Infinity N4 - Ikari Company Fireteams

It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?! Well today I’m here to talk about my favorite NA2 army a bit, the Ikari Company. Now that we’ve had a while to play some games and adapt to not only the new edition, but also the new fireteam rules, it’s about time to put it into context.

Quick Fireteam Refresher

Now, before we get too deep into how fireteams affect my beloved Ikari Company, let’s briefly go over how fireteams work now, thanks to the brand new N4 Rules Annex. The overall bonus for a 5-man link (assuming they’re all from the same unit) has actually not changed at all, you’ll receive +1 Burst, +3 BS, Sixth Sense and +3 to discover, just like before. The big difference is how mixed fireteams work, and what constitutes a mixed fireteam.

As you can see above, the bonuses are divided into two columns. First is the Fireteam Size Bonus, all fireteams will receive those bonuses, regardless of their composition, based on how many members of the fireteam there are. Pretty easy. The Composition Bonus is an additional bonus you get if your models are all from the same unit. Some models have a unit name in parentheses, such as (Druze), which will indicate that the model counts as a Druze unit for the sake of getting that composition bonus. If all models aren’t of the same unit, you don’t get that column of extras.

So, like I said before, 5-man, un-mixed teams are basically the same, though degrade a bit differently, while mixed units are going to miss out on +2 BS and +3 Discover. On the flip-side of things, you can get 3-member teams with +3 Discover, or a 4-member team with +1 BS.

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Ikari and So Can You!

With that all out of the way, let’s get to the real business, how this affects the Ikari Company. To the left (or above on mobile, click to make it bigger), you can see the list of fireteams available to Ikari Company, thanks to the mobile app. A lot of the links look familiar, but there are some major differences to go over, and those composition bonuses are something new you’re going to need to consider.

One of the most important bits to keep track of are the list of Wildcard units: Bounty Hunters, Brawlers, and Diggers. The later two will count as Druze for fireteam composition (allowing them to keep the +3 Discover), but otherwise their inclusion is going to get rid of the Composition Bonus for fireteams. Given the Ikari fireteam options, I don’t think it’s going to be worth trying to preserve the composition bonus, possibly outside of running a Druze Haris. These unit do give you a ton of flexibility, especially since Brawlers includes a good number of specialists.

Keisotsus (Haris, Core)

First up is the humble Keisotsu link. Just like previously, they can include a Tanko, but as the Tanko doesn’t have (Keisotsu) next to it’s name, doing so is going to cost you the Composition Bonus. It might look like they lost adding a Brawler to the link, but remember they’re wildcards now, and you can include twice as many as before. This is a very decent, dirt cheap defensive link, but you’re not going to get the high BS on the Tanko missile launchers or Brawler Snipers that you were before. The good news is that you can now add Diggers, and Bounty Hunters to the fireteam as well. The Brawler Doctor to keep that Tanko and other defensive weapons up, or a Brawler Sniper with MSV2 to deny smoke with a decent ARO are great options to look at. Alternatively, you could go nuts with a Tanko and a pair of Diggers, along with a single Keisotsu (Lieutenant?) and Brawler Doctor. It can put out a fair bit of damage and take a beating at the same time. You can keep the link cheap and defensive, or with all those wildcards you can make a more offensive link and minimize the number of Keisotsu. As a Haris I don’t think they offer much, but you can go with a Brawler Doctor, Keisotsu Missile and Tanko Missile for a cheap, 60 point ARO team that will be really obnoxious to deal with.

Wu Ming (Haris, Core)

Now this is a unit that I need to totally reconsider… I never really took them before, but now I have a hard time not! They have access to a Tinbot (-6), and can fill their unit with cheap Wildcards to add redundancy, and still get the Clipper for a remote-based missile launcher. My first thought is to toss a Brawler Hacker into the unit, giving them the defense of that great TinBot (-6) while they do their hacking duties, and Sixth Sense (in a 4+ member fireteam) to prevent stealth units from sneaking through their repeater nets. Bringing along their own doctor is not a bad idea either to keep them operating. As a Haris, you can treat them similar to the Keisotsu or Tanko Haris, two weapon pieces plus a doctor. Another wild idea would be the TinBot Wu Ming with a pair of Diggers which would push a lot of cheap and tough direct templates up the board with some hacking defense.

