Hey All, I'm playing around with some lists, and came up with the following: Group 1 BM HMG BM Paramedic BM Hacker Naga KHD Naga FO Pathfinder Montessa Spitfire Machinist Fugazi Group 2 BM Haris BM Multi Sniper RAO LT Now, obviously, both links are missing out on the ssl2, and bs bonus. I've found the BS bonus to be more than these guys really need. Group 2 is there for fire support, the Montessa and nagas are wrecking stuff early after the high burst from the HMG BM clears priority AROs. (before the new sculpts, I played the HMG Bagh Mari exclusively in a 3 man link, and found he worked well.) What are your thoughts? Am I missing any glaring holes?
Double links is a good way of confusing the enemy and misdirecting them a bit during deployment, but I honestly don't know that paying for those extra bodies just to get +1 Burst on the HMG is worth it. I'd consider just running one lone Bagh Mari HMG, dropping the rest of the Bagh Mari, and folding all those freed up points into a solid 6 or 7 man Acon Regular link who can snipe really well, plus give you more Orders for your Nagas and Montessa. When I run Acon, I tend to have 10 Orders in Group 1, at least 5 Orders in Group 2, with one Naga per combat group. If Nagas find a gap to work, having both of them be able to use all your Orders can win games. But that's just me. If you were going to run double Bagh Mari links, I'd probably find a way to free up some points for more Fugazi and maybe a Regular to help mask your Lieutenant, so you can get Group 1 to 10 Orders and that second group up to at least 5 Orders. I'd ditch the Machinist too. You're more likely to be doctoring than repairing in a list like this, and Bagh Mari heavy weapons like having a Doctor around. Any missions or matchups you expect to run across, by the way? I love Bagh Mari, nice to see people innovating with them.
I'll be playing at the Rumble, and warming up before then. I'll probably only bank 8-10 games before that time. Fair point about the machinist. I might screw around with the solo Bagh mari HMG. It's a good idea. I definitely do not run order spam with these guys. This list is the most models I've ever played with ACON, preferring the 11-12 range.
I've experienced with 3-man Bagh Mari links before and in my opinion, their performace wasn't stellar. Although they're still quite impressive in active turn, in reactive turn I had problems with keeping them alive. The lack of SS2 make them vulnerable to Albedo, Smoke+MSV or TOcamoed troops, and they're too squishy to survive. On the other side, 4-man Bagh Mari link performed quite well (maybe I could find some of my older Flamia reports for that). Single BM with HMG is a beast! It is quite versatile troop who could challenge almost anything in active turn.
I like the idea of the lone HMG. I've retooled to keep a full defensive fire team, but allow for the HMG to go hunting. Good points, everyone.
I'm just getting into ASA, so take this with a grain of salt, but I don't consider BM to be a great attacking piece. I don't like offensive link teams in general, and I think the BM are too slow to really be able to take the fight to the enemy. I would either go with what @barakiel said and take a solo operator with HMG, or build a defensive link with MSR and two cheap guys (not Rao or a specialist).
I'm with you completely. In general, I find that the fireteam members using support actions are very vulnerable when they swing up the board to attack, and can often force you into dodging when you'd rather shoot. Big guns on big guys do tend to work better for this. Personally, I haven't found their movement to be a hindrance. It's unusual that the 2" lost on a move-move is a deal breaker for me.
Yep. Before the new sculpts, I only had three models to use. My 3-strong link spend a lot of time motoring up the board and HMGing the crap out of people. I definitely need to start experimenting with them again.