Fellow loyal EI followers, I am facing some serious stickiness on this insignificant "Corregidor" space station that I am assimilating. My whole force keeps getting bogged down and tea-bagged by these space-dwelling rascals. Say for example they are fielding 5 Hellcats with ADHL and Superior Combat Jump, and 2 Bandits with ADHL, Camo and Infiltration. Thats 7 ADHLs deployed either halfway up the board, or dropping into my deployment zone, spreading sticky nastiness everywhere. With so many attempt they are bound to succeed in clearing one or more ways into my flanks, and being 159 points / 2.5 SWC, there are plenty of orders for them. So 1) what can I do to counter this? And 2) should I really be forced to build my army specifically to counter this build? We are both new to the game and have been playing a control-the-4-zones scenario only. I realise that he might need more specialists for ITS, but putting my whole army in IMM-2 would do the trick too, really.
Just have ARO's ready for the dropping Hellcats. Running 5 (non-discount) drop troops is generally bad because you can't put too many orders into one at once, since you don't get their orders until they start the turn on the table. Just have a good ARO game i.e. Q-drone, minelayer, etc. Adhesive Launchers are only burst 1 so are beaten by a lot of things defensively. It sounds like you just need to get your head in the defensive game. Make sure you're reading the rules for AD and Adhesive Launcher correctly so you're not playing it wrong too. If your opponent is running 5 hellcats, it takes their 5 orders to deploy them the turn they show up, then 5 more to actually go around and ADHL five things. You should be able to mop them up with beefy attack pieces, and they aren't going to succeed at all 5 of those tries. Which sectorial are you playing, or just vanilla?
I’ve been playing Onyx, but this last game was a vanilla list with Anathematic Hacker Lt. Realising that Combat Jump is an entire order, he may have overspent 4 orders on his first turn this last game. Not completely sure though. He may just have had all those orders. I did have ARO pieces like a Maakrep with HMG, but he combat jumped behind him and kept shooting until he died. With Combi Rifle in that case due to short range. I just don’t see how I’m supposed to cover every angle and flank, and with multiple pieces even (especially as a 0.5 SWC drop troop can just shoot my 1.5 SWC Maakrep up close) and still have points to do anything else but bunker up. I’m not saying there isn’t a way to not lose when going second, I’m certain there is, but I don’t see what it is. Examples would be very helpful for my understanding :)
Ok, DEFINITELY check to see if your opponent overspent those four orders. If you don't know... check. Second, learn how Sixth Sense works. Both the Sixth Sense level 1 on the Maakrep, and the Sixth Sense level 2 that fireteams of 4+ members have. If you have a Unidron or Rodok team, a drop troop sneaking up behind them and shooting them with an adhl usually ends with the drop troop getting blasted. Also, how the heck did he get an adhl on an Anathematic Hacker Lt without getting blown away? The Maakrep HMG is not really an ARO piece; it's primarily used to attack. An ARO piece would be like the Maakrep multi sniper or the Noctifer Missile Launcher or, again, the Q-Drone. Both versions of the Q-Drone are excellent for defense; in tournament missions like Firefight where I worry about protecting my deployment zone from Drop Troops I will frequently run the Plasma Rifle Q-Drone for the range bands and park it somewhere. That said the Sixth Sense Level 1 that the Maakrep has means that if you position it such that to come up behind it your opponent has to get close, you can retaliate anyway. The pistol is kind of anemic, but if you put the Maakrep on suppressive fire it's going to be rough for your opponent. This is something you'll learn. 5 Hellcats is not a good tactic at the end of things, you'll learn to beat it. How many points are you playing btw? Playing less than 300 oftentimes makes things wonky; if you're playing on a full-size board less than 300 I'd try refusing a flank and putting some camo infiltrators or a Fraacta ready to take the quadrants you're not at. Don't forget that your engineers can fix people that have been ADHL'd; the Medchanoid and a few Slave Drones can help out if something crucial gets glued.
First part: llistbuilding. 70-80% of CA lists start with the MedTech with one or two slave drones (AKA "Dr Worm & his Wormettes"). Second part: AD & orders. While your enemy can deploy tons of AD troops (specially with Soldiers of Fortune), AD troops DO NOT provide their order until they start a turn on the table. While it is possible to make a Coordinated Order to enter the table, thye would still lose the unconsumed orders (their only advantage is that ARO is against the "group" instead of against each individual model per landing). Third part: Flank protection. Pick 2 Ikadrons, place them one on each side of the table. Whatever enters, it will do so at 50cm+ from your deployment zone if you managed to place them in cover, since those light flamethrowers are sooooo sexy. So you now force the enemy to place a template and try to land. When you deploy, locate the places the enemy could land an AD trooper and have some people covering one or two. Fourth: in Vanilla, the Krakot and Daturazis are your friends, 14 points of sweet goodness with templates AND GRENADES!!!!! Krakots can go up to 16 in PH thanks to metachemistry, Daturazis have smoke (so smoke dodge at 17) and grenades... You certainly won't won against Nomads in cheap troops, but yours are regular... fifth: the list helps, the Deployment makes or breaks the game. Practice deployment, practice identifying the best practices to do so, what to look for, tricks to know where the measures are, etc...
