If you haven't read part 1 in this series, do so first.
1. Combined Army. It is unclear to me how these guys are supposed
to be played.
The Avatar is awesome but struggles in anything other than
annihilation because 130 points are tied up in one unit. In area control
missions that means you struggle to get more than 2 quadrants, and in
specialist flood missions like emergency transmission you have very few points
left-over for specialists.
Speaking of which, Combined army specialists are
almost universally bad because the infiltrators either have WIP13 or you would
rather use them as a boarding shotgun assassin, while the high WIP specialists
all cost a bundle (except the med-tech, who is fabulous, though I never have
anything with structure points). Most of the stuff I want from combined army,
like speculo killers, Sheskin and the like, can be had through the Shasvasti
sectorial without missing out on anything but AI beacons and Ko Dali, who is
admittedly awesome, and perhaps the best AD unit in the game (that said, I
really like the Garuda with HMG and yet never use it, so maybe AD troops just
aren’t that much to write home about).
Just as an aside, in Vanilla lists you often have to make up for
your lack of link teams by utilising the trickier attack pieces, like expensive
but quality AD troops and expensive but devastating TO camouflaged boarding
shotgun units. With these you can executive pincer moves and collapse the enemy
order pool. I would definitely take Ko Dali in any Vanilla combined army list,
and probably take a Garuda in any Aleph list. In Yu Jing the Tiger Soldier with
spitfire is excellent, but the Oniwaban is even better.
I have tried to build a Vanilla combined list around a Charontid
because it provides you with a hacker, lieutenant and a solid attack piece. But
then you have this problem that none of the remotes are actually very sexy. You
can instead give your Charontid an MSV3 and HMG, which makes them double as a
sensor unit, and use Sheskin as a lieutenant and secondary attack piece, and then
either a Daturazi or Oznat as a smoke thrower (something Pan-O doesn’t have for
their Aquilas). You then have enough points leftover for a med-tech with slave
drone, 2 shrouded FOs, a Malignos hacker and FO and 2 AI beacons. Exactly 10
orders, with a good lieutenant, great principle attack piece, smoke/MSV power,
5 specialists, 4 of which infiltrate, and some TO antics. If you don’t mind
living dangerously, you could make the Charontid your lieutenant and exchange
Sheskin for Ko Dali so you have a lot of tricks up your sleave. This is the
best combined army list I can do for anything other than Annihilation (then
just bring the Avatar and drink your opponent’s tears). It is pretty decent
(can maybe even Tango with the other vanilla lists in the ‘average’ category),
but I think you can do better elsewhere. I don’t see the synergies in combined
army. They have a lot of expensive one-off units with great stats but without
the equipment to really wreck face, and limited overlap between units.
Briefly, if I build an Avatar list it is entirely geared towards
Annihilation, and I use the following: Avatar (lt.), Speculo Killer with
shotgun, Ko Dali, med-tech with slave drone, noctifer with missile launcher, 2
Ikadrons, R-drone and 2 Imetrons.
The Speculo provides interference so your opponent can’t arrange
an effective welcoming party for your Avatar. Your Avatar then wrecks face. For
the most part, you want your avatar to hang back and maintain the range band on
his HMG. This also mitigates pincer manoeuvres against him. Don’t bother with
Sepsitor. Your aim in this mission is to secure his 140 points while killing a
few things. Ko Dali gives you a nice late game annoyance piece, and can also
thin your opponent’s order pool when they expose themselves while positioning
against the Avatar. The Noctifer is there as a defensive piece to cover a flank.
With TO camo, BS13 and good range positioning, it should be fairly effective in
face to face, even with just B1, and when that missile hits it brings the pain.
I would set the Noctifer up so that it is in cover and the med-tech is prone
behind it, so when the noctifer dies you can just heal it straight away.
Meanwhile, the slave drone does the same thing behind the Avatar, whose bulk
shields it from LoF. The rest of the list is just cheerleaders – three cheap
drones and two AI beacons. The baggage bots are excellent—they help you win
annihilation and go down in a blaze of glory thanks to their flamers. The
R-drone and beacons usually just hide, but you can sniff against Ariadna in a
pinch. This is, in my opinion, the best list in the game for Annihilation.
2. Morats are horrible. They don’t have anything from the list
above.
3. Pan Oceania. Almost no cheap infiltrating specialists; few
WIP14 specialists; plenty of MSV access but no smoke launching to make it
really devastating. The only thing here I really want is Nises snipers and
Konstantinos.
4. Shock Army of Aconticimento. The Bagh-Mari link team is
cost-effective but I'd rather have MSV2 and no camo than the MSV1/mimetism
combo. The shock army have absolutely no access to MSV2 and can't mine the
entire midfield, which makes them incredibly susceptible to smoke spamming
units. Nagas are good infiltrating, camo hackers with WIP14, but after the link
and some Nagas you don't really want anything else. There is no nises or other
good sniper unit even. The Guarda de Assaulto is perhaps the most overrated
unit in the game. He can't do shit against ODD or TO:Camo, especially at range,
so a whole bunch of sniper type units can shut him down without much trouble,
and smoke firing on him sees him immediately dead, BS15 or no. A good army to
try if you want to play on hard mode or to introduce an intermediate player to
the finer points of Infinity. The list seems tough on the surface but is pretty
easy to break open if you know where to apply what kind of pressure.
4. Neoterrans. No infiltrating specialists, almost no specialists
with WIP14, MSV but no smoke, TO: Camo snipers are cute but they don't make an
army. And no good link team! These guys need some units me-thinks.
5. Hassasins. Fidays are fun and all but these guys don't really
have much else going for them. Farzans are good but AVA 2 and the obligatory Chain
of Command means you only get 1 specialist. Asawira would make for a brutal
link team if they weren't so damn expensive, and they aren't worth it with less
than 5 because they don't have MSV/camo/ODD, so they really need that +3BS. The
link team with MSV1 is decent and cheap with good weapon options, but you can
do better. If Barids had infiltrate then these guys would suddenly become much
better.
6. Imperial Service Sectorial. The main issue here is the problem
of infiltrating specialists. You have access to a decent chunky link in the
Wu-Ming (cheap, but not doctor and no good weapons after the HMG) and a
fearsome firebase in a Bao sniper link, with MSV2 everywhere, but you struggle
to push buttons, especially early on. My favourite list for specialist missions
is a Kuang Shi controller with 5-8 sheep and a Hsien in one group, a 3-man Bao
sniper link (Pheasant with shotgun and CoC) and some specialists (Ninja hacker,
sensor bot, Sophotect, Dakini paramedic etc.) in the other. The ninja hacker
can sometimes get the job done in terms of opening boxes in the early days
provided the smoke shooting Hsien can open a beachhead, but it's a lot of eggs
in one basket. If these guys had access to Guilangs they would be borderline
instead of terrible. Ironically, while ISS have a huge number of link team options
they are mostly poop. The Zhanying sixth sense is redundant once there are 4 of
them, the Wu Ming leave you without many points for specialists and cannot
bring their own doctor, and Celestial Guard just don’t have the stats, though
at least they can bring all the range bands and a specialist. Avoid the Crane.
He has gotten better, but he doesn't have camo/MSV. Sensor is cute but I can
use the bot that I am going to bring anyway because I have no other specialists.
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