Druze first attempt, eng. Deck

I haven't had a lot of success with an eight regular order LI list, but give it a spin and let us know how it goes. In terms of help, I'd recommend checking out a few of the threads we've put up on the topic of building your Druze lists. Off the top of my head, these have helped me hash things out, and may be useful to you:

Mercs with Perks
How2 LI
Mixing it Up
Longer, but full of insight; Experiences
And this looks interesting, though I usually go with Scarface when running LI.

Have fun reading, and let us know how the game goes!

 

You could try Arslan or a TAG. It’s one of the things DBS struggles with. For engineering deck, I don’t think you need a data tracker.

 

Armand is great for getting a lot of points in the room, but remember that in Engineering Deck you need to secure the room, not dominate it, so you have to keep everything out entirely. If possible, try to go second in the scenario, if you win the roll off pick deployment. Your opponent will have to choose between going first, and going second but deploying first, which would let you both counter deploy them and alpha strike.

 

Good point ... Saito is an absolute godsend for helping clear the room. Don’t be shy with him.

 

It's not an LI list, it's 12 orders and the second combat group is a mess... I reposted the OP's list so it's better formatted to show how it's setup.


Eng deck
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 8 2
HUNZAKUT (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
HUNZAKUT (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
PEACEMAKER Heavy Shotgun + AUXBOT_3 / Electric Pulse. (0 | 21)
AUXBOT_3 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (- | 4)
DRUZE (X Visor) Combi Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher (E/M and Nimbus) / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27)
DRUZE Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Pitcher, D-Charges / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
CLIPPER DRONBOT Missile Launcher / Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 17)
DRUZE (X Visor) Shock Marksman Rifle, Chain-colt / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)
BRAWLER (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 28)
VALERYA GROMOZ Hacker (Hacking Device UPGRADE: Expel) Combi Rifle + Pitcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 21)
ARMAND Minelayer MULTI Sniper Rifle, Nanopulser, Antipersonel Mines / 2 Breaker Pistols, Shock CCW, Knife. (1.5 | 42)

GROUP 2 2
BRAWLER Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16)
SAITO TOGAN (Specialist Operative) Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, EXP CCW, Knife. (0 | 40)

5.5 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

 

I wouldn't do a second combat group with only two orders, and having Saito in there is not a good idea... he wants a full combat group to back him up.

Maybe drop Armand for more orders in the second group? I dunno, the list is just awkward as is.

I'd strongly consider Arslan for engi deck, between NWI, MSV, Hyperdynamics, and the shottie he's solid in the room.

 

Thank you for this! Totally spaced it. In complete agreement on your Arslan assessment as well.

 

Here is what I came up with for a Arslan, Saito, Le Muet LI list:

Druze Bayram Security
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

9 1
ARSLAN Lieutenant MULTI Rifle, Light Shotgun / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 36)
DRUZE Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Pitcher, D-Charges / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
DRUZE (X Visor) Shock Marksman Rifle, Chain-colt / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)
DRUZE HMG, Chain-colt / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29)
DRUZE (CH: Mimetism) MULTI Sniper / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32)
BRAWLER (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 28)
ARMAND Minelayer MULTI Sniper Rifle, Nanopulser, Antipersonel Mines / 2 Breaker Pistols, Shock CCW, Knife. (1.5 | 42)
PEACEMAKER Heavy Shotgun + AUXBOT_3 / Electric Pulse. (0 | 21)
AUXBOT_3 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (- | 4)
HUNZAKUT (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
SAITO TOGAN (Specialist Operative) Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, EXP CCW, Knife. (0 | 40)

6 SWC | 298 Points

Open in Infinity Army

Three snipers is a bit much, but it also looks like loads of fun! And between Saito, Le Muet the Peacemaker and the glorious Hunzakut the room can be challenged quite comfortably.

This way looks also fun, because it uses the Peacemaker as a Repeater for the Assault Hacker, but somehow the Heavy Shotgun is just a bit easier to use and it's missing Valerya to get the most out of the Peacemakers Spitfire:
Druze Bayram Security
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

9 1
ARSLAN Lieutenant MULTI Rifle, Light Shotgun / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 36)
DRUZE Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Pitcher, D-Charges / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
DRUZE Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Pitcher, D-Charges / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 28)
DRUZE (X Visor) Shock Marksman Rifle, Chain-colt / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)
DRUZE HMG, Chain-colt / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29)
BRAWLER (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 28)
ARMAND Minelayer MULTI Sniper Rifle, Nanopulser, Antipersonel Mines / 2 Breaker Pistols, Shock CCW, Knife. (1.5 | 42)
HUNZAKUT (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
SAITO TOGAN (Specialist Operative) Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, EXP CCW, Knife. (0 | 40)
PEACEMAKER Spitfire + AUXBOT_3 / Electric Pulse. (1 | 27)
AUXBOT_3 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (- | 4)

6 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

 

This looks now like the standard Druze list. Nothing wrong with it at all! All the tools you need. :)

 

Yeah I’ll second this. Just make sure you don’t do anything reckless with Arslan until you have to. He can be a monster, but needs to be protected.

 

There are no long range AROs in DBS that can stand up to the Szalmandra HRMC.

If you suspect it's in your opponent's list, hide your MSV-2 brawler and Clipper from table wide attacks and position your units to force the TAG into your repeater net to stop it. You will want at least a KHD and Gromoz to deal with it, and having the brawler AHD wouldn't suck either.

It's often worth sacrificing a Hunzakut to lay a repeater in its path if you have the necessary hacker support to pressure it.

Try and attack it with Saito on your active turn if you can, or see if you can get lucky with indirect fire from the EM LGL or Clipper. Just shooting the crap out of it on your active turn works too, but when it's active anything it sees is likely going to die.

Honestly this is about as bad a match up that DBS can face in the Reactive turn because the TAG overwhelms our ranged ARO game and the pilot is a competent KHD. Like most factions, DBS has to avoid it in the Reactive, and prioritize killing (or disabling) it in the active.

 

This reminds me of the last time I played against Shock Army and my buddy’s Dragao.

Very surprisingly, my clipper + multi snipers (all 3 were stacked on ARO) just ate the Dragao. Left it with one str by the end of my opponent’s turn, which was top of 1.

As funny as that scenario was, I got very lucky and wouldn’t recommend the tactic.

 

@oldGregg If you have enough AROs that can see it, you can actually overwhelm it for sure. Once it's forced to split burst its effectiveness goes way down.

I thought about mentioning that possibility, but it's just rare that one would get that many AROs on it at once.

The one time I faced the Szalmandra, I forced out the pilot with Gromoz through the Peacemaker as it shot my sniper to bits. That slowed it down, because it was right on the edge of repeater range and the expelled pilot was outside of it. My opponent decided to pull it back from the net rather than risk having the ejected pilot dealing with my KHD and Gromoz.

Saito was in it's path, and in my active he went after it. I couldn't cover my approach entirely with smoke, so I only got into CC by dodging the HFT. Once there, I didn't spend another order on Saito and the TAG was too justifiably too scared to activate.

 

Nice!

I got lucky on my stack; 2 story building with open windows. Clipper was on top, in the corner. My snipers each took the same corner position, but the msv was on the second floor, and the Druze was on the first.

My buddy got ambitious and thought he could mop up. Stacks like that don’t happen often though.