Is ITS giving Ariadna a hard time?

[Prophet_of_Doom]

I only play Ariadna, so I don t have the choice when attending an ITS event.

I have the feeling that Ariadna has a bit of a hard time with ITS. The advantages of this faction do not come to shine in the ITS environment. These are my three reasons which lead me to this conclusion:

- It is hard to successfully use up the many orders you want to have in an Ariadna list with the short amount of time you have during tournament play.

- Ariadnan specialists are likely to be only used for their ability to score VP. Engineers have little to repair, FO are better off shooting the enemy themselves, hackers don t have access to repeaters. Doctors are the same as with other factions, maybe not as skillful.

- The frequent use of exclusion zones take away the ariadnan advantage of infiltration and parachuting.

what are your thoughts on this matter?

[Bladerunner_35]

On the other hand their cammo spam is very order intensive to properly counter. I don't know for sure but I get the feeling Ariadna is up there with the best in terms of tournament prowess.

[Claudius Sol]

First thoughts:

Your experience with Exclusion Zones seems rather jaded, as I haven't experienced similar issues with them. Most missions lack these zones, actually.

The specialists work fantastically for the missions, in my opinion. Plenty of WIP13 specialists that can flip switches with the best of them, often infiltrating or otherwise defended/aggressive with some type equipment or skill. The hackers in Ariadna don't really need repeaters, I think. Hacking threats aren't exactly relevant to Ariadna beyond classified objectives and mission bonuses.

It's not really a major concern that you have so many orders... In fact, it's quite helpful. More orders gives you more leeway in flipping switches. Failures don't hurt nearly as much, since you can spend just another order.

I'd encourage you to try them again and see where you end up! They have quite an interesting playstyle for ITS.

[Mistake Not]

Note: I don't play Ariadna, I bring ALEPH to ITS because Sophotects.

All Specialists should be more interested in flipping switches than fighting. You win ITS by scoring, not by killing the enemy, so focus your efforts on those buttons. Clear the way with your plentiful heavy weapons, run up, push buttons repeatedly. If your specialist dies you should have plenty of spares, it's fine.

The time limitation can be a problem but increasing your speed of play should help? Don't think too much about what you're going to do, just do what seems like the best idea at the time: eventually you'll get used to this and play well intuitively.

Ariadnan Doctors are worse than any other faction's though, because they have no G:Servants which greatly reduces their range of operation and order efficiency. Keeping them near your fragile heavies seems like a good plan though.

And finally, most (if not all?) ITS events allow two lists. Bring one with your Infiltration and AD, another without; problem mostly gone.

[VisOne]

HAHA,

Your new to this game aren't you?

2013 and 2014 Ariadne midfield control infiltrating forward observer lists of nearly all camo markers was taking tournament after with near perfect wins.

Thats why you see the exclusion zones and the new rules that you don't own a objective for ever just because you activated it first. You can now flip them back even if you didn't get there first.

These didn't nerf just Ariadne but they were more or less a result of a sort of net listing by Ariadne players. Your inherent advantages are not diminished you still can usually bring 2 or 3 specialists for ever 1 another faction might get. You still have usually can field 3 or 4 more midfield control options or fast impetuous units that will kill off enemy specialists or their support SWC and ARO threats. You do however have to play to your advantages and use command tokens, co-ordinated orders and smart use of Camo and Cover though.

[Prophet_of_Doom]

No, I am not a new player. I know very well that Ariadna can and does score well in ITS and I have won a few ITS games with Ariadna.

I am not saying that Ariadna is bound to lose, I am saying that Ariadna has a harder time playing to its strength. Of course I take one list which is not so infiltration focussed to an ITS tournament. When the exclusion zone game comes up, I use that list. In this game, the Ariadna advantage of infiltration will be pretty much gone. Other factions can still play to their advantages which may be a lot of ODD, MSV, big TAGS, whatever.

The point with the orders is a bit more of a difficult one to expain. Of course, no one will stop me from bringing my 18 orders. Of course I can try to play fast and make most use of them. It is just harder to get through 18 orders than 10 with the short amount of time available. Which means I probably need to be a better player than someone who has 10 elite soldiers to achieve the same result, which is winning the game.
Obviously I need to work on speeding up my game.

(BTW, our last tournament was a bit horrible when it came to time. we had about 75 minutes per 300 point game. Most people only managed to play 2 rounds per game. In one game, i only played one round. There is a reason why some tournaments have a cap on orders.)

