This article is an addition to a previous look at Military Orders, written last year. With the rules for composing Fireteams having changed quite significantly, the older article no longer makes sense when talking about how to incorporate Fireteams into your lists – and that is one of the basic decisions all Sectorial players need to make. Other points in the article remain valid. Military Orders has some fearsome solo pieces: Tikbalangs, Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, Dart & Trinitarian Tertiaries. There are a few profiles that can join Fireteams but function perfectly well solo if you prefer to keep your investment low: Knight of Justice Spitfire with Forward Deployment +4”, Knights of Montesa, Knight of Santiago Killer Hackers. But these often benefit a lot from the right Fireteam support. Even though Military Orders has a couple unique profiles available, as do a few other Sectorials such as Shasvastii, a common rule applies to all Sectorial Armies in Infinity: if you’re not leveraging some advantage from Fireteams, you should be playing the vanilla Faction instead, to benefit from a wider choice of units.
Reminder: Overall Impact of Fireteam 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.
At the same time, Fireteams were reworked by making it far easier and clearer to compose them with mixed units. You don’t get as much of a BS bonus, but you will probably find it easier to mash the units and capabilities you want to use together.
How did these changes affect Military Orders specifically? The previous firepower options that could be added to Core teams (notably Missile Launchers, or the Black Friar HRL) can still be added but are less effective. Unlike some lucky factions, Military Orders have no way to add elite gunfighters to cheap teams and still gain the full bonuses.There are plenty of ways to Fireteam strong knights with cheaper light infantry support, but no full bonuses here. There is also only one option for a full ‘pain train’ of 5 Heavy Infantry knights with the full bonuses, based around Knights Hospitaller.
Do you want to use a Spitfire? Holy mother of god, Military Orders Fireteams have options to show you, the damn things are everywhere. If you want an HMG, or any AP weapon with more range or Burst than a Multi Rifle, again it’s slim pickings. The Sectorial has excellent long range AP choices in its non-Fireteam options, in the Tikbalang and Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, but your Fireteams will not usually be the choice to sweep the enemy AROs in opening firefights.
Military Orders 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 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
It may seem counterintuitive, but it’s best to think about a Sectorial’s Wildcard options before you look at their various Fireteam groupings, because the right Wildcards can massively elevate any Fireteam. Unfortunately, this is not the biggest strength of Military Orders. The best things to have as Wildcards are really cheap utility models (to provide filler for teams) and apex gunfighters (to act as your point men). Military Orders has none of the former, and while it does have some elite Wildcards, they’re not the most efficient or well armed gunfighters in the Sectorial.
You can add Knights of Justice or Santiago, De Fersen, and Kyle Hawkins to any Fireteam in MO. All of these units have elite shooting stats; De Fersen and especially the Santiago Killer Hacker provide some surprisingly tenacious hacking, but you pay heavily for both. What they don’t have is any Visors or Mimetism, or any high-Burst weapons stronger than a Spitfire. I’ll mention them as we go through the Fireteam types available, because there are some opportunities to use these Wildcards in Core, Haris or Duos. But none of them are eye-grabbing auto-takes.
You can also add Brother Konstantinos to any Fireteam, and he counts as a Crosier or Order Sergeant for composition bonuses. He’s a rather confusing profile. At 24 pts, he’s got gunfighting skills (Mimetism-3 & MSV2) but only a combi rifle (and assault pistol) and BS12. Not a natural firepower piece to include. He is a Specialist Operative, and as a character with D-Charges he can achieve some Classified Objectives, but he’s neither very lean nor very mean. The combination of light gunfighting and specialist jobs is better suited to his non-Fireteam profile, which is the same except for Infiltration and a 28pt price tag. But of course that profile is in direct competition with the stellar Trinitarian Tertiaries. It can seem very tempting to use him in a Haris to burst enemies up – B5 within 8” will take care of a lot of lightly armoured targets, regardless of any Mimetism. But the best target set for him is Camouflage or Mimetism enemies within 8”, at least within 16” – opposing skirmishers. This puts him firmly in the threat zone of enemy template weapons, and at 1W and ARM2 that’s a dangerous place to be. There’s a use case for Brother Konstantinos in an aggressive team, so probably a Haris or a Duo. But he’s not a standout competitive choice.
