I had just suggested the use of Vespids or Gun Drones as a mobile walling unit, but now I think I have a better idea of one:
Stealth Teams.
Filling out a Stealth Team with 6 men and 12 Drones costs 300, not much more than two walls of Kroot, but fully mobile, nearly immune to ranged firepower, resistant to other guns, and able to stretch a distance equivalent to a single Kroot Wall. In addition, it can put out some withering firepower on enemy units that move in to assault you.
I'm just thinking... could this be a way to use a fully mobile Kauyon strategy? Using the Stealth Team as your Wall/Lure, and bringing them into the range of mass Crisis and S5 fire. The wall also can be used to Outflank the same way a Kroot Wall can, or Infiltrate up like they would as well.
It is a bit expensive for a sacrificial unit, but it has its values.
I think I'm going to try this out, it sounds like fun. May be a path back into using the speed of Mont'ka with the lure of the Kauyon.
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I'm about to play a 1500 pt game tomorrow w/ some friends using a 'fluffy' list and might give that a whirl. Its supposed to be the advance elements of a scout force. I might try and work your suggestion in and drop some of my kroot in exchange for this idea. Will try and let you know how it goes.
Thanks, I'd love to see how that goes.
Though I should note this is more for a mobile force; Kroot are still top percentage for static/semi-mobile.
It'd be a somewhat expensive solution, mostly because you'd have to give up an Elite slot to run it, forcing you to shift a Crisis Suit squad into a more costly HQ slot. It also wouldn't be able to claim objectives, but that wouldn't be its job, so that's not as much of a problem.
It'd be worthwhile to try it out, I think. It'd be nice if there was a ruling on the Stealth Generator's effect on assault in 5th Edition; if it worked the way it did in 4th, it'd make them even better.
Also, the Stealth Team costs 300, not 280. 6 suits for 180, 12 drones for 120.
Right, thanks, I'll edit that.
I honestly don't think you need 3 Teams of Crisis, won't two Fireknife squads suffice at 1850? Maybe without Marker support it is tougher to pull off...
You are right about it being expensive, but on the upside they give some nice fire support.
Honestly, I'd still want to find a good way to fit Markerlights into the list, which would be difficult.
This could work if you were still able to get 10 missile pods into your list. You could survive with 8 missile pods I suppose, 2xfireknife squads plus two fire knife commanders. Or you could go cheap and get deathrains from your HQ slots.
I'm not sure if I want to go with no Markerlights on this.
I would normally want an SMT if I played Mont'ka, but I can't fit one here without being completely out of Missile Pods.
Skyrays bring Markerlights, but IMO, require an army built around Markerlights to work right, otherwise they don't really make much use of their seeker missiles.
So I have two choices here:
1. No 'lights. This makes it important to gain accuracy on my pods, so Deathrains all the way. I have to worry about killing infantry outside pod saturation, but that's fine, their vehicles are a slightly bigger threat.
I'll have to run 2 or 3 Railheads to gain some blasts and anti-tank, and Piranhas for melta and movement blocking.
2. The wall, an SMT, and... 3 Skyrays. Seekers will try to take the place of missile spam. The thing about this, though is that I may have to put my anti-infantry firepower into old-school FoF for this to work... maybe it would be better to take Pathfinders and just try to push back my opponent?
I don't know... my brain is in overdrive, so I don't want to stop thinking up new ideas, but I'm going to have to Mathhammer this out/ make the lists eventually, which will kill off the spew of ideas that I've been having for the past day.
I'll try working out a few lists for 1850...
Another alternative build for the unit:
1 Team Leader w/ Bonding Knife, HWDC, 2 Gun Drones
5 Shas'ui w/ Drone Controllers, 1 Gun Drone each
Total cost: 260 points
Reasons for building the unit this way:
1) Except for the leader, gun drones aren't tied so closely to the stealth suits; losing one stealth suit only costs you one drone as well.
2) Bonding Knife means that even if the unit loses all its drones, it can still regroup after falling back.
3) Still hits the magic number 13 for unit size
It's a bit smaller, so there's less firepower total, but you're still getting 25 S5 shots at 18", a third of which can pin, and it can still serve the other purposes of a blocking unit.
True, though I don't see losing a suit as an issue when you have 12 Drones to get in the way. The knife is a nice touch though.
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