The Raveneye updates in late March 2022 have changed the way Fireteams are composed in Infinity, and that means shake-ups of all Sectorial armies’ internal balance and the common formats of their lists. More particularly, it means we need to update our previous article on the Corregidor Jurisdictional Command Sectorial. Corregidor was previously defined by the flexibility and efficiency of its Fireteams. That emphasis on flexibility is now common to all Sectorials, some of which even exceed Corregidor in breadth of Fireteam options, but the details of who teams up with who have all changed. On top of the Fireteam churn, Corregidor was lucky enough to receive some new units, which affected their competitive options (to varying degrees). We’ll look at these new units first, then go through the new Fireteam options in detail and examine how they affect the Sectorial’s army lists and overall competitiveness. 

New Units

Gator Squadron

Corregidor has a main battle TAG! The basic package for this sort of unit (ARM8, Multi HMG, a suite of special rules like BS Attack +1 Damage, Tactical Awareness, ECM-6) is extremely pushed in Infinity N4. They are usually good deals for their points and the Gator is no exception. Over and above the normal TAG strengths, it has some cost-efficient extras that mitigate the troop type’s weaknesses. It has 20CC with Natural Born Warrior, and an E/M CCW, which is probably the best melee weapon in the game, which hits at Damage 18. So while not a unit you’d likely intentionally enter CC with, it can’t be neutralised by just any Martial Artist Warband unit that comes along. It also packs a Mine Dispenser, which I think is great for a heavy TAG. It gives you something to do with the second half of positioning Orders and can set up some nice attack forks in the Active Turn – move out of Line of Fire, drop 2 mines near your target, then move to the corner and provoke the ARO. This can even hit multiple models (eg a Fireteam) if your opponent is sloppy with positioning and/or doesn’t see the trick coming. Mine dispenser offers a nice synergy with Salyut Zonds’ Baggage rule – if your opponent deploys ‘head down’ and you don’t want to get aggressive with that Combat Group, you can just lay mines, reload and lay them again! The Gator also has NCO for 2pts over the otherwise identical basic profile. There’s no reason to ever drop the NCO upgrade – this is the perfect unit and faction for it, you always have a passive Lt in Corregidor and you will almost always want to spend Orders on a heavy TAG. 

For all models in Infinity, not just TAGs, there’s a lot of debate amongst keen players on whether those sort of extra skills and equipment are positives or not. Is it better to have these extra rules to cover your weaknesses, or just stay cheap and excel at one thing, relying on the other moving parts of your force, deployment, terrain, player skill, and dictating the tempo of the game to your opponent? We can definitively answer: it depends. In the Gator’s case, you really pay very little for the extra skills and they all work well to support the role of a firepower TAG. A comparison would be the Szalamandra, which is hitherto acknowledged to be the most competitive Nomad TAG. It’s especially infamous for its role in the current meta Nomad list, where it is the main (usually only) direct long-range firepower piece, and relies on the other parts of the list to keep the enemy at arm’s length so it can do work. My thesis is that the Gator is comparably competitive to the Szalamandra. It costs 4pts more, but .5SWC less, which I really value in Corregidor. Of course NCO is in itself worth something, even more in Corregidor than vanilla Nomads. It lacks Burst 5 and the extra long-range effectiveness of the Szally’s HRMC, but it gains a lot of tools to protect itself from counter-attacks. I would probably give either a shot in vanilla Nomads. For Corregidor, it’s simply a game-changer. TAGs are one of the top types of ‘sweeper’ models. They make it suicidal for your opponent to stand up in Reactive turn during the initial long range exchanges, since you can simply beast through most, trusting your armour to withstand a lucky ARO. BS14 with AP or Shock ammo at Damage 16 is basically the best long range firepower in Corregidor, especially since our Core Fireteam options took a bit of a hit. In any mission or match-up (or on any table) where you want to smash the enemy at range, you should consider the Gator. 

Diablos of D-Block

Essentially Heavy Infantry Warbands, these are an interesting addition, exemplifying some of the ways Corvus Belli tunes up new options to make them unique and highly competitive relative to more traditional profile designs. They have low ARM and WIP, and they degrade when wounded, but hey, 2 STR! They’re Impetuous, which makes them cheap, but they can always be popped into a Fireteam to prevent that. They have a combi rifle profile, but realistically you’ll be taking the light shotgun or SMG options to keep them cheap. 2STR models for 15-16pts? That’s got to have some potential to frustrate your opponent. One issue – these do not replace Jaguars entirely as the Warband option for Corregidor, because they lack smoke. With or without  any Multi Spectral Visors in your force, smoke is a vital tool to control the flow of the game, so Jaguars may sneak into one of your precious 15 slots in some cases. With CC23, and no Martial Arts, but Natural Born Warrior, Diablos are actually a little bit worse than jaguars at melee against untrained targets; they’ll face enemy martial artists on roughly equal terms, but they’re not a top-tier fighter like Senor Massacre, who can reliably take out enemy cc specialists. What Diablos do have is Berserk. That’s a powerful tool for dealing with enemies that have some way to challenge you in Face to Face rolls.

All of this makes Diablos a very useful troop for trading up on the attack. They don’t have any particular tools for winning FtF rolls, they just have Damage 14 light shotguns for template forks, and the ability to lay Damage 15 melee hits on targets, regardless of AROs. In the Reactive turn, they’re simply a very cheap roadblock your opponent has to batter through – but that only works well if they can claim cover. These guys benefit enormously from a Fireteam.

