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Post by asburygrad on Aug 30, 2007 15:10:37 GMT -5
Once again, I will have a chance to play 3-4 tournaments, all ranked, in a week of glorious Mech-ness in September. I wanted to get comments on my current thoughts for army builds, and see if you agree about the meta-game as it stands currently.
Major Army Type #1: SAD - Paired with Specter/Zxqueb/IT or Pulse - Paired with CJF Goshawk - Paired with Kuro Ha - Paired with Magister - Paired with Vengeance
Major Army Type #2: Anti-SAD - Using Kuro Ha - one cc attack can knock SAD out of god-like-ness - Using Refuge/Marc/Improved Tracking - needs a 10 twice to hit SAD with streaks
- Using Vengeance - zell the sucker!
- Using Yami - in a one-on-one match-up, Yami can kill SAD - I really like the idea of pairing Yami with Scrub/Zxqueb, so Yami and only Yami can still attack from behind blocking
That's a brief summary of my current thoughts. Other good players in my area typically run the following: - Peacemaker w/ WH Mjolnir and ROTS FP - BR FP with either a Vulture/Soli or Soli/Mjolnir/Tankdrop - AoD Alpha with 15 Merc Gnomes
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Post by Zxqueb on Aug 31, 2007 8:02:34 GMT -5
Yeah, I agree with your assessment. I'd like to see SAD get banned or FAQed. She is leading to a pretty stale meta.
Z
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Post by tjpandv on Sept 5, 2007 4:09:18 GMT -5
AoD Alpha with 15 Merc Gnomes Wow - I'd love to see that army in action! I think I'd go with an army that can counter SAD and other high-defence armies. If you're set on taking SAD, then I'd support her with a CJF Goshawk and the RISC Overcharger. If RHDM is your thing, then SAD and Spattro/Graves should suffice. I like the idea of the Daishi with Imp Tracking - that's still only a 40% chance but I don't think SAD could risk being hit. I've run the Daishi/Marc with a BR Soli/Graves/APM in support and it still leaves room for some ATVs and Minigun Cycles as support. I was lucky enough to play Elite at Gencon UK last weekend. We got in 4 constructed games, a 1500 point mech battle as well as some SOLARIS arena matches. It was a great experience and I think I did pretty well out of it. I'll try and do a quick write up on our games some time soon. I've picked up some good tips on army builds and I'm far more enthusiastic about the MW constructed world . Elite is a great guy and I hope he does travel to Gencon next year. Next stop is hopefully Arnhem in a couple of weeks where I hope to meet up with Ian Pelgrim to have more punishment dealt out to me - deep joy
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Post by asburygrad on Sept 5, 2007 11:12:36 GMT -5
Thanks for the thoughts, TJ. I hate dropping so many points into Refuge just to deal with SAD - which is nearly 100 points cheaper. So I think I'll take other options. The Alpha/Gnomes army is a tough one to crack. It's the only army I lost to in the storyline I played at GenCon Indy. However, I know this player well, and he will be playing this same army when I come calling at his venue in two weeks. He's also the best player there. So I know I can build to stop him, and then beat off the other players for the win! Elite did a write-up on your matches over at Realms. Sounds like a great experience! I had an awesome time at GenCon Indy this year, and I'm hoping they go back to a regular World Championship so maybe I can face Elite there next year!
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Post by elite130 on Sept 5, 2007 12:35:07 GMT -5
MW worlds or not Ill be there next year.....
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Post by tjpandv on Sept 19, 2007 4:52:17 GMT -5
How is the September campaign going? You're probably one of the few players I know of playing constructed/ranked events. That's pretty much stopped in my area. Sterile has turned to extinct. I would like to filed this army, but those CNC Vixens are so hard to come by...
CNC Vixen/Kelly/IT CNC Vixen/Chapman/IT 5 x SC Hoverbikes 1 x SC ISBA 2 x SC KBA 1 x SC CBA 1 x CNC CBA 2 x Liao ATVs Liao Anat 2 x HS TTLs
That's 2 mechs with a 20 inch AO, 2 formations of tough infantry, the usual artillery and a couple of basers. I'd love to make it faction pure but loosing the TTLs and having to choose less optimal ATVs doesn't grab me.
