OFFICER TRAINING SCHOOL - What to Expect From Playing RTF?
In this series I'll be focusing on subjects that are specially geared towards new players starting with Ramah Taskforce.
They Aren't Called the Haqqislam's Finest for Nothing!
First, let's take a short look at some of the great things that come with playing RTF!
- The Good Guys and Gals. When it comes to the backstory of Infinity, Ramah Taskforce is not only the very tip of the spear when it comes to the tactical capability of the Haqqislamite army, but it's also a force with a strong humanistic vocation: RTF is the first to answer the call if a humanitarian crisis is looming, a ring of ruthless slavers needs disbanding and their captives require saving, or a group of Haqqislamite diplomats need escorting out of a combat zone. The altruitistic tendencies of the Sectorial, as well as the unquestionable high morality of it's soldiers, makes Ramah Taskforce an organization that one can easily cheer for!
- The Supersoldiers. As Haqqislam cannot compete with the likes of PanOceania or Yu Jing when it comes to traditional military hardware, the humanistic nation has instead put their efforts into training and bioenhancing it's finest soldiers to achieve the heights of human potential. The resulting supersoldiers are the envy of the Human Sphere, and the beating heart of Ramah Taskforce. These units not only look amazing, but they're also superbly powerful, and a total blast to play on the tabletop!
- A Versatile Unit Roster. While Ramah Taskforce is primarily known for it's outstanding Elite Light Infantry units (and for a good reason!), the Sectorial also incorporates a surprisingly diverse and effective roster of Line Troops, Skirmishers, Medium and Heavy Infantry, as well Remotes and even TAGs! No matter what type of unit you're looking for, you'll find that they not only are propably present in RTF, but the choices available are very competent in their respective roles!
- Excellent Firepower. Ramah Taskforce is without a question "the shooty Haqqsilam Sectorial". The force has access to a wide variety of models with (for Haqqislam) elite Ballistic Skill, a plethora of deadly ranged weapons, excellent access to Smoke, as well as several models with Multispectral Visors! And if one can't engineer a favorable gunfight on one's turn for some reason, there's always the possibility of utilizing...
- The Plentiful Non-Linear Threat Angles. RTF has access to a couple of great Parachutist options, several models with mobility-enhancing abilities (such as Super-Jump, Climbing Plus, Dodge (+X''), etc.), and most of it's models are capable of pivoting between various ways of engaging their targets! Versatility is the name of the game here, and it also immensely helps to keep the tactical choices interesting, and the list building refreshing time and time again! I've never had a model or a tactic deployed against me that I'd felt RTF couldn't counter with the right preparation and/or tactical approach!
- Amazing Specialists. Ramah's Specialists are truly the envy of all of Human Sphere; not only do they benefit from atleast WIP 14 (barring a couple of Mercenary/REM exeptions), but most of them are great fighters, in addition to being well poised to interact with Mission Objectives, Classified Cards and perform their dedicated tactical support functions! It's extremely Order efficient to have high Willpower Specialists straightup fight their way to their targets, rather having to be escorted there! Having access to plenty of such dual-purpose pieces also makes building redundancy to the list quite easy, if not downright collateral!
- Resistance to traditional counters. Even as most of RTF's units bring a versatile set of skills, abilities and weapons to the table, and thus enable their commander to counter opposing units in a variety of ways, many of these (elite) operatives are also surprisingly resistant to their unit type's traditional counters; Ramah Taskforce is home to such things as No Wound Incapacitation and/or Shock Immune Light Infantry, Veteran Heavy Infantry, as well as several models capable of denying Opponent's models their use of advantages such as Mimetism, Martial Arts or Surpise Attack! This means that the Opponent often has to dedicate above avarage amounts of resources in order to take out the Haqqislam's finest, and to make sure that they stay down!
- Diverse Fireteam Options. When playing as Ramah Taskforce, the player has access to several potential Fireteam Duo and Haris options, as well as extremely modular Fireteam Cores, thanks to the plentiful access to "counts as" models and Wildcards!
- An Excellent Officer Corps. RTF is in the enviable position of being able to choose between highly capable active Lieutenants backed up by some solid Chain of Command options, or having easily hideable Line Troop commanders (SWC taxfree!) and their decoys tucked away at one's backlines - and in both cases the RTF player gets to proceed to the Initiative Roll with a WIP 14 at the minimum! There are even a couple of effective NCO's available to help put those Lieutenant Orders into good use!
- Direct Templates. All the Direct Templates! Combine the standard Haqqislamite soldier's loadout of Rifle + Light Shotgun with all the Flamethrowers, Nanopulsers, Chain-Colts, Boarding Shotguns and E/Marats available to the Faction, and enemies should be weary of even your most humble troops - all soldiers with such equipment are bad (for the attacker) reactive turn trades or brutal close range assaults waiting to happen!
What to Look Out For
Unfortunately, not even the Ramah operatives are invincible, and as such there a few things that an RTF Commander has to take into account.
"Elite" is also a byword for "Expensive". It's rare to find a unit unique to RTF that costs well under 30 points to include in a list. This means that one has to make some serious compromises in the list building phase of the game, in order to get to include as many elite operatives as possible, while still having as close to 15 Order generating models as possible, because...
There are few extra orders available. As befits an elite professional force, most of Ramah's soldiers are Regular Troops (and thus somewhat costly), and the Sectorial has little access to such things as Impetuous Troops, Tactical Awereness, or Lieutenant (+1 Order). This means that RTF has to actually bring 15 troops into the battle to push it's Order Pools to match something that some other Factions could achieve with a whole lot less of an investment!
