Good morning and welcome to the Indri Combined Armies High Command Introductory Lecture on Encountered Enemy Machina Deployment Types:
Slide 1 please. Machina Armies come in five basic classes, with a number of subcatagories depending on circumstance. The five main classes are Tank, Heavy, Medium, Light and Infantry. These designations are Force Point independant and revolve around the numbers and types of combatant units contained. In addition, they can be classed as Mobile if they do not deploy with at least one HQ unit. Though Machina armies rarely deploy without at least one Scanner and often with more, there is no special designation as of yet for those armies that do without.
Tank Armies are defined as those armies in which the number of AIs and/or MTs equal or outnumber the number of XTs and HTs attached to the force. They come in three types, though the AI Herd is said to be the most common. Though mixed Tank Armies have been encountered, we are happy to report the Missile Battery type has not. The only AI Herd encountered by the Indri Combined Armies has been a misdeployed Guerilla League 15FP army consisting of 3AI, 1XT, 1Scanner, an intriguing deployment idea for a 15fp open deployment game! The first mixed example was a 2AI, 2MT, 1Scanner, 2HQ army fought against and defeated during the Rising Star Championship Tournament. The other was the 4AI, 3MT, 2HQ army that we encountered to our detriment during our Panzer Belt challenge, where these all tank deployments are said to be quite common.
Heavy Armies are defined as those deployments that contain three or more tank units in addition to their attached XT and HT complements. To date we have run across thirteen of these deployments and though the possble combinations of AI and MT are quite high it is interesting to note that of the four heavy 20FP deployments encountered they have all been of the 2AI/1MT variety. None of the thirteen have gone mobile, not even the 4AI deployment, which might not be all that suprising since five of these armies were encountered during the Metal Crush Tourney which were all HQ games. Though three did deploy without any Scanner, one 30FP 3AI/1MT deployment was noticable for deploying 4 Scanners! No hiding in that game!
Medium Armies, originally called 'Balanced Armies', are defined as those armies that deploy with exactly two tank units. Of the eight encounterd all but one were 20FP armies, the other being 25FP. None were 2MT armies, though we ourselves have had some success with that configuration. Two of the three 2AI armies were fully mobile, though that did not seem a factor in whether they won or lost. Of the Machina armies encountered, statistically the Medium armies are the hardest to defeat, at least by our forces.
Light armies are those with exactly one tank in accompanyment. Of the fifteen encountered twelve were 1AI deployments and of those; ten were mobile, nine being in the Guerilla League while one was a 20FP league game (Won. Hurrah!). As a statement of fact, the 1AI matchup is one of the best of the ICAHC with wins standing at 10 while losses hover at 2. That all changes though when we look at the three 1MT encounters. Two out of the three matches were lost and one of those a league game (Boo!). Odd that but the numbers say what they say. (Aide. Remind me to have the statician shot.)
Finally we come to the very rare Infantry deployment, where no tanks whatsoever are to be found. These, as with the tank armies, come in three types. The XT Legion, the HT Swarm and mixed. In our definition, and unlike the Tank Armies, there can be some small mixing of XTs and HTs without being considered a mixed deployment. Now, the HT Swarm we have never encountered though rumors of them being employed in the Battle for Europe:Russian Winter against the Greys have come to our attention. Of the remaining two types we have encountered one each. The mixed deployment was a 9XT, 16HT, 5HQ Metal Crush deployment that we managed to defeat. It seemed to us to be a modified HT Swarm designed to defeat an opposing pure HT Swarm. Unfortunately for my opponent we had gone Heavy ourselves and managed to contain and destroy the initial HT rush at some loss to our HQs. The supporting enemy XTs were then forced into a missile duel not of their choosing. The other deployment was very intriguing and was encountered in a Friendly on Narrow. They deployed 14XT, 2HT and 2Scanner in two equal squads within supporting distance of each other. Note the 2HTs. Despite their presence we at the Indri Combined Armies High Command still consider this a Mobile XT Legion and not a mixed deployment. In our highly, highly scientific opinion, unless the ratio of XT to HT equals or exceeds 1 part in 4 in either direction the lesser number should be considered a support unit and the deployment as a whole fall under the Legion or Swarm catagory.
Lights! This concludes our introductory lecture.
Thank you for your time.
Slide 1 please. Machina Armies come in five basic classes, with a number of subcatagories depending on circumstance. The five main classes are Tank, Heavy, Medium, Light and Infantry. These designations are Force Point independant and revolve around the numbers and types of combatant units contained. In addition, they can be classed as Mobile if they do not deploy with at least one HQ unit. Though Machina armies rarely deploy without at least one Scanner and often with more, there is no special designation as of yet for those armies that do without.
