Heh I would argue that Maggie is entirely valued based on your other troops in the your army. She’s strong precisely because of the other troops you can still fit into your list. I would go for Maggie, because it’s relatively easy to proxy the Khawarij and the Brawlers. Not so much a unique S8.
There's always going to be an answer of "yes but you can do x numbers here for x numbers there". Maggy is a powerful distraction and attack piece. I say shes bait but really...shes bait on a hook. If the enemy goes for her she can take advantage and have the power to. Money is definitely a factor. She is expensive money wise.
I'm a little miffed by that. I picked up DBS when it was the only NA sectoral, and thought that was cool 'UNIQUE' idea.
First time i took her into the battlefield, she destroyed Anaconda in ARO with b1 exp shots, wounded Scarface and disintegrated link of Druze (i think?) . She was my only designated attack piece, but the NoGo Zone she created in the midfield was intimidating. Absolute throwaway TAG unit.
This mentality also applies to Geckos. The running joke with those guys is that they have "Holoprojector Level TAG" (for those that haven't faced them, Geckos are basically a S6 heavy infantryman [ edit: armed with combis or a Mk12 ] ). They draw fire all out of proportion to their actual threat level. But the Maggie actually has the firepower of a 'real TAG' to go with the intimidating size, despite being only a little more expensive than a top-line HI. So I'd go ahead and stick that Maggie out as a Distraction Carnifex and watch the enemy lose their mind when they blow up your TAG and you don't even care.
This is the starkest reminder of why this topic exists. As @Sojourne says, I can and likely will proxy the other units with other minis but have no such option for the Maghariba. But I also can't help but feel that I could a lot of different things both in and out of infinity for the cost of this one 'miniature' XD But hey, I still own a colossal and a battle engine from when I played warmahordes so its no't like I haven't set wads of money on fire before thanks to model lust. Serious question: Does the baiting work against experienced players? Say at an ITS event or something? I know that unlike the Geckos, the Maghariba poses a credible threat. I like that I have the unexpected option of unloading a specialist on turn 3 to flip a switch if need be. That fact itself may attract missiles. Still curious to know how well the holo: TAG works outside of casual games. I certainly know that from playing Squalos, they either burn orders trying to kill it or giving it a wide berth - unless its an infiltrating AHD in which case I've burnt +90pts...
Depends on what they have at hand and your maggie's position... against nomads it's very likely you will suffer beacuse of a Pitcher placed in a positoin the Maggie can't reach without suffering fire, thus having to spend orders onto moving other troops (say, Hunzakut... move, deploy repeater, ignore being blackout'ed if the enemy hackers can reach her, and blow the enemy repeater with the next order). An experienced player will try to make you unable to activate the TAG without clearing a lot of hindrances first. That being said, Haqquislam (at least in vanilla) has a lot of cheap orders and a cheap tag, so this strategy is much less effective... unless Limited Instertion, that is. Maggie on top of a building in the middle of the table and suppressive fire might mean reaching the whole table, with ARM 11 and applying a -6 to everything she can see, can be a very difficult rock to take out.
This sounds neat, but those numbers look like you're assuming Maggie is a sapper, what's with having access to cover from any direction (have fun with that trying to hold stuff in Frontline, or anywhere for that matter) and extra -6. Which, frankly, is exactly something I really want for 360 profile, but alas. I think plopping her on an objective in SF is a legit play, but I would say it's more of a "Turn 3 move" rather than something to base your strategy off. If your opponent still has a lot of his tools intact, he will try to employ tools that sidestep strong points of an opposing unit - hacking, E/M and such are expected. Worth noting that they will kick you out of SF if you try to ARO against those threats. Also, a lot depends on terrain because firing B3 at -3 BS (max range) is only slightly better than firing B1 at +3. Extra mod from SF proper still helps ofc, as well as significantly better chance against something that outstack you hard, but still it's a perspective - you shouldn't be relying on that roadblock unless opponent has lost a lot of resources by then.