Lobos

It was a dark and stormy night. In CB’s studio, the designers sat burning the midnight oil and discussing Corregidor’s weaknesses. Obvious Lts and no way to mitigate Loss of Lt, they said. Like everyone, they’re vulnerable to Impersonators, they said. I wish we could do something about it, they said. In the haunted attic over their heads, a finger on the monkey’s paw curled inwards…

I mean, on paper, Biometric Visors and Veteran are useful abilities that relate to some common threats you have to deal with in Corregidor. But they are skills and kit models won’t reliably use, but do pay points for. On top of that Lobos have cc skills, but they don’t have the cheapness that comes with lack of proper ranged weapons, and allows warbands to be cost-efficient, or the smoke grenades that actually let them get into melee. All their profiles have a toolbox of weapons, including technical and non-lethal options, but nothing truly dangerous. They’re bloated profiles. The only thing you can’t do better for cheaper in Corregidor is hunt down Impersonators, but no one worries about dealing with Impersonators in the Active Turn, any model can do it, even if it turns into an Order sink sometimes. It’s stopping their threat in the Reactive that’s the problem, and Lobos offer no solution there.

Pretty much a complete dud, the only possible utility of Lobos is to include one of their profiles alongside Jaguars or Diablos to keep Fireteam composition bonuses, which brings us onto the body of the article.

Raveneye Officer

Something of an O-12 work exchange, the Raveneye Officer is a neat enough little profile, but doesn’t really mesh into Corregidor well enough to add anything. 12pts for an SMG Forward Observer who can lay an E/M mine in your deployment zone. In many factions this would be a decent choice, especially for missions where you need specialists to flip objectives in the late game. But Corregidor has excellent cheap active specialists (e.g. Morans or Tomcats) who can operate outside the deployment zone. Their support specialists (e.g. Daktaris or Jazz) who start in the deployment zone have excellent options to fold into Fireteams, and their skills are more useful to support the rest of the force. Ultimately, not many Corregidor lists are going to spend one of their precious 15 ‘slots’ on this random dude who will spend most of the game hanging around at the back. A cheap E/M mine and back-up specialist is fine, but not a capability you actually need to cover in your list. 

Reminder: Fireteam Rules Changes

As with most armies, the biggest single change to Fireteams was the restriction of the maximum bonuses to a ‘composition bonus’ for Fireteams composed of only one unit (or units that count as that unit). This is only really meaningful for Core Fireteams of 4-5 models, the composition bonus for 3 model Fireteams (+3 to Discover) is not something worth building around in most cases. All Fireteams still receive the same benefits of Order efficiency, Sixth Sense (for ARO defence and for hacking) and of course +1 Burst. In short, the classic Core Fireteams, using cheap troops to grant bonuses to a powerful gunfighter Wildcard, got reined in, now acting on only +1BS. So other firepower solutions, like TAGs or other elite solo pieces, look better (at least in the Active turn) by comparison. 

For most Sectorials, it became easier to mash units and capabilities together. The thing is, Corregidor pre-update had so many, and such flexible, Wildcard choices that they could already optimize mixed teams. The Sectorial’s ability to compose Fireteams just shifted horizontally, losing some options and gaining others. The important change for Corregidor has been for their Core teams, which lost the +3BS they’d been accustomed to on a blend of highly efficient units. This is perhaps more galling for Corregidor than for some other Sectorials, because their Fireteam ‘point men’ were never apex gunfighters, just cost-efficient BS13 models which needed that boost to BS16 to truly dominate. Corregidor has very few ‘counts as’ unit profiles which allow mixed units to claim composition bonuses, and where these do exist, they are on utility units, they don’t allow any firepower units to gain the +3BS. 

Alongside a change to +1BS, rather than +3BS, on any desirable Core Fireteams, Corregidor lost the ability to use Mobile Brigadas and EVAders as Wildcards. We’ll look at the revamped Wildcard list in a minute – they did gain some interesting choices – but losing those solid firepower profiles stings. With the new rules, you can still include them in some flexible mixed teams, but you can no longer combine them with Jaguars (or the new Diablos) which are the best Fireteam filler in the Sectorial.

Corregidor had no change to the number of Fireteams they can field. They keep the ‘standard’ Fireteams available to most Sectorials: one Core, one Haris, and unlimited Duos can be active on the table at any given time. 

With all these changes, it is easy to see the updated Fireteam rules as a blow to Corregidor’s competitiveness. I see their Wildcard changes as more of a ‘swings and roundabouts’ reordering. They gained some, lost some. What is certain is that other Sectorials gained massively from the changes. Now that several can take 2 Haris teams alongside a Core, or like Morats can claim composition bonuses on ridiculously optimized mixed Fireteams, Corregidor have certainly been bumped off their pedestal as ‘the flexible Fireteam Sectorial’. But the inclusion of the new unit profiles completely makes up for this. The Gator especially opens new builds for competitive lists. Pre-update, Corregidor was quite a well-understood faction, with most competitive lists following a very similar structure. For the first time in a long time, opponents now have to guess what some of my key pieces might be before I start deploying – although it is still not the Sectorial you want for springing surprises.

Note: With 4-5 model Core Fireteams now much harder to gain full composition bonuses for, it is a valid choice to take 2x 3-model teams in a list. We are looking at the Fireteam types in terms of Core (4-5 model) and Haris (3 model) Fireteams; clearly all the advice given for Harises applies equally to 3 model Core Fireteams. 

