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Advanced Deployment and Missions


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This is a problem that my opponent and ne noticed during the tournament on the Supply Cache abd Set Trap missions.

Please correct me if there is any cire mechanic that blocks this.

OK, so on Set traps, I was the attacker and brought a unit of Infiltrators, on my first activation I placed two markers. This was very sloppy placement since with better Deployment I could have placed 3 and instead of putting them close to the enemy Deployment zone, I would have placed 2 of them right at the center line border of the enemy side to ensure a chunk of area where no markers would be allowed on the center table area till they got removed.

On Supply Cache, I was defender, but if I had been attacker I could have removed both of the markers on my opponents side and suddenly before anything even happens, he is in a very bad possition.

Seems to me that models with advance Deployment have huge effect on both these missions, specially when they are attackers, the main offenders being Infiltrators and Black Ops.

Has anybody else noticed this?

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But if you´re defender the advance deployment suddenly becomes very hide and seek^^

 

I like them for the reason that yes, the special deployment can have a huge impact on the game, but it`s all on a very squishy unit, I think it balances out quite nicely :)

I find it hard to justify them as defender though, especially since the attacker get`s his coordinated strike now in the first round of a game - they are more likely than not just dead after the first enemy activations.

this can work to your advantage as well if you`re using them as bait, but I´m not sure I would take them solely for that purpose anymore.

 

 

I wouldn`t see that as a problem, instead it`s what these units are supposed to do and about one of the only things Infiltrators are good at imo.

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And Black Ops who can do the same but better and Adeodatos can fish them out?

Don't get me wrong, Infiltrators whole selling point is their scenario presence. But those two missions let them have a huge effect when attacking, as in "Very hard to recover from" specially on Supply Cache territory if your opponent isn't absurdly mobile like Cult.

Something as simple as not being able to remove markers turn one or to set up traps turn 1 would be more then enough to cull it and also avoid Infiltrators being used like all or nothing gamble pieces.

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6 hours ago, Razhem said:

This is a problem that my opponent and ne noticed during the tournament on the Supply Cache abd Set Trap missions.

Please correct me if there is any cire mechanic that blocks this.

OK, so on Set traps, I was the attacker and brought a unit of Infiltrators, on my first activation I placed two markers. This was very sloppy placement since with better Deployment I could have placed 3 and instead of putting them close to the enemy Deployment zone, I would have placed 2 of them right at the center line border of the enemy side to ensure a chunk of area where no markers would be allowed on the center table area till they got removed.

You put three markers on the opponent's side of the table that the opponent can get VP for removing and you spent three tactics tokens doing that.

Then a unit of Bothoso cavalry or something similar strolls up, spends two tactics tokens and removes those markers.

You spent 3 tactics tokens, now you've got one marker remaining that'll get you two VP if it's still there at the end of the turn.  The Abyssinian player spent two tactics tokens and has two confirmed VP.  And then the slow units catch up the next turn.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but where's the huge advantage here for being the first to place?  

Edit:  For Set Traps, you get two VP for every one of those traps that's still there at the end of the turn.  But the other player gets 1VP for each of the traps that you set that they remove that turn.  Abyssinia's motto may as well be "We'll get there on the second turn, but we'll have cards in our hands" but even they the Crow Runners with their walking 12" from their deployment zone on the first turn.

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On Supply Cache, I was defender, but if I had been attacker I could have removed both of the markers on my opponents side and suddenly before anything even happens, he is in a very bad possition.

I'm confused.

Hyper conservative Abyssinia player doesn't spend any tactics tokens to create additional markers just outside of their deployment zone (because Abyssinia can be slow, and there's no reason to put those markers further forward than just outside their deployment zone.). You push a unit of Infiltrators so that they're five inches away from that deployment zone, then spend two tactics tokens to get rid of those markers.

How small of a table were these games taking place on?  Because I'm trying to figure out how many Infiltrators you need to get both markers, what with the "at least 12" apart" thing, and everything.

 

 

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4 hours ago, solkan said:

I'm confused.

Hyper conservative Abyssinia player doesn't spend any tactics tokens to create additional markers just outside of their deployment zone (because Abyssinia can be slow, and there's no reason to put those markers further forward than just outside their deployment zone.). You push a unit of Infiltrators so that they're five inches away from that deployment zone, then spend two tactics tokens to get rid of those markers.

How small of a table were these games taking place on?  Because I'm trying to figure out how many Infiltrators you need to get both markers, what with the "at least 12" apart" thing, and everything.

As solkan: Equally confused. Perhaps the opposing player did not think about their Allegiance's strengths and weaknesses when placing markers? If that's the case, then the issue isn't Advanced Deployment so much as it is player experience and knowledge.

