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Not enough true "tactics" advice in this forum. I understand that much of Infinity is situational, but there are some tactical invariants that you can put to use. That said: Landmines!

When it comes to Infinity, I love me some landmines. The tactical possibilities are nearly endless. One well-placed landmine can really cripple your opponent - whether it's taking out a link team, forcing your opponent to burn orders to get rid of it, protecting camouflaged Minelayers by forcing them to play the shell game, or otherwise impeding his plans. I wanted to start a tactics thread discussing some potential ways of employing landmines.

Mines come in a few varieties (regular antipersonnel mines, e-maulers, monofilament and viral mines...others?) with antipersonnel mines being the most common, followed close behind by E-maulers. While the targets may differ slightly, employment strategies will likely be largely similar.

Some things about the rules for mines:

1) Mines are deployed as camo tokens.
2) Mines deployed using the Minelayer skill are also camo tokens with a silhouette that makes them indistinguishable from a Camo trooper.
3) Mines explode when an enemy unit activates or AROs within their "trigger area." The trigger area is loosely defined as an area where the mine could hit the enemy, but would not hit a friendly. This means that they will react to enemy camo tokens, but not to Impersonators.
4) Deploying mines is an Attack that places the mine in B2B contact with the equipped trooper.

Some tactical considerations arising from those rules:
1&2) Mines can serve as decoys for camo troopers (if you don't tip your hand during deployment). If doing so, vary the sequence of placing your camo tokens so that you don't place one, check ZOC, then place the other, as your opponent will know that one must be a mine. Place one, then deploy another unit, then go back and place the other.
3) You can use a friendly model who has placed a mine to block a mine from triggering in a direction that you don't want (i.e., to prevent your opponent from detonating a mine with a chaff model). This is especially effective if the blocking model is either an Impersonator or in a Camo state.
4) You can place mines in positions to attack enemy models around corners (note that if an enemy camo marker lies within the trigger area of the mine, you must pass an Intuitive Attack roll to do so). This allows you to either (a) prevent the models in the trigger area from doing an action without taking the mine hit, (b) force them to dodge and hopefully avoid being hit, or (c) place then mine, then pop out and shoot them, discouraging them from shooting back at you.

Please share your own tactical advice on the creative and timely use of landmines!

You can place mines during the deployment phase?

 plastictrees wrote:
You can place mines during the deployment phase?

If the unit profile has the Minelayer Skill, you can.

Neat. I've been doing most of my rules exploration through Army, so I've overlooked some of the skills as they aren't linked on my phone.
Will look forward to using some more Muyibs when we hit 300 pts!

 plastictrees wrote:
Neat. I've been doing most of my rules exploration through Army, so I've overlooked some of the skills as they aren't linked on my phone.
Will look forward to using some more Muyibs when we hit 300 pts!

Yeah Muyibs are an interesting unit because they come with Minelayer but they don't allow Infiltration, like Chasseurs or many other Minelayer units.

Examples of uses for them include things like denying AD combat drop zones in your deployment zone. While you could use them as decoys for a camo'ed unit, most of the Haqq camo units infiltrate.

Minelayer is an easy way to make a combat group bigger by 1, so you can hide AD or TO when you have 9 models in a combat group on the table.

The -3 PH to dodge mines is always in effect even if the mine is discovered, and it also applies to E/Maulers.

Sometimes it's worth holding a minelayer back to play shell games with your killer MI. Like Tank Hunters, Scots Guards or Intruders. A few weeks ago I played a JSA player who hid a Raiden HRL under Yuriko Oda's "mine" deployment.

 4rgfvsw6p wrote:
Minelayer is an easy way to make a combat group bigger by 1, so you can hide AD or TO when you have 9 models in a combat group on the table.

The -3 PH to dodge mines is always in effect even if the mine is discovered, and it also applies to E/Maulers.

Sometimes it's worth holding a minelayer back to play shell games with your killer MI. Like Tank Hunters, Scots Guards or Intruders. A few weeks ago I played a JSA player who hid a Raiden HRL under Yuriko Oda's "mine" deployment.

How so? Isn't it only -3 when you don't have LoF to the template? Did I miss something?

You must have missed something, it's in the mines rules

Jesus Christ.. So it does, in plain sight even. How the feth did me and my local group miss that rule? Thanks for the info.

Always bear in mind to deploy mines staggered so that the opponent can't trigger them all in just one short order

 Tristan228 wrote:
Always bear in mind to deploy mines staggered so that the opponent can't trigger them all in just one short order

This is good advice, especially since successful Dodges will counter all of the mines. One way of staggering them is to place them around corners so they don't trigger (through Total Cover).

Mines are especially good against REMs/Motorcycles/TAGS

ontop of the -3 dodge from the mine, rems and motorcycles have -3 to dodge, and TAGS have -6. This makes MONO mines very good at killing TAGS, as they have a total of -9 to their dodge roll.

Mines are deployable weapons, as such they have a profile and can be destroyed, although it is often easier and does not waste orders to try and dodge through them- or avoid them. If a player clusters a lot of mines together, firing a large template at them to try and remove them is a possibility.

If you can lay a mine so it affects a normal model and a cammo token at the same time then you don't need intuitive attack, a nice opportunity that comes along now and again.

Mines are shock ammo so are a real threat to Dogged and NWI models.

Placing a mine against a target before giving it an ARO forces it to either dodge with that ARO or chance an ARM roll on top of anything else.

 Groundworks wrote:
If you can lay a mine so it affects a normal model and a cammo token at the same time then you don't need intuitive attack, a nice opportunity that comes along now and again.

Mines are shock ammo so are a real threat to Dogged and NWI models.

Placing a mine against a target before giving it an ARO forces it to either dodge with that ARO or chance an ARM roll on top of anything else.

Could you explain your last point? My understanding was that placing a mine, then generating an ARO from a model that can see you, will never detonate due to that ARO, during that order, because it all happens simultaneously.

In other words, the AROing model could declare BS Attack without the mine going off, unless you were to provoke an ARO on the next order.

You place the Mine in LOF to the enemy while being OUTSIDE the enemy's LOF yourself. With the next order you're moving in the enemy's LOF and force him to ARO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
[...] My understanding was that placing a mine, then generating an ARO from a model that can see you, will never detonate due to that ARO, during that order, because it all happens simultaneously.

Actually the Mine is placed during the order's conclusion which means after all rolls are resolved, would it happen simultanously the mine could be triggered through an ARO during the placement order.

Got it. Ok I've been playing it correctly.

Another one, Mines don't declare AROs, they have specialized triggering text. That leads to some interesting interactions such as cautious move still setting off mines.