The Anubis has a 10 AV not an 11... sorry about that.

Thanks for the army suggestion. I will try it out as soon as I can. By the way, I got confused. The "track bikes" I have are actually "minigun cycles." Are those two units interchangeable or are track bikes significantly weaker than minigun cycles?

Also, I like your army but I don't understand what some of the abbreviations mean (e.g. AV, AO). Can you please tell me what they mean?

Another thing is that I like my Jacyn Bell and I'm wondering if it can be fitted into the army somehow. I realize that the Avalanche and Anubis are great units but it would be great if you can give me any suggestions as to whether or not they should be used over Jacyn Bell.

Thanks once again.

And you cannot push to bypass as the bypassing unit cannot have an order token to do it.

Regards, Xtatika

AV stands for attack value. AO is short for Assault Orders. Basic lingo in the forum. I guess you would probably deduce what DV would stand for.

I myself gets confused with miniguns and trackbikes, partly the sculpt and functions look the same. Liao does have the three mini harassers---miniguns in Liao Incursion, ATVs in Counterassault and Trackbikes in Falcon's Prey.

What makes the Liao Trackbikes more than just an annoyance is because they also got flamers, which the other two don't.

As for Jacyn Bell, he's very fast, but his AV of 10 is too low against high defense mechs these days. He's also an expensive mech points wise. That and he cannot be customized with cards. The Avalanche and the Anubis can exceed his defenses and attack for much lower cost. I can't see much use of Jacyn Bell other than a damage soaker.

If you want to use the old Liao mechs, you could probably still live with the 10 attack of the Targe but I would prefer to stick with at least something with 11 attack.

I agree with Deadbolt on Jacyn, but if you must use him, give him a swarm of fast infantry/harassers to do Close combat orders with. His 14 inch secondary range/20 inch assault is nice, but the damage yield isn't enough to justify it. And charging with the poor guy really messes him up.

If you can place a lot of blocking or maybe use "mountains," support him with streak units and jump him into a rear arc or two, you might have a chance. Death from Above is also good if you can manage to hit something with it. That said, experienced players are going to see those tactics coming.

He is a good, fast anti artillery unit (to address the "sick of playing against these pieces" thread) but the cost is a bit steep for that, too, when an Anubis would do.

Still, try him out and see what he does. It's only a game, after all.

It would cost a ton of points but you *could* boost his AV a bit by first tagging the target with Homing Beacon. That would give him a slightly improved chane to hit.

The downside is the cheapest option to do that would be a tokugawa, and sadly that isn't flexible enough to get more in than a single lucky shot. After which your enemy is going to be gunning for your spotter or simply staying out of the way.

Ahh yes minigun cycles. They're still good at holding your target in place, they just don't have the bite of the Trackbikes.

Your new build would look like this:

Mechs: [325 points]

Avalanche + Sao-Wei 175 points
8 speed, 11 AO AV, 13 ranged AV, 22 defense.

Anubis + Sang-Wei + TSEMP 150 points
10 speed w/evade, 10 AV 22 defense, 24 defense vs. ranged


Support: [275 points]

Pegasus x1 45
Mingun Cycle x9 108
Purifier x1

Garrot Transport x1 30
----Salamander x2 50
----Fa Shih x1 26

600 points even

We replaced the 6 trackbikes with 9 mingun cycles.


Now onto your question about Mr. Bell

When Jacyn Bell first came out he was a destroyer. Everyone was blown away by the Yu Huang's speed. Angry hordes chanted "broken" in venues all over the world.

Jacyn and (maybe to slightly lesser extent) Andrzej, the other Yu Huang, found their way into tons of winning liao armies... then the Age of Destruction set was released.

The problem as Deadbolt mentioned is that Jacyn costs 271 points and cannot be customized like your Anubis and Avalanche can.

In the long run Andrzej may have made out better, he costs 239 points for close to the same stats, but took a major hit to range.

To give you a better idea lets compare Jacyn to a couple AoD mechs of about the same cost.

Jacyn Bell : Yu Huang - Assault Class 271 points

180 degree firing arc

P. Damage 6, 0/8" one target balistic
S. Damage 3, 0/14" one target energy
Speed 12 w/Jump Jets (3 clicks)
Attack 10
Defense 22 w/Heavy armor (2 clicks)

Battle worthy for 15 clicks, 2 clicks salvage.

_____

#1 Light Battlemech (really tricked out)


Anubis + Kelly Bonillia + pulse 191 points

135 degree firing arc

P. Damage 3 (6 w/pulse) pulse 0/8" two targets
S. Damage 3, 2/10" one target
Speed 13 w/evade (4 clicks)
Attack 12
Defense 21 or 23 against ranged combat

Battle worthy 10 clicks, no salvage.

