Sunday, August 14, 2016

Infomercial: Knowing Is Half The Battle


One thing I've learned with Infinity over the years is you need to know what your opponent can do with his units, what they are good at, and what they aren't that good at. One reason I always suggest you should take a look at opposing faction units in the army builder. Look up their skills, equipment, and take note of their load outs. One thing I find with newer players and even vets is they can be caught off guard by a unit they've never seen put on the table before. This isn't the end of the game but one doesn't need to be caught off guard like that.

Now do you need to know all the other forces in the game like your own? Nope. It sure does help though. When I first started out one of the most common forces I would play against was the Nomads. My first couple of games I learned from experience who could what and how. It usually didn't end well for me. Eventually I started to look over the Nomad units. Taking note of load outs, how much things cost, and starting to see how a Nomad force could be built. After that it was coming to understand how my opponent preferred to play his Nomads. I wasn't caught off guard after I started to bring my knowledge and I even started to get good at locating LTs in my opponents forces (he's a big fan of Interventor and Custodier LTs).

Whenever I had the free time I would bring up the army builder and browse the other factions. Hop on the official forums and go to the faction sections. Those areas a chock full of knowledge about how a faction could use a unit or even specific tactics and strategies.

One must keep his opponent in mind though. One person can use a unit differently then someone else. This is where straight up playing experience comes in. To give you an example of this I recently started playing against an SP force. I've always struggled against SP since they were introduced. The combo of their ODD, CQB prowess, and link teams have always given me fits. I've never found a great way to combat that until recently (4 games against them later). I'll run it down for you.

SP want to get close to you. The weapons the majority of the units in SP have are for close to medium engagements. SP are designed to get close to you thanks to a judicious amount of ODD and smoke/eclipse grenades. Most SP players will have a firebase unit to provide over watch but not all the time.

You can start to use their common tactics against them. I found that mid-field units armed with mines or that have minelayer are a great way to dictate the path you want SP link teams to go or even box them in. This is common board control tactics.

With that in mind you can start to funnel SP into engagements that favor you thanks to long range bands. This is what I call keeping them at arms length. As noted SPs main range bands are close to medium. They have some long range weapons and we'll get to that in a moment. You can start to outrange their teams and start to pick off members from teams. It's even better if your long range weapons are impact template capable.

Before you can keep them at arms length though one must take out their long ranged unit. This usually comes in the form of Phoenix, Teucer, Atalanta, Agema, or a Feuerbach/HMG Thorakitai. These units can take out your long range threats and let the other forces of SP get into their optimal range bands. Best to keep that from happening.

It isn't the end though if SP get to the locations they want to. You must be prepared to counter-attack those positions. I'll tell you right now a counter-attack is going to involve casualties on your side especially when taking on a link team and especially a Myrmidon team in SP. My favorite counter-attack units are my template throw away units (Monks and Kuang Shi). The templates because they don't care about ODD and cover. Throw away because you want to make this attack an unfair trade for the SP player. The counter-attack unit will most defiantly fall but as long as he takes out around 2-4 of the team he's done his job. Other counter-attack methods I can suggest are mines. As long as you mine laying unit can do it without getting shot to bits dropping a mine around a corner which has LoF to a unit on the other corner is always great. It's part board control part counter-attack.

So in all if you can pin or bog down, keep at arms length, eliminate their overwatch, you'll find yourself in control over an SP in your game.

I think that's fine example of showing off ones knowledge of an opposing force. As for my opponent he runs SP with their usual fash smashers and an overwatch/long range threat. I kept those things in mind and planned accordingly.

Thursday, July 7, 2016

Operation Red Veil aka Get Ready For Some Haqqislam and Yu Jing Awesomeness


This news is a little late as most of the Infinity community has known about Operation Red Veil since last week. Most of the info for it was supposed to drop this week during Beast of Wars Infinity Week but a little slip up saw the videos posted up ahead of time. Some people with quick hands snapped some screenshots before the videos were tucked away.

Now though the Beasts Of War Infinity week is in full swing. So lets see what Red Veil is giving us!

Yu Jing Vs Haqqislam
This is going to be another 2-player starter set. Operation Icestorm was the first that featured PanOceania vs Nomads. With Red Veil it's going to be Yu Jing vs Haqqislam.

For those who aren't familiar with these two factions here's a brief rundown of them.

Yu Jing: The jack of all trades faction in Infinity. Does a lot of things good but they don't excel at one thing. They are known for having the largest variety and diversified selection of heavy infantry out of all of the factions. Need a big gun platform, a HI who can go invisible, maybe one that can start half way up the board, a cheap HI? Well Yu Jing has all of those.

Haqqislam: Biotech, medicine, and a lot of light infantry. Haqqislam has some of the best doctors in the game and posses some super soldier units that to their biotech. Opposite of Yu Jing they are known for their large variety and diversified selection of line infantry. On top all of that as well they boast the highest average of Willpower among the factions. Comes in handy for things like discovering camo units, doctoring, and accomplishing objectives.