Wildcard Options

We will look throughout this article at the eligible models for a Fireteam with the Wildcards included. There’s no point in considering the team categories without viewing the Wildcard selection alongside them. Although the exact list changed, Corregidor retains more Wildcard options than most Sectorials. I’ve said before that the most desirable Wildcards are either cheap utility filler, or truly dangerous firepower models to lead your teams. The options here include both.

Daktari are one of the most efficient filler units in the game. As a rule of thumb, if your Fireteam’s key model has Wounds rather than Structure, you definitely include a Dak to keep them in the fight. Valerya Gromoz and Jazz FTO both offer Pitchers for offensive hacking, and as relatively cheap hackers that are good to great at actually, y’know, hacking, but with no particular skills at moving or fighting, they are ideal for inclusion in a Fireteam, particularly a Core team which will stay bunkered up in your Deployment Zone until the late game. They can then benefit from Sixth Sense, and do their thing via their Pitchers and Corregidor’s strong Repeater network. Now if Jazz didn’t exist, Valerya would be a sound competitive choice. She’s good. But unless you’re going all in on hacking, you’ll probably take one of these, and it should always be Jazz. As part of this update, her FTO version went up a few points and gained a combi rifle. [Note for newer players: SMGs are the designers’ ‘cheat code’ to keep support units cheap, since they cost far less in their points-pricing formula than a rifle. As a result, any support specialist with an SMG is likely to be a good deal]

Jazz FTO is still a top-tier competitive unit. Her Hacking Device Plus, with added Trinity, gives too much utility and power over Valerya’s version. BTS6 is also very useful protection against hostile Trinity, especially since in a secure Core you can expect to stack it higher by operating behind Firewalls. Jazz FTO’s real competition is from her non-linkable version with Billie. Every Corregidor player should consider whether they want Jazz FTO – only worthwhile if they are using a 4-5 model Core team where she can stay protected and gain Sixth Sense – or simply take her with Billie, who is a great budget Order and board control piece. Note that HD+ also allows Cybermask, which is a great tool to protect her or enable reaching Objectives, and can’t be used in a Fireteam.

Lupe Balboa and Senor Massacre both offer an interesting capability to a Fireteam – smoke. One major downside of Fireteams is that if they get pinned down out of position, a decent chunk of your list is neutralised. With smoke, especially Senor Massacre’s Eclipse smoke, you can usually solve the problem. Lupe’s normal smoke also allows for easy access MSV smoke-shooting with Wildcats, but I’m not a fan of MSV1 smoke-shooting, it’s just not decisive. Because Senor Massacre offers a powerful melee ability, including against TAGs and other melee specialists, he’s usually the better choice for this role, compared to Lupe’s sort-of-but-not-really a gunfighter profile. She’s a jack of all trades but master of none. An OK specialist, OK but not punchy shooter, Dogged but not particularly resilient, it’s better to use a slot on a model with a clearer single purpose.

The Digger is a key utility and protection piece for Corregidor teams. I’ve been including it in most of my lists recently and if it were AVA2 I’d be tempted to try another! Specifically the cheaper, chain rifle and grenades profile. This is a cheap model that can be a speedbump or bodyguard for more valuable specialists and firepower models in the Reactive turn, and it can trade nicely on the Active turn. Of course there’s always the possibility with Booty that it turns into an even better capability. I take it as a disposable part of a 3-model team, or as filler and protection in a big secure Core team. It also works as a cheap sidekick bodyguard if you are using a powerful piece in a Duo.

For firepower, the Vostok is the clear winner in this Sectorial. Shame it lacks Burst 4 and can only hit well up to 24“, but it’s still a beefy attack piece. It has great synergy with Jazz’s HD+, since you can cover it with White Noise from the onboard Repeater and then engage MSV targets. That same Repeater lets you push it forward even in the face of a hacking defence, although to avoid risky AROs, you need to be good at judging movement to just outside ZoC of enemy hackers, before Dodging into ZoC, so you can activate your own Hacker and use Trinity on the next Order. Paying for a Salyut Zond just to give Marksmanship to a Vostok is a defendable choice. More so if that same Salyut is supplying fresh mines to your Gator, and/or enabling (or just bluffing) a Hellcat combat jump. Even without these synergies, none of the other Fireteam-able attack pieces can compete with Mimetism-6 and 2STR with Remote Presence – remember that Corregidor can directly support this with Engineers in a Fireteam, or has strong Parachutist Engineers.

Tsyklons are good, but overshadowed by Vostoks. They share the same utility of Climbing Plus, Repeaters, and they expand on that with Pitchers. Nowhere is safe from a Spotlight/Guided missile combo with a Tsyklon, and having them in a Fireteam makes this a bit more efficient as you can try both Pitchers in one Order. But ultimately it’s worth paying the extra points for the 2STR and Mimetism-6 of the Vostok, the more so as you’re saving SWC, which is gold dust in Corregidor. The best niche that a Tsyklon retains is as a long-range shooter in a Core team. The Feuerbach profile can gain Marksman and shoot on an effective BS16, more than its competitors, and is still fairly resilient thanks to Remote Presence and Engineers. It’s worth repeating, Tsyklons are far from bad – prior to the Vostok’s arrival, and admittedly in a world with full Fireteam bonuses and no 15-model cap, they were a premier point man for Corregidor big teams.

Wildcats are the new addition as Wildcards. What a wild choice! I’ll see myself out. Models with 1W and no special protections are not in fashion as attack pieces in the current N4 climate. And at BS13 with MSV1 and no particularly fearsome weapons, they’re good, not great, gunfighters. But hey, Burst 5 and an NCO order, especially of you didn’t take a Gator, is quite handy. I quite like the NCO spitfire profile for an attacking team. I don’t think the HRL is a high enough burst weapon to reliably get work done, especially on a platform that can’t take an unlucky hit. But it is cheap, so potentially worth trying. 

