Cracking Heavy Armor

[a spastic ninja]

So I've been playing a few months and I've been having trouble cracking heavy armor. One of my friends runs Karchev with a Destroyer, Devastator, Juggernaut, Beast 09 and Behemoth. Most of his lists are 3 or more of those 'jacks with the only infantry being mechanics. Every match we play he marches right up the middle of the field towing and keeping Karchev surrounded with jacks until the Devastator can charge my line and explode everywhere. I've tried everything I can think of to counter it but nothing seems to work; he keeps Karchev too well protected for me to get to him. Its gotten to the point where I don't even want to play against him because its not even an interesting game.

How do we deal with that much heavy armor? The Devastator is the biggest problem since knocking it down doesn't even reduce the armor.

[Drakor]

Ok if I was going to try and deal with this i would probably try ossy. First port of call some battle mages to pull away the jack blocking Los to him or preferbly a banshee to knock them both down. Withe them knocked down I'd look to eyriss to ping that focus and upkeeps off big K. Next if possible ayianna's kiss If not should still be fine.

So big K's on the ground and there's nothing in the way, activate ossy, feat, 2 units of brutal stormfalls and a mhsf should easily nail the guy.

[ucfan34]

You posted this in List Discussion with out your list. You'll get more responses if you repost in the main discussion area or post your list.

To get you started, one specific would be the MHSF+UA. No matter what he's running he's not hiding from this unit. Also, keep in mind Karchev counts as a warjack. I'm fairly certian MHSF will get their bonus dice against him (Someone will need to confir).

Without knowing what you're running I can only offer general advice.

Dealing directly...
Ossyan + feat turn + Ranged attacks.
Invictor CRA
Aiyana & Holt, using Aiyana to lower the arm on one of the jacks.
Sentinels

Dealing indirectly...
Pretty much anything that disrupts the jacks movement. Khador jacks are slow. Slowing them down will help you pick them off one by one.
Rahn TK
Rahn force hammer
Battle Mages force bolt
AFG rough terrain template

[a spastic ninja]

I've tried a dozen different lists, can't remember most of them. I'll post this in the main discussion too, thanks guys.

[Kaiser]

To get you started, one specific would be the MHSF+UA. No matter what he's running he's not hiding from this unit. Also, keep in mind Karchev counts as a warjack. I'm fairly certian MHSF will get their bonus dice against him (Someone will need to confirm).

MHSF do get the jack hunter bonus on Karchev. Combined with the UA, that would be potentially devastating to a nearly all jack list like that, especially on Ossy's feat turn. The only one that might give you a problem is the Devastator. 25 ARM is hard to crack with 3 or 4d6 + POW 10.

[a spastic ninja]

This is what I've come up with between this and the thread on the main board.

50 Points
Ossy
Banshee
Sylys

Max Invictors w/ Off
Max Sentinals w/ Off
Max Mage Hunters w/ Off
pEiryss
Issyen
Artificer

Use the artificer to protect the MHSF and Invicts from Behemoths guns while the Sentinals close under Quicken. Use the Sents to do some damage and tie him up while the MHSF, Archers, Invicts get into position for feat turn. Hopefully he wont have sidearms up and I can knockdown someone with the Banshee, then Eiryss to remove the focus, feat, wall of bullets. Issyen for cleanup/flanking mechanics.

Given his willingness to throw away his feat just for pathfinder the AFG's templates wont slow him down much. The big problem will be Beasts thresher if he gets close but he and the Devestator would be the prime targets for the Sentinals to bog down.

Edit: Actually, under the Artificer or Discordia the Devestator wouldnt even be that much of a threat.

[rolandhadley]

Here's what you want to do - you absolutely want to use a brute force Ossyan list, but there's a couple of things that should be adjusted from the list above.

Sub out the invictors (their accuracy isn't needed) and instead put in two units of Stormfalls, which is your nut cracker (along with the Max MHSF on feat turn)

I love Issyen, but he's not your most efficient piece in this list - take him out, and put in Aiyana and Holt for extra damage on your high damage targets.

You want to set up a feat turn of doom against this army. Step Ossyan forward, pop his feat and have Ossyan shoot the middle to make sure everything almost automaticaly autohits and that any survivors won't be charging at you.

Knock down the Devastator with the Banshee so that you can see all the other jacks. Have Eyriss disrupt the Banshee so that that piece won't be doing anything next turn. You can deal with it when that's all your opponent has got left.