Core Fireteams
MO Fireteams – Core – 1W Models & Teutons
Generally we design Core Fireteams to provide safe bunkers for our orders and/or Lts; to use Sixth Sense for hackers; to give enough bonuses to a ‘hard stop’ ARO piece to make them non-suicidal in that role. All of those options are open to Military Orders:
Teutonic Knights and Knight Commanders are your cheapest Lt options, and the obvious choices unless you are playing Joan or another ‘heroic’ high-cost Lt, which is a separate sort of build. With both of these models, you can keep them safe either by bunkering up in a full Core Fireteam, or by trying to hide innocuously as a solo model in the Deployment Zone. The latter is damned difficult because experienced players tend to notice that you’ve left a Teutonic Knight, a highly fireteam-able, cheap efficient attack unit, basically a Heavy Infantry Warband, in the back on his own. Super obvious Lt there. It may seem easier to hide the Knight Commander using Holomask. But it’s still dangerous even if you can deceive your opponent – you either pretend he’s something weak and vulnerable, in which case they might attack him as a matter of opportunity, or as something tough and useful, in which case they may decide to take him out to remove a threat. It’s very difficult to disguise the fact you’ve taken a Commander, since you will have to reveal that you have 2 Lt Orders in your first turn, and most players will have a good chance at spotting the model in your deployment which is out of its natural place. In any case, as soon as the opponent twigs that your Lt is on his own, assassination becomes a viable play. In summary, if you take a cheaper Lt, which you usually will, the best place for it to be is in a 5-model Core team.
Military Orders doesn’t scream hacking as a faction, but you have Firewall-3 Tinbots available in this type of Fireteam (and as a Wildcard) and you have some good Repeaters with AVA 2 Peacemakers. If you feel it’s a good choice in your meta, you can field a Repeater net, and most likely the Guided Missile shenanigans it enables. If you’re doing that, you want your Hackers in a Core Fireteam for Sixth Sense. The options here are the Order Sgt Hacker, who is as basic as can be, or De Fersen / Knight of Justice Wildcards, who are far more elite and expensive. You’d also want a 20-pt Teutonic Knight Firewall, or to go the full hog and field a Santiago KHD as a Wildcard, providing the Firewall and a respectable deterrent to enemy hackers.
There are no active-turn long range firepower pieces like HMGs for attacking from this Core Fireteam. The natural active-turn firepower picks are either a host of Spitfires, ranging from the humble MSV2 Crosier (22pts) to the Forward Deployment Knight of Justice (50 pts). Or the Black Friar HRL option is a compromise between Active-turn usability and threatening, if fragile AROs. Primarily Reactive firepower is better, with Missile Launchers available from the Teutonic Knights and Knights of Justice. At BS14 and BS15 in a full team, these are fairly respectable hard stop AROs. The decision if taking such a Reactive Core Fireteam is whether you invest in an Active turn firepower piece as well. You won’t be able to use them to best effect at the same time, but it prevents your Fireteam being sidelined if the situation isn’t right for one or the other.
Example Fireteams:
- Teuton ML or KoJ ML or Black Friar HRL, Crosier Paramedic, 3x cheap Crosiers. Can include an Order Sgt Hacker for Sixth Sense hacking if fielding Peacemakers. Can include a nice safe Knight Commander. This is the classic defensive bunker Core Fireteam.
- Order Sgt HRL, Crosier MSV2 Spitfire, Crosier Paramedic, 2x any other Crosiers and/or a Knight Commander. This is an example of a pretty usable budget Core team. Primarily a place for your Lt and cheaper orders to bunker up, they can’t simply be ignored by the opponent because they can unleash a B5, BS13, MSV2 Spitfire attack if needed. The Order Sgt is optional – at only 15 pts and BS13 in a full Core, he is at least a speedbump ARO to an opponent. This team benefits from a 6th model – another Crosier you can substitute in when the ARO model gets killed. That would also restore composition bonuses, giving you access to a BS15 MSV2 Spitfire in the late game.
