What mech (or unit in general) are you truly afraid of facing in a game?

[Tangoforone]

A little backstory to this question.  I played a game this past Saturday; there were 6 mechs on the opposing force, all advanced tech (3060s or greater) and excellent pilots (2 or 3 gunnery, 3 or 4 piloting).  I think the lightest unit was a Galloglas?

I had three lances consisting of 2 VTOL, 2 tanks, and the rest were mechs.  All average skills (4, 5).  All 3025 tech except for a few units (Fafnir, Blitzkrieg, and Uziel).

The VIP of that game, in my opinion, was the Awesome 8R.  It took fire from 2-3 opposing mechs almost every round for the entire game (7 rounds).  It got plastered.  No center torso armor, no left torso armor, almost all leg armor gone.  Getting internal damage by the middle of the game.  All it lost was a heat sink.  Did it get any kills?  No.  Did it do a decent job of living?  Yes.  Did it do a great job of making my opponent waste time trying to kill it?  Yes, yes it did.  (I am fully aware that some of the survival was luck of the dice; missing shots, not many crits, etc.).  It even took a PPC and two medium lasers to the rear and survived (I told the player not to bother with the rear armor, but he didn't listen). 

While I have never faced off against an Awesome (not sure why my normal gaming group hasn't seen the glory of this incredible unit), I am truly afraid to do so and play them as often as possible because of this. 

The times that I have played with the Awesome, it has failed to be killed and is either ignored or the center of fire.  I understand why; all energy load-out and a metric ******-ton of armor (most heavily rear-armored stock mech in the game).  Not to mention it's primary weapons are in the torsos, so you need to dig through all that armor to destroy one of them.  It's fairly heat neutral, and easy to keep the heat managed.

What are you most afraid of to face?  What do you play to strike fear into the enemy?

[Colt Ward]

Not specifically any unit, its more if I acknowledge a weakness in the force I am playing- for instance I tend to go lighter on mechs and play combined arms.  So if I have to face a Lyran wall of steel, its a bit of a problem with a time limit and if I do not have room.

We have a player who is a big MH fan so he will bring a Marian themed force when possible . . . and while I usually have AA, he has managed to enforce a healthy respect for the Karnov (RL) among the folks at the table.

With that said . . . I have gone to open games and gotten asked if I had that 'little shiny pulse hovertank' (Scapha with MVSPL) or a Phantom H.  Or artillery.

[Iceweb]

Old rules LAMs.  Stop kicking me in the back of the head!

[RoundTop]

Hellstar.  I see it and it is a priority fire mission. That thing hits hard, at range, and lays waste to all around it.

[Mendrugo]

I still have nightmares about losing an entire 3025-Era company to a custom LAM mounting 28 machine guns.

[AdmiralObvious]

Basically any dropship on the ground map?

Why has nobody mentioned this one yet?

[dgorsman]

Cruise missile artillery.
Pretty much any capital fortification.
Orbiting WarShip.

But small, tactical scale units?  Not much. 8)

[Caedis Animus]

I love using Osteons, but facing them down-especially in threes-is a rather terrifying prospect.

The entire chassis, especially in the Prime config, just absolutely will. Not. Die.

[Weirdo]

Basically any dropship on the ground map?

Why has nobody mentioned this one yet?

They're not that scary, honestly. If your game is balanced by any metric at all and one side has a DropShip on the ground, by extension you're almost guaranteed to have enough firepower to be able to core the ship in one or two turns.

[Paul]

Anything with 2 lbx20s.

Because it takes forever to resolve. Or forces you to use those loud and unpleasant diceboxes. Either way, i lose.

[Sartris]

Not specifically any unit, its more if I acknowledge a weakness in the force I am playing

this. it's like when i went to change the oil on my snowblower only to discover the bolt to drain the tank was a 10mm. I didn't own metric wrenches.

if you're going to rely on a particular schtick, don't bring it two weeks in a row because i guarantee i brought the right tools for that particular problem this time.

also hardened armor. shit's annoying.

Anything with 2 lbx20s.

Because it takes forever to resolve. Or forces you to use those loud and unpleasant diceboxes. Either way, i lose.

i loaded up a weekly pill container with those tiny 5mm d6s so rolling 21d6 sounds like shaking a tic tacs package now. not ideal but they keep the cluster hits around so what's a guy going to do

[Hayden.]

Fast moving hovercraft with skilled pilots on flat, clear terrain.

[Valkerie]

Fast moving hovercraft with skilled pilots on flat, clear terrain.

I'm going to have to second that.

I also hate facing Mad Cats. :flame:

[Weirdo]

Fast moving hovercraft with skilled pilots on flat, clear terrain.

