Who said anything about rooftops? Models on rooftops are EASY to kill. This whole thread is about how building interiors, especially complex ones with multiple rooms (and ESPECIALLY ones with entirely internal rooms) make playing out a game in 3 turns harder, or make models far harder to access. ... Actually, I see how the title of the thread creates that impression. But the OP is clear.
That does not change the fact that these models can't support the TAGs, and a TAG without support is ultra vulnerable.
Sure. But you can hide a lot of vulnerable units inside buildings and still support your TAG. Those things aren't mutually exclusive.
This whole thread seems to be an exercise in evolving your meta. If nobody brings grenade launchers, ADHL's, mono mines, KHD's or AHD's so the winning strategy is to hide everyone except your 2 TAG's, Cover them with 1 TR bot and win, then good on ya, you've found a hole in what your regular opponents bring and exploited it. 1 of 2 thigns will happen then. People will evolve to rapidly kill unsupported TAG's / chew up hidden cheerleaders, or they will stop playing with you :) Of the two though, killing/gluing/posessing unsupported TAG's feels simpler than digging through rooms worth of interiors finding 10pt ordermonkeys. On reflection, rooms with tons of interior 'stuff' are probably going to increase the problem, as you can't simply dash up a flamer and torch the lot, instead having to spend multiple orders moving around and making sure each room gets covered. I'm not sure how units prone, on the 2nd floor are supposed to do anything to help except for provide orders either, unless they are AHD/KHD's deployed where the TAG is. In that specific situation though, the TAG is even more vulnerable as it can't move about to do 'stuff'. Adapt or die ?
Well... My local meta is using a lot of 2-3 floor buildings with muddy windows ruling and floor hatches acting as inside ladders. I don`t see this kind of rosters as problem at all. It`s specialized for one particular type of direct approach mission and can`t do anything else. And it`s quite vulnerable to a lot of stuff. Infiltrated AHDs, E/M weapons, surprise ADHL, smoke, careful positioned HMG Kriza, HRMC etc. And that`s only tools that my main faction has. Other factions have their tricks, some less effective, some more deadly. Next thing is cheerleaders hiding in buildings. The point is there is secondary function of cheerleaders - DZ defense. If none is doing it, it`s green lane for opponent to do whatever he like in any way he like. There is no way three big models could block all enemy models on even moderately dense table therefore a lot of vital mission related stuff could be done without triggering ARO at all. And last one is about eliminating these hiding cheerleaders. It`s worth only if it`s cost effective side task (like killing regular hacker because you already have infiltrated KHD nearby) or it would bring big benefits like killing exposed cheerleader Lieutenant (leaving two irregular TAGs with maximum of 4 additional regular orders). Otherwise I won`t bother with it, just do mission and dispose few exposed Rambo models with appropriate tools.
Right, my point being the tools don't deal with this effectively. Further it's a very easy strategy to use, compared with the knowledge to fight against it. I have used, or attempted to use those approaches, and seen them used, they don't seem to be in a very good spot right now. I understand it's an NPE to have your opponent be able to do something to you that you can't react too, but it seems with N3 CB might have gone a bit too far the other direction in reigning in indirect/guided weapons. And how would the Fusies prevent this? Let's assume for a moment that they're actually exposed, and covering some of these approaches. This means that my opponent just needs to spend and order (or two) killing fusies, and then do what he was originally going to do. Only on my turn I've now down a few orders that I would be very unlikely to lose. Or the smoke also prevents them from taking a shot as well. Side note, I'll often face tank mines with a TAG. At ARM6-10 the odds are very good it does nothing, and if it does I still have 2 pts of structure. I also seldom see people bring models with deployable repeaters. Could be my meta is an aberration, but it doesn't seem like it from the survey I started in the other thread. Anyway, I think those approaches are going to make things difficult for the TAG regardless of where the fusies are deployed. (Mutts are another excellent counter, putting the TAG/rambo into isolation) That's an excellent approach for other missions, not so great for the direct action missions that were run during the ITS, including the mission I listed in the first post, Firefight. That's going to be okay, but not great. First, turn 1 no suppression so I take the shot with the HMG/HRMC, turn 2 or later very likely be in suppression at the mid-field, or in marker state depending on the TAG. If you do find a way to put the TAG at a disadvantage, generally it will lose a point of structure, and fail the guts check back around the corner. If you're using smoke, you've used a minimum of two orders, maybe more, and you're still on the other side of the board. Right, but if I DO put out the Fusies they're going to be little more than speed bumps, and you're going to be able to trade for them at a much better rate. Then on my turn I'm down 2 or more orders. Generally the advice on this board is to ignore the TAG, and go after the cheerleaders, starving the TAG of orders. However, if the cheerleaders are placed correctly, this means you have to deal with the TAG. Nothing in this game is invulnerable or indestructible, but I'd rather you shoot at my TAG than my Fusies. TAGs can take 3 hits, and really need 5 to be out the of the game. Anything less, and I'm going to repair it. With two TAGs you're going to need to do 10 structure which I believe is going to be challenging in a single turn. There are definitely some options that would do this, monoweapons, cheap warbands can just engage, etc, but they're less likely than the usual shooting units.