Wolfgang Amadeus Wolff, everyone’s favourite werewolf composer, sits in an odd place. He’s sort of a melee trading piece/bodyguard like a Digger or Diablo, sort of a supreme melee specialist like Senor Massacre, and sort of a firepower piece, but only within 16″. I honestly think he’s quite good, he has loads of options to do damage once he’s close, and is quite resilient, a good candidate to support with a Daktari. But it’s damn hard to fit a close range fighter into your list for that price tag. More often I spend the big points on guns with more range, and rely on the excellent Jaguars, Diablos and a Digger as close quarters power. His closest competition for inclusion in a Fireteam is actually Senor Massacre, who I often prefer because he brings Eclipse smoke.

Core Fireteams

The classic list design in Infinity Sectorials is to include a full 5-model Core team as a sort of defensive bunker or firm base. This provides a place to protect cheap Order-providers, squishy support specialists like Hackers and Doctors, and your Lt. It also gives great buffs to either a ‘sweeper’ Active turn firepower unit, like an HMG or Spitfire, or a ‘hard stop’ Reactive piece, typically a Missile Launcher. Deploying a big Core team like this is kind of restrictive. You need a piece of terrain where you can deploy them and they can’t be engaged and picked apart one by one. It can make your deployment very predictable. But compared to the vanilla Factions where layering your cheap troops and support models is a fine art, deploying a Core team is also relatively straightforward and easy to learn. 

Corregidor, pre-Raveneye update, benefited a lot from synergies in its most competitive units to field very capable Core Fireteams. I generally took a Mobile Brigada Missile Launcher, a Daktari, Jazz, a Brigada Lt and a Jaguar. That gave a very resilient hard stop ARO, strong Sixth Sense hacking, and it wasn’t trivial to engage and remove up close. A lot of excellent players took a Vostok or an EVAder AP Spitfire instead of the Lt, making the team a complete package, ready to absorb the opponent’s starting offensive, and then fight forward in the mid- or late-game. That Core team now looks less efficient because your firepower pieces will only be (at best) BS14 instead of BS16. Corregidor also lost the ability to stack Brigadas or EVAders with Jaguars, which were (and still are) practically the perfect cheap filler for a Fireteam.

When looking at the Core Fireteam options, I’m referring to that 5-model group which has to be deployed securely, and will often sit tight until the endgame. For advice on 3-model teams that tend to be used more aggressively, look under Haris Fireteams. Deploying a 4-model Core team is a rare choice. You could do so, on the rationale that you’re only gaining +1BS for the 5th member, so why not deploy a model elsewhere for better flexibility and board position? Honestly, the +1BS helps, but even more that 5th model means you don’t immediately lose Sixth Sense if a cunning opponent picks off one of the more vulnerable models in your team. The standard wisdom remains to include 5 models if you’re using a defensive Core. Feel free to experiment though! The best use case for 4 models might be if you’re using the team purely to bunker Order-providers and an Alguacil Lt/Decoys with a Hacker. Then you could simply tuck your heads down to avoid threats altogether. But that’s not really a game-winning use of 4 slots in your list, or very exciting to play with. Better to leverage the B2 AROs and other bonuses somehow, and for that we recommend 5 models. 

Corregidor Fireteams – Core – Firepower and Specialists

Ultimately, this is a team you mostly take for firepower. It’s the only way besides a Feuerbach Tsyklon or HRL Wildcat (neither of them the top choices) to get long range guns into a Fireteam. And having that long range power is one of the top reasons to take a big Core team. Probably the more common choice for a Core team is Reactive turn firepower, to make use of the Burst 2, Sixth Sense AROs, and the Brigada Missile Launcher is the epitome of a ‘hard stop’ ARO piece. It may only be functioning on BS14 post-update, but it still represents an incredibly dangerous ARO, and importantly, one that can use Courage to stick in position when surviving a failed attack, or choosing to drop prone out of Line of Fire if it gets wounded. With ARM5, you’re unlikely to get taken straight to Dead in one Order, but as with all dedicated ARO pieces, watch out for threats that overmatch you by too much – it’s better to deploy Prone and stand up later, than get taken out. 

The Feuerbach options on the EVAder and Tsyklon offer a sort of halfway house between Active/Reactive optimisation. It’s a very dangerous ARO, it has great rangebands to get typical long range guns like HMGs at a disadvantage, and if you leverage that, Burst 3 is just enough in the Active turn. The Wildcat HRL I don’t like as much. It’s more fragile and doesn’t enjoy the same rangebands. As sweet as Impact Templates are in Infinity, I don’t trust that piece to win gunfights in the Active turn, and I certainly wouldn’t risk it in ARO – too easy to remove from the table in one Order. 

In a purely active role, not as many people take the Brigada HMG, but it’s worth a look if you need a sweeper in your list. At Burst 5 and BS14, it can definitely function, but solo pieces like the Intruder, or more likely the Gator, will be a lot easier to maneuver against enemy AROs than a Brigada dragging around a Core team. 