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Post by asburygrad on Sept 21, 2007 0:35:00 GMT -5
Played some practice games last Tuesday night with friends, trying to find combos that would defeat Peacemaker and BR Pride armies. I finally came up with this build: WH Mjolnir / Kelly / IT WH Mjolnir / Sian Dane / IT WH R10 / WH Kelswa Merc Zahn / 2 WH TGR plus Rhodes Combat Techs WH Shamash 3 WH Minigun Cycles Merc Pride My reasoning was this: if my opponents always play either ROTS or BR faction pride cards, then they can't stop Merc Pride with True Grit. When we practiced it, the Mjolnirs are fast enough to move with a ranged combat assault order and fire on Peacemaker around the light Mech he used for blocking LOS. Also, the high attack and damage worked well against BR units. Tonight was my first match of the "campaign," and I went 2-1 at the venue. My first game was against Clyde Joyce, Mason Dunne, 2 ROTS Sniper artillery, and a couple infantry. My opponent stated he was just playing for fun, and we both thought his army was dead meat. I drop my formation with the Kelswa primary, needing an 8 to hit (with Merc Pride) for 6 Armor Piercing damage. I miss. Next turn, Clyde assault orders and hits a 13 on the Kelly Mjolnir, dealing 5 damage to it. She ran back into my DZ for the rest of the game. Next turn, the other Mjolnir needed a 9 with IT to hit Clyde - and I rolled a 7 with the reroll. I eventually took out the Hellstar, but I simply lost too many pieces in the process. He killed the Kelswa, the Kelly Mjolnir, both transports, all the miniguns, and the Shamash. I lost by 38 points on VC 1 and by 24 on VC 2 (I did capture one of his infantry units). So at least I got the loss out of the way first! I then played against a Steiner-pure army, with a Hyperlasered Mad Cat IV, Carnivore with no transport, R10 with 3 Salamanders, and 5 Minigun Cycles. My Mjolnirs ate his Mad Cat alive; it missed the RISC roll on the one chance it had to hit me for meaningful damage. I picked off the Salamanders one by one after he dropped them, used the Anti-Personel from my Miniguns to slaughter his Miniguns, and his Carnivore hid out of sight since my Kelswa drop outranged it so badly. Final match: NC Vixen and NC Phoenix Hawk, both with 2/2/1 pilots and IT; 2 DF Schmitts with no transports; and various DF infantry to run in formation with the two tanks. Sadly enough for him, he ran his Hawk out by itself to face my Mjolnirs, instead of bringing up both Mechs. The two Mjolnirs together salvaged it in one turn. The Kelswa formation nailed the Vixen, and a later TGR shot put it in salvage; it then ran back to the DZ. He captured 2 Miniguns, and dragged them back to the DZ as well. My Kelswa and Mjolnirs ended the game by using their range to pummel the two DF Schmitts. A second cut-and-dry win. I was disappointed with that first loss, but it was pretty laughable how bad I rolled. You just have to shrug sometimes, you know? I don't think I made a single mistake in that game; I just flat-out lost. Now that I no longer have to worry about the win streak, I actually feel like a good bit of pressure is off. I had a lot of fun in my final two games, laughing with my opponents and cheering for them when they crit-hit and such. I intend to keep up with this fun attitude, and simply play well tomorrow and Saturday. I'll post more reports when I can.
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Post by asburygrad on Sept 21, 2007 0:46:13 GMT -5
One thing I forgot to mention about my build: using 2 Mjolnirs with fast pilots vs. SAD. I have not tested this idea, mind you, but it seems like the 15-inch CC AO on one and 14-inch CC AO on the other will deal 4 damage total to Seka. Since it's CC, you only need to hit a 24 defense (including the AO mod) instead of 25 Decoy. And if your opponent foolishly neglected to play True Grit with his Vulture . . . that means you only need to hit the base defense of 21 on the dial.
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Post by Zxqueb on Sept 21, 2007 10:07:32 GMT -5
That's a nice little army, AG. It's well rounded and strong against lots of things. I still don't like the Seka/anti-seka meta, but your army looks like it is one of the stronger take all comer's lists I've seen.