Yeah I think there's a problem there with score-by-kill missions I've gotten rid of having trouble winning them but the tactics I've resorted to have felt gamey.
1.In a direct action mission, you can expect the opponent to field some heavy weaponry, and thus be able to kill a TAG. Even if it's not a dedicaced hunter, Your TAG will go down. And it's not that easy to hide a S7 in full cover, especially from someone in a high place, i'm not sure you can say you will just take a hit then fall back. 2. HMG is a very bad weapon in reactive.HRMC is a bit better, but it's still a bit low to frighten a dedicaced TAG hunter. Once again it's direct action mission, you will see stronger than combis. Things like linked HI with missile launcher, AP HMG, portable autocanon ... 3. General advice does not means it's always good to follow. Frankly, if i see that list, i know that if i remove those 3 models you will be helpless. Removing the TR bot is an easy one with the proper tools (personnally i use TR bot to cover my back against AD because they are too easy to kill). Then i can either try to kill a TAG, or the orders. If the orders are that hidden, i'll go for the TAG, and most probably the Tik. Even if i can only kill one, it's enough if it's the Tik i got. There is nothing the dragao can do alone. He is only good for shooting, providing he has things in sight. You won't be able to do much damage with it if i hide in midfield and lay may traps, and it does not have what it takes to fight in a midfield. And on second turn it is down too. The greatest problem is that you'll be close to retreat threshold. That will depend on which army you'll face. I play Aleph so i'll have myrmidons, mk2, Diomedes ... But vs a japanese or haqq, you would be better covering your back with your fusiliers, because even a single fusilier ARO can down an oniwaban or a fiday, and these miniatures can single handedly remove your tr bot and your tags.
Also a lot of Direct Action missions are about zones control and losing one of two TAGs means you can only reliable control one zone at time.
Yeah, but ITS guideline says that only missions category should be announced before collecting armylists. "The Organizer must make the Type of Operation known when the event is first announced so players can take that into account when building their Army Lists." So making lists you should be able to fulfill any mission from category. And you know, there is Biotechvore in Direct Action missions list))
I thought we were still talking about hiding models everyone cut your post size to at least 1/3 please.
Honestly I would recommend folks avoid placing buildings with interiors inside of (or easily accessed from) any deployment zones. Make someone spend their orders to push models, ideally through potential fire lanes, to access these buildings.
Oh sure, but seldom in a single FtF roll. Assuming the worse, AP+EXP Missile Launcher on a 5 man Magister Link vs Tikbalang, that's 10% it's going to take all 3 in one go (and 25% the Tik puts down the Magister). So 1-2 wounds max during a FtF isn't an unreasonable assumption. Obviously dice happen, but I can't do any planning for that. I also will use the non-TAG list on a board that doesn't have sufficient terrain for hiding a TAG. However, locally it's rare to find a city board without a few tall buildings. Being able to hide two TAGs in partial cover that can become full cover isn't an unreasonable assumption. I know of the tables I played on during the ITS there were none where this was a problem. Really? I don't think the Fusie has very good odds against the Oniwaban (~5% chance of success), or the Fiday (~10%), assuming that they don't make a bee-line for the Tik, which is exactly what I would do. At best I'd be forcing the other player to spend a couple of orders (1 to shoot down the Fusie, another to go back into marker state) Further shooting the Fusie is actually a win for the opposing player, since they can further starve the TAGs of orders. If they make a bee-line for the TAG, I'll probably get a single ARO to discover them. In a perfect setup, the fusie gets a shot at 9s vs the Oniwaban/Fiday, who then reveals himself in the second short skill when he CCs the Tik. So I think I'm better off not exposing the Fusie to danger. I agree, bringing dual TAGs to a zone control mission is a poor idea. A single light TAG isn't too bad, makes it easier to grab the distant zones. I specifically took the dual TAG list for Decapitation, Fire Fight, and possibly Annihilation. (Other mission was Quad Control, where I ran a TO spam list) However, there's little preventing me from hiding a few fusies in that list, including the LT in a really awkward spot. During the first mission the LT coward in a small shipping container, prone, about 3" from the table edge, and was completely safe until I started using her.
