154 replies to this topic

[merlonc]

Don't forget that you have to pay for the Airborne Training SA as well before you can get the Drop Training SA.

Should have said that.

They ought to just make drop cost 65 points and call it done.

In my unit design spreadsheets I use 65 points as the cost for Drop so it includes Airborne

[Chrome]

Weren't there a couple of posts about Pumas right here earlier this afternoon?

[merlonc]

I was thinking about an old show I used to watch as a child. Rat Patrol. How about a 3000 point independent list themed after rat patrol, or "That crazy dune buggy army from heck"

Specialist section:
Nomad, EST
Nomad, Piercing 3
Nomad, Piercing 3
Nomad

Specialist section:
Nomad, EST
Nomad, Piercing 3
Nomad, Piercing 3
Nomad

Specialist section:
Nomad, EST
Nomad, Piercing 3
Nomad, Piercing 3
Nomad

Recon section
Nomad, EST
Nomad, EST
Nomad
Nomad

Orbital Strike X 6

Sure other vehicles could do better but the Nomad looks closet to a desert vehicle. None of them look like a jeep with a .50 cal in the back :)

Merlon

[Sergeant_Crunch]

That looks like it would be fun to try. Two downsides I see to it. 1) The nomad is fairly lightly armored, which is compensated by numbers but they also don't have many DTs. 2) It's going to be difficult to put down a CAV in one activation. Your sections optimized for piercing at best are only going to deal three points of damage and that's if you're lucky with the one that's not upgraded if the target has a high DV. Gives the opponent too much time to repair. Nice thing though is that you'll probably have the run of the initiative deck at this point level.

[merlonc]

You are right, it won't win often and has a lot of drawbacks but it should be fun. Given your points I would combine the piercing into 1 or two 2 big recon sections and use specialist sections for the others to stay legal.

[jdripley]

In my continuing quest to get into CAV, I have developed another army list, and I'd like some input on it. Here it is:

Independant, Spoils of War Doctrine

Section 1: Armor of the CAV variety:
---Chancellor, Jaguar, Jaguar, Talon, Specter
Section 2: Mechanized Infantry
---Lynx, Lynx, Rifle Team x4
Section 3: Armor of the Vehicle variety
---Nomad, Stiletto, Stiletto, Wolf
Upgrades:
---Cruise Missile x2

Comes out to 2994 points. 748 points in Faction models (chancellor and wolf) which is just barely acceptable according to the doctrine. What do you think??

[Chrome]

Looks pretty good. As you have it built now, I'd use the Specter as a Soft Target hunter instead of a Fire Support model. Make good use of its DFM's against gunships and be sure to park it right in the middle of your other CAVs, so it can make good use of its AA SA.

The Chancellor is a fairly tough CAV, its no Super Heavy, but it packs a punch at +7 guns and that RAV 3 DFM. The Jaguars don't have much going for them other than Range tho, so try and use that to your advantage. Try and shoot your targets from about 25"-27" away. That way you'll be in your 1st range band, but any target with Gauss weaponry shooting back at you will be in their 2nd bracket and suffer the range penalty.

The Stilleto and Wolf already have decent DV's, so I'd use your Nomad with them to Target Lock and boost their RAVs. With their guns up in the +8 and +9 range they should be able to score hits each turn.

When you're ready to expand this army, the first thing I'd do is buy 2 more tanks for the second Armor section. You'll quickly find out that a partial section of tanks doesn't have enough fire power to put a CAV down all by itself in 1 turn. Then I'd buy 2 more Fire Support minis (Sultan most likely) and another Recon CAV to hang with them and split them off into their own Fire Support scection.

[jdripley]

Thanks for the advice, Chrome. I picked the Jaguars because they look completely awesome! I'm the sort of softie that goes for the look just as much as the stats, I guess.

Also I noticed that my Mech.Inf. section has 4x Rifle Teams - that was a mistake, it's 2x Armored Rifle Teams. Additionally I completely left out a Flight/Recon section! Two Dragonflies in that section. I'm not sure what their function is.... They fly.. they've got RAV0/Piercing/3 so if I have one of them use Targetting Lock they've got +6 against armor, that's not too shabby. They're trash against soft targets.. How do you guys use flight/recon sections?

I've got the Chancellor, I've got one Jaguar on order. I think I'll grab the two Dragonflies next so I can field a 1k army (175ish points of upgrades). It'd turn out to be an Adon list, but whatever, right? Maybe I'd roll it all into one section, I'd lose the Recon ability in deployment but I could also use the Dragonflies to provide targetting data to the two CAV's.

[Chrome]

How do you guys use flight/recon sections?

One word: FiST

[Forlorn Hope]

I am now painting a mercenary unit after being recently introduced to the game by a fellow listmember, and I am wondering how many people are out there playing independents. It doesn't seem like the doctrines for indys are very useful, and so I would much rather have the rules for the terrans, for example. I like the idea of an indy force, though, and wanted to know if others have chosen to play mercs even though the doctrines aren't that shiny. I guess I would like to know if I am wrong about the doctrines as well.

