I'm trying to get a Bear in Winter army together that will stand up (somehow :confused: ) to the Twins. Two people in our club have them and one guy has already won pretty convincingly using the BR/SSwn SA with Combat Techs reapairing the damage. I don't think that as a faction we're that well placed to avoid a first strike, so I thought that providing too many targets and bringing some speed, some rammers and a grapple mech may be an answer...

Mongoose+Scott Graves+Pulse
Mongoose+Robinson Pilot (+1 att)+Grapple
PHawk+An Ting (+2 att)
Kite
Cizin
Saxon+Fenrir
Sylph
Sylph

I realise the vehicle movement can be affected by a roll of a 6 but having ram monsters around should be useful to get around the Twins' evade. If you take vehicles out of the equation, you're left with mechs and no fast basers other than Sylphs. Hopefully there will be too many targets to wreck on turn 1 and enough punch left to do 8 clicks of damage in 1 turn.

I did consider Malvina or giving the Loki Ryohara and decoy but that's a lot of eggs in 1 basket that could be badly wrecked by the twins. Hopefully a light mech/vehicle swarm will do the trick.

Here's my idea for the Feb Scenario:
Falcon's Fury (Understrength Binary, 1 star & 3 points)
:^^^:Star Captain Alberto Jade Falcon, Hellbringer (LK-V6F-H-GS025-G012) 305 points
(Chassis: Loki)
(Pilot: Alberto DeJesus)
(Gear: Decoy)
:^^:Star Commander Lauren, Phoenix Hawk I (PXK-M3-L-P017-G002) 169 points
(Chassis: Phoenix Hawk I)
(Pilot: CJF Star Commander, P-017)
(Gear: Evade)
:^^^:Sylph Battle Armor 30 points
2x:^^:Gnome Battle Armor 20 points each (Domination variant)
2x:^^:Clan Battle Armor 19 points each
:^:Gnome Battle Armor 18 points
Total: 600 points

The idea is to use the two mechs to pound the enemy. The PC gives 1 less heat for assault orders and no heat for pushing on only a walk. I thought about bringing some vehicles, but in the past I rolled a 6 on the turn I wanted to move the vehicle, freezing the vehicle(s) in place instead. The Sylph is there as something fast to go for VC3 and as a harasser. The infantry are mostly there to move up and take on any side units that the enemy brings up.

Highdancer, you sound vicious in a firefight. It is quite a shame that we cannot face each other over a battlefield. It would be bloody!

Looking for some quick advice for a game this afternoon. 450pt game with 2-4 players (including me), but I'm limited to one regiment. I'm going with the Turkina Keshik. Here's my options:

Elemental BA x3
Fenrir BA x1
Gray Death SA x2
Raiden BA x1
Salamander BA x1
Sylph BA x2
Undine BA x1
Kinnol x1
Long Tom Art. x1
Skadi x1
Skanda x1
Sniper Art. x1
Loki x1
Ocelot x1
Shone Roshak
Trovic
Uziel x2
Vincent deLeon
I'm reasonably limited in pilot and gear as well (due to my lackluster inventory rather than gameplay restrictions).

I've picked out the following:
Sniper art.
Loki with Canopian grad (+1 att, +1 def)and Reengineered Laser
Skanda
Elemental BA
Gray Death SA
Raiden BA
Caustic Atmosphere

I'm debating throwing Pulse on instead of the Reengineered Laser.

My basic plan is to soften up the biggest threat with the Sniper, which will be protected from basers/attackers by the Skanda, send the Loki up as my main assault force, and send the infantry up in formation as a secondary threat. The Caustic Atmosphere is there to weaken/kill any ATVs, bikes, etc.

I fully expect to see Hazen and the Black Rose there today.

Anyone have some last minute advice?

The LK comes with Pulse, so that would be a pointless combo, really, unless you were assuming you'd need to use this later down the dial.

A better Gunslinger would be a good call in the LK, too.

Take both Sylph BAs - great for backing up your primary shooter by finishing off what he started. If you can field a Pair of Snipers, given your army restrictions, they'll also make pretty good formation shooters with the Loki. That said, if any of the opposition is packing Tank Drops, you are going to have a hard time of it...

That was my thinking. It's also cheaper than the Laser, so I could squeak in another infantry.

Oddly enough, I don't have any H-class gunslingers. :(

Ok, I'll pull the Raiden, Elemental and Skanda, and replace them with 2 Sylph and a Salamander.

If I wasn't going to have a hard time of it, it wouldn't be any fun!

When I Win The Lottery (really, real soon now) I'm going to go on a nationwide tour and visit all the cool places. Meet interesting people. And then kill them!

