The Third Offensive

Since when SoF is a "standard ITS" or "standard game" in general ?

 

@morats - with this gaki/preta special I suspect maybe they can be paired with any trooper? Like dog on leash. Would be cool, fluffy, powerful AND useful (reg order)

 

Not "standard", but definitely a possibility one should be ready for. This means that facing vanilla PanO or MO is similar to face a Wallace's led army of Volunteers XD

 

I'm going to play devil's advocate a bit here, and posit that:
While MAF does not have cheap orders in abundance, we can be one of the most order-efficient sectorials out there.

We have pretty good fireteam options as-is, and that's going to get better soon, and, pretty much every one of those teams (except hungries hunting pack) is capable of achieving most battlefield roles, if you've got a core and a haris on the go, both can bring some pain to the enemy, and push buttons while their at it.

 

I would be far more afraid of PanO than a Wallace army of Volunteers. A heavy hitting PanO HI or TAG supported by 16-20 orders is a nightmare that nothing in Caledonia can really compare to, even admittedly scary stuff like Caterans.

 

Also note that I wasn't trying to state that MAF is helpless vs camo as much as I was trying to say that in my opinion MAF isn't adequately compensated for their lack of camo, and that is what's bringing down their overall power level. I think being able to more efficiently handle enemy camo would be a possible solution.

 

Core + Haris - sure, if they address our SWC problems a bit...

 

I've seen it suggested that Kornak's only link is going to be Suryat Core. If this is the case;
No Sogarat Links
Min 1 SWC cost for a Suryat Haris
Removal of FT:Haris from Kornak's loadout, so hopefully a price decrease

Would certainly reduce his use, imo. I only hope that, if true, it is backed up by some changes to our Lt options.

 

I hate to say it but mixed-regiment fireteams are kind of unfluffy given how Morats work, where they regard their regiment as their primary social unit. Exceptions made, of course, for Raktoraks and officers like Kornak.

 

No moreso than the fact that your list is basically a covert ops team* comprised of different regiments working cohesively. Otherwise your entire liat would need to be only vanguard, or only Yaogats.

* unless you're under the impression an army is comprised of 10-20 troops >_>

 

Yeah, I actually thought the same thing; Morats are maybe the army where mixed links make the least sense.

That being said, I still don't entirely understand the process by which we get from regiments competing to be allowed to do missions to a tabletop force that has a mix of units, so I'm not going to sweat it too much.

 

I don't see it. To me it makes sense. A Sogarat or a Suryat are members of a higher social order but less numerous one. It makes sense that if a Sogarat or Suryat had right of command they can lead any Morat in the Aggression Force under their command that they choose. Maybe those Vanguard in the mixed fireteam are potential candidates for the Suryat regiment and the Suryat in charge of them is conducting a battlefield interview?

The fluff explains that the regiments compete for the right to lead and that the regiment is family. It does not say that each regiment lacks military bearing and is incapable of functioning as a cohesive fighting unit.

Raktoraks are part of every regiment. Officers are in every regiment. A Vanguard Lt out ranks a Suryat even if the Suryat regiment has more prestige than the Vanguard regiment.

I don't get the regiments do not mix idea. You can see an Infantryman, an Engineer, a Ranger and a Cook in one squad if an Officer ordered it (IRL).

 

So I’ve spent about the last year and a half hanging out with some construction companies, and how I think it works is this...

Morat regiments, like construction companies, compete to lead and be in charge of various operations. But those regiments still rely on outside specialists, just like construction companies rely on outside specialists. If they’re sufficiently professional (Morat or construction company), that outside specialist integrates with the group without any friction. Because no matter how cool the Vanguard are, or how cool the Diplomatic Corps is, they still need to work together, whether the Vanguard or the Diplomatic Corps are running the operation.

So, honestly, being able to form fireteams like this is a mark of professionalism and skill for all of the Morats involved. Or, at least, that’s how I’m going to rationalize it.

 

I don't think you have to rationalize it, you are right. Any body can open up the MAF sectorial and see that Morats use a combined arms style of warfare. The typical Aggression Force is made up of various elements of the regiments. Like how the Spanish military (or any modern effective professional military). A regiment is a over arching identity but an Aggression Force is the functional application of the various regiments and their specialties.

 

I would say that the intention behind that fluff was less about "type of units" and more about "the unit that grew up together", so to speak. So more a "the platoon stays together" than the "no mixing between arms in the military". Which is not feasible, since the specialized troops are trained to answer optimally to certain conditions, being unable to cope with others...

 

Thanks everyone, that's some great ideas about how to look at it.

 

I have been playing the actual morats for a while and i think the new changes presented makes them a really powerful force:
First of all the main problem on MAF were the ARO pieces, cause we hadn't a really TO/Camo/mimetism high BS value (only the best total reaction in the game) or any minelayers to slow down an advance.
While we dont have direct control with infiltration units of the midboard, we have warbands that with few orders achieve that (either a 5 link team of daturazi or pretas/gakis link team) and that link teams should provide us with more orders than what we spent on them.
I really think they are competitive, we dont have Camo as other factions but we have a sectorial with a lot of Fireteams possibilities, we can bring even a second core link if we took the gakis and pretas option and almost 70% of the games you will be taking a haris.
MAF also is inmune to isolation, what makes the core link of suryat a really strong and we have template weapons to kill camos with almost every linkteam.
In my opinion, with the changes actually revealed what MAF really benefits:
- Haris Rodok: mimetism +12 BS + misile launcher is a really affordable option for a defensive haris.
- Haris Yaogat+ raktorak: a cheaper way to put a yaogat on the table.
- 2 vanguard + treitak + suryat HMG + raktorak vulkan: A really Swiss knife of a linkteam with cheap options, a suryat punch, smoke with treitak and almost 3 specialist.
- 3 vanguard combi + vanguard ML+ suryat HRL: a defensive link, not optimal in my opinion but a HRL IP is always a problem in ORA and is a cheap way to bring that to battlefield.
- Kornak + raktorak +Sogarat (If it exist de link) : Sogarat in a cheaper option link that can bring a real problem to enemy cause his high armour value, also we have an specialists in this link team.

 

@kururusbot ;
Veteran/Morat makes Suryats immune to Oblivion - that is the only advantage it has over other Morat links. They are worse off vs E/M as they're HI, so become Immobilised.

We haven't seen the Rodok Haris profile, but of the 4 Haris profiles we currently have (Kornak, Yaogat, Suryat and Kurgat), half of them cost 1 SWC - which means it isn't safe to assume it will only be 0.5 swc like every other faction gets. On top of this, the majority of heavy weapons in our faction are 1.5 or 2 SWC. With no SWC free hacker options, our allowance disappears extra fast.

In other news, got some solid work running a Zerat FO for the first time yesterday - Prone on a roof parapet, she took out a Gwailo HRL and BIT using Spec fired grenades. It's quite an interesting profile with the FO/Flash Pulse for range, the Shotgun for direct damage, and both Grenades and Mines for area denial or indirect attack. I wish I'd had the hacker in one of my games - but was SWC starved :(

 

I really hope the Rodok haris costs 0 or 0,5 swc. I agree with the idea of a Rodok ML as an aro piece, and I can see myself using a simple Haris+ML+raktorak team as a compound ARO to combo with the ever present Q-Drone. However, if he costs more than 0,5 swc it will be hard to take it, and I'll end up just using the Yaogat sniper more often.