Hi, my last game was Aquisition against Vanilla CA. My Opponent had two Umbra, two Batroids, two Imetrons, Bit and Kiss, a Charontid, Doc Worm with slaves and an Overdron. Man that Thing sucked, he had it parked in an ideal position with an overview over two of the objectives. I really missed some smoke to cover my advance or some real heavy weapons to take his Powertools out. A linked Missile Launcher or Feuerbach would be nice, why don't have Daikinis have these assets? Oh I forgot the linked Rebot with Missile Launcher, have to try this out but the lack of real heavy weapons (HRMC anyone) is annoying. How do you stand up against a Charontid or Overdron Monster Droid? Nice Dice
Hacking works. An HMG Dakini in a full core fireteam with Marksmanship will beat any of that in a firefight and is likely to put the hurt on whatever it is. A burst 5 weapon is frequently going to be better on the active turn for taking out heavy armor than a B2 Explosive weapon.
Just bring Dart next to the TAG’s and throw E/M grenades... You have now bricked his TAG (and you can do so with the rest of his faction). Naga Monofilament is also an unappreciated gem. It basically deletes TAG’s, Dakini links and HI links like Hollowmen.
As others said before, Burst 5 with marskmanship most sure will do the work, if not, you have others tools like "nagas" or proxies, the Mk2 assault hacker device is "a monster" bringing down heavy targets, first you can isolated it or inmobilized, later shoot with the boarding shot gun. Other option is Dart, most of cases E/M granade is tempting, but if we do the statistics the Burst 3 of the Submachinegun will be better. When I play Dart again heavy targets I try to place she behind the target, then shoot with the E/M granade, if success I spend the rest of the orders to put it down and when uncounscious I do "coup de grace", if the E/M fails I shoot with the Burst 3 (if you are behind the target probably he hasn't any kind of cover) but never ever try to succes with the E/M, most times you only will loose a lot of orders to do nothing. Best regards
Hello OSS is a mix of brute force and sneak. If you can overpower it, then please do, but if you can't, feel free to use whatever "dirty trick" you want, there are plenty. For brute force, we have the trusted dakini HMG as the other said. You can also try the Marut, but it's expensive and may be a bit hard to use. You have other brute force options, like the MSV2 deva with spitfire, which excel at killing low to medium armoured targets. The rudras is also a good killer. It has a K1 marksmanrifle option if you really need to kill TAGs (K1 ignore the ARM so you're always wounding at 12 out of cover or 9 on cover). When a long range opponent is a problem, remember that he often has bad modifiers in short range => you can use an infiltrator to kill it easily. For example a linked missile launcher troop can often be dispatched with a combi naga or dasyu. Of course that won't work if it has too much armor :) For sneak, you have plenty. Assault hackers can let you use those TAGs (little trick if you really want to KILL that TAG: take control, then make it climb the highest you can, then make it jump as high as possible then fall - fall damages are deadly). We have a lot of E/M options too. Dart is probably the best since she can infiltrate (E/M tends to have short range), but you can also use yadus (E/Marat is especially good versus offensive fireteams, since it's a direct template with E/M effect). While we dont have smoke, we can use white noise (hacking device plus, danava and asura) to block vision from MSV opponents. A last trick you can use is to send something in melee with the TAG. It is highly situationnal but sometimes you can sneak a naga, or use a garuda, and engage the TAG ... you can even use a 3 pts yudbot for that !. You don't try to fight it, you just want to engage it so that it cannot shoot. You can then just ignore the TAG and kill the rest. Don't fight fair, fight smart :)
Rudra K1M in a Haris with Supportware on. Good range bands, burst, armor? What armor? Linked Dakini HMG can also do the trick more often than not. Hacking and E/M definitely works, and we have some very good units with access to E/Marats. Then there's Sforza with Holo2 and ADHL. Also, Marut.
A heavy shotgun would be neat on the Rudra or a Plasma Rifle or a Missile Launcher or 2 heavy Rocket Launcher. A man can dream...
Linked Yadu HRL or Samekh FTO are perfectly good a heavy platforms ;) Missile Launcher might not outrange snipers, but it can do this to HMGs, and you can use Supportware on Samekh as well.
