Did an American Member of the Krug Come in 4th?!?!?!?

[Lampyridae]

ITS is inherently random, and getting first turn will win you the game.

Which is why I don't bother with it. Let's hope N3 changes it for the better.

Yup, it was the players' request to go for ITS. I only ran one objectives-based mission as we were playing 200 points. I would rather do YAMS for the next one. We'll see.

[Guarda de Assalto]

I have to object to the idea that first turn automatically wins you the game in ITS... I find that to be simply untrue amongst players of equal skill (both in terms of tactics and basic list comp theory).

I really like ITS but I will agree with you gents when you say there is room for improvement. Certainly it would be nice to see a wider range of units deemed "ITS viable."

[Math Mathonwy]

What is an "Avatar + Speculo" list? Something like this?

COMBINED ARMY
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 9 0 0

AVATAR Lieutenant (Strategos L3) MULTI HMG, Heavy Grenade Launcher, Sepsitor, Nanopulser / EXP CCW. (2 | 152)
SHROUDED (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (27)
SHROUDED (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (27)
MED-TECH OBSIDON MEDCHANOID Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (23)
SPECULO KILLER Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Monofilament CCW. (1 | 39)
IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (9)
IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (9)
ÍMETRON Electric Pulse. (4)
ÍMETRON Electric Pulse. (4)

3 SWC | 294 Points

Open with Army 4

[Guges]

I did a table with extensive low-vis zones for this year's tournament. It made for ugly killing fields. Another table had tall buildings, and featured lifts. Another was all low shacks. Terrain density was about the same as the Spanish tables. Each had different effects on the game. If all tables were perfectly symmetrical then there'd be no reason to choose deployment side.

As for randomness, in one game a Tiger Solider with BS fluffed his roll in a PanO DZ, went off the table, and walked on. He then killed half the PanO squad before going down.

With the tall buildings, they were all strung across the centreline. A Gwailo ARO-glued a foolish Knight on top of the building and then proceeded to rain death from his elevated position and belly full of PanO wounds.

All of the players were advised before the day as to what to expect from the tables.

ITS is inherently random, and getting first turn will win you the game. Terrain effects you can at least plan for before the game. All they do is increase the tactical opportunities.

Gencon 2013 was the exact opposite of this. There were some minor problems here and there, but for the most part random imbalance was almost completely removed from the equation. If ITS is inherently random you are doing it very wrong. There are a lot of ways to reduce random factors to being as minimal as possible and making everyone at your tournament feel like they had a fair shot at first place.

I'm also wondering if this is a cultural difference. It seems like European players include a lot more randomness and lighter terrain and they see this as okay. Us Americans seem to go for more terrain density and less randomness. Could be I just seeing things and maybe it breaks down even further to individual country/U.S. Region differences too.

[dtjunkie19]

ITS is inherently random, and getting first turn will win you the game.

I vehemently disagree with this statement, at least the second half. There is a degree of randomness to ITS missions, but only so far as you are rolling dice to complete objectives, and any dice based game will have an element of randomness to it. As to going first winning you the game, my tournament experience within the NE meta has shown that to be untrue. For example, at the last two tournaments I have played in in which I took first, I went second 4 out of the 6 rounds (between the two events).
Additionally, there a quite clear benefits to going second in a number of the ITS missions, namely quadrant control, seize the antennae, antennae field, etc. Going second allows you to dictate how points will be scored, and forces your opponent to try to either cripple your ability to contest objectives completely, or prepare so they can react to and stop your bottom of turn/end of game objective grabbing.

Honestly, I am surprised that you have reached such an opposite conclusion to what our meta has found. Perhaps there is a significant difference in terrain density that vastly increases first turn ramboing/blitzing? Our area has been historically heavier on terrain density, but that has been decreasing significantly in recent events, yet going first has not proven to be a significant advantage, if any advantage whatsoever.

[Magno]

I've played enough ITS to know, he who takes initiative is NOT guaranteed a win.

There are some scenarios where you want to go second and doing so gives you the option of knowing exactly how to spend your orders on the bottom of round 3.
Dude executed this perfectly at the Rumble on Route 66 vs me for an 8-3 win.

Low Viz table wide is not necessarily a problem. Low Viz table wide on an open table becomes a major,... And I mean major issue.

If you are a camo heavy list on a low Vis, open table and someone brings visors, they've effectively gained your camo advantage while negating yours.

