What do you guys think about the evade se and the new rules for infantry taking damage from a 'Mech on a successful breakaway?
Evade makes it easy as you only need to roll anything but a one.

So, if say that there was a Peasant meatscreen surrounding something, you could technically base a couple with a 'Mech that has evade, then break next roll, do one damage to each, then base another 2 after breaking and do it again.

Still risky but under certain conditions and situations could work.

Even against a capturer or something.

If you breakaway, you don't have to move, so you could just breakaway until their is a hole in your opponents meat-shild!

That would work, but it is order and heat intensive so you could just punch them for 3 - 6 depending on the mech and not waste all the orders and heat, that is just my thought.

I've done exactly this with Mavis Morgan. Another 'mech broke from a three-unit infantry formation, then she popped into the vacant position, then broke next turn, und so weiter.

Evade is my favorite 'mech SE.

The nice thing about his tactic is that it gives you cover while you do it. Nobody but the infantry can shoot you while you do the base an' break. The tactic is a little risky but then so is using a mech in the first place. Mechs ended up "charging" infantry and doing damage after breaking.

I commented on it after my first game with the proposed rules.

Ahhh but the Grapple infantry makes evade worthless.... oh you based my peasant... her's a Fa Shih for yo mamma.

The advantage that I see to dealing damage by breaking is allows you to continuosly move out of the way of artillery pogs. Suppose your opponant has the now legendary 4 Arrow IVs with meatshield. You run up to the peasants. If he pogs you he risks hitting his own units, while you run away, deal damage and get ready to do the same thing to another piece of the meatshield next turn. You are dealing damage to the meatshield by breaking and you may well bring the meatshield under friendly artillery fire that you just walked away from. I think this makes evade mechs with a good heat dial some of the most useful mechs in the game right now.

In other cases, it would be beneficial to just smack the infantry for big damage.

Geoff

Here's my question:

If you have a Liao mech doing the breaking and the damaging, will it do an extra point of damage to green infantry units?

I mean, would faction abilities apply here or is it just one point per based infantry?

Just a thought......:)

Dancing into and out of base contact with the meat shield will only work for 3 turns average. If there are 3 Arrow's two of them will pog you when you absolutely must stop (or miss a shutdown roll) and you're pretty well guaranteed of taking 4. Most of the dancers can't take 4.

And you still won't even have made it through the screen...

Base and break across the map is pretty nice. Unfortunately, it's goint to be very hard now to find a spot on the map where you can rest for a turn.

Think about this too.
By breaking away instead of shooting or punching, you don't risk critical misses and you don't have to roll against their defense value, you just need to not roll a one on the die.

Plus, I'm not too lucky with HTH weapons and rolling 1d6 for max damage. I always seem to roll one's alot and that's why I do not use Melee 'Mechs too much.

I could use Janina Lukic to support my infiltrating Trikes this way by basing the meat sheild along with the Trikes.

No, it doesn't work.

Ruthlessness: When this unit targets a single opposing unit, if the opponent is green and this unit makes a successful attack, increase this unit's damage value by 1 for that attack.

First, you're not targeting a single opposing unit.

Second, you're not making an attack.

Sorry.

Dang......so I guess those combat engineers get to live a bit longer.....ah well :p. Thanks Islington.

I don't see how Evade is any more evil than Jump Jets, at least as far as breaking away.

While yes, you can't critically miss a breakaway, you also generally don't do more than 2 points of damage (when based by 2 inf), and a missed breakaway is far more likely than a critical miss.

Take care,

Rick

You raise some valid concerns about the strategy I was talking about. Let me make some counter-points. For the purposes of this example assume that I'm doing this with a BR Raider MkII, which seems to be the ideal mech for the job -- evade then jump jets (which still help w/ break-away), 3 vent and no shutdown or heat sink overload rolls. BR Uller has those same properties also, but I digress.

Admittedly I can not keep wandering around basing infantry and breaking away indefinitely, but I do have two advantages over the artillery even if there are many of them. First of all, if you want to shoot pogs at my mech, you have to place them dangerously close to your own forces. You're not going to hit yourself on purpose, but a little drift could hurt the friendlies. You might actually help me break through your own meatshield. The second advantage is that my mech, because of its high vent and good heat dial has a choice about when to vent. I get to see how many pogs you lay down and where before I decide if I want to vent this turn or keep on going. To keep the pressure up, you either need to have 4+ artilleries or push the ones that you have. Otherwise I will just choose to vent on the turn when I'm only getting hit by 1 pog or less. I'll take a little damage over the long haul, but I have some choice in when and how much.

Having said all of that, I'm not convinced its a genius strategy but I'd like a chance to play it before I jump on the bandwagon of how bad artillery is. For better or for worse, no one has yet played four Arrow IVs at any venue that I frequent, so the plan is still theoretical . . .

Geoff

So far there's some great ideas and comments in this thread.

Another thing multi arty players will have to think about is that the evade 'Mech is there simply as a distraction.
If my opponant has to concentrate his pogs on the Mech, the rest of the army is moving up. Chances are he will lose one arty unit from vtols by the time he even gets to push it once. Then those 4-6 Peasants guarding it are a waste.

Once alone, the other arty unit can only be pushed minimally since most have short dials. And if that evade Mech is close enough to base the arty units meat shield, whos' to say I'm not just gonna step back and shoot it with the Mech?

The possibilities are endless and every game is different.
I bring units and build armies that can cover a multitude of situations.

The tactic of basing and breaking away from infantry with an evade 'Mech is not flawless by any means but it is effective in dealing out damage to multiple units at once along with all the other advantages and disadvantages we have all listed in here.