Dear Asbury Grad,

I have a thread under MOBILIZATION POINT titled "Lessons Learned from the Nationals Armies" where Corle and Will63 have posted a lot of information about the VTOL swarm and many of the other armies used at Nationals. Please join us!!!

In brief, a VTOL with an attack of 10 vs. a defense of 22 like Stefani still has a 38% chance of a hit. There is also a Sprint Drop package which has an attack of 7+2+2 for 3 damage AP or 9+2+2 for 2 damage which hits over 75% of the time. Unless Stef makes it to hindering terrain there is not much of a contest. But the real problem is for the supporting units Stefani brings with her. 10 attack is as good as many mechs get...... But please join the discussion under mobilization point, since its mostly army list related.....

One thing I saw Abe do in his match (using the same army Corle Did) in the semi-finals vs the Stefani Ehli army was a great idea. The guy playing Stef placed hindering terrain in the midfield, so Abe flew a bunch of VTOL's up into the hindering. If Stef ran up into that hindering, she would get rear arced, which would reduce the effectiveness of the hindering. It was a good move on Abe's part. I believe the real problem that stef ran into was a poorly timed critical miss though :)

I don't think Corle has all the good mechs listed, but I'm more a mech player than he is :)

I thought mechs were overpowered until I saw how powerful VTOL's are. If mechs had a move and shoot ability, I think they would be overpowered , but it would definitely make them 2nd to nothing (including VTOLS)

I think it's pretty obvious that the current game has VTOLS being the most powerful thing on the field.

I think artillery is pretty much balanced under the current rules. Going into nats, I thought artillery was pretty unplayable, so I think that's a noticeable change in my viewpoint. I played against artillery in every single match during the constructed. The artillery forced me to change my approach, which I think proves that it isn't totally worthless. I won 4 of the 5 matches vs artillery though, which I think shows that it's not overpowered.

I was running 2 mechs. Going into nats, I thought 2 mech paradigm was the end all... now I think vtol swarm is ;)

I respectfully disagree.

VTOL swarm is just as much "end all" as tank drop is (or garrot drop) and power-infantry swarm.
Both have extreme range and can move / shoot.
One fears chargers, one fears AAs.
One fears Bart Bradshaw.

What made the first strike VTOL swarm win the day?
- AAs were not prepared for the first strike
- The rest was unprepared to battle the swarm

I think Dairy Queen is more of an "end-all" army than Midnight Run. Hehehehe, you saw the mini-demo of it Sarphus. ;)

Hey Corle, nice to see you're back!! Things are definitely looking up for the game! :)

I don't know what Corle's analysis on the metagame will be, but in my eyes, the BR sprints with the TACs are the important element of the current meta. I'm too tired to write an analysis right now, but I think that these units are essential for the Vtol swarm to work.

Once again, first turn strike rears its ugly face and shows us how dangerous it can be, even when carried out by units with 7 attack with IT (which can easily become an 11 IT if you get one command roll).

I wonder why people used so few transports though... I'm not sure they'd make a huge difference, but the SW J-37 instinctively comes to mind when I look at the army lists...

Anyway, if one thing positive came out of this years nationals, it's that Corle's back. If two things came out, the second is that WK should give some thought to first turn immunity again...

P.S. Corle, will you come to Athens after all? :)

i didn't play ehli (raywind). abe did. abe says it was like sending out a 2nd in commmand to take care of a viable threat, but i dont' know... i dont' really fear ehli though. i know where she wants to be, what support she needs to work, etc... in short, ehli is a multi-piece unit... take out certain parts of her combo and all of a sudden she isn't nearly as scary. she can't run hot, which i heard again and again raywind did, b/c on her last click of heat, she losses camo. (pauses, while everybody scratches their head)

if she is undamaged and cool, late game, she will worry me though. But hopefully i'll be up by more than 34pts, and i'll just feed her a sprint, and then take four more donar shots and fly away...

