How many Prowlers does it take to destroy a Mining Drill? Ten apparently! |
Dropzone sometimes
giveth, and sometimes it taketh away(eth). As it has been well
documented on this very blog in the past, I have always wanted to
play a Scourge army with a vast horde of Prowlers. The idea of two
dozen little crabs running amok through the streets of Eden Prime
filled my heart with joy, and made me giggle in delight. The army I
had in mind was never built to be ultra competitive, but to at least
be moderately challenging to play against and with and be as fun as a
bouncy castle. However...
It doesn't work.
It's incredibly
frustrating, but it is sadly a fact. Having twenty four prowlers in
your army limits the amount of AA and AT you can fit in, and also if
you don't drop the crabs in the right place to begin with you have
big troubles. Possibly the biggest thing I am most upset about is the
fact that it just isn't fun to play. If the drop doesn't work out,
all your Prowlers just die as there are no other targets for the
opposition to shoot at. So there you go, I magnetised twenty four
Prowlers for nothing in the end. That's forty eight pieces of metal
which taunt me with every North/South attraction they make.
Those of you out there
thinking, 'Well, obviously it didn't work. You even made a log thread
regarding it!' aren't wrong. The posts can be found here, here and here and make
the distinct point that DzC is a balanced game, and must be played as
such to get the most out of it. So the error is my fault really, but
there you go. You live and you learn. And you magnetise. And then you
cry in a corner.
Prowler-off! Sounds like a Russian Scourge commander... |
The road to figuring
all this out hasn't been a particularly pleasant or fun one I will
add. The first game in which I deployed the Circus of Legs Was against Hawk Simon
when he popped down the club before his expedition to convention
land, and I was hammered 7-0. I have literally never lost a game that
badly before. I made a couple of errors, as is to be expected after
transferring from an almost polar opposite army (the Shaltari), but him having Corsairs turn up on turn 1 and never fail to turn up doesn't
hurt. The game came down to him knowing his army much better than
mine, and ruthlessly exploiting the fact. I've done exactly the same
thing to opponents as hapless as I was, so I hold absolutely no ill
feelings towards the tosser. I mean gentleman. Hmm, no I mean tosser.
Next up was Skullsword,
against his shiny new Resistance (well, that of which has
arrived...). This game fared better, as we were both new to our
armies and this gave us a little leeway to make mistakes. I had
fiddled with the list a little and gone down to 20 Prowlers and some
Ravagers for a decent AA bubble. It was as bulky and flabby as the
first list I used, but due getting into the right buildings at the
right time I managed to scrape a win. It worked a little better
against the Resistance, but still I didn't really find it fun.
I had left my spider spray at home |
Mega Mikes new Shaltari
brick was up next, and this was another game to forget. It turns out
that running into 3 Jaguars, a Dreamsnare and a Coyote is a terrible
bloody idea. I was using the same army again, as it had worked to an
effect against Skullsword, but this time due to my lack of AT I was
unable to deal with the sheer hardyness of his walkers (also, rolling
3 ones to hit with my three Hunters didn't help). After one
disappointing turn of using most of the crabs, they were all whittled
away and I became impotent in attack. Because of the lack of Hunters,
Stalkers or Reapers I was unable to damage his army in any
significant way. I 'strategically' destroyed a building containing an
objective, and the game ended 6-2 to MM.
It was another
unenjoyable game, and as with the others not because of the gamer but
because of the list. There is nothing fun to removing your models
from the table and doing little to nothing to your adversary. It was
after this game that I had a sit down a real think about the list. I
needed to identify what I was lacking, and come up with a way of
fixing it. The main problem had been that once the Prowlers were gone
there was no AT left (bar Intruders and the Desolator, neither of
which can't be counted on alone). I reduced the quantity of Prowlers
in the list again to 16, and came up with this!
It is a little short on
AA, but if I use the units I have correctly it shouldn't be too much
of an issue. Having two
squads of Destroyers is always nice (they are
almost an auto-pick really), and the Despoiler was a dropship I had
never considered before so thought it worth trying. There are a
couple of glaring issues, in that I only have one Warrior squad in
two separate battlegroups, so if they extract an objective I am down to five
our four battle groups. But hey, this list is about fun rather than
competition right! (It is only now on reflection that I realise I was well under pointed...)
My last game was
against Sgt Slaughter and his PHR. He is a gamer who has always made
hardy lists, and as the game went I didn't really destroy much. The
Prowlers were largely ineffectual, due to four exploding in the air
when their intruder was shot down (that has happened in all four
games so far...) and then his army hammering the remaining twelve,
but they were a dsitraction that he was forced to deal with, and this
gave me time to manoeuvre my army about. As a whole the list felt
easier to use, and importantly more fun. I was actually hugely
impressed with the Despoiler, which was quick and powerful,
destroying a Helios whilst it zoomed about. I won the game 5-4 due to
a couple of lucky objective rolls, but that wasn't so much the point.
I like the fit of this army better, it feels different bet yet
usable.
So I have tweaked it
again; it's down to five battlegroups now (I know, an OB cardinal
sin) but I do have three units of Destroyers, which is tasty... I
feel that one step closer to finding my list,and hitting that Scourge
sweet spot!
Destroyers seem way to good on paper. But I suppose you can easily tie them up with expandable infantery in CQB since they dont throw so many dice.
ReplyDeleteThat's true, but at the moment only the resistance have the troops to spare to do this, and they tend to be too slow to do it effectively. It in fact tends to be the other way around; destroyers are so quick in Intruders they can tie up opponents units on their side of the board!
DeleteI also miss Braves, my Warriors keep getting squished by falling massonry...
Hmm... I dont really see a clean answer to destroyers then. Maybe Fire Waggons a worth a try. You can still sacrifice 2 bases of warriors when the destroyers come into the building and let the other bases flee from it. Than burn them.
DeleteThey are awkward, but really no more awkward than other elites. I would rather fight Destroyers over Firstborns, as they are superior in cqb. You have to deal with them as normal elites to be honest!
Deletewell 24 Prowlers on 1500 is actually hard to o.. 16 is just as finee as it gets in my experience (my regular opponent loves the little buggers as much as you do it seems) he actually owns 32 i think but only fields that much in really large games (read 2000+) and then they are a real "P in the A" 16 are just tolerable but as you pointed out: you either have to deal with them or you are deep into trouble... ever thought aabout the AA Walkers? Themewise pure win and quite sturdy... so maybe worth a try?
ReplyDeleteI own 32 as well, due to a Hawk 'apology package' for miscasts (I'm not complaining though!). MegaMike is adament that 32 can work in 1500pts, but I'm not so sure.
DeleteI gave the Ravagers a try at 20 Prowlers but I couldn't really get used to them. I really like the unit, but it doesn't fit so well in my newest list. Maybe I'll try to squeeze them in at some point!
Can Tarantula hang off walls like in the photo?!? Oh hell I read the rules to mean they had to be on the ground or roof? Can anyone confirm they can do this?
ReplyDeleteIf so they got a hell of a lot cooler for frustrating my opponents!
They can indeed! Officially (Hawk Simon has confirmed this), a model can go anywhere it can be placed, as long as it follows the rules.
DeleteIt's another sneaky Shaltari trick!
So awesome!
ReplyDelete