Z
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Post by asburygrad on Sept 23, 2007 13:10:52 GMT -5
@ Zxqueb: thanks for the post. It's always nice to get a compliment from someone who has their own pilot card, and is "one of the best metagamers ever", in the words of DragonDawg.
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Post by asburygrad on Sept 23, 2007 13:49:43 GMT -5
September Campaign, Day 2: After the first night's game, I noticed some things I really didn't like in my army. First, the two transports are clumsy - one moves 6 to start, the other 11, and there's no easy formation there. I usually ran the Zahn with the Minigun Cycles in formation for 9 speed . . . but this left the R10 in the dust. Second, not enough basers - and I live and breathe basers! Third, I found that I didn't really need the formation drop. A loaded WH Kelswa is a great threat piece to back up the Mjolnirs. So this is my modified build for Day 2 (600 of course): WH Mjolnir / Kelly / IT WH Mjolnir / Sian Dane / IT Merc Zahn / WH Kelswa (25-inch drop!!) 3 WH Shamash 4 WH Minigun Cycles 3 WH GDSBA Merc Pride I drove two hours to Florence, AL (where I used to live two years ago) on Friday night, Sept. 21. The Battlemaster there is a guy that I referred in the Envoy Program when I left and a friend; the most regular player is also a friend and great player GuppyLips. These two guys - John and Travis - traveled with me to Unrestricted Worlds at DragonCon in 2005, and Travis and I went to GenCon this year. So we have lots of history. I gameplanned two of the players at the first venue I went to: a Peacemaker player, and a BR Faction Pride player. You can't gameplan Travis; he always comes up with something new, and something very tricky. So I was worried about this one. After I got set up, Travis looked over and said, "You know it's 900 points tonight, right?" I was shocked - I had only planned for 600 all week! So I opened up my case and looked on top for something that would work with Merc Pride, and pulled out . . . SAD. Since I had 300 points to make up, minus 10 for the Pride card, I went with this because I knew it was 275 on the dot without using a calculator. I then added the Rhodes Combat Tech back in, for 900 points even. Travis played 2 CW Vultures with 2/2/1 pilots (one with IT, one with Anti-Per); Vengeance/Phelan/Grapple; a formation of CW SRM Teams; and a formation of CW Purifier. He also played True Grit, cancelling my Merc Pride. His plan was to camp in water and use the Vulture's range and PPC Cap to melt my Mjolnirs, while Vengeance played around with Seka. He got his Zellbrigen roll on turn 2, and used it against SAD. In hindsight, he thought he should have picked the Mjolnir with Kelly instead. As it was, he based my Mjolnirs with Vengeance and my SAD with a Vulture, and hoped to mess with my shots. Even bigger mistake: he based BOTH Mjolnirs, so his Grapple didn't work. I rolled to break Seka from the Vulture, succeeded, and ran it into base with Vengeance. Later on, this allowed me to break both Mjolnirs away and leave SAD in base with his Solitaire, which is what SAD wanted to catch and kill anyway. After SAD broke away from the Vulture, I had a clear line of fire from 3 GDSBA, and dropped the Kelswa in to base them. The Vulture took 6 AP damage. One Mjolnir fired from where it was (based by Vengeance), and used IT to hit for 4 more AP damage. By the end of the game, SAD had killed Vengeance with two 5-damage shots; the damaged Vulture was dead; and the other Vulture shutdown while trying to catch up to a Mjolnir that had run into his DZ. All I lost was a few Shamash and Miniguns. A big win against a very good player. Second round: I played against a new player who has just started with the MW game. He ran 5 Mechs (Claw, All Nine, NC Griffin, Harlequin, and a SC Hatchetman) with no pilots or gear, a merc Sekhmet, and a repair vehicle. I outranged him pretty badly overall, and just started on one side of his line of Mechs and worked my way left to right. Killed 3 of the Mechs and salvaged another plus the Sekhmet before time ran out. At this point, John declared that I was the winner of the tournament. The new player was tired of MW for the night, and left. So Travis asked me for a rematch of our earlier game (not for ranking points), and I accepted. He was pretty confident that he could beat me now that he knew what he was facing. Travis formed a line with his Vultures on the sides in water, and the two infantry formations in front. I used SAD as mobile blocking to move up my Kelswa-loaded Zahn and Mjolnirs, and