- Projecting a Hacking network can be difficult. I'd never call RTF's Hacking game weak (I don't even consider it below avarage!), but the inability to begin the battle with forward deployed Repeaters, and the difficulty of advancing Hacking Area increasing models up the field, does handicap Ramah's ability to take command of the cyberwar theatre. Doing so is still very much possible, but achieving it does require more work than some other Factions have to put in. Then again, the RTF strike team can always forgo infowar alltogether, and leave Hackable units at home without it impacting the list's performance too gravely!
- Most models can go down rather quickly. Even though RTF has access to some very tenacious pieces, few of it's soldiers can stand up to a sustained assault for an extended period of time. One has to expect significant casualties, and learn to master what pieces to leave and out when.
- A one dimentional Camo game. There only a couple of Camouflage capable soldiers in Ramah Taskforce, and experienced Opponents can easily deduce what's under each Camo Marker, so you can't count on confusing your enemies with such trickery!
Would I Recommend Ramah Taskforce for Beginners?
Yes, I heartily would!First of all; the models are drop dead gorgeous! Miniatures are pretty important in a miniature game, and those that make up Ramah Taskforce are glorious! If you're into the lore, the background of the Sectorial is also very compelling, so you're very much set!Some people consider Vanilla Haqqislam a difficult Faction for new players to start out with, due to it's (often) heavy emphasis on so called "asymmetrical trading", but I don't feel that RTF leans on such tactics as much. The fact that the supersoldiers (and the other elite operatives) offer newer players strong pieces that they can put to work against the enemy and get good results with from the very start, makes the Sectorial easier to approach in my opinion. I would instruct a new player to choose the most aplicable elite piece at their disposal every Order, figure out how it can mulch up the opposing force, and to then stride forth with purpose - either the result will be a dead enemy model, or a valuable learning experience!Ramah also boasts models with above average durability when it comes to Haqqislam (and even Infinity in general), and this (limited) ability to resist damage and/or traditional counters can give new players a light buffer that allows for them to make mistakes and maybe get away with them - it's best to strive to not repeat said mistakes though, even if your Bioimmunity or NWI saved you this time around!
When one is beginning their first foray into the game of Infinity, it can also be hard to know conclusively what style of play and what types of units one is going to find enjoyable. Luckily for a starting commander, RTF offers a wide selection of very respectable units, and the Sectorial can accommodate quite a number of different playstyles, which means that switching Factions doesn't have to be the first thing to consider, even if one doesn't find immediate synergy between one's playstyle and the troops one has started their collection with!Even though I would happily recommend RTF to new players dipping their toes into Infinity, a small word of caution: the sheer amount of special skills and exotic units available to the Sectorial can feel a bit overwhelming to begin with (though nothing compared to a Vanilla Army, to be sure), so there's no need to panic if things don't start out smoothly. Infinity can be an unforgiving game to learn, and leading a strike team of versatile and expensive troops can be a (relatively) quick skill to learn, but immensely difficult one to master! Which leads me to...Would I Recommend RTF to Experienced Players?
Oh, yes!As I just alluded to, I feel that Ramah Taskforce is an incredibly deep and rich Sectorial, and one that I keep finding more to learn and to be excited about no matter how much I play and tinker around with them! I've had my stints with other Factions in the past, but once I was able to "crack" the optimal way to play some of them, the excitement kind of died away...It's quite easy to find oneself in a situation where one runs a highly optimized list where model 1 does thing A, and model 2 does thing B (almost) everytime, and the game devolves into "aply 1 to achieve A" type of grind. Where some call many of Ramah's profiles "bloated" because most of them aren't highly focused on just one thing, I find their versatility exremely strong, and the tactical choices they offer enthralling time and time again. Gunning down few careless opposing models with a high BS HMG surely feels nice, but not as nice as spending a Lieutenant Order with a Khawarij NCO to shoot enemies through Smoke, have him pass his saves on 8s against Rifle hits, Dodge 3'' into melee with a rampaging Martial Artist, and then proceed to cut them down thanks to Natural Born Warrior - now that's what I call living!
In my humble opinion, RTF is also very well positioned to take on the modern Infinity meta. The change to the maxium of 15 Order generating models (as well as many of the other changes that N4 brought, such as the increased numbers of heavily armored foes roaming about) does allow the Sectorial hunt it's natural prey - other elite forces - without the fear of smothering horde lists. The Faction also boasts all the tools that one needs to deal with many of the Apex predators out there, such as Camo Spamming, Tower AROs, Hacking Heavy or even the dreaded Avatar & Friends - not too bad!When it comes to competitive play and the contemporary meta, there's also one more thing. While I wouldn't call RTF an "unkown" Sectorial by any strech, I haven't seen it make a large impact on the tournament scene either. This means that a competent Ramah player might be able to leverage some level of "dark horse" advantage against some illprepared Opponents, and in the very least, in don't see many of the elite players obsessing over how to beat the Good Guys in Orange as they prep for tournaments...
See You on the Field, Commander!
So there you have it, my take on what to expect when starting with Ramah Taskforce! From my personal experience, the journey with this Sectorial can be (with tongue planted firmly on the cheek!) likened to a relationship: it all started with a mad crush, and while there have been a number of difficulties along the way, firm commitment, the willingness to put in the hard work, and a touch of mad love that keeps one going through the darkest of moments, have seen me learn and grow with this Sectorial, and I can honestly say that I feel that there's still so much to learn and to discover with Ramah Taskforce! So how about you; what's your story going to shape up to be?Until the next time - I wish you the very best in leading the Swift and Deadly Spear of the Haqqislamite Army to Victory!
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