Spoilers inbound, as Fenn and I devise plans to crush Brick and ipecac!
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[TEAM THREAD] Fenn & Bob are Advanced Warriors
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The map, for reference:
 Teams are Green & Blue vs. Red and Yellow. I'll be writing this as though we're the former, for the sake of expediency. Special Rules
Thoughts on picking COs- (for a list describing each CO, see here) * I'm operating under the assumption that we'll be banning Sonja, as she essentially breaks FoW open, and that Hachi, Sturm, Colin, Nell, Sensi & Grit are all banned. * Sasha seems to me almost like a must-have for Blue. Her CO power can seriously delay the opponent's ability to deploy their special powers, and her innate bonus means an extra 1300 points a turn just for controlling all of her island's properties. I advocate positioning her with Blue instead of Green as Green is better positioned to pop out a quick Transport Copter to seize territory from the opponents, in case we want to go that route, which is a strategy Sasha isn't particularly suited for. * Eagle is a strong pick if we're okay with him not deploying naval units except Landers, which sounds likely. Amazing Super Power (all non-infantry units can move twice in a turn, including transports), and very powerful air units- downside is that he'll only control one airport, unless we want the other leader to go without. * Sami benefits well from FoW. Her transports all move +1 tiles a turn, and her foot soldiers can easily snipe enemy properties if not spotted. Might be a good idea to give her Green, rush out a T-Copter ASAP, and then try to seize Red's most isolated factory. Even if Red happens to get a Recon over a turn after the Infantry unloads, it still might not be enough to prevent her from capturing the factory, and then using it to spam Mechs. Her vehicles also apparently don't suffer any downsides in this version of the game. * Kanbei benefits from properties giving more points than usual, making his grossly overpowered units (+30% attack and defense!) easier to afford. His transports will have a much easier time unloading their payloads on enemy islands, and his aircraft will massacre anything short of massed AA. Those are my top picks. Lash, Kindle, Hawke, Von Bolt, and Andy are all decent picks as well.
I had the same thought with Sami. Thanks to the Fog of War, Red won't realize what's happened until they gain vision on the lone base. It takes four turns for a Recon or APC-assisted Infantry to reach the lone base. A Recon only deals 49-59% damage to a Sami Infantry on the neutral base, which is not enough damage to prevent a 2t capture. The biggest flaw with this plan is that the lone base probably won't last very long against Red's three bases and an airport, but it can delay Red's development by forcing him to devote resources to prying Green off of home territory. Sami does have the weakness of 90/100 direct units, but the amount of contested properties on this map should let her hang on until Victory March is ready.
Sasha doesn't seem like a very strong choice to me. Her extra 100 funds per property is most useful early on, when it might allow you to build a Tank a turn early and thus get a positioning advantage. In this map, with opponents separated by ocean, that doesn't come into play. Actually it's even less useful, because her extra funding doesn't scale to the funds-per-property setting: on 1500 funds/prop, she still gets only 100 extra, a mere 7.5% advantage. There's also the issue that increased funding overall leads to faster CO meter charging, which makes it harder for Sasha to suppress opponents' meter continuously. Her CO Power may still be worth it (it does make her units 110/110), but her usefulness is dependent on Brick and Ipecac choosing COP-reliant COs. Agreed on Eagle, he's a strong CO even with just one airport. There's enough funding for him to charge Lightning Strike in a reasonable amount of time, too. If he can tech to Landers, he could unload+attack on the same turn - very deadly. That said the island-y setup might make it hard for him to get full usefulness out of his powers; only those few of his vehicles at the front line and what aircraft he has will be able to attack twice. For that reason, if we want to go with a COP-based CO for Blue I'd lean towards Hawke. He gets an attack bonus to all of his units unlike Eagle, and Black Storm might be more devastating than Lightning Drive, given that it affects the whole enemy team. About the other COs: -Sturm is not that exciting on this map tbh; his 80% attack is a pretty serious weakness and there aren't any Comm Towers around to patch it up. It's also harder for him to take advantage of his greater defense, since not too much fighting will take place on heavy terrain here. His SCOP is pretty nice, but is it worth 10 bars of charge? -Similar story with Von Bolt; 110/110 stats are handy when nobody has Comm Towers, but he does best in maps where Tank-Inf-Arty battles are common, which isn't going to be the case on this large, heavily-funded map. -Andy's SCOP is very useful, especially if an opponent has a mass-damage CO, but if they have Sasha it'll be a while before he can use it, and until then he has no powers to speak of. -Drake might be interesting here. Weaker copters is a serious handicap, and his SCOP will cause a little annoyance to his teammate, but naval units that outrange their enemies and have a unique defensive bonus could be a serious advantage. Plus, mass damage + fuel halving for only 7 bars is always great. I'm leaning towards Sami as Green, and either Hawke/Drake/Eagle as Blue. We could try Hawke as Blue and Eagle as Green; the idea there would be to play conservatively until we can fire off our SCOPs on consecutive turns; Hawke weakens the enemy units, and Eagle sweeps them off the board. It's a combo that's kneecapped by an enemy Sasha, though.
