Hi , I recently played in a constructed tourny with the following army:

RoTs-Katsu Moriyama
SSw-Balac x2
DF-Donar x2
BR-Sprint Helicopter
BR-Scout ATV x2
BR- Fa Shih BA

450 pts.
Is this a cheese army? I got accused of being cheesy, even by the Battle Master. I don't think it is. All I was trying to do was throw together something no one had seen before, and get some use out of units before they get retired. Please let me know what you think of the army and let me know if it is cheese.

Thanks ,

LOOKS LIKE CHEESE, SMELLS LIKE CHEESE, SO I SAY IT IS CHEESY. 2 DF DONARS, SS BALAC, BR SPRINT. YOU SHOULD CALL IT CHEESE-WIZ <LOL>

Well, yes, and no.

To be fair to your compadre's, yes, it's cheesy. 4 attack VTOLs, plus the Sprint dropping the Fa Shih into someone's DZ to tie up AA or arty I imagine. Katsu was there mainly for Command it seems. The ATV's are more DZ points and tie up units. It's huge cheese. It's a mongrel army that would never actually play together according to the fluff.

Now, to be fair to you, it isn't "ULTIMATE" cheese. You could have popped Katsu out, and put in two more VTOLs, plus two small command units and another ATV.(155 - 53 - 53 - 25 - 12 - 12 = 0). At least you had a Mech in it.

Next time, try limiting yourself to 2 VTOLs, no more than 2 Artillery, keeping the Mech, and going faction pure, plus Mercs. Then when your opponent's lose, and they accuse you of cheese, you can tell them "It's not cheese, it's fondue"

Hmmm... Let's see...

VTOL swarm? Check.

SS Balacs? Check. (x2)

DF Donars? Check. (x2)

BR Sprint? Check.

Fa Shih? Check.

Mongrel Army? Check.

You got all kinds of cheese there dude! You might get away with some of it... But you are using some of the cheesiest units together in on of the cheesiest army types.

Although I do commend you on playing a mech, your army is still very 1-dimensional and predictible. You are counting on the VTOL's reach as your advantage... And your 2 command rolls for mobility... The Sprint, ATVs and Fa Shih are for base breaking.

This army's only weakness would be AA, and who fields that in such quantities?

As an experiment... Play this army both with the new AoD rules and the DA rules... I think you will notice a distinct difference between the two.

Thanks for your comments guys. In response to xyberbratt , Katsu was there for more than command . I used it quite effectively for offense more often than not. Actually , i was so aggresive , I was conceeded to twice.

Reaper

Did you win, crush all your opponents, and capture the full number of VC's each game?

If yes, then this army was your local cheese.

Engineer : So an army that you can totally dominate with is considered Cheese ??

I would like to pose another question ; Does this army look like something you guys would play?? I don't mean alot , just once or twice to give it a shot.

Yes and No.

Cause Player in my area don't use army smelling like cheese, so I don't play them to.
But if I went to nationals I'll take such an army.

I would never play something so blatently un-pure and (ahem) gouda-riffic.

Now, there is nothing wrong with playing "theme" armies of multiple VTOLs etc, but if this is all you play, all the time, you will find yourself winning few friends.

Personally, I HATE going to a afternoon of gaming, only to see players bring the same tired army week after week. That leaves me with either the choice to a) bring a specific counter army (in your case that would be AA units and lots of infantry) this would work well against VTOL swarms, but I would get rocked by a decent well rounded army... OR... b) I can take my chances with a well rounded army, that will have a tough time against "swarm" armies.

The trouble with any "swarm" army, be it VTOL, Arty, Infantry, whatever, is that it requires a equal amount of "swarm defense" army to counter it... ie, VTOL swarms require a defense of lots of AA, Infantry swarm requires lots of AnP or arty, etc.

If you play a total of 5 VTOLs, and you have 2 command rolls per turn, I would neen 5 AA units and another 2 command rolls to counter that equally! I might be able to get by with 2-3 AA units, but I'd be taking my chances, and I'd still be spending most of my turn [i]just dealing with your VTOLs![/I

2 DF Donars and 2 SS Balacs are simply to big a threat to ignore. With their long "scoot and shoot" ranges and high attack values, combined with the extra turns given by your command units, it is very possible that all 4 of your VTOLs could attack and damage all in the same turn.

