Obvious LT situations?

[valthonis]

How often to you guys find yourselves in the situation of having an obvious LT?
With the exception of Chain of Command how much do you worry about it and what do you do to limit risk?

[Crushar]

I play Saladin
I play William Freaking Wallace
I play Sun Tze

I worry like hell every time I play them!!!

Playing a good player means that you can expect an "alpha strike" on your obvious LT.

When I play Saladin I have it covered with a Farzan or Hafza.
When I play WfW I tend to play when Ihave a Spec Ops with Chain of Command.
When I play Sun Tze he is WAAAAAYYYYY in the back with a Sniper Rifle.

[Hero of Man]

Not really, because my favorite LT Options are O-Yoroi(with a Kempeitai) and Hafzas. Okay fine, the O-Yoroi is pretty obvious, but its never seemed like a problem per say...

[MARC C]

I play with Hsien and a Celestial Guard combi. My opponent is never quite sure which is the LT.

[SgtHulka]

I don't really worry about it. If someone can alpha strike deep into your deployment zone, you're in a world of hurt already, regardless of who your lieutenant is.

EDIT: I use chain of command for lieutenants that I know I'm going to be aggressive with...heavy infantry or Lt's in link teams or the typical JSA lieutenants, not for lieutenants hiding out in my backfield all game.

[SgtHulka]

I play Saladin
I play William Freaking Wallace
I play Sun Tze

I worry like hell every time I play them!!!

Playing a good player means that you can expect an "alpha strike" on your obvious LT.

When I play Saladin I have it covered with a Farzan or Hafza.
When I play WfW I tend to play when Ihave a Spec Ops with Chain of Command.
When I play Sun Tze he is WAAAAAYYYYY in the back with a Sniper Rifle.

Funny. My friend plays an army completely anchored around WfW. The whole thing is turned regular thanks to WfW's inspiring command or whatever it's called. Kill WfW and the army crumbles. But he's so good at deployment it's impossible to kill WfW unless you're running an HD+ missile list. There's just no way. He's a great player and the reason I think hidden lieutenants are over-valued.

Meanwhile, I play Sun Tze v1 quite a bit. He's basically just a big F-U to the opponent, daring anyone to come after him. With total immunity and three wounds and armor 5 and a double action ARO, he's very hard to take down. He's really only vulnerable to Al Djabel and Speculo Killers. He can even probably survive a guided missile nomad list, though admittedly he's so costly I don't usually include a hacker, so 5 consecutive missiles have a chance of doing him in.

[chromedog]

My NCA uses "shell game" tactics to hide the Lt with another model of the same type. Two DEVA/devabot units (one is Lt) or TWO Aquila guard Multi-rifles (one is Lt).

Other than that - my JSA uses chain of command and so does my Aleph. With a doc nearby with a bot just to be on the safe side. Hiding in a secure spot.

[VisOne]

I just run a butt tone of possible LT LI in my Haqqislam/Acontecimento/Yu Jing forces.

I own Saladin & Sun Tze but have yet to use them since I'm not a huge fan of the Alpha Strike so going first isn't a big thing.

[Mob of Blondes]

One question, can you "fail" rolls? Say your Lt is WIP 13, you roll 12 for something, can you say it failed anyway, like if WIP was 11 or less? Or would it be cheating? You can do nothing in ARO and eat a burst. After all, there is no "you must fire back", so maybe Lt can "play dumb".

[VisOne]

What?

Is the question can you elect to fail the Face 2 Face roll at the start of the game?

If thats the case I would say NO and more to the fact you don't need to. No where does it say you MUST tell your opponent what your WIP of your LT is. You simply say your failed or succeeded in your roll. LT are hidden in all lists.

Its your job to try and not give them away through good list building, shell games or equipment. So times Dumb Luck will be against you and your successful WIP roll of 15 or some such will give you away.

Not to cheat and hide them.

[Mob of Blondes]

What?

Is the question can you elect to fail the Face 2 Face roll at the start of the game?

Yes, the die said 12, you declare it failure even if WIP is 13.

If thats the case I would say NO and more to the fact you don't need to. No where does it say you MUST tell your opponent what your WIP of your LT is. You simply say your failed or succeeded in your roll. LT are hidden in all lists.

Which can be done with public or hidden roll (third party as witness, for example). Or even just completly "no roll needed, you pick".

Its your job to try and not give them away through good list building, shell games or equipment. So times Dumb Luck will be against you and your successful WIP roll of 15 or some such will give you away.

Not to cheat and hide them.

It would not be exactly cheat, just yielding. Another shell game. Like "oh, I can ARO... but not going to" .oO(keep wasting orders, I prefer to nuke you around the corner and start my turn, specially with the TO).

[Pierzasty]

You have to roll initiative and if you say a successfull roll is a failure, it's cheating.

[MARC C]

It would not be exactly cheat, just yielding. Another shell game. Like "oh, I can ARO... but not going to" .oO(keep wasting orders, I prefer to nuke you around the corner and start my turn, specially with the TO).

Hum… that a bad case of rule bending. Nowhere does it say in the rules that you can choose to fail or conceed the lieutenant roll. If its NOT in the rules you can not do it. That how games are played.

[VisOne]

I would allow you to choose to fail or conceed the lieutenant roll if and only if you had a WIP of 20 or a yet to be named skill which allows you to always win the Iinitiative/deployment/lieutenant roll.

Then if it was worded like say Valour: Courage which clearly states you automatically pass any test relevant to that skill and can choose the outcome which suits you/that model best.

As it is there is no way of doing this and the Iinitiative/deployment/lieutenant roll is the first and most important roll of the game as it will dictate everything from the start of the game to end (in most cases) to intentionally fudge the lines/rules at the very start of the game would leave your integrity in question for me personally and in a game where you need to inherently trust that your opponent is following a number of hidden rules which come from an often confusing and contradictory ruleset. You need to have a level of integrity above the average tabletop game and to lose that is something I think no one can afford.

[Mob of Blondes]

OK, nobody in Infinity is allowed to give the enemy the choice of letting him pick "whites" or "blacks". It must always be publicly rolled to see who decides all the process and let free any info that can be inferred by the rolls. Well, I guess you can always win the roll and then ask anyway.

Integrity was the main reason to ask. After all, you are allowed to hide many things, while in other games that would be cheating.

[VisOne]

Of course what you and your opponent choose to do is always open to discussion at the the table this is more hyperbole around what the rules as written allow.

I for one often win these sort of rolls in introduction games but concede the choice to my new player so we can reflect on how their choice effected the game at the end of the game.

In that context it only makes sense to reveal all and ask for nothing in return because you want them to understand that later if their going to join you in the much more tactically sound aspects of the game.