Boromite - 500 Point force

Another day, another voyage.  Destination?  Back here again eventually.

Time for a bit of Rock!! 

Those adorable cuddly Boromites are gonna get the Listing to Port treatment today. 

Useful things to note, Boromites have a great Cmd value running through the entire force.  They have poor Init values.  I would highly recommend NOT reacting too often with Boromites, unless it is with a Down order.  Best to be shot, then later in the turn shrug off the pin when acting, rather than fluff the Reaction test and end up with more pins.

They have a slightly lower than average agility, but again a high Cmd value will help the boys get their breath back after a difficult sprint. 

Finally, they have a slightly higher than average Str, so in a bar fight they can handle themselves real well.  The problem being, there aren’t that many bars to fight over in the unexplored regions of The Spill.

Force Selector

Force size	Points Value	Tactical (t)	Support (s)	Strategic (g)	Auxiliary (a)
Scouting Force	500	3-5	0-2	0	0-1

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

The force could contain as many as 5 tactical choices, 2 support choices and 1 Auxiliary choice, giving a staggering 8 order dice potentially.  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

There are so many Tactical options for Boromites.  No less than three command units, mixed with a variety of close assault through to medium range units, they really are spoiled for choice.

As three of the Tactical units are mandatory, may as well look at these first.

Getting stuck into the Limited Choices first, the three command variants:  Overseer Squad, Matriarch & Rock Father.

Overseer Squad being equipped with plasma carbines gives a unit that can pin Ghar battle armoured warriors; most importantly, at range.  A small unit with average armour will not last that long unless in a reasonable amount of cover, or if added to with more gangers with plasma carbines.

The Matriarch on a suspensor platform provides the most agile and quickest of the Boromites.  Although only attended by her Guildess, both these females are weapon less; relying on gun drones with plasma carbines for ranged attacks.  They are also pitifully short of hand weapons to use in an assault. But, and like the Matriarch’s this is a big butt, this unit is so full of character.  The unit could hide and only let the gun drones pop out taking shots at the enemy, or have her whizzing down a flank on her platform to snap a puny support weapon (and crew) in two.

Finally, a hero; quite literally too because the Rock Father is the only Boromite with Hero (and the errata has put his Int up from 6 to 8, so it can be used too; but this has also increased the price tag to match). Another unit with plasma carbines, but comes ready prepared with some shield drones.  Similar to the basic Overseer, but an increase of Acc to 6.

Of course, we can only pick one of the above for now as we are likely to have 4 units to permit one Limited Choice, 8 units may be pushing it.

We’ll go for a basic Overseer Squad for now. It’s the cheapest and has plasma carbines.

The first of the main tactical units are the Gang Fighters.  Mag Gun armed they are reasonably basic but with a reasonable range compared to the rest of the units.  The leader of the unit has received errata, so it not Cmd 10, but Cmd 9 is still really rather good.   They are pre-armoured too.

Next in the list is perhaps my favourite unit in the game, the Work Gang with Heavy Tractor Mauls.  Sure the range of the Heavy Tractor Maul is really, really short; but these are the chaps that do the real heavy lifting.  Heavy Tractor Mauls are hand weapons (+1 Str in H2H) and give two attacks in hand-to-hand, along with a mighty SV3.  They can be given a Borer Drone (+1 Str).  When coupled with the +1 Str bonus for being the unit making the assault (or winning if in further rounds), this makes the unit effectively Str 9 with two attacks each at SV3.  That’ll leave a mark on most units.  As if that was not enough, the models are awesome.  Although the Reflex Armour adds to the unit cost.

The next unit are the Work Gangs with Mass Compactors.  These are great at shifting enemy that are in cover.  Again reasonably short range, but the mass compactor gets better at shorter ranges; much like a compression weapon.  Again, the armour adds to the cost.

The final tactical unit are the adorable Lavamites.  Not much in the way of ranged capability, but lava spitting ‘rock dogs’ in an assault can damage most units, especially in a 500 point force.

From these I’m going to a take the Gang Fighters, mainly because of the threat they hold at longer ranges compared to other units; along with Lavamites, because they will win most close combats if they can get close enough.

I’ll not upgrade anything just yet, so that I can see how many points I have to play with.

This make the opening force list:
(t) Overseer Squad = 105
(t) Gang Fighters = 97
(t) Lavamites = 82
Total = 284 points & 3 order dice.

Probably worth looking at the goodies available in the Support section…

Rock Riders – Both command and basic.  Although not Fast, they have rapid sprint and are certainly quick – for Boromites.  The Locomite gets to attack in combat, along with the rider for lots of dice rolls when up close.  The rider also totes a plasma carbine, what’s not to like about plasma carbines.  They are comparable in points cost to the basic tactical units but when tooling them up with the good close combat equipment, they start to get expensive (especially in 500 point games).

The other Support option is the Support Team/Special Support Team.  Reasonably cheap and variety of long ranged weapons.  It’s so difficult to not take a Mag LS and an X-Launcher.  Especially as the rest of the force so far doesn’t have much of a range.  The ammo options for the X-Launcher makes it ideal against unknown opponents too….

We’ll take the weapons over the Rock Riders with Locomites for the moment and see how many points we end up with.

A quick look at the Auxiliary options shows three units.  Micromite Probes, Scout Probes or Engineers.  At the moment the force would not benefit from the Scouts.  The Engineers would find themselves hard pressed to fix things too.  Micromites it is

This makes the current list:

(t) Overseer Squad = 105
(t) Gang Fighters = 97
(t) Lavamites = 82
(s) Mag LS = 36
(s) X-Launcher (36), Ammo (+15) = 41
(a) Micromite Probes = 20
Total = 381 points & 6 order dice.

This leaves 119 points left to spend.  Probably just one tactical choice to take.

Am tempted to go for the Work Gang with Mass Compactors.  They are not exclusively hand to hand as they have a bit of range, and can also ignore cover, which is probably quite useful.  Add a bit of armour on (so I don’t forget they don’t have armour mid-battle).

Would leave 10 points…

Probably need to give the Overseer a Tractor Maul (to save converting) and the Gang Fighter leader a Lectro Lash(again, save converting) and that 10 points is spent.

This makes the final list:

(t) Overseer Squad (105), Tractor Maul (+5) = 110
(t) Gang Fighters (97), Lectro Lash (+5) = 102
(t) Lavamites (82) = 82
(t) Work Gang with Mass Compactors (98), Reflex Armour (+10) = 108
(s) Mag Light Support (36) =36
(s) X-Launcher (36), Ammo (+15) = 41
(a) Micromite Probes (20) = 20
Total = 499 points & 7 order dice.

A rather respectable 7 order dice with the ability to drop all sorts of X-Launcher ammo (over open sights) with units that all perform a certain role.  The Command of 9 will help in a pinch.  Just got to help the athletic Lavamites don’t get too tired sprinting across the board.

Keeping the Overser reasonably central so he can boss the others about would be useful too. 

Could drop the MicroMites and take Spotters for the support weapons, but right now tempted to keep it 7 order dice.

Until next time!!