_____

#2 Medium Battlemech

180 degree firing arc

Avalanche + Felix Jarta + pulse 214 points

P. Damage 4 (8 w/pulse) pulse 0/10" two targets
S. Damage 3, 2/14" Homing Beacon (3 clicks) one target
Speed 10 w/Jump Jets (5 clicks)
Attack 11 (13 with homing beacon)
Defense 22

Battle worthy for 12 clicks, 1 click of salvage

#3 Heavy Battlemech

Loki + Jas Keck + pulse 275 points (4 points more than Bell)

180 degree firing arc

P. Damage 6 (12 w/pulse) pulse 0/14" two targets
S. Damage 3, 0/6" one target
Speed 10
Attack 11 (gains 7 clicks of Improved Targeting)
Defense 22 w/Reflective Armor

Battle worthy for 13 clicks, 2 clicks of salvage

____


The obvious advatage of Bell is that he can take a lot more damage than the units I've listed above. However in a one on one fight I'd place money on the common mechs in the configuration I have them in here. I could have added Improved Targeting to ensure every hit landed but with an 11 or greater Attack Value you should hit Jacyn's 22 more often then you'd miss.


One hit from the Loki would give poor Bell the following stats.


P. Damage 3
S. Damage 2
Speed 5
Attack 7
Defense 17




Anyhow I'm not saying he's a bad unit it's just that the game as progressed very far since he was released.

If you Battlemaster allows (usually for unrestricted games) for Dark Ages mechs to equip gear then Jacyn can once again be decent, but his days of owning the battle field have sadly passed.

CCAF

I slightly modified the build because I could not find 9 miniguns.

Mechs:
Avalanche + Sao-Wei + Decoys 225 points
8 speed, 11 AO AV, 13 ranged AV, 22 defense w/ decoys.

Anubis + Sang-Wei + TSEMP 150 points
10 speed w/evade, 10 AV 22 defense, 24 defense vs. ranged


Support:

Skanda Tank x1 48
Purifier x1 16
Track Bike x1 18

Minigun Cycle x3 36

Garrot Transport x1 30
----Salamander x2 50
----Fa Shih x1 26

1x House Liao Faction Pride (from Vanguard) to make my basers more annoying.

Cost: 599 (one less than 600)

In my first practice game against my friend, he used:
Headmaster Atlas
4x SS Gnome
1x SS JESII Missile Carrier
1x Merc Mars Assault tank
and a couple other units I couldn't remember (infantry)

I liked my army. Unfortunately, my friend's Atlas pwned my A-Dog within a couple turns. I shot back with my Avalanche and missed, but even if I hit, it would only do 1 damage since the Atlas has hardened armor. I put in the Skanda tank just to deal with armor (the guys at my venue like armored tanks and Mechs). It hit the Atlas but the Atlas still had heavy armor. The capture squad was killed before they even got any of the units on the other side. As for the rest of my units, most of them were severely damaged by the Atlas, the JESII and the Mars tank. So in the end, I lost.

My army looked good but the A-Dog is pwned if it gets hit by a lucky shot. I know that some of the players at my venue just started after the War College and might use the Atlas or the Marauder.

Please give me any suggestions as to how to deal with assault Mechs. Also, please tell me if I should change anything else in my army. BTW, the players at my venue have the following assault Mechs:
-Headmaster Atlas
-The War College Marauder
-Requiem Marauder (it's mighty tough to crack)
-SS Zeus (not sure if its assault, but it looks tough)

Thanks again for your help.

Yeah Assaults can be hard to deal with at times.

The army we had before can be a bit tricky to run as you've got fairly low Attack values to hit that 23 Defense on the Atlas.

I need to get the stats on the war college mechs You might have to fight fire with fire until you can land some of the more aggressive Liao units.

reply back in a bit.

CCAF

I know some of you don't like tank drops. I mentioned that the traditional Liao army and the Liaoists, by virtue of not having a truly good tank, have adopted to tactics not using tank drop. The Liao Glory Fire from Liao Incursion is an okay piece but its not as good as the other old tanks then. Given this, the Liaoists relied building armies that rely on their three basic strengths, good artillery, good harassers and good mechs.

But with the revival of the faction, Liao suddenly got good tanks, even though tank drop strategies are on the wane. Ironically, the Liaoist strategy of using a fast mech centric army supported by harassers and fire support is in vogue now.

One of the weaknesses among Liao centric armies is the lack of armor piercing, and this puts you in a disadvantage against assaults, heavies or factions with hardered armor, respective examples being Solitude, Headmaster, WH Thor, or Kurita in general.