I noticed that the ITS missions got a bit harder for me over the years. That could be because Ariadna is just way too strong and CB had to counter this by having different missions. Infiltrating specialists are obviously very handy. I think its better that nowadays you can t score that easily just because you have an infiltrator and the first turn.

The part with the specalists not doing anything else probably does not matter that much, it is just a bit sad to look at all your specialists and realize that they are only there to achieve objectives. Next tournament I will play fireteams of paramedics, lol.

[VisOne]

So the issue is not by your own admission ITS its your TO, your own development as a player and possibly even your META. Not the force or the system and all of those things are surmountable given patience and time.

I just won a 3 round 300 point 12 point spec op tournament with the Shock Army of Acontecimento a force that was terrible in N2 and the stats proved it second only to maybe ISS in just being a poor sectorial to take.

Shock Army of Acontecimento
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

Group 1 10 0 0
INDIGO Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (10 / 12XP)
MOV:4-4 CC:13 BS:12 PH:10 WIP:13 ARM:0 BTS:0 W:1
Jungle Terrain, Hacking Device, Engineer, Chain of Command
NAGA Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 32)
NAGA Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 32)
MACAYANA Lieutenant HMG, Heavy Flamethrower, Antipersonnel Mines / AP CCW. (2 | 85)
REGULAR Spitfire / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 16)
REGULAR Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (10)
REGULAR Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (10)
REGULAR Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (12)
AKAL COMMANDO Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, E/M CCW. (0.5 | 28)
PATHFINDER DRONBOT Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (16)

Group 2 2 0 0
PEACEMAKER Heavy Shotgun + AUXBOT_1 / Electric Pulse. (23)
AUXBOT_1 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (4)
SIERRA DRONBOT HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)

5.5 SWC | 299 Points

Open with Army 5

And

Shock Army of Acontecimento
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

Group 1 10 0 0
AKAL COMMANDO Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, E/M CCW. (0.5 | 28)
DRÃGAO Hyper-Rapid Magnetic Cannon, Heavy Flamethrower / . (2.5 | 94)
LT. STEPHEN RAO Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Assault Pistol, Knife. (23)
BAGH-MARI HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 26)
BAGH-MARI Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (17)
BAGH-MARI Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (24)
BAGH-MARI Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 28)
PATHFINDER DRONBOT Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (16)
INDIGO Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (10 / 12XP)
MOV:4-4 CC:13 BS:12 PH:10 WIP:13 ARM:0 BTS:0 W:1
Jungle Terrain, Hacking Device, Engineer, Chain of Command
NAGA Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 32)

5.5 SWC | 298 Points

Open with Army 5

Neither of those two lists has any of the Pan O troupes no MSV 2 or MSV 3 to remove Camo and Smoke at will. I had to use the same midfield Camo infiltrators as all my opponents had access to. Every force I came against could have taken out either of my TAG's if they had used their orders effectively neither is a Cutter I can't hide what it is and where its going to be.

That didn't happen not with the Vanilla Nomad Players, nor the Vanilla Ariadne Player or the QK (5 man Jannisary Link) Player none of them used their orders effectively and even when I was on the ropes especially that last game me the 1st place winner and him the 3rd place winner did it stop me deciding the game with again A single midfield Camo infiltrator. My NAGA/s were MVP every single game and I only have AVA 2 thats it. The valor dogged helps but if I could have 4 or 5 instead of 2 I would just coordinate the orders on them end result the same I will flip the switch/grab that beacon/take that create what ever it is because I'm basically in ZoC of it and its an uncontested roll.

Basically it comes back to spending the time yourself to become better with your force. I've come low end to middling in every tournament I've played in and I only play my Shock Army of Acontecimento at tournaments never play them otherwise its taken me 4 tournaments to learn how to win with them and adapt myself to a play style that will reap some rewards or atleast mitigate the worst of my possible failings.

I suggest rather than looking at how the system is failing you or looking for why its wrong you work out a way to make it work for you instead. That is the only way I've found to get better I'm not cheating or gaming for advantage but I have stopped fighting the ITS ethos and now I'm ignore, ignore, score or if I can't do that its attack, attack, remove their ability to score. A win is better than a draw a draw is better than a loss and if I can take even 1 point off you or stop you getting it than I'm 1 point closer to a overall win.