Aiyana take 2 armor off the jack you want to kill most.

Then have your MHSF and Stormfalls simply shred the heavies. You should average about 88 points of damage on armor 20, plus anything Ossyan did, plus 2 per shot on the target that Aiyana weakened. You can probably kill three jacks, two if one is the devastator, or just kill Karchev if he's in range.

If you really want to kill the devastator, you can hit it with A&H, and then start with the stormfalls. Before they're done an arm will be gone, and then it will go down easy, probably leaving you enough damage to kill another jack.

Either way, the game should be quite manageable from this point on - the Sentinels can clean things up as needed.

EDIT: Bakaryu makes a great point in the other thread about MHA's and the Devastator. A&H + 2 MHAs will kill a Devastator by themselves.

[ucfan34]

I typed up the below while at work, so there have been replies in the interim. Without going back, I'm just gonna throw it out there.

The Artificer isn't going to keep up with the MHSF. You're best bet here is to run them behind a forest or building to block LOS from Behemoth. Then move up and try to shoot him from there. Or you could bunch them up and trundle around with the Artificer, but that's not too great.

What is pretty great with the Artificer & Ossyan Stormfall Archers. Bunch a unit (or two) of them up around the Artificer and they'll move aroung just fine. (you mention stormfalls in you strategy, but they aren't in your list.)

I'd drop the Sentinels for Halberdiers. They don't hit as hard, but way harder than most people anticipate if they're unfamiliar with them. They're also a prime Quickent target. Between Quicken, Reform, and Reach they've got a very nice shieldwall range. You'll also be at +1 arm over Sentinels.

I think you meant eEiryss.

If you're only going to take one jack, and you're running Ossyan I'd definately take Hypnos. Beast isn't doing much if he gets shot by Ossyan's gun, and any jack in general if you hit him with Hypnos's and eEiryss's guns.

I don't like Sylys with Ossyan as he has better casters to run with, but if character restrictions aren't an issue knock yourself out.

While trying to keep the core of your list, I'd go with the below.

Ossyan -6
Hypnos +9
Invictors + UA +12
Mage Hunter Strike Force + UA +9
Stormfall Archers +5
Stormfall Archers +5
Halberdiers +9
Artificer +3
Eyriss2 +3
Arcanist +1

Nothing wrong with trying you're list though. If it doesn't work just tweak what you can and keep on battling.

[a spastic ninja]

Oh yea, I think I meant to do Archers but clicked Issyen instead /facepalm. I'm trying to build the list without having to buy too much stuff, but it looks like I'm gonna at least pick up Aiyanna and eEiryss along with a second Archer unit (which I was planning to do anyway). I'm waiting to see how good eVyros is before I pick up Hynos since he's only great with Ossy and no use if eVyros becomes my main caster.

So besides whats in the list above I have:
1x magister
2x MHA
Discordia
1x Phoenix
1x Hydra
1x Daemon
1x Griffon
1x Aspis
1x Chimera
1x Dahlia and snake
1x Heavy Rifle Team
Vyros
Kaelyssa
Ravyn
1x Destor Thane
1x Scyir
1x Souless

So before I start buying more stuff I'm thinking:

Ossy -6
Banshee +10

Invictors + UA +12
MHSF + UA +10
Sentinals +UA +11
pEiryss +3
Artificer +3
MHA +2
Stormfall +5

Could swap the Artificer for another MHA and Arcanist or that and the MHA for another Archer unit once I pick them up

[rolandhadley]

If you organize for a good feat turn, that list should be more than sufficient to demolish most of your opponent's jacks in one blow. a jack-heavy Khador list.

[Lord Sessadore]

As has been said in the thread on the main board, MHSF are gold here - Karchev can't hide from them, they get their jack hunter bonus on him. If you can kill any of his heavies, you can kill Karchev. By the sounds of it, he's playing Karchev far forward with the rest of his jacks, which should make this cake with Ossyan.

[seraphius]

when facing high arm jacks or in this case a jackman! where the MHSF gets the bonus die i would say the easy way to solve the problem is

Ozzy
full MHSF with ua
A&H

With this combo you kiss jackman!! if you can for the bonus 2 dmg, if this is not possible then your MHSF will still deliver 11 pow 10 + 4 d6 to any jack or jackman!! they shoot at.

building around that i would say take Eeiryss and run her up to stall all jacks from getting focus for a round withinn 5 of her.
Include either a AFG or a Banshee for knockdown.