Skinnie and Anti Air

[Quark]

I'm gonna have to agree with Dr. Rooster and 'stigger on this one. The whole "If every army could down air assets..." argument is total bull and sounds like it's coming from an MI player who's never had to watch 3 Slingshots pound his defenseless army into oblivion. If the Skinnies couls actually field ships of their own it would be one thing, but when you don't have ships you should at least be able to DOWN YOUR OPPONENTS SHIPS. It's kind of ironic, but right now the only army that CAN down air assets cheaply and reliably IS THE MOBILE FREAKING INFANTRY! Bug players have to spend 300 points on a missile magnet that won't last much past the first/second turn, or a MINIMUM of 135points on suicide troops, and the Skinnies don't even have that! Also, I'm not sure who it was that said "the MI rule the skies. Period", but that argument is even weaker. Fine. The MI are by far the superior "Air Force", but they should not do so with the near impunity they currently have. The bugs once "ruled the tunnels", then the MI got Pathfinders, Thermo Charges, Confuse, Rules for firing nukes down bug holes, and a whole host of new weapons capable of damaging tunneling markers! It seems like the MI are the ultimate swiss army knife-able to adapt at a moments notice to anything their opponent throws at them, while the rest of the armies in the universe are completely incapable of adapting. It's kind of funny really. I remember the MI players screaming about the weakness of their command structure when this game first came out, and we all know what happened there. Now all of a sudden the Skinnie players ask for a liittle help and the responses are "MI rule the skys", and "well if everyone had air assets...". It's a question of balance and I'm tired of being FORCED to take plasma bugs or Venerables in every game I play just so I won't be totaly defenseless against air assets.

 

[Dr. Rooster]

Yeah, I'm starting to question the balance of the three armies...

Again, like Quark said, the comments "MI rule the sky" and "well if everybody could take down air assets" is ignorant and lame. I want to see them try a different army! :evil:

 

[xenopsyllus]

The whole "If every army could down air assets..." argument is total bull and sounds like it's coming from an MI player who's never had to watch 3 Slingshots pound his defenseless army into oblivion.

Now wait a second. If you're going to argue against what I said, don't misquote it.

If every army could cheaply and reliably down any aircraft over the battlefield, what would be the point of taking any aircraft in the first place?

 

[Dr. Rooster]

The whole "If every army could down air assets..." argument is total bull and sounds like it's coming from an MI player who's never had to watch 3 Slingshots pound his defenseless army into oblivion.

Now wait a second. If you're going to argue against what I said, don't misquote it.

If every army could cheaply and reliably down any aircraft over the battlefield, what would be the point of taking any aircraft in the first place?

Point taken, but you must understand, the skinnie AA defense is inadequate. We're saying that the skinnies should have decent, not spectacular, but at least decent AA that can react! :|

 

[xenopsyllus]

Yes, I understand and, to some extent, agree with that point. Some of the posts make it seem like if an army doesn't have AA weapons with a better than average chance of downing a plane before it has a chance to shoot, then they are utterly defenseless against Fleet. I'm trying to show the grey area the Skinnies occupy in between excellent AA and no AA.

Maybe the problem is that the Skinnies are first army that doesn't have extraordinary AA abilities. Plasma bugs just have to look harshly at planes to make them fall from the sky; ripplers and hoppers scare the crap out of any pilot. Two good shots from a Rapier will down most planes, or at least keep them from returning to the board once they exit. Skinnies have to work hard to down planes, and it all but requires multiple turns to do so.

 

[Quark]

Xeno, from what I've seen no one has tried to imply that everyone should have cheap and totally powerfull anti-air. What I have been trying to point out is the fact that it is lame to be FORCED to take a 300 point plasma bug everygame, or to HAVE to put a unit of venerables in your army so that you don't end up in a situation where you can't touch fleet assets AT ALL. Think about it. There is NOTHING the bugs or skinnies can do that will completely prevent the MI from even being able to touch them. Unfortunately the reverse isn't true of the MI. Sure the bugs have the option of KamiKazee ripplers, but they get kind of expensive for what basically amounts to a one-shot weapon. The Skinnies don't even have a middle ground, and that's my entire point. Right now when it comes to air assets there doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground.

 

[nanite]

I'll take a wait and see approach.

If we got everything, right away, the game would end up with 40k's release schedule, where you're lucky to get one new miniature a year, and tough luck getting a whole new unit.

Sprites, Pluto Hoppers, Skinnie Air units, I'm sure there all in the pipeline.

I mean look, we got exo-suits! Who thought that would happen when the game launched?

Mongoose hall seems to be trying to make a solid effort to evolve the universe.