#&@%^& Drillsons... :ticked:

Alpha Strike campaign started with our heavy mech company slogging through a swamp, harassed by a lance of Drillsons and some boats. First fight of the campaign, meant to be fairly easy. The boats died whenever we saw them, but those Drillsons practically cut us apart. He couldn't hit the buggers, and they did so much damage that the GM had to practically rewrite the campaign just it prevent it from ending then and there. Ever since that fight, our group made sure to devote special attention to any Drillsons we encountered. :beatdown:

I also hate facing Mad Cats. :flame:

Me and Mad Cats don't go well. If I'm facing any, I always seem to do poorly.

If I or an ally use any...things go even worse. xp

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Anything with 2 lbx20s.

Because it takes forever to resolve. Or forces you to use those loud and unpleasant diceboxes. Either way, i lose.

Funny thing.  I used a King Crab 005 in a game a couple weeks ago.  Never fired anything but slugs the whole game because it was teamed up with the WOB Viking variant so I used the LB20s to open up armor before soaking the target in SRMs.

[rebs]

Fast moving hovercraft with skilled pilots on flat, clear terrain.

This.

All the back hits are a nightmare.

[StoneRhino]

Nothing really. Some say that I am rather jaded, but after the crazy stuff that my friends threw my way back in the days, there isn't really anything that registers beyond mild annoyance. There were the hellstars before hellstars in the first game; clan LAMs that had targeting computers, TSM, pulse lasers, and rolled pilots that were at least veterans; Super-Heavy tanks; artilery, smoke, mines, and flood of BA; mechs attempting to go nuclear every turn; all with really great pilots while I had green as green can be pilots. Anything that would be considered fear was kicked out of me years ago and using BV to regulate games has made things kinda tame in comparison.

Units that are annoying? I would say an era's Awesome is annoying. It's not so much that it has lots of armor since there are bigger mechs with more armor being used. Its just that it tends to get rather lucky and has to basically be completely erased by destroying each bubble of armor and IS before it damaged enough to be removed from play. When you see one firing everything even though it was overheating because the player assumed it was dead this turn, no...this turn, nope..maybe this turn, because I couldn't hit it's ct with a whopping 2 or 3 points left in it. That has been partially my fault for not throwing large amounts of fire at it to make sure it is dead, instead relying upon averages but seeing the damage spread constantly to anywhere but the most likely location to be hit for 3 turns in a row.

[phoenixalpha]

Hunchback 4P in 3025 games
Nova Prime and/or Komodo in later ones.

[Teulisch]

LRM carriers. each of those tanks can put out 60 LRM missiles a turn for 8 turns, and a lance of them has 12 to-hit rolls. statistically at 11+ one of them will hit. at 10+ two of them will hit. at 9+ four of them will hit on average. at a straight 8+ at long rang, 5 of the 12 attacks will probably hit. each of those hits is probably gonna be 12 missiles (5, 5, and 2 damage clusters). and at 15 hit locations, you are very likely going to see either a head hit or a torso crit.

and those are the average results, for average crew. at 833 BV, each of those tanks is cheaper than a Jenner, and they use ICE as well. with indirect fire, they dont even need line of sight to the target if they have a spotter. sure they suck at close range, but the only thing scarier than an LRM carrier, is an SRM carrier. at ten SRM6 each, anything close enough to be in range is going to be in trouble. generally you can try to kill them from range, but if they act as a bodyguard for the LRM carriers, then you have problems.

[ActionButler]

Fast moving hovercraft with skilled pilots on flat, clear terrain.

Yup

[Kovax]

...but the only thing scarier than an LRM carrier, is an SRM carrier. at ten SRM6 each, anything close enough to be in range is going to be in trouble.

This.  Park an SRM carrier just back from any long-range threat, and nothing is likely to survive closing with the long-range unit.  LRM Carriers are a priority target; SRM Carriers need to be nuked from orbit, twice, just to be certain.

[Sartris]

Fast moving hovercraft with skilled pilots on flat, clear terrain.

artillery cannons

[Kojak]

- Turkina Ds

- Viking IICs

- Hellstars

- Hueys with lots of spotters

[BloodRose]

Wolverine lances are nasty, but I can second the Awesomes, they are a pain in the ass to deal with if you cant close the distance. Although I have yet to encounter LRM carrier spam I can guess it is pretty nasty, but the worst I know of is the humble Demolisher. In a city map. A close second are those Lightning Hovercraft on an open/semiopen map. Fast, pulse armed and the rocket ones are just a pisstake.

[JPArbiter]

As far as alpha strike is concerned... the gyrfalcon terrifies me.  Reflective armor, stupid TMMs and ability to reach out at range.

Put a skill 3 pilot in thier as part of a battle lance and you basically cant touch it with direct attacks unless you got a skill 1 or 2 mech in return, and you best have overwhelming damage, reengineered lasers, or LRM or Ac Special attacks.