I do fear bart bradshaw, esp when he starts the game touching a shielded ssw j100. i wont target him b/c of the repair, i can't target the repair.

actually sarphus, i think a 2 mech combo is vastly underrated. i was inches from bringing 2 br legos instead of the atvs and sprints. but it really needs to be about a 500pt army.

although the moogoose mechs have always, always been a blind spot in my radar.

jac bell vs czupek... 23d vs 22d right? well, thats it for me :> also i think one losses jj's after 3 damage and one after 4 damage. since i was so worried about vtols and whatnot, i want teh 4 clicks of jj's.

all the bm's did great. all the envoys did great. every last one loves the game and was there to help spread fellowship and protect the game. if, i was 'targeted' by a bm, it was to 'protect the interests of the game' and although that is a judgement call, or a biased call that they shoudln't be making... its wrong to fault somebody who is trying to make the game and tournments better. i think the envoys and the battlemasters are the lifeblood of this game and should be thanked to no end, even 'if' (and that is a very unknown) i was targeted.

the last game against dan... well, i went first, didn't get any command rolls and missed my first four attacks... but i dont think i lost more than 3 atvs and the fenrir.

its no discredit to him, his army was just built to face an entirely other opponent than vtol swarm/first strike. we played at worlds and had a wonderfully close game in draft. is that enough details or do you want specifics?

-c

hi godfried,

girlfriend says no to long trips right now. :>

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the SW J-37 is the pinpoint focus of my army, and really midnight run's metagame inspiration. if i see a sw j37 i know 1 of 2 things.

either this player is crazy good and is trying to trick me into thinking they are bad, or they have made an army constuction mistake.

a sw j37 dies in two hits, and won't unload its cargo. It has single use blue armor on its first click and 4th clicks... a tac drop followed by hazen's kills it without the unit going into salvage. regardless of infiltrateing it or not. two donar shots also kills it if it infiltrated, with teh cargo still inside... although in my first game BOTH of my donars missed that shot on a push, and parked next to 4 unhurt ssw balacs. whoops. out came an aesir from that swj-37 and the rest of the game was a terrible dogfight in the skies.

The transport of choice, as it has been since worlds, for almost all reasons is the hl j-37.

-c

For repairing transports yes.

I prefer the DF Maxim for the following reasons ... so long as it's either extremely well protected or carrying cargo less than 50 points:

- Can fight back with a 7it
- take away it's transporting ability, and you still have a good unit for 31 pts
- easy breaks even when salvaged
- dam fast
- it's Dragon's Fury (formation moving / firing) so it accompanies other excellent units


edit: Oh yeah, not only does it kill ATVs, but it gives them nowhere to hide ... at all. :)

its 5 points more, thats a lot actually.

i believe there is a limit to how much 'spread of use' you want in a piece, vs pure functionality. i believe the maxim is only better as a tankdrop and even that is debatable, as a hl j37 has blue armor which hinders go-cho...

if you have go-cho in a df maxim and mine is in a hl j37 you will lose that fight. if you have a schmitt in a maxim and i have a go-cho in a hl j37, you will lose that fight.

blocking terrain is the death of schmitt drop.

now that there are mechs that can outcharge a tankdrop.. tankdrop only has two options... meatshield the drop (as epitomized by shadowdeths wickedly nefarious army) or go for pure functionality over range... because they aren't the longest range units in the game anymore.

-c

Of course there are other factors to consider, such as speed of the transport which equates to effective range, and more importantly, ease of breaking away from infantry.

The Maxim does have one particular advantage in that it can easily break away from an ATV, while the HL J-37 has to suffer from only a 50% chance of breaking away.

Though there's no contest when we compare drop shooting at a drop, the HL J-37 wins that contest hands down.

I never bother to focus on the Maxim's ability to shoot at things, I'd rather it have a 0 ballistic damage and save the points, but that would make it too cost effective.

Interesting discussion anyways, I love chatting about metagame.

