I like the numbers behind sandoval, but I couldn't find a mech I liked for him.

till now

by finding some hindering, sandoval spider gains 24 defence from both charge and range, and with jump jets I am not effected much by the pogs hindering tends to summon. at 177 points, I think this is a steal. his only real weeknes is being baced by infantry. how should I deal with that?

so, what to run with him?

army 1
hd san-spi- 177
hd atv x3- 42
ss arrows x2- 102
hd bishop- 37
ss towed gaus x3- 60
angerona x2- 32
450
this can eat pesky infantry alive and pog any arty that denighs me my hindering. but I hate to use the arrows personally, I'd rather run a lance.

army 2
hd san-spi- 177
hd bishop- 37
ss towed gaus x3- 60
ss mjolnir x2 174
448
this army uses more mechs, but is easy to hit if sandoval falls.

I guess I really can't decide if I want mjolnirs, pheonix hawks, havoks or hellions. also, if I use a drop should I drop a mars or gaus formation. and lastly, do I have to use arty to make this viable.

Of those 'Mechs I have had the most success with the Hellion. (Inferno makes a nice gear and a good backup to the Stalking Spider... ran it last week and was sold for life. Also, the Hellion gives you a ballistic attack at a good range, although with a low damage potential.) HD Pride should be a must since your primary 'Mech is very shooty. Adding Flamers to the Spider might help you deal with infantry, as well, although it would bring its point value a little too high for my liking.

TGR formation > Mars drop. More damage potential if fired singly, higher attack if fired in formation. Cheaper and more flexible generally.

Whether to use the arty depends on your local meta. If you are still seeing lots of 2-arty armies then, yes, you do need to bring your own arty to foil it. More ATVs can be helpful as well, particularly if you go first since it really disrupts their deployment and they can't prevent the ATVs from basing the arty immediately unless they meat shield it. Those ATVs are likely to die very quickly though, so you'll need to run that Spider pretty hard pretty early to get there in time.

flamers on a quad is a rules quetion I have been afraid to ask for awhile. not to mention losing my pulse for it. no, I'm not iterested in that fiasco at all right now. maybe I'll dust off jacob sen and use him as a cleaner. I usually use hd pride, but have not found the points for this army yet.

Flamers on a Quad works like any other attack.

When using the slot with Flamers to make a CCA then your DV is the slot the flamers are in. Against infantry and tanks you'll do that +1. Against 'Mechs you'll only do 2 heat (and only if they are not shut down). Yes it is three-sixty.

Flamers are optional SE and in order to use them you must declare a CC attack. Hence they do not prevent you from using Pulse that is already on the dial (though because they take up a slot they will prevent you putting Pulse gear on the 'Mech).

I don't actually think it's a good idea to put Flamers on the Stalking Spider, to be honest. In general it's better strategically in this game to try to optimize your 'Mechs to do one thing cheaply rather than trying to make them do everything at a higher point cost. I was just trying to show you that you can actually give a Quad formidable close-combat abilities, if you want.

If a gear adds optional SE to a slot that already has optional SE, you essentially have both SEs (although you cannot use them both at the same time). This applies not only to situations where the SEs never conflict (like Flamers and Pulse, one of which is used only when making CC attacks and the other of which is used only for ranged attacks), but also to situations where both SE's would normally be active (for instance, if you have Inferno Ammunition and AP on the same weapons system, you choose which is active when you declare the attack).

I find that the Hellion's meager 2 damage ballistic is still usually enough to protect me from infantry. 2 damage AP will substantially degrade the stats of most infantry, and that's really all you need to do since your army's built to focus on taking down higher-profile targets anyway. If all else fails, just use your TGR drop against infantry and fire the TGRs singly. That should be sufficient.

One shot evade on the Spider turns it in to one sick machine. 20 defense + 2 for Sandoval + 2 for hindering / hull down + 2 evade + 1 opponents Assault order = 27 defense. Yeah you will take 1 click for it ... but when you are facing down the barrel of a SH Behemoth drop ... would you rather take 1 or 5? Plus if I am not mistaken you can use the SS-BA SA and since BA has a grand-Al with LI you could put in a LI Combat Technician and be able to repair it back up easily ... and ignore repair markers. I've been tinkering with this thought for a bit. But like Ralph said ... crunchies can pose a problem due to the spiders low damage and range on ballistic. Additional anti-infantry support is an absolute must. Arty will be a must as well to act as counter battery to keep oppoents arty in check so he can't use it to dislodge the spider out of its hindering (though even if it does, with one shot evade it still ends up having 24-25 defense when out in the clear).

I guess I was under the impression that when quads make close combat attacks, they deal one damage, after all modifiers. flamers is a close combat attack. I would not think it would modify the damage.

also, I was under the impression that unless the card specifically stated that other gear could be used, that the card only applied and not the colors on the dial. did that get faqed?

I think the gaus drop is order intensive and the mars drop is to many points, but I suppose the mars drop can out range mechs and maybe hit with a davion pride. still allot of points to kill infantry.

I don't like the single use evade gear for the spider because he loses his four damage on his first click. in my mind that makes him go from good to mediocre right away. for the fox it would be good though.

I'm not much for repair either.

infantry are not popular at my venue, maybe I'll be safe for awhile. maybe try two havocs as support. I'll try it and see

Vehicles use the DV appropriate to the attack. The FAQ entry shows that you use the Damage Value appropriate to the flamers slot (FAQ and SEC trump rulebook).

Nope. The dial applies unless the dial is turned off (or the dial is inapplicable) inw hcih case the gear apples. This is as it has been always. It may be you are mixing this up with the fact that non-optional Gear overrides optional SE on the dial. But if they are both optional (or both non-optional) then the dial applies (unless in the case of optional gear you turn the dial SE off).

fair enough koch, but how should I clean off the infantry?

I hate to burst everyone's bubble, but I thought you weren't allowed to put Sandoval on a Davion mech. Just like you can't put Kev Rosse on a Nova Cat mech. It sucks I know, but I may be wrong???

Sandoval is, AFAIK, the only faction leader to sport a pair of symbols. He's legal in both Swordsworn and Davion, unlike the other legendaries.

Ah......so he does :laugh: I guess I should have looked first! :rolleyes: But I don't understand why you can't put Rosse in a Nova Cat and Campbell in a Republic. And darnit I want to put Katana Tormark (the Light version) in my Rokurokubi's!!!

Sorry to change the subject............