As the title goes, how can Ariadna deal with a rampaging TAG or a full HI link? I did ponder about just foregoing ARO by bringing more camo to force discover rolls before getting shot or even bringing more template troopers and mines, but even this still feel insufficient. Any tips or tricks that I should try out? All these comes from a vanilla Ariadna pov
Mines and shotguns. The damage isn't so high, but they ignore cover so there's always a decent chance of inflicting a wound. The point is to slow people down, if they die that's a bonus. Dodging into melee with high-PH skirmishers can also slow down attackers sometimes, especially now you can do it from out of LoF.
Reactive turn is all about not dying so you can do damage on your next active turn. Don’t leave models up that you don’t want to lose. Spam camo (mines, decoys) to make them waste orders, marker states are prob the most effective order sinks. Use warbands to protect corners, position in a way that you can only be seen from within direct template. (Ideally you want to trade up)
In my experience, it's mainly about forcing your opponent to spend extra orders on these units before they can achieve anything - e.g. more orders to get them into LoF of your units; more orders before they can reach an mission objective; more orders to kill their target. If you can entirely avoid those sorts of units, then that's the ideal. You could try any-or-all-of the following, (in no particular order & dependent on what you're facing or what you have); Hiding. Camo'd units. Multiple units covering the same attack route. Feeding them sacrificial and/or cheap units; one-at-a-time if possible. Tying them up in close-combat. Dodging. Hiding behind smoke.
Ignore them. Go for the soft targets to limit their order pool. Then go for the mission. EDIT: Sorry, didn't notice the question is about reactive turn. But basically the same answer. Hide everything, go prone, cammo, whatever. Make them go after your guys one by one.
I once sent a Marut to deal with a lone ariadnan, it only took one shot from his panzerfaust to take it out - all three STR - then of course followed by a WIP roll from my Sophotect to bring it back online to kill him and the rest of the army.
In the reactive you've got a massive advantage by using troopers like hardcase, chasseur, foxtrot etc. Layer the midfield in mines and watch them bog down in clearing then or avoiding them. If you can leave some decoy markers up on long range corridors, it'll make them think about autocannon or missile aros and again, waste a load of orders. There aren't really any aro pieces that will deal with tags and hi links in the reactive phase in any faction, that's not how reactive works. Anything left out on aro duty will die, just got to make sure it costs a lot of orders for the active player to win that trade or spend loads to avoid it
Infiltrating metro's with panzerfausts. We got some cheap and cheerfull punch in combinatie with the other camos. Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-G986B met Tapatalk
Without the ability to run TO Camo I'd go for Camo ARO shellgames. Use the Decoys in your DZ (i.e. Spetsnaz) an mix a couple Caterans and Tank Hunters in there. Now your opponent has the pleasure to deal with 4+ positioned as ARO pieces, but only one or two are real. And then it's the same thing all over in the midfield with Mines and Decoys mixed with SAS/UXIA CC Threats and Strelok/Chasseur DTWs.
Honestly the options aren't great. A TAG or HI link can mostly just walk through mines and shotgun AROs. TAK was one of my initial projects for N4, but I backed off of it after seeing heavy infantry links just walk up the table, ignoring camo tokens until they got to something valuable. Even if a model took a wound from a mine or shotgun, the team could just rotate which unit was the point man to ensure link bonuses were preserved. In the case of mines, a team can probably run a 6-4 or 6-6 unit up the table to sweep them. Because of this, having one lurking EXP aro is a nice way to "train" opponents not to act with impunity. They can still completely ignore your midfield units... No tankhunter is deploying 20 inches up the table... But at least you can make them think twice. I do wish the E/M Minelayer had stuck around on the Scout. That profile would have single-handedly changed how opponents interact with the Ariadna midfield.
I have been running solely TAK this ITS and I have found the HI link team to be a real pain for exactly the reasons you just stated. I haven’t found a good solution yet.
I would recomend the scout minelayer with Emauler but they killed him during the N3 N4 transition. Very sad indeed, it could work nicely as exclusive profile for TAK. Also the tank hunter with missile launcher has become too expensive to just leave as aro piece. The scout with sniper can give you good results, but the strongest spearheads will deal with him quickly.
ignore and stay alive in camo. at current meta , nothing can stand against a linked destroyer in reactive turn.
That’s pretty much the conclusion I’ve come to as well. With all the heavy infantry now, that e/mauler scout minelayer would be so nice to have...
In my humble opinion, there's not a lot you can do. Depending on the circumstances, you can delay your opponent and get them to waste orders, but stopping hard targets on the reactive is often above our collective pay grades. We tend to favour a more passive defensive turn, and depend more on Alpha-striking the most dangerous threats.
The topic has mostly been answered with slowing down your opponent, which I agree is correct. Ariadna has one of the strongest defense games due to immense amounts of camo, mines and decoys. I often prefer going second with Ariadna, though it depends on the matchup, table and mission of course. Bearpodes and the threat of Mirage 5 / van zant are also very effective. (or the ap spitfire para commando, but I don't use him personally). Bearpodes can be tucked away in an annoying spot which forces your opponent to give a wide berth due to their excellent phys stat and dodges / smoke dodges which can potentially mess up their entire play. If the bear gets into CC the tag is done, and shooting a MULTI HMG at close ranges against phys 16 dodges or 19 smokes is really scary for the tag considering the low cost of the (regular) bearpode. Even if the bear dies but forced your opponent to spend a turn dealing with it, that's massive value (not to mention you can have 1 more bear or a duroc in reserve for your offensive) Back to the parachutists, even if you don't have them in your list the very existence of them in ariadna factions is incredibly threatening as your opponent can't over extend for risk of getting 3 ap rounds in their back arc, or having all their back line cheerleaders turned into Duroc's chew toys. Finally, protect the Unknown Ranger so that he will remain a counter attack threat. In summary, Ariadna is very strong at defense due to their ability to roadblock and slow down big heavies with Camo and mines. If your opponent wastes too many orders, they leave themselves vulnerable to a very strong counter attack with bears / parachutists / unknown ranger. I am speaking mostly from the vanilla perspective of course, but a lot of this applies to Kosmoflot and USA as well. Tak you obviously bog them down with decoys and streloks and then apply vet kazak to everything. Scotts just flash whats under that kilt and pray. Something else I just remembered that I think a lot of new players don't realize: Uxia and some SAS have D charges with high enough CC stats to make suicide bombing a TAG a very good option in some cases.
Agree very strongly with this. I really wish em mine layer was relatively common in Ariadna. Agree that tankhunters pay too much for the opportunity cost. But the fact they arent super great means you can surprise opponents who stop respecting your camo i guess.