Dealing with 5-man Fireteams

That's what I usually do since the introduction of Varuna. We have so many good mobile units with close-range weaponry, but long range combat it not really what we excel at (even though we do have some really good units that definitely stand out at that distance).

That Kamau Sniper is probably the best defensive shooter in the game, assuming people usually take two. That gives them 2..4 shots at BS16, ignoring any CH MODs, as well as having no penalty for Surprise Shot if Fireteam is at full strength. Anyone risking to engage in a shootout with those in a healthy 5-man Fireteam (well, except Nomads, CA and ALEPH because White Noise) is either very brave or just insane =D

 

You might want to check this post of @borings, if you didn't already. It provides a very good outlook on using an All-Makaul Triad.

 

On the offence, the best thing to deal with them is makauls, using smoke for cover and then advancing. Then just cc the link leader or try to brun them. Ive found the burn is usually pretty good, if they want to shoot, they have to eat the two saves if they want to keep the team. Obviously, only burn if you can get 3 or more in the fire templates (you dont need 3 under the same, like 2 under 1 and 1 under another is usually still good). If they are in a pretty unassailable position, sukuel hmg is the best we have at shooting through. Its realy not a great, but it can usually do the trick. I would only try if you still have them mate on the suk tho.

On the defense, the best thing to do is to have yer guys be outta sight for their first 4 orders. Kaauri sentinels are prolly the best defense we have, followed by makauls and then chaksa baggage. Kaauri are nice because most people dont recognize they have such a sweet amount of skills, and even if they do the option to either smg or nanopulsar can make them a pain. Makauls and baggage chaksa are just nice for flamers. We dont have any units than can reliably win a firefight during an opponents turn, especially against a 5 man, so i think any plan that relies on shooting (armand, nikoul, other snipers) is relying on your opponent not playing to their advantage (i.e, only shooting when advantageous) or just getting lucky crits. If yer really going for luck, you should just go all out for 4 chaksa hmg nuerocinetics. Its really fun every once in a while, but it is really just hoping you roll 2s or 5s on your 4 dice most of the time.

In regards to clipsos or mines or anything, anyone with a 5 man that has multiple wounds isnt gonna care about a clipsos. If yer lucky, you can have yer clipsos plant a mine to hit all 5, but most of the heavier 5 mans will just shrug off mines, kill the clipsos, and carry on. Clipsos are prolly the 2nd worst TO models for fighting (behing the taureg in haqq), but are one of the best for objectives, which means if yer using yer clipsos for anything other than button pushing, its hopefully only because they have already pushed whatever button they were going for.

 

I have really troublesome problems with a 5xRiot Grrl link one friend of mine is using all the time. Due to Hyper-Dynamics and PH13 the Makaul Template Tactic and Mines do not work so well. I would like to hack them, but we do not have suitable Hacking Devices. Even using ODD or TO:Camo is not that usefull, because RiotGrrls have MSV1 and Mimetism (and BS+3, SixthSenseL2 due to Fireteam). My Symbio-Bomb attempts continue failing.
Still there is a thing working: Smoke + Close Combat. It is the one Tactic (beside being lucky) working for me, but it is really order intensive (especially because of the RiotGrrls 2 wounds). Did I miss a solution? How do you deal with them?

 

So if you get them in the position where you can flamer them, the sequence should be move, and the your opponent says if they are dodging or whatnot.
If they shoot: flamer them as long as you cna hit at least 3, oterwise throw smokoe
If they dodge: shoot with pistols (b4 hitting on 11 vs their 16 is still good odds), or throw smoke (best option) so that you can follow up with cc. Makauls are S-tier cc units, the riot girls arent going to be able to fight back reasonably.
The best way to do it is to move into cc when threatening to flame, so that you can either cc, flame, pistol, or throw smoke. Flamer is almost always your worst option, as counter intuitive as that seems (i mean, b2 heavy flamer seems great right? But dodging is so stronk)

Edit: at a distance, ive also had success with nikoul snipers, oddly enough

 

agree. direct templates are really good in reactive turn, in active they're quite situational I think

 

Y'all need to inflict -6 to enemy dodge rolls.

 

Borings, how does the play you outlined work if they use sixth sense to hold?

 

oh man i totally blanked on that! hahahaahah yeah the best option is to just pick off the leader at a distance with a sukeul hmg before closing. if thats not an option, throw smoke from around a corner and then engage in cc. if yer not playing with makauls or sukeuls, prolly put some mines down in their path? if you don't have any of that either, i would suggest reevaluating your list building, and to just try to kill other things and ignore them.

actually one thing that hasn't been mentioned: throw some eclipse down, and then intuitive fire the flamethrower into them. it makes the dodge into a f2f with your wip check. i use this against 5mans that have good cc on occasion, and i've had very good results with it. just try to make sure you position yourself such that if they respond with a template weapon (which they can do without rolling) the only hit the one makaul that is firing. if you've got a link of three makauls, or of makauls+ other guys with template weapons, it is usually worth the command tokens to break the link to do a coordinated order intuitive fire template mess through the smoke.

i'm really sorry i forgot about the 6th sense thing, i completely forgot about it. personally i almost always go into cc against one or two of them, and then just leave the makauls standing there in the open for their turn so they can't activate without getting a ton of flamer templates. i know not everyone is as stabhappy as i am with tohaa, so i was trying to think in terms of general suggestions

 

i do feel like people don't use nimbus plus often enough, mostly because almost every time i've used them my opponents have said "whats that? whats it do?"

 

Intuitive Attack Templates are pretty weak against 5 man teams, you get 1 WIP roll vs a B2 fully Linked Pistol/Combi/Shotty AROs.
Unless you can catch multiple members of a fireteam who block each other's LOF so only one guy can shoot back in which case you're up against a badly positioned fireteam and will probably still lose the Makaul in exchange for 1 template attempt.

 

Played in Australia's biggest event over the last couple days. I'll probably try to post full reports but germaine to this thread: I faced four five-man fireteams across five games. I burned two down with flame through nimbus, cracked one in melee after a long slog that couldn't quite catch the rest of them, and handled one with snipers.

To note, I didn't face Riot Grrls, which I feel are probably the toughest to face since even though nimbus they still dodge on 10s and you can't out-mod them with Nikouls thanks to their MSVs. Melee is highly reliable against them, but it also takes generally the most work unless you can force them to decamp whatever defensive position they occupy the midfield.