Moving onto what's in the box.

Haqqislam
Haqqislam:

3x Ghulams w/ Rifles + LSGs
1x Khawaij w/ Rifle + LSG, Grenades
1x Zhayaden w/ Breaker Rifle + LSG
1x Taureg w/ Sniper Rifle
1x Ahl Fassed w/ HMG + LGL, Heavy Pistol (box exclusive)

Yu Jing
Yu Jing:

3x Zhanshi w/ Combi Rifles
1x Tiger Soldier Hacker w/ Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower
1x Zuyong Invincible w/ Multi Rifle
1x Hsien w/ HMG
1x Ninja w/ Tactical Bow (box exclusive)

If you pre-order the box set before August 4th you'll also receive the Yuan Yuan LTE model.

Red Veil boxes are going to be at Gen Con this coming August as well as some other goodies from Corvus Belli.



Mushasi is a pre-release. You'll be able to buy the set again during it's mass release later in the year. The Unknown Ranger is a Gen Con exclusive. Expect to see the model again in a different pose in the coming months though.

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Learning Experiances: Yu Jing


*Clears out the cobwebs and dust*

Oh, hey, did ya think I would forget about this place? Hardly. I'm just sporadic when it comes to updating this damn thing (meaning many months at a time). I'm back for however long I think I am.

So let's talk about some learning experiences since I've started up Yu Jing.

1. Let's talk about some differences between the faction I used to play and the one I do now.

Aleph has some of the most elite units in the game. I mean elite of the elite. A lot of units come with NWI, a form of camo (mimetism, ODD, camo, TO), or an awesome combo of both. This makes Aleph a super resilient or just a pain to even hit force. Add on top of that that all Aleph units have higher then average stats. Yeah the majority of units are expensive but you get what you pay for.

Yu Jing on the other hand is the HI/Melee faction. Their HI units are the most varied and some of the best in the game. They have really scary melee units that have no problem cleaving TAGs or other HI in half. Outside of some select units Yu Jing's troops are pretty average.

There lies the biggest difference. Average with a few elites vs everyone elite.

It's been a slight learning curve getting used to most of my units are not elite. My lowly grunts don't have mimetism or ARM 3. My warbands don't pack ODD or BS 12.

I say it's taken me about 8-10 games to start to understand that Yu Jing has it's own style of play. Also in those 8-10 games I've learned to throw away what I learned with Aleph.

2. Hybrid Warfare

The thing I've noticed with Yu Jing is that it does what I call hybrid warfare. Basically meaning it combines low tech approaches with high tech ones. It's one the few forces who field high end elites backed up by cheap auxiliary like units (example: Hsien with monk support).

Yu Jing has no problem kicking your face in a firefight. Something Nomads have a problem doing without resorting to dirty tricks. Something PanO does without even blinking an eye.

They have no problem going old school employing camo skirmishers or warband units. Something PanO won't do but something Ariadna will happily do.

Yu Jing with this hybrid warfare is basically a jack of trades. Good in a lot of things but not excellent in one particular area.

My last game with Yu Jing I think I took advantage of this hybrid warfare the best. My warband units engaged the hostile warband units and even provided smoke cover for an MSV2 sniper. Zuyong bounded up the board with the majority of enemy warbands removed. A Bao sniper and a Yan Huo provided overwatch. It was a good example of what Yu Jing can bring to the table. This cool mix of cheap and elite.

3. Not Hybrid All The Time

With all forces in Infinity this hybrid warfare is what Yu Jing does best. Now they can build lists ranging from the spectrum of pure elite to cheap swarm.

So I can field an elite list that takes advantage of the awesome selection of HI. On the other hand I can forgo the elites and bring a 17-18 order list.

I've ran a HI heavy list before. I haven't tried a Yu Jing swarm list (they're not my cup of tea in general).

4. Playing with new units. Keep a rotating cast though.

Since starting with Yu Jing I've been playing with a different list every time expect once. Now with every new list I at least try to include a new unit I haven't used before just to feel them out.

Generally I keep a rotating cast of other units I use. I find doing this lets me learn them but not lean on them. I'm still trying to learn how to use the Daofei effectively and the same goes for the Guilangs. I think I've started to get a better handle on the Kuang Shi, Monks, Yan Huo, Bao, CG, and Rui Shi.

Some units I really need to work on are the Raiden and the Aragato. I like what the bring to the table I just can't seem to get them to work for me. I bet they will start to click me the more I use them.

I still haven't even played with the Crane, Pheasant (looking forward to using his way better HSN3 version), Su Jian, support remotes, Wu Ming, Karakuri, Ninjas, or even Kitsune.

5. It's a good time to be playing Yu Jing.

There's lots of awesome coming to Yu Jing with HSN3 (we have leaks from the early copies released at Adepticon) as well as it being the "Year of Yu Jing". We're getting a new starter for the Imperial Service: