BR is a nice piece but she is outclassed by plenty of heavy and assault mechs currently in use. In particular her range falls short. Thus she has to get closer ... and as was stated previously she absolutely cannot afford to get hit. With units like Swan and the RD Kodiak been fairly effective and not uncommon units to see ... it would be advisable to put EC on BR, IMHO. This allows her to advance in to range of the target from behind blocking with no possibility of a shot being taken on her. But as far as BR vs HAZ ... I don't think she is sufficient to take him down if the opponent is a savy player. He'll never let you get to within MDFA range, even if you have blocking everywhere to advance behind ... and even if you force him in to a corner he will just base shield to prevent base contact. And your range does not exceed him so will lose in a range war. If he has the right support to keep you based as you approach so you can't assault when you want to ... it will be a very tough match indeed.

You have to use your support to get into MDFA range; as I said an army with a streaking HAZ + Repair Mech leaves very little room for support making it hard to properly surround both Mechs. Same goes for tying up BR.

Conversely, the BR army I posted has tons more support and only really cares about getting the MDFA off because if you do the game is pretty much over. If you plan properly you have WAY more support than him and you can keep BR surrounded. You'll need a 13 to pull the MDFA off, with a 14 being the average with 4 dice. And that's if you attack Hammerfall. You can pretty much kill a Solitaire in one action.

The grappling Sylph is instrumental for this end because it makes it so that the guy playing Hammerfall will have to leave at least one of his Mechs where it is.

Also, tying up HAZ with just about any figure works well because of the big minimum range. You don't even need blocking, because even Hammerfall is hard-pressed to hit an effective 26-27 defense.

One other thing to remember is that the HAZ player is down on points right off the bat. This means he has to come to you.

Yeah, points is a big factor, and with BR, the reason I put EC on, is not just because of indirect, even though insanely high rolls don't help either, there is also a lot of streak boats floating around.

Maybe these comments are fit only for new players, so I apologize if I am stating what the higher ranked players take for granted.

Step one sitting down at the table is asking myself 'how do I win this game'. If the enemy has a big mech, I might win by killing the big mech. But, do I HAVE to kill the big mech? Answer, only if I cannot stay away from the big mech.

Example: enemy brings a FP or SA card and I do not. I am then winning VC2. I can also now afford to sacrifice an ATV if in return I get a point of VC3. Now the enemy must come to me, and that spells heat...

Example: enemy brings a 16 inch range Ares with streaks with a pilot allowing running. He can cover the whole board. I must engage.

So, alot will depend on the exact point structure of the Hammerfall army. Outshooting a zombie Hamerfall is one possibility. But, if he has a PD infantry to assist his repair attempts then this is unlikely to work without having some kind of pulse or double rate to enable you to inflict massive damage (or an Ares gunner who allows multiple hits on the same target). Second alternative is some sort of close combat against Hammerfall-charge, close combat, DFA. Two problems. Range of DFA, high defense of Hammerfall.
Third is to take on his support, often a mech with repair. This will be difficult if I am playing an assault mech or even some heavy mechs with support, since Hammerfall will just interpose himself between me and my quarry (and he also may have BR FP to repair the support piece). Light mech swarms may be able to engage the support mech. Questions are whether I can control the timing of the engagement and can I afford to lose just one mech or two in taking out the support. Of course, if I am very fast, then I may be able to engage just any enemy infantry or vehicles at the very end of the game ignoring both enemy mechs....

I think the real question then is not how to kill Hammerfall, but how to kill XAXIS, his typical friend.

The big problem I have with this gear, is that you must make the RISC roll every single turn of the game. It never turns off! So eventually, at some point, you will fail that roll.

Mike you are high and expierenced enough to say your piece here.

I dont see Black Rose as a winning piece yet.

And mike has a good point on beating X-axis but with the evade and repair all it does is hide behind Hammerfell, in order to attack it oyu need a 3 or 4 mech army and dont forget Xaxis is cheap as it can be. Cheaper then some lights. With a 24 Def or 25 vs. assault long dial. It is hard to kill or pin with evade.

What about Angel ECM Suite?

An army I was working on a while back to take on Streak armies used Chikako/Fernali/Angel ECM with a CJF Goshawk and baser support. Angel ECM gives a 6" Electronic Camouflage umbrella to units which would normally not be able to be protected from Streaks, and a Jumphawk MDFA followed by Chikako's Streak attack can put X-Axis two clicks from Salvage. Even if Hammerfall wasn't properly based before the shot and can a shot off at your 'Hawk, Chikako can finish X-Axis off the following turn easily.

Assuming they're using the Raider's Pride to counteract HAZ's SU Streaks, you can afford to sacrifice the Goshawk w/Lyon's Grad (2/1/0) and Overcharger and an ATV to base Hammer with and still be up on VC2 if you nail X-Axis. If the Goshawk survives the turn, which it should because of double-basing rule if you plant an ATV on Hammer, break and jump it back under Chikako's Angel ECM umbrella and pull your ATVs and such under it as well. Hammerfall is no longer able to repair itself of more than one damage a turn and cannot use its Streaks against anything in your army. At this point you can laugh in his face and play keep-away for the rest of the game, or even try and pull Hammer out of position and send an ATV for VC3.

