It’s Not the List, it's You! Game 2: Yu Jing vs Morats
This week, I took on Adam's Morats. Once again, I was using the first legal list generated by the N3 random army generator, versus his list that is tailor-made with the scenario in mind. Adam is a relative newcomer to Infinity, while I've been playing for a number of years, so once again we're exploring the idea that smart play can be applied to any combination of units, even whacky ones.
The Lists
Morat Aggression Force ──────────────────────────────────────────────────
Group 1
8
0
0
MORAT Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 14)
YAOGAT MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, CCW. (1.5 | 34)
ZERAT Hacker (EI Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 25)
ANYAT K1 Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, Smoke Grenades, E/M Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (25)
RODOK Hacker (EI Assault Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 25)
MED-TECH OBSIDON MEDCHANOID Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (23)
SLAVE DRONE Electric Pulse. (3)
RAICHO MULTI HMG, Heavy Flamethrower / . (2 | 91)
Group 2
OZNAT Combi Rifle + Light Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Shock CCW. (20)
GAKI AP CCW. (4)
PRETA Chain Rifle / AP CCW. (7)
5.5 SWC | 300 Points
Yu Jing ──────────────────────────────────────────────────
Group 1
ONIWABAN Lieutenant Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Monofilament CCW. (41)
OYAMA Chain Rifle, E/M Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW, EXP CCW. (34)
WÚ MÍNG (Forward Observer) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (31)
YURIKO ODA Combi Rifle, Panzerfaust, D-Charges, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, CCW. (24)
KEISOTSU Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 14)
Zhanshi YĪSHĒNG Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (15)
YÁOZĂO Electric Pulse. (3)
KARAKURI Combi Rifle, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (35)
SHAOLIN Combi Rifle + Smoke Light Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Shock CCW. (1 | 11)
ZÚYǑNG (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (28)
HAC TAO MULTI Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, DA CCW. (64)
2.5 SWC | 300 Points
Adam: We didn't notice until after the game that vanilla Yu Jing can't take an Oniwaban Lieutenant, whoops! No big deal really though, we just have to be more careful about double checking the random generator next time!
Set Up
The list generator sure gave me an interesting one. The upside was that I had five fantastic Specialists: The Karakuri, the Wu Ming, the Zuyong, Yuriko and the Doc. I even got a palbot for the Doc, which is helpful. The downside is that I didn't get any heavy weapons. Besides Yuriko's Panzerfaust, I didn't have any rangebands that reached further than 16 inches. We had a couple of long lanes on the table that I didn't have much hope of contesting. Just to keep things hilarious also, I ended up with a smoke grenade launcher on a Ballistic Skill 9 model and Neko Oyama showed up to party.
Adam: The scenario for this game was Antenna Field. I've only played it once, but Michael on the other hand was quite familiar with it.
However I won the Lieutenant roll-off and got a chance to see what Adam was bringing by having him deploy first. This made it pretty easy to spot the Raicho. It also encouraged him to take first turn, which helps me score and avoid having Orders stolen.
The Raicho went down in a visible spot, so I dropped Yuriko and the Keisotsu opposite the TAG to pin it down and maybe get lucky with some AP+EXP action.
MAF Turn 1
I had a feeling I would want all my coordinated orders, and opted not to use a Command Token stealing Orders. The Raicho and the pack of Hungries were both intimidating, and the combination of the two can be dangerous. The reaon for that is pretty simple: If you hide from the MULTI HMG, the Hungries eat you with their chain rifles. If you go on overwatch to cover your lanes and zap the incoming hungries, the MULTI HMG will destroy you.
The list generator didn't give me any Visor units, so I wouldn't be able to see through any smoke that was laid down anyway. In addition, HI forces are pretty resilient to Preta attacks, since their high PH, good ARM and multiple Wounds makes them resistant to Chain Rifles.
The Morats came out strong, with the Oznat laying a smoke field to blind my Keisotsu missile. I revealed the Hac Tao to try and pick off the Oznat when she wasn't the link leader, but the shot missed at long range and she easily covered herself in smoke after that. The Hungries scattered around outside my DZ, forcing me to come dig them out in my own turn instead of grabbing objectives. The Raicho stormed out, beating out Yuriko who failed her saves and ducked behind Total Cover. Anyat came out to grab an objective, the Raicho went into Suppressive Fire, and Adam kicked the ball over to me.
Yu Jing Turn 1
My first move was the Shaolin's Impetuous into a Preta hiding in a corner. The Shock CC could bypass Dogged easily enough. The Shaolin dashed in, took the Chain Rifle hit, swung unopposed and the Preta made its save. The Shaolin wasn't so lucky and down he went... Lovely. That Preta was too far away for me to send someone else to get him, so I had to ignore it for now.
