Mech Lists - lets see them

[DerangedGamer123]

How do you mech 1 and 2 commander games?

[TheGreg]

I've been running steel legion, electrocutioners, and a rail gunner with kassa for some time now, leaves me a scrip for an asset for kassa but if I'm up against ke where their mobility isn't an issue I'll put an engineer in the electrocutioners instead. When the cards are working it works awesome and if they aren't I did very quickly but I have a ball running it which is all that matters 🙂

[DerangedGamer123]

On ‎11‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 2:52 PM, TheGreg said:

I've been running steel legion, electrocutioners, and a rail gunner with kassa for some time now, leaves me a scrip for an asset for kassa but if I'm up against ke where their mobility isn't an issue I'll put an engineer in the electrocutioners instead. When the cards are working it works awesome and if they aren't I did very quickly but I have a ball running it which is all that matters 🙂

Come on you can at least format the list a little better with upgrades taken and synergies!!!!

[TheGreg]

Lol best I could do at work, as far as upgrades go I like deflector shield on kassa if a think she's going to come under pressure,  I like experimental rocket on electrocutioners For a bit more ranged support. If I'm playing a ranged army and I think kassa is fairly safe from assassin's I don't put any upgrades on her, Just make sure she's hidden behind something, and I put an engineer in the electrocutioners for extra ranged attack options, card draw and survivability,  a rail gunner is handy too. So my usual list goes like this-

Kassa okoye +25

Electrocutioners 10

Steel Legion 12

Rail gunner 2

Leaving me 1 scrip to pick either deflector shield or an engineer, being Abyssinia we get free prototypes anyway so the units get upgrades to play around with. It's not a big army but one I've had good success with against cotbm and kings empire.

Alot get surprised with the maneuverability of this army too so use that to your advantage,  plus it won't take long for your opponents to realise against steel legion their titans are as tough as a wet paper bag so they will definitely target them, I use that so my electrocutioners can pick the strongest units and waste em.

[Beetle941]

Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the point of Kassa in the list? It seems to me that most of her abilities benefit non combined arms titans. I like the idea of the list alot, but Kassa could easily be replaced by Unathi for more support

[DerangedGamer123]

3 hours ago, Beetle941 said:

Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the point of Kassa in the list? It seems to me that most of her abilities benefit non combined arms titans. I like the idea of the list alot, but Kassa could easily be replaced by Unathi for more support

What would your list be?

[retnab]

10 hours ago, Beetle941 said:

Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the point of Kassa in the list? It seems to me that most of her abilities benefit non combined arms titans. I like the idea of the list alot, but Kassa could easily be replaced by Unathi for more support

Totally depends on how you're building.  If you're taking a mix of Dreadnought/Mech Infantry/Steel Legion then Kassa's probably a better bet.  But if you're bring Electrocutioners or want access to auto-Reinforcing, Prince U's your call.  Or hey, bring both and let Kassa give the Cutter's extra actions while Prince U auto-Reinforces them when they get injured.

[Beetle941]

32 minutes ago, retnab said:

Totally depends on how you're building.  If you're taking a mix of Dreadnought/Mech Infantry/Steel Legion then Kassa's probably a better bet.  But if you're bring Electrocutioners or want access to auto-Reinforcing, Prince U's your call.  Or hey, bring both and let Kassa give the Cutter's extra actions while Prince U auto-Reinforces them when they get injured.

Oh I completely agree. After re-reading Kassa's card Im liking the idea of taking her with a Dreadnought + Electrocutioners combo to take advantage of the spare parts ability. 

The list would probably look something like this:

Kassa +25

  Deflector Shield -1

Dreadnought -7 

  Mounted Gunner x2 -2

  Massive Furnace -1

Electrocutioners - 10

  Engineer -1

Marauder -3

 

The idea would be to use the Titan as a mobile firebase while the Electrocutioners hold things down in melee and use the Marauder to complete objectives. Prototypes would most likely be rockets for the Electrocutioners and the chemical foggers for the Dreadnought. I would also pretty much always take the Behind Enemy Lines stratagem to bring in the calvary or Crow runners (depending on the situation) and Emergency Repairs in case the Dreadnought goes down. I will hopefully get a chance to test this list sometime this weekend .

Edited November 7, 2018 by Beetle941
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[retnab]

I would strongly recommend giving Kassa 2 assets (I suggest maxing out on all Commanders), since losing her is a BIG blow both for your synergies and giving your opponent VP.  But yeah, it's a good idea behind the list in general!