It's a Jade Falcon Thing. :)

Well, I played this afternoon, and lost. My opponent wasn't aware of any restrictions, and just brought a hastily cobbled together rainbow army:

Steiner King Crab w. pilot
3x Bannson Raiden BA
2x Bannson Sprint VTOL
2x Jade Falcon Towed Thunder Launcher
Grassland PC

Things went well for me early on. He infiltrated his Sprints a little too far, and the Loki pulsed and killed one in its first order. The other sprint tangled with my 2 Sylph, who eventually polished it off, and it's passenger, but not before the TTL hit the Sniper once. I lost the Sylph due to stupid placement (the King Crab killed both eventually). Meanwhile, the King Crab sat patiently in water, dodging artillery markers. I moved the Loki into AO range while trying to pog his Raiden to keep them busy. I was too focused on the Crab, and he managed to get the Raiden into B/C with the Loki. Instead of risking a failed breakaway, I cc'd one of the Raiden, but he then made a successful capture attempt. That pretty much ended the game. I couldn't get my infantry over to the Loki fast enough to kill the capture unit, and the Crab waded in to kill the Sniper. The Caustic Atmosphere was pretty useless, but the Grasslands helped me as much as him.

The capture attempt never even occurred to me. If I'd broken away, or engaged the Raiden earlier, I could have forced the King Crab to fight alone. I might have had a shot then, but cracking assault mechs is not one of my strengths.

Still a good game though.

Wait, why would you have to pulse a BR Sprint w/ a Loki? Three clicks kills it. And don't feel too bad. He needed what, a 16 to capture you? Not an expected move I'm guessing. From the sound of it though, you prolly should've focused on wasting his support first and leaving the Crab stranded.

From the way the debate on the Merc FP has developed, I read it that as long as you pay the 10/150 cost, you can have any mix of factions to build a battleforce. In a 450 game, you're trading off 30 points and in a 600, its 40 points. The cost of a True Grit is less but I get the feeling that your opponent wouldn't expect a CJF faction pure army to come equipped with a Merc FP card.

The BIG trade off, however, comes when we use it to boost our already high AVs. Our fast, light mechs can now hit home with avengance (the Twins' defence becomes 19, for example and being charged and grappled by a couple of Jaguars will make their eyes water) and the Sylph BA can riddle a target that is relaint upon its pilot/evade.

Any thoughts?

It also negates the DFA penalty, capture mods (hello 8 AV capture teams), Pulse-second shot penalties and all sorts of other problems.

It also tends not to affect our near-terminally low DVs. Other than the Jag and PHI, I can't think of many situations where our DV gets much of a boost from anything. The Loki with Ryohara might qualify, but eh. Most of the time we rely on not getting shot at in the first place, which means any DV is fine. :)

So, for me at least, hello Nurse!

1) Yes, that's the right reading.
2) Yes, your opponent won't expect it. However, he'll quite possibly have TG anyhow, since he'll expect other opponents to bring Merc Pride, or you to bring CJF FP. Or the Bears to bring FP. Or...

Regardless of #2 above, I think using Merc FP in a JF army might be useful. It'll almost always be handy against the twins (as may TG, to nerf their Merc FP). But it is expensive, and will start you very far down in VC2, even against an opponent who also has an FP, if he's using the lower cost.

Oh, and don't base one twin with two Jags at once, it'll null grapple. I'll have to give some thought to making one, though I think I'd still prefer the Merciless FP with a PHawk and a Loki in my build.

Hmm, I was wondering about that; Merc Pride plus Loki = fun. Speaking of getting in the first shot, here's a quick but sad battle report:
Me:
PHawk/Minoru Grad/ECM
Mongoose/Minoru/IM
R10
-Fenrir
-Sniper
-LRM
Trackbike x2
Sylph

With that much mobility, and a pair of 12AV units, I'd have thought that first-strike was mine, never mind the 19/21 DV on my mechs. But I went 1-2 with this against the following build (at least one of those losses was at least in no small part due to a misplay on my part):
Rots
Nightstalker w/ 1/1/1 pilot, Rapid Strike
Jackalope w/ 1/1/1 pilot
Bishop/Enyo
WH Minigun

He was as mobile as I was (and that infiltrating Stalker was a real bother), and his playing Crags on game 2 didn't help my Mongoose much. So he needed 9s to shoot me, while I needed 10s, even with a 12AV, and I didn't have much room to make a first strike at all. He actually DFA'd my P-Hawk! The horror! The shame!

Sigh. Next time I bring Loki/Aiko/Decoy and make him pay.

What about using a Mongoose/Improved Myomer/Grapple instead of the Jaguar for the charge-'n-grapple mech? The Mongoose costs a little more than the Jaguar, but with the Improved Myomer it will always deal 1 more damage on a charge than the Jaguar and 1/6 of the time it will deal 2 more damage than the Jaguar. While the Mongoose's heat dial is one click shorter, they both have the same vent of 3 and the Mongoose has Evade.

My only concern over the Merc Prode is would the benefit outweigh the cost of it - not everyone takes units that this would be highly useful against... just spitballing, really.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I haven't rubbed my hands fiendishly enough over my new PXKs and R10s... :devious: