Druze for CanCon 2019

I'm taking Druze to CanCon next year. They're pretty weak in my opinion (MOD stacks are really hard to come by, and you need to use terrible units like Valerya), and require a tonne of finesse to play. I like that. Making the final with Tohaa is one thing, doing it with Druze - now that's special. However, I won't be writing pretty much anything about how to play Druze, because I like to keep my tech not just up my sleeve, but in my armpit, especially when I'm playing a faction that relies on shennanigans. I'll write occasional tactical pieces about other stuff. I do want to have one post though about how I'm going to proxy everything. This is that post.

Short story: I want to use all of the Outrage models - Emily Handelman and her gang - in part because I paid for them so I want to play with them, and in part because the Druze models are ugly.


Speaking of which, why don't Druze get Jethro instead of Armand? Jethro is sick! MSV2, mimetism, marksmanship 1 and V:NWI! He's a bit expensive, but with basically 2 wounds I reckon he's worth it, especially with a lieutenant profile, especially if he could join Druze teams (maybe that's what made him broken).

Anywayz, I'll be proxying basically my whole force. I also want to run it as close-to an all female army. Here's what I'm thinking:

Emily - Druze with light grenade launcher
Domovoi - Cordelia
Beba - Scarface/Anaconda pilot
Uhahu - Valerya
Jethro - Druze with MULTI sniper
Nakadai - Saito Togan

And the rest of the models I'll get:

Guijia: Scarface (I hate the Scarface and Cordelia models)
Female Hanzakut with LGL: Hanzakut
Carlotta Kowalsky: Hanzakut
Female Zanying: Arslan
Intruder with HMG: Druze HMG
Intruder with combi: Druze shock marksman rifle
Female Muyib with HRL: Druze with panzerfaust
Fusilier missile launcher: Brawler with HRL
Fusilier sniper: Brawler with MSR
Female fusilier: Brawler doctor
Tech Bee: Brawler hacker
ALL THE BOUNTY HUNTERS

Edit: 05/03/2018

On reflection, as much as I want to use Jethro, Nakadai and Domovoi, I would prefer to make this army 100% female. So the new breakdown is as follows:

Druze with LGL: Emily Handelman
Druze with HMG: Fusilier with spitfire
Druze sniper: Major Luna
Druze with shock marksman rifle: Leila Sharif (Hassassin from Dire Foes defiant truth)
Security Chief Arslan: Female Zhanying Agent
Valerya: Valerya
Scarface: Guijia
Scarface pilot: Beba
Brawler hacker: Uhahu
Another brawler hacker: Isobel McGregor
Cordelia/Brawler engineer: Tech-bee
Brawler with MSV2 and MSR: Major Luna
Brawler doctor: Avicenna
Brawler with HRL: Rosie Munro (USARF from Candy Cloud Dire foes)
Bashi Bazouk: Carlotta "Beyoncé" Kowalsky
Hanzakut #1: Uxia with Shotgun
Hanzakut #2: Actual Hanzakut (such a great model)
Saito Togan: Kitsune or Ninja with bow (because the bow model is soooooo hot)
Armand: Female fusilier with MSR


EDIT 13/03/2018

So after my initial brainstorming Corvus Belli went and announced two more mercenary companies: the war-crimes loving Ikari Group and the model mercenaries Starco. This guys are hot to trot, especially Ikari group. Starco has riot grrl links (one of the best links in the game), Cateran, a HD+ and a great skirmisher game with bandits, Al Hawwa and hardcase. Their main weakness seems to me to be a lack of what I call a sweeper unit: something fast and reliable that can alpha strike or spend a half dozen orders to kill a bunch of stuff through the midfield on turn 2 and 3. Top notch sweepers include the bulleteer and Rui Shi, the Dao Fei with spitfire, Gao Raels in link teams, Tariq and the Anathematic with plasma rifle. Starco will lean on Nomad REMs for this, which are bad at it, or on the massacre Harris, which is effective, especially with the melee skirmishers around, but not order efficient. Ikari does not have this weakness because Ikari has the Rui Shi and good smoke throwers coming out the ying yang. Speaking of YY, they've got AVA 4 yuan yuans, one of the most busted units in the whole game. The weaknesses of Ikari seem to me to be a lack of midfield specialists (a ninja and an FO in the Wu Ming team isn't really enough) and not much defence (though a ML Clipper in the Wu Ming team will go a long way).