[Beetle941]

1 minute ago, retnab said:

I would strongly recommend giving Kassa 2 assets (I suggest maxing out on all Commanders), since losing her is a BIG blow both for your synergies and giving your opponent VP.  But yeah, it's a good idea behind the list in general!

I could very easily downgrade the marauder to a rail gunner or drop the engineer (I would hate to lose him) to give her the extra asset since i will use the Behind Enemy Lines stratagem 100% of the time to bring in the extra unit for scoring purposes. I agree that Kassa is the linchpin of the list so maybe an asset like Toughness or Sousltone Necklace?

[TheGreg]

I've played about 12 games with that list against alot of different armies and won 8, I like the kassa art and model way more than Prince u. Only a fraction of her abilities work only on combined arms. I've only played 1or 2 games against gh  but its solid against cotbm and ke. She works great as backup to Margaret belle as well and i can take a non combined arms titan with her plus some rock solid troops to backup the glass cannonish aby specialists. Like I said in my post with the list depending on what you face will depend on how much you have to protect her, I've only lost her a couple of times but I was usually far up the board claiming objectives and still outscored anyway 

[Beetle941]

7 hours ago, TheGreg said:

I've played about 12 games with that list against alot of different armies and won 8, I like the kassa art and model way more than Prince u. Only a fraction of her abilities work only on combined arms. I've only played 1or 2 games against gh  but its solid against cotbm and ke. She works great as backup to Margaret belle as well and i can take a non combined arms titan with her plus some rock solid troops to backup the glass cannonish aby specialists. Like I said in my post with the list depending on what you face will depend on how much you have to protect her, I've only lost her a couple of times but I was usually far up the board claiming objectives and still outscored anyway 

How does the matchup with GH go? I'm liking Kassa more and more but I was missing the card draw off of Titan assets from your list. I'm not saying it isn't an effective list, just personal preference. I plan on giving it a go this weekend just to compare to mine. I really like your inclusion of the Steel Legion as I have been trying to figure out a way to run them with their high points cost in a single commander game

Edited November 7, 2018 by Beetle941
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[TheGreg]

It's been quite a while since I played gh and the player I played against didn't know how to use them much, mostly ke player which plays waaay more differently. I actually made this list so I could play steel legion and have run it with mh,  crow runners (extra bodies are good) etc and it still works, I just really like the electrocutioners models. The pinning tokens also help from the crow runners to negate some of the more nefarious gh spawn tactics 

[Thrawnic]

My Mechanical focused list currently sits like this:

Lord of Steel:

Kassa Okoye:

Basotho Cav:

Crow Runners:

Steel Legion

Mechanical Infantry

Dreadnaught

Rail Gunner

3x Adjunct

 

Ill Pull my specific Asset list tonight

[spooky_squirrel]

Having used Steel Legion with Kassa support (and the Strategem that let me activate them a second time) I think they're a core piece of a mechanized crew. They did a lot of work in short order, quickly ending up in Glory, getting me considerable card draw (the Cutter was shredding things right and left, especially with its Glory attacks). Kassa's main contribution to their workload was getting a third round of attacking out of the Cutter.

I definitely need a lot more practice with them, as well as with the Mechanized Infantry. My opponent has a lot more practice, so was quick to tarpit both the Marauder and the Mechanized Infantry, limiting my use of them.

With Kassa I was definitely feeling the sting of not having a morale action (I didn't give her an asset that had one), so with list construction I would definitely recommend getting her an asset that will let her do things.

So with that in mind, a possible core:

• Kassa (with assets) gives you 23 scrip to spend (25, but keep 2 for her assets)
• Steel Legion costs 12. I gave them an Engineer for added utility, bumping the cost total to 13. I kept forgetting about his end of activation stuff (practice will iron that out).
• Which leaves a lovely 10 scrip to spend on something else. Like a kitted Dreadnought.

This list would definitely play to the Aby's elite elements appearance, but it is missing some stuff. Stuff I'd suggest filling in with the second commander's points.

I don't yet have enough games under my belt to feel confident in asserting "these guys for this operation" claims, but I do know that if there are objectives on the table beyond killing things, you will want elements that can run objectives. With objectives that might also involve killing things, you will want things that can dish out some damage and be frustratingly hard to kill.

