Krugerannd

Looks like you're set up for serious social work.

Infantry got ignored in the beginning because what's the poster child for the game? The CAV. I want robots and I want all the robots. Big, small, tall, short, thin, fat, nimble, sluggish, heavily armed, lightly packing, able to make a pinpoint strike or just going to waddle over and sit on the enemy's house, we don't care we want the robots. Then you find out CAV's cost a bit TV pointwise, and you realize tanks are good too. And aircraft. And infantry can sue up that last 400 points you can't buy a squad with and then you're 4 orders into Talon Games and the credit card company would like a word with you. #1. Data card pdf's can be found here CAV: STRIKE OPERATIONS Downloads (talon-games.com) All the infantry data cards are under OPEN as all Factions share the same stats/models for Infantry. Also listed are Datacard pdfs for all Factions and documents listing all a faction's models type and points cost. May I also recommend a copy of the Cheat Sheets. The Special Ability one is almost Mandatory. #2. As far as kit-bashing or proxies go it's open season. Some make their own CAV's out of existing ones, some use models and other parts from other games. Some just buy things similar to what they want and say, "This is model x. Learn it, Love it, Live it." CAV is 10mm or N-Scale so as long as it is roughly the right size and can be easily identified it shouldn't be a problem. If you have access to 3-d printing Thingiverse can be a source of a mess of parts and vehicles. The last game I played my Recon squad of Nomad's were played by the Templar 99th Regiments' Mamba recon squad. We thank them for their service.

So I play Malvernis as my Primary faction. I own 5. Covid Lockdown was boring. Revenant (72289) Malvernis (Attack) - The big gun, long range weapons and slow as molasses. Most expensive Malvernis CAV points wise. I use one of him as my commanders CAV. Butcher (72290) Malvernis (Attack) - Good mix of weapons, suffers due to a lack of Ammo Bins as a crit fumble on the MRAC's can lead to the weapons being jammed for rest of the game. The Butcher B variant upgrades the Guided Missiles to a heavier medium mount and splits the Heavy R10 rocket launcher to a pair of Heavy R5 for the cost of an additional 92 points. The model tends to attract a bit of derogatory commentary over the lack of Ammo Bins to counter the MRAC's jamming but I run them because I love the model design and they're painted which is a rarity for me. I run 2 of them with 2 Wights and a Shadow in my Attack Squad. Haunt (72291) Malvernis (Fire Support) - Good movement, lots of indirect (IF) fire launchers, has a Fire Control System that gives a to hit bonus as long as other models in the Squad have one as well Also a Counter Measure system to break target locks, TAGs, or Locked On attempts. I run a pair of them with a pair of shades and a Shadow for my Fire Support squad. Shadow (72292) Malvernis (Recon) - One of our 2 Recon Cav's. Has EST (give its target lock to the rest of its squad automatically.) Active Phase Array 2 (APA if active gives +2 to all direct fire combat rolls and can bypass enemy ECM on an opposed roll) Add one to any Attack squad, particularly if they are packing Guided Missiles) to increase the squads effectiveness. Obake (72305) Malvernis (Attack) - Cruise Missile Platform and one of the few Malvernis models I don't own yet. Works well with a Shadow. Get a target lock from EST, stand back and fire away. Ghost (72293) Malvernis (Attack) - A light Cav it's lightly armed but is cheap and has a WIzzo and Advanced TC 1. Combine that with a target lock (Either its own or from a Shadow using EST) and it'll hit what it's shooting at more often than not. It just might not damage it. Pillager (72307) Malvernis (Attack) - our other big boi. Second most expensive and shorter range than a Revenant due to its Heavy Plasma Bolt Guns. But whatever you hit with those PBG's (especially if Overdriven) will know it's been kissed. Just watch out for critical fumbles on the overdrive roll as they'll explode and be unusable for the rest of the game. Shade (72297) Malvernis (Fire Support) - A light CAV armed with a pair of small Heavy rocket launchers and a heavy Autocannon. An Advanced Targeting Computer 1 gives a small bonus to hit rolls. I use as a pair with my Haunts and a Shadow in the Fire Support squad to save on points. List building. Currently the only models Malvernis has for Recon that exist as a specific model are the Shadow and the Razor. So, if you want to run a squad of Nomads or Stalker vehicles for cheap recon, you'll need to make your own or use proxies. I skipped that part and just added a Recon CAV to my attack and fire support squads. I don't get to move cards in the initiative deck like James does but the squads have ready access to APA, TAG and EST (Shadow) or ECM and EST (Razor). You may have noticed when mentioning my squads, they have 5 models instead of 4. That's because to build a Malvernis Faction list you run 5 models per squad instead of 4. You only have to do this if playing a Faction list. I do it because of gamer OCD and a desire to build a Faction regiment of my own. You do not have to do so and to the best of my knowledge any tournament you may attend will not use the Faction rules anyway. Also, Faction rules are being revamped with the new rules drop (whenever that is happening) so let's build lists to a 4-model standard. I have attached a test force built to 5000 TV points and using basic army composition rules and the assumption you have at least 2 of every model mentioned. The list is 9 models total with an Attack Squad, Fire Support squad and Specialist Squad with a Revenant (Specialist squads can have 1-4 models and is generally the catch-all squad to spend remaining points. But that's my opinion and I could very well be wrong.) 1 purchase I highly recommend if you continue to grow Malvernis is the Banshee. essentially a floating Heavy Plasma Blast gun they are quick, nimble and will wreck almost anything when applied in squad force on a single target. However, they are a bit fragile and tend to lose their only armament if you keep overdriving the PBG. But for Flanking, Assassination Runs, Harassment, ECM removal and generally being a pain in the butt to the opposition I don't think we have anything better. On the subject of Infantry, I have not used any yet. However, during my research I've been informed you will need transportation if you want them to get anywhere to do anything of use during the game (they slow.) or to buy them the ODST upgrade (if you use upgrades in your game) so they can do a HALO drop into position (or somewhere nearby where they're supposed to be). I am adding Infantry to my Army and using stolen I mean "repurposed" Ritterlich Armadillo transports to act as Malvernis Raider transports as I like the look and they're tracked like a Raider. 1 Raider will carry 4 Light or Heavy Infantry bases or 2 Power Armor bases. Hopefully this was helpful and not boring. Jim Test force.pdf

