Breaking Down The Resistance

R-Day approaches!

Reconquest Day (to be known as R-Day from here on in) is quickly approaching, and I can hear the saliva dripping from your gaping maws, creating disgusting saliva rivers of anticipation, which flow into the extraordinarily unhygienic sea of excitement! We have been treated to snippets of info that have been released by various peoples of the interwebs, who happen to have the book already (most namely, Hawk's Talons and other, less wordy blogs than ours).

Well we here at OB happen to be part of the lucky and vocal collective who have their grubby paws on it! In this post I won't be talking about the book so much (which, besides a few layout issues with wording in the history, is beautiful and excellent), but how you can expect the Resistance to play.

Now, some of you may think it is a little too soon to etch out play styles. The book has only been out on pre-release for a week or so, and getting a numerous amount of games played in such a short space of time could only be possible to the super rich, or the super unemployed. I am sadly, and gratefully, neither. My experience comes from having helped Hawk out with the play testing for the Resistance (along with the rest of Team OB), and besides a few tweaks the army has kept its shape very nicely! I decided not to mention this before, as I just don't have the time or patience to be bombarded with questions about MF values on a Beserkers chainsaw, or the air-speed velocity of an unladen Lifthawk...

Anyway, let's go through what I think are some of the more defining features of the Resistance army:

Infantry In Abundance

“I distinctly remember you telling me that there weren't many citizens left on this planet Corporal; where did you happen to gather this intel from? A demented blind Goose?” Sargent Vernon's last words, before he was inconveniently turned into paté by Clump the Beserker's sledge hammer (which was named Daisy. A lovely name, for a lovely hammer Clump says. And we don't argue with Clump).

Although they are perceived to be few in number, and deadly in skill, you may well actually end up facing a veritable horde of survivors. Their standard infantry is cheap and comparable to a Legionnaire, and what their Exotics lack in firepower and CQB skills is made up for in their cheap cost. Cost isn't the main reason for the high numbers that can be fielded though; it is actually due to the transports and Army List. If you choose to take a Lifthawk, you have to take three Jackson APCs, therefore resulting in three squads of troops. Now three squads aren't typically going to be enough, especially as any other forces exotics will decimate the Resistance, so you will need more. This means either taking a few squads of bikes, lets say two for now, or a couple of battlebusses in a Kraken, resulting in at least another 4 bases of troops. This means you will have five bases of troops as standard. You could even be crazy, and fill your battlebusses to the brim and have 8 bases of troops. That's 14 bases before bikes! 

Marching quickly out of Eden Prime's sewer system

You also need to be wary of not having enough battlegroups. With the other four armies you can get a cheap group in by having a single squad in a dropship. The Resistance don't have this option, and the necessity to take more troops means you either need to spend a bunch more points on units to get the extra battlegroup, or try and fill it elsewhere, possibly by having bikes as single scout option.

I like this approach and at the same time dislike it. I'm not sure how many games you will convincingly win with only three main bases of troops (bikes are incredibly vulnerable in buildings, and are 100% more survivable on table), so you need one more squad. Only you can't have one more, because of transport options (I am ignoring the fact you can drive one battlebus on, because it would be a solid waste of time). The extra squad and transport to ferry everything to battle feels like a bit of a tax, and annoys me a touch when making lists. Having said this, it does add a different flavour to the army, which is nice.

On a side note, you can take a single squad of 'Bane-wannabie Praetorians on Venom' (Marine Force Recon) in a super Raven as a single squad. It is stupid expensive though, at 151 points! They are completely bitching, but they may never earn that tenth of your army back...

OHNOSANDWORMS!!! Oh no, Just Some Drills. Wait... OHNODRILLS!!!

If you ever play a Resistance army without one of these, help the player put their models back in the case, and condescendingly tell them to come back when they can write a half-decent list. They are that good. I'll tell you what they don't do first: they don't shoot, they don't move, and they don't help find Spice (alright, I'll stop with the Dune...). What they do do however, is win games. One Infantry unit per turn can swagger out of their building, objective safely underarm, and into the welcoming doors of a tunneller. This will whisk them away to reserves and claim you that objective. The drills aren't particularly easy to remove due to having high DP's, and you can pop them mid-table no problem when they enter from reserve.

This is the last reference, I promise

The only 'normal' unit that can really extract objectives quickly are the Freeriders, but even with their mad Evasion CMs protecting them, are very suspect to template fire. The drill provides a quicker, easier way of getting this task done quickly and painlessly. In a clash you can take two of these bad boys for 100 points, which for tournament play may not be a bad shout...

Oh right, and technicals can pop out of it too, which is very cool, but actually only half useful. If you have a squad they are worth sticking in it as it saves on transport costs, but they can't shoot the turn they emerge so will be fairly suspect to everything shooting them that turn. If you are able to double tap with Gun Techs though, you can be sneaky and shoot down some light dropships if your lucky / clever!

A Big Meh To Passive CMs

Since these guys were first announced, a big question has been 'How will they fare with no Passive CMs?'. The answer is absolutely fine. Due to the general speed of ground units and transports, you are likely to be within 18”-24” of your enemy for most of the game, which happens to be the average range of a countered weapon. Sure, short range units that drive on like the Katana exploit the lack of CMs and are a pain in the arse, but when are they not?

To Horde, Or Not To Horde?

Not to horde, big time. I was asked to play a 48 rocket technical list by Hawk, just to see if it would work. It didn't. In fact, it was the worst game of DZC I have ever played! Not due to my lovely opponent, Edchopp, but due to the complete impotence of the army in general. With that many units you end up getting shot out of coherency all the time, meaning your moves are effectively halved while you try and get your squads back into it. Absolutely buy the models, you can always use them for 2k / 2.5k games, but just don't bother at 1.5k. There is nothing fun about removing 10-15 models a turn, and literally killing 4-5 models in return.

On a side note, I actually won that game thanks to a drill. See, I told you they were good!

Tight Games

Resistance suffer a little with manoeuvrability, especially if their bikes and drills are gone, and tend not to win by great margins. This is probably down to their troops being a little weaker in CQB than general, and a heavy reliance on a few great units. Because their decent AT weapons are fairly expensive you won't have many, making getting rid of hardy targets a little difficult at times. Drills and Freeriders are your friends, and will see you through the most testing games.

Choice, And A Lot Of It

I think this is the best attribute of the Resistance, and it really makes the army special; there is just so much to choose from! The unit number may be the same as the other armies, but what you have is an army in which every option is a viable choice! They don't have a Thunderbird, Slayer, Scimitar or Taranis. Every single unit is decent, but balanced, and worth taking in the right army. The OB Team must have penned more than 20 lists between us, and each one was notably different. Choice is a gift that keeps on giving in wargames, and I find it highly unlikely that the Resistance will ever bore you.

These are of course my opinions and some people will disagree, possibly mostly with my outlook on troops. What would I say to those people? Write your own gawddamnedpost! Or you could just comment below...

Ciao!