Tanko (Duo, Haris)

Or Gank-o, amirite? Tanko are awesome, super cheap heavy infantry. They’re not much more than a Digger, but can do a lot for their cost, thanks to the N4 Martial Arts change, their MA2 is much more relevant as well. You can add a Daiyokai to their teams, which is well worth considering to get their Red Fury up to B5. On their own as a Haris, you can go the double missile and a brawler doctor route as a tough ARO unit, or direct template missile with some Diggers, maybe even a small assault team with Tanko, Daiyokai, and Brawler Doctor. The only thing they can’t do anymore is join a Druze link… le sad. You can do a Tanko with two Diggers still, but the Wu Ming bringing the TinBot gives them a lot more survival as they advance.

Druze (Duo, Haris)

First and foremost, you’ll notice that Druze lost the ability to form a Core at all (no more 4 Druze + Tanko core), which is a pretty huge change. After you stop crying about that, you’ll see that what you can do with Druze is really interesting. They lost the Tanko, but can now take a Brawlers, Diggers, Taowu, or Arslan, all counting as Druze for that +3 to discover bonus. Additionally if you don’t mind losing that bonus you can mix in some Bounty Hunters or a Clipper. I think the Discover Bonus can be a big deal for countering enemy camo markers, so I’d consider Arslan (with that MSV1), a Druze Hacker (for the B2 Pitcher), and a Digger (to bring the cost down) as a pretty effective toolkit, you could swap the either Arslan or the Hacker out for a HMG or Sniper if you want some firepower, but I might leave that to the Wu Ming. There’s probably a fun, or good use for Taowu here, but since you’re limited to a Haris it can get iffy, you’re going to have to be impersonating a Druze, Brawler, or Digger, maybe disguised as a Brawler Sniper to make people work extra hard to advance with smoke… or you could just take a real Brawler Sniper.

Scarface (Duo)

Scarface and Cordelia are one of the most iconic duos in Infinity, that said, sometimes he leaves Cordelia behind and can now bring along a whole host of different friends! Motorized Bounty Hunters give a dirt cheap buddy to bring along that can keep up with the high speed of Scarface, or he can buddy up with a Triphammer for double tag stomping (probably cooler sounding than it is). You could also fill that second gap with a Wildcard Bounty Hunter, Digger, or Brawler, but I’m not sure any of those are much better than the Motorized Bounty Hunter. Maybe with a Digger for a cheap buddy to throw under the bus and eat AROs? Lemme know if you get much mileage out of any of the Scarface Duos, I’d love to see what works for you!

Krakot Renegades (Duo)

A pair of Krakot or Krakot with Kendrat is a rude little unit that can catch an unsuspecting opponent in a really bad spot. I’d definitely consider the possibility of a Krakot with Digger, but you’re going to have to be careful with deployment. Really, if any member of this duo reaches the enemy lines they’re going to be sad, and with how cheap Krakots can be, it’s a toy that fits well in the theme of Ikari.

Wildcards

I’ve already mentioned this a bit, but any fireteam can get Bounty Hunters, Brawlers, and Diggers, though outside of Druze with the later two, you’re going to give up that extra link bonus. While you cannot have a Brawler link on it’s own, being able to add two to any other link gets you most of the way there, you can add them to either Keisotsu or Wu Ming if you want a 5-man, or Druze to make a decent Haris. Overall, I think that can be worth the price for the sake of getting cheaper links onto the table. The ability to wildcard things like a MSV2 Sniper, Doctors and Engineers is actually pretty fantastic for spreading your specialist coverage and keeping your units active on the table.

All three of the wildcards are listed at 0-2, so you can have two of each in a link, such as two Diggers, two Brawlers, and a Wu Ming as a Wu Ming core.

Dirty Buisness

Overall, Ikari Company fireteams are going to be pretty different than they were before. The loss of the Druze Core probably won’t be that impactful, since it was pretty expensive to run without cheap filler, but now that we have cheap filler, we can’t run it… almost feels intentional, haha. Ikari now are really going to want to focus on those Wu Ming though, able to fill them out with inexpensive Diggers and Brawlers gives them a lot more utility. I can even see playing this army a lot like Dahshat, with a pair of three-man links, Wu Ming and Tanko bringing inexpensive firepower to the table, while Desperado and Yuan Yuan pressure the enemy. You could very well run into a problem where you need to spend more points on things thanks to the order cap, but that’s fine, just dust off that Al Fasid you’ve never actually got on the table!