Against any other army, it basically plays like Elite's EC army, except with a bit more focus on defense than accuracy. You can Streak away at things, jump on SAD, outmaneuver Thug prior to jumping on it as well, and basically wreak havoc. Would it work?

I wouldn't see why not. But I do see see one minor problem. What about a quick cheap basing vehicle to deal with Chikako after the Goshawk is preoccupied? He does not get free break away, and no free spin. Like a shamash, or a kite. Other than that I see it doing well. But it might not be able to survive a full frontal assault with blocking taken away.

I tend to agree, but I'm keeping my copy around while I wait for the Solaris rules to come out. You never know how that ruleset might shift things around - BR could suddenly be the piece to have. :)


Sorry to interrupt the Hammerfall discussion, but I wanted to get people's opinions on the 2-cap Atlas from the Davion set. I've heard lots of people talking about how cool it is . . . but so far, no real battle reports. How well do you see it doing in competitive play? Does it challenge Solitude, Hammerfall, or Headmaster in playability, or is it a second-tier piece in comparison to them?

I played the other one, with slayer, and didn't even touch it. Granted I was going after that shiny Enforcer II. That thing saved my butt, thanks to my Goshawk failaing a MDFA. Oh, and yes, I wanted to try out Elites army to the best of my ability. It worked quite well. :-)

I had a rather evil thought with this unit. Use the SA-002 card (Bannson / Swordsworn) and have the cap2 Atlas carry the 15 point Merc repair infantry and maybe a BR unit with JJ and grapple. If your Atlas starts to get banged up, lay 2 eggs and send your JJ unit to grapple the enemy while your combat tech repairs the atlas back to full, ignoring repair markers and rolling on an easy to hit 16 defense.

While the enemy is based with the infantry drop a few pogs of AP arty on his head. Or maybe run some Scout ATV's into the DZ for some VC3 loving. Just some thoughts off the top of my head...

I'm posted some thoughts in the "Davion Battleforce" thread, but will post some more details here.

I ran the Cap 2 Atlas last weekend, and my initial analysis is that although being able to lug some support infantry around is nice, this mech is definitely a second-tier unit.

The fundamental problem of using it as a transport is that it takes an order to drop or load something. That's one order that you're not walking, running, assaulting, attacking or venting.

Bringing formation help isn't the best use of the cap-2. You will never be able to drop and fire in formation w/ the Atlas on the same turn. Also, given that units unload in the rear arc, the mech itself will most likely block the LoF for whatever you're dropping. I'd much rather bring formation help in a separate transport b/c then I have the flexibility of dropping in formation w/ the Atlas, as well as any other big gun I bring, and firing on the same turn.

PD/Repair does seem appealing. However, if you're fielding units to repair an Atlas, there are better mech choices (Hammerfall, Headmaster).

Bringing harasser and base screeners make some sense. However, you're wasting an order to drop the harasser and then base your opponent, vs. moving a fast harassing formation (or already infiltrated ATVs) along with the Mech, giving you the option to fire w/ the Atlas then basing with your harassers.

What I ended up loading up in the Atlas were a couple TTLs (worked well to satisfy the 1st May Storyline army requirement). Although on paper, it did look good, in practice, I didn't drop the TTLs until late in the game. I was contantly deciding between firing/moving the mech vs/ dropping the artillery. I opted to fire instead of droping b/c it was much more effective at that time. It was also hard to justify heating up the mech just to drop artillery.

Really, this mech is designed as a support platform, not a main assault platform. You've got AnP to clear infantry formations. AMS helps reduce ballistic damage to units close to it. The 0" minimum means it's not worried about being based. Command give you the potential for more orders for your support. Unfortunately, you don't have armor, and it's heat dial is not the best. It is vulnerable to cheap non-ArP artillery.

Thanks for posting, cjlin. I couldn't agree more about the key problem: wasting an order that should be spent firing, assaulting, or venting. In my mind, dropping the infantry will hardly ever be worth it, except for last-ditch repair attempts. And in that case, you've wasted some points all game long, having the infantry sit inside the Atlas.

Sure seems like a lot of points for a support piece. Maybe in HUGE Mechwarrior games, like 2000+ points. But definitely not in 600.

The main problem I see with that Atlas is the the AAMS takes over the typical Atlas armor. it doesn't have the sort of hide I'm used to cursing on an Atlas - it's as vulnerable to an energy attack as a Locust is, and that's not exactly right for something as easy to shoot at as an Atlas is.

The order resolution thing also gets to me, especially since you can't ue it to haul your own formation with you. The best use I've seen from it is, as Cjlin said, to haul along InfanPoggers, and there's, typically, a Saxon for that. Or something. If I'm shelling out the points for a 'Mech that large, I want it to be going toe to toe with anything and everything my enemy has and blasting the Lincoln out of it. This 'Mech really is a commander-type, designed to work best as the second-line anchor to a combined-arms army, but for that role, it just costs too much.

That said, I can definitely see it being an interesting piece to try and play with, and there's probably an army out there that's been waiting for this thing for years.

I can see how it would be useful.

Say you just mashed a light or medium mech or some tank for 5 damage, there might be other targets you want to engage rather than the severely damaged light or medium. Next turn drop 2 HD TGR's on a run or walk and move on to the next target, the TGR's can then pound the damaged target for 6 dmg which will be enough to kill a light and some mediums.