I don’t include the shorter-ranged firepower options in a Core team as often. The EVAder offers a BS13 AP Spitfire at a bargain price, we’ve already mentioned how great the Vostok is, and teh Wildcat NCO is usable. But with under 24” optimal range, using these models means going forward, and I don’t think the 4- and 5-model bonuses (bearing in mind you can’t get full Composition bonuses on these teams) are worth dragging additional models into the midfield where they are more vulnerable. I stick with a 3-model team when using these models. Many players do include them, with the idea being to either move the whole Fireteam up later in the game (which I think was made arguably worthwhile by the old bonus of +3BS), or more likely, cut loose at least the ARO piece, if it’s not already Dead, and move forward as a 3-4 model team. I find this approach clunkier to play with and prefer to specialize my Core team. I don’t often have enough SWC in Corregidor to stick two big guns in a Fireteam, so that’s one advantage of the Vostok for this role. 

It almost goes without saying in Corregidor that you want a Hacker in your Core team. Sixth Sense on a good hacker is busted strong and synergises extremely well with the 2 Moran Masai you are obligated to take in every list. You’ll see Jazz FTO a lot in the examples below, as she is the best single hacker in the faction. If you’re taking Jazz & Billie, you can always substitute Valerya or a plain Alguacil hacker, depending on taste. The Wildcat is too expensive, paying for MSV1 and irrelevant stats, and the Brigada Hacker, with its -6 Tinbot, is interesting but needs special consideration. 

I also consider a Daktari an auto-take if you have a dedicated ARO piece, and honestly a great pick in any composition – Doctoring a model at a key point can swing a game, and at least in your Core Fireteam you can ensure the Doc is on the spot to potentially help a couple of key models. If your key piece is a Tsyklon Feuerbach, or you’re including a Vostok, consider an EVAder Engineer, there are some nifty profiles available and repairing Remote Presence models is more likely and more reliable than plain old meatbags. 

Lieutenants are a perennial problem in Corregidor, and this type of Core Fireteam is one of the main ways to deploy them. Discount Wildcats, they suck as Lts, being both expensive and fragile. You need some combination of a Mobile Brigada and Alguacil(es). A single Brigada can be safe enough as a Lt if deployed securely in a Core team. So can 2 Alguaciles, if 1 is your Lt. You can play around with deploying a decoy model outside the Fireteam, tucked away somewhere, and feel free to switch around which is really the Lt! Need to keep those opponents guessing. Because a Brigada Lt can actually be quite handy as an Active model in Round 3, and obviously benefits more from a Fireteam than a humble Alguacil, I tend to take either a Brigada in a Fireteam, or one of two Alguaciles hidden away in separate corners, as my Lt. 

So let’s look at some potential Fireteams! 

• Mobile Brigada ML, Daktari, Jazz FTO, 2x Alguaciles (1 is a Lt). This is a take on the classic defensive Fireteam. The downsides are that if the Brigada ML is taken out, you’re left with no direct firepower options.
• Mobile Brigada ML, Daktari, Jazz FTO, Brigada multi rifle Lt, Digger. Similar concept, with a more obvious but resilient Lt, and a bodyguard to help cover him. 
• Feuerbach Tsyklon, EVAder Engineer, Jazz FTO, Digger, Alguacil (can be a Lt). The idea here is to use the Tsyklon in ARO. The EVAder can be a cheaper multi rifle, or even shotgun, or you can pay for the AP Spitfire to keep the ability to transition into an offensive team. Because of that flexibility I’ve included the Digger to protect the other pieces and trade up if you move forward to attack. 
• Feuerbach EVAder, Daktari, Jazz FTO, 2x Alguaciles (1 can be a Lt). A cheap-ish way to be able to offer an ARO or do some sweeping of enemy AROs.
• Feuerbach Tsyklon, Vostok, EVAder Engineer, Jazz FTO, Digger. Put your Lt somewhere else and go for a proper beast mode Fireteam. The idea here is to actually use them more aggressively throughout the game. You could even bump Jazz up into a Brigada Hacker with Tinbot! Not for the faint of heart, and arguably taking 2-3 EVAders as the meat of this sort of Fireteam would be more efficient than the two Remotes.

One final point of discussion for this type of Core team, which is a bit of a throwback: pure Alguacil teams. Now most competitive players I know wouldn’t even entertain the idea of a purely Line Infantry Core Fireteam. Composition bonuses notwithstanding, in a 15-model limited game, it’s silly to take a third of those models with so little unique capability. I mean, most competitive Infinity lists do include many cheap models, but classic rifle-armed Line Infantry are usually neglected in favor of Flash Pulse bots, Warbands and other more unique models. By using Alguaciles as your Core Fireteam you’re tying your biggest firepower boost to your worst gunfighters, although the composition bonuses do change that. An Alguacil in a pure 5 model team has the same BS14 as an EVAder or Brigada, they just lacking the resilience we really want in an ARO piece – they are quite likely to be removed from the table in one Order if they don’t get that lucky hit or crit. An Alguacil HMG in a pure team, bizarrely, is a very efficient sweeper – Burst 5, BS14 is enough to brute force most problems, and if he dies, he dies, he only costs 18pts. I am not including pure-Algaucil Fireteams in any of my lists at the moment. But it is an interesting idea to experiment with.

Correctional Fireteams – Core – a Foundation for Wildcards

A Correctional Fireteam includes troops that don’t have much ranged firepower, but are excellent close-in brawlers. This makes them best suited for smaller, more agile offensive teams (see under Haris below), but it also makes them great filler for a Core team if you can squeeze the right firepower and specialist models in as Wildcards – which Corregidor can. The major differences between using this as your large Core Fireteam, and the more conventional options we’ve already discussed, is that you rely completely on Wildcards for all capabilities beyond ‘close combat area denial’, and you can’t really put your Lt in this Core team. Unless you take a Wildcat, in which case you should go directly to the nearest mental health treatment facility. The upside of this sort of Core team is that a lot of ways your opponent would seek to attack normally – drop troops with boarding shotguns, Hassassin Fidays, direct template Warband attacks – become much less effective. Jaguars are very unproductive to attack in those ways, and Diablos even more so. That doesn’t mean they’re invulnerable, a skilled player with, say, Jaan Staar, can still take the Fireteam apart at close quarters. But it’s good Deployment Zone defense and it makes the team more dangerous if you need to strike into the midfield in the late game. 

