Friday 3 July 2015

Shaking The Rust Away

This is my focal point!
"Alright boys, bring her in and get her on the lift. Oh lordy, it's worse than we thought. I didn't know that rust could grow on top of rust! Bloody things weren't built to last five years, let alone two hundred and fifty. Right, get the WD40 out, we could be here a while!"

While my boys work on the latest Alfa Romeo they have brought in to be reconditioned and pimped out, come in and sit down in the office of my underground garage bunker and share some whisky. Well, more moonshine than whisky. Well, more pure diesel than moonshine. Living in occupied New London is hard...
On Tuesday I had my first game with Resistance since playtesting, and I can tell you that I've been really looking forward to this. I've been a total Jellyhead for the last nine months or so, and to shift to the other side feels strangely liberating!

For starters, the models! The beautiful, riveted models! Cars and tanks and trucks and helicopters - it's all so cool. I now get to fiddle and play with my collection of the best looking models in the game (I mean no offense to the Scourge, but y'know...)! They're not necessarily all made yet, but who really has time to assemble and pin a Thunderstorm; the size of the model makes me feel like I should take it to an actual garage. It's like a kit-car! Generally though the reason most of the models haven't been finished is that I have grand plans for this army, so a lot is blu-tac'd together and will be for a while. Apologies to my future adversaries, but you're going to be playing against Scourge Warriors rather than Occupation Vets for a while.

Let's talk about the list and the game. I've been preaching for a while now that the Resistance are a shoe in for a duel commander lst, and as I think the saying goes 'If a man ain't worth his word, he ain't worth salt'. The more I read that the less correct it feels. Who's valued in salt? Anyway, duel commanders. One Thunderstorm and one Alexander, forming together to become the Thundexander! These units form the bulk of the AT (and points), so I have filled the rest with the general units required to win at DzC. I say general units, the list may have three squads of Occupation Veterans in it... At first glance it may look light on AT, but never underestimate a drive-by Veterans unit. I've lost a ton of units down to just forgetting that these guys pack an E11 shot that veeeeeery rarely misses. Here, take a butchers at the list:

The list delivers a hard punch, but lacks in areas

For the game I played Alex (Mr Epitude Rusk) and his PHR in Take and Extract. This is far from my favourite mission, but it posed a good general test run for all of my units.

The result of the game was unexpectedly great. I won by six to five VPs, and if using the KP table it would have been by a large margin more. The only walker poor Alex had left was his Zeus... The Vets took out two Helios and an Odin; I told you not to underestimate them! I ran the Thunderstorm up one flank supported by the Cyclones and a squad of Gun Wagons. The Thunderstorm laid waste to a Helios, Menchit and Phobos (and a half), and completely dominated his side of the board. Meanwhile the Alexander trundled around the central FP, finishing of damaged units. 

The synergy between the Thunder and Alex is interesting. The hover-beast is undoubtedly a better unit, but in its own way the Alex is sly. It can remain on the edge of an opponents focus due to the slab of warmachine flying around elsewhere, and take pop shots at buildings and vulnerable units. It is very much a hunter of the weak. My only two complaints with it is that I keep rolling ones for the large gun (not sure I can blame the Alex for that though, stupid hands) and I wish the E7 guns were E8. It would mean that they can do more than simply shoot buildings!

I'm looking forward to getting more games in with these bad boys, and will keep you posted on every step of the way!

11 comments:

  1. Go Resistance! But which deck are you going with? Allied or Feral?

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    1. Allied at the moment, proved useful on Tuesday to heal up a brave unit of Vets twice. I need to tweak things though, so we will see where that takes me!

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  2. Welcome to the Resistance side! After the Expo I've gone feral with mine and the dual Alex/Thunderstorm combo has been a favourite of mine since then. Be interested to see what kind of list you've been running

    -Adam

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  3. Can you post your list? I'm really down on the Alexander right now =/

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  4. Thx for the write up. I like the Custom Alex idea. I ran dual Alex today and it did ok.
    FM

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  5. It's not you, Dan. I think the big gun on the Alex is cursed. LOL.

    Ah, my poor Resistance! They have been languishing as I slave over my Secret PHR Project and try desperately to get them ready for GenCon, while using my UCM as my second stringers. But I botched priming a swath of Lifthawks, and am now seriously thinking about either replacing all 4 of them (ouch$!), or risking stripping them, which is not my forte. In any event, it's monsoon season here in AZ, so I'm going to have to wait a while before I turn my attentions back to the Resistance lads...

    But glad you've jumped in! Can't wait to hear more about how they're working out for you.

    I don't yet have a Thunderstorm, but I have a Leviathan that I can proxy as one for a bit. I've read a lot about the dual commander loadout you describe here, and have been convinced to give it a go at some point. Lotsa points, that is, and I do loves me my Cyclones, but I think off the top of my head that a Custom plus an Alex means I can't afford to bring any Hannibals, but at the same time, sounds like I might not need to...

    Please, do, post up your current army list...

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    1. I've found that as soon as I put the Thunderstorm in my AT capability far outstrips what I could have done with the Hannibals. This let me put a scout group back in (Which you NEED if you're playing Feral Resistance). Though recently I've been finding my Zhukov's to be a little lackluster. Though it may be lack of the right mindset for them.

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    2. The Thunderstorm is just miles better than the Hannibal. It hits harder, is more difficult to remove from the table and is more manoeuvrable despite its enormous size. It is just better all round! I'm beginning to see issues with the Hannibal's effectiveness, as it really only has two guns (ans one is single use) which are of consistent use. If the side arms were E8 or 9 it may be worth it's points cost, but right now I don't believe it is. More on that later!

      Also, I'll add the list at the time of posting to this post tomorrow!

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    3. You do mean the Alexander, not the Hannibal, right, Dan?

      8^P

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  6. Right, after public demand the list I have used for the last couple of games is up! It has been fairly heavily changed now, but I'm still half-happy with it.

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