I went to the local JoAnn fabrics and got material in green or brown or grey and cut it to 4'x6' to make the play area and then used more material in different colors to make terrain cut outs for hills, forests and ponds so they'll show up better against the playmat when I was running Warmachine tournaments. Spent maybe $40 and an afternoon with a pair of scissors and a ruler. 4'x6 is about the smallest size I would use for CAV. 4' x 8' would probably be better.

As a owner of infantry I find this information of great import and use. Cause I was having problems figuring out how they were supposed to damage anything but light tanks and cavs. Although I suppose they would keep the Banshees out of the back field.

Cause you can't put decals on them right?

I shan't be able to attend tonight. I would like to say Jon is negotiating with Paramount to sell the movie or T.V. show rights to CAV to them. I would like to say he's negotiating with Orbit Books to sell the novelization rights to CAV to them. I would like to say he found a deal on a vehicle used in the filming of Rat Patrol and is joyriding through the Kansas fields. However, knowing the kind of luck he's had so far this year he's probably got a 7ft geyser of raw sewage in the factory or a satellite has fallen on his truck or that woman from the city who had him in front of a judge about the grass clippings managed to get him run out of town.

Ah, the subtle difference in spelling threw me off.

Point blank annihilations. The hard counter to everything.

Six sources of APA but no ECM? Do you not find ECM as useful as APA or does it not fit with the carefully thought out battle plan?

Very nice. Poltergeists are on the To Purchase list along with some Razors. Did you find the APA to be useful? I've got 3 Shadows but haven't seemed to get the knack yet. They tend to explode on me.