Now, if the people in your area are super-competitive and play similar "swarm" or "pogwarrior" armies, than by all means, play your army. If, on the other hand, people are more interested in building new and interesting armies every game, I would suggest you do the same. Half the fun in this game is building new and unpredictable armies.

No.

I wouldn't use this army in local play. I used to, but it's too easy to use. Now I restrict myself to armies that have no more than 2 VTOLs, no more than 2 artillery, must have a Mech, and must be faction pure. So your army doesn't qualify in any of those respects.

No, I wouldn't take this to Nationals. It's too straightforward. there are too many ways to have this army get ripped apart. And it's not balanced, it seems to be confused between two extremes.
a. it's too one dimensional
b. It's not focused enough.

I wouldn't use it in local play, b/c ppl would get annoyed.
I wouldn't use it in national play, b/c it is not balanced.
Sorry.

It's not a bad army, it's just not very refined :-)
More is not always better.

@Ravenank:
Good post; I'd disagree on this (detail) though:

quote:
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The trouble with any "swarm" army, be it VTOL, Arty, Infantry, whatever, is that it requires a equal amount of "swarm defense" army to counter it... ie, VTOL swarms require a defense of lots of AA, Infantry swarm requires lots of AnP or arty, etc.
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You never need a swarm army. It might seem an easy solution, but it's usually a bad idea.

There a multiple ways to counter any specific threat. Vtols are not only countered by AAA, but also by artillery or tank (or even infantry)-drop.
So if you construct your army with a little of each, you still have a good answer to a vtol swarm, but also against other armies.

Swarm-type armies can be very effective. But mostly so versus other swarm armies! Therefore: never use a swarm-army in serious play: it makes you vulnerable...

Thanks to all, your comments were very helpful. I now understand the reprecussions of plaing such an army. As far as using it all the time, there's no chance i'll do that. It was just thrown together to have some fun with once. I got the idea from one of the players at my venue. He played with alot of Balacs, small arty, a few infantry and a kelswa(merc) drop. It was a tough one to play against , but he didn't win the tourny. I'm still a bit of a noob when it comes to this game, but i would rather have fun and make friends than be ousted from local play. So again I thank all of you.

cheese- what do we call armies we can't beat? cheese. hmmm I don't know, this army is ok.. nothing wrong with it.. everybody has a right to use it if he wants to.. if you say finding few friends by using this army then somethings wrong with the general populace. we respet the venue and its players but i believe the venue esp the BM should respect the player concerned about his army, if you find this cheesy then why play MW then? everygame has its version of cheese its part and parcel of it. Better cheese than Cheat! Cheese is beatable, cheese can be overcomed, cheese is just a term used by people who can't beat your army. Sure have fun play the game (don't play cheese etc etc ) but don't dictate others as to how they play their game, if you choose to ostracize the cheese player because he cheeses the cheese out of cheese then arn't you being unfair to him/her? Find a way to beat his cheese then, wouldn't that be a better way? just my opinion though

Cheese-what bad sports say about your army when they lose.

A big question is how competitive players are at your local venue. If most of the players are younger than 13, and have just a handful of figures, then you aren't going to encourage them by showing up with a bunch of rare and expensive units and destroying them.

You can always look at the WIZKIDS sign up sheet for an event and check the ratings of other registered players. If you see a bunch of players in the top 100 or 50 in your country, then I think you should bring the best army that you can to give them a challenge and give yourself a chance.

Your army had many good units, but could suffer severely against armies on the 'DAIRY QUEEN' model which use multiple vehicle drops. I'm not sure you have anything which would be likely to deal with the HL Kelswa without getting smacked back in return.

There is no cheese.

Your army features a lot of different powerful elements and is not faction pure. For many, that is the definition of "cheese". But what is your goal with the construction of this army? If it's victory, then you're on your way. I would agree with the sentiment that it isn't focused enough and that some elements could switched out toward more efficient elements.

Is it highly-competitive? Not really, because too many different things beat it.

Is it scrubby? Not really, because it's a mongrel force with many VTOLs.

It's semi-competitive. Don't let people pressure you to play or not play an army. It's their responsbility to beat you, it's not your responsbility to play down to their level.