We tried low viz table wide a few times early on and found that it affords too many paper-scissors-rock conditions based on lists.

Our solutions were that we create low viz zones, not table wide.
Or if it's low viz, it's low viz that visors can't help.

Open tables take out the advantages of mobile troops and removes a lot of options for setting things up. It creates a trench warfare situation.

I appreciate that Spain had to round up 38 tables. That is a massive effort and the size of the tournament tells me beforehand, be ready for open tables as they are going to have to spread terrain thin.

This "King Kong" tactic of Avatar with "friendly" Speculo hanging out in front is probably the first true use of cheese I've seen in Infinity.

A "friendly" troop just standing next to an Avatar for that long is most definitely indication to your troops that they are either sepsitorized or it's an impersonator.

Yet, game mechanic wise, you can't target the avatar with template weapons and on an open table you will likely have difficulty trying to single out the Speculo to discover. You'd be choosing discover vs shooting the Avatar on on a low viz table only lvl2 visors have even a chance.

That is a massive stack-up of advantage for the CA player.

I'm inclined to house rule this nonsense if it happens at GenCon.

"If a 'friendly' troop, who you have LoS, is standing next to an enemy model for more than 3 orders and doesn't do anything to get away or attack that enemy model, your army determines something is fishy and immediately discovers the friendly troop for what it is".

I know folks hate house rules, but this tactic is shameful to say the least. It provides a massive advantage of synergy to the player with no liability.

[eveilded]

Couldn't you just house rule that your impersonation markers cannot be in base-to-base contact with your own models? I'm not sure what other implications that would have.

[Spears]

That's a fairly arbitrary house rule though. I honestly don't think that the avatar speculo combo is that bad, it is a pretty binary list that can feel pretty shitty to fight but it does have a fair bit of counterplay to it.

A houserule that you get your wip roll to resist sepsistor might go down well.

[Guarda de Assalto]

Too bad you can't just have a blanket house rule: "don't be a dick." =)

[Magno]

That's a fairly arbitrary house rule though. I honestly don't think that the avatar speculo combo is that bad, it is a pretty binary list that can feel pretty shitty to fight but it does have a fair bit of counterplay to it.

A houserule that you get your wip roll to resist sepsistor might go down well.

At GenCon and any tournament I run, there is ALWAYs a roll vs a Sepsitor attack.

If anything, it is a WIP-vs-WIP roll. There is vocabulary in the rule that Sepsitor attack always a FtF and that is enough for me. This supersedes forced ARO situation.

[Todd]

Oh noes, combos! Purge it before this becomes warmachine!

[Lampyridae]

By "getting 1st turn" I mean winning whichever option works in the situation. This is less a problem at 200 points, and I guess the same is true of the low-Vis zones. Mine were pretty savage: more than 8" through low-Vis and LoF was blocked, and no MSV negation. Also, we have no Ariadna players in our group, but when playtesting these rules I did do a number on our Shasvastii player in the low-Vis jungle (with Alguaciles going on a bloody rampage and squishing eggs).

It's just that, with optimised 2-group lists, our experience has been that a lot of the ITS scenarios came down to getting the correct first turn choice. This was with varying levels of terrain. The non-objective missions were the ones that were more balanced, especially at 200 points. I've found that the ultra-tight terrain setups you guys in the US seem to favour result from a close combat-oriented guy desperately piling on crates so he can close in with his favourite Makaul or Domaru. We've mostly done away with that due to setup times. We almost always have open killzones, and failure to watch one of them usually results in defeat.

That's our meta however. Tournaments are always geared to the TO's local scene: visiting players can go on a rampage or be totally nerfed by the meta. You can only go so far with your setup; if zero-G boarding action boards are the common scenario, then you will inevitably gear your terrain towards something like that. I'll tweak a few things here and there for the next tourny but Infinity's died a quiet death in our clubs recently.

[Myrddin]

Infinity's died a quiet death in our clubs recently.

This is troubling to hear...

[dtjunkie19]

By "getting 1st turn" I mean winning whichever option works in the situation. This is less a problem at 200 points, and I guess the same is true of the low-Vis zones. Mine were pretty savage: more than 8" through low-Vis and LoF was blocked, and no MSV negation. Also, we have no Ariadna players in our group, but when playtesting these rules I did do a number on our Shasvastii player in the low-Vis jungle (with Alguaciles going on a bloody rampage and squishing eggs).