None of which my beloved House Steiner are big on...

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

The Steiner love-affair with Gauss rifles doesn't help in Alpha Strike?

[Caedis Animus]

Hell, just kick the damn thing. A Uziel 8S might not be able to do more than scratch damage, but you can move as fast as (Unless the Gyrfalcon uses MASC) and jump harder than a Gyrfalcon. And yes, I do realize the difficulty of trying to get close to it being the main hard part.

You're basically throwing AC/20s on the kick table thanks to reflective, and a GyrFalcon isn't going to be doing much moving when it's Star Commander Dan.

EDIT; Nevermind, just realized that it's alpha strike.

[Dies Irae]

Hetzers in cities, which seems laughable at first, but hear me out.

Yes. Hetzers. They're cheap, fragile, slow-ish and generally easy prey in small numbers. Thing is, with the number of actual specialist Hetzer variants (Large bore autocannon, SRM Boat, LRM Boat, Sensor Deployment) etc that you can make an entirely viable layered urban defence with the damn things.

When commanded by a player who isn't worried about taking losses and who is willing to force trades, they actually take some effort to get rid of compared to the missile carriers and can't be crit into irrelevance like heavy tanks (well, they can. There's just more Hetzers past that point.)

After a point, in their preferred environment, just stacking Hetzers to a force with infantry support can snowball a garrison into a deathball to the point you're considering burning down the city because you're not sure if there's a Hetzer hiding in a parking garage.

[Fear Factory]

Since I like the ASN-21... anything that isn't that.  :D

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

After a point, in their preferred environment, just stacking Hetzers to a force with infantry support can snowball a garrison into a deathball to the point you're considering burning down the city because you're not sure if there's a Hetzer hiding in a parking garage.

Wait, burning down the city isn't your first response?

[JPArbiter]

The Steiner love-affair with Gauss rifles doesn't help in Alpha Strike?

Halves damage from mechs with ENE, its a -1 to everything else.

Again, only AC, LRM, SRM and IF attacks or re engineered lasers can do full damage, but those alredy have penalties applied

Hell, just kick the damn thing. A Uziel 8S might not be able to do more than scratch damage, but you can move as fast as (Unless the Gyrfalcon uses MASC) and jump harder than a Gyrfalcon. And yes, I do realize the difficulty of trying to get close to it being the main hard part.

You're basically throwing AC/20s on the kick table thanks to reflective, and a GyrFalcon isn't going to be doing much moving when it's Star Commander Dan.

EDIT; Nevermind, just realized that it's alpha strike.

Yeah Gyrfalcons in standard are challenging but managable. Some Melee mechs like the scarabus and nightsky can be pretty devastating, but The problem is getting in range. The best melee mech for facing a Gyrfalcon is a Ti Ts’ang DDC.

The odds of those two mechs crossing paths is unlikely. Maybe when both the Ccaf and Jad Falcons land on Terra...

[Dies Irae]

Wait, burning down the city isn't your first response?

Only on 'Warcrime Wednesdays' and only if I've been really really good that week.

[Sartris]

Wait, burning down the city isn't your first response?

...yes

[Kojak]

...the gyrfalcon terrifies me.  Reflective armor, stupid TMMs and ability to reach out at range..

Yeah, I haven't really played against them yet, but the fact that I'll be going up against Gyrfalcons with my Horses in the nearish future is definitely worrisome...they sound like a huge pain to deal with, and among the Falcon forces I'm building as an opfor there's a Cluster with two full Gyrfalcon Stars, which I'm betting will be an absolute nightmare to fight.

[AdmiralObvious]

Now that I think about it. I'm actually pretty scared of Saladins. They're basically Hetzers, but WAY faster. Their BV is very similar, and if you're using that as a method of balancing, they can be just as prolific as the Hetzer.  I remember playing a game against one of my friends on a campaign track he made. It was supposed to just be a simple site raid. Turned out the garrison rolled quite a few Saladins... They ended up somehow blowing the head off of two of my 'Mechs in one turn. Needless to say I was pretty salty. I probably devote more firepower to killing them than i should now...

[Hellraiser]

While I have never faced off against an Awesome (not sure why my normal gaming group hasn't seen the glory of this incredible unit), I am truly afraid to do so and play them as often as possible because of this. 

The times that I have played with the Awesome, it has failed to be killed and is either ignored or the center of fire.  I understand why; all energy load-out and a metric ******-ton of armor (most heavily rear-armored stock mech in the game).  Not to mention it's primary weapons are in the torsos, so you need to dig through all that armor to destroy one of them.

has to basically be completely erased by destroying each bubble of armor and IS before it damaged enough to be removed from play.

This.