You can always choose to fire a single EXP bullet at 17 instead of 3 AP/Shock at 11... Thus my mention of a building, it is really hard to find any kind of scenery item that will grant cover on all sides... on top of a building is *possible* to be close to the borders. I'd bet you can get cover from at least 3 sides in one of the classic cardboard scenery (moto-tronica, not the one with bridges from the Red Lotus) if the building also has a container placed on top. Getting up there is another thing entirely, ofc XD
Well, realistically those numbers will be a bit lower, if only because of cover. The point being though, if you are going to march your TAG towards your enemy, you'll need to understand how exactly that investment will improve your odds. If coming head on is your opponent's only option at that point (so that he doesn't just sidestep the shootout entirely), you still have to estimate whether you are getting +2B and +0 BSE(quivalent) or +2B, -3 BSE. This is because if you decide to just go out of SF and shoot normally, it becomes a question whether it was a good order investment to setup such a roadblock in the first place. Oh, and there's another thing about using Maggie as "biggest TR bot in the game", it doesn't have V:Courage, so it can occasionally be neutralized as an ARO piece with a specific LoF coverage on a seemingly successful act of soaking up an enemy order.
Today I realised that TAGs neet to make GUTS rolls. Something I can't remember ever doing or my opponents doing. There's even a maggie section in the guts wiki: On the bright side, cause of the sheer size of the thing, its very unlikely to be able to reach partial/total cover in most situations so it probably won't move all that much. So I did end up buying the maggie before the RTF list was announced. Model lust won out in the end. Not sure the Maggies valuation has changed that much in my mind since the release of the full RTF list. The mine layer on a maggie is AMAZING but its locked behind 360 visor profiles greatly reducing its chance to be taken (although being able to throw mines 16" behind you is also pretty cool). The Rafiq FTO is great but I'm not sure I'd want to invest that many points into a single fire base in a Haqq list. Basically 120 pts if you take a 360 profile. The Lela shariff duo is good synergy though because you can hide behind the tank while walking to an objective. Not sure anyone will run Tarik + Rafiq duo outside of shits and giggles lists
It's probably just a figure of speech on your part, but just in case I would like to remind that moving pieces do not block LoF.
It was but I'll clarify my intention in case this falls under the same category Order 1: Keep both out of LoF while moving up: Order 2: Move+BS with Maggie into firelane, Lela moves but stays out of LoF Order 3: either move 0 or idle with maggie and mov with Lela towards an objective or something. So order 3: do I have to declare dropping the duo to do that or would idle/move 0 orders allow her to use maggie as a wall?
Well, you have to declare the same order, and there is nothing stopping Maggie from performing Move when it's the Fireteam skill declaration, so it won't Idle instead. My take is that you will be "moving in place" rather than idling with Maggie. But why bother when you can just eject Maggie's pilot and push button with her, especially since that way Maggie itself won't even provoke any ARO? Maybe you need hacker or d-charges specifically, but I think delivering Leila with some Haris will work better. Maggie isn't even the best thing to shoot your way in with, what's with its long-ranged bias and rather plain, if not bad, firefighting capabilities. It doesn't even have significant speed advantages here, especially when anchored by Leila, and that's regardless of offering your opponent a TAG to blow up in a midfield being basically a last turn play.
Which I think comes back to my initial scepticism that the links don't actually do much/anything for Maggie. But at least with RTF out, I can see needing decent firelane control in some lists so maggie itself is useful.
Well, dragging your own sensor with you is good. The problem is, you probably won't want to drag Maggie itself anywhere in the first place. Although you may save an order or two if you are lucky with table layout, advancing Rafiq in position while shooting stuff with Maggie. There are much better links with Sensor (as in: links where Sensor will be well-leveraged) in this game indeed.
hm what do you guys think of the mine dispensing Maggie? I honestly still won't pay 20 pts more for a 360 Maggie. Her strength is supposed to be she's cheap, 20 pts more doesn't drastically improve how you use her.