It's just that, with optimised 2-group lists, our experience has been that a lot of the ITS scenarios came down to getting the correct first turn choice. This was with varying levels of terrain. The non-objective missions were the ones that were more balanced, especially at 200 points. I've found that the ultra-tight terrain setups you guys in the US seem to favour result from a close combat-oriented guy desperately piling on crates so he can close in with his favourite Makaul or Domaru. We've mostly done away with that due to setup times. We almost always have open killzones, and failure to watch one of them usually results in defeat.

That's our meta however. Tournaments are always geared to the TO's local scene: visiting players can go on a rampage or be totally nerfed by the meta. You can only go so far with your setup; if zero-G boarding action boards are the common scenario, then you will inevitably gear your terrain towards something like that. I'll tweak a few things here and there for the next tourny but Infinity's died a quiet death in our clubs recently.

Interesting. While getting the optimal choice for initiative is surely a benefit, I have not observed that being the sole deciding factor in the ITS events I have played in/ran. It surely can happen, but I think both players have options on how to approach each scenario depending on whether they are going first or second (and how the objectives are scored). If I am going second in a more kill-focused scenario (say annihilation, frontline, supplies to a certain degree), I will attempt to deploy in a way that maximizes the amount of orders the opponent must use to attack my key models, while leaving at least one or more solid ARO options to make it more difficult for the opponent to walk up the battlefield with impunity (and potentially send disposable troops to take out a bunch of my orders). If I am going first in a scenario that focuses on scoring objectives at the end of a round or game (antennae field, quadrant control, seize the antennae for ex.), then I know I need to be more aggressive and try to either cripple my opponent early, or establish control over the midfield and other important areas of the board so that their options for movement to contest objectives is more limited/risky.

Locally, I know I have been pushing for more assymetrical boards with areas of more dense terrain as well as areas of less dense terrain with longer firelanes. The mix creates opportunities both to advance and position troops, as well as places to lock down with long range heavy firepower and control your opponent's movement.

I am sorry that infinity has declined in your local community. There has been a little bit of a lull around here the past month, but much of that was due to playing in a number of infinity events back to back, then kind of waiting for the big deal at gencon, as well as N3 and all of the new stuff coming out. Now, it seems there is a good amount of excitement buzzing around. The biggest challenge around here is actually being able to bring everyone together to an event, as we have people from more or less 3 states, and travelling in and out and through NYC is not always so easy.

[Guarda de Assalto]

As you said, just a lull in the action Junkie. We're all resting up and rearming for the "Big One" in a a few weeks. My only complaint is that I won't have the pleasure of watching someone break you at Game Master this Sunday. Ka works in mysterious ways...

[IJW Wartrader]

I played on a table where all green areas on the mat counted as low-vis, but didn't see any where the entire table was low vis. On the other hand I didn't look at every single table sheet.

[Berjiz]

It depends a lot on the scenario if going first is too good or not. Supplies for instance might be one were it is a problem. Also going first reduces the risk of a bad deployment causing you the lose the game. For the second player the placment of the models is much more important and a harder choice.

I also restarted the old post your tables thread so it can continue from the old forum. Might be interesting for anyone who wants to see examples of terrain. It is a bit empty atm though but might start moving some of the things from the old thread.
http://www.data-sphere.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1963&p=22782#p22782

[Solodice]

What is an "Avatar + Speculo" list? Something like this?

COMBINED ARMY
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 9 0 0

AVATAR Lieutenant (Strategos L3) MULTI HMG, Heavy Grenade Launcher, Sepsitor, Nanopulser / EXP CCW. (2 | 152)
SHROUDED (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (27)
SHROUDED (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (27)
MED-TECH OBSIDON MEDCHANOID Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (23)
SPECULO KILLER Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Monofilament CCW. (1 | 39)
IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (9)
IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (9)
ÍMETRON Electric Pulse. (4)
ÍMETRON Electric Pulse. (4)

3 SWC | 294 Points

Open with Army 4

That's a question for however ran a Avatar and a Speculo in the same list over at the Interplanetary.

[Loki]

Infinity's died a quiet death in our clubs recently.

This is troubling to hear...

Not really, I'd say it's expected. Players suffer burn out if they play a single game too long. It's the reason my brother and I are branching into Malifaux as a second game. In my experience, it's not uncommon for groups that only play a single game to eventually peeter out or move on to another game for a time simply for variety.