So today we had our 3rd game in a series where we learn the rules and try new things. Below we have the Templar force The Order. Today they brought a Attack squad of 2 Centurion Mk.2's, 1 Crusader and a Spartan and a Specialist Squad of 2 Flail fire support tanks. Here we have the Malvernis Force The Swift Death consisting of an Attack Squad of 5 Banshee hover tanks, a Recon Squad of 4 Nomad vehicles (played ironically by Templar Mambas) and a Specialist Squad of 2 Butchers (with external FCS and Ammo Bin add-ons), 1 Specter B and 1 Shadow. The initial deployments were as thus. The Templar spread out a bit and the Flails started behind the hill on the Right expecting to rain rockets down from afar while the CAV's blasted anything coming over the bridge. The Malvernis deployed the Specialist Squad in the Center to blast anything trying to come over the bridge while the Banshees deployed on the left side with intent to cross the river and hit the flank while the CAV's forced the bridge. The Nomads spread out to provide overlapping ECM bubbles so that if someone got frisky with their MAC's or R10's there would still be coverage. The Malvernis got the first activation and started by advancing the Nomads and activating the ECM. The Banshees on the second card flip and followed suit and advanced forward 10" to activate Double Time but skipped their next action as they didn't want to get too far ahead just yet. Templar got the 3rd card and activated their Flails which tried lobbing Rockets at the enemy but they missed. Malvernis got the 4th card and activated their Specialist squad. The Shadow, having flashbacks to last game where it died Turn 1 ran for the Forest and grabbed a Target Lock on a Centurion which it passed to the rest of the squad via EST. It then remembered it's Chameleon ability and tried very hard to look like a tree. The Specter B moved forward and pelted the rearmost Centurion with Guided Missiles at Extreme Range and actually did 2 damage and a Suppression and Knock Down due to a Critical Hit, Shock and a Failed Piloting Check. The Butchers moved forward and appeared to lay down an additional 3 damage but then it was realized that sometime during their activation their owner had a stroke and started playing Warhammer 40k rules and completely cheated on their attacks. He then apologized and walked all their shooting back. The last activation card went to the Templar Specialist squad where the Spartan took shelter in the valley and popped it's ECM, the Rearmost Centurion stood up and tried to repair itself and failed and the front most Centurion advanced and found out it was out of range for any MAC attacks. The Crusader advanced but couldn't get a target lock to pass with EST due to all the ECM and couldn't shoot anything due to the short range PBG's it carries. Next up I forgot to take pictures in order so I'm sure I missed something. For Malvernis the Banshee's did a double move and started crossing the River. The Nomads moved up as far as they could to keep the ECM umbrella out as far as they could. The Specialist squad advanced on the Bridge in preparation for crossing while the Shadow remained in seclusion in the forest. For the Templar the Centurions moved past the Spartan to range on the enemy. They did manage to ding a Banshee despite Double time and a lack of target locks. The Flails managed to drop a brace of rockets on a Nomad and damage it pretty good. Here we have a picture of some Banshees enjoying the water. So those of you may remember that the 2 Centurions had advanced to bring their MACs to bear on the enemy. This time the Banshee's advanced to bring their PBG's to bear on the Centurions which they promptly Overdrove. End result 1 Banshee with no gun (Crit Fumble) a 2nd Banshee getting scratched and a severely dead Centurion. Here the Remaining Centurion fired it's MAC's and dealt 3 more damage to an already scratched Banshee. The Crusader racked up it's PBGs and laid a hurt on the lead Butcher for 6 damage due to Overdriven guns and a high roll. The Butcher, shaken by the hit, did not return nearly as much damage. On Round 7 the Banshee's destroyed the 2nd Centurion with massed Overdriven PBG's and managed a shot against the Spartan which knocked it down on a failed pilot check. At this point my opponent conceded defeat and we ended the game. Things learned today. 1. Again it's a numbers game. The side with more squads gets more cards in the initiative deck and more opportunities to react to and counter enemy moves 2. If one side brings a recon squad and the other doesn't, the side that doesn't is at a severe disadvantage. Between ECM not allowing target locks making long range fire inaccurate and preventing the use of Guided Missiles and the Recon Squad ability to move flipped initiative cards to the bottom of the deck that weakly armed, poorly armored squad can cause problems way out of proportion to the points spent. 3. Overdriven PBG's hurt like hell. Keep them away from you or kill them on the other side of the table. 4. Fire Support Models need Target Locks, and LOS (if possible) in order to use Rockets effectively. The idea of raining Hellfire down on your enemy from a safe distance away is a nice one but in practice without Target Locks the penalties to Long or Extreme range bombardments are too high. I don't think a single IF salvo fired today landed on target. All damage done was from scattered shots. 5. Hover tanks skimming over water look cool. Hover tanks skimming over water and then destroying Super Heavy CAV's in 1 turn look REALLY Cool. P.S. CAVBoss if you're reading this every faction needs to have models for it's Recon Vehicles. They are too damn useful not to use and by my count Malvernis, Ritterlich and Almirithil have none and Adon has the Dragonfly aircraft which is nice and all but it doesn't have ECM.

