Tuesday 24 May 2016

Concord 500 Point Force - Strike Commander Eshmael




Welcome back to our voyage around Antares on the good ship Bounty, as we sail round in circles, Listing To Port.

We have spent quite a bit of time in Ghar space over the past two posts, so probably best to return back to cultured civilisation and take a look at a Concord Combined Command 500 point force using whatever units we want.

I’d quite like to theme a list around a Concord Commander, so I’m going to start with one of those…

Force Selector
Force size
Points Value
Tactical (t)
Support (s)
Strategic (g)
Auxiliary (a)
Scouting Force
500
3-4
0-1
0
0-1

At 500 points the Concord force requires at least 3 tactical choices.

The force could contain as many as 4 tactical choices, 1 support choice and 1 Auxiliary choice, giving a potential 6 order dice.  Army Options are available, with the maximum of each individual option being equal to the number of Auxiliary choices, but no more than 50 points (10% of the total cost).


Selecting the army
As noted at the start, I’d really like to build a list around my Concord Commander, Strike Commander Eshmael.  The favoured commander of one of the shards military NuHu Ehab (I’ll have to do a Nuhu force at some point soon).  I won’t be upgrading the unit just yet, but will look at other options before adding to the squad.

The second and third choice are going to be a Strike Squads as these are perhaps the most convenient units to include.  They have a variety of upgrades, but again for now, will see what other options are available.

This takes the opening force list to:
(t) Command Squad (110) = 110
(t) Strike Squad (112), Lance (+3) = 115
(t) Strike Squad (112), Lance (+3) = 115
Total = 340 points & 3 order dice.

160 points left, which could be utilised on tactical, support or auxiliary units.
So we’re looking at a fourth unit.

I’m going to check out the support options first.  Interceptor squads, Support team, Light Drones or Medium Drones. 

The Interceptor Squads mounded on their suspensor borne bikes are really fast and when tooled up with a compactor drone with support weapon, can add immediate heavy fire support in moments.  However, with only 160 points left this would leave the force with only 4 order dice.  So not a direct rejection of them just yet, but certainly unlikely in this 50 point list.

Support teams can be given either an X-Launcher or a Plasma Cannon.  The Plasma Cannon with a single shot but a high strike value, and the X-Launcher with blast or its several ammo options that have greater or lesser effect depending on the opposing troops.  The support weapon itself can be allocated a hit when shot at and will always test against a Res of 9, so they can reasonably take a hit with a good chance of staying alive, albeit with a pin for their troubles.  So not too many points to play with and this being reasonably cheap, it is sure on the possible list.

Light and Medium support drones are interesting.  Not quite as cheap as an individual support weapon, but should a drone fail a Res test it may only take damage and not be destroyed.  The Light Support is equipped with a Plasma LS with a reasonable rate of fire.  The Medium Support can be upgraded to carry a Plasma Cannon, Fractal Cannon (not something I would recommend on this drone) or a Compression Cannon.  There is not much difference between the Plasma or Compression weapons, both get left with a down order on a shooting to hit roll of a 10, but the Compression SV at short range is marginally better should you wish to get close to the enemy.

I think the Support Team with X-Launcher on balance would give the most versatile option to the force, especially if including all ammo options.  While taking the X-Launcher it is worth deciding about Spotter Drones.  The Spotter Drone in an X-Launcher team does not let it re-roll an Acc test when shooting, however it does permit the X-Launcher targeting an enemy unit within line of site to another Spotter Drone within 20” of a the X-Launcher teams drone.  As we have upgraded the Strike Teams to have Lances, it is probably worth adding Spotter Drones to these units to permit a re-roll the inaccurate lance fires.  Kills two Lavamites with one stone…

List now comprises of:
(t) Command Squad (110) = 110
(t) Strike Squad (112), Lance (+3), Spotter (+10) = 125
(t) Strike Squad (112), Lance (+3), Spotter (+10) = 125
(s) Support Team with X-Launcher (40), Spotter (+10), Ammo (+15) =65
Total = 425 points & 4 order dice.

A fifth order dice would be really useful.  The only available options are to take either a fourth tactical choice or to take an auxiliary choice.  As all the tactical choices are over 96 points (our remaining quota) it really can only be an auxiliary choice.

The Concord auxiliary options are either targeter probes, scout probes, medical probes or the General Purpose drone.   

Targeter Probes are nice and cheap.  If they get close enough to the enemy they can be a big boost for all friendly units and a great way to increase the accuracy of X-Launchers by reducing the amount the shot lands off target by.

Scouts are interesting, as they will permit increased possibilities of patch sighting for the X-Launcher.  However, double the cost of targeter probes and only having one overhead weapon to patch sight for, probably not a wise investment.

Medical probes are double the cost of targeter probes and handy at keeping troopers alive. 

The General Purpose Drone can hold the Subverter Matrix, which would be interesting in a 500 point force.  In the previous Concord List we looked at taking a Subverter and then having a “swappable” costing the same in points.

I’m tempted to keep the points down at the moment and see what other goodies there are available, so let’s take the nice cheap Targeter Probes.

Nearing the end of the list and we currently have:
(t) Command Squad (110) = 110
(t) Strike Squad (112), Lance (+3), Spotter (+10) = 125
(t) Strike Squad (112), Lance (+3), Spotter (+10) = 125
(s) Support Team with X-Launcher (40), Spotter (+10), Ammo (+15) =65
(a) Targeter Probe shard (20) = 20
Total = 445 points & 5 order dice.

55 points left with only 1 tactical unit option available.  So looks like we can take no further units, 5 dice looks to be the max this time.  Time to look at unit upgrades.

The Support team and Targeter Probes don’t have any upgrades worth considering immediately, although the X-Launcher could be given a batter drone if points allow at the end.

The Strike Team can upgrade Leader to Leader 2 for a second reroll, but the unit would have to be taking 6 hits a turn for that to really be worth the effort…  And once down to less than 3 figures the unit is likely to withdraw anyway. The leader can also be given Slingnet, for that extra pin, giving the unit the potential to drop 3 pins a turn.  The drawback with Slingnet being not able to affect heavily armoured opponents. 

The teams can take plasma grenades, which are useful to lay as mine fields and to an extent control part of where the fighting take place.

The Command team is similar to the regular team, but can also have a Medi Drone.

Both units can increase the number of troops in the team.  And with Acc 6, increasing the number of troopers in the Command team is tempting.  Adding 2 extra troopers would give the Command team a 5 man strong unit.


This makes the final list:
(t) Command Squad (110), 2 extra troopers (+44) = 154
(t) Strike Squad (112), Lance (+3), Spotter (+10), SlingNet (+5) = 130
(t) Strike Squad (112), Lance (+3), Spotter (+10), SlingNet (+5) = 130
(s) Support Team with X-Launcher (40), Spotter (+10), Ammo (+15) =65
(a) Targeter Probe shard (20) = 20
Total = 499 points & 5 order dice.

So effectively 3 units of 5 troopers, backed up with X-Launcher support.  It may not fare that well against heavily armoured Ghar, but should be able to hold its own against pretty much everything else.

If you’ve got an idea on how to improve this list, please let me know in the comments below.  As always, if you use a list like this, let us know how you get on.

Until next time!!

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