Its not that the Awesome is that AWESOME, but that its probably going to take an overly large amount of effort on my part to kill it.

I tend to avoid them & kill things that aren't such Zombies first & then devote my entire force to it once its the only thing left standing.

What are you most afraid of to face?

You know, not much, the basics,  DireWolves & Hellstars because like the Awesome they won't go down, but have MUCH more firepower while they are still standing.

Not that they are unbeatable, just that its going to be a pain doing it.

What do you play to strike fear into the enemy?

Pretty much everything apparently.   

My current group seems to feel that facing me is a guaranteed loss even though I've lost 2 fights since last summer.  (We only play monthly)

I believe the issue is that I tend to force build to cover weaknesses.

Things like Multiple C3 or TAG spotters so you have to do more than kill just 1.   Or the 1 Spotter I bring is a 8 Jumping 55 Tonner w/ Compact Gyro, TSM, & SFE & is NOT going to die w/o a lucky gauss to the head.

Covering weaknesses like tossing in MMLs with LRMs so they body guard or AC20 Demolishers w/ Precision Ammo to cover your LRM Carriers or C3M units.

I've never seen a Preta-Dominus so annoyed as when he had to win initiative 2-3 turns in a row to get through a Saladin & Demolisher w/ Precision combo to get at the juicy thin skinned LRM Carriers.

Even Taranis/Marauder BA riding your Schiltron/DI Morgan so they can dismount & be a royal pain of critseekers/sandblasters after you've had the Morgan use a TC Assisted Triple Gauss on you.

Pairing up unhittable Grendals with Coronas riding them to drop off at strategic locations & DireWolves providing fire support with more BA watching their backs.


Its all about being able to do more than 1 thing well & covering your own weaknesses so that you can't be suckered by them & can hurt the enemy in multiple ways so they don't have a single perfect defense.

I'm also "usually" fairly efficient w/ BV.   That 55 tonner mentioned above is an exception but most the time if I have a roll to fill & 1 unit is 2/3 the BV on another unit but both get the job done, then I'll use the lower of the 2 so that I can stick that BV into something else.

[Hellraiser]

I probably devote more firepower to killing them than i should now...

Not Possible.   

Do WHATEVER is necessary in life to avoid the AC20 HOVER from getting into your Rear Arc.

Nuking from Orbit is considered viable v/s letting one of them get loose in your rear area.




Though myself, I tend to use them to defend my rear area v/s attacking someone else.

Nothing makes that FireMoth-H question his move more than a Precision-Saladin roaming the backfield just looking to eat the next fast mover coming around the tree line.

[Nightsong]

LRM carriers. each of those tanks can put out 60 LRM missiles a turn for 8 turns, and a lance of them has 12 to-hit rolls. statistically at 11+ one of them will hit. at 10+ two of them will hit. at 9+ four of them will hit on average. at a straight 8+ at long rang, 5 of the 12 attacks will probably hit. each of those hits is probably gonna be 12 missiles (5, 5, and 2 damage clusters). and at 15 hit locations, you are very likely going to see either a head hit or a torso crit.

and those are the average results, for average crew. at 833 BV, each of those tanks is cheaper than a Jenner, and they use ICE as well. with indirect fire, they dont even need line of sight to the target if they have a spotter. sure they suck at close range, but the only thing scarier than an LRM carrier, is an SRM carrier. at ten SRM6 each, anything close enough to be in range is going to be in trouble. generally you can try to kill them from range, but if they act as a bodyguard for the LRM carriers, then you have problems.

Oh yes. I love using LRM carriers, preferably with some fast NARC boat (the Jenner custom from the Sword and Dragon pack comes to mind). Bodyguards like SRM carriers, Hetzers and Demolishers will pretty much hose you coming or going.

[Kovax]

Now that I think about it. I'm actually pretty scared of Saladins. They're basically Hetzers, but WAY faster.

My usual response to a Saladin is to go out after it with something like a Saracen or J. Edgar BEFORE it gets into gun range.  In my opinion, the big gun but paper-thin sides on a Saladin make it a great potential threat to keep the opponent on the defensive, but it tends to get cored as soon as you bring it out of cover and try to use it offensively.  "Priority Target" doesn't even come close to describing the hysterical spasm of counter-action that they tend to trigger.  To me, they're a "skirmisher" unit, a deadly one by all means, but no more than that.  They can't stand toe-to-toe with much of anything else for more than a turn, and are highly susceptible to motive crits, so they're especially vulnerable to your own skirmisher units.  Since I tend to favor playing skirmish units and actions over main battle lines, I RESPECT them, but don't FEAR them.

An SRM Carrier is something I FEAR, and will go out of my way to kill with anything at my disposal, because they have a fairly high likelihood to crit-kill practically any unit on the map in one round of fire, if they get in range.