I'm not a fan of Drake. His COP is one of the best, but do we really envision his naval units having a defense boost mattering much? Looking at the map, it appears that Landers and air units can hop between most islands in a single turn, so I'm not sure there's going to be a lot of utility in producing massed navy to intercept them. I'd rather spend the funds on Bombers and Rockets. If you think we're likely to field Battleships, then Von Bolt sounds better to me, since he isn't cripped in the air. Supply lines shouldn't be particularly onerous either, so cutting enemy fuel won't be crippling.
Hawke is strong, but I think Eagle's SCOP is substantially better, and I'm okay with forfeiting the attack boost on vehicles, infantry and boats in favor of even better aircraft. Any thoughts on Kanbei? His landings would be difficult to stop once he deploys his SCOP, although Eagle's SCOP allows for landings with even less risk. Leaning toward Sami & Eagle currently.
Regarding bans, I'm in favor of excluding Sonja, Hachi, Colin, Nell, Sensi & Grit. Nell probably isn't brokenly good for the map, but she embodies everything unfun about RNG systems in strategic combat simulators.
Not certain why Brick banned Kanbei, but we can live with that. 
I think we might field some Battleships, but Sami can probably take care of that - her indirects are full strength. So, sure, Sami/Eagle sounds good to me.
Eh, Kanbei is probably worthy of a ban. A 30% boost to attack and defense for only 20% more cost is already great on paper. The defense boost is what makes his units so good. A Kanbei Tank sitting on a forest or city (nullifying 60% of incoming damage!) can't be defeated with normal Tanks of your own; even without the first strike he deals at least as much damage in as he takes, and can KO your Tank on his turn. Plus his Infantry are incredible meatshields, essentially impossible to kill in one hit. Completely agreed on Nell. Sonja I'm more ambivalent about, but that's mostly because I find playing as her to be frustrating...her bad luck makes normally guaranteed 1-hit or 2-hit KOs total crapshoots. Still she's probably too good in fog.
As for which of us gets which leader, I'm happy with either, slight preference I guess for taking Sami @ Green.
That works for me, I've joined the game as Eagle of Blue Moon.
If we're going for the Sami Base rush, best thing to do is to use the starting Infantry to capture the airport on Day 3, build a T-Copter on Day 4, and drop off the infantry by Day 7. Then just build Mechs at that base, force them to either spend money on vehicles or slowly walk up an army of Infantry. Also need to figure out how to play Eagle on this map. Building up a large enough air force to eventually break through with Lightning Strike is the default; perhaps trying to control the skies with Stealths is worthwhile? They use less fuel than normal with Eagle, and the enemy won't be able to see that I have one until/unless they have a unit next to it on their turn. (April 27th, 2016, 10:48)Fenn Wrote: That works for me, I've joined the game as Eagle of Blue Moon. Agreed on the Sami Bash Rush tactic, that's the plan. Stealths are very expensive IIRC, but you're right that keeping them fueled should be significantly simpler than usual. I think any serious offensive will have to come in the form of using Lightning Strike to land-unload-attack in the same turn, with air units being employed up until that point for containment. I'm not certain if it makes more sense to focus your initial sallies at the large enemy island between Red and Yellow, or at the exposed tip of Yellow's island- it'd be a big deal if you could manage to capture the factory at either. Might make sense for me to eventually send a stream of T-Copters that way to join you.
It's difficult to say. If you can take and hold Red's lone base for a good while, the large island would be the better target as it would be easier for us to concentrate force there, and it has more properties up for grabs. In general we want to do that, but it's especially important in fog where teammates share vision and it's harder for enemies to notice a strike force building up.
We could set up some sneaky base captures with Victory March too; since I move before you, we could have a situation where Sami has Infs/Mechs hidden in forests near enemy properties; on Eagle' turn I move in to provide visibility/clear out enemy units, and on your turn you activate Victory March to cap bases/cities before the enemy can cover them up again. |
