Hey all.
As I said in a few posts, I'm newer to MW. I've played Mage Knight forever - so picking up this game is a cinch.
One of the most important things in MK was the Special Ability "Command", which I see is a SE here. BUT WHERE ARE THEY??? ;)

I heard they were in the very first set and were mainly on Command Vehicles, but this is crazy: I have opened a case & 1/2 of AoD and about 1/2 of Falcon's Fury and have not found ONE Command Fig. With the first sets being retired, it appears there is no Command. What's up with that. Are you guys fine without it?

(y4

Command is more of a perk here than a real special ability.

I don't think that there are any command units in AOD or FP, though I could be wrong.

In MW command is not such a big deal and appars only rarely on any unit that is not a command vehicle, outside of them, I think there is 1 VTOL, 1 or 2 Inf, and several mechs. It is helpful to have, especially when arty still required two orders to fire, and is still usefull when you have more formations than you can reasonably use.

I know that I have rarely seen it in games I've played and even more rarely was it actually needed/used by the player. Admittedly my venue is not as competitive as most.

If you want major SE's in this game look for Armor Piercing, Brawling, Agility, Any kind of Armor, and Decoy. Pulse and Alpha strike are also useful. I've never played MK, but I would suspicion that tactics are very different in this game and so in saying different SEs are more or less useful than their countrparts.

Unfortunately, Command, when it does show up, can be a tad game imbalancing. Don't believe me? Try facing swarms of BR Sprint choppers and tell me you don't feel agrieved by 2 or so extra orders per turn... :ermm:

It would be better if they switch Command for something like C3, where it allowed a unit to designate for another, or something similar...

With retirement there will only be one 'common' piece that has command - the BR Sprint from Liao Incursion (and it's not all that easy to get as it is). The only other cheap unit with command is the Unique BR Combat engineers from 'Killer Clowns'. There are a number of unique and LE 'Mechs that have command as well, including the Cyclopses from FP.

I realize this is a different game from MK, but it IS a SE in MW. I can live without it, but they should change the SE if WizKids won't utilize it.

Thanks for all your comments - that helps - I may try to get a few of those rare figs for bigger games.

(y4

Leroy Rhoads - Cyclops
Chas Kearns - Templar
K. Kitsman - Cyclops
all FP all have command.

Some of these were already mentioned but here is the whole list of Active Command pieces:

BR Bayin Killer Clowns (Combat Engineers LE)
BR Sprint Scout Helicopter
Highlanders Chas Kearns (Templar LE)
Liao Clara Parks (Tian-zong LE)
Liao Hao Phiri (Tian-zong LE)
RotS Leroy Roads (Cyclops Unique)
RotS Aldwin Stewart (Wasp LE)
RotS Ezekiel Crow (Blade LE)
RotS Irena Borjon (LE Locust)
SC Youree Nova Cat (Thunderbolt LE)
SS K. Kitsman (Cyclops LE)

That's it, only two are non LE units.

If you go back to retired pieces you also get:
All 7 Mobile HQs (DF, H, MERC, RotS, SC, and SS, pretty useless other than the command)
DF Tamara's Raiders (Hauberk Battlearmor LE)
RotS Jannella Lakewood (Tundrawolf LE)
RotS Mason Dunne (Mad Cat III LE)
RotS Katsu Moriyama (Crimson Hawk Unique)
RotS Rick Raisho (Centurian LE)
RotS Jodi Mazzanoble (Black Hawk LE)
SW Seeka Ward (Mad Cat II Unique)
SW Kal Raddick (Mad Cat II LE)

Sorry If someone posted this on another thread months ago. If they did, please post the link. But why in the world wouldn't faction leaders have command, when unit/lance leaders did? Just happened to cross my mind when I saw this post. :rolleyes:

Well, the question there is would you put command on the 'Mech or the pilot? Currently pilots, aside from their special abilities, only give bonuses, and not SEs. If it did give an SE, it would give it the entire length of the dial. Can you imagine how prohibitively expensive that could make those pilots?

Kal Raddick, which is soon to be retired, has command. Though he is no longer a faction leader.

Might see a command SE gear card in the future.

Play rep you find lots of it but now. Most its the retire selection very soon.

Command is potentially one of the most powerful SE's in the game. By playing 3 command units (2 BR Sprints and Killer Clowns are a popular combo), I can virtually guarantee an extra order every turn, and sometimes get 2-3 extra orders per turn. This gives me extra orders for artillery strikes, infantry/tank drops, repair, etc.

Another aspect of command that most players don't think about is how it can seriously skew the amount of time each player gets to play and the total number of turns in a game. If I'm playing 3 command units and you're playing none, that's 33% more orders for me over the course of a 50 minute game (assuming, of course, that all 3 command units never die or lose their SE). That's 33% more time that I'll take per turn, 33% more chances to damage your units and score points, 33% more chances to get units into your DZ and score those last second VC3 points. Also, since my turns take longer, we will get fewer total turns in the course of a 50 minute game. Fewer turns greatly benefits the infantry drop / tank drop / artillery paradigm because they will typically score points earlier in the game and leave you to play catch up for whatever time is left.

So in short, command is a VERY powerful and definitely not just a "perk".

On a related note, look for the price of the BR Sprint and Killer Clowns Infantry pack to sky-rocket over the next month. :squareeye

I will add another side-note to my previous post, since we can't #$@!#@$ edit.

Before AoD, having a lot of command was an essential component to a non-mech drop/artillery army. Since the average "effective combat" range of an army has gone up dramatcially thanks to the assault order, tank-drop and infantry-drop are not going to be quite as popular before; and hence, we probably won't see as many people fielding 2-4 command units.

However, I still feel that command is an extraordinarily important SE since it allows the player who has the extra orders to more readily control the "tempo" of the game and you will probably continue to see the meta-game minded player field 2-3 command units simply for that reason.

My 2GP

Command is NOT an afterthought, as Drogeney suggests. It was a very important (maybe THE most important) SE, pre-AoD. But in AoD, two things happened:

1.) It became significantly more order-efficient to run 'Mechs,

and:

2.) Most good Command pieces were retired.

I think WK is doing this to try and promote more 'Mechs in competitive play, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I half-doubt we'll ever see Mobile HQs produced again. But, I bet it'll be released later as a very expensive Gear card (or maybe ROTS Faction Pride, I dunno).