Dakini HMG and Dart. Really, you should not leave home withouth it. Dakini ( Marksmanshiped or Linked. Both is a bonus) is your go-to firepower option. Mimetism makes it *really* good at winning ftf, even with that BS 11. Dart cover so many holes in OSS that its not even funny. E/M is the answer for anything too heavy. Just dont FtF with it, B1 is terrible. Either go behind and throw from behind or Speculative it.
Super heavy targets are a challenge for OS. But that's really things like avatar. Anything less than that os should mulch through. A charontid which is in lof of a dakini link in its reactive turn is going to have a bad time 5 dice 16 is incredibly effective. You have Arjuna if you couldn't be bothered killing models. Emarats will just brick them for you. Dart solves plenty of problems up close. Naga ahd is great for dealing with heavies. If you need a missile you can get a missile remote in your link. There's also a Naga with monofilament mines.... Mk5 proxy with double SMG. costs ten points, starts at 20 inches and can diah out a tonne of ap fire accurately up close. Honestly OS has all the tools you could ever want and you can fit most in a list too.
The avatar is not much a problem , we have the perfect TAG for that. Or E/M grenades (if you shoot at -6 thanks to ODD, why not do speculative fire instead ?) Overall mixed fireteams are more powerful than heavy TAGs, and since we don't have smoke, they hare harder to ignore or deal with (i'm not talking about shooting through smoke to get a -6 mod but shooting through smoke to pick the single team member you want)
Avatar v Marut feels like a bad matchup for s few reasons. Firstly Marut just makes it a fair fight. Secondly avatar can bully everything but the Marut. thirdly and most importantly avatar also hash buddy the speculo on his team. Something OS doesn't. Not saying you can't win. Just in my experience the standard OS style struggles against the big boy. If it goes first.if you go first you got the orders and strike to cripple orders.
I still fear powerful fireteams far more than the avatar. These are more powerful, more flexible, and overall harder to deal with. About the marut, it's still the sole TAG that can ignore the Avatar's ODD and negate his strategos L3, meaning the CA player cannot move half of his army without caution. Well, i agree that it's mostly a gamble on who's gonna play first.
I'am totally agree! Avatar Vs Marut isn't the best confrontation the SSO player could have. Yes MVL2 helps to bring down the Avatar, but the "IE" has tools to deal with the Marut (yes, I'am talking about Speculokillers). Others tools listed for others before me do the work. Yes, the "humble" Arjuna can put down a lot of heavy targets with his weapons combo and the "kinrabots". Against those kind of targets the Arjuna is a greate piece which don't have the need to confront the "heavy target" in order to make him "bleed". A couple of cibermines well placed plus one kinrabot controlling that corridor means a lot of waste orders in order to avoid them or a big risk. So, you have directe tools or indirect ones.
EI starts: Speculo saved as last model able to suicide run the Marut. Does so, Marut can choose between Fire to remove the Speculo, risking losing the Marut entirely, or trying to dodge... Considering that the Speculo rolls 1d20+3 and the Marut dodges at 8, or punches at 15 with AP CCW, the Speculo still can claim "its a worthy gamble". Of course the Aleph player will place more troops able to shoot the attacking Speculo, but it needs a single blow. And the 2 marker states means the girl can move+move and moe, unless there is a Shukra to try to discover her.
move move, move move, move + kapow. Anything in IMP-1 can cover 24" of table before being affected by anything in the game, providing you are willing to sacrifice it AND your adversary pass 2 discover checks.
Or if there is room to move without being forced to reach BtB contact with a servant or anything else.
It's not that fireteams or avatar are better. Just in my experience the avatar is more challenging for os to remove without creating a specific list to do so. In a standard list you'd take to a tournament you are likely to handle link teams easier than the avatar. But like I have said before. Avatar going first is a drastically different beast to an avatar going Second in my experience.
I think OSS has the tools to crack any armor, but the challenge is that they lie outside the usual paths of efficient listbuilding. There's plenty of E/M or MULTI, with K1, EXP and Mono available as well, but they're not on platforms that many OSS players typically reach for.
It always amazes me that the Mono mine Naga isn't super popular. Even more so with AVA 3 in OperationS