The game was 300p. So he deployed 4 drop troopers, one of which I hacked. So one in the center-ish of my deployment, behind my Maakrep which was taken out after 3 activations of face-to-face rolls, and one on each flank just landing and standing there for AROs. Maakrep can't start the game in Suppresive Fire after all, so even with Sixth Sense he was fairly easy pickings. That left my deployment zone a hellhole of AROs for me on my turn, and that was basically game over. My big mistake was stupid deployment, and probably a stupid list, because I had a lot of specialist in a mission that didn't require them. My Anathematic was (mistakenly) infiltrated halfway up the board, waiting to spring a trap. Yeah, I know now that it can't infiltrate :) So he had the range band advantage. I did have a Q-Drone with plasma, but it should have been deployed on my very rear line where it could see my flanks. Instead it was positioned to counter a center-charge by one to two link teams. I do use Doc Worm, but when the important pieces have been glued, what's to stop the good Doc from also getting glued moving there. Something killy, yeah, but it hasn't worked out yet. So I see a lot of things I'm doing wrong. My Maakrep was actually positioned will if the Q-Drone had just been watching his rear. So that might have given the drop troops some challenge. I really want to see a comprehensive strategy for making a charge on my DP zone a very bad idea. Maakrep + Q okay. Ikadrons on flank, good idea. One thing watching something isn't invincible and once a hole is punched through my defense, then what? I've been considering scattering some Pretas in my DP for cheap coverage. Any other ideas? Practice, sure, I know :) But I would like to win once in a while, especially since we're rookies playing each other, and it's not like it's me against someone experienced.
How were his hellcats winning on ARO vs. your troops on the active turn? The way you're talking they weren't in suppressive fire. He can't have cover when he drops, so even a basic Unidron should be at an advantage both in terms of number of dice and target number. So you're throwing 2 dice on 14-ish vs. 1 die on 12. I'm confused. The only way to get range band advantage on a basic combi-rifle armed troop with a Hellcat is to bring the HMG profile, and even then your Anathematic is going to be on better dice because of the -6 modifier to the enemy for TO camo. Were you not able to maneuver it over to attack the pieces threatening your deployment zone? If not, why not? The Medchanoid can outshoot a Hellcat with his combi rifle during his active turn, especially one not in cover. If the Hellcat is in the way, just shoot him. How were these Hellcats succeeding at ARO attacks during your turn when you have the advantage of full burst? I mean the main thing is to deploy with interlocking fields of view so that no enemy can sneak up behind you without taking mean close-range AROs from things like Q-Drones and Unidrons in a big fireteam. A TO model like a Noctifer can help too. It's normal for things to be very swingy as you learn; one player figures out a neat trick and it takes their opponents a few games to learn to adjust. And as you play more you'll get better at adjusting to weird situations in general.
I can't deploy in suppresive fire, can I? He had first turn. Hmm, I guess he didn't. Just too many guns pointed at the Anathematic I guess. Also, what do penalties matter if you just roll low enough ;) It was in hidden deployment (it can't be, I know) and the game only lasted one turn each. There were two Hellcats looking at him at that point, so I decided to risk it and repair my Q-Drone instead. And went down on the AROs. I see that now. I feel like it's a lot to place all my aces on securing my DZ, but I guess that's just the way it has to be. I think actually my biggest mistake was not realising that I could ARO on the dropping Hellcats, and without cover even. That and not placing my Q-Drone to cover everyone's asses.
You can't deploy in suppressive fire, no. But not taking ARO's that you're allowed to take is an issue, been there lol. Get your practice in, I'm sure you'll up your game real fast. And play 3-turn games, that's really important!
The Anathematic can't infiltrate but it absolutely can be in hidden deployment. Edit: however, if it's your LT and nothing reveals it on your opponents turn then you'll start your turn in LoL even if revealing it is the first thing you do. Listening to all this I honestly feel like you guys are playing AD incorrectly. Dropping four guys into your deployment zone should end with maybe one left alive.
I think everything has really been covered... But ADHLs aren't what they used to be. With only burst 1 and weird range bands, they're super average in 90% of circumstances. As has been said - sounds like your opponent derped on the AD rules pretty hard. They've also spent 115/2.5 on Hellcat ADHLs alone... That is absurd. If your opponent continues to bring massed Hellcats, I'd suggest ensuring you've invested in at least 1 HD or HD+ so that you can, at minimum, FtF their rolls to deploy. The odds aren't great that you succeed, but they start with a 25% chance to fail, so any extra you can squeeze out of it helps.
I have a much better understanding of what went wrong and what to do differently. Thanks fellow EI aspects! :)
