Infinity Mission Focus: Highly Classified

Welcome to the third installment of this series focusing on Infinity Missions.
After studying difficulties and opportunities when playing Mindwipe, we now indulge in one of the most erratic missions of all: Highly Classified.

In this mission, four Classified Objectives (COs for short) are drawn and shared by the two players, while each one draws a personal Secondary CO.

It is not that important nor difficult to get familiar with the CO deck: it's an additional set of rules introduced in ITS Season 10 composed by 20 cards, each one detailing an objective and the requirements and rolls needed to accomplish it.

To be prepared for this mission, let's see if we can brake it down in order to be prepared whatever our 5 cards will be.

Breaking down the deck

👨‍💻 Hackers: 25% (5 out of 20) of the COs can be accomplished with an hacker. Only 1 of these (5%) requires base contact, therefore it may be very wise to bring pitchers to this game.

👩‍🔬 Other specialists: doctors/paramedics and engineers cover 25% of the objectives, with one being shared and the rest being evenly divided between the two academic skills. Also forward observers have their share but their objectives can also be accomplished by hackers and therefore were already counted so in the previous paragraph.

🎖️Veteran/Elite/Chain of Command: 15% of the COs can be accomplished by having CoC or by using a Veteran or Elite trooper.

🤷 Various: 5% of the objectives can be achieved by using Heavy or Medium Infantry, another 5% by equipping a Multi Spectral Visor, a Biometric Visor or using sensor and the last 5% can be achieved using D-Charges.

Completing the analysis

Adding all those percentages together, you'll reach 80%. That means there are 4 COs missing. These four don't have specific requirements and can be divided in two groups: premium and normal. 

🏆 Premium COs: these can be overachieved to have additional Objective Points. To reach them, you'll need to be proficient in Close Combat and to have very high PH and mobility. 

🚰 Normal COs: these only need you to be in base contact with Unconcious enemies and perform an action.

👫 Get personal with your HVT: last but absolutely not least, remember that 35% (7 out of 20, that's the highest ratio we've seen) of the COs require an interaction with the enemy High Value Target. It may need LoF, ZoC or base contact, but since HVTs have to stay 4" away from any deployment zone it means any Superior Deployment skill will save you some orders to reach that HVT.

Fast units like @ponty_painter's Lawkeeper shown in this picture can be very useful not only to complete objectives but also to deny the enemy's efforts to fullfill their CO agenda! Check out his Twitter profile for more Infinity pictures!

Final thoughts

Taking all the above information can be a bit overwhelming and is really not that different from reading through all the COs so here's the takeout:

WATCH FOR POLYVALENT UNITS

It's easy to understand that units with all the requirements above would be essential in this mission so you should be looking for units in your list (and in your opponent's) that can cover a high number of requirements. These will be your mission wildcards, capable of tackling most of the COs you'll draw.

Such a unit will likely be (in this order): a hacker, with a Superior Deployment skill, with troop type Veteran or Elite, equipped with some sort of visor and d-charges, either an HI or MI, proficient in CC and with some high mobility feature like MOV 6, Super Jump or a Motorcycle.

Of course there's not such a unit and some armies will have a hard time satisfying just the first requirement* but you'll find that there's a pattern you can follow here.

Notable examples

• Liú Xing from Invincible Army: these guys were born for this mission. I won't even start talking about their Combat Jump (explosion).
  

• Knight of Justice from Military Orders: super effective in this mission but lacks Superior Deployment so I see Kinghts of Santiago to be the perfect complement to them. Watch out for both.
  
• Ekdromoi from Steel Phalanx: these guys are dirty cheap for what they can do in this mission and you can bring 4 of them!

I won't go in detail for every army because I don't want to get trapped into making tier lists or whatever but I've spotted valid alternatives in each sectorial to cover this "Jack of All Trades" role.

*Ariadna and Tohaa players, I'm looking at you: you'll have to make things work out differently. I believe your strength here lays in fireteams but I'm not 100% sure. I'll keep thinking about this and come back for you.