To cut a long strategic discussion short, I want to make sure my all-female mercenary company, who I'm now calling Amazons, can play any of the three merc factions. Here's the unit breakdown:

LI/MI snipers (grunts, Cateran, Druze): Major Luna
backup sniper in case I need 2: Al Hawwa Sniper
Bike #1 (Desperado, ABH): Zulekya Nazarova
Bike #2 (Desperado, Yojimbo): Zaminra Nazarova
HMG in HI: New Neema Satar (the only female vaguely HI looking model!)
HMG in LI: Alguacile HMG
Spitfire in LI (i.e. ABH): Cassandra Kussanagi
ML in HI #1: Riot grrl
ML in HI #2: Brigada ML (could also use Janissary, but I think this model is #hot)
ML/HRL in LI #1: Rosie Munro
ML/HRL in LI #2: Sukuel ML
LI #1: Kanren Hacker
LI #2: Lupe Balboa
LI #3: Uxia with Shotgun
MI #1 (Druze LGL, self): Emily Handelman
MI #2 (Arslan): Zanying Hacker
MI #3 (Druze hacker/Marksman): Female grunt with rifle
HI #1 (specialist): Brigada Hacker
HI #2 (Shotgun): Riot Grrl w/shotgun
HI #3 (MULTI): Riot Grrl w/rifle
Skirmisher #1 (Hunzakut/Bandit): Carlotta Kowalsky
Skirmisher #2 (Hunzakut/Bandit): Hunzakut with LGL
Skirmisher #3 (Ninja/Hardcase): Ninja with bow
Skirmisher #4 (Al Hawwa): Female Bandit
Skirmisher #5 (Saito/Senor Massacre): Kitsune
AD #1: Female Bashi
AD #2: Female Bashi from Beyond Red Veil
AD #3: Ko Dali
AD #4: Female Airborne Ranger
Warband #1 (Krakot): Morlock Elf
Warband #2 (Krakot): Morlock dreadlocks
Jaguar with shotgun (Uxia with shotgun)
Other Jaguars: Warbands and LI
Doctor: Avicenna
Engineer #1 (Cordelia): Yuriko Oda
Engineer #2 (Brawler): Old Zoe
Hacker #1: Uhahu
Hacker #2: Old Zoe
Hacker #3: Isobel McGregor
TAG Pilot: Beba
Scarface/Anaconda: Guijia (that star sure will look nice in Starco!)
Guided Bot: Vertigo Zond
TR Bot: Husong YaoKong
Sensor Bot #1: Weibing YaoKong
Sensor Bot #2: Stempler Zond
Flash Pulse Bot #1: Transductor Zond
Flash Pulse Bot #2: Transductor Zond
Baggage bot #1 (EVO): Panguling
Baggage bot #2 (Bags): Salyut
Rui Shi: Rui Shi
Peacemaker/Lu Duan: Peacemaker
Helper bots: YaoZao

The silhouette count is the following:
S1: 3
S2: 17
S3: 6
S4: 6
S7: 1

I did some calculations and I can fit all of this into a Knights of Dice Strike Case (30 infantry slots if I get a 25mm deep infantry tray with 30 slots for the top and a 50mm pluck foam tray for the bottom. The pluck should just hold all the big guys and with 20 infantry in the top I'll have 10 slots left to store tokens, which is how I like to roll. I can then fit my thin tape measure, deck and templates on top and I've got a very tightly contained Infinity pack, which is a delight when you don't drive and have to go interstate for tournaments on the regular. I found myself singing "Strike Case Bitches" for some reason the other day, and I realised that this is actually pretty close to a great name for my merc company: Strike Force Bitches.