Thursday 27 November 2014

List of the Week - Stuck in a (Ma)Rut

A while back on the Infinity forums I chimed in on a thread about getting the most out of the Marut in ITS at the 300 points level.

The Marut has always been tricky to fit into a list. It's expensive (122 points), is an obvious Lt (due to Strategos) and is part of an elite and expensive faction where you don't have cheap rifle-toting troops to provide orders. This can make supporting it properly, whilst still having sufficient specialists for ITS, a challenge. Needless to say it doesn't get much table time.

I was initially going to write up a 300pt Marut list for ITS, but my heart wasn't in it. You can read most of my thoughts about it in that thread anyway. Long story short, just use an Asura instead and save 50 points.

Then fate intervened and I received a PM from Urian on the forums asking for help building a 400 point Marut-lead Aleph army for an upcoming Spanish Spec-Ops tournament. The catch was that he really needed to submit it that day. After a lot of discussion, here is the list he used.

Look behind you! - Image from Corvus Belli

For reference the missions played were Seize the Antennae, Antennae Field, Quadrant Control, Supplies and Annihilation. His second list for the tournament is a super sweet collaboration we came up with which contains Eudaros as the Lt, an Asura, two Zayin and lots of other cool stuff. Honestly, I think it's the better of the two lists and I will definitely try out something very similar soon

 Aleph | 15 models
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Combat Group #1
 Achilles Spitfire (80|2)
 Marut Lieutenant (122|3)
 Chandra combi (Chain of Command, Hacker (Hacking Device), Minelayer) (16|0|12xp)
 Myrmidon Chain (16|0)
 Naga Minelayer (27|0.5)
 Netrod (4|0)
 Netrod (4|0)
 Zayin Rebot (27|1)
 Thorakites FO (16|0)
 Thorakites FO (16|0)
Combat Group #2
 Myrmidon Chain (16|0)
 Netrod (4|0)
 Probot Minesweeper (8|0)
 Proxy Mk.1 Engineer (14|0)
 Proxy Mk.2 Sniper (29|1.5)
________________________________________________________

399/400 points | 8/8 swc
open with Aleph Toolbox  : http://goo.gl/UvAX7g

So what do we have here? Achilles AND a Marut? Well alright then.

Everything apart from Achilles and the Marut is geared entirely towards staying alive and then just letting the two heavyweights do their jobs. It's definitely built for more fighty missions (and indeed, it was used for Quadrant Control and Annihilation only) where it's mix of specialists is just about sufficient for completing the easier objectives.

The first combat group is designed to keep you from being rushed on the first turn. The Zayin and the Minelayers can cover two or three avenues of approach .The Thorakitai can (in theory) stop any model in it's tracks with a Flash Pulse or can kill troops like Pretas, Ragiks, Diomedes and Kuang Shi outright using their Shock ammo. Last but not least, the Myrmidon is there for added Smoke cover and, if deployed near to the Marut, can protect her with smoke in ARO.

The second combat group is small but perfectly formed. The Myrmidon is there to throw smoke for the Marut without using up her orders and in later turns the Engineer can go around picking up objectives. If desperately needed, the Minesweeper can clear up Monomines that your opponent may try and use to kill the Marut early. It's a jack-of-all-trades group that will always be able to make use of the orders it has.

You may notice the lack of a Doctor or a Yudbot for the Engineer. The plan should be not to need them. If Achilles goes down then you just switch to the Marut and keep going and vice-versa. It's not a list where you want to take a break to patch your models up.

I have to say, I'm not sure that taking both those expensive models in one list is a good idea, even at 400 points. But if you are going to insist on it then you could do a lot worse than with this list.

Oh, and the final result for Urian? 11th out of 58. Not a bad showing at all.

Hmm... maybe it's time to get my Marut painted then?

1 comment:

  1. Urian contacted me via PM to say that he couldn't post to my blog for some reason, but could I leave this comment here for him? I certainly can!

    "Urian here!

    Nothing special to bring to the post, Phlyk explains the tactics of the best I list.

    Regarding the question of whether it is advisable to take two very expensive models in the same list, I must say, in my last game against Bakunin, my little Marut was destroyed in the first turn, the victim of a sensor observer and missile guidance. What would have happened if there becomes Achilles? difficult to say, but at that time I was happy to have him XD

    An excellent entry, and only thank to Phlyk all the help and advice he gave me for making the list, that 11th position it wouldn´t have done it without our chats :)"

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