Crusade Fireteams – Core – Hospitallers and Characters
This is the iconic Military Orders Knightly pain train, the only way in the Sectorial to gain composition bonuses (ie that sweet sweet +3BS) on true Heavy Infantry Knights. Usually taken with Joan for maximum righteousness, and because she’s No Wound Incapacitation and BS15. With or without the Maid of Orleans, going full pain train is doubling down on Military Orders’ strengths and weaknesses. It’s a hell of a lot of points. At its most basic, 5 Knights Hospitaller including an HMG and a Doctor, it would be 157 pts for 5 models. A more common sight would be to include Joan, not least because including a Regularised Warcor and Techbee can help you reach an acceptable Order count while committing so much to a single Fireteam. That would run 173-178, depending on your version of Joan. Try writing a list with 14-15 models and including one of these teams, you swiftly find yourself short of points for combat power elsewhere.
Because of this, taking a Crusade team as a 4-5 model Core is something you need to plan carefully. For a start, it would be best used in zone control missions where moving such a chunk of points around the board can be an advantage. But in any mission, from deployment onwards, using this Fireteam presents a massive target to your opponent. That only gets worse as you start using the Fireteam and moving up from your Deployment Zone, as you have to do to get value out of them, since they will be the bulk of your attacking power. Hacking (and guided missiles), Berserk warbands, flamethrowers – all the tools your opponent can use to target expensive HI in the midfield will become more efficient when you have 5 targets in close proximity to each other. Against straightforward shooting at them in cover, while they can shoot back at B2 BS17, or dodge on unmodified 14s, your Hospitallers will take a lot of effort to kill. But when your opponent lays a suicidal B2 Heavy Flamethrower on 2-3 of them at once, you will remember that nothing in Infinity can be relied on to survive a well-judged attack.
If you commit to a Crusade Core, everything else in your list, and all the decisions you make during the game, have to protect it from its threats. Once those are removed and your opponent is down to conventional, non-AP shooting, you can afford to be more aggressive and smash this Fireteam in their face. I personally don’t like to play with this kind of all-in Fireteam. You’re giving up a lot of your flexibility in decision-making during a game, and transferring decisions onto your opponent, ‘how do they deal with the pain train?’. You may find this strategy lets you win a lot more against weaker players, but fails against really dangerous or experienced opponents.
Besides presenting this target/obstacle/problem to the enemy in their turns, what are you actually getting out of a Crusade Core in your Active turn? You can move lots of points into zones, highly relevant in the right missions. You can draw on some B2-3 close combat attacks if you go all in to close combat, which is really too risky, order-intensive a tactic to come up much. Most obviously, you can shoot at B5, BS18 with Joan, or BS17 with a Hospitaller HMG, as well as the same bonuses on Multi Rifle, Multi Marksman and Boarding Shotgun options. That is super powerful, but Military Orders can draw on plenty of quality shooting without such an outrageous investment. Do you really need to put all your eggs into that basket to win firefights harder?
Haris Teams
We want to keep an attacking Haris as cheap as possible. The aim is to give that sweet +1B punch to an attack piece, and provide some back-up or support to that attack piece to cover targets it’s not good at, or perform specialist objectives once the attack piece has fought the team up the table.
MO Fireteams – Haris – 1W Models & Teutons:
As with the Core, this Fireteam offers you cost-efficient basis for Haris options, with more elite models available via Wildcards. To give that firepower which is the point of a Haris, you always want to take either a Teuton/Crosier Spitfire, which are lean and efficient, or a Wildcard Spitfire, the more top-shelf options. Then add two of either:
- Cheap filler/specialist. The Crosier Paramedic is king here. It’s nearly the cheapest option and provides a specialist and a 65-70% chance to get your precious Knightly point man back on his feet. The Order Sgt hacker has some synergy with a Firewall Teuton, but usually you’d go for an intensive hacking Haris (see below) or embed your hackers in a Core team, to benefit from Sixth Sense, and operate via Remotes’ Repeaters.