To me its not about prize support but its about ending in the top 3 more often than not. Now I've gotten a first place I want to keep getting them even though the prizes are honestly not even worth having for me. Silly artichoke headed mercenary and some badges for ITS don't need em.

[TanKoL]

Ariadna spam + camo is IMO one of the strongest ITS lists
If you don't have enough time to spend your 20 orders without compromising the whole round's timeframe, it's not the army that is the root cause there
I faced (and saw) several Ariadna armies like this 10 days ago, and I didn't see a single problem about running out of time, it simply boils down to:
- know your army
- know the other guy's army (well enough)
- plan your moves during the other guy's turn
If you're still falling short on time, that means you simply can't bring spam lists and need to adapt, not everyone plays the same

Apart from that, having disposable troops, cheap specialists, decent all around stats, plentiful smoke and camo / infiltrator all over the place is a boon
For instance, I faced such an Ariadna army (with a pretty damn good player too, Omadon) on Nimbus zone, and even with the exclusion zone, there's simply nothing I could do to stop him from scoring 2 antennas on the first turn, he had too many orders / smoke / camo for me to stop him
In the end it was 8-6 to him and I was quite happy with the result, but it was simply impossible for me to get the 3 points from antennas against such an army

[CoveredInFish]

A player with a 10 order list has to accomplish the same objectives in less orders = ingame time. This is a serious disadvantage. Okay, the 18-order-player might have to play faster but he also has easier scoring because more orders.

I wouldnt think of the later be much more difficult.

Also most tournaments i played on had a shared time limit for both players so the 18-orders-players would just have taken a bigger chunk of the total time allowance

[Prophet_of_Doom]

Yes, the Ariadna player can take a larger chunk of the time. I am acutely aware of this. I really try to play faster so I don t feel like a cheat.

Chess clocks would be cool, but I guess that would be even more stuff on the table for people to handle.

Without time limit, I take 18 orders over 10 elite ones any time. I am an avid ariadna player. With time limit, I fear I may do something unfair to my opponent by taking up more time.

[VisOne]

Chess clocks would be cool, but I guess that would be even more stuff on the table for people to handle.

No it wouldn't it would just acerbate your issues. If your aware of the feeling you are taking too much time how would an active record of your time make you feel? Its like having someone follow you around at work with a clipboard tabulating the time it takes you to be inefficient at your job. 2 mins here, 2 extra steps on a job there ohh and lets forget that 20 min unsolicited toilet break.

Like I said don't fight the tournament/ITS ethos you're a nice empathic bloke which makes you aware of your feelings and how they impact others. Thats great I'm the same I want to have fun and I want my opponent to have fun too but in a tournament/ITS setting there are things to win bragging rights prizes whatever and the it's NOT a fair system someone has to dictate the game and take more time or use more of the resources available in this case it's time.

If you want to play your 18 model force thats fine it's legal you can invest in some upskilling in yourself to mitigate any disadvantage you course your opponent by fast playing as best you can but that's it nothing else can be done for it. Don't feel bad about taking a force or organisational structure you like that is legal to field.

[VisOne]

The issue of rounds being too short is different though. That is a problem for the TO/META to sort out. 120 mins to play 30 mins to tabulate results and draw new pairings is better. So each round 2 and 1/2 hours should be allotted and at 1 hour and 45 mins the final 15 min warning is issued to ALL tables.

That or drop the size of your tournaments to 150, 200 or maybe 250 points.

[chunky04]

Playing in a reasonable amount of time will just come with practice. I played my first tournament over the weekend, and despite not managing to play a game previously in under 3 hours, I didn't find the time too bad. My first game I was slow and it cost me when I made some mistakes rushing at the end, but after that it was fine.

I was also playing an 18 order list with lots of AD, so trying to work out all the LOF and where I could find or make gaps to AD took quite a while.

[Prophet_of_Doom]

Agreed, the chess clock is really a bit tricky. It seems fair at first, that both players get the same amount of time. However, other than a chess tournament, an ITS one is supposed to be a friendly event. Thus, if one player is quick, then the other should be allowed to have more time. On the other side, I definitely feel that if the amount of time both players want to take is about equal, then I should not take up more time just because my opponent has no way to stop me from doing this. This would not be sportsmanlike.

[Mistake Not]

But there is a way to stop you from taking up a lot of time: Achilles.