based his Mechs with Shamashes. He got in an anti-per. hit against both the GDSBA and Minigun formations, and killed four infantry with one hit! Vengeance kept failing his Zell roll, and the Mjolnirs nailed him into salvage. The next turn, a Vulture crit-hit SAD for 6 damage. That was followed by a 2-damage SRM Team hit. Now, for some reason, Travis mistakenly thought that Seka was in salvage after only 8 damage; I still don't know why. So he backed off, thinking he had the lead on points because Seka was salvaged, and I backed off, thinking I had the lead because Vengeance was salvaged! By this point, I had lost quite a few infantry and Shamashes, though, so I wanted to seal the win. I used the Mjolnirs and Kelswa to kill a few Purifiers, just to get an extra edge, while avoiding a clear shot from either Vulture. Seka ran back and got repaired back to the repair marker by the Combat Tech. And that was the game. Travis had killed more for VC 1, and I had more VC 2 due to the salvaged Soli; no one had any VC 3. A narrow win for me, but still a win. I was feeling very good after beating a very good player twice in one evening, even after he knew what I was playing and planned a way he thought would beat me, and using an unfamiliar build total. 2 more ranked wins brought my win streak (stopped after that opening loss on Day 1) back up to 4.
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Post by asburygrad on Sept 23, 2007 14:40:09 GMT -5
September Campaign: Day 3
Final day of the campaign saw me driving 1.5 hours to the venue I play at the most often, and the one with the most players. They would have 8 play in the ranked MW tournament, plus the BM who ran a CBT side-event with another person who usually plays MW. They typically have between 8 and 12 players on any given week; I noticed three regular players missed this game.
On the drive there, I got a call from Travis (see last post above). He decided to drive down to the venue (he lives 1.5 hours from the venue in the opposite direction from me) to play me again! So while I'm driving, I'm thinking that I had better not play the same army a third time in one week. Travis is good enough to come up with something to stop it - I wouldn't be surprised to see 5 Padilla AntiMissile Tanks staring back at me. So I went back to square one during my drive to the venue.
My friends and I have been making fun of Refuge ever since it was released, because we think it's broken. Not unbeatable, mind you - but 5 abilities on one pilot card is just plain silly. I watched a Refuge army win the tournament without taking a loss on Day 1 of this campaign, and I suspected that this was a piece that can work quite well without much planning, and without a very specialized support force. Also, since I knew Travis was going to be there, I had no more qualms about playing the best possible army I could build.
After arriving, the Battlemaster - my friend Robert - announces that they were trying to come up with some way to screw with me and my September campaign (they didn't know about my earlier loss!). So they decided on a 750-point build total for the day. I made a big show for them of complaining about, "First night, I played 600! Last night, 900! Now you throw a 750 total at me??" But it was all in good fun - Alabama sent 4 players to GenCon: Travis, Robert, Kirk, and myself. So this was something of a GenCon reunion for us!
In truth, the higher build total let me support Refuge with more pieces. So this is what I used:
Refuge/Marc/Improved Tracking Mjolnir/Kelly/IT 2 Hi Hadurs NC Gossamer 6 HL ATVs HK Thunderbird (to fill the last 21 points)
My first match was against Kirk. He ran: Shadow with Kelly/IT; Specter with Valenti; Diamond Jack with "Double Down" Rollins and APM; BR Soli with Zxqueb and APM; and Spot with Sefu Torrenson (the one that allows return fire). He played Heavy Fog, which added +1 to most of our defense values for the game and made my artillery miss several times, and I played Magnetic Storm to ignore the Ravens' Decoy.
I noticed that Shadow could not crack Refuge's Hardened Armor, and Specter could only do it with its primary energy weapon - which is short ranged. So when he parked a line of 4 Mechs in hindering to take advantage of Valenti's pilot ability, I let him stay there. His Solitaire came up the side of the map by itself, hoping to take out the Hadurs, and ran to a spot behind Refuge. I used the first pilot ability to turn Refuge for free on my turn and hit the Solitaire for 5 damage (he was outside my 6-damage weapon's range). The Mjolnir then finished the Soli.