To give the team some reach, you’re looking at the same Wildcards as before: Tsyklons, Vostok, Wildcats. The issue is extending your firepower beyond 24”. I don’t rate the Tsyklon particularly without integral Engineer support, and I find the Wildcat HRL underwhelming. So this team can be underwhelming unless you’re getting your long-range fire from elsewhere in the list. You don’t want to end up pinned down in your deployment zone by enemy missiles or snipers. There is some meme potential with Diablos’ Flammenspeers and Jaguars’ Panzerfausts, but those are both on the units’ worst profiles, so not worth basing your tactics on.  

It is technically possible to build a more aggressive Correctional Core team of 5 models, intended to move into the midfield and engage the enemy immediately. This is something I would only consider in a mission that incentivised moving points forward into scoring zones – Supremacy, Biotechvore, Panic Room, Frontline. For this you do have options to go for the composition bonuses, by assembling 4 Jaguars led by Senor Massacre, or 4 Diablos led by a Lobo, probably their NCO Red Fury option. Honestly, those just aren’t good choices for a Core team that wants to fight forward. I would absolutely sacrifice the composition bonus to include a Vostok or a Wildcat spitfire in such a team, and for that matter would normally mix Jaguars and Diablos to get the maximum capability. 

An example Correctional Core Fireteam:

• Wildcat HRL, Daktari, Jazz FTO, Diablo light shotgun, Jaguar light shotgun. Similar to the more conventional Corregidor Core teams we looked at above, this basically is forced to take a worse firepower piece, and it can’t include your Lt, but it does have some punch at close quarters. Not my usual set-up.
• Vostok, Diablo SMG, Diablo light shotgun, 2x Jaguars with light shotgun. You can see why I don’t rate this type of team as highly for most missions. A Core team has a big footprint, and with no firepower beyond 24” they can get pinned down. But if you did want to move up into a densely terrain-covered midfield, this is the way to do it. 

Haris Fireteams

Even more than most factions, Corregidor is spoiled for choice when it comes to composing effective Haris teams (or 3-model Core teams, which work exactly the same). The aim is to combine a powerful ‘point man’, usually some sort of gunfighter, with 2 of either cheap order monkeys, brawling bodyguards, or supporting specialists. Between their Wildcard selection and the strength of the base Haris options, there are a lot of ways to assemble these. But the precept is always to keep it as cost effective as possible. The draw of a Haris is +1 Burst and Order efficiency. If you design your team well, then moving those 3 models into an attack together is saving you effort and presenting an obstacle to your opponent. If you design it badly, or play it badly, you’re moving a bigger target into range of a counterattack. +1 Burst isn’t worth sacrificing position in the Reactive turn, so you really want to avoid offering your opponent big juicy clumps of points to attack. 

Corregidor Fireteams – Haris – if you want an EVAder or Mobile Brigada

The key elements for this kind of team are EVAders or Mobile Brigada – if you’re not using one of those, consider adding Wildcards into a Correctional Haris team instead (see below). Realistically you will take one of those as firepower, probably a Daktari for filler, and then a utility model to round out the team’s weapon capabilities and protect them. It’s worth noting that if you do break the advice above and go for a more expensive Haris, EVAders, Wolfgang and Vostoks/Tsyklons all have Climbing Plus – it can be fun to play with a Haris that can scale walls and open up unexpected angles of fire. 

Some examples:

• EVAder AP Spitfire, Daktari, Digger. A very cheap way to power up an acceptable gun.
• Vostok, EVAder Engineer (multi rifle or shotgun), Digger or Lupe Balboa. Now your Vostok has an engineer and some protection.
• Vostok, Mobile Brigada Hacker with Tinbot-6, Digger. This isn’t the most lean competitive choice, but in an objective-scoring mission which incentivises Hackers, this lets you engage in direct infowar, although no better than keeping the Hackers back in a Core team and operating via Repeaters. 

Correctional Fireteams – Close Quarters Combat

Now if you don’t want an EVAder or Mobile Brigada, this is the default basis for an aggressive 3-model team. Jaguars offer Burst 2 smoke, pretty much the best tool in the game for controlling fire and movement. Diablos are a perfect troop to bring along on an attack run for trading with important enemy pieces. Because you have no intrinsic specialists in the team, you need to include both specialists and/or firepower as Wildcards. So I usually build and include these Harises in missions where specialists are not required to score the objectives. I take 2 disposable close quarters fighters, usually 1 Diablo and 1 Jaguar, and one firepower piece, creating a cheap and effective attacking element to my list. This is typically the Vostok or the Wildcat NCO Spitfire for me. You can build shorter-ranged Haris teams with Senor Massacre or Wolfgang as the most expensive model. They can still close to their optimal engagement range using smoke. However I don’t consider this a very competitive option – you are accepting that you’ll spend more precious Orders to work your way into position, and making the team easier to fend off with the right AROs. 

