List Advice for New Player

Without gutting the list by stripping out the REMs entirely, the most obvious change I can see is downgrading the Irmandinho to a chain rifle to free up points to upgrade the warcor into ANOTHER Irmandinho with a chain rifle. I can't imagine ever wanting to bring a warcor for any reason other than being somehow literally unable to fit in anything better. Also can't imagine ever wanting to fire the SMG on an Irman over a chain rifle or smoke dodging or whatever. Then maybe reorganize your pools so you have an Irmandinho in each one.

 

If you dropped the Dozer and two mild you could pick up two minelayer Strelocks for 2pts less. I personally would make that change.

 

Yeah and I mean it's hard to disagree with this. I like the look of the MULs. I'm actually building two MULs right now. I will certainly force them into lists, to justify having bought the darn things and motivate myself to paint them. But I have yet to see an N4 list that justifies their inclusion which makes me sad ):

The minesweepers don't really have a niche anymore as marginally discounted orders thanks to tactical window. The MRLs really needed some love and they didn't get it. Worst of all, all the other factions got WAY better at guided shenanigans while also being able to do it for much cheaper. Frustrating, when we've got the coolest looking mini rocket platforms in the sphere.

 

I really wish they had given the uragan better range bands. Even spitfire range would make it a more usable reactive piece. But it's bs of 10 and short range makes it had to justify taking. At least the Kuryer has 11 bs and minelayer. But is a kazak exclusive. (It really should just be the standard.)

I also still would like to see minesweeper as a more usable skill. Either allowing its use on a triggered mine. Or allow it to target camo but only work if it's actually mine under the marker?

 

Assuming we have decided on trying to make the MULs work, I'd stick with the Katyusha for Guided attacks, rather than having one of each. The bad rangebands really hurt the Uruagan's role as Total Reaction bot, and I don't think swapping DA for AP/Shock is worth 7pts when we will use it on a B1 attack. By downgrading the Uragan to the basic 5pt variant we got 11pts extra, which together with the 5pts from the Irmandinho being downgraded to Chain rifle as suggested above leaves us being able to replace the Warcor with something for 19pts.

When I see 19pts I immediately think of Dynamo Paramedic, but since you want more FOs to be able to get that Guided you need I guess you could go with the FO profile. You could also take a second FO strelok if you make the Line FO into a normal rifle.

 

I would like to see minesweeper work like Sensor, but instead of revealing camo, it reveals and deactivates any mines in the zone of control.

It sounds fairly powerful, but still requires you to spend orders moving up field and using the skill. Probably even then it would not be worth the order expenditure.

 

In N4, depolyment zone is a dangerous place. Anything not fullcore*, 6th sense*, camo or otherwise durable model is in danger of getting killed by drop troops, pitcher+guided missiles and other alpha strike models. Lucky for us, Ariadna is perhaps the most defensive faction in the game (because we have plenty of previously mentioned troopers).

Good models:
- Spetznas with AP Rifle (you want be part of the problem)
- Dog-Warrior(s) (24p, 3w, total immunity)
- Wardriver (6th sense hacker with direct templates is an exellent defensive model. Also we have a lot smoke so smokestomping+hacking might be a valid tactic depending on rules interpretation)
- Antipode assault pack (not as good as before, but can still make a lot of work depending on rules interpretation)

* For better no-LOF dodges and some protection against MSV+smoke dudemens.

 

You meant "way better than before", I hope. The change from unique rule to Peripheral alone gave them a huge buff. No more Frenzy as well.

 

@Nuada Airgetlam There is a 99% chance that you don't know what you are talking about. But it's not your fault. The antipode assault pack rules have always been rubbish. And by rubbish I mean that the unit is extremly powerful, but the rules are so poorly written that not even the devs knows how to play them correctly let alone most of the players. If you are a honest player you will use 30+ min pregame time to go through the rubbish antipode rules with your opponent so that there aren't any gotchas or too aggressive interpretations. This is ofc before the list selection, because used the antipode rules affect list selection.

In N4 the biggest antipode rules issues are:
- What happens if the spearhead dies or goes unconcious?
- How do illegal AROs (should) work against coordinated order when some models declaring to use stealth and some don't?

But let's forget these issues for a moment. Even if they release an errata that addresses these issues (which I highly doubt) or you manage to bully/negotiate the opponent/TO into accepting your baseless claims on how rubbish antipode rules work, the N4 antipode pack is still worse than N3 antipode. Consider the following:
- In N3 you could use a cmd-token to change the antipode irregular order to a regular order even if there were a single immobilized and retreating antipode on the table. In N4, cmd-token can't change the tactical supremacy irregular order to regular order.
- In N3 the loss of the antipode handler (the trooper with the control device) might cause the antipode pack to retreat. Depending on the used rules interpretation and/or wip-3 roll , this could be bad or manageable. In N4, the loss of the antipode handler always causes the entire pack to go disconnected for the rest of the game. Also the deployment zone is a lot more dangerous place in N4 than it was in N3. A lot of drop troopers and guidebots models see the antipode handler as a easy kill.
- In N3 the antipode handler could support the antipode and rest of the army movement with smoke templates. In N4 she can't, because firing a smoke grenade causes antipodes to drop camo. Smoke grenade launcher also has worse range bands in N4. Throwable smoke grenades are now the big thing, because their range bands have the +3.

 

On other hand,

in N4

• The pack is not going disconencted when only one of the pack members stays "active" on table as in N3.
• The controler and the pack now only take just one combat group slot (making it possible to spend one more order in 10man combat group, or "bypasing" the 15 troop limit in orders)
• When the pack is dead you still have 2 orders on the controler. (yes one of them needs to be used on him but thats still better than in N3
• They are no longer frenzy so they can freely ReCamo.

 

@Alri Like I said, N4 antipode assault pack is still good. Would I rather take N3 antipodes? Absolutely

 

We already know the answer to the first question, and the second is in the FAQ Queue IIRC.

For the record, if the spearhead goes down, it’s pretty simple. If unconscious, you simply designate another dog as spearhead next order and continue. If dead, it’s slightly more complicated.

At the end of the order, the other dogs will fail the coherency check (as it is impossible to be in coherency with a model that is no longer on the board) and become disconnected.

The next time the Controller receives an order, the dogs will not execute any orders, as they are disconnected. However, you still designate one of them as the new spearhead per the Peripheral rules. At the end of the order, the disconnected state is automatically cancelled by being in coherency with the spearhead, and then you can spend another order and perform business as usual.

 

Yes, such well written rules. Unconscious dog is great pack leader. I’m sure that the devs intended the rule to work out like that.

 

Considering the unconscious dog can’t actually carry out orders it’d be pretty stupid to continue assigning the Spearhead to the guy on the ground instead of just switching it to a new dog on the next order.

Regardless I’m not trying to argue how well written the rules are or aren’t. I was informing as to how they work.

 

@Delta57Dash it's more about not getting into that "no spearhead token on the table" situation. It's one of those gotchas that you need to clarify with your opponent before the game. You need to instruct your opponent that because of rubbish rules, it's very important for him to kill the antipode spearhead and not just make it unconscious.

But let's move past "antipode rules are rubbish" and "N4 antipodes are worse than N3 antipodes" and talk about other TAK models. How do you see Dog-Warriors?

 

ha! tracktor mulls; the worst remotes in the game, now without guided munitions XD
really wish CB would gave them x-visors