It's important to have generally safe places to deploy, otherwise the game devolves into who wins the lieutenant roll to go first. I've played on bad boards with hardly any cover in the deployment. Those games tend to heavily favor the first player unless the second player has an absurd amount of aro models. Some tools exist to kill rooftop models and I agree that most of them are inefficient. This is a good thing. Things like spec fire and guided missiles are non-interactive and have no risk for the attacker in a game about risk mitigation. If you could easily break apart a good deployment the game gets worse overall. I would say the one weakness of rooftop models is positioning. They are generally incredibly limited on what they can do on the active turn with restricted movement and line of sight. In objective based missions they have to spend extra orders getting off the roof if they want to use those models for objectives. For killy missions, your opponent will be able to hide fairly easily to not expose anyone to attacks from rooftop models. This generally means action models are on the ground level and not sitting on rooftops; these are the models we care about attacking anyways since they are your direct line to winning the game. The only gripe I had about rooftop models they patched with H3. It used to be really hard to dislodge an assault hacker hanging out prone on a rooftop in the midfield. Now we have killer hackers that can easily deal with that. If we are specifically looking for advice for the new player in the game you played, I would focus on how to alpha strike with the oniwaban. He can easily walk behind your tag to avoid flamethrowers, then martial arts lvl 4 you to maximize his chance of critting you with a monofilament weapon. Yojimbo is also a good option as he can smoke his way up to your tags and fight them in melee, then position his koalas so the models on rooftops can't do anything without a koala running after them. If somehow both of those options fail, the ryuken (assuming he brought the ODD ones) are incredibly hard to dislodge if they are sitting on a corner in suppressive fire and could potentially soak up a lot of orders from the tags. He can pretty much ignore your rooftop bunker because they are incapable of doing significant damage, the tags are the real threat and are going to be how you will score in that mission. In the future he should bring a hacker to make the situation much easier for him to deal with, preferably an infiltrating camo hacker (ninja assault hacker in his case). If we are really looking for general solutions for rooftop models here's a couple: ---If the rooftop models are grouped -cheap template models like warbands can walk up a ladder and clear rooftops and easily trade up in points -warbands can smoke off the ladder/hatch, walk up/in without getting shot, then intuitive attack a bunch of times -spec fire capable weapons can clear grouped models on rooftops, it will likely take a couple orders once in position -infiltrators with shotguns can catch multiple models in their template and likely survive since its all ftf ---if rooftop models are spread out -camo infiltrators can get to rooftops without getting shot along the way, then go prone so they can 1v1 models on rooftops -super jump and climbing plus are better for hunting down solo rooftop models -spec fire works, but its better against groups of models because of how inefficient it is.
They pretty much are. A model in a building is providing an order and doing pretty much nothing else. TAGS don't have 360 arcs and the stabby models or even a hawwa with shotgun can't act as easily with even a fusi watching an approach. But if we're really going to talk firefight real strategy. The best way to win fire fight is get a lead on kills and then bunker down, in this case the easiest tag of the two and then bunker down. Hiding all your models means giving your opponent more options to make a trade for a TAG. Putting you 90 pts in the hole, and left with pretty much the only option to push your other TAG deep into enemy territory. Where the odds of them getting another kill out weigh your odds of digging out 1/3 of the army with 9 orders per turn
The Magister is on 43% to do 1+ damage, 26% to do 2+ and 10% to do all three. The Tikbalang is on 25% to do a single Wound and can't do more than one Wound per ARO to take down the Magister. That's not good odds for the TAG.
Guided and U-Turn just add modifiers to the roll, which is possible to adjust manually using the modifier drop-down at the bottom of each panel. Example with a son-bae firing at an unlinked alguacil - +6 from guided, -3 from u-turn for a net +3 modifier on the missile, -3 to dodge a template represented via change facing on the alguacil. 58.5% chance to wound.
Your math is accurate assuming only 1 model can be tagged at a time. Guided missles are hard to use because they need to be centered on the target, BUT spec fire only needs to clip the target. Normally it isn't hard to clip 2 or more members. If the fusileers are spread around not linked they are easier picking for models like diomedes. I am curious what your typical board looks like, say how high buildings are. Generally about half of my buildings are 1 story and the other half are 2 story. I might include a few (0 to 3) three story buildings. Generally I find three story or taller buildings become very unweildy unless the rules for lifts are used. I also tend to put taller, three story plus, buildings outside the d zone so you need to work or infiltrate to get an absolute height advantage.