- Close-in fighting. Usually this is Teutons, the standard shotgun and the SMG Specialist are both great value. Consider the Black Friar Multi Rifle if you face a lot of camouflage and Impersonators, but it doesn’t give quite the same value for money. Really, if you’re not bothered about achieving Objectives – perhaps you have Trinitarian Tertiaries standing by to achieve them – a pure Teutonic Knight Haris is pretty damn hard to beat.
Example Fireteams:
- Teuton NCO Spitfire, Crosier Paramedic, any other Teuton. You can take your third Teuton in one of the other teams outlined here, or as a Lt.
- Teuton NCO Spitfire, Crosier Paramedic, Black Friar FTO Multi-Rifle. Go hunt down some camouflage units in the midfield!
- Knight of Justice or Santiago Spitfire [Wildcard] with Crosier Paramedic & 1 Teuton.
Order Sergeant Fireteams – Haris – Specialists and a Bulleteer
More restrictive than the MO Fireteams above, and available for Haris only, this type initially seems less attractive. You have to include one Order Sergeant, and as filler, their basic profile is a slightly more expensive Crosier. The most common option would be a Hacker, which is more expensive and perhaps more of a double-edged sword than the Crosier Paramedic. The draw of an Order Sgt Fireteam is the Bulletteer. These things are one of the most efficient gunfighting pieces in the game at 23pts for a Mimetism-6 Spitfire. Realistically if you are using this type of team, it is to include the Bulleteer and/or to build a hacking attack team.
For hacking, you would generally use some combination of:
- Order Sgt Hacker (or normal Order Sgt if short of points)
- the Wildcard Santiago KHD
- Wildcard De Fersen or some non-hacker Spitfire piece – eg a Bulleteer.
Clearly De Fersen is the biggest budget option here, all eggs in one basket, but taking him does mean you have a Spitfire built in, so your Haris can combine Hacking attacks with conventional shooting manoeuvres. Whether this is usable depends on your meta – do you often see good opportunities for active-turn Hacking? It’s worth noting that the usual benefit of a Haris, +1B, isn’t strictly relevant, so consider whether your list’s Hacking potential is better off in a safely-deployed Core Fireteam, or in a cheaper Duo or individual models – De Fersen justifies including a Firewall to maximise his potential, but the Santiago KHD provides his own and can get good value out of Cyber-Mask as a solo piece. The problem with a Haris built to use Hacking is that you can try to wage the infowar purely through Repeaters, letting your Hackers stay safe, and with Sixth Sense, in a Core Fireteam which stays in your Deployment Zone. For Military Orders, those Repeaters would be on the excellent Peacemakers, or on a Bulleteer.
This brings us to considering the Bulleteer as a primary component of a Haris – this is separate to the hacking Haris we’ve just discussed, but they complement each other in a list surprisingly well. To create a Bulleteer Haris, let’s be honest, you are taking the Spitfire variant. It can outrange most non-SWC targets and it operates outside of direct template range where targets can trade to stop your attack run. You have to include one Order Sergeant, and this should usually be the cheapest variant – but if you have the SWC, you can always consider using the HRL version. Minimal points increase, the real difference is the 1.5SWC, and some MO lists will run under cost in that department. A BS12 HRL isn’t an impressive gunfighter, even in a Haris, but it gives you a usable weapon beyond 32” and an Assault Pistol to take out Hackers, enemy Repeaters and anything else that you might not want to send the Bulleteer against within 8”. That leaves only the 3rd model. Rather than another Order Sgt or an expensive Wildcard, we recommend a Curator. Does what you really want to do – keep the Bulleteer firing – and can also get it out of some Comms Attack trouble if it gets Immobilised or Isolated. Laying Mines (even AP Mines) isn’t necessarily a game-winning use of your Active turn, but as you manoeuvre a Haris around the table you will often find yourself burning the second half of a movement Order, and that’s a good time to lay one down. So the recommended Bulleteer Order Sgt Haris looks like:
- Order Sgt (combi rifle or HRL), Bulleteer Spitfire, Curator. Cheap and cheerful at 53-55 pts (and a more intense 1-2.5SWC).