[Spambot]

Man, +1 to the initiative swings the game view. Oh, I'm deploying first? Sweet, I'll just put infil/specialist on all the objectives then! The WIP roll certainly doesn't win or lose the game right then and there, but its certainly more of an advantage than I'd like it to be, and I always try to stack the tables edges (don't be afraid of putting down a legit sniper tower) so that the deployment benefit is at least as big as the turn one

And this speculo/avatar nonsense... genuinely not happy that this sort of shit has managed to escape from warhams and come over to Infinity. I'm 100% in favour of TO intervention to get that garbage out of the game.

[Michaud]

And this speculo/avatar nonsense... genuinely not happy that this sort of shit has managed to escape from warhams and come over to this game.

Ehh, not sure I would declare Infinity a lost cause like warhammer over one cheese tactic, though.

When I was a Starcraft player, we would define a cheesy tactic as easy to beat, but only if you knew it was coming. If you know you are coming up against it, it's easy to counter.

If you don't though, you just lose. Infinity wise, sure, you can tailor a list to destroy that list. In an all comers environment like ITS, it's a tough thing to do.

[Spambot]

Nah its far from a lost cause. Frankly the fact that it took this long for it to appear, as well as how relatively tame it is, is a credit to the game.

But I honestly think that the correct stance is a straight up NO to this sort of thing before it starts to grow. IMO the further we stay from "counter the cheese with cheese" or the "if everyone is overpowered, nobody is" mentalities that dominate some of the other leading games the better this game will be - after all, if someone is looking for cheese/combo play, there are plenty of games that cater, and some of them are actually good

[Yossarian78]

While counters to this tactic exist like suppressive fire from an HMG-carrying trooper w/ MSV l2/3, it's only there for a few factions in the game. Speculative shot from a grenade launcher probably won't cut it against a TAG even if it's E/M ammo. If camo is getting reworked/nerfed, then I hope it's doubly so for Impersonation which has fewer counters and is more exclusive as a skill.

[Todd]

While counters to this tactic exist like suppressive fire from an HMG-carrying trooper w/ MSV l2/3, it's only there for a few factions in the game. Speculative shot from a grenade launcher probably won't cut it against a TAG even if it's E/M ammo.

It really only has a significant impact on ranged template weapons (HRL/ML/GML). Keep in mind, these can still be used in ARO against it unless the player leap frogs the duo very closely as they spend two coordinated orders to move them (keeping them continuously within the diameter of a template centered around the Avatar).

DTWs can be aimed around/above the impersonator. Parabolic weapons should be fired speculatively anyway (same mods as ODD, but no ARO to worry about). While mines can't be placed with the impersonator in the AoE, they can be placed and used in locations where you anticipate they will go (like DTWs, angle the template above/around the imp). Same thing with SF, lay it down to stall or force the Avatar to deal with it. Hacking is still an option (look, a use for an EVO repeater). There's discovering with cheaper throwaway models (coordinated even, so the one that survives can attempt the second discover). You could shoot it with your own TAG. The best solution is probably just to take out the order pool, and avoid the order starved and slow moving Avatar (4-4, so the Speculo can keep up). After all, sepsitorized models don't generate orders.

What I'm getting from this is that people seem to think missile/rocket launchers are a necessity against this sort of thing? Do you guys always include them or something? Because if you don't, you're really not at anymore of a disadvantage than you already would be against the Avatar.

I'm still trying to figure out how this combo actually breaks any ITS missions at 300 points or lower, aside from annihilation. Sepsitorized troops don't count for Quadrant control or Frontline, which means spreading out and avoiding the duo, while targeting cheaper order generating models should work quite well. As for the rest, it seems like more of a win denial tactic than one that would net you the OPs needed to win a tournament.

[IJW Wartrader]

Why can't Mines be placed?

[dlfleetw]

I believe he meant when they explode.

[IJW Wartrader]

Even then you'd have to place the Speculo right next to the Mine to not be able to angle the template to only hit the Avatar.

[Spears]

I'm fairly certain I once saw a faq saying templates hit halfway up the model, is that correct?

edit: And does the speculo have a 17mm head.

[IJW Wartrader]

I'm fairly certain I once saw a faq saying templates hit halfway up the model, is that correct?

Not that I'm aware of, no.