This is where I think the Liao Kelswa with Zahn drop could play a role, supported by Jack with LE Julz and BAP, or another medium mech with BAP. With Ruthlessness FP, you can hit for 6 damage. Don't forget that unlike the WH Kelswa, the Liao Kelswa would multitarget. This enables you to exploit high rolls.

I got other ideas. One is Flrefly with amor piercing. Why Firefly? Its ballistics is vacant of gear, so if you put AP on it, you won't waste points against any gear pre-exising on that slot, as Cornerstone, Breath of Fire and Paradise already got geared ballistics in the dial.

One of the Centurions came with a Vibroblade M. I think YLW can use it.

The gear that Paradise comes with, PPC Cap for heavies. Use it with the Loki. Against unarmored targets I prefer the experimental pulse, but with armored targets and assaults i would go for the PPC Cap. Pulse doesn't work as well on assaults because assaults don't degrade their defenses as easily as the lighter mech classes do after one hit, and when you add the +2 modifier, you got lesser odds in succeeding the second attack. So you got make that one attack succeed. The Loki with the PPC Cap H, you are looking at a potential 9 damage in one strike. With the FP, you are looking at 10. But remember that the FP is not as effective at uniques as most of them don't have ranks or are elite. I may augment the Loki's attack value with a Jack/Julz/BAP combination or YLW with BAP.

Those are some valid points Deadbolt. I've bee really enjoying the Kelswa drop lately. I was alsways a big tank drop fan before I started playing Liao and I was gald to find the Keslwa for continuing the tank dropping fun.

As for the Vibroblade that is quickly becoming my favorite gear on YLW. I use it more than Brawling, Pulse, and PPC-Cap combined. First game I ever used her I managed to kill a Headmaster in one turn because of it. I made an assault into the back arc while it was shutdown and dealt 6 and passed the rolls for on the +2 damage slot and next turn hit for another 10 knocking out an A class mech twice my point cost in only two turns.

Now I need to get a BAP and Jack (at least I have Julz). Failing that though my frind has them and has said I can borrow them any time I like as long as he's not using it. I particularly want to try it with the Kelswa drop for the possible +2 atack and ability to fire from the safety of behind a building for a possible 6 clicks.

Deadbolt (as always it seems) is 100% spot on for this topic.

The TD is a tactic which us 'old school' Liao players have a hard time remembering due to our total lack of decent tanks prior to Domination. One of the only tanks I used to drop was our MHI AA tank, it performed fairly well though short on range, but times and threats were different back then.

Now we have 2 very good tanks, the Kelswa & Huey, to drop and a couple economy drops that are also good and worth trying out.

Below is a Tank drop army that I'm going to try out.


600 points PC-Salt Flats in effect


[PC-022 Salt Flats

Able units with the wheeled symbol or tracked symbol speed mode and speed values of 5 or greater get +4 to their speed values, to a maximum of 14.]

Damage Pride 20 or Grapple Pride 20 (will try each)

Army #1

Goshawk + Danai + BAP 161

R10 ICV 48
----Kelswa 94

R10 ICV 48
----Huitzilopochtli 95

ATV x11 132


Army #2

Avalanche + Jarta + PPC 206

R10 ICV 48
----Kelswa 94

R10 ICV 48
----Huitzilopochtli 95

Mobile HQ 46


ATV x4 48

Infiltrator MKI x1 15

600 even


I like the second build a bit more. I've got Homing Beacon to boost my AV and the Command on the HQ to help assist order wise.

Originally I was planning on running mechless but I deemed that to be too order intensive.

I also looked at running Jarta in his Centurion but I wanted to give him Full Strike, at which point Danai is better equiped. Unique mechs were dropped to give the little guys a shot at victory.

CCAF

11 ATVs? That makes my head spin. I sold mine long ago when they were retired to help pay for the new stuff, [and when I was playing CNC instead] now I need something else to harass for my Liao armies. Still have my Liao miniguns though.

The R10s make good secondary fighters once they dropped their tanks. Not as good as the JF one, but they can take damage.

Ascension does have full strike on the dial. You could probably save points removing the mobile HQ and use Ascension instead, as Ascension has command. Then add BAP which can give some attack points for your tank drop.

I have a bunch of ATVs I think around 20 or so, where I lack harassers is in the Simian department, I only have 4 of those little guys.

On Jarta I meant to give him rapid strike not FS, it would seem that my brain wasn't quite awake at that point.

My problem with Ascension is that while he has command he's really pretty frail and I'd be forced (in order to keep the command rolls coming) to play him defensively.

