Tournament Lists Again!

August is approaching and it’s a good month for infinity.  First of all you can buy new models with your tax return, but also The ‘Burn City Brawl or the BCB is on in Melbourne. The BCB is one of Australia’s biggest tournaments and winning it will get you some serious clout around Victoria.  Here in the NT we are having our own smaller tournament at the “Stone Monkey” hobby store once again.  I want to use some of the list building ideas from previous blogs and apply them to these tournament missions which are Superiority and Unmasking.  

The first thing I notice about these missions is that there are no classified cards and that’s good because the rumour is that they are getting thrown out next season anyway.  Looking at other similarities in these missions they both have the hacker bonus for activating objectives.  They are also both about area control, the aim is to keep your opponent away from the objectives, scoring zones and HVTs.  It’s also important to note that unmasking has an Exclusion Zone and that is going to affect our list greatly.  

Having redundancy in hacking units is going to be good for these missions, because it will give you more opportunities to score objective points.  The weaknesses of hackers is that they are usually not good at gunfighting (although some premium units can do both) and they are vulnerable to Killer Hackers.  It is possible to overcome these weaknesses with things like marker state and tin-bots.  Something to remember is that Killer Hackers get the specialist bonus and they are able to eliminate their counterparts on the enemy team.  Units like the Raptor Killer Hacker and the Sombra Killer Hacker will be at an advantage.  

With all the Hackers that are sure to be on the table taking a TAG would probably be a bit foolish, but an unhackable gunfighter would be a good pickup.  Remember that shooting is usually the most effective way to remove pieces from the table and it could be a good way to catch your opponent off guard.  Medium and Light infantry are great for this as well as some Ariadnan Heavies. Expect to see the Unknown Ranger, Psicops and Moiras.  

Even though there is an Exclusion Zone, infiltration and forward deployment are skills that you may want to consider.  The ability to have a starting presence in the scoring zone for Superiority is quite valuable even though you will be hampered in Unmasking.  +6 to infiltration on units like Uxia McNeil and Bran Do Castro is really flexible in this mission line-up as it can be used in an Alpha-Strike or to hold a zone.  (Not to mention Impersonation)

Deployables can play an important role in both of these missions.  Dropping a mine is a great way to keep your opponents out of your half of the table, where all your HVTs and scoring zones are.  Pitchers are another deployable that can give your units the advantage against enemy hackables.  The counter to this is to take warbands that can dodge through minefields on a high PH stat such as Varangians or Morlocks, these guys can also remove pitchers with no trouble.  If you don’t want to risk dodging then you can send a peripheral to detonate the mines.  Try to get more than one to explode at once by running the Zondbot into the enemy lines.  

Below is a list that I have constructed for the tournament.   It is weighted towards superiority with several forward deploying units.  However only the Morans’ and the Zero are paying points for infiltration, the Heckler and the Sombra have forward deployment.   

This is a hacking heavy list but it has some great gunfighters in the Kriza Borac and the Sombra.  The Kriza is a hackable heavy infantry, but he is in a Duo with the Hollow Men hacker and Tin-bot, and that will offer him some protection from enemy Hackers.  I chose not to make the Sombra a hacker to keep her free from Killer Hacking attempts, the profile that I took also has AP mines which I think will be useful.  The Tomcat Doctor has several uses, he can assassinate the Designated Targets in Unmasking, help to dominate a zone in Superiority, detonate mines with his zond-bot and obviously he can heal unconscious units.