Monday 5 October 2015

Revving Up The Engine Again

All I have so far, and this is about a third done...
With Invasion now in the past, I have decided to put my Scourge to bed (do Scourge dream of electric hosts?) and bring out the Resistance once more. I got my first game in with them for a while last Friday, against as fate would have it another Resistance army; even more coincidentally, the same one I played at Invasion (The gent attends our club, and had lent his army to my foe the evening)! Having stopped playing with our friends from Fury Road to practise with my Jelly's for Invasion, it was refreshing to jump back into a weather beaten, written off wagon and take it for a spin.

I punched out a win in a mission of Secure the Flanks, but with us both using an unfamiliar force it more of a lesson exercise. And, excuse the pun, boy was I rusty. On no less than three occasions I blocked the route for my Thunderstorm with a Kraken! Let's have a quick look at the list I was using.


This roster is deliberately a little experimental. Having been firmly embedded in the thought that fast movers are too unreliable for some time now, I've decided to pull a Quaid and open my mind. This game wasn't really the one to test its true worth (due to a lack of low armour, high importance units) but it did blow a Cyclone out of the sky! It turned up on turn 2, and by holding my forward observers back and out of harms way attack runs were never a worry. I have to admit that I enjoyed the threat that a Pathfinder can bring. My opponent, a chap named Adrian, said to me after the game that he positioned his Zhukovs to try and counter it, which more or less took them out of the game (thankfully). I did miss having 5 battle groups on the first turn mind you.


The Hannibals were also a surprise inclusion in the roster (I even surprised myself when taking them!). With the drop in points I thought them worth a pop as I needed a little more dedicated AT. Sadly I deployed them stupidly and got jumped by a Thunderstorm (yes, Thunderstorms can jump things, and yes it's terrifying) which left one limping about with a single DP. I think this turn out has actually made me reapect them a little, as being able to take multiple wounds is incredibly useful. Also due to the two average strength shots they are great at flanking and taking out lightly armoured targets. There are a couple of downsides however. The heavy tanks are poor at targeting A10 targets, and they need air support which can't always be available due to the almost erratic alpha-strike nature of Gun Wagons. One aspect of this Rusty Knuckle I did enjoy though was the Cyclone's; at close range they are lethal! Well, if you can roll a 4+ that is... Also when you place a large barrage template down, it's more or less impossible to miss. I'm looking forward to using these birds against the four other races!


The rest of the army forms a solid backbone, with ample AA, AT and Infantry. It's a shame I couldn't afford the AA upgrade on the Hannibal's Lifthawk, but oh well. I'm not particularly happy with the group lay outs at the moment, and I'd rather have the Gun Wagons split over two battlegroups. This of course would mean that all my infantry is one mega BG, which is even worse! This problem is due to taking the Pathfinder, as it takes has an activation all to itself. I can see this causing me a headache when it is shot down, as going down to five BG's can hurt. 

Giving the list a glance again now, I'm tempted to lose the drill. I have always, always, always said it should be a +1 unit in a Resi list, but if I drop it I can squeeze in a second squad of Freeriders and AA on that Lifthawk... Hmmm...

Such is the way of list building though. If you have any thoughts on my current list I'd love to hear them!

9 comments:

  1. I can agree on the Drill. I have used one in almost all games with Resistance now and also at Invasion. But it was only useful once. So next Resistance list I will try it without one.

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    1. I think I'll give it a try at least once more, and then see where we stand. It is very useful for objective extraction but then again so are Freeriders, as they an sit behind buildings and have it handed off to them whilst the Infantry jump to another location.

      HmmmmMmmmmmMmmmmm...

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    2. I've never used my Drill, and I've never missed having it.

      Watching some of Cameron's batreps, it seems relatively easy to kill with a little concentrated fire, and then you've potentially got subterranean squads stuck underground. Freeriders are the way to go, I think.

      And I absolutely LOVE Cyclones!

      And I am now a convert to the Thunderstorm, as well. My poor Alex may never see the table again...

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    3. I think Hawk really need to have a think over the Alex. It is just sub par to the Thunderstorm in more or less every way. Changing the side guns to E9 would help, but I'm still not sure it would be enough.

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  2. Drill for me has never been an auto-include, but it can be a nice surprise for emergency Objective escapes! Dropping it for more Freeriders though... that's a great swap.

    Glad to hear you're having fun with the Cyclones - they are monstrous if they get close! The big Barrage template has saved my ass many times against pesky skimmers too.

    Agreed on the Gun Wagons - all in one battle group can make your playstyle predictable.

    Combining all the infantry might be a problem as you can only field four units in an Infantry battle group.

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    1. I thought that might be the case with the Infantry battlegroup (I was in a rush to publish it and didn't have time to check!). It will most likely end up with the Pathfinder being dropped, and the Gun Wagons shifted about; we shall see!

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  3. Drill is like a FM, never show up when you want it to. Graces it does not make you lose a BG activation. I've had games were it never turned up by T4 (WTF dice gods) and 2 groups for technicals were stuck underground. Once I get my drop pod painted up to "count as Drill #2", I'll try them out again.
    I like to get the cyclones in the same BG as some scout to spot for them.

    FM

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    1. I agree that putting units in the drill is risky, and I don't think I'd ever attempt it unless the mission really dictated for it (i.e. Using Freeriders in Escalation). I need to read up on the Resi unit rules again, I keep forgetting that the Cyclones have IF!

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  4. I just got my first resistance game under my belt, though it was a story driven scenario. I agree with what's been said on the drill. If the list is designed around utilizing it, I think it could work, but otherwise it's not something to just toss into the list.

    As far as faster movers, in the past month or so I'm coming around to the idea that 1 is not a good look. Dice can screw you, and that BG can get eliminated easy (as you mentioned). I'll be testing doubling down on the FMs. So I'm trying to get double Alexander and double Hellhog with Cobra Missiles working, hahaa. I'm not confident.

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