Heh, I hadn't thought of that... I'm sure I'd make this mistake, but then, I'm sure I'd only make it once. ;) I can only begin to imagine how the Vtol swarm controls the board after the first strike, but I think I'd still go for the SW-J37 over the HL one. I like options and the SW version gives me more. It's probably more risky, but I usually take army building risks to cover for my risk free play...

Other than that, I think that the HL J-37 is too easy to harass for my liking. Keeping in mind that the defending army will probably not be able to use the repair SE, I'd go for the SW Maxim for pure survivability and ease of breakaways. The HL Maxim is the champion of survivability (both for itself and the unit it's carrying) but 34 points is a lot.

I haven't played VS a Vtol swarm, to tell you the truth, I haven't played any MW in the last 3 months, so I'm probably rusty here. Therefore, take the above comments with a grain of salt. Maybe after a couple of games I'd be convinced that the SW J-37 is a worse choice than the HL one... :)

The main point of my post however, was the reliance of the Vtol Swarm on first strike. Any army with lots of command and lots of Vtols will be dangerous, but take away first strike and it's definitely more manageable. Basically, first strike gives you two options:
a)Either you lose all support (arty and AA)in the first two turns of the game, or
b) You have to support your support, wasting points and making your army too specialized to cope with anything else.

So, basically, more than anything else, the most dangerous or rather, the most basic unit of the Vtol swarm (or any first strike army) is the BR sprint. This may seem like stating the obvious, but let me elaborate: you can remove 160 point from the army build, for 3 br sprints, two TACs and 1 Hazen's strikers and build an army with the remaining points. This can be a dual mech army, or a tankdrop or a vtol swarm, or a fattie army IMO and still be competitive. The basic power is the fact that first turn strike, allows you to make short work of the opponent's support, or make a huge dent on one of their core units.

This is an exaggeration of course. Not all armies need 3x command units. Most armies will also want to spend a few points on ATVs. The point is that the Vtol swarm wouldn't be half as scary if it weren't for first turn strike.

Finally -and although this isn't exactly in the scope of this thread- I'd like to state again that I think WK should allow for sideboards. By "sideboards" I mean an extra 100-150 points of units that you can swap with those in your army. IMO, it would give players the ability to counter "specialized" army types (like the Vtol swarm) without having to "compromise" their army against everything else. This, in turn, would reduce "specialized" armies (at least those that people are prepared for) and create a more balanced environment. How do you think this would change army building and the meta?

P.S. Colre, sorry to hear that... I hope you can make it some other time! :)

Edit: By "first strike" I mean first TURN strike, not the ability to attack first because of move-and-shoot!

I figured this out in the day everyone played Arnis.

For me any transport must be able to handle 5 damage. Or it dies with its contents. ( Arnis Charges for 5)

That leaves :
Rots Zahn Move 9 34 Points
Liao Zahn Move 9 32 Points
HL J-37 Move 7 26 points + repair.
Mikos J-37 Move 7 35 Points

I have been playing the HL J-37 almost exclusive since before the last Worlds.

In any tournament I expect that my Transports will be a juicy target. Doing 5 damage with 3 orders is relatively easy in any army. With Arnis you do it with 1 order, but a Tac drop followed by a Hazens drop is exactly 5.

I am aware that there is a thing like a DF Kanazuchi drop but the damage is in portions. Giving chance to unload.

Hah well my thoughts on the subject.

Regards
Elite130

[quote]Originally posted by corle
[b]i didn't play ehli (raywind). abe did. abe says it was like sending out a 2nd in commmand to take care of a viable threat, but i dont' know...

He said that?? wow...he doesn't recall saying that.. maybe I'm just not awake right now to remember..

totally paraphrazing. but you consistently say many things like that. :> and i still think you are throwing every game we've ever played.

but i'll get even with you... i'll sell all your stuff. :> any takers? br sprints 5 bucks!

-c

Put me down for half-a-dozen...

Now, who do I make the check out to?