On board Homing Arrow IV effective use revoves around a couple of factors . First quality of gunners . If you have too many regular or green gunners TAG becomes near useless . On the other hand any Elite gunners are wasteful on BV and the opposition will crush you in a BV balaced game . Second density of TAG at Veteran skill level 1 TAG system hits for every 3 attemptted so I field 16 mechs 9 have TAG and 8 combat vehicles 7 have TAG . You have to move in a loose formation to insure the TAGed unit is the proper range from the Target . You have to field cheap fast combat vehicles to bring down the BV and C bill cost as any TAG laser increases the BV of guided munitions . 3rd and last do not just have homing Arrow IV rounds with TAG on board Semi Guided LRMs and to a far lesser extent if any mech morter rounds maximizes efficacy say a fresh mech gets hit with 2 Homing Arrow IV rounds doing 2 , 20 point holes in the armor followed up by LRM or mech morter hits trying to exploit those holes .
I found that running a company (12) arrow-iv tanks with tags to be quite adequate against an equivalently valued force of 'mechs by using "group fire" and open formations (roughly 2-4 hexes between tank pairs). While there's a strong argument for mixing in VTOL or Hovers with TAG instead of integrating it into the same chassis as the tanks, there's some argument for forcing a situation where the tag is applied from the closest tanks, while the Arrows are coming in from multiple sources in the formation further away.
not to mention the fun in double-blind play, the potential is good for a number of scenarios, since you can keep most of the force within 17 hexes of on another, and still have adequate room for indirect fire, esp. in built up terrain like urban, since clear line of sight isn't necessary for the tactic, and you're not tied to a single spotter.
th best
use is, oddly enough, not defensive, but instead, offensive, thus needing a decent MP rate on your carriers. (4/6 minimum in this case). Sweeping into an urban map with such a force, you can readily cause all sorts of vitriol from an icebox/energy twink, because he can only engage what his unit can
see, while you can engage him from units in the back line, or out of LOS with lethal results even if he's running creme-de-la-creme Clan Elites in Icebox Masakaris. (multiple 20 point hits, or 25 point hits, in a single round of fire and dropping that 'mech is going to cost him more BV than you'll lose when he takes the one right in front of him out.)
The big issue is Light 'mechs and forces-the kind that can generate significant Movement mods and foul up your TAG shot.
