Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

True. Killing is the downside of my plan. Although a Reb commander with sniper rfile would help the reb version. A rainmaker/goblin sniper works well in the Marauder version.

 pretre wrote:
. If you do the blaze away trick and activate like 8 at once, you would finish first and then get the initiative.

Doesn't supporting count towards your maximum number of activations? So you could only do up to the command limit. If not, then that's a good plan.

Also, 3 potential damage is not going to hurt anything with amazing armour, but on the other hand can still kill armour 1 models, which includes humans, Yndij, Stage 3s (both kinds), Commandos, snipers, mawbeasts and a bunch of other stuff. Tripling with 5-7 dice is not too hard, I imagine, so there's still a lot of potential.

Also, with that many guns, you could always just pull off some massed point-fire and have a decent chance to get lucky and do some damage.

With the command stat they could have just had one value, IMO.

Then just say "half of cmd value rounded up/down for the first and second values.

 Paradigm wrote:

 pretre wrote:
. If you do the blaze away trick and activate like 8 at once, you would finish first and then get the initiative.

Doesn't supporting count towards your maximum number of activations? So you could only do up to the command limit. If not, then that's a good plan.

Supporting has a specific exemption to your command limit.

Also, 3 potential damage is not going to hurt anything with amazing armour, but on the other hand can still kill armour 1 models, which includes humans, Yndij, Stage 3s (both kinds), Commandos, snipers, mawbeasts and a bunch of other stuff. Tripling with 5-7 dice is not too hard, I imagine, so there's still a lot of potential.

Also, with that many guns, you could always just pull off some massed point-fire and have a decent chance to get lucky and do some damage.

Yeah. Can you use weak point and head shot on Blaze Away? Throw some AP in there?

From the rule:
" A model that supports is marked as activated and does count
towards the maximum number of models a player can
activate in his Turn"

So it does count towards the limit, unless there's something else I'm missing.

I don't have a deck on me, but I'm pretty sure Headshot can only be used on an actually 'shoot' action, but I think Weak Spot can be applied to anything that can potentially cause damage.

Where did I get the NOT that I saw there.

Dammit. Nevermind then.

That's one of my biggest questions still too. Like the pka captains dominator rifle. Its got ap1 *and* firestorm. Do we apply the ap1 to potential ba damage? Same with the plague mortar and its ap1 and frag. I assume that the ap affects the damage but I haven't read those sections recently.

I would imagine that it does.

Yeah, I'd assume it applies to anything done by the weapon that causes damage.

Other problem of scattering your units between different squares (but near each other) is that it allows an opposing CC specialist to play 'Draughts' (is it Checkers in the US?) and hop between units, one after the other, along the battle line if it gets some good rolls.

After a couple more games and having tried all factions, I'd say there are definitely some things out of whack that need to be polished.

Massive Frag is one of them. The Guntrack Mortar can and will regularly end the game on turn 1. This is atrociously bad game design and I don't know how it got through playtesting.

The other one is the major disparity between the effectiveness of high-power direct fire weapons in contrast to heavy suppression weapons.

I can honestly say that every single missile launcher, H.E.W. or similar gun I've tried has been nothing but a waste of points and I have not scored a single kill with any of them ever. High AP is massively, massively overpriced compared to Sniper and Firestorm and will be forever useless unless the upcoming mechs have Armour 5 or something.

The gun track mortar is unbelievable! Round one -three kills and one pinned, round two- two more kills!
Yep, very powerful and game changing. How can it be changed? Decrease accuracy? What if it always scattered? But by one scatter if a hit, three if a miss?

I'm surprised you've found AP overpriced, Blackfang, as I've found it essential to pack at least one AP2+ weapon where possible, either melee and CC. The Desolator, Missile Launcher and the HEW beamer on the Rainmaker are some of the weapons I've found most useful, especially when stopping the likes of Stage 1s, Rippers suits and anything the Enforcers have.

 Paradigm wrote:
I'm surprised you've found AP overpriced, Blackfang, as I've found it essential to pack at least one AP2+ weapon where possible, either melee and CC. The Desolator, Missile Launcher and the HEW beamer on the Rainmaker are some of the weapons I've found most useful, especially when stopping the likes of Stage 1s, Rippers suits and anything the Enforcers have.

