Hi there -

Thought I'd start a dedicated thread for one of my favourite ways of playing in a 450 point standard tournament game - Using only Mechs, without support. While this may seem like an insane Idea at first, if you obey the basic tenents of the strategy it can be quite shockingly effective. I usually run 3 mechs, but it is also effective with 2.

Basically, in my experience to succeed you need:

1) The mechs must be fast moving, so as to avoid artillery and fight opponents at a time and place of thier choice

2) One mech MUST have antipersonnell. If you dont do this, you get eaten alive. This is where the Light mech AnP card comes in very, very handy!

3) Large amounts of blocking terrain so you can break up the enemy force and pick them off 1 by 1. again, this is where fast mechs come in handy.

4) Cheap Mechs! Especially ones that can be run without gear and still be effective. this is not essential, but if youre running 2 tooled up mechs (see army 2, below) the third one is likely going to have to be an ICE mech of some sort. Yuk!

5) the attitude that you dont have to win at all costs. Fighting with only mechs is a guerilla war, rather than a clash of anvils. It takes a LOT more strategy to win this way than using tankdrop/warpog armies - and with the right planetary conditions and mechs you can dominate anyone, or die horribly. But the fun is in the playing, right?




Army 1 - my UK Nationals army, Jade Falcon Pure:

"Blitz"/Froenhoefer + Recruit to CJF
JF Goshawk/Dave Rees + Recruit to CJF
JF Jaguar/Albion Pilot/AnP.
450 points.


Army 2 - my one for this week:

"Copperhead"/Froenhoefer/Decoy
"Bolt"/JP Millhew/AnP
Merc Forestrymech B (from Liao incursion - has Brawling and CC SEs)
446 points.


Army 3 - the foolish one without AnP

Arnis Drummond
SC Uziel/NAIS Graduate
SC Tfox/Tamar Graduate
450points.

These 3 armies that I have posted are faction pure, but any you do dont have to be. If you are running mech only you are already being an Uber-scrub so faction purity isn't essential IMO. See if you can get a better army than these using 3 mechs, or 2 if you want your eggs to be squarely in one basket. Lets put the 'Mech' back in Mechwarrior - lol!

All 'Mechs, you say? Eh, I'll give it a shot...

"Yami" Shiro
Kenshin Tadashi
-> Concussion Ammo
Arnis Drummond Dasher II

-450 pts

Thank God for a thread like this one. I usually just play 2 mechs since I'm to lazy these days to think up and keep track of larger armies. Besides, mechs are just way to fun.

One recommendation-

Have a single sacrifice piece of infantry.

Some of the terrain cards, like volcano, will put you in a world of hurt if you only have 2 mechs.

Most of my armies lately are 2 mechs, with one or two infantry as throwaway support.

When I get home tonight, I'll try to post one or two of them.

Thats a good idea - Spirit Cat Fenrir BA would be a good one for that task, as it has 7 (?) clicks before death and is cheap as well....

What Planetary conditions can you think of that are good for mech only?
In a 4 round tourney I'd go with:

Mountain Range
Ice Field
Subzero Temperatures
Caustic Atmosphere

@ Mizerama - Im so going to try that, with Yami and Arnis thats almost a perfect 2 mech army....

No armies here, but just a few comments:

Even though the top 4 armies at Nationals were mechless armies, I still believe that mech based armies (even almost pure mech armies) can be made very effective. Mechs are the most powerful units in the game and have the ability to walk right over infantry at the moment. Remember that in January there will be no more Arrow IV's, BR Sprints, ATV's, Merc Zahns, or a number of other units that are the primary makeup of the mechless army. I think you'll see mechs start to trounce everything when that happens.

I agree with D503 that you have to be careful of artillery and make sure you have heat dials and speeds that make you able to maneuver safely, but I'm not quite as in agreement with his statements about anti-personnel. Mechs already do breakaway damage to infantry...and infantry are getting slower making them less of a threat. You probably will have more issues with single infantry basing your main mech so that it spends the entire game clubbing infantry than having to deal with formations of infantry. I do think it is wise to have a good balance of ballistic damage in your army, but I don't see AntiP as quite the necessity that D503 does. Generally, I just ignore my opponents infantry unless they are going to be transport dropped on me.

