Battle Armor and its uses

[Coriendal]

I have never really understood the value of battlearmor.  It is slower than mechs and vehicles with less armor and weaponry.  It is better than infantry but other than riding in on a mech or vehicle it doesn't seem like a great option.  Boarding spacecraft, check, makes sense.  In a city or confined space, potentially useful.  But general use escapes me.

Any simple explanations would be nice.

Dan

[AlphaMirage]

Try here the first replies in that thread will give you the game accurate use cases for them.

[Weirdo]

Best way to use most BA and infantry is to think of them like semi-mobile minefields. Drop them off in some nice terrain(pretty much anything that isn't right in the open) that you don't want your opponent moving into. They can relocate a bit, but overall their job is to stay in that general area and make hostiles regret entering that particular patch of planet.

And if nobody goes near them and they never end up firing a shot, that means that decent-sized patch of map was owned by you the whole game. Win-win.

Unless you have a fast means of moving them across the map (such as a fast Omni, APC, or air transport), they work best in games with objectives where one side can play the defender. Place them where your opponent HAS to go, and they have no choice but to poke the hornets nest.

If you do have fast transports, you can use them offensively. That group of assaults and heavies sniping across the map from heavy woods cover? Drop some squads on top of or right behind them, and I can promise they won't be staying in those woods for long.

Finally, don't forget that BA can use Infernoes, because there's a good chance your opponent will, and a single Inferno-10 salvo is a fun tool to keep in your back pocket.

[Paul]

I have never really understood the value of battlearmor.

As others have said, they're great for area denial, and pretty good when assaulting a static position if you can get them close enough. And you're not wrong for pointing out their potential in an urban environment. They offer a decent combination of durability and short range fire power, but are outperformed by 'Mechs unless you're bringing a whole bunch of them.

This is meant to echo what Weirdo said:
The big utility is not to use them to *replace* 'Mechs, but to use them together *with* 'Mechs. Create situations where the enemy has to make decisions, with few good options. Do they invest in dealing with the infantry first, or do they ignore them? Either way you make them pay for their choice. If they want to destroy them, make that very difficult by using terrain. If they want to ignore them, use that to get in good shots.
If an enemy always has to pick between your Mechs and your infantry when deciding what to focus on in a turn, you're doing well.
If your BA is stranded in some irrelevant corner of the battle, then yes, they're pointless. But it's up to you to transport them.

Finally, don't forget that BA can use Infernoes, because there's a good chance your opponent will, and a single Inferno-10 salvo is a fun tool to keep in your back pocket.

Really? I thought that only the Salamanders could do that?

[Weirdo]

Yup, per Total War (I forget the page), Infantry(BA included) are denied most alternate ammo, but Inferno is one of the few called out exceptions.

Even more fun is that they're assigned by salvo, so your basic Elemental can carry one salvo of standard missiles and one of Inferno, and they can be fired in any order desired. It's particularly fun to have a fire shot or two in a suit that carries several shots, like the Ogre. When you've got eight shots, players will often forget over the course of the game that *one* of them is Inferno. And then you just wait for one enemy mech to push their heat scale while wandering too close, and...fwoosh. 

[Charistoph]

What I like to do is use a fast, mobile unit to deliver them to the opponent's rear or heavy line, or in anticipation of where they will be so they can intercept them.  This is particularly useful against units which cannot move quickly.

They're kind of like a mobile mine field in that respect, true.  Either they have to move to avoid the Battle Armor, or risk getting hampered by them.  They are particularly deadly with their Anti-Mech Attacks, as they have more opportunities to Crit with them than Conventional infantry do.

I got lucky the other night, and a Point of Elementals relieved an otherwise minimally damaged Bruin of one of its Legs, which left it doing very little for the rest of the game, as it wasn't in a good position.

[Paul]

Yup, per Total War (I forget the page), Infantry(BA included) are denied most alternate ammo, but Inferno is one of the few called out exceptions.

Huh, I never realized that. Found it, it's page 229. Pretty sure it's a change, but it's a good one.
Also funny: torpedoes are an ammo, not a launcher... =)

players will often forget over the course of the game that *one* of them is Inferno.

lol! Great idea

[PuppyLikesLaserPointers]

Best way to use most BA and infantry is to think of them like semi-mobile minefields.

This is perhaps the best summarize for the battle armor(and also conventional infantry as well) on the battle focused on the ground armored units. They are pathetically slow compared by armors, and each one is easy to be killed while have very weak and (usually) suffered by short ranged shots, but because of this the unit of BA/CI you face is not the one personnel in the first place. A PPC can vaporize or cripple at worst a medium or lighter BA with armor point of 9 or less, but the most BA units have at least 4 BAs, and that one PPC shot could be spend for reducing the enemy mech/vehicle's armor by 10 instead. The infantry that needs the anti-armor weapon to be dispatched(or at least fast enough to do so), is a nuisance of its own already, and those 'infantry' also carries limited amount of mech/vehicle grade weapons as well. Those are lacking a big punch to penetrate a location and silence a mech immediately, but the overall damage isn't low enough to laugh off if they spent some load on the anti-mech grade weapons.

This fact, along with usually stuck at short ranged weapons and cheaper cost in overall, makes the summarize above; They cannot actively roam the battlefield and hunt down the enemy armor, but the armors are not so easily clear them and it's too inefficient to face to face and exchange close ranged shootings with them either. Not to mention that they may ambush and/or fight while within a building.

Their cheaper cost makes you easier to spend some to deny the designated field than place the full 20~100+ tons of armored units, and even if they didn't even had any shots through the battle as Weirdo pointed out if you don't want the opponent's units to be come closer to there they already earn their points.