Of course you can blur the lines between Hacking and Bulleteer Harises with this type of Fireteam. A team of Order Sgt, Santiago KHD and Bulleteer is fairly efficient at both roles.
Crusade Fireteams – Haris – Hospitallers and Characters
While more difficult to write into a list than the hyper-efficient Teutons, and with no cheap Light Infantry filler options in the team, a Crusade Haris still offers some interesting options. There are three stand-out things you can’t find in the other Fireteams: Hospitaller Doctor, HMG and the Forward Deployment +8” Boarding Shotgun options. The Doctor is a more reliable and far less vulnerable specialist than a Crosier Paramedic. In a Core you might take the combi rifle to shave points, but in a Haris the multi rifle can fill a valuable niche. The HMG is, in my opinion, still a superior weapon to a Spitfire, at least in the first Round of a game. If you aren’t including one of the non-linkable long range options in the Sectorial, you have to either consider the Hospitaller HMG or plan some other way to avoid being pinned down in your Deployment Zone.
Here’s an expensive Haris that does give you a resilient fighting unit – BS14 Heavy Infantry can do alright even without the full Core bonuses:
- Hospitaller HMG, Doctor multi rifle, boarding shotgun – 101pts, 1.5SWC. Note that this team is a sort of a compromise between the more efficient Harises mentioned above, where you add one expensive model to a couple fillers, and the all-in obstacle of a pain train Heavy Infantry Core.
- Hospitaller HMG, Doctor multi rifle, Santiago KHD – 111pts, 1.5SWC. Raising the cost even a bit higher, this gives you effective mitigation to the risk of enemy hacking offensives.
More unusually, you can leverage the Forward Deployment 8” profile to build a Haris team that starts in the midfield:
- 2x Hospitaller boarding shotgun FD+8”; Knight of Justice spitfire FD+4” – 122pts, 1SWC.
We’re not saying this is necessarily a good idea. Even if you’re going first, you are only saving 1-2 Orders’ worth of movement which could go on a powerful solo piece. If you’re going second, you could be starting a chunk of points closer to the enemy, which for all their great stats are quite vulnerable to the right sorts of attack. But it’s one way to get to grips with your opponent. If doing this, consider investing in complementary midfield troops that are unhackable or have marker states (Dart or Trinitarians) to pierce any Repeater networks.
Duo Teams
In many respects Duos are the least of the Fireteam options. If given the option, many players would opt to build a Haris (or 3-model Core team), getting the all-round firepower boost of +1B in the Active & Reactive turns, and willingly paying for the redundancy of a 3rd model. But all Fireteams are a balance of cost/risk and capability, and there are some clear advantages to a Duo. All of the Military Orders’ Duo options are described in one group, separate from the Core and Haris groupings described above, so the natural downside of Duo teams in Sectorials (that most players would look to build up a Haris instead) doesn’t apply. Some of the models do overlap, but there are some good options that can only join Fireteams in a Duo.
Knight Fireteams – Duo – other Knights, Bulletteers, Infirmarer if you must
You have great flexibility to Duo together almost any two Knights in the Sectorial, except for Teutonic and Hospitaller Knights, but including the Hospitaller characters (De Fersen & Hawkins) or Joan.
The archetypal Duos are either:
- Two complementary attack pieces, typically a mid-long range gunfighter to work the pair up the table, then a close quarters unit to finish the enemy off.
- An attack piece paired with a specialist or support model. This isn’t just to achieve objectives. At best, some factions can Duo a TAG with an Engineer – not Military Orders, alas. But you could seek to pair any model with a Doctor/Paramedic to try and pick it back up, or support a hacking-vulnerable model (almost all your stuff here) with a KHD to remove its threats.