It's 3 shoot dice vs. 4 survive dice (everyone knows to hug cover by now). Winning by 1 or even 2 points is often meaningless on anything you want to shoot with a HEW anyway because of Tough (Jake is currently working out how to nerf Tough). So you usually need to beat survive by 2-3 while rolling less dice and usually needing the same result to score.

Your absolutely best bet at taking out heavy targets is playing a +1AP card on the Guntrack Mortar and enjoy murdering everything in the target cube with 5 damage dice on 4+ even on a miss and scattering and pinning everything else in a 3x3 block. For a point cheaper than the HEW and the option of firing without even area LOS.

Last night's game was another confirmation of the above. This time my opponent tried the Enforcers and he was seriously pissed about the missile launcher who, again, did nothing all game long.

Apart from that, we're slowly figuring out the factions. It was somewhat of a surprise to find out how poor the Enforcers were in melee as we all just kinda assumed they were like Space Marines, good at everything. Nope. Their playstyle seems to be to get up as high as possible and jump from roof to roof, avoiding melee, while keeping the enemy suppressed until you can drop down on all your objectives at once, or snipe whomever you need to snipe.

It does seem strange that you can't "aim" with the missile launcher because it's deliberate.

The experimental rules on qwirkworthy sort out some of the uselessness of high ap weapons against tough and very tough things but it's still hard to get that hit.

Yeah, they could have done with giving them Marksman at least.

No move order into move card into elevated clear shot? I'd say xp but not everyone rocks campaign mode and then we get into the whole costs too much debate.

So what do you guys do about fast plague lists? I played something like this tonight:
Stage 1A
Stage 3A General
Stage 2A
Stage 2A
6 Hellhounds

It just gets across the board fast (using command actions and move/sprint with dogs) and ties you up.

6 dice on stage 2's in hand to hand seems really good.

I guess I'd try to get up high and take out the 2 models with Command stats for the auto-win. But yeah, 2As and dogs are brutal.

I did feth up and not do Rampage on my 2As which wuold have made some difference. I hid my general behind LOS and the 1A is just really hard to kill

Other ideas include taking out the dogs and pinning everything everywhere with a massive frag, then climb up on some half-tiles and deal with the 2As somehow while making funny faces at the impotent 1A. Admittedly, one 2A ate three Enforcers in two turns just the other day...

Yeah, keep in mind with Rampage that on a 1-2 they will attack their buddies.

Who gets Massive Frag?

Marauders (and Plague with the mortar, but that's not nearly as survivable as the Guntrack)

The Rebs' TK weapons team can do in a pinch too.

Aha, thanks for that.

Marauders and Plague get Massive frag as well as a good amount of normal Frag (though I'll ignore the mirror match for now). Rebs have access to some Frag and Shockwave. Enforcers are low on Frag options (basically the Fusion Gun) but are excellent in terms of suppression and have access to sentry guns to keep things at bay.

With the above force, you basically have hope the first turn doesn't screw you over. Good use of height and proper suppression set-up will make things tough for you. It will be even worse if you aren't the first activation (because you will be nicely bunched up for Blaze Away and Frag.

Now, the upside of course is that you start off with most everything Enraged so that affords a bit of protection against initial suppression attempts. But a few good Blaze Away actions and or Frag/Massive Frag can ruin your day.

I'd say Marauders will likely be the toughest ones to pull this against. They may even get terribly lucky and take out the hidden General in turn one unless you can find some overhanging cover that blocks LOS from above and the front (pray you have it to set up in if you don't get turn one. That said, the mortar can be gotten under as its minimum range is 5 cubes (and it was recently FAQ'd over at QuirkWorthy that Vehicle/CSW Indirect weapons can only use the Throw option) but if you don't get first turn, being that bunched up could hurt a hell of a lot. A guntrack mortar and a Rainmaker will just flat out ruin your day given half the chance.

Against Rebs you need to worry more about him have access to the numbers needed to suppress you heavily. A load of human troops, some spotter drones and a few good support weapons will basically just freeze you in your tracks. This will give them time to improve their position and start picking you off while keeping your head down.