Example Fireteams:

• Vostok or Wildcat NCO, Jaguar light shotgun, Diablo light shotgun. This is the classic efficient, aggressive Haris team. The Vostok will win gunfights, especially with Marksman from a Salyut Zond. You have smoke and White Noise to set the conditions for fights and get across enemy AROs. The Jaguar and Diablo can both trade up in the Active turn, and defend the Vostok in the Reactive. 
• Vostok, Lupe Balboa, Diablo light shotgun. If you need a specialist for a mission objective, and don’t fancy an EVAder-based Haris, Lupe does also bring smoke.
• Wildcat NCO, Daktari, Jaguar light shotgun. The Daktari is the cheapest specialist going and might actually help the Wildcat if Shock ammo or multiple wounds don’t remove him. Jaguar provides smoke – I don’t usually smoke-shoot with MSV1, but it is a possibility.
• Senor Massacre breaker combi rifle, 2 Jaguar light shotguns. With no firepower at all, this is a bad idea except in very dense tables. But with reliable Eclipse smoke, it can get to where it’s going, and it will kill almost anything in melee combat. Notably, if you have a whole combat group’s worth of Orders to spend on it, it can probably kill any TAG. Still requires a fairly dense table of terrain to be realistic.

Gecko Fireteams – Not as Silly as it Sounds

Not many factions can put TAGs in a Haris! The Gecko itself is sort of on the edge of being good. It simply isn’t the beatstick that a main battle TAG (eg the Gator) is. It’s a very resilient midrange firepower model, but it’s expensive with no gunfighting mods. It has all the weaknesses of a TAG, notably Hacking programs and the inability to hide in Prone. The most effective way to use the archetypal heavier TAGs is to be very conservative – use them in Active turn and pull them well back in the Reactive, where your other models can defend them from close quarters attacks, their resilience to straightforward shooting creates a roadblock for the opponent’s plans, and where you can Guts Roll them back into Total Cover if a threat capable of blasting them off the table emerges. Geckos can’t do that. They want to operate further into the midfield where the opponent can get at them.

Gecko Haris teams let you mitigate those risks by accompanying your Gecko with models to help protect it from its predators. I cannot stress enough that taking 2-3 actual Geckos in this Fireteam is just a silly meme. Do it if you love big stompy robots, it’s not a good competitive strategy. Anything that can eat one Gecko can eat two of them. This team is actually to support one Gecko, and I’d argue it’s the best way to use a Gecko in a competitive Corregidor list.

The obvious support to a TAG is an Engineer. Unfortunately you’re limited to Wildcats, which at 28pts for a 1W model, do not fill the role very well. I’d be more inclined to rely on a Tomcat/Carlota to insure your Gecko investment from outside the Fireteam. My priority would be to take close quarters fighters to send into tight spots after enemy camo (which might be a Hacker), deal with Mimetism-6 targets, provide smoke, that sort of thing. There aren’t many of those in your Wildcard list, so I lean heavily towards Senor Massacre and a Digger. You could replace one (probably Senor Massacre) with Wolfgang, although he’s quite expensive to layer atop a Gecko and his weapons overlap heavily with the better Gecko profile’s Multi Marksman rifles. If you need a specialist for the mission, and don’t want to consider bringing the Gecko’s pilot onto the table temporarily, again you have Lupe – although the Daktari is cheaper, she doesn’t bring smoke and is even squishier. It’s actually a bad idea to directly support the Gecko with one of your hackers. Both the Wildcard hackers are far better off in the backfield, even if solo instead of in a Sixth Sense-granting Core team, than moving up where enemy skirmishers, warbands and killer hackers can get at them. It would be good to cover your Gecko with a Repeater, but the options to include one in a team are too expensive – just try to keep your Morans’ position relevant. 

When using this sort of Haris, remember the defensive benefit is in having models whose position/abilities can cover the valuable Gecko in the Reactive turn. The Burst 2 Reaction is not the most important thing. Don’t be afraid to break them up into Suppression Fire, after checking the opponent doesn’t have any obvious ways to break them out of that state again.

Example teams:

• Gecko multi marksman rifles, Senor Massacre, Digger. The first two both have a role in the active turn, with the Gecko sweeping AROs and bullying exposed pieces, and Senor Massacre shanking any close-quarters threat. The Digger is mostly there for the Reactive turn, to be positioned where the enemy have to get through it before directly attacking the others. But it can be traded away in the Active turn if needed. 
• Gecko, Lupe, Digger. Same idea, but you downgrade close combat capability, meaning you rely more on the Digger in that role for the Active turn, and you gain a Specialist for missions.
• Gecko, Wildcat Engineer, Digger. If you absolutely must, but god damn paying for that Wildcat stings. It’s half the cost of the Gecko itself, which is over the odds for a ⅔ chance to bring it back even if your opponent is too incompetent to fully remove it. Manned TAGs don’t benefit from Engineers nearly as much as Remote Presence versions. I suppose you can always fix the damn thing if it eats a Flash Pulse ARO. 

Duo Fireteams

Duos are the poor relation of the Fireteam family. With no mechanical benefits, they are only ever used to move two units efficiently together, so you need a compelling reason to do this, and to make sure it isn’t outweighed by the risk of putting two models into harm’s way at the same time. More than being bad per se, the problem with Duo teams is that in lists capped at 15 models, you need to fit your key solo pieces, and then you are probably including two 3-5 model teams that will give you increased benefits. The classic trio of firepower, specialist, close combat/disposable models in a Haris, where they all benefit enormously from +1 Burst, is just better than a Duo which draws on the same list of models, it gives you more punch. So even if a Duo looks like a useful combination in a vacuum, it can be very hard to fit into a list, because you can include a Haris with the exact same role and even more capability and Order efficiency. Including a Duo with overlapping capabilities isn’t as valuable as picking a solo piece that brings something different to your list.