Military Orders has some pretty good options available here:
- Knights of Montesa. Bikes are great in ITS Season 13 and a Duo is a great use of them, provided the table gives you some opportunities to use it. These can be an effective ‘pure’ Duo, a Red Fury Montesa can effectively get a Boarding Shotgun, or better yet Paramedic, option, into the enemy deployment zone. The other option would be for an aggressive Montesa, whether Multi Rifle, Boarding Shotgun or Paramedic profile, to ‘drag’ a more conventional Knight along with it to the midfield, at least until the footslogger falls behind. Relatively cheap (by MO standards) the Montesa is a good counterpoint to an expensive firepower knight or one of the special characters. The point of this Duo, even more than most, is to split up as soon as one model starts to constrain the movement/position of the other.
- Bulleteers. They’re one of the most efficient attacking gunfighters in the game. Another reason I wish Curators could Duo! The best pairing here is probably the Santiago KHD, to help destroy direct template weapons, dispose of mines, and of course remove hacking threats. They also go great with the closer-quarters Montesa variants. The only thing holding back a Bulleteer Duo is ‘why isn’t this in an Order Sergeant Haris?’.
- Hacking Duo with the Santiago KHD and either a Knight of Justice or De Fersen. This is a slightly more reasonable version of the same thing in a Haris. Not really a competitive choice as there are far better hacking factions out there, but your opponent will at least be a bit surprised when you deploy them.
- Almost any firepower choice and an Infirmarer. I’m firmly of the opinion that Infirmarers blow chunks. They’re too expensive for a model you only take to keep other models alive. They have just enough armour, shooting and close combat skill to make them expensive, not enough to make them truly dangerous. I’d much rather a Curator was an option in a Duo – Knights are quite vulnerable to hacking and laying AP mines can be handy. But, having someone to revive you reliably (better in all other respects, this is one thing the Montesa Paramedic can’t compete at) is one of the best ways to leverage Duo on an attack piece. Ultimately this is the sort of Duo where you’re purely supporting the bigger half, which could function as its own solo piece, and in Military Orders, the best solo attacking pieces are un-linkable. Not a top option.
Including Fireteams in Lists: Combat Groups
As with any model in Infinity, when taking models for a Fireteam you should carefully consider what Combat Group they would do best in. My personal practice is usually to put both my Core and Haris teams (I usually take both) in my larger Combat Group (I always split 10/5 or 9/6). This allows for flexible Fireteam construction – after all, you don’t finalise your Fireteams when list building, but when deploying. You can write a list that includes models which can be teamed up in different combinations. For example, if going first I might deploy 2 Fireteams of 3 models each, moving one to attack in Round 1 and being more cautious with the other; if going second I could deploy one full Core team, with another model roaming free.
Going first:
- Core: Teuton NCO Sptifire, Teuton Firewall, Crosier Paramedic. The more aggressive team to push forward.
- Haris: Black Friar HRL, Teuton Lt, Order Sgt Hacker. A team which can provide long range sweeper firepower and hacking AROs.
Going second:
- Core: Black Friar HRL, Crosier Paramedic, Teuton NCO Spitfire, Teuton Firewall, Order Sgt Hacker. (Teuton Lt outside the team)
This kind of deployment flexibility is denied to you if you are pre-placing one Fireteam in each Combat Group. I also have a rule that more aggressive models which seek to break through and punish the enemy in their own table half should be in the larger group. To me that is the whole point of most Haris teams. For example, with the classic triple Teuton Haris, I like to use them in the larger group where they can hopefully draw on 9-10 Orders plus 1-2 NCO Orders, to overrun the enemy. But I know very good players who prefer to use that same Haris in a smaller group, trusting the NCO boost (with a Knight Commander) to allow them to function on a par with a model in a larger Combat Group. Some of our Goonhammer team disagree here – it’s true that having Fireteams in separate combat groups offers you the opportunity to coordinate their manoeuvres within the same Active Turn. It depends what you use them for and what works best for you.