Best case Scenario for deploying with the friendly markers somewhere safe-ish from Infiltrators is Corners or Killing Field,  because you can put them both in your deployment zone where Infiltrators cannot easily reach and your own units are near enough to deny the Morale Action/interact.

But every other deployment option will let me place the markers far enough apart where you're only getting both of them with Infiltrators if you're using two units of Infiltrators unless we're playing a Single Commander game on a 4x4 table; even then I can still have them up to about 20" apart  on Confrontation/Killing Field deployment and have at least one of the markers in your deployment zone under guard in Corners/Sideways.

So unless I do something silly and place my friendly supply markers at exactly 12" apart, at least one of them will be safe barring multiple units of Infiltrators.. and even with multiple Infiltrator units, the second Marker is safe unless the KE player is willing to spend a Tactics Token to make a Coordinated Strike and.. well.. they've spent three Tactics Tokens at the start of Turn 1, which means they're either not holding cards or not sitting on a juicy Stratagem. I hope those 2VP were worth it.

At Df 4, they're not going to be the most resilient wall of bodies and I'll lose nothing in turns of Actions if I give the Focused Effort Order to Mehal Sefari or Electrocutioners to go to town on them. The Infiltrators might even make it easier for me to get to Glory, draw cards, get Tactics Tokens for advancing one or more Champions, or even blow up the KE-friendly supply markers no matter where they are on the table with an Inspired rewrite of history.

I don't need mobility (though I have it in Crow Runners, Marauders, Bosotho Cavalry, and The Lord of Steel), I just need to hamstring yours in this scenario.

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I wonder if this isn't actually a "How does GB handle this in faction?" question for Supply Cache.

Kings Empire and Burning Man have their advanced deployment.  Abyssinia has Crow Runners who can just walk forward at the start of the turn and stand on the markers.  So the attacker gets two unit activations to try to get the crows off, and then the defender gets to activate.

For Gibbering Hordes, going second in Supply Cache, the Tidal Scepter commander upgrade essentially lets you deploy units 3" further past the deployment zone line.  That should be enough to have 120mm base fireteams standing on top of the 50mm objective markers.  

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Creeping Ever Closer: While deploying, your Deployment Zone is increased by +3" for every instance of this Ability in your Company. This does not increase your Deployment Zone size for other game purposes.

What with the other half of the effects of Tidal Scepter, it seems like a pretty good choice for getting units across the table and getting to those markers.

So, after thinking about, I don't think Advanced Deployment troops in particular have a huge effect on Supply Cache.  Because at least half the armies have ways of crossing the table without bothering with Advanced Deployment (especially with Behind Enemy Lines as an Earth-side stratagem when you're playing a two commander game), so you've got to think about how you're going to protect your supply cache markers anyway.

 

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We were playing 1 Commander ganes si markers could be 8" from each other and it was smaller tables. And limited troop choice, as well as catching my opponent off guard with the tripple bomb.

You know what, after thinking about it and looking through all the Alligiences, you are right that if I do the tripple trap set up, all have a troop or another that would be able to react either to stop it or remove 2 of the 3 traps that could be set turn 1 by that unit (well, with black ops it's harder since they can spread 3 tokens very far away so can probably get away with 2 turn 1 which I'm not too keen on ...).

On Supply Cache though, just removing 1 before you activate anything can be quite crippling though. I'd gladly deploy a suicide Infiltrator unit to remove one of the markers and engage stuff. Though you are right that all Alligiences have units that can body guard due to either Deployment or movement tricks like the Crow Runners, so might just be about updating tactics.

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1 hour ago, Razhem said:

We were playing 1 Commander ganes si markers could be 8" from each other and it was smaller tables. And limited troop choice, as well as catching my opponent off guard with the tripple bomb.

I have no idea what you mean by "limited troop choice".  

1 hour ago, Razhem said:

You know what, after thinking about it and looking through all the Alligiences, you are right that if I do the tripple trap set up, all have a troop or another that would be able to react either to stop it or remove 2 of the 3 traps that could be set turn 1 by that unit (well, with black ops it's harder since they can spread 3 tokens very far away so can probably get away with 2 turn 1 which I'm not too keen on ...).

It's a Chicken scenario.  You want to plant the explosives early enough to prevent the other player doing it, but late enough that they can't kill you off and snag the VP.

And if you just leave the infiltrators parked near the center line, you find out how many fireteams are deployed on the deployment line with Sp6 or greater to rush and engage them so that they can't plant explosives.