This in turn has nulled out 220+ points or just over 1/3 of my build. In either of the builds above I feel the stock common mechs would out perform poor Jarta as they can take the offensive and not risk losing command which I think it pretty critical in a multi tank drop build.

With the mobile HQ it's able to defend itself a bit and even if it's smacked off of command I'm only out a few points and with my harrassers I should be able to tie up the offending enemy for swift retribution from either of the tanks or the mech.

I've only just had a string of luck with Jarta in his mech, more on that later.

CCAF

So awhile back I wanted to pit up our Hritsu Lance vs. the Knights Command Lance.

Prior to last night I had the chance to fight Esperenza + Duke with Cornerstone & Paradise, each army had support up to 750 points I believe. That fight went really well and ended in my favor.


Anyhow last night after some boasting of "my lance would destroy the ground your lance walked on" it happened.

We setup the following guidelines:

Mechs + pilots ONLY no gear allowed
no support
no command rolls
no other cards allowed, Perfect Day in effect.

and only 2 orders per turn.

We agreed that allowing no gear would better demonstrate the raw stats of the units.

Also allowing two turns meant that you'd have to deal with whatever it was that you just tried to hit since it's unlikely that any of the units would be scrapped in a single turn.



The field had two burned out buildings one near the center of each DZ and about 10" out, beyond those there were two ponds on either side of a large factory which is about 16" x 20"

All terrain was placed identical on each side of the table, giving neither player an advantage.

The field looked like this only more 3D and obviously not in Ascii :)

--------------------------------------
| [ DZ ] |
| |
| ( B ) |
| |
| ~P~ |
| |
| {FACTORY} |
| |
| ~P~ |
| |
| |
| ( B ) |
| |
| |
| [ My DZ ] |
---------------------------------------



It took a few turns to get everyone moved around, Right away I realized an advantage, since I could only move two of my guys at a time I alternated who moved.

This gave two of my units a +1 to their defense at all times thanks to the pilot ability.


We spread the units a bit, He sent Duke and Peacemaker toward my left side and Audrey and Esperenza broke right around the building.

Against my better judgement I sent Paradise and Firefly to deal with Duke and P-maker, leaving Jarta and Cornerstone to hold the right flank.


The first attack to land was from Paradise who hit duke with the short ranged weapon for 6 clicks thanks to the a5, this knocked him out of pulse which I feared, a lot. I then fired with Firefly and landed another 4 clicks on Duke which pretty much removed him from the game.

Having stirred up the bees nest esperenza lands a nasty shot on Cornerstone for 5 damage, Peacemaker hits Paradise for 5.

shots are exchanged on the right flank but nothing lands.

in a desperate attempt I took a shot against Peacemaker with Paradise needing a 14 i rolled a critical hit (w00t!) but missed my A5 roll, landing a total of 5 clicks.

At some point firefly has critical missed twice, I tried to block this out of my mind at the time.

things are a bit blury from here on out, it was getting a little late and I was trying to keep my forces alive ;)

Firefly ends up killing duke and Paradise hits Peacemaker for another 3, but the next attack kills paradise.

Firefly is healed back to the green marker, cornerstone is healed to the top of her A5 and Ascension wasn't damaged.

I sent Jarta to deal with Audrey who'd been taking long ranged shots at cornerstone (missing thankfully)

Firefly kills peacemaker after taking 3-4 damage himself.

Jarta takes a hit for 3 from Audrey and the pulse shot just misses. running hot I hit audrey back for 3 damage and pass my heat rolls.

Esperenza ate a nasty shot for 6 from cornerstone 4 + 2 A5 and strikes back for 4 damage to 'Stone.

jarta and audrey both shutdown.

firefly lands a shot on esperenza for 3 or 4 but esperenza has killed 'Stone by this point, Ascension and Firefly both take a few clicks of healing.

The next few turns were mainly clean up, I had two pretty decent battle worthy mechs and he had a beat up esperenza and a hot audrey.

Both Jarta and Sung came out of the game in decent shape Jarta landed some great CC hits, but still lacks the synergy I feel when YLW is in that role.

I was able to pull off a single pulse shot from Sung, but most of his usefulness was on his Secondary 14" balistics.

Every game I play I find A5 to be more and more useful. there's nothing like rolling a critical hit, landing the A5 and watching your enemy begin counting the clicks of damage in his head...

Things to think about, when running the whole lance, Devotion seems to help out a lot more than I would have thought. In almost every case it will bring your AV and DV up +1, which can make all the difference in the world.

We've decided to try this again, this time with 3 order per turn and gear allowed.

If you have any ideas my ears are open.

I'll report back once that battle has been completed.

Also I've agreed to fight his Star of RD mechs, which I'd expect to be a much tougher ordeal.

CCAF