game against those, which is what I'm suggesting.

    If you want to win the quantronic crown then practising hard with vanilla Ariadna is a great way to go - it's hard to argue that bears, a lot of camo and sensor in the same list can't be a winning list. However recent large tournaments aren't consistently dominated by the same lists at the top tables, which suggests that there's still quite good balance in the game and that a good general can play with a wide variety of factions.

    Also, if you're not really committed to climbing the ladder this season, you can have a lot more fun by building, painting and playing whatever you want to play. With a good general behind them, most factions can do well and have a lot of options to explore, and in cosmic terms it really doesn't matter if you win every game.
     
  15. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    I really do try to resist agreeing with negative takes, but man, this post really nails it.

    Like... 80% or so of my list building is focusing on "how do I do damage going first" or "how do I not die before I even get a turn". If I don't build for alpha, I am a) not building into the best strategy, and b) am going to be heavily penalized on the large number of second turn advantage missions. If I don't build with a ton of defensive units, I will lose because before I got to move a single model, either a ton of shit or something really important died almost unstoppably.

    I dislike everything about this dynamic. Games should not be effectively over in one turn. Games where I get wrecked or even if I wreck the opponent in this fashion are unenjoyable games. Nor should attack pieces be so active turn advantaged that the only answer is the almighty marker state or to stuff your army with disposable shit that can chaff it or get lucky or counter very specific choices. Under this paradigm the effective unit niche and roster shrink drastically.

    Everyone I talk to about list building does the same, or gets stomped when they don't. Its just how the game works now and it sucks.

    I'm not super hot on the idea of losing a game before it starts because my army is scissors and theirs is rock. This game is supposed to be about what you do with the pieces, not strictly the pieces that are taken - hence the "its not your list its you" slogan it at least used to have.

    I really don't think this is a great response in a discussion about game balance. Its essentially 'balance doesn't matter'. It's nice to remember that there is a world outside of Infinity and all that, but there isn't much point to the discussion if you don't come into it with the mindset that balance is important and should be improved.
     
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  16. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Definitely something I don't miss from Warmahordes.
     
  17. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    "It's not your list, it's you" has never been correct, though. You can absolute scuttle yourself or make it needlessly hard, the point that slogan tried to make is that you can't get a list that compensates for your own failings.

    If we look at it from the incredibly crude rock paper scissor point of view, then building a list made entirely out of rock should always play at a huge disadvantage against a list that has elements of all three and only be good against a list that is made of only scissor.

    Infinity doesn't operate on rock paper scissor, though, it's more like a rock paper scissor lizard Spock version where units can belong to several types and Spock beats lizard, while the scissor->paper counter is barely an advantage because the hard counter to paper is starched paper, and two opposing scissors is just not going to happen because they are designed to basically never meet. Figuratively speaking. Theoretically the game's points system is addressing the strengths by adjusting how much of things you can take, but the points system is ever so slightly off since it just doesn't care about how type combinations can have positive or negative feedback loops.

    TLDR: it's complicated, okay?

    Meanwhile it's not so bad that you can't do anything about it, because what you can do is stop making lists that are only rock.
    Basically, what I'm trying to say is that in order for the game to be about how you manage your list, you've also got to give yourself a list with enough differing elements to manage.
     
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  18. Space Ranger

    Space Ranger Well-Known Member

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    It seems it should shouldn't be about stopping an Alpha strike but surviving an Alpha strike. Another thing I need to do too is figure out where they are coming from. I actually went first last weekend but did nothing to try to find Kitsune before she tore up my team. I didn't know I was going up against JSA and didn't have any MSV or Sensor but I should have at least been ready in some way.
     
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  19. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Realistically you should just ignore her. Throw down some mines or whatever, but use your turn to unleash more damage than Kitsune is going to give back in return.
     
  20. YueFei23

    YueFei23 Durian Inspector

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    There's a lot to agree with in Mahtamori's post. My rock / paper / scissors analogy is only good if you realize that each match up contains a multitude of mostly orthogonal rock / paper / scissors games.

    For the more experienced player, Infinity is more fun to play regularly if you build 2-3 sectorials or armies that play in different ways. For instance, I regularly switch between ISS, TAK and vanilla Yu Jing. When I play, I make sure I've built to the mission and built-in contingencies to deal with different things, but I don't know which of my opponent's factions I'll be countering and they won't know if they have to beat camo or alpha HI. By mixing up what you're doing, you force your opponents to build a less single-minded counter to you and to hedge their bets, which is closer to what you'll experience in a tournament setting.

    There's a definite balance to be found between practising each faction enough to get the most out of it, versus mixing things up well enough that your opponent isn't used to your favourite strategies and can easily build in optimized and redundant counters to them.

    You want them to bring sensor vs ISS and Kitsune vs your camo and antipodes. This is a meta-strategy rather than concrete strategy, but it's worth calling out.
     
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