From behind blocking terrain, Refuge was able to eliminate Spot in a few turns. The Ravens kept trying to hit the Mjolnir (also behind blocking) with Homing Beacon shots so that Spot could target it, and they even made a few - but the Reactive Armor on the Mjolnir prevented any damage. I kept expecting Kirk to bring his force out of the hindering and come around that blocking terrain corner, but he never did. The game ended with a clear win for my army.
Round 2 was against a new kid, who had an illegal build - more than 850 points, not counting his NC Faction Pride card AND his NC/SW SA! We agreed to ignore the cards and just let him remove enough infantry to make his force legal. He had Reaver, a SW ForestryMod, NC Clan BA formation, SC Longinus formation, SC Free Legion formation, a SW Behemoth, and 2 NC Enyos.
This was a real slow game - my opponent was easily distracted by side conversations. At one point, he actually left to go check out a Dropship in some CBT manual. When time was called, I had killed the SW Forestry and a NC Clan, and only lost an ATV in the process.
Third round I played another new player, who ran 35 infantry. !! I don't know the exact numbers, but most of them were either SRM Teams or Gun Nests. He was even more distracted - his girlfriend came over on break and made him listen to something on her iPod. A little bit annoying. But this match was just a question of how many infantry I could clear in 50 minutes. The answer I arrived at: 15, with 2 more on the way if time had not been called. So nearly half of the little buggers. And one point of pride: I lost no piece at all.
Final round (4th): I was paired up with Leon, an old CBT player and newbie to MW:AoD, who talks major smack. His army had an old-school SS Spider, Leo Riordan Schmitt tank, HD Bishop with 2 HD infantry, SS Garrot with SS AA Artillery, SS Arrow IV, SS Sniper Artillery Tank, SS Sekhmet, SS DI Morgan tank, HD Morningstar HQ, and a SS Recovery Vehicle.
I'm not sure what Leon was planning with this army, but he ran it in all sorts of directions. The loaded Garrot ran for my DZ, while his Bishop buzzed Refuge. Using the turning pilot ability again, Refuge nailed the Bishop for 6 and then the Mjolnir killed it with the infantry still inside. An AP pog from a Hadur cleared the Heavy Armor off his Arrow IV, Refuge shot it for a 4-damage Streak hit, and then an ATV that had based it crit-hit for 2 damage, killing it.
I avoided his tanks for the most part - no desire to live dangerously, thank you! - and focused on the other pieces. Refuge, the Mjolnir, and the Gossamer worked their way around the blocking terrain, killing the Spider, Sniper, DI Morgan, and Morningstar. Meanwhile, his Garrot actually made it to my DZ and based my Hadurs. He dropped the AA Artillery, but it was based by my Thunderbird. At this point, Leon conceeded.
I didn't get paired up against Travis, but neither of us was too worried about it. I watched him play Leon in a friendly match, where we tried to teach him a little bit and help him improve his game.
4 more wins for the September campaign, bringing me up to 8-1 on the week. I'll post back here when the games all get recorded; I'm just curious to see how my ranking will change.
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Post by asburygrad on Sept 24, 2007 15:33:05 GMT -5
Sorry for the triple post, but I had one more comment to drop in here: Refuge took a total of 2 clicks of damage throughout the tournament (4 rounds). Both clicks were from critical misses.
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Post by pipgamer on Sept 24, 2007 16:50:24 GMT -5
Although I don't contribute much to the mech section (I'm a noob), I do appreciate reading the detailed match breakdowns, as it helps give me an idea of the meta game and a few of the strategies.
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Post by asburygrad on Sept 26, 2007 11:41:51 GMT -5
I'm glad you enjoyed them. Hopefully it will help in future games. We are working on creating "teaching games" at one venue, to help new players grasp the rules more quickly. This venue has four new players, who have all joined within the last two months, plus 6 more regular players. Plus me, when I show up.
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