The Hac Tao's MULTI Rifle was just the right tool for putting down Pretas though. The Karakuri did a long-range Combi burst to drop the Oznat and break the link so I wouldn't be eating too many Burst 2 Chain Rifle hits in ARO, then the Hac Two went to work (only taking one Chain Rifle hit in the process and making his save.)
With my DZ slightly cleared out, the second priority was the Raicho. I revealed the Oniwaban, weaving through terrain so that I could get close enough to the Raicho to swing while benefiting from Surprise Attack. I made it into melee, landing two hits with Martial Arts 4. The Yaogat crit with a cross-table shot and put the Oniwaban down, and the Raicho passed both Monofilament saves. Boo... Time for Plan B. Yuriko and the Karakuri coordinated their Panzerfaust/DEP shots, with the Raicho opting to ARO against Yuriko. She DEP missed unopposed, and Yuriko got obliterated by an EXP HMG round. Booo...
With few Orders to work with this round, I ended with Suppressive Fire on the Karakuri, hoping it could at least slow the Raicho down enough that it wouldn't eat everything I had. The Morats held 2 objectives to my 1, and scored for the turn.
MAF Turn 2
Now I was worried. He maneuvered the Rodok and Doc Worm to grab the center and left objectives, meaning he was sitting on 4 now, before sending the Raicho straight at the Karakuri.
I would have felt a bit better with the heavy shotgun or Mk12, but I seriously doubted the Combi could even scratch the paint on an ARM8 TAG. However, the Raicho was so pumped at the thought of getting into my backline that it left cover and walked right into short range where the HMG wouldn't do much good. It went for the heavy flamethrower shot, probably (Adam says "definitely") unaware that the Karakuri has Total Immunity. I knocked a Wound off, passed my save, we repeated the process and I knocked another Wound off, failing my save. At this point the Raicho had to back up and get support from Doc Worm, with the Karakuri still blazing away. I had survived a pretty grim turn, but I still had a lot of work to do.
Yu Jing Turn 2
Thankfully the Raicho was a bit battered, and a few orders maneuvering the Hac Tao let me flank it with the MULTI Rifle and put it down some some AP rounds. I still had some serious objective running to do, and most of my remaining Specialists were completely pinned down by the Yaogat Sniper whom I 100% couldn't challenge. With no long-range weapons there, my options were limited. This meant I had to focus on killing his objective grabbers with my left side (Hac Tao, Karakuri, Neko Oyama) who were still free to maneuver thanks to the Raicho going down.
Anyat was hiding prone on a rooftop and covered by the Yaogat, so that wasn't going to happen. My best bets were taking down both the Rodok and Doc Worm, then planting the Karakuri on an objective. This would let me tie for two more rounds, plus hold the center console at the end of the game, letting me squeak out a win. With that in mind, I set about using the resources I had. Oyama was a nice athletic Chain Rifle with 2 Wounds, so I wanted him to do the majority of clearing the objectives so the Karakuri didn't lose its last Structure point. He dashed up, Dodged through the Rodok's mine, blasted him with a Chain Rifle, then forced Doc Worm to retreat off his objective with a failed Dodge. The Karakuri followed him up the table and camped on the critical center objective.
MAF Turn 3
My big push up the left side helped to swing things. I had the Karakuri in a defensible position camping the center, I had scared Doctor Worm off the left objective, and the Morats no longer had enough Orders to threaten my home objective.
Anyat stepped up and decided to take a risk. Leaving her objective, she dashed for the middle in an attempt to wrestle the objective away from the Karakuri, and was brought down by a chain rifle shot. Oyama caught a ton of fire from the Yaogat and Doc worm, trying to drive him back enough to let Doc Worm retake the objective, but some fancy Dodging meant it wasn't going to happen for the MAF.
By the time the final Morat Order was spent, I was in a dominant position holding two objectives to the Morats' one objective. I had even managed to score a Classified, with the Karakuri Observing the Rodok as the Geishabot set up on the middle objective.
Reflections
Michael: Oof, what a ride. There were two things that made this list tough to use. The first was the lack of long range weapons, which allowed the one Yoagat to completely dominate the table and keep some of my best Specialists pinned. The other factor was the lack of diverse Specialists, though thankfully I drew Telemetry and didn't have to worry about Hacking, D-Charges or anything else I didn't have.
Adam: I went into the game pretty confident, knowing that he would have a random army, I knew there was a distinct possibility that he wouldn't have the tools to deal with smoke or a TAG, so why not capitalize on both?! I had never played this scenario, and have only played against Yu Jing once before, so I knew there were going to be some things I wouldn't expect, that Karakuri was one of them. My Raicho was a champ, shaking off the Oniwanban while the sniper blew his head off, though I obviously got too aggressive with the Raicho, thinking the heavy flame thrower and tons of armour would be enough to clear out that damn geisha-bot. That puts me 0-2 against randomly generated Yu Jing lists, I think next time we're going to try a random PanO army (which I've never faced), so that will be interesting!