Lord of Steel with Soulstone Necklace and Toughness can do both of those things.
Bring along a Marauder that has that free Toughness attached.  ...that leaves 20 scrip for more shenanigans, and it plays into the mechanized theme.
The toughness is to keep them in the game to claim objectives. Black Panther with a Jetpack can use his jetpack for hit-and-run tactics, breaking out of combat to go claim an objective without worrying about spending tactics tokens to get away. I also mitigated the lack of melee attacks on the Marauder by giving them the prototype shock batons so that they could try to fight free instead of costing a tactics token to escape without risk--but their being tarpitted means that they're not running objectives.

Electrocutioners seem really good. Hard hitting, hard to kill. I was a little shy with their use, but they seem like something that I can send out to take and hold an objective. They play into the super-tech theme more than mechanized, but that's the breaks.
Sefari units also seem really good, not mechanized but Kassa could use the bodyguards and they also are good for pushing onto an objective.

For 8 scrip, the Mechanized Infantry have some interesting stuff that they can do. The bonus AV when shooting at the same target is good when you're trying to bring something down (but be prepared for it to still be there, stuff seems really hard to remove when the opposing player is making good use of support elements, assets, and stratagems).

 

The other direction to look with the second commander is Prince Unathi's supporting role. Just handing out Reinforcement tokens, he'll keep your combined arms units and Dreadnought alive a lot longer. Especially if you're making use of things like the Medic stratagem and repair shenanigans from Kassa. You'll still want to have some objective running abilities; if you're not planning on using a stratagem to get them on the table, you might bring some Crow Runners.
With Unathi is seems like Sefari (double duty for them here between Unathi and Kassa) should be taken, but that might be inexperience talking.

[Jinn]

Kassa's King's Empire upgrade is a LOT better than her Abyssinian one. If you take the KE envoy you can hire Kassa's KE asset (I'm 95% sure) and get easy access to glory (discard a tactics token when you activate) and probably +2 tactics (it's +1 Tactics per Titan, friendly or enemy, to a max of +2) in an Abyssinia crew. The faster you get access to her morale action the better. I'm pretty sure you draw around 4 cards if you get the margin trigger on Emergency Repairs and just flip an Asset to the scrap side and then back again.

Mechanized Infantry are absolutely amazing! You can relatively easily get 3-7 shots using the squad fireteams (with an Adjunct and a Prototype or four) and have your walker be at AV 10-14 for its two (probably) shots due to the Tracer Rounds ability. And every time you beat your opponent by at least 2 you can lower your total (after the modify step, I believe) to get that  trigger to draw a card. Even if your enemy isn't close enough for the squads to attack (so outside of 14"+7" if you do the Advance order, and outside of 18"+7" for the Adjunct) you can probably shoot whatever the Titan is going after with the Zeppelin Bombardment to give it a +1AV, or do the reverse to be at +1-2AV for the Prototype attack. As an aside, Titans are quite hard to tie up in melee due to their special engagement rules, so unless a melee Titan is up in your face you should be able to keep shooting enemies on the other side of the board.

Another good Titan combo is to get your Crow Runners to glory ASAP (using Zeppelin/Rocket Launcher Prototypes) and then get all of them to use Lead the Way on the Dreadnought and use any 11+ cards, or 9+s with their easy inspire tokens, to move the Titan its speed and get it to use the Mortar attack at range 28", potentially ignoring cover and LoS. You'll likely draw a card or two from s here as well.

In my last game, against cult, I destroyed a Wandering Portals unit, most of a Warped unit, and a fireteam of Doomseekers purely using the MI Walker's Battle Cannon, a Crow Runner's Zeppelin Bombardment and the Dreadnought's Mortar Bombardment into my enemy's deployment zone on turn 1, which crippled their mobility and did a lot of area damage.

[Clement]

7 hours ago, Jinn said:

Kassa's King's Empire upgrade is a LOT better than her Abyssinian one. If you take the KE envoy you can hire Kassa's KE asset (I'm 95% sure) and get easy access to glory (discard a tactics token when you activate) and probably +2 tactics (it's +1 Tactics per Titan, friendly or enemy, to a max of +2) in an Abyssinia crew. The faster you get access to her morale action the better. I'm pretty sure you draw around 4 cards if you get the margin trigger on Emergency Repairs and just flip an Asset to the scrap side and then back again.

I'm not 100% sure about drawing 2 cards if you flip two assets, or 2 cards if you flip 1 asset two times for that matter.  I think that sentence is on there just to make sure Kassa isn't using her morale action to draw cards directly while not flipping something. (something actually has to flip)

Might be worth taking to the rules forum.

The rest of your write up on Kassa is dead on though.  I have a hard time thinking about taking Kassa without using KE Envoy just to get at her KE Asset, it's amazing.