First, a summary list in no apparent order:
- Aleph Marut
- Steel Phalanx double link team plus two snipers
- Combined army sniper nest with Anathematic
- Onyx Rodok link
- Qapu Khalki Janissary link with yuan yuans
- Military Orders Magister + hospitaller link
- Caledonian all-comers build
- Hassassin triple Fiday in ground control and kill missions
- Riot grrl link
And now a brief overview:
Aleph Marut
The main pieces here are the Marut lieutenant, proxy engineer, proxy sniper, Dasyus sniper and myrmidon with chain rifle. The rest usually includes 2 naga specialists, netrods, thorakites and 8 point bots depending on the mission mix and meta. Typically, you go first and smoke shoot or just rampage with the Marut, and then control the board with your snipers thereafter, with the Nagas capturing objectives as necessary. The snipers can infiltrate, which allows them to deploy into quadrants for ground control missions, and also occupy interesting sniper positions high on flanks if necessary. NWI makes them very good at soaking offence. With the Marut, you've got both TO and MSV2 attack pieces. The list is more robust than most TAG builds to your cheerleaders being taken out because they are all under camo tokens and/or have NWI. The Marut is one of the only units in the game with the same firepower as a link team with BS15 and an AP/shock-HMG (and smoke shooting), and it can take a beating so it is crit-proof.
Steel Phalanx
See here for a longer analysis.
Similar game plan to the Marut - push your myrmidon team forward, with Pheonix and Atalanta (smoke shooting) killing targets as appropriate for ODD or MSV2. If they have quality MSV2 defenders, use Machaon to throw eclipse and then get Hector into range (<16") and use him to dust them off. Smash your opponent's order pool with template weapons (pheonix HRL and Hector plasma), then own the board with the snipers (Atalanta and an Agema ML). A second thorakite link with Thrasymides LRL is very effective as a drop zone defence and tertiary attack unit, and gives you straightforward objective grabbing capacity. Hector can dodge mines and gives you that crucial extra order with strategos that helps you get into the other player's DZ and lay templates on turn 1. Your Myrmidons can't be left stranded because they just throw smoke when they get attacked, pheonix wins his face to face or barely loses thanks to ODD and cover, and then you're invisible and can engage and chop anyone who gets close in CC.
Combined army sniper nest with Anathematic
Perhaps the most passive build in the game. You set up a Q-drone and Unidron ML as solid defensive pieces and invite your opponent to attack, then spring a noctifer ML on them. The Anathematic then goes around sweeping isolated and bunched units at his leisure with TO and plasma. He can also push buttons. The rest of the list is Dr Worm, DZ guards (unidrons and Ikadrons) and some smoke Daturazi. Sometimes a shrouded FO or speculo sneaks in there as well.
Rodok link team
See here for a longer analysis.
This is a take all comers list and, I think, basically an improved version of the CA sniper nest outlined above. Instead of a Unidron ML you have a Rodok ML in a 5-man link team, and instead of the Anathematic you have the Rodok HMG and specialists. Everything else is the same.
Qapu Khalki Janissary Team
Hafza allow you to put together a very effective 5-man link team and still have points leftover for whatever else is needed for the missions. The core is a HMG, Missile launcher and doctor in the Janissary team, 3 yuan yuans, a Hawwa hacker and usually a Djanbazan sniper. The rest is up to you and the missions, but I generally encourage people to avoid Sekbans and more than 1 Djanbazan and instead go for a TR bot and engineer, Hawwa FOs for button-pushing missions, and cheerleaders. The list is powered by the Janissaries, who are a sickeningly powerful link team - crit proof, able to stand up reliably after a beating thanks to the doctor (though note that they don't have cubes), able to weather a beating on reactive with the ML thanks to ARM4 and W2, and firing at BS16 and B5 with the HMG on active. You can get all 4 specialists types in there without needing to use anything that is ineffective other than maybe a Najjarun in highly classified to fix you TR bot.
Military Orders Magister + Hospitaller Link
Perhaps the most cookie-cutter list in the game and one of the easiest to play as well. Take a hospitaller HMG and doctor (usually with a MULTI) and sprinkle with Magister Panzerfausts to get a brutal and cheap HI link team. Pick up an order sergeant with sniper for a neat sniper trap and board control. Swing in Joan, De Ferzen or a Santiago for the lieutenant. Some Fusiliers round out the order pool and provide back-field specialists. TO order sergeant FOs do a good job as downfield specialists and can go into suppression for -12 and board control. The only weakness of this list is that once the HMG is down it can struggle to knock over hard targets, but you can often fit an order sergeant with MSV2 and spitfire in there to fix that, or De Ferzen can lay the beats. The magisters can also chop stuff.
Caledonian all-comers list
This is almost always the same: 2 caterans with T2, a Grey with HMG + 4 volunteers, Uxia with superior infiltrate, 2 SAS FOs, 6 galwegians, Wallace for 17 regular orders, a 112 to heal the grey, a scots guard with camo and a molotok as a secondary attack piece. It's totally savage. There are a lot of attack pieces, lots of orders, solid infiltrating specialists and plenty of smoke.
Hassassin Triple Fiday
This list is only really savage in ground control missions (quadrant control especially), but there it is nigh-on unbeatable. You have 2 fidays and Djabel, a Ghulam link with 2 HMGs, a CoC Farzan and 2 Lasiq snipers. Sprinkle to taste, usually with baggage bots. The Fidays deploy onto inaccessible places in the quadrants close to your opponent's DZ and then you just play hide and seek for the rest of the game while your 30 point untargettable markers hold quadrants.
Riot Grrls
Another dirt-cheap heavy infantry link team build. This time it is cheap because of the Frenzy discount, which has no effect on a link-team. Typically the grrls are run with 2 MLs and a multi rifle, plus specialist and tinbot shotgun. They are defence and you go second. A daktari or Avicenna can pick up girls that go unconscious. Your main attack piece is a chimera, who eats anyone who moves foward to get inside the MLs' 24" flat range band, ably assisted by some Morlock smoke throwers. Then you usually have a Moira HMG, some zeros and 2 moderators, one of which is your lieutenant. This build is a little harder to play than Janissaries because it is more defensive, but it's arguably more powerful because there is basically no unit in the game that can get a really good ftf against the grrls link team and survive a missile clip.
No comments:
Post a Comment