One thing I always notice about the 'Arrow IV rulez' debates is how they tend to be narrow-sighted. Typically the army is described as 'I have 2/3 Arrow IVs and XXX points to put in a real army!'

So someone mentions using an ATV to base the Arrow IVs, and it comes back, 'well there will be peasants (not for AoD though) around the Arrow IVs!

Okay... so subtract those from the XXX total.

The JF Sylph is good at killing a SS Arrow IV. 'well I'll have AA guns to take those out'. Great... subtract that from the XXX total.

And then there will be repair units to repair all the Arrows out of salvage, and transports to cart the Arrows around, and command units so all this can happen while artillery is being fired... all of this subtracts from the XXX and takes orders to use.

And pretty soon you're left with, what? 100 points of non-artillery units that are there to do something other than support the Arrow IVs that are the teeth of your army?

Which you get to use to fight off the Mech or two, plus the VTOL or two or more, plus the artillery that is all out to kill your Arrow IVs as quickly as possible before turning on your transports and peasants and other support. Oh, but you still have that 100 points of non-support units to fight with!

Just to ground my previous comments a little, lets take the JF Sylph example. Yes, a good AA vehicle can mess up a Sylph before it reaches the Arrow. How does that AA vehicle fare against 2 JF Sylphs? Now one gets through, possibly salvaging an Arrow. Throw in two more Sylphs, since I fully expect that the second will promptly be killed once it is pushed. That's approximately the same cost, or even less than the two Arrows, plus the AA, plus infantry shield. And that infantry shield has to be around the AA as well, otherwise it can be based.

So you might take two AA guns. Not a bad option, but it's eating into your points - all to counter a single possible opposing force.

No one is arguing that JF Sylphs won't own an SS Arrow IV if it gets to shoot it with a fresh dial but that is very unlikely to happen given the low defense of the Sylph and the near certainty that your opponent will have something that can hit your Sylph for 2 or more damage before your Sylph can make his "suicide run."

Again, look at the Sylph dial. Even after 2 clicks your chances at hurting the Arrow drop like a rock. You'll now have to roll an 11 just to hit the initial shot for a measly 1 damage (1 + 1 for zelbrigen - 1 for armor) then if you're luck holds true and you roll a 12 on the pulse you'll do 1 more damage - whoopie! Now you have a pushed Sylph that has taken 3 damage and dealt 2 to the Arrow IV. On your opponents turn he will finish off the Sylph, 30 points of VC1 for him and he still has a fully functional Arrow IV - not a good plan.

@Emouse
In 450 points you can easily squeeze 2-4 SS Arrow IV's, base screen, and good support. I'm not going to post an example because there have been a ton already posted on this board with countless variations.

Also, see my example on the previous page. My opponent sent three JF Sylphs against my artillery and it was easily repelled. All it takes is at least 2 damage to each Sylph.

Base the A4 in its rear arc with the sylph, and base whatever could shoot it with an ATV.

A warpog army, like will's, wouldnt have anything to react to the sylph. A balanced army with 2 A4's would have more pressure on it. ATVs, arnis, stuff like that. The Sylph is just a part of an arty assult, mech assult, and infantry assult.

Ummm...no, that is what the base screen is for.

3 SS Arrow IV's only cost 153 points...

With 2 damage each two Sylphs still have a decent chance of taking out a SS Arrow IV. As long as they get 3 hits between them, the Arrow is salvaged. Even if they only get two hits, that's two armor-piercing shots away from salvage.

Without knowing what you actually fielded, the 1 damage to the Arrow IV really sounds like your opponent got a run of bad rolls. Even with 2 damage a Sylph still has pulse, Zel, and a minimum 50% chance of hitting against a SS Arrow IV.

Right... and then you throw in the base screen, and the AA, and the repair vehicles, and the command vehicles, and the basers...

If the Realms TRO is correct, you cant repair a SS A4 out of salvage.

@ fluffy

The Sylph presents a sufficient threat to force the opponent to react to a 30 point unit. If he dosnt use enough orders to nutralize the sylph, it can slam his ### next turn. If there is two sylphs ganging up on one A4, the opponent is going to have to commit at least two orders. In 450 point game, that leaves you with one order to prevent my pogs from dropping. Two sylphs gives the opponent a hard choice: kill the sylphs and protect my 51 point A4, or let the A4 die and sylphs reign, but pog his arty. Either way, a total A4 army is screwed.

Lets pretend the warpog army is AoD compatable. There isnt any cheap base screeners. You would have to use somthing like combat engineers; even a combat engineer base screen around 3 A4s is hella expensive. Warpog cant totaly dominate; it needs cleanup peices like Donars.


One LI long tom can hit three bunched A4s and their base screen; the long tom has an effective 9" by 3" blast zone. The target A4 will have pogs under it, atvs around it, and two sylphs threatning it. AnP will do a good job countering ATVs.

Total warpoging is unplayable. Slapping 4 A4s on the table wont make an army unbeatable anymore, because of JF sylphs.

You might be right, but at the moment we simply don't know what the point value will be for the cheapest infantry units in MW:AoD. For all we know Peasant Infantry will be re-introduced, just like was done with for example Gnome BA.

more peasants would probably throw off the AoD\FP pedigram.

Pedigram? Sounds like something a footcare specialist would do. This is just me guessing, but might you be referring to the whole concept of design paradigm?

somthing like that

It's correct, they can.

Of course the repair vehicle of choice, the J-37 will be retired, so will the JI100. Unless some new repair vehicles get introduced the SalvageMech is going to be the only unit with repair in the game.

Actually you'll find that an Elite Aesir makes a good tank for the end game in artillery armies. Its main problem is it is bait for counter battery fire.

@eMouse - I agree. I never use Peasants. When I play artillery I am as likely to use a tank, transport, HQ or 'Mech as the screening unit. Takes a lot of people by surprise but you'll be surprised what an effective deterrent a Geoff Bekker is parked in front of two Arrow IVs.

As for multiple Sylphs. One word... Orders. When the Sylphs advance, Mr Warpog just pogs the backfield.

I'm with Will63. a less than 1/3 chance of salvaging an Arrow isn't good. And every Sylph you expend an order on is another formation getting mauled by the artillery.

In any case, I was never saying there was no counter, nor that Mr Suitcase couldn't counter it. I have had 1.5 cases of Falcons Prey and have 1 Jade Falcon Sylph out of it. If you are running multiple Sylphs then good on you. If you can use them, good on you. So what proportion of the MWDA playing population own 3+ JF Sylphs and 5+ LI ATVs (and plays Rainbow)?

At our venue we had 5 cases of Counterassault. From those 5 cases we had ONE Elite Arrow IV!! (Lucky me, 'twas in my case).

For everyone who says "The Elite Arrow IV is better", the ENTIRE REASON I put this thread up here was for the MAJORITY of people who do not now and never will own an Elite Arrow IV.