Out of all the factions, Enforcers would probably have the toughest time with this. But with their good manoeuvrability and access to good suppression, even they could pull it off with some canny play.

Basically this list relies on having a good deployment zone, approaches that aren't too circuitous and praying your opponent doesn't get the first turn (and/or that they don't have less activations than you).

Personally, although 2A's and doggies are brutal (saw a 2A skip merrily through some Reb back lines a couple days back as if it were nothing), I don't know how I would feel about having zero suppression ability in a list (the General doesn't count because it is getting assassinated the second it pops out). Even popping a grenade launcher in there or something would give you the ability to keep folk's heads down and increase your chances of getting in there.

And once thinned out, watch out for a counter-assault. If they have you pinned and you are lined up nicely, the enemy could potentially have their own little game of checkers. So be on the look out for Teraton, Mauler Suits and Maw Beasts (and Mawbeast Bombers for that matter).

I think it would be a fun list to try in one-off games, but is probably too limited to go for in Campaigns since a list like this will take some pretty high casualties even when it does well (6+ survive and no armour makes the Hellhounds fairly killable).

The activations thing was a big deal too. I had 6 (Stage 1) vs 4 (Reb Commander). I'll suggest the TK for him.

In a campaign, keep in mind that I have 70 more points of dudes for other lists. I have a mix of stuff and just bought a mortar on your guys suggestion.

Oh definitely, the other 70 points helps, but at the very least, a lot of those Hellhounds will be dying in a list where they can't rely on friendly suppression fire to keep them out of trouble. They may only be a few points a piece, but those casualties will add up when fielded like this. I don't think you'd be able to run this list more than once in a campaign without having to dump most of your rep gained back in to rebuilding it. And on the other side of the field, it makes for a very good time to focus on taking out things like the 1A because you wont be contenting with immediate threats by firepower from the other side of the field. Usually the 1A gets away because it isn't an immediate threat that needs to be stopped. So other things that can effect the game early on in a firefight will eat more aggression. But if the rest of the team is lined up and suppressing things that need to be suppressed, then the 1A is a nice, juicy target that will also injure you battleplan with the 2A's.

It is also worth pointing out that by fielding a list with no shooting to speak of you allow the enemy to do something they'd normally not do. Bunch up in a handful of cubes. Normally, because of the threat of a good Blaze Away, people aren't going to want to be sitting together too often. But when you don't have to worry about that, bunch up in good firing positions and have at 'er. And this leads to the second problem. Normally melee folks can use these spread out lines to their advantage. No bonuses to Survive from friendlies and with enough of a dice lead doubling becomes fairly easy in order to pick up free actions (which leads to the checkers massacre).

But now the enemy can castle together for better defence against melee. This will also reduce the chance for melee chaining as well since with a loaded square you can only get an extra free attack out of the deal so long as folks are still in there. And since Free Actions can't spring from the same Free Action that spawned them, you wont be getting more than two kills at best (and with the extra defence of friends in the square, likely not even that).

And Hellhounds seem mostly useful for ganging up on lone stragglers. Because you don't have much semblance of battlefield control, those wont be so easy to find since the enemy has no compunction to split up.

Not saying it can't work, but by focusing on assault to the exclusion of worthwhile shooting, you end up making assault easier to defend against and harder to set up lopsided conditions in your favour. Without the fear from Blaze Away and Frag there is nothing stopping the enemy from bunching up for maximum protection against assault.

I think the list could definitely use something to punish that. Considering Plague have access to Massive Frag, you may think of popping that in the list.

Not near my books right now but finding some room for a Mortar or a Boomstick or two might be an effective way of instituting a Catch 22 so that bunching up in a good firing position isn't the easiest way to handle you. In my mind, not having any ranged field control in DZ makes things an uphill battle. It also gives you a chance to get the enemy pinned which assault units love.

Another question from someone who has yet to play the game (me): The only reference I can see in the rules for Indirect weapons is hidden in the text for Throw Grenade. This means that the Plague grenade launcher and mortar and the Marauder Guntrack are treated as long range grenades, right?

@Ronin_Ex: Those are all great suggestions for dealing with it! Thank you.