Core Fireteams, likewise I think are better in the larger group. Some players do advocate having a Core team of 5 models which composes its own group. I disagree strongly with that approach. A 5 model team, even of the cheapest models, is a pretty formidable part of your force. If it’s the right time to commit it, you will want more than 5 Orders. If there is no opportunity to use it effectively in a given turn, due to table position, then you’re wasting 5 Orders that turn. If you are going to put a Core team in a small Combat Group, at least put one other decent unit with them. Then you can deploy it in a different zone and have a bare minimum of flexibility in using that Order pool.
For any team type, putting them in the smaller group also presents issues with keeping your groups coherent later in the game. The natural use for Command Tokens, as you take casualties, is to move the survivors of your smaller group in with those of the larger group, consolidating into one Order pool that retains reach and punch. If you have a Haris of 3 models in your second, smaller group, you can’t do that without spending, at minimum, 3 Command Tokens.
All those factors lead us to advise keeping your Fireteam-able models in your larger combat group – but as mentioned, feel free to experiment. One of the most advanced parts of list-building in Infinity is envisioning your Order expenditure and how your list can keep options open as each game develops.
Conclusion: Incorporating Fireteams into your List
It’s interesting to sit and consider all the different Fireteam configurations available and how to get the most capability for cost squeezed in there. But it’s only part of list building. Your Fireteams have to serve your wider goals: how will you accomplish the mission Objectives? Dominate long range firelanes? Defeat enemy AROs? Break through to the enemy’s Deployment Zone or more vulnerable units? Also, remember that Fireteams aren’t your only tools for this. The right solo piece is often more suitable. The bigger a portion of your list a Fireteam is, the more you are forced to use it to gain the advantage. For example, if using the full Crusade Core team with Joan, if you aren’t beating your opponent around the face and neck with it, you’re playing with half a list (or less). On the other hand, there are threats that can neutralise your huge beatstick very efficiently. When using Fireteams in a game, you have to weigh the risks of bringing them forward. Do you need the mechanical power and redundancy to accomplish the aim of this move? Do you actually want to leave more models inside the enemy’s reach, to create a barrier to them achieving their objective? In case the answer isn’t a Fireteam, you always want some sort of alternative model that can deal with targets a Fireteam is inefficient or vulnerable against. This is a good time to sing the praises of Dart, as well as Trinitarians.
Military Orders has a lot of expensive models, especially since almost all players want to include the iconic Knights, and it doesn’t have any particularly cheap Regular Orders (unless using Joan as a Lt). So reaching 14-15 models in a list, which is our absolute advice for any competitive game, requires a lot of discipline. Reviewing the Fireteams above, that pushes us hard toward Military Orders or Order Sergeant Fireteams for our Core and Haris. Crosiers, Order Sgts and Teutonic Knights can get the job done. Including the more expensive Wildcards like Santiagos, Knights of Justice, De Fersen, or building a Crusade team around Hospitallers, is basically an either/or choice – do you want those very powerful Fireteams, or do you want to afford the Sectorial’s best solo pieces? It’s a lot easier to fit in a Tikbalang alongside a motley crew of Teutons and light infantry than alongside a breaching team of elite Knights.
Whatever solution you choose during list building, be ruthless in analysing your decisions post-game. Did a given Fireteam work well for you? Why or why not? Not every model will shine in every game of Infinity. The opposing target set may not suit their weapons or skills. The enemy may target and remove them early on, specifically because they are a threat. The table layout may see them sidelined, or they could have an influence on the game simply by forcing the opponent to keep their head down, or avoid certain sections of the table. Take a long cold look at what is working for you in-game, not just what seems powerful written in a list. Fireteams are especially prone to this fallacy. It’s all too easy to see the mechanical benefits and envision all 3-5 disparate models using their capabilities together. The negative realities of using a Fireteam – compromising position to maintain coherency, offering clustered targets to your opponent – don’t come out in list building, but during your games. If your Fireteams meet with disaster, ask yourself what needs to be done differently, starting with whether it is a list problem or a tactics problem.
Go forth and conquer, Military Orders players! Remember, an army which carries the true cross can never be defeated . . . but as this has been disputed in the past, you still need a plan.
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