1 hour ago, Razhem said:

On Supply Cache though, just removing 1 before you activate anything can be quite crippling though. I'd gladly deploy a suicide Infiltrator unit to remove one of the markers and engage stuff. Though you are right that all Alligiences have units that can body guard due to either Deployment or movement tricks like the Crow Runners, so might just be about updating tactics.

I'd like to direct you to the Gibbering Hordes alliance when they're playing Pitched Assault.  I'm pretty sure there's a whole lot of GH players who take a few minutes to get over the fact that they're killing their own fireteams, and just get on with their plans to the murder the entire other army.

Any quick exchanges gained on turn one are far more likely to end up costing you VP in the second half of the game.

Disclaimer:  If a TOS game at a tournament doesn't go to round five, the scenarios don't work.  But that's a whole different thread.

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With limited choice I just meant that at 1 Commander there's few script and we clearly still haven't gotten used to what needs to be in the force each mission.

Whenever I say aggressively putting or removing markers it's because I'm attacker, if I'm defender I would deploy to avoid it happening to me from now on or put them back, since I've already learned that forward Deployment Infiltrators when you are defender it's a bad time.

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9 hours ago, Razhem said:

With limited choice I just meant that at 1 Commander there's few script and we clearly still haven't gotten used to what needs to be in the force each mission.

Makes much more sense now. You're still feeling out force composition and how to plan your own placement on scenarios. There's a lot of depth to the game beyond "what should I hire" when you start accounting for your opponent's faction and the Operation. With Single Commander games on a 4x4 board, the Operations that feature player-placed Objective Markers will play out quite differently depending on how they are placed. In scenarios like Supply Cache, where your opponent is trying to destroy the markers you place it's in your best interest to place the markers as far back from the center line and as far apart as possible in general. If your opponent has things that deploy outside of the Deployment Zone, then you'll also want to think about the limitations on that special deployment and plan your Objective placement accordingly.

As @solkan said: beware of early exchanges. I mentioned a scenario above where 3 Tactics Tokens net 2 VP on the first activation of the first turn. The issue there is that those Infiltrators are on a suicide mission, and different factions will have different levels of enthusiasm about it:

  • Abyssinia will take advantage of the Df4 to get their most dangerous stuff into Glory (just need a margin of success or a Tome on a Prototype). I mentioned Inspired rewrites of history because at the last event at my FLGS one of the Aby players did just that to win the game: Gloried Electrocutioners nuked Objective Markers (using inspired tokens and hand set up by the Aby card draw engine), nullifying his opponent's entire gameplan halfway through the game.
  • KE Allegiance will get themselves to Glory a fireteam at a time With Advance or Focused Effort Orders and picking off a single team as part of it; they have the whole turn to do so and will have a much easier time making up those VP as a result. Any other elements that were planning on running Objectives will have to worry about a Gloried Margaret Belle and Gloried Royal Rifle Corps picking them off, even as the rest of the opposing KE main effort plays the scenario on their planned schedule.
  • Gibbering Hordes will also have less concerns about this exchange, because that early lead from you lets them get their Stratagems cheaper and they likely weren't going to be getting their VP scoring on until late Turn 2 or even Turn 3, after they've ripped the heart out of your ability to stop them. Something nasty and clawed/toothy will happily scamper up and engage those Infiltrators, knowing that any real effort at countering them will cost more resources (cards, Tactics Tokens, Actions/Activations) and that even if the counter works, those gribbly fiends will be back the next turn... because what better way to use the discount savings than to plop some those recently dead Skulkers right back where they present a continuous lurking threat?
  • Cult has movement shenanigans that outclass the Infiltrators, even outside of the ECB. They'll even out the exchange by gaining their own 2 VP at the cost of 2 Tactics Tokens over the course of the turn, putting them ahead on efficiency right off the bat, which will really start to show in later turns. It will also likely be very painful to not just your Infiltrators, but anything near your own Objective Markers.

In a tournament with players of varying skills and time limits there's a possibility that the game won't make it all the way to turn 5, but when that's the case, the scenarios and balance don't work. GH attrition play, for example, really starts to sink in in Turn 3, when their first assault wave has had a chance to Endless Numbers back in and take advantage of Reinforcing at least once and start playing the scenario more; their trading half of their Company for half of yours works out to their advantage in the long run if you're not playing GH as well.

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Ok, thanks for the extra clarifications. Though Gibbering have Yarazi to get explosives in set trap turn 1 removed and the tidal scepter only increases Deployment area for deploying, so you can set up your supply cache next to the standard Deployment area abd set up a unit a but more advanced to body block it or engage cheeky Infiltrators that got too close. So yeah, between your comments and Solkan I can see I overreacted.

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