I fully agree with Ghostrunner. You should have at least one infantry to take the hit from Active Volcanoes, Mine Field, and the like. It also makes it easier to fill in the gaps and get right up to 450 points if you use 1 or 2 infantry.

Chikako is one of the most versatile mechs I know and running only a few mechs means you'll need them to be versatile. He excels in water (can assault order every turn and stay at 0 cumulative heat). He excels in hindering (24 defense with the quad's extra defense). He excels with blocking (streak missiles). He has such a stable dial that he can take a few artillery shells or even a hit from a fatty and still keep dishing out damage. He does require a specific type of support though: Against artillery, he must have either water terrain or something that can get up close and personal with the artillery pieces really quick. Limiting myself to mechs, I'd recommend the Merc Forestry B. One charge from him will destroy an Arrow IV. He also requires a backup mech to swipe units off his tail so he can continue laying down fire without worrying about his back arc. I recommed Blitz with Frohnhoefer and JF recruitment for this. Any mech or vehicle that bases him gets MDFA'd and any infantry can be assault-close combat attacked or broken away from for free (since he's a quad). The Merc Forestry B isn't too shabby at that roll either with brawling to boost its damage and the assault-close combat order.

If you are running an all mech army, don't be afraid of using IC Mechs - particularly ForestryMechs. For their point cost, you get a lot of versatility. They can kick the snot out of vehicles, charge artillery (as mentioned above), swipe infantry and vehicles off Chikako's tail, and even act as basers when necessary. If you go old-school with the DA Forestry's, you can get basers/chargers with grapple or MOD's with good ranges and ballistic attacks.

Don't forget that we do have an artillery (in unrestricted) named Viki Drexel. Unfortunately, she's not really worth the points.



One final important concept - If you are running an all mech army, you must be able to handle a 24 defense with decoy mech. The usual ways for handling these is 1) Artillery and 2) Formation drop. This means that an all mech army will be quite weak against such beasts as the NC Nova Cat with Aiko and Decoy on board. The only thing I can recommend at the moment is play blocking terrain and pick off his support OR try to get Chikako (w/ Gabriel Smith) to get multiple streak shots on it until he hits. If you go head to head with him, you'll lose the vast majority of the time. I would love to hear what others have to say on the matter of defeating these beasts with only mechs.

Yeah, those are definitely some of the best PC's you could use. Other useful ones would include Swamp and Heavy Fog against Artillery, but those could hinder you a little more than you'd like. Swamp would slow down your 'Mechs, and mobility is very important to an all 'Mech force. Heavy Fog is a double-edged sword. While screwing a lot of Artillery, it makes it harder for you to hit your enemies' pieces, but it DOES make you a little harder to hit, which is fine depending on what you're running.

Oh, and yeah, that army seems like a ton of fun to run in a fun game, thanks for the compliment, haha :nervous: .

so far as 24 defence with decoy mechs go, I usually run away from them, or hide behind a building. Once you have killed its support off you can run in and charge/close combat formation it. To be honest though, there are very few ways anything can deal with that high a defence without using artillery. Perhaps the first army I posted could, but to hit a 24 with an MDFA still requires a considerable degree of luck.

As far as PC's: I think I'd still run a Perfect Day in there somewhere. I like Urban better than Mountain Range. Gives you an added bonus against VTOLs. Mountain Range is still good though. In a 5 round tournament, I'd run these four:

Perfect Day
Subzero Temperatures
Ice Field
Urban

Oh, and another thought. Reactive Armor (H) and even Heavy Armor (M) would be gear cards worth considering on your mechs. Reactive in particular since most arty aren't AP these days AND it makes you nearly immune to indirect fire. Units like the SW Blade that have Reactive on them already would be very good prospects for the all mech army. (That and the fact that the SW Blade is the ultimate light mech in the game right now.)

What a great idea! I agree however, we should consider 1-2 throwaway infantry pieces. (TIPs) Or in military parlance: pieces, infantry, throwaway. (PITs) :p

Here's a few ideas. I think now that you can fire out of base contact, the dynamic of all-mech has really changed. These might not fare as well with that, plus with ultra high AVs.

Any critique would be appreciated. I've run the first one back in the day, granted I subbed a merc CBA for the faction card. I can only think the card would be better.

DF Pride 15
Danni Haag 128
Forestry MOD 100
Forestry MOD 100
Agro MOD 107

TOTAL 450

Use hindering, blocking, and water.

