200 Point Army Challenge

[feekonea]

roborats x5

isnt it fun just pissing your opponent off?

[scorpiusx]

Originally Posted by feekonea

roborats x5

isnt it fun just pissing your opponent off?

Unless if they draft X2 Gnators.

Reaks for you!

[Agatagary]

feekonea,

You can't draft five squads of the Deathreavers because that would exceed the two squad limit.

Rÿchean,

I like your Krav Maga Agents/Agent Carr combo. Not only does it fill the point limit perfectly, but it is also thematic and very effective! It should be effective against most other 200-point armies, due to its power and versatility.

[Marduk]

Originally Posted by Rÿchean

2xBlasts
1xGlads

whole army moves at once; potential to take small units or large units. Cyber claw any pesky small baddies. (orc, Rats, vipers)

I don't think this would fare very well. It was my first thought, but with only 4 glads you're all too likely to end up stuck with the single base attack die of the blastatrons. Maybe against something like the Krug/2xArrow Gruts - the gruts wouldn't likely take out the glads (nor is Krug likely to, for that matter) before they could line up around Krug and allow the blastatrons to obliterate him.

Against anything good at taking out 3 defense squad members this army is just a bunch of targets. I believe you'd have to have a very small board to have a hope with this one so that you could close on the opponent before they killed too many of you. And you'd certainly have to get some blastatrons adjacent to the target to boost the other blasts. 1xBlasts and 2xGlads wouldn't be bad as a 220-point army - the glads would have a good chance of enough of them surviving to do their job, with the blastatrons hiding out of range until the glads engaged.

[Marduk]

Hmm, what about:

2xSwog Riders
2xArrow Gruts
1xHeavy Gruts

Put the heavies out in front as a screen, arrange the arrow gruts around (and between, for three of them) the swogs. That gives you three arrow gruts with three attack, three defense, and the rest with two each.

You're going to pound anyone who has to approach you, and if you have to close with them the beast bonding will let you keep at least one die of bonus from a swog. Of course the swogs are the obvious targets here, similar to the vulnerability of the blast/glad combo. The differences are the higher movement, enough to insure that you attack first in the exchange; and the fact that the swog riders don't have to engage to do their job. The arrow gruts can do the engaging themselves. (Not recommended against samurai.)

[kenjib]

Originally Posted by Marduk

I don't think this would fare very well. It was my first thought, but with only 4 glads you're all too likely to end up stuck with the single base attack die of the blastatrons.

I think the idea is that the blastatrons can do the swarming for a bonus to attack just as the gladiatrons do. Just use bonding to move as many soulborgs as you can, whatever type they may be, pile them all up around your enemies, and attack 4 times as long as you can.

[Dredd Stev]

Concan - 80
SOJ - 110
200 points

Puts ALOT of faith in those double shields, but for 200 points these guys can do their fair share of hurt.

OR

Romans X2 - 100
Me-Burq-Sa - 50
Marro Warriors - 50

Got some key bonding with that warlord and some range and staying power with those peskey marrow warriors. (Not a bad counter to my first army if you can get that 20sider working for you...)

[bad_calvin]

I have to go with 8 bridge guards.
The defense is ok enough to handle most of the swarm armies put forth here. With enough attack dice to mow through.

I would consider going with 1 mimring and whatever elese I could fit in. Being as mimring has the range and power to take out most of the small pointed swarm armies.

[netherspirit]

I know you wanted only 2 of any common, but I think this could be pretty good...

3x Arrow Gruts (120)
3x Swog Riders (75)
195

Going with 2 of each
--------------------------
2x Arrow Gruts (80)
2x Swog Riders (50)
Marro Warriors (50)
--------------------------
2x Heavy Gruts (140)
Nerak (50)

[feekonea]

Originally Posted by scorpiusx

Unless if they draft X2 Gnators.

Reaks for you!

Awww man! I thought I had a good army there too.

Originally Posted by Agatagary

feekonea,

You can't draft five squads of the Deathreavers because that would exceed the two squad limit.

Oops! Forgot about that one. I guess once you get an idea in your head you just forget about everything else.

[yagyuninja]

Originally Posted by netherspirit

2x Heavy Gruts (140)
Nerak (50)

Whoa, I always forget about Nerak. This would be brutal, I think.

[Marduk]

Originally Posted by kenjib

I think the idea is that the blastatrons can do the swarming for a bonus to attack just as the gladiatrons do. Just use bonding to move as many soulborgs as you can, whatever type they may be, pile them all up around your enemies, and attack 4 times as long as you can.

But this involves traveling to your opponent, possibly getting shot at on the way. Against a ranged opponent, you're going to get butchered badly before you can close. Some melee armies would be decent targets for this (most notably anything based around Krug), but some wouldn't - anything that can reliably take out two glads or three blastatrons in a turn is very likely to win. Without the glads pinning enough of the enemy, the enemy gets to choose how many blastatrons will be adjacent to them... it just won't work.

Point for point, the blastatrons lose both ranged and melee battles (even against the lowly arrow gruts). Their only saving grace is the homing beacon boost - and that requires a positional advantage. Normally you get a positional advantage by being faster than your target - the blastatrons can't really do it this way. They have to get their positional advantage by slowing down the enemy with their glad buddies, and be faster that way. But the glads are pretty sad for melee units, aside from the boost they give to the blastatrons. So you need to start with enough of them to survive the approach to the enemy, and still have enough left over to both pin a substantial number of the enemy and give a good boost to the blastatrons for at least one target. That's why the recommended glad/blastatron ratio is 2:1 or 3:2.

Four glads just aren't going to manage that unless the map is small enough to get to the enemy on the initial rush - and that still requires that you win the initiative. All the enemy really has to do to defend against this is spread out - if you concentrate on one target, the others are free to attack whoever they want, probably killing more than one while you only get one of theirs. If you spread out to pin four of the opponent and get your bonuses against as many as possible, you're not going to end up doing any better than any other squad with a three attack - you're just going to cost more.

If you are relying on putting the blastatrons adjacent to the enemy, you've already lost. All the enemy has to do is target the blastatrons, who have no defense to speak of. The glads are completely harmless as long as all the order markers go on the blastatrons. In fact, with only four glads I would be tempted to ignore them from the start in favor of killing the fragile blastatrons first.

I'm not knocking the idea as an impulse - as I said, it was the first combo that occured to me. But comparing both blastatrons and gladiatrons to other ranged and melee squads shows that they are hideously overpriced aside from their unique combination ability. In order to get the benefit of the combination, however, you have to use it properly. That means having enough glads to do the job and keeping the blastatrons safe until the glads are in position.

Heaven help you if you run into a Deathwalker 8000 or 9000 with this army - I'd even back two squads of Knights of Weston against them and be happy to give up the extra 60 points. Against two sets of glads and one of blastatrons, I'd want four squads of the knights to be comfortable with my chances - quite a difference.