My current force, The Forlorn Hope, is:

Armor Section
Dictator 60
Dictator 60
Falcon
Puma upgraded to have both EST and ECM Pod

Flight Section
2 Dragonflys

Flight Section
2 Ghasts

Specialist Section
2 Lynxes
4 infantry with missiles and satchel charges

Specialist Section
3 Armored Heavy mortar Infantry
1 infantry with missile

Specialist Section
2 Nomads

[Chrome]

Indys are cool. The Spoils of War Doctrine is really only good in larger games - 3000 pts at the bare minimum. But it allows you to play with models from different factions then.

The Free-form Doctrine can let you do some really cool stuff with it. One of the ones I've been meaning to try out is an all-gunship task force.

[Forlorn Hope]

Freeform Doctrine is the primary draw right now, although it seems more kitchy than straight up butt-whuppy. I have only played two games (against Sgt. Crunch, who lives in my town), and in both I played Terrans with the air strikes etc. The freeform doesn't seem in my mind to stack up against this, but I have been thinking of a force made up of only the very lightest and fastest CAVs (so basically all RECON CAVs). I think this kind of force would probably get spanked, but it might be fun to play. That, however, will have to wait until I get some more models, and my medium CAV to-buy list (mediums seem to be my favorite for the moment) is still quite long. Being able to field faction-specific models is less exciting for me - I think I can't imagine a game big enough where that would be a benefit.

[Forlorn Hope]

Are there any devoted Mercenary players on the forum? I am posting my (admittedly newbie) choices in the hopes that others will respond with their Merc lists and the tactics that they have found useful.

The Forlorn Hope played its first game this last weekend and it was a blast. My list was a bit thrown together to make the points (2 Nomads come in the pack, two Nomads it is), but the general plan of the Forlorn Hope is to have a core of mid-range CAVs supported by the cheapest models withe the biggest punch. As a result, the list was:

2 Dictators, Puma w/EST, Falcon
3 Armored Mortars
4 Rifles with AT-23, along with 2 Lynxes
2 Nomads and one Rifle w/AT-23 and FIST
2 Dragonflys
2 Ghasts
(2 cruise missiles and 2 smoke strikes, 3 satchels for the mech infantry rifles)

The scenario required a ground troop to control a spot for a round for a token, with 6 tokens available. The enemy: Mercs as well (spoils of war doctrine) with 4 Conquerors+ Nomad and then 2 Lances+2 Wolverines + Nomad (I think).

The good news was that I had 6 initiative cards to his two, and this gave me some degree of flexibility in my choices, which I liked. The bad news was that he swatted down many of my units pretty easily. Partly this was because I was too aggressive with the light fliers, and partly it was the nature of the list that I designed.

The game went well, all in all, and was a really good time, with the tide changing from me to him and back and so forth until then very end, with neither of us sure how it would end. Part of it was also that I don't know the rules that well, so I was surprised and horrified in rapid succession. For example:

Round 1: I launched three mortar attacks against the Conquerors and they all drifted. They all had SA: Counterbattery, so even though my attacks all missed each Conqueror returned fire and decimated one of my stands. Then I managed to get the Lynxes in there against the Conquerors, and the infantry stands with the satchel charges wreaked havok among the lightly armored support CAVs. Then I was so impressed with the infantry that I managed to saddle them back up and go against the Wolverines...and their flamers, and all of them were wiped out almost immediately with the defensive fire.

So: the plan is to expand the above with either a Sabretooth to shoot at soft stuff, or with more attacky light units (Longbow and Stiletto are on my list) to give me even more cards. I liked the AT-23s, but the units devoted to attacking in close combat didn't really use them, so I almost want to trade them out for another satchel and/or another flying unit.

Any suggestions? Lists that others have found useful?

[EntilZha]

One thing I might do is drop the Ghasts and use the points to give your Infantry stands FIST and buy as many strikes as the rules will allow for your force size. Especially air strikes, and an orbital pinpoint strike if you can swing it. If you can get LOS with any FIST equipped unit, you can be as far as 48" away and wreak havoc on your opponent.

[Forlorn Hope]

One thing I might do is drop the Ghasts and use the points to give your Infantry stands FIST and buy as many strikes as the rules will allow for your force size. Especially air strikes, and an orbital pinpoint strike if you can swing it. If you can get LOS with any FIST equipped unit, you can be as far as 48" away and wreak havoc on your opponent.

Oops - I forgot to write that the one rifle unit with the Nomads had a FIST upgrade (I edited it in just now). So I had five (or six - I think the Puma had it as well) units on the table with FIST - is this usually not enough to get all of the strikes done?

I like the idea of strikes, and the twice that I played with borrowed models I loved the Terran doctrines that gave them for free. Don't you find that you have the desire to have more models on the table though? This is probably a result of my being very new to the game, but at this point I want to paint and field more models, not fewer - even though what you say above (spending the full amount allowed on strikes) makes some sense.

I was trying to do the math this morning in the shower on a whole force made up only of infantry - designating some as close assault (so they would have transports), some as fire support, and some as scout/FIST units. I was thinking that this might be fun because it would allow a bunch of models on the table and allow for some extra points for strikes, etc. Still thinking about this, though. Anyone have an all-infantry list that has worked?