Your friendly neighbourhood Psycho here with all the fun, frivolity, and fanaticism of building a force for the 3rd Sian Dragoons. A new/old formation in the Capellan Confederation, the Dragoons are a virtual blank-slate for players and painters. Appearing both as an Age of War era brigade, and a Dark Age era one, I chose the DA version to work with. I like having new toys to play with. The 3rd are a maneuver-focused regiment, which I also enjoy.
There were multiple factors playing into the force build, including utilizing combined-arms, keeping it very Capellan, and with real life making cash flow tight, using as many minis as possible that I already have on-hand.
I had actually already earmarked a number of minis to fit this unit before the project was pitched. I didn’t get to incorporate all of them, but it was a first step knowing the core I had to work with. Given those minis and the MO of the “Jade Cavalry”, there was going to be a strong element of speed. Going over the force bonuses, I decided that I would use a Recon Lance as the first element of my force. Their bonuses lend themselves to working with heavy indirect fire, which made my second element a Fire Support Lance. Being a good Capellan unit, and wanting combined-arms, these were both going to be Augmented Lances; we'll call them Level II’s for the sake of fitting in the force-building rules.
Now let’s reverse direction and look at that Fire Support Lance.
- Thunder THR-1R 39
- Lao Hu LHU-3L 39
- Yu Huang Y-H11G 49
- Longbow LGB-12C 52
- LRM Carrier (3055 upgrade) 34
- LRM Carrier (3055 upgrade) 34
The Thunder and Lao Hu were from my previous pool of minis set aside for the Dragoons. Good, fast heavies to back up the recon elements and provide a second-line threat moving up the board. When you need fire support, you really can’t go wrong with a Longbow and LRM Carriers. They fall outside the standard paradigm for the 3rd, but I decided to build on a force paradigm over a regimental one: aiming for effectiveness on the table for a small unit over strict adherence to regimental fluff. The final piece was the Yu Huang. Its role as bodyguard is to make an opponent think twice about rushing the LRM boats, and to be able to re-position quickly to cover any flanking maneuvers that do occur.
I love building forces that can threaten an opponent in multiple ways. This build has a distinct character as a “glass cannon” with the hard-hitting but fragile LRM Carriers. The goal is to be able to use that obvious weakness as a way to force opponents into hard choices: leaving the fire support element alone is sure death with the to-hit bonuses and volume of indirect fire (16 points per turn), while trying to rush them means running straight into my heavy elements while simultaneously leaving their backs exposed to recon elements with the speed to turn and pursue.
Speaking of those recon elements, here’s what I pulled for the Recon Lance.
- Agrotera AGT-1A 30
- Sha Yu SYU-6B 27
- Men Shen Alt G 35
- Griffin GRF-4R 31
- Harasser (MML) 14
- Harasser (MML) 14
Speed, moderate firepower, and back-stabbing ability are the key aspects here. I’m likely to use at least one unit as a dedicated spotter each turn, so I didn’t want to load up on firepower. The Harassers are ridiculously fast, just shy of Dasher speeds. A very modest 1 damage at medium range means I’m not worried about sacrificing that attack in order to spot, while 2 damage at short range means they’re a solid threat when firing at someone’s back. The Agrotera and Griffin each offer huge a jump radius, forcing an opponent to carefully consider where he’s placing his units, while the Sha Yu’s Stealth Armor makes it more slippery at mid ranges. The Men Shen brings another threat vector with a TSEMP. All told, this fits what I want out of lighter elements; they'll be tough to hit and take down, but can't be ignored either.
I'll talk more on the painting side of things later. For now, a quick link to the already-painted Agrotera:
http://www.camospecs.com/Miniature.asp?ID=7261
