Trying something different......

Hello internet people!!!!

With the tournament scene now coming to an end, and leading up to the end of year festivities. I thought I would tell you a bit about my journey with my beloved Resistance. As Resistance is currently my primary force this is what I have been concentrating on. (PHR may come back now that the Medusa and Valkyries have been released). Depends if they nerf the Medusa or not.

Normally between Hawk's Invasion tournaments and over the summer, or just whenever I get a bit bored of my normal army really. I tend to venture out and try new units and even whole new army list designs all together.

I've found this quite interesting as sometimes you find a nice gem or something you could have easily overlooked before.

I'll show you some lists I've made and then we can have a look at my famous/infamous free-rider spam lists. With all my lists I've tried to stay to my maximum battle-groups of 6 and around 3/4 infantry to actually try and win/play the missions.

Double drill and as many Rocket Technicals as I can fit in:

Techboy had the privilege of facing this list and probably still has a few nightmares.
This was such a fun army to try. It was somewhat low on AA but having 60 Technicals in your opponents deployment zone would just put a huge smile on anyone's face. Depending how many drills I could get was obviously a good factor. Also it depends on your opponents back board status. If you know they have a lot of shots from turn 1 or 2 as some units walking on, maybe its not the best idea to land right next to them. Just close enough to scare them and to be in your threat range.

The thing I worked out is that if I have 12 to 24 units coming out of the drill/drills. My opponent would have to be able to put enough shots into either the whole squad and the drill or one or the other. That is 17 to 34 medium to high power shots needed. You tell me what army can do that turn one or two, when they don't even know where on the board you are yet. Yes they could go for the drill so no more units could deploy. I have 2 drills, and if targeting the drill you are not killing the models that will next turn ruin what's in front of it. If they cannot kill off the first wave, what's going to happen when you bring the next units through as back up.... more death!

Only thing with this list is the randomness and if you do get the drills early your units probably wont last the full game. But do they need to?? I must say that I tried this list before they changed to energy 7. I only see good things for this list in the future.

This is for the cyclone lovers. I made this list to try and get as many Cyclones and aircraft I could possibly get in and still have an army that functions.

This list has some issues with sphere of influence, you rely heavily on getting the drill mid table and letting the scouts out (then hide). You have to hop between buildings for cover and must concentrate all fire on the opposing forces AA. Lets just hope they didn't bring too much though!

So the start of my Free-Rider spamming sessions. There was not alot of love for the Free-Riders when they first arived. I now think with the current meta change towards harder and stronger infantry, they have fallen nicely into place and people know how to counter them.
As the only (current) team member with Resistance, I thought that it's only right that I had to put their name to the test and try to break them.

Yes, this feral list has 12 bases of Free-Riders. It is horrible to play against and to field. keeping track of what battlegroup they are in is a right pain. This is Mega Mikes nightmare list that he faced in Woking War.
The thing I liked about this list was that I had more than one squad of bikes in a battlegroup. It fell under the nice one big shooty shooty activation squad. Also with the amount of infantry and bikes I was able to search for objectives eleven times a turn. Its just ridiculous!!!. Compare that to any other army that needs to search. Yup maybe 4 or 5 search's for most other factions.

This list was me trying to make the Free-Rider spam list work with the benefit of the dreaded MFR (MOTHER FU**ING RECONS!!!!!!). I didn't like this list, there was not enough points for me to have occupational vets or a full Lifthawk of resistance fighters. This list worked but meant I only had 5 squads of bikes. That's sad face time for Joe!!!!!.

This was my closing army of the year. I managed to shoehorn the new ATV unit in. It was at the cost of losing my 5th squad of free-riders. I found that the new unit filled a gap, where I didn't have enough building demo or denial or hard CQB troops. The Thunderstorm is great but we need those energy 12's for high army targets. You could say that the ATV's acted a bit like a barrel bomber/flame wagon, in that the opponent new I had the option to do direct damage/falling masonry to infantry. The only thing I dislike about this unit is that they do not physically fit in a Kraken.

In my list creation there is a few things I would almost auto include.

• 2 Squads of  Gun Wagons in Krakens
• 2 Squads of  Occupation vets in Battle Buses

All the rest are good units and have there pros and cons. I do think we are going to start seeing a lot more elite infantry. The new Medusa, Hazards teams, UCM Mortar and AA teams we may start having more infantry units for anti-tank and AA instead of the normal dedicated vehicles we usually take. Infantry search, contribute to focal points, and in some missions are worth double points. So there is no downside to taking infantry over tanks. Yes falling masonry will hurt them, maybe what I mean is all these infantry squads are versatile and I think the Free-Riders where one of the first in this category. 

Something I have noticed is the flexibility within the resistance force chart. I can have infantry squads in every battlegroup if I choose. And if spammed can get 9-11 building search's a turn. Most of this Infantry can also have the option to vaporise your opponents forces. Spamming the bikes is hard work and you are always thinking, plotting, and planning, its not for everyone and yes most games had me with a headache. Maybe hawk will need to look into it or its just going to be something the resistance do, just like the Shaltari shenanigans.

Do I think the Free-Rider Spam list is broken???... No I don't, I haven't won every tournament with them. Came pretty close though>

Happy Drop-zoning Gamers!!!!

Till next time!