Correctional Fireteams – Duo – Why?

I’m not displaying the chart again. This doesn’t offer much, the Burst bonus of a larger team is a huge boost to the reliability of smoke grenades and the effectiveness of shotgun forks. I do occasionally end up with a ‘spare’ Jaguar and/or Diablo in a list as deployment zone guards and utility smoke. It can be worth forming them up as a Duo to make the Diablo more resilient, by preventing him from being Impetuous and allowing Partial Cover bonuses. But even in that situation, I’d be more than willing to deploy them separately if it allowed me to occupy better positions on the table. Conceivably if there was a Wildcard you really, really wanted to use as a solo piece, you could assign a bodyguard Diablo to it, but in 99% of those cases it would be worth building a Haris to take advantage of the +1 Burst. 

Gecko Fireteam – Duo – take a Haris Instead

If I’m taking a Gecko, I would generally be willing to support it with two models rather than one.

Armored Fireteams – Duo – Iguana? What Iguana?

Now this is what we’re talking about! Finally, a good Duo which opens up some options. You have to include a Gator (yes) or an Iguana (no). You’d be an idiot to include two Gators together, let alone the Iguana. Double TAG lists are a thing, not my style personally, and with the Gator, Corregidor is probably a strong candidate for them. But a vital principle in that case would be to deploy them separately, not within 8” of each other, you’d just be asking for a good opponent with the right tools to neutralize both at once. As with the Gecko Haris, the point of this is to assign an assistant to your Gator. As well as covering the Gator’s weaknesses, it gives you some options to slingshot a model around the Gator as it uses its’ Tactical Awareness and NCO Orders. If you’re taking a Gator, you should at least consider deploying a Duo to get the most benefit. If you’re using it as a sweeper and staying within your own DZ, it’s not strictly necessary, but could be helpful to guard your back against sneaky enemies. If you’re using it to assault the enemy in their table half, you almost always want to bring a CQBuddy.

As with some other team options, the Digger is a winner here. If I could assign a Jaguar or Diablo the duty they’d be equally good. It’s a cheap bodyguard to deter close quarters threats. The two smoke-providing options of Lupe and Senor Massacre also have advantages, depending on if you need a specialist for objectives or a melee monster more. My vision for a Gator, like any heavy TAG, is to fight from the deployment zone in the early game, and only move forward if there’s a clear need. So pairing it with, say, Wolfgang, because he provides firepower at 0-16” where the Gator is less effective, is over-investing in your finishing blow rather than the capabilities you need in your list to overcome the opponent’s full force and establish control of the game. You need to keep a Gator Duo cheap. Similarly, having a Repeater with the Gator to provide White Noise availability and Trinity enemy hackers is great, but it’s not worth the points – place that model into a Core or Haris team instead.

Finally, this type of Duo team offers you a less competitive option: you can give the Iguana a friend. Someone to put an arm round it, ask it if it’s feeling OK, then take it for a quiet drink and tell it to buck up its ideas. Perhaps CB will update its rules some day, instead of creating a new TAG to completely supplant it in its own Sectorial. Some day.

Conclusion – Incorporating Fireteams into your List

I have almost invariably used 5-model Core teams in my Corregidor lists for many years, and while they did get a little worse, I see no reason to change that. The Sectorial still benefits massively from Sixth Sense hacking, more than the boost to Firepower. That does open up the door to lists with 4-model passive teams included, but the synergy of a 5th model for firepower, which won’t cost you the Sixth Sense buff when it inevitably dies, is still too good to leave out. I do think the addition of the Gator inclines me more and more to a dedicated ARO piece in that Core team, rather than Active Turn firepower. A Core team is your firm foot on the ground in Corregidor, with more agile units powering forward. The only real decision is whether to build in the capability for some or all of the Core team to move forward late game. I would always include a Haris team meant to take on that more aggressive role, and here you are spoiled for choice. There are some strong and cost effective firepower options, and far more than that, the Sectorial strengths of efficient close combat and specialist options. Relatively few Sectorials can access smoke, Eclipse smoke and White Noise, and Corregidor can project all of these through a single Fireteam, offering terrific board control.

I’m in danger of repeating myself from an earlier article on Military Order Fireteams, but I think the best list structure for Corregidor is both Core and Haris teams in the first, larger Combat Group. There are plenty of options where you can usefully decide at deployment whether they would be better in your Core or Haris team. This is especially true because several staple solo choices for competitive Corregidor fit very well into the smaller 2nd Combat Group. Combat Jump or Parachutist options, Moran Masai, Jazz & Billie, the Vertigo Zond – I commonly use most of those in the second group. The Gator, with its Tac Aware and NCO Orders, is also ideal for the second group. Obviously all those things probably shouldn’t live together in a small second group at the same time, they’re too vital. But you have a surfeit of uses for 2nd group Orders without splitting your Fireteam-able options up.

Corregidor has lost some of its preeminence in fielding flexible Fireteams. But its Wildcard list is still the envy of many other Sectorials. The new Diablos, and the new Wildcard status for the Digger, provide another cheap melee option to enable Active turn trades and deter enemy close quarters attacks in the Reactive turn. The Gator provides an alternative to putting your long range Active turn firepower into a Core team. Corregidor can still definitely compete, supplementing their Fireteams and new TAG with their excellent board control and active specialists for accomplishing mission objectives. Good luck, and may you have some success trying to protect or hide your Lt!

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