1500 point Evo force - comments?

[Ben2]

I'll be putting together the rest of my currently unassembled MI later, and while I do have some exosuits and LAMI I am starting with a pure PAMI force. Here is the 1500 point list.

PAMI Lietenant - 95 points
CHAS unit - 190 points

6 PAMI - Triple thud, Hel flamer - 205 points
6 PAMI - 2 Javelin - 255 points
6 PAMI - Triple thud, Sniper Rifle - 200 points
6 PAMI - 2x Triple thud - 215 points

6 Pathfinders - 2 x Shredder - 330 points

Total - 1495 points, 31 PAMI, 1 CHAS

What do people think? Is this a practical army at 1500 points? I didn't take nukes, but I have the option of dropping a trooper or two to do so.

 

[Gauntlet-]

How is this an SST Evo list?

Did I miss something where they previewed flamers, Sniper rifles, and pathfinders?

 

[Ben2]

I've got some additional material from the playtesting. Pathfinders are pretty much the same as SST, as is sniper rifles and flamers.

 

[Galatea]

No Traits, no Drop Capsules, no NCOs - where's the Starship Troopers in this list?
I can't see it...

Besides that - 31 PAMI??? Sure this isn't a LAMI list?

 

[Rabidchild]

I like it, it's half knife-fight range and half spear-tip length. I could see some nice mobile hinge tactics from this list; swinging your short range troops around on the side as the long range troops pour it on.

 

[Schweizer]

want to show the bugs how it feels to be the minority??? I agree with Gal... there is no SST feeling....

drop out some PAMI'S and take some other stuff....

again this List I would play my swarm List (1,5k = 126 Bugs)

 

[Gauntlet-]

yeah well those are all things unavailable to him at the moment, so I really don't think its fair to criticize it so badly.

I think you got a good possibility for tactics with that, very solid, especially in evo where not quite so many things can be done by the bugs to utterly destroy medium infantry.

 

[Galatea]

I think you got a good possibility for tactics with that, very solid, especially in evo where not quite so many things can be done by the bugs to utterly destroy medium infantry.

40pts cruise-flying Acid Ripplers?
They will wipe out an MI Squad entirely.

And he has just three AA Launchers capable of killing three Ripplers (two statistically) per turn (since the CHAS has no more autoloaders).
Not a very good prospect.

 

[Ben2]

Against bugs I've got 3 javelins to hit tankers, and an awful lot of everything else to hit warriors.
What would give me problems is 2-3 really big bugs in 1500 (ie 2 tankers and a plasma) along with 40+ warriors, or a bug air assault list with multiple big units of ripplers. At 30 points each bug players would have to be nuts not to use ripplers, particularly against the air units that MI, Skinnies and Forth can deploy.
I went for a lot of PAMI squads to have a hard hitting multi squad force, where I can use distinct elements to support each other.
I'll take casaulties to fire and maybe get a squad overwhelmed, but with this force I can kill a lot of warriors, or skinnie soldiers or raiders, and shattering your opponent while avoiding it yourself is the key. When I take the force to 2000 I will put in either a drop ship or other air element and look at buying some nukes or another CHAS.
I'll also be building a seperate Exo suit platoon (1500 points) for battles where you just need that much raw firepower. However low shatter points and things like Forth and firefries are a problem where Exos are concerned. Forth can throw out that much fire that Exos left out will get toasted, and firefries can jump and then launch a D10 flame.

I will go with this as my starter list. I won't do a LAMI list, as I just can't face painting that many. I will keep an eye out for cheap Grizzly boxes though (I'll need 2 or 3 to complete my force).

 

[Gauntlet-]

Few people take mass quantities of ripplers in my experience, more importantly currently there are no air rules for evo. Thus every one of his weapons can hurt them.

 

[Rabidchild]

Few people take mass quantities of ripplers in my experience,

Once your acid spines have wiped out 8 PAMI in one shoot action, you never go back baby. :twisted:

 

[Ben2]

If I were abug player I'd take 10 ripplers and no hoppers. Ripplers are cheaper and far more flexible. I'd also tke at least one tank and about 10 firefries. Massed warrior hordes are fun, but not as good as a combined arms force.

 

[Gauntlet-]

Look I own 10 Ripplers, and I love them, and I own 6 Hoppers and I love them too. But they are hardly more flexible in usual terms.

They are great anti-light or medium infantry weapons OR anti-air

Hoppers are great anti-ANY infantry. Have more effective range and armoring. Their anti-air is not as great, but they still have it.

More importantly, in EVO, without air rules, the Ripplers are much much more vulnerable, since the entire enemy force can down them. I will grant you, that since there are no Marauders yet, the EVO Ripplers are more flexible than Hoppers there, but thats far outweighed by their cost/armor.

With the acid upgrade, they are almost a hopper but you lose about 2 inches of range, and allot of hardness.



Im not saying Hoppers are a better choice, or Ripplers are bad. I'm just saying that they are not going to butcher this guys army without a good fight. Without the airphase they will be on much more even terms. They cost more than PAMI, and have less range, while the MI have less abillity to destroy the Rippler, except it has less armor, but has a dodge save.

It mostly evens out fight wise. Its not going to get the guy slaughtered to have a nice PAMI army.

 

[dyssnowman]

Something to bear in mind as far as the rules. While the SST:Evo rulebook is not currently available, I suspect that the rules for air units will be the same as the rules for BF:Evo. They both use the Evolution system, and Mongoose said that the core of the Evolution system will be the same in all of the games. I could be wrong on this, but until I hear otherwise this is what I plan on doing.

As for the list, the unit that I wonder about is the CHAS. I recently used one and I find that in Evo they are more limited in their usefulness. While they are still a great mobile weapons platform, now it can only fire one weapon system at a time and there are no more autoloaders, both of which made it feel much more limited in what it can do. This may just be from lack of experience with the new stats but it seems a little harder to get the most out of it now. If anything I wonder if that might be a weak spot rather than having too many MI.

A consideration might be dropping it in favor of *gasp* more MI. It seems like this suggestion might confuse and upset some people, but I don't see anything wrong with it. While doing this would cost you some support weapons, you would gain a good amount of Morita fire in exchange and you could even add another Javelin or two to the units that you already are fielding.