So basically this is just to check my math on this one. You have a Fire Support squad consisting of 1 Spartan Recon CAV and 3 Sovereign III Fire Support CAV's. The Spartan has EST and TAG. The Sovereign III's have FCS and Adv Targeting Computer 1 The Spartan declares a target lock on point A which may or may not have a enemy model standing on it. The Spartan uses EST to relay this target lock to the Sovereign III's The Sovereign III's will each get a +3 to their Strike Point roll due to the following +1 from the target lock triggering the Adv. Targeting Computer +2 from the FCS system as each Sovereign III has one and the max bonus available from FCS is +2 If the Sovereign III's can individually see (have LOS) to the Strike Point they would get a further +1 for a total of +4 to the Strike Point roll. For the Combat roll the only bonuses would be if the target was Disabled, Immobile, Stationary or Prone or if the Sovereign III's Salvo Fired their 2 Heavy R10 rocket pods. The Spartan's TAG does nothing as nobody is using Guided Missiles and you can't feed TAG through a EST system anyway. Right?

Thoughts. Well after retreating to the restroom to sit upon the Throne of Wisdom and contemplate the if's as Marcellus Wallace would say I've come to the following thoughts. 1. What you describe is by my way of thinking a stronger, faster, better Specialist squad for the Secondary side of things. I say this because as I understand it the differences are. A) A Primary Specialist squad is 1-4 models be they CAV's, Tanks, Infantry or Aircraft where as the Provisional squad is 4-6 models and limited to CAV's and Tanks only? B) The Specialist squad will not benefit from the Fire Support or Recon freebies like the Provisional squad will. I can see it being of benefit for the smaller point armies as a Specialist squad and a Provisional squad will give you an army of 5-10 models that could literally be any damn thing on the wall (playing a pirate or Merc force) or allowing faction forces to take that 1 Aircraft and your Lucky 3 Infantry stands in the Specialist squad (They killed a rampaging Dictator B solo doncha know) that you want and then filling out the rest of the army with the cheaper tank and CAV options in the Provisional Squad while still having access to the ELINT capabilities of Recon models, Long Range firepower of Fire Support and Upfront shooting of Attack. Example: Malvernis 2000 pts Specialist Squad 1x Ghast (Aircraft/Attack) @ 243 Tv 3x Power Armor Medium mortar infantry (Infantry/Fire Support) @ 177 Tv Provisional Squad 1x Wight (CAV/Attack) @ 596Tv 1x Shadow (CAV/Recon) @ 280 Tv 2x Banshees (Vehicle/Attack) @ 436 Tv 1x Shade (CAV/Fire Support) @ 236 Tv Total 1968 Tv Now I'm not saying the above list makes any kind of rational, logistical or tactical kind of sense, I just threw it together as an example of what could be done (assuming I got my facts straight, of course.) The Provisional squad would be classified as an Attack squad as its 3 Attack models to 1 Fire Support and 1 Recon. But you have a little of everything available and can explore your options without having to drop $60 in models to play. Although I have no idea why you wouldn't drop $60 or more as there's so many options and they're all priced to move.

If I remember correctly the rules for list building for the various factions is going to be in the upcoming Journal of recognition? I probably asked this before but can't remember the answer I got if any. Will Malvernis stay at a 5 unit per squad standard for faction benefits or are they changing to a 4 unit per squad?