Tank Armies are defined as those armies in which the number of AIs and/or MTs equal or outnumber the number of XTs and HTs attached to the force. They come in three types, though the AI Herd is said to be the most common. Though mixed Tank Armies have been encountered, we are happy to report the Missile Battery type has not. The only AI Herd encountered by the Indri Combined Armies has been a misdeployed Guerilla League 15FP army consisting of 3AI, 1XT, 1Scanner, an intriguing deployment idea for a 15fp open deployment game! The first mixed example was a 2AI, 2MT, 1Scanner, 2HQ army fought against and defeated during the Rising Star Championship Tournament. The other was the 4AI, 3MT, 2HQ army that we encountered to our detriment during our Panzer Belt challenge, where these all tank deployments are said to be quite common.
Heavy Armies are defined as those deployments that contain three or more tank units in addition to their attached XT and HT complements. To date we have run across thirteen of these deployments and though the possble combinations of AI and MT are quite high it is interesting to note that of the four heavy 20FP deployments encountered they have all been of the 2AI/1MT variety. None of the thirteen have gone mobile, not even the 4AI deployment, which might not be all that suprising since five of these armies were encountered during the Metal Crush Tourney which were all HQ games. Though three did deploy without any Scanner, one 30FP 3AI/1MT deployment was noticable for deploying 4 Scanners! No hiding in that game!
Medium Armies, originally called 'Balanced Armies', are defined as those armies that deploy with exactly two tank units. Of the eight encounterd all but one were 20FP armies, the other being 25FP. None were 2MT armies, though we ourselves have had some success with that configuration. Two of the three 2AI armies were fully mobile, though that did not seem a factor in whether they won or lost. Of the Machina armies encountered, statistically the Medium armies are the hardest to defeat, at least by our forces.
Light armies are those with exactly one tank in accompanyment. Of the fifteen encountered twelve were 1AI deployments and of those; ten were mobile, nine being in the Guerilla League while one was a 20FP league game (Won. Hurrah!). As a statement of fact, the 1AI matchup is one of the best of the ICAHC with wins standing at 10 while losses hover at 2. That all changes though when we look at the three 1MT encounters. Two out of the three matches were lost and one of those a league game (Boo!). Odd that but the numbers say what they say. (Aide. Remind me to have the statician shot.)
Finally we come to the very rare Infantry deployment, where no tanks whatsoever are to be found. These, as with the tank armies, come in three types. The XT Legion, the HT Swarm and mixed. In our definition, and unlike the Tank Armies, there can be some small mixing of XTs and HTs without being considered a mixed deployment. Now, the HT Swarm we have never encountered though rumors of them being employed in the Battle for Europe:Russian Winter against the Greys have come to our attention. Of the remaining two types we have encountered one each. The mixed deployment was a 9XT, 16HT, 5HQ Metal Crush deployment that we managed to defeat. It seemed to us to be a modified HT Swarm designed to defeat an opposing pure HT Swarm. Unfortunately for my opponent we had gone Heavy ourselves and managed to contain and destroy the initial HT rush at some loss to our HQs. The supporting enemy XTs were then forced into a missile duel not of their choosing. The other deployment was very intriguing and was encountered in a Friendly on Narrow. They deployed 14XT, 2HT and 2Scanner in two equal squads within supporting distance of each other. Note the 2HTs. Despite their presence we at the Indri Combined Armies High Command still consider this a Mobile XT Legion and not a mixed deployment. In our highly, highly scientific opinion, unless the ratio of XT to HT equals or exceeds 1 part in 4 in either direction the lesser number should be considered a support unit and the deployment as a whole fall under the Legion or Swarm catagory.
Lights! This concludes our introductory lecture.
Thank you for your time.
LSN:Indricotherium, GMT-5, League:Elite, Alliance:Doomed, Specialist:LoG
Mastering LSN Thread List Keeper, Challenges: Sure!
IF I HAD KNOWN IT WAS HARMLESS, I WOULD HAVE KILLED IT MYSELF. -A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
Mastering LSN Thread List Keeper, Challenges: Sure!
IF I HAD KNOWN IT WAS HARMLESS, I WOULD HAVE KILLED IT MYSELF. -A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
What I'd like to do next, in the negative free time I have to be fiddling with this stuff, would be to sub-catagorise the armies more along the lines of what you point out - Long range artillery armies, short range assault armies, etc... The mix of HT/XT and AI/MT as well as number of Scanners and HQ make Machina very fun to do this sort of thing, but I'm not really taking myself all that seriously. 
Am I ahead yet? Can I quit? Should I quit? OK. I'm done now. I rest my case. I fully expect complete exoneration. The jury is with me. I can feel it. 