This took second at a semi-competative local tournament with the CBA instead of the DF Pride. Granted, that was before CA came out...
==================
Danni Haag 128
Shock T x3 42
FMM 100
CMMx2 164
DF FP 15

TOTAL 449

This was OK in for-fun local play. The two Construction Mech Mods actually were the stars of the show.
==================
This last one looks fun, but I'm not sold on Shin. Janina has a cleaner dial.

DF Pride 15
Janina Lucik 109
Shin yoshida 117
Raider 134
DF Hatchetman 129
NAIS 19
repair 17
sylph x2 60

TOTAL 600

Comment?

Although this isn't technically a mech-only option, I think using the MiningMech Mk II's for infantry drops is still more-or-less in the spirit of the all mech armies--especially if you're adding infantry as filler anyway.

Although they're painfully slow, the MiningMech Mk II's can pack quite a punch. I generally use the Towed Gauss Rifles (which all coincidentally have a corresponding MiningMech in their respective faction, house, or grand alliance for you faction purists out there, like myself), although the Mortar Squads, Centuar Battle Armor and Towed Thunder Launchers are all good options since they add artillary that are otherwise unavailable to all-mech armies outside of unrestricted.

Maybe it's not a hyper-competative option, but it's available and not really all that bad...

I play Mech only from time to time. Here's a little Energizer Bunny Army.

BR Hatchetman
BR MSGT
Mechanical Repair
BR Hatchetman
BR MSGT
Mechanical Repair
BR Raider MKII
Faction Pride Heal 1 damage
449 pts.

Even the pilots make it faction pure. The BR Raider MKII is either a utility piece, charge monkey, AnP platform, VC3 getter, or even a VTOL hunter from time to time. Dual Hatchetmen lack the big attack value to really take on the RHDM but with 2 of them they can give anyone pause. One can be bait while the other works on support. With FP and two repair mechs in play you have to hit them harder enough to get them away from repairing otherwise they just keep coming back. FP also works well with the apply 1 damage PCs so a sacrifical infantry piece isn't always necessary. You can upgrade the BR Msgt to NAIS grads to get a bigger attack value and then change the Raider to a BR Forestry Mech B for a little variation. The Forestry Mech s a really nice harraser. Hard to hit from range, agility up close it can be a troublsome little bugger.

600 points unrestricted is a nice format for all mech or mech heavy armies as it gives you more space to put more mechs or better mechs. I rather like mech heavy armies rather than all mech because you're always trying to squeeze the last mech into the remaining points, to the point you're just picking the mech because of its exact point value as opposed to actually being useful. Allow yourself some space to put in fillers, like a Fenrir, Hoverbike or ATV.

When you reach 85 points or so left, you may not even have enough space to put on the ICE you like, so it goes to gear, pilots, faction prides and SAs. However, I find that having an artillery unit to be most helpful, followed by infantry fillers. A Zahn or Maxim with 3 TGRs or better yet, HS/SH Towed Thunders.

In a high point game, I like this as a ranged formation combo---Zahibia Nostra, SC Shockwave, SC Sun Cobra. You get 16" from each of these mechs, with a damage of 5 from Nostra.

CJF is a faction I see I lot of mech heavy or even all mech armies, followed by the player putting blocking terrain. Used to be people would field the Falcon Prey uniques, then AoD came and it's all Jade Hawk based. Then Firepower and you got Black Rose and the Goshawks. No surprise that CJF's best faction quality works only on a mech, going mech less or less than jumpjet mech intensive on CJF is wasting all that faction ability. If you see more faction abilities based on specific mech attack or attributes, you will see more people forced to use mechs.

Add one or two JF Hadurs in a mech intensive CJF army is fun. The Hadurs are not very accurate but they have a very nice dispersal pattern, so it's easy to assume where the misses are likely to fall. Artillery units have another effect; they bait the opponent to come at you, which is what you need to bring them to range if you're going to DFA.

One concept I use in an all mech or mech heavy armor is you must have a mech with strong defenses, if only to draw enemy fire to it and waste the enemy turns, leaving the opponent open to your own attack.

My take,

2 x SW Blade+AMA pilot= 242
1